Group wary that multiple accusations of abuse against mother of Christiana Glenn were determined to be unfounded Watch video
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Krisla Rezireksyon Kris (Venette Ovilde), 29, left, and Myriam Janvier, 23, made their first court appearances in connection with the death of an 8-year-old Irvington girl.TRENTON — The court-appointed monitor for New Jersey’s child welfare agency called on the Christie administration Tuesday to release more details about the agency’s involvement with the family of an 8-year-old girl who died last month of malnutrition and untreated broken leg.
The court monitor as well as the group Advocates for Children also urged the state to determine why investigators for the Division of Youth and Family Services have confirmed far fewer abuse and neglect complaints since 2005.
DYFS investigated the mother of the dead girl, Christiana Glenn, four times from 2006 to 2008 based on accusations that she beat her three children and left them unsupervised, and each time determined the allegations were unfounded.
"Four unfounded complaints are a huge red flag," said Nancy Parello, a spokeswoman for the advocates’ organization, who wrote the report released today that examined trends in DYFS investigations. "If investigations were not properly conducted, the outcome might have been different for these kids."
Judith Meltzer of the Center for Study of Social Policy, a research organizations in Washington, D.C., said she agreed with many of the report’s findings and called on the department to be more forthcoming about its involvement with the family.
"They ought to provide information about when they saw the children, who else they talked to, what services they provided, and most importantly, the condition of the children and family when they last had contact in May 2008," said Meltzer, who was appointed to monitor DYFS operations after the state settled a class-action lawsuit in 2003. "The reason confidentiality laws exist is theoretically to protect the children and family, but in these cases that result in a child’s death, I think the compelling reasons for disclosure outweigh any potential downside."
A spokeswoman for Allison Blake, commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, which oversees DYFS, said she was reviewing the report and had no comment.
The department’s own data should compel DYFS to look more closely at a family with a history of unfounded complaints and track it every year, according to the report.
From 2004 to 2008, which includes the most recent data available, the number of children found to have been mistreated by parents cleared of a complaint six months earlier rose from 811 children in 2004 to 1,216 children – "an alarming 50 percent," according to the report.
What’s more, there might have been more confirmed cases of abuse had DYFS not changed how it classifies cases. The percentage of child abuse claims corraborated by DYFS investigators fell from 17 percent in 2005 to 10 percent in 2009, according to the report, since DYFS eliminated a category that had become a catch-all for investigators who suspected foul play but couldn’t prove it.
"It is possible that DYFS, community organizations and other state agencies are doing a better job preventing child abuse," the report said, " ... or it could be investigators are not uncovering enough evidence to prove abuse has occurred. The recent tragic death of 8-year-old Christiana Glenn calls attention to this issue."
New details have emerged about an unsuccessful attempt in 2009 by the girl’s godmother to get court-approved visitation rights.
Christiana, who was 6 at that time, told a court-appointed psychologist, Carla Foster, that her mother sometimes hit her with a belt and a brush, according to a court-ordered evaluation obtained by The Star-Ledger. Judge Siobhan A. Teare of the Essex County Family division later denied the godmother, Mary McCoy, visitation rights.
Foster wrote that Christiana looked her age and was a "friendly, outgoing youngster," noted that the girl’s mother would benefit from counseling, and suggested the state investigate the girl’s home-schooling situation. New Jersey law does not require parents to notify the school district when they decide to home-school their children.
According to friends, family and neighbors, Christiana and her brother Solomon, 6, and her sister Christina, 7, were taught by Emanyel Rezireksyon Kris, a 37-year-old self-proclaimed pastor who shrouds himself in white and oversees the day-to-day lives of his followers.
The children’s mother, Venette Ovilde, 29, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated manslaughter and child endangerment charges; her roommate, Myriam Janvier, 24, pleaded not guilty to child endangerment charges.
By Susan Livio and Ryan Hutchins/The Star-Ledger
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