CPS Worker Attempts to Cover Up Sexual Abuse of 6 year old Girl
CPS worker attempts cover up of sexual abuse of 6 yr. old girl – Parents of victim face retribution (harrassment) by CPS
Sat, 2009-05-30 12:07 – Bizzi
Please pass this on to all your contacts – we need to expose the lies, injustice and brutality of CPS:
http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou090529_mp_sexual-assualt-cove… (copy and paste the website link to view the video – this message only has the text of the article)
Parents accuse CPS employee of covering up sexual assault
12:06 AM CDT on Saturday, May 30, 2009
By Rucks Russell / 11 News
PEARLAND, Texas — Parents coping with the sexual assault of their 6-year-old daughter are blaming a Child Protective Services employee for compounding their pain by trying to cover-up the assault.
CPS employee accused of covering up child’s sexual assault
May 29, 2009
I cant understand how someone in a position of trust could do something like this, said the victims mother. Its devastated our family and turned my world upside down.
The suspect is a 12-year-old boy and the alleged assault took place a year ago at the couples Pearland home.
The couple says neighborhood parents and children had been invited over for a graduation party. The boys mother, a CPS Supervisor, left her son unattended at the party even though she allegedly knew her son had a history of assaulting little girls.
According to the victims father, there was a scream upstairs and he found the boy molesting his daughter.
It makes me feel less of a father. It makes me feel I didnt do my job as a father, the victims father said.
Both parents say the suspects mother urged them not to call the police, because involving the authorities was not a good idea.
They say when police did become involved, CPS workers began showing up at their house without explaining why.
They were coming by without having any documentation to support that they should be coming by, the victims father said.
The 12-year-old boy will face a judge next week on charges of taking indecent liberties with a minor. The victims parents have filed a lawsuit alleging the suspects mother used her position at CPS to try to cover-up the crime.
We have material to support this claim and intend to prove it in court, said Fernando Valdes, the attorney representing the victims parents.
The suspects mother refused to comment, but CPS officials said they found no evidence she did anything wrong.
We conducted an investigation with her supervisor and found no wrong-doing on the employees part, CPS Spokesperson Gwen Carter said.
The victims parents fear their daughter has been irreparably harmed.
Shes changed and may never be the same little girl again, her father said.
Parents Harrassed by CPS
Sacramento, CA – A married couple held a press conference today in front of the Sacramento County Juvenile Court building in order to make public the unnecessary and continued harassment inflicted upon their family by CPS. The Sacramento family was accused of having caused their daughters infection at a local hospital even though: 1) there was no evidence of any action by the parents which could have caused the infection; 2) three social workers assigned to the case gave favorable reports; 3) there were no reports that their daughter had ever been abused or harmed before or after her hospital stay; 4) A registered nurse, the girls principal and teachers, and every mental health professional involved with the family, except the one utilized by the court, has commended the family for its closeness and caring attitude; 5) the case was only based on the presence of a serious infection during hospitalization.
“This has resulted in months of trial, the expenditure of countless hours by social workers and of, presumably, significant County funds,” said Steve Burlingham, PJI affiliate attorney for the parents. “Perhaps instead of throwing more money at the problem of abuse, the County needs to better manage its cases and the Law should be strengthened to prevent intervention in unwarranted cases.”
“This is a classic example of how the CPS system has gone awry,” said attorney Brad Dacus, President of Pacific Justice Institute. “In view of the clear, insurmountable evidence supporting this family, there is no justification for CPS continued harassment and traumatizing of these parents and their seven-year-old daughter.”
Pacific Justice Institute is an organization dedicated to the defense of religious freedom, parents rights and other basic constitutional civil liberties.
.Taken From http://www.pacificjustice.org/content/parents-make-public-cps-abuse-resources
Speaking out
Speaking Out
In Alaska, foster parents testified that the worst of the abuses endured by foster children is not the abuse and neglect allegedly suffered before the state takes them from their natural parents. Rather, the real abuse comes from the actions of the state itself. The foster parents sat with trembling hands as they told legislators of the treatment they and their young wards endured at the hands of child protective services. Fear of retaliation was reportedly a common theme throughout the meeting (Demer, 1997). To make matters worse, just as state officials were beginning ambitious efforts to deal with the severe failures in the state’s child protection system, a two-year-old in the care of Anchorage foster parents died (Campbell, 1997).
Speaking out against the system can have its price, state representative Marie Parente, chairwoman of the Massachusetts House Foster Care Committee told Boston Globe reporters. Foster parents are afraid to speak out for fear of reprisals-the ultimate threat being that DSS will take away their foster children. After Lynn Sanborn-a long-term foster mother with a flawless record-rendered testimony critical of the department’s removal of a foster child from her home before the House Foster Care Committee, she suddenly found herself the subject of two child abuse reports. “After 14 years of being a foster parent and three months ago I was an exemplary home, I get two complaints in a week,” Sanborn said. “Doesn’t that sound odd to you?” So, too, did another foster mother who testified during the hearings find herself the subject of an allegedly anonymous report, sparking charges from both women that the agency was retaliating against them for speaking out against the department. The anonymous charges were filed against them within days of their testimony. “I feel hurt and I feel sad,” said Sanborn. “If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody” (Delgado, 1992).
Similar narratives are everywhere to be found, as parents, foster parents and others who would advocate on behalf of the children in their care report the fear of retaliation from child welfare agencies seeking to silence them. The price to be paid for speaking out against the system can be particularly high for parents. Elizabeth Sayers-by her own admission in need of support services-said in an on-air radio interview that she was not being offered the help she required from the Massachusetts department to keep her children. Ninety minutes after she complained on the air to a radio talk show host about the lack of services, her children were taken away and placed in foster homes in an “emergency removal” (Matchan, 1992). Prior to a 1994 hearing held in Illinois, several parents were told by Department of Children and Family Services caseworkers “if you ever want to see your children again, don’t go to the hearing,” according to Champaign County Board member Robert Naiman (1995).
Turning once again to the matter of the treatment of foster parents by child protection agencies, ACLU attorney Benjamin Wolf asserts:
Foster parents are mistreated. They are told they’ll be reimbursed for expenses. They aren’t. They ask for respite, a break, a vacation. They don’t get help. Those not trained to deal with troubled children need support, skills training. It doesn’t happen. Emergency foster care families are treated as a bed for the night. They are given virtually no information about the child’s health needs, etc. They are lost without info, back-up services (Golden, 1997).
As a result of all this, many of the most dedicated of foster parents-those who would dare to vigorously advocate on behalf of the children in their care-are pushed out of the system, hence the abuse of children in state care continues to mount as the overall quality of the foster care pool diminishes – even as the number of children in state care continues ever to increase.
The number of conventional foster homes in the public sector has dropped from 125,000 in 1988 to 100,000 as of 1991 – and the “exodus continues,” says Gordon Evans, information director for the National Foster Parent Association in Houston. Evans explains that the average number of children per home is 3.7 – up from about 1.4 in 1983-and he estimates that “tens of thousands” care for six, seven, and eight youngsters at a time (Cohen, 1991).
The results are tragic, as even a cursory review of recent press accounts reveals. In Peoria, Illinois, the state’s child welfare agency “rescues” Donte May from a neglectful and possibly abusive mother, only to place him in a foster home where he dies suspiciously from bleeding in the brain (Associated Press, 1997c); a Pennsylvania foster mother is charged with fatally beating a six-year-old girl in her care (O’Dowd & Frisby, 1998); New Jersey officials announce they are awaiting autopsy results on an infant who suffered rib fractures and a broken leg in foster care (Van Doren & May, 1998); Oklahoma prosecutors file murder charges against a foster father who allegedly beat to death his five-year-old ward (Smith, 1998); a Wisconsin man is charged with injuring a foster child in his care so severely that doctors have to use bone grafts to repair his damaged skull (Ostrander, 1998); a two-year-old Brooklyn boy is beaten to death by his foster mother, who viciously battered the child with her fists – then took him to an all-night card game. He had been beaten with such force that his heart split, one of his lungs was punctured, his liver ripped and his ribs cracked (Cauvin, McQuillan & Hutchinson, 1998).
Needless Suffering
Needless Suffering
One of the most tragic aspects of many of these cases is that the children suffer needlessly, for in their zeal to protect them against the perceived shortcomings of their natural parents, child protective services caseworkers placed them into dangerous homes that inflicted upon them precisely the injury they had hoped to prevent. In the District of Columbia, social workers removed four of Debra Hampton’s children from her home placing them in foster care. According to the testimony of a social worker, the children were removed because Mrs. Hampton had left them alone and was not properly supervising them, and her home was “generally uninhabitable.” Three months later, the foster mother left two-year-old Mykeeda Hampton at home for over ten hours. While she was out running errands, Mykeeda was beaten to death by the foster mother’s 12-year-old son. An autopsy later established that the two-year-old died of “blunt force injuries to the head, abdomen, and back, with internal hemorrhaging.” As of September 1995, several years after the incident, the case was still under litigation (District of Columbia v. Debra Ali Hampton).
In August of 1995, San Francisco officials took custody of Selena Hill a few days after her birth because of concerns that her parents, Stacey and Claudia Hill, had physically abused each other and didn’t seem capable of caring for their newborn. In September, seven-week-old Selena Hill was rushed to Children’s Hospital in Oakland with a fractured skull and other injuries that almost killed her. In their efforts to protect her from her actual parents, child welfare workers placed Selena into a foster home with a history of domestic violence. In the nine months before the infant was injured, Berkeley police had visited the residence three times after receiving reports about violent disturbances in the foster home (Ferriss, 1995).
