Wednesday

I'm home sick with the flu. And I'm miserable. At least I have the kids to keep me company. As for City and State news, the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) is finally getting a overhaul-something that should have been done years ago. All because of the death of a 7-year old girl. This girl was tortured by her mother and step-father and finally the state law is on the position to have a major punishment change. Currently, parents and guardians have a fairly light jail sentence if they are found convicted. Now government wants to change it to a life sentence. My question is why wasn't this already in place? A child is dead-by murder, manslaughter, accidental death, whatever. Why is it if the parent is somehow involved that the parent was not charged the same as a murderer of a stranger? Now back to the changes in ACS. Mayor and his officials have finally seen that ACS workers have way too many cases to cover and have been known to let some kids fall through the cracks. So that means more supervisors, more caseworkers, and, what I think is a great idea, retired cops/detectives to assist ACS workers in working the police (and likewise). Several years ago, I was an adoption and group home caseworker and felt that my colleagues in ACS were way too overworked. I knew that I was overworked carrying up to 88 children at one point so I knew that the ACS workers were worse. It will be interesting to see how well the changes work or if they do at all.