Child Protective Services, CPS, has devastated and destroyed hundreds of thousands of families in America during the last thirty years leaving a trail of broken hearts, broken dreams, and shattered childhoods.
Rather than helping families, government agents have used unconstitutional laws in Juvenile Court to rip children away from their loving parents, break asunder God-given, natural, parent-child bonds, and adopt the children of the grieving out to others who profit financially with large monthly adoption subsidy payments.
Child Protective Services must be stopped! The law that started this, CAPTA, must be repealed. We must work tirelessly to inform the public of this very dangerous travesty of justice. We must keep faith knowing that if there is a God, there is an answer and a way to end this heartache.
Child Protective Services Agents - please come to your senses! Family destruction on false or trivial grounds is wrong, reprehensible, and inhumane.
Fosterers - be aware that for the money you get you are holding much-loved children away from their grieving families while the parents are forced to perform a service plan that is anything but a service to them. I call this hostage holding for the government. This is not kindness - to help misguided government agents destroy family relationships and break loving bonds.
CPS workers and fosterers - I ask that you now give up these unworthy professions and find something more dignified to do with your lives. Let the children of the innocent return to their homes where they are truly valued, adored, and loved by the parents God gave them.
Family rights are God-given rights. And they should not be ignored or postponed. Every moment these loving parents and children spend separated from one another is a torment beyond what anyone should ever have to bear.
It is unworthy of human dignity to allow this terrorism and torture of families to go on without saying something, speaking out, and trying to make a change.
Site mission: To provide information and support for families attacked by Child Protective Services and child welfare agents, especially those families facing false or trivial accusations of child abuse or neglect; and for researchers working to protect natural family rights.
The county received $600,000 in adoption incentive payments last year... but they're not doing it for MONEY according to their suck-up grand jury:
07/08/2002
By DAVID SEATON
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
RIVERSIDE - Child welfare officials must do a better job battling a rumor that social workers receive extra pay for rushing children into adoption, the Riverside County Grand Jury concluded.
The grand jury said it found that through interviews and media and Internet articles, some people think the law creates a bounty on new adoptions and a disincentive to keep troubled families intact.
The grand jury recommends better informing social workers of the laws and regulations so they can better communicate with clients who hold this view.
Counties do receive "adoption incentives" for boosting their adoption rates, but the bonuses are not aimed at taking children from their parents, the investigative body determined.
Rather, the money must be used to pay for post-adoption services, such as counseling and transportation for the new parents.
"The presumption that we would take children to get money for post-adoption services is pretty absurd," said Dave Demers, deputy director of public social services.
Barbara Harlow said she complained to the grand jury that a social worker was pushing the adoption of her grandson, who had been taken from his birth mother. Harlow said she wanted custody of the boy, now 3, but a juvenile court judge approved adoption by a couple last month.
The social worker "couldn't tell me why I couldn't pick up my grandson, other than these people were on a waiting list for two and half years," said Harlow, who lives south of Corona.
The county's adoption rate has soared since the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.
At that time, tens of thousands of children across the country were bouncing around in foster care, Demers said, with no plans for a permanent, stable home.
The 1997 law shortened the time birth parents accused of neglect or abuse were given to reunify with their children. It also gave states and counties $4,000 to $6,000 for every adoption above the previous year's total.
Since then, public adoptions in Riverside County soared 448 percent to 377 adoptions in fiscal year 2000-2001. The overall state figures increased 110 percent to 7,125.
The county received $600,000 last year for its dramatic increase in adoptions. The total budget for Child Protective Services is $73 million, Demers said.
Some observers argue that child-welfare laws do create financial incentives toward adoption and away from family preservation.
Richard Wexler, executive director for the National Coalition for Child Protective Reform in Washington D.C., said the federal government spends 10 times more on foster care than on programs to keep kids out of foster care.
"Nobody's getting rich, but systematically, the financial incentives push counties away from safe, proven programs to keep families together and toward foster care and adoption," Wexler said.
NEWPORT NEWS -- The first order of business after the Gramkes heard the verdict was to hug everyone in sight - their lawyer, friends from church, impartial bystanders, but most of all each other.
Hugging, kissing and crying, Brad Gramke, the just-acquitted defendant, his wife, Diandra, and his parents, Jeff and Jill, clung to each other tightly in the aisle of Newport News Circuit Courtroom 3.