The state of Georgia placed Clayton and Kelly Miracle in foster care with Betty and Joe Wilkins in June of 1993. Two months later paramedics would arrive at the foster home in response to a 911 call, finding Clayton barely breathing, with two large knots on his head, one in the front and one in back. Clayton died as a result of blunt force trauma to his head. The doctor who performed the autopsy testified that Clayton’s fatal injuries could not have been caused by an accidental fall and that injuries and bruising found all over Clayton’s body were consistent with battered child syndrome. Doctors also examined his sister Kelly and found the same pattern of bruising (Wilkins v State).
CPS Makes Matter Worse
Making Matters Worse
The reporting crusade wrought other unintended consequences as well, among them an increase in the abuse and neglect of children by the very system designed to protect them. Stein and Rzepnicki (1983) explain that the possibility state action could have negative consequences for youngsters and their families was not seriously entertained, nor had the effects of state action been systematically monitored during earlier years. While courts and child-caring agencies have historically been considered as benevolent, and acting to protect children and further their best interests: “Evidence gathered in recent years has shown that intervention by child welfare agencies may exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, family difficulties” (p. 284). This growing body of evidence, they argue, “forces a reconsideration of the previously unquestioned assumption that actions taken by state agencies are ipso facto beneficial.”
As Lindsey (1994) explains, with the shifting emphasis placed on child abuse investigation, “the [caseworker] was unmistakably cast in the role of inquisitor prying into and judging the affairs of the family, with predictably adverse effects on the family” (p. 98). Dysfunctional families “may experience considerable stress with the occurrence of seemingly minor events,” notes the Reference Manual for the Pennsylvania Model of Risk Assessment (Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, undated). “The mere presence of the social worker can trigger a family crisis.”
If the mere presence of a social worker can trigger a family crisis, imagine what a full-blown child abuse investigation may do. Besharov (1985) explains that even the determination that a report is unfounded can only be made after an unavoidably traumatic investigation that is, inherently, a breach of parental and family privacy. Dana Mack (1997) notes that caseworkers will typically enter a home for the first time at an odd hour, with no previous announcement, giving no information about the nature of the charge held against the family, nor who has made it. The homes of accused families are always checked, with refrigerators opened and the bathrooms inspected. Neighbors and school personnel are questioned about the family, particularly about the reputation, behavior and habits of the parents. Nor is it unusual in some jurisdictions for child welfare workers to enter homes in the middle of the night, stripping children naked and probing their genitals for evidence of abuse. Investigations may involve repeated and relentless interrogations of children, and a battery of psychological testing for both the parents and their children. These tests are often conducted by a parade of court-appointed psychologists and therapists.
Thomas Sowell (1995) observes that, by the time an investigation has run its course, children have been strip-searched, interrogated by a stream of social workers, police officers, and prosecutors, psychologically tested, and sometimes placed in foster care. Such actions usually occur without search warrants, parental consent, court hearings, or official charges-and often solely on the basis of the anonymous telephone call. Even in the event that a report is ultimately unfounded, a family has been subjected to enormous stress factors. As Elizabeth Hutchinson (1990) explains:
Investigation of a report of child maltreatment is not an innocuous intrusion into family life. By the time an investigation is complete, the family has had to cope with anxieties in both their formal and informal support systems alerted to state suspicion of their parenting. Even if the report is expunged from the central registry due to lack of substantiation, it is seldom expunged from the mind of the family-or from the memories of persons in the support system.
Child development experts Goldstein, Solnit, Goldstein, and Freud (1996) note that, “by its intervention, the state may make a bad situation worse: indeed it may even turn a tolerable situation or even a good situation into a bad one” (Besharov, 1987; see also Goldstein et al., 1996, p. 92).
The clientele primarily “serviced” by child protection agencies may be particularly vulnerable to having a bad situation worsen. Empirical research corroborates the association between social class and the physical abuse and neglect of children (Hagedorn, 1995; Lindsey, 1994; Pelton, 1978). Child abuse has always been concentrated in areas of greatest poverty, where stress is more common. Family income is among the best predictors for both investigation and child removal (Fein & Maluccio, 1992; Lindsey, 1994). The families which become known to public child welfare agencies through the reporting of child abuse and neglect are largely the poorest of the poor, and the children in foster care come predominantly from such families (Horowitz & Wolock, 1981; Pelton, 1992; Testa & Goerge, 1988). The reasons for this are clear, as Van Hooris and Gilbert (1998) explain: “The frustration and stresses that accompany unemployment, poverty, inadequate housing, and continual insecurities of lower-socio-economic status contribute to a volatile environment in which children are at risk of abuse and neglect.”
Add to this already volatile mix a child abuse or neglect investigation with the possibility of child removal looming as imminent and the results are predictable. The mere presence of a social worker or other authority may exacerbate an already dysfunctional or stressful family situation, tipping the marginalized parent toward an act of physical violence which may not have otherwise occurred absent the anger, fear or frustration imposed by the investigation itself. Yale Professor Edward Zigler, testifying before Congress during the 1970s, addressed this issue, saying that he was “beginning to see some people who we are driving to the brink of psychosis because of these [reporting] laws.” Zigler found these early trends to be both troubling and potentially counterproductive, for even during this early period we were already reaching a phenomenon of the sort in which: “Somebody reports a parent; then the parent abuses the child again for getting her in trouble.” Zigler explained that this was “clinically occurring everywhere” at the time (Committee on Education and Labor, 1977).
Research into this area is problematic. After all, who would believe the word of an accused child abuser claiming to have been pushed toward such action by the stresses imposed by an investigation? The situation poses something of a classic chicken or the egg dilemma for the researcher, as an act of violence, or worse, a child fatality following an investigation seemingly provides the “proof” that the family was being properly investigated to begin with, and that the caseworker “missed something.”
Consider the case of an Iraqi family who became refugees in 1991 after their home was bombed during the Persian Gulf War. They reportedly lived in tents in Saudi Arabia for more than three years before the United Nations brought them to Nebraska in 1994. A year later, the family moved to Detroit, drawn by the area’s large Arab-American and Muslim communities. A teacher from Nebraska had kept in touch with one of the daughters, a former student, and called Detroit authorities to report suspicions that the parents might be abusing some of their children. Detroit police went to the home to interview the children and the parents. Finding nothing wrong, the police left. The Detroit Free Press (Krodel, 1998) describes what happened next:
After they were gone, the father — angry, frightened and insulted by the visit — said he wanted to know who said what to the teacher in Nebraska. An argument erupted. Two of the teenage daughters started pointing fingers at each other, and eventually the 16-year-old tried to leave the house, the family’s attorney said. Her parents and an older brother tried to stop her.
Neighbors heard screams and saw the girl in the street with her clothes torn and called police.
Police then took four daughters — ages 3, 12, 14 and 16 — into protective custody. Ten days later, three more children-sons ages 5, 8 and 10-were taken into custody. The four children over age 18 remained in the home. The situation has been especially difficult because neither parent speaks English.
In this instance, the vague concerns of a former teacher many miles distant first brought the family to the attention of Detroit authorities. While it may be argued that the case raises some valid concerns about the family’s functioning, it may also be argued that it was the mere presence of the authorities in the home which exacerbated the family’s functioning to the extent that further intervention became a consideration. Moreover, once removal of the children became a consideration, the authorities may have been negligent by virtue of having failed to adequately weigh the consequences of removal against the alternative of leaving the family intact in terms of which option provided the least detrimental alternative for the children.
Consider the results of this intervention: The children were spread out over four foster homes. While in foster care, a 3-year-old girl was burned with an iron, her depressed 16-year-old sister mutilated her own arm, and their 12-year-old sister was seen with a 16-year-old boy who had his pants down, prompting concerns that the girl had been raped. To make matters worse, a non-Muslim foster parent gave the older girls crosses, which was interpreted by the Muslim and Arab communities — which had over time become involved in the case — as a sign that the children were being deprived of their Muslim faith.
Compounding the difficulties of research into this area of inquiry is the industry’s continued reliance on what Hagedorn (1995, p. 63) euphemistically refers to as “medical model gimmicks” drawn as a consequence of its continued reliance on Freudian models of psychopathology (Billingsley & Giovannoni, 1972; Johnson, 1991). The relation between social work and popular psychotherapy “is the most significant issue facing the profession today.” Social services, both public and private, are organized to make individualized psychotherapeutic forms of helping the most significant service they have to offer, hence: “Whether we are dealing with child abuse and neglect, addictions, loneliness, anxiety, economic dependency, or other physical and mental disabilities, it is psychotherapeutically oriented work with individuals that is considered to be the key” (Specht, 1990).
The philosophical underpinning of psychotherapeutic intervention in the field of social work, however, may itself be a significant part of the equation. Epstien (1997), in commenting on recent tinkering with family preservation services, notes:
Family preservation services, intrusive and possibly irritating, may actually exacerbate bad situations, producing harmful effects. Although the deterioration of subjects as a result of care may appear to be theoretically remote, it remains a live possibility of psychotherapy, and therefore cannot be summarily dismissed in any service involving counseling.
