It doesn’t take much imagination to understand the horrors and damage caused by sex offenders. And it’s hard to talk about the facts of any criminal behavior since misinformation is common and ideas contrary to misinformation are quickly associated as soft on crime. The nuances of any criminal behavior are complicated.
A lot of sex offenses involve an over consumption of alcohol resulting in sexual assault and other inappropriate behaviors that have nothing to do with children. However, concerning children, we should not worry about sex offenders as a broad category; we need to worry specifically about pedophiles. Pedophiles are a certain type of sex offender.

Pedophilia is a specific mental disorder classified in the DSM, and to be clear, acting on impulses is also a crime. Pedophiles have a sexual interest in children; most, but not all, act on this interest but for those who do, it is serious crime. Not all sex offenders are pedophiles, however, by definition all pedophiles who act on their sexual interest in children are sex offenders and criminals.

Since experts estimate that only 1 in 20 cases of child sexual abuse is reported, the implication is that there are a sizable number of sex offenses and therefore sex offenders out there who are going unpunished. With this in mind it is very important: that a child knows 1) what constitutes inappropriate contact (something called “good touch, bad touch” training); 2) to say no when boundaries are crossed; 3) to report inappropriate contact to a parent and other trusted persons; and 4) that the child has done nothing wrong and should be praised for being brave enough to put aside the stigma wrongly associated with being a victim.

Also, sex offenders try to find children on the Internet; kids need to be made aware of risks and parents need to monitor activity.

Most internet sex offenders target teens, not children. With this in mind, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has several resources to reduce this risk, as does the Crimes Against Children Research Center. But most is not all, so we cannot stop there.

A total of 60 to 70 percent of sex offenses on children are done by acquaintances of the child. With this in mind, an effective strategy would begin by addressing this huge proportion of victims. It should also be made clear to the child that inappropriate contact can come from strangers or from someone known and trusted by the child. It is extremely important to let the child know that anything that happens to them is not their fault; that they have done nothing wrong; and they are not going to get in trouble for reporting any and all inappropriate contact.

Since 30 to 40 percent of victims are not an acquaintance of the offender, another extremely important thing that can be done is for parents to educate their children about the risks associated with strangers and how to be smart while alone. But more importantly, according to missingkids.com, or StopItNow.org, there are several things that parents can and should do to keep their children safe.

Kids don’t come with instruction manuals. Parents and caregivers need to be taught what symptoms to look for that indicate abuse.

It is important to know what works and what doesn’t in keeping children safe. For example, the program “Stranger Danger” has been found to be ineffective and, consequently, is a false sense of security. Since most sex offenses on children are done by people they know, “Child Safety Zones” and even sex offender community notification laws are also a false sense of security.

As awful as high profile examples sex abuse cases are, such as Jaycee Dugard or Elizabeth Smart, it is important to remember that high profile events are high profile precisely because they are unusual and unlikely. Making policy based on high profile events is a surefire way to overreact and make inefficient and, worse, ineffective policy.

A high profile event is good time find out where a shortcoming of a policy or a failure of a policy might reside, but a high profile event is not what policy should target. Doing so would result in the majority of cases being marginalized and a strategy designed around an unlikely event.

If prison is our way of dealing with sex offenders, or any criminal for that matter, it will have been too late; the crime and damage will already have been done.

Parents are their child’s best line of defense against sex offenders.

Source: The Milford Daily News

Idaho Children’s Trust Fund/Prevent Child Abuse Idaho executive director Roger Sherman says there’s no one solution to make good on the promises.

“We’re really in position to be able to start talking about: what’s my role with my neighbor? What’s my role with my friend? What’s my role as a PTA member? And what can be done at the library, the church, the school?”

Prevent Child Abuse America CEO Jim Hmurovich says most people agree that we have basic obligations for healthy child development.

“I think we say a lot of the things, but we’re not acting on them. It’s a grassroots movement to really show that every child has the right, and should have the opportunity, for healthy child development.”

