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 The law that started this, CAPTA, must be repealed.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.
Texas activists, please contact your legislators to protest this plan to give CPS more money. We all know CPS doesn't need more money. What it needs is to quit taking children who aren't really being abused and neglected. WRITE LETTERS TO LEGISLATORS AND TO NEWSPAPER EDITORS ABOUT THIS NOW. -LJM
SAN ANTONIO - Child Protective Services operations in Bexar County and elsewhere in Texas are hampered by overloaded caseworkers, ineffective management and a lack of sufficient concern by state leaders, according to a report released Thursday.
The report is the result of a court-ordered investigation of the Bexar County office following the beating death of a San Antonio toddler in June, just weeks after she was returned home from state custody.
"The system for protecting children, in this county at least, is in a state of crisis," said lead investigator David Reilly, Bexar County's chief of juvenile probation.
But the 38-page report reaches past the county line to distribute blame for shortcomings in child protection.
"Texas has demonstrated and continues to demonstrate a high tolerance for the death of children from abuse and neglect," Reilly and co-investigator Lynne Wilkerson wrote. "If this were not so, we would not rank 48th nationally on per-capita spending for child protection."
Abuse or neglect caused the death of 184 Texas children in the fiscal year ending last August, according to statistics from the state Department of Family and Protective Services, which oversees CPS.
That was down from the 203 children who died from abuse or neglect in fiscal 2002, but five years earlier, the number was 103.
"It is my hope that the Legislature acts swiftly and decisively to address the needs that exist on the state level and relieve an obviously overburdened system," said District Judge Andy Mireles, who ordered the investigation.
The report's recommendations included a request that the Legislature provide emergency funding to CPS to address understaffing. State Rep. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio and chairman of the House Human Services Committee, said he will push for more money.
"There's no question that there's a need and it needs to be done now," Uresti said. "Whether or not it's going to happen depends if the folks in Austin believe in it as a priority."
Gov. Rick Perry last month ordered a statewide examination of how CPS handles child abuse complaints, in large part due to the case that triggered the Bexar County probe.
In June, 2-year-old Diamond Alexander was beaten to death six weeks after being returned to her mother, Kim Alexander. The girl, who spent most of her life in foster care, had been taken from her mother shortly after birth when her mother tested positive for illicit drugs.
Kim Alexander, 24, is charged with capital murder in the case.
At least five children have died from abuse or neglect in Bexar County in recent months, beginning with a 4-year-old boy's death from starvation Christmas morning.
In addition, a Hidalgo County grand jury recently indicted Family and Protective Services for failing to intervene in a case involving three sisters allegedly sexually assaulted by their stepfather.
Mary Walker, a CPS spokeswoman in San Antonio, listened in Mireles' courtroom as criticism was heaped upon her agency.
"These are things we needed to hear," Walker said. "We understand that what was done here was in the best interests of the children of Bexar County and the children of the state."
The report calls for more CPS caseworkers and urges that they be trained and paid better to improve their effectiveness and cut down the high turnover rate.
In 2003, the average CPS caseworker handled about 27 cases per month, up from 25 two years earlier, according to Family Protective Services figures. The caseload is nearly double the number recommended by national child-protection advocates.
The stress of dealing with so many cases leads to an annual turnover rate of 40 percent among entry-level caseworkers, the report said.
The report also recommends privatizing some responsibilities now under CPS, among them adoption services and foster home development, and a closer working relationship between CPS and community-based agencies.
The report also chastised Bexar County's CPS leadership for being overly secretive, sometimes unresponsive and unwilling to accept dissent in their ranks.
"From inside the agency a consistent theme voiced by workers interviewed is reluctance to speak up for fear of retaliation," Reilly said.
He also called on CPS to rethink its emphasis on reuniting families in which abuse or neglect has occurred.
Ofelia Garcia and her husband, Micah, are accused of scalding their foster child with hot water, leading to third-degree burns.
The victim is a six-year-old child who has worked her way through the system, found a foster family, and was a week away from adoption. Now she sits in a hospital room recovering from what doctors call severe and incredibly painful burns after something happened.
Authorities believe that something was intentional. It started with a trip to a hospital where the child was taken suffering from severe burns. The Garcias said it was a bathing accident but doctors said otherwise.
"There is a major inconsistency between the foster parents' story as to how this happened and what the injuries are indicative of happening," says Lieutenant Paul Robinson of the Wyoming Police Department.