"It's over with, it's over with," Jill Gramke repeated, then told a reporter, "I don't know who you are, but I'm hugging you anyway."
Minutes earlier, a jury found 25-year-old Brad Gramke not guilty of hurting his 5-week-old son, Ayden, who the defense asserted suffers from a rare brittle-bone disease.
Not guilty of child abuse or neglect.
Not guilty of maliciously wounding Ayden.
Not guilty of the lesser charge of unlawfully wounding him.
Not guilty of the even lesser charge of assault and battery.
"It feels great," Brad Gramke said, grinning and surrounded by cameramen, including one from the national TV news magazine show "Dateline," which took an interest in the unusual case.
The next order of business: "We go back to being a family."
The Gramkes have moved to Florida to be closer to family during their ordeal. They said they planned to get a good night's sleep Monday night, then drive straight through to see their children, who are being cared for by Diandra Gramke's mother.
Ayden is 19 months old now. Their daughter, Lyric, is 4. Brad Gramke's access to the children has been restricted since January 2001, when doctors determined Ayden had a broken leg and several other healing fractures of his fingers and ribs.
Suspicion fell on the baby's father, a suspicion that prosecutors said was confirmed when Brad Gramke admitted to police he might have caused the injuries by hugging Ayden too tightly or maybe pulling him out of an infant swing too roughly.
That was essentially a confession to the crime, Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Matt Danielson said in his closing argument Monday.
Doctors testified last week that Gramke's explanation for how Ayden might have gotten hurt wasn't consistent with the injuries, but Danielson said it is common for defendants to give statements in which they try to downplay their role.
Defense attorney Colleen Killilea argued that Ayden suffered from a disease called osteogenesis imperfecta. More commonly known as brittle-bone disease, it causes bones to break very easily, sometimes for little or no reason, with little or no force.
She reminded jurors that a national expert - originally hired by city social service workers - had testified for the defense that he believed Ayden had the disease.
Although there is a genetic test that can confirm such a diagnosis, Ayden tested negative, but so do about 15 percent of all legitimate cases, doctors said.
Based on doctors' opinions, a juvenile court judge last year dismissed the social service authorities' civil case against Brad Gramke.
Brad and Diandra Gramke said Monday they thought prosecutors would drop the criminal charges after Ayden was diagnosed with brittle-bone disease.
"I really expected them to have more of an understanding than they did, rather than pushing as hard as they did," Brad Gramke said, referring to the prosecutors.
But he said he's not angry or bitter toward anyone and realizes prosecutors were just doing their job.
His wife was more critical. After the case got a lot of publicity - the Daily Press wrote a three-day series about it and "Dateline" broadcast a 30-minute show on it - the prosecutors "didn't want to be seen as backing down," Diandra Gramke said.
Commonwealth's Attorney Howard Gwynn defended his office's handling of the case. Gwynn stressed doctors have debated whether Ayden has brittle-bone disease. If he does, he could still be an abuse victim, Gwynn said.
He said he watched the whole trial and thought his prosecutors proved Brad Gramke was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
"The jury spoke," added Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Cressondra Willis, who prosecuted the case with Danielson. "We have to live with that."
Willis said she spoke afterward to the jury forewoman, who told her the jury didn't even consider the brittle-bone disorder a factor in the case. The jurors weren't convinced that it was Brad Gramke, rather than someone else, who hurt Ayden, Willis said.
The jury forewoman could not be reached for comment.
The six-man, six-woman jury deliberated for less than two hours.
This is over a month old, but I hadn't read it before:
05/31/02
By JACOB GOLDSTEIN Chronicle Staff Writer
A case worker employed by a state welfare agency paid a Gallatin County man $300 for a bag of cocaine after telling him she would let him return home to his family if he supplied her with drugs, according to documents filed Thursday in a Bozeman court.
Rita Bennet, a 48-year-old Bozeman woman, was arrested Wednesday on felony charges after Bozeman Police detectives watched the alleged drug deal take place.
A man who has been identified only as a confidential informant initially contacted police on May 25 to report that Bennet, his case worker at the Department of Public Health and Human Services, had told him the day before that if he wanted her permission to return home he would have to provide her with drugs.
