Mass DSS Has Some Hacks!

*****This post was originally posted on 5/25/2008 and taken down by myself in order to give the parties involved time to contact our family. The only contact we have had has been a DSS worker looking for any excuse for turning up the heat on the open case she has against our family. Thank you Governor Patrick for contributing nothing. You just lost my political vote and backing.

In the past I used to respect Social Workers for the hard job that they have to do. Who wants to be the person that has to take a child away from an abusive parent? You couldn’t pay me enough to do that kind of job but people do it and most of them do it well. “Most of them” is the key words in that last sentence. What is truly scary about the job they have to do is that sometimes the investigators miss the obvious signs of child abuse and that is when you read about the screw ups in the newspapers or in blogs like this one read by thousands per month.

I happen to be one of those people that loves his children so much that if it were my life or theirs I would give mine up for them in one single heartbeat. No questions, my babies no matter what age, my life for theirs is not a question in my mind.

DSS is not perfect and while they are witch hunting good parents they tend to really screw up when it comes to animals that claim to be parents. Time and again the failures are evident that the system that DSS social workers go by is broken or the criteria of a perfect world is looked at differently from one case worker to the next. Meanwhile kids get abused while on their watch and The Enterprise has this on the latest Mass DSS screw up…

No more apologies for failures of DSS

The Enterprise
Posted Mar 21, 2008 @ 11:11 PM

BROCKTON — It is no longer open to debate: the state Department of Social Services is a dysfunctional agency whose collective actions and systemic negligence are intolerable and border on criminal.

The case involving the 7-year-old Middleboro boy who was beaten and burned by someone is just the latest fiasco that has DSS officials admitting they made errors.

Snippet

But DSS had visited the family following allegations of abuse and never found a problem despite Rebecca’s father awaiting trial at the time for rape of a minor.
Yeah, we missed the boat on that one, DSS said after Rebecca’s death.

Haleigh Poutre, Aidyn Hudson, Dontel Jeffers, the Warren, Mass., home where 10 children were beaten and sexually abused for a decade; the list isn’t endless but it is maddening and, when one thinks about the pain and suffering inflicted on helpless children, heart-wrenching.

DSS’ actions in the Riley and Poutre cases triggered a legislative investigation and recommendations. Among those was the recently passed bill that allows DSS to collect and maintain information on unsubstantiated reports of child abuse and neglect to assist in future risk and safety assessments of children and families.

But admitting problems after the fact is no longer good enough. Children are dying and being maimed for life because of – take your pick – budgetary underfunding, politicized administration, inept training and overwhelmed case workers. - Enterprise News

No matter how you look at it as a parent that loves your children you too can be accused of child abuse anonymously. I for one would hope and pray that they would investigate any neglect even if the accuser is unknown. Every child is important and needs to be protected. BUT!!! Big old BUTT, fat and flabby butt! What if the parents are innocent?

Take the for instance this scenario where your child just left a locked mental health state institution after ten months where she was diagnosed with all kinds of interesting mental health issues. Hearing voices, cutting herself, multiple personalities, and tried swallowing a couple of batteries during her stay to try and kill herself. Medication had her stabilized enough to come home and go back to public schools. The underlying issues of her illness are still there and she accuses both parents of neglect at school.

One year later, DSS is still involved in our lives and looking for excuses to punish us because there are four sisters below her. There is no legal proof of abuse but DSS comes every single month and looks at us as guilty first and we need to prove our innocence over a year later still. Kind of reminds me of France in the 1800’s where you are jailed for stealing a loaf of bread till you pay for the stolen loaf of bread.

There is no abuse of children in this home and there never will be. I recently was laid off from my job and the DSS worker accused me over the phone of neglect and abuse because I could not pay the $1200 per month for medical insurance from my former employer. Note for the record, my oldest that was discharged from DMH has her own insurance from Mass Health. To which I called her on the carpet and told her to file her 51A on Mass Health for holding up our family insurance two months after my layoff. Hack! None of our other four daughters are on any medical prescriptions needed for any medical condition. Hack!

Our DSS worker is looking for any excuses to attack my family and I happen to have a rather large blog in Worcester. I have my voice locally and I have my voice nationally on many other blogs of note. If they want to come after my family, I will defend my honor and my family name. I can come up with more buffoonery at DSS than they think ever possible. This is war!

You do not threaten a good mother and a good father with neglect and abuse and not expect repercussions when they are innocent. Live by the sword and all that stuff. I’ll forsake the sword for the keyboard and bury them with bad publicity that will be picked up nationally by many main stream well read publications. I’m looking forward to the challenge. DSS is a public servant and they tend to mess up pretty much every day. That doesn’t look well in the public eye. I’m done being the nice guy and working with these public servant hacks showing up in my home with a noose and not one solid form of evidence to show neglect. I’m up for the fight.