Experts believe scalding hot water was poured on the girl. Police say the girl's foster mom, Ofelia, stated she tried to remedy the scalded skin with hydrogen peroxide. "Hydrogen peroxide can burn, and when put on a burn I would imagine that it's gonna be pretty uncomfortable," says Lieutenant Robinson.
Doctors also found the girl had a fractured eye socket.
24 Hour News 8 went visited the Garcias and talked to a family member who said they didn't want to talk on camera.
We looked into the background check procedures for foster parents. The placement agency, D.A. Blodgett, says their checks include history, criminal, personal, driving and even a social worker assessment.
The Garcias passed these checks but now stand charged with child abuse. Lieutenant Robinson says they're innocent until proven otherwise, but worries about a little girl whose only home now is a hospital room. "How much more trauma does a child have to endure?" asks Robinson.
The Garcias also have a biological child who is in protective custody. The couple will be in court again next month. The child abuse charge is a 15-year felony.
08/27/2004 12:00 AM CDT
Joseph S. Stroud
Express-News Staff Writer
State officials moved late Wednesday to revoke the foster care license at Woodside Trails, the controversial Bastrop County wilderness camp for troubled teenage boys, after concluding counselors there sexually abused children.
Camp officials, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, have 15 days to request an administrative review of the decision. Under state law, they also have the option of giving up their license and re-opening later.
Licensing officials sent the letter announcing their intention to close the camp on the same day a Bastrop County grand jury indicted two former Woodside counselors on charges they sexually assaulted children.
The indictment alleges Robert Meuth, 26, sexually assaulted a child and had indecent contact with a child; Jackie Reynolds, 36, was indicted on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Meuth, who was suspended by the camp when the allegations surfaced, is accused of performing oral sex on a camp resident in December 2001.
Reynolds, who also was suspended, is accused of forcing a child under age 14 to perform oral sex on him and of performing oral sex on the child April 1, 2004.
Neither man could be reached for comment Thursday.
Geoff Wool, spokesman for the Texas Department of Children and Family Services, said the timing of the revocation letter had no connection to the indictment. But he said investigators had reviewed the allegations against the two former counselors and concluded abuse occurred.
Wool said the agency has been informed of multiple new allegations about activities at the camp, and "they seem to be coming with some frequency." Those investigations are continuing.
In a detailed six-page letter, Charlane Bateman, the director of residential licensing for the department, informed Woodside officials of the state's decision. The letter cited 32 violations of minimum licensing standards between October 2003 and Aug. 11 ranging from improper use of restraints to mismanagement of medications to incomplete paperwork.
Wool said the abuse findings, in addition to the other findings, led to the license revocation. He also said the camp didn't have enough staff to prevent children from having consensual sex.
The camp would become the 13th Texas foster care facility to lose its operating license or have it suspended in the past five years and the sixth since December. Others have remained in operation for years despite repeated citations for serious deficiencies, including abuse and the death of a child.
State officials began removing children from Woodside on Aug. 13, a week and a day after Meuth was arrested. But Woodside was allowed to continue caring for three "private pay" residents while the state conducted its investigation.
The camp, where children lived outdoors throughout the year, had a $2.6 million annual budget, including $1.4 million in state-paid tuition and $583,248 from county juvenile probation offices.
"I am glad that the state revoked their license," said Rep. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, a frequent critic of the camp. "I just hope too much damage to these foster children has not been done and that whatever damage has been done will be addressed. No child should ever have to live in those circumstances."
Maine: Fosterer sentenced to 12 years for sexually abusing children as young as five
Man gets 12 years for sex abuses
Newport foster parent molested four children
BANGOR - A Newport foster parent was sentenced Thursday in Penobscot County Superior Court to serve 12 years in prison and 12 years probation after pleading guilty to 22 counts of sexually molesting children.Dale A. Vincent, 45, was indicted earlier this month by the Penobscot County grand jury on eight counts of gross sexual assault and 14 counts of unlawful sexual contact.
"This is a very deeply disturbing scenario," Maine Superior Court Justice Andrew Mead told Vincent in accepting his plea agreement with prosecutors. "When we hear of folks like Mr. Vincent, his deeds strike us like a knife in the heart that goes straight through to the soul.
"I deem this a very significant sentence to address a very significant behavior," Mead said.
Each of Vincent's four victims was under the age of 16 when the abuse occurred, according to Penobscot County Assistant District Attorney Alice Clifford, who prosecuted the case. The incidents involving the children took place over a number of years beginning in 2000, she said last month.
