RA>Child protective services are required by law to investigate every report
  >of child abuse and make decisions about whether or not to leave the child
  >in the home, etc.  Doctors, nurses, and the schools are required to
  >report every instance of suspected child abuse to the child protective
  >services for investigation.  Considering the rising social sensitivity to
  >abuse issues, it's no wonder the social workers are overworked.  I do
And much of the reported abuse isn't even real.  So there's a lot of
wild goose chases, which increase the overwork for the social workers,
and traumatize innocent parents and children.  I have close friends who
got reported for abusing their kids.  They don't, and, in this case, the
social worker agreed that they didn't.  But the kids were terrified and
clingy for weeks after the incident, sure someone was coming to take
them away.
  >think organizing files properly would help--establishing a time frame in
  >which various actions should be taken and then flagging files so that
  >they can be given at least a quick glance at the appropriate time to see
  >if the action appropriate to that time frame should be taken.  The
  >problem is, such things tend to look like they'll take a lot of time and
  >tend not to be attractive to overworked people, but they actually save
  >time in the long run by moving things along.
Agreed.  One positive thing New Jersey has:  every case under child
protective services has to be reviewd by a court appointed volunteer
group at least once a year.   So at least *some* sort of review happens,
although often it is too little, too late.
RA>What's more, people end up in jail for child abuse when, in fact, child
  >abuse has not occurred or if it did, somebody else did it.  Oftentimes
  >this is because social workers and investigative personnel are too
  >overworked to examine cases thoroughly, but I also know of a number of
  >cases where the accusation was the result of a grudge.
That's true.  I have a friend who worked for a while in a day care
center, on her way to getting a degree in library science.  Not too long
ago, the owner of the day care center she worked in got accused of
sexually abusing children, and got convicted on the basis of the
testimonies of two and three year olds.  She said, "There is no way he
abused those kids."  I checked the questions the kids were asked by the
social worker.  The kids were led into their testimonies, starting with
questions like "Have you ever seen him take off anyone's pants?"  These
were two and three year olds.  They were still having accidents, and
needing help undressing to use the toilet.  *Of course* they had all
seen him take off someone's pants.
                    Sondra
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