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 The law that started this, CAPTA, must be repealed.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.
Vermont: Fosterer arrested for homosexual sex with foster children
There sure are a lot of stories like this one these days. It makes sense that pedophiles would apply to be fosterers. I'm glad these people are being prosecuted these days. Fifteen years ago when I started protesting CPS injustice, child deaths, injuries and abuse in foster homes were rarely reported in the media. -LJM
A Swanton man who is already charged with having sex with a foster child in his care. now faces new charges for his behavior with another foster child.
Thomas Thompson, 64, was in court in June for having a sexual relationship with a 16 year old boy under his supervision. Thompson said it was consensual. Court records show the sex was traded for cigarettes and cash.
Now Vermont State Police have arrested Thompson again for allegedly touching an 11 year old boy who was also one of his foster children. Thompson is being held without bail and faces arraignment next week.
HILO - A representative of a 13-year-old Big Island girl alleges in a lawsuit that the girl was sexually assaulted repeatedly by a member of the foster family that was caring for her.
The state Child Protective Services agency, which placed the girl in the allegedly abusive situation, and the foster family are named as defendants in the suit filed Thursday.
The girl is identified in the suit only by her initials. Olivia Josephine Ayala, identified as the girl's representative, brought the suit on the girl's behalf.
In April or May 2003, the girl was placed in the state-licensed foster home run by Kealaloha and Rosemarie Wilson, a married couple in Kurtistown, said Ayala's attorney Robert Kim.
At that time, the girl learned that the Wilsons' son, David, described as an adult, married man living with his parents at the time, was "engaging in sexual conduct" with another girl in foster care at the Wilson home.
The 13-year-old told Ayala she believed that she would become the next victim when the other girl left the home, the suit says. When the girl did leave, sexual assaults on the 13-year-old took place from October to December, the suit alleges.
The girl was removed from the Wilson home on Dec. 7, the suit says.
Even before the girl was placed in the Wilson home, the Child Protective Services agency had received reports that other foster children were sexually assaulted at the home, the suit alleges. The agency did not adequately investigate the complaints, it says.
The Hawaii County Prosecutor's Office is reviewing the case for possible criminal charges, according to Kim.
Members of the Wilson family were not available for comment.
Another Hilo resident named David Wilson, who is a certified nursing assistant, said he is not connected to the case.
Derrick Dahilig, spokesman for the Department of Human Services, of which Child Protective Services is a part, said he could not comment because the case is pending and because of confidentiality laws.
These fosterers may still have foster children in their home!
HILO, Hawai'i - The state Department of Human Services is being sued after a 13-year-old girl alleged she was sexually assaulted in a Puna foster home last year. The girl also said her alleged assailant had a sexual relationship with another foster child there.
Robert Kim, a Kona lawyer who is representing the 13-year-old girl, filed the suit, which alleges the state was negligent for failing to properly protect the girl and other children at the foster home.
The suit was filed against the state, the foster family and court-appointed guardian Craig Sadamoto.
Kim said he received reports that three other foster children still live in the home. However, Human Services Director Lillian Koller yesterday said there are no longer any foster children in the home.
According to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Hilo Circuit Court, the Child Welfare Services division of the department placed the girl in a licensed foster home in April 2003.
The girl, identified in the lawsuit only as R.M., reported that she was sexually assaulted by an adult son of the foster parents when she was 12, according to the suit.
Kim said DHS immediately removed the girl from the home after she made her report in December.
The suit also alleges that Human Services officials had received reports that the son was having sexual relations with foster children at the home before the girl was sent there.
The girl told family members she knew that the son was having a sexual relationship with another girl who was also a foster child at the home earlier in the year, according to the lawsuit. The second girl moved out of the foster home in about October, according to the suit.
"I think the system is broken," Kim said. "There are really good foster parents, but the system needs to be accountable. There is nobody who is overseeing the system with any success. It's a secret system, and that's half of the problem.
"We're finally shining a light into this closed, secret system that seems to be covering up for itself. The primary thing should be about the welfare of the children, not covering our behinds."
Kim was also critical of the handling of the criminal case and said the suit was filed in part to let the community know about the allegations. There has been no arrest or indictment in the case, according to Kim.
"I am very concerned about the delay in the prosecution of this case," he said.
County Prosecutor Jay Kimura declined to say whether there is a criminal investigation under way. He said the prosecutor's office does not normally discuss cases before charges are filed, or disclose whether it is considering filing charges in a case.
The foster family was unavailable for comment yesterday and did not return a call to their home.
Koller said that while she could not comment on the case specifically because the matter is the subject of a lawsuit, the department did investigate the girl's allegations. She said she cannot discuss the outcome of the investigation.
"It is extremely distressing when allegations are made of injury or neglect by foster parents," she said. The foster homes (are) licensed, all of the people who live in them are screened, and the department does home inspections, she said.
"However, we never can predict future conduct by anybody, and when an allegation is made we respond quickly, especially to allegations of sexual assault. We investigate fully, and we take appropriate action, as we have done in this case," she said.
***~~~ In an effort to reform Child Protective Services ***~~~
This is a CLOSED GROUP and by invite only so if you are interested in joining please email me directly your contact info and reason for wanting to join us and I will send you an invite.
Subject: JOIN OHIO_AFRA
Please feel free to post this notice to all groups and individuals you feel may have an interest.
I just finished writing a short article, Getting A Copy Of Your CPS File. I put it online here with all my best links about the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act of 1974.
That's pretty much how it goes. People think "social workers" are a sweet, kind, benevolent group of people who love to help kids... that is, until they get involved in a CPS case and realize most caseworkers are cut-throat wolves in sheep's clothing just trying to build a case and destroy a family. - LJM
PRESCOTT - The mother testified Thursday during a trial by a judge involving a severance of parental rights that she sought the help from Child Protective Services (CPS) when she couldn't find any other to keep herself and her three children safe.
Now, the state may take away her parental rights and put the children up for adoption.
"I love my children and I can't even talk to them," she said. "It has been torture."
During the second day of the trial the mother represented herself. Her council, Mary Foster, who served as her adviser, said as her lawyer she is responsible to make strategy decisions regarding the trial. She said her client disagreed with the strategy she was employing.
"It conflicted with my best judgment," she said.
As a result, Foster asked Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Robert Brutinel to remove her from representing the mother, but offered to assist her as an adviser, she said, and Brutinel granted the request.
He said that under the Sixth Amendment the defendant has the right to represent herself or himself. The same rule applies in dependency cases.
In its petition, which the state filed in February 2004, DES alleges that the father abandoned his three children - ages 6, 8 and 11 - and that the mother is unable to discharge her parental responsibilities because of metal illness, and/or a history of chronic abuse of dangerous drugs/alcohol and controlled substances.
The petitioner concluded that the parents have been unable to remedy the circumstances that caused the children to be in out-of-home placement and that there is a substantial likelihood that the parents will not be capable to provide proper and effective parental care in the future.
As a result, the state alleged that termination of the parental rights would be in the best interest of children.
The mother questioned an employee of CPS, a division of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, who testified the first day.
A number of times, a judge had to remind the mother that she can ask the witness a question, but that she was not allowed to argue with the witness.
At one point she asked the witness whether CPS made a number of mistakes while handling her case and the witness said no.
During a cross-examination, the witness testified that the state considered a guardianship in this case, but at the end opted to seek adoption rights.
"(The mother) deeply loves her children and is deeply attached to them," she said. "But (she) can't put the needs of her children ahead of her own."
The witness said the mother verbalized her concerns for her children, but she never materialized them.
Lastly, the mother took the stand. Crying and at times raising her voice, she said she and her children were going through difficult times and she needed one person to listen and help her. But those who she expected to help her, turned on her, she said.
She described her childhood, a number of tragedies she encountered and an abusive husband. She said she was seeking help from a number of sources including her family members before she called CPS. She admitted having a substance abuse problem and some mental issues.
"I'm not insane and I'm very capable of many things," she said. "I'm scared - I want what is best for my children and what is the best for them is not to be adopted.
"My children and I have been through a hurricane," she added. "Everything around us has been destroyed but us - We needed the help. We needed to be safe."
Taking the case under advisement, Brutinel told the mother that he believes her when she said that she suffered significant tragedies in her life.
"I believe you that you are never going to be right again if you do not have the children," he said, but he must decide what is best in this case.
If the mother loses her parental rights, the state will put the children up for adoption.
Foster said the mother will not have any contact with them in that case.
"The parent can't enforce the right of visitation" once the court or a jury severs parental rights. It is up to the adoptive parent to decide, she added.
Published August 13, 2004
By Didi Tang
News-Leader Staff
Ozark - A former foster father accused of having sex with two of his three adopted daughters is on his way to a trial.
Christian County Associate Circuit Judge John Waters Thursday found probable cause for each of the nine felony charges filed against Christopher Gray, 39.
The Nixa man faces six counts of statutory sodomy, two counts of statutory rape and one count of sexual exploitation of a minor.
Gray will be arraigned on Sept. 3 in the Christian County Circuit Court.
Dressed in a light-blue shirt with thin stripes and a dark blue tie, Gray appeared in Waters' courtroom Thursday afternoon with his attorney Dee Wampler.
The Springfield defense lawyer began the hearing - which lasted more than four hours - by filing three motions: one to dismiss the charges, one for discovery and one to disclose impeaching information.
Waters overruled all three motions.
Wampler then asked for a gag order, which would prevent all parties involved in the case from releasing information to the media outside the courtroom.
Waters granted the request before Christian County Prosecuting Attorney Ron Cleek proceeded to present evidence and call upon his witnesses — including the two girls with whom Gray allegedly had sex.
