Re: Today’s headline: “County tries to fix child services.” What a crock! I know of two children being abused and neglected right now, fix that. These situations had been reported to DHS with absolutely no child welfare check or intervention.

I am pro child care, was a foster parent for over 18 years, adopted seven children — five of whom were severely neglected by their biological parents — gladly, though none were from Colorado. It is an obvious fix though. You can’t fix the problem until you have the tools.

DHS can’t fix child abuse when it is using tried-and-failed tactics. Sometimes the right tools have to be made, independently from the rest of the tools in the tool box. DHS however is afraid to go out side the tool box, I guess that’s where their actions of “trying” come into place. Our local DHS governing body of saints need to be innovative in their tactics. Create a community-wide buzz that Child Abuse is a thing of the past in Mesa

County, then take the appropriate actions to back up their threat. Stop assessing the calls that come into Child Protective Services, go beyond the bounds of “who will pay” Pay day will come later if the services are done right. When a call comes in, a screener goes out. Assess the problem not in the board room first, but in the home. Evaluate at the site, not on what was reported.

Will there be a lot of wasted time? No, Will there be a lot of abuse of the system or the services of helps? Yes, but well worth it. I could go on with a list of ideas, but I am limited here. I have tried to express my concerns before in the past to DHS all to no avail. As usual, the common people know nothing of those who live and work the professional realm, so they think: Trying will accomplish nothing. Doing has a better chance of success than not.

JOHN EDWARDS
Fruita

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 11:47 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.