Naika Venant used a scarf to hang herself in a Miami Gardens foster home on Jan. 22 and livestreamed it on Facebook. While some viewers pleaded with the teen to rethink her decision, others egged her on over the course of two hours, child welfare officials wrote in a report acknowledging they could have done a better job.

“There were many other individuals urging her to take her own life, calling her vile names and claiming the situation was either ‘fake’ or ‘all an act,’” according to the 20-page report released Monday by the Florida Department of Children and Families.

Among those individuals was someone using the alias “Gina Alexis,” the name used by Venant’s mother, Gina Caze, according to an abuse complaint reported to the state agency on Feb. 9.

Modal Trigger

“#ADHD games played u sad little DCF custody jit that’s why u where u at for this dumb s–t n more u keep crying wolf u dead u will get buried life goes on after a jit that doesn’t listen to there parents trying to be grown seeking boys and girls attention instead of her books,” the post read.

Howard Talenfeld, Caze’s attorney, said the allegation was “absolutely false” and that his client’s comments were made after Naika died.

“She unequivocally denies she was online while Naika was alive,” Talenfeld told the Tampa Bay Times.

The teen spent a total of 28 months in foster care during an eight-year span from 2009 through 2017 and stayed in 14 different foster homes within a 16-month period, according to the report.

Investigators found Venant suffered from maltreatment and poor familial environments, including parental monitoring and transitional living situations.

“In Naika’s case, the above protective factors (strong/influential enough to give the youth hope and something to keep living for) were not consistently present in her life, and it appears that Naika did not possess resilient traits to keep her safe,” the report reads.

The report also raised the role of social media, noting that users can sometimes encourage others to commit or carry out harmful acts, as in Naika’s case. It cited three suicides livestreamed within the past year, most recently in December, when a 12-year-old girl took her life in Georgia.

“Although it is unknown whether these deaths influenced Naika, given the proximity of time between the last reported suicide and Naika’s death, reviewers noted that contagion is suspect,” the report reads.

“In the days leading up to her death, Naika acknowledged that she was sad because her mother didn’t want her to come home; however, she still voiced future plans and goals for herself such as graduating from high school and going to college,” the report reads.

DCF Secretary Mike Carroll acknowledged that Naika endured “great trauma” throughout her life and he has ordered, among other changes, additional training for foster parents on the use of social media by children in their care.

“There is little we can say that adequately describes the sorrow we still feel today from the loss of Naika,” Carroll said in a statement. “It is even more exacerbated by the information that was learned during the course of the CIRRT investigation — that this is a child who endured great trauma in her life and despite many service interventions, we were not able to put the pieces back together to prevent her from taking her own life in such a public forum.”

But Talenfeld, Caze’s attorney, claims Naika simply didn’t get the help she needed in foster care.

“Out of 14 placements,” he told the Tampa Bay Times, “not one was therapeutic.”