國際: New York Missed or Ignored Signs on Girl Who Died
By RAY RIVERA
Published: October 5, 2010
From Newyork times
A 4-year-old Brooklyn girl who weighed 18 pounds when she died in September appears to have gone months without a visit from child welfare workers assigned to monitor her well-being, despite indications that she could be at risk, New York’s child welfare agency revealed on Tuesday.
The agency offered a wrenching glimpse into the final months of the girl, Marchella Pierce, whose home care, it said, was “grossly inadequate.” It also found that her mother beat her with a videocassette case for punishment and tied her to a bed “for substantial periods of time.”
In a preliminary report released at a City Council hearing, the agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, provided its most detailed look yet at the events that preceded the death of Marchella, whose bruised and emaciated body was found in her family’s Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment on Sept. 2.
The report outlines a series of failures by the agency and a private provider that missed or ignored signals that the girl’s mother — who had a known history of substance abuse and who continued to fail drug tests even after the agency became involved with the family — seemed incapable of tending to her daughter’s serious medical needs.
Her mother, Carlotta Brett-Pierce, 30, who is facing charges that include second-degree assault, has told investigators that she had tied Marchella to a bed at night to keep her from taking food from the refrigerator and making a mess.
“Clearly, Marchella Pierce was a vulnerable child, and as a city we needed to do more to help her,” John B. Mattingly, the commissioner of children’s services, told council members during more than two hours of questions and testimony.
The findings, agency officials said, exposed systemic flaws inside the agency that persisted even after the beating death of 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown inside a Brooklyn apartment in January 2006 led to a series of reforms that were intended to protect children from abuse.
The problems in the Marchella Pierce case extended to an outside health care provider hired by the city to monitor her family until its contract expired in June.
The girl was born more than three months prematurely, had severely underdeveloped lungs and spent most of her life in hospitals. A twin sister died at birth. Marchella needed the help of a tracheal tube when she returned home for good in February. She weighed less when she died than when she had been released from the hospital and “was not normal weight even for a child with significant medical problems since birth,” the report said.
Although awaiting further autopsy results to determine the cause of death, agency officials said they intended in their final report to indicate that the girl was abused and neglected.
Children’s Services started monitoring the family in November after Ms. Brett-Pierce was found with drugs in her system when she gave birth to a son. In January, the agency assigned the case to Child Development Support Corporation, a Brooklyn-based provider, to work with the family and to help the mother with her drug problems.
But the city agency failed to properly assess the girl’s condition and plan for her care with Child Development Support before she returned home, the report said. That failure was compounded by inadequate home visits and assessments by both the agency and the outside provider, the report stated.
The city agency had no record that its child protective staff had any contact with the family after a brief visit on the night of March 2. That visit came after the girl’s mother took her to a hospital; her tracheal tube had fallen out, and a hospital worker, concerned about the mother’s ability to take care of the child, contacted authorities.
An agency investigator who visited the family that night reported that Marchella and her two brothers — one the infant, the other now 5 — appeared fine, but that the mother was hostile and should be evaluated on her ability to care for a child with special needs.
But neither a Children’s Services supervisor nor an assigned caseworker opened a new investigation as they should have, the report said. Nor did agency records indicate that its staff had any further contact with the family, the report said.
The girl’s father, Tyrone Pierce, is separated from Ms. Brett-Pierce.
During a review in June, an agency caseworker said he had visited the home on June 9 but no one was home. After the girl’s death, however, the same worker said he had seen the children and a grandmother on that visit.
The Child Protective Services unit in Brooklyn assigned to the case also reported after the girl’s death that her home had been visited and that the children were seen on April 6, July 22 and Aug. 12, the report said. But the visits were not recorded, and agency officials now appear to doubt that they ever took place.
A supervisor in the unit and the caseworker assigned to the case have been suspended for 30 days without pay pending a further investigation.
The report also faulted the agency’s oversight of Child Development Support and gave a scathing assessment of the provider’s handling of the case, calling it “woefully inadequate.” A caseworker there, for example, saw Marchella only three times between February and June, when its contract ended.
In February, a supervisor with the provider noted that Ms. Brett-Pierce was not complying with her drug treatment program. And in March, the treatment program told the provider that she had again tested positive for marijuana, had not met with her counselor in weeks and had threatened a program employee.
Yet on none of those occasions did the outside provider contact the city agency or the state’s central child abuse register to voice concerns, or to call for an elevated risk or child safety conference, as was required, the report said.
