Child Abuse and Child Protective Services Part I

I initially wrote this answer as a short assignment, doing minimal research on the subject. Since this short answer, I have done much research on child abuse and CPS. If you have not heard much about the business created out of CPS, my next page will shock you. Please be sure to read part II on this horrible controversy. These innocent children have already been through more than most adults, now, the government is using their disadvantage to create an income in a struggling economy…

CPS seemed to never be there, now they are everywhere. Taking children from capable parents in order to receive the bonus their owed according to the Adoption of Safe Family Act.   

Department of Social Services, DSS also known as CPS, DHS,  at one time, was an agency that was created to save the lives of children who were being abused by their biological parents, step-parents or other form of immediate family. Some of us today, naive in a since, steal believe this to be true. We are so quick to call the authorities when we witness a child being spanked, due to bad behavior. If only society were to stop directing their attention toward the oblivious disciplinary act in the supermarket, maybe a caution sign would go off in the presents of a child who is really being abused.

I understand that many do not agree with the method of spanking as discipline, I try to avoid it myself, but the hysteria and calls to DSS for such minute acts creates unnecessary work for the social worker, unnecessary problems in the family of the child who was spanked, and an increase of abuse or neglect for a child that is really suffering.

The definition of abuse: (only to note physical and neglect)

Physical abuse may involve profuse or continues, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. It may be the result of a deliberate act, but could also be caused through the omission or failure to act to protect.

Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child's basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child's health or development. It may involve failing to provide adequate food, shelter and clothing, or failing to ensure that a child gets appropriate medical care or treatment.

 

In these cases DSS should be called to observe the matter. Otherwise, allow these case workers to try and decrees the massive amount of files on their desk. A non-urgent call “such as a butt spanking” adds more files to these case workers desk, the files on the bottom of the stack, maybe a child that is in desperate need of help and interference. Unfortunately, it is a horrible realization on how things work; treating a child as a file, but this is what Department of Social Services has become. It consists of a bunch of over worked, over whelmed and under paid social workers that have given up on making a difference. Now, don’t get me wrong I am sure that many entered into their position wanting to make a difference, but the goal has been lost in the massive amount and non-stop cases.

Department of Social Services has to deal with children in horrific situations on a daily basis. I believe that some are so tired and frustrated with the “guide lines” of not being able to do anything; they began to avoid the faces in the files and punch out paperwork as if working on an assembly line. Others have been working with child services for so long, nothing surprises them, or maybe it’s that the terrible abuses seen throughout the years, the absolute worse cases are compared to every case that is come upon. It takes a lot of physical wrong doing before DSS will actually step in and take a child. In fact sometimes too much abuse happens; the abusive parent is given chance after chance, allowing another one of our children to be lost due to the system.

There are also a lot of times, it's not that they don't want to take the child, they do, but the rules and regulations forced upon them leaves the worker with no choice. I've heard horror stories of children that have been left in a devastating situation, but it has to do with placement and paperwork. A child that is being abused likely does not have any other family except for the parents that are causing the abuse. If there were loving grandparents or family members, they would have most likely stepped in, dissolving the situation. This is why there are so many grandparents who are acting as parents right now. If there is not a family member available or whiling to except the responsibility, DSS then tries to correct the abuse while the child remains in the household. If the abuse is not corrected, the child will continues to remain in the home until the “proper paperwork” is filed and placement is found. This could take several weeks due to the amount of child abuse that is produced every day.

The standards have been lowered in the eyes of Social Services. The whole process is focused on rehabilitating the parents, rather than saving the child. Rehabilitation doesn't work for most convicts and it's not going to work for people who abuse their children, which are really one in the same. Not only do social services seem to no longer be on the child’s side, but either does society.  It appears that society has a lower standard when it comes to children's human rights. If age was erased on a police incident report “let’s say they actually filled police reports for child abuse” and parents were brought in front of a judge on assault or intent to do bodily harm, they would receive a jail sentence rather than parenting classes.