Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Sunday, February 06, 2000 Page: 4B
The quietly assembled special panel that reported on Luzerne County
Children and Youth Services’ response to sanctions, criticisms and
recommendations resulting from the drowning death of one of its clients
emphasized the community’s responsibility to play a larger role in the
prevention of child abuse.
More funding, more public education, more emphasis on fighting the poverty,
substance abuse and domestic violence that contribute to mistreatment of
children are essential, the panel’s report concluded.
We heartily agree. Ultimately the onus for improving the lives of Luzerne
County’s at-risk children falls on every member of the community, acting not
only as individuals but also through social agencies, governments and other
public institutions.
We only wish the panel – which included the publishers of this newspaper
and another – would have placed more trust in the public by widening the
participation in the panel’s meetings.
While county Commissioner Thomas Makowski, who unilaterally formed the
panel, is of the opinion that the panel’s report marks the end of the
controversy over the agency’s actions, or inaction, in the case of 2-year-old
drowning victim Dominique Thomas, we believe it is only the beginning.
There should be more follow-up, more panels, more meetings, more debate,
more discussion, more voices.
Although the panel, which included an agency client, met with Children and
Youth Executive Director Gene Caprio, it apparently never heard from the
agency’s caseworkers, critics or other clients.
Now the agency and the county have a responsibility to hear those voices
and to allow for public input to go along with the responsibility the panel
has laid at the public’s doorstep.
While we agree with the panel’s call to action on the part of the public,
government and social agencies to do more to prevent child abuse and neglect,
there are parts of the panel’s report which deserve more debate among a wider
circle of people.
We will acknowledge, as has the state Department of Public Welfare, that
Children and Youth has apparently improved its procedures since the drowning
of Dominique one year ago.
We do not agree – nor does the Department of Public Welfare, judging from
its own report – with the panel’s conclusion that Dominique’s death was not
“the result of any shortcoming” by Children and Youth. The agency’s failure
to act on information that Dominique’s mother was involved in prostitution and
drugs contributed to the circumstances that led to the child’s drowning while
under the care of an allegedly stoned babysitter.
It was that very failure that led to sanctions from the state, a
contempt-of-court citation and new procedures requiring Children and Youth to
inform the Juvenile Court whenever a client deliberately or persistently
violates a court-ordered family treatment plan by, for example, using drugs or
otherwise breaking the law. The panel seems to argue that since Children and
Youth was following established – and admittedly flawed – practice by not
reporting such alleged violations in the case of Dominique’s mother, it bears
no responsibility.
Now that Children and Youth has those procedures in place and the state has
restored its full license, Makowski waves his panel’s report and hopes it will
“restore the community’s faith in the agency.”
That is unlikely given the lack of public input into the process that led
to the report or any indication from the county or the agency as to how the
public can be assured that those new procedures are being followed.
Had Makowski’s panel held public hearings with adequate safeguards for the
privacy of agency clients, had it invited the agency’s many critics to
testify, had it interviewed agency clients and some of the dozen or so
caseworkers who resigned in the wake of the Thomas case, then perhaps we would
agree with Makowski that the panel’s report represents some sort of closure.
Perhaps that would have gone beyond the panel’s mandate. If so, then we
need more panels.
If we want to prevent future deaths such as Dominique’s, we can, and must
do more.