Blame the Funding, Not the System

In “A Two-Way Street” (June 9), I admire reader/mentor Roberta Hales for her efforts on behalf of one child harmed through abuse, neglect or exploitation. Hales and those others who spend weekly time with their wards and who take them on family outings are providing invaluable experiences that may help to balance the rage and confusion hurt children express in reaction to the bad things that have happened to them in their own homes.

However, I take exception to Hales’ condemnation of the “social service system.” She apparently does not understand the impossibility of social workers providing the level of contact she provides through mentoring. An analogy might be the difference between a private tutor in one subject and a generic classroom teacher.

Simple mathematics prove that social workers cannot meet the degree of contact with each child in their caseload necessary to provide the “guidance,” “structure” and “role models” Hales envisions. Simple mathematics prove that weekly contacts with 45 children, 45 (or more) parents, 45 foster parents, schools, therapists, courts, lawyers--and maintenance of all the required paperwork--within anything like the 40-hour work week is a physical impossibility.

The number of tax dollars allocated to Public Social Services does not allow the social worker to devote sufficient time and attention to each harmed child’s special needs--even though the social worker is trained to do this, as attested to by a masters’ degree in the field.

The social service system “shambles,” as defined by Hale, is not the failure of the individual social worker, nor necessarily of the system itself. As taxpayers, we get what we pay for.

VIRGINIA M. BOYKO

Angelus Oaks