The Case of Zahra Baker

The Case of Zahra Baker

Although she was not a child in foster care, I feel this blog would be remiss not to mention the case of Zahra Baker, since this case happened so close to home.

If you live in North Carolina, then I am guessing you have at least heard the name Zahra Baker, even if you are not completely sure why. She is a little girl from Hickory, North Carolina, who was reported missing in October. Earlier this week her remains were found. That story is sad enough, but what is disturbing in this case, and what pertains to this blog is the fact that DSS has been called out to the Baker home, for allegations of abuse, and yet, nothing  ever happened, and Zahra stayed in the home.

While doing research for this blog, I came across an article that highlighted the Zahra Baker case, as well as raised some eyebrows about potential issues at DSS. Although the article discussed many statistics involving child deaths, and many other issues at DSS, I do not want to discuss them here. If you are interested in my opinion on some of the issues at DSS, you can read my previous post about the Washington D.C. abuse scandal. What caught my attention in this article was the fact that it is often difficult for social workers to get information about a child from other counties that the child has lived in. I feel there has to be some way to streamline the process so that we can protect children. Does anyone out there know why it is difficult to gain access to such information from other counties? Why the file doesn’t just get automatically sent when asked for? It seems like such a simple thing to do, especially in the age of technology.

The case does highlight some of the issues that are being faced at DSS. The employees are overworked, paperwork is not streamlined, and many children can unfortunately fall through the cracks. Hopefully in the future we can begin to see changes in state agencies that will remedy some of these shortfalls.