Common sense vs. bureaucracy
Elaine Kolodziej
16.JUN.04

They are everybody’s children, and nobody’s children. They are the forgotten children in the Texas foster care system."
— Carole Keeton Strayhorn

It’s happened again, only this time, it was closer to home. Another child has died allegedly at the hands of an abusive parent.

The child, according to news reports, was beaten to death. Diamond Alexander Williams died Sunday, June 6, and her biological mother, Kimberly Alexander, was charged with capital murder.

Born to a drug-abusing mom, little Diamond never had a chance. No. That’s not true.

Actually, the infant left the hospital when she was only 4 day old, and was placed in foster care with Ted and Ann Montgomery of Sutherland Springs. She had a loving home environment with them for 13 months of her life.

She spent another few months in a second foster home, but in April, a judge, the baby’s attorney, and social workers all agreed the mother had completed necessary classes and requirements. The system was ready to declare the mother fit to have her child back.

Within two months, the child was dead.

When the courts and a politically correct system that does not recognize love and faith yanked the 2-year-old from her secure home, it was against the advice of the two foster families.

This was another case where bureaucracy won out over common sense.

The fact is that people with degrees, classroom training (book learning, as they used to call it), and so-called expertise often cannot and do not see what ordinary folks — moms and dads in this case — can plainly see.

Perhaps the "i’s" were dotted and the "t’s" were crossed, but that could not explain the instincts and gut-wrenching feelings of those who had taken little Diamond Alexander-Williams into their hearts and homes.

Perhaps it’s time that a parent’s instincts should count for something; where love and faith, and caring and commitment, are allowed to be at least a part of the equation.

Perhaps it is past time for something to be done about the way Child Protective Services and other government agencies are run — agencies that are based on funding and the cold letter of the law. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn in her report "Forgotten Children" issued a blistering call for such changes.

This also is a crusade that Tom Hanson of San Antonio has committed to. Over the past years and months, he and his wife have spent countless hours and thousands of dollars researching, testifying, and fighting a system that he deems corrupt.

Hanson has a unique perspective. For 14 years, he was in foster homes. He knows of what he speaks.

Now, he finds himself "being railroaded as a parent by the same system.

"When you are wronged to such a degree, you have a moral obligation even against overwhelming odds to speak up and fight back — go down in flames if you must," he said in an e-mail. But, you must, "fight the good fight," he said. He feels that many fail to get involved because they fear retaliation.

For Ted and Ann Mont-gomery, the stress of dealing with little Diamond’s death is just too much. They are getting out of the foster-care program, but not without trying to fight for some changes of their own.

Their crusade is to get the system changed at least to allow a foster parent’s testimony to weigh in, even if only in addition to that of the experts.

For little Diamond and many others like her who have been allowed to slip through the cracks of a cold, bureaucratic system, it may be too late. But, with people like the Montgomerys, the Hansons, and others vowing not to give up, perhaps change will be forthcoming.

Wilson County News