Florida Child Advocate.com -- The Florida Foster Care Survival Guide -- is the one-stop resource for protecting the rights of children under the state’s care. We created this site for children, the families who love them, the caregivers who serve them, guardians who advocate for them, and the attorneys who counsel them in how to access resources and agencies, understand their rights, and address dependency, damages or disability claims.
Florida attorneys associated with Florida Child Advocate represent current foster children, former foster children and the physically disabled and developmentally disabled in negligence, abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse, civil rights and damages claims against the Florida Department of Children and Families, its lead agencies and community based care providers, and other child welfare providers. These attorneys have helped recover hundreds of millions of dollars in damage claims in one of the largest and most successful Foster Care and Disabled Persons practice areas in the county.
This site is sponsored by the law firm Justice for Kids. Attorneys involved with this site include Howard Talenfeld, Stacie J. Schmerling, Justin Grosz, Nicole R. Coniglio, Lisa M. Hoffman, Lelia Schleier, Jillian E. Tate and Julianna B. Walo.
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The 2009 death of 7-year-old Gabriel Myers, an abused foster child found hanging from a shower fixture in his foster home in Margate, Florida, shone a bright light on the state’s policy of allowing doctors to prescribe psychotropic drugs on foster kids. His suicide was a horrible tragedy – one that led to outrage and supposed reform. Six years later, advocates and attorneys who fight for the rights of foster children who suffer child abuse, sexual abuse, and other physical and personal injury have discovered little has changed.
The same “black box” medications Gabriel had received, even though they were intended for adults, at the time were part of a list the Department of Children and Families found were given to 16 percent of cases where foster kids were medicated – often without the consent of a parent or judge.
Despite all this, the practice continues. The preliminary report from the researchers with Florida’s child-protection system revealed that 11 percent of foster kids today are prescribed these psychotropic medications without caregivers following proper procedures, according to the Florida Institute on Child Welfare at Florida State University.
That’s 2,434 of 21,899 children who had open prescriptions for at least one psychotropic drug. Further, of 140 of the children’s files reviewed, only one in five met the requirements for administering psychotropic medications, often with consent forms that were completed late – if they were completed at all.
Florida child advocates and attorneys who fight for the rights of abused, neglected and physically abused and sexually abused children are awaiting more information following the stabbing of a young Sarasota, Florida, girl, allegedly at the hand of her mother.
The 6-year-old girl was left fighting for her life in the hospital. Meanwhile, her mother, Ashley Parker, was jailed on charges of attempted murder. In late June, Sarasota police were called to the family home to find the daughter stabbed in the stomach and legs. The child’s “insides were hanging out with Band-Aids on her stomach,” according to police reports.
To those who know the family, this isn’t the first time the authorities have had to respond to the family’s home. Some reportedly believe that the Florida Department of Children and Families should have done more and ultimately failed the young girl.
“What I really think they should’ve did is took the little girl out of the house,” a neighbor told the news media. “The little girl would go to crying and shaking and stuff like that she was very afraid of her.”
DCF reportedly isn’t saying much. Some recall the case of Phoebe Jonchuck, the 5-year-old whose father threw her off a bridge into Tampa Bay. Her father, who later was charged with her murder, was known to be a risk to the child.
If the Department of Children and Families knew of problems in the Parker household, then questions will arise anew about what DCF officials knew, when they knew it, and – if they failed to act – why the girl was left in harm’s way.
As the school year comes to a close, families throughout the state will be seeking programs to ensure their children are safe while the parents work. With many kids each year becoming the victims of child abuse by caregivers, sitters and employees of summer camps, the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) is warning families to take precautions. Below are tips and reminders to help parents keep their children safe during the summer season.
The campaign explores three common areas: choosing a summer camp, finding a caregiver, and ensuring your child is safe around water.
South Florida child abuse attorney and child sexual abuse lawyer Howard Talenfeld was interviewed this week on CBS News regarding the case of 3-year-old Ahziya Osceola. The Seminole Indian boy was discovered abused and dead in his Hollywood home after his family had reported him missing. Now, charges have been filed against his father and stepmother – and questions have been raised about how child protective service providers CHildNet, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Department of Children and Families failed to communicate with one another to ensure Ahziya was safe.