Hmurovich adds that research that demonstrates why healthy development is important because it’s related to mental health issues, criminal behavior, academic achievement, and job stability.

A listening tour has been started online at www.movementforchildren.org, and will visit cities nationwide to gather ideas and examples that will be used to draft policies and templates for communities and government. A full list of organizations behind the campaign is also available at that site.

Source: Public News Service

Police say Cheryl Christopher, 51, locked her nine-year-old child in a dog cage at the family’s former home on Deauville Drive, and that she also allegedly tried to suffocate her two children while trying to strangle them. The arrest report also says the Christopher forced the children to jump off the roof of the home.

Cheryl Christopher is charged with first-degree wanton endangerment, first-degree criminal abuse and first-degree unlawful imprisonment.

Christopher’s husband, 69-year-old Elisha Christopher, is also charged with criminal abuse since police say he did not protect the kids or report the abuse by his wife.

LEX 18 talked with the couple’s former neighbor, who says he wasn’t aware of anything being wrong inside the home, but he thought what was going on outside was strange.

“They had 25 dogs and 25 cats,” said the neighbor, Jim Menges. When asked if the number of animals seemed excessive, Menges replied, “Of course it did. The child used to complain that the mother was very rough on him. And she would demand that they take care of the dogs.”

LEX 18 talked with the new owner of the home Friday, and he said Lexington Police took pictures of the some rooms inside the home Thursday, explaining the house was part of an ongoing investigation.

Both Cheryl and Elisa Christopher are due in court Friday afternoon for arraignment. Cheryl Christopher was denied bond, as she was deemed to be “a danger to others”.

Source and photo: Lex18

In a perfect world we wouldn’t need a Caylee’s Law, but we do. Or at least we did. The law, inspired by an online petition, has been introduced in one form or another in almost 30 states including Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It makes it a felony for a parent or guardian to fail to notify police within 24 hours after discovering a child is missing.

Casey Anthony was shown in court documents partying during the 31 days her 2-year-old daughter was missing. When Caylee’s remains were found in a forest wrapped in a plastic bag, too much time had gone by to collect DNA evidence. Casey Anthony was found not guilty of all felony counts including abuse.

The new state laws are fueled by the emotions of the case. There are constitutional questions about the law and concerns about misuse; but softened and worded carefully, the law is a good idea and seems inevitable.

But the law is inspired by the emotional false hope of retroactivity. There is a strong belief that Casey Anthony got away with murder, and this law would have given prosecutors and the jury another count to put the mother in prison for years. But what is done is done and the law only underscores the problems with laws enacted after the fact. They are often case-specific and thus ineffective in dealing with a much bigger problem. Mothers, fathers and guardians are cleared or woefully under-sentenced in the death of a child everyday in this country.

In a perfect world an estimated 2,500 children wouldn’t die from neglect and child abuse in this country every year, but they do. And it will continue unless we do something about it.

Cindy Christian, a child abuse expert from Philadelphia’s Children Hospital, told me, “If you are going to kill anyone, kill your own child because chances are you’ll go free.” Those words were haunting. They were meant to be. Christian testifies as an expert witness in child abuse and neglect cases across the area and is frustrated at the inability of the justice system to convict the worst kind of killers—the kind who kill their own child.

One of the biggest problems is the under-reporting of child abuse and neglect until it’s too late. Two years ago in Indiana, 13-year-old Christian Choate died after years of child abuse. After his death, police found a note he had written wondering when someone would check in on him and give him food and water. The boy’s father and step-mother are charged with murder. But court records show that at least a dozen people knew or suspected child abuse and failed to report it.

A “Christian’s Law” requiring that suspected child abuse be reported may be a stronger law-enforcement tool to help prevent the death and maltreatment of children.

