A4
OPINION
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
DHS stats
missing
key piece
E
very month since early
in 2018, the Oregon
Department of Human
Services has been publishing
reports for Gov. Kate Brown
showing its progress to re-
build and improve the state’s
foster care system.
The monthly reports have
evolved. Some statistics that
DHS reported in the past
to the governor are no lon-
ger being reported to her.
We are not sure that’s an
improvement.
Gov. Kate Brown
requested the monthly reports
after a devastating state audit
in January 2018. The audit
showed that the state’s child
welfare system was so dis-
organized and inconsistent
it was putting the children it
served at high risk. The audit
said chronic understaffing of
caseworkers and overwhelm-
ing workloads were having a
terrible impact on the state’s
ability to care for some of
its more vulnerable children.
DHS also lacked data to track
its performance.
DHS, Gov. Brown and leg-
islators have worked together
and made many improve-
ments since then. Most nota-
ble perhaps is more case-
workers have been hired. And
Gov. Brown established a
child welfare oversight board
in April 2019 to more closely
monitor progress.
There used to be a link to
that audit on the DHS web-
site. If it’s there still, we can’t
find it. That’s a shame. It’s
a piece of history of Ore-
gon’s DHS that should never
be forgotten. The audit can
be found on the secretary of
state’s website.
What’s in the monthly
reports to the governor has
changed. They are much eas-
ier to read now. They are
more colorful. There are far
fewer numbers. Some change
is to be expected — even nec-
essary — as priorities and
problems evolve and metrics
are reexamined.
A metric we noticed that
is gone: repeat abuse. It was
a metric established to mea-
sure how often children who
are mistreated are mistreated
again.
Specifically the definition
is “of all children who were
victims of a substantiated or
indicated report of maltreat-
ment during a 12-month tar-
get period, what percent were
the victims of another sub-
stantiated or indicated mal-
treatment allegation within 12
months.” The state’s goal was
a rate of less than or equal to
9.1%, and it wanted to see the
rate decline. The state’s num-
bers were 9.6% in the sec-
ond quarter of 2017, 10.3%
in the third quarter of 2017
and 10.9% in the fourth quar-
ter of 2017, according to the
March 2018 monthly report to
the governor. In March 2020
it was 11.4%.
If you look at the more
recent reports to the gover-
nor, that repeat abuse met-
ric is missing. The state still
tracks it. It just doesn’t share
it any more in reports to the
governor.
We wanted to know why.
DHS’s short answer is: It
doesn’t really move. It stays
pretty much the same. So
DHS told us it felt like it
“did not provide a valuable
update on what happened on a
monthly basis.”
We disagree. It represents
children that are harmed
again when the state knew
they had been harmed before.
For March 2020, the total
number of child victims in
Oregon was 12,538. Of those,
11,110 were not harmed again
or did not have a report of
harm within a year. But 1,428
had been harmed again.
The repeat abuse statis-
tic may not move much,
despite the improvements
DHS is making, but it should
be reported to the governor.
It’s a sad and terrible num-
ber. One of the primary pur-
poses of Oregon’s child
welfare effort is to protect
children from future harm if
they have already experienced
maltreatment. We need to be
reminded of the failures as
well as the progress.
FARMER’S FATE
Kids, love and Oreos
T
he “F” word makes many
people feel faint — but it’s
what gives my life strength.
It’s how I identify. Actually it’s a
combination of three “F” words that
really make up the core of who I am
and what I love: family, farming and
faith.
My family, like many in agricul-
ture, I imagine, are a funny little
band of characters going through
life sharing milk and the com-
mon cold, vying to drive the nicest
tractor, hiding the chocolate from
each other, borrowing clothes and
machinery, short-sheeting the beds,
putting toothpaste inside Oreo
cookies, laughing, loving, fight-
ing, teasing and sharing the com-
mon threads that bind us together
— farming and family.
Farming was never a question:
long hours, little sleep, tight bud-
gets — it was a lifestyle I knew and
loved. But starting our own family
seemed to bring many, many hours
of “what ifs” and uncertainty. It
seemed like a much bigger commit-
ment than signing over everything
you had to the bank for the oppor-
tunity to work like a dog in hopes
that the bank would let you do it all
over the next year. But the moment
we saw each of those little baby
boys, we wished we would have
had them sooner. It was love at
first sight — we know it was love
because Dr. Seuss said you know
you’re in love when you can’t
sleep. I think he followed it up
with something like “because real-
ity is better than your dreams.” But
he could have stopped with sleep
— we certainly didn’t the first few
months. But every sleep-deprived
moment was worth it, for family is
the foundation of everything. We’re
like four volumes of the same
book — each recording different
moments, different
perspectives, differ-
ent wants and goals.
