Social Services

The Baltimore County Department of Social Services has received $45,000 in public and private grants to help low income residents avoid eviction.The grants come at a time when evictions are increasing in the county and when the state is poised to cut a program that has steered thousands of Marylanders through emergencies such as eviction.Reacting to these new problems, the County Council last week approved a measure that would move $20,000 from a federal Emergency Food and Shelter Program to the Social Services Department.

Marianna Inga Burt, an attorney who represented children, died of cardiovascular disease March 12 at Union Memorial Hospital. She was 80 and lived in the Tuscany-Canterbury section of North Baltimore. Born Marianna Koenig in Hoganas, Sweden, she was the daughter of a chemist, Walter Koenig, and his wife, Elisabeth. She and her family moved to Germany in 1944 and lived in Stendal. She graduated from high school in what became East Germany during the Soviet occupation. Her family eventually left East Germany and relocated to West Germany.

"How does this happen to an educator on state property?" a Baltimore County legislator was quoted as asking about Hannah Wheeler, Maryland's latest victim of workplace violence ("Cheltenham death inquiry involves teen," Feb. 20). The data on workplace violence, which is defined as being threatened or assaulted while at work, are crystal clear. Compared to those in other occupations, social services workers, including teachers of troubled youth and with those who work in professions such as mental health and health care, are disproportionately hurt by violence and assault from their students or patients.

Catherine R. Kane, a Harford County government administrator who earlier had worked for the Baltimore County Department of Social Services, died Feb. 12 from colon cancer at her Bel Air home. She was 65. "She really was an important part of Social Services when I was director," said Camille B. Wheeler, who had been director of Baltimore County Social Services for 19 years before retiring in 1998. "She was hard-working and understood everything about the mission of the department.

A toddler was stabbed this morning at a Social Services office in East Baltimore, and the child's mother is in custody, city officials said. A woman was visiting her 8-month-old child at the office, in the 3000 block of E. Biddle St., and was in a room with the child and a social worker, said Baltimore Police Detective Donny Moses. At some point the woman became irate, Moses said, took out a long kitchen knife and stabbed the baby. The child was taken to Johns Hopkins Pediatrics, is in good condition and is expected to survive, Moses said.

Lois Roena Pyle, a retired secretary for Baltimore City's social services office who later worked for Baltimore County, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Oct. 3 at the Ware Presbyterian Village in Oxford, Pa. The former Rodgers Forge resident was 90. Born Lois Roena Anderson in Havre, Mont., she was the daughter of a dry-goods merchant, and a homemaker. She attended the University of Montana and graduated from the Kinman Business College in Spokane, Wash. As a young woman, she took flying lessons.

A group of Roman Catholic nuns traveling across nine states to protest a national budget proposal that cuts social service programs briefly stopped at Loyola University Maryland on Saturday. Known as the "Nuns on the Bus," the group, made up of sisters from different states, is protesting the current House budget, drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. The bus, sponsored by the Network lobbyist organization, has been drawing rallies at the offices of members of Congress over the past two weeks, where they say many supporters have come out in a show of support.

The woman who allegedly stabbed her infant daughter at a city social services office Tuesday concealed the knife in a purse that was hand-searched by security guards but not put through a metal detector, a top state official says. Theodore Dallas, secretary of the Department of Human Resources, said Friday that private security guards who missed the long, silver-bladed kitchen knife followed procedures in place at the time. The 29-year-old suspect, who has been charged with attempted murder, did go through a metal detector at the building's entrance, he said.

Citing the "bravery of two" but noting the "valor of all" their colleagues, the state's governor and city's mayor lauded Thursday the workers who helped save an infant being stabbed at a social services office in East Baltimore. William Purnell Short III hit the suspect with a chair, forcing her to drop the infant, and Dana Hayes screamed for help, prompting a flurry of 911 calls that got police and paramedics quickly to the social services complex on Biddle Street on April 24. Short held the suspect — who police said bit him on the hands — until police arrived.

A restored 19th-century building will be dedicated today as the Taneytown Job Center, where needy residents can go for counseling, food stamps, Medicaid or job assistance.The multiagency facility is intended to make it easier for northwest Carroll residents to obtain social services without having to travel to Westminster, where most of the county's agencies are located."The concept is to be where we're needed," said Peggie J. Roland, coordinator of the center and an employee service adviser for the Carroll County Department of Social Services.

