Safety Concerns
Published May 12, 2009 @ 02:22PM PT
In Utah, a 5-year-old boy on the autism spectrum was left on a school bus and, after waking up in the bus driver's driveway, got out and wandered for several blocks until a "concerned citizen" saw him and notified police. The bus drive has been suspended.
A 63-year-old former social worker who counseled children on the spectrum has been sentenced to five months in jail and a two-year suspended sentence Friday after pleading guilty to sex crimes involving a 15-year old male client, as reported in yesterday's Kirkland Reporter.
There's only a few children on Charlie's school bus and the aide is often sitting right behind him, so I seriously doubt that he'd ever be left on the bus. And, now that he's older and knows, he's supposed to get driven home and get off the bus I think Charlie would, in whatever way, communicate that.
But as for the second situation involving the former social worker----that's something that we're just beginning to address and it's not, not easy, but we have to.
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Comments (3)
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Kristina is a Classics professor in Jersey City, New Jersey, a blogger (formerly at AutismVox), a translator (of Virgil), and an advocate every day for her son, Charlie.
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I've never understood how people can be left on a bus- it seems to me that it's pretty easy for a driver to just walk through the bus and look. I've also known very few bus drivers who don't know exactly where all of the kids are getting off...this always baffles me.
From the article that you linked about the social worker: "Gill had been counseling the 15-year-old for three years including with the boys spending the night at his home according to court records. The boy told police that Gill taught him how to put a condom on, talked about sex and touched his penis, according to court documents filed in King County Superior Court. Superior Court Judge William Downing suspended most of the sentence on condition that Gill receive sexual deviancy treatment."
How on earth does anyone think that it's appropriate for a social worker to have clients sleeping over at his home? Obviously there are always going to be risks any time a child is in a one-to-one situation, but they can certainly be minimized by having intelligent guidelines and regulations. We've had wonderful workers for my son who would have loved to have him sleep over night at their house (and I wouldn't have objected to that as I knew the workers well and also knew their family life), but we all realized that the guidelines that my son's house follows are there for a reason. Our children are so vulnerable, and it baffles me that there is so little protection for them in so many areas.
Posted by Jen Niebler on 05/13/2009 @ 02:48AM PT
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After a kid was left in a van here, I see the buses now driving with a sign that says something to the effect of the bus has been checked and has no children sleeping in it. However, I see these signs all the time, when kids are in the bus, and they are obviously in the middle of a run.
Posted by Jen Rosenblum on 05/13/2009 @ 01:45PM PT
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After a kid was left in a van here, I see the buses now driving with a sign that says something to the effect of the bus has been checked and has no children sleeping in it. However, I see these signs all the time, when kids are in the bus, and they are obviously in the middle of a run.
Posted by Jen Rosenblum on 05/13/2009 @ 01:45PM PT
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