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“Family Services”, “Human Services”, “Protective Services” … whatever titles agencies may be tagged with … many reports these days seem to indicate that when it comes to such the emphasis is not anywhere in the general vicinity of “service”, and “family”, “human” and “protective” are all a bit of a stretch, as well.
Like the well-publisized situation in the UK now where an adoption quota system is said to have inspired almost rampant removals of children from family homes, there appears in the good old USA to be widespread misuses of position and power on the one hand and inefficiency, slack practices and a lack of accountability on the other … or maybe those are all on the same hand … resulting in a whole lot of suffering.
From every angle … potential adoptive parents for kids in foster care, biological families that are doing just fine, kids living with, or dying from, torture … agencies are getting it wrong far too often.
In Arkansas, a group called the Adoption Coalition is working to change that state’s mandated branch, complaining that lost paperwork, unreturned phone calls and human error are now more the rule than the exception.
In Florida, the relevant (or irrelevant, as the case may be) agency failed to investigate two children’s medical histories which led to the kids’ mother being accused of intentionally making them sick.
Through a haze of laziness and shoddy practice, both children were removed from the home … one for 144 days, the other for 77 days — the kids were 2 and 5 at the time.
In one tiny degree of compensation, the state has to pay the more than $300,000 the couple paid out in legal fees to get their kids back.
Then, there’s the case in Philadelphia where the agency in charge there had been paid to check up on kids … two years of Yeah, they’re fine. No worries. Case closed. … until a drug raid found heroin all over the place and a kid locked in a cage.
Tip of the iceberg, these cases, and all within the last couple of days. How many times does some version of this story play out somewhere in America.
Which brings me to a point I simply cannot sidestep …
How in blazes can anyone wag a finger in the face of developing nations, jump up and down and go all blue in the face about transparency, infringement of rights, lack of attention to important details and such when abuses of law, corruption and worse happen every day in the wealthiest nation on the planet?
Do countries like Cambodia and Guatemala have legions of social workers paid to look after the welfare of families and children in their employ? No. Does every state, county and city in the US have them? Yes.
Do the budgets of developing nations set aside millions of dollars every year for staff, computers, chairs, coffee machines, transportation, phones, lights, health insurance and more for these legions? No way.
Yet, somehow, these countries are suppose to match a template set to an unreachable height by a system that doesn’t begin to match it itself.
Glass houses and stones come to mind.
good point Sandra and I totally agree
L.
That’s what I’m saying. A lot more effort needs to be put into fixing the system in the US and in other developed countries, but how many politicians make that a priorty when it’s not election season and when something contraversal has not happened?
That is exactly what you’ve been saying, Chromesthesia!
Fact is, that controversial happenings are almost daily, but the public isn’t paying enough attention.
Let’s make some noise, shall we?
you’re singing my song, Sandra! argh! don’t get me started!
I would hazard a guess that in developing countries, a caring neighbor serves as a better safety net for most children than all the social workers combined do for the US kiddos.
AMEN!
No kidding, Sue. This is OUTRAGEOUS!
Noise, Sandra? Did you say noise? Is there any other way, my friend?
I just want to go on a crusade complete with armour, swords and a large horse.
But that’s not practical, so what else can I do when politicians are dense and indifferent and all the groups who have all the power spent more time on trivial issues that cannot be nearly as important as the wellbeing of millions of children!
You can’t fix the system. You will never eliminate the things it is meant to eliminate, you will only empower bureaucrats to exercise power over others.
Things can be done, but relying on an agency of the state/government will never solve the problem.
Brad