The Sarasota Family YMCA will not compete for a $150 million, three-year state contract next summer to run child welfare services in Pinellas and Pasco counties. ...more

November 7, 2007

William Naiden William Naiden, 52, suffers from schizoaffective disorder. He left New Hampshire two years ago in pursuit of warm weather. ...more

November 2, 2007

Disabled by strokes, mental illness or the frailties of old age, residents of the Daphne Jones Boarding Home arrived at their most vulnerable. ...more

November 2, 2007

Department of Children and Families Secretary Bob Butterworth has one of the toughest jobs in state government, but after just 10 months on the job, he's brought refreshing change to an agency that's been short on transparency and long on excuses. ...more

November 1, 2007

Bob Butterworth recently stood before more than two dozen child welfare leaders and told them the experiment that put private agencies in charge of Florida's social services system is a success. ...more

October 29, 2007

In July 2002, a new Florida law made lying about visiting children in state care a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. ...more

October 21, 2007

JACKSONVILLE - The group charged with cleaning up the state's foster care system after one child went missing and another was found dead released its first recommendations for change Wednesday. Ideas ranged from collecting DNA samples from foster children to allow better tracking to ensuring all adults living in a foster home have background checks to following up on previous requirements from the Department of Children & Families that foster care children be seen on a monthly basis. ...more

October 11, 2007

Lawsuit settlements have cost Florida nearly $200 million in the past decade, more than a third of it in payouts over child welfare cases, a newspaper reported Sunday. ...more

October 1, 2007