CA Assigns ‘Child Protection Czar’. Hope For Children or More Bureacracy ?

Over a year ago I reported about Gabriel Fernandez, an 8-year old who, after repeated cries for help, was beaten to death by his mother and her boyfriend.

This week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 1 to appoint a “child protection czar” who would make “sweeping changes in the way the county protects abused and neglected children.”

I’m not sure how one person—with the title “czar”—will be better equipped to protect the thousands of children in California who’ve fallen through the Grand Canyon-sized cracks in the Child Protective system. According to the LA Times,

“The child welfare czar would report directly to the supervisors and would be responsible for developing a countywide funding and policy strategy for the Department of Children and Family Services and all other county departments that are responsible for services to abused children or youths at risk of abuse.”

My hope and prayer is that this simply isn’t a matter of more government workers with more government paperwork to sort through and decipher instead of ‘boots on the ground’ type people who might actually physically get those children out of the hands of the monsters hurting them.

But I guess that’s why I’m not a social worker…

Here is the interview I did last year with Gabriel Fernandez’ teacher, who saw his abuse firsthand and tried her best to save his life—but whose cries, like Gabriel’s, were ignored.