99-005142 Department Of Children And Family Services vs. Grace Grantley Status: Closed Recommended Order on Friday, May 12, 2000.

Summary: Respondent`s use of corporal punishment and her leaving the children in the custody of unauthorized persons warranted the denial of Respondent`s application to renew her foster home license.

STATE OF FLORIDA

DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS

DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND )

FAMILY SERVICES, )

)

Petitioner, )

)

vs. ) Case No. 99-5142

)

GRACE GRANTLEY, )

)

Respondent. )

___________________________________)

RECOMMENDED ORDER

Pursuant to notice, this cause was heard by Linda M. Rigot,

the assigned Administrative Law Judge of the Division of

Administrative Hearings, on March 3, 2000, in Miami, Florida.

APPEARANCES

For Petitioner: Rosemarie Rinaldi, Esquire

Department of Children and Family Services

401 Northwest Second Avenue, Suite N-1014

Miami, Florida 33128

For Respondent: Grace Grantley, pro se

3637 Oak Avenue

Miami, Florida 33133

STATEMENT OF THE ISSUE

The issue presented is whether Respondent's foster home

license should be renewed.

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT

By correspondence dated September 30, 1999, the Department

advised Respondent that her foster home license would not be

renewed due to her failure to meet minimum standards, and

Respondent timely requested an evidentiary hearing regarding the

Department's determination. This cause was thereafter

transferred to the Division of Administrative Hearings to

conduct the evidentiary proceeding.

The Department presented the testimony of

Giacomo Coschignano, Richard Correa, Elizabeth Gunn, Sam Fateru,

and Mavis Whitton. Respondent Grace Grantley testified on her

own behalf and presented the testimony of Gladys Jones and

Shaneka Grantley. Additionally, the Department's Exhibits

numbered 1-4 were admitted in evidence.

Only the Department submitted a proposed recommended order

after the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing. That document

has been considered in the entry of this Recommended Order.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Respondent has been a licensed foster parent for

approximately ten years. Prior to receiving her license she

completed the required 30 hours of training given to all foster

parents. That training included the acceptable methods of

discipline that could be administered to foster children, and

potential foster parents were specifically advised that no form

of corporal or physical punishment could be used. Since that

time, Respondent has completed the required eight hours of in-

service training annually that also included the acceptable

methods of discipline and the prohibition against corporal

punishment. Each year Respondent signed a Discipline Policy

Agreement that sets forth the acceptable and unacceptable

methods of administering discipline to foster children.

2. Since 1994, Respondent has annually signed a Bilateral

Service Agreement by which she agreed not to allow unauthorized

persons to live in her home or have custody of the foster

children in her care. She also agreed to notify the Department

of any change in living arrangements and to have an approved

person as a back-up caretaker in case of an emergency.

3. Respondent was hospitalized for a week immediately

preceding June 26, 1999. She did not attempt to notify the

Department or her approved back-up caretaker that the children

would be left alone. Instead, she told her daughter to pick up

the children and take them to her home. Her daughter has a

criminal record and was not approved by the Department as a

back-up person to care for Respondent's foster children.

4. Respondent also told her brother Uncle Sonny to watch

her house and told Delilah, one of Respondent's foster children,

to have Delilah's older brother Johnny stop by the house after

work. Several years earlier Uncle Sonny had been the subject of

an accusation by Delilah of sexual abuse. Although Delilah

recanted that allegation, the foster children's guardian and the

Department had told Respondent that Uncle Sonny should not be

around the children.

5. When her daughter arrived at Respondent's home, Delilah

and Rasheeda, the two older foster girls, refused to go with

her, so she left them there. Before she arrived at Respondent's

house, the biological mother of the sibling group, had come by

the house. Upon learning that Respondent was in the hospital,

the biological mother took Cotara and Mervin, the younger

children, home with her. The biological mother was prohibited

by the Department from having custody of the children and was

only permitted to visit them in Respondent's home. Respondent's

daughter went to the biological mother's house and took Cotara

but left Mervin there.

6. Richard Correa was a Children's Home Society case

manager assigned to the sibling group placed in Respondent's

foster home. After becoming alarmed because he could not reach

Respondent by telephone for several days, he went to her home on

June 26, 1999.

7. Respondent told him that she had returned home from the

hospital the day before and that there had been a physical

altercation between Respondent and Delilah and between

Respondent and Rasheedah. Rasheedah had a bruise on her neck.

8. Respondent told Correa that she had struck Delilah and

Rasheeda because they told her they were going to do what they

wanted. Correa told Respondent that corporal punishment was

prohibited. Respondent told Correa that she did not know that.

She later told Correa that she had only struck the girls in

self-defense after they attacked her. Respondent also told the

children's court-appointed guardian later that day that she had

hit both Rasheedah and Delilah. At the final hearing,

Respondent testified that she had to "push them to the ground to

try to keep them from hurting" her and then hit them two or

three times with a belt.

9. Correa had the children removed from Respondent's

foster home.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

10. The Division of Administrative Hearings has

jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter. Sections

120.569 and 120.57(1), Florida Statutes.

11. Section 409.175(4)(a), Florida Statutes, authorizes

the Department to adopt licensing rules for foster homes, and

the Department has adopted Rule 65C-13.010, Florida

Administrative Code. Section (1)(b)5.f of that Rule prohibits

corporal punishment of any kind. Section 409.175(8)(b)2,

Florida Statutes, authorizes the Department to deny a license

for violation of the licensing rules.

12. The Department has met its burden of proving that

Respondent violated the Department's licensing rule and that

Respondent is not entitled to a foster home license.

RECOMMENDATION

Based on the foregoing Findings of Fact and Conclusions of

Law, it is

RECOMMENDED that a final order be entered finding

Respondent guilty of violating the Department's licensing rule

and denying Respondent's request to renew her foster home

license.

DONE AND ENTERED this 12th day of May, 2000, in

Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida.

___________________________________

LINDA M. RIGOT

Administrative Law Judge

Division of Administrative Hearings

The DeSoto Building

1230 Apalachee Parkway

Tallahassee, Florida 32399-3060

[phone] SUNCOM 278-9675

Fax Filing [phone]

www.doah.state.fl.us

Filed with the Clerk of the

Division of Administrative Hearings

this 12th day of May, 2000.

COPIES FURNISHED:

Virginia Daire, Agency Clerk

Department of Children and Family Services

Building 2, Room 204B

1317 Winewood Boulevard

Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0700

Josie Tomayo, General Counsel

Department of Children and Family Services

Building 2, Room 204B

1317 Winewood Boulevard

Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0700

Rosemarie Rinaldi, Esquire

Department of Children and Family Services

401 Northwest Second Avenue, Suite N-1014

Miami, Florida 33128

Grace Grantley

3637 Oak Avenue

Miami, Florida 33133

NOTICE OF RIGHT TO SUBMIT EXCEPTIONS

All parties have the right to submit written exceptions within

15 days from the date of this Recommended Order. Any exceptions

to this Recommended Order should be filed with the agency that

will issue the Final Order in this case.