SARASOTA - The Sarasota Family YMCA's top foster care administrator officially resigned from the agency today. ...more

December 10, 2007

Imagine you are a teenage foster child who has been in the system so long you have little or no memory of your biological parents. ...more

December 4, 2007

SEBRING - Sheriff Susan Benton confirmed today that the Highlands County Sheriff's Office was searching the county landfill for a fetus or full-term baby that might have been put there by a Lake Placid woman. ...more

November 28, 2007

Something odd happened when Bob Butterworth called a "press availability" in the Capitol rotunda last spring to announce excessive force might have been used at a Panhandle juvenile detention facility. ...more

November 25, 2007

Excerpts from the commission's first public hearing: ...more

November 24, 2007

For years, many mentally ill Floridians without the means to obtain proper treatment have gotten into trouble and ended up in our county jails or state prisons. Until recently, lawmakers have looked the other way. ...more

November 20, 2007

The father of a newborn baby boy surrendered by his mother to the Lake Wales Fire Department wants the child back, according to published reports. The father told authorities that he had not known the mother was turning over the child in accordance with Florida's safe haven for newborns law, The Ledger newspaper reported. ...more

November 17, 2007

AVON PARK — An Avon Park man was free Friday on $50,000 bail, after he was charged with child abuse in the case of a 3-year-old girl. Also a Sebring man was freed on his own recognizance Friday in a third child cruelty case involving a teenage victim. Jeff Roth, director of the Children's Advocacy Center, which provides victim counseling and family referrals, said his agency has definately seen an increase of activity over the last few weeks, but he doesn't know why. "It has been a busy, busy time down here," he said. "Something's in the water, or a bad phase of the moon - I haven't had time to even think what's going on." David Robert Metz, 34, of Avon Park, became a suspect in the case when Avon Park police received a report of child abuse on Nov. 13 that was made to the Department of Children and Families regarding a 3-year-old victim who had a large bruise on her face and nose and a scratch under her chin. ...more

November 17, 2007

Former Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne's descent from political power to federal prison is one of those sad tales that happens when people in public office come to believe the rules don't apply to them. ...more

November 17, 2007

SEBRING — Every Thursday, representatives from all aspects of child abuse sit around the conference room of the Children's Advocacy Center to discuss open cases and devise plans of action. It's a far cry from when the Children's Services Council was created in 1990. "We couldn't get any questions answered because everything was confidential and secret," said Ruth Handley, a founding member of the council. Things started to change when the Children's Advocacy Center opened in 1997 and things became increasingly better coordinated. With the Highlands County Sheriff's Office Special Victims Unit moving in Dec. 1, even more services will be centralized in the building that helps about 500 children per year. ...more

November 16, 2007