Oversight committees should look at child abuse policies
The articles and commentaries written by Lisa Demer of Alaska Dispatch News and Diwaker Vadapalli, Ph.D., director of the Research Division of UAA in Anchorage have been loaded with statistics concerning child abuse and neglect but lacking in qualitative information.
For instance, I was a protective service specialist in Bethel. Almost daily many of the workers tasked with completing assessments (a nice word for investigations) were told that we must finish these reports within 30 days or face going on a firewall list promulgated so that OCS could qualify for federal funds. Neither commentary mentioned federal funding sources. At least in rural Alaska, this meant making hasty decisions as to the substantiation or its lack in each case referred for assessment. There was a subtle if not overt expectation that most cases should not be substantiated so that room could be made for new ones. This seems important because some families had as many as 10-20 cases against them for possible abuse and/or neglect (over 90 percent involving alcohol). Yet, when the CPS worker appeared, the worker was unable to see abuse/neglect. In some cases it is possible families were warned by the very people who should be most concerned, the Indian Child Welfare workers, that OCS was coming to the village. I recommend citizens' oversight committees be instituted throughout the state looking at OCS policies and ICWA workers' behavior for the sake of children. Also, records with names redacted should be available for reading by the public.
— John K. Spitzberg, M.Ed., M.S.W.
Bethel
Rein in Dunleavy too
Yeah! Mike Dunleavy, you duh man.
It's great he's using his totalitarian logic to rein in Planned Parenthood and fire teachers if they dare bring health ed, sex ed, guest speakers and parental planning ideas into our schools. Heck with the Constitution. Our students can learn to be adults when they become adults. After all, there is no reason to prepare them for the future now, eh?
Perhaps we should fire Mike too. If he so much as mentions freedom of choice, sexual preference, social safety nets, Planned Parenthood, abortion, health ed or common good in the halls of the Alaska Legislature, it's down the road with him. Democratic ideas like those are surely cause for termination.
But, of course, his primary concern is his political future, not individual freedoms.
— Wayne C. Jones
Palmer
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