The younger girl, age 6, however, did not testify against Gray.
"No, I don't know," the girl said repeatedly when she was asked by Cleek whether Gray had ever touched her inappropriately.
The 6-year-old was barely taller than the witness stand and kept her head low.
But the older girl, age 11, provided testimony against Gray.
She told the court that Gray had sex with her "numerous" times, that he had repeatedly touched her during the four years she lived with him and that Gray had threatened her not to tell anyone else.
The girl said that Maya Gasa, Gray's live-in girlfriend, was engaged in sexual behaviors with her as well.
Gasa, 28, faces one count of statutory sodomy in a separate case.
Her preliminary hearing has been postponed to Sept. 8. Cleek has said he intends to file more charges against her.
The 11-year-old also testified that she was in a home video, which Cleek described as pornographic.
The video, which a police officer said was seized from Gray's home during a search, was shown in the court, but the video monitor was positioned so that only the judge, the defending party, the prosecuting attorney and the person on the witness stand could view it.
Other witnesses were Barb Hilton, a therapist at the Community Counseling Center in Nixa; Kathy Bernet, an interviewer at the Child Advocacy Center in Springfield; and Don Jones, a Nixa Police officer.
Hilton, who has been working with the 6-year-old girl, said the child has been traumatized and may have a memory blockage.
Bernet, who interviewed the 6-year-old, explained the techniques she used in talking to the girl before their taped interview was replayed in the court.
In the 45-minute interview, the youngster told Bernet that Gray had sex with her.
With a grim look on his face, Gray did not speak during the hearing. Instead, he whispered to Wampler from time to time, and sometimes he shook his head at some allegations.
Wampler attempted to cast doubts on the veracity of the evidence.
He argued that the tape, which allegedly was seized from Gray's home, could have been tampered with because police officers other than Jones could have accessed it.
In cross-examining Hilton, Wampler suggested that the younger girl could have been traumatized by someone other than Gray.
The defense attorney also noted the younger girl had given inconsistent answers in the taped interview.
And Wampler questioned the soft smiles on the older girl's face during her testimony.
"You were smiling at Ron (Cleek)," Wampler said to the older girl.
"It's irrelevant," the judge said.
"I have my theory," Wampler said. "A man could face a life sentence with state corrections, and maybe someone is not taking this seriously."
The judge was not persuaded.
"I see nothing inappropriate," Waters said.
And there were some light moments during the tense hearing.
Cleek didn't realize the seized tape was a VHS format until he was about to show it. He asked Waters to switch to other charges against Gray while he could obtain a different player the show the tape.
Wampler immediately filed a motion for dismissal, arguing the prosecuting attorney was ill-prepared for the preliminary hearing.
"It's his case," Wampler said. "And he's not prepared."
The judge, however, granted Cleek's request and overruled Wampler's motion.
A few minutes later, Wampler had technical difficulties of his own when his tape recorder apparently was not functioning.
"Technology is great when it works," Cleek said to Wampler.
Waters came to Wampler's rescue when he gave the defense attorney some batteries.
Texas: Boys at CPS wilderness camp accuse staffers of sexual abuse
CPS again proves how it "protects" kids. Children are about ten times more likely to be physically or sexually abused in CPS custody than in their natural family homes. That's a proven fact. -LJM
08/13/2004 04:41 PM CDT
Joseph S. Stroud and Guillermo Garcia
Express-News Staff Writer
SMITHVILLE -- Weeping boys were driven away in vans from the Woodside Trails wilderness camp today after new allegations of sexual abuse against children prompted state officials to remove 22 children from the Bastrop County facility.
The new allegations led to the arrest within the last month of two former staffers at the therapeutic camp on charges of sexually assaulting children. And Geoff Wool, spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said the agency had received two new calls on its abuse and neglect hotline related to other staffers at the camp within the last two weeks.
Wool declined to say whether those calls involved abuse or neglect allegations or who made the complaints about the facility, which has been the target of intense media and legislative scrutiny since Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn criticized conditions there in "Forgotten Children," a report she issued in April.
But he said officials decided they couldn't wait any longer."We have 22 kids that are placed there, and with recent allegations that we have received, what we have seen there, law enforcement involvement, we felt like it was the appropriate thing," Wool said. "We were concerned about the safety of the kids."
The agency stopped short of taking emergency action to suspend the facility's operating license, and the possibility remains that other agencies and private individuals responsible for boys at the camp will leave them there. Woodside Trails, founded in 1982, takes in male juvenile sex offenders and other boys with serious emotional issues.
Along with the 22 boys sent there by Child Protective Services, the state agency's child-placement entity, the facility housed 10 juvenile probation clients and three "private pay" residents. Wool said the state notified county juvenile probation officials and others responsible for those residents of its decision but did not move to suspend or revoke the facility's operating license.
Under Texas law, the state licensing division may invoke a 10-day emergency suspension or close a facility altogether if officials feel conditions there pose a serious threat to the health and safety of children. But Wool said the agency would wait until the allegations have been investigated further before taking that step.
That prompted criticism from Lee Spiller of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, an organization that has raised concerns about the quality of care at Woodside Trails."The bottom line is keeping children safe, and I don't think it's enough that they removed the agency's children," Spiller said. "If it's not safe for the agency's children, what makes it safer for anybody else's children?"
The boys wept and sobbed openly as they were escorted into about a dozen vans and sport utility vehicles lined up near the camp office today. State officials planned to take them to the Austin Child Protective Services offices to begin the process of placing them elsewhere.
"They could be going anywhere in the state," said Gilberto Cedillo, a program specialist with CPS. "They may not be going to another wilderness camp, but perhaps another therapeutic facility. What is very likely is that they will not be together at another facility."
"Our schools aren't just prisons - they are now mind control facilities." - Alex Jones
If you really want to send your children to a government school you will find good suggestions on AFRA's front page this week. In case you miss the grand display, check out this page: Back to School With AFRA.
Survey says state often fails to give facts on kids
By CRAIG SCHNEIDER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/10/04
The state often fails to tell foster parents about problems with children coming into their care, according to many foster parents surveyed this spring.
Less than half of the 663 foster parents surveyed said they received information about children's health and psychological problems or any history of abuse. It is the policy of the state Division of Family and Children Services to provide that information to foster parents as soon as possible, or within 90 days.
"Then the children are suffering, because the children's needs are not being met," Sharon Carlson, president of the Adoptive and Foster Parent Association of Georgia, said about the survey's findings.
Carlson said a lack of information can place foster children and families that care for them in danger. A child placed in a foster home that does not get enough information may not receive the proper medical care. The child may have behavioral problems that the foster parent has not been trained to handle. Carlson said she has heard of instances where a foster parent only discovers a child's bad habit, such as sexual touching, after the child has molested another foster child in the home.
The survey, co-sponsored by the state Office of the Child Advocate and the Georgia Supreme Court Child Placement Project, obtained responses from foster parents in May and June.
According to the survey, just 44 percent of the foster parents who responded received information on the child's history of abuse or neglect, while 31 percent were told of any history of psychological or behavioral issues. Forty percent were told of significant medical history, including current health needs of the child, according to the survey.
Dee Simms, the state child advocate, said the lack of communication has led many foster parents to quit, contributing to a shortage of foster homes.
Simms said many DFCS caseworkers are overburdened by a high number of cases, and are in a rush to go on to another child's case. As a result, she said, caseworkers don't have time to properly review a case before placing a child in a foster home.
In addition, Simms said, a shortage of foster homes has led some caseworkers to place children without considering whether a particular home is a good fit.
DFCS officials said there have been instances when caseworkers fail to pass on information, but that the problem is not widespread.
Many times, caseworkers must remove a child from a troubled home before the child's full history is known. Caseworkers usually provide foster parents with a comprehensive assessment within 60 to 90 days, said DFCS spokeswoman Lola Russell. A child may be moved to a more appropriate foster home after the assessment is completed, she said.
Carlson, a foster parent for 23 years, said the survey results are accurate. She said that in many instances, a child's information is never passed on.
Carlson said she is optimistic about the state's commitment to improving the foster care system. The state this year adopted a Foster Parents Bill of Rights, declaring that foster parents have a right to background information on a child's mental and physical health.
Also, foster parent advocates have had several meetings with state officials to discuss their concerns.
"Right now I really think they're trying," Carlson said. But she added, "We've got major work ahead of us."
The state should consider disbanding the DCF's Child Welfare Legal Services because of poor management and resources, a Florida Bar review found.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
Grossly understaffed, poorly managed and with ''antiquated technology,'' the state's child welfare legal department is filled with ''accidents and disasters waiting to happen,'' an independent review has concluded.
The Department of Children & Families' Child Welfare Legal Services is so poorly run, the report says, that the state should consider disbanding it altogether and assigning its duties to prosecutors within Florida's state attorney offices.
''Without budgetary control and the ability to maintain a unified management and technology plan addressing all of the needs of Child Welfare Legal Services, the general counsel is, by default, left trying to steer an aircraft carrier-sized legal operation with a rudder full of holes,'' the report said.
The report, conducted by the Florida Bar's Law Office Management Assistance Service at the request of DCF general counsel Josefina Tamayo, comes at a particularly difficult time for the state's child protection agency. The DCF has been under intense fire for three weeks since Gov. Jeb Bush's chief inspector general released a scathing report that slammed top agency officials for nurturing unethical relationships with lobbyists and vendors who do business with the state.
