Foster Agencies Say Mother Only Person To Blame For Boy's Death

LARGO, FL – The leaders of two organizations charged with providing foster care services to nearly 3,000 children in Pinellas and Pasco counties faced a barrage of pointed questions regarding the death of 2-year-old Jordan Belliveau of Largo during a Sept. 12 press conference.

A week after the little boy was found dead in a wooded area and his mother, Charisse Stinson, 21, was charged with his murder, Chris Cash, chief of community-based care for Eckerd Connects Community Alternatives,and April Lott, CEO of Directions for Living, faced the question the entire community has been asking:

Why was the little boy ripped from the arms of his nurturing foster parents and placed in the custody of his natural mother who has a history of violence, drugs, guns and gangs?

It’s a question that has no easy answer, said Cash.

“The system is under a lot of stress. We can always do better,” said Cash, who has worked in Florida’s foster care system for 35 years.

At the same time, Lott said there is only one person to blame for Jordan’s death: the mother who left him to die in the woods after hitting him so hard he began having seizures.

“We will not lose sight of the tragic loss of Jordan,” said Lott. “But no one could have predicted the behavior of this mother and the tragic outcome.”

Critics, however, point to 1,200 pages of case documents that appear to be a precursor to Jordan's death.

• Why wasn’t Jordan removed from his mother following a domestic dispute in July with Jordan’s father, Jordan Belliveau Sr.?
• Why weren’t there any red flags when a case manager showed up in August for a home visit and Stinson refused to admit him until police were called and used a bullhorn demanding she open her door?
• Why was Jordan removed from the care of the loving foster parents who wanted to adopt him and returned to a mother who was unemployed and on the verge of being evicted from her apartment?

Stinson lost custody of Jordan in January 2017 after the courts concluded that the little boy was living in an unsuitable environment that included gangs, drugs and guns.

From the moment he met foster parents Sam and Juliet Warren, they said Jordan thrived.

But, on May 31, a family court judge concluded that Stinson had met the conditions laid out in her case plan to have her son returned to her. She had moved out of the toxic environment she shared with Jordan’s father, was actively seeking a job and had attended counseling sessions.

Lott noted that Stinson had never been accused of abusing Jordan. He was removed from her custody due to the dangerous environment in which they lived.

Both Eckerd Connects and Directions for Living recommended that the mother and son be reunited. Jordan’s volunteer guardian ad litem’s was the lone voice objecting to the reunion.

“The conditions for his return to his mother had been met,” said Lott. “The mother had moved to a safe environment, was seeking employment and demonstrated the maturity to care for a child.”

Nevertheless, the Florida Department of Children and Families launched an independent special review of the case on Wednesday, Sept. 12, to determine why the toddler ended up dead just three months after being returned to his mother.

“We don’t know how long it will take,” Cash said. “We don’t know if it will take three days or three months.”

In the meantime, Cash and Lott said their own agencies, which are under contract with Pasco and Pinellas counties to provide foster care and reunification services, have launched their own investigation.

Lott said they are reviewing all similar cases to determine if “there’s another Jordan out there.”

While the foster care system can always stand improvement, Cash cautioned the public against pointing fingers at any one person, specifically the case manager from Directions for Living who visited Stinson and her son on Aug. 31, the day before Jordan died.

During that meeting, Lott said the case manager spent “a significant amount of time” with Stinson, “working to resolve barriers that were keeping her from meeting the action plan established by the court,” including finding employment and attending required counseling. He warned Stinson that Jordan could be removed from her custody if she didn’t comply.

Cash said it’s a “mischaracterization to say the case manager didn’t do anything.”

In fact, he followed protocol to the letter. He checked to see if there had been any 911 calls from the home and discovered the police had been called on July 14 for a domestic violence complaint that turned physical.

Case managers do not have the authority to remove a child from a parent. Therefore, the case manager took the only action he is allowed to take by law.

He updated Stinson’s case file to reflect the domestic violence call and submitted it for a review to the courts. He also notified the child abuse hotline. The hotline, in turn, alerted a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Child Protection Investigations Division, which looks into child abuse complaints in Pinellas County on behalf of DCF. The division promptly opened an investigation

“We were waiting to see if the investigator assessed an immediate danger to Jordan,” Lott said.

But it was already too late for the 2-year-old. He had been dead for at least a day.

Lott noted that the law enforcement agency that responded to the July 14 domestic violence call also had the option of calling the child abuse hotline. It chose not to make the call..

“There are safeguards in place,” she said. “If the responding law enforcement agency believes the child is in danger, the agency is mandated to call that in. If (Largo Police) had assessed that the child was in peril, they would have called it into the hotline.”

She conceded that there is some level of professional subjectivity in their jobs. There are times when they have to make judgement calls. And sometimes those calls are wrong.

She conceded that case managers might miss details when each is handling an average of 25 cases (Stinson’s case manager had 24 cases at the time). Pinellas and Pasco counties have the second highest number of foster children in the state, just behind Hillsborough. In an ideal world, she said, case managers would have no more than 15 to 17 cases at any one time. But she doesn’t believe the caseload was a factor in Jordan’s death.

Cash added that there's a misconception that the foster care system focuses on reuniting natural parents and children, and that policy led to Jordan being placed back in Stinson's custody prematurely.

That’s not the case, said Cash. In fact, Pinellas/Pasco ranks second in the second for the number of parental rights terminations.

“It is not reunification at any cost,” said Cash. “But there are laws that protect parents. Even though they’re not perfect parents, the child-parent bond is highly regarded in society. So we don’t taken termination of parental rights lightly.”

Lott said she’s anxious to hear the conclusions of the DCF independent review.

“Once the review is completed, we will be able to identify agency errors,” she said. “I absolutely agree there is room for improvement. But everything I’ve reviewed could not have predicted that this woman would murder her child.”

Image via Patch

See related stories:

Foster Parents Recall Precious Time Spent With 2-Year-Old Boy

Largo Mother Says She Hit Toddler During 'Moment Of Frustration'

Largo Mother Arrested For Death of 2-Year-Old Son

Largo Police Receive More Than 60 Tips On Missing 2-Year-Old

Police Search For 2-Year-Old Missing From Largo

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