Yet another child dies!

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   mdawson17posted 14 years ago

   I just listened to a story on cnn where a 7 year old child was abused by his mothers X boyfriend for more than three months! The abuse had been reported by school teachers at least twice but yet the system (Caseworkers) did not find significant signs of abuse! Three days ago LA authorities found this 7 old child beaten to death in his bed! The X Boyfriend no where around! In your opinion what can be done to re vamp the system that has been set up to protect our children from these types of out ranged monsters?
   
   And secondly is the system failing our innocent children?

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      cynthiaaliseposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      The system does fail often.  There is a lot to it.  Some of the problem is too few resources.  I have a background in mental health and I can vouch for the way that the system is over taxed and there are too few resources.  It is sad, but the socialworkers have to be very careful about removing a child.  They could be worse off in the system because of its problems.  It is a very difficult decision. 
      
      I think that one way to revamp the system is to provide better compensation for foster care and better funding to social services.

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         mdawson17posted 14 years agoin reply to this

         This is true but to have our tax dollars designated for better services is almost impossible!

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      ledefensetechposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      In short, yes.  I worked for years at a state-run mental health facility.  If people at large knew the stupidity and ignorance that ran rampant there, those places would be shut down overnight.  I would like to add a caveat though.  While many people are there to pick up a paycheck and enjoy the "status" of their positions, there are a very few people who really do care and do their jobs to the best of their ability.  They're the ones who keep the whole thing running against all odds.  Problem is that they're outnumbered by the ignorant and criminal.

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         cynthiaaliseposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I have to answer, that not all facilities are like that.  I go to a very good program with compassionate and intelligent people.  But, it took me years to find that.

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            ledefensetechposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Is the program state run, or is it private.  Even if it is state run, there are exceptions to every rule.  The sad thing is that our facility is better than most in the state.  I rather think it's due to our small size and the number of committed people there.  In short, despite the fact that they are so few in number, the effect they have is more widely felt than it would be if the facility were larger.

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            mdawson17posted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Yes your right their are facilities that are out their that are good but here again it should not have taken you years to find it! As many bonds that goes towards the revamping of the system their should be many good programs to choose from not just a few!

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         mdawson17posted 14 years agoin reply to this

         You have said this very well the system is corrupted with politics and ignorance! And the ones that suffer is truly the consumer!

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      Ambitionposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      This is really unfortunate.

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      Bredaviesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Well first off..The fact that the mother would stay with this man..just shows what kind of a person she is. Some women are so selfish and would do anything to keep a man. I think women should be educated on this. I think the school systems should take children out of their homes if there is suspious activity.

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         mdawson17posted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Just wanted to inform you that the mother was not with X-boyfriend she could afford the child so sent him to stay with him!!

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   Pamda Manposted 14 years ago

   Is this in the US?

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      mdawson17posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Yes L.A California

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   Froggy213posted 14 years ago

   Wow, I just found this thread--don't know how many of you have read about my Grandson--only 23 months old when he was killed by my daughter's ex-boyfriend.
   
   The boyfriend is still walking the streets--not here in our town--that would be very dangerous for him.
   
   DFS was involved and could have saved Jonathan's life.
   
   It is my understanding that here in Missouri, to be a caseworker, all you need are 6 college credit hours--doesn't matter what the credits are for.
   
   My opinion may be very harsh--I was at one time totally against the death penalty--my mind has changed on that--examples need to be made to stop these creeps.
   
   Public executions after found or admitted guilt.
   
   DFS workers who don't do there jobs correctly need to be held accountable--In this State, there is no suing DFS or the workers--they have clauses in the State laws to completely protect them---All Attorneys that I have tried to speak with about this are scared---I, unlike most, found a way to get all the DFS paperwork on Jonathan's case--it shows guilt by the boyfriend and many mistakes by DFS--Lawyers won't even look at it---If anyone knows an attorney who would be willing and can practice law here in Missouri, please help---I have sought help, and I am treated like the "bad guy" here---Many people worry that my life may be in danger.
   
   It has been over 2 years since this happened and the local P.A. won't even discuss the case with us--I have no clue what they are doing---Last I knew the killer was living with another girl who has small children, and it seems authorities just don't care.
   
   Enough ranting, but children MUST be protected and I better NEVER see an adult abusing a child--If I did, I am sure they would much rather have the cops than me dealing with them.
   
   To read about this more--read my Froggy's World hubs

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      mdawson17posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Froggy first of all let me give you my condolences towards your lost of your grandchild and further more because I have and still work in the political arena of child advocacy I can see where your faith in the system certainly can be challenged! It is not a very rewarding system is it?

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         Froggy213posted 14 years agoin reply to this

         By no means--the system is broke--has been a long time.
         As a matter of fact, the system is hating on me. They are going to all levels to make me look like the bad guy.
         