The prosecutor said Thursday that the youngest victim was a 5-year-old boy for whom Vincent and his wife had provided respite foster care once a month. The other three, two boys and a girl, were the children of a neighbor in the Elm Street trailer park where Vincent lived.
Not appearing in court Thursday were the victims, their families, his wife or a representative of the Maine Department of Human Services.
According to his attorney, Stephen Smith of Bangor, Vincent immediately confessed when he was arrested by Newport police in July. He then sought to plead guilty and be sentenced as quickly as possible.
"He is extremely remorseful," Smith told the court. "He has told me more than once that he was glad he was caught."
Vincent, who has been held at Penobscot County Jail since his arrest, apologized Thursday to his victims and their families. He said that he was sexually molested as a teenager by a teacher, but never revealed that fact to DHS when he and is wife applied to become foster parents.
"I violated the innocence of these kids," a tearful Vincent told Mead. "My apology can never be enough, but I want to say I am sorry to the children and their parents. ... I ask for their forgiveness but I understand if they can't give it.
"I realize I must be removed from society," he continued. "I don't want to hurt kids no more, your honor."
The abuse came to light when a victim reportedly complained of a sexual attack to authorities.
Vincent, who has no criminal record, was sentenced to serve a total of 12 years in prison in a complicated plea agreement that included consecutive and concurrent sentences. The longest sentence was 15 years with all but six years suspended, while the shortest was six months.
The maximum penalty was 20 years per count on the gross sexual assault charges and five years per count on the unlawful sexual contact charges.
Mead also placed a number of conditions on Vincent's 12-year period of probation, which is to begin after he is released from prison.
Those conditions include:
- Undergoing sexual offender treatment.
- No contact with the victims or their families.
- No unsupervised contact with children under the age of 18.
- Not being in a place where children congregate, such as a school or playground.
- No possession of pornography in any form.
- Undergoing polygraph testing to confirm that he is conforming with the conditions.
Vincent also must register as a violent sex offender when he is released.
August 26, 2004
By JACK DOLAN, Courant Staff Writer
Democratic state legislator Jefferson Davis pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of risk of injury to a minor, after admitting to police that he had committed a sex act with his former foster child.
Davis entered the plea as part of an agreement that spares him from a trial on a host of other charges, including first-degree sexual assault, arising from allegations made by the boy who lived with Davis and his former wife from 1998 to 2002. The boy is now 12 years old.
While Davis denies the majority of the allegations, he admitted masturbating in front of the child roughly four years ago to address the boy's constant questions about sex, according to the arrest warrant affidavit which the court unsealed Wednesday.
With a barely audible, "Guilty, your honor," the popular six-term state legislator from Pomfret accepted a 10-year suspended sentence and 10 years of probation. His name and photograph also will appear on the state's sexual offender registry for 10 years. He also will undergo sex-offender evaluation, and possible treatment, at a Hartford psychiatric hospital.
Davis pleaded guilty to the single count of risk of injury under the Alford doctrine, which means he does not admit guilt but concedes that the state probably has enough evidence to convict.
In addition to entering the guilty plea, Davis submitted his resignation to leaders in the state House of Representatives on Wednesday. He previously had said he would not seek re-election this year.
Hubert Santos, Davis' defense lawyer, said his client never touched the boy with the intent to harm him, but conceded Davis might have made some "mistakes in judgment."
Santos objected to an apparently Catch-22-like provision in the deal that says psychiatrists at the Institute of Living can decide that the treatment isn't working if Davis refuses to acknowledge that he had inappropriate contact with the boy. In that case, Davis would be in violation of his parole and subject to imprisonment.
Police began their investigation of Davis in April 2003, after a conversation about "good touching" and "bad touching" between the boy and his new adoptive mother released a flood of accusations about rampant sexual abuse by Davis.
Those details became public for the first time Wednesday in Superior Court in the Danielson section of Killingly as State's Attorney Patricia Froehlich described for Judge Patrick J. Clifford the child's allegation that Davis had repeated anal sex with him. Froehlich also said the boy says that Davis tried to coerce him to perform oral sex, and told him that he would be removed from the home if he told anyone about the attacks.
The boy told investigators that Davis assaulted him 50 to 100 times, according to the affidavit.
Davis denies all of the allegations except for the one-time masturbation demonstration, and has said he does not know why the boy has leveled the rest of the allegations against him.
Davis told investigators that the boy was sexually aggressive, and that he regularly grabbed Davis' penis when he tried to read the boy bedtime stories, according to the affidavit.
