I have a neighbor who only has his son on the weekends. Unfortunately, he never takes care of his child (i.e., he always sleeps while the child visits, doesn’t feed the child properly, which has resulted in many cavities). The child would fend for his father no matter what even though he is being neglected by him. What course of action should be taken, especially considering that a lot of these things are hard to prove? Would any outside help do anything about this?
How can I alert the social services in this instance and actually have something done about it?
July 11, 2011
call the local CPS Child protective services in your towna nd reprot what you have seen they will take from there.
You can report it repeatedly, every time you see the child being neglected. Also have other witnesses report it. After “X” number of reports they will investigate.
What does the mother say or do? Is she aware of the problem? She might be court ordered to have the child there on weekends and she might not have the ability to do anything EVEN IF the child is being maltreated or neglected. Court orders are lovely aren’t they?
Another sad thing is that the child protection system has had so many cut backs they are unable to help most of the children they should help. The “lower taxes” republicans can be thanked for that. I hope Paris Hilton enjoys her tax cuts because they come at the cost of the lives of children.
If you know anyone in the child’s family you might want to find out more.
Like I said though, report it to child protective services over and over. Every time.
First let me say that the cavities aren’t just from weekend visits (although it doesn’t help). Call your local child services agency and let them know what you suspect; however, beware that they may ask you for some type of proof. Also beware that they may call the father to set up a meeting, so it gives him time to clean up, get food in the house, etc. If you can get pictures or any other evidence before calling then do just that. Good luck and don’t stand by when a child needs someone’s help.
this is a tough question, First I would let welfare know what was going on. Most of the time your name will never be brought into it, and you will have tried to do something. Yes, it usually hard to prove anything in these cases,but they will make a report and visit the man. Sometimes they will just pop up to see what is going on. In some cases they will interview the neighbors and ask a lot of questions. They will most likely talk to the mother and see if she has noticed anything. good luck
I’ll be honest with you, you will probably have a hard time having this one go anywhere. How old is the child? When you say he “never takes care of his child” what do you mean? You say that he sleeps while the child visits but unless the child is really young (like a new born left in the middle of the floor while he sleeps for 8 hours) it seems like your report would be considered way too vague for an investigatioln to come out of it.
I say, if you are conserned, definaltey report it. Even if they do not investigate, if something really serious happens in the future (like you notice that the child is left alone to play in the street at 2 AM) you would have started a paper trail as to the mistreatment of the child so there will be a history of what is going on in the home on CPS’s intake database.
Some one mentioned that the mom might be court ordered to bring her child to the father, but if the mom suspects abuse, she can always go back to court and fight to have the visitations with the father terminated.
Thank you for being so conserned for this child. Not enough people would take the time to care.