Va. Case Highlights Discord Over Releasing Abuse Data
When a letter from Prince William County's Department of Social Services arrived in the mail recently, Wes Byers was hoping for answers.
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The slow trickle of information to emerge about Lexie's death, and how local agencies handled her case while she was alive, highlights the secrecy that often surrounds child abuse cases, child welfare advocates said. Because of confidentiality rules that vary across the states, records related to cases involving juveniles are sometimes withheld even after a criminal investigation is complete.
Note: It's how they cover their tracks.
In AB, Canada, lack of transparency is sorely missing here as well as it pertains to children under Direction of Ministry care. This, not solely a state, nor provincial dilemma, but instead a travesty striking Nationwide. FOIP (Freedom of Information & Protection of Privacy) rules, for instance, that arbitrarily protect wrong-doers and prevent natural parent, the guardian, from delving deeper into circumstances surrounding their child's out of home treatment. Parents are not legally entitled to seek data on behalf of the child, the victim... The notion is, no child exists, therefore one is no longer a parent!! It is ludicrous and a direct example to hi-light the atrocious misuse of Power wielded inappropriately by those who have allowed harm to transpire and refuse to take ownership of the results.
ReplyDeleteAll too often it is the child who is forgotten in the shuffle to protect those who have committed errors leading to discord. Were that not so, the child would have been protected in life when she required it, not following in death... What purpose, truly, does it serve to resist release of documentation other than preserve the wrong-doers' identity and opportunity for amends to transpire! - VM