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Old July 20th 07, 05:41 AM posted to alt.support.child-protective-services,alt.support.foster-parents,alt.dads-rights.unmoderated,alt.parenting.spanking
0:]
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Default Child Welfare Agencies in denial as children pay price of panicby Richard Wexler

Dragon's Girl wrote:
On Jul 19, 9:20 am, "0:-]" wrote:
On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:07:08 -0700, fx wrote:
Agencies in denial as children pay price of panic
Originally posted on July 19, 2007
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs....070719/OPINION...

What odd claims, Mr. Wexler, journalist, and not a social services
trained investigator has made here.

I'd have sworn that this district in Florida was the one where
counties no longer used DCF investigators, but the Sheriff's
department investigators.

And this is no recent phenomena. Removal rates, under LE investigation
went UP from almost the first month of inception.

I have a tendency to take Wexler with a grain of salt, or a shaker, as
this is the kind of hyperbole that makes him the darling of the
anti-cps set.

Some of his suggestions, thrown out with such careless abandon, ignore
that funding is inadequate. When he speaks to the real issues...drugs,
crime, mental illness, poverty, with the suggestion that society
properly fund programs he suggests (and we all know are needed) then
I'll put the salt shaker away.

0:]

Where does that guy live?


Wexler? He's the poster boy for the antiCPS nutso crowd. He gives them
what they think is legitimization. But he's a hack. Just another
journalist that's found a ride, and of course does what many of them
do...slant.

He does a great deal of misleading by omission. He does NOT tell the
whole story. Just the part that will make CPS look bad, and avoid
ruffling any public feathers.

When he starts criticizing the real culprits here, THE PUCKERING CITIZEN
PUBLIC, I'll have more respect for him.

He plays to their ignorance.

But then one usually does get kicked in the teeth if they tell the
public thruth...especially 0:] if it's about them and not very nice.

There was a 'voices' article written by him in my local paper last
weekend I think it was.
I thought the 'voices' section of our paper was for locals only.


Don't know your paper. Wexler is slick as hell. He's quite literate. But
then that does not rhyme with honest.

The WHOLE CPS story needs telling. The political boondoggling, the
stripping away of social work research based best practice that should
LEAD all decisions, political and otherwise, but does not.

Basically he wants the money to MOVE from the enforcement side to the
"services to keep families together," side.

Something I'd bet he's smart enough to know is NOT going to work.

The first thing a sleazy politico does, when a program works is to
declare the problem solved....so they don't need to spend money on it
any more.

There are great programs that help a FEW FAMILIES, specially selected as
being most likely to respond, and they take HUGE sums of money to carry
to success. Often two or three or more vendors...therapists, counselors,
in home assistence. Heavy monitoring and support from workers with tiny
caseloads for the project.

As soon as that phase is ended and the wonderful reports are turned in,
bingo, out goes the program TO THE FIELD.

And the funding?

It PUCKERING ENDED. The program will be so distorted that it's the same
in name ONLY. NOTHING like the original program. And little bright eyed
newbie caseworkers will bust their asses and in the end tear their
hearts out trying to make this program work ... while they cannot get
the services, have a monstrous caseload themselves, and everyone rides
them because somehow they aren't getting the same results as the pilot
program got.

Oh, and they don't get to pick 'families most likely to succeed."

It's a con game, Betty.

A lot of foundation money has to be spent up to a point. They fund the
pilots, keep a lot of their own people employed, money is paid for
research grant funding for the next big thrill "preventive intervention
program," and the best that comes from it is that a lot of families that
might have MADE IT WITHOUT THE SPECIAL PROGRAM get the cake icing.

Wexler pops up all the time.

He just did in a research listserve with his old WA OR study on foster
children who graduate the system outcomes.

Same thing. And the researchers response to his hit and run dropping
that in.....they nailed it immediately. A questionable demographic
selection method.

The same damn thing I debated here a year or two ago.

This time from a different angle. How were the children assigned to go
with bio family or with foster placement, and was it truly randomized by
the workers.

Well that's not rocket science to figure out.

So what did Wexler expect, a pat on the back?

They more or less canned the research, except in some sections NOT
relevant to the real question. In situations of abuse and neglect does
foster care really produce worse outcomes for children after they leave
the system?

The answer NOBODY REALLY PUCKERING KNOWS, STILL.

My bitch was the self selection to be interviewed among the ex foster
children.

Let me see now....if I had a good or neutral foster experience would I
describe my present life, no matter how hard, as being a bad outcome?

On the other hand, if I thought that there might be something in it for
me, the thinking common to institutionalized children, how would I respond?

Child one wouldn't even participate.

That's how you stack a demographic sample. Nothing to it, and the
commercial market place "surveys" that end up telling you it's good for
you to smoke cigarettes already nailed down how to do that about 60
years ago.

Do I appear to be a tad "invested" here?

Well, I think shoddy thinking and shoddy research and shoddy reporting
are equally blame for CPS being unable to stand up and kick butt
politically and get the puckering politico punks out of their hair and
get back to real social work based on solid academic research.

It's there. They just don't get to carry it from their graduate seminars
where they learn about it, into the field. Not for the last 20 years at
least.

Kane