Improving the Foster Care System - Part XXII

A couple of weeks ago, one of my readers sent me a link to this article. I've been meaning to write about it ever since, but my absolutely overloaded work schedule prevented me from giving the story the attention it deserved.

Apparently, social workers are now starting to express worry that if they don't do their jobs properly, they might be arrested.

This worry comes, quite legitimately, after a social worker and her supervisor were arrested for negligent homicide in connection with the death of a child that they were supposed to be supervising.

Now I realize that I blogged about this story before in one of my previous Improving the Foster Care System posts, so I might just be beating a dead horse. Now that I've had a chance to think about it, however, I'm not sure that social workers being scared for their personal futures is necessarily a bad thing.

In my earlier post, I wrote:

Now as much as I dislike most social workers, and I despise these two in particular for not doing their jobs, I'm not sure that I agree they should be prosecuted for criminally negligent homicide. It's true they did not do their jobs, but I'm not sure that justice is served by holding them accountable for a death that was caused by the child's grandmother.

Although I still agree that the child's grandmother is primarily responsible, now that I've had a chance to think about it a little more, I'm not sure that prosecuting these workers is entirely a bad thing. Clearly, they didn't do their job, and a kid died as a result.

I've come to the conclusion, after mulling this over for a few weeks, that prosecuting workers in cases like this will probably improve the foster care system, though not for all the reasons you might think. Yes, it certainly will make workers think twice about neglecting their caseloads, and might make them scream a little louder when they need help, which are both important. However, if social workers can be prosecuted for this kind of conduct, it just might open the door for prosecution and perhaps even lawsuits for other kinds of misconduct.

And that, in my mind, can only be a good thing.

In most states, social workers operate under the umbrella of absolute immunity. This means, that with the exception of criminal conduct, social workers are immune from liability for their deeds, even if they were done with bad intentions. If the door is opened, even slightly, so that workers can be punished for their wrongdoings, it will make them all think twice before they make their decisions.

Sure, it will also prompt a lot of ass-covering moves as well, but perhaps, just perhaps, it might make workers wake up to the importance of what they do.

Interestingly enough, SocialWrkr24/7 blogged about this story as well, and she has some interesting things to say:

If I do not do my job – skip homevisits, don’t talk to children privately away from their caregivers, let referrals sit idle on my desk or am dishonest about my actions to my supervisor…

I am being negligent.

If a child dies because I neglected to do the things that could possibly have prevented abuse or neglect…

I will have allowed that death.

But what she says at the end of her post I think is absolutely killer:

I hope that every person who puts in an application...

goes on an interview...

and accepts a job in child welfare...

considers consequences of not doing the job well.

Our children are worth it.

I hope it will one day be so.