If you were to read further into this Time magazine article and similar articles, you would find that for weeks and months Awilda Lopez, Elisa's mother, beat her daugher, violated her with toothbrushes and hairbrushes, made to eat her own bodily wastes, before finally, a month before her seventh birthday, Elisa's tiny skull was bashed into a cement wall. Neighbors will tell you of the moans and pleas they heard for months from the little girl as her mother did these unspeakable things to her. The authorities did nothing to save this little girl. Why?
Budget cuts to child welfare programs are costing children their lives. Under federal mandates, families are to be kept together at almost all costs. Many times, the cost is a child's life, an innocent victim of this society. Nearly all child welfare agencies across the nation are severly underfunded and understaffed. Each social worker has to deal with over thirty cases at a time. That is over half the case load recommended by the Child Welfare League of America. In 1970, the interest was to protect the child at all costs. In today's society of technology, money, and greed, our priority is saving money. Children put into foster homes cost the government money. In many cases, when a child is by some chance removed from an abusive home, he is placed into a more abusive foster home. Take the case of an 8 year old named Jesus, for example. In Jesus's real home, he weighed only 28lbs and was basically starving to death. He was placed into a foster home, where he was sodamized, raped, beaten, burned on his genitels, and tortured in other horrifying ways. Today, because of this, he is a parapaliegic. The politicians sacrafice children for money. The politicans keep passing ridiculous mandates and cutting funds that go towards Child and Youth Services. Is this right? Congress is considering cutting child-protection funds by $2.9 billion dollars. How can they do this? The welfare program is already severly underfunded and understaffed. All you have to do is open a newspaper or turn on the TV to see this.
In Kentucky, 22 month old Daniel Reynolds was fatally bashed in the head with the force of being dropped from a three story building. Social workers failed to save this little boy. On at least four separate occations by four separate social workers, signs of physical abuse were evident. In one instance, Daniel was found with a broken leg caused by twisting and marked with handprint shaped bruises. The hospital staff had to argue with social workers to remove little Daniel from his abusive stepfather's custody. Two months later, he was back in his stepfather's care, though he had failed to show up for the court mandated parenting classes. Another time, his face was darkened with bruises and the social worker wrote "everything was fine" on his report. Evidently, everything wasn't fine because right now, Daniel Reynolds is dead. In most cases, the social workers are severely undertrained. Richard Gelles, a family-violence expert at the University of Rhode Island says,"It is only mildly facetious to talk about child protection workers being 26 year-old art-history majors with 20 hours of training who do risk-assessment based on how toys are lined up."
The Los Angeles County system's director, Peter Digre overhauled the management of his facility. He took advantage of the state and federal money provided to him and hired more trained workers and worked with churches and other organizations to help combat the abuse. All cases of abuse are thoughorly investigated. Instead of visiting a child once a month (as federal policy mandates) for a few months, they have trained workers who visit at least twice a week for a year or more. They provide counseling and drug detox, while also helping with family and money management.
In Los Angeles County, Delores Mayes' children were seized and placed in foster homes when her crack habit got out of hand. Faced with losing her children for good, she entered a detox program. When she finished detox, the True Way Baptist Church found her furniture and a place to live. They helped her and the children's father (also a former crack addict) secure jobs. For months social workers visited the home, searching for signs of abuse or neglect, offered counciling on parenting and managing the home. For the Mayes' children and many like them, it worked out. They are no longer being abused or neglected as they once were. With the help of the child welfare system, Delores and her husband have learned how to care for their children and show their children the love all children need.
Stories like these litter the TV shows and newspapers. Why? These are children. Beautiful little boys and girls who deserve love and care, they have hearts, souls, and dreams. They deserve a chance, too. People close their eyes and pretend it's not happening. When I discussed this problem with a group of friends, half turned away and said they couldn't listen. This is what people do. They think that if they ignore it, it will go away, but it won't. It will not go away until every person tries to make a difference. No matter who you are, you can make a difference to one little child out there!