I read an article yesterday that made me think of your social group. A writer from the Birmingham News decided to do an article about Alabama's DHR. She thinks that other states should follow Alabama's lead in DHR services. What a joke! Anyway what I found most interest were of course the comment after the story. There were numerous comments from former social workers--and they were telling on DHR BIG TIME!! While other comments broke my heart, they were people looking for help and had hit road blocks everywhere. I thought it may make for some interesting discussion. http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2007/10/..._alabamas.html
Thank you very much Lil moon. I read the story and comments. One comment in particular was another bad story. They offered their email and I sent them the link here, We'll see if they show up. I'm glad to see you here, and that you for visiting. This info is very important to me. Please come back anytime. I think we share the same love for the innocent. red
When my daughter was 7yo, I took her over to my best friend's to play with her best friend who was a 7yo boy. My friend was married to a police ofcr so you would think it would be a safe place to be. His sister was a foster parent to an 18yo with "autism". The 7yos were outside playing on the trampoline when the 18 yo joined them. I came over later that afternoon & picked up my daughter & her buddy for a sleepover. They were in the backseat being unusually quiet. I pulled the car over & said alright you 2 what is up. They told me that the 18yo had touched my daughter on her breasts, butt, & her front part (she pointed to her vagina) through her clothes. I pulled that car around so fast & went back to my friend's house & had her call her husband in an official capacity. He then called his sister over & we discussed what happened. She went back to her house, called DHR - the police were still with her. They checked his computer, it was full of pornography. The next day a female officer & woman from DHR came out & talked to my daughter & promised her something would happen to the boy & he would pay for what he did. They told her they would stay in touch & let her know what was going on & if they needed her to testify or anything. We found out 3 days later that he had been removed from the home & moved to another in Dothan, he had been removed from his last home because of the same problem and that they did not warn the foster mother about this. When he went to the new home in Dothan, they were not told of why he was removed from his current home. We never heard from DHR or the county sheriff's office. If my friend's husband hadn't worked for the police department, we wouldn't have found out what we had. My 7yo daughter felt betrayed, hurt, mad as hell and then she would not trust people and she still has trust issues. So if the other states want to learn how to fuck over children, yeah Alabama is a great state to learn from.
Thank you for your story, tenntitanfan. It never seems to end. Kudos for you knowing the silence in the back seat was a sign of something terrible wrong. I hope the little girls have been able to cop, and now no when to say NO! very loud and clear.
My girls were molested by a CHILD, very close family friend. He was 11 at the time, my girls were 5 and 7. DHS did nothing, he too had porn on his computer, stole his mother's credit card to join the sites. SHE NEVER WARNED ME! She knew all of this about her son, knew I had 2 little girls and didn't say a word. I let my girls molester spend the night numerous times. I called DHS on her because her son has a problem. They did nothing, absolutely nothing. He was prosecuted as a minor, the DA told me if he would have been 3 months older they would have charged him as an adult (I have posted how I feel about minors being charged as adults). I didn't want him to spend years in prison, I wanted him to get help. That was one condition when they asked me about making a plea deal. What worries me is that DHS took no action whatsoever. I did get it stipulated that even though he was a minor his record will show up anyway, when he tries to do anything involving the gov't, including college checks, it will show up that he was convicted of sexual assault. It just really worries me that DHS never did anything, hell they never even talked to me? Never even asked me to explain how he could have gotten my girls alone (he used the we are building a fort to block anyone from seeing what he was doing) I always asked what they were doing, hell I stood in the doorway and still never knew. If only I would have peeled back a blanket, I would have known. Anyway I think the whole thing is a failure on DHS's part for not investigating either of us, I would have been ok being investigated but it never happened.
Don't blame yourself, blame the lame mother who LET it happen. That's how it happened to me. my best friend left us alone in a tent overnight with her grandfather (who I adored). I never went back there. But her mother knew what type of creep-OLD creep he was. She let it happen. As far as CPS, I will from now on call the cops first. CPS doesn't have what it takes to do their jobs.
