Write a commentOctober is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and Erin’s Angels of CNY is leading the charge to create not just awareness, but change.
The organization, headed by Executive Director Sheila Dion, is named in memory of Erin Maxwell. Maxwell was an 11-year-old girl living in horrible conditions, whose death at the hands of her abusers rocked Oswego County in 2008. Erin’s Angels is known primarily for its fight against hunger, with over 40,000 meals served to children and families in need each year. But hunger isn’t the only battle Erin’s Angels is fighting.
“We [at Erin’s Angels] think it’s horrendous that Erin Maxwell’s killer is already free after strangling her to death, and that her parents only served 2 years after starving her,” Dion told our team, her voice thick with emotion. But the once-proposed Erin’s Law, designed to strengthen punishment for crimes against children under the age of 14 and co-sponsored by former Sen. John DeFrancisco, stalled in committee in 2009.
Today, Dion and Erin’s Angels are continuing the fight to protect children from another angle: the “abysmally low” standards of care New York has for its children.
New York has laws governing the minimum standard of care for foster children, but that same standard of care is not applied to children living with biological family—or any other children in the state. “Minimum standard of care is hard to define on paper,” according to an anonymous source who has worked with the Department of Social Services. Even language that is used, like “adequate” food for a child, is vague enough to be functionally worthless.
Without standards to fall back on, it can be difficult to protect children like Erin, whose family was already known by the department. “We started an In Memoriam page on our website… those children might still be with us if we’d had the Children’s Bill of Rights in place,” Dion told iHeart Oswego.
We spoke with two survivors of domestic violence to understand firsthand the difference this bill could make for children in New York. Both spoke on condition of anonymity; we will refer to them as Mary and Cathy.
Mary told our team, “The minimum standard of care is a huge problem—I have done everything in my adult life centered around caring for my child. But my son’s father is currently homeless and he’s been couch-surfing. When my son visits his father, he sleeps on a plywood floor in an attic… I had provided a bed for him to use during these visits; his father sold it.”
Mary spoke about how her son comes back from these weekends feeling hungry, sick, and miserable due to overcrowded and inhumane conditions. Despite multiple investigations, the common refrain from social workers and judges is: “There’s nothing we can do.”
A minimum standard of care would help put a stop to situations like Mary’s so kids get what they need—and allow action to be taken before conditions worsen.
“Our children are victims of comparison,” Mary told iHeart Oswego. “As long as he doesn’t get punched in front of a social worker, there’s no accountability, no repercussions… But that’s not the only way someone can abuse you or abuse your child. I am currently entrenched in a system that allows not only myself to be continually victimized, but also my child.”
Cathy, a childhood sexual abuse survivor, spoke about how the abuse reverberated throughout her childhood. “For a long time, I was very angry and fought with everybody. When the anger finally faded, it was replaced by fear… fear that it could happen again. I had nightmares for an entire summer and it felt like no one even cared.”
Under the proposed Children’s Bill of Rights, it would be illegal for children to be “exposed to individuals known to be restricted registered sexual offenders.” Access to mental health services, which can help treat PTSD and C-PTSD, would also be treated as a child’s right under the law.
For those worried about an outsized impact on families living in poverty, the intent of Dion’s proposed bill is to empower families—not tear them apart. Dion pointed to the suggested requirement that each child have their own mattress, outfitted with clean linens and a pillow.
“We want to support DSS by creating black and white minimum standards of care… It’s important to us that we’re not punishing people for being poor. If the family doesn’t have the means for a bed—we’re working on putting systems in place to support them.” Non-profits like Sleep in Heavenly Peace, which builds beds and furnishes bedding for children in need, can work with social services to help fill the gaps.
“The end goal is to ensure that children have everything they need to learn, thrive and grow,” Dion told iHeart Oswego.
Erin’s Angels has rapidly grown from serving just a handful of families in Erin’s own school district to tackling systemic change at the state-level. When asked about global events like the treatment of children in Gaza, Dion admitted to feeling paralyzed by the scale of it. She told our team, “It’s a tragedy when any child goes hungry, no matter where they live. Right now, one in five children go hungry right here in CNY. While we can’t solve every crisis around the world, we can take action where we are.”
Dion urges readers to take action by signing the petition for the Children’s Bill of rights. You can also support Erin’s Angels at upcoming fundraisers, like their annual Friendsgiving event at Home Team Pub in Liverpool, which is scheduled for November 23 at noon.
