The Perils of Foster Care

Matt Dolman: Welcome to another episode of the David versus Goliath podcast. Here with my partner in crime, Stan G. And we have the lovely and talented Sara Beller joining us today. Stan, what's happening today, brother?

Stan Gipe: Well, today we get to talk to Sara, and we know Sara pretty well because she's part of our firm. Sara's been a great addition to the firm. What people don't know about Sara — Sara came to our firm with a background in sex abuse prosecution. She's actually had a long history of going after the bad guys, which is kind of why we tried to scoop her up. The one thing I want to ask is — I know Sara recently made a move from California to Texas. And the most fascinating thing about Sara — she now lives on 30 acres where she's got her own mini animals and mini donkeys. What's a mini donkey?

Sara Beller: We have two mini donkeys. They're just smaller — a little bit smaller than maybe the average donkey. They do breed now what I recently learned are micro animals — micro cattle and micro donkeys — which are quite small, maybe three feet or under. I would say ours are about three and a half to four feet tall.

Stan Gipe: How much space do you need to have mini donkeys?

Sara Beller: Not much. They don't take up much space. They're pretty little. They live in a pasture in the back. They have their own pasture.

Matt Dolman: Did they ever come into the house?

Sara Beller: No. I wish. We can't trust them to go back to the pasture, so we don't let them out too much.

Matt Dolman: No further questions, counselor. Stan, what you got?

Stan Gipe: So Sara kind of performed what I'll call a reverse clamp recently — as opposed to the Beverly Hillbillies, where they moved from oil land out to California, she moved from California to a bunch of space on oil land. And my own personal theory is that Sara spent so much time working with these dirt bag child molesters and sex predators, she just doesn't want to be around people at all anymore. Is that true, Sara?

Sara Beller: You know, that could be the reason. I've never really thought of the reason for my introverted tendencies, but maybe that's it. Maybe that's a better reasoning than just I was born this way, which is kind of what I've always thought. No, it's been great though. It is a nice end to the day to go outside when you're dealing with heavy subject matter and heavy topics. It's nice to go outside and see open space, not be right up against another house. See open space, play with those little mini donkeys and the horse roaming around the property. It's been a nice change.

Matt Dolman: So Sara's background — for listeners out there — you started out as a sex crimes prosecutor, then you moved into civil practice. You were with a prominent firm in California, then you joined our firm. Stan used the term "scoop you up," but we hired her. Take us through what makes foster care and school abuse cases a little bit different. You work in areas that are a little bit off the beaten path from what you hear about with different firms out there that handle sexual abuse. They're usually handling juvenile detention claims or abuse that occurred within juvenile detention centers or youth rehabilitation treatment centers. And a lot of those firms tend to be aggregators — not painting with a thick brush here because there are some real trial lawyers that also handle these cases. But if you're handling foster care abuse, school abuse, abuse within private or public schools, those are cases that need to be litigated. What's the unique nature regarding foster care and school abuse cases?

Sara Beller: Yeah. So when we're talking about institutional abuse, we're talking about these places that carry an inherent promise of safety. Schools, foster care, juvenile detention facilities — those are environments where children and teens, the most vulnerable people in our society, are supposed to be protected when they're in one of those institutions, in one of those facilities. And when abuse happens inside those walls, it's more than just a violation of that child. It's really more of a betrayal of that fundamental promise of safety that our children and teens are promised. And what makes them different is that you're dealing with these insidious cases where the very structure designed to protect people can become the actual structure that enables the abusers. The hierarchy, isolation from family, power imbalances — it creates cultures that prioritize reputation over transparency, which create conditions where the predator can operate with very little accountability.

Matt Dolman: So backing up a second — we look at foster care. Why is sexual abuse so prevalent in the foster care system? Is it the lack of screening, or is it just a perfect climate from all those different issues you just mentioned? Going back to lack of screening — are they not diligently screening the parents? Or is it the culture of silence? What is it?

