There are things that happen to children no one wants to imagine. But delving into child abuse and neglect is, of course, the daily work of the County’s child protective services workers.
When doctors see children with bruises or bad injuries inflicted by a parent, when babies are born with drugs in their system, when children repeatedly witness violence between parents, when children are suffering from hunger, San Diego County’s Child Welfare Services intervenes to protect them.
The outcome of that intervention can depend in no small part on the social workers—the County calls them protective services workers—who handle the cases.
A recent interview with Tom Ruff, a County protective services worker of four years, showed what the job takes and illuminated the County’s child welfare system.
Ruff, who recently had his first child, a son, doesn’t effuse about “liking his job” the way other people who are good at their work might.
“I don’t like child abuse,” Ruff says.
The 39-year-old San Diego native with light blue eyes and sandy blond hair is plain-spoken and authoritative. Tall, calm and unflinchingly professional, Ruff’s bearing is a cross between a surfer and a good cop.
| Taking kids out of the home is a tool to keep kids safe, not to punish families. |
| -Tom Ruff, child protective services worker |
After emphasizing its grave seriousness, Ruff concedes he does like his job. He seems quite suited to it; former work as a substance abuse counselor, his years with Child Welfare Services and his innate temperament and judgment have helped shape his honest, objective and practical approach to working with families after the County has had to remove their children from the home.
Ruff says many parents naturally see him as the enemy, especially at first. But protective workers are not their “clients’’” adversaries, and nothing Ruff does or says is ever to pay back parents for hurting their children.
“Taking kids out of the home is a tool to keep kids safe, not to punish families or retribution,” Ruff says, “We are not a criminal prosecution organization.”
