Note: The State of Washington already has an ombudsman. She is over worked, has no power, and nothing comes of her well done reports. We have a slightly higher kill rate of children than Colorado (pop. 5 million).
MONITORING CHILD WELFARE
Colorado Lawmakers unveil bill to create an independent investigator of the system
Peter Marcus, DDN Staff Writer
Friday, February 26, 2010
Following the deaths of 35 children over the past three years who “slipped through the cracks” of the state’s child protection system, lawmakers yesterday unveiled a bill that would create an independent investigator to address weaknesses in the system.
At a news conference yesterday, Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton, unveiled her Senate Bill 171, the Child Protection Ombudsman Bill. The measure would create an independent “advocate” to help protect children and provide accountability of the child welfare system.
“How many children have to die before we take action?” asked Newell. “Today, we need to make a stand for those who are too young to stand up for themselves.”
It remains unclear exactly how the program would be run, either directly through the Department of Human Services, or through a nonprofit. Karen Beye, director of the Colorado Department of Human Services, said those details will be worked out by lawmakers as they debate the bill.
Necessary?
But supporters of the legislation, including Gov. Bill Ritter, say the move is necessary to fix the broken system. (Hi, Bill...FYI...This isn't working at all for WA.)
“This legislation will provide transparency, consistency, accountability and ongoing input for Colorado’s child welfare system and help us improve critical services for Colorado’s most vulnerable children,” said Ritter. (NO...it won't)
The proposal stems from one of 29 recommendations made by the Child Welfare Action Committee, which was formed in April 2008 by an executive order from the governor. The committee met for 18 months before making its recommendations. (It took almost two years!!!)
Several recommendations are already being implemented, including the Child Welfare Training Academy, (licensed and bonded state workers???) a differential response program that allows stakeholders to skip the court process,(do away with all parental rights????) and beefed-up response to mandatory reporters, to name a few.
HIGH PROFILE CASES
Several high-profile cases raised caution flags over the past three years.
One case was 3-year-old Neveah Gallegos, who was suffocated, placed in a garbage bag... (I WILL SPARE US ALL THE ALL TOO FAMILIAR DETAILS)..... Critics said it was unacceptable that the case slipped past the welfare system’s radar, especially considering the mother’s boyfriend was a registered sex offender, and that little Neveah had been treated at an emergency room for vaginal bleeding. (THAT I had to leave in!)
Seven-year-old Chandler Grafner was another child... He weighed only 34 pounds when he was found dead. (Colorado..we have you beat..we found a 14 year-old weighing only 47 pounds!) Grafner's biological parents filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against child-welfare .... claiming the Department of Human Services failed to adequately investigate the foster parents... There were even reports at the time that surfaced from Grafner’s school indicating abuse.
OMBUDSMAN'S DUTIES: STOP SUCH TRAGEDIES FROM OCCURRING
Ritter said the purpose of the ombudsman would be to really stop such tragedies from occurring.
.... The ombudsman’s office would be charged with reviewing complaints, making recommendations and filing an annual report concerning improvements to the system. An aspect of community outreach and education would also be tied to the job. (WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BET THEY ARE USING WA LAW AS A MODEL??)
While the ombudsman would be independent of state departments, the program would be an independent component of the Department of Human Services. (That has accomplished nothing here. Without any power their is no consequence to lies and circumvention of the law...using loopholes and never changing how things are done.)
Supporters point out that 29 other states have created a similar program.(And how has that been working for them?)
Newell says rather than play the blame game, it’s time for lawmakers and state departments to take action. (I suppose a little grandstanding does put a few more people to sleep and give cover to those who need it.)“For years there has been finger pointing from and to all parties: the state; the counties; the advocates; the providers; and it is finally time to put down our fingers and join hands and band together for the solution to help children, to stop the blame game and come together to be part of the solution in protecting kids,” she said. (And now in song: "God Bless America...Land of the Free...Stand beside them...or hide them...kids will die...in the hands...of the state.)
Gotta go...so many taxes to vote "NO" on today. :o)
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11 comments:
2 purposes of Meinigs office :
1)Act as foil to make it look like government is accountable when her office really has no power, and no resources to do actual investigations.
