Dozens of Georgia foster children were dropped from state custody while they were missing from care, even after the state eliminated a policy allowing the practice, a Channel 2 Action News investigation uncovered.
The previous policy, which was eliminated in December of 2016, allowed the division to ask a judge to remove DFCS as the guardian of a child in temporary foster care when the minor was missing for more than six months.
Channel 2 found more than 50 instances where foster children were “removed from custody” before their 18th birthday since the policy change, which Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services has pledged to review.
In a statement, DFCS said the agency is reviewing those closed cases and the agency is drafting a clarification of its policy for staff.
Each year, nearly 400 Georgia foster children under the care of the state disappear. An average of 30 a year turn 18 while they are missing from care. DFCS listed those missing foster teens as “emancipated” in records provided to Channel 2 in an open records request.
Records show that some are missing because they run away to visit family or friends, then return to care. Other children encounter something much grimmer.
Michael Franks thought his sister, 17-year-old Dennetta Franks, was visiting family when she ran away from foster care in September of 2017.
“She called me, she was real frantic, she said she needed help. She said she needed to get out of there,” Franks said.
Franks had previously fostered a younger brother, but was deployed by the U.S. Army when Dennetta went into DFCS custody. DFCS denied Franks guardianship of Dennetta because of his military deployment.
When he received Dennetta’s call he learned she was living in a Columbus hotel while DFCS looked for long-term care.
When Dennetta ran away last September, she asked her brother to drive her to Atlanta.
“I knew she wanted to see my dad,” Franks told Carr. “That’s the only reason I took her there. I didn’t know that would be the biggest mistake I’d make.”
Days after arriving in the city, Dennetta was found shot to death in northwest Atlanta.
Franks learned of his sister’s murder when a friend send him a composite drawing made by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He said he immediately knew the girl in the picture was Dennetta.
“I just felt like I failed her,” Franks said. “I know it wasn’t my fault, but I felt like I wasn’t there to protect her because I was always away.”
DFCS Chief of Staff Jeff Lukich said every child that dies while in the state’s care is a blow.
“That’s a light that goes out, and we should all be concerned,” Lukich said.
Lukich said finding quality foster parents is a challenge for the Division. He said DFCS uses hotels on a short-term basis as a last resort. According to her DFCS case file, Dennetta lived in a hotel for nearly three months.
“She was a child that had a history of running away,” Lukich said. “She’s a child that had a lot of specific needs as well.”
After Channel 2 revealed 54 foster children under the age of 18 were dropped from care after the policy change, a DFCS spokesperson said in a statement that the office will review “these specific cases to determine the reason they left foster care, and to see what we might learn.”
A change in federal law in 2014 mandates all state agencies that serve as guardian for children in foster care must report missing children to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
“The fact is that when they’re discharged, and their cases are closed at the social services level, that’s concerning because that means no one is now looking for them,” said Robert Lowery, vice president of the NCMEC’s missing children division.
Children who went missing when leaving DFCS custody before their 18 th birthday
2012: 17
2013: 31
2014: 28
2015: 37
2016: 41
2017: 42
2018: 12
