Child Neglect Often Ignored, Says State Report Welfare Workers Wait Too Long To Intervene, According To Governor’S Ombudsman

The state’s safety net for severely neglected children is failing, subjecting vulnerable kids to years of maltreatment, according to a report released Monday.

The report, written by Gov.

Gary Locke’s ombudsman for children and families, concluded that state child welfare workers often wait until 10 or more complaints of serious neglect have been lodged before taking aggressive action.

Children, as a result, show signs of physical harm or emotional and developmental problems by the time Child Protective Services intervenes.

“The child protective system is often ineffective in protecting children from parental neglect that’s ongoing and serious,” said the ombudsman, Vickie Wallin. “We see it in all parts of the state, coming up over and over, in case after case. There’s no question it’s a systemwide problem.”

Her criticisms were included in a 77-page report submitted to Locke and the Legislature.

Teachers and doctors are also failing children by sometimes failing to report suspicions of abuse and neglect, the report notes.

The report also said the state lacks sufficient foster homes to help kids once they’re removed from their parents.

But Wallin focused her most pointed observations at how the system deals with child neglect, which she described as “invisible problem with profound impacts on children.”

Chronic child neglect is defined by the report as ongoing and serious deprivation of a child’s basic physical, developmental and emotional needs, including a chronic lack of supervision.

In one case detailed by the report, CPS received nine neglect-related complaints over seven years against a mother of three from Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

The children, according to complaints, went hungry, skipped school and were left alone or with strangers while the mother abused drugs and alcohol.

Despite consistent reports, CPS didn’t intervene until May 1999, when the woman failed a drug test while pregnant. The state took custody of an infant, briefly placing it in foster care.

CPS received yet another complaint in June that the children’s father had died of a drug overdose while in the home.

Yet it wasn’t until September - when officials investigated reports of abuse against a child - that the woman lost custody of the children.

Kathy Spears, spokeswoman for CPS in Olympia, said recognition of child neglect is emerging with recent research detailing its long-term effects.

“There is no doubt that the system as a whole needs to improve,” she said.

Workers have to treat complaints of physical and sexual abuse as priorities above neglect.

And intervention is difficult. Workers must establish a risk of imminent harm before presenting petitions for state custody, she said.

But CPS has started pilot projects across the state to give parents accused of neglect more help early on, said Spears.

Helping families suspected of neglect is difficult in the private sector as well, said Connie McCleary, director of Spokane’s nonprofit Support Care and Networking for Families.

“When a family is really at risk, it’s not an easy turnaround with neglect,” she said. “It’s not learning to handle anger and not hit a child; it’s learning how to care for the basic needs of a child.”

Locally, prosecutions of child abuse outpace those for neglect, said Stefanie Collins, supervisor of the Spokane County prosecutor’s special assault unit.

Seven of the 153 cases referred to her unit - which handles rape and domestic assault prosecutions - were for criminal mistreatment of a child.

The ombudsman’s office reviewed dozens of cases of chronic neglect across the state, finding consistent characteristics. Among them:

All cases reviewed involved parents who previously lost custody of older children, then were accused of neglecting subsequent children.

CPS didn’t take aggressive enough action, asking the parents to voluntarily enroll in short-term support services despite previous abuse or neglect complaints. CPS then failed to monitor the parents to ensure they continued getting help.

Neglectful parents struggled with alcohol or drug addictions, mental illness or abusive partners.

The report also suggests several improvements for CPS, including more tracking of families, better assessment of parents’ substance abuse and behavioral problems and more aggressive intervention on behalf of neglected children.