Failures of Our System

 

The Carousel

Despite the creation of Child Protective Services, children still suffer from trauma and unsafe living conditions. Child Protective Services contribute to the harm of children through their goal to preserve families, their abundance of caseloads, and a persistent failure to intervene even though their mission is to protect these children. According to a podcast from Invisible Children, one report revealed, “200 children have died while within the CPS system, with the true scale of these deaths likely much higher.” To continue to save children’s lives, we need to address the faults within our systems so we can provide children with the safe homes they deserve.

Despite the belief that we have supportive Child Protective Services, recent findings prove otherwise. Child Protective Services were created so that children in suspected harm would have someone in their corner to get them the help they needed. Every person makes mistakes, but as a parent you take on the task of not only learning from your mistakes but making sure, they don’t happen again for the sake of your child. Unfortunately, some parents refuse to learn, and our system gives them an excessive number of chances to prove that they can be good parents.   

Randy Burton, founder of Justice for Children, mentioned that “Their goal is to rehabilitate the perpetrator and preserve the ‘family unit’; to perform a social experiment at the child’s expense.” Our system has a mission of keeping families united even if it means that the child remains in harm. Burton goes on to explain that due to priority on preserving families, out of 3 million cases reported in 1993, 42% of the cases resulted in children dying after already being in contact with Child Protective Services. This concerning statistic shows that even when the system’s sole purpose is to protect children, their motives and goals result in children experiencing the worst outcome of all.

Instead of seeing the signs and acting for the best interest of the child, our system focuses on the hope and potential of parents. In a study reviewing parent training programs, Marianne Berry mentions that there is a reabuse rate of 17 out of 25 percent in biological homes. A home is a place where people should feel relaxed, not a place where children should have to fear what’s going to happen next. Our system wants to keep these children with their families, when the reality is that their families aren’t a safe place.

The system continues to fail children through their abundance of cases and the mishandling of them. For a legal system that has the power of protecting children, Child Protective Services take shortcuts in their work or make decisions without enough reasoning or knowledge which result in children continuing to be in harm. Luz Lozano wrote in a USA Today Network article, “As many as 75% of (abuse and neglect) investigations had erroneous results because they were rushed, wrong, and superficial.” This alarming number indicates that we failed over half of these children simply due to individuals not doing their job as they should be.

Continuing with these findings, Randy Burton, the founder of Justice for Children, shared that “Since its creation, this system has devolved into one where incompetent, ineffective, overwhelmed, and sometime corrupt government officials…are making decisions resulting in children being left in dangerous homes.” The results of individuals being uneducated or making impulsive decisions without proper evaluations are affecting children. Instead of having confidence that life threatening situations are in proper hands, we have learned that these situations are the responsibility of people doing a job without a purpose.

Despite there being apparent evidence of abuse and reports made, Child Protective Services fail to investigate and fail to intervene on a regular basis. Kati Mapa, the director of public policy of the Child Welfare League of America, shared in a child maltreatment report of 2022 that of the 4,276,000 total referrals, the rate of screened in referrals is 29.0 per 1,000 children. Even more concerning, of the 47 states that report their referrals, 49.5% are screened in and 50.5% are screened out. These statistics mean that less than half of the reports made qualify for investigation and over half of the reports don’t qualify.

Additionally, out of 3 million new reports of child neglect and abuse made, almost half of the children who were confirmed as being abused or neglected never received follow up assistance, according to Randy Burton. We are expecting our system to protect all children when our system fails to investigate a large portion of the cases or fails to act on the situations. The only way to save children’s lives is to make a change, but our own system lacks that quality.

Now some may claim that children are removed for reasons like abuse when really parents are just disciplining their children how they should be, but this thought process limits the acknowledgement of the changing times of our world.  Much like any other part of our modern world, ideologies continuously change and develop. New generations of parents have learned ways to discipline their children in forms of gentle parenting or using other techniques besides rulers and belts to show their children they were in the wrong. If we want to continue to grow alongside the other aspects of the world, we need to change areas of our systems that limit the abilities to do this.

Continuing to advocate about the flaws within our Child Protective Services is vital to saving children’s lives. Being attentive to the signs of abuse happening around us and using our voice to forge the path of safety for these children is an important step needed to make change. The safety of our next generations is in our hands, if our system fails them, then it is up to us to make sure they are protected. If we don’t recognize these flaws of our system or advocate for change, not only is our system failing children, but we are as well.