Welcome to

Florida’s Department of Children and Families says there will be no quick fix in ensuring child safety. As Matt Galka tells us, the fallout from the deaths of a child and teenager in the past week is prompting change.

Florida’s Governor was troubled by two tragic incidents involving a child and teenager in the past week.

“You just can’t imagine these things happening. I have grandchildren. The first thing you think about is the family. My prayers go out to them,” said Governor Rick Scott.

The two incidents: one in ColumbiaCounty where a 16 year old boy was allegedly shot and killed by his younger sisters, and the other in St. Petersburg where a father was seen throwing his 5 year old daughter off a bridge to her death, has called into question the Department of Children and Families oversight of both family situations.

“The Secretary Mike Carroll reviews each situation. We’re sending, the young girl that was thrown off the bridge, he has a rapid response team. He’s already made some changes, but he’ll continue to look at every situation and make any additional changes he needs to make,” said Scott.

The DCF Secretary said preventing future tragedies wouldn’t be a quick process.

In both cases, there were red flags.  Reports of sexual abuse and neglect from Columbia County; possible mental illness in St. Petersburg.  Secretary Mike Carroll has already changed protocol. The department will need to meet with a parent and victim within four hours of a hotline call dealing with a mental health episode.

“I don’t want anybody to think that some of the fixes we make in the short term is a magic bullet and is going to make the system forward. We changed the hotline so that we’ll handle a call differently, trigger a different type of response,” said Carroll.

He vowed that his department would do a better job of identifying mental health and substance abuse.

“We have got to do a better job within the system of being able to identify that, being able to engage those folks and understanding the impact that has with child safety,” he said.

The agency is currently investigating both situations to see if they could have handled things differently. The reports in both incidents should be ready in about a month.