UPDATE: Baby girl under watch of DCF found dead in Weymouth
I'm sorry, but I'm sick of state excuses for failure -- especially from the political cla$$.
"Mass. child welfare agency hamstrung by old technology; Specialists now looking beyond the fax" by Michael B. Farrell and Eric Moskowitz | Globe Staff May 08, 2014
Usually when a child goes missing, an emergency broadcast system called the Amber Alert uses sophisticated technology to blast text messages telling thousands of strangers to be on the lookout.
But in cases involving endangered children needing state supervision, Massachusetts is stuck in the fax age.
Massachusetts is far from unique in being hamstrung by dated technologies; many other state welfare agencies also still rely on fax machines to communicate important alerts about child safety. But some are slowly experimenting with modern electronic systems that are prevalent in corporate America and even other government agencies.
“If FedEx knows where every package is, why can’t we know where every kid is?” said Daniel Stein, cofounder of Stewards of Change, a New York consulting firm that works with government health and social service agencies. “Why are we not applying that same level of rigor and quality control to kids and families?”
I'm not for kids disappearing and ending up dead or being mistreated, but you can see the goal of the agenda-pushing attention now. Let's track every f***ing thing on this planet!
Stein’s organization is developing tools for child welfare workers to conduct Google-like searches that quickly collect the different information available on a case — from family histories to police reports, health records to support groups — and organize it on one screen.
I noticed their is always a money component in all my propaganda pre$$ articles.
Meanwhile, Florida is adopting big data tools of the kind used by retailers and marketers to better predict when a child is in imminent danger.
It's "Minority Report" for real.
California has an electronic reporting system intended to eliminate delays in notifying social workers and police departments of a new case or urgent situation.
Even Massachusetts is now giving social workers mobile tablets for use in the field, while agencies in Indiana, New York, and Pennsylvania are also exploring mobile technologies.
Too late for some kids.
“The challenge across the country is how do child welfare agencies take advantage of modern technology,” said Charles Simon, policy director for Case Commons, a nonprofit that has developed case management software that child welfare systems can use to cull more information about families using techniques common to social media sites such as Facebook.
Wow. Maybe they should just contact the NSA.
“The tools are there. The tools exist,” Simon said. “The challenge is bringing those tools to bear.”
Old technology figured in the most recent lapse in oversight by the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.
Now all the attention and focus on the issue has become clear! There is not one god-damn thing the propaganda pre$$ promotes without $ome ulterior motive. One wonders why the department was neglected while millions and millions of tax subsidies went to the likes of profitable Hollywood, well-connected corporate concerns and interests, and the like.
I'm tired of being played by the propaganda pre$$, folks.
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The child welfare system in Florida is reeling from similar tragedies and leadership turmoil as Massachusetts.
So it is a systemic problem that is not unique to Massachusetts, 'eh?
In the greatest land God ever created?
There, though, the state is deploying sophisticated data analysis software for caseworkers to gauge the potential danger to children in suspected abuse situations. The technology is designed to share that information in real time with law enforcement and child welfare social workers.
All this money wasted in contracts to who knows what well-connected companies that can't seem to make an unemployment, revenue, or health site work. WTF?
“When we find high-risk scenarios, we send out alerts to all the stake holders,” said Greg Povolny, chief executive of Mindshare Technology, a Tampa company that designed the software. “We have text messages that go out and a mobile app that will alert caseworkers.”
Initial reports of suspected child abuse can be filed directly online at the Florida agency’s website and by traditional means such as phone and fax. Once a report is filed, the software system acts as a constant reminder, broadcasting alerts of meaningful changes in cases until a social worker confirms receiving the report.
And like the dinging of a car alarm to put on your seat belt, eventually you ignore it.
“We are trying to make it very hard for a caseworker to screw up,” said Povolny. “One of the things we are doing is creating an accountability chain.”
The only ones never accountable seem to be the leaders at the top! Them and banks too big to jail. I mean, readers, I really am having trouble reading and bringing this elitist, agenda-pushing shit spew to you.
Povolny said his company has had several discussions in recent months with Massachusetts DCF officials about the state using Mindshare’s technology.
I just shared my mind with you regarding all this.
In Massachusetts, the new mobile tablets would allow social workers to access case files remotely, improve record keeping, and, importantly, enhance communications with police and other law enforcement agencies.
And they are all going to perform even more miracles than they used to!
In March the agency assigned 54 iPads to on-call supervisors, and another 2,000 mobile devices will go to social workers this summer.
Meanwhile the Amber Alert has been successful in helping to locate missing children, and one of the companies behind the technology said it could be equally useful in the analogous situation of child abuse reports.
Related: Can't Find DCF Draft
The Amber Alert was updated last year to include text messages as another way to quickly notify people of a missing child; since then, officials said the additional technology has led to the rescue and safe return of nine children.
In each state a local agency — the State Police in Massachusetts — serves as a central contact point for reports of missing children. That agency issues urgent notifications that are broadcast over local TV and radio, on nearby highway signs, and texted to cellphone users in a given location.
A similar system could be designed to quickly notify social workers, for example, of new child abuse allegations, said Julia Howard, vice president of operations for Amber Alert GPS, the Utah company that administers the missing child system for nine states.