It would also help if all suspected abuse and neglect deaths are recorded properly. A recent analysis of child deaths in 15 states by the National Center for the Review and Prevention of Child deaths shows that there were twice as many neglected deaths in those states than reported to the federal database. In most states, the only neglect cases that get reported are the ones that were already the focus of a child welfare investigation. Under that criterion, Caylee and Christian would not make the national database.

There are so many problems with the reporting, prosecution and recording of child abuse deaths that there is a real fear the passing of “Caylee’s Law” may give the public the false sense that the problem has been solved. When in reality, it would do nothing to prevent the seven children who die every day in this country from abuse and neglect.

If legislators really want to do something positive, they should call Cindy Christian at Children’s Hospital and ask her what laws we need to protect children like Caylee Anthony and Christian Choate, before the worst happens.

Better data, says the GAO, would aid in developing strategies that could save many children’s lives in the future.

The GAO report, the subject of a House Human Resources subcommittee hearing Tuesday, says state agencies and the Department of Health and Human Services should broaden the scope of data collection, improve coordination, and seek uniform definitions of abuse and maltreatment.

“We need to do a much better job working together at the local, state and national level,” said Theresa Covington, director of the National Center for the Review and Prevention of Child Deaths, in testimony prepared for the hearing.

In his opening remarks, the chairman of the House subcommittee, Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Ky., evoked the death of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, whose mother, Casey, was acquitted of murder last week in a trial that drew worldwide news coverage.

“Sometimes the death of a child from maltreatment does not make headlines at all, possibly because it is not recorded as a death from maltreatment,” Davis said.

“It is hard to know which child deaths are more tragic — those we know about, or those we do not,” he added. “Our role is to be the voice for the voiceless — especially those children whose deaths are missing from official data today.”

The main source of nationwide data on child-maltreatment deaths is the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), which issues an annual report based on information submitted voluntarily by the states. NCANDS’ latest report, for the 2009 fiscal year, estimated that 1,770 children had died from abuse or neglect, up from 1,450 in 2005.

The GAO notes that many state officials believe that increase stems at least in part from new procedures and better reporting, rather than a surge in abuse of children. But reporting standards differ widely from state to state.

Some of the problems highlighted by the GAO:

—Nearly half of states included data only from child welfare agencies in reporting maltreatment deaths to NCANDS. Yet not all children who die from maltreatment have had contact with these agencies, likely leading to incomplete counts due to lack of data from coroners’ offices, law enforcement agencies and other sources. One study cited by the GAO found that maltreatment deaths in three states were undercounted by 55 to 75 percent.

—HHS collects some information about maltreatment deaths, such as perpetrators’ previous abuse of children, yet does not report it. And the federally funded center for child death review does not synthesize or publish the detailed data that it collects from states about maltreatment deaths.

—At the local level, lack of medical evidence and inconsistent interpretations of maltreatment challenge investigators in determining whether a child’s death is caused by maltreatment. At the state level, limited coordination among jurisdictions and state agencies, in part due to confidentiality or privacy constraints, poses challenges for reporting data.

According to the GAO, state officials said that better data on maltreatment deaths would enable them to craft more effective prevention strategies — comparable to already widespread efforts to curtail the problem known as shaken-baby syndrome.

“As a society, we should be doing everything in our collective power to end child deaths and near-deaths from maltreatment,” the report concluded. “The collection and reporting of comprehensive data on these tragic situations is an important step toward that goal.”

It recommended that HHS expand the range of data that it distributes, while also helping states gather more complete and reliable information.

HHS, in a formal response, said it agreed with the recommendations and was taking steps to implement them.

Witnesses at Tuesday’s hearing, in their prepared remarks, acknowledged that state and federal budget difficulties complicated any push for more funding to curtail child abuse. However, Michael Petit of the advocacy group Every Child Matters nonetheless called for up to $5 billion in additional federal spending.

Jane Burstain of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a think tank in Austin, Texas, asked politicians to at least maintain current levels of spending on programs aimed at preventing abuse.

“As families struggle and stress levels rise, child maltreatment becomes more of a risk,” she said. “To cut programs that support struggling families in tough economic times is the very definition of penny wise and pound foolish and is a choice our children will pay for with their lives.”

