CASA Christmas gift issue now ‘accounted for’

It appears the Arkansas Department of Human Services moved quickly to resolve the issue of misappropriated Christmas gifts intended for a few children in Sebastian County.

On Wednesday (Jan. 5) it was first reported that Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) officials in Sebastian County were angry about Christmas gifts they purchased for children being allegedly  “misappropriated” by state employees of the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS).

On Thursday evening, Julian Holloway, director of the Arkansas CASA Association, told The City Wire she believed DCFS Director Cecile Blucker would soon have the problem resolved.

Soon, indeed.

A report sent Friday morning from Arkansas Department of Health & Human Services spokeswoman Julie Munsell noted that the gifts “have been accounted for,” and cited communication issues as a reason for the confusion.

Munsell noted: “The overarching issue here is the lack of communication between staff of both agencies. There were 4 cases in question. In two of the cases the children received the same gifts but from more than one sponsor. Essentially that left duplicate gifts that were then given to other children in care. One case was literally mistaken identity. A sibling group of two with the same first name left foster care during the holiday season. Another group with the same name and the same ages came into care and the gifts were sent there by mistake.

“The last case was the one described in Julian’s previous email to Ms. Blucker. The worker received an electronic item for a child who was placed in a facility. She knew from past experience that this facility didn’t allow such items and assumed the child couldn’t accept the gift. The worker was unaware that Casa cleared it with the provider so she forwarded that gift on to another child who had also requested the same gift.

“For accountability, gifts are logged as they come into the office. In such cases where agencies supply gifts that for whatever reason are not going to the intended child, there should be a consultation with the donor about how they would like to proceed. Admittedly this did not happen here and that’s what we plan to address moving forward.”

Munsell’s report also contained a note about community generosity and what DHS must do to respect the community’s support of CASA.

“The good news is that through the generosity of the Sebastian County community, more children had a brighter Christmas; however, the increase in community support demands a better organizational plan of how the department receives and distributes those gifts to children in care,” Munsell wrote.

Munsell said there were no reported Christmas gift problems in other CASA regions, but did say the Jonesboro Police Department is reviewing the “handling of a couple of items by one employee.” She said the review is expected to be complete by the end of next week.