How can this continue to happen?

These cases are horrible, Fishin' and I know what you mean. Why do they keep reappearing? You'd think that the social workers would be more truthful... "Happy and thriving" is so obviously what they weren't and couldn't have been.

That said, I'm just as astonished that someone would adopt four boys and then keep them from food. What's up with that?

I was a volunteer CASA, a Court-Appointed-Special-Advocate for children, about ten or so years ago. I became very disappointed with the system. There were so many privacy issues that they wouldn't assign me cases near my home... I'd have to travel an hour each way to visit the children assigned to me. And the parental figures I'd be checking on seemed determined to try to keep me from my job (where I had no authority, just the duty of writing reports). "The baby is sleeping," they'd say, or "the boys just left."

I've long thought we ought to pass a test, get a license, or somehow show some kind of competence in order to have children.

Can you imagine all the children that fall through the cracks?

Not an excuse, but one of the reasons in example - the boy has a caseload of 200 juveniles. He is supposed to meet with all of these children every 7 to 30 days. He also needs to complete his paperwork on each visit - all handwritten as they have no computers, and yet can't be out of the office more than one day a week because of court cases and "paperwork due" requirements. And they just laid off a slew of people. In his case it's a bit easier because some of them are old enough to come visit him in the office. I once had to go with him to Portland on a Saturday so he could check on children that were just transferred from his district to make sure the home was OK.

So, in short, it is physically impossible to do the job required. It's sad to say that some of these people might have been better off saying that they had not visited the family instead of lying about it - which I'm assuming they did. I'm wondering how many times the case worker was actually there. Maybe by doing that some of the higher ups could have used it to the advantage of increasing funding, and getting enough people on the payroll to actually do the job required.

Having said that - anyone who had seen these children and didn't report it should be locked up - from DYS to the adult children living in the house.

The NY Times showed a family photo of the kids, the adoptive parents and other children living in the home. Except for the very youngest of the boys, it was freakin' obvious that they were undernourished. This was from seeing their faces, only. I'm no expert, of course, but I can tell when someone is gaunt.

So the adoptive parents knew.

And the other kids knew.

And the neighbors knew.

And the teachers knew.

And the mailman knew.

And the people at the grocery store knew.

And the bus driver knew.

And the extended family knew.

And the photographer knew.

And the people around town knew.

And everyone else knew.

And that's the point, and that's what scares me. I know I'm fortunate to have grown up in the circumstances in which I did. What if I had been in that situation? Would someone have bothered to have spoken up for me? I doubt it, and that's pretty damned scary.

I don't know quite what the solution is - more caseworkers? Sure. More $$ for child services? Absolutely. Better screening for adoptive families? You betcha. Something else? Can basic decency and compassion be imparted to the community that sat idly by and let this happen? How can we, as a society, move people beyond the initial feel of "I don't want to get involved"?

*sigh* I dunno what the answer is. How could this case worker document monthly visits over 4 years and never have seen any of the 4 kids and noticed? Ok, I can see them fudging one or two reports (not that there is an excuse for it..) but 4 years worth of reports?

To many people had to have seen all this going on and, as Jes said, to many turned a blind eye. That's pathetic.

Four years? Gads, that is pathetic. Jespah is quite right... where was the common decency of the community?

I think the woman in Florida who is being kept alive went into cardiac arrest from lack of food, too. It was her own disorder, but still a nasty way to go. I wonder if the oldest boy will make it?

fishin'<

It is thoughtful of you to initiate this thread.

Too often, society sweeps such incidents under the rug because they are so painful to face.

Perhaps we have become immune to reports of child abuse. Media hype and the 24/7 news channels fill the airwaves with sensational coverage of family violence. We tend not to be able to distinguish real mayhem from the fictional kind. The two seem to blend.

We can solve this problem -- unfortunately -- only on a case-by-case basis. As the Trenton tragedy indicates, too many cases of childhood can often go overlooked.

My (natural) brother and I are adopted. I rarely think about it except when I read things like this. But we struck the jackpot. One difference about our parents compared to others was they had to prove they were fit to be so before they got me (and a year later my brother.) Standards may have slipped a bit in the checking in the 38 years since I was born. But god we were lucky.

Actually this shows that obvioulsy no-one was/is concerned about some rules like a supervision of the documentation, a certification of the case work etc.

Walter<

I certainly agree with this comment. It's amazing that so many folks looked the other way.

I once worked for a privately funded family shelter. One day, as i delivered donated food stuffs to families in apartments our shelter had provided, i found five children, all in the charge of the oldest girl, who was 11. The mother had "gone to the store" early on Sunday morning. She was not located until the police found her in the company of a man they had removed from a tavern during an altercation at about 1:00 a.m. on the Monday morning. The children were all in the custody of DFCS by that time. I attened the hearing for the mother, and both the prosecutor and the PD were very much surprised that there was anyone there to testify. The prosecutor confided to me that he hadn't expected to see anyone, and was amazed as well as delighted with the fully detailed records, pages of manuscript notes from every day that the family had been in the program, which i provided. The Public Defender at one point asked my name. I stood up and stated it in full. She then remarked, "Oh yes, i recall, i spoke to you." I stated: "No, you did not." and sat down. At that point, with a dismayed look, she approached the bench, and she and the prosecutor cut a deal. In another instance, we threw a family out of the program when i walked in on the putative father making a reefer deal financed by the mother's welfare check. One of our own staff, as i discovered, had tried to warn them that i was on my way. There is both apathy, and a collusion to bilk the system in operation in many of these cases. We were fortunate, we had the staff to make daily visits, and our supervisor required written reports, which she would verify on a weekly basis by visiting the family, and sitting down to go over the notes with them. This often required a 12 to 14 hour day on her part.

The system is overwhelmed, but there is a good deal of venality in play as well.