Child deaths deserve our, lawmakers' attention

For Ohioans who care about making sure no child slips through the cracks in our system, data out of Franklin County is nothing short of appalling. The county's Children Services agency has seen a horrifying FIVE child deaths in a little more than a year. According to a report by WBNS, state Rep. Dontavius Jarrells, D-Columbus, has had enough. "It's heartbreaking," Jarrells told the news station. "It's an opportunity for us to really have a hard conversation around our system of care." To that end, Jarrells says his office is drafting legislation after hearing the excuses from Franklin County Children Services. They say they don't have authority to remove a child from a home without the help of law enforcement or juvenile court, for example. In fact, much of what came from FCCS sounded a lot like "It's complicated, you wouldn't understand."Jarrells appears to be giving it a try, anyway. "We have a youth ombudsman office in practice now. There's not enough teeth to the office itself to go in if there is actual evidence of child abuse," Jarrells told WBNS. "That they can go in, remove the child, do an investigation and see exactly what's going on in that home."There is no doubt bureaucracy gets in its own way, to the detriment of our kids, in many instances. Certainly, across the Ohio River, West Virginia has been tackling similar issues with its own Child Protective Services. But Jarrells is right to understand these deaths are not the only tragedies in need of addressing. He'd like his bill to expand the number of mandatory reporters of child abuse. He wants to improve the system for placing children once they are removed from their homes, according to WBNS. "I don't want to see a child removed from a home that was abusive, and they only find themselves in the criminal justice system because we lost them, right?" he told the news station. Right. Should Jarrells' office produce a common sense and compassionate plan that moves toward solving this problem — and avoiding greater failure to protect our most vulnerable children — lawmakers should give it serious consideration. At the very least, it must spark a thorough, honest look at where we've gone wrong; and how we can fix it. Ogden Newspapers