Dr. Carole Jenny, a pediatrician and child-abuse expert at Brown Medical School in Providence, R.I., urged federal support for training more doctors in child-abuse pediatrics.

“When a child does die from abuse or neglect, these pediatricians can help police, forensic, and social service agencies make the correct diagnosis, by doing the appropriate medical work up in the hospital and by ruling out conditions that mimic abuse or neglect,” she said in her testimony.

Another expert on child welfare, Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, said the GAO report — by detailing the inconsistency of child-fatality data — highlighted the potential flaws in trying to rank states in this area.

“Phony ‘scorecards’ claiming state X or Y is ‘worst’ when it comes to child abuse deaths penalize states that are rigorous in ferreting out such deaths and reward states that ignore them,” Wexler said.

Source: Associated Press (AP)

In 2000 the NSPCC published groundbreaking research on the prevalence of child maltreatment in the UK. The research was based on a household survey of 2,869 young adults’ memories of childhood abuse (Cawson et al, 2000). In the past 11 years a lot has changed in children’s lives and in methods of research.

The current study aimed to provide up-to-date information on the prevalence and impact of child maltreatment and victimisation in a nationally representative sample of children and young people living in the UK and to compare rates of childhood experiences reported by young adults interviewed in 2009 with rates reported in the UK research conducted in 1998-89.

The research explored the prevalence and impact of child maltreatment and victimisation at home, in the school and in the community. This article focuses only on experiences of child maltreatment.

Methods
In 2009 researchers interviewed 6,196 adults and children in their homes. Households were randomly selected from postcodes across the UK. Laptop computers were used to ask questions and record answers privately (CASI and Audio CASI interviews). Interviews were conducted with:

2,160 parents or guardians of children aged under 11
2,275 young people aged between 11 and 17 and their parents or guardians
1,761 young adults aged between 18 and 24.

The interview included questions about family life and health and about a wide range of experiences of physical violence, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and bullying at home, in school and in the community.

Validated measures of maltreatment and victimisation were used from the juvenile victimisation questionnaire (JVQ). Measures of impact were age-related:

For infants aged one month to two years, caregivers completed six items from the Brief Infant Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (BITSEA) 18 and 13 items from the Infant Traumatic Stress Questionnaire (ITSQ).
For children aged from three to 10 a shortened 26-item version of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children (TSCYC) was completed by caregivers to assess the child’s mental health problems over the past month.
For young people aged 11 to 17 a shortened version of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children was used (TSCC).
Young adult participants completed the 40-item version of the Trauma Symptom Checklist (TSC).

Parents completed the whole interview for children under the age of 11 and the questions on family health and income etc for children aged 11 to 17. Children aged 11 to 17 completed the questions on victimisation and impact. Young adults completed all the questions themselves. Participants were provided with opportunities to indicate if they wished to receive help or talk to someone about their experiences and interviewers provided all participants with information on relevant support services when handing out the debrief sheets at the end of the interview.

The response rate for the research was 60·4%. 48% of the children, young people and young adult participants in the survey were male and 52% were female.

Child maltreatment by adults in the family

Six per cent of 11- to 17-year-olds (3.9% of children and young people under 18) had experienced some form of physical, sexual or emotional abuse or neglect by a parent or guardian in the past year.

Almost one in 7 (14.1%) children and young people under 18 had been maltreated by a parent or guardian during their lifetime (defined as having had one or more experiences of physical violence, sexual or emotional abuse, or neglect by a parent or guardian during their lifetime). This is as many as three in every school or college class.

It is hard to know from a survey how people are really affected but we decided to try to look at how many children and young people might have experienced maltreatment that was ‘severe’. We calculated maltreatment as ‘severe’ by looking at how often the abuse happened, whether there was any hurt or injury, whether it was sexual abuse that involved rape, attempted rape, forced touching and whether the young person said it was abuse.

