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Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive August 2008:
WOW.
I'm so sad
How can people treat another human being like this? It just makes me want to throw up.
I don't understand it. Many dogs are treated better than this young girl was. Good grief. She must have been in so much pain and discomfort.
What a bunch of (word I can not say)... I won't even go there.. 
How difficult would it have been for the mother to say "I can't care for her" and surrender her?
I think every single one of those people involved should be held accountable.
They all dropped the ball!
Really, how difficult would it really have been? Couldn't have been bothered with that. I sure wish we had an eye for an eye here in this country at times, the punishment that they receive will be too good for them. Wow....
I live just outside Philadelphia, and this is all over the news here. And yes, it is disgusting, appalling, heart-breaking. The Philadelphia Inquirer did an investigative story 2 years ago about the number and kinds of deaths of children under DHS supervision, but it is only now, with a new mayor and a new head of DHS, that anything is likely to happen. Unfortunately, former Mayor Street's administration did very little supervision, and DHS (and a number of other city agencies) contracted with outside, so-called non-profit agencies, that paid their CEOs and managers high salaries. There is also an ongoing investigation of some charter schools where the CEOs and boards of directors were all members of the same family or close friends, one principal got two (very high) full-time salaries for being principal of one charter school and manager of another. Another scandal involves a "non profit" providing after-school services, whose former CEO was former Mayor Street's wife.
That said, Philadelphia's DHS is not alone in this kind of event. And part of the problem is that child protective services are usually seriously under-funded, which means (1) that the case workers have very heavy case loads; (2) case workers are usually fairly poorly paid; (3) because the jobs don't pay well, the people who take them are those who don't qualify for better jobs elsewhere; and (4) traditionally, social service jobs are poorly paid in comparison with most jobs that require a college degree and maybe some graduate school.
As a nation, we don't value children highly enough to pay adequately for child-serving programs such as protective services, schools, preventive and other health care for all children. We all utter cries of horror when we read of the death of a child (a couple of years ago a boy in Virginia died from sepsis resulting from abscessed teeth because no preventive dental services were available to him, or to other low-income children in his area), but would you be willing to pay higher taxes to provide for better services for children?
Very good question, Ginny.
Another question...in the US one needs a license to drive a car, own a dog, become married, own a business, own a boat, sell insurance, drive a tractor-trailer...etc..many of these licenses require a class be taken prior to obtaining the license. But as all of you know, anyone can have a baby without a license or a class. Why is that?
Many children are not registered with any school or hospital and they slip through the cracks.
It stinks what happened to this poor little girl...what can we do to prevent this from happening to another little soul?
I stay active in my neighborhood. I can tell who needs some help, who needs a break, who needs to bring their kids over for an hour or two so mommy can take a nap. My neighbors do the same for me.
Maybe Hilary Clinton was right about one thing...it takes a village to raise a child.
I saw this the other day and was just appalled. This is such a sad, sad story. Ginny and Annie - you're both so right! In my frequent dealings with CPS over the years in the state of Indiana, I have little to no positive experiences to speak of. Way too big case loads, way too uncaring social workers, which I never get. I absolutely love teaching and although I felt under paid for all the work I put in, it never made me less of a teacher because I love kids and I'll always love kids. If I didn't love them I wouldn't be a teacher, and I feel the same about these social workers. I just have not had good experiences with the ones I've worked with.
Annie- You're first paragraph is dead-on! Isn't that the truth?!
Oh you guys are treading into dangerous waters!!! The government is far too involved in our lives as it is and I would hate to think one truly needed a license or a class to have a baby. I also don't agree with it taking a village to raise a child as again, I want people butting OUT of my business, not in!
What happened was sad, yes, but the services put into place dropped the ball and several family members did not fight hard enough for that child. More government or the 'village' watching over would not have helped. The services were in place but they screwed up badly...the relatives and friends did not have a conscience. Very sad, but more government is NOT the answer. People with a moral conscience and responsibility are the answer. People like that would have done their proper job at social services, but more than that they wouldn't have even been needed had the parents been moral and responsible people.
This is sickening. I am also the mom of a 14 year old girl with very similar needs, who weighs less than this little girl did. The difference is, Chrissy is well fed, clean, she lives a full life, and more than anything, she is deeply loved by so many people.