Sara Beller: It's really the perfect storm, in my opinion at least. You have minors who are already in a very vulnerable position. They have limited contact with the outside world in a sense. Society will often unfortunately view foster kids as the troubled kids, or the kids who can't be believed for one reason or another. And they may not have a trusted adult who's checking in on them. They have an adult — their social worker — who's supposed to be checking in on them, but is that a trusted adult? Most likely not. Not all social workers take the time to develop and earn that child's trust, for many reasons. A lot of them are overworked and understaffed. They have so many cases that they just can't and don't make the time to properly visit all of these kids during their monthly check-ins like they're supposed to. That understaffing and overwork creates screening problems with not only the families but the social workers entrusted with the care and supervision of the child as well.

Stan Gipe: Sara, here's something. You bring something up when you talk about this and it kind of just comes to mind. There's a chance that through Google, through whatever process, someone who's actually a victim of this right now is listening to this podcast. They may be looking for help and have found us that way. How would you recommend someone who's got a custodial abuse issue — how do they safely come forward and bring this to someone's attention? Because I'm thinking as a kid, if I got abused, I would have run home to my parents and told them. That's my safe haven. That's who I tell. But when it's the parents or the foster parents — who do these kids turn to?

Sara Beller: What is a safe avenue is going to vary by each kid, honestly. The most important thing is find someone that you trust — whether that's a teacher, a friend, a parent of a friend. Find that trusted adult and let them know. If you need help, let them know. There are people out there who can help, who are ready and willing to help. Just find that trusted adult that you can confide in so that you can get the help that you need.

Matt Dolman: To the extent these kids have a social worker — and I understand they're overworked, they may rotate, they may not have time to develop a relationship with the child — do these social workers have an obligation of confidentiality or anything like that? Like if a child brings to them a situation about the foster house, whatever it is — is that counselor obligated to help this child and keep it confidential?

Sara Beller: Yes, absolutely. The social worker is obligated to make a report and to remove the child for the child's safety. Absolutely.

Matt Dolman: So often times I read about this — and we've done sexual predation work for quite a while now, I never handle foster care so I may sound ignorant when I ask this question — but you hear about repeated abuse with the same foster parents who take in additional children. Are the reports not being investigated? Is that part of them being overworked, underpaid, and that mentality? Is it just they're under-resourced so they don't investigate every last claim? Like how does it continue happening with the same people?

Sara Beller: A couple of different reasons for that. One being a lot of times the child doesn't report. A lot of times, due to the hierarchy, a lot of abusers unfortunately tell these vulnerable children, "No one's going to believe you. You know, this is our secret. You're just going to go back into the system." But when the abuse is actually reported and then they don't do anything with that report — a very common theme is the social worker telling the child, "You're just a troublemaker" — the social worker not actually doing anything about it and not believing the child, believing that they're making it up, which is a really horrible outcome and consequence of a child reporting. But it's unfortunately a theme I hear very, very often.

Stan Gipe: And that's such a troubling paradigm. So you have a child who doesn't have a home, who's now been given a home, but if they report the abuse they no longer have a home and they're seen as being troubled to begin with — and they're told no one's going to believe them — which just creates this almost like negative feedback loop. That's horrific.

Sara Beller: Yeah, absolutely. It's what I was talking about initially — the structure that's meant to protect these children is actually the same structure that enables the predators and enables the abuse to continue and go undetected, with no accountability, for oftentimes a very long time.

Matt Dolman: Yeah. And I hadn't even really thought about it until you brought it up, but it's true. Because of these children's backgrounds, they've gone through a lot. They might have something where they've had trouble being believed in the past. They may have done things that'll cause people to question their integrity and question whether they're telling the truth. And then you run into a situation — sex abuse, sexual assaults — these are one of those things that happen in the dark. There's no video. There's only two people there. It's almost always a he said, she said scenario. How, from a kid standpoint, can I understand why they would be hesitant to report, thinking no one's going to take them seriously when this other person is going to deny it.

Sara Beller: Yeah, of course. The power imbalance is a big factor in these cases, in all institutional abuse settings. We've always inherently built in that power imbalance and hierarchy — talking about a student and a teacher, a detainee and the staff, foster kids and the foster parents and social workers. It's not necessarily an environment where the child feels comfortable disclosing when they're in danger or when they're in trouble.

Matt Dolman: What would you have to say to someone now? Let's say there's a child listening, or an adult — someone who basically went through this in foster care and just kept quiet because they didn't think there was anything they could do. They now aged out — they're 20, 21 years old. Is it too late? Should they look back? Do these people still have the right to pursue things if they're in that situation?

