Kids don’t count
A few weeks ago, a teenaged girl who was in protective care with the Baltimore City department of Child Protective Services (CPS) was found dead in a hotel room. She was in what has been called 1:1 foster care. Supposedly there was a caregiver with her in the private hotel room. The Coroner declared her death a suicide. Her previous foster parents are suing the City for failure to provide care for her. She was in this so-called specialized care because the foster parents couldn’t provide the care she needed. Previous to going into foster care she lived with her mother and grandmother. In discussing the child’s death, no mention was made of why she was taken from her mother and grandmother and placed in foster care. There was also no mention of why the girl was taken away from the foster parents. Who now seek to profit financially from her death.
There is a great deal we do not know. What we can easily surmise is that this child had significant problems that led her to being taken from her family members, placed in foster care and then taken from those people and housed in a hotel room all alone. Basic psychology tells us that every child needs someone to give them unconditional love. One cannot help but wonder, did this child ever have any love at all.
As a society we treat children very poorly. We talk a good game about how important children are and how we need to protect them. But when it comes right down to it – we just don’t! Teachers are among the people who are mandated reporters under the law. What that means is that if a teacher hears of a child’s mistreatment in any way, that teacher is required by law to report the issue to CPS. Anyone who has ever tried to make a report knows what a farce this is. Routinely, when reports are made the person taking the call does not even ask for the basic information required to make a further inquiry. At our school, this happens so frequently that staff are now expected to take the name of the person receiving the call and the time the call was made. There have been repeated instances of staff having to threaten to call a newspaper if there is not some investigation into what is happening to this child.
As a society we don’t even compensate people who deliver professional services to children. We all know that teachers are not particularly well paid. And child care workers are the least well paid, even as we entrust our most vulnerable little people to them. Physicians are generally a well-paid profession, but pediatricians are the least well-paid of all physicians. Ditto child psychologists and child psychiatrists. If you serve kids even in a generally lucrative profession, your income will be lower.
The sound bites are great when we talk about children but actions make it clear, kids count for very little.
