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We Killed Dontel Jeffers
March 16, 2005
Peter Pollard - The Boston Globe
I AM responsible for the death of
Dontel Jeffers. Not because of any act of violence I committed
against the 4-year-old boy who died in foster care in Dorchester on
March 6. I never met him or even heard his name until his death. I
am responsible for the death of Dontel Jeffers because of my
silence.
After serving 14 years as a front
line social worker for the Department of Social Services, I know his
death is the direct, predictable result of a system overburdened,
underfunded, and largely ignored, except when a tragedy involving an
abused or neglected child erupts in the headlines. Then, as a
community, we look for somewhere to point a finger of blame.
Peter Pollard, a social worker for
14 years at the Department of Social Services, is a graduate student
at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
I'll start with me.
For 14 years, I struggled with my
colleagues at DSS, many of whom had dedicated their entire working
lives, committed to the seemingly impossible task of protecting
children from physical, emotional, and sexual violence and neglect.
In most instances, by the time families came to our notice, the
children were already seriously harmed. Our efforts to help were
stymied by severely limited funding for therapy, nearly nonexistent
pediatric psychiatric services, courts so clogged that trials to
determine a child's future often stretched out for more than a year,
and a foster-care crisis so dire that good homes are drowned in
placements, and that the temptation to accept mediocre caregivers
has become too great to resist.
DSS is so overwhelmed with
casualties, it is reduced to operating like a field hospital, making
triage decisions on small children's lives. But as a social worker,
I felt we were the frontline defense, doing our best with what we'd
been given. So I'll admit that when I had misgivings about a foster
home or a residential placement or a hospital discharge, I often saw
no choice but to accept quietly what I knew was inadequate. And
though lack of alternatives was a factor, I'm embarrassed to admit
that that calculation inevitably also included loyalty to the
system, to my coworkers, and fear of the personal consequences of
rocking the boat.
But I should have been shouting,
openly declaring that those inadequacies threatened the very
children we were trying to help.
I am responsible for Dontel
Jeffers's death because of my silence. And so are thousands of
social workers, agency managers, community mental health workers,
foster parents, judges, police and probation officers, attorneys,
and teachers who every day see firsthand the evidence of the gradual
diminishment in these already victimized children's lives.
Each in his own way has accepted
the limitations of the system, passing from anger to frustration to
resignation to quiet defeat. They should be shouting too, declaring
that our refusal to do more is in fact society's crime of neglect.
As adults, we pay lip service to
our commitment to keep children safe. But we don't have the courage
to really face the depth of their vulnerability or the enormity of
our failure. If you want proof, try breaking the silence by bringing
up child abuse at a social gathering. Collectively, we've handed
that ugly topic over to someone else. We've horribly shirked our
personal responsibility to protect Dontel Jeffers and thousands like
him who are our neighbors.
For Dontel, it's too late. But as a
community, we should be openly declaring our willingness to open our
eyes and our hearts to provide the enormous resources required to
save the others. Effective early intervention could ultimately bring
huge benefits in the form of well-functioning families and curtailed
cycles of violence, sexual abuse, homelessness, and substance abuse.
But the investment has to be made because it's right, not just
because it's cost effective.
I am responsible for Dontel
Jeffers's death because of my silence. And so are you.
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