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Baby Suffers Brain Damage
in DSS Custody in Joyce Morris’ Foster Home on Cape Cod

Violence not ‘reported’; Foster home still operating

After Time magazine published a cover story about violence against children in foster care in November, we hoped Gov. Cellucci and the legislature would stop their denials.

Time’s headline said that foster care is “a system in shambles.”

Sadly, the story hasn’t had any effect in Massachusetts where the Governor is preoccupied with moving to Washington and the Legislature doesn’t seem to care.

By Nev Moore
January 2001

President, Justice for Families
When an old friend told me in November 1998 that her grandchild was in foster care at the home of Joyce Morris in Pocasset, I wanted to yell, “Get that baby out of there immediately!”

But I didn’t, of course, because there was no way she would be able to do so. I advised her to work with the baby’s attorney to get him moved to another home.

Sadly, she called right before Thanksgiving to report that the baby had been taken to Falmouth Hospital with a head injury, then flown to Children’s Hospital with a shunt in his brain and was in intensive care there. My friend informed me that the baby was special needs and had previously had problems with water on the brain. But somehow he had received acute trauma to the head that sent him into a critical condition. The foster mother, Joyce Morris, reported, “Someone dropped the baby.”

I had previously heard terrible stories from former children who had been sent to Morris’ home and witnessed babies being thrown. I felt that I had to inform the doctors at Children’s Hospital of those facts.

I spoke with Dr. Christoforo, who was the neurologist in charge of my friend’s grandchild. I told him the history of that foster home and offered to fax up an 18-page abuse report that the Visiting Nurses Association had filed about the poor conditions there. He asked why I was calling him. I said that I felt the hospital should have this information so that they could investigate the potential of child abuse. He said that he was not interested in hearing it or seeing the reports on that foster mother. I had not caught his first name so I asked him again. He refused to repeat his name. I asked him if he was refusing, as a mandated reporter, to take information on the potentially criminal abuse of my friend’s grandbaby. He said, “Mrs. Moore, this conversation is not taking place,” and he hung up on me.

Home Was Infamous
I knew about the Morris home because I had spoken with several young adults who had passed through it when they were children and were abused themselves or witnessed abuse. Their stories covered about a ten-year span and they did not know each other. One of them witnessed a baby being thrown against a wall. This home “specialized” in handicapped kids, so it received a much larger fee as well as the children’s social security checks. Morris is a former social worker from the Plymouth DSS office.

The Visiting Nurses filed an 18-page abuse report which detailed the abuse that was witnessed by several of their employees over a two-year span. The report was thrown away by DSS and no action taken.

But we obtained the report and sent copies to most of the state reps and all major media in Massachusetts. The aide to state Representative Louis Kafka called to say she, Perry Conner, was outraged by the report and the fact that it had been screened out by DSS. She informed me that they were initiating an emergency investigation and for me to have documentation and witnesses ready to be called up to the Statehouse any day. That was two years ago. We never heard anything further.

Channel Five’s “Investigative Team” called to say that they had spoken with the foster mother on the telephone and, “She sounded like a nice woman.” They did not speak with the Visiting Nurses or with the former foster children who had been in the home. End of investigation.

The Area Director of DSS, Steve Ryan, was upset. He wanted to know how we got a copy of the VNA report. He even sent the state police to our house in an attempt to discover that.

A year later, I heard that the police had removed five of the eleven children that were in that foster home to bring it into compliance with the square-footage-per-child requirements. Other than that, it continues business as usual.

Abuse of Children in DSS Custody is Rampant
When we began advocating for parents over three years ago, the issue of fostercare abuse became immediately evident.

Parents would go to their one-hour supervised visits at DSS offices and discover that their young children complained to them of being hit, grabbed, sat on, yelled at and spanked by the foster parents. In most of the cases, the parents had not been alleged to have committed any violence of that sort.

They were reporting extensive bruising, including fingerprint and handmark bruises, and fingernail gouges on their children. In some cases the state police removed the children from those foster homes. But the homes stayed open for business even though they had been the subjects of dozens of abuse reports filed against them over the years. Children were making these disclosures in the presence of social workers, who ignored the physical evidence as well as the children’s statements, and took the children back to the foster home after the visit.