When I was still teaching, I had a beautiful little girl, with severe special needs, in my class. I did a lot of respite work with her, often having her in my home for weeks at a time. On several occasions I had to have her admitted to the hospital with pneumonia, because her mom sent her to school barely breathing. The worst was when her mom sent her to school with burns so bad that her skin had peeled off of her legs. Luckily for that little girl, she had spina bifida and had no feeling in her legs. I reported her family to the Children's Aid, which is like your CPS. They checked out the family, but did nothing. The worker told me that mom was trying to find a specialized care foster home for her, so there was nothing they could really do. That child left my school, went to foster care, and within a year she died. It was devastating. I will never forget her mom's words to me when I went to the funeral home. "Well Marcia, look at your girl now." I could have smacked her silly.
Anyhow, this is such a heartbreaking story.
Very heart breaking Are there programs in place where the mom could have surrendered her? I can not even begin to imagine what this child with though.
Yes, I'm sure there are programs. I am a specialized care foster parent, and I foster kids with special needs. They were not taken from their parents, but their parents chose to place them. They can still be fully involved, but don't do the day to day parenting. It's a great choice for some families, and it sure would have worked for that little girl!
>>"People like that would have done their proper job at social services, but more than that they wouldn't have even been needed had the parents been moral and responsible people."<<
Kate-I agree with your second paragraph, because the people working with her absolutely did drop the ball. I think Annie's point about having to have a license to do so many things but needing nothing to have a baby addresses the quote above. Being moral and responsible is not a prereq for having kids, unfortunately. It's also not a prereq for being a social worker, or a teacher, or a caregiver of any kind. It SHOULD be, but it's not, so really how do we watch over the children who need it? Ultimately the parent decides the fate of their child(ren) by how they raise and care for them, but many, many, many children simply do not have parents who are willing or capable of doing this. That's where the "license" comes in so-to-speak. They continue to have more children who need more services for whatever reason, etc.
I don't know the answer. It sounds so wrong to imagine that you would have to prove that you are a moral and responsible person in order to have children, but with the # of kids I've seen over the years who are so in need of care (both special needs and healthy children), it's simply not a given that being a parent means you do the right thing. I've also seen that being a social worker doesn't mean you do the right thing, so who steps up? Kids die, they go through terrible traumas of abuse and neglect, because no one does the right thing. Lord knows there have been many times I've tried to step up for a child, only to get doors slammed in my face by social workers and even police liasons. I file reports, I get nowhere. I make noise, I get nowhere. It's so sad and it seems like there's no reasonable solution to me, which makes it worse.
OUTRAGEOUS UPDATE ON THIS STORY!!!
Parents Sue in Starvation Death Case
Good grief!
That one phrase Dawn. i can't beleive this but the fact atht htey re going to use there ther children to bring this is sad. Dont' get me worng they kids may be traumatized, but if by anything, by there onwn mother not letting them contact the ambulance to save there sister. I mean if a settlementan dor judgement comes out of this one, I dont' nwo what to say. I mean i feel for the kids and some of what htye are sayign may be true, but i dont' buy it really. I think the lawyer told the parents so they wont' look liekthe vulgers( sp) they are that they should file in behalf of the children.
Okay, this is just nonsense..... That is nuts...... Those kids should be in foster homes.. The parents and every adult that new that poor little girl was dying should be in prison......
Update/clarification. First, when a lawsuit is filed because someone died, it is ALWAYS filed on behalf of "The Estate of X", and the administrator(s) of the estate are named as plaintiffs in the suit. In this case, the parents are legally the administrator's of the child's estate unless and until a court decides otherwise (which I suspect could happen before very long). And, if a settlement is made or a jury rules in favor of the Estate, a judge will decide how the proceeds are divided - not the lawyers or the administrators/parents. It would be very surprising if a judge awarded any money at all to the mother. As for the father, I don't know. The mother had custody for the last few years and from what I've read the father was not at all involved. I don't know, without re-reading everything, whether he had any awareness of the little girl's plight.
In an article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, an attorney who was retained to represent one of the attorneys for the Estate said that any settlement proceeds would be used for the benefit of Danieal's siblings.
Some above wrote about the mother surrendering custody of Danieal. From what I've read, it is entirely possible (though not likely, I'll admit) that the mother might have wanted to surrender custody, but the social worker employed by the non-profit agency that was contracted by DHS to manage this case was so negligent, we'll never know. DHS and the other agency dropped the ball in several ways. Some DHS employees who did make visits when hot-line calls were received made reports and were told to turn it all over to the caseworker and to stay out of it. The caseworker never followed up to see if the child had doctor visits, or if she attended school, let alone actually look at the child when he (the caseworker) actually made a visit to the mother's apartment.
It's just such a mess, and that little girl was the victim of everyone else's incompetence.
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