Arizona-Nearly four years after governor Janet Napolitano pushedreforms at Child Protective Services, the ghosts of murdered children hauntthe agency.

A stubborn problem

Aug. 8, 2007 12:00 AM
Is CPS still broken?

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...08wed1-08.html

Nearly four years after the governor pushed reforms at Child Protective
Services, the ghosts of murdered children haunt the agency.

Gov. Janet Napolitano says the reforms were good and the agency is
moving in the right direction. She also told The Republic: "Any time you
have a child found dead, there needs to be a lot of introspection."

She's right on both counts.

The tragedies have been well-documented:

Brandon Williams was 5 years old when he died. CPS evaluated his home
and called it "unsafe." He was left there, though, and the family was
assigned counseling. Now his mother, Diane Marsh, and her roommate,
Flower Tompson, are charged with killing him.

Allowing children to remain at home with services to the family is
widely recognized as being in the child's best interest - if it can be
done safely.

The most recent report on child welfare in Arizona from CPS points to a
67 percent increase since July 2003 in the numbers of children being
safely served in their homes.

Child advocates say that's a good thing.

In Brandon's case, it wasn't.

Ariana Payne was 4 and her brother, Tyler, was 5 when they died. The
mother, Jamie Hallam, had custody, but CPS had doubts about her fitness.
When their father, Christopher Payne, refused to return the children
after a visit, Hallam called the Tucson police. CPS told the police the
kids would be better off with dad. There they stayed. There they died.
CPS never checked on them. Ariana's body was found in a trash bin.
Tyler's body was never found. Payne and his girlfriend, Reina Gonzales,
are charged with murdering them both.

Napolitano says she wants to "drill down" and find out how mistakes
happened and how to prevent them from happening again.

But she also says, "CPS is a lot better than it was three years ago."
She points to the decrease in the numbers of very young children who
spend time in shelters, an increase in the number of children who are
safely returned to their homes, increased permanency rates for foster
children, increased adoption rates, increased numbers of foster homes,
and a slight decrease in the numbers of children in out-of-home care.

Statistics suggest Napolitano is right about the improvement of the
agency. But even an improved agency falls short of what many people
would expect.

For example, the number of children in foster care who get
state-mandated visits from their caseworkers is the highest it has been
in four years. But it is still only 78 percent.

Staffing has been increased, but caseloads are well above the state
standard set by the 2003 reforms. Meeting those standards would mean
filling 220 more positions than are currently funded.

"Hiring and staffing are much more difficult than any of us
anticipated," Napolitano says.

Staffing may also be the single most important thing the agency does.
Caseworkers make decisions that can save a child's life or rip a family
apart.

Asked what she knows now that she didn't know when CPS reforms were
being written, Napolitano says, "I wish I'd been given a magic wand -
we'd have all the caseworkers we need and pay them all $75,000 a year."

But it's not just money, and there's no magic wand in sight.

"We can always say we need more funding," she says. "I don't want to
rest on that . . . we need to use the resources we've got to do the best
possible job."

If you doubt the importance of doing that job - if you think this agency
is a hopeless waste of money - consider another child.

This one is a 3-year-old girl whose grandfather had her in a headlock
and was squeezing her body when Phoenix police forced open the door. Her
mother, naked and bloody, was nearby as the "exorcism" of the child was
being performed.

That little girl was taken into protective custody. That means she was
turned over to CPS. The state became her parent. A government agency is
not an ideal parent, but sometimes children have no one else.

"We should be cognizant of the difficulty of the job," Napolitano says.
"There is a collective societal responsibility here, it's not just the
government."

Is CPS still broken?

Yes.

Did the reforms of 2003 help?

Yes, but far more remains to be done.






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...