this made me cry

[decrepit_doll]

the following link details a case of severe neglect and could be triggering for survivors of abuse

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838.ece 
(for some reason the link will not embed, so you have to copy and paste)

I just read

Comments

I cried too

[not_hothead_yet]

legally speaking, severing parental rights cannot be done until a conviction has been handed down. Being a ward of the state does not sever the parental rights. It's not the same thing. If she had been convicted, she probably could have lost her parental rights but its a long hard legal road; severing parental rights is VERY difficult and its the last recourse. Being a ward means the state can decide what to do with you, but it can't adopt you out until your parents consent or are severed. Otherwise, Dani would have had to be an official foster child forever and suffered visitation from her mother if her mother had chose to fight it. It sounds awful and terrible for the abused children but the logic is that severing a parents rights definitely can be damaging to a child and thus the possibility of adoption (which for older disabled children is slim) has to FAR outweigh the damage. Obviously in this case it would have worked but a LOT less time, money and aggravation for everyone involved to just cut a deal with the souless fool of a "

Re: I cried too

[not_hothead_yet]

also, a lot of child protective services job is to TRY to help parents get their shit together; services for the children, navigation through services, counselling etc etc

I personally wonder how helpful those services really are though. I would love to know stats on how successful the services given out by CPA have been over the years. We hear success stories all the time about children who were removed from abuse and neglect, but what about the kids whose parents underwent treatment or got help? Did it ever do any good?

Re: I cried too

[decrepit_doll]

yeah, i had known about how a lot of the programs try to help the parents in certain cases, and try to keep the family together. It would be interesting to try and find stats. it is such a controversial topic, and i can see both the good and the bad. One of my teachers who was a social worker and caseworker for protective services has given anecdotal evidence for the services working better than one would probably expect, but the problem is that there are not a lot of caseworkers and these types of services require follow up and consistency for both the family AND the caseworker, so sometimes there is simply not enough manpower to follow through, since the cases have to be prioritized on the basis of severity and urgency nd who is most of a danger and what not. so i could see a "mildly" abusive family getting kind of "left out alone" after a time (where they still had the options for counseling and stuff, but no one was following up on them as much as they should be to make sure they were going), because there were other cases that

[monstermeow]

wow.. i cried too.

I also clicked the link for Genie, and found it kind of fucked up that at first when she was rescued it was such a big deal to try and help her.. but when they lost interest in her they just kinda threw her around from home to home and she was abused AGAIN. wtf... that made me really angry. i hope she is in a safe place now, like Dani is.

[reverendcharles]

oh, so you saw it too. yeah, that's pretty fucked up. i put the article in my lj.