When the fuck do we start properly funding Family Services?!

[Jimmy Higgins]

link

So, here is just the latest case of a child knowing nothing but suffering in the United States because America is so fucking cheap. Family Services is often the scapegoat for not stopping something like this, but the reality is such organizations are beyond ridiculously underfunded and overworked. It hasn't been sustainable (possibly ever), yet, we read these stories, it breaks our hearts, and we move on, blissfully ignorant of every other child on the brink of the beating that'll kill them.

Then we repeat the process. "Oh, how could a parent be so awful?" Here's a hint, being able to procreate doesn't mean you are a good, decent, or at best a disappointing parent.

It reeks of absolute apathy to read that there were signs that this child could have been saved, if there was just a population that wasn't so worried about Netflix raising their rates $2 a month.

 

[Trausti]

No amount of funding can prevent human error.

 

[laughing dog]

The answer to Jimmy's question is not in our lifetimes.

 

[Harry Bosch]

link

So, here is just the latest case of a child knowing nothing but suffering in the United States because America is so fucking cheap. Family Services is often the scapegoat for not stopping something like this, but the reality is such organizations are beyond ridiculously underfunded and overworked. It hasn't been sustainable (possibly ever), yet, we read these stories, it breaks our hearts, and we move on, blissfully ignorant of every other child on the brink of the beating that'll kill them.

Then we repeat the process. "Oh, how could a parent be so awful?" Here's a hint, being able to procreate doesn't mean you are a good, decent, or at best a disappointing parent.

It reeks of absolute apathy to read that there were signs that this child could have been saved, if there was just a population that wasn't so worried about Netflix raising their rates $2 a month.

Well, child protective service is an extremely difficult job. Number one, there are more kids who need a home than adoptive parents (tell that to pro-life people). So, the goal is always to work with the family, rehabilitate, and hopefully restore. Most of the time, CPS is attached bitterly in the press when they take a child from a home. People love stories of government official's taking children away from great families. Yep, people are going to be pissed at the CPS agent who didn't take this kid from the family. But they also save many kids. They are damed if they do, damned if they don't. And the stories that work rarely make the news.

 

[Jarhyn]

No amount of funding can prevent human error.

So, I read this as a tacit acfeptance that shit like this is going to happen so do nothing beyond what we are already doing.

Is this an accurate categorization? Because if it is, fuck that noise.

The human condition only ever gets betrer as a result of effort. No effort, no improvement. If we just went that way every time we saw a problem, we wouldn't have ever picked up the first tool.

 

[Toni]

link

So, here is just the latest case of a child knowing nothing but suffering in the United States because America is so fucking cheap. Family Services is often the scapegoat for not stopping something like this, but the reality is such organizations are beyond ridiculously underfunded and overworked. It hasn't been sustainable (possibly ever), yet, we read these stories, it breaks our hearts, and we move on, blissfully ignorant of every other child on the brink of the beating that'll kill them.

Then we repeat the process. "Oh, how could a parent be so awful?" Here's a hint, being able to procreate doesn't mean you are a good, decent, or at best a disappointing parent.

It reeks of absolute apathy to read that there were signs that this child could have been saved, if there was just a population that wasn't so worried about Netflix raising their rates $2 a month.

Well, child protective service is an extremely difficult job. Number one, there are more kids who need a home than adoptive parents (tell that to pro-life people). So, the goal is always to work with the family, rehabilitate, and hopefully restore. Most of the time, CPS is attached bitterly in the press when they take a child from a home. People love stories of government official's taking children away from great families. Yep, people are going to be pissed at the CPS agent who didn't take this kid from the family. But they also save many kids. They are damed if they do, damned if they don't. And the stories that work rarely make the news.

This is true but the fact that CPS is so underfunded greatly increases the chances that it will make errors in judgment and leave children in dangerous situations. Even worse, it is unable to provide much needed support to families who are struggling with issues that negatively effect their ability to deal with child rearing challenges and life, in general. I'm thinking mostly of issues of untreated or undertreated mental illness and substance abuse, primarily. In general, poverty is an enormous source of stress and often exacerbates mental illness issues and substance abuse. But make no mistake: child abuse, domestic abuse, substance abuse and mental illness affect people at every socioeconomic and educational strata. The cost to human beings is enormous. It's an enormous drain on society and on our economy as well.

