From: bobk@dogear.spk.wa.us (Bob Kirkpatrick)
Newsgroups: alt.child-support
Subject: Re: Sounds like a personal problem
Date: 16 Aug 92 01:06:17 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, Wa

Can I join in this?

brunner@telebit.com (Eric Brunner) writes:

> Months ago I wrote that there were, and are, institutional weaknesses in
> the dependency system, I mentioned only several of those that I knew of
> personally, by taking part in the management audit of Santa Clara County's
> DFCS agency. I also wrote that it was probably good law that children have
> standing to sue their guardians, that was the substance of my postings
> to which Bob disagreed. Apparently, the observation that half of the agency
> do below average work evoked response. I consider it a fact of life, and
> unavoidable if my county is going to improve what are referred to as "front
> end services" (emergency intervention, including intake and non-emergency
> intake).

No, I don't think that, on the whole, kids should be able to sue their
parents. But I certainly see areas and circumstances where it would be
a good idea. I have a big problem in how to delineate between the app-
ropriate and inappropriate cases. In view of that, I tend to side with
the idea that parents should be subject to law governing kids rights.
This is, of course, the way it is now. 

HOWEVER, I have a big problem with the way that this law is actuated in
many areas. I also have a big problem with general indictments of all
of the systems. Each state, and the counties within them, have differ-
ent approaches and interpretations. I defend the local CPS here, and
_figure_ that if there's one "good one" there's likely others. I've
said that it may just be luck, and that it may just be the current crop
of people. I don't know. I do know that Guardians in other areas will
either sing the policy song or go down in flames. That isn't the way
it is here, and I wanted all to know it.

> What Bob wrote to me as email was, well, curious comming from anyone.

Perhaps. You've said some rather curious things yourself.

> >I've been reading what he has to say, and what you do. I saw as
> >you got pretty hot that Bob drew a line between you saying that all
> >the CPS places were bad ones and he said some were not so bad.
> 
> That's not quite what I recollect, but its reasonable that one might have
> had that impression. In any event, some aspects of agency function are
> federally mandated (e.g., confidentiality), so anyone's impression that
> agency performance in their area was "good" or "bad" can not be arrived
> at by case-review by an independent auditor, but only by the agency under
> review, or inferred, as we do in auditing our county, by case-load management
> statistics and aggragate mandated review hearing deadlines exceeded.

I think you just said that if someone is standing outside, they have to
ask a weatherman if it's raining. 

I'm free to discuss cases, so long as I don't use any case identifying 
numbers, names, or dates. We're also asked to modify the salient facts of
a case so as to make it undiscernable if we choose to talk about it. You
are dead right that confidentiality is a mandate though. Where I don't
agree is with your assertion that some aggregate third party needs to
tell us what it's like. We have case management staffings where we get
to know what each other is facing, and determine the best methods to
protect our clients through other's experiences in similar situations.
We don't work in a dark closet, in other words. So I feel reasonably
confident that Spokane County is faring pretty well. Can we improve? You
bet your shoes we can. I can get better and so can the agencies we work
with.

Since our e-wars, budgetary considerations have had a rather negative 
effect on the services we can provide. This tends to take away a parents
ability to "move through treatment" as the ex[ression goes, and stacks
the deck in favor of the state. We don't like this, it makes a move back
to what Washington used to be known for. (Thanks you for flying Hades
Airlines. In the event of a water landing, you deat cushion doubles as
an anvil...)

> Oh, and by those cases where the individuals are brave enough, or desperate
> enough, or silly enough, to breach confidentiality and make their copies
> of documents in their case file available, and criticise some aspect of
> the individual social worker's involvement in their case.

...and? Did your participle dangle there, or what?

But I think I see what you mean. You're speaking in terms of audit, yes?
No? If you have to look at case records to see if your system is working,
then you just entered the realm where I usually get into trouble with the
agencies. I despise procedural language. It rarely reflects what's going
on with a case.

> >                                                               You
> >have some sort of problem with people that don't agree with you.
> 
> You are right, I do. I really have a problem with hate mail from an
> apparently sane person discorsing in a public venue on a subject
> I both care about, and am personally affected by.

I relate. I found distaste in what you had to say too. Perhaps we were
both too quick to find fault in view of the e-war to realize the intent
behind the words. 

I'll get real human here in front of all --I found a lot of what you
had to say to be informative, usefull, and accurate. But I saw some of
what you had to say as an attack against an agency which has *tried* to 
cooperate, and against me personally. When that perspective continued,
I had no further interest in the discussion. Since Brock is speaking,
and has chastised me for 'closing a door,' I figure, ok, I'll say what
I felt and see what happens.

