By Attorney David Engler
The former Director of Trumbull County Children Services resigned yesterday and was replaced by Timothy Schaffner, current director of Valley Services, which is a local social service provider with long standing contacts and contracts with CSB. This is not just a local story but one of how a dysfunctional organization can cure itself.
I wish him well in the new job and hope that his initial comments of having many friends at the agency and an appreciation for their commitment to protecting children and families does not preclude leadership that requires culture change. The death roll of children who have had direct CSB involvement over the last 9 years should be cause for institutional soul searching, not “way to go Brownie” comments.
A change of director is not enough. The problems are not going to be solved with a simple “we will fix what the State says is wrong” and be done with this ugliness. There is a wide felt sense in the Trumbull County population that CSB serves the agency is one that cannot be trusted.
Already the new director has parroted the Board’s and old Director’s misplaced belief that my actions are those of a lawyer seeking a quick dollar and publicity at CSB’s expense. That attitude will spawn additional mistakes and then litigation and lead to the proverbial fix of putting lipstick on a pig. The lipstick will be happy billboards and sugar coated statements that we protect children and-by-the-way-trust-us.
Like I said earlier, I hope Director Schaffner makes a difference. I offer my help. CSB will eventually crumble if changes are not made to the organization. CSB needs to share in accepting responsibility for the boy that died from cancer where his parents never took him for care, or the toddler that was molested in the agency or processing home studies based on fiction or allowing children to be murdered by a person they approved as a caregiver.
Director Schaffner would be the rare government bureaucrat who understood that it is healthy in any relationship to accept blame, seek forgiveness and then redeem. The relationship is with the people truly served by CSB. They are largely poor, minority, drug dependent, uneducated and abuse victims themselves. Show respect to these citizens and you will get it back in return. Do not settle for just correcting what the State says you failed to do. Seek to be a leader and adopt the model of service deliveries being pioneered across the country. And for sure: stop blaming the victims (your clients). If a child is injured, abused, neglected, murdered or dependent it is our fault. Change the culture. Please.
Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal
Also published on Family Fault Lines Blog http://familyfaultlines.com//
Attorney David Engler's Law Blog 