Belated correction (I was trying to get out the door to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire commemoration & typing too fast): I meant did Mr. *White* (not Mr. Pierce), the guest, know if it was true. There may not be much point to fixing this now, but I didn't want to just leave it that way.

The progress at ACS has been more limited than this segment suggests – and it hasn’t been a straight line.

ACS made significant progress from 1999 through 2005; enacting smart sensible reforms that reduced entries into foster care with no compromise of child safety. But after Nixzmary Brown died, the so-called reforms could be boiled down to a return to a take-the-child-and-run approach. Indeed, ACS has been in a full scale retreat from reform.

The numbers quoted in this segment are the number of children in foster care on any given day. That can rise or fall for all sorts of reasons. *Entries* into foster care, the number of children taken away over the course of a year, shot up 50 percent after Nixzmary died. Instead of making children safer, that only overloaded workers. So deaths of children known to the system actually increased. More important, more reliable measures of child safety also worsened.

Unfortunately, instead of using this case as a wake up call and changing course, ACS is likely to respond with more of the same – especially since every caseworker knows there is no penalty for taking away hundreds of children needlessly, but leaving a child in his own home and having something go wrong can lead to a charge of criminally negligent homicide

Details are in the most recent post to our Child Welfare Blog: http://bit.ly/eU2tER

Richard Wexler
Executive Director
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
www.nccpr.org

While there may be fewer children being taken out of homes and put in foster care, in large part due to efforts to coach, train and support families at risk, why are people allowed to give their children up for adoption or foster care on their own volition? These parents should be coached at a minimum and charged at a maximum. You should not be allowed to turn you children over without explanation and free of consequences. In my experience these parents give their children up because 1. they have a new partner who is controlling and does not want the children from a former relationship in the household taking up space, attention and financial resources 2. the parent cannot handle the teenage child's behavior problems 3. the parent adopted the child with a partner and now that the partner is gone, they want to child gone along with the other parts of the old life such as house, etc. There are likely other equally unacceptable reasons; these are the ones I have seen first hand. If a parent can be charged for abuse and neglect what is more neglectful then turning your children over to the state?

I don't have children of my own, but when I'm president, If it were only realistically possible,
I would make it obligatory to obtain a license to have children. Some people should never ever be allowed to have children under their care.

Hi, Brian, I think your guest made excuses, too many of them, for the person who falsified records. A 4 year old child is dead and just firing him would not have been enough. It’s like a slap on the wrist. Firing him would have been sort of ok if the child had survived and was well and safe somewhere. I think that criminal charges are what are needed to have this (whether one calls it an anomaly or not) not happen again. To honor this child’s memory (unfortunately nothing can bring her back to life) those responsible in one way or another must pay for their actions or lack of actions. Eugenia Renskoff

Good thing Fran didn't teach English.

Dear Brian,
Don't give social workers a bad name--you do not need a degree in Soc.Wk to be an investigator--all you need is a college degreCheck out the qualifications on the web site for ACS--they are NOT social workers.
I was a teacher for 39 yrs and in my
expirence in dealing with ACS workers,many of the workers were from other countries and their college degree enabled them to qualify for the position that others did not want.

Fran-retired teacher and attendance teacher-40 years

ACS case workers make about the same as Cops at the three year mark, without the need to risk their lives. Pretty good deal what with the union got your back and you can just fake your job performance while collecting nice city bennies. Just make sure you don't get some kid killed, and if you do make sure to cover you tracks a little better ;)

@ RBC from Fidi

What a load of nonsense, every point you made has been proven to be false, read the comments before posting, durrr.

After a career as a Detroit cop, a wise cousin of mine, went back to school to become a social worker because, as he told me, 'It all stems from the family'. This struck me because in a class on Chinese history I'd learned that the belief 'If all is right with the family, all will be right with the state' was attributed to Confucius. Why isn't there more on the airwaves to extol or at least discuss what makes a strong family? In such a sad case, surely all of us are responsible to some degree because ultimately the State failed Marcella.

I know the story is horrible, but we should be lucky that anyone is working at the ACS. It is a horrible job.. long hours, extreme heavy caseloads, little pay. The "best" people are usually ones who have education and degrees in Social Work, but it costs $100K+ to get that Social Work degree and you'll only make $40K a year. It is lose lose situation.