> >                                                                 As
> >near as I can see it, you sound a lot like Bob about what you don't
> >like in the system.
> 
> True.
> 
> >                         I see you guys as really different where Bob
> >will argue pretty hard on his point, but he doesn't do it to feel
> >the pleasure out of grinding on somebody. Sorry but that is the way
> >I see you in this you and him thing.
> 
> As I mentioned earlier, it is reasonable for you to feel very positive
> about Bob.

A sidestep?

> >Don't need to see what Bob wrote to you. Don't really care. I see 
> >him at work here, and that is what counts. He has stood up to the
> >court so he's almost gone to jail because he believed in the people
> >he defended. The commissioner wanted him to say ok for some way a
> >order was worded and he wouldn't do it.
> 
> I understand, here the situation is sort of reversed, Bob is a worthless
> electronic maggot who hasn't helped anyone, dead or alive, but many of
> the family and juvenile judges and staffs, and agency executives, and
> the independent auditors, and two or three county supervisors appear to
> have some knowledge of my existance, as do about two dozen families.

electronic maggot? <chortle> That's not a bad representation at all. :-)

> 
> >I saw him on my case. I have my girl and my boy ONLY because he was
> >able to get the facts to the court and show them I was a good parent.
> 
> I know how that feels, I really do.
> 
> >In the posts I read here, I saw you talking about how you defended
> >you, but I didn't see you defending anyone else. You made me pretty
> >mad before and I would have told you but I didn't have an account
> >to post at. Now I do and now I am telling you.
> 
> Go ahead and get mad, if I learn anything I'll benefit. As to why I don't
> talk about the people I've helped, well, their right to privacy comes a
> long way ahead of my right to look like a knight in shinning armour.

Some of us are willing to speak of what has worked, and thus share that
information in a forum that others might use it too.

> Besides, lobbying the Judicial Council of California's Advisory Committee
> on Juvenile Court Law, or talking for days to trial and appelate and
> State Supreme Court judges from all over (National Councel of Fam/Juv
> Judges), about which front-end programs appear to be effective and what
> alternatives exist for counties with large permency-placement backlogs,
> isn't really helping anyone in particular. I stopped doing case work
> two years ago, it was utterly too depressing, I really understood the
> occasional comment that you (almost) never win in juvenile.
> 
> >Sometimes I think that Bob is opinionated. But I am glad that he is.
> >He won't take anybodys crap. When he took on my kids as their Guardian,
> >he wasn't so sure about me. My wife had left with a man and I had the
> >kids. I got in trouble at a party and the police took my kids to CPS.
> >Bob spent his own money to go all over to get people to write statments
> >about me and brought people into the hearings. He wouldn't let the
> >court keep the kids in the shelter care and him and his lawyer got me
> >my kids back. So you can keep your mail and your poison pen right in
> >your desk. The people I talked to and there was lots of them said that
> >this guy did more for dads here than anybody they ever saw. They said
> >I was lucky I got him. I think I am lucky too.
> 
> You were. You missed the permenency placement track. BTW, I also know
> about spending my own money, going all over getting supporting statements,
> talking to people no social-worker apparently thought to interview...
> 
> >So if you have something against him because you don't like what he
> >said well OK. But quit slamming him. If you cared about dads and how
> >we get treated you would be trying to work with him.
> 
> No, I think I'll work on our new preciding judge in juvenile. She's an
> activist, and in time she'll want to really know why DFCS functions as
> poorly as it does, and the more she knows, the fewer months will go by
> before she starts asking questions. As for slamming Bob, why not on those
> occasions where he does something egregiously stupid like screwing up
> on tender years?

I told you before, that The Tender Years Doctrine has two handles. In one
case, it's a citable policy of jurisprudence, the other is a frame of mind.
Even when we dads 'owned' our children, there was a pervading view that it
took a woman to raise them in their young age. 

I'd fault you for being huffy about terminology, but since I get pretty
excited about it myself, I suppose I'll shut up... no, on second thought,
I won't. It might do you good to look at the context and situation meaning
of expressions used. I can get pretty testy about a court document or a
policy manual, but I also realize that english is a pretty lame language,
and it's pretty subject to misinterpretation.


---
Bob Kirkpatrick, Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, WA
bobk@dogear.spk.wa.us
Newsgroups: alt.child-support,soc.men,soc.women