The psychotherapeutic orientation of social work aside, Epstien observes that the “intrusiveness” of one family preservation effort under review “may have exacerbated family tensions in a number of cases.” Matters can only be worse in the event that a child is actually removed from the home. As Besharov (1987) explains:
Long-term foster care can leave lasting psychological scars. For the parents, removing a child is psychologically devastating, and can do irreparable damage to their bond of affection and commitment. In addition, many forms of maltreatment stem from how the parent and child relate to each other. Separation obviously cannot aid in the resolution of such problems. The period of separation may so completely tear the already weak family fabric that the parents have no chance of coping with the children when they are returned.
The true extent of the problem is potentially far more significant than one might care to imagine. Roughly 45% of child abuse related fatalities have already come to the attention of child protective services agencies (Wiese & Daro, 1994) with some estimates ranging as high as 55% (Besharov, 1987). While the precise number of such cases actually accepted into the system and passed on for investigation is unknown, conventional wisdom would dictate that had the screening operator or investigating caseworker conducted a more competent or thorough inquiry, or had a reliable risk assessment device — one more capable of better “predicting” the course of events — been made available, nearly half of all child fatalities could have been prevented and these children could have been “rescued” from their tragic fates.
For example, Barth (1994) claims that unwarranted intrusions are not as deleterious to families as is often assumed while others, such as Finkelhor (1990, 1993) and Gelles (1996), argue in support of casting a more expansive net, positing that the problem of unsubstantiated reports is not serious enough to warrant any changes to or restrictions on current reporting trends. Gelles maintains not only that child abuse and neglect are underreported, but that the solution to the problems attributed to overreporting “is a better and more accurate means of risk assessment for reported cases” (p. 47). Reduced to its essence, they, along with many other advocates, argue for what Pelton (1997) describes as “more of the same” so that more children may be “rescued” from their homes.
But will casting a wider net, i.e., significant increases in financial resources expended on child welfare agencies, coupled with a marked increase in the number of available caseworkers truly have an impact on child fatalities? Apparently not, if recent developments in Sacramento, California, are to be taken as an indication. After several high-profile deaths of young children who had reportedly “fallen through the cracks of the county’s notoriously porous Child Protective Services,” Sacramento beefed up its child protective services programs and budgets. The county hired 116 additional social workers, and began removing children from “dangerous homes” more quickly, particularly those homes where drug abuse was present (Sacramento Bee, 1998). As previously noted, the removals of children from their homes increased from a rate of approximately 200 per month to 400 per month, with police assisting child protection workers in conducting unannounced late-night home visits. The results are in, as the Sacramento Bee explains:
Sadly, increased vigilance did not have an appreciable impact. The number of children who died of abuse and neglect last year in the county was among the highest ever, 14 such child deaths in 1998, compared to nine in 1996. At the same time, the number of children in foster homes has soared, up 1,400 from last year, a 45% increase.
While the increase in fatalities may well be attributable in part to some yet-to-be-described outside factors, one may well have imagined that even such a “notoriously porous” safety net would have fared better in protecting children from harm with the addition of 116 caseworkers to its ranks. The best argument that could be raised is that increases in budgets and staffing for child protection agencies are largely ineffective at reducing child abuse- and neglect-related fatalities. An alternative explanation is that such increases in staffing and budgets are somehow responsible for an increase in child fatalities.
Further compounding the difficulties of research in this arena is the fact that there has been little research on the possibility that child welfare services reduce child mortality (Barth & Blackwell, 1998). Pelton (1990) and Lindsey (1991, 1994) argue that there is no empirical evidence to support frequent claims by professionals that child protection services have impacted positively in terms of reducing child fatalities. Indeed, Lindsey (1994, pp. 100-118) devotes considerable attention to an argument which asserts that the tremendous increases in reporting and investigations of the recent decades have failed to produce anticipated reductions in child abuse- and neglect-related fatalities.
While it is not suggested that broad conclusions should necessarily be drawn from the anecdotal accounts recounted herein, further inquiry is essential if we are to devise a meaningful solution to the problem of child abuse while minimizing the possibility of exacerbating it in the very process of investigating whether or not it has occurred. Research in this area of inquiry is scant, at best, and I would find myself gratified if credible research efforts were to be undertaken as a result of my having outlined my hypothesis in these pages.
Termination of Parental Rights
Termination of Parental Rights
In Kentucky, an “explosion” in the number of children removed from their homes by court order has resulted in more children in need of care-yet the number of people willing to step forward as foster parents has failed to keep pace. “And its going to get worse,” says Rudi Megowan, Northern Kentucky family services supervisor for the state Department for Social Services. “They just passed legislation that will make it easier to terminate parental rights, which means more and more kids will be coming into care” (Vance, 1998).
This legislation, sweeping the states as of this writing, is the Adoption and Safe Families Act. It was the disparity between the number of children in foster care who need homes and the number who were adopted that spurred President Clinton in 1996 to ask for new legislation aimed at doubling the number of public adoptions by 2002 and giving foster children “what should be their fundamental right-a chance at a decent, safe home.” In response, Congress passed the Act in November of 1997 (Spake, 1998).
Before children may be adopted, their ties to their natural parents must first be permanently severed. Permanent termination of parental rights has been described as “the family law equivalent of the death penalty in a criminal case” (In re Smith). The power to terminate parental rights is an “awesome power” (Champagne v. Welfare). “It is tantamount to a civil death penalty” (Drury v. Lang).
In Michigan, terminations of parental rights increased by 55% in 1996 when referenced against the previous year (Kresnak, 1996). This was before the Adoption and Safe Families Act was even on the drawing board. From Wisconsin: “Petitions to terminate parental rights are on the rise in Waukesha County, fueled by changes in state law that cut the time parents have to shape up.” Over the past four years, the number of petitions filed by the county had increased sevenfold (Sink, 1998).
It apparently has become a cruel fashion of our times to systematically target primarily poor families for permanent severance of their family ties. To this end, the state of Arizona established a “Severance Project,” while Kentucky has established a “Termination of Parental Rights Project.” To implement the Kentucky initiative successfully, program officials believed that it was necessary to have the long-term and active involvement of “key officials at all levels, including the governor, legislators, and agency officials as well as caseworkers, service providers, attorneys, and judges.” This participation was deemed “essential to define the problem and reach consensus,” and accomplishing this end “required considerable coordination [of] efforts and an extended commitment of resources” (General Accounting Office, 1997).
Such a relentless onslaught against the family was bound to engender resistance. In Nevada, there is mounting anger and demand for change reportedly coming from parents whose rights have been terminated. They, too, say losing a child to protective custody is akin to a civil “death penalty” (Kanigher, 1997). Indeed, Chief Justice Charles Springer of the Nevada Supreme Court has observed that there is a “recent epidemic of terminations of parental rights of poor and handicapped parents” (Kanigher, 1997b). “As I have indicated in my dissents to other termination cases, the state seems to be running amok, spouting pop psychology and terminating parental rights in cases where it is clearly not necessary to do, particularly in cases of poor and otherwise handicapped parents,” Springer wrote in another dissent, while in another still, he explained:
The state’s modus operandi appears to be to go into the homes of handicapped, powerless and usually very poor parents, remove their children (almost always without the parents having counsel) and put the children into the home of substitute parents who are more affluent than the natural parents and more pleasing to social service agents than the natural parents.
After the children are taken out of the home of their natural parents, the state imposes upon the natural parents a “reunification plan” that is frequently beyond the capacity of the parents to deal with.
Springer has written of what he describes as the “state’s child-devouring juggernaut” to take children away from their parents only because they are poor. When child-rearing problems arise, Springer notes the problem of poverty is “rarely addressed,” rather the state seeks to assign blame to the parents thus “permanently depriving the children of their natural parents” (Ryan, 1998).
In a California case of recent vintage, a mother had her parental rights terminated on the basis of the testimony of a therapist who opined that she had a “narcissistic” personality. Her troubles began when social workers visited her home, removing the children because they found the home to be in generally “an unsanitary condition.” Orange County Counsel Laurence H. Watson and Deputy County Counsel Mark R. Howe argued the case on behalf of the Department of Social Services (Orange County Social Services Agency v Doris F.). In yet another California case, parental rights were terminated on the basis of a psychologist’s opinion that the parent had failed to “internalize” general parenting skills. Once again, Watson and Howe argued the case in the appellate court on behalf of the Department (Blanca P. v Superior Court). Dana Mack points to a case in which San Diego prosecutor E. Jane Via, whom she describes as a radical feminist, had sought to arrange for the adoption of an infant girl on grounds no more substantial than her Mormon father’s “patriarchal” religious beliefs might someday inspire him toward abusive behavior.
Perhaps more typical of national trends is a North Carolina case in which the Court of Appeals upheld termination of parental rights based on Moore County District Court Judge Michael E. Beale having found “clear, cogent and convincing evidence” that neglect had occurred based on a friend of the defendant testifying to having “observed a roach on the child’s face on one occasion,” and having seen “roaches on the car seat, diaper bag, and dirty clothes.” Dirty dishes were said to be accumulating, and dirty clothes were said to have been piled up around the apartment. This “evidence” of unfitness was not uncontroverted. A family therapist employed by the court to conduct a home study stated in his report that the house was neat and clean, and that the mother had “shown a good aesthetic sense in arranging flowers and art work to create a warm ambiance.” He also testified about the mother’s apparent willingness to become a better parent. The primary witness against the mother, Alvina Street, had legal custody of the child at the time she testified against the mother (In re Eric Young).