Investigators said Davis also told them that the boy is, "a very straightforward kid, but that he has a troubled past, and is very manipulative," according to the affidavit.
Santos told the court that Davis tried to get the boy psychiatric help when the discipline problems got out of hand, and asked if the raging pedophile depicted in the boy's allegations would invite outside scrutiny of his relationship with the child.
Several reports about the boy written by Department of Children and Families staff before he went to live with Davis describe a complicated past, and paint a picture of a profoundly disturbed child.
Two note that the boy exhibited "sexually acting out" behavior and one said that the child witnessed many of his biological mother's sexual encounters, and that several of her partners had histories of committing sexual assault. The report said it was unclear whether the child had been victimized by any of those men.
When police confronted Davis with the boy's allegations at his home in May 2003, he told police that one time, while his wife was not home, he and the boy sat on Davis' bed together while Davis masturbated, according to the affidavit.
Davis told investigators that he could not remember all of the details of the incident, but he said it was possible that he might have touched the boy's penis in a "demonstrating way," and that he might have gotten some of his ejaculate on the boy during the masturbation demonstration.
By Davis' calculation, the boy would have been 8 or 9 years old at the time. Davis said he never told his wife about the incident, according to the affidavit.
Last June, Santos made an unsuccessful bid to have the comments Davis made to police during that May interview suppressed on the grounds that they had been obtained illegally, in violation of Davis' Miranda rights.
Davis and his wife began divorce proceedings in March 2002, the same month that the child moved out of state to live with his new adoptive family.
Froehlich said the penalty was fair, and that she was relieved because the plea agreement would spare the child the further trauma of testifying at trial. The boy's new adoptive parents also approve of the terms of the deal, Froehlich said.
Davis has publicly denied any guilt since the charges against him became public last year, and nobody in state government called for his removal from office. On Wednesday, Davis' friends and colleagues at the Capitol were stunned by his admission in court.
"I'm shocked and, frankly, I'm angry about it," said Rep. Christopher G. Donovan, D-Meriden, a friend whom Davis once supported for the post of majority leader of the House of Representatives. "I felt all along that Jeff was completely innocent of any wrongdoing."
Davis did not mention his pending legal difficulties when he announced in May that he would not run for re-election to the seat he has occupied since 1991. He said simply that his years in the legislature had tempered his sense of optimism, so it was time to step down.
Davis echoed that sentiment in a written statement released through his lawyer after the court appearance: "Today is one more crushing blow to my idealism and optimism," the statement read.
Davis arrived at court with his ex-wife, Jean S. Davis. The two became licensed foster parents in 1999, and soon afterward the state Department of Children and Families placed the then 8-year-old boy with the childless couple. He was the only child placed by the state in the Davis' care.
Davis has a rich pedigree in Connecticut business and politics. Before running for the legislature, he served two terms as the first selectman for the town of Pomfret, from 1987 to 1991. He also owned two small newspapers, the Observer Patriot and the Observer Extra, for nine years beginning in 1979.
His great-great-uncle, Morgan G. Buckley, governed the state from 1889 to 1893 before moving on to a seat in Congress.
DANVILLE - The former president of a group that represents abused children has reached a plea agreement that could keep him from spending any time in jail on a charge that he abused a child in his care. Yesterday, Stephen Hoeck entered what is known as an Alford plea to a misdemeanor charge of third-degree criminal abuse.
Hoeck, 27, was the former president of the Boyle/Mercer Task Force on Child Abuse. He was indicted in June 2003 on two counts of first-degree sexual abuse involving a male child who was in his custody as a foster child. He was also charged with first-degree criminal abuse involving a younger male child who was in his care.
Boyle County Circuit Judge Darren Peckler will decide whether to accept the agreement. Final sentencing was set for Oct. 5.
....
IMPORTANT UPDATE - June 2005: The defendant in this case contacted me to let me know this is yet another false accusation that he was forced to make a plea on - and don't we all know how that goes. I'm very concerned about false accusations against fosterers - it happens way too often. posted by Linda for FightCPS.Com at 7:50 PM
Florida: 20 caseworkers failed to detect that fosterers were starving a 10-year-old foster child
BROOKSVILLE, Fla. - Child-welfare workers repeatedly missed or ignored signs that a 10-year-old girl was being abused and nearly starved to death by her foster parents, an independent task force has found.
In its report issued Tuesday, a panel created by Department of Children & Families Secretary Jerry Regier found agency workers responsible for allowing the girl and her brother to be subjected to a pattern of "torture and starvation."
