ALBANY, GA -
Georgia is facing pressure to improve its child welfare system.
Child advocates say the state needs to do more to identify potentially deadly situations and protect children in those homes. Last year, Dougherty County's Child Death Investigation team investigated 10 deaths. Half of those children had some history with the Division of Family and Children Services.
In 2010 there were 594 child death cases in Georgia, all of those cases are under review by child death investigation teams across the state, looking for ways those types of deaths can be prevented in the future.
During Tuesday's Juvenile Court in Dougherty County, Court Appointed Special Advocates or CASA expected the judge to place more children in their custody as abuse and neglect allegations work their way through the court system.
"We usually can get two or three children added to our case load at that time," said Holli Reksten, CASA Communications Coordinator/Advocate.
They work hand in hand with the Division of Family and Children Services to care for children, including the sibling of 19-month old Janaysia Stevenson who was murdered last year, investigators say by her mother's boyfriend.
"A lot of times those children are being followed by DFACS and DFACS has close contact with them but children are brought into care for those cases of abuse or neglect or even child deaths in some cases with some of the siblings," said Reksten.
In 2011 there were 10 child deaths investigated in Dougherty County, 4 co-sleeping deaths, two homicides, one baby found stillborn in the trash, a Dougherty Middle School Student who died during a sports activity, the unexplained death at Byne Daycare, and an infant born in the family's bathtub who later died. That case remains under investigation.
"In those 10 cases, the majority, half were receiving public assistance," said Greg Blackmon, Child Death Investigation Team Chairman.
Some however had other involvement with DFCS counselors.
"We had three cases that were they had CPS history, but no one was currently under investigation, there were cases that had open cases with them," said Blackmon.
The Child Death Investigation Team is still reviewing what DFCS' involvement was with the families involved in the shooting death of 13 year old Darious Wallace earlier this month. The team conducts a thorough investigation of all deaths looking for any type of weakness in the system, to prevent future incidents from happening.
CASA says they try to have an advocate for every child put in their care as the result of negligence or abuse. Some times they care for as many as 80 kids at a time. Right now they have 64 in their custody. Our calls to DFCS here in Dougherty County and to Atlanta went unanswered.
Statewide last year, there were 92 child deaths in which DFCS had had previously worked with the families of those children.
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