Oregon's Child Welfare System Needs Help

According to an article in today's Statesman Journal, Advocates: Child-Welfare System Ailing, the Oregon Department of Human Services continues to be hampered by less than adequate funding. Over the past two years, reports of child abuse and neglect continue to rise, while the number of caseworkers remains stagnant or may even decrease.

The article quotes one caseworker who says,

"It is the tyranny of the urgent: a child is running away, a mother is relapsing on drugs; it's crisis, crisis, crisis," she said. "We do not have time for the kind of support we would like to be able to give."

An apt analogy to this situation would be a doctor who ONLY sees to the needs of those suffering heart attacks or strokes. Instead of providing care and support to each patient in the hopes of preventing the need for emergency medical care, the doctor would wait for this need to arise BEFORE springing into action.

I realize we are in the grips of the "shrink government at all costs crowd", but here's a classic example of spending more on the front end to save hundreds of millions of dollars on the back end.

Child abuse occurs within a cycle of violence. If society doesn't step in at an early juncture, the cycle continues unabated. Inadequate funding today merely passes the buck to future legislatures as today's victims grow into tomorrow's abusers.