Anyone with a story relevant to Hacks at DSS please feel free to comment. I’d love to talk with you and post your DSS horror story.

Papamoka

Copied and emailed to Governor Patrick

****Note! This was emailed to the Governors office on 5/25 and my family has not been contacted by his office. However??? State agencies are checking this website. I'm checking out ACLU websites.

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Domestic Violence with a Badge

Let me just say this, my wife would kick my sorry ass if I ever raised a hand to her. My five daughters would probably join in on kicking my sorry ass if I hit their mother and Mom called for an Iron cage death match.

Domestic violence knows no boundaries or occupations and no race, creed, color or sexual orientation is without it. Tempers are what they are and sometimes the job comes home with you and sometimes some people can not check it at the door. Domestic violence is a serious problem in America and the flood gates of what is really happening in our nation is not talked about enough. It’s a fact that the majority of the abuse on spouses and children goes unreported. More times than not the violence is silent or quieted behind the four walls of a families home. The perpetrator and abusive family member is looked at from the family in a submissive mode and that the victim probably did something wrong to deserve a beating. That thought process is hard to comprehend but it happens every single day in America.

There was this story in the Boston Herald that I found and it points out several Boston Police officers that have had serious domestic violence complaints lodged against them and still hold the badge.

Critics: BPD soft on abuse
Boston cops punished in domestic cases, but kept their jobs

By O’Ryan Johnson
Friday, January 11, 2008

Despite talking tough on domestic violence, the Boston Police Department did not fire any of the 11 officers disciplined in the past two years for punching their spouses, striking their children and other violent incidents, a Herald review shows.

The punishments handed down by Police Department brass in those cases include two five-day suspensions, three 30-day suspensions and one 40-day suspension. Of the remaining officers who were investigated, two retired, two resigned and one has a criminal case pending.

“It’s outrageous,” Mary Lauby, executive director of Jane Doe Inc., said of the department’s lack of a zero-tolerance policy against battering cops.

Snip and Cuff em Dan O’

Police Commissioner Edward Davis, who has been on the job for a little over a year, said a tougher policy has been in place since June 2006 that specifies officers can be fired for domestic violence complaints even if they aren’t found guilty in court.

Davis said only one officer has been punished under the new rules, Lt. Dave Murphy, who received a five-day suspension for allegedly punching his girlfriend off a bar stool in Baltimore. In that case, the victim did not cooperate with the department, Davis said.

But Lauby of Jane Doe didn’t buy that as a valid defense of the department’s policy.

“This entire reliance on victims in order to prosecute, it’s a sham,” she said. “We all know that there is a substantial amount of domestic violence that never reaches anyone’s attention.” - Boston Herald

Violence in the home is and should not be tolerated by any wife, Mother, or child. Violence against family members is much like starting down the road of beginner drugs or alcohol. For that matter some people think that domestic violence is just as bad as addiction to drugs or alcohol. One step at a time it can ramp up till the walls all come crumbling down. In the worst possible scenario a spouse or child is dead at the hands of a family member.

The Herald piece pasted all Boston Police Officers in the same mold and that is not true reporting. It does however point out that the rules for all law enforcement officers needs to be a higher standard than the general public rules and laws. As in most professions in America there are idiots and scum bags. Boston’s Police Department is no different. Not all cops are wife beaters and not all cops are abusive to their children.

I don’t think there is a police officer in Boston that thinks the idiot highlighted in the Herald’s piece is nothing but a scum bag. With his disgraceful behavior in his private life it reflects back on all of the Boston Police whether they all like it or not. Then again the Herald goes out of its way to attack all public servants in Boston.

Real men, real woman do not need to hit or abuse anyone if you just open your mouth and logically vent. Violence against the family members that love you even if you have hit them in the past is not the answer. Asking them what you should do in your life is the answer. If that does not help then get some serious mental health consultation. One punch to the ones you love will damage not only your life but the ones you love forever. Seek help and advice everywhere you can and save not just your conscience but the horrible result of a family bound by violence.

My personal advice to the battered woman that are married to an abusive husband, get out and do it NOW! The life you save may be your own. No woman should tolerate even one moment of abuse. This is not 1808, this is 2008. Ending the cycle of violence from the victims point is far better than staying and letting your children learn that it is okay to beat their mother. Life long lessons are funny that way.

Papamoka