Parents or guardians were said to be perpetrators in 76% of cases of severe maltreatment.

Almost one in nine (11%) children and young people had experienced severe maltreatment from any person during their lifetime.
More than one in 12 (8.4%) had experienced severe maltreatment from a parent or guardian during their lifetime.
2.2% of under-18s had experienced severe as well as past-year maltreatment by a parent or guardian, indicating that these severely maltreated young people had been recently abused.

Young people were asked questions about self-harm and wanting to commit suicide within the past month. 8.5% of 11-17s reported wanting to hurt themselves and 5.3% reported wanting to commit suicide. We found that self-harm and wanting to commit suicide were both significantly related to experiencing all forms of victimisations but the greatest impact was for severe maltreatment.

Neglect by parents or guardians
Neglect means not being looked after properly, not being given enough food, not being taken to the doctor when you are sick, not having a safe place to stay, and nobody caring about you.

8.4% of children and young people had experienced some neglect by a parent or guardian in their childhoods.
6.2% of children had experienced severe neglect.

Emotional abuse by parents or guardians
Emotional abuse is when a grown-up does things to make a child or young person scared, feel unloved or feel bad about themselves.

5% of children and young people had been emotionally abused by a parent or guardian in childhood
2.3% had been emotionally abused in the past year.

Domestic violence, where one parent is abused by a partner, was often witnessed by children and young people.

1 in 7 (14.2%) children and young people under 18 had witnessed domestic violence between adults in their homes during childhood.
23.7% of 18-24s also reported witnessing domestic violence as children.
3.7% of under-18s had witnessed one parent being kicked, choked or beaten up by the other parent.
2.9% of under-18s had witnessed domestic violence in the past year.

When a parent had beaten up the other parent, 93.8% of the perpetrators were male.

Physical violence by parents or guardians
Physical violence included things like being hit, slapped, beaten or kicked by a parent or guardian, but we did not include ‘smacking’.

Not including ‘smacking’, 3.6% of under-18s had experienced some form of physical violence from a parent or guardian during childhood.
1.4% had experienced this in the past year.
55.1% of children and young people who had been hit, beaten, kicked or physically hurt by a parent or guardian were hurt or injured as a result.

We found physical violence by a parent or guardian was associated with significantly poorer emotional wellbeing for all age groups.

Physical punishment by parents/guardians
We asked parents or guardians about physical punishment and ‘smacking’. 41.6% of children and young people under 18 had been physically punished in the past year.

Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse happens when a child is involved in sexual activities that he or she cannot properly understand, cannot consent to or are against the law. Sexual abuse can be ‘contact’ sexual abuse, which means there was some sexual touching. ‘Non contact’ sexual abuse covers things that do not involve touching, such as having to look at somebody’s genitals or sexual acts, or having sexual images posted on the internet.

The perpetrators of contact sexual abuse of children and young people were:

other children and young people (44.2% of perpetrators)
the young person’s intimate partner (29.4%)
adults not living with the child (24%)
parents or guardians (4.1%)
siblings (3.1%).

More than one in 14 (7.3%) under-18s had been (contact or non contact) sexually abused in childhood. 4.1% of under 18s had experienced (contact or non contact) sexual abuse in the past year.

Teenage girls aged between 15 and 17 reported the highest past-year rates of sexual abuse.

More than one in 50 (2.2%) under-18s had experienced contact sexual abuse that included one or more of the following:

a rape or attempted rape, or forced sexual contact
sexual contact by a parent or guardian or adult in a position of trust (like a teacher or social worker)
sexual contact with an adult when under 16.

11.3% of young adults aged 18-24 had also experienced this during childhood.

Adults not living with the child
In the research we looked at which adults living outside the immediate family home are most likely to pose a risk to the safety and wellbeing of children and young people.

4.5% of under-18s had experienced maltreatment or victimisation by an adult with whom they did not live.
2% of under-18s had experienced this in the past year.

