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 The law that started this, CAPTA, must be repealed.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.
NO SOONER had Carolyn Graham, deputy D.C. mayor for children, youth, families and elders, and Olivia Golden, director of the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency, declared in an Aug. 14 letter to The Post that the opportunity to change the city's shameful child protection system "has never been better" than new evidence of the system's endangerment of children materialized. Two days after they wrote their letter, an 8-year-old boy was molested by an 11-year-old in a city-financed facility. It was the third sexual assault of a child under the city's care to come to light in recent weeks. Only two weeks earlier, Ms. Golden had pledged to speed the removal of children under 12 from city-funded group homes to protect them from sexual assaults. Apparently, Ms. Golden's rush was too slow to help the latest victim. No telling what the next Graham-Golden letter will say.
In the wake of this latest outrage, and if past D.C. child-protection performance is any guide, the public can expect to be told that: Reforms have been achieved -- or are on the way; new regulations have been written -- or are being drafted; new and better-trained staff are in place -- or are "in the process" of being hired; and under the Child and Family Services Agency's new leadership, a brighter day for abused and neglected District children is right around the corner. It is a refrain that is old, familiar and, by now, shopworn.
In this latest sexual assault on a child, all of the public actors performed predictably. The judge in the case, Thomas J. Motley, called the molestation a "great tragedy" but noted that he wasn't informed until five days after it took place. The lawyer representing the little victim said he didn't hear about the assault for several days. The court-appointed monitor overseeing the agency said she never got the word. All the important people were left in the dark. So what's new?
And child-protection officials? Proclaiming the situation "horrible" and "tragic," they vowed to do better next time. Oh, yes, they said they left the judge a voice-mail message. He said he didn't get it. As we said, all behaved true to form.
Meanwhile, as children under the city's care continue to be treated as sexual objects, Mayor Anthony A. Williams and D.C. Council members, most notably Sandy Allen, who oversees the Child and Family Services Agency, are missing in action. Perhaps it is because abused and neglected children don't vote. But concerned D.C. taxpayers do. And it is about time they make known their views about the child-protection mess to the occupants of city hall. To assist in that endeavor, the mayor's number is (202) 727-6377. The council's main switchboard is (202) 724-8000. We can't speak for the politicians, but the children might appreciate your call.
Boy's case shows lapses in the system
August 30, 2002
BY JACK KRESNAK
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Twelve-year-old Prentiss Rachal is supposed to be under the legal care of the state's child welfare agency.
But the agency has no idea where he is.
Prentiss is just one of 189 abused and neglected children from Wayne County -- and a total of 302 statewide -- whom the state has lost track of, according to the Michigan Family Independence Agency.
Officials believe he may be in Georgia with his biological mother, whose rights had been terminated by Wayne County Juvenile Court in 1998.
"I just pray to God that this child is safe because I don't have any indication that he is," a Wayne County Juvenile Court referee said during an emotional Aug. 20 hearing on Prentiss.
FIA spokeswoman Karen Smith said the "vast majority" of the missing youths are older than 14 and that many of them are runaways from foster care.
Teenage girls, especially those who come from homes where they were abused or neglected, often run off with boyfriends they think they're in love with, Smith said.
Missing children aren't just a problem in Michigan.
In Miami last April, Florida authorities discovered that a 5-year-old foster child named Rilya Wilson had been missing for 15 months. That state's Department of Child and Family Services came under intense criticism after reports that 500 foster children were missing.
After a newspaper in Ft. Lauderdale quickly found nine of the 24 children listed as missing in its area, the Florida Legislature this week began debating a law that would require the DCF to publicize the names of the missing children to get the public's help in finding them.
In the wake of Florida's problems, Smith said, the Michigan FIA began reviewing the placements of all 19,000 abused and neglected children under its charge. Caseworkers are checking with relatives of the 302 missing children for any leads, she said.
Mark Jasonowicz, FIA's deputy director, said the agency has procedures to notify local police and juvenile courts immediately when a fosterchild is missing.
Police agencies handle such reports by waiting for a child to turn up in a traffic stop or other action. But not by conducting door-to-door searches, officials said.
The fact that hundreds of Michigan foster children are missing disturbs some child advocates.
"How can you have a system in place and not know where 189 children are?" said Nannette Bowler, director of the Chance At Childhood Program at Michigan State University and the Detroit College of Law in East Lansing.
Sharon Claytor Peters, executive director of Michigan's Children advocacy group, said the child protection system is not funded well enough to provide adequate supervision for children in its care.
"We have unbelievably unmanageable workloads that we're putting on these people providing oversight," Peters said.
Prentiss Rachal entered Michigan's child welfare system in 1996 because of neglect and his mother's drug abuse, according to court records. Prentiss was placed into foster care while social service workers tried to help his mother overcome her addiction to crack cocaine.
