Speaking up for kids who can't

Too often the phrase "we could have done more" follows the abuse or murder of a child.

Virginia Beach's director of human services faces fire for that comment after the death of 10-month-old Braxton Taylor at the hands of his foster mother two years ago. His biological mother said she alerted a social worker to injuries on her son during a supervised visit; days later he was dead, a victim of shaking and other abuse so cruel he must have suffered excruciating pain in his final moments. The foster mother, Kathleen Ganiere, is serving 10 years on her guilty plea to voluntary manslaughter.

It's all too easy to find similar cases in which adults who should have been listening failed child victims.

The Jerry Sandusky case at Penn State led to the firing of the university's president and legendary football coach Joe Paterno for their failure to act on what they knew.

In Norfolk, twin 10-month-old girls Heaven and Miracle Bryant suffered at least five months of starvation and neglect in 2008; Miracle died, Heaven spent weeks in the hospital. Their parents, both convicted of murder, apparently left the babies at home alone in "bouncy chairs" as they worked. Investigators found a rank, cold apartment filled with hundreds of soiled diapers. Someone must have heard those children crying.

One wonders if anyone heard the cries of twin 4-month-old girls Piper and Ella Molinski at their home in Isle of Wight County. Injuries, including broken ribs and skull fractures, covered their bodies. Piper also had burns on the soles of her feet. She died last week. Her father, Robert Molinski, has been charged with first-degree murder, and her mother, Mary Leanne Webb, has been charged with neglect.

Six years ago, a similar, wrenching case of abuse and cries for help that went ignored in Brooklyn caught the attention of Old Dominion University professor Karen Polonko. The girl, 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown, endured years of torture from her mother and stepfather. Her teachers called child protective services, as did neighbors who heard her screams. Yet her stepfather succeeded in killing her in an attack that began over a cup of spilled yogurt.

Polonko founded ODU's Vigil for Children in an effort to draw attention to the rights of children and emphasize the importance of fighting to protect them.

At the seventh annual vigil last week, students, child welfare activists, authors and professors were among those urging bystanders to get involved. Watching someone abuse a child and failing to act makes a bystander just as guilty, they argued.

Asadah Kirkland, who wrote the book "Beating Black Kids," spoke to the 100 or so people gathered in ODU's Webb Center about interceding on behalf of kids being hectored by their mothers on the bus, of knocking on a neighbor's door near midnight to inquire about why she had heard a baby crying incessantly. Yes, it can be uncomfortable, she said, but the alternative is worse - knowing that she could have acted to prevent harm but didn't.

Following Braxton's death in Virginia Beach, its department of human services altered its protocols to more actively address warnings and symptoms of child abuse. Case workers are now required to specifically engage with non-verbal children. Workers must make weekly visits to children not in school or day care. Marks and bruises without adequate explanation now result in a reference to a case worker, and all social workers will receive training to recognize injuries.

Those measures should help better address symptoms of abuse for children already in protective care, and other cities could benefit from enacting similar ones. But children outside the social services system depend on others - us - for help.

In their classes at ODU, Polonko and her colleague Lucien Lombardo attempt to address the culture that they believe permits such abuse to occur, one in which other adults excuse parents' behavior by rationalizing that "well, it's his kid, he can do what he wants."

Both advocate against spanking. Somehow, Polonko said, people recognize that it's counterproductive to hit a dog as punishment and that training methods based on praise and rewards produce better results. Yet our culture still looks upon spanking a child as acceptable, she said.

"Every book says don't hit your dog, they'll be afraid of you, and they won't learn," Polonko said. "Understand that every time you hit, you affect the central nervous system."

They hope the students in their classes will not only become parents who choose not to spank, but adults who listen and act on a child's behalf rather than lament later: We could have done more.

Michelle Washington is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. Email: michelle.washington@pilotonline.com.