There are many people involved with the Department of Human Services who become victims. DHS is supposed to help families and keep them together, not hurt them and tear them apart. There are many families who need DHS involvement and are not getting it. There are also many families getting DHS involvement and they don’t even need it.

I know how DHS works from personal experience. I know the workers there keep their jobs by intimidating people, by forcing the families to do things they don’t want to do or may not be necessary. DHS thinks they are higher than anybody, but where were they, or what were they doing, when a child was placed in foster care protection and was still killed? Those are things that need to be looked at and taken care of; instead of wasted time on “suspected abuse” when for months the problem has been gone.

After several months of having an open case with DHS, I figured there are only two ways to deal with them – either fight back or cooperate. If you are cooperating with them, you are cooperating with personal counseling, family evaluations; you are basically putting your kids up for the taking because you’re admitting to having a problem or admitting to things that never happened. When you are signing a safety plan, you are saying your children are not safe and that would be all the more reason for DHS to pull the children out of the home. In some cases, there is not a problem. It’s only a way for the workers to have a job.

Instead of stepping in where they don’t belong, DHS needs to start putting that wasted time on the next family before the next child dies or is beaten. Instead of doing their job just to keep it, they need to start doing their job right by protecting those who need it.

April L. Tatro

Bangor