Shirley R. More, a retired social worker who earlier had been a Baltimore County public school teacher, died Monday from complications of Alzheimer's disease at Bonnie Blink, the Maryland Masonic Home in Hunt Valley, where she had moved this year. She was 90. The daughter of Walter A. Reed, a bank president, and Agnes Gordon Reed, a homemaker, Shirley Agnes Reed was born and raised in Corning, N.Y., where she graduated from high school in 1940. After earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1944 from Albany State Teachers College — now the State University at Albany — she began teaching math at Oneonta High School in Oneonta, N.Y. A graduate of the school, Capt.

The Scott Lee Foundation Inc. is sponsoring a free transitions job readiness workshop, "An Unemployment Makeover," on two days next month at Our Daily Bread Employment Center/Catholic Charities, 725 Fallsway, in Baltimore. Part 1 will be held Saturday, Dec. 1, from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and part 2 is Saturday, Dec. 8, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. To register, go to thescottleefoundation.org and click on the register now button under workshops. The Scott Lee Foundation was founded by Portia Scott as a tribute to the memory of her daughter, Nicole Scott Lee, who believed in giving back to the community and served it through her membership in the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

Lois Roena Pyle, a retired secretary for Baltimore City's social services office who later worked for Baltimore County, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Oct. 3 at the Ware Presbyterian Village in Oxford, Pa. The former Rodgers Forge resident was 90. Born Lois Roena Anderson in Havre, Mont., she was the daughter of a dry-goods merchant, and a homemaker. She attended the University of Montana and graduated from the Kinman Business College in Spokane, Wash. As a young woman, she took flying lessons.

A series of safety improvements are in the works at Maryland social services offices after an infant girl was allegedly stabbed by her mother during a supervised visit this spring, state officials said last week. The child, Pretty Diamond, who is about a year old now, has recovered from her physical wounds and is in a "loving and safe home," state human resources secretary Theodore Dallas said. Her mother, Kenisha Thomas, is scheduled for trial Oct. 29 for attempted murder, assault, child abuse and related charges.

A Columbia woman pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor in connection with a report of an injury her 2-year-old son suffered five months before he was killed by suffocation. Joaquinia M. LaJeuness, 29 — whose son, Elijah, died in April 2011 at age 3 — answered questions but made no statements during a hearing before Howard County Circuit Judge Richard Bernhardt, said T. Wayne Kirwan, a spokesman for the county state's attorney. Bernhardt handed down a prison sentence of three years suspended and the eight days LaJeuness has already served in jail.

The age of majority in Maryland is 21. That's when childhood and adolescence officially end. But just because a young person reaches that age doesn't mean he or she is prepared to undertake all the responsibilities of adulthood. And the difficulties faced by youths venturing out into the world for the first time are only compounded when they have grown up in foster care without a family to call their own. Few young people are really prepared to make their way independently at that age, even if they have been lucky enough to have loving parents, a stable home, a fine education and opportunities to participate in sports, social events and other activities.

Lloyd Campbell "Mitch" Mitchner, who had been director of Baltimore's Urban Services Agency during the mayoral administration of Kurt L. Schmoke and later headed AFRAM, the African-American cultural festival, died July 16 of lung cancer at Northwest Hospital. He was 84. "I've known Lloyd since I was a teenager when he and my mother and Barbara Mikulski were social workers for the Baltimore City Department of Social Services," said Mr. Schmoke, former dean of the Howard University Law School, who is now university vice president and general counsel.

It never ceases to amaze me how commentators such as Thomas F. Schaller purposely mix up the issue of today's illegal immigrants with the history of legal immigration ("Hostility toward recent immigrants a long U.S. tradition," July 11). Yes, there was anti-immigrant bias in our past, but the country has since learned that legal immigration is one of the engines that help drive the economy so that everyone has a chance to benefit from American capitalism. The people objecting to the current immigration policy are not against immigrants, as Mr. Schaller suggests when he asks "why is there so much consternation about the latest, Latino-dominated generation of American immigrants?"