According to court papers, Bennet said she needed cocaine for a family member who was "messed up on crack." When the man told Bennet he did not know how to find drugs, she replied, "You better figure something out."
Investigators launched a four-day sting operation that led to a Wednesday-night meeting between Bennet and the informant in the Gibson's parking lot on West Main Street.
Earlier in the week, during a recorded telephone conversation, Bennet asked the informant how much "an eight ball" of cocaine -- an eighth of an ounce -- cost. The informant told her it would cost $250, and Bennet said she would throw in an extra $50 "for the effort," according to court documents.
A few minutes before the meeting was set to take place, detectives provided the informant with a bag of cocaine, hid a listening device on his body and sent him into the parking lot. Bennet arrived a few minutes later, according to the documents.
Officers listened as Bennet got in the informant's car and asked him if he was wearing a wire. The man said he was not.
Officers then heard the Bennet say "Thanks," and heard the informant say "Thanks for the extra fifty."
Bennet got back into her car and began to drive away, but officers pulled her over before she got out of the parking lot. They found the bag of cocaine, along with $900 in cash, in her purse, the documents allege.
The informant produced $300 that he said Bennet had given him for the cocaine.
Bennet is currently being held at Gallatin County jail on $15,000 bail. She could be sentenced to up to 70 years in prison if she is convicted of the charges filed against her.
Ken Pekoc, a public affairs officer at the Department of Public Health and Human Services, said Wednesday that Bennet is suspended while his department reviews the case.
It sounds to me like they better get busy reviewing all her other cases too! Let the public be aware that such manipulative people are employed to take children away from families. No wonder so many families are being needlessly destroyed.
That was the title they gave to the article at the Billings Gazette. I think I would have chosen something more like "Unconstitutional, Cruel Meddling and Interference in Family Life" - something catchy like that.
The story is that the step-father was either found not guilty or the DA decided not to prosecute an earlier non-disclosed abuse charge brought by his ex-wife. The woman refused to quit complaining about him so she enlisted the help of ever-ready CPS which was there to violate rights and persecute the young couple for months on end.
One of their service providers, "Family Support Network", gets painted as the grand savior in this article about how grand it is to have busybodies messing around with every little family "need" they can insert their unwelcome selves into. Of course this family is supposed to be grateful after losing the two oldest children, having the little ones fosterincarcerated for months, having dad kicked out of the house and forced to wear an electronic ankle bracelet to try to prove he's not with his family. Finally they get half-way put back together and featured in this feel-good fluff piece about CPS.
Helping keep families together By DONNA HEALY
Angela Feeley and her common-law husband, Vincent, were struggling to regain custody of their children when they got a letter from the Family Support Network, a nonprofit organization that helps troubled families.
In the form letter, the Feeleys saw a message of hope.
"It was like somebody believes in you as a parent and we want to help you get your children back," Angela said.
Her children were taken away in August of 1998. They were removed because of an earlier, serious allegation made against Vincent by his ex-wife.
The case triggered by the allegation had been dismissed in December of 1997, nine months before the children were removed from their home. After the Child and Family Services Division received a phone call repeating the original accusation, the agency reopened their file.
The state agency notified Angela that her relationship with Vincent was putting her children in danger. Then the agency charged Angela with a failure to protect them.
Although she maintained that her children were safe and the accusation was false, all four children were placed in foster care.
"The waters were muddy, and we needed to clear them up," Vincent said.
When the family hired a lawyer to contest the department's decision, the adversarial relationship stalled the process, marooning the children in foster care.
The couple felt mired in the process.
Their FSN caseworker became a buffer between them and the Child and Family Services Division.
"By then, we would open our doors to anybody who would help us," Vincent said. "Our attitude was find out what they want us to do and we'll do it."
Acting as a go-between, FSN caseworkers helped them figure out what they needed to get done.
"They would break down the walls for us, where we couldn't get through," Vincent said.
FSN works with about 140 families in the Billings area at any given time. Each of the families has been investigated for possible neglect or abuse by the Child and Family Services Division of the Department of Public Health and Human Services. FSN deals with cases in which risk for abuse or neglect is low to moderate.
FSN caseworkers - most of them moms who have taken some specialized training - go into people's homes to help parents gain the skills they need to preserve their families. The FSN's 16 paraprofessional caseworkers, known as "family-support specialists," work with families as far away as Hardin and Columbus.
