Children who are often in a so called abusive family, are taken away from their family and are put into a foster family or some other ward of the state. Appeantly, the abuse does not stop there. In recent months, a pastor and his wife in Oklahoma were charged for sexually molesting two 14 year old girls that they were caring for, a social worker was recently charged with child abuse and who could forget the case in DC over a year ago where a well known and liked foster mother of the Social Service was found to have a dead child in the freezer. Are we taking the abused child from the pan and putting them into the fire?

The recent incidents does not really cause for a complete rebuild of the social services, but a better check on the caregivers could help. DC had pratically revamped their employees. For most states, the caseloads are over whelmimg and the manpower is low. Then you have the false reports that also put a burden on the over taxed system in the first place.

Of course, there are those that abuse the system. Some localities pay for having foster children. This may be incentive enough to have help for the children, but it also will bring out those that are there for just the money. Some of the social workers, sonce being on the inside, knows how to ‘work’ the system. This is an unfair advantage to those that actually go to social services for help and are turned away because there is no help avaliable or there is not enough money. 

Whatever happens, something needs to be done to help protect pur children instead of putting them in a worse situation. How can a social worker declare a family unfit to care for their onw child when the social worker may not be fit themselves? With today’s tough economic times, families that are having troubles is facing a nightmare. However it may be, the system that was once useful is now broken and it is a time for a fix.