When in modern times it became fashionable for the courts of appeal to uphold the termination of parental rights for reasons of poverty is difficult to determine with precision. In Texas, however, the date was February of 1987, and the venue was the Court Of Appeals, Fifth District Of Texas. In his dissent in In the interest of S.H.A., a child, Justice Devany observed:
[W]hen we are faced with an economic depression and parents cannot provide adequate food for their children, under the majority holding, termination will be justified. The majority has enacted law that in a time of poverty parental rights will be terminated. The majority will have the state become a “big brother” form of government of such supremacy that it can destroy the very base of freedom and democracy in this country by destroying the family.
A more comprehensive review of appellate cases involving termination of parental rights is beyond the scope of this text. Suffice it to say that to the extent a very few children find themselves fortunate enough to wind their way out of the labyrinth of foster care toward the promise of permanence offered by adoption, a majority of these children appear to have had their rights to their parents terminated for largely the same reasons they entered foster care to begin with. In a majority of cases the reason is related to their poverty status. Among the majority of the remainder of these cases factors such as cultural bias or insensitivity, decision making and other skill deficits at all levels of administration, an all-pervasive anti-family bias, and corruption motivated either by financial gain or personal aggrandizement frequently manifest themselves. Allegations involving instances of life-threatening child abuse or neglect appear to be raised among the minority of TPR cases based on my personal review of something approaching some several hundred such cases.
And now, along comes the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Already the Department of Health and Human Services has issued a Program Announcement detailing how the legislation is to work once implemented on the state level. States are affirmatively required to proceed with the termination of parental rights when a child has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months. There are only three exceptions to the rule: 1) the child is placed with a relative (at the option of the State); 2) the State documents a compelling reason not to file a petition for TPR; 3) the State has not provided the services, identified in the case plan, necessary to make the home safe for the child’s return within the time frame specified in the case plan. The Act is “to be treated as a Title IV-E State plan requirement” and failure to obtain the necessary State legislation required to implement these new procedures during the first legislative session following the enactment of the Act “will result in a State plan compliance issue” (Administration for Children, Youth and Families, 1998).
Former New Hampshire State Senator and Chairman of the Human Services Committee David Wheeler argues that the Adoption and Safe Families Act will allow juvenile court judges to proceed with terminations of parental rights based solely on a child’s length of stay in foster care absent so much as an adjudication of abuse or neglect. The law comes with new funding streams, including incentives to maintain a child in state care until such time as termination of parental rights triggers financial incentives to child protection agencies. To my knowledge, his was the only state to reject the bill when it was first introduced in the House. A subsequent effort to attach it to another bill was discovered and derailed. The former Senator explains that as of this writing, efforts are still under way “to slip it under the door” (personal communication). While on its face, the legislation offers the promise of quicker exit from a system historically known for maintaining children in care for countless years of time, the Congress failed to ask one crucial question when it passed the legislation: Why are so many children in the foster care system to begin with?
SystemWide Abuses
Systemwide Abuses
A 1986 survey conducted by the National Foster Care Education Project found that foster children were 10 times more likely to be abused than children among the general population. A follow-up study in 1990 by the same group produced similar results (Maier, 1997). The American Civil Liberties Union’s Children’s Rights Project has similarly estimated that a child in the care of the state is ten times more likely to be abused than one in the care of his parents (Farber, 1993). As of 1996, class action lawsuits had been filed in 31 states, with 36 consent decrees overseeing the operations of child welfare and foster care systems. The most common complaints focused on noncompliance with family preservation requirements, while procedural safeguards, case planning, and placement quality were also frequently cited for noncompliance (Amstutz, 1996).
The advocacy group Children’s Rights has been in the forefront of such legal efforts at system reform, having been involved in actions against child welfare systems in the states of Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana and New Mexico, and the cities of Kansas City, Missouri; Louisville, Milwaukee, and New York City (Children’s Rights, Inc., 1997a). But such problems are not limited to the states which have been successfully litigated against. As Children’s Rights attorney Marcia Robinson Lowry explained to a Congressional subcommittee: “We have turned down requests from a number of other states to institute additional lawsuits, solely because of a lack of resources” (Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation and the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, 1988).
In a legal action brought by Children’s Rights against the District of Columbia’s child welfare system, LaShawn A. v. Kelly (1993), the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that “because of the appalling manner in which the system is managed, children remain subject to continuing abuse and neglect at the hands of heartless parents and guardians, even after the DHS has received reports of their predicaments.” The court ruled that youngsters who have been taken into the custody of the District’s foster-care system languish in inappropriate placements, with scarce hope of returning to their families or being adopted, and that the agency entrusted with their care had “consistently evaded numerous responsibilities placed on it by local and federal statutes.”
Among the deficiencies cited was “failure to provide services to families to prevent the placement of children in foster care.” The court determined that the agency had “consistently failed to provide services or otherwise use ‘reasonable efforts’ to prevent placement. The result has been an increased risk of arbitrary or inappropriate placements as well as an increased cost to the District.” Based on the case records of children in foster care as of December, 1989, whose goal was to return home and who had entered into care through voluntary placement, the Court found the agency “had failed to provide services in 77% of their cases.” Frustrated by the lack of progress after years of litigation, child advocates succeeded in placing the District of Columbia child welfare system into full receivership in 1995, making it the first such system in the nation to come under the direct control of the Court. (Gaouette, 1996).
In a Pennsylvania case, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Baby Neal v Casey (1994) ruled: “It is a matter of common knowledge (and it is not disputed here) that in recent years the system run by DHS and overseen by DPW has repeatedly failed to fulfill its mandates, and unfortunately has often jeopardized the welfare of the children in its care.” The original complaint, filed by Children’s Rights on April 4, 1990, alleged that systemic deficiencies prevent the Pennsylvania department from performing needed services, and that it consistently violated the due process rights of both parents and children:
Specifically, plaintiffs claim that these amendments confer the right not to be deprived of a family relationship; the right not to be harmed while in state custody; the right to placement in the least restrictive, most appropriate placement; the right to medical and psychiatric treatment; the right to care consistent with competent professional judgment; and the right not to be deprived of liberty or property interests without due process of law.
One of the plaintiffs in the Pennsylvania suit was “Tara M.” on whose behalf the advocacy group charged the city of Philadelphia with neglect. Human Services Commissioner Joan Reeves guaranteed the young girl an adoptive home with specially trained parents. In August of 1996, Tara M. would make the headlines once again as her new foster parents were sentenced for “one of the most appalling cases of child abuse” Common Pleas Court Judge Carolyn E. Temin said she had ever heard. Nine-year-old Tara had to undergo three skin grafts and wear a protective stocking during her recovery from burns over more than half her body. Police said the foster parents punished the girl by stripping her, forcing her into the bathtub and dousing her with buckets of scalding water. This was the very best of care the city could provide for Tara, a girl who had already endured years of physical and sexual abuse in the several foster homes into which she had been placed over the years (Associated Press, 1996).
Typical of more recent actions is a Youth Law Center suit in California which accused Eloise Anderson, director of the Department of Social Services, of refusing to carry out state and federal laws which require audits of county child welfare programs. Among the deficiencies cited in the lawsuit: “children in California’s child welfare system have been subjected to inadequate supervision, substandard conditions and inadequate health care and education” (Gunnison, 1996). Indeed, the health care and educational needs of foster children are all-too-often neglected by the child welfare agencies entrusted with their care. In a recent examination of whether the nation’s foster children were being adequately serviced with respect to their health care needs, the General Accounting Office (1995c) found that:
[D]espite foster care agency regulations requiring comprehensive routine health care, an estimated 12% of young foster children receive no routine health care, 34% receive no immunizations, and 32% have some identified health needs that are not met . . .
[A]n estimated 78% of young foster children are at high risk for human immunodeficiency virus as a result of parental drug abuse, yet only about 9% of foster children are tested for HIV . . .
[T]hat the Department of Health and Human Services has not designated any technical assistance to assist states with health-related programs for foster children and does not audit states’ compliance with health-related safeguards for foster children.
As for the educational needs of children in state care, the situation is equally as distressing. Miami attorney Karen Gievers, former President of the Florida Bar Association, filed a lawsuit in 1996, alleging that while 73% of Florida children among the general population graduate from high school or get an equivalent diploma, less than half of the state’s foster children do (UPI News Service, 1996
Sexual Abuse in the System
Sexual Abuse
A recent class action lawsuit filed on behalf of foster children in the state of Arizona, Sergio B. v Arizona, serves to indicate the extent of sexual abuse of children in state care. The suit alleges that over 500 of an estimated 4,000 foster children-about 12.5% of the state’s foster care population-have been sexually abused while in state care. The action charges that “the acts and omissions of Defendants were done in bad faith, with malice, intent or deliberate indifference to and/or reckless disregard for the health, safety and rights of the Plaintiffs.”
The sexual abuse of children in government custody appears to be a particularly widespread problem. In Maryland, a 1992 study found that substantiated allegations of sexual abuse in foster care are four times higher than those found among the general population (Benedict & Zuravin, 1992). A followup study of a sample group of foster children found that nearly 50% of the substantiated maltreatment reports involved sexual abuse. Foster fathers or other foster family members were found to be the perpetrators in over two-thirds of the substantiated cases, while other foster children in the home were determined to be the perpetrator in only 20% of the incidents (Benedict, et al., 1996).