Marcia Rowe-Riddick, executive director of Child Development Support, has defended its handling of the case and said she was dumbfounded by the report.
“The most I can say is it’s disingenuous and incomplete,” she said. "It’s unbelievable that they continue to throw us under the bus in this case when they had responsibility for it the last two months. The fact remains: when we were in the home there was nothing going on and the child was still alive.”
Children’s Services assumed sole responsibility of the case after Child Development Support’s contract ended. As a result of the girl’s death, the agency has asked the state to help it review cases returned to the city agency’s monitoring from the outside provider. The agency also outlined a series of steps it intends to take to fix holes in the system that led to mistakes in Marchella’s case, including closer supervision of outside providers.
性質: 精神性、防禦性、受益權、公民權/ 第3,5,25條
感想:
從這則新聞事件可以了解，孩童在一個長期吸毒的母親不妥的照顧下，社會局理當該時常介入，甚至應該採取強制手段將小孩託給社會局的專門單位照顧。新聞甚至指出，小孩有受到家暴的痕跡。當小孩被發現死亡時，已經有一段時間了。這時候社會局人員開始互踢皮球，堅稱他們在4月、7月和 8月 都有去該名女童家探視。但當他們從報告中發現母親已經有一段時間沒有去接受定期毒性檢測時，社會局人員理當判斷是否她們家出了什麼問題，但社工人員並沒有採取行動而造成了這場遺憾。施暴者理當被判刑，但因為社工人員的疏忽而導致一條生命白白葬送，是否也是忽略了該名女孩的人權?
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國內: 資歷最菜吞丙 公務員看精神科
2010/10/05 03:04 朱真楷／專訪
中國時報【朱真楷／專訪】
考試院大力推動《考績法》修法，早在去年試辦「三％丙等」。但十八位被打丙的「苦主」，最高職位僅達科長，一名二職等的公務員，丙等理由竟是「職等太低」；有位連續七年拿甲的績優人員，甚至只因換新單位變成「菜鳥」，硬是被迫吞丙，情緒嚴重受創，如今得定期向精神科報到。
為試驗「三％丙等」可行性，考試院去年偕同轄下考選部、銓敘部、公務員退撫基金會及保訓會，與行政院所屬四機關先行試辦，最後祭出十八個丙。只是，儘管考試院宣稱已設置「十五項丙等條件」，但事實是否真的如此？
一位考績被打丙等的考試院人員，因為害怕會被秋後算帳，儘管同意現身說法，但仍堅持不願曝光。
他說，年過半百才很不容易考上公務員，在單位負責收發文；未料去年試辦結果出爐，「我的單位同事全部都是高考進來，只有我職等最低，結果上司坦白跟我說：『你被打丙，是因為你職等低、業務少。』」
「我負責收發，工作就是轉交公文，收發業務少是因為別人的公文業務少啊！」他氣憤地說，「難道職等低就該死？工作本來就是各司其職，我職等不高，有錯嗎？」
另位吃丙的人員表示，擔任公職三十年考績是「甲遠多於乙」，但九十五年時，因業務得罪司長「身邊紅人」，從此記號上身，屢次被威脅，「你今年考績不想要了是不是？」直到去年，這位司長在一次司務會議上，竟暗示所有人「我是土地公，要加減拜喔！」
他表示，事後有位科長私下警告他說，「司長說丙等就是你了，還說要開始搜集你的缺點，準備寫滿兩大張。」「果然名單一出來，就是我！」他說，更荒謬的是，他日前申請退休，長官為了安撫他的情緒，上半年的考績竟然得甲，「我要是真的這麼臭，半年能從丙變成甲嗎？」
最離譜的是一位台大畢業、過去七年在檔案局考績年年得甲的人員，因表現優異去年九月借調保訓會，最後竟因「最菜」，成了裡頭唯一吃丙的人；雖向銓敘部申訴仍被打回票，「黑掉」的他想請調其他單位也都不如意，情緒嚴重受創，目前也向精神醫師求助中。
性質: 防禦性、受益權/第22,23條
心得:
如果是工作不認真或沒有達到工作績效而考績丙等無話可說。可是以資歷深淺來打考績使否有被歧視的嫌疑? 人權宣言第23條提到:「每一個工作的人，有權享受公正與合適的報酬」。如此不公正的考評方式，已經失去了考評當初真正的立意，而淪為某些特權人士的報復工具。對於那些工作權遭威脅的人，實為一種歧視。最好的辦法是尋找權力救濟的管道，讓這個考評制度能夠回歸到公平審核的原則。
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