Sara Beller: Most likely yes. It will depend — it'll vary state by state. Each state has its own statute of limitations in which these claims can be brought. But one of the most important things I can tell anyone listening is — if you or someone you love was abused in an institutional setting, please do not assume that it's too late to do anything about it. Those statutes of limitations for childhood sexual abuse have been changing significantly, especially in the states where we're licensed, especially California. Many survivors who were told perhaps years ago that their window had closed may now have legal options that they just didn't before. So please do not assume that there's nothing you can do about it.

Matt Dolman: Sara, take us through California's statute of limitations. What does it look like in California in terms of the look-back statute or the revival window?

Sara Beller: Yeah. So if the abuse occurred before 2021 — if you're now an adult and the abuse occurred when you were a child — claimants have until they turn 40 years of age. So at 39 years and 364 days, we can file a childhood sexual abuse claim on your behalf in the state of California. For anyone over the age of 40 who were abused when they were a child, you may still also have a legal avenue. There may be a revival window that applies to your case. And in California, that is if a potential claimant or plaintiff discovered within the last five years some kind of injury — an illness, an aspect of what we call their damages in a lawsuit — if they discovered that within the last five years and they discovered that it was actually connected to that abuse that they suffered as a child, we can still bring a claim on your behalf. So if you're a sexual abuse survivor and you just realize — not that you just realize you have mental health issues or suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety, whatever it is, which by the way I don't judge, we all have those issues — but the question is if you realize that it is related to the abuse that occurred when you were a minor, and it's not in therapy records before but it is now — that's a few different ways. If you've had anxiety your whole life, or difficulties with trusting authority figures, or depressive tendencies your whole life, but within the last five years you discover that causal connection to what you've been experiencing possibly since the abuse — to that abuse that you suffered as a child — then we can bring your claim. And the way we differentiate it — even when there aren't therapy records spelling that out — a fairly common reasoning can be intimacy issues. That can be a very common struggle for someone who may have been abused as a child, and oftentimes people don't really dive into the reasoning behind it. Even if it's something they struggled with throughout adulthood, they may not really think about it until they're in a committed relationship and they have those conversations with their spouse or significant other. And through those conversations there's that discovery — the realization that maybe this has been the struggle I've had for the majority of my life, and it's actually because of what happened to me as a child. That can, depending on the circumstances, be sufficient for us to substantiate and corroborate that claim of discovery — the realization of the connection between the abuse and that mental health symptom, diagnosis, or struggle.

Stan Gipe: Makes sense to you. Go first — sorry.

Matt Dolman: So I was going to say — depending on where you're at in the country, the statute of limitations is different. It may be a hard number of years, it may be a long number of years, it may be triggered by when you knew the damages associated with the abuse. Sometimes it may be triggered by when you found out someone could be liable for the abuse. Short answer to that is — look, if this happened to you and it's something you're interested in pursuing or want to look into, call somebody — us or any attorney — call somebody and have them look into it, do an evaluation of the statute of limitations applicable to your specific claim and your specific facts. Can't tell you how many people we've spoken to that thought it was too late when that wasn't the case. And Sara, I literally had the conversation you were just talking about with a client — without talking about names — in the past, where they go, you know, it was during the conversation where he's kind of like, "Oh my gosh, I'd never even thought about it. Maybe these problems I've had with my wife during intimacy — maybe this is what it's related to." And it was almost like he just hadn't crossed their mind. And it's fair because most of us — the natural human tendency — if you want to sit here and think about stuff in your free time, it's the good stuff, right? You want to bury the bad stuff. You don't want to sit there in your free time and think about the worst things that have ever happened to you. You try to get rid of them. So a lot of times you may not realize because you really haven't taken the time to sit down, contemplate, and work through fully the emotional impact and the mental impact it's had on you.

Sara Beller: Yeah, totally. It's not something that people sit around thinking about or wanting to think about or dwell on. A lot of survivors want to, the best they can, put it behind them and move on and not dwell on it. So oftentimes it's not something that's discovered or realized until much later in life, when some external factor or reason forces them to kind of unpack those things that they've tried to push deep down for a long time.

