LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Child Abuse Prevention Month thoughts

Child abuse is a disease in society that affects all of humanity, whether directly or indirectly. 

Last week, a group of local groups focused on mitigating child abuse’s negative impacts gathered together to point toward awareness and give community members the tools they need to help in the fight against child abuse. I know sometimes they must feel like there aren't nearly enough of them to deal with the problem they gathered to face. 

When I was younger, I worked for Child Protective Services in Texas as a records clerk. While my job was, at a surface level, filing documents, closing out cases and processing drug screening documentation, it was also a window into a lot of lives that had many difficult challenges. I saw a variety of scenarios. The majority of the parents and children involved in CPS cases had financial issues that were the root cause of the problems they faced. In simpler circumstances, the parents simply didn’t have the money to feed their children regularly. In others, that led to frustrations and anger and verbal and domestic violence.  

In other instances, infants and young children bore the weight of the direct impacts of substance abuse and a variety of mental health issues.  

Sometimes counseling and connecting the parents to the resources they needed fixed the problem and the families prospered.  

Those instances were celebrated, but more often, CPS for many families was a revolving-door scenario that included multiple cases that built up into a dreadful situation ending with the termination of parental rights and children stuck in a flawed system operated by well-intentioned people. People who didn’t have everything they needed to ensure those young people in their care managed to thrive, but did the best they could with what was at hand.  

In a testament to the human spirit, many of them did thrive. They thrived for multiple reasons including their own tenacity and bravery, the dedication of caseworkers who worked off the clock in many instances to ensure each child was cared for, and the foster parents who were a part of the system for the right reasons.  

Sadly, some didn’t make it through the system. I remember a child who had an extensive list of special needs because she was born with a substance use disorder. Her mother had named her Coc’aine’ — pronounced Ko-shun-ay — after her favorite controlled substance. Another infant who wouldn’t stop crying was lifted by his ankles and slammed into a table by his mother’s boyfriend, leading to severe brain injuries and several broken bones. The child later died.

Those are just two of the more gut-wrenching cases I was aware of. I had to read through each case and check with the caseworkers to ensure the documentation was complete. My peers and I also made certain case files were clearly written so court officials could clearly understand the families’ situations.  

With April as Child Abuse Prevention Month, I think it’s important to give a note of respect, appreciation and admiration to those who serve our community’s children. It’s a difficult, often thankless job that is not for the weak. Yes, CPS gets headlines for the cases that go awry, but as someone who sat on the inside of the system and watched it work, I’ll tell you that there are many more cases where CPS caseworkers help than those they drop the ball on.  

Each of those caseworkers is dealing with fentanyl-addicted parents, unwinnable scenarios and horrors most of us will never see more than once or twice in our lives. To them, I would say to stay strong and stay focused. The children of the Columbia Basin need you.  

Cordially,
R. Hans "Rob" Miller
Managing Editor