Outside the family home, it was adults known to the child, such as relatives, neighbours or family friends, who were most often responsible for maltreatment and victimisation of a child under the age of 11. Older children said more often it was adults who were strangers who were responsible.

0.4% of under 11s, 1.1% of 11-17s and 1.7% of 18-24s reported lifetime maltreatment and victimisation (including sexual abuse) by a teacher, coach or adult within an organisation.

One young person in the 11-17 age group and one young adult said they had been maltreated by a childminder.

Understanding the risks
Age: Our findings confirm other research showing that the risks of maltreatment and victimisation that children and young people face vary developmentally (Finkelhor, 2007). Opportunities for perpetrators to get access to children and young people tend to increase as a child grows and spends time in settings other than the family home.

Past-year maltreatment rates increased with the age of the child, from 3% reporting maltreatment in the past year at ages nine to 11 to 6.5% reporting maltreatment in the past year at ages 12-14. The increase of past-year maltreatment reported in the teens is an important finding from this research. Older children should not be overlooked in child protection work.

Known/unknown adults: Children under 11 are most likely to be maltreated by parents and known adults. This was also the case for older age groups, although 11-17s and 18-24s are also at risk of abuse by unknown adults.

Gender: Mothers/female guardians were more often responsible for maltreating children under the age of 11. In the older age groups, fathers/male guardians were more often responsible for maltreating children than were mothers or female guardians. Men and boys were also the most frequently responsible for sexual abuse of children and were the majority of perpetrators of domestic violence against another parent.

Experiencing other types of victimisation: Children and young people who had been maltreated were significantly more likely than those who were not to experience other types of victimisation. For example, children and young people aged 11-17 who had experienced lifetime maltreatment by a parent or guardian were also more likely to experience other victimisation (such as victimisation by peers, siblings or adults living outside the family home), and more likely to be living with domestic violence than young people who had not been maltreated by a parent or guardian. Physical violence from any perpetrator increased the risk of a child or young person also experiencing contact sexual abuse. Those aged 11-17, for example, who had experienced physical violence by someone who was not a caregiver were 5.75 times more likely to experience contact sexual abuse than those who had not experienced physical violence.

Multiple victimisation: a small minority of children and young people experience a high level of different types of maltreatment and victimisation. We found these most victimised children and young people were more likely to be older, have special educational needs or a longstanding disability or illness, have a parent with enduring physical, learning or psychiatric problems and to be living with a range of adversity.

Maltreatment and victimisation experiences are statistically associated with higher trauma symptoms, suicidal feelings and delinquent behaviour. Experiences of victimisation accumulate over childhood. The most victimised showed the highest trauma and behavioural impact. A minority of children are highly vulnerable as they experience multiple forms of maltreatment and victimisation.

Source: Teaching Expertise

Let’s push the pause button.

Recently ABC News reported that childhood obesity expert Dr. David Ludwig put childhood obesity in the same category as abuse and requires government intervention.

“State intervention may serve the best interests of many children with life-threatening obesity, comprising the only realistic way to control harmful behavior,” said Dr. Ludwig in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “In severe instances of childhood obesity, removal from the home may be justifiable, from a legal standpoint because of imminent health risks and the parents’ chronic failure to address medical problems.”

Let the Firestorm of Controversy Begin
For example, an editorial on cafemom.com makes an interesting point. Schools across the nation have banned playground activities such as dodge ball and tag, not to mention physical education programs entirely. How are kids supposed to get and stay fit if they don’t have an school-based program to do so? Interesting point.

But is it extreme child obesity child abuse? Should these children be removed from the home? Is this the best course of action or is it going too far?

Source: Web MD

The coercive, stressful family environment which leads to incidents of child abuse in the home is being overcome through Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), a hi-tech interactive therapy program.

A unique part of the therapy involves mother and child in practice sessions where mum is offered guidance by a PCIT therapist using a bug-in-the-ear device.

The therapist observes real-time interaction between the mother and child from behind a two-way mirror.

