State unable to give count of children who die in foster care

Two children died while in Hawaii’s foster care system in 2006, and another in 2008, but the grandparents of a 9-month-old Hauula boy who died last month under unexplained circumstances after he was taken by state officials say Hawaii’s fatality statistics are too high.

"One death is too many," said Sheila Deal.

Deal and her husband, David, are trying to get information from Child Protective Services and the state Department of Human Services about what happened to their grandson, Jayvid Waa-Ili, after he was taken from a relative’s Hauula home on Aug. 10 and ended up dead on Aug. 26 at the Wai­anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center.

"I don’t care how much it is," Sheila Deal said. "If it’s one, it shouldn’t even be one — no matter how many children they have. It just shouldn’t happen. It just shouldn’t happen."

In the latest fiscal year, 1,299 children on average per month were in Hawaii’s foster care system, meaning they had been physically removed and were in custody of the state, said Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s spokeswoman, Donalyn Dela Cruz.

The average number of children in state custody each month had steadily climbed since 2002 to a 2005 peak monthly average of 2,791, then began a steady fall.

"Hawaii has improved quite a bit," said state Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, chairwoman of the senate’s Human Services committee.

Abercrombie’s office was unable Tuesday to immediately provide data on the number of children who had died since 2000 while in state custody, saying that DHS officials were in an all-day meeting with federal Health and Human Services officials who are reviewing the Hawaii program.

But Chun Oakland told the Star-Advertiser on Tuesday that two children died in 2006 and another in 2008. She did not have death records going back to 2000.

Waa-Ili’s death, Chun Oakland said, has "our whole community grieving. That should not happen, period. In perspective to how many children are brought to the department, I’m glad that there’s not a lot of children ending up that way."

Waa-Ili died at about 5:15 p.m. Aug. 26 after he was taken to the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center earlier in the day, police said. Homicide investigators did not find signs of foul play.

The results of an autopsy are inconclusive, pending the outcome of toxicology reports expected in the next six to eight weeks, according to the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office.

Annabel Murray used to represent foster children and now practices family law with a focus on child custody evaluations and mediation through the Children’s Law Center.

"Any time a child is placed in foster care and dies while in foster care, any number is too high because foster care is where they’re placed to be safe," Murray said.

Responsibility should not necessarily rest with foster parents who take in children through CPS, Murray said, "because there are so many different variables, such as what was their (child’s) health initially?"

The previous head of the Department of Human Services released case files in other high-profile deaths. But current Director Patricia McManaman "reinstituted long-standing departmental policy to maintain confidentiality in all child welfare cases immediately upon assuming her position" in December, then-department spokesman Joe Perez said last week. (Perez left the job Friday.)

Murray worries about widespread release of confidential records in CPS cases but does not understand why Waa-Ili’s legal guardians are not privy to what happened to him.

"I don’t know why McManaman chose to rescind that policy and make these cases confidential again," Murray said. "There should be a reasonable way for the parents — or legal guardians — to get pertinent information when a child dies."