For more than a day, the 7-year-old girl had been trying to wake her parents. Dutifully, she got dressed in their apartment outside Pittsburgh on Monday morning and went to school, keeping her worries to herself. But on the bus ride home, McKeesport, Pa., police say, she told the driver she'd been unable to rouse the adults in her house. Inside the home, authorities found the bodies of Christopher Dilly, 26, and Jessica Lally, 25, dead of suspected drug overdoses, according to police. Read more: Washington Post
So sad....happens way too often. There is a whole generation of kids raised by addicted parents coming up...what Will the future look like? Edit: raised is the wrong word because these kids take care of themselves.
Yeah, I don't get that either. When I adopted my son, I was in my twenties and single. I stopped smoking largely because I didn't want him to smoke, and realized that the chances were greater that a child will smoke if the parents smoked. My father did, although always outside. While I had a son to raise, I never felt like I had time or the right to go out to parties or to do much of anything that didn't involve him, except when he was away at a friend's house on a weekend or something. It was important for me to be the right example for him. I can't imagine someone doing drugs with four very young children to raise, let alone the kind of drugs these people must have been doing. Parenting is a responsibility whether you've taken it upon yourself or it's thrust upon you.
Supposedly the sister of the woman that died had complained about what was going on but I guess nobody listened. She posted pics on FB of how those kids lived.... I don't even know who is to blame here? The system? The family? Obviously the parents but once they're addicted, forget it. Thankfully the children are okay but not mentally I'm sure.
Ow, I failed to guess what really happened by just looking at the title. All along, I thought the parents of the girl were just lazy to arise and had wanted to sleep more. That's a sad ending and sadder still because the suspected cause of death is drugs. I wonder why such couple was given a seemingly nice daughter whom they now have left as an orphan. And now, what will happen to that little girl, how could she move on from that traumatic scene?
There were 3 more children. The sister tried to intervene previously to get custody I think and social services were Called but nothing seemed to be done. That always seems the case and I don't know why. Most of the cases you read about where a child is killed by the mother or father, social services are on record as being out many times to that home. Whatever is being done isn't working.
I can certainly understand the sister contacting children's protection services, but I can't understand accepting their lack of response, assuming it's a true story. At the time I was injured, I was preparing to take in my nieces, if that ended up happening, because there'd been issues in the home and no one else in the family (on our side) was willing or able to do so. Thankfully, since I was injured and struggling just to survive, it didn't come to that, but I would have called the press, the governor, and the president if i'd had to, to remove my nieces from a setting like the one depicted there.
I'm pretty sure the story is true, I have my childhood friend that lives in Pittsburgh talking about it on FB. I read countless stories of children beaten to death by a parent and social services were said to have been called many times but they always drop the ball for whatever reason. I don't know if it's lack of funds, not enough resources to go around, or what. Sometimes Foster parents end up being worse then the parents. Although I know a few excellent ones...some do it for the money also. This is really something I care a lot about...welfare of children. If I had the money and energy I would take all of the abused ones into my care. We shouldn't even be reading stories like this in our country....if money went where it should, these kids and their parents would have been helped. At least the kids. I know that most kids would rather stay with their parents no matter what and most are afraid of being separated so that also make it harder. Also in the past few years, crying child abuse had gotten out of hand and parents lost children for no apparent reason....that shouldn't happen either. The answer seems easy enough but in reality it's not I guess.
Yes, the system is overwhelmed. The need is great. There are way too many children in the system, often multiple times, cycled back through when their parents relapse, or go back to jail. Many of the foster parents are only in it for the money, although there are some good ones. Sometimes it's difficult to tell the good from the bad. I had one I thought was really good, but she turned out to be a bad one. I wish I'd known, because I certainly would have recommended removing the children. Thankfully, nothing too severe happened to them, they weren't statistics like we read about in the newspaper, who end up in the hospital or killed in their foster homes. Those type of jobs don't pay much, and the staff is usually on call 24/7. It's a shame, really, and some of the organizations that are contracted aren't the best, either.
