Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Did Child Protective Services drop the ball?

Kenny Yost

Jackie Valley

Kenny Yost holds his daughter Ily, then 6 months old, inside his mother’s Henderson home in January. Ily’s biological mother has been charged with child abuse and neglect in relation to injuries the infant suffered in November.

Eight-month-old Ily Yost coos and wiggles in her bouncy seat. She beams as she looks up at her father. No one knows if she actually sees him.

In mid-November, Ily landed in Sunrise Children’s Hospital with what doctors referred to as “multiple subdural hematomas with a midline shift” — a grim diagnosis that means bleeding on the brain and a shift of the brain. She was in critical condition.

A month later, Metro Police arrested Ily’s mother, 24-year-old Erin Koetje, in connection with the infant’s injuries. Prosecutors charged her with three counts of child abuse with substantial bodily harm and one count of using a controlled substance in the presence of a child. She is scheduled to appear Wednesday in Las Vegas Township Justice Court.

Ily was released from the hospital Dec. 23 and sent home with her father, who now is raising her. Doctors told Kenny Yost his daughter is paralyzed from the waist down. They also suspect Ily is blind and might have cognitive deficits as a result of the alleged abuse. Because of her young age, it’s difficult to determine the extent of her brain damage.

In some ways, Yost, 27, considers his daughter lucky — her middle name — because doctors originally feared she might be in a vegetative state. She already has beaten a lot of odds, but more challenges loom — and that frustrates Yost to no end.

Even more frustrating: He sounded an alarm about his daughter’s welfare before this happened.

The chain of events

In early October, Yost was working on a drilling rig in Montana when he received troubling phone calls from his ex-girlfriend, who had given birth to their daughter, Ily, in July. Yost said Koetje told him she was going to admit herself to a psychiatric ward. He needed to come get their daughter, she said.

“Something told me things weren’t right, so I quit the job and came home,” he said.

Yost also reported his concerns to Child Protective Services and filed for custody of his daughter. Because Yost and Koetje never were married, he didn’t have joint custody of Ily.

CPS opened an investigation on Oct. 15 into Yost's allegations that Ily and her 2-year-old half brother, whom Yost helped raise, were not being protected and faced potential physical harm, according to a confidential protective custody report Yost provided the Sun. But investigators determined the allegations were unsubstantiated and closed the case Oct. 22 without removing the children from Koetje’s care, according to the report.

Koetje tested positive Oct. 20 for marijuana, amphetamine and methamphetamine, during the CPS investigation, according to an abuse and neglect petition filed in Family Court by the Clark County District Attorney’s Office. It appears she attended two counseling sessions at the request of a family services specialist, according to the protective custody report. The Department of Family Services, which includes CPS, declined to comment on the case.

As the investigation unfolded, Yost continued trying to gain custody of his daughter, he said. Koetje dropped both children off with him and his mother for four days in early November, at which point Ily appeared fine.

Two weeks later, on Nov. 17, Ily’s pediatrician walked into an exam room to find the infant lying on a table with her arms up, a droopy right eye and a partially closed left eye, according to a Metro Police report. He summoned an ambulance, which rushed Ily to Sunrise Children’s Hospital.

The arrest report outlines the following details about Koetje’s interviews with detectives, according to police:

Koetje told police she brought Ily to the doctor because her daughter had been vomiting for two days and appeared less active than normal. Other than two instances when Koetje’s roommate watched the children, she was the primary caregiver, she said.

Detectives noted that Koetje provided “vague answers and a history that did not make sense.”

A subsequent polygraph examination determined Koetje was being deceptive when asked whether she caused Ily’s head injuries. When detectives interviewed Koetje again after the polygraph, she admitted to using heroin and methamphetamine two days before bringing Ily to the doctor. Koetje also said she had lightly shaken Ily out of frustration in the past and may have caused her injuries but didn’t remember.

Later that night, Koetje left a voicemail for detectives saying she had forgotten to mention she accidentally bumped Ily’s head against a wall Nov. 15.

A doctor told detectives a bump on the wall would not have caused Ily’s injuries but forceful shaking could have.