As was made clear in the reporting and Talenfeld’s interview, Ahziya’s case was well known by various organizations. But the sharing of information critical to ensuring his safety was “inconsistent and insufficient.”
It’s becoming an all too common refrain in Florida. Gabriel Myers, Tamiya Audain, Antwone Hope and now Ahzia Osceola, each slipped through the cracks of Broward’s Child welfare system and died.
A child dies or suffers serious child abuse, sexual abuse or neglect at the hands of his parents, guardians or caregivers. Once the Department of Children and Families launches its investigation, it’s discovered that the child was known to be at risk by ChildNet, Broward child investigators, and many others, but little to nothing was done to protect the child.
This sad refrain has come true again in the case of 3-year-old Ahziya Osceola. Though abuse investigators with the Broward Sheriff’s Office saw the signs of repeated abuse – bumps, bruises, fingerprints, scratches and abrasions on little Ahziya’s body – they failed to act or even acknowledge the “a pattern of repeat injuries” outlined in a report released this week by the Department of Children and Families.
Imagine living life locked in a closet, deprived of food, medical care, even the use of a bathroom. Now imagine being a child or young teen suffering such child abuse and neglect. This tale emerged as police in Palm Beach County arrested a couple who kept their two children, now ages 12 and 17, locked up in a closet. No matter how much attention child advocates and foster child abuse attorneys try to focus on the harm and horrors inflicted on our children, the abuse and neglect continue.
In this case, police say the children would be locked in the closet in their Riviera Beach home for days on end, and nobody would notice they were missing. One child eventually was able to escape and reach a friend.
Police have arrested Quincy Hazel Sr., and Sabrina Golden-Hazel, both 44, accusing them of depriving the children of medical care and food for years. They’re accused of neglect of a child causing great bodily harm and both were in the Palm Beach County Jail on $100,000 bail. Still, police are unsure if the couple were the children’s parents.
Florida’s child welfare experiment in the privatization of child care and oversight has proven to be a failure. Children suffer sexual abuse, physical harm, and – as a Miami Herald expose revealed – death, even of those children known by the Florida Department of Children and Families to be at risk. As attorneys and lawyers for at-risk children in the child welfare system know, no data supports the cause of privatization. And Florida is not alone.
In a sad tale of child abuse and capital murder similar to some of those we’ve witnessed in Florida, 2-year-old Alexandria Hill of Texas died in 2013 at the hands of a foster parent hired to care for her by a company hired, in turn, by the state to oversee her care. Read her story here.
The story, “The Brief Life and Private Death of Alexandria Hill,” reports that Alex was removed from her parents, in part, because the father admitted to smoking marijuana after he put her to bed in the evening. She was placed with a former crack addict and an out-of-work bus driver, the article claims, paid by a billion-dollar contractor just over $44 a day to be “mentors” to two foster children.
Any child advocate or child abuse attorney who fights to protect children from child abuse or other harm knows the confluence of domestic violence, substance abuse and mental illness create a toxic cocktail that can place children in harm’s way. Little Phoebe Jonchuck, 5, reportedly was surrounded by all three. She no doubt knew the horrors. Problem is, those who are paid to protect children like Phoebe missed the signs.
Word that John Jonchuck, the father who allegedly threw his daughter off a bridge into Tampa Bay in January, reportedly had been cited for alleged domestic violence, battery and stalking raises yet another red flag in the case of Phoebe.
Sadly, though his history was known, it didn’t sound alarms among officials at the Florida Department of Children and Families or those who granted Jonchuck custody of his daughter. One child advocate called hers “a preventable death.”
After reading news accounts of the report issued this week by the Department of Children and Families in the case of Phoebe Jonchuck, the 5-year-old girl killed when her father allegedly tossed her into Tampa Bay, Florida child abuse attorneys and lawyers who represent at-risk children believe ample blame and areas of improvement exist as lessons from this episode. From operators at the Florida Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-962-2873) to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department to DCF itself, the report highlights what went wrong – and where areas of improvement exist – so future cases like Phoebe’s don’t happen again.