Prior to being able to adopt my son, I had to be licensed as a foster parent. Although they fought against licensing me as a single male foster parent, which wasn't so common then, once I was licensed, they wanted to place kids with me all the time. First licensed in Los Angeles County, since I was living in Long Beach, near Orange County, that county wanted to place kids with me too, so I was licensed in both Orange and Los Angeles counties. Except for the one who I was slated to adopt, I was licensed as a short-term emergency placement, a place to put them until a long-term placement could be found. When something occurred during the weekend or at night, when the child protective service offices were closed, the police could place kids directly with me until the office opened on Monday. The police weren't supposed to tell me anything about why the placement was needed but the kids usually talked about it, at least so far as they knew. Sometimes the parents had been killed in automobile accidents but, more often, the parent or parents had been arrested or were hospitalized for drug overdoses. Usually these kids would be with me until the following Monday or Tuesday, but some were there for months, the longest being a girl who was with me for seven months. She sent me father's day cards for years afterward. They didn't make this clear during the foster parent licensing classes or otherwise, but another foster parent told me that, for every child who was placed with me, I was entitled a certain amount of money for clothing, food or other necessities, and that this was true even if they were with me for only a day. This was on top of the payments that were made to foster parents, which were generous. Many foster parents used this as extra income for themselves, while spending a minimum on things for the child. In part because I am essentially an honest person, and also because I didn't need the money anyhow, I would take every kid shopping. I forget the amount but it was substantial; in the neighborhood of $500 or so. Some of these kids didn't have much in the way of clothing at home, so I would spend the full amount on them, making sure that they left my house with some nice clothing and maybe some toys, depending on their age. As I got to know other foster parents, @Chrissy Page is right. While some of them were indeed focused on doing right by the kids who were placed with them, for others it was a job, and they wanted to make as much from it as possible. That doesn't mean that they would abuse the kids, necessarily. I don't think many of them did, but their foster kids got less than their real kids did and, although they put in for the maximum allotment from the county, they gave out the minimum as far as expenses went, with the rest going into their own bank accounts. The chief objective in foster care was to reunite the child with the parents. While that might sound nice, particularly if you are a parent, in practice this means that children are put right back into the abusive conditions they were taken out of far too often. It also meant, at least at that time, that foster parents who cared enough to love the children who were placed with them, enough to want to adopt them, would have their foster parent license revoked, as they were interfering with the chief objective. For the children, this meant that foster parents had to hold them at a distance, and not let them get too close. Child protective services was badly overworked and understaffed. While the obvious answer might be to put more money into the system, that wasn't the problem. Plenty of money was going into the system but it wasn't being used efficiently. Department heads received huge salaries and benefits, while those who actually did the work were understaffed and underfunded. While I was going through the system, trying to get custody of the boy who would later become my son, there was a succession of social workers, none of whom were given any information from the ones who had handled it before. It was as if they didn't even talk to one another or keep records. Foster parents were supposed to be subjected to unannounced visits from childcare workers, which would be necessary in order to determine whether there were abuses or poor conditions in the home, but the reality was that the childcare workers didn't want to make the drive only to find that no one was at home, so they would routinely schedule their surprise visits with me in advance. Most of the people who go into child welfare or social service jobs are female, and they come from middle-class families. These are the people who want to do something to make a better world, which is great, but they are not comfortable among low-income people, or those who are in a drug culture, and they are afraid to go into predominantly black or hispanic neighborhoods, and when they do they are not inclined to look too closely for fear of being deemed racist. They make excuses for conditions that are inexcusable.
Thanks for that insight @Ken Anderson. Much of this I assumed but never knew for sure but you confirmed it for me. Too bad for the kids though. Of course I've also heard of Foster parents that really tried but the child was so damaged already that it would have been harmful for their family to keep him or her. Also true about not wanting to get too close to a child because you are only a Foster parent. Jeez, it get depressing when you start thinking about all these things that are so wrong with the system. Keeps going like this, we are going to implode. Funny thing also...something this well off upper middle class child wanted to be...a social worker. I wouldn't have lasted long. I also wanted to join the peace corps...my dad laughed at that and I thought he was being cruel but in reality he was being honest.
I think there have probably been some changes @Ken Anderson, at least here in the Houston area or Texas in general. I did see a few of my foster parents go on to adopt a few of their foster children. There were definitely homes I visited that were pretty much warehouses, with up to 6 foster children. They did get the basic necessities from the foster parents, but for those foster parents, it was pretty much a way of making money, not a true calling. I can't fault them for making a little money on the side, but I don't think that should be the incentive for becoming a foster parent. The children with more severe diagnoses result in more money for the foster parents, just as they do for their own parents, via SSI. There are different levels of care that foster parents are rated with, and one area that was expanding when I left the field was children, babies, and also adults with severe medical conditions. Those paid very well. It seems institutions were closing, or didn't have enough beds to meet the need, and my impression was that it was a lucrative field for the agencies placing the clients, and it also seemed to be less of a hassle (for the agency) than dealing with foster children. Maybe the placements were more stable, since the foster children are often removed, then sometimes put back in that or a different foster home after their home placement wasn't successful, versus the medically fragile/needy clients tended to stay put once placed in a home, unless there was an issue.
It's just too bad that whatever system we have for people that need it, it's always abused....maybe if that stopped Things would be better.
It seems whenever an organization becomes too large, there's less oversight, and more of a chance for abuse. That goes for child placing agencies, CPS organizations, government entities, charities, etc. I sometimes wonder if the USA is too large and corrupt, and if the structure is destined to fail due to lack of oversight, or oversight by those who benefit from the corruption.