In Kentucky, sex abuse in foster care was “all over the newspapers,” according to department head Larry Michalczyk. The former Commissioner explained that within a few years of time, his state saw a child die while in residential placement, a lawsuit filed against a DSS staff member on behalf of a foster child, and legislative inquiries into its child protection system (Committee on Ways and Means, 1991). Kentucky would prove to be a problematic state. Lowry points out that case reviews conducted in conjunction with a Children’s Rights action found that only 55% of the children in the state’s care had legally mandated case plans (Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation and the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, 1988).
Perhaps the most significant indicator of the true extent of sexual abuse in foster care was a survey of alumni of what was described as an “exemplary” and “model” program in the Pacific Northwest, observed Richard Wexler during recent Senate hearings. “In this lavishly-funded program caseloads were kept low and both workers and foster parents got special training. This was not ordinary foster care, this was Cadillac Foster Care” he explained. In this “exemplary” program, 24% of the girls responding to a survey said they were victims of actual or attempted sexual abuse in the one home in which they had stayed the longest. Significantly, they were not even asked about the other foster homes in which they had stayed (Subcommittee on Children and Families, U.S. Senate, 1995).
Children’s Rights has initiated a number of successful civil suits against foster care and child welfare systems. One such suit was brought against the Illinois foster care system by attorney Benjamin Wolf, who instituted the legal action after concluding that the state’s foster care system functioned as “a laboratory experiment to produce the sexual abuse of children” (Subcommittee on Children and Families, U.S. Senate, 1995). Yet, by many accounts, the sexual abuse of children in the state’s care has increased along with the increase in placements, successful lawsuits notwithstanding. Even Patrick Murphy, the outspoken Cook County Public Guardian, admits that sexual abuse of children in the care of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has probably increased (Golden, 1997).
CPS A National Empire Built on Kidnapping and Selling Children
CPS a national “empire built on taking children”: Georgia Senator Schaefer warns
by Kurt Schulzke on June 3, 2008
As the Texas CPS horror unfolds, some American parents watch passively as if it couldn’t possibly happen to them. Be warned. What Texas CPS did to the FLDS en masse, other states’ CPSs do every day across the country to individual families. You rarely hear about them because they are intimidated into silence. They keep quiet, hoping against hope that silence will bring their children back. But just as with Jews in Nazi Germany, this strategy rarely works. One reason: the government kidnappers get paid for selling the kids on to adoptive parents.
Your own CPS horror could begin any day in any number of seemingly innocent ways. On this theme, Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer, in November 2007, published a scathing report on CPS in Georgia in which she wrote:
The Adoption and Safe Families Act, set in motion by President Bill Clinton, offered cash “bonuses” to the states for every child they adopted out of foster care. In order to receive the “adoption incentive bonuses” local child protective services need more children. They must have merchandise (children) that sell and you must have plenty of them so the buyer can choose. . .
[T]hrough the process of dealing with multiple . . . mismanaged cases of the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS), I have worked with other desperate parents and children across the state because they have no rights and no one with whom to turn.
I have witnessed ruthless behavior from many caseworkers, social workers, investigators, lawyers, judges, therapists, and others such as those who “pick up” the children. I have been stunned by what I have seen and heard from victims all over the state of Georgia.
In this report, I am focusing on the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS). However, I believe Child Protective Services nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken almost beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be warned of the dangers.
The Department of Child Protective Services, known as the Department of Family and Children Service (DFCS) in Georgia and other titles in other states, has become a “protected empire” built on taking children and separating families. This is not to say that there are not those children who do need to be removed from wretched situations and need protection. This report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in “legal kidnapping” . . .
It’s all about money, says Senator Schaefer and she is not alone:
Look who is being paid! There are state employees, lawyers, court investigators, court personnel, and judges. There are psychologists, and psychiatrists, counselors, caseworkers, therapists, foster parents, adoptive parents, and on and on. All are looking to the children in state custody to provide job security. Parents do not realize that social workers are the glue
that holds “the system” together that funds the court, the child’s attorney, and the multiple other jobs including DFCS’s attorney.
Remember: “They must have merchandise (children) that sell . . .”
Hmm. Choice is important to “buyers,” isn’t it? It’s like the dog pound. Well behaved little puppies are much easier to sell than older, misbehaving ones. Interesting, in light of Hill Country Mental Healthcare eye witnesses who were awstruck at how well behaved and well adjusted the FLDS kids were. They saw no signs of abuse. Just a bumper crop of clean, healthy once-happy kids. No trouble makers. Perfect product for the Texas CPS kiddy auction.
Some counties are known to give a $4,000 bonus for each child adopted and an additional $2,000 for a “special needs” child.
Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing; that there is double dipping. The funding continues as long as the child is out of the home. When a child in foster care is placed with a new family then “adoption bonus funds” are available. When a child is placed in a mental health facility and is on 16 drugs per day, like two children of a constituent of mine, more funds are involved; . . .
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Debora Morey September 8, 2008 at 1:33 pm
This is happening everywhere to innocent families. Our children are a means to raise federal dollars for the state we live in. Ameirca wake up. The land of the free is all about the almighty dollar. Now children are a source of income for a state.
Mona Weeks October 15, 2008 at 11:46 am
To the Honorable Commissioner McCarthy:
I wanted to respond to information said at the last court hearing that was not true.
It was said in court I contacted the Social Worker in late September. That did not happen. I was contacted by the Department September 7, 2007. My sister Marty was not proceeding with her request for placement of Bruce. Her husband was diagnosed with brain cancer. I went to DCS in Twin Falls, personally picked up a packet to fill out to request placement of Bruce. I returned it in 2 days and was scheduled for fingerprinted for October 18th.
I knew of the existence of Baby Bruce since his birth. My sister was the person that was seeking placement of Baby Bruce. When Marty withdrew her request for placement September 3rd, I was contacted by Michele on Bruce’s behalf on September 3rd. She contacted social services on September 4th. They in turn contacted me September 7th. I had already proceeded to start what was required to have Bruce with me.
My first visit with Baby Bruce was on November 14, 2007. I wanted to meet both sets of foster parents to thank them for taking such good care of Bruce. I was told the foster parents did not want to meet me.
I was approved for placement November 20th. At my next visit on December 9 I was informed that the foster parents wanted to meet me. It was at this time they asked me to call Baby Bruce ‘Casey.’ They told me they wanted to adopt Baby Bruce and were better suited than I was to adopt him.
I did not agree to call Baby Bruce ‘Casey.’ He was named after his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. It is a family name and holds significant value. Baby Bruce was named by his father and mother and I feel it is unfair his name can be changed like that. Even in meetings with the Department, the Department calls him ‘Casey’ when his name is Bruce.
I have asked several times for permission for Baby Bruce to travel to Idaho to meet family members in Idaho. I have always been denied. I have written letters to the social worker Malika and never received reply’s back. I have been frustrated by the delays in this case. I was told Bruce could be home for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving came and went and he was not home. I was told to be patient, he will be home. I was told he would be home for Christmas. He wasn’t home for Christmas. Malika and Celeste have repeatedly told me that DCS is on my side and to please be patient as we go through this process. He will be home in your arms soon. Family is first and foremost. Reunification with family is first choice. I hoped he would be home for his first birthday. Now he is not. He has missed out on many family events in Idaho where he could have met family members. I have done everything asked of me and yet the Foster Family has all the rights. I don’t understand why that is after all I’m his biological Aunt.
Bruce typically spends 1-2 nights with me. In that time, I have never seen little Bruce distressed. He is always happy. He sleeps and eats well. I have never experienced Bruce having nightmares as the foster parents claim or crying fits at bed time. I never leave lights on in the motel room. He falls asleep easily. The Foster Parents have never packed anything but beginner stage baby foods and I have never seen a sippy cup of any kind. They claimed in grievance hearing that I have caused him to regress. I find this to be untrue. They have included a list at each over night visit of what to feed when. They are very explicit to his schedule all day. I have adhered to the list each visit, never straying from his schedule and feeding exactly what they send. Should they forget to pack something on the list I have either called them and requested it or gone to the nearest store and purchased it.
Baby Bruce is a very easy child. He generally goes to bed between 7:30 and 8 p.m. He doesn’t wake up until 5:30-6am. Nap time is 8am-10am, lunch is at noon, nap 1pm-3pm and dinner at 6pm and Bath time 7pm. He always wakes up with a huge smile on his face and is eager to play. He also refers to me as momma and sometimes the women in the hallway that speak to him. He follows me around the motel room. We play peek a-boo and other baby games. I have had concerns about muscle tone in his legs, and his dislike of men which I have spoken to with the Social Workers. Other than that, I have never had concerns about Bruce when he is with me. I have two adult children I raised from birth. I did not see alarming behavior displayed by Baby Bruce he is a perfectly normal little boy who just needs to be reunited with his biological family as soon as possible. He doesn’t appear to have the attachment disorder spoken of by the foster parents. I have spoken to professionals here in Idaho in regards to what the foster parents have stated and they feel that for and infant of his age they are reaching a little far.
