Message from the Director

Every time a child dies, there is a hole in a family and in a community. This is especially true when a child dies due to abuse or neglect.

There is an injury to society that cannot be healed. There is always someone who raised a warning that was not heeded. There are always grandparents, aunts, neighbors – people who felt a tug in their hearts that “something is wrong here,” but who could not know just how wrong. In the case of Christopher Thomas, there are extended family members and a network of foster parents who raised concerns, and who asked for help, but did not receive it.

If each positive action creates a ripple, then each child abuse fatality creates a vacuum – a vacuum of “what if” and “if only I had known.”

We are all grieving now for little Christopher Thomas. I am holding a special place in my heart for the people who tried to help, who made the call to child protective services, who tried to intervene. They are struggling with the unbearable burden of being right.

For the rest of us, there are a few things we can do. First, we must press the Governor and state legislators to develop a meaningful child fatality review for Wisconsin. We cannot afford to keep making the same mistakes that impact child safety. If you want to learn more about this issue, click here to see the letter we sent to the Legislative Audit Committee at the committee’s request last year. This letter documents the problems with our current disjointed fatality review process, and makes suggestions for moving forward. We can’t let the new Department of Children and Families continue to blame confidentiality laws or promise to get back to us in January, 2009. If there is enough political will to create a new Department to raise the profile of children’s issues, there must be enough political will to change laws that handicap child safety. The Department can be a leader in this effort.

Second, we must make sure that we are correctly identifying what went wrong and why Christopher Thomas and his sister were not safe; why Christopher did not receive well baby visits and, according to news reports, Chirstyanna’s diagnosis of failure to thrive went untreated. News stories consistently identify Crystal Keith as a foster parent. However, if she was a foster parent, there should have been two agencies providing supervision in the home – the foster parent licensing agency and the child welfare contracting agency that was responsible for Christopher’s safety. Could two agencies really have missed that level of abuse? Or, is Ms. Keith an unlicensed relative placement? In Milwaukee County, there is a severe shortage of licensed foster families available to take placements of children, and dramatic growth in the placement of children in unlicensed relative placements. Unlicensed relative placements receive less supervision and support than foster families. The question remains. Is Ms. Keith a licensed foster parent? If not, why has the Department of Children and Families allowed Ms. Keith to be called a foster parent throughout all of the news coverage? Currently, there is a great deal of anger being directed toward foster parents, which does not aid the cause of recruiting foster parents. It will be most unfortunate if the outcome of this tragedy is to reduce the availability of safe placements for foster children based on a growing negative perception of foster parents. Kids Matter has filed an open records request with the Department of Children and Families in an effort to clear up this confusion.

Finally, let’s challenge ourselves to do something positive to help children in foster and kinship care. Whether you have five minutes or five years, there are lots of things you can do to help. Click here to find out more about how to help. While Christopher’s death leaves a hole in the community, there could be no greater tribute to his young life than to fill that void with good works on behalf of abused and neglected children.

Susan Conwell