         When this all happened, we all put ex-partes on each other--well now because of the protection order that the killer put on me which claims I was stalking/abusing him(the killer); a 25 year old punk, certain jobs will not hire me.
         
         It is I that is considered the criminal.

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   Lisa HWposted 14 years ago

   In the last few weeks there have been two young children beaten to death by their fathers in my state; and just yesterday a woman was arrested for putting her five-year-old special needs child in a hot attic and leaving him in his own filth.  Some of it nobody knows about until the child ends up dead.  Some of it is a matter of incompetence within the system.  Haleigh Poutre's case was famous because she was beaten into a coma after 17 visits from DSS (resulting, apparently, in social workers believing the little girl was hurting herself - until she was beaten into a coma with a baseball bat).  It was said that Western Mass doctors and social workers "aren't as expert" as those in the Eastern part of the state.  At the same time, 4-year-old Dontel Jeffers was beaten by a 24-year-old Mentor Program foster mother after being tied to a radiator.  Apparently, the people in Boston aren't as "expert" as they think they are either.
   
   Between social workers who have to the line between aiming to reunite kids with their parents, social workers who don't have any common sense, and the general tendency to find some abuse hard to believe; little kids sometimes just don't stand a chance.  Children who aren't born to solid, normal, mature mothers (who are careful about who they have children with) will never be protected the way children who have those kind of mothers are.  That's what they should maybe teach teens in high school.

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      Aya Katzposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Lisa HW, I agree. Every child's first, best hope is its own mother. Sometimes mothers show how good they are by giving a child to another good mother to raise, but that, too, is the choice of the original mother. Nature makes sure that all mothers are good mothers by not allowing the children of bad mothers to survive. Intervention, by and large, cannot make things better than the way they are under natural law.

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   world of the wiseposted 14 years ago

   Killing of innocent children is so common where i stay, especially for human sacrifice. You may be lucky bse it may be rare that side. for us, our kids dont move out at nyt

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   ledefensetechposted 14 years ago

   I've always believed we could help the issue by emancipating kids that reach a certain age if their parents are abusive or neglectful.  One of the greatest follies of the system is the belief that you need to reunite the kid with their parents.  Quite frankly, most of those parents don't need to be in charge of anything, much less raising a child.  Many of the kids I worked with only needed some smart, competent person to talk them through the problems they encountered and encourage them to develop common sense and critical thinking skills. 
   
   How we would implement such a thing is worthy of debate.  I have several ideas, but they're only half formed and I'm not sure how well they'd work in the real world, but half a chance is better than what we see being done today.

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   AsherKadeposted 14 years ago

   this is why LEO's don't watch the news....

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   Aya Katzposted 14 years ago

   Ledefensetech, emancipating children is an option that exists within the system, but in order to be emancipated a child has to be able to show that he or she is competent to make decisions and be self-supporting. Most children are not ready for emancipation until they are at least fourteen. While there may be some who are ready earlier, the fact is that all of us come into the world helpless and dependent. A good mother is essential for early development. (A man can serve that role, too, of course, but it usually is a woman.)

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      ledefensetechposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I'd set the age at about 13.  You'd have to pair them with a mentor to keep them from doing something stupid, but I thing you could emancipate someone that young and give them a good shot at success.  I have no idea what we do with kids younger than that, although exceptional kids might be emancipated as young as 11 or 12.
      
      Sure you can emancipate under our current strictures, but for the most part, that is ignored.  I worked with almost 1,000 different kids in my time at that facility and not once did I see any kid given the choice to emancipate themselves.  Unless they were being kicked out because they were turning 18.  We sent a number of kids back to situations where we knew they were being abused, but DFS never found any of the allegations to be true.  If DFS says it didn't happen, then it didn't happen.  Never mind that the kid acted out in ways that someone who has been sexually abused acts out, he or she is just crazy.
      
      Current political theory demands that kids be reunited with their parents no matter the situation they find themselves in.  That's why I slowly began to hate my job there.  At some point in time you can't keep lying to these kids when you know what's most likely going to happen to them.  There were exceptions and to this day I remember them all because we had so few successes.  But rather than investigate our successes and try to simulate that across the board, our idiot political leaders ride the current political beliefs down in flames, rather than admit they're only mortal and make mistakes just like anyone else.  It's the kids who suffer in the end.
      
      I'd also argue with your assertion that women are what's needed.  Men or women can be what's needed.  They just have to have their heads on strait and not up their backside.

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   Aya Katzposted 14 years ago

   Children are expected to research the law and find out about the emancipation option. Really! That's one way they can show they are ready.
   
   When I practiced law, I always thought it would be interesting if I had a child walk in asking for an emancipation. I would gladly have taken such a case. But it never happened!

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      ledefensetechposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Sure, but that's my point.  People are actively discouraged from or deliberately kept ignorant of the rights they have.  Who's going to tell them how to research emancipation?  Their parents, who are neglectful?  Don't forget that these parents get SSA money for keeping their kids in the home.  Or perhaps the state agency?  By telling their consumers that, they risk not having enough business and getting their budget cut next year.  The deck is stacked against these kids.  The problem lies in how people at large think about liberty and the consequences of doing things the way we do.
      
