Group Homes Accused of Neglect

Workers in two Los Angeles group homes for infants and children with AIDS routinely neglected the youngsters, according to allegations filed this week by the state Department of Social Services.

The accusation, the first step in revoking the license of Caring for Babies With AIDS, maintains that the organization’s child-care workers often ignored the children’s emotional and physical needs, ridiculed them and enforced rules in an overly punitive fashion.

“What we found in this investigation is something that pervades this whole [organization] and has been going on at least since 1992,” said Lisa Hightower, an attorney with the Social Services Department. “There’s a pattern of conduct here and a pattern of the administration not responding when made aware of the conduct.”

The allegations range in seriousness from not tending to a child’s injury and dragging a 7-year-old by the hair to telling the homes’ young residents to “shut up.”

The accusation, filed Thursday, also seeks to bar Ginny Foat, the agency’s executive director, and Shenell Perry, the agency’s house manager, from working with the organization.

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Foat, a former president of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women, denied the allegations, attributing them to disgruntled nurses who complained to authorities after they were fired.

“They have called everyone but pizza delivery,” Foat said of the former employees.

Although it is clear from the accusation that several nurses complained about the quality of care at the agency, Hightower would say only that the state investigation began last December after a “citizen complaint.” The agency was subsequently cited in January for various violations, and state regulators met with Caring for Babies officials. Meanwhile, Hightower said, the investigation continued.

Foat, for her part, said that after last winter’s citation, agency officials conducted staff training, took other steps suggested by the state and considered the matter behind them. Foat characterized this week’s accusation as coming “out of nowhere.”

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“Some of the allegations were so without basis [that] I couldn’t figure out what they are,” Foat said. For example, she referred to charges that child-care workers were so rigid in enforcing meal schedules that if a resident did not eat at the appointed time, the child would go hungry until the next meal.

“The fact that we feed our child on a regular time schedule--yes we did that,” Foat said, adding that staff emphasized meals because the children’s medication frequently robbed them of their appetites.

Described by Foat as the only organization of its kind in the state, Caring for Babies operates two group homes with a total of 14 beds for infants and young children with AIDS or HIV. The children are placed there by county welfare offices, and the agency is paid $4,423 a month per child in government funds.

The accusation will be reviewed by an administrative law judge, who will decide after a hearing if the agency’s license should be revoked. Until then, county officials said they will leave the children with the agency.

“We are very reluctant to disrupt these children,” said Amaryllis Watkins, acting division chief of resource development in the county Department of Children and Family Services. “If eventually the license is revoked, we would take action.”

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Meanwhile, Watkins added, the county will ask Caring for Babies officials for a plan to correct the agency’s problems.

The accusation sketches a general pattern of neglect on the part of child care workers. The document alleges, among other things, that workers ignored a burn on a child’s thigh for several days, watched television while a 6-year-old cried for her dead mother and left a 2-year-old unattended on a training toilet for 15 minutes, during which period the toddler smeared feces over himself.

The state also alleges that staff members would force children to stand in a corner for excessive periods of time and would verbally intimidate them, yelling such phrases as “Shut up,” “You’re just a spoiled brat,” and “God will not love you.”

Both Foat and Dr. John Sealy, chairman of the board of directors of Caring for Babies, argued that the allegations were particularly absurd in light of the number of people that visit the group homes every day.

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“Physical therapists, dietitians, social workers, volunteers and parents come through here all the time,” Sealy said. “And these kids are fragile; they see their doctors several times a month.”

The accusation is the second such state action taken against a Los Angeles County group home agency in less than a month. Three weeks ago, the state Social Services Department moved to revoke the license of an organization that serves teenagers who are gay or who have HIV.

Dave Dodds, spokesman for the department’s community care licensing division, said it was coincidental that the filings were so close together.

The department oversees 65,000 care facilities of all kinds around the state and initiates about 20 license revocation actions a week. “We take a lot of these actions, we really do,” Dodds said.