THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 15, 1994 TAG: 9412150005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A26 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
Virginia Beach Social Services Director Daniel M. Stone makes an eloquent plea for balance and fairness in press coverage (``Child-abuse cases: serious and complex,'' letter, Dec. 6).
He explains that Social Services did not decide ``in a vacuum'' to return the child in question to his parents. Instead, he says, the family received ``intensive counseling and supportive services.'' Mr. Stone also points out that the law requires his agency to attempt to reunite abused and neglected children with their families.
Yet serious questions remain. What kind of ``parenting classes'' would teach a parent who is not so inclined that a child must be fed every day?
What type of ``counseling'' would teach such a parent that a child who fails to thrive must be taken to the doctor or to the hospital?
What ``supportive services'' would ensure that a father who attempted to suffocate a crying baby will not do so again?
Who will take care of this baby and his siblings if his parents receive the treatment they deserve and go to jail?
Will the next complaint about this family be investigated by Child Protective Services or the homicide unit?
It is true that Mr. Stone's agency ``cannot maintain physical custody of all the children who have been reported as abused or neglected.'' Is it too much to ask, though, that the agency refrain from returning children whose lives have been placed in danger to the parents?
It is also no doubt true that the agency faces a lack of funding and foster homes. In the case that was the subject of your recent report, however, the foster parents quit the system over the agency's handling of the case, and the net effect was the loss of one more foster home.
The law does not require that abused and neglected children be returned to their parents at any cost; only that reasonable efforts be made, where feasible, to reunite the family.
In cases of severe abuse and neglect, federal ``mandates'' and state laws provide ample means to keep a child at risk away from his parents. The underlying purpose of the law is to protect children from abuse and neglect. In a city where a child died of diaper rash after coming under the scrutiny of Child Protective Services, the public has a right to ask whether this purpose has been forgotten.
SUSAN B. POTTER
Virginia Beach, Dec. 7, 1994 by CNB