Reader Feedback 8.7.02

Investing in children

Thank
you for providing more evidence that our elected officials do not care about children
until they are old enough to lock up (“No Protection for Child Protectors,”
July 17).

                  Most of us are aware that
abused children are much more likely to become runaways, criminals, and suffer
from drug addiction and mental illness. Most of us would consider child abuse
to be a public health and safety issue. Therefore, a logical investment in
public health and safety is to generously support Child Protective Services in
their crucial work helping abused children before they tax our public health and
safety resources.

                  But an aversion to being
proactive is not limited to county elected officials. Our state elected
officials this year declined to pass Assembly bill A10636 and Senate bills
S6693 and S7185. These bills would have set up demonstration systems in which
CPS workers increase efforts to help families before they hit the crisis point.

                  States with similar programs
have seen a drop in the need for foster-care placement and also lower turnover
for CPS workers. Obviously, this would bring even greater long-term financial
savings.

                  New York’s record for funding
programs that prevent child abuse and family dissolution is even worse: less
than 10 percent of New York’s children in greatest need of these services have
access to them. Indeed, the federal government spends one penny on child-abuse
prevention for every dollar it spends treating its effects with foster care and
(you guessed it) public health and safety funds.

                  Viewing children as
“narrowly targeted constituencies” who don’t deserve every opportunity
we can provide is expensive in both money and human potential. It is the duty
of all of us who care about children and who grasp the logic involved in
child-abuse prevention to enlighten our elected officials.

                  Melanie Daniel, Prevent Child Abuse NY, Henrietta

Cuts
hurt children

The
Monroe County Department of Social Services is beginning to undergo changes
that will affect many. Due to the deficit in the county budget, the DSS is
operating with a hiring freeze. These changes are the result of a decade
without tax increases.

                  Positions from preventative
services, including day care and foster care, will be decreased. This will
occur through employee shifts to different departments or layoffs.

                  DSS employees will be
encouraged to take early retirement. Those retiring will include many with the
most experience, creating leadership vacancies, and it will take away a
knowledge base that will be difficult to replace.

                  Impending layoffs will further
reduce our county’s services to children and families. This will not only
increase Monroe County’s number of unemployed, but DSS clients with children
will be placed greatly at risk.

                  The DSS Preventative Program
is already shifting employees to the Investigative Unit. As a school social
worker, I know professionally the value of Preventative caseworkers.
Preventative services are like preventive medicine. We all try to eat healthy
foods and exercise to avoid developing chronic illnesses. Preventative
caseworkers assist families when they are most at risk.

                  Preventatives supply
short-term interventions to help families through a crisis and allow them to
get back to their pre-crisis state. I am afraid that many parents will suffer
as children are removed from their care due to child abuse and/or neglect. The
message that will be sent to our inner-city parents will shatter whatever self
worth exists and cause a further setback.

                  It will also place a further
burden on our foster care and Family Court systems. There is already a shortage
of foster care homes in which to place removed children, and the Family Court
dockets are bursting at the seams. Also at risk of potential cutbacks are other
Monroe County agencies that provide child and family preventative services.

                  I am appealing to our local
politicians to think these decisions over very carefully. Please do whatever
you can to resist chiseling away at an already bare-minimum workforce. Please
see that these services remain in place and show DSS employees and young
inner-city families that our county does care about their future.

                  Marjorie Beldue, Spencerport

Park
pleasures

Regarding
Stephanie Gradinger’s comments about the Manhattan Square Park concerts
(“Prohibition in the Park,” Metro Ink, July 24):

                  In the beginning, prior to
“the vendor” taking over the free concerts in the park — and now the concerts
at the Public Market — you could go to the park with your picnic dinner and
listen to the free music. It was one of the highlights of the summer. You could
also purchase different food and drink from different vendors, and people did.

                  Now that the city has brokered
with “the vendor” to serve at these venues, the parks and market are now
apparently not ours, but his. We are held hostage to “the vendor’s” food and
drink. Not content with barricading the stage area, he has now erected fences
around pretty much the whole park. It would be a truly devastating thing if one
less beer or one less sandwich were sold because someone brought in their own
food or drink to a public park we support with our city taxes.

                  Ms. Gradinger can delude
herself into believing it protects his liquor license and prevents possible
lawsuits, but I believe “the vendor” has given the city an ultimatum: it’s my
way or the highway. Personally, the highway was a much more pleasurable way to spend
a summer evening.

                  Candice Rogers, Harper Street, Rochester

Caesar’s
ghost

Here
is something I found surfing the web. In the midst of the patriotic fervor
gripping the country, I think it is appropriate. It is attributed to Julius
Caesar.

                  “Beware the leader who
bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor,
for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood,
just as it narrows the mind.

                  “And when the drums of war
have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has
closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.
Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer
up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.

                  “How do I know? For this is
what I have done. And I am Caesar.”

                  Dale Carselli, Brockport

This article appears in Aug 7-13, 2002.