The new study, carried out by Dr Rae Thomas and Professor Melanie Zimmer-Gembeck from Griffith Health Institute’s Behavioural Basis of Health program, surveyed families known to child protection services and identified as vulnerable to child abuse.

It found increased parent sensitivity, better behaved children and lower child abuse potential among families who received the therapy.

Half of the participants received PCIT while the second half (control group) was placed on a 12-week waiting list and were contacted weekly to discuss concerns.

This group was offered PCIT at the end of the 12-week period.

“With the first group there were significant reductions in the potential for child abuse to occur and this ultimately resulted in fewer notifications to child protection services compared with the families on the waiting list,” Dr Thomas said.

Previous research has shown coercive parenting, a lack of positive parent-child interactions and low levels of parental warmth to be key risk factors for child abuse.

This pattern of interaction leads increasingly to a demise in positive child behaviour, greater stress, and excessive disciplining of the child that can escalate to abuse.

PCIT reduces the factors associated with coercive family relationships by coaching the parents to have a more positive and sensitive interaction with their children.

“Parents reported distinct improvements in areas like stress and depression, and their interactions with the child improved,” Dr Thomas said.

“They also felt their new approach to parenting had a direct effect in improving their child’s behaviour and even how their child reacted in challenging situations.

“Many described themselves as feeling more competent as parents.”

The study is the first evaluation in Australia to test PCIT with families where there is known or suspected maltreatment.

Further research is required to identify the essential component of PCIT that produces the positive change.

However, Dr Thomas believes this evidence-based intervention could be a treatment of choice for practitioners working with parents at high risk of child abuse.

Source: Health Canal

Persistent management lapses and a poor use of technology continue to hobble Los Angeles County’s child welfare system, and two high-profile child fatalities from last year have been newly tied to the breakdowns, according to records and interviews.

A special counsel acting for the Board of Supervisors has found that despite pledges to fix the problems, social workers still do not fully retrieve and evaluate case files electronically during home inspections. Not enough equipment is available, officials contend, and it often doesn’t work.

And county officials have made little progress assigning more experienced social workers to the most difficult jobs. Officials say civil service rules let veterans transfer to less stressful duties.

Both shortcomings played a role in the suicide last year of 11-year-old Jorge Tarin, according to the counsel’s special investigations unit, which was established to identify systemic breakdowns that may contribute to child fatalities.

For months, the Department of Children and Family Services has been under intense scrutiny because more than 70 children have died of maltreatment over the last three years after coming to the attention of social workers.

As a result of Jorge Tarin’s death, the special counsel recently issued a confidential update to supervisors. When child welfare officials reacted to the report in a 12-page memo, copies were widely circulated among county officials and obtained by The Times.

In that case, a social worker with just eight months’ experience responded to an emergency hotline call in June 2010 reporting that the youth had tearfully told counselors at his middle school that he wanted to kill himself, that life had become “unbearable” because he was ostracized and suffered beatings at home, according to records.

The county agency had previously removed the fifth-grader from his mother’s care and placed him in foster care because of mistreatment by her and a stepfather. But the child was later returned on the condition that the stepfather not live in the home because the man’s past domestic violence and drug abuse posed a “very high risk.”

The social worker went to Jorge’s Montebello house to investigate on June 8. But because she didn’t have one of the county’s tablet computers, she did not realize that the stepfather — who met her at the door — had been banned from the home. After questioning the child and his parents, the social worker could not confirm any new abuse and she left. Hours later, Jorge fatally hanged himself with a jump rope.

Since The Times reported the incident last July, two social workers have been disciplined for their involvement in the case. In its report, the special counsel said child welfare officials need to reevaluate the minimum requirements for the emergency response social workers who are assigned to investigate hotline calls.

In an interview this month, Jackie Contreras, interim director of the agency, said she was proud that the department had implemented additional training days and coaching opportunities for child abuse investigators. But she acknowledged that efforts to give the toughest jobs to workers with more experience have been stymied.