Doctors also discovered Ily had a collarbone fracture that was at least a month old.

Detectives arrested Koetje on Dec. 17. She remains in the Clark County Detention Center without bail. She declined to comment for this story through her public defender.

Child removal

In February, a Family Court judge granted Yost full custody of Ily. Yost said he plans to do anything in his power to help Ily reach her full potential.

“I just want her to be happy,” he said. “I want her to be as independent as she can be, whether that’s her walking or in a wheelchair. That’s all I can really ask for.”

For now, that means taking each day as it comes and trying not to dwell on the past. But Yost can’t help wonder why CPS didn’t heed his warning and remove Ily and her half brother from Koetje’s care.

“I think they dropped the ball,” he said.

Paula Hammack, assistant director of the Department of Family Services, said the agency has reviewed Koetje's case. She declined to divulge the findings, citing confidentiality. But she spoke generally about how the department decides if and when it’s appropriate to remove a child from a home.

When a call is made to CPS, staff ask half a dozen questions about maltreatment, circumstances, vulnerability and caregiver capacity during an intake assessment. If staff determine the situation meets the agency's definition of abuse or neglect, an investigative unit is called.

The case is assigned a priority rating — P1, P2 or P3 — that dictates the urgency and timeframe in which investigators must respond and make contact. For instance, a P1 indicates an event has happened, such as a child being brought to the hospital with serious injuries. In those cases, the department must make contact within three hours.

CPS investigators then assess a child’s safety and a parent or caregiver’s ability to provide care. In some cases, children may not need to be removed if there’s another adult living in the home who can mitigate threats, Hammack said.

If removal is called for, department officials explore the options, including placing children with relatives, family friends or in foster care.

The process is far from an exact science. Tragedies have occurred both when a child wasn’t removed from a home and when a child ended up in foster care. In October, a 1-year-old girl died after being given an overdose of over-the-counter antihistamine by a foster parent, who then killed himself.

A commission formed on the recommendation of Nevada Supreme Court Justice Nancy Saitta began looking into shortcomings of the Clark County child welfare system last fall. The commission released its final report last week and identified a number of problems, including lack of resources for early services to prevent foster care, delays in processing and high caseloads, which can lead to rushed hearings.

"While there is much that is good about the current system, and there are commendable improvement efforts underway, it is clear that challenges still exist," the report states. "These challenges have created poor outcomes for the children and families with whom the system interacts, and this is unacceptable."

The commission supported leaving children with families whenever possible but suggested more help and resources for families.

"Removal of a child from the home should occur only as a last resort," commmissioners wrote. "Removing a child from a home, even when there is an imminent safety threat, is a life-altering experience for all those involved."

But keeping a child at home also can be dangerous, as was the case for Ily, according to police.

“You’re darned if you do and darned if you don’t,” Hammack said. "There's circumstances we can't explain because of confidentiality. It's difficult to tell the whole story."

Risk assessment

Koetje’s positive drug test wouldn’t necessarily have been enough for CPS investigators to deem her children unsafe in her care, experts said.

“Drug use in and of itself would not trigger that kind of removal,” said Teresa Huizar, executive director of the National Children’s Alliance, which accredits children’s advocacy centers.

Child welfare agencies want to analyze past case studies of child deaths to try to help determine risk in current cases, Huizar said.

The Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities has been charged with developing a national strategy and is examining a “predictive analytics” model in Florida. The software flags words and circumstances in case reports that have been associated with the highest probability of serious injury or death.

“It has certainly generated quite a bit of interest,” commission Chairman David Sanders said.

Experts have to make sure to temper findings so as not to overreact and remove too many children without warrant, Sanders said, but data-driven technology could help child welfare agencies significantly in making good decisions about child removal.

Moving forward

This month, Ily received her first pair of glasses, with tiny pink rims. Yost couldn’t help but gush that she looks “super cute.”

Doctors still don’t know the extent of her vision. They’re hopeful that if she is seeing some images, glasses will help.

Yost hopes his daughter’s story jumpstarts a conversation about what more can be done in the community to prevent child abuse.

“This shouldn’t happen to kids,” he said.

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