DCS let kids remain in foster home it rejected
Mom continues quest for state-promised aid
The state determined Natasha Shimp no longer was fit to hold a foster license. Yet, the Department of Child Safety left three small children in her care for 11⁄2 years; one of them is still with her.
Since then, the former Tempe foster mother has been on a dogged quest to collect the thousands of dollars in foster payments she says she’s entitled to for the children’s care.
Last week, a day after The Arizona
Republic inquired about DCS’ foster-licensing process, the agency notified Shimp that she would be paid for 151⁄2 months of care for two children, a sum that could amount to about $20,000.
The DCS said, essentially, that it had goofed.
Shimp’s case may not be the only
one.
“We originally considered a license closed after it had expired, regardless if a person was appealing a licensing decision,” the agency said in a statement Friday.
But after reviewing their own rule, staffers concluded a license remains valid until the appeal is finished. That is the case for other government actions that get appealed.
The pending payment doesn’t stop the questions.
Shimp says the money won’t mollify her; she still has issues about her foster license and how the system works.
But the resolution exposes an apparent conundrum: How can one side of the sprawling agency take away a foster license for numerous violations but still deem the children safe to stay in that very home?
The answer: It can, but it can’t throttle back the payments meant for the children’s care without allowing an appeal.
Shimp got her foster license in late August 2014. A single woman, she had looked into being a Valley Big Sister, but couldn’t find a good fit.
She’d heard stories of the child-welfare crisis, of kids sleeping in state offices for lack of foster placements.
“I had a six-month window that I didn’t have a lot going on in life and I thought I could help some children,” she said.
Three days after getting her license, the DCS placed a 21-month-old boy with her. Nearly four years later, he’s still there. She’s now his permanent guardian.
A year after her first placement, another little boy joined her home. She said it was supposed to be a “respite stay” of only six days, but he didn’t leave. Three months later, his infant sister joined him. She was 1 month old.
“I feel like the grace of God is in me to continue to care for all these kids and keep them safe,” said Shimp, 39. “I mean, it’s never been about the money. It’s been literally about making sure these kids are safe.”
But money soon became an issue. As the two-year expiration date on her license approached, she applied for a renewal.
The agency’s licensing office denied it, citing numerous violations of policy. The denial letter faulted her for being difficult to work with, appearing to put her own needs above those of the children, lacking “maturity, judgement and stability.”
The letter also cited an unsubstantiated instance of physical abuse involving a child’s finger being caught in a door, something Shimp contends was an accident, not a deliberate act.
At the same time, the DCS left the children in her home, reclassifying her status as an “unlicensed, non-relative” placement. That meant the monthly maintenance payments she received for the children’s care plunged from $630 per child to $30.
Shimp promptly appealed. She argued — correctly, as it turns out — that she was eligible for the higher maintenance payments until her appeal was exhausted. That happened in November, when DCS Director Greg McKay upheld most of the findings from an administrative-appeal judge, who determined Shimp should lose her license.
She accepted the denial, but continued to press for the payments for the 151⁄2 months her appeal was being considered.
Shimp’s case is rare, but not unique. There were 4,881 foster homes in Arizona as of Dec. 31, according to DCS reports. Over the past two calendar years, only eight foster homes were denied a license renewal and appealed.
Of those, two of the homes had children who remained living there. One was Shimp’s, which, along with the other home, was dropped to the lower maintenance payment, although last week’s developments may change that. It’s unclear what happened with any children who might have been in the other six homes. The DCS did not respond to queries about their status.
Jennifer Wydra, head of the agency’s Office of Licensing and Regulation, at first said she was unsure whether a foster license remained active while its denial was being appealed.
“I don’t think I can answer it 100 percent because of this pending policy we have,” she said, referring to policies that are under construction following a reorganization of the office last fall.
But the agency later cited an existing rule that’s been on the books since December 2015:
A license shall:
1. Be valid for the period of time specified on the license, and
2. Expire at midnight of the expiration date if the applicant does not apply for a renewal license in accordance with this Article.
That article goes on to state that the denial does not take effect until the appeal has been exhausted.
Wydra said new policies are being written to address issues that have been brought up by the current situation, although she declined to talk about specific cases.
There are good reasons why a child might stay in a foster home, even it has lost its license or let it lapse, Wydra said.
For example, a judge’s order determines where a child is placed. Even with a denied license, a judge may be fine with leaving the child in the former foster home.
If the license is denied because of minor violations, even if they’re repeated over time, children are not necessarily unsafe, the DCS said in a statement. Also, moving from home to home to home is generally harmful to a child’s well-being, so the agency tries to minimize changing placements, it said.
The downside of continuing to care for kids without a foster license is the drop in financial support.
Shimp turned to the Juvenile Court this year to plead her case for payment for her care of the first child placed with her, who is now 5 years old.
When she told the judge that her support was reduced to a 53-cent-a-day clothing allowance per child in July 2016, he was shocked.
“Well, I think it’s incorrect to say that 53 cents a day is under the circumstances is enough to care for a pet fish,” Judge Arthur Anderson said, according to a transcript provided by Shimp.
He later ruled that the DCS pay Shimp the full foster-care maintenance amount of about $9,000. The DCS objected and took the matter to the Court of Appeals, but then dropped the appeal and cut her a check for the full amount.
Emboldened, Shimp pressed on for relief for the cost of caring for the other two children in her home.
She emailed and called various DCS offices to the point that some staffers said they felt harassed. She pored over laws and regulations, piled up paperwork, appealed through a foster-care advocate to Gov. Doug Ducey’s office and went to the state Supreme Court.
The fight has been costly. Even with help from friends and family, Shimp said caring for the three children at the lower rate created a financial strain.
“We don’t have bubble bath anymore, we don’t do hot chocolate,” she said. Parenting, she said, is expensive.
“It is a relief on one level,” she said of the pending payment. She estimates she’s spent thousands more than the payment will give her. But check or no check, she said she’s not done.
“They need to figure out their system issues,” Shimp said. “That’s my reason for pushing forward.”