The caseworkers visit the families twice a week and dispense the kind of advice and practical, hands-on help that families might expect from a friendly neighbor or relative. At first, families often have little or no interest in being involved, but the caseworkers gradually forge relationships with the families.
FSN caseworkers have helped parents scrub down rental apartments, helped get children enrolled in early childhood education programs and gotten families hooked up with many community services.
The caseworkers have given emergency rides to doctor's appointments and acted as advocates during parent-teacher conferences at school. They try to model parenting skills, rather than lecture about them.
Using donations from the community, caseworkers sometimes take families out to lunch or mark birthdays and holidays with small gifts.
"I believe the best way to help a child is to help his mom learn the skills to be a better parent," said Barbara Sample, executive director of the Family Support Network.
FSN caseworkers also monitor the risk parents may pose to their children. The caseworkers are mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect.
"If they feel like the family is not getting better, they will refer back to us," said Abby Cassidy, a community social worker with the Child and Family Services Division. "They will let us know if this child is in danger. It's like an extra pair of eyes for us."
Angela's caseworkers helped her find low-income housing. The couple completed parenting classes, counseling, chemical dependency and psychiatric evaluations.
By establishing her own household, apart from Vincent, Angela was able to get her two youngest children home just before Thanksgiving in 2000. Her ex-husband still has custody of her two oldest children.
For almost a year, Angela cared for her two youngest children by herself.
Vincent wore an electronically monitored ankle bracelet to prove that he was not in contact with the family. Eventually, he was allowed to have a series of supervised visits. He moved home in August of 2001.
When the Feeleys moved into their own trailer in May, the Family Support Network caseworker helped them clean it. When Angela, who is expecting her fifth child in September, went into pre-term labor in mid-June, the caseworker helped arrange a way for her to get the necessary bedrest.
Almost all of the families are poor, Sample said. Many of them are headed by single mothers.
Sample estimates that 40 percent of the parents have had drug or alcohol problems. Some parents have completed inpatient drug-abuse-treatment programs and are trying to get their children back.
Other parents are reunited with their children after hospitalization for psychiatric treatment.
"Mental illness is a huge problem for many of the families we serve," Sample said. "One of our most frequent efforts is to help a family get mental-health services, help them make the appointment or get a prescription filled."
As many as 70 percent of the cases may involve a family member with some form of mental illness, she said.
Family Support Network fills a niche, said Kevin Frank, a regional administrator for the Child and Family Services Division of DPHHS.
"They do in-home services with the specific intention of keeping kids out of foster care and keeping kids off our case role," Frank said.
The program tries to save both the emotional and financial costs of placing children in foster care.
Funded under a contract with the Child and Family Services Division, FSN works with families for an average of two years at an average cost of $1,420 a year per family.
"It's a cost-effective program, and it also rehabilitates lives," Sample said. "If somebody doesn't work with these families, they just get worse."
Measuring the effectiveness of any prevention program is difficult, Frank said, but one valid measure may be how many families return to the attention of the Child and Family Services Division. Over a three-year period, more than 70 percent of the FSN families do not return to the attention of the Child and Family Services Division.
"The evidence is that it works," Frank said.
Like other social-service programs, FSN's funding may be jeopardized by the state's current budgetary crisis. Federal money is more readily available for placing children in foster homes than for prevention efforts, Frank said.
Sample began working with troubled families through Parents, Lets United for Kids, or PLUK, a program that works with children with disabilities and their families. She worked with parents who had children with emotional disturbances or mental illness.
"We were helping them to work through the difficulties that that diagnosis means in a family," she said.
Before long, the Department of Family Services asked if she would work with their clients.
In 1993, Sample formed the Family Support Network, which became a model for the state. Eight to ten programs in Montana now have contracts to do in-home services.
***
By the numbers The Child and Family Services Division of the Department of Public Health and Human Services investigated 1,231 reports of child abuse and neglect in Yellowstone County during the 2000-01 fiscal year. In 101 cases, the agency substantiated evidence of abuse or neglect. During the same time period, 449 children from Yellowstone County were placed with relatives or in foster care. Children placed in foster care are eventually reunified with their parents in more than 60 percent of the cases handled by the Child and Family Services Division.
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