How Some Christian Group Homes Avoid Florida’s Standards

This story is published in partnership with the New York Times as part of The Times’s local investigations fellowship. As religious groups across the country open more maternity homes for pregnant women and teenagers, the nonprofit that oversees some of those homes in Florida is facing renewed criticism from state lawmakers over its practices. The nonprofit, the Florida Association of Christian Child Caring Agencies, has regulatory authority over about two dozen maternity homes, ranches for troubled youth, and group homes for children whose parents cannot take care of them. Facilities it oversees have faced allegations of abuse, misconduct and restrictive practices for decades. In September, The New York Times and the investigative podcast Reveal reported that some of the maternity homes had imposed strict limits on residents’ communications and movements. One required residents to download a tracking app and lock their phones in a safe overnight. Unlike homes that are licensed by the state, the association’s members are exempt from visits by state inspectors. Instead, the association performs its own inspections, holding its members to standards for hiring staff that government records show to be less rigorous than those used by the state. The association also offers its own training. In one online course for new employees, an instructor described humiliating a teenager who had cheated on his homework by making him wear a sign that said, “I am a liar and a cheater.” In recent interviews with The Times, four lawmakers expressed concern about some of the association’s lax standards. State Representative Vicki Lopez, a Republican from Miami, and State Representative Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando, called for the Legislature to examine them. Children in group home care, Ms. Eskamani said, “require extra attention and support,” and should not be in facilities with a lower bar. The association’s executive director, Matthew Higgins, declined requests for an interview, citing an open-records lawsuit The Times has filed against the group seeking to obtain its maternity-home inspection reports. The state’s Department of Children and Families did not answer questions about the group or its standards. In September, The Times and Reveal reported that amid new abortion restrictions and the rising cost of housing, pregnant women and teenagers are increasingly turning to charity-run maternity homes. In Florida, homes for pregnant adults and their babies can operate without any government regulation. But homes that admit mothers who are minors must either obtain a state license or register with the Christian association. Florida is unusual in that it allows faith-based children’s homes to register with a nonprofit in lieu of state licensing. Texas had a similar system, but lawmakers let the program expire more than 20 years ago after a series of abuse claims at unlicensed facilities. Florida’s law dates to 1984, when lawmakers updated the state’s foster care standards to align with new federal guidelines. State archival records show that the Florida Association of Christian Child Caring Agencies took the opportunity to suggest that religious group homes be exempted from state oversight if they did not accept government funding. The proposal met opposition from child welfare advocates, civil liberties groups and the state agency overseeing Florida’s foster care system, now named the Department of Children and Families. Christian organizations including Florida Baptist Children’s Homes, the National Lutheran Council and Catholic Community Services also opposed the measure, saying all children should receive the same level of care. Still, the provision became law. It allowed Christian homes to register with a “qualified association” founded on or before Jan. 1, 1984. The only group to meet this requirement was the Florida Association of Christian Child Caring Agencies. Today, the association counts nearly 25 faith-based homes and other nonprofits among its members, according to its website. While some facilities are free, others charge thousands of dollars a month in room and board. On occasion, they accept children in the state’s foster care system, according to data reviewed by The Times and Reveal. Most of the people who sit on the association’s board founded or run its member facilities, federal tax records show. Mr. Higgins, the executive director, runs Hope Children’s Home in Tampa, according to its website. The association’s 2024 standards show that it allowed members more latitude than the state when it came to hiring and training. For example, supervisors at homes registered with the association were not required to have college degrees or previous experience in residential care, as they were at state-licensed programs. Additionally, the association required at least 20 hours of annual training — half as many as the state. And unlike the state, it did not mandate training in trauma-informed care, which involves recognizing and responding to trauma and is the widely accepted standard in residential-care settings. In interviews, four people who had worked at homes registered with the association said the only training they were offered was an online course in behavior management and crisis prevention. A Times reporter completed the six-hour self-directed program last year. Most of the course focused on how to defuse crises. Mr. Higgins said in the training that staff members could use “defensive physical measures” like holding a young person’s arms or legs in “extreme cases” if they became violent. He did not provide a demonstration. Asked to review the course materials, Martha Holden, director of Cornell University’s Residential Child Care Project, said the program was “not sufficient” for new staff. Physical restraints, she added, are best learned in person over several days of training. “That is very high risk,” she said. “Kids have been seriously injured or even die from that kind of intervention.” At licensed homes in Florida, staff must receive annual training on passive restraint use. At another point in the online training, Mr. Higgins explained how he had handled a student who repeatedly cheated on English assignments. Mr. Higgins said he initially let the student off with a warning, but later changed tactics and decided to “try humiliation” with the paper sign. After the teenager refused to pin the sign to his shirt, Mr. Higgins ordered him to walk laps while carrying a cinder block. The boy walked one lap, then agreed to wear the sign, Mr. Higgins said in the video. The Christian association’s standards prohibited employees from subjecting children to “cruel or humiliating treatment,” records show. Facilities registered with the association have faced scrutiny since the late 1980s, when the director of a home near Port St. Lucie was charged with sexually abusing three 10-year-old girls. The girls’ mothers later said they did not want to pursue the case, and the charges were dropped, according to news reports. In 2012, The Tampa Bay Times reported that young people had faced harsh physical punishments at religious boarding schools and homes for troubled teenagers across the state. After the newspaper’s investigation was published, the association banned the use of restraints such as handcuffs. The Legislature also required the association to report emergency situations to state regulators within 24 hours. More recently, a home in Lakeland made headlines after a 17-year-old resident was denied access to a doctor and died, apparently of a seizure. The facility, Lakeland Girls Academy, closed in 2022. Experts say that state licensing does not necessarily prevent abuse. But licensing “provides a framework for knowing exactly what the expectations are,” said Jean Strout, a senior attorney with the National Center for Youth Law. “Without that, it’s really just a Wild West,” she said. Florida has the equivalent of a two-tiered system of group homes…