Baby tests positive for illegal drugs? Arrest the mom.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by als463

Don't you think people may be a little more biased and feel obligated to remove a child from a home that is "poor" and less clean than a home where the parents are well-educated and have some money?

An adequately trained CPS worker should know the minimum standards for what is appropriate for a home. As you know, those standards are quite minimal and that the CPS worker needs to also be culturally competent. I've run into the latter quite a bit with intake workers getting pickup orders because what they viewed as abuse/neglect was really just how a certain culture dealt with those kinds of issues.

There was a great story about a CPS worker who was sent out on a referral about a Native American family. They went to the family's home, which was a trailer on some land. They found that the children had a place to sleep, but when they checked the fridge and the pantry, both were completely empty. Before said worker finished their investigation, they were asked if they wanted to have dinner with the family. Wondering where the food was coming from, they agreed. Subsequently, they were led down a horse trail which ended up at another trailer. Inside was family and extended family sitting down for a big meal together as is customary in that particular tribe's culture.

That sort of thing is part of the training CPS workers get here, but we have some pretty awful CPS workers and I don't doubt class plays a role in pickup orders. And intake workers.. the quality varies and they don't often stay there long. It's one of the worst, if not the worst job CPS has to offer.

I'll admit that in my past job working for CPS, initially I was more apt to judge the poor families who had been accused of neglect or abuse than the families with money and nice homes. I'm not saying I was right.

With poverty, neglect is sometimes a symptom of an overall disease. The family might be dealing with addiction or some other issue, so while poverty alone isn't going to get anyone's kids taken into custody (or shouldn't), you're going to find a lot more kids who are victims of abuse and neglect in poor homes than any other kind. That should be obvious to anyone.

I remember once getting a call about an upper-middle class home where a mother had slapped her teenage daughter and my first thought walking into the beautiful well-kept home was, "Well, maybe the teenager talked back to her mom and deserved a slap." Thinking back, there is really no excuse for hitting your child but, I almost found myself siding more with the married parents with the high income. For cases of low-income families, I might have gone in thinking, "This must be a cycle of abuse for this family." I was quite judgmental when I first started my career. It's good that things have since changed or I would not be nearly as successful in my current career as I am now. I just had to realize my bias and open my mind.

I don't see a pickup order being signed over one slap and no matter what the income of the family, that referral does warrant further investigation.

I do have to say that, if nothing else, I appreciate the dialogue of everyone in this thread because if everyone agreed 100%, then this would be a very one-sided discussion.

Yup.