For those of us in child protection services this has been a horrific summer for babies in need of child protection services.
I was interviewed by the Star Tribune after the baby died in July in the bathtub after 14 calls to child protection. Alex Ebert & Anthony Lonetree spoke with me about my experience as a guardian ad-litem and seemed quite surprised that multiple calls to a home with no official response were commonplace.
I worked on a case with 45 calls to a home before the child was removed (and only then because she tried to kill her five year old sister in the presence of the officers). The officers were not at all surprised or defensive about this. A prostitute lived in the home and it was highly probable that the seven year old had been prostituted.
Children deserve better. Here are a few recent cases:
8 month old 8.24 in bloomington
Developmentally disabled child starved 8.04
8 month old homicide in Golden Valley 8.29
Anger at the parents serves no purpose. Usually, their lot in life is as troubled as their child’s. Helping them would help their child.
The best hope for these babies would have been a more responsive community with more compassion, more daycare, more crisis nursuries, and more child protection services.
It is a bigger step to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is true.
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