As someone who has adopted 3 children from Los Angeles county, this story from the LA Times made me furious. Basically, the LA County Department of Child and Family Services are in charge of looking after kids who are in foster care. People give the department gift cards and other things to give the kids, basically to make their lives less miserable.
It seems that some of the workers in the department used the gift cards to buy themselves lunch and other perks. My favorite? Apparently they spent $14,000 for 160 tickets to the musical Wicked. The tickets were supposed to go to foster kids and their mentors. Turns out, only about 106 tickets went to the kids and the mentors. The others went to department employees, their families, and friends.
The people who did this are truly disgraceful. This does more than take gifts away from kids who could really use some kindness in their lives. This kind of action makes good folk less likely to give in the future, because they don't want to see their gifts go to county workers.
I hope everyone involved gets fired. And prosecuted. Unfortunately, they'll probably get 3 day suspension, and a nasty note in their file...
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3 comments:
This is so interesting. (and sad) Many people in Ukraine ask me what the child care system is like in America and I have to be honest, that I don't know much about how our foster care system works.
I feel so out of touch, I don't even know what 'wicked' is. Of course I remember how big a fan Richard is of musical theater.
I am the king of musical theater! Wicked is, I think, a musical. Haven't seen it.
Michelle--the foster care system works like all government bureaucracies. There are some good people working hard to make life better for some really unlucky kids. But there are also people who couldn't care less about the kids. They like power and a secure position.
A couple of yeas ago, a study was done of the LA county foster care system. They found that abuse and fraud were rampant. The group that did the study (can't remember who it was right now) came to the conclusion that most of the kids in the system would be better off back in the homes they had been taken out of. It's a really sad situation, and totally avoidable...
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