Usage of computer programs before deciding to remove a child, she said, remains an “expectation” and “not always a reality.”

The job of investigating abuse allegations is shunned by many social workers because of the difficulty and long hours. Once workers achieve the necessary level of experience, they often exercise their right under civil service rules to transfer to other duties. The burnout is especially acute in South Los Angeles, where cases are abundant and often complex, and remote areas of the Antelope Valley.

“We’re exploring the idea of a pay differential for these offices, to possibly lower caseloads there, to recruit people that already live in the communities and want to stay there,” Contreras said.

Beginning two years ago, supervisors issued promises to redeploy the child welfare staff and give them the technological tools they need to get a clearer view of complex cases. “We wouldn’t think of sending soldiers to war carrying jammed rifles,” Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said early last year.

Supervisors Michael D. Antonovich, Don Knabe, Gloria Molina, Ridley-Thomas and Zev Yaroslavsky declined to be interviewed for this report.

The special counsel’s report on Jorge Tarin’s death also found that child welfare officials need to reexamine the use of a computer program called Structured Decision Making, which is designed to measure a child’s risk of maltreatment. Currently, the report said, the program is used “improperly or not at all.”

So that workers could use the software in the field, the department paid $5.9 million for about 2,400 tablet computers in 2007. But they purchased only 400 wireless cards that allow the devices to operate remotely. As a result, the technology largely went unused and the tablets remained on social workers’ desks.

Then-agency Director Trish Ploehn later explained that the devices had been purchased without first testing the system and that the department realized early in the rollout that the wireless connection was often slow or nonexistent. “We have very good social workers in our department who are not always very good information technology planners,” she said.

Contreras said the department is now considering buying new handheld devices. “Something that is a little more nimble,” she said. “Something that allows them to access information more efficiently.”

Meanwhile, social workers often rely instead on incomplete print-outs and quick scans of their office computer screens before leaving to investigate.

In the case of 2-year-old Deandre Green, a social worker repeatedly went to the wrong address for weeks because a print-out with the correct address in Long Beach was illegible, Contreras said.

The social worker never located Deandre before he was fatally beaten. His mother has since been convicted of felony child abuse, and her boyfriend was convicted of felony assault on a child causing death.

Two county social workers have been disciplined for their involvement in that case and two other temporary workers were dismissed, according to agency spokesman Nishith Bhatt.

Additional steps have also been implemented to raise flags when a child abuse referral includes an address that does not match the welfare rolls, Bhatt said.

By Garrett Therolf, Los Angeles Times

Source: LA Times

Sun J. Kim, 30, was remanded into the custody of Wicomico deputies and is being held without bond following his conviction at the conclusion of the bench trial.

He was taken into custody in November after a Pemberton Elementary nurse located bruises on a male student’s back and thigh. Kim is also accused in the abuse of the victim’s younger brother.

Police transported the victim and his brother, also a student at the school, to Peninsula Regional Medical Center for a medical exam. Hospital personnel observed multiple bruises on the victim’s thighs, lower back, buttocks and lower abdomen. The victim’s brother also had similar bruises to his buttocks, according to police.

Shortly before Judge W. Newton Jackson III convicted the defendant on Wednesday, he said he did not have any reason to doubt the credibility of the victim who testified during the hearing. He recalled how the child showed emotion and cried while on the witness stand.

However, Jackson added, he questioned statements made by Kim during his testimony stating the defendant gave conflicting accounts of the incident.

“It’s absolutely inconceivable that a 10-year-old would let an 8-year-old inflict that type of injury,” the judge said.

Kim was not sentenced Thursday. Jackson said it would be inappropriate to sentence him at that time because it was late in the day.

Jackson has ordered a pre-sentencing investigation on Thursday.

A Circuit Court sentencing hearing has not been scheduled at this time; however, sentencing hearings typically occur after a pre-sentencing investigation has been completed.

Source: delmarvanow