Tom Morton

  Following disastrous events such as Three Mile Island, the Challenger disaster, fatal airline crashes and unacceptable rates of fatalities in health care settings, the field of safety science expanded rapidly.

Over my four-decade career in child welfare I witnessed seemingly countless agencies and systems in crisis. These crises were often precipitated by tragic fatalities. But they also came about as a result of poor performance in critical areas of functioning.

After more than 40 years of work in child welfare, I have lost count of the number of child reforms undertaken across the United States. Illinois. New York City. Florida. Los Angeles.

Here’s the latest foster care horror from Oregon, according to the Oregonian: Under the watch of the Oregon Department of Human Services, a lawsuit alleges, a young sister and brother were starved so severely by their foster parents and guardians that they weighed the same at ages 4 and 5 as they did at ages 1 and 2.  Those facts, largely supported by the state’s own examination of the case, are laid out in a complaint filed against the state Thursday.