HIGH STAKES
Child Welfare Legal Services attorneys, managed by the general counsel and local DCF chiefs, represent the DCF in dependency court hearings. The hearings have tremendously high stakes: In dependency court, judges determine whether to remove children from their parents at the agency's request, and can permanently sever a parent's rights to his or her children.
To make matters worse, the report said, many DCF attorneys think their co-workers don't appreciate their work. In the past, DCF investigators and caseworkers represented themselves in court. ''They don't want us here,'' one attorney told investigators.
In its report, the Bar said investigators had never before, in 25 years of evaluating legal practice, ``observed such an inadequate ratio of support staff to attorneys.''
The shortfall has had predictable consequences, the report said: Attorneys often do the work of secretaries and clerks.
''CWLS attorneys are like thoroughbred horses doing the work of plough horses,'' the report said.
In two DCF districts, Broward County and Tampa, the state attorney general's office has been performing child welfare legal services under contract with the DCF for about a decade. The programs, the Bar noted, were much better managed than their counterparts under DCF control.
The Bar ''observed better software, better hardware, more staff, better office environments, better office security, lower caseloads, and uniformity of process and procedures,'' the report said.
AGENCY RESPONSE
DCF spokesman Bob Brooks said the report was commissioned specifically to locate weaknesses, and therefore does not give the agency credit for recent and ongoing revisions.
''The . . . report was requested by our general counsel in an effort to identify ways to enhance the delivery of legal services,'' Brooks said. ``The focus was on areas where improvement can be made, not on improvements that have already occurred.
''As we review these proposals, we must take into consideration the significant increases in visitation plans, timely judicial reviews and permanency hearings, as well as the lowering of caseloads and reductions in timely and backlogged orders,'' Brooks added.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman, who heads Miami's Juvenile Court, called the DCF's attorneys ''the silent heroes'' of the state's child welfare system.
''They are the most dedicated people I have seen,'' Lederman said. ``I think it's a crime that they don't have more support. They don't have a place to go to the bathroom that's clean. They don't even have their own offices. They don't have any staff. They don't have equipment they can use.
''They have nothing except heart, and a desire to help these kids,'' Lederman added.
REPORT'S FINDINGS
According to the report:
• The DCF's legal department is beset by low staffing and extremely high turnover. One attorney told the Bar investigators: ``If you've been here for two years, you're an old-timer.''
''Due to razor-thin staffing of attorney positions, caseloads can quickly become impossible to handle whenever an attorney resigns or the incumbent in the position is out due to illness or vacation,'' the report said. ``In short there is NO elasticity within the attorney ranks and even less in the ranks of the support staff.
''Support staffing levels are far below national norms by any measure,'' the report added.
• Morale is poor among the DCF attorneys.
''Disturbingly, they believe the lack of respect is pervasive, not only in the community, among the judiciary and their civilian peers, but also by nonlawyers within DCF,'' the report said.
• The legal offices lack uniformity in records management, and the legal files of abused and neglected children often are not up-to-date, are poorly inventoried and difficult to locate. Private child welfare agencies, under contract with the state, often lack ''file security,'' leaving confidential records without protection.
''Some personnel reported that they spend about as much time looking for files as is spent in producing documents,'' the report noted.
• The legal offices often lack basic supplies such as pens and pencils, paper, office equipment, and even furniture.
Some lawyers have paid for their own office furniture, and others brought in chairs and desks from home. In one case, the report said, attorneys retrieved chairs that caseworkers threw out in a Dumpster. ''They're better than nothing,'' the attorney told the Bar investigator.
• The agency has not set ''practice standards'' to guide agency attorneys, described in the report as ``yardsticks for measuring performance.''
• The DCF's legal staff -- including attorneys, paralegals and secretaries -- all told the Bar group that legal training was ``inadequate or totally lacking.''
• The pay for child-welfare attorneys is so poor that child-abuse investigators, who often have only a bachelor's degree, often make as much money as the attorneys. Child-abuse supervisors make more money than supervisors in the legal office.
Florida DCF victims may find some help at DCF Watch.
KENT, WASH. - The Kent School Board has decided that security officers
with the district may continue to use handcuffs when restraining students.
The board's decision ignores a recommendation of an independent review
panel that said the policy should be abandoned.
The panel was appointed by Superintendent Barbara Grohe in response to
allegations that guards have used excessive force in disciplining black
students.
Grohe later questioned the panel's recommendation and the possible
consequences if officers waited for police to arrive.
Parents of 14 black children have filed complaints against the school
district seeking a total of $46 million in damages.
They claim security officers pulled hair, twisted arms and handcuffed
students as young as 11.
The Seattle chapter of the NAACP has called for Grohe's resignation.
This is what I call putting a bandaid on a gaping wound. Children will have better fosterincarceration facilities but the system will continue to grind families into the ground. -LJM
By Maureen O'Hagan
Seattle Times staff reporter
August 11, 2004
The Department of Social and Health Services announced the settlement this morning of a class-action lawsuit that had been brought six years ago on behalf of children in state foster care.
The agreement requires DSHS to make six major changes in its system of placing and caring for foster kids, which had been criticized as inadequate by both the Washington Supreme Court and by a federal panel examining such systems across the country. Under the new agreement, compliance will be overseen by an independent panel.
"We all agreed that settling the case was the right thing to do for children and families in Washington," said Uma Ahluwalia, assistant secretary for the DSHS Children's Administration.
The agreement mandates that DSHS:
• Provide safe and stable placements with caregivers who can meet their needs.
• Provide timely, accessible, individualized and appropriate mental health assessments and treatment.
• Provide training, support and child information to foster parents and relative caregivers.
• Ensure that the department continues to meet or exceed the federal safety standards and that foster children are protected from sexually aggressive or physically assaultive children.
• Ensure that siblings are placed together and, when that is not a safe placement, scheduling frequent and meaningful visitations between the siblings.
• Provide adolescents with quality and accessible services that will help them attain an education, prepare them to live independently and reduce the number of teens who run away from foster care.
The lawsuit was filed in Whatcom County in August 1998 on behalf foster child Jessica Braam and about 3,500 other children who had been moved three or more times while in foster care. More than one-third of those children had bounced around in more than eight homes. Experts say such instability is destructive for children.
While the case was pending, DSHS made changes to address some of the problems raised in the lawsuit. The agency is better at recruiting foster parents and lowered social workers' caseloads from 30 cases per child-abuse investigator in 2000 to about 26 last year, according to DSHS statistics.
Under the settlement, Farris, along with the National Youth Law Center and Columbia Legal Services will be paid $1.6 million in attorneys fees plus an additional $100,000 per year for the next two years to cover their costs associated with implementing the agreement.
The agreement must still be approved by the Whatcom County court, which both sides expect to occur relatively soon.
More evidence that we're now living in an emerging police state. In the old days these children would receive at the most, a citation. But in this case they were handcuffed and detained. -LJM
Skateboarding Children Arrested in Massachusetts
UPI | August 11 2004
WHITMAN, Mass., Aug. 11 (UPI) -- The parents of two boys in Whitman, Mass., are upset their kids were arrested and shackled by police for illegal skateboarding.
The parents say the boys were shackled before being taken to a juvenile court, the Boston Herald reported Wednesday.
"It's absurd," Stephanie Saltzman said. "My son is 12 years old and all he was doing is skateboarding. I mean, you gotta be kidding me."
Saltzman's son, Josh, and 14-year-old neighbor, Ryan Maxwell, were arrested last week when a police officer caught them skateboarding on a street.
A town bylaw prohibits using skateboards or other devices to "coast or slide" along public streets.
Town officials did not comment but said police would not arrest kids unless their actions were more severe. The arresting officer declined comment.
The boys said they were only skateboarding in front of their homes and they complied with the officer without protest.
The boys have been ordered to perform 15 hours of community service before Nov. 1.
CLINTON - Foster father John Beaber, arrested last month for the sexual assault of a boy in his care, now is charged with showing pornographic movies to his older adopted son, police report.
The 48-year-old machine shop owner was arrested Monday on a Superior Court warrant charging him with risk of injury to a minor child, police said. The warrant alleges that Beaber had shown his son movies, both on videotape and through the Internet, of men engaged in sexual activity.
The new charge resulted from a continuing police investigation of Beaber's activities as a foster parent launched by the flight of the younger child in his care from his 22 Beach Road home.
The younger boy, a New Hampshire child living with Beaber for two years as a foster child, was discovered by a Ninety Rod Road resident after he spent part of the July 4 weekend hiding in woods behind her home.
Police said Beaber planned to adopt the child as a brother to his adopted son, two years older, but the younger boy fled the house to escape two years of sexual abuse by his foster father, police said.
In interviews with the older boy, police said they learned that Beaber had shown pornographic movies to the child on a variety of occasions over a two-year period. The practice stopped, police said, when the younger boy was brought into the house.
Beaber, released for an Aug. 17 court appearance after posting $10,000 bail, denies the allegations, police said.
The adopted son is in the care of the state's Department of Children and Families, and the younger child is living with a foster family in another state, officials said.
Beaber was licensed as a foster parent by the Downey Side Family Life Center, a non-profit agency supervised by DCF.
8/10/04
A new lawsuit claims doctors, nurses and a hospital were negligent.
By: Cara Restelli, KY3 News
SPRINGFIELD -- The father of a toddler who died while he was in foster care filed another lawsuit on Monday. Sidney James of Springfield sued CoxHealth, seeking damages for wrongful death.
Two-year-old Dominic James died in August 2002 after falling into a coma during his second visit to Cox South hospital in two weeks. When he died, Dominic James had been with foster parents for two months after the Missouri Division of Family Services determined that neither of his parents could provide a good home for him.
