Child Welfare workers second guess jobs

peeples

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http://www.wral.com/business/story/9377179/

When child welfare worker Kelly Mares investigates an abuse case, she doesn't know what's going to greet her on the other side of the door. A ferocious dog. Or a gun. Or a meth lab, or angry parents who lash out violently.

She takes those risks willingly, she says, because she believes in protecting the city's most vulnerable. But she's not willing to risk going to jail. After two of her co-workers were charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of a 4-year-old Brooklyn girl under their care, she's rethinking her career.
 
http://www.wral.com/business/story/9377179/

When child welfare worker Kelly Mares investigates an abuse case, she doesn't know what's going to greet her on the other side of the door. A ferocious dog. Or a gun. Or a meth lab, or angry parents who lash out violently.

She takes those risks willingly, she says, because she believes in protecting the city's most vulnerable. But she's not willing to risk going to jail. After two of her co-workers were charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of a 4-year-old Brooklyn girl under their care, she's rethinking her career.

IMO. She should change careers if she doesn't think that investigators who's negligence results in the death of a child, should not be held accountable. If you are not willing to take your job seriously, go into another line of work.
 
IMO. She should change careers if she doesn't think that investigators who's negligence results in the death of a child, should not be held accountable. If you are not willing to take your job seriously, go into another line of work.

It seems we won't be satisfied until every single American is locked up. And I guess that's fine, but prison guard is about the only growth industry left.

"Held accountable" is one thing; being sent to jail for years for criminal negligence is another. How long would most of us last at our jobs if we were sent to prison every time we made a mistake? The article compares the conviction of social workers to prosecuting cops every time they are late to a crime scene. We might also compare them to convicting doctors every time they misdiagnose a disease or misread a chart.

According to the article, many DCS workers make $28K/year. That's slightly more than minimum wage. In return, they are not only overworked, they risk their lives in the face of angry (and sometimes meth-fueled) parents.

After we put the fallible social workers in jail, who is going to take their place?
 
It seems we won't be satisfied until every single American is locked up. And I guess that's fine, but prison guard is about the only growth industry left.

"Held accountable" is one thing; being sent to jail for years for criminal negligence is another. How long would most of us last at our jobs if we were sent to prison every time we made a mistake? The article compares the conviction of social workers to prosecuting cops every time they are late to a crime scene. We might also compare them to convicting doctors every time they misdiagnose a disease or misread a chart.

According to the article, many DCS workers make $28K/year. That's slightly more than minimum wage. In return, they are not only overworked, they risk their lives in the face of angry (and sometimes meth-fueled) parents.

After we put the fallible social workers in jail, who is going to take their place?

what does pay have to do with any one doing their job? do your job well, and there are no criminal charges. We're not talking about people who don't do their job, we're talking about people who all but fell asleep on their job.

and by the way
Workers make $28,000 and up. In New York, investigators are paid between $42,000 and $72,000. In Miami, it's $34,000.
28,000 is nearly twice federal minimum wage.
 
By Charlie09:
what does pay have to do with any one doing their job? do your job well, and there are no criminal charges. We're not talking about people who don't do their job, we're talking about people who all but fell asleep on their job.

I'm going to ignore even the pay issue. If you do your job well, follow the policies and procedures, including the safety and self protection measures, practise average common sense and conventional ethical behavior, you aren't very likely to get charged with criminally negligent homicide.

In a perfect world :innocent: of course, but even in THIS one, this woman's premise is illogical. She makes it sound like her co-workers received homicide charges for "no good reason". Even in THIS world, you gotta do something negligent. If these charged individuals did something negligent and blamed it on inadequate safety measures provided by their employers, then these folks STILL had the responsibility to make a big stinking pile out of the issue, not just shove it under the rug or whatever they did.

I'm an RN, and due to nursing shortages and hospitals becoming corporate entities, we find ourselves skating that "edge" of having too much to do, not enough personell or supplies to perform at the level of "safety" for ourselves and the patients. I can completely relate with the dilemma this woman speaks of.

But her argument is a cop out. If her definition of personal responsibility does not include what it takes to do this VERY important job, then she should go do something else.
 
Typical child welfare argument.

"We did our job to the best of our ability." "My poor co workers and I are hated by everyone for no reason." Let's close ranks and try to win over the public, using the tools of manipulation that we use on parents every day.

Sorry, that's all I see here. Nothing more than people that KNOW they are negligent and irresponsible in their positions and see the free ride and their own age of pretty much godlike authority coming to an end. It's about time, but if I were one of the ones that fits that description, I'd be crying too. COMPLETELY MOO.
 
It seems we won't be satisfied until every single American is locked up. And I guess that's fine, but prison guard is about the only growth industry left.

"Held accountable" is one thing; being sent to jail for years for criminal negligence is another. How long would most of us last at our jobs if we were sent to prison every time we made a mistake? The article compares the conviction of social workers to prosecuting cops every time they are late to a crime scene. We might also compare them to convicting doctors every time they misdiagnose a disease or misread a chart.

According to the article, many DCS workers make $28K/year. That's slightly more than minimum wage. In return, they are not only overworked, they risk their lives in the face of angry (and sometimes meth-fueled) parents.

After we put the fallible social workers in jail, who is going to take their place?

Let's put people who will actually do the job in those positions. If you want to do your job so sloppily that children can starve to death under your supervision, you should not be in protective services! If you want to do said job that sloppily, and then not be charged when that child starves to death, then you should not be in that job! Period, end of story.

Children don't starve to death over night. That child was ignored by those sent to help her, because they were "too busy" and "not paid enough." Anyone, doctor or nurse, in the medical field would face the same charges!
 
Did I get a post deleted here? I don't think it was so controversial as to warrant deletion.

What I said was this: the salaries matter because we get what we pay for. (FWIW, $28K/year isn't twice the minimum wage here in California. It may not even be minimum wage nationally if one considers how many DCS workers work more than 40-hour weeks.)

People who slack off at their jobs should be fired, no matter how little they are paid. We don't have to also put them in prison and support them for x number of years.

We are supporting too many people in prison already.
 

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