Even if she was overworked, even if she was forced to falsify records of visits she didn’t make in order to make it look like she was keeping up, surely in over 12 months she should have made one real visit to the home. She was supposed to be visiting monthly. How could she possibly have so many cases that she couldn’t at least visit each child once every three or six months and fake the rest? Not having time to visit at all in over 12 months is incredible. She was supposed to be going monthly; going less often would be bad enough, but how could she just not go at all??
This is a terrible case. Utterly horrible. That poor child, I just hope she’s not out there somewhere suffering.
First let me point out that we can’t run elections down here so how the hell do you think we would be able to keep track of a 5 year old child?
This situation will probably open a can of worms for DCF (Department of Children and Families) that they won’t know how to handle. DCF was supposedly completely restructured recently due to the fact that they let a child die at the hands of an asshole stepfather that DCF knew was a bad guy. This latest fiasco will hopefully get everyones attention long enough to actually fix these types of problems.
I unfortunately have personal experience with just how fucked up DCF employees can be. A friend of mine who worked for DCF was murdered by a co-worker because my friend found out the co-worker had been ripping off donations for years. My friend confronted the piece of shit about the rip offs and the pos conned my friend into meeting at night to discuss it. The pos then proceeded to murder my friend and then kill herself a few hours later when the cops came after her.
So unfortunately this latest episode is not an isolated incident of an inept or crooked employee.
As I have said, I will not go into detail about my grievances with the (New York State) DSS. I will say only this much because it is relevant.
I had a little foster brother and sister. They are no longer my foster brother and sister because the social worker assigned to their case only visited twice during the three years they lived with us, and neglected to fill out any of the forms or paperwork he was supposed to do in order to maintain their file. We complained to the department of social services about him and were told that most of the other parents with whom he was supposed to be working had also called to complain. However, he has not been fired or even reprimanded (because reprimanding could upset him enough to quit) because they say they do not have enough caseworkers as it is and everyone is overloaded, and thus they “cannot afford” to lose one.
This sort of thing is why this case does not surprise me in the least.
This is undoubtedly one of the most fucked up agencies in this state. You have to wonder if the only reason there was any action was because of the Rilya case.
Rilya’s case is getting more and more reprehensable as time passes. It wasn’t a year she was missing… It was 15 months. And her case worker wasn’t too overloaded… She was moonlighting as a substitute teacher on at least 22 days when she was supposed to be visiting Rilya or another child. In fact, she billed the DFC for 12 of thse days, in addition to collecting her substitute teacher pay!
So not only did her supervisors screw up, she was working a different job and claiming to be doing her regular job during that time? That’s horrible. :mad:
Me, I think it’s #3. I was a child protective caseworker for years.We were overworked, and even working a minimum of 10 hours a week overtime, there simply wasn’t enough time to make all the visits, investigate new cases,write reports and testify.The two things my competent,caring coworkers and I never did was miss the same visit two months in a row or imply in any way that we had made a visit or seen a child that we hadn’t.
My WAG? The little girl’s mother took her child and caused her to die. The grandmother and great-aunt were scared to report it since they weren’t supposed to let the child into her mother’s custody. So they just kept their mouths shut.
So this morning I’m getting dressed, listening to the talking heads on the tube with half an ear… Half an ear until I hear this:
There are at least 404 children unacounted for in the Florida’s Child Protection system!
I don’t have the words to addiquately express my bafflement and outrage. This looks to me to be a criminal conspiracy of derrelliction. Callous disregard for duty and the welfare of the children in their charge. Abandonment of what I feel should be an almost religious duty.
Heads need to roll.
Before, I had hoped that it was an aberrent event, but now I see that it’s endemic, and DeniseV’s fears are come to life. Time to clean house, you feckless sons-of-bitches!
God… I’m really honked-off. Three posts to one thread in a row…
Latest news shows that between December 1999 and January 2001, according to DFC’s own internal statistics, only 8 percent of cases recieved a home visit on a monthly basis. The standard is 90 percent. Cite. Yeah, the agency claims to have improved, and I suppose they have (It’d be damned hard to do worse!). Of course, it’s easy to improve when you’re trying like hell to stay out of the news and are running in fear for your jobs, but I have a question:
Why the fuck did it take FEAR of your jobs to goad you SOBs into action? Why wasn’t CONCERN for your charges sufficient motivation?! :mad:
