Pennypacker protects children by keeping them out of the system

When he was an attorney and administrator with the Florida Department of Children and Families in Tallahassee, Stephen Pennypacker helped write the new rules used by investigators that include gathering more information from families to assess their children’s safety.

Since returning to Gainesville as president and CEO of the Partnership for Strong Families in April 2014, he is now implementing those changes on the ground level.

If done right, he said the system will remove fewer children who don’t need to be removed from their families, will remove the right children and provide the right services to families “to teach them how to make their kids safe permanently so we can get out of their lives.”

The Partnership for Strong Families is one of 18 nonprofit organizations around the state that contracts with DCF to manage foster care and adoption services through 1998 legislation to privatize the foster care system. The organization — with headquarters in Gainesville — covers the 13 counties in the third and eighth judicial circuits in North Central Florida with 105 employees and another 150 subcontracted case managers. Most of the partnership’s $32 million annual budget comes from state and federal funding.

Pennypacker said the partnership takes over cases referred from DCF and determines what services and counseling families need. In cases where children are removed from the home, most are placed with relatives and family friends. Others are placed in foster care. After about a year, the partnership and courts may decide to terminate parental rights, leading to the potential for adoption.

About 1,200 children are currently under supervision — about half in Alachua County — with 750 removed from their homes and 175 of those in licensed foster care.

The organization subcontracts services to more than 100 providers, with Providence Health Services handling case management in Alachua County, Children’s Home Society handling adoptions and CDS Family and Behavioral Health Services providing independent living for older children.

This year, the partnership has facilitated 162 adoptions, 40 more than their target goal, which Pennypacker attributed to a more concerted effort to get the easy adoptions done faster and spend more time on difficult adoptions.

The partnership also runs four resource centers in areas with a high number of DCF hotline calls with about 30 other partners in each to provide services to families in need of housing, clothing, job assistance and counseling. Pennypacker said the resource centers were the brainchild of former DCF regional director Ester Tibbs, with initial funding from the national Casey Family Programs to reach families earlier and try to keep them out of the system.

The first — the Library Partnership — opened on Northeast 16th Avenue in 2009, followed by the SWAG center in southwest Gainesville, Cone Park Library on East University Avenue and the old city hall in Chiefland.

Last year, the centers received 35,000 to 40,000 visits.

Before starting to work in child protection in 1998, Pennypacker worked as an attorney in private practice in Gainesville for 15 years. Even then, his interest in child welfare led him to family law, where he looked out for the interests of children in divorce cases.

When the state started to privatize child protection in 1998, he was hired by State Attorney Rod Smith to manage the local pilot project for Children’s Legal Services. A few years later, he became the Jimmy Ryce prosecutor for the state attorney, screening sexual predators released from prison to determine if they should be committed for further treatment.

He took a job as magistrate for dependency cases in the eighth circuit, but had to quit when he ran for circuit judge. When he lost the election, he took a job as attorney for the DCF and was later named assistant secretary of programs.

After eight years in Tallahassee, he said he was ready to come back to Gainesville.

In all that time, he said he has seen the pendulum swing back and forth from not removing enough children from their homes to removing too many, usually after a high-profile death, but which brings its own trauma to children who didn’t need to be removed.

“I’ve worked throughout the time I’ve been in the system to try to get that balance one case at a time,” he said.

The system is currently on another upswing in cases. The Legislature funded an additional 191 DCF investigators two years ago, and this year funded more case managers, but based on numbers from last summer.

“We have experienced an increase in cases and removals are up significantly since last summer, so we are in need of additional funding for case managers,” Pennypacker said.

He is hopeful since legislators better understand the return on investment when you can keep kids from going to prison, on welfare, unemployed and homeless.

“You can put money in the system now to help those kids and you’re saving hundreds of thousands of dollars down the road for that same child,” he said.

Stephen Pennypacker, 58, president/CEO, Partnership for Strong Families Inc. PERSONAL: Married to Teresa Drake, clinical skills professor at the Levin College of Law; three daughters; two grandchildren PETS: Two dogs, Cooper and Miss Bell; three cats, Juno, Little Guy and Little Kitty; and seven chickens DREAM PARTNER FOR LUNCH: Steve Jobs LAST BOOK READ: “Bossypants” by Tina Fey FAVORITE TV SHOW: “The Big Bang Theory” FAVORITE LISTENING: NPR or smooth jazz HOBBIES: Golf, playing with his grandson EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in political science from Duke University, juris doctor from the University of Florida