Imagine being in these parents’ shoes –  your five year old child has finger mark bruises and nail gouges on him. He has just told you that his foster father picks the children up by the hair and throws them into the corner –  and you have to send your child back there.

When parents try to file a 51-A (abuse report) to DSS they are accused of being “hostile” and “vindictive.” Any abuse reports filed against foster homes or DSS-contracted residential facilities, even if filed by a professional source such as police, paramedics or visiting nurses, are consistently screened-out.

I have sat with a mother while her five- and seven-year-old sons described being picked up by the arms and hair by the foster father and thrown into the corner. The five-year-old told us that his “room” in the foster home was a blanket on the kitchen floor. This was confirmed by his older brother.

They both related that they were spanked with their pants down when they were “bad.” The younger boy also told us about “living in the closet” where it was dark and “the door handle wouldn’t open.”

Another Abusive Home in Pocasset
Another abusive home in Pocasset is that of Dorothy Borowski.

Some area residents relayed to us that for years they have seen Borowski yank, drag, and scream at the kids, including screaming at four- and five-year-old siblings: “Your mother’s dead. You’re never going to see your mother again!” Luckily, these kids are now safely back home with their very much alive mother.

The neighbors also told us that the foster mom sits outside the back door when she smokes her marijuana. This particular home is so bad and so notorious that a group of ethical foster parents gathered together and went to the Yarmouth DSS office where they demanded that DSS Area Director Ryan close down this home. They were ignored.

Many adolescent and teen fosterkids who have been in this home have independently reported the abuse to DSS, the police, even to the Cape Cod Times and WXTK radio. I personally know of several new 51-A’s filed against this particular home in the past year, one for a baby being kicked in the face and seriously bruised. There has been no investigation by law enforcement, no charges filed and the home is still open.

Teens Sent to ‘Snake Pits’
The older adolescents and teens end up in brutal residential homes - snake pits - where the use of heavy drugging, “take-downs,” floor restraints and the “24 hour chair” are everyday occurrences – even though they violate federal restraint regulations. Very few outsiders get into these places. Parents of the children rarely know where DSS has put their child, let alone are allowed to visit in these facilities. So there are no witnesses to the broken arms and fingers, the bruises and rug burns on our children’s faces. There is no one to call the police. The kids do not have access to phones - and, even if they did, who would they call?

A state police sergeant recently told me that even they have no power against DSS. So, if a child was able to get to a phone and call the state police to report that they were being drugged and battered in a DSS facility, the police have to file that report back to DSS - where it gets thrown in the dumpster. The only thing that gets accomplished is that DSS learns where to plug their leaks.

Just Like the Old Mental Hospitals
I was recently reading the history of some of the old, state mental hospitals in Massachusetts and a group of people who lobbied to have the unmarked graves on their grounds identified. I read of an eight-year-old boy who somehow ended up in Danvers because he stole some trivial thing. He was forgotten and spent his life there, as did so many others. We think of these atrocities as something that happened back at the turn of the century. But, they are happening here and now.

How many more unknown graves are there? There are about 12,000 children in DSS custody. They seize 10,000 children a year in Massachusetts. They “lose” around 400 per year according to the Legal Services Reporter. Others become homeless when they age-out of the system and are thrown onto the streets. How many are lost and unknown in residentials and mental hospitals where they are tucked away and forgotten?

To add to the tragedy, the majority were never abused by their parents in the first place.

They certainly were never subjected to the treatment they receive once in DSS custody. If the parents committed the same acts that are perpetrated by DSS-contracted caretakers, they would be charged and sent to prison for assault & battery.

Governor Cellucci doesn’t want to hear about DSS’ “few mistakes,” i.e., the 74 children that we know of, who have died in DSS “protective” care in the past four years. For three years we have been informing the legislators and media of the abuse and fatalities of children in DSS custody in Massachusetts. No one cares. I have repeatedly asked Senator Therese Murray, as Chair of Health & Human Services, for the data on the fatalities of children in DSS custody. Her aide told me: “We don’t have those statistics.” Well who does? Who is keeping track of our children? Are they just burying the bodies in the back yard?

Related:
DSS: Social Engineers of the Brave New World