Sidney James’ lawsuit says emergency room workers could have prevented Dominic James' death if they’d properly reported signs of physical abuse on the boy’s body. Last fall, a jury convicted foster father Wesley Dilley of Willard for causing the injuries that led to the toddler’s death. Dilley is serving a 15-year prison sentence for second-degree assault and child abuse resulting in death.
In a statement responding to the lawsuit, a spokeswoman for CoxHealth says its medical staff took the appropriate actions in providing Dominic James’ care. A state agency found Cox complied with the mandatory reporting laws for child abuse and neglect statutes, although its probe of the boy's death found some record-keeping deficiencies in the hospital's operations.
In January 2003, Sidney James sued in federal court for wrongful-death damages from state caseworkers and his son’s foster parents. That lawsuit is still pending. The lawsuit filed on Monday against CoxHealth and health care workers is in Greene County Circuit Court.
Leslie Brown, an emergency room nurse named in the latest lawsuit, faces misdemeanor charges because prosecutors believe she should have reported bruises on the boy to a state child abuse hotline. Brown says she asked the foster mother, Jennifer Dilley, about the bruises and was told they came from a car safety seat.
Fake CPS caseworkers have been getting into people's homes
This article is from the UK but this kind of thing has happened in the USA too. My advice is to never let caseworkers enter your home anyhow. In the USA we should make them abide by the Fourth Amendment - our right to privacy in our home. If there's no search warrant, protest all forced entries! -LJM
Newham Council is advising residents to watch out for a man who is reported to have conned his way into homes by posing as a social worker in order to steal from his victims.
A young man described as white, with slightly curly, fair hair, stocky build, well-spoken, clean and tidy and dressed in a cream jacket with black trousers has been reported to Newham Social Services Department after he stole from a pensioner’s home in Canning Town while claiming to be a social worker.
Councillor Quintin Peppiatt, Mayoral Adviser for Social Services and Health, said: "Social workers generally do not turn up without prior arrangement by phone or letter, unless in an absolute emergency and where the health and safety of the person(s) inside the property are at risk, and in those circumstances there would normally be more than one person attending.
"All Newham Council social workers carry an official council photo identity card.
"If you are suspicious of any callers, you are advised to speak to them through the door and make them post their ID card through your letterbox. If you do open the door, make sure that the security chain is on. Call the number on the ID card and if you are still unsure, then call the police to confirm their identity. Never feel obliged to let anyone into your house, no matter how official they look, if they cannot prove who they are."
Anyone who has information about this man or any other similar incidents should contact the police.
The 12-member Lassen County Grand Jury released its final report for 2003-2004 giving up 13 of its 70 pages to the complaints and allegations made in regards to the Lassen County Child and Protective Services.
Generally, the report is favorable to most agencies it investigated. However, it did recommend a Federal Grand Jury be convened to investigate all allegations of wrongdoing by CPS.
It also said now that the new director and new deputy director "have the knowledge of what is wrong and how to fix it, the Grand Jury feels this is the best and last chance Lassen County has to fix the problem."
If substantial progress has not been made within six months, the jury recommends the State of California Department of Social Services take over Lassen County Child Protective Services and provide the necessary care and protection for the children of Lassen County until a new and better agency can be formed.
After AFRA members Thomas & Kimberli Pipes sued and got caseworkers fired, CPS in their county is making an attempt at appearing more compassionate. I don't know how they will handle this considering those pesky federal laws that encourage the opposite
With the goal of trying to change its tarnished image, Child Protective Services is changing its approach to services.
According to interim supervisor Linda Perry Waddell, the department is now Child and Family Protective Services.
"We want to be known as an agency that helps families, not breaks up families," said Waddell, who plans to be with CFPS for at least five more months.
"One of our goals is to be a professional agency and build back trust and credibility," said Waddell.
In past years, the Lassen County Grand Jury has been critical of the agency because of its failure to meet the needs of children primarily because there were not enough case workers.
Currently, CFPS has a temporary director, Jessica Herman, Waddell and nine case workers. Waddell said she and Herman have no cases but oversee the work of the caseworkers. Kevin Mannel, who was recently named the deputy county administrative officer for health and social services, oversees the entire department.
One caseworker manages the phone, two field workers handle 16 cases each and five social workers manage 28 cases.
Herman, Waddell and caseworker Stella Uruchurtu all hold master's in social work which should add to the professionalism of the department, said Waddell.
With the increase in staff, Waddell said one of the main goals is to be a friendlier organization that is there to help families cope, manage and learn.
"We are caught up on our back log of new referrals and have made contact with 90 percent-plus of all the children we serve," said Waddell. "The state is beginning a child welfare re-design and we are trying to implement that here, also."
The redesign centers on families being more involved in making decisions rather than just doing crisis management.
Another emphasis is offering services to families to help them cope.
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Plain Dealer Reporters Story by Joel Rutchick and Kera Ritter
The four empty beds in Chris tian Turner's house serve as agonizing reminders of the day seven years ago when county social workers took her kids away.
They have been foster children ever since.
Turner gets to see them for two hours every other week, competing for quiet time with other families in a crowded downtown room provided by Cuyahoga County's Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).
No one would dispute that theirs was a troubled family. Chris has been prone to depression for years. Augusta, her husband, began a four- year prison term for aggravated bur glary a month after she gave birth to their youngest child.
But the story of the Turner family also provides a snapshot of how Cuyahoga County's child-welfare system went haywire eight years ago, how it disrupted the lives of thousands of children - perhaps unnecessarily - and saddled taxpayers with millions of dollars in what now appears to be questionable foster- care costs.
Multiple factors were at play.
Because of the stakes, most child- custody decisions are gut-wrenching. And in urban centers like Cleveland, they often are complicated by issues like poverty, absentee fathers and substance abuse.
But in the mid-1990s, the difficulties were compounded by the combination of a child-welfare agency hobbled by "a climate of fear and paranoia" and a poorly run Juvenile Court.
It was only after the resulting explosion in foster-care costs became unbearable three years ago that DCFS operations started to right themselves.
But families like the Turners are still suffering the consequences.
In 1997, despite their struggles, case records show that nobody had accused Chris or Gus Turner of abusing or neglecting their children. The Turners say they have provided the basics: food, clothing, shelter and love.
But with Gus recently imprisoned, and Chris overwhelmed with depression, she sent her five kids, from 6-months to 9-years-old, to her mother's house and checked into a hospital for two weeks. Turner's mother says she asked DCFS for financial assistance and help finding day care.
The agency took the kids away instead, insisting that Turner was unable to care for them and arguing that her mother didn't want to keep them.
Chris Turner, her mother and her attorneys say that's not so. And Turner has been fighting for seven years - in vain, so far - to get them back.
Her depression, it seems, couldn't have come at a worse time.
In 1997, just as the Turner family was asking DCFS for help, the agency was gripped by a sickness of its own. What has been described as a culture of hysteria had engulfed the Jane Edna Hunter Social Services Building.
An extraordinary string of child deaths rocked the agency in the early- to mid-1990s, generating finger-pointing and second- guessing by the media and elected officials.
That aggravated record-high staff turnover, fueling an influx of social workers with little or no experience.
The combination produced a dangerous mindset among an increasingly untested staff, according to current and former DCFS officials. Rather than risk censure for making a costly mistake, they say, social workers concluded that it was safer for them to just take the kids.
The result was a six-year foster-care tidal wave that swept up the Turner kids and thousands of others.
Beginning abruptly in 1996, records show that DCFS started taking kids away from their families at a furious pace, overwhelming its foster-home network and burdening taxpayers with huge increases in costs.
DCFS Director James McCafferty acknowledges that many of the thousands of additional foster-care placements may have been unnecessary.
"Kids came in [to foster care] who didn't have to," said McCafferty, who didn't take the DCFS reins until 2001. He declined to estimate how many.
The influx was so intense that officials had to send increasing numbers of Cleveland children to foster homes out of town.
The flood of foster children also overwhelmed a seriously inefficient Juvenile Court. The court is responsible for deciding which children DCFS can put in foster care and which should be severed from their families and put up for adoption.
Unable to keep track of its cases, to find key participants, to properly record proceedings or to follow up on its own orders, the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court aggravated the problem.
By the end of 2001, despite steep increases in the number of kids reunited with their families and adopted into new ones, more than 6,200 Cuyahoga County kids were in foster care. That's up from 4,100 in 1995.
Nearly 2,000 children were waiting to be placed in perma nent homes, and hundreds were destined to remain stranded in foster care until they turned 18.
Meanwhile, taxpayers spent $95 million to house them in 2001, up from $55 million in 1995.
In fact, it wasn't until those skyrocketing costs threatened to break the county's budget that the child-custody numbers started to plummet.
After peaking in 2001, they fell so rapidly to pre-1996 levels that questions are now being raised about how many of the thousands of children removed from their homes during the surge were taken unnecessarily.
Chris Turner believes her children were.
Despite records showing that Turner has done virtually everything demanded of her over the past seven years, her kids are still in foster-care limbo. And she still hasn't been able to convince the county to send them home.
In the process, Turner has been passed from social worker to social worker. She has been examined by at least three psychiatrists, passing muster each time. Her case file was lost in the bureaucracy for more than a year. Taxpayers have spent more than $350,000 taking care of her five children for the last seven years.
And she still doesn't understand why they were taken away in the first place.
"They can't say I did something wrong to my kids," Turner said. "All I did was get sick."
Child deaths framedecade of debate
Agencies like DCFS have a dual role: to stabilize families and to keep children safe.
