Former child welfare caseworker Rebecca Bryce has a lot to say about the system failures that contributed to the recent death of 2-year-old Jordan Belliveau.

Until recently, Bryce was a caseworker for the private agency that was charged with protecting Belliveau before his alleged murder at the hands of his own mother.

“I will probably be considered a pariah for speaking to the media but it doesn’t end here. I’m going to continue to fight for these kids. I’m going to be the catalyst for change,” Bryce told 8 On Your Side in an exclusive interview Monday. “This isn’t over.”

Bryce says she spent 15 months working for the private child welfare agency known as Directions for Living before her firing days before Jordan Belliveau’s death in a flex-time dispute with her supervisor.

She clocked out early on a Friday to avoid overtime.

“They said that I caused undue trauma,” Bryce said. “Well, I would like to point out the undue trauma to my 30 other kids who have since found me on Facebook and said, ‘What am I going to do without you?’”

Bryce says people should be slow to point fingers at caseworkers, judges, magistrates and other players involved in Belliveau’s case until all of the facts emerge. We’re expecting to see 1,200 more documents in this case released this week.

But Bryce is unequivocal in her criticism of a system that she says puts far too much weight on reuniting kids with unfit parents and makes it nearly impossible for caseworkers to terminate parental rights.

“I need a stack of documents this thick,” Bryce said indicating a foot high pile of papers. “And 212 reasons why.”

That said, Bryce believes various agencies, including her former employer, Directions for Living, missed several opportunities to keep Belliveau out of harm’s way before his alleged murder.

Directions for Living CEO April Lott said she can’t comment on any specifics of the Belliveau case, explain why no one removed the child from his mother or comment on Bryce’s former employment.

Lott indicated the document release this week would answer many of the public’s questions about the Belliveau case and perhaps raise a few new ones.

In July, Belliveau’s parents got into a physical fight because neither one wanted custody of him at that time.

In August, police had to use a bullhorn to coax Belliveau’s mother, Charlisse Stinson, to open the door to a child protective investigator, and she later refused access to Belliveau’s court-appointed guardian.

Stinson was also jobless and on the verge of eviction, clear violations of her custody deal with the court.

So why didn’t child welfare workers remove the child or at least call for a shelter hearing?

Bryce has an idea.

“Honestly, numbers. We are on quotas. We are on quotas and we are told, ‘If there is any way to keep this kid in home do it,'” Bryce said.

A number of people are criticizing the judge and magistrate who recommended and ordered reunification of the family a few months ago after Belliveau spent a year and a half in foster care.

But Bryce doesn’t blame them for what happened.

“They work so hard and they see dozens of these cases. They see the worst of the worst cases and their hands are just as tied by the system as the rest of us,” Bryce said.

Bryce believes Florida should return all child welfare responsibility to DCF instead of operating under the currently privatized system of care in which DCF hired Eckerd Connects as the lead agency and Eckerd hires agencies like Directions for Living to manage cases while the Pinellas sheriff’s office investigates abuse.

Bryce is now pushing for justice in Belliveau’s case, which she equates to life in prison for the mother accused of killing him.

Despite the long hours and hardships of working as a case manager, Bryce insists she’s still dedicated to becoming a catalyst for change in the system where she worked night and day to protect kids from harm.

“It’s about the kids. It’s about the families. It’s not about me,” Bryce said.

“I would go back to that job in a heartbeat. Do I think I’ll get the chance to, no, but I would go back to being a case manager because I love those kids. Those kids matter.”