It's interesting that this particular case concludes within a couple of days of my starting this new blog as I became very interested in changes that had been happening within Maine's Department of Children and Families, otherwise known as "Child Protective Services" under the Governor Paul LePage administration that coincided with the death of this particular child.
LePage told a television station Wednesday that he supports the death penalty "for those that kill babies" and feels DHHS has "gone from one extreme to another" when it decides whether to remove a child from a home in which abuse is suspected.
The department has been criticized in the past for being too quick to remove a child, LePage said, but now, "sometimes we're putting them back too quickly and sometimes we're not taking them out fast enough."
I personally believe that LePages problem with Maine's child welfare system was because many of the positive reforms were due to services provided to parents and were paid for by DHHS, otherwise falling under the auspice of welfare. I am less apt to believe that a national model child welfare system was not doing the job. These services however did help to keep children safe from abuse and neglect while still in the home or while staying with another family member such as a grandparent while keeping them out of the much more expensive foster care system.
The governor and other state officials worry that a shift in policy may be leaving too many youngsters in harm’s way.
Sadly however, I feel that this is simply a case of LePage sticking his nose into issues that he does not understand while constantly criticizing the cost of better ways.
But anyway, Gordon Collins-Faunce will spend the next 20 or so years in jail because he killed his son, but that will not quench the thirst for justice from the self-righteous who will probably think that he deserves to never again see the light of day, as could be demonstrated by this screenshot of a couple of comments from an article on the Morning Sentinel.
I disagree with these people that justice was not served in this case. While I do agree that Ethan Henderson's death was horrible and could have been prevented, I do not agree that we should put Gordon Collins-Faunce to death as Governor LePage would suggest or keep him locked up for the rest of his life. There are a lot of different factors in this case such as possible issues with psychiatric medication stemming from a history of child abuse that he experienced as a kid.
"Police said that Collins-Faunce was physically and sexually abused as a child by different foster parents."
Which, of course, should suggest that Maine's Foster Care System isn't the safe solution for vulnerable children as the state would like you to believe. I won't get into similar claims that are being made by the Wabanaki as that is deserving of it's very own blog post, but I do have to wonder what exactly is meant by the phrase "Different (or 'various' as was used in other articles) foster parents" means. Especially since they still manage to keep the issue swept under the rug and because it logically claims that the guy was raped by more than one foster parent, and that's a scary thought.
Anyway, this is the top story of the day. Here are a few of the links.
