Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

In her report on two young Alaskans who suffered at the hands of their families and foster families, a veteran professor of social work turned to the words of John Greenleaf Whittier.

“For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’”

Had the mothers and fathers lived up to their responsibilities, the boys might have grown up in loving and secure homes.

Or had the state protected the children when the parents proved incompetent, the boys might have had a chance at a normal childhood.

But A.J. and D.D. spent their formative years in horrific circumstances, betrayed by their families and the state.

They ended up together in an Anchorage foster home in which the foster mother beat another child to death in front of them in 1999, threatening them with retribution unless they lied about what they had seen.

Peg Hess, who has a doctorate in social work and is a child welfare consultant, studied the case files on the services provided to the two boys by the state. Now 17 and 18 years old, they are referred to in the court files in Anchorage as A.J. and D.D. to protect their identities.

Her research was that of a consultant to the attorneys who sued the state on behalf of the boys, so her findings have to be seen as those of an advocate, not of an impartial arbiter.

But she is a professional with many years of experience, and if even half of what she wrote is true, the executive, legislative and judicial branches of our state government — and by extension the rest of us in Alaska — should find reason for soul-searching.

The rules of confidentiality prevent this issue from getting much public attention, but Alaskans need to know if we’re doing enough to keep children out of harm’s way.

In a reference to Whittier’s lament, Hess titled her May 10 report “What Might Have Been.” It’s a harsh indictment of two families and a state agency.

In the case of A.J. and D.D., “it might have been,” are indeed the saddest words of tongue or pen.

The attorneys for the boys sought $10 million each from the state, but settled the case with the Palin administration for $2.4 million Monday. They said they settled for what they think is an inadequate sum because the state had warned it would tie up the case for years. The boys are on the verge of adulthood and they need help to get through life, the attorneys said.

The boys will get health care and mental-health care through the Native health care system, the Anchorage Daily News reported, a benefit that lawyers cited as another factor in accepting the settlement.

Hess, who now lives in Knoxville, wrote that the state’s repeated failures to “protect, care for and serve these two children have been costly beyond measure.”

Even before the boys could walk, what was then the Division of Family and Youth Services, now the Office of Children’s Services, should have done more in response to the evidence of parental neglect, according to her report.

D.D. was born with cocaine in his system in 1989. His mother had been hospitalized while she was pregnant because of domestic violence and she had not “followed through with prenatal care,” the report said.

After more than a year in a Native foster care placement, D.D. was returned to his mother. When D.D. was 4, the mother had a second baby who also tested positive for cocaine at birth.

Six months later, the mother admitted she was again using cocaine, but the children were left in her care, Hess said. The case was closed two months later when the state said the mother “appears to be back in recovery.”

D.D. was 5 and his little brother was 19 months when Anchorage police found them in a filthy house with the door open and no food.

Hess wrote that after being placed in state care, D.D. said he and his brother had been left alone a lot and “liked the shelter because there was food and toys.”

A psychologist who examined D.D. at age 6 said he was severely emotionally disturbed.

During the first nine years of his life, the state repeatedly sent him back to live with his mother despite her drug problems and reports of physical and sexual abuse. He was placed in state custody six weeks after his mother was arrested for drugs in 1998.

Hess said that in putting the boy back with his mother, the state “fully disregarded the known great risks to D.D. of further neglect and abuse, including suspected, but never investigated, sexual abuse.”

In all, there were about 40 reports of abuse regarding D.D. and A.J. and many were ignored or not responded to in detail, the Anchorage Daily News reported, quoting court testimony.

A.J. first came to the state’s attention when he was 6 months old. He was “awakened to the screams of his mother who was being stabbed in the face, neck and chest by his father,” Hess wrote.

His mother survived, but she became a paraplegic and the father went to jail. The rest of the family did not step in to see that the child was loved and cared for.

In 1990-91, there were reports that A.J.’s intoxicated grandmother dropped him. The case was closed with “no documented contact with grandmother,” Hess wrote.

Eleven days later, the police were asked to check on the child. “Grandmother found intoxicated, refused to let office in home. No contact with or observation of 7-month-old A.J.; home not observed. Case closed, no follow-up services.”

Three months later there was a report that the baby was being thrown in the air and “treated like toy by mother’s friends. Child’s face allegedly bruised, caregiver (mother) intoxicated, used AFDC funds to buy alcohol and drugs.”

There was no investigation or follow-up to that report, Hess said.

She said the reports show that he was left alone at 13 months with two other young children and in those early years he was “abused verbally, burned and sexually molested by either family members of their friends.”

A school psychologist reported that when A.J. was 6 he was threatening suicide. He was hospitalized at Charter and a physical exam revealed a burn mark on his palm, which was reported but not investigated, Hess said.

“This troubled boy comes to us with much trauma and emotional scarring at an early age,” a hospital psychiatrist wrote of the 6-year-old. “His determination prior to admission of looking towards suicide is extremely troublesome.”

After years of failed attempts to keep the children with their families, the state sent the children to foster homes, but the worst was yet to come.

I’ll have more on this Sunday.

Dermot Cole can be reached at cole@newsminer.com or 459-7530.