The dreadful story of the neglected children in Bristow continues.  Interviews with the father of the first set of neglected kids reveal even more information.  Apparently the mother, Christina Dawn Moore, does have visitation with the twins who were found wandering in diapers at a junk yard  when they were toddlers.  Their father is Daniel Tinchard who now has custody of his children.  He reported that he has made several calls regarding abuse and neglect,

According to News and Messenger:

In the past few years, Tincher estimates he made three or four complaints to Social Services – including one alleging physical abuse – regarding his twin boys. The boys live with their father in Bealeton but go to Moore’s house on selected weekends due to a visitation agreement.

A friend of the family has also made numerous complaints. 

The family friend, who attended Brentsville High School with Moore in the early 2000s, said she made close to 10 calls from 2007 to 2010 to the Prince William and Fauquier Social Services departments regarding the situation. She said she heard nothing from anyone other than a brief phone conversation with a social worker.

 

Sadly,  children are often caught in the middle of a delicate balancing act.  Social services agents must respond to every report.  At the same time, parents are guaranteed some rights of privacy.  It is not unheard of for Social Services to be used as a weapon to get even with neighbors, ex-spouses, etc. 

Children must be protected.  Sometimes we, as a society, fail at that charge because we don’t know or because the system is simply inadequate to handle the problem.  Sometimes we fail because we don’t live in a police state.  Social Services and police cannot come charging through someone’s door unless imminent threat or danger  is charged.  To some degree, social institutions are powerless because of parental rights. 

It’s easy to point fingers  at social services agencies when things go horribly wrong.  These agencies cannot discuss cases with others.  The last time I heard, they were able to tell a complaintant if a compaint was founded or unfounded.  Nothing more.  Privacy laws.  Social services work can be rewarding but those workers are often in a legal vise grip with tight parameters.  They walk a tightrope that involves protecting children, parental rights, family rights and legal limitations.  It is an underpaid, undervalued, stressful job by all accounts. 

Sadly, this won’t be the last case of child abuse.  I am all for letting people do their jobs at this point in time.  The court system and Child Protective Services have their work cut out for them.  Its times like this, however, that we need to think about the services we want cut.  Do we really want mental health and substance abuse services cut?  Do we want to cut back on public employees like social workers and police? 

Cases like this are brutal reminders about where we want our public money to go.

2 Thoughts to “Father and friend report social services unresponsive”

  1. Juturna

    Additional workers that deal with children in distress were just added. None had been added for over a decade I think. So, this is a case of just too late for these kids. The new workers were recently added and probably not available when these calls were made.

    Aside from Social Servces, which judge gave her unsupervised visitation of the first two?

    Also, I saw in the paper that if Social Services believes there is abuse (physical or sexual) they respond within 24 hours. Is this standard approved by BoS?? Must be or they would have added people sooner. There’s a lot of fault here…..

  2. That is a good question re which judge.

    It seems to me that cutting corners in this area is unacceptable. As more people move into the area, more social workers will be needed.

    Some people will run for office on cutting back necessary personnel.

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