Matt Dolman: The other thing I'd like to bring up just because it came to mind — look, there is no scenario under which, if you're 15, 14, 16 years old, whatever it is, there's no scenario under which you can have a sexual encounter with an adult and have it be your fault. So if anyone's sitting there thinking, "Hey, this happened to me, but it was my fault" — no. It can't be your fault as a minor. If someone took advantage of you and made you think it was your fault, it absolutely was not. It is impossible for a minor to be at fault for being raped by an adult or for having sexual relations with an adult. They can't give consent. Stating the obvious, but many people out there might not realize that.

Matt Dolman: Segueing a little bit — I know we can talk about school abuse and other forms of institutional abuse, but an area that's kind of unique that you are practicing in is abuse within sports systems, after-school sports like AAU teams, but also youth activities — whether it's a dance club, a dance team, having a dance coach, getting instruction in any type of setting — including music. Even if it's not associated with the school — private club sports, travel teams, dance programs, music programs — any setting or institution of that nature. We are litigating and taking on cases in those arenas as well, where abuse occurred within those settings. Do you find abuse to be systemic, or are they isolated events?

Sara Beller: It occurs much more often than anyone would expect — including, and perhaps especially, the survivor. I have never seen, in my years of handling abuse cases, an isolated event or an isolated incident. These are absolutely systemic issues that create and enable these predators to prey on our most vulnerable people in society. I've truly never seen just a one-off, if you will — an isolated incident or one bad apple. It's more often than not a systemic issue, systemic failures that were created by these environments that are supposed to be protecting the children.

Matt Dolman: So when you handle these cases in California — whether it's an AAU sports team or some type of club after school where the child is placed with an adult in a supervisory capacity — how do we determine whether it's compensable? And I hate to put that term on a case because these are survivors of sexual abuse and these are such egregious, sensitive cases. But if you run one of these organizations, are you required to carry a certain amount of coverage? What does that look like?

Sara Beller: I have to assume that any institution or program that is entrusted with the safety of minors is required to have insurance. Obviously I know that schools do, juvenile detention centers, foster care agencies — whether each individual private program when we're talking about youth programs, sports programs, dance, etc. — I have to assume the same is true. There are minors entrusted to your care, you must be required to be insured. For the ones I've handled to date, insurance has never been an issue to find coverage.

Stan Gipe: It's like the travel baseball guru — his son Cole is on a bunch of travel baseball teams. He's a heck of an athlete. Stan, this has to shock you to your core. My kids are a little bit younger, but to think that you have an adult that is entrusted with caring for minors and watching over these minors — especially during travel baseball. I know you're at every baseball event. Not saying that these coaches are bad, by the way — in case the coach is listening who coaches Cole — most adults are good people. But occasionally you run into somebody who's awful and horrible. How has this hit you?

Stan Gipe: Well, it's not as big a surprise as you might think, because my best friend from high school is a really high-level girls soccer coach and we've had this discussion before. I'm like, you know, what do they tell you to do? Do you have training on this? How do they broach this? And it's very detailed — the way coaches are supposed to interact with kids. But beyond that, there's a whole subculture of people that will show up to children's competitions without having any child in the competition whatsoever — just to watch 14-year-old girls play volleyball or 13-year-old girls at a cheer competition. Aside from that, coaches are also somewhat charged with making sure that most of the people in the crowd appear to have a reason to be there. Because there are people out there — how do you screen for that? You're at a competition like a volleyball competition with 30 teams. How do you screen for a random adult who is there for no reason whatsoever? He told me, "You know what? People who don't belong stand out. You can just kind of tell — it's a vibe. You know who's there to watch their kids. You see what they're paying attention to, and then there's someone who's there looking at girls as opposed to watching the game. You know the difference." But he said those people kind of stand out — almost like you'll notice them in other spots in life. You've got young daughters. You would notice somebody looking at your daughter in a way that was different. You know the difference in the way people look at them. And you can't really tell kids enough — your instincts, your second sense, if something seems off, don't ignore that sense. Trust your instincts. Even if you're dealing with an adult — if they make you feel weird, if they make you feel uncomfortable, trust your instincts. Don't just play into it and say, "It must just be me."

