Pubdate: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 Source: Montgomery Advertiser (AL) Copyright: 2006 The Advertiser Co. Contact: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/customerservice/letter.htm Website: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1088 Note: Letters from the newspaper's circulation area receive publishing priority DHR ALTERS POLICIES IN WAKE OF DEATH BIRMINGHAM -- Department of Human Resources officials have changed some procedures following the death of a 1-year-old who was returned to his mother despite her positive drug test. The agency also denied a former worker's claims that DHR could have prevented the death. Janet Justice, a former Jefferson County DHR child abuse and neglect supervisor, said the department's mistakes helped put Dominic Ware in harm's way. The baby died one month after a Family Court judge returned him to the custody of his mother, Sandra Ware, at DHR's request. On March 11, emergency workers responding to a call found Dominic unconscious at an Ensley home. Police noticed bruises on the child's face. Dominic never woke up, and he died the next day in Children's Hospital. Ware's ex-boyfriend, 24-year-old Jorge Latrice Carter, goes on trial Nov. 27 on a charge of capital murder. A Jefferson County grand jury indictment in June alleges Carter killed Dominic by beating him with an unknown object. DHR Commissioner Page Walley told The Birmingham News in a story for Friday's editions that the agency has improved procedures for verifying drug tests and now requires that all potential perpetrators of abuse be listed on the Child Abuse and Neglect report. Walley also disputed some of Justice's claims and questioned her credibility as a disgruntled former employee. Justice's comments were included in a four-page affidavit filed in a long-running federal court case that placed DHR under a consent decree to improve services to abused and neglected children. DHR has asked the federal court to lift the decree because it says it has made improvements required by the court. Justice's affidavit is part of the plaintiffs' argument to keep the decree in force and outlines findings from her investigation after Dominic's death. DHR sent Dominic to live with his great-grandmother in July 2005 after he suffered an unexplained black eye. Ware was ordered to take a drug test and three older children also were removed from the home. Those children were returned to Ware after a hearing and Dominic was returned in February at DHR's request. However, the department had never gotten Ware's test results to provide to the court. Justice said she requested the results after Dominic's death and it indicated cocaine use. "If the protective services unit (of DHR) had obtained the results of the drug test as required in a timely manner in advance of the February 2006 court hearing, the court would have possessed additional relevant information and likely would not have returned custody of the children to the mother," Justice said in the affidavit. "As a result, in my opinion, Jefferson County DHR could have prevented the toddler from dying." Justice started work with DHR in February 2003 and resigned in April. According to DHR, a complaint she filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was dismissed. Justice said she decided not to pursue it. Her affidavit says DHR also failed to make monthly unannounced visits to Ware's home, and failed to interview Carter. Ware said DHR required her to take a drug test, but she never learned the results. She said she did not use cocaine. But Carter, her boyfriend at the time of Dominic's death, used cocaine regularly before his arrest, according to a motion filed in Carter's criminal case by his lawyer, John Robbins. Ware said DHR made one or two unannounced visits to her home, but she did not know whether DHR talked to Carter before returning Dominic to her custody. She said she would not have allowed Carter to be around Dominic if she had considered him dangerous. "I would have put him in check," Ware said. "He would not have been around my child." - --- MAP posted-by: Derek