That said, experts agree that child deaths alone are not the best measure of an agency's effectiveness. Even model agencies are going to grapple with child deaths that - in retrospect, at least - appear to have been preventable.
Still, there's nothing like the tragic death of a child - especially one that could have been saved - to stir the wrath of critics.
That's what happened in 1991 when 10-year-old Eric Tully hanged himself after county officials chose not to remove him - despite numerous reports that he was being abused at home.
That death set the tone for a decade of conflict - between the sometimes clashing objectives of reuniting troubled families and keeping kids safe.
Goaded by Eric's death, county commissioners retooled the county's child-welfare operation, created DCFS and wooed Judith Goodhand, a top assistant at the highly regarded Lucas County child-protection agency, to become its first director.
Goodhand was a firm believer in keeping children with their biological families when possible. She saw it as a cheaper, and more beneficial, alternative to foster care.
Before long, however, the outcry over another dramatic death created more turmoil.
In August 1993, Goodhand's social workers left 21-month-old Denise Rome with her mother, even after discovering suspicious marks on the toddler's body.
Just days later, Audrey Rome beat her daughter to death.
Intense media criticism followed, with a Plain Dealer editorial cartoon depicting Denise's tombstone as a cost of family preservation.
Foster-care placements spiked briefly.
Then in late 1995, more than two years after Denise's death, records show, a television station revived the Rome controversy by accusing Goodhand of altering the DCFS report on the child's death and of using confidentiality to cover up a murder.
Goodhand, who calls the story "an absolute hoax," challenged its validity along with other county officials.
But by that time, several more child deaths - many unrelated to abuse or neglect - had already turned up the heat inside DCFS.
By January 1996, records show that Goodhand and her agency had become preoccupied with death.
Memos on child deaths circulated the agency. Top deputies issued detailed new procedures for reviewing every death involving a DCFS client - even if the child died of natural causes. And blame replaced support as the order of the day.
"It wasn't a nurturing environment like in the past," social worker Donna Butler recalled. "It became accusatory."
Foster-care placements took off. After hovering around the 2,000 mark for each of the previous six years, child removals soared to 3,200 in 1996.
DCFS made some policy changes that may have contributed to the spike, and the agency did become more aggressive dealing with drug-addicted families. But fear over child deaths appeared to be the real driving force behind the numbers.
"Placements go up because caseworkers get scared," Goodhand said. "Workers verbalize it, 'Better be safe than sorry.' And 'safe' means remove the child."
But 1996 was only the beginning. Newly elected Cuyahoga County Commissioner Timothy McCormack took office in January 1997 with child deaths on his mind.
He immediately launched his own investigation into the death, six months earlier, of 4-year-old Kia Taylor. Her aunt, who had legal custody of Kia and three of her sisters, had starved her.
Commissioners suspended a worker for 10 days for not following procedure, even while saying her mistakes did not contribute to the child's death.
Still, McCormack concluded there were ample warning signs, and that DCFS could have done more to save her.
When two brothers died in a fire in April that year, McCormack said publicly that the boys should have been in a foster home. Other county officials accused him of breaking the law by releasing confidential information about the case to the media, damaging the agency in the process. No legal action was taken.
In May, Melanie DeMeo scalded her 10-month-old baby to death. Commissioners fired an agency supervisor, the 11th disciplinary action in a year. McCormack called it a sign of a failing department.
Television stations and The Plain Dealer reported on the deaths for weeks.
And the prevailing attitude at DCFS became, "I'm going to cover my behind," Butler, the social worker, recalled.
"You were afraid that if you left the child in the home and the child died, your name would end up in the paper," she said.
Workers acknowledge they also became quicker to judge and more likely to view parents as lost causes.
Danielle Nystrom, who believes her two sons were wrongly taken from her in 1999, has been battling for years against what she regards as entrenched, negative attitudes at DCFS toward her and mothers like her.
A court-appointed psychologist in Nystrom's case has recently concluded that the 29-year-old mother may be right. It was "vindictiveness" on the part of DCFS employees that had undermined Nystrom's efforts to get her children back, the psychologist wrote in a report. The agency had worked against her instead of helping her.
In another case, records show that Sabrina Otis lost her five children for three months because she couldn't get the county to sign off on a subsidized-housing security deposit. DCFS agreed to help Otis get housing, records show, but then took her children the next day. She had to go to court to get them back.
Official says criticismwas well intended
Cuyahoga County's symptoms describe a classic case of "foster- care panic," said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.
Although it's certainly not true in all instances, Wexler acknowledges that some abuse cases are so heinous that the child should be taken from the home and never returned. But social workers don't get into trouble for removing too many kids, he said. They are only disciplined when they don't remove a child and something goes wrong.
"They are not damned if they do, damned if they don't," Wexler said. "They are only damned if they don't."
Commissioner McCormack defends his vigorous child-safety position of the late 1990s. "Were we doing the best we could [at the time] to keep kids alive? Absolutely not," he said recently.
McCormack said it was never his intent for children to be put into foster care unnecessarily. But after reviewing the child-custody numbers from the years after he took office, McCormack agreed that his frequent criticism contributed to the siege mentality at DCFS.
"I didn't know there was a better way," he said. "I had to do something."
As McCormack repeatedly denounced DCFS in 1997, fear and discontent were spreading among the agency's staff. Feeling overworked and unfairly castigated for child deaths, social workers picketed outside DCFS headquarters.
Bosses joined in as well. Of the agency's 75 supervisors, 64 signed a letter saying they lacked the resources to do their jobs and that death reviews and unfair discipline had created "a climate of fear and paranoia."
Workers were leaving by the dozens. Half the weekend staff of the child-abuse hot line quit.
Even Goodhand had had enough. She resigned from DCFS in July 1998. Annual turnover reached 27 percent.
Replacement social workers tended to be much younger, less experienced and even more cowed by the atmosphere than those they succeeded, said Patricia Rideout, formerly one of Goodhand's top deputies.
And many didn't know the difference between poverty and neglect, said Paul Taylor, a social worker and former president of the workers union. "You can't bring in your own values and morals and apply it to the clientele. If you were born in Pepper Pike, how do you know what life is like in Central?
"As long as the basic needs are met, people should not be separated from their families," Taylor said. "It takes experience to see that thin line."
From the beginning, the problem in Chris Turner's case has been finding the right perspective on that thin line.
Turner was still hospitalized for depression when the social workers took her kids on Aug. 15, 1997.
She was released three days later. But the agency alleged that Turner's mental health problems left her unable to care for her children. Turner disagreed, but she accepted a plan to regain custody and made rapid progress.
By July 1998, Turner's psychiatrist told DCFS that she was ready to handle her kids again.
A month later, after she completed parenting classes with distinction, Catholic Charities Services told DCFS that with proper support, "Ms. Turner could manage to keep her family together."
Turner even moved into a nicer four-bedroom house.
As the year drew to a close, there was still no reunification, even though Turner's three youngest children all between 1 and 5 years old were struggling in foster care. Behavioral and developmental problems had surfaced, agency documents show. And DCFS confirmed receiving allegations of abuse in the children's foster home.
Those allegations were never confirmed, and the foster parents denied them to DCFS. But the agency split up the children anyway and moved them into new homes. Turner's two oldest children, now 13 and 16, live in a different foster home.
Despondent, Turner checked into a hospital again in December 1998, but she was out in less than a month.
She resumed attending classes at Cuyahoga Community College, working full-time as a security guard and maintaining her mental health, according to letters from two psychiatrists.
By then, Turner's social worker her fourth had moved to take the children away permanently. Despite the parenting- class recommendation that Turner "could manage to keep her family together," the social worker questioned Turner's abilities, arguing that she still had severe mental-health problems that made her incapable of caring for her kids.
At least twice since then, psychiatrists and others have said she is capable of having her family reunited. But DCFS has persisted in trying to permanently "sever" her parental rights.
Her permanent-custody case arrived in Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court which must approve orders to send children home or put them up for adoption in 1999.
Court employees promptly lost her file. It didn't turn up again until 18 months later.
Court delays cases; kidsstay longer in foster care
The Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court has slowed down thousands of other cases as well.
It was "an enormous impediment," Goodhand said in a recent interview. "A significant number" of children were needlessly kept in foster care because of "bottlenecks in the court."
DCFS records from the late 1990s reveal numerous longstanding problems there.
For instance, parents often weren't properly notified of abuse or neglect allegations or of court hearings, a miscue that could lead to delays of at least 30 days. The court's own study in 2002 suggested that thousands of cases had been affected.
In some cases, critics say, court employees would simply leave the critical paperwork on a parent's doorstep without ever verifying that it was received.
"They would just drop it. If it blew away, it blew away," said Cheryl Alikhan, a lawyer who handles Juvenile Court cases. "So it wasn't a surprise when we got to court that the parents wouldn't be there."
Records show that DCFS social workers frequently failed to show up as well because their notices to appear arrived after the scheduled hearing date.
A 2002 study showed that proper notice was being issued in only about one case out of 20. It wasn't until then 30 years later than in most courts that the Juvenile Court started using certified mail to serve notice of complaints.
Service glitches and other court delays pushed thousands of cases beyond the legal time limit for resolution, forcing officials to refile them from scratch.
In March 1999, the prosecutor's office estimated that, in one three-month period alone, Cuyahoga County lost more than $350,000 in federal foster-care reimbursements as a penalty for repeated refilings.
Even more galling were repeated delays in sending kids home even when everyone agreed it was best.
Typically, a Juvenile Court magistrate would approve the DCFS decision allowing a child to go home. But a judge had to sign off. And the order had to be officially recorded by the clerk and sent to DCFS and other parties.
