system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Child Protective Services (CPS), while a good concept, is virtually useless in practice

I have had many encounters with CPS (not for me, regarding others) and I am thoroughly and completely unimpressed.  Their job is to protect children yet I have never seen them actually do that.  Working in a hospital and being married to a nurse, I have had much contact with patients of all ages.  The lack of oversight in this area disgusts me.

Here is one example.  I knew many NICU nurses who talked on a regular basis of babies who were not only born early as a result of cocaine or other drug use, but actually went through withdrawals from cocaine.  They were so sensitive that if a nurse dropped a pen, the baby would wake up screaming and it would take hours to get them back down.  On more than one occasion, the nurses caught the parents still snorting WHILE AT THE HOSPITAL.  In all cases, this was documented ad nauseum and nothing was ever done.  There were also many parents who's baby had low birth weight due to marijuana and they would show up to the hospital reeking of pot.

More recently, I have met many home health nurses who have spoke of parents addicted to pain medications who would basically knock themselves out and leave the baby to scream from sitting in their own excrement for hours.  I have heard of rat infested homes, drug abuse, child abuse (actually slapping an infant)...even with documentation, the kids remain with their terrible parents.

With all this in mind, I firmly believe the CPS is a waste of resources.  Of course, this is all from anecdotal experience so maybe others have had better experiences.  All of my experience has been from various parts of Texas, if that matters.

EDIT: Wow! Thanks for all of the responses! I should have been more clear in my view...CPS, AS IT EXISTS NOW, is failing.  Many of you have pointed out the more resources are needed and after thinking I do agree.  I only know what I have seen and experienced and greatly appreciate the input many of you gave.  I will go through and award deltas when I get a break from work.

Edit 2: This has been very educational and I could give deltas to most of you...except for the one jackass. It's hard to see things when you have tunnel vision built from personal experience. Good evening all

Edit 3: If I miss anyone on a delta, apologies.  Many of you posed good arguments but there were A LOT of replies.

Edit 4: Trying to give out deltas but they keep kicking back. I'll get it figured out.
gpt
Holy shit, you list off several examples of why CPS is so badly needed, yet because CPS isn't a perfect organization or funded well enough in every jurisdiction to cover as many families as it needs to cover, you say the entire concept is just pointless? No, dude or dudettte, it's the opposite: you just showed why the entire concept is so badly needed. And that it's under funded.