But while our chap-
ters are different,
they are bound by
the same fabric and
Brianna
thread.
Walker
One of my
favorite results
of having kids running (and often
shouting) around the house and
underfoot is the inability to be cross
all day. One can start out the day in
a bad mood, but it is nearly impos-
sible to keep that mood — they are
far too entertaining.
The other morning I came in
and grabbed the fresh load of linens
out of the dryer. I tossed the John
Deere sheet set to my oldest son,
saying, “Quick, put these on your
bed. Then we need to go swath.”
Later that night when we came in,
tired from a long day, my son asked
my help making his bed.
“I thought you made it this
morning?” I asked. He shook
his head with a smirk, “You said
put the sheets ‘on’ the bed, not
make it.” He was right. That was
exactly what I had said. We both
knew what I had meant — but his
logic was impeccable.
Only days after the sheet inci-
dent, my 3-year-old reinforced
what most seasoned parents
already know — that word spec-
ificity is paramount. I was in the
bathroom when he first toddled
out of bed and knocked on the
door of our only bathroom, our
other bathroom currently under
construction.
“Can you just go outside?” I
asked (one of the perks of living
in the country).
“Where?” he asked. “It’s cold
outside.”
“RICH OR POOR,
WE WILL KEEP
TOGETHER AND
BE HAPPY IN ONE
ANOTHER.”
—Louisa May Alcott,
“Little Women,” 1868
“Just go out the door,” I
answered, “on the porch.”
Five minutes later when my hus-
band came in for breakfast, I real-
ized just what a poor word choice
that was — but how can one have a
bad day after that? It’s those crazy
moments in life that change your
mood, that make you smile — that
create happiness. Like when my
3-year-old helped put away the gro-
ceries, taking great pride in opening
the package of plastic utensils meant
for a picnic, putting them in the sil-
verware drawer and throwing away
the box. Or when you give your
kids each a quarter of a breakfast
omelet, but your youngest wants a
bigger piece because he has a bigger
mouth. Or when he licks the frost-
ing out of the Oreo and then happily
announces he saved the cookie for
you. (That may be where the tooth-
paste-filled Oreos came in — not
that I am admitting to it.)
Those moments are love. Reality
really is better than dreams — even
though I have no difficulty falling
asleep now. It’s really hard to beat
the life of a farming family. And as
we all head out to the field, in our
different pieces of hay equipment,
I cant help smiling to myself — the
family that bales together, prevails
together.
Brianna Walker occasionally
writes about the Farmer’s Fate for
the Blue Mountain Eagle.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Government
honesty requires
accurate and
timely reporting
To the Editor:
I am certainly thankful for the
efforts local people and the county
government have made to help
avoid a COVID-19 outbreak in
Grant County and to prepare for if/
when we get more cases.
I have watched Grant County
Court meetings online and have
been reading minutes and arti-
cles over the past months. I join
many people in being dismayed at
the lack of reporting and transpar-
ency, the high overrun in approved
expenditures and how some of the
funds were spent. I remain unclear
as to why a sheriff’s deputy was
appointed to run the EOC and why
he quit.
One of the most interesting
things I have noted were the hours
said to have been spent on COVID-
19-related work by County Com-
missioners Jim Hamsher and Sam
Palmer. Included in the county
court minutes from June 10 was a
letter from Seth Klingbeil, EOC
cybersecurity officer. It stated that
Jim and Sam had each worked
1,000 hours on COVID-19 tasks.
Thinking this seemed quite high,
I started with the date they were
appointed (about March 10), did
some simple calculations and found
that each of them must have worked
11 hours a day, seven days a week
for that three months! Also, if Jim
and Sam took Sundays off, that
meant they worked 13 hours a day,
six days a week — on COVID-19
only, let alone their county court
responsibilities. I would think the
public would be as amazed as I am!
Clearly, we all should and do
appreciate the work Jim and Sam
and many others did and continue
to do. But what I look for from gov-
ernment is honesty, that is: accu-
rate and timely reporting — in
hours, activities, costs, etc. Oth-
erwise, how am I going to believe
anything that is reported from our
county government? Please respect
the citizens.
Victoria Thompson
Mt. Vernon
L
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