2) Store damaging documents to protect them from freedom of information request. To protect the ombudsman's neutrality their offices and investigations are private and immune to every legal action save a request from the legislature.
Maybe we should contact some film-makers to do a special on this issue nation wide and put this State in the spotlight. One would think the way Michael Moore goes after things he would pick up on this one. I just don't understand how people can sleep let alone look at themselves in a mirror everyday knowing what they are doing to children and their families. Where is Serpico when you need him! Switzerland. Why isn't this issue on the news every night They owe it to these children to keep on this State and it's "for the money" agencies.
Dear Pam: I stopped by your office a couple weeks ago to thank you for your work on CPS reform. Your aide was a nice young man and listened very carefully. I wanted him to know this "flaming liberal" knows you get it while many of my progressivfe friends are just beginning to get the picture ~ a little late I might add ...
I just got back from DC and the issue of legal childnapping is rampant nationwide. To create another "fox watching the chicken coop" with another useless commission is just letting the foxes eat more chicken catch-a-story" (pun intended) with no accountability by any DSHS employees.
With this state spending literally 1000% more to snatch children from good homes than they do on family preservation, this is a sin.
Now get this People: WA state has not even been monitored for 7 FREAKIN' YEARS! Go to the HHS website and see for yourself.
Here is the study done by the Annie E Casey Foundation, scroll down to page 13 of this document and see the graph for yourself: http://www.childtrends.org/Files//Child_Trends-2009_02_17_FR_CWFinancePaper.pdf . The approximate 1/4 of the pie chart with the TANF monies they are supposed to be using for family preservation and support is also being diverted to CPS and their minions such as CASA workers.
See, in that chart you will see the Title IV monies that is exclusively used for taking of kids. The State gets nothing for returning them to their homes but they get billions for snatching them. What is wrong with this picture???
Title IV is an "entitlement" meaning it is required to give it while TANF money is "discretionary" meaning that they don't have to give it and if they do, they can do what they please with strings attached. Title IV is literally 1000s % more and almost all of it is used to take and adopt out kids. At this time only CA and FL can opt out of the strings attached and FL is actively using the money for family preservations and guess what? It is working, abuse is down, kids are flourishing in their natural families much better than in foster care and well, it WROKS fer crying out loud!
So in essence what is happening is that the Feds are handing over millions to WA State DSHS with no oversight or questions asked and the State is rewarding themselves and their personnel with no accountability for SWs, CASAS, agencies or anyone by snatching kids and adopting them out. Lots of nice jobs and good bennies however for the non-profits, agencies, consultants, court personnel (including judges), and all the other people who work together to do it.
I guess you could say at least it is an employment plan since the Adoption and Foster Care Industrial Complex (to loosely quote President Eisenhower) is indeed making a good living off little kid's backs in order to maintain those nice jobs.
No wonder CPS is running amuck. That is what we told them in DC. I had already called the DSHS Secretary's office and gotten nothing out of them about their budget and how they were spending block grants as well as our tax dollars on kidnapping little kids. I dutifully reported this to Congress when I was there to testify.
Maybe the press will get an intense interest once they realize that the state is paying themselves millions ~ maybe even billions ~ to destroy Washingtonian families instead of preserving them.
Hang in there Pam, you are a sane voice about this issue and WAY ahead of those who refused to believe what is before their eyes, even with the "open secrets" right in front of their faces, online, by agencies like HHS right there in living color.
My 2 cents,
Cat In Seattle
Thank you Cat for the info you provied us. I agree, Pam is the sane one while while the rest are there for the money train with tickets in hand.
Cat in Seattle, I would love to meet with you!
I belove that the only way to have ethical child welfare is to have child welfare be just that.
Child welfare should be supportive of children and have nothing to do with custody issues. The police are public safety officers they should protect children and our Courts should decide custody and be totally devoiced from child welfare...
The Ombudsman like the Brahms committee and Casa are all conjoined at the the hip of corruption.
The ombudsman like CPS is busy with contrived nonsense rather than concerned with real or actual abuse, neglect or over-site!!
Dear Anonymous: you can email me at: mntleo2 AT yahoo dot com and I will give you my phone number. I would love to talk to you as well and anyone else dealing with this travesty that has torn your families apart.
