posted
AK, I see where you're coming from, but at the same time I have to politely disagree. Abuse has to be stopped at all cost. Otherwise the situation will get much, much worse than a breaching of trust. It's just that in these situations things have to be handled delicately. Is there a way for the system to change enough to really help these kids and keep them from falling through the cracks?
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posted
I can see the sense in mac's rules for professional conduct. A professional is something different than a friend, anyway. But it does mean there are things you can tell a friend that you would have to hide from a professional. And being able to tell somebody is a huge huge thing. It makes an enormous difference.
Then there's the question of how abusive is the system itself. If children are taken from mildly abusive parents and put into a series of mildly abusive foster homes, then that is much worse. I think about that, too. I had burns and bruises and cuts inflicted on me as a child. Had someone reported that, I'd have been removed from my home. Would I have been better off? I don't know, but I doubt it.
There were people there who did love me, even if they couldn't stop the abuse and so they decided it was my fault for being so stupid at age 1 or 2 or 3 or whenever that I let it happen. I don't agree with that assessment, of course, but your own family, no matter how messed up, is better in some ways than strangers. They read books to me and played games and kept me clean and clothed, fed me good nutrition and really cared about me getting an education and so on. I'm not sure a foster home, or series of foster homes could have done as well.
So all that is to say that depending on how much danger the child is in, how old they are, and so on, it may not improve their circumstances at all to report abuse. They may be worse off if you do. And now they don't have a friend they can trust to confide in anymore, either. Now they've been confirmed in their belief that nobody can be trusted.
[ February 06, 2004, 09:48 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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posted
It depends on the system and the foster homes. In an ideal world a child would go from a horrible abusive situation to a place with people she or he can trust until his or her parents get things straightened out. But unfortnetly, we do not exist in that ideal world. This doesn't mean that something shouldn't be done to prevent these sort of things But a child needs an advacate in these sort of situations. Someone who will explain to them that they will get help so the abuse can stop. That is the most important thing... stopping the abuse before even more damage gets done.
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Boon
unregistered
posted
This may not be the place, but I'm going to say it anyway.
A family member abused me when I was an adolescent. I chose to keep my mouth shut because I thought my parents wouldn't believe me. When he hurt my little sister, I couldn't stay quiet anymore. I told our mom.
She invited this family member over to the house and confronted him outside, sitting on our front porch calmly drinking iced tea. Then, she called us kids out so he could apologize. That was the end of it.
What I learned: if I want meaningful results, I have to get them myself. This hasn't been a completely bad lesson, but it's put a definite strain on every relationship I've had since. I seem to think I have to "fix" everything myself.
A child should never have to fix anything. That's what caring, responsible adults are for.
quote:A child should never have to fix anything. That's what caring, responsible adults are for.
Amen.
There ARE caring responsible adults out there. Probably not as many as there should be in the foster system and child services but they are there.
One thing that speaks poorly of our society is how we fund these services and how little money people like mack make. It's despicable.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Unfortunetly, Jenny, Mac and the rest are the exceptions to the rule. At least in Citrus County, FL. There was a family that went to my church when I was little. My mom and a few other ladies reported the father for abusing the oldest daughter. He ended up not being able to live in the house anymore, so he lived in a trailer on the property and ate dinner in the house every night. The worst part was, the mother was able to quote back part of the allegations to my mom and the other women. When the mother walked in on the girl in the shower and saw the welts on her back, she finally believed her and sent her to live with family in another state. The next oldest daughter I ran into again in high school. She looked like a speed addict. The middle daughter became a stripper and was sexually abused by a middle school teacher. Big help HRS was.
Then there's the Citrus County Sherrif's Department. When my step-sister was being physically abused by her mother and step-father, my mom called the cops. The deputies got the step-father to promise to stop hitting the child in the face.
I wish you the best, Jenny, but I just don't trust the system enough to think anything will change. Do the best you can by her. It'll probably be the only help she gets.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Florida's HRS has been a complete mess for years. In addition to their horrible record with respect to leaving children in dangerous situations, they also had a completely terrible record of making false accusations and issuing threats against people who, according to their own records, weren't abusing their children.
I don't think it's improved much. The caseloads are too large and the supervision of case workers is too lax.
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posted
Good point, Bob. I had another friend who ended up leaving the state over false claims made by his fiancee's ex-husband. He had more court issues than anyone I saw who was actually abusing their children. Sometimes Florida sucks.
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posted
It's a matter of funding. Case workers are underpaid and overworked. Because the state doesn't have funds to fill all the positions they have open for case workers, the load on those who are working is at least tripled. Case workers carry a caseload that is ridiculously high.
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posted
You're right, of course, Mack. Even really lousy case workers aren't deliberately out to get the children. It just feels that way sometimes.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
AR, that's so what I'm afraid of. I have so little I can give, and it may be all this poor child gets.
Mack, the behaviors I see are listed straight off the "sexual abuse" handout I snagged from the social worker's office:
Seductive behaviour (I think she came on to me! Yikes! ) Self-stimulation (I didn't see this, but another teacher did) Secretive Extreme mood swings Aggressiveness Mistrustful of adults
Her twin sister, in the same class, and her younger sister do not display the same behaviors. A girlfriend of mine, who has experienced some abuse in her past, explained that it is typical for one child to be singled out for the abuse. BLEAH!
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