Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (47776)	7/29/1999 1:40:00 AM
From: JF Quinnelly	Respond to of 108807

I can't find my way around this new system. This reallllllllllllllllllllllly sucks. Way to go, Go2Net.

To: Rambi who wrote (47776)	7/29/1999 11:16:00 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

God bless you, Penni! I already knew I liked you a whole, whole lot, but I didn't realize you were a heroine! I am so proud of you. I was a guardian ad litem in a number of "those" type cases, as well as defense attorney for parents, and I learned that the social workers are usually the ones who know the score. And learned that if a social worker has a different take, they would be willing to go off somewhere quiet and talk about it, and sometimes I changed a mind or two and sometimes I had mine changed. And I know about horrors myself. Not as much as the people who did it longer than I did, but enough to know that I didn't want to do it anymore (only maybe 4 years.) It wounded me ~ the sense of accomplishment from helping others couldn't compensate. I never got treated badly, nor saw anyone else getting treated badly, except when that person was shitty to begin with ~ arrogant, condescending, supercilious. It's one thing to do the best you can for your client ~ it's another thing to treat people like dirt when you're doing it. What goes around comes around. I should say here that as a lawyer, your duty is to your client. If I had represented a man accused of child rape, which I never did, I'd have done my best to get him off if the evidence was favorable to him, but if it were against him, I'd have tried to get him to plead and get treatment. I know lawyers that will defend the man even if the evidence is against him, and that's probably the right thing to do, but I couldn't try to make someone look like a liar if I thought they were telling the truth. I think that's beyond what's required.

To: Rambi who wrote (47776)	7/29/1999 11:27:00 AM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 108807

Too many people who have never gotten their hands dirty in the muck are quick to sit in judgment on those who are daily immersed in it. I find that very unfair Which is why I asked for your perspective, and glad to have it. I have worked closely with about a dozen DSHS staff, and indirectly with some number beyond that. I have also had close communication with some of the attorneys involved in the Wenatchee case, which you have probably heard of. My generalizations were based on this admittedly limited exposure. But I have not yet worked with a social worker who started with the presumption of innocence on the part of parents or alleged abusers. There is always, IME, a sense of "where there's a report of a problem that's smoke, where there's smoke there must be fire, so rather than investigate whether there really is a fire or whether it is just a BBQ on somebody's porch, we are going in with hoses on full blast to root out and extinguish this fire." I think some social workers are traumatized by the cases, one highly publicized here, where citizens call in with concerns about a child and the child is left with the parents and soon thereafter the child is badly beaten or killed. Tragic cases, all. But I think they act to set up a certain paranoia among some aid workers. I notice the same thing among DV counsellors here -- basically, any woman who says she has been a victim of domestic violence is, and any possible facts to the contrary are either inventions or meaningless. BTW, in Washington the recognition of problems with DSHS has gone so far that there are plans underway in the legislature to break the department up to make it more responsive. I don't know that that will solve any of the problems, since it's obvious that I think the root cause is attitudinal, but at least some light is being shone in some dark corners.