The girl weighed just 29 pounds when she was removed in May from the home of Arthur Allain Jr. and Lori Allain. Authorities said her weight has since doubled.
"To say this is a case of tragic proportions is an understatement," wrote Judge Scott M. Bernstein, a member of the panel. "I sat in a room with over 20 DCF employees who handled portions of this case and not one of them ever checked this severely malnourished child's medical records."
The Allains were arrested on aggravated child abuse and neglect charges but are free on $10,000 bail each. No one at the agency has been reprimanded, but many of the caseworkers involved have left.
Law enforcement officials said the malnourished girl was locked in her bedroom for days at a time and fed only milk, nutritional drinks and a spoonful of food three times a day. She was given a paint bucket to use as a toilet, sheriff's deputies said.
Despite noticing that the children appeared tired and malnourished, no child welfare worker challenged the Allains' explanations.
Catherine Hanaway knows House Bill 1453 isn't a panacea for systemic failures within Missouri's child-welfare system.
But myriad reforms contained within the law - known as the Dominic James Memorial Foster Care Act of 2004 - shouldn't be downplayed, the House speaker said Wednesday
During a brief stop in Springfield, at the Presbyterian Girls' Shelter on East Pythian, Hanaway stood in the shade of a gargantuan oak tree and explained the bill's numerous provisions as leaves rustled in the humid breeze. The law takes effect Saturday.
Hanaway's tone was one of optimism tempered with bluntness.
"No magic's going to happen on August 28th," she said. "Our system is really, really broken. We've just had another bad case in Greene County."
On July 30, Springfield police officers forced their way into a home on West Madison Street and removed 3-day-old Christopher Cryderman. A Children's Division investigator reportedly told police the boy was at risk of death by staying with his 24-year-old mother, Najwa Cryderman.
The juvenile court order authorizing the infant's removal cites positive marijuana tests for Cryderman and husband Chris, refusal to work with "preventive services" and the fact that their 1-year-old daughter, Karissa, is in foster care.
The Crydermans have disputed the allegations of drug use and are resisting pressure from Greene County Circuit Judge Calvin Holden to enter a 10- to 12-month family dependency treatment court.
Holden has said their enrollment in drug court will have a "major impact" on whether he reunites the Crydermans with their children.
Hanaway said two sections within the bill could have helped the Crydermans and others like them who believe their children have been wrongfully removed from the home.
One of those sections involves family support team meetings, which Hanaway said were a point of contention in the Dominic James case. The 2-year-old Springfield boy died two years ago at the hands of his foster father, John W. Dilley Jr. of Willard.
Certain agreements made in team meetings regarding Dominic's placement were not followed, Hanaway said.
"It seems a similar situation may have recently happened in Greene County," she said, referring to the Cryderman case.
The day before police kicked in the door and took Christopher, the Crydermans met with their family support team at their home.
The couple said they were led to believe Karissa would be returned to the home within two days - an account corroborated by their therapist, who also attended the meeting.
"Now when you walk out of that family support team meeting, everyone has to sign a document that says what's going to happen to that child next, and that's an enforceable document in a court of law," Hanaway said.
The Crydermans said Children's Division officials have also told them that they were reported to the state's child-abuse hot line July 30.
The new law also requires that everyone mandated by state law to report suspected child abuse and neglect disclose their identity when placing a hot line call, Hanaway said.
Knowing the caller's identity will enable the state to gauge the seriousness of the reported abuse, Hanaway said, adding that misuse of the hot line system has been well documented.
"There is lots of evidence in the (state) auditor's reports and anecdotally of how badly the hot line is abused," the speaker said. "It's abused in divorce cases where parents hot line each other. It's abused in the sense that sometimes the worst cases aren't followed up on."
The Crydermans have questioned why their case was treated with such urgency and whether the Children's Division had sufficient evidence to prove their son was in imminent danger.
"They should investigate," Najwa Cryderman said. "They shouldn't just run out and steal people's babies."
The new law also raises the standard for a child's removal from "probable cause" to a "preponderance of evidence," Hanaway said.
"Before anyone breaks down any doors, they're going to have to make sure that the evidence they have lives up to that standard," she noted.
Defining the new standard will "ultimately be decided by the courts," said Bev Long, director of the Greene County Children's Division office.
She added: "As long as (social service workers) obtain good documentation and sound factual justification for their decisions, it will meet the preponderance of evidence standard."
Long said most of the changes contained within the law can be folded into practice relatively easily and praised much-needed funding within its provisions.