Matt Dolman: Sara, are you seeing any red flags with youth sports or youth activities? Something that listeners should look out for? Do you see certain patterns in these types of cases?

Sara Beller: Stan really hit the nail on the head — perhaps the coach did too. Predators stand out. We all have gut instincts and we need to trust them. When you get that weird feeling — as an example, when my defendants, when I was a prosecutor, would walk out at the Sallyport, you could just tell. Like, I know I know what my file says you did. You get that instinctive feeling by the way people carry themselves and how they sometimes look and act, especially in public, especially around minors. When you're talking about predators who have a sexual fixation or fascination with children and young kids, they can't hide that when they're around kids — especially ones that aren't theirs. And in situations where they have no justification or justified reason to be there, it's noticeable. When you've got a person who's not interacting with anyone — a male, statistically most child predators are male — in a room, at a gym, at a volleyball game, there by himself and not interacting with anyone around him, not someone you recognize — that's a red flag. Could it be nothing? Sure. But if it's a dad, they're probably going to be interacting with the other parents, other dads, younger siblings, older siblings. There's not really a reason for a grown man to be in a setting where there are children — even an after school game, program, scrimmage, practice — acting like a loner by himself, not interacting with anyone, especially if that's someone not recognized by the kids, the staff, or the other parents. Huge red flag. And my biggest hope is that parents and coaches can teach kids — no is a complete sentence. If someone comes up to you and says, "Hey, I have a puppy in my car, do you want to see it?" or offers candy — no is a complete sentence. Any of those red flags — no, complete sentence.

Matt Dolman: Well said. I don't know why, but the hair on my arms is raised right now. It's just horrific. I grew up in a setting where kids had to respect their elders. You're not allowed to say no. Someone wants to give you a hug, you have to give them a hug as a kid. And my biggest hope is that over time that changes and that parents teach their kids no is a complete sentence. And generally, look — we're in a society right now where if you don't know an adult, a kid should not be taking anything free from any adult you don't know. That's a general rule of thumb. If you're out there and some random person comes up and offers you free coaching, private lessons — no. They may try to sell them to you, but nobody is offering you free stuff. That is a grooming technique. They're trying to get in the door. Be suspicious. Be wary.

Matt Dolman: I know we're wrapping up, Stan. I just want to go over one last topic — school abuse. Anything we need to look out for there? Is there anything unique about school abuse?

Sara Beller: With warning signs and red flags in school settings in particular — one thing I see really often is tutoring, private tutoring, holding the child back during recess, lunchtime, after school. There's no reason for that. There are private tutors, there are aides, there are groups of tutoring. There's no reason for one child to be staying behind — certainly during recess or the lunch break — with their teacher, unsupervised. That is a huge red flag. Warning signs for parents — signs of a child being harmed in an institutional setting — it's not always obvious, but behavioral changes are always something to watch out for in your child. Resistance to going to school or to the program they're involved with, regression, withdrawal from activities — those are all things that can be indicators. And if something feels wrong, ask questions, talk to your child. As far as a teacher telling them they have to stay behind, or extra help with class or homework, or tutoring — ask questions. That is a huge red flag.

Matt Dolman: Well said. So for individuals out there who want to contact Sara — how do people reach you?

Sara Beller: They can contact me at our direct line with the firm or via my email, which is on the website and the California State Bar website. It's sara.beller@dolmanlaw.com. You can get a hold of me there or at extension 147 when you call our main line. That'll route you directly to me. I'm always available and happy to speak to anyone that may need some help.

Matt Dolman: Sara, you are awesome. I really appreciate you coming on today. You practice in an area — we handle a lot of predation cases. I never got to touch on Roblox because that's a case you're playing a heavy role in. So maybe next time we get you on, we'll talk about sexual predation on platforms. But you handle foster care and school abuse, which Stan and I don't play a huge role in. We do a lot of work with Sara, but not in those two areas. So I know you handle that with Jamie Powers and some other great lawyers at our firm. Kudos to you for fighting the good fight. You've been an awesome addition to our firm. We love you. Thanks for coming on today. That wraps up another episode of the David versus Goliath podcast. I'm Matt Dolman. My partner in crime, Stan G. Have a blessed day.