Child Unprotected

As a district counselor for the San Diego Unified School District and a mandated child-abuse reporter, I have been closely following reports regarding the court and Child Protective Services. I cannot help but experience continued personal frustration with the inability of this system to follow through in protecting our schoolchildren from potential physical and emotional damage.

One case in point is that of a 6-year-old first-grade student who has been referred to CPS by the nurse and myself at least four times since September. This little boy daily arrives to school late (he wakes himself up), hungry, dirty, and once with sore genitals from wearing pants two sizes too small. His behaviors due to serious neglect (ask any neighbor about late night wandering, urinating in their yards and pot smoking) include sexual precociousness, impulsive aggression toward others, thievery and lying.

CPS placed an in-home social worker to work with this single mother (unemployed and on welfare), who openly admits drug abuse and disinterest in her child. The CPS supervisor told me that the case was “closed” because the mother would not cooperate with them. The supervisor said that this is not a case of severe neglect, as we have “thousands like this in San Diego,” and refused to disclose any more information in order to “protect the mother’s confidentiality.”

I realize that CPS caseworkers are overloaded. Funding of the Department of Social Services has never been a financial priority of our county Board of Supervisors or of the state Legislature. The irony is that as a mandated reporter, by law, I can be fined and jailed for failing to report my “suspicions” of neglect and/or abuse. I suppose I can be relieved that I wouldn’t be sharing a cell with many abusive parents, who are being well protected by the “system.”

ANN RUBENSTEIN

San Diego