Among the most important points, at least two calls to the state’s abuse hotline were not escalated for intervention. One came in December, the other on January 7, one day before Phoebe drowned in Tampa Bay.
The family was not recommended to receive intervention by family service advocates following a call in 2013 warning about abuse to Phoebe. When the Sheriff’s Office did intervene following a call, they reportedly failed to refer the family for intervention as well.
In a case of child abuse and family violence so horrific that child welfare advocates and wrongful death attorneys have said obvious “red flags” should have been apparent to all, domestic violence attorneys and child protection counselors are left to wonder whether the Florida Department of Children & Families’ creation of a “Safety Plan” for the Mohney family was a fool’s errand.
Father David Mohney was reportedly “controlling and jealous.” Wife and mother Cynthia Mohney “stumbling drunk” and abusive of their three children, according to news reports and official DCF documents. The children were left in fear of their mother.
It was their father they should have feared.
This month, David Mohney shot his three children, killing two – ages 14 and 11 – and leaving a 9-year-old in a medically induced coma. Mohney also shot himself. Yet this latest case of horrific and lethal child abuse should have been no surprise to anyone.
Can how a child dies under the care or watch of the Florida Department of Children and Families help determine whether the death stemmed from physical abuse, neglect, wrongful death or other harm? Apparently, opinions are mixed – especially during election season.
To Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the number of deaths of children who were under the care of the DCF statewide are open to question.
More directly, “…except for abiding by a new state law that required DCF to create a website listing all child fatalities, Florida has continued to undercount the number of children it fails,” the Miami Herald wrote in an investigation of deaths of children under the DCF.
Come have called undercount “cooked.” Most just want a fair accounting in order to help future children.
Howard Talenfeld, one of the nation’s preeminent children’s rights attorneys, has launched Talenfeld Law. The law firm will be the first in Florida to focus exclusively on protecting the rights of physically and sexually abused, medically fragile, foster and other at-risk children.
Talenfeld is known throughout the legal community and national media as having established the nation’s premier children’s rights practice. His work on behalf of at-risk individuals has earned multimillion dollar awards and resulted in sweeping judicial and legislative reforms.
“This practice will provide a loud and clear voice for children who cannot speak or themselves in the state and federal courts and state capitals – Florida’s most vulnerable abused, medically fragile and developmentally disabled children,” said Talenfeld, who will be joined at the firm by children’s rights attorneys Stacie J. Schmerling, Rayni A. Rabinovitz, and Nicole R. Coniglio. “The time is right to leave Colodny, Fass, Talenfeld, Karlinsky ,Abate, & Webb, P.A. after 34 years as the firm became a nationally renown insurance regulatory, litigation and lobbying powerhouse with plans to expand.”
Yorkville, IL – August 12, 2025 – Fox 32- Illinois lawmaker, DCFS dispute legality of intern investigators in child abuse cases An Illinois lawmaker is accusing the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) of breaking state law by allowing uncertified interns to conduct child abuse and neglect investigations, while the agency says all investigators meet legal certification requirements.
Springfield, IL – April 25, 2025 – Capitol News Illinois- Illinois community-based foster homes face insurance ‘crisis’ Insurance companies are reducing the scope of coverage for some community foster agencies in Illinois, leading to higher costs, diminished coverage and fewer options for agencies who say a continuance of the trend could lead to closures.
Cook County, IL – March 24, 2025 – WCBU- Illinois’ child welfare agency failed to produce critical reports after child deaths The state agency responsible for keeping Illinois’ most vulnerable children safe has failed to produce legally required public reports after examining what went wrong in hundreds of cases of child deaths and thousands of serious injuries, the Illinois Answers Project reports.
Chicago, IL – March 22, 2025 – ABC 7 Chicago- Illinois child welfare agency’s reporting on abuse and deaths scrutinized The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services is now under scrutiny for its lack of proper reporting on child abuse and neglect cases, according to a report from the Illinois Answers Project.
