Washington: Foster Parent Arrested For Abusing A Foster Child For Ten Years; CPS Caseworkers Ignored 15 Reports of Child Abuse!
CPS caseworkers in Washington apparently failed to follow up on fifteen reports of child abuse, but when a neighbor told police a teenage foster child was locked in the closet, the girl was finally rescued from what appears to be a horrific foster care abuse situation. Detectives said the first fifteen complaints weren’t acted on because the foster parent moved from apartment to apartment, and they couldn’t find her, yet at the same time this woman collected foster parent benefits for housing the young girl.
My theory is different. I believe that cases of child abuse in foster homes are ignored because CPS doesn’t get any money for taking children from one foster home and putting them in another. They only get an increase in funding when they take a child from their natural families, then place them in a foster home. Therefore foster child abuse isn’t a priority for busy CPS caseworkers.
Fight CPS hopes to shed light on the problem of abuse in foster homes. Statistics have shown that child abuse of all types is about ten times more likely to happen in a foster home than in a natural family home.
The child, who is now sixteen, lived with foster parent Chornice Lewis, 33, for ten years. Acquaintances said Lewis was very polite and made a good impression on them.
Police allege that if the foster child caused any problems, Lewis put the child’s hand on a hot stove. And if she didn’t listen she had to stand next to her foster parent’s bed all night long. If she slept, a 10-lb weight was dropped on her feet. And once, when she wasn’t packing properly, an insulin needle was plunged into her eye, so the girl is now blind in one eye.
According to a KOMOTV.Com article, Cheryl Stephani, an employee of the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, DSHS, said “We missed it. . . . As a child welfare system. It’s all of us, the courts, the department, the children’s administration. We should hold each other accountable; we need to hold each other accountable.”
Holding CPS caseworkers accountable = Good Idea. When?
Source: Mother accused of abusing foster daughter for years by Bryan Johnson, for KOMOTV.Com, published June 26, 2007.
