Caged Animals
How is it that Michael and Sharen Gravelle were able to adopt children?
They adopted 11 children with physical and educational disabilities. They put those 11 children in cages -- with alarms -- and called them beds. Special needs children are particularly difficult to place in adoptive homes, fine, but that does not mean that there should be decreased monitoring and care in selecting the homes. In addition to the 11 special needs children, there are at least two natural and now grown children who are testifying about abuse, mistreatment and a childhood of misery.
In the world of child advocacy large-scale reform only usually happens after mass-media coverage of some awful injustice. For example, New York City had a major overhaul of their child protective agency after the much publicized death of Elisa Izquierdo. Let us hope that cages and alarms are enough -- since thankfully these children are still alive -- to catch some political action and make some positive changes for children in the system.
They adopted 11 children with physical and educational disabilities. They put those 11 children in cages -- with alarms -- and called them beds. Special needs children are particularly difficult to place in adoptive homes, fine, but that does not mean that there should be decreased monitoring and care in selecting the homes. In addition to the 11 special needs children, there are at least two natural and now grown children who are testifying about abuse, mistreatment and a childhood of misery.
In the world of child advocacy large-scale reform only usually happens after mass-media coverage of some awful injustice. For example, New York City had a major overhaul of their child protective agency after the much publicized death of Elisa Izquierdo. Let us hope that cages and alarms are enough -- since thankfully these children are still alive -- to catch some political action and make some positive changes for children in the system.
posted by eponcz at 11:50 AM
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