I thought this information would be helpful to the Judge making its decision. I am sure it is not an easy decision, but Baby Bruce deserves to be with his biological family. This could affect him for the rest of his life. He shouldn’t have to grow up apart from his family. Family means so much and he needs to be with family. Baby Bruce needs to know we love him, want him, and always will.
Thank you.
Mona K. Weeks
Mona K. Weeks
Loving, Caring and Devoted Great Aunt
Mona Weeks October 15, 2008 at 11:46 am
California Stole my Nephew.
June 12, 2008
For the better part of a year I have tried to gain custody of my great nephew, Bruce. I thought that I had won when a court order was issued giving me, the biological Aunt, the right to take him back to Idaho. The foster Family Ken and Margaret (Meg) Jones filed a grievance with Department of Social Service to stop his movement. According to Malaika Mukoyama (California Case worker), she had no idea what to do or how to proceed. Instead of following through with the court order issued December 13,2007 by Commissioner McCarthy , Malaika chose to ignore it and see what the office of DCS decided to do. She informed the foster parents to file for Defacto Parent Rights to keep baby Bruce if that was what they truly wanted to do.
Since when did foster parents gain more rights than birth families? Since when can foster Parents change a Childs name just because they choose too? Since when did DCS have right to play with families hearts and souls as if they have no cares in the world? Since when did DCS become a place for childless couples to gain free adoption of our children that have a loving biological family willing able and ready to raise them. When did DCS change its responsibilities to the children to be reunited with birth families first and foremost?
This week a judge in Santa Clara County gave perfect strangers custody of my infant nephew, when there were blood relatives, approved by both states, that were willing to take him in and provide him with an extended, and happy family of people to whom he was related. These strangers Ken and Meg Jones of Los Gatos have no intentions of allowing our family any contact with him.
The State of California has stolen a member of my family; going against the wishes of his parents. Please help me bring him home, I don’t know where else to turn. The legal system has failed me, and I have spent my savings fighting for him. I need an attorney in California willing to fight for the American Family. Please don’t allow this adoption to take place. Baby Bruce AKA Casey Edward belongs with his biological family not with the Jones!
My Contact information is 208-735-1297 Mona Weeks
Mona Weeks October 15, 2008 at 11:49 am
December 22, 2007
Dear Ken and Meg,
I feel that you are having a difficult time understanding the importance of Baby Bruce coming home to his biological family. I would like you to place yourself in our family’s shoes for just a moment as I explain what we have gone through to this point in his life.
Baby Bruce was born into a sad situation. His biological mother wanted to have an abortion and my nephew begged her to please have his child, hence we have little Baby Bruce. The day he was born he was placed in DCS’s care. Our family in Idaho was not notified. His father was under the impression from DCS; that when he was released from jail he would have 6 months to regain custody of his son Baby Bruce. That was not the case, he soon found out when Baby Bruce was about 3-4 months old that DCS was looking for an adoptive placement for his son.
His mother contacted our sister Marty at this time to see if she would be willing and able to adopt Baby Bruce. Marty and her family were extremely excited about having Baby Bruce in there home. She has 5 children and felt one more would be a wonderful addition. No one could have known Marty’s husband Michael would get ill with Brain tumors and cause it to where she felt it would be to difficult on her to have a spouse that will require 24 hour care and an infant in her home. It was at this time that I was asked to begin the paper work, for they could only check one family member at a time. Baby Bruce is now 6 months old.
I must go through the process and get accepted into foster parent classes. My background check had to be completed first. By now it is October and the classes are set to begin. In the mean time my daughter and I have painted, decorated and supplied his bedroom with all the things Baby Bruce will need. The Foster Parent / Relative Adoption classes take until November 17 to complete. I’m required to attend 30 hours of training over this time. Not only do I work fulltime, I still have a teenage daughter living at home and am flying out to visit Baby Bruce on my days off and attending classes twice a week to have him in our home.
We are assured by DCS that once the classes are over that baby Bruce will be placed in our care by Thanksgiving. My license is provided by November 17th, just in time for the holiday. We are than told about a hold up on the California side. Not once were we told that anyone was interested in our little nephew. We were assured that he would be placed in our care immediately following my completion of classes.
Our family in Idaho continues to be patient in hopes that this will soon be over and Baby Bruce will come home to soon. In the meantime I continue to fly out every weekend. I will even be missing our Christmas Eve get together in Idaho for the first time in 41 years so that I can be with Baby Bruce. My family in Idaho put it to vote and believe that Baby Bruce needs me more now than they do. He needs to know that we all love him and wish he was here for his first Christmas. We want to continue building his memories that will last a life time.
So know I ask that you place yourself in our shoes and reverse the situation. How would you feel if an outside party being a non relative attempted to take your nephew from you; his biological family? A family that has done everything asked of them to bring him home. You are his biological family! You have planned on his return to your loving care for the past several months. DCS has assured you that he will be with you soon. DCS has ruled in your favor and stated be patient he will be home with you in no time. We just need to go through this process. The laws are on your family’s side. We here at DCS support family reunification first and foremost. The only thing preventing you from moving forward and bringing your baby nephew home is a non relative Foster family placement.
I ask that you consider these things and clearly place baby Bruce’s needs above your own needs to want a child. He deserves to be with his family. There are many children out in this world just waiting for a loving home to adopt them. Baby Bruce is not one of these kids. He already has a loving biological family just waiting to bring him home. Please allow us to do what is right by Baby Bruce allow us to bring him home where he should have been a long time ago. We love him with all of our hearts and will never stop fighting for him. He is what is the most important in this.
Sincerely Yours
Mona Kay Weeks
Loving, Caring and Devoted
Great Aunt Of Bruce Alan Mims III
William Wagener November 12, 2008 at 5:09 pm
DHS, or CPS are the CRIMINAL equivilent of the NAZI Brownshirt
criminals. Pure and Simple. CRIMINAL. They do PERJURY as a pattern and Practice. Stealing kids for gay/lesbian agenda of destroying a normal hetro-sexual Family, for fun , power and profit,
aided and abeted by SECRET [ Kangaroo ] COURTS, and EVADING
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW.
Every County Grand JURY should investigate them annually, indict
them for their multitude of CRIMES , convict the in a trial by their
NCP victims, and put them away in the deepest, darkest dungeon,
drugging them down, as they drug children they KIDNAP under-color-of-law. V.P. Elect Biden pushed through Congress the worst of the CAPTA , & VAWA and Title IV d laws that destroy children, by the thousands, and it won’t change until enough people join COPPERCARDS.com, and begin ACTING as registered Private Atty. Generals arresting judges, and removing them, and
HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE under their OATH of OFFICE
to the CONSTITUTION they vioilate daily in their secret Court rooms
where many good parents are tortured out of their children.
Deanna February 23, 2009 at 2:01 pm
*This involves all 4 of my children. I had my oldest at 18, the father left and I eventually married and had 2 children with my husband but was going through abuse throughout the marriage. He had never hurt the kids and never put a hand on me around the kids so I always talked myself out of leaving and convinced myself to hang in there and take it, one day he will change, the kids need to have stability. I did this for 4 years and finally divorced him. I had gotten in touch with my oldest sons father during the last year of my marriage and upon my divorce and his return from Iraq, we eventually got back together. He was great with the kids, had gotten to know the son that he regretedly left before birth. We got engaged, had a baby and married on our 2 year anniv. The 2 kids I have with my ex husband were placed into his temp. custody despite me being diagnosed with PTSD from his abuse. My oldest and yonugest are the 2 I have with my soon to be ex husband, case workers brother. Below you will find the awful truth and corruption of how our DFCS system REALLY works. I have missed every holiday and birthday. I am not allowed by the paternal aunt to participate in ANY family activities. She is that convinced that she is their mother. Here is my story.
-Why was our local DFCS allowed to investigate with Father’s sister working there as a case worker? How could they NOT know that it was a CONFLICT OF INTEREST? I informed case worker that her fellow case worker for same DFCS , whom she says she knows by the way, is fiance’s sister and aunt to the kids. In the summer of 2006 I called local DFCS out of concern that something might be happening to my daughter during weekend visits with her father. They told me to take her to the Cresent House the next day. It was a different County case worker that met me there as the case was transfered out of our county to be investigated by another county due to CONFLICT OF INTEREST. When it involves one of my kids with my ex husband the case is transfered but when it involves all of my children, the paternal aunts nephew’s, it somehow stays in our county for them to investigate, lie, fabricate their already false evidence, and take my children, my everything.
-Sept. 12, 2007 court papers state
*Pg.4 DFCS seacrched for relative placements to keep kids in familiar setting with people they know. -DFCS searched paternal side only. Paternal relatives had nothing to do with my oldest son until he was 4 years old. They were not people he really knew.A reasonably diligent search is required by law (O.C.G.A. § 15-11-55) to identify those individuals who may be considered a resource for placement or custody of the child. The search includes the parents or relatives of the child, as well as other persons who have demonstrated an ongoing commitment to the child. It seems to me that the maternal side would have been the first choice, after all, they were the ones there for oldest son when his father and the father’s family had nothing to do with him. There’s no one in this world who knew or loved that little boy more than me and my family. The paternal side wasn’t the ones who demonstrated any kind of comment or even contact with him until 4 years of age and that only happened because I had child support enforcement forward his father my contact info out of hopes that he could meet his real father before he went to war in Iraq. Just incase he didn’t make it back home, I wanted him to have at least met him. If it wasn’t for me doing that, his father and family probably still wouldn’t be a part of his life.