Hi,

I had a stepson who I raised since he was one year old. I gave him a life, nice clothing, family dinners around the table every single day with siblings and two parents, homeschooled, stayed home with him and did not take a career. My husband worked hard so I could stay home. This child was nurtured and respected and had pretty much everything he wanted. This child became so belligerent, nasty, destructive, over time and exhibited terrible behavior in school and at home. The police were at the house every other day, The school called every day of the week...Finally the child called CPS one day because he was not allowed to go out after his awful behavior in the home and started this invasion of our home that I will never forget. CPS was called twice. That year. Not sure if both were from him but my point here is that a belligerent child can also create havoc here as far as the CPS worker goes. We as parents were appalled at the prospect of having them come into our home and question our way of doing things. I was a stay at home mom, in a nice home, nice neighborhood, all his friends loved to be there. I paid more attention to him and his friends than all the moms in the neighborhood put together. I would sit with them and talk with them about their problems and their friends... and look what happened. Of course the cases were dropped after the case worker could see that it was obviously the spoiled child who was causing trouble. But this is all a waste of time. If they want to really change things and really do something that actually works, they need to have these social workers more involved In SCHOOL. Not at home. Dont think that you're going to have a person from the outside, come into a broken home, and fix things. It just won't EVER work. Also, these case workers are automatically programmed to be against the parents. There needs to be more training in this area as well as there needs to be more training for parents to be parents. In the neighborhood where we lived, which was a wealthy neighborhood, NONE of the parents paid attention to their children EVER. They were always home alone or out on the street. So you see, something is wrong with this picture and child abuse and neglect is not only in those poor areas, it is EVERYWHERE.

I have been a child welfare worker for several years. The ultimate outcome of this case, the death of a child through abuse and neglect, is the worst nightmare of anyone in this profession. While no child welfare agency can be, or ever will be, perfect those who are not familiar with workers in this profession should be made aware that most of these workers are committed, hard-working, caring people. There has been an enormous amount of negative attention paid to this profession, not only in the news, but in fictional television programming in which the profession is always portrayed inaccurately, sometimes to the extreme. This is partially because the work that is done is almost entirely confidential and success stories do not make the waves that the tragedies do.

Should this worker be fired? Yes, if it is true that he did not do his job by visiting the family regularly.

Should charges have been brought against him? Yes, if it is true that he falsified records, but not homicide.

In recent years child welfare agencies in NY and other states have put enormous effort into overhauling the system and correcting its flaws. However, the disconcerting truth is that no one from an agency can live with the families 24/7 and that being the case unfortunately there is always the risk of a similar tragedy.

Change only comes with accepting th obvious. Name calling only makes you feel better, Truth.

Born poor, worked my way out of it. Without the baggie pants and calling myself the N word. The culture is weak due to your people.

while the death of this child is of ciourse a horrible tragedy, I find your rush to judgement of the workers involved with this case before all the facts have been established a compounding of the tragedy, and irresponsible, sensationalist journalism. The discussion of whether or not the allegations in this case rise to the charge being made (i.e. criminally negligent homicide) is a good discussion to have in the abstract, but you and your guest got way too personal in talking about the individuals involved, basically assuming their guilt prior to their having their day in court. It could happen to any of us, and it behooves the media to be very ginger in describing these cases in order to avoid trial by the press.

I was a child care worker in the early 1970's, for a Bklyn. agency. Despite exceptional supervision, I left the agency because I was asked to make an assessment of whether to return a child to her mother after charges of abuse. The relationship between mother and child seemd good, the mother appeared responsible and met all her benchmarks for return but at the end of the day I realized that it was truly impossible for me to know whether this mother would again be abusive. I was unable to take that responsibility and left the child care field.

Regarding the criminal charges, however, if felony murder can be charged against someone who never fired a bullet and despite the fact that the charges against the child care workers will have a chillng effect upon recruitment efforts I would imagine; I believe that unless there are circumstances as yet unexplained, the charges are valid.

Yep John those chewing tobacco bags can be hell on a pair of pants with no belt!

Don't make light of this situation John, don't turn it into a stereotypical thing especially with the large number of your people sexually abusing their kids.

I am a social work professor. I wish the media would name the hospital in this case. Discharging a medically fragile child to an overwhelmed, needy family is a team decision. The public needs to know more about the hospital's role

WHAT THE HECK?@!?...

"Starting salary for caseworkers is $39,568, and pay rises to $43,730 AFTER ONE YEAR and $46,580 after two years."

So 40K starting salary with NO COLLEGE DEGREE REQUIRED? Mandatory raises almost to 50K after two years? All for a Union job which you can keep even if you don't actually do it? The only reason we know that this guy was such a bum was because a kid DIED! So back to my point, 50K with no college degree after two years on the job in the middle of a recession and you have the nerve to say that they "don't get into it for the money", please tell me, where else do you make that kind of money without a degree? More public union jobs for bums and losers, same old story, never changes except now with real VICTIMS.

IT IS YOUR BUSINESS! Speak out for children of abuse...Kids can't speak up for themselves, they are helpless.

Today single parent, addicts and ex drug addicted parents! Too young too inexperienced to be raising kids...no patience!

ABUSERS...stop it! Get help! or go to jail...one way or the other you will be exposed.

If a crane operator falsifies his site visit reports and then a crane collapses, that inspector is legally responsible for the deaths the accident causes.
The same should go for workers at the office of child welfare. They should be charged.