      Instead of locking these kids away in an institution, we need to start with emancipation as a first option, then if they can't adjust to that, look at different mentoring options.  Now we do it bass ackwards.

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    Aya Katzposted 14 years ago

    In the old days, children could look the law up in the county law library. Nowadays, I imagine that they can find it online. If you really feel strongly about this, you could write a hub: how to file for emancipation.
    
    The point is that the idea has to be the child's. A social worker can't initiate it.

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    ledefensetechposted 14 years ago

    That wasn't my suggestion at all.  The problem is that social workers will steer kids away from this sort of information "for their own good".  So long as we allow these people to run things under the cover of "privacy" and secrecy, there will never be a call to change things.  I've seen it happen.

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    Aya Katzposted 14 years ago

    Do these kids have access to the internet?

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    ledefensetechposted 14 years ago

    No they don't not at the facility.  Besides most of them go to a public school that is worse than a regular public school.  Busywork doesn't even begin to cover it.  So even if they did have access to it, it wouldn't even occur to them to look up emancipation.  If we tried to tell them, we'd wind up on the street PDQ.  The system is set up to keep you in once you get in.  That's why I couldn't do it anymore.

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    Lisa HWposted 14 years ago

    Aya, I can't say agree with this quote (but maybe I'm misunderstand what you're saying):
    
    "..Lisa HW, I agree.  Nature makes sure that all mothers are good mothers by not allowing the children of bad mothers to survive. Intervention, by and large, cannot make things better than the way they are under natural law."
    
    Nature doesn't make sure that all mothers are good mothers.  The numbers of mothers proven unfit by the courts is staggering.  Their children DO survive, and the numbers of over-age-two children waiting for adoption are staggering and heartbreaking.  Then there are the children who are left to grow up, living with their bad mothers/fathers.
    
    One of my own sons was adopted from a mother who didn't voluntarily seek out a good, loving, mother for the tiny infant whose skull she fractured.  It is now known that nurturing in the first few years of life actually alters the physical development (brain connections) in the brain.  I have my own nature/nurture experiment because my other two children are ones I had myself.  As a little boy my son was exactly the same kind of gentle, well behaved, caring, little kid his siblings were.  He's five years old than my younger son, and when he was as young as five and six he showed an extraordinary capacity to just naturally notice if he thought his little brother might get hurt or be uncomfortable.  He was eighteen when his grandmother was bedridden, and he did far more for her than a lot of people would think a young guy eighteen would ever even think to do.   All three of my kids are extremely caring, thoughtful, people; and it that isn't because Nature designed them that way.  It's because of how they were raised.
    
    Nature designs babies and young children to be in a "learning mode" and to learn through bonding, mimicking, being talked to, etc.  If a mother never had the nurturing necessary to develop her own maternal, protective, instinct and deep respect for her child; that child can/will learn those things if he's removed from that unfit mother early enough and raised by someone who is a normal, loving, mother to him.  Whether it's a human mother or, say, a cat mother; the mother without a maternal instinct is damaged.  That's not how Nature planned it, and if you take away the babies early enough they won't be damaged or die.  My son's eighth-grade teacher commented, "He is an absolutely beautiful person," and she wasn't the only one to ever say something along those lines.  I figure he either was born with that kind, beautiful, heart and soul or else he got it from nurturing.  Either way, that disproves the belief that Nature would "think" the child of an unfit mother should not live and go onto to procreate.  In the meantime, that particular birth mother had her five other kids, and they all lived to grow up and be very damaged people.
    
    We've all known how sometimes one animal will "adopt" the baby/babies of another (even of a different species).  I had a cat who "adopted" a younger cat.  Intervention when there is no competent mother in the picture is as much a part of Nature as anything.

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    pgrundyposted 14 years ago

    Kids from bad homes often feel protective of their parents. Not always, but often. Kids with bad mothers don't always die if the state doesn't step in. State run institutions are often horrible but not always. Emancipation is a primary solution that could only be advanced by someone with a willful lack of understanding of child abuse and poverty. Some of the generalizations being made in this thread are chilling.

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       ledefensetechposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Pam, have you ever worked with these kids?

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    Davinagirl3posted 14 years ago

    This sickens me.  I actually had to make an appointment with my shrink after I heard of the San Antonio woman who killed her 3 week old baby.  Harming a child is the worst of the worst.  When I hear of it, it makes my soul ache.  That is the best way to describe it.  The worst part is trying to imagine the pain that these babies' must have suffered.  It kills a little part of me when I try to concieve of such horror.

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       mdawson17posted 14 years agoin reply to this

       You are so right the individuals that do this outraged stuff are not people they are monsters!!! They need to be locked up and tortured and never be let out again!!

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