*Pg.5 DFCS had kept the case open because allegations of medical and dental neglect. The results of the investigation were unsubstantiated due to lack of evidence so on what grounds did they have to open a case at all? They have the kids medical and dental records to show they were not neglected in ANY way what so ever. They say there was NO evidence to back up those allegations but was able to OPEN a case anyways based on that even though case worker had came in person Aug. 30, 2007 and said there would NOT be a case open due to clean drug screenings and lack of evidence. According to the Department Of Human Resources Policy Manual, All investigations require completion of Form 455A (Safety Assessment), Form 457 (Risk Assessment Scale) and Form 431 (Child Abuse and Neglect Report). Substantiated cases require a 455B (Safety Plan).We never had a Safety Plan, never signed any kind of plan before our kids were taken. If you look into our files you will see there was not a safety plan or a court order to keep our unsubstantiated case open before removal.A low risk case that remains open for services cannot remain open in IDS, and Form 590 (Internal Data System) is submitted for closure immediately upon case determination. The exceptions are cases with court ordered CPS involvement and high risk unsubstantiated cases that remain open for services. Case worker came to our home August 20,2007 to bring me the letter saying there would not be a case due to lack of evidence but had forgotten the letter in her office and said she’d mail it to me. When I got it, Sept. 6, 2007, the day they took my kids, it was dated August 31, 2007 and said there was a case open. Didn’t anyone question that at all? Why didn’t anyone ask, well why didn’t she have a safety plan, why isn’t there any face to face visit’s or anything at all other than the investigation in her file? That should prove there that they were not working with us, there was no provision of services.
-Also,If problems with visits arise, court will issue an appropriate order. I had been requesting my kids be moved from the paternal aunts home and to have visit’s moved as well in the meantime due to the tension and stress at the paternal aunts home. I began asking for these things in November 2007.I had also been asking from the beginning when the boys could see their grandparents and other family members that have been in oldest son’s life since birth but the only answer DFCS ever gave me was it was up to paternal aunt. She always said NO. My family was NOT allowed and when I told DFCS about her answer all they said was, oh well, it’s her call. oldest son didn’t see the grandmother he loved so much for about 9 months. When pat. aunt found out in November 07 that I was tryin to have the kids moved from her home to my aunts, she told me with all my kids in the room with us, “I will bolt myself with all 4 of these kids before they go to your family” DFCS was informed of this also but did nothing, as usual. DFCS didn’t move the visit’s until requested by respeceted counsler in March 2008 as he could feel the tension in the aunt’s home as well. Why will they work with her to keep things going her way and to keep the boys with her but they won’t work with me, the boys mother, to ensure proper, happy, visit’s and to come home one day? DHR Policy states the younger the child the more frequent the visits should be to maintain an emotional attachment and relationship with the parent. I had only 1-2 hours a week to bond with my baby. I don’t know when he rolled over for the first time, his first baby food, his reaction to his first real bath, I wasn’t informed of anything at all and missed so much time that I can never get back. He’ll never be a newborn again. This ALL could have been so very different if DFCS hadn’t conducted their illegal investigation so their childless co-worker could have my children! If they had have been moved to my aunts I could’ve seen them on a daily basis and tended to them both. Of course DFCS told me that if they were to put the boys with my aunt then I couldn’t live there or spend the night but that wasn’t the case when this all began. My fiance was allowed to LIVE with pat. aunt and my boys.But it was different for him. His sister was the one making the rules, and still is!
*Pg6. Causes of Deprivation as to the mother. Medical Neglect- I will bring in the medical records that prove my kids were ALWAYS on time for health checks, shots, and were there when they were sick. Dental needs were not provided by mother. I will bring Dental Records from Dentist to prove they were there for routine cleanings, crowns, etc. Even though DFCS already has their records from the doctor and dentist. Substance abuse. It’s already been confirmed that I wasn’t ever taking Meth. It was OTC cold med. that caused a false positive reading. If DFCS would have done their job I would have had insurace. I gave my form from my doctor to my case worker and she NEVER put in the info, even after my peachcare ran out and the times I called and went to her office in person to let her know it was time for my monthly OB appt. but I couldn’t go until she put the form in so I was covered. She said she would get to it by the end of the day. I am in NO way saying that what I did was right. What I got from my friend was the same exact thing that the ER doctor had given me before so I knew it was safe to take. I would have NEVER put something into my body to go through to my baby if I didn’t know it was OK. I just didn’t have the money to pay for another ER visit and out of pocket perscription. I am so sorry for what I did and as far as I can see, it’s the ONLY thing I did wrong! This entire time I have been saying that DFCS shouldn’t have taken the kids the way that they did and that I knew there was a HUGE step they skipped right over. DHR policy states:
Open and assign an immediate to 24-hour response time on a report, received from medical personnel, that indicates that either a newborn infant and/or the infants’ mother tests positive for illegal drugs or prescription drugs not the mother’s prescription. Make a referral for a formal substance abuse assessment.
Determine the following:
Are all children who reside in the home assessed as safe or conditionally safe as determined by Safety Assessment (Form 455A)?
Is the living environment stable i.e., rent, lights, water, and gas current?
Does the mother acknowledge the risk her drug use poses to her children?
Is the mother willing to cooperate with a formal substance abuse assessment and treatment, if indicated?
When the answer to any one of these questions is “no,” file a deprivation complaint requesting custody of the infant and at-risk siblings and for treatment for the mother. Determine whether suitable relative resources exist for placement of the infant outside the home (See 2104.33).
When the answer to all of the above questions is “yes,” file a deprivation complaint for court-ordered treatment for the mother, unless the formal substance abuse assessment has determined that treatment is not required.
Discuss with the supervisor information obtained in the investigation and jointly decide which option the department will take: whether to file for custody of the infant and siblings at risk and for court-ordered treatment for the mother, or to file only for court-ordered treatment for the mother, if this need is indicated by the formal substance abuse assessment.
Advise the medical facility of the department’s decision.
Procedures/Practice Issues
Proceed with the investigation by taking the following steps:
Step 1: Notify the reporter (medical personnel/facility) when the investigation is initiated and request the medical facility to provide in writing the level and type of all intoxicants, identified during delivery, in the mother’s/infant’s blood. If the hospital does not provide a written report, a verbal report is acceptable; however, document in the case record on Contact Sheet (Form 452) the date of the report, who provided the report and the content of the verbal report. Make the referral for a formal substance abuse assessment.
Step 2: Go to the medical facility and notify appropriate hospital staff of the need to interview the mother face-to-face and to observe the infant.
Step 3: Have the mother sign a Release of Information for permission to discuss and receive a copy of medical records. NOTE: The results cannot be shared with anyone without the expressed written consent of the mother, unless there is a court order to do so.
Step 4: Obtain information on the current condition of both mother and infant from medical facility personnel.
Step 5: Go to the home to interview the mother, if she has been released, and observe the infant (see the infant at the medical facility, if the infant is not yet released).
Step 6: Determine the living arrangements for the mother and whether the infant will be in a safe and secure environment once released from the hospital.
Step 7: Determine the level of extended family support for the mother and, as part of the effort to determine the immediate safety of the infant, obtain information from all available family members.(FROM ALL FAMILY MEMBERS!)
Step 8: Discuss with the mother the results of the positive drug test. Determine her acceptance /acknowledgment of the situation and her willingness to accept help through drug treatment.
Step 9: Discuss with the reporter (medical personnel) the information obtained during the investigation to determine what level of intervention the department will take. This may be done through a formal staffing in a multi-disciplinary approach with medical consultation or in a less formal manner through telephone contact with the reporter (medical personnel).
Case managers cannot discuss the results of drug tests or drug assessments without a signed Release of Information or by court order.
The SAAG represents the department at a hearing and requests, on behalf of the department, that any order issued by the judge include drug treatment for the mother, periodic drug tests and supervision by DFCS when the infant remains in the mothers physical custody.
According to this, my children shouldn’t have been taken the way they were. They were safe, supervised, healthy, happy, and most of all, they were loved. After all, they lived with their mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Not only did my children recieve more than enough love and attention, they were spoiled rotten! DFCS has told me the entire time that when an infant tests positive for drugs then it’s an AUTOMATIC removal of all children into DFCS custody and that’s exactly what they did. They also said it was due in part to me having an OPEN CPS case! We had already been informed that there was not going to be a case open just 6 days before. Paternal aunt took home the baby she’s always wanted. She was allowed to show her paper to the nurse and leave with my baby. That shouldn’t have been allowed. DFCS never explained any of this to me as to how things will go and that I have a say so in where my children stay. The DFCS policy says that the case worker is supposed to talk with the mother during the investigation about placement for the kids just incase it came down to removal. Case worker never discussed placement with me. She discussed it with Paternal aunt though. It was automactic that they went with her.
