'I still deal with nightmares': Former foster child recalls Eckerd Connects experiences
TAMPA, Fla. - After the Pinellas Sheriff's Office announced an investigation into one of the county's state-contracted foster care and social services agencies, those who have been through the system are sharing their experiences being forced to stay overnight in offices not meant for housing children.
Senior-level managers at Eckerd Connects, the foster care agency serving Pinellas, Pasco, and Hillsborough counties, are under criminal investigation after revelations about how children in the agency's care were allegedly being treated. The state and Eckerd announced earlier this week that they were no longer partnering in the 3-county area to provide those services.
Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Thursday, on occasions when the agency was unable to find a place for children to stay after being removed from their homes, the children were forced to sleep in office buildings, unsupervised, with dirty clothes, and without proper facilities or food.
The sheriff said an average of six children a night were in this circumstance.
But after one child overdosed while staying at the Eckerd building and another fell from the roof onto a metal shard and needed to be hospitalized, the sheriff's office opened an investigation.
FOX 13 spoke with 25-year-old Asia Stephens, who says she was a foster child in Eckerd Connects between the ages of 9 and 14.
"I got jumped on, I got beat on in multiple homes, and also experienced being touched," Stephens said. "It’s a lot of stuff that goes on in these homes and caseworkers are very aware of it and they don’t do anything about it."
She says her experience was traumatizing and she still deals with the effects a decade later.
"I still deal with nightmares, I deal with all types of things, I cry at night, it’s horrible," said Stephens.
The chair of Eckerd’s board told FOX 13 News Thursday that caseworkers have been forced to do what they can with the resources available and the problems stem from drastic underfunding from the state.
Eckerd Connects board chair Ray Ferrara said, for example, Hillsborough County serves nearly 1,500 children more than Miami-Dade County but receives $20 million less in state funding.
"Without the proper funding, we have not been able to do the kind of job and provide the kind of services," Ferrara said.
The sheriff said that’s no excuse.
Late Thursday, Eckerd also issued a written statement: "Eckerd Connects takes extremely seriously the criminal investigation announced today by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. Eckerd will provide its full cooperation to the sheriff’s office in its investigation. Eckerd Connects’ mission is to support the health and wellbeing of children and families in need in the Tampa Bay area, and we will not tolerate any acts of neglect or abuse by any of our staff or subcontracted agencies."