“It breaks our heart any time a child is abused, any time a child is harmed,” Mayor Eric Adams said after learning about the death of 4-year-old Jahmeik Modlin, who was found in a Harlem apartment, malnourished and suffering from hypothermia, over the weekend.
Jahmeik is the sixth child to die of maltreatment in the city in the last three months.
And as with the other recent fatalities — like 11-month-old Jazeli Mirabel, 10-year-old Brian Santiago, 5-year-old De’Neil Timberlake — Jahmeik’s family had a history with the Administration for Children’s Services.
Details of that history have not been released, but a neighbor reported that the relationship between the parents was abusive, with the father wielding a knife as the mother barricaded herself inside the apartment.
So what lesson has the mayor learned from these tragedies?
“We’re going to do everything we can to give parents the support that they deserve.”
Are you kidding? You hear a story about two parents who have been charged with criminally negligent homicide for starving a 4-year-old boy and your first thought is how we can support the parents?
How about supporting the children?
A mother of three on the scene offered a different, and perhaps more understandable, reaction to The Post: “Get rid of both of the pieces of s–t — the mom and the dad … To not feed a kid? That’s not right.”
But supporting the parents seems to be the only line our city’s professionals have to offer these days.
Jess Dannhauser, commissioner of the Administration for Children’s Services, has been touting his agency’s plan to divert as many cases as possible away from official investigations and toward its Collaborative Assessment, Response, Engagement & Support system.
In order to “combat racial disparities” and “promote social justice,” CARES “encourage[s] families to develop their own solutions to their challenges.”
ACS has also added “Family Enrichment Centers” to promote “social connection, and parental resilience.”
And it is providing parents with legal notices explaining that they don’t actually have to let ACS into their home to investigate reports of child maltreatment!
Maybe we should just change the name to the Administration for Parents’ Services?
It’s not just ACS that’s failing. The array of nonprofits paid by the city have also bought into this notion that if only parents had more support, such tragedies would not happen.
Dr. Iesha Sekou, of Street Corner Resources, explained, “We can’t bring this 4-year-old child back, but what we can do is some prevention. We can begin to talk to each other in the neighborhood, do more engagement, talk to the people in the barbershop, the beauty salon, the corner store.”
Talk to people in the barbershop? How about calling the authorities?
Jahmeik’s mother had four children under the age of 10. Neighbors said they almost never saw them and never once saw them go to school. (Makes you wonder how many days of school these kids missed or whether anyone reported that.)
Some neighbors apparently thought her kids seemed so deprived, they offered her food and clothing for them, but she refused.
This is not a problem that needs to be solved by doing more engagement at the corner store. This is a problem that needs a real investigation.
Speaking of school, ACS recently launched a program to discourage teachers from reporting families whose children are not showing up or who are exhibiting signs that they simply need more “resources.” Maybe the child is wearing a T-shirt in the dead of winter because their parents simply don’t know that there are organizations all over the city that give coats to the needy.
Does anyone believe this nonsense? Does the mayor?
It is this myth, that every parent who is abusing or neglecting their children is simply suffering from poverty — and not severe mental health problems or substance abuse — that is pervasive.
PIX11 News, for instance, included a list of resources at the bottom of a story about Jahmeik, which included the National Hunger Hotline and Temporary Housing Assistance. Is this a joke? His parents obviously were intentionally starving him. How about information on whom to call when you suspect child abuse?
Apparently, the news organization is in good company. A recent article in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that pediatricians might not want to call CPS when they suspect a child is being neglected. “Clinicians worried about families … should first be knowledgeable of and rely on local resources such as food pantries and housing assistance.”
They just don’t want to face the truth that, in most cases, the problem is not that they don’t know what services are available — it’s that they don’t care enough to use them.
Government officials, nonprofit leaders, teachers, even doctors are turning a blind eye to the suffering of the most vulnerable members of our community, protecting the interests of the abusers instead of the abused. Who stands up for the children?
Naomi Schaefer Riley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.