Relisha Rudd

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am new to this horrible story. The most maddening thing is that not a single adult is taking ANY personal responsibility for what happened. It’s all excuses mixed with “embellishments” such as Antonio supposedly confronting Tatum during a smoke break from questioning. Even though the author is trying to portray them as victims, I just can’t have sympathy for people who think they’ve done nothing wrong in this situation. Truly depressing and if anyone had to suffer why could it not have been the adults, and not the poor little girl...

This was so odd. I didn't follow the case super closely but it was the first time I'd heard this information. The podcaster did in a rare moment of removing her rose colored glasses mention that this made her skeptical. I was like OH REALLY?! Now you're skeptical. She's too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am new to this horrible story. The most maddening thing is that not a single adult is taking ANY personal responsibility for what happened. It’s all excuses mixed with “embellishments” such as Antonio supposedly confronting Tatum during a smoke break from questioning. Even though the author is trying to portray them as victims, I just can’t have sympathy for people who think they’ve done nothing wrong in this situation. Truly depressing and if anyone had to suffer why could it not have been the adults, and not the poor little girl...

This was so odd. I didn't follow the case super closely but it was the first time I'd heard this information. The podcaster did in a rare moment of removing her rose colored glasses mention that this made her skeptical. I was like OH REALLY?! Now you're skeptical. She's too much.

I wondered about that too. I thought the follow up question would be to ask Antonio if he thought Kahlil Tatum and "Dr." Tatum were the same person! Since the doctor was getting discussed by the police and then there's the janitor with the Same Name outside.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naive if you think that none of this is already happening. Once there has been a CFSA referral, they are all in your business, most lack adequate training to actually help families. They moreso are in the business of making threats and covering up the fact that they are under-resourced. DC General was roach, mold, and rat infested at the time.

I’ve made sadly a fair share of referrals to CFSA. I haven’t seen any result in major changes in the lives of those kids or families. In fact nothing seemed to change.

Why is that? Looking to learn here. Is it resistance from the families?

In every state, CFS is more or less a disaster. It doesn’t attract too talent. Have you ever heard anyone say this is their dream job? No. And the idealists who go in burn out fast. The SWers have large caseloads and not enough resources to give families for support. Periodically, a kid dies and then there is a big deal made, caseloads go down, and caseworkers get pressured to take more kids away from parents. Then attention drifts and people get upset about kids being unnecessarily taken away from parents, and the pendulum shifts back. CFS has a bad reputation so no one really wants to make a report on someone they care about or unless they are very sure kid is being very abused. Plus there aren’t enough good foster homes especially for older kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naive if you think that none of this is already happening. Once there has been a CFSA referral, they are all in your business, most lack adequate training to actually help families. They moreso are in the business of making threats and covering up the fact that they are under-resourced. DC General was roach, mold, and rat infested at the time.

I’ve made sadly a fair share of referrals to CFSA. I haven’t seen any result in major changes in the lives of those kids or families. In fact nothing seemed to change.

Why is that? Looking to learn here. Is it resistance from the families?

In every state, CFS is more or less a disaster. It doesn’t attract too talent. Have you ever heard anyone say this is their dream job? No. And the idealists who go in burn out fast. The SWers have large caseloads and not enough resources to give families for support. Periodically, a kid dies and then there is a big deal made, caseloads go down, and caseworkers get pressured to take more kids away from parents. Then attention drifts and people get upset about kids being unnecessarily taken away from parents, and the pendulum shifts back. CFS has a bad reputation so no one really wants to make a report on someone they care about or unless they are very sure kid is being very abused. Plus there aren’t enough good foster homes especially for older kids.

+1

My sister worked for CPS in NYC right out of college. Within 6 months on the job she accrued a month of leave from overtime (ex: a kid ends up in crisis at the hospital at 4:00 pm, whoever is on duty stays with the kid all night and gets overtime from 5 pm on) and she was a senior member of her department after 6 months. It’s a brutal bureaucracy and the things you see and hear are horrifying.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I was stumped by that too. Who was the little girl relish a was supposedly playing with all the time when she would go off with Khalil?

