Child welfare still reeling

When state investigators reviewed Kit Carson County's child welfare division, they counted 73 cases of suspected child abuse and neglect with no documented follow-up to show whether those kids were safe.

They discovered 28 children whose cases were assigned to child protection workers who didn't even work for the county anymore. And in one case that resulted in the former director's conviction for "failure to report child abuse," a 14-year-old girl gave birth to a 21-year-old man's baby and the child welfare division did not open an investigation.

After years of disarray, staff turnover and lax paperwork, the small, rural county near the Kansas border is trying to recover. Kit Carson County's two-person child welfare division has been operating for several months under a "performance improvement plan" imposed by the state and recently released to The Denver Post under public-records laws. It has hired a new human services director who is following up to make sure children are safe, difficult because many case notes were in file drawers, some missing or destroyed, instead of the state child welfare computer system.

Records were so incomplete that one abuse and neglect case opened in 1993 was never resolved, leaving state officials to question whether the child -- an adult by now -- had died, been adopted or stayed with family.

"Quite frankly, maybe we weren't getting told everything. We soon found out how bad things were," said David Hornung, one of three county commissioners and a Stratton farmer and cattle rancher. He said county leaders had no idea the problems were so extensive until the state review last year and that major improvements are ongoing.

Kit Carson's lone caseworker recently completed training at the state's caseworker academy and still has "provisional" status, meaning she can work only five cases at once. The county typically has about 10 abuse and neglect cases open at one time, so the human services director is taking on part of the caseload.

The county has asked nearby Morgan County to provide round-the-clock supervision to help Kit Carson's caseworker determine which abuse and neglect calls need immediate response. And Kit Carson has hired Arapahoe County for an additional layer of guidance -- a "red" team roundtable that evaluates the severity of child-abuse and neglect reports and decides how to respond.

For two months last spring, neighboring Cheyenne County provided child welfare supervision but backed out after a Kit Carson caseworker failed to properly report that a child placed with relatives had run away to another state. After a state review team from the Colorado Department of Human Services looked into that case, Kit Carson staff responded that they could not find case information, were unsure whether the family still lived in the county and would close the case "due to a lack of information," according to the county's performance improvement plan.

The state child welfare department acted as Kit Carson's supervisor for a few weeks last spring as a "last resort," said Paige Rosemond, associate director of programs for the state Division of Child Welfare. Since the state supervises county child welfare departments, having the state do county-level work removed one of the system's checks and balances.

Only one other county child welfare department in Colorado is under a performance improvement plan. State reviews are triggered when counties fail to meet requirements in investigating child abuse within the required time frame for three consecutive months. Besides Kit Carson, four other rural counties have agreements with other counties to provide caseworker supervision.

Kit Carson is trying to hire two more caseworkers and a supervisor, although county commissioners are worried it could take a while to return to full staff because the county continually struggles to hire and retain professional employees. Starting salary for a caseworker is $33,000 plus benefits.

"We can't keep teachers. It's common out here. I could add three more attorneys to my firm and I can't do that because nobody wants to move out here," said county attorney Jeff Cure, who also has a private practice in Burlington.

The new county human services director, Katie Kirby, was among a handful of applicants interviewed for the job, most of them local and without child welfare experience. Kirby was the former victim's advocate for the county sheriff's office and, in the course of that job, learned that a 14-year-old girl was having a sexual relationship with a 21-year-old, which she reported to law enforcement. The child welfare division also knew of the circumstances but "had elected not to report the information to law enforcement," county officials said.

State investigative reports that came after Kirby's hire "triggered a narrative" around town that falsely paints the new human services director as unfit, county officials said. The vast majority of problems occurred prior to Kirby's hire, they said, although she was in charge when the state said the county child welfare division mishandled the case of the runaway. "In no way is she a terrible person who wants to put children in danger," Cure said. "In no way is that anything close to the truth."

The state child protection ombudsman, based in Denver and independent of the state child welfare division, focused its investigation on the failure of the former Kit Carson human services director and former child welfare supervisor to report the case involving the 14-year-old new mother to local law enforcement. Both workers were told in 2014 that a 14-year-old girl had given birth to a baby and that the alleged father was 21. Colorado law defines "sexual assault on a child" as sex between a child under 15 and someone at least four years older.

Caseworkers were told the girl had not received prenatal care and was watching cartoons in the hospital as staff attempted to teach her how to care for the baby. But the child welfare department "did not believe there was concern for abuse and neglect and did not provide any further action," according to the ombudsman report, which also noted the director and supervisor "demonstrated a lack of understanding of the law."

In 2015, former director Kindra Mulch pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of "failure to report child abuse or neglect." Mulch, who retired soon after, said she pleaded guilty to protect her staff and because she realized after studying the statute that she was wrong not to immediately call law enforcement. She said the department reported it to law enforcement five days later. "I can't tell you how much I regret not knowing the law," she said. "I'm not proud of it. It makes me very sad."

Mulch, who worked for the county for 35 years and retired on her own volition, said she was unaware of the state-imposed performance improvement plan. She acknowledged documentation due to staff shortages and high turnover but said no children were harmed. "There is no kid in Kit Carson County that we didn't protect and that we didn't see to it that they got what they needed," she said.

Commissioners Hornung and Cory Wall, a retired rodeo bullfighter, said they believe the child welfare problems were mainly related to documentation, meaning that caseworkers made sure kids were safe but failed to enter the required data into the state computer system.

The county attorney said, "Commissioners had no real reason to suspect that our former director was not taking care of these things. We didn't know there were problems like this until all of this surfaced. I feel 100 percent better about where our department is at today."

Kit Carson County, population 8,000, struggled to find another county to help with its child welfare division, in part because other counties on the plains don't have the staff to take on more work and because Kit Carson's reputation in child welfare is tarnished. Several counties have agreed to help and then backed out. "It seems like there is an undercurrent that counties aren't willing to come out and help," Cure said.

The former child welfare supervisor quit when Kirby was hired a year ago. Within the last year, two caseworkers also left. Besides checking up on child welfare cases and improving documentation, Kirby has begun a "systematic and cultural shift" within the division. She is searching for new foster parents, expanding the number of day-care centers that will accept children who qualify for day-care assistance and placing child welfare staff within schools to help recognize struggling families.

"There were a lot of things that needed to be done and accessed and changed," Kirby said. "Our current issue is that we are short-staffed."