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During my eight years serving Minnesota as a state representative, my greatest joy was simply assisting people in my district navigating our massive state government to receive the services they needed. I saw it as "boots on the ground" real work.
The most challenging cases involved stories of child abuse, neglect and the parents who are supposed to protect these vulnerable children. I dealt with too many such cases. The stories, while outwardly similar, were always steeped in special circumstances and unique situations.
I do not envy county social workers as they try to navigate very complicated circumstances with limited resources. It is honorable and very difficult work. But it is essential to get it right, as the Nov. 5 article, "Two many second chances" (part of a special report titled "In Harm's Way"), suggests.
But the story leaves out important truths in its attempt to get to the conclusion, stated by a county attorney, that "the pendulum has swung too far in favor of parents' rights."
Rights haven't swung too far in favor of parents; the problem begins with a false premise that you can measure success by how and when a child returns to their parent. It presumes parental fault that can be remedied once a mother or father proves they are now responsible. How do you measure that? Using metrics to draw conclusions and produce policy from it can be misleading when dealing with complex individual stories like these. If kids are treated like statistics and people draw on stereotypes that play into the decisions of child-protection workers, they will continue to make these tragic mistakes. Each case requires special attention and a unique set of solutions.
I came upon one such story a few years ago. A man called me distressed because his granddaughter was heading back to her mother's house (their daughter) for the third time. This was despite the child's mother being a meth addict with a live-in abusive dealer boyfriend. Grandma and Grandpa were more than willing to take their granddaughter into their home and raise her to adulthood. Instead, the county continued to place the child in nonfamily foster care, only to return her to her mom a few months later.
