We interrupt this message to bring you a success story

Paul Carpenter

August 24, 2008

When there is somebody on the telephone who is pitching a fit, usually the best approach is to hang up.

There was something fascinating, however, about the caller who assailed me for assailing KidsPeace, the huge and (hitherto) fabulously lucrative establishment that is based in the Lehigh Valley but operates in 10 states, supposedly to treat troubled children.

She did not agree to let me use her real name, so let's call her Anna Macitti.

Many people called or wrote to comment, one way or the other, on my Aug. 15 column about the scandals that have hit KidsPeace and what I called a symbiotic relationship between government social service agencies and the so-called care-giving outfits that profit from agency placements.

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The more I listened to Anna analyzing my character flaws, however, the more I thought about what must happen to children put under the control of someone like her, with no option for hanging up.

Anna's main point, I think, was that it was unconscionable for me to write about any part of the vast social services network without having worked in that network, as has she.

That, I guess, means I cannot write about corruption, illegalities, the abuse of power, public school failures, misrule or other offenses until I actually engage in such things.

''Why don't you write about our success stories?'' Anna demanded.

I replied that back when I was writing extensively about county children and youth agencies and the rest of the social services juggernaut, I heard from hundreds of people with horror stories. I never heard from a single individual who said he or she had been helped by that system. Such people may exist, but to date they have not contacted me.

That was the only time in our conversation I was able to finish a sentence.

For example, I brought up ''double dipping'' -- in which county caseworkers can have their agency refer cases to a private therapy mill, which, coincidentally, employs them as ''therapists.'' Anna interrupted in a rage, saying I obviously did not care how hard it is to help children who have been brutalized by adults.

Help them? You mean the way they helped children in the McMartin Â

Furious interruption. (The infamous McMartin case of California is a challenge to the credibility of the social services system, because hundreds of children were persuaded to tell identical stories of ghastly abuse at a day-care center. All the stories were false.)

How about due process in court? Do parents get a fair chance to defend Â

Furious interruption. Caseworkers and their rubber-stamp judges, you see, need to take quick action to rescue children and can't be bothered with due process.

And so it went, with Anna interrupting every time I tried to answer her questions or ask one of my own, although I did elicit an interesting disclosure.

Anna said she works for Lehigh County as a ''care giver'' and indicated she has worked with abused children, although I checked and she is not currently employed by the county's children and youth agency. When she was blasting my views of KidsPeace, she let it be known she was familiar with that operation because she is ''affiliated'' with KidsPeace and works for other ''care providers.''

Those multiple roles seemed to support my point about double-dipping, and I hope Anna has never been in a government position with the power to take children from families by force and then turn them over to a commercial operation that also employed her.

Just as chilling is the fact that she made a valiant effort to bully me -- with the ferocity of a Tasmanian devil and all the charm of a Komodo dragon -- and I am a crusty old geezer who has a lot of experience dealing with hostile power figures.

The final straw was when she interrupted me after all I said was ''It's ... ''

I felt like Monty Python.

So my heart goes out to any child at the mercy of a ''care giver'' spewing bluster to advance the social services system's goal of collecting money for that kid.

It's a wonder we don't have McMartin cases here, Then again, maybe we do.

paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176

Paul Carpenter's commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.