But his mother, Gwendolyn Rachal -- now known as Gwendolyn Pickett -- failed to seek treatment and missed visits with her son. Because of those lapses, Wayne County Juvenile Court Judge Freddie Burton Jr. terminated her parental rights in April 1998.
Pickett eventually moved to Georgia where she married and had two other children, both girls, according to court records. The girls later were temporarily removed from her care because of drug abuse, the court records said.
Authorities in Georgia returned the girls to their mother after she got treatment and a job that paid $60,000 a year, according to reports from Georgia obtained by the Free Press.
Meanwhile, Prentiss was having a difficult time in foster care and workers at Orchards Children Services, a private agency doing foster care and adoption placements under contract with the state FIA, placed him with his aunt, Jennifer Rachal, in June 1999.
Although court records said Jennifer Rachal told Orchards she was interested in adopting Prentiss, things didn't work out. In November 2000, Prentiss was temporarily placed with his grandfather, Willie Rachal, a retired auto worker and part-time auxiliary police officer in Inkster.
In October 2000, Michigan authorities asked officials in Georgia to investigate Pickett as a possible adoptive placement for Prentiss. Prentiss had been asking to be reunited with his mother, who was living in Jonesboro, a suburb of Atlanta, according to court records.
After getting permission from state officials, Prentiss' grandfather took him to his mother in Georgia last September.
Georgia's Division of Family and Children reported things were going well in Pickett's home until Pickett told a substance abuse counselor that she had smoked crack again.
Child Protective Services workers went to check on the child and found the family gone. No social worker has seen Prentiss since last April, authorities said.
According to court reports from the Orchards agency, a previous referee had authorized Prentiss' placement with his mother. But a tape recording of the Aug. 20 hearing showed that the referee now handling the case, Kathryne O'Grady, was angry at the placement and the boy's disappearance.
"It seems to be a complete circumvention of the system and a total travesty of justice," O'Grady said. "We don't know if this child is alive, do we, at this point?"
HOW ON EARTH could a Maryland state agency purporting to be a protector of 12,000 orphaned, abused and neglected children have subjected the kids to still more abuse, neglect and outright abandonment? A devastatingly detailed audit of Maryland's Social Services Administration found that the agency lost track of children for months, failed to ensure proper health care and, in at least one case, placed a foster child in the home of a convicted sex offender. In nearly half of 163 cases randomly chosen for inspection, caseworkers' files showed that they had lost contact with children and their caregivers for anywhere from two to 16 months.
The auditors found no record that 35 percent of the children in state custody were attending school. Basic health care appeared to have been neglected in one-third of the cases reviewed, and there was no evidence of dental checkups in the files of 68 percent of the children. Even worse, auditors found no evidence of any mandated background checks for caregivers in 45 percent of the cases checked. It was during this review that the audit team discovered that a child had spent 10 months in the care, if that's what they call it, of a foster parent whose criminal record includes two sex offenses and an assault charge.
The response of officialdom? Appallingly weak: "The issue here is documentation," said Linda E. Mouzon, executive director of the Social Services Administration. Critics are exaggerating the problem, she said. "Everybody knows of one or two cases where something went wrong. . . . I would believe that the majority of our children are safe and are getting the best service possible."
Everybody doesn't know that -- and one or two cases is one or two too many. The evidence shows things going perilously wrong throughout the agency. The ultimate responsibility for this disgrace rests in the governor's office. Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend expressed shock on learning about the child placed with a sex offender. "Certainly that was disturbing," she commented. "To me it's a big red flag that we need to scrutinize that agency."
Where has scrutiny been all along? Where has Gov. Glendening been? Only now is he saying he'll get on the case. Maryland lawmakers are threatening to withhold funding for administrative salaries in the agency if officials fail to ensure by Dec. 1 that they have not lost track of or endangered the safety of their young charges.
Cutting off money isn't the ultimate answer, but it should serve as a serious threat aimed at snapping the administration to attention. "Sometimes a two-by-four works," said state Sen. Barbara Hoffman, chairman of the Budget and Taxation Committee.
These state-by-state audits are long overdue. All that I've heard of show massive injustice to children in the government child welfare industry. I wonder if anything will CHANGE, though....... if the studies and Grand Jury reports of the past are any indication... probably not.
A candlelight vigil is planned in Springfield Sunday to remember a toddler who died while in the care of the Missouri Division of Family Services.
Dominic Raynell James, age 2, died this week. An autopsy, conducted in St. Louis said the toddler died of evidence of trauma to the head.
An investigation is underway by the Willard police department, the Greene County Prosecutor's office and the Missouri Department of Social Services.
DFS officials will not comment about the circumstances of Dominic's case, other than to confirm he was in foster care.
Dominic's biological father tells FOX27 he observed signs of abuse on the baby when he visited with him in the past.
He claims his complaints about bruising and other injuries went unheeded by DFS.
Sunday's candlelight vigil will take place at dusk, around 8:00 p.m. at the Integrity Community Baptist Church in the Golden Hills Shopping Center at 2549 W. Kearney Street.
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