The Los Angeles Times article below points out the tragic preventable death of 2 year old little Joseph due to a backlog of 12,000 cases. There are not enough social workers to visit the families. The public outrage leads to blaming social workers when we should be looking at ourselves.
Blaming social workers for murdered babies is like blaming the police for who rides in the squad car and it won’t solve anything. Until the caseloads become more reasonable and the departments get the resources they need to improve the lives of the children they visit, the suffering and death of innocent children will continue to rise.
It is a terrible indictment of our society (what is it we value?)
What frightens me most about this story is the counties move to hide information about the continued death and abuse of children in the county system. Their argument is that it puts the family on trial and brings terrible publicity to the department.
The counter to this is that until the public and policymakers understand the numbers, the suffering, and the hopelessness these families are living in, the cycle will continue to expand generation after generation as it has for about fifty years. Change will not come without awareness of the need for change.
The topic is uncomfortable so we avoid it.
The truth makes us look bad so we hide the information.
Child sex abuse, neglect, and violence against children in this nation have grown exponentially and by not reporting this bad news we are only delaying the reckoning that we must face (and helpless children are dying because of the hiding and underreporting of information). Get the real information from the medical community; www.avahealth.org
A Minneapolis baby suffered the exact same type of bathtub drowning death last year after 14 calls to child protection. I was called by the Minneapolis Star Tribune reporters who were surprised when I told them that as a volunteer CASA guardian ad Litem one of my cases had 49 police calls to a home before the children were removed from the home (and then, only because the seven year old tried to kill the five year old in the presence of the police).
Abused and neglected children have no voice but the social workers and police that visit their homes. When a worker has a monstrous caseload, babies die and children suffer. Abused children suffer their traumas for life and communities bear that cost in the courts, schools, and unsafe communities that result from their double abandonment.
We have money for wars, big stadiums, and even in times of economic downturns we afford what is important to maintain our lifestyle.
Funding programs for abused and neglected children is the very least we can do to assert ourselves as a civilized people.
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Continue reading ‘Tip Of The Iceberg; Abused Children Dying Due To County Backlogs’
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