wrapped the same child in the same manner in March of 1978, at which time Mr. Hough allegedly struck the child, saying, "Show us how mad you can get"; (c) Spanked a child in their care with a spatula, pulled her arm and shook her "[o]n or about November 1978 and again on January 21, 1979"; (d) that respondent Donald R. Hough spanked, shook and squeezed the arms of a third child during 1978; and (e) that respondents permitted a child in their care "to be paddled so severely that bruises resulted." The administrative complaint also alleges that respondents "failed to show a commitment to providing a continuity of care . . . [and showed] a lack of understanding the needs of the children placed with them by abruptly insisting [on] the removal within 24 hours of a group of children .
. . in their care," (but not two other children from a different county who were also in their care) without telling the children, and in violation of an agreement with petitioner; and that respondents "have not notified the Department of any changes in employment nor can they show that they have a
steady and sufficient income to meet their own physical needs without utilizing for their own use monies paid to them . . . solely for the care of children"; all in violation of Rules 10C-10.29(2)(a)(2), 10C-10.29(2)(a)(5), 10C- 10.29(2)(a)(6), and 10C-10.29(9), Florida Administrative Code.
Respondents have cared for foster children for some twenty years. In November or December of 1975, they began with Christian Youth Care, Inc. (CYC), a foster home in Zephyrhills founded under the auspices of the First Baptist Church of Zephyrhills. Since then small groups of adolescent girls have lived with respondents and their teenage daughter, Dawn. In all, some 80 children have lived at CYC since respondents have had charge of the home.
In July of 1977, petitioner placed June Holmes, who is deaf and dumb, with respondents. After June had been with the Houghs for two weeks or so, Lillian Parsons, a social worker in petitioner's employ, told Mrs. Hough that June should be wearing a hearing aid. June did not want to wear a hearing aid. She was also disappointed that Mrs. Hough would not take her to Daytona Beach; she became very upset, wielded a straightened safety pen and started knocking things off bureaus. When Mr. Hough served as a medical technician in the armed forces, unruly patients were sometimes wrapped in blankets. Perhaps remembering this experience, he enlisted Mrs. Hough in wrestling June to the floor, wrapping her in a blanket and securing the blanket with three belts. In the process, Mr. Hough said to June, "See how mad you can get." These events caused concern among the other children living in the home, who gathered to watch and, at respondents' suggestion, to say prayers. Mrs. Hough told June that she loved her. After June had lain bound in this fashion for 45 minutes, respondents released her. The following day Mrs. Hough called Mrs. Parsons to report the incident and to ask that June be placed in another home. Mrs. Parsons expressed no disapproval of respondents' method of restraining June nor did she tell them not to do it again. June remained with respondents until she left for boarding school in St. Augustine.
When June returned to the Houghs from school on Easter vacation 1978, she wanted a new pair of shoes that cost $24.95. Respondents bought her a different pair instead. Easter morning June wanted to wear her old shoes, not her new shoes. This caused an argument. Mrs. Hough stayed home with June while Mr. Hough took the others to church. When Mrs. Hough began packing June's clothes into a suitcase, June was "worried that [respondents] would move [her] out." Deposition of June Holmes, p. 5. She walked outside and sat under a tree near the road. Mrs. Hough telephoned her husband and summoned him home from church. With the help of a deputy sheriff brandishing handcuffs, respondents coaxed June into their van and drove her up the driveway to their home. At first she refused to leave the van, so respondents went inside without her.
When June eventually went inside, there was another confrontation. Mr. Hough wrestled June to the floor and sent Mrs. Hough for a blanket. After respondents wrapped June in the blanket and secured it with belts, Mr. Hough set off to retrieve the children he had left at church. After Mr. Hough returned with the other children, respondents unwrapped June and there was an Easter egg hunt.
The next day Mrs. Hough called petitioner's offices in New Port Richey, then drove June to New Port Richey and left her there, because she wanted no more to do with her. When Mrs. Parsons learned that respondents had wrapped June in a blanket a second time, she asked to be relieved of responsibility for June. Eventually David J. Schultz, at the time a child welfare social worker in
petitioner's employ, assumed responsibility for June; and June was again placed with respondents.