Even though judges rarely overruled such orders, kids often had to wait months while the paperwork inched its way through the bureaucracy.
In a September 1998 memo, DCFS estimated it was wasting more than $2 million a year in needless foster-care costs while waiting for go-home orders to become official.
About the same time, DCFS reported that dozens of children had been waiting two months or longer to go home, and some had been waiting more than 10 months. Records show that delays like these were typical.
Such foul-ups also help to explain why children in Cuyahoga County typically spend 342 days in foster care before going home or being put up for adoption three times as long as those in Franklin County.
In early 1999, an exasperated assistant county prosecutor, Yvonne C. Billingsley, railed in a memo about the court's "inefficiency, misadministration of justice and the incompetence of some of its employees."
Billingsley wrote to her bosses that in addition to leaving hundreds of kids in limbo, the court's failures "represent a violation of the rights of both the parents and children that we serve, the majority of whom are this county's poor, undereducated and underemployed.
"I am embarrassed and ashamed as a member of the legal profession."
Billingsley and others say the court has improved substan tially. Notification and record- keeping are better than in the past. But the court is still not nearly as efficient as it ought to be, they say. And some of the hurdles it has created for families continue to haunt them.
It was more than five years ago when Billingsley penned her scathing critique.
By then, not unlike Chris Turner, Danielle Nystrom and her family were deeply ensnared in a Juvenile-Court disaster of their own.
Nystrom's two sons, now 8 and 6, have spent most of their lives in foster care largely, it now appears, because of court incompetence and a history of questionable, even mean-spirited, decisions at DCFS.
After a Juvenile Court judge ruled in 2001 that Nystrom's parental rights should be severed and her sons put up for adoption, it took her 16 months to get the decision reversed.
That's largely because the court never recorded a critical hearing at which her fitness as a mother was challenged.
Nystrom and her lawyer had to reconstruct the hearing with interviews, and then battle back legal challenges from the county, before they could get a decision from a higher court.
All the while, her sons were growing up in somebody else's home. Another judge has since ruled that Nystrom deserves to get her sons back.
Mom: agency took kidsfor wrong reasons
When DCFS first took the boys in January 1999, social workers alleged neglect specifically inadequate parenting, unstable housing and a history of domestic violence.
Nystrom suspects it had as much to do with DCFS attitudes about her own volatile past.
Both of her parents had gone to prison for child abuse, court records show, and the county placed Nystrom with her grandmother. She ran away as a teenager, dropped out of high school and later had a brief, stormy relationship with a man who beat her, court records show. Another man had fathered her children, but did not provide child support and waived his parental rights.
By late 1999, Nystrom was well along in meeting DCFS requirements to get her kids back: She had successfully completed parenting classes, had finished domestic violence training and had just signed a lease for a two-bedroom apartment that the agency deemed appropriate.
But DCFS moved to permanently take her kids instead. Her employment was unstable, the agency contends, and she was immature and irresponsible. DCFS also cited concerns, given her history of abusive relationships, that Nystrom had a new boyfriend.
"They had their minds made up," she said in a recent inter view. "They didn't give me a chance."
An appeals court reversed the decision to sever Nystrom's rights essentially giving her a second chance to regain custody of her kids.
Back in Juvenile Court, court- appointed psychologist Sandra B. McPherson reported to a different judge that DCFS had demonstrated "vindictiveness" in undermining Nystrom's visitation with her children and her efforts to regain custody.
On one visit, in the atrium of the agency's headquarters, a social worker took offense at Nystrom's then 5-year-old son being allowed to kiss a 2-year-old girl.
"I think it's inappropriate to let your child walk up to a stranger and their family and start kissing their children," the social worker testified.
The worker also objected when Nystrom allowed her kids to play with other children in the atrium, instead of using the time to bond with them.
And giving them a bag of candy during an early morning visit was another example of "poor parenting."
DCFS Director McCafferty denies that the agency was out to get Nystrom.
But psychologist McPherson also indicated that a DCFS worker tried to negatively influence her evaluation of Nystrom. McPherson wrote that the worker called her office with a litany of accusations about Nystrom's fitness as a parent, detailing allegedly inappropriate remarks Nystrom had made during visits with the children.
In her report, McPherson concluded that some of the county's allegations were "clearly specious" and that the social worker's allegations of poor parenting by Nystrom didn't hold up.
In November, Visiting Judge Judith Cross agreed, and found that Nystrom's life was in order. She had kept a suitable apartment for five years, had been in a relationship with the same man for four years and was a certified bloodwork technician.
Cross said that Nystrom was committed to her children, that they had a strong bond with her and that the family should be reunited immediately.
One problem stood in the way. The two boys had bonded so well with their foster parents that they needed time to get ready to return home.
Through no fault of Nystrom's, Cross ruled, the children had been in county custody so long that they had to stay in custody awhile longer to learn how not to be in custody.
That was eight months ago. Nystrom's two sons are still in foster care.
I was in the chatroom today from 5-7pm PT. I've got this on my calendar now for every day in the same time-slot - see the schedule in the column to the left. I hope to have others chatting there with me soon. I may miss some days but if I'm not there eventually there will be enough other people to keep the chats going without me.
Constitution
When we're fighting CPS one of the best things we can do is to fully understand our Constitutional Rights because caseworkers and other government agents often violate these. The best protection is to learn our rights and insist they be respected. When the laws or local policies violate our rights, we can sue in Federal Court to have unconstitutional laws, regulations and policies changed.
If you don't know what your Constitutional Rights are yet I suggest you check out this page which I just transfered here from the old site: Constitution. I will be working on transferring other pages from the older format as well. In the meantime the old site and the old community site will remain online - though neither are being updated at this point.
Ted Gunderson Speech to Congressional Hearing on Child Protection 3/13/04
Note from FightCPS.Com webmaster: There's a lot of controversy over Gunderson's writings. Plenty of people apparently believe what he says isn't true. It is important to remember we can't believe everything we read and it is difficult or impossible to know who is telling the truth in these matters. I find it strange that Gunderson doesn't bring out information about Bohemian Grove on his website other than briefly mentioning it in a recent affidavit. I have no evidence that the things he writes and speaks about are true, and spent a lot of years ignoring him. Back in about 1991 I was loaned a copy of his report on satanic ritual child abuse containing compiled news articles and statements. I read it all. I subsequently discounted that after becoming aware of Wicca and the peaceful non-satanic pagans I met on the internet. However after learning about Bohemian Grove's "mock" human sacrifice ritual which is attended by US Presidents and other legislators - I'm wondering again if Gunderson is right after all. The video he describes below, Conspiracy of Silence, is available for viewing online at Alex Jones' site, Prison Planet. Cathy O'Brien is corroborating the information with her Trance Formation website; she claims to be a recovering victim of a government mind control experiment called MK Ultra. She is quoted as saying: "Slaves of advancing age or with failed programming were sacrificially murdered at random in the wooded grounds of Bohemian Grove and I felt it was only a matter of time until it would be me." Brice Taylor is another survivor. This site helps victims of this government mind control program recover. - LJM
The following article is by Ted L. Gunderson Posted at Educate-Yourself.Org March 13, 2004
San Bernardino, California
March 13, 2004
Town Hall Forum with Congressman Joe Baca
"Children Protective Services Reform"
Respectfully Presented by Ted L. Gunderson,
FBI Senior Special Agent In Charge (Ret)
Honorable Lawmakers, Guardians of the United States Constitution and the Federal Treasury,
I am a licensed private investigator with more than 54 years experience. This includes more than 27 years as a special agent with the FBI. At the time of my retirement on March 30, 1979, I was in charge of the FBI LOS ANGELES Division, which included most of Southern California. I had more than 700 personnel under my command, with a budget of 22.5 Million Dollars.
As a licensed private investigator I have specialized in exposing graft, corruption, and illegal, criminal activity involving public officials. The tentacles of these investigations have involved public officials at all levels of government: city, county, state and federal, and have reached as high as the White House. Most disturbing of all I have "chiseled in stone" documentation of an international criminal enterprise involving kidnapping, murders, including human sacrifices by Satanic Cults, and other nefarious criminal activity on the part of public officials and leading citizens in various communities. Specifically, in regards to Child Protective Services in some areas and some states, I have been told by a reliable source, that a planeload of 210 children from CPS was flown out of Denver, Colorado on November 6, 1997 to Paris, France. Later a second plane of children also under the care of CPS was flown from Los Angeles to Europe. I have also developed information through credible and reliable sources that in the past, children have been taken from Foster Homes, orphanages, and Boys Town Nebraska, and flown by private jets from Sioux City Iowa to Washington D.C. for sex orgies with politicians.
I have interviewed witnesses who were active in an international child-kidnapping ring, who advised me that, of the thousands of children who disappear every year, many are auctioned off, at various locations throughout the country. This kidnapping ring involves a case under investigation known as "The Franklin Cover Up."
One of my sources advised that he has attended six such auctions, with six to thirty six children being auctioned off. These locations are identified as fifty miles outside Las Vegas, Nevada, Toronto Canada, Houston Texas, an unidentified location in Michigan and a barn outside Lincoln Nebraska.