Tallahassee, FL – March 9, 2025 – WFSU- Two Florida state agencies announce new tools for combating human trafficking Two state agencies are working to identify kids vulnerable to sex trafficking before they’re victimized. The Florida Department of Children and Families and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have announced an enhanced screening tool and new grant funding for law enforcement.
Chicago, IL – January 31, 2025 – NPR Illinois- DCFS launches new app for caseworkers and families The state of Illinois is rolling out a new app to help parents of abused and neglected children better communicate with their Department of Children and Family Services [DCFS] caseworkers and with other service providers.
Broward County, FL – January 30, 2025 – The Sun-Sentinel- Broward Sheriff’s Office will stop staffing juvenile detention center in May Blaming staff shortages and an unsafe building to work in, the Broward Sheriff’s Office will no longer send deputies to work at the state’s Department of Justice’s Juvenile Assessment Center.
Chicago, Il – November 8, 2024 – CBS News Chicago- Troubled teen who escaped DCFS caseworkers was not placed into secure facility after being found A 17-year-old with a violent history escaped from his caseworkers in Chicago last month, and it turns out the foster child in the care of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services was not placed in a secure facility recommended to the state after being brought back into custody.
Miami, FL – September 3, 2024 – Miami Herald- Rising costs of care could strain funding for Florida program for brain-damaged kids Facing withering criticism from parents, advocates, lawmakers and insurance regulators, Florida’s compensation program for children born with catastrophic brain injuries opened its bank account three years ago and improved the lives of some of the state’s most disabled children.
Austin, TX – July 18, 2024 – WPLG Local 10- Largest housing provider for migrant children engaged in pervasive sexual abuse, US says Employees of the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children in the U.S. repeatedly sexually abused and harassed children in their care for at least eight years, the Justice Department said Thursday, alleging a shocking litany of offenses that took place as the company amassed billions of dollars in government contracts.
Homestead, FL – May 16, 2024 – WPLG Local 10- Homestead couple accused of murdering their 6-month-old baby girl Two 24-year-old parents brought their 6-month-old to Homestead Hospital in cardiac arrest Sunday afternoon; doctors found that the baby had no pulse and signs of severe child abuse, according to police.
Brevard County, FL – May 16, 2024 – WESH 2 Orlando- Family sues Brevard County day care for alleged child abuse and negligence An incident at a Brevard County day care involving a child and teacher has led to more allegations of child abuse and negligence after the Department of Children and Families studied surveillance video.
Wildwood, FL – May 4, 2024 – Fox 35 Orlando- Florida DCF worker accused of abusing 11-year-old foster child A Kids Central employee was arrested after he aggressively threw an 11-year-old foster child onto a couch and hurt her, according to an arrest affidavit from the Wildwood Police Department.
Tallahassee, FL – May 3, 2024 – The Tampa Bay Times – Nearly 600,000 Florida kids shed from government health care, study says Nearly 600,000 Florida children lost their government-provided health insurance last year after the federal government ended the national COVID-related health emergency, more than any other state except Texas, according to a newly released report by the Georgetown Center for Children and Families.
The same “black box” medications Gabriel had received, even though they were intended for adults, at the time were part of a list the Department of Children and Families found were given to 16 percent of cases where foster kids were medicated – often without the consent of a parent or judge.
Serious Red Flags Missed in Death of Hollywood Boy: Florida Child Abuse Lawyer
South Florida child abuse attorney and child sexual abuse lawyer Howard Talenfeld was interviewed this week on CBS News regarding the case of 3-year-old Ahziya Osceola. The Seminole Indian boy was discovered abused and dead in his Hollywood home after his family had reported him missing. Now, charges have been filed against his father and stepmother – and questions have been raised about how child protective service providers CHildNet, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Department of Children and Families failed to communicate with one another to ensure Ahziya was safe.
As was made clear in the reporting and Talenfeld’s interview, Ahziya’s case was well known by various organizations. But the sharing of information critical to ensuring his safety was “inconsistent and insufficient.”
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