Soon U.S. Congress and the Senate are going to be working on re-authorizing TANF. To use any of this money for CPS with all they already have is beyond immoral, it is downright disgusting. Taking TANF money and using it to destroy families proves how souless DSHS CPS personel. I cannot imagine anyone having a soul to work for an entity that takes away even the poorest of family's meager resources and create such terrible trauma with little kids and deep grief for their families, just so they can make a buck off their backs.
Representative Jim McDermott is chairperson of the powerful Ways and Means subcommittee on the House side and Senator Cantwell is chariperson on the Senate Financial side. Rep McDermott and Senator Murray are sympathetic, but Cantwell is still on the fence. Most likely the re-authorization will not happen until after next year's election but believe me, most of them are clueless up there on the Hill about the use of the mostly the poor for adoption harvesting for the most part. Up to and including the President.
The more of us telling our stories and getting the information out, the better. The most disgusting of all is that DSHS is well aware that kids do better in their own families than being taken. They know this for a fact and yet they still take klds for the slightest reasons encouraging lies from the social workers in order to sell these little ones.
Thanks to Senator Roach, the ugly truth about DSHS is being realized because she actually cares about the families and their children and is not moved or bought by DSHS boloney. I do love that Lady for all she is doing on this issue!
Cat
Guess what people...you are obviously not foster parents. You have no idea how many kids I get in the middle of the night...beaten...molested...high at 11 years old...prostituted...drunk...and every other thing you couldn't imagine. THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO HAVE A CHILD! And guess what...if a mom can't get her sh*t together in 6 months then her risk to backslide after getting her kids back at 12-24 is huge. I am trying to take care of the kids who are rescued from bad parents. You really want to help these kids? Get better services in place for them. geez. Find them parents who will take them in and give them a chance in life.
twist and stick to procure our country's most vulnerable/valuable resource...
the government/state paid actors/employees 'involved with' dcfs are all secure in the knowledge that their appreciation comes in the form of their paycheck, as well as in the multitude of outrageous benefits they receive leeching an undeserved salary and so to must keep business at an optimal level at all times....)
Cori S: Besides actually listening to the stories being told to Senator Roach, perhaps you might learn from studies made showing many kids left in their homes with services do much better than being in foster care. Here is one study from the Annie E. Casey Foundation: http://nccpr.info/the-evidence-is-in-foster-care-vs-keeping-families-together-the-definitive-studies/
The stats show this Foster Care Industry pretends to care far more about the one kid that might slip through the cracks than the thousands of kids that are truamatized and damaged due to being taken on "suspicions" that yield, well thousands of dollars for the agency and their minions for every kid they take.
While I know real abuse exists, you might also consider that false allegations can be made with absolutely *no* accountablility by CPS accusers, so this makes it very hard to believe that all the children brought to your home have been abused because the lies and hysteria are more than evident with these people.
Oh and one other thing about allegations that merely mean some SW and CASA SAYS there is abuse they do not have to prove it. Our state's DSHS office has not been monitored in over 7 years by the Feds. it is little wonder these people say it and families are destroyed ~ so they can keep their jobs, not to save children.
This is because this State literally spends 1000% more on destroying families and harvesting little kids than on preserving them. Adoption and foster care get bottomless pits of Title IV E and B entitlements. Then they go and take the paltry amount left to support families, which is next to nil. Yet these greedheads have to go and take about 1/3 more from the poorest of poor family's funding as well (TANF), this is how greedy these people are.
Follow the money and then see why the skeptics abound when they see "accusations" and know that 1000% more is spent on taking kids with rubber stamping judges and the minions of non-profit, consultants, etc all with their hand out for their jobs and funding, literally living off the backs of destroyed families and kids than on preserving their families. Kids brought in the middle of the night? Good time for a kid nappin' and Roast The Parent Party, all right ...
The real reason kids are brought to your home in the middle of the night smells suspiciously like a legal kidnapping that foster parentsw cooperate with ensuring. But then the Adoption and Foster Care Industrial Complex raking in literally 1000% more who care little about kids and much more about thier existance.
BTW I got these stats off the HHS website, the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, but well our own DSHS website is too chicken to publish their budget or even TELL anyone how they get and spend their money ~ but I found out anyway from the Feds.
My 2 cents
Cat in Seattle
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