"That is huge," she said.
The first round of funding under the law - $9.3 million statewide — has enabled Long's office to hire 13 new workers and five more supervisors.
Hanaway also thanked two Springfield legislators - Rep. Mark Wright and Sen. Norma Champion - also on hand at Wednesday's news conference.
Wright sponsored the first version of the foster-care reform bill vetoed by Gov. Bob Holden last year. The two years since Dominic died have been an "emotional roller coaster," Wright said.
"This is a bill that is designed to change the culture of DFS," Wright said.. "... But really, I think true reforms will come when we start changing people within the system who have helped dilute the system over many years."
Hanaway said she views the new law as the midpoint in a "very sad story" that began with Dominic's death. But by July 1, 2005, family court proceedings throughout the state will be open to the public - a significant change Hanaway hopes will lead to more accountability.
But family rights advocates at Wednesday's event called for more stringent penalties when state workers ignore policy or break the law.
"I want to see them either fired, fined or punished," said the Rev. Ronnie Dean, president of Families for Change. "If I violate the law, the law makes me pay for it."
At the beginning of this month this site averaged 72 visitors daily. Then I changed to this new page design and installed the weblog as the main page. By August 15 the site averaged 95 visitors each day and now at the end of the month that average has almost doubled to 185 daily visitors and 504 page views.
I looked at the referrers - it shows most of the people finding this site are coming from search engines. That's good! I'm glad people looking for help on the internet are finding FightCPS.Com.
At the beginning of the month when I googled the term, "child protective services" FightCPS.Com was around #65. Now it is #34. What an improvement! I guess Google and other search engines like the weblog format.
By Michele R. Marcucci
Alameda Times Star
August 16, 2004
State legislators are hopeful they can restore $17.1 million in child welfare funds cut by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that they say are critical for protecting some of the state's most vulnerable children.
The loss of the funds could lead to delayed child abuse investigations and delayed placements for children, according to a group advocating for county welfare departments.
(continued at the Times Star website)
In response to your article, "Cuts in child welfare face possible reversal" (August 14) - The social welfare people trying to get more money out of our state budget are bluffing, trying to make people feel sorry for children. They do not really need the money. All they need to do is to quit abducting children who aren't really being abused and neglected. If they concentrated only on reports of children who are being seriously abused they would have more than enough money.
CPS is a totally unnecessary agency that gets federal funding for every child ripped from its home and placed in state custody. They get federal bonus payments for getting non-abused children legally separated from their parents and adopting them out.
The truth is that real child abuse is a crime that should be investigated by law enforcement, not by social welfare employees with a funding motive.
The truth is that children are ten times more at risk of real physical and sexual abuse in state custody foster homes than they are in their natural family homes. National HHS statistics bear witness to this fact.
I recently talked to my children's father in imail. I'd never done it before this week because CPS intervened in our lives 15 years ago and convinced me to separate from him in order to get my daughter back.
He mentioned Glen Sacks to me and I had to go look this name up on the internet. He is a radio talk show host who focuses on men's issues. I've listened to a few of his shows now (there's a comprehensive archive) and I recommend them. Single mothers with custody problems may be able to learn a lot by looking at the issue from the man's point of view.
Massachusetts: Attorney Gregory Hession's email to two systemite drones
Posted here with the permission of Gregory Hession, an attorney in Massachusetts. The people he was writing to probably profit from the system and feel compelled to defend the evil they support. -LJM
This is a response to your letters you sent me, which I have pasted both below.
I see that you, Tamara, work for DSS, or some state agency, (per your web address below of state.ma.us), so we will probably never agree on much. I agree that not every child taken by DSS is taken wrongly, but most are. DSS uses power, force, and violence to accomplish its ends, and on balance, does far, far, far more harm than good.
Not one family that I have ever worked with, nor one family represented by any attorney that I know, has ever been helped by DSS. They have, however, been oppressed, tyrannized, abused, had their children killed or sexually molested, have been fired from jobs, slandered, financially ruined, emotionally stressed, and a lot of other things, but never helped.
DSS gets huge financial incentives to take children, and more huge incentives to adopt them out, and none to help them stay in families.
It is easy for you to say what you say, because your favorite agency is the one with the power over these parents, the one using the court as a weapon, the one threatening anyone who dares not to do what you say, the one ordering people around, the one getting people fired, the one trespassing on their property, the one snitching on your neighbors, the one prying screaming frightened children out of their mother's arms. Nice work if you can get it, huh?
