Dear Sirs,

These opinions are solely my own. 

I don’t know the facts surrounding Niveah Gallegos’ or Chandler Grafner’s deaths.  No matter, they were undoubtedly horrible.  As long as you are handing out blame however, you should consider that for every Niveah or Chandler, there are dozens of children in similar jeopardy across Colorado at any given moment.  Sadly, these cases are not unique.

The Colorado Department of Social Services has an impossible mission.  You need to keep in mind that the call to DSS usually comes only after many other things have gone terribly wrong.  When you mix young children with parents who are little more than older children themselves, drugs, alcohol, multiple sex partners, violence, lack of income, lack of employable skills, lack of education, lack of family commitment, parents themselves victims of all manner of abuse from their parents, etc., this is what you get.  These are often un-fixable situations and people.  They are bad outcomes that might, sometimes, be able to be mitigated into less-bad outcomes.

Those are the cards that DSS deals with every day of the week, 24/7.  I’m not excusing anything DSS did or didn’t do in the above cases.  What I’m saying is, you’re living in a fantasy if you think the state can fix these broken people through some procedure.

There’s only one solution to this problem.  Stop the behaviors that lead to it.  Recognize that the burden of self-destruction falls most heavily on those least able to handle it - the kids.

Sincerely,

Brooks Imperial

Lay-community representative, Elbert County Child Protection Team

RE: Failed by Safety Net  9/29/07 RMN 

—–Original Message—–
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 12:11 PM
To: kimm@RockyMountainNews.com
Subject: Hold the perps responsible
Dear Mr. or Ms. Kim,

The RMN is flat wrong to dump on DSS for its failure to mitigate these seriously damaged lives.  You will end up forcing DSS to behave more conservatively and probably intervene in even fewer cases, and thereby leave more kids exposed to adult predators.

Don’t you get it!!?  The state simply cannot save people from themselves.  Social workers can try, and they do what they can.  But rather than dump on these first responders who get called in when all else has failed, you should be putting your microscope on the irresponsible behaviors and people that actually cause misery to children. 

You should be holding the perpetrators responsible for their perpetrations, not the imperfect first responders who are called in after the damage has already been done.

Sincerely,

Brooks Imperial

Kiowa, CO