[Anonymous]

I thought it was interesting that Shamika’s sister seemed to be a reasonably functional person. She was raised in foster care but not in residential care like Shamika.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was interesting that Shamika’s sister seemed to be a reasonably functional person. She was raised in foster care but not in residential care like Shamika.

Someone mentioned upthread that Shamika may have FASD. I have no idea if that is actually the case, but if it is, perhaps her sister was spared some of the deficits Shamika may have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was interesting that Shamika’s sister seemed to be a reasonably functional person. She was raised in foster care but not in residential care like Shamika.

The sister did attend a therapeutic school but I don't know if it was residential. She does appear infinitely more on the ball than Shamika so either the interventions helped or she was in a better place to respond or both. My own children have a range of abilities and aptitudes so it makes sense to me that the children would vary in their responses to their upbringing.

[Anonymous]

The usual business of normalizing things that are anything but normal. The kids grew up in a horrendous environment without a single fully functional adult. There is no chance for them. Even the oldest who is in foster care has seen too much and received too little early on to be fully functional.
Just like it’s a common belief that concentrated poverty is bad, there should be a belief that concentrated dysfunction is also something that needs to be taken apart and redistributed if I may. Kids like Relisha and her siblings need to be taken away early on, and people like adults around her should not have a single incentive to have kids.

[Anonymous]

"Kids like Relisha and her siblings need to be taken away early on, and people like adults around her should not have a single incentive to have kids."

People shouldn't be allowed to live on the streets. You come into town you go into a facility for mental health, job training, or substance abuse. As a society we have to make some decisions about people that can't make decisions for themselves. Allowing someone to live under a bridge for decades and then acting sad when they freeze to death is idiotic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The usual business of normalizing things that are anything but normal. The kids grew up in a horrendous environment without a single fully functional adult. There is no chance for them. Even the oldest who is in foster care has seen too much and received too little early on to be fully functional.
Just like it’s a common belief that concentrated poverty is bad, there should be a belief that concentrated dysfunction is also something that needs to be taken apart and redistributed if I may. Kids like Relisha and her siblings need to be taken away early on, and people like adults around her should not have a single incentive to have kids.

I don’t disagree in theory but there aren’t enough stable foster homes for these kids. Some of the foster homes are worse than living with the parents because they just take in kids for the cash.

[Anonymous]

I am PP and have worked with kids who are essentially wards of the state and live in group homes. Their outcomes are not much better than kids who grow up in dysfunctional homes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am PP and have worked with kids who are essentially wards of the state and live in group homes. Their outcomes are not much better than kids who grow up in dysfunctional homes.

Yes. I was involved in an investigation into a group home in DC years ago and it was bad. A bunch of teens died, largely because they lost track of them. The people running it were incompetent crooks. I had a friend who worked in a group home for girls in another state. She was tough and committed and I think she lasted a year. It’s really demanding work—underpaid, long hours, physical dangers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am PP and have worked with kids who are essentially wards of the state and live in group homes. Their outcomes are not much better than kids who grow up in dysfunctional homes.

Yes. I was involved in an investigation into a group home in DC years ago and it was bad. A bunch of teens died, largely because they lost track of them. The people running it were incompetent crooks. I had a friend who worked in a group home for girls in another state. She was tough and committed and I think she lasted a year. It’s really demanding work—underpaid, long hours, physical dangers.

Yes, I agree. It’s really bad.

What’s the answer, though? It feels like only a failed society would let children live at DC General. I haven’t heard much about the smaller family shelters, but I didn’t hear much about DC General until Relisha went missing (and I worked at school with kids who lived at DC General, they didn’t talk about the conditions much.)

[Anonymous]

Am I the only one who was surprised to hear Jackie Bensen described as white? I really thought she was biracial.