DSS uses the arguments of tyrants, and embraces the creed of slaves: necessity. It's for the children that we usurp everyone's freedom and undermine the constitution, subvert due process, suborn perjury, and haul thousands of families to court on false allegations. Most children don't want to be done to this way. The families who covet the stolen children, and want to adopt them, surely do.
Until your favorite agency begins to respect the fundamental protected rights of children and families, it is an outlaw, and a particularly despicable one at that, and deserves to be treated with the respect due any outlaw.
Gregory A. Hession J.D.
At 12:06 PM 8/24/2004, you wrote:
Attorney Hession-
I heard about your web site against DSS from a friend and upon reviewing the information you posted, I am very disturbed by you allegations that DSS is only out to take people's children away. In no way did you present ways in which DSS could possible improve practices nor did you compile any positive solutions to the valid abuse and neglect cases opened yearly. I am assuming that you have represented families who have been involved with DSS and I think before you make unfound claims against an agency that works to protect children, you should explore whether your motivation is soley due to the cases you are paid to represent (such as clients who run away with their children). You present a scenario that DSS enjoys plucking children from their warm, loving homes, when that is not the reality. Most of the cases where children are removed, it is my understanding that children are placed with extended family members. There are many positive aspects of DSS that many people I know have benefited from and when DSS intervenes in their lives have positively changed their futures. I think that you should base advice you give the public through your web site information based on facts so that families can make realistic, educated decisions. Thank you for your time! T. Perini
>
>Tamara E. Perini
>PO Box 1144~Shirley, MA 01464
>tamaraperini@verizon.net
>Tamara.Perini@state.ma.us
Attorney Gregory A. Hession:
After viewing your website WWW.Massoutrage.com, I have found that you do not offer a solution to families who are involved the Department of Social Services. Do you prefer that children who are being neglected or abuse staying in that abusing enviorment. This website looks more like an marketing tool for you to profit from families who are involved with DSS. If you feel this strong about this matter why are you not going to congress. Before you cast the first stone why don't you really find out how DSS actually works because all of the links that are posted on your website as to how they oporate are false and unfounded. You are putting false hopes to parents who are involved with DSS therefore putting some children at risk who are being abuse or neglected by the same parents. It is my understanding that a DSS involved parent (who is also your client) was charged with kidnaping because he/she took the children and ran because of the advise you gave them as to not cooporate with DSS. It is my view as a resident of MA that your website and views are causing more harm than good.
Child welfare work is apparently so stressful that Long Island caseworkers routinely trade in their jobs helping troubled children to work with convicted criminals in the counties' probation departments.
Last year, of the 16 full-time workers who left Nassau's social services department, 10 went to the higher-paying Department of Probation, Nassau officials said. In Suffolk, the numbers have been historically similar.
Theirs is a difficult job, say child welfare experts and caseworkers themselves, one that demands constant assessment of potential risks and liabilities. The people who do it are not miracle workers, though there are dozens of small miracles each day that receive little attention. Like the child who was taken out of a neglectful home where the only thing in the refrigerator is spoiled milk and cans of beer.
"There can be a lot of things going wrong at one time," said Debbie Dowling, a Suffolk child abuse investigator. "It's not the number of cases, it's the intensity of each case."
There are sleepless nights second-guessing decisions, mounds of paperwork, and state-mandated deadlines to make a determination about whether a child is safe.
Nassau investigated more than 5,700 claims of abuse and neglect in 2003, while Suffolk County probed close to 9,000 last year. There are 81 investigators in Suffolk and 44 in Nassau, according to officials.
At the time of Gina Sambriski's death in summer 2003, the average Nassau caseworker had 19 cases, county officials said. Investigators doing initial assessments should have no more than 12 cases at a time, according to the Child Welfare League of America, a nonprofit group that sets guidelines for child-protection agencies.
Still, Nassau County has dramatically reduced the number of cases per worker in recent years, from nearly 65 in the most extreme cases in 2000, when the legislature set aside more money for caseworkers, to 18 today.
Dennis Nowak, a Suffolk social services department spokesman, said new caseworkers aren't expected to carry a full load until they have nine months on the job. The average investigative caseload per worker is now about 13. Still, he said senior caseworkers in Suffolk can have as many as 25 or 30 investigations at any one time.
Nassau and Suffolk investigators receive about three to four months of initial training, including 20 days of mandated state instruction. There also is field work with senior investigators and special sessions on how to deal with families where domestic violence, mental health, or substance abuse may be an issue.
