Santa Clara County Department of Family and Children's Services Social Work Supervisor Susannah Moore speaks during the Board of Supervisors meeting in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. Social workers and supervisors from the Santa Clara County Department of Family and Children’s Services spoke out at the Board of Supervisors meeting about child welfare practices focusing on keeping families together that played a role in the fentanyl overdose death of 3-month-old baby Phoenix Castro. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
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Interview policy keeps
abused kids invisible
Re: “Abuse policy draws outrage” (Page A1, March 3).
I’m a member of the Santa Clara County Child Abuse Prevention Council and Child Death Review team but do not speak for them. Sunday’s article demonstrates how the Department of Family and Children’s Services and county counsel encourage social workers investigating reports of suspected child abuse and neglect to interview children in front of the very parents/caretakers suspected to have maltreated them, thereby intentionally enabling and encouraging nondisclosure and recantation, which further endangers and emotionally abuses those very children.
This only confirms that they are continuing, even in the face of their reckless and negligent handling of the baby Phoenix Castro case, to deprioritize child safety in order to reduce the number of children of color in the system, even if it means intentionally keeping child abuse and neglect behind closed doors where it can thrive, and where those children can accumulate ongoing trauma while remaining invisible.
Steve Baron
Cupertino
PG&E should return
profits to ratepayers
It is outrageous that PG&E has profited to the tune of $1.3 billion on the backs of ratepayers. They must be forced to return the profits to ratepayers as refunds.
And where is the Newsom-appointed CPUC in this? They have abdicated their responsibility.
Jagane Sundar
Saratoga