RE: child deaths

["Ashley Mead" <AMead@xxxxxxxxx> (by way of Andres <NDACAN@xxxxxxxxxxx>)]

The State of Colorado has a task force called the institutional abuse team
which meets once per month in Denver and reviews all child deaths in the
State ("institutional" includes foster homes and cases in which there was
child welfare involvement)

The head of this team is
Janet Motz, Child Protection Specialist
Institutional Abuse Team Coordinator
Division of Child Welfare
Colorado State Department of Human Services

-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
[mailto:owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu] On Behalf Of
MichaelD55@aol.com
Sent:	Wednesday, January 05, 2000 12:09 AM
To:	Child Maltreatment Researchers
Subject:	Re: child deaths

Send me an address and I will send you some materials. The question is not
why but why not. Why not talk to each other after a child has been killed?
Why not have a multiagency peer intervention peer review? Why not have an
inclusive intake of cases (e.g., all child deaths) rather than just CPS
Cases? Why not have all professionals measure their failure? You very
amateur
high school athletes are measured after their games.

Several Australian states have such teams. New South Wales has published
several reports. You local decision to address child fatality is political
and cultural not scientific.

You will not be able to prevent child deaths with any accuracy sitting in
the
isolated world of one profession. You will be closer with multiple agencies.
Some of your fatal abuse/neglect cases will have previous CPS contact.
Almost
all will have health records if only to have been born in a hospital. Some
of
the families will have records in the criminal justice system. Killing a
child is not just another social problem to be solved with social
intervention alone. It is a crime.

We now have teams in all but one state in the US. Most of Canada has such
teams. Honors suggests excellence. Pursue it wherever it takes you. There
was
"no child abuse" in 1960 when I finished high school, almost "no sexual
abuse" in 1975 when I finished my formal training in child psychiatry in
1980
and almost "no fatal child abuse" most places in 1990. You will see more
changes. Seek data but don't miss the obvious.

Michael Durfee
ICAN National Center on Child Fatality Review
Los Angeles

Do a web search for Child Fatality Review. There are fine pages for Arizona,
Texas, British Columbia and others. Look at our page ican-ncfr.org and read
the California data. Look for your own multiple data systems on suspicious
child death. Find PubMed and do a search.