Dorie Rae Gallagher wrote:
WM: Child Protection usually cannot step in unless they go to the home (usually through complaint) and they can only take a child under the most dire circumstances. Unfortunately, the situation Vanessa describes is all too frequently the case with the families of those involved in illegal drugs. I only once got the Child Protection to offer help in a house where two children were being put into the street for prostitution (one 8, one 11), twin infants just home from the hospital, a girl child of about three, and several other children who were not always there. Child Protection has to observe the behavior happening and they are usually accompanied by police officers when they enter a house.Shouldn't child protection know of this situation with this child...along withthe police? It is good to hear that the neighborhood is coming together...Good luck.
Gun fire, tremendous amounts of dealing, dealing in stolen goods, shooting, all manor of other types of child abuse were going on. The best Child Protection could do was take one of the twins for failure to thrive. The eight year old boy was already so angry that he was Robo Kid and would be a dangerous person once he reached 13 or so. As it was, he was extremely destructive and once stripped a neighbor's garage of half its shingles before he was stopped. The 11 year old girl was, I think, doomed to prostitution for a long time in the future. This was around 1987-88.
There are hundreds and hundreds of children in similar situations in the metro area and Child Protection has neither the mandate nor the resources to deal with all of them. Their mandate is limited so that families are not crushed with fear of Child Protection and so that family civil rights are protected. That C.P. does not even have enough resources to contend with their limited mandate is entirely our fault and, in my opinion, reflects our ambivalence about children and our cultural prejudices against them.
WizardMarks, Central
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