Incidents show room for improvement Protecting children

Twice in less than a week we have been reminded that we still have a long way to go when it comes to protecting children.

City police responded to a home for a report of disorderly conduct and found the home in deplorable conditions, with a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old sleeping on a mattress covered in trash and insects. There was no food in the house and drug paraphernalia was scattered throughout the apartment. The children were turned over to Child Protective Services.

In an unrelated incident, police responded to a home for a report of a child bleeding from the mouth after taking a used razor blade from an uncovered trash can and putting it in his mouth. Officers found two young children in the home with little food and an abundance of cockroaches throughout the home. There was a single mattress on the floor of the children’s sleeping area, no sheets or bedding and stains of feces and urine, human feces on the floor and wall of the room. CPS was informed of the incident and a family member took the children for the night.

It is unrealistic to expect Child Protective Services to know about every situation in which a child is being abused or living in conditions like the ones Jamestown police recently encountered before they happen. But these recent cases in Jamestown should be a reminder that we can always improve our awareness of the conditions that some children live with every day. We cannot allow ourselves to become insensitive to the difficult situation that some children face through no fault of their own.

We’ve said this before and it’s worth repeating. The conditions for workers in the county’s Child Protective Services department pale in comparison to the conditions many children in our community live in every day. They should continue to be our north star as we monitor CPS.