Friday, April 3, 2015

Dead Babies in Day Care: like Bonnie Tyler We're "Holding Out for a Hero" this month in the Washington State Senate

April 2, 2015: with SHB 1126 in the Washington State legislature in regard to the so-called "child fatality review" bill and wondering what might get through to the legislature to understand it is only a bill to protect failed DSHS and DEL managers I sent the email based on my experience, my expertise and expert opinion below with a link to Bonnnie Tyler's song, "Holding Out for a Hero":

Subject: Bonnie Tyler, babies, kids and I are "Holding Out for a Hero" well, for a majority of heroes in the Senate to kill the bill in committee or to vote no on SHB 1126 - babies dying in day care, a bill to protect failed managers in the future

Dear Senators,
 
Those who know and don't know me I survived working inside DSHS and DEL for over 20 years as well as when I was getting my masters in social work administration I did an internship which introduced me to the workings of the state senate where on my first visit I witnessed Senator Talmadge ranting and raving at the CPS administrators lying, I mean testifying that day.  The senator accused them of lying and I thought, "Well, he's right."   I'd recently at that time confronted my supervisor for going into the computer and closing out some of my cases that I was still waiting for documents on those cases.  He closed them out to make his statistics look good, the statistics the senate and house would see.  The facade, the charade, the smoke and mirrors.
 
So we're "Holding out for a Hero" on this one, lots of heroes to vote no on SHB 1126.  Please.
 
 
When you guys pulled day care licensing out of DSHS in 2006 I was there at a senate meeting where one of the senators was begging the first director Jone Bosworth to say, to promise that this change meant no connection any longer to the DSHS Behemoth. The senate basically asked her to "pinky swear" that the talons and fangs of DSHS were no longer in at least the babies and children whose parents must go to work to keep the economy humming along and the tax money pouring.  
 
Jone, who used to work for the Foreign Service, the state department, Bosworth lied and pinky swore DEL and DSHS no connection, no longer.  DSHS is still connected through the worst things that can happen to children in day care; and now none of that information is put on DEL's website.  Just how many providers are operating with a "founded" CPS incident?  How many?  Find that out, dig that our of DEL's cold dead hands.   We don't know and Child Care Beware, I mean, Child Care Aware doesn't know either and absolutely parents don't and  won't know except maybe unless their baby dies, they hire a law firm and the media does a story. 
 
As I was on my yoga mat this morning pondering all this history it struck me that Congress with their "hearings", their rantings, ravings, pathetic beseeching, anger, thundering at BIG banks, BIG tobacco, BIG Pharma that they are as helpless and powerless as parents and citizens feel in facing BIG day care.  They don't even know about Michael Milkin, convicted felon from the S & L Scandal days, and Army Generals to begin to even analyze the "failures" happening in day care, not just in our great state but across the nation.   As a national expert/analyst I've seen the records and depositions; it is across the nation (oh and in Canada as well).  
 
The same for the state of Washington.  One year you guys in the senat gave it a big go, you actually had heard about the domestic violence done inside DSHS; done to the line workers by their managers. Talk about your sound and fury.  You had a special hearing to have line workers tell you the truth.  Funny, my supervisor never let me know the hearing was happening, didn't invite me "to tell" or I would have been there.  Thanks to Denny Heck and his creation of TVW I happened to be in Yakima visiting a political friend and saw the hearing on TV.
 
Ah, who did my supervisor choose?  Solid union folks (you know there is a reason supervisors get to be in the union don't you?) to tell you everything was hunky dory.  We had a training by the Washington State Patrol once on "violence in the workplace" ostensibly it was to deal with our clients who might want to do violence to us social workers.  I, of course, asked (with three supervisors in the room) "What about violence of managers to their employees?"  The Washington State Patrol Officer didn't miss a beat and acknowledged it was happening all over the great state of Washington in DSHS and to not report to your union but to call 911.
 
So dear senators, you who I've been watching for almost 25 years for those of you who do feel powerless and helpless watch Bonnie Tyler sing "Holding Out of a Hero" and grow a backbone, some balls or some ovaries and face these bureaucratic managers down.  Like cockroaches they will scurry away when the light gets shined on them brightly.  
 
And it's not just senators and representatives its also the Fourth Estate, the media who has been solely lacking in their "investigative" reporting as what happened with Channel 13 last year.  It was more collusion and how do we make the media look good.  Everyone's trying to "look" good, like we have shameful family secrets to hide. Let the light shine, you and we, we will all feel better.

So where are all the good and brave investigative reporters in Washington State?  Yes, and I do have the emails from 2005 where DSHS was "crafting" how to "control", spin the media to their way.  We're holding out for a hero in the media as well.  The media has been as powerless as you and the parents whose children were abused, injured, maimed and died in day care.
 
 
The laws are all ready there to hold them accountable, use those laws and please stop making laws to protect these failed individuals who are causing harm and sometimes death to our babies and children.
 
What is really sad as well is we only sometimes get to talk about the dead ones.  We haven't even touched upon the ones in day care who were horribly traumatized, bullied and denigrated by licensed providers. You haven't seen some of these providers in enraged fury destroy the souls of little ones in their care.   Children can't do well in school if their little souls have been twisted and decimated by being in environments that have hurt them terribly.
 
Don't even bring this bill to the floor for a vote.  Don't let your name be in the column that says "yes" you voted for this bill. 
 
Come on senators especially Jim Hargrove, turn up the speakers on your laptops and let Bonnie belt it out and move you to hero status.
 
Please don't let the bill come to the floor or if it does please vote no.
 
I don't know who needs to finally pull the scandal that is day care licensing out of the shadows.  At this juncture of my latest attempts and doings it is to at least attempt to warn parents; maybe 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, NPR, Democracy Now, how do we get to a larger audience to tell parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles and friends the Russian Roulette being played by the administrators and the director of DEL and their failure of duty to license day care within the laws that are all ready on the books?
 
Where is the governor in all this?  Jay and I go way back to Yakima and his first campaign.  I pounded yard signs into front lawns for Jay.   There's only one degree of separation between him and Bette.  Bette Hyde.  Don't let her hide behind this bill. 
 
If you like the cowboy version of "Holding out for a Hero", here's Bonnie Tyler's original below.
 
Holding Out for a Hero,
 
Margo Logan
 

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