CPS WORKER FOLLOWED RULES IN COCAINE DEATH OF INFANT

The child welfare caseworker for a 10-day-old girl who died after being
sent home with her crack-smoking mother did everything by the book,
according to Child Protective Services records released Thursday.

Still, Anna Arnold, head of CPS, said the agency should have put the baby's
safety ahead of its usual attempts to keep a family together. She also said
the baby's mother should not have been allowed near her.

"We have to focus on safety first," Arnold said.

She said the emphasis in recent years has been on gathering evidence to
bolster cases and putting kids in a relative's care rather than the foster
system.

"In this case, as in a lot of cases, we had to make some quick decisions,"
Arnold said. "We didn't realize how little time we had."

Anndreah Robertson died Nov. 9, 2001, 10 days after she was born, her
intestines destroyed by a constant cloud of secondhand crack-cocaine smoke.

Her death was ruled a homicide by the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's
Office due to complications of cocaine exposure and dehydration. She
weighed 4 pounds.

Her mother, Demitres Robertson, 23, was charged last week with first-
degree murder and child abuse. The baby's grandmother, Lillian Butler, 44,
was charged with two counts of child abuse.

Caseworker Caroline Stott put the baby into Butler's care, in line with the
CPS policy that prefers placement with relatives over foster care, a few
days after the hospital had let the baby go home with her mother.

Weeks before Anndreah was born, Stott knew crack cocaine was regularly
smoked in the central Phoenix apartment where Butler lived and Robertson
often visited. Butler agreed to be tested and go to rehabilitation,
according to the case notes. The case notes are usually confidential but
were made public with Anndreah's death.

Butler had no criminal history. She already was caring for Robertson's two
sons, ages 1 and 2. The boys now are in another relative's care.

Stott was planning to get Butler into Arizona Families First, a program
that provides drug treatment, housing, child care and other services.

On Nov. 6, Stott visited the baby unannounced and found her in a clean
diaper and hat, wrapped in a blanket. The other kids were clean and fed.
"The worker wasn't seeing in the home the things that you would expect to
see if someone wasn't capable of caring for kids," Arnold said.

Supervisor Susan Levancier approved Stott's decisions, according to case notes.

"We've always struggled with these cases," Arnold said.

Some parents who have substance abuse problems get treatment and keep their
babies. Some children are sent to relatives. Some go into foster care.

Arnold can't remember another death similar to this one. The agency plans
training for its caseworkers about the dangers of secondhand crack-cocaine
smoke.

"Caseworkers do a tough job," said Kathryn Coffman, medical director of
Childhelp Children's Center in Phoenix, where the worst child abuse cases
are handled. "We never acknowledge their right calls, calls that the
majority of us couldn't make, but we jump all over the wrong ones."

The caseworker did have some other options, including putting the baby into
a shelter until she was stronger or until Butler completed drug treatment.

"It's damn difficult to find that balance between keeping kids safe and, at
the same time, trying to preserve the family," said Carol Kamin, director
of Children's Action Alliance and a member of a panel reviewing Anndreah's
death.

Beth Rosenberg, also of the alliance, said Stott might have been hesitant
to be any more aggressive because she was likely to be second-guessed.

A piece of 1998 legislation mandated that any decision to substantiate
allegations of neglect and abuse go through an appeals process that can
take months, even a year.

Since then, the number of substantiated cases has dropped dramatically.

For example, in 1997, 45 percent of cases were considered proven. But from
April to September of 2002, only 1,967 of 11,367 investigated reports, or
17 percent, were substantiated. The national average is 35 percent.