The gut-wrenching starvation death of 7-year-old Chandler Grafner needs to serve as a wakeup call to all schools, teachers and social service agencies in Colorado.
The public agencies created to protect our most vulnerable citizens failed him. In three different counties.
In the end, a little boy slowly wasted away of hunger and neglect. He died on May 6 after being imprisoned in a tiny closet by his guardians.
More than three months earlier, Denver Human Services decided that a school official’s report that the little boy had bruises and might have been abused by the man caring for him was “unfounded.”
Nineteen days before the boy died, the same agency ignored another school report that Chandler had missed school for more than a month. They didn’t investigate. A more timely report by the school or a visit by a caseworker may have revealed an emaciated little boy. Denver Human Services director Roxane White said the agency was told he was being home-schooled. She couldn’t provide documentation on when or who told them.
A state review released last week outlines the failures. Karen Beye, executive director of the Colorado Department of Human Services, indicated that county agencies did not contribute to the little boy’s death. But all three department of human service agencies in Arapahoe, Jefferson and Denver counties were lax in one way or another. Strong and decisive action by one of those agencies might very well have saved the little boy.
Was it ineptness? Indifference? Caseworkers overworked?
Whatever the reason, multiple failures up and down the line were inexcusable. Agencies failed to follow up on complaints and to share information across counties. Had there been better communication among county officials and the state, alarm bells would have had to go off somewhere.
If a school notifies an agency with a concern about a child and that agency fails to respond, they must seek another avenue, whether it be going directly to state officials or to the police, which had been notified in January. Better follow-up is critical in every case involving potential abuse.
School officials should have hounded child protection workers or the police if they believed the boy was in danger – and someone obviously thought he was.
More than two years before he died, at the age of 4, Chandler had expressed fear of the man caring for him, Jon Phillips, who had voluntarily taken custody of him. Phillips is the father of Chandler’s half- brother. Phillips and his common-law wife Sarah Berry have been charged with first-degree murder.
Arapahoe County was the first to investigate neglect, and the report criticized two of its practices. Jefferson County later placed the child with Phillips and Berry without a comprehensive assessment and despite warnings from the boy’s birth mother, who had lost custody, that he was abusive and might hurt the boy. Jefferson County was cited for five violations of state policy, Denver with one.
The state is requiring all three counties to draw up corrective action plans within 45 days. It’s too late for Chandler, but maybe not for the next child. In the future, Denver officials say police or a social worker will respond in person to child welfare referrals from a school. If only Chandler had received the benefit of such foresight.
