Social Worker Checked Up on Family

Employee Acted Properly Before Baby's Death, Agency Says

A 5-month-old boy, found dead Monday morning after sleeping on a couch with his 15-year-old mother, had been visited by a social worker who spoke to the teenage mother about proper sleeping arrangements, according to the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency.

The boy, who has not been identified, was part of the agency's backlog of 2,000 incomplete cases, but a CFSA news release emphasized that the social worker in the case acted appropriately.

The death of the boy, whose age CFSA previously reported as 4 months, marked the third fatality case under the agency's watch in six months.

His death in his Southeast Washington home occurred the same day that Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) grilled CFSA acting Director Sharlynn E. Bobo on the backlog and the death of 6-month-old Isiah Garcia. Isiah died June 25.

The causes of death for Isiah and the unnamed infant have not been released. Isiah's family said they were initially told it was suffocation. Wells explained that Monday's death might have also been suffocation, because the mother might have rolled on the infant as they slept.

CFSA's backlog began ballooning in January, after the discovery of the badly decomposed bodies of four sisters increased the volume of calls about abuse and neglect. In Isiah's case, a social worker was fired because she had failed to visit the boy, who had been reported neglected in late March. The supervisor in that case was placed on administrative leave. In the case of Banita Jacks's daughters, six workers were fired.

The case of the 5-month-old was different, according to CFSA. A report came April 29 that "an infant was not getting regular checkups."

CFSA gave this account:

The social worker visited the home the next day and the following day, May 1, and left information on the door about contacting her, because no one was home. That Sunday, the boy's maternal grandfather called the social worker on her cellphone, and the social worker saw the family May 5.

She found that the mother and her child had not received medical checkups since birth and that the mother and a sibling did not go to school regularly.

The social worker also saw that the child had been sleeping in a car seat and got the mother to agree to place the infant on his back in a bassinet. She contacted a local program to get a crib and set up medical care for the infant, the mother and her sibling. This included a May 30 home visit from two registered nurses to talk about infant care.

By June 2, the social worker found that the family had gotten a portable crib on its own.