 

[Harry Bosch]

link

So, here is just the latest case of a child knowing nothing but suffering in the United States because America is so fucking cheap. Family Services is often the scapegoat for not stopping something like this, but the reality is such organizations are beyond ridiculously underfunded and overworked. It hasn't been sustainable (possibly ever), yet, we read these stories, it breaks our hearts, and we move on, blissfully ignorant of every other child on the brink of the beating that'll kill them.

Then we repeat the process. "Oh, how could a parent be so awful?" Here's a hint, being able to procreate doesn't mean you are a good, decent, or at best a disappointing parent.

It reeks of absolute apathy to read that there were signs that this child could have been saved, if there was just a population that wasn't so worried about Netflix raising their rates $2 a month.

Well, child protective service is an extremely difficult job. Number one, there are more kids who need a home than adoptive parents (tell that to pro-life people). So, the goal is always to work with the family, rehabilitate, and hopefully restore. Most of the time, CPS is attached bitterly in the press when they take a child from a home. People love stories of government official's taking children away from great families. Yep, people are going to be pissed at the CPS agent who didn't take this kid from the family. But they also save many kids. They are damed if they do, damned if they don't. And the stories that work rarely make the news.

This is true but the fact that CPS is so underfunded greatly increases the chances that it will make errors in judgment and leave children in dangerous situations. Even worse, it is unable to provide much needed support to families who are struggling with issues that negatively effect their ability to deal with child rearing challenges and life, in general. I'm thinking mostly of issues of untreated or undertreated mental illness and substance abuse, primarily. In general, poverty is an enormous source of stress and often exacerbates mental illness issues and substance abuse. But make no mistake: child abuse, domestic abuse, substance abuse and mental illness affect people at every socioeconomic and educational strata. The cost to human beings is enormous. It's an enormous drain on society and on our economy as well.

I agree with most of what you say. Having worked with CPS many years ago, I'd estimate that most CPS workers probably have about double the case load that they should. I think that mental health is a somewhat separate issue in that I believe that our society as a whole, doesn't treat mental health at all. It's abysmal. And it doesn't matter how much resources you have.

 

[Rhea]

No amount of funding can prevent human error.

So, I read this as a tacit acfeptance that shit like this is going to happen so do nothing beyond what we are already doing.

Is this an accurate categorization? Because if it is, fuck that noise.

The human condition only ever gets betrer as a result of effort. No effort, no improvement. If we just went that way every time we saw a problem, we wouldn't have ever picked up the first tool.

Agree. Number one thing we can do is more. If we better fund the agency, more case workers can be hired and trained, more “errors” can be avoided.

 

[Jarhyn]

No amount of funding can prevent human error.

So, I read this as a tacit acfeptance that shit like this is going to happen so do nothing beyond what we are already doing.

Is this an accurate categorization? Because if it is, fuck that noise.

The human condition only ever gets betrer as a result of effort. No effort, no improvement. If we just went that way every time we saw a problem, we wouldn't have ever picked up the first tool.

Agree. Number one thing we can do is more. If we better fund the agency, more case workers can be hired and trained, more “errors” can be avoided.

Doubt is the foundation of all progress. No doubt = no progress.

Doubt comes from many places: mistakes made that somehow work better. Or a suspicion that the model is wrong after a madness which demands an answer, in the form of a hypothesis.

But nobody ever improved on a system by never doubting it and just doing the same thing they always have.

Thus, conservatism will always be the ideology of fear and foolish assumption. And of course, eventually the model may reflect all realities of the underlying relationships which compose the system: the model will eventually be correct, and so doubt will in this situation eat some of the hypothetical efficiency that could hypothetically be possible; though even in this situation doubt is necessary because in all systems upon which there are axioms, the axioms cannot prove themselves sufficient except in their failure to fail.

As a result, doubt is still always to be applied, even if we think we are right.

Even so, progressivism will generally conserve this value of the accurate model, through the failure to supplant it with a better one; no direct conservation effort is necessary.

Conservatism is thus the ideology of failure and apathy, and gives us NOTHING but inefficiency and fear.