“Blue Ribbon Commitee” created to hold Child Protective Services accountable

Memorial Hospital, Friends of Court, and local Harrison County officials are taking a stand against Child Protective Services and Youth Court Judge Michael Dickinson after a 4-month-old was allegedly killed by their father recently.

They say it’s time to take action and have created a blue ribbon committee to investigate child protection failures within the county.

Child Protective Services and Judge Michael Dickinson both say child abuse cases are at an all-time low.

But neonatologist Dr. Jennifer Caldwell at Memorial Hospital says cases are simply being ignored.

“This is something that we’ve all noticed in our practices,” Dr. Jennifer Caldwell said. “We’re seeing children in unsafe environments and repeatedly put back in instead of put into the system and taken out of those unsafe environments, and those kids are coming back dead.”

Harrison County District 2 Supervisor Rebecca Powers says ignoring these cases for the sake of lower numbers benefits no one. The county can save money now, but they’ll pay for this negligence in the future.

“A lot of these kids don’t die. A lot of these kids will live in hell for years. Maybe be adopted, probably not because they’re so broken by the time this system is done with them,” Rebecca Powers said. “And then what happens? As a Harrison County Board of Supervisors seeing every penny, we will see them again. The ones who survive through this hell, we will see them again. We will see them in our jails, in our mental health institutions – that we spend millions on and can’t even get a grasp on that – and we will see them in our morgue.”

CPS was aware that this 4-month-old was being abused before the infant’s gruesome murder, but the baby’s case is one of many not being accounted for.
That’s where the blue ribbon committee comes in.

Jeannie Herrin, Friends of Court Director and program liaison for Harrison County Advocacy Center, explained, “In 2019, the numbers decreased, decreased, decreased, to now, I think there’s around 240. In 2019, there were almost 800. To the average person, they go ‘Wow! That is absolutely wonderful.’ Well, we in advocacy know that is not good because where are these kids going? We’re going to be making recommendations to the board of supervisors, coming together as a group, and investigating and seeing what is happening to these children.”

“This is not something that happens in other states, and so, I do not know why we’re allowing this to happen in South Mississippi to our children,” Caldwell, who has worked in numerous hospitals across the country, said.

The Blue Ribbon committee will host public meetings on Fridays at 1:00 in the board meeting room at the Harrison County Courthouse in Gulfport.