This source informed me that the children range in age from 2-21, both boys and girls. They are usually placed on a stage or platform, in their underwear with a number attached to a string around their necks. The perpetrators bid on the children by number. The location outside Las Vegas was at a small airport. Some of the children were auctioned off to foreigners wearing turbans on their heads. The children were placed in private planes from which they took off. Other children were placed in campers. They were drugged so that if police stopped them the kidnappers could claim their child was sleeping. This same source advised me that when he was ten years old he was used as decoy in public places to attract other children his age to that area, where the adults would grab the kids and flee. This source also informed me that in his early teens he made more than 100 trips around the world transporting drugs. Often he would be given instructions to fly to a city where he would be met by a strange couple, who would have 5-6 different passports from different countries with different names for three of them, for the purpose of making drug drops.
In the early 1990's, following the circulation of "The Franklin Cover-up" for almost a year, the Yorkshire Television of England sent a topnotch investigatory team to produce a documentary on the Franklin Cover Up. They conducted a national investigation for 10 months, interviewing, filming, and documenting the Franklin story, finding new witnesses, and uncovering new evidence. Their documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence" was scheduled to be aired nationwide on the Discovery Channel on May 3, 1994 at 10 PM. It was listed in the national publication, "TV Guide". When certain members of congress learned that Conspiracy of Silence was to be aired on national TV, the cable industry was threatened with restrictive legislation, the rights to the documentary were purchased by unknown parties and all copies were ordered destroyed. It never aired.
Approximately six months ago I ordered a copy of the TV Guide for May 3, 1994. Even though Conspiracy of Silence had been listed for this date in a previous issue, the most recent issue of TV GUIDE, listed a documentary on Nature in its' place. It's apparent the TV GUIDE for this date was reprinted. I then visited the LA TIMES LIBRARY, reviewed the TV log for May 3, 1994 noted that Conspiracy of Silence was listed to be aired on that date at 10 PM. I had a contact on the East Coast review the TV log for the PHILADELPHIA ENQUIRER and noted Conspiracy of Silence was also listed in their TV log section at 10 PM, May 3, 1994. I have a bootleg copy of this documentary, which is available.
I developed information from a credible source in a major city in Southwest U.S. that there is collusion between judges, attorneys and underworld criminals. Children in the system, are adopted, four thousand dollars is given to the people who adopt, and the children's names are changed and each child is re-adopted up to 75 times, with four thousand dollars going to each adoption every time. The Federal Government Adoption Bonus is given to these judges, attorneys and underworld criminals it is split among the three groups of child traffickers.
As an outgrowth of my involvement in the Franklin Cover Up Case from Omaha, I learned that a covert CIA operation known as the Finders based in Washington D.C. which was actively involved in kidnapping and international trafficking of children since the early 1960's. This matter was brought to the attention of the FBI and State Department in February 1997. A report by the Metropolitan Police Department was classified "Secret" in the interest of National Security. The investigation by the FBI was closed down, however according to a US CUSTOMS investigative report, portions of which I will now read, "the Finders became a CIA internal matter." I have given this information to the FBI on seven occasions, and have demanded an investigation for the international kidnapping and trafficking of children.
Let me read directly from the US CUSTOMS REPORT ABOUT THE FINDERS..
I have been involved for several years with a case involving what appears to be corruption by Child Protective Services in the State of Colorado. Furthermore there has been a total lack of consideration or follow up to investigate these matters in both states of Colorado or California. It is alarming that there is a similarity between the CPS Colorado Case and the Finders of Washington D.C. with the specific reference to a nanny placed in the home.
I have personally written to the authorities in Colorado regarding this case and have had no response. The case involves an adoptive woman's children being given to her nanny, and you will hear this case from her next.
I appreciate the opportunity for being able to bring this to your attention. There is nothing more important than protecting our children. Thank you, very much.
Respectfully Presented By
THEODORE L. GUNDERSON
FBI Senior Special Agent in Charge (Ret.)
P.O. Box 18000-259 Las Vegas, NV 89114
Phone: (702) 791-5195, Voice: (310) 364-2280, Fax: (702) 791-2906
LANCASTER -- A Lancaster woman jailed 3 months for the deaths of two foster children she left in her sweltering SUV was ordered Thursday to pay any monetary judgment that might result from a pending civil lawsuit.
As part of her punishment for her involuntary manslaughter conviction, Leslie Smoot, 49, was ordered to pay restitution in accordance with any judgment in the civil lawsuit filed by the boys' parents, who were not in court Thursday.
"You are ordered to in good faith comply with any civil judgment in that case," Antelope Valley Superior Court Judge Lisa Chung said.
Smoot was sentenced in March to six months in jail for the deaths of Nehemaiha Prince-Smith, 3, and Dakota Prince-Smith, 5, after she pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter.
Smoot surrendered April 13 to start serving her sentence and was released July 30.
Deputy District Attorney Tannaz Mokayef said the boys' parents' attorney at the time of sentencing had agreed upon Thursday's date for a restitution hearing.
Mokayef also said she mailed a notice about the hearing to the mother's address but it came back unable to forward.
"There's no other way to do it but that way because we couldn't have a restitution hearing here today," Mokayef said outside of court.
Smoot's attorney, Michael Eberhardt, said restitution pursuant to civil judgment is subject to Smoot's ability to pay.
"If there's a civil judgment against her, the court can require her, if she has the ability to pay, to pay it," Eberhardt said after the hearing.
The boys' parents, Twila Prince and David Smith Jr., in April filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Smoot, Los Angeles County, and Trinity Children & Family Services, a foster family agency.
The boys died July 8, 2003, after being left in Smoot's Cadillac Escalade for five hours in near-100-degree heat outside her Lancaster child care center.
As part of her sentence, Smoot also was ordered not to do foster care or day-care work for the five years she is on probation and to perform 2,000 hours of community service and get counseling.
Smoot said at the sentencing that she forgot to take the boys out of the sport utility vehicle when she arrived at the day-care center and did not realize they were still in the vehicle until she went to leave for the day.
A former bus driver of handicapped children who has been a foster mother for 18 years, Smoot said she loved the boys and treated them as if they were her own children. She said she had taken in 55 foster children. She adopted or became the legal guardian of some of those children.
Professor David Southall, the now disgraced paediatrician who wrongly accused a father of murdering his two baby sons, should be struck off, said a woman whose daughter was placed in foster care because of false accusations of abuse.
Professor Southall was found guilty on Friday of serious professional misconduct after falsely accusing Stephen Clark, 42, of murdering his children, Christopher and Harry.
Professor Southall, 56, made his allegations after watching a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary about the case in 2000. Mr Clark's wife, Sally, had initially been convicted of murder, but her conviction was quashed last year.
Yesterday Justine Durkin, whose own complaint against Professor Southall will be heard by the General Medical Council (GMC) in January, called for the consultant paediatrician to be struck off.
"He destroyed mine and my family's lives," she told Radio 4's Today programme. "He accused me of having Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy, which was unfounded. But it took 11 months to get that far, and during that time the children were in care."
Professor Southall made his diagnosis of MSBP - where the sufferer harms their own child in order to draw attention to themselves - after Ms Durkin took her daughter Rosie to see him in 1993 at North Staffordshire Hospital.
Rosie, then aged one, had developed a cough that led to breathing problems. Unknown to Ms Durkin, Professor Southall wrote in his notes "Mother - MSBP?" and she was sent home with a monitoring device.
A few weeks later she was told her daughter had a serious heart disorder and would need 24-hour monitoring. But this was a ruse to secretly video Ms Durkin, 34, to see if she tried to harm her child. Mother and daughter were placed in a ward for five days, and Rosie was ordered to remain on the bed for 24 hours a day.
"They were under the impression I was smothering her," Ms Durkin said. "Of course, the video didn't show anything of the sort. It showed me and my daughter in a room for five days, getting extremely fraught with the situation we were put in."
Ms Durkin was still accused of having MSBP and was wrongly accused of punching Rosie in the face. She was cleared of the charges, but not before Rosie was taken into care and her son, Joe, then three, went to live with his father, who Ms Durkin had separated from.
Her husband was granted custody of both children and Ms Durkin was initially only allowed supervised visits for two hours a week. The conditions were eventually relaxed, and a year ago Rosie decided to move back with her mother, although Joe decided to stay where he is.
Ms Durkin's complaint is one of a further six against the doctor, who was banned from working on child protection cases for three years. "Obviously we'd all like him struck off," Ms Durkin said. "If people are caught doing these things the standards of evidence should be irrefutable."
After Friday's hearing Professor Southall's solicitor, Margaret Taylor, said outside the GMC building in Manchester: "Although disappointed that the committee has applied conditions to his registration, Professor Southall sincerely hopes that the decision will not deter other paediatricians from continuing to act in the particularly difficult area of child protection and speaking out when they suspect a child has been abused."
More on the family-wrecking liar, Dr. Southall... one of thousands working with the child abduction industry
A PAEDIATRICIAN who heaped misery on a family by accusing a loving husband and father of murdering his children on the basis of a television documentary, will keep his job despite being found guilty of serious misconduct.
Professor David Southall escaped being struck off the medical register after the General Medical Council (GMC) found he was guilty of "irresponsible and inappropriate behaviour" which could have led to the prosecution of Steve Clark for a crime he did not commit.
Following the decision, Mr Clark, 42, who has spent the last few years engaged in a double battle for justice - for his wife, Sally, who last year had a conviction of murdering their two sons, Christopher and Harry, quashed, as well as his own case - said he hoped a "strong message" had been sent out.
The GMC tribunal chairman, Denis McDevitt, told Prof Southall that he must not engage in any aspect of child protection work either in or outside the NHS for three years.
Despite the severity of the ruling, Prof Southall’s employer, the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, in Stoke, has said he would keep his highly-paid job.
But the consultant paediatrician, who vowed to "continue working for children", will now face the GMC again in January when seven further sets of parents’ complaints are heard.