* Failure to protect from domestic violence. A family friend had came un annouced to our home while he was drinking. It was late and all the kids were sleeping. My uncle was just about to go home when the friend showed up but once he saw he was drunk he stuck around to see him home SAFE. He refused to leave and had it in his mind that he was going to fight someone and seeing as how my uncle was the one offering him a ride home so he could leave, he picked a fight with him. Aunt says that oldest son told her he awoke from hearing fighting. When the fight began I went into the kids room with them as I didn’t want one of them to wake up and see ANYTHING like that. I didn’t even allow them to watch violence on T.V. let alone in their HOME! When I came into the room they were asleep. What woke oldest son up was the light being on and me talking to the 911 operator. After he was already awake, he did hear yelling and asked what was going on. I explained the best I could to my 6 year old son that our friend was here and was just being silly and too loud but was about to leave. I did protect them from seeing or being around that ONE fight but there was NO way that I could prevent it from happening. I had no way of knowing he was coming over drunk and ready to fight. I did the best I could and can’t understand why something out of my control could be held against me and used as a reason for removal. DFCS had NO real evidence or reasons to take my kids so they were going with whatever they could find, twist it around, and fabricate their FALSE so called evidence!
*Pg.7 The maternal relatives furnished me drugs??? Not only is this NOT TRUE but it’s probably the reason the maternal relatives were not contacted about placement for kids. The only person that would have said something like that would have been paternal aunt or my fiance as he was playing BOTH sides at the time. DFCS ignored the law of searching BOTH sides because case worker, paternal aunt said the maternal side are drug dealers/users. See how powerful her words against me can be? This makes perfect sense seeing as how it was her grandfather outside of the nursery saying “test that baby, the mother is on drugs” and on the March court date paternal aunt took the stand saying that my family deals and does drugs! My entire family went for and PASSED hair tests after that.
-Final Disposition Order- Hearing was held Nov. 27, 2007 without myself, fiance, nor our attorney’s. Normally we are sent papers BEFORE a hearing but this time we weren’t so we didn’t know to go. They notified us of ALL hearings before and after the Nov. 27th hearing but not this one, why? I know why. If we knew about it then the maternal relatives would have been there to find out why they were not contacted after helping me care from oldest son sense birth while the paternal wasn’t there until he was 4, They would have proven that being with paternal relatives IS NOT in the kids best interest and the judge more than likely would have ruled in the maternal relatives favor and pat. aunt would have lost the boys. Another string pulled on her behalf. How did the court find that the diligent family search report was filed properly when it clearly listed paternal relatives only. It’s required by law that BOTH sides are looked into so why didn’t the judge or anyone else ask why the maternal relatives were not listed or contacted? Is the judge afraid of DFCS too? It seems that way after all the times he let pat.aunt make statements based on hearsay and then let her statements stand in court and be used against ME! If I get on stand and say well, so and so told me that she said…..the Judge or someone would have stopped me for hearsay, which isn’t allowed to stand in court. Unless you are the paternal aunt who can abuse her power as a case worker.
* Sept. 4,2009 court date.Motion for extention of juvenile court order with permancey hearing. Motion reads “Now comes the petioner The Co. DFCS I thought our Co DFCS wasn’t over ANY of the case, not even the legal stuff, at least that is what they told me at the FTM on 02-11-09. The FTM before that one I was told the case is in another Co. DFCS for the MOST part but our co. still handles the legal part. I don’t know which to believe. It makes alot of sense if our co. does handle the legal part or any of it for that matter, it explains how pat.aunt ALWAYS knows what is going to happen next and when. DFCS filed for a 1 year extension beginning Sept. 6, 2008 which means custody is still with them until Sept. 6, 2009. So why is it they are taking me to court and putting my kids into the pat.aunts custody in April when there is still over 5 months left on the 1 year extension? I kicked my husband out, the reason for the domestic violence and this is what me and my children get? I’d rather have him back and knock me around or put me into the wall by my throat again than for my kids be put into her custody with out giving me a chance to show that I CAN do this on my own! If they give me until the extension is up I know I can make 10 times more progress than before. The depression from my marriage drug me down and I let it, it was a very bad decision but I know that with that huge weight off my shoulders I can have a job and a home BEFORE the extension is up. I just need a chance.DFCS filed to have this done before I kicked him out. All I need is one chance. I’ve done EVERYTHING ELSE. I’ve passed random drug tests and 90 hair tests for 17 mths. What more proof do they need?
-When the home evaluations came up in court, DFCS stated that they had been done but the maternal grandmother and maternal aunt had not sent in medical papers yet. I had the medical papers with me in court along with the fax paper proving that it was faxed days before. It shows the date, time, and the DFCS fax number. This isn’t the first time papers were lost when it came to making a POSITIVE change in the case. I gave them to them again and upon talking with case worker Jan. 28, 2009, I requested again that my kids be placed with my aunt and not into paternal aunts custody, she once again said that the evaluations are incomplete because they still didn’t not have the medical papers. I had to send the pet papers twice and this will be the FOURTH time at re-sending (fax and in person) the medical papers. They “lose” the papers EVERYTIME and claim I didn’t give it to them, trying to make it look as though I didn’t really care if it was done or not, and I’m OK with my kids staying with Pat.aunt when the TRUTH is that I DO CARE AND DO NOT WANT MY KIDS WITH HER AT ALL! See how they work? The judge did grant un-supervised visit’s at this hearing and pat.aunt took the stand and of course had things to say in an attempt to change his mind. She said she was concerned about past violence and possible present violence and said oldest son claims to have been woken to fights while in my care (that’s not true, she’s putting words in my childs mouth again) The past violence she was talking about was after the kids removal. There was an incident between my father and his brother in law. It took place outside of the home and my mom kicked her brother out as a result to ensure it wouldn’t happen again as he was the cause of their fight.
*Court papers for up coming court date April 16, 2009 at 11:00am
-Non-Reunification And Placement With Fit and Willing Relative
-Pg.4 States the court will hear from ANY OBJECTION to the placement of these children with the pat.aunt. I am going to have quite a few relatives with me to object this. I’ve had my mother and aunt there before so that they could take the stand and request themselves that the kids be moved from the pat.aunt but they were never allowed in. The papers say the judge will hear ANY objection so they had better make plenty of room because there will be a line of my friends and family from the main entrance all the way to the court room door!
PLEASE SEE WHAT’S SO EASY TO SEE! THIS WAS DONE FOR AND PARTLY BY THE PATERNAL AUNT WHO IS NOW THE SUPERVISOR OF DFCS! THIS IS ILLEGAL AND I DON’T CARE HOW MUCH IT COSTS, I WILL HAVE AN ATTY., I WILL HAVE MY KIDS, AND I MOST DEFINITLY WILL BE TAKING MY STORY TO THE PUBLIC AND THE OUR CAPITOL WHEN THIS IS OVER AND IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO, CASE WORKERS LIKE THE PATERANL AUNT WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO EVER BE A CASE WORKER AGAIN. PLEASE JUST LET MY KIDS COME HOME AND PUT AN END TO THIS!
If you can help or have ANY advice please help me. Southernsweetness24@yahoo.com
nicole June 16, 2009 at 1:35 pm
i am a mother of a 2 year old little girl and dcs has taken her from me on false accusations they said its for medical neglect and substance abuse when i have never been in trouble for drugs in my life and havent ever had it on my record they are making me take drug tests for no reason they are abusing my child she has brusies on her every time i see her i think it is so wrong what they are doing they are making do all these classes and of no hope gettin my child back its wrong they are abusing me in the mean time they are letting her so called father have visitation rights he hasnt even took a dna test yet to even make sure he is the father and they are supervising his visits when it is court ordered for him to have them i want my child back they had no reason to take her from me
dennis d. davidson July 23, 2009 at 6:14 am
Mrs. Fincher. There is one person that can help you and will help you!That person will only help you if you take the soon to be ex away from Husband.Mrs.Davidson your husband is fighting a war not against the forces of terror.But he is fighting the war to reunite his family which involves his wife and kids. All you have to do is trust your husband and follow his guidance.He is doing everything he can to unite the Davidson’s under one roof.Key note one child will return with out him.Its ok to want your kids and your husband too.he Loves you and deserves you more than you know.
sharon August 31, 2009 at 11:45 pm
My name is sharon my sister and I have gone threw investigations galore all have been unfouded and yet they still come out everytime they get a call. This first started about five years ago when my sister first was reported the worker tried to take my sisters kids and I interfered. Shortly after another report was made when the worker came out to investigate my sister she was not home however I was doing laundry at her house with my kids when my kids where drugged into the report and then investigatd because I was there. After that my sister was reported again this time for suspected drug abuse she passed her drug test and case was closed however a month later another report came in and the worker along with law enforcement tried to remove kids but my mother took the kidsand left but cae back after threats of amber alert but my sister left with them a few hours later to new york. Shortly after this incedent I was reported to cps in which was a boggas report by school officals I then left to georgia where my sister and m lived for four years with any reports untill removed to valdosta where I tried to get the correct dianoses for my daughter {which I did even with being reported to cps} the case was clsed and we all moved back to florida we where there 30days when my sister was reported for her year old son for child molestation. The cps worker came alone my sisters 9 year old son called law enforcement terrified saying a stranger was going to take him from his mommy. The worker then said she wanted to come pick up the youngest in two days and carry him to there doctors for an exam my sister said no you expect that then he is going to the hospital asap{ that same day} the doctor gave report to my sister showing that the child has never suffered any abuse of any kind in which my sister still holds in her possion today. I totaly agree cps is corrupt and something needs done because not only are they kidnapping our children children are more likely to suffer abuse in their care due to impropper placement, over crowding, foster parents unable to meet specific childs needs and abuse that has been suffered by the removal of children by cps this includes mental abuse from legal kidnapping in which children know they where happy and loved but tooken anyway.
yvonnemason
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