Elsie you hit it on the head. The problem is the acceptance of ignorance. Baggy pants and all.

The difference between a social worker's responsibility to avoid malpractice and say a lawyer or doctor, is that a social worker sometimes faces willful deception on the part of parents and guardians to conceal abuse of a child. This makes the standard of care different than in other professions.

I am a social worker. It is my experience that many many agencies are hesitant to call ACS about child abuse cases because ACS has such a reputation of not managing cases properly.

WE MUST PROTECT CHILDREN! They are helpless....It is everyone's responsibility!

Speak out for children!

Last year I went to a meeting for potential foster parents at ACS and I was absolutely appalled. The speakers, who ranged from foster parents to ACS employees, were painful. My guess was that few of the people in the room had graduated from high school. It seemed to be quite common for foster kids to not go to school and for gang members to hang out at foster parents' homes. The ACS workers were so desperate to hand the children off to anyone, it should come as little surprise that the kids in foster care rarely break out of poverty in their life and often end up in jail. To compensate for everyone's lack of education (or basic common sense) Christianity was applied continuously. Never again will I view NYC as a progressive or enlightened city. Our poor people (and let me be direct and say our Black and Latino community because there were no white people in that room) are so disenfranchised from anything that would allow them to live a decent life, that they have been left to care for each other in the best way that they can. But Christianity won't educate children or put food on their table. That we would allow our city services to sink to this level is a disgrace.

I know it's a hard job, but if it's a hard job, only the best people should have that job. Criminal charges for negligent manslaughter is a good way to weed out the losers that don't belong in that system. If your responsibility is to protect children you're job is akin to the lifeguard, the policeman, the doctor.

How can you discourage the next, soulless case worker from such horrible negligent behavior if you don't prosecute these people to the max?

All city workers with inspection responsibilties should be treated equitably.
The crane inspector who failed to inspect.
The subway worker who falsified records was fortunate that no-one was injured due to his action or inaction.
The contruction supervisors who are on trial due to the death of fire fighters.

If the charge is criminally negligent homicide, that seems to imply that the individual knew there was a risk of death. I'm not a lawyer, but shouldn't that also implicate the agency as a whole for putting a child in a place where death was a recognizable, valid risk? not excusing the individual's actions if proved, but what is the agency doing?

I've heard there are many more deaths of children in the ACS system than the ones that make the headlines, & even more in the outer boroughs than in Manhattan. Not only that but some of the Manhattan cases at least get into the papers, but the ones in the other boroughs never do unless they're especially horrible, like Marchella Pierce's death. Does Mr. Pierce know if that's true? How can we get more press attention to the other cases?

The Hippocratic Oath is an oath historically taken by doctors swearing to practice medicine ethically.

When this oath is not upheld, criminal charges do apply! Same should apply when children are concerned.

Sorry for the many posts. Thank you for reading my comment, Brian. This segment has me in tears and I'm over forty and the scars are still there.

Hmmm, I don't know whether or not these charges are justified but I DO see another model public union employee, Damon Adams of SSEU 371, way to go, I'm sure this gut would have had NO problem finding a well paid, highly compensated position with lots of responsibility in the private sector.

Thanks Public Sector unions, putting your members' interest first, even at the cost of a child's life. Someone mentioned that his supervisor want to FIRE MR. Adams, wonder why she didn't just DO IT? Oh yeah, union rulez... even little kids play by them now.

I'm sorry---what? People getting someone else to punch in and never show up can happen at any job?

Where are these jobs where no supervisor is accountable for his/her staff?

An interesting follow up to this conversation would be a discussion of reduced salaries & benefits of public sector employees. How do you get competent employees and managers to serve the public if you do not pay them?

If these charges against Social workers scare others from applying, then they are not qualified for this profession.

It's a difficult one, it's stressful—but if you take on the promise to protect children, then you need to be prepared to take on those challenges and if you are not up to par, stand aside and let others who have the correct heart and moral code to do the job correctly!

That said, I do believe their are case workers that do their job and do their job well without fear of retaliations from the criminal system.

Yes, these workers should be charged, they were criminally negligent in their duties. This discussion could be transposed to Wall Street and the economic collapse, by changing the focus from the child and social workers to the SEC and the various oversight failures on Wall Street. No one has been charged there...

Thank goodness someone finally made a move!

I was a child that suffered abuse and a case worker would come by for a while, witness the bruises and emotional scars of my siblings and I and then just stopped coming.

I finally ran away after another year of beatings to another relatives but my other siblings had to stay. The abuse could have stopped if that case worker did her job! But she didn't.

If a medical professional can be charged with malpractice for aided in the death or furthering injury to their patient, why shouldn't the same apply to Social workers when it comes to the lives of children they have promised to protect?!?