Thursday, December 31, 2009

Nothing Changes And Children Are Still Dying

There is another heartbreaking story of a baby that died needlessly, due to the incompetence of the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare. This time, the child was named Dekia Mattox. Dekia was the daughter of a fifteen year old girl who was herself a part of the foster care system. Both Dekia and her mother lived with the teen's aunt, who was a licensed foster parent.

The child, through a series of poor decision making, was left alone with a drug-addled man who is charged with killing the baby.

All that is bad enough, but the news coming out now makes it as intolerable as the Christopher Thomas story. According to the latest story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the BMCW investigated a report of abuse and neglect, but cleared the case:

A social worker from the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare investigated an abuse complaint about baby Dekia Mattox just seven weeks before authorities say she was killed by a homeless drug addict in a filthy, cold home, according to a statement released Wednesday by the state Department of Children and Families.

The bureau's Nov. 4 investigation - which stated "the home was in order," contained food, had a well-heated bedroom for the baby and contained no evidence of drug use - stands in sharp contrast to the medical examiner's report, filed shortly after the baby's death Dec. 26.

According to the medical examiner, the dilapidated cottage in the 2700 block of N. Richards St. had two broken windows and was heated by three space heaters. Knives were found on the floor of nearly every room. The bathroom contained a leaking toilet and a broken sink. Dirty dishes filled the kitchen sink. Investigators found empty liquor bottles and beer cans, piles of dirty clothes, discarded baby bottles and little food.

Unfortunately, the article does not make it clear who the worker worked for. Normally, these types of referrals are done by state workers. However, as that it appears that the mother was a foster child herself, unless the case had gone into Kinship Care, there should have been an ongoing case manager assigned to the teen. That means this worker would have had to have regular visits with the teen and her baby.

Either way, the problem remains the same. The system that BMCW uses to determine the risk to a child is the same whether it is a public or private agency worker. The bad part of it is that it tries to determine everything on a rigid formula, and takes away the worker's ability to use common sense and independent thought in determining if a child is at risk.

I've said it so many times, that I am reluctant to keep pointing it out. But I will anyway.

Until there are real substantial changes, such as what paradigm the BMCW uses to determine risk factors, these stories are going to keep happening again and again. Unfortunately, politicians like Senator Alberta Darling, who has been one of the key players in creating and monitoring this abomination of a system, are too busy talking the talk, and then slinking back off to the golf course, to actual correct one of their biggest and most outrageous blunders. Meanwhile, children will continue to die.

Another major problem with the BMCW is that that it is so disjointed. You have a number of agencies doing different parts of the same job, with very little, if any, communication between them. To make matters worse, this also removes any accountability and you just have a series of these various agencies finger pointing at each other without really accomplishing anything constructive. Meanwhile, children will continue to die.

Along with the disjointedness of the system, the multiple agencies cause another problem. The money and other resources are spread out amongst each agency, which each have their own administration and bureaucracy that sucks up the money that should be going to hire enough workers to make the job manageable and enough services to help families in distress. Meanwhile, children will continue to die.

Governor Jim Doyle's failure to lead on correcting this system is one of my greatest disappointments in his time in office. I also certainly hope that the BMCW becomes a factor in the upcoming governor's race.

It will be another chance for Tom Barrett to shine, if he plays it correctly. His willingness to take on difficult situations, like he did with MPS, whether it is popular or not, will stand out against his potential Republican rival. Whether he is correct or not on the MPS take over (I, for one, am not convinced that this would be the best solution) shows at least he is willing and able to lead, whether it is politically popular or not, and whether or not it ticks off his usual supporters.

Scott Walker has shown all too often an unwillingness to take on any responsibilities and a wont to abdicate difficult situations, dumping the problem on someone else. That combines with all together disturbing embrace to privatize and profiteer all things, whether they should be, or even legally could be privatized does not bode well for him on this topic.

Likewise, Mark Neumann will only stumble on this issue, since his extreme social conservatism will not allow him to do what is necessary to fix the system, and he will probably put his foot into his mouth in trying to explain his bigoted approach to the problem.

But regardless of who gets elected next November, one thing is certain. If whoever is the next governor does not take the lead in fixing the child welfare system in Milwaukee, our children will continue to die.

11 comments:

  1. Yet another symptom of an overworked and underfunded system. People have got to wake up to what's happening to our government, which is in the grip of special interests.

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  2. "According to the medical examiner, the dilapidated cottage in the 2700 block of N. Richards St. had two broken windows and was heated by three space heaters. Knives were found on the floor of nearly every room. The bathroom contained a leaking toilet and a broken sink. Dirty dishes filled the kitchen sink. Investigators found empty liquor bottles and beer cans, piles of dirty clothes, discarded baby bottles and little food."

    Overworked and underfunded my ass!

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  3. I do NOT believe that the social worker actually visited that home.

    No way, no how.

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  4. Substitute 'gross negligence' for 'poor decision making.'

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  5. This is a case where the state needs to give up control and give it back to the County or even city, since so many of these cases usually are in the City of Milwaukee. Since the county and state can't handle the problem, maybe the City of Milwaukee can take a shot.

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  6. "Since the county and state can't handle the problem, maybe the City of Milwaukee can take a shot."

    I'd be for that, and I think it would work better than what we have now. But there's one big condition - that the state return shared revenues to the levels they were at 15 years ago. Instead, the state cuts this needed funding to municipalities in the name of tax cuts and boodle to special interests like road builders and prisons, so the municipalities have no money to handle it on their own.

    I made a similar point on this type of domino effect of funding and taxes a couple of weeks back. When you cut funding and impose mandates on lower levels of government, all you're guaranteeing is a greater chance of failure- which is great if you want to show voters that "government doesn't work." Not so great if you want better outcomes

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  7. The problem with the City of Milwaukee taking over child welfare is that they don't have jurisdiction over the other 18 municipalities, and it would require an agreement with each and every one of them.

    I forgot to point out in the post that there would actually be several workers involved, since the aunt was licensed as a foster parent as well.

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  8. Is not one going to point out that CPS is an immoral organization that assumes ownership over people. Nationally a child's chance for survival after being taken by CPS only 70%. I'm sorry that sucks.

    Don't forget about the huge amount of false reports that go to CPS for people who aren't actually abusing their children.

    Social ostracism would be a far more reasonable way to deal with most child abuse.

    I'm not to sure way everyone rushes to use the force of the men with guns right away instead trying to sort these things out first.

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  9. CPS is a government organization and therefor runs like crap. This is a fact. That's why when they try to fix things they try to bring in "businessmen" to fix it. Why on earth would you want to put more money into that.

    We already live in a police state why should we make it worse.

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  10. the worst of all is that CPS is actually incentivized to take more children every year, so that there department won't get it's budget cut and put it's workers back out on the street.

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  11. Psilo-

    I don't know where you're from, but here are some facts that you really need to be aware of.

    If there was a 30% mortality rate for foster children, that would not be something that would or could be ignored. Your number is way, way off.

    Secondly, here in Milwaukee County, the system has been privatized as much as legally possible. They are actually given incentives to return children as soon as possible, or keep them in the homes, even if it is undeniably unsafe. That is why so many of Milwaukee County's foster children are dying. Trying to cut corners is not a good thing when people's lives, especially childrens' lives, are in the balance.

    There are more important things in life than money.

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