Mr. and Mrs. Hough frequently communicated with guidance counselors and teachers at the schools children in their care attended. They made six visits to talk about Evelyn Ciacelli's progress with Ricky Rowell, guidance counselor at Woodland Elementary School in Zephryhills, and spoke to him on the telephone about Evelyn on several other occasions.
Disappointed in Evelyn's progress with her homework one night, Mr. Hough picked her up and shook her. On another occasion, Evelyn and her roommate were wrestling in their room after they had been sent to bed. Mr. Hough heard them from the kitchen, walked into their bedroom with a spatula in his hand, and gave Evelyn, who was wearing a bathrobe over her nightgown, a swat on the rear with the spatula.
On November 20, 1978, David J. Schultz left Petitioner's employ. He subsequently went to work for a corporation controlled by respondents and began living in their home. He lived there on December 13, 1978.
On December 13, 1978, Bonnie Blair McKenzie, then employed by petitioner as a community youth leader, picked up Cindy Spickelmier at a shelter home in Dade City and drove her to respondents' home. Cindy, a 14 year old, was at the shelter home after having run away from another foster home, the Newmans'. She had lived with respondents previously and David Schultz also knew her. Shortly after Cindy's arrival, David Schultz was talking to her in the Houghs' living room, where she was sitting on a couch, crying. Also present were Mr. Hough, Ms. McKenzie, Nancy Newman, the foster mother who had previously had custody of Cindy, and Ed Springer, then the social worker in petitioner's employ responsible for Cindy's placement. Angry because Cindy was ignoring him, David Schultz grabbed the hair of her head, jerked her up into a standing position, had her bend over and lean against a desk for support, and struck her buttocks with a wooden paddle an inch thick. He administered the first blow with such force that Ms. Newman was frightened and Ms. McKenzie was "horrified and devastated." (T.52). Cindy fell to her knees, hysterical. Less forcefully, David Schultz struck her buttocks a second time. At the hearing Mr. Hough testified that:
after Dave gave her the swats she sat back down and she was a new child. We were able to communicate with her and we thought we were really making good
progress and being able to work with the child. That was the purpose of the
new program and of course we were trying to set up parameters that would be beneficial to the child. (T.233).
Notwithstanding this perceived improvement in Cindy's deportment, Ed Springer gave Cindy another spanking 30 or 45 minutes after David Schultz had finished. In the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Hough, and Mr. Schultz, Ed Springer struck Cindy five times on the buttocks with the same wooden paddle David Schultz had used, as punishment for running away from the Newmans' house.
Later, on the evening of December 13, 1978, Cindy ran away from the Houghs'. She ended up at her mother's house where she spent the night. The next day her mother took her to the Pasco County Sheriff's Department. There
Fay Wilbur an investigator for the Sheriff's Department, took photographs of Cindy's badly bruised buttocks. Petitioner's exhibits 3, 4 and 5. On the following day, December 15, 1978, Dr. Lena Ayala, a pediatrician, examined Cindy. She found large "[v]ery tender, painful" (T.55) hematomas covering the whole area of Cindy's buttocks. If she had seen a child in the custody of its natural parents in that condition, Dr. Ayala testified, she would have reported the matter to the child abuse registry.
Petitioner discharged Ed Springer because of the beating he had administered to Cindy Spickelmier.
Petitioner publishes a manual with a chapter entitled "Foster Family Group Homes for Dependent youth," Petitioner's exhibit No. 8. In part, the manual provides:
8.4.4 Unacceptable disciplinary approaches include:
a. Corporal punishment--slapping, kicking, hitting, etc.
* * *
Humiliation, ridicule, sarcasm, shaming in front of the group
or alone.
Deprivation of essential needs such as food, sleep, or parental visits.
Petitioner's exhibit No. 8, p.9.
Although petitioner sometimes furnished foster group home licensees copies of its manuals, petitioner's files do not indicate that either Mr. or Mrs. Hough ever received a copy. Respondents wore unaware of the manual's contents on December 13, 1978; and David Schultz was also unaware of any policy against corporal punishment of foster group home children.
Lorraine Cash, a foster mother in Pasco County, never spanked any foster child in her care over the age of eleven years. On the other hand, Henry Arnett, another foster parent in Pasco County, used corporal punishment in disciplining teen aged foster boys. He and his wife, Doris, were named foster parents of the year in 1978.
