the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Dec 15, 2003
The Ehrlich administration in Maryland announced it is going to make an exception to a state hiring freeze, allowing 50 more caseworkers to be hired by the Department of Social Services. About 30 are to work with Baltimore children in the department’s foster care program.
The additional caseworkers come about a year after a foster child was beaten to death in Baltimore. But they are barely a drop in the bucket of need. To fulfill the requirements of a 1998 state law, 400 more caseworkers for foster children would need to be hired throughout the state. And the department is still not complying with most of the provisions of a court order issued 15 years ago, that supposedly guaranteed home visits and medical care for all foster children and background checks of all potential foster parents.
Rather than being a way to provide decent care for all the state’s foster children, the few new caseworkers are nothing but a fig leaf to cover up the mistreatment of thousands of young people by the government.