At that time budgets were busting and I was chairing an issue area with much need. Then Senator Linda Smith (later a Member of Congress) was the first chair and I was the only other one. She moved into leadership and I took the chairmanship as an incoming freshman. Smith stayed on the committee along with Sen. Phil Talmadge.
During that time I proposed legislation to break up DSHS. I suggested four new departments and moving of some of the administrative offices to other existing agencies. I mention this as a reminder that the concept of breaking up this sometimes dangerous monolith is not a new one. Heck...I new this needed to be done BEFORE we began counting the bodies of children, the mistreatment of the elderly, and the escape of a wacko at the fair grounds.
And, the breakup may be coming.
This comes via an AP story in MYNorthwest.com, April 12th. Kessler is the retiring House Democrat Caucus Chair but has an eye to the future and next session's cost saving needs. DSHS is so big that the people at the top can not control it. They could...but their purposes are better served by turning an eye at what goes on there. Kessler said of DSHS:
"It's such a monolithic agency and the people we serve may be better served if we broke that up." Kessler said.
There it is...a glimmer....
(Breaking up DSHS is the suggestion. Not contracting out...not giving the jobs to private industry. The agency is too big to "fix." There is no leadership that wants to do that or has the skills in the first place. So...to the reader who wanted to add to what I clearly said...please just read the text.)
7 comments:
I did read what you wrote...I also know what the long term plan is and THAT is private agencies running the foster child portion excluding initial intake. That's why we brought in the new CA that we did. To transition it. And THAT will increase all of the abuses that you are trying to stop now with much less accountability. Realistically a child could be placed in one agency after another, one foster home after another until that child has been lost in the system (as has happened in other private system states). I would like to see real reform and accountability, not shifting responsibility.
Yes and redefine the mandated "Best interest of child" so that this serves the child and not as State Chattel either so that onerous institutions can wrongfully gorge at the trough of public funding at the expense of these innocent children and families whom they are SUPPOSED TO PROTECT NOT INTENTIONALLY FAIL!
Here is a really great article regarding adoptive parents not loving the adoptive children. What is not well known, is that the courts here in this state are plugged up and back logged with people wanting to "give the kids back." All the fluffy, romantic sounding rhetoric provided by state propaganda does not counteract the reality of taking a child in that doesn't want to be there and the horrible trauma it causes the child. People then feel trapped by the anger produced so they drug the kids into a stupor. This is the reality of the adoptive world, and one that DSHS will never discuss.
http://www.slate.com/id/2250590/?Gt1=38001
Lost in all of this is also the question: how many lives have been destroyed or careers that never materialized? I know my mother worked extremely hard to obtain an engineering degree; her career never materialized. She had to spend her time fighting for her rights as a mother and/or grandmother. This is a shame! Not only could she have provided a better life for herself but also her children and grandchildren!
I agree with both of these comments these people are absolutley right on. We need to have accountability within this system. We as citizens need to gather together and insist that this system be changed and save these precious children & families.and put an end to all of this.
The second comment from lovingfitfather about their so called phrase that the use " the best interest of the child" is not for the childs benefit it is used for their own montary gain and not in the childs best interest and I am so sick of hearing them use this phrase used by them as we know full well it is for them & not the child.
Very Concerned
Grandma in Vancouver
Do they ask the child where they want to go? Best interest of the child? Where is the child? Where they do not want to be. They want their God-given right to be with their God given family. Who cares? I have asked my Senator to just "sign on to support a bill" to give family rights, and he said, " I don't sign bills.' So I think, maybe I should run? At least I would "sign on' and support my constituents. But, we don't want that. What is really going on here? When someone wants to help they are discouraged. Not going to stop me. I need a better answer than "No' when I have so many people counting on me.
They have asked my daughter for a about 4 years now, if she wanted to go home, she always told them yes, now they are going to allow her to come home, that alone is abusive.
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