The Texas Band-aid

The National government tends to push policy pertaining to family matters back to the state and local courts therefore, my concerns lye with the State of Texas. How is it that we have a judicial system in Texas that allows abused and neglected children to be overlooked and not cared for in way that will allow them to one day be functional responsible citizens in their time? We have all heard it before, “not enough funding”, “resources are scarce” and “social workers are over worked.”

Children who are neglected /abused are pushed through a system not adequate to handle high volumes of case loads. We see how effectively our state manages our case loads on CNN with disgusting headlines of victims finally murdered. Their little lives had a case number with CPS or victim services and they were simply overlooked. Do you hate the abuser? Why? It’s highly likely they too were part of a vicious cycle of abuse and neglect which are system eventually dismissed.

Other victims go to foster homes and sadly statistics show many in foster care have a surprisingly low chance of surviving successfully because they experience some form of continued abuse.

The state sometimes offers free counseling or a reduced rate therapy. For most families they want these “incidents” to disappear and a once a week drive to a therapist is a reminder to the child and the parent of misperceived faults. It can take months before a therapist can get a person to open up or truly understand the depths of emotional and mental damage. Parent’s, eventually stop attending important meetings or feel the care has been adequate, time simply needs to pass. There are many reasons families don’t reach out for help and our state doesn’t manage them.

Why doesn’t our government design a tracking system that will allow long term care? Too much money? What about the money put into victims care after they commit a legal offense. They are on the other side of the law and they won’t slip through the cracks now. Our system for dealing with abused and neglected children is a band-aid. The truth, their isn’t big money in focusing on changing our system for victims. A lot of the talented folks stray away from this sort of policy. Most people who are committed to this work do so for personal motivations not related to money.

It’s no secret abuse and neglect can affect people well into their elder years if not managed properly. But again we have a legal system which doesn’t lose track of you once you have committed a crime. There is almost never a chance the failure to handle a charge from the state will just go away without incident. Why is it different for our victims?

Does our government really know and understand the depths of emotional and mental damage a person carries into their adulthood when not managed? Like I said there is no “big money” in these issues. There is a small group of really fabulous people in our state and all over the world who share my thoughts maybe with less cynicism but they exist. Everything in Texas is big when will it be big on all it’s children.