“It would take a little bit of engineering, but it could be modified,” said Howard. “There would be a way, people just have to open the dialog about it.”
Even so, child welfare specialists contend that a simple phone call remains the most effective way to report a case of suspected abuse as specialists in child welfare caution no one technology, however new and sophisticated, can completely compensate for human error or sloppy work.
Yeah, it's always YOUR FAULT, individual! This government is infallible and never at fault!!!!!
Indeed, even the electronic reporting system in California hasn’t solved the persistent challenge of urgently fielding new reports of suspected child abuse.
Again, the culprit is human nature.
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Of course, other electronic messaging systems, including e-mail and texts, can be just as easily overlooked by harried or forgetful social workers, child welfare specialists point out. In their view, no matter what technology is deployed, the onus remains on the people working in the protection services to use it correctly.
That is really true about anything, isn't it?
“Whether it’s a fax machine, a phone call, a tweet, or a text,” said Theresa Pardo, director of the Center for Technology in Government at the University at Albany, if the information isn’t handled properly, “the technology is irrelevant.”
Just like this waste of time article.
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Related: Slow Saturday Special: Stay Single
I'm still $eeing the Globe, sob.
Vermont judge: Child custody tough to legislate
Stepfather charged in death of toddler
Vermont lawmakers to review child abuse issues
Can't see that?!?
"6 fired for closing child abuse reports" Associated Press April 24, 2014
PHOENIX — Five senior Arizona child welfare employees who officials said orchestrated a plan that led to more than 6,500 Arizona child abuse and neglect cases being closed without investigations were fired Wednesday in the first major personnel action since the cases were discovered in November.
Charles Flanagan, who heads a new state child welfare agency created in the wake of discovery of the closed cases, said an additional senior administrator at the state agency that formerly oversaw Child Protective Services was also fired Wednesday.
Flanagan briefed reporters after State Police completed an investigation into what led to reports phoned into a state child abuse and neglect hotline not being investigated starting in late 2009. The discovery of the cases led Governor Jan Brewer to create a new Cabinet-level post led by Flanagan to oversee child welfare cases statewide.
Flanagan said the five upper-level managers and administrators he fired were responsible for creating and overseeing the case closings against policy and in violation of state laws. He said they not only knew that what they were doing was against policy but took steps to keep it secret.
The five senior workers fired Wednesday created a system to screen hotline reports and prevent them from being sent to field workers as a way to reduce a crushing workload on the field workers.
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I'm glad we are not alone even if we are last.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Baby under DCF’s watch dies; Cause of death sought for infant in Weymouth" by Evan Allen | Globe staff May 11, 2014
WEYMOUTH — A 10-week-old girl died in her family’s motel room Thursday, the first death of a child under the care of the state Department of Children and Families since the agency’s commissioner resigned less than two weeks ago amid concerns that it could not keep children in its care safe.
See: Roche's Resignation
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No one answered the door of the room where the family lived Saturday, and a “Do Not Disturb” sign hung on the doorknob. Weymouth police logs appear to list the parents’ names, but neither could be reached Saturday.
A woman at the front desk at the Super 8 said no one was available to comment. One resident said she thought the family had been living in the motel room for about a year.
Residents described a terrifying scene Thursday morning, when the baby’s teenage brother ran out into the second-floor hallway screaming, bringing shocked neighbors rushing from their rooms.
“My sister’s dead! My sister’s dead!” shouted the boy, who neighbors said lived in the motel room with his parents. His father followed him out into the hallway, yelling for someone to come help.
“I went into the room to help, but once I saw the baby, I had to go back out,” recounted Nikia Davenport, 36, who lives across the hallway. The baby was gray, Davenport said, and her mother was frantically trying to give her CPR on the bed.
Another resident, who asked not to be named, said she stayed in the room and tried to talk the mother through her efforts to breathe for her daughter, but that there was no sign of life.
Neighbors said the family seemed normal and happy.
Davenport said that on Tuesday, she had seen the teenage boy playing with the baby in the hallway, and the little girl was alert and playful, making eye contact and apparently enjoying the attention.
“She looked great,” said Davenport.
The woman who tried to talk the baby’s mother through CPR said that when the baby was born, the father proudly showed her pictures on his cellphone.
The Department of Children and Families has been roiled by harsh criticism after the deaths of several children in its care. In December, DCF acknowledged it had lost track of Jeremiah Oliver, a Fitchburg preschooler who was supposed to be under agency watch but had not been visited since April 2013. His body was found April 18 by the side of a highway in Sterling.
The agency also acknowledged misplacing a fax from the Grafton police sent April 3 warning of possible harm to a 1-month-old infant. The fax was not found until April 9. Two days later, the baby, Aliana Lavigne, died.
Also last month, Bailey Irish, a Fitchburg newborn under DCF care, died shortly before a meeting was scheduled between her parents and the agency’s officials.
After Commissioner Olga Roche resigned late last month, Governor Deval Patrick announced he was appointing Erin Deveney, a lawyer who spent most of the last decade at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, as interim commissioner of DCF.
A spokeswoman for the governor declined to comment on the death of the baby in Weymouth, saying that “the DCF is commenting for the administration on this.”
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