Friday, October 25, 2013

Spike in death of Texas foster children


 
Category: Foster Child Abuse

Level: State

Who: Individuals and foster children

How: The need for increased regulation of people wanting to foster children

My Views:
Recently in the past year, there has been an ever-increasing spike of foster child deaths from neglect or abuse in Texas. According to a report from the Department of Family and Protective Services, there have been “more deaths from mistreatment of foster children in the past year, than the last four years combined”, which is extremely unsettling. Last week an 11 month old infant diet from a cranial fracture, and her foster father was taken into custody because he had been investigated three times previously for abuse. The Department of Family and Protective services have said that their lack of budget and resources are causing an overabundance of cases per caseworker, which limits the degree of quality on each case. If the caseworkers have too many clients, certain things may be overlooked at home visits, including signs and symptoms of abuse. Maybe if these problems could have been addressed earlier, the 11-month-old girl would not have had to die, or the other eight children that died since January of this year. The regulations that are proposed include limiting the number of children per household and increasing the medical evaluations and unannounced visits of caseworkers. Hopefully these important programs can receive the funding they need so that the safety of the foster children can be ensured. It is only fair to provide these kids a safe environment especially because they are already in a not so good situation by being in foster care.

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