Last
week, the nation was once again focused on a Montgomery County,
Maryland story that first came to national attention on December 20
of last year when a ten-year-old boy and six-year-old girl were
picked up by police while walking home by themselves from a
playground about a mile from their home. The police contacted
Montgomery County Child Protective Services (CPS), which interviewed
the children at school, visited the family at home, and threatened
the children would be removed unless the parents signed a “safety
plan” promising that they would not be left alone until the case
was resolved.
The
children's parents explained that they believed in “free range
parenting,” allowing their children to take gradual steps toward
independence consistent with their age and ability. Eventually, CPS
took the middle route between substantiating the neglect and ruling
it out, making a finding that left open the possibility that neglect
took place. But on April 12, the children were once again in the
clutches of CPS when police picked them up in a park and brought them
to CPS headquarters after a dog walker called 911. They were not
reunited with their parents for five-and-a-half hours (without any
food), and their parents did not know where they were for the first
three hours. The family is reportedly planning to sue CPS.
The
extreme attention paid to the Meitiv family stands in ironic contrast
to another story that transfixed the Washington area last year. On
March 19, 2014, police began searching for eight-year-old Relisha
Rudd, who had lived with her family at the District's large family
homeless shelter. Relisha had not been at school since February 26
but no report had been made because her family had lied to the school
about her absence, stating that she was sick and under care by a “Dr.
Tatum.” Tatum turned out to be a janitor at the shelter. His wife's
body was found on March 20 with a bullet in the head; he was found
dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound on March 31.
Relisha has never been found.
An
investigation by the Washington
Post found
that DC's Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) had sustained three
complaints of abuse or neglect involving this family. The last
complaint was only two to three months before Relisha disappeared.
Due to the family's right to confidentiality, the agency has declined
to release any details about the conclusions of their investigation,
whether any type of monitoring or services were provided or whether
the family had an open case when Relisha disappeared.
The
juxtaposition of these two episodes illustrates the fundamental
conflict in child welfare between doing too little and doing too
much. In one case, children who were being allowed to develop
independent living skills in a safe and loving home were traumatized
by Child Protective Services. In another case, child in a family that
was clearly struggling, whose brother was found to be abused not
three months earlier, was allowed to disappear from a
government-funded homeless shelter with no action taken until she was
gone for three weeks.
What
can be done to prevent more children to be unnecessarily traumatized
or fall through the cracks? Somehow, we need to inject a little bit
of common sense into child welfare practice. The Washington
Post reported
that there were many signs that all was not well in Relisha's family,
in addition to the three prior reports of abuse or neglect. School
staff “described her arriving with filthy clothes, dirty hair and
an empty stomach, and they said she often didn't want to leave.” On
the other hand, the Meitiv children seem to display the independent
spirit and self-confidence that comes from a loving home. Social
workers and police need to be trained and allowed to distinguish the
children who need help and those for whom their intervention will
only a source of trauma.
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