On December 14, 1978, Joanne Wall telephoned respondents on behalf of petitioner and told Mr. Hough that David Schultz should be barred from their premises. When Mr. Hough protested that David Schultz lived on the premises, Ms. Wall asked Mr. Hough to keep David Schultz from working with the girls, which Mr. Hough agreed to do.
On December 18, 1978, respondents submitted an application to petitioner for a child care center license, an application on which they had begun work considerably before December 13, 1978. Discouraged by the pace at which this application was being considered and by what respondents perceived as unfairness on the part of some of petitioner's personnel, Mr. Hough on February 15, 1979, told William Laing, a manager for petitioner, that he wanted all the foster children but two removed by five o'clock the following day, a Friday. Even though the agreement between petitioner and respondents called for two weeks' notice by the foster parents, petitioner's exhibit No. 6, Mr. Hough was unwilling to wait so long. Petitioner arranged to pick up all the foster
children in respondents' care on the following day. Some of the children had not been told they would be leaving the Houghs' home.
Respondents own improved real estate from which they derive rental income. In addition, CYC, funded by the First Baptist Church of Zephyrhills, paid respondents a salary. Occasionally, Mr. Hough worked outside the home. Pasco County contributed to the costs of caring for foster children. Respondents did not need moneys petitioner paid them on behalf of the children for their own personal purposes.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
Sections 39.11 and 409.145, Florida Statutes (1977), make clear the legislative intent that foster homes be licensed. No criteria either for licensure or for revocation are set forth in these statutes, however. Petitioner has adopted rule provisions governing licensing which contemplate "discontinuance" of licenses in appropriate circumstances. Rule 10C- 10.29(1)(b), Florida Administrative Code, entitled "Foster Care-Foster Home Standards," provides:
Issuance of a license is based on meeting the basic requirements of the agency and suitability for foster family care of a child.
Rule 10C-10.29(1)(0), Florida Administrative Code, requires an "annual reevaluation . . . for relicensing on each anniversary of the original license." Rule 10C-10.29(1)(e), Florida Administrative Code, provides that "[u]pon re- evaluation the foster home may be relicensed or discontinued."
Petitioner began the present proceedings by filing an administrative complaint alleging that respondent had violated Subsections (2)(a)(2), (2)(a)(5), (2)(a)(6) and (9) of Rule 10C-10.29, Florida Administrative Code, which provide:
Personal Qualities for Foster Parents
Foster parents should:
* * *
(2) Accept and understand the individual needs of foster children and who
(sic) these needs may differ from those of their own children.
* * *
Commit themselves to providing continuity of care and to working with the agency in the child's behalf.
Accept and abide by the placement agreement and agency's policies.
* * *
(9) Income--Foster parents must have sufficient income to assure their stability and security. They must
be able to absorb the first month's care of the foster child until board payment is received.
The evidence as to what June Holmes' "individual needs" might be was inconclusive. It was not shown that the treatment she received at respondents' hands would have met the "individual needs" of any child; or that respondents acted out of any misapprehension about June's deafness. No evidence showed respondents guilty of any particular refusal to accept or culpable inability to understand the idiosyncrasies of a foster child in their care.
The evidence showed that respondents abandoned their commitment "to provide continuity of care and to working with the agency" when they demanded the removal of foster children within 24 hours. By the same act, respondents failed to abide by a term of the placement agreement. Similarly, by leaving June Holmes at petitioner's New Port Richey office with at most a few hours' notice to petitioner, respondents evinced a lack of commitment "to providing continuity of care and working with the agency," and failed to abide by a term of the placement agreement, even though June Holmes later returned to respondent's home.
In administering corporal punishment, and in allowing others to spank Cindy Spickelmier, respondents failed to observe agency policy against corporal punishment of teenagers in foster group homes. The agency never communicated this policy to respondents, however, nor promulgated this policy as a rule. Petitioner shares with respondents responsibility for deviation from petitioner's policy against corporally punishing teenaged foster children, considering that petitioner failed to inform even some of its own employees of this policy, that respondents were not advised of the policy even though they promptly reported the incidents involving June Holmes to petitioner, and that petitioner's own employee participated in the beating of Cindy Spickelmier.
The evidence demonstrated that respondents "have sufficient income to assure their stability and security." Rule 100-10.29(9), Florida Administrative Code.
