Wednesday, October 27, 1999
Children Services asks for support
County, client urge levy passage
BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — The Butler County prosecutor and commissioners say a levy renewal is essential for the Butler County Children Services Board (CSB) — and a single mother with two children agrees.
The agency's procedures have been criticized as overbearing and secretive in recent months; voters defeated two consecutive levies, leading to resignations of CSB's leaders earlier this year. CSB has emphasized its efforts to be more open and accountable.
On Tuesday, a week before voters will decide a 2-mill renewal levy for CSB, a Hamilton woman identified only as Rosa, 27, spoke to reporters along with Prosecutor John F. Holcomb, urging voters to approve the measure, which creates no new taxes and merely lets the board keep what it has now. The county commissioners also have said they support the levy.
“These people do a remarkable job,” Mr. Holcomb said, referring to CSB personnel, with whom his office works daily. He said CSB workers give children “a new start in life ... they save them.”
The young mother, Rosa, said she agrees CSB services helped save her family. “I was really aggravated. I didn't know how to stay calm,” she said. “I was stressed. I was really stressed.”
Rosa sought help from CSB's Family Preservation Program, and learned how to better communicate with her children, ages 4 and 2. Cindy Hayes, a family preservation specialist, has spent several hours a day working with Rosa and her children for the past nine weeks. “(Rosa) felt so badly she couldn't keep her children in check,” Ms. Hayes said. Now this formerly “at-risk” family seems happier and more content, Ms. Hayes said.
CSB spokesman Bob Bogan noted one major difference between Rosa and some other parents who become involved with CSB: She was motivated to solve her problems and didn't blame those problems on the agency.
“If they want to fight us, we spin our wheels,” Mr. Bogan said.
Mr. Holcomb said he endorses the levy, and urged voters to approve it because it's “sorely and desperately needed.”
If the levy fails, CSB would be forced to reduce counseling and diagnostic services. The levy accounted for about half of the agency's $16.2 million in revenue last year.
Mr. Holcomb noted that the leader of the opposition to the levy, Dennis Yavorski, doesn't live in Butler County and hasn't been part of a CSB case in the county.
Mr. Yavorski, whose group is “Parents for Family Integrity,” lives in Hamilton County. He couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday, but has said he believes the agency tramples on parents' rights and has wrongfully removed children from their homes.
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