[SES1066]

1) Child Abuse occurs and there are true horror stories from all social classes.
2) Child Abuse ALLEGATIONS certainly exceed actual incidents by orders of magnitude.
3) Social Workers operate under a losing proposition, low status civil servants, bureaucratic straight-jacket rules, severe consequences upon error(s) [personally & client].
4) Child endangerment occurs quickly and in secret.
5) Information on abuse seldom comes with proof and certainty.
6) INNOCENT FAMILIES are EASILY caught in Kafkaesque nightmares without recourse because of the above reasons.

There are no easy answers and HINDSIGHT is 20/20. I feel strongly for this family and I remember the INFAMOUS 'Child Care Provider' witch-hunts of the 1980s that took so long to rectify. My belief is that a form of Ombudsman that can mitigate the bureaucratic jungle when clear errors occur should be used, but I would greatly hate to be in such a position because of potential errors.

[hinckley buzzard]

One answer is to require that counties hire people with at least some minimum of training. I worked in a case where the "social worker" had no college degree and was barely literate, but who was so arrogant and full of herself that you couldn't complete a sentence before she interrupted. The case was horrible but the kid fortunately escaped the clutches before the foster home nightmare began. Cuyahoga County. Kids in foster homes have been known to die here, courtesy of the government experts.