Child Protective Services Failure – A Tale of Two Boys Who Suffered Abuse

They are a microcosm of the failures of the Child Protective Services System - two young men whose stories clearly illustrate two sides of the same coin. It was a chance encounter in the middle of Union Station in downtown Washington, D.C. As we talked with these young men, I realized that their stories were perfect demonstrations of why Dee Prince, Whitney Manning, and I joined hundreds of other parents and activists in our nation's capitol for the Million Parent March events of September 17 - 19, 2017. One of them had grown up in the foster care system since age 3, and told that he and his siblings had been abandoned by their mother because she didn't care. After he aged out of the system at age 18, he found out he had been lied to, as he was reunited with his mother and siblings. He was never abused in his home. The other young man grew up being abused in his home, and there were people who knew, who saw, yet did nothing. They left a scared, hurting little boy in a bad situation and didn't intervene. The contrast in their stories is riveting, yet it is something that I hear on almost a daily basis. The Child Protective System failed the children in both cases. Why?