Are we talking about child protection? Who are we seeking to protect?

These are questions that have been on my mind since I read the first of reporter Brandon Stahl's articles about Eric Dean ("The boy they couldn't save," Aug. 31). Historically, we have legislated child welfare as knee-jerk reactions to incidents and media scrutiny. I fear that we are falling down the same black hole that led us to this broken, dysfunctional child welfare system.

Gov. Mark Dayton's heart may be in the right place, but his task force on child protection misses the mark by a long shot. I have spent the bulk of my adult life in the service of children and child welfare. I have the advantage of having experienced the child welfare/child protection system from multiple vantage points. I am a retired social worker, an academic child-welfare scholar, a guardian ad litem and a member of a Citizen Review Panel on Child Protection. There is a gaping hole in the formation of this task force.

The governor's task force is well supplied with state/county officials, police, medical professionals, academics, legislators and a parent advocate. But where are the children? Where are the child advocates? Who speaks for the children of Minnesota who are crying out and dying for someone to make them feel safe or at least like they matter?

The knee-jerk reaction to Eric Dean's plight is as misguided as the system itself. The child protection and child welfare system should have at its core the children, and the children simply do not exist in the system or the platform that seeks to reform it. How can Dayton justify having parent advocacy represented on this task force but neglect child advocacy? It isn't as though child-advocacy organizations in Minnesota did not lobby passionately to have representation on this task force.

Perhaps in seeking an answer to the problem of dysfunction in this system, the theory of Occam's razor should be employed. Go back to the beginning and look for the simple answer. Start with the children and work out from there.

Having participated in this process over the years, in multiple roles, I can say that the system is not child-centric. Most parties involved in the juvenile court process never hear from the child or even lay eyes on the child. The only parties that normally have contact with the children are the social worker, guardian ad litem and, in cases where one has been appointed, the child's attorney.

As I see it, the search for reform of the child protection system mirrors the dysfunction that created this broken system in the first place. We attempt to "protect" the parents; the state and county agencies, and the statistics that represent how the state performs. The protection of the children seems to be collateral. The membership of the task force seems to be more about protecting its legitimacy with high-profile members and token interests. Those of us who participate in the process with the sole, independent purpose of protecting the children's safety and best interests are absent.

I implore those who sit on this task force to see the face of Minnesota children who are, through no fault of their own, cast into this system. Talk to them. Attempt to understand the world from their vantage point. Make every decision with the best interests of children and their protection at the core of your mission.

This may require that we look the dysfunction straight in the eye and say "we've failed." It's all right to say we've failed as long as we make a sincere commitment to do better. We can't fix something we refuse to admit is broken.

The first thing I ask parents to do is take responsibility for their behavior, then work to change and learn so they can put their children's best interests first. And that is the advice I offer to the task force. Let us protect the children first.

Nancy Zupfer lives in Cottage Grove.