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Arizona appears poised to repeat CPS mistakes: Four days after shefirst took office, Gov. Janet Napolitano made a mistake that has hauntedthe state's vulnerable children ever since.
Arizona appears poised to repeat CPS mistakes
Richard Wexler Aug. 21, 2007 12:00 AM http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...1wexler21.html Four days after she first took office, Gov. Janet Napolitano made a mistake that has haunted the state's vulnerable children ever since. Sure that children were dying because Child Protective Services workers were bending over backwards to keep families together, the governor told CPS workers to: "Err on the side of protecting the child, and we'll sort it out later." Four-and-a-half years later, they still haven't sorted it out. By October 2004, the number of children torn from their parents each year had soared 40 percent, the largest two-year increase in the nation at that time. Sadly, such foster-care panics are common in the wake of high-profile deaths of children known-to-the-system or media pressure or commands from politicians. In Arizona, it was all three. But the real reason children known-to-the-system sometimes die, has nothing to do with coddling families. It happens because undertrained, underprepared workers with too many cases don't have time to investigate any case properly. Add far more cases and there is even less time - so more mistakes are made in all directions. That's why, in state after state, foster-care panics have been followed by increases in child-abuse fatalities. It happened just that way in Arizona. By 2005, both total child-abuse deaths and deaths of children previously known to CPS set records. But, in one respect, Arizona is unusual. In most states, after a couple of years, everyone calms down. Some states even learn from the experience and embrace safe, proven programs to keep families together. That spares children the agony of needless foster care and gives workers more time to find children in real danger. But in Arizona, every time there's a chance the panic will abate, something starts it up again. Most recently, it has been reaction to a series of deaths of children, allegedly at the hands of their parents, in Tucson. (Similar deaths of Tucson foster children in 2005 got far less attention.) All these deaths happened even though Pima County already was taking away children at a rate 50 percent above the state average. But instead of learning from the mistakes of four years ago, Arizona appears poised to repeat them. Fifteen thousand children are, in effect, pleading with state leaders not to let that happen. They are the children whose cases were examined in the largest, most comprehensive study ever done comparing foster children to comparably maltreated children left in their own homes. It found that the foster children were more likely to be arrested, get pregnant and wind up unemployed. That's because most parents who lose their children to foster care are not the sadistic brutes whose horrible deeds rightly make headlines. On Monday, my organization released a report in Phoenix with 14 recommendations for breaking the stalemate in Arizona child welfare. The recommendations include a compromise on child welfare funding and a call for a fully transparent system. It's a way, at last, for Arizona to "sort it out." The writer is executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform in Alexandria, Va. CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA WIRETAPPING PROGRAM.... CPS Does not protect children... It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even killed at the hands of Child Protective Services. every parent should read this .pdf from connecticut dcf watch... http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US These numbers come from The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN) Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS *Perpetrators of Maltreatment* Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59 Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13 Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241 Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12 Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5 CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING HUNDREDS OF INNOCENT FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON... BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION... |
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