Police Moderator
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On The Job and Tangled Up In Blue
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Post by Police Moderator on Dec 28, 2012 9:04:06 GMT -5
Editorial: DCS should open records about child deaths
By NEWS SENTINEL EDITORIAL BOARD
Posted December 5, 2012 The Tennessee Department of Children's Services, already under intense scrutiny, is withdrawing into a shell of silence that is intolerable for a state government agency. The agency is refusing to provide case files on 31 Tennessee children who have died this year after coming into contact with DCS. The Tennessean has requested a review of the files multiple times, but DCS has only provided the Nashville newspaper with brief summaries of the cases. That is not enough. DCS must be more transparent in its handling of these cases so Tennessee residents can fully understand the issues involved and be assured the agency is addressing them. In the first six months of the year, 31 children DCS has been involved with have died. According to the Tennessean, they include 23 babies, four toddlers, one 5-year-old and three teenagers. The Tennessean asked to review the case files, but DCS has resisted, citing privacy concerns for the children and families involved. Read more: knox news |
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Post by Justin Thyme on Dec 28, 2012 13:02:13 GMT -5
Has a judge not ruled on this yet?
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Police Moderator
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On The Job and Tangled Up In Blue
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Post by Police Moderator on Dec 28, 2012 13:38:46 GMT -5
No, not in Tennessee (That I am aware of.)
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Post by Justin Thyme on Dec 28, 2012 14:23:08 GMT -5
So more kids die at the hands of Tennessee's DCS than at the hands of that Killer in Sandy Hook and we aren't allowed to know about it?
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Post by ssmynkint on Dec 28, 2012 15:27:15 GMT -5
TN DCS has historically had funding difficulties, especially RE: being able to pay acceptable wages to qualified (i.e., educated and trained/trainable) case-workers who have always had (excessively) heavy caseloads. This has gotten much worse over the last ten years (out of the forty years of which I have personal knowledge ) with the increasing unwillingness of citizens to fund social services (remember; no more taxes!), the increasing politicalization of state social services and the dumbing-down of professional standards.
O'Day is a political loyalist to Haslam, hence her reward, er, position. As head of Child and Family Tennessee in Knoxville, she did a hedge fund "turn around", selling off assets, reducing staff, weeding out programs that were not government funded, and hiring on such a low pay scale that qualified professionals became increasingly rare (Social workers, those with even a BSW, much less an MSSW have mostly been replaced with bachelor level "caseworkers" and less expensive and usually less trained and experienced "Licensed Professional Counselors" or "Licensed Mental Health Providers"). CFT became a shell of it's former self, and O'Day & her cronies received rewards for making things look good on paper.
Even with disclosure, all that is likely to happen is getting a new CEO over DCS. Things will not change until voters demonstrate a willingness to fund appropriate social sevices, including those mental health services that might well reduce the type of horror we saw at Sandy Hook.
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TNBear
Senior Forumite
Posts: 2,285
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Post by TNBear on Dec 28, 2012 18:53:32 GMT -5
Never gonna happen mynkint. Voters do not care to fund such, I am surprised that they don't kick more at paying for LE and other first responders. They want service, but don't want to pay for it.
As for mental health, that went out the window when Saint Ronnie Raygun cut loose the vast majority of mental health patients in CA. Been all downhill since then.
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Post by ssmynkint on Dec 28, 2012 19:16:53 GMT -5
Well, at least in Knoxville when TN "liberated" the patients at Lakeshore Hospital, the state sold most of the campus to Kville, who made it into a park w benches the "liberated" patients could sleep on!
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Post by Warkitty on Dec 29, 2012 6:56:46 GMT -5
Welcome to the real world. A televised horror like Sandy Hook has people all over the nation crapping their pants wanting to restrict gun laws or crying for better mental health options, but the real tragedies like this go completely unnoticed. The cronyism involved here is sickening, as is the unwillingness to provide the information. Kudos to the reporters following this though, and I'm actually surprised there are some doing so. THIS is REAL news we need.
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