Are CPS cases increasing these days?

Question

A Social Worker I am friendly with says that they are really hopping at CPS and don't know what to do with all the kids they are getting.

Answer 1

Well, child abuse is an ever increasing issue that no state deals with very well! They never have. The assessment workers carry 2 and 3 times the number of assessments they are suppose to have, as do family service workers. Many of those cases have been farmed out to private agencies to deal with while the state oversees them.

Working at CPS is like putting your finger in a damn, and there always ids going to be a case that blows up in your face and 3 to 5 people are dead! One I know went to court for violating a restraining order because he had been abusive to his girlfriend and their 4 month old! They took him back to court, and even with him threatening to kill his girlfriend and child, they let him go! Later that day he walks into the kids room with a 12 gauge shotgun and blew him away! He commits suicide. Another total failure!

The courts and states are going for CASA now instead of an attorney as a GAL! I think CASA can be ok, but they turn out to be advocates for the abusers most of the time. None are social workers, none have investigated a child abuse case, and none are lawyers. Pretty worthless in my experience.

Nothing like bringing an abuser to court and the agencies we used or CASA are to damn afraid to tell the truth so they write these glowing reports that are pure BS most of the time! Then we send the kid home until they show up at a hospital wih a fractured skull!

I assume the number of child abuse deaths are around 1,200 or more a year. Hard to know as not one child in this country has ever died of child abuse! Ruptured spleen and liver from being kicked, but you won't find child abuse on any of their death certificates!

Ther are som sick parents out there, and I grabbed every single kid I could!

The other issue is that most have MSW's and are paid less than $30,000 a year in some states. It takes 2 years to finally get to know what you are doing, and that is about the same time that burn-out sets in. They all find good jobs that don't have to do with families that are so dysfunctional no one is going to help. So our answer is, if you wait long enough you get your kid back, and they go back to the same hole they crawled out of!

Of course, the final issue, that most CPS'ws know jack Sh_t about assessment. I went to nursing school before I got my BS. They still think that babies fracture femur by falling off of a couch, or having a 2 year old step on them! Many are totally worthless. They just want to close the assessment, and they seldom look past the allegations!

Enough of that. I swear they are enablers. Most think that an alcoholic is going to be "cured" in 6 months! Yea, right!

Answer 2

This would be a regional issue. Protective Services in any major inner city are always busy.

The overall crime rate in the country is at all time lows... but, birth rates, especially for those that can least afford them or are too uneducated to deal with raising a child, are staggering.