Earlier this week, The Scotsman revealed fresh claims that his evidence had destroyed a Scottish family, after he accused a mother of child abuse, leading to her children being taken into care. Judith, the mother whose real name cannot be revealed for legal reasons, described the GMC ruling as a "political" decision. She said it was "disappointing" that he was allowed to continue to practice, but said that it paved the way for the January hearings.
"The decision has given us the chance for justice," said the mother of two, who was present at the Manchester hearing, along with several other mothers who claim Prof Southall has wrongly accused them of harming their children.
As he walked away, Prof Southall was heckled by campaigners, one of whom shouted: "It’s not over."
Penny Mellor, who runs Dare to Care, a support group for parents accused of harming their children, said she believed Prof Southall deserved to be struck off. But she said other cases could now be heard as the GMC had not struck him off the medical register.
She added: "The professional conduct committee will now hear another seven cases against him and so these parents are going to get their day in court."
The GMC hearing centred on conclusions Prof Southall had reached after watching a Channel 4 Dispatches programme on the Clark case in April 2000. He phoned police about it, urging them to investigate, wrote a report on it, and later said it was "beyond reasonable doubt" that Mr Clark had killed his children. He expressed concern for the Clarks’ remaining child, referred to in the hearing as Child A.
The paediatrician has never retracted his allegations, and told the GMC yesterday he stood by them.
Mr McDevitt said it was in the "public interest" to take action and the committee was "extremely concerned" the doctor had formed a "definite view" without interviewing the Clarks or seeing medical reports.
The actions of Prof Southall, one of the UK’s leading child abuse experts, could have resulted in Mr Clark’s surviving child being taken into care and his being taken to prison.
A lawyer for the family, Richard Tyson, described Prof Southall as "arrogant, dogmatic and dangerous" and called for him to be struck off "to protect the public".
But the GMC’s professional conduct committee also heard statements and testimonials from more than 85 professionals in support of the doctor’s "pioneering" research. They argued that striking him off the medical register would have a "catastrophic" impact on the demoralised paediatric profession.
After the decision, Mr Clark said: "It is a sad day when a doctor is dragged before his professional body, is found guilty of serious misconduct and has sanctions imposed upon him."
But he added: "As a father, the sole purpose of bringing my complaint, four long years ago, was to try to ensure that no other innocent parent is ever again falsely accused of harming their children."
He said he hoped the committee’s verdict would send a strong message to all doctors that such accusations were "not acceptable and will no longer be tolerated".
Mr Clark added: "I am also, of course, relieved that at last my complaints have been upheld and I have been fully exonerated from any blame."
Mr McDevitt said Prof Southall’s failure to take reasonable steps to verify his statement before he signed the report on the Clarks, caused "substantial stress to Mr Clark and his family at a time when they were most vulnerable", could have resulted in child A being taken back into care unnecessarily and Mr Clark prosecuted. He told Prof Southall: "The committee are concerned that at no time during these proceedings have you seen fit to withdraw these allegations or to offer any apology."
Prof Southall’s solicitor, Margaret Taylor, said: "Although disappointed that conditions have been applied to his registration, he sincerely hopes that the decision will not deter other paediatricians from continuing to act in the particularly difficult area of child protection, and speaking out when they believe a child is being abused."
During the two-day hearing, Prof Southall admitted that his accusations against Mr Clark had been made without seeing any medical records or postmortem results relating to the death of the Clarks’ two babies. He had recommended that the couple’s surviving child, who was at the time being looked after by Mr Clark, be removed from his care. Due to his eminence the local authority seriously considered doing this.
The medic has also been accused of giving grossly misleading evidence which helped convict Sion Jenkins of murdering his foster daughter, Billie-Jo, in Hastings, East Sussex, in February 1997. In his role as a leading paediatrician, he was called to testify on crucial blood evidence, but his opinion is now contested in an appeal by Mr Jenkins, whose murder conviction was quashed last month.
Another article about Southall - how many lives has this man ruined?
By Maxine Frith, Social Affairs Correspondent
07 August 2004
One of the country's leading paediatricians was found guilty of serious professional misconduct yesterday after he accused a father of murdering his two babies on the basis of a television programme.
The General Medical Council (GMC) banned Professor David Southall from working on child protection cases for three years and said it was "extremely concerned" about the way in which he had acted.
Professor Southall faces at least seven other charges of misconduct relating to evidence he has given in civil and criminal courts, alleging that mothers and fathers abused their children. Scores of parents have been convicted or had their children taken into care and adopted on the basis of Professor Southall's reports.
Yesterday's GMC ruling centred on the now-notorious case of Sally Clark, who was convicted in 1999 of murdering her two baby sons. Mrs Clark and her husband, Steve, had always protested her innocence, and in 2000 Mr Clark gave an interview to the Channel 4 Dispatches programme, in which he described how one of their sons suffered a nosebleed just days before his death.
Having watched the programme, Professor Southall contacted police and social workers and told them that he believed "beyond reasonable doubt" that Mr Clark had murdered both the boys. He did not see any official documents or court papers and never met Mr or Mrs Clark, but wrote a report containing his allegations which was later used in a court case over the care of the couple's surviving child. Mr Clark was questioned by police on the basis of the allegations, which he has described as a "sick joke", but no charges were brought.
Last year, Mrs Clark's conviction was quashed and she walked free after the Appeal Court heard new evidence that her sons had died from natural causes. Mr Clark's complaint to the GMC sparked a flood of other allegations about the way in which Professor Southall has accused parents of abuse.
Passing judgment on the Clark case, Denis McDevitt, chairman of the GMC's professional conduct committee, told Professor Southall: "The committee are extremely concerned that you came to this view without ever meeting or interviewing Mr or Mrs Clark; without seeing any of the medical reports, post-mortem reports and without any knowledge of the discussions between the experts or witnesses involved with the Sally Clark case. Your view was a theory which was not presented as a theory but as a near certainty."
Professor Southall's false allegation had caused "substantial stress" to Mr Clark and could have resulted in the couple's remaining child being taken into care, the panel said.
Throughout the hearing, Professor Southall has reiterated his opinion that Mr Clark was responsible for the deaths of his sons. Yesterday, the professor admitted that he was disappointed at the ban but insisted that he intended to continue to work as a paediatrician. Mr Clark said: "I hope the committee's finding will send a strong message to him [Professor Southall] that irresponsible and reckless allegations of child abuse against innocent parents are simply not acceptable."
The committee stopped short of striking Professor Southall off the medical register, which would have meant none of the remaining complaints could have been heard. However, he could still be struck off when the committee hears charges relating to the seven other complainants in January. The GMC has not given details of the cases, but they are believed to relate to other parents accused by the paediatrician of abusing their children.
Doubt has also been cast on Professor Southall's role as an expert witness in the case of the headmaster Sion Jenkins, who was convicted of murdering his foster daughter Billie-Jo six years ago. Prof Southall gave crucial evidence to the court about blood spots at the murder scene, a key plank of the prosecution case. Last month, the Appeal Court quashed Mr Jenkins's conviction and he now faces a retrial.Last night news of the professor's ban was greeted with concern at the impact it may have on other paediatricians.
Dr Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat MP and a member of the science and technology select committee, said: "The doctor has been criticised for the nature and style of his reporting to the child protection authorities, not the fact that he did it. It is in the interest of the thousands of children who suffer abuse each year that healthcare professionals are vigilant and are not deterred from bringing their reasonable concerns to the attention of the authorities for fear of any sanction if their good faith actions are found not to be substantiated after further investigation."
THE REACTION FROM PARENTS AND HEALTH EXPERTS
Angela Cannings, 41, freed last year on appeal after being cleared of murdering her two baby sons: "I am disappointed he did not get a life ban. They are protecting their own. What will happen after the three years' suspension is finished? I do not think he should any longer be allowed to do child protection cases."
Mervyn Gamage, spokesman for the University Hospital of North Staffordshire: "Professor David Southall acted as he did because he genuinely believed that the child was at risk ... The GMC's criticism is largely of the way he pursued [this]."
David Hall, Professor of community paediatrics at the University of Sheffield: "He [Southall] is a pioneer, a man who pushed the limits and went where others would fear to tread. We need people like him who challenge received wisdom, test new ideas and suggest new approaches."
Steve Clark, husband of Sally Clark: "The sole purpose of bringing my complaint, four long years ago, was to try to ensure that no other innocent parent is ever again falsely accused of harming their children."
Penny Mellor, who runs a support group for parents accused of harming their children, Dare to Care: "You can't go around accusing people of abusing or murdering their children based on a theory."
ONEIDA, Tenn. - The Tennessee Department of Children's Services revealed Friday its case managers investigated several claims of child abuse since 2001 involving two foster parents who were charged this week with abuse and neglect.
Aaron and Linda Mann, of Oneida, were charged with aggravated child abuse and neglect after one of their five adopted children, a 13-year-old girl, alerted a neighbor. They were released from jail on Wednesday.
The girl was hospitalized to treat undisclosed injuries, and her four adopted brothers were taken from the Manns' home.
The five children, from ages 11 to 14, were placed in the Manns' home as foster children and later adopted.
"It is clear that numerous people were concerned for the safety of these children," DCS commissioner Viola Miller said in a statement. "I am saddened that these children had to endure this, but I am grateful that they are safe and no other children will be subjected to such treatment in this home."
DCS officials said Friday that they had investigated claims of abuse at the Manns' home three times since 2001 but closed the cases because of insufficient evidence. DCS received at least four other calls alleging abuse that did not lead to an investigation.
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