The starting salary for entry level workers is about $28,000 a year in Nassau and $32,000 in Suffolk, but after a year, workers in each county make about $41,000. Starting salaries for probation officer trainees in Suffolk County begin at $41,000.
MADISON, Wis. - Leaders of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee plan to call for an audit of the Milwaukee child welfare system in light of high staff turnover and other problems.
Committee co-chairwomen state Sen. Carol Roessler, R-Oshkosh, and state Rep. Suzanne Jesekwitz, R-Menomonee Falls, said Monday they'll ask the committee to approve an audit of the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare at a September hearing.
The state took over the bureau in 1998 in response to a federal lawsuit, which alleged the county's foster care system routinely failed to protect children, who often went for years without a permanent home.
A state review in March found 50 percent of ongoing case managers quit their jobs last year. It also found case managers didn't collaborate on identifying mental health problems or domestic violence that could hurt children.
"The area for improvement is considerable," Roessler said in a statement.
I'm sure the percentage of children abused in foster homes is much higher than they allege in this article, but at least now they are talking about it. -LJM
California and dozens of other states flunked the first performance-based reviews of their child-welfare programs.
The failures come at a time when social-services agencies are working hard to move children out of foster care and into permanent adoptive homes. California has a plan to address the federal government's concerns and will be re-evaluated next year.
The federal government said California did not measure up in seven areas involving safety, permanency and the children's well-being.
Specifically:
- 1.06 percent of children in California's foster-care system were maltreated -- above the national standard of 0.57 percent or less.
- 10.7 percent of maltreated children suffered maltreatment again within six months, above the national standard of 6.1 percent or less.
- 22.2 percent of children went to more than two foster homes in their first year in the system -- higher than the national standard of 12.3 percent.
- 53.2 percent of children were reunified with their families within a year of entering foster care -- far below the national standard of 76.2 percent or more.
Additionally, California didn't try hard enough in these areas, the federal government found:
In 40 percent of cases, the state didn't make diligent efforts at adoptions in a timely matter.
In 19 percent of cases, California didn't make diligent efforts for reunification, permanent placement with a relative or guardianship in a timely manner.
Although state policy requires parental participation in case planning, in 47 percent of cases parents and children were not involved.
Although California was highly effective in meeting children's physical-health needs, it was not consistent in its efforts to address children's mental-health needs.
Although California was responsive to the community, it did not fully measure up in the areas of case review; quality assurance; training; and foster and adoptive parent licensing, recruitment and retention.
Washington: Democrat Gregoire didn't do enough to help CPS victims, activist says
People, please look into the candidates' records and ask them in town hall meetings or in letters what their position is on child protective services. Confront the candidates and let them know this is a real issue worthy of comment, of great interest to their constituents. You can follow up by exposing their positions on this issue in letters to the editors of news organizations in their districts or states. This is very important in the fight against CPS! --LJM
Gregoire caught flak in her Seattle appearance before the Metropolitan Democratic Club, which is keenly interested in tax reform. Activist Dave Wood bluntly asked Gregoire why she failed even to mention tax reform in her five-minute speech, and she replied that she's unwilling to talk about tax reform until the state's economy is back up and humming.
Wood, who also thinks Gregoire hasn't done enough as attorney general to look into the alleged mistreatment of families by the state's Child Protective Services, later gave a blistering critique of the candidate: "She expects to get elected governor because she's personable and charming. ... She acts like she is running for cheerleader at a local high school. That doesn't impress me."
By Christina Jewett -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, August 22, 2004
SACRAMENTO - Sacramento Child Protective Services officials are holding a seven-week CPS Citizens Academy in which people can learn more about foster care, parents' rights and juvenile justice.
During sessions from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays, participants can learn more about child welfare from juvenile court judges, social workers, attorneys and former foster youths, CPS officials said.
Space in the program is limited, and interested parties are asked to register by Sept. 24. The class runs from Oct. 5 to Nov. 16. For information or to receive an application, call 875-2015 or e-mail Sharon Saffold at saffolds@saccounty.net.
East Bay Couple Says Child's HIV Should Have Been Detected
By Thaai Walker
Mercury News
For some time, the East Bay couple felt there was something wrong with the baby girl they brought home as a foster child. She had unexplained illnesses, rashes and infections. Even so, they say, Alameda County child welfare workers told them the child was healthy.
It was after her adoption was completed - about a year and a half after they began caring for her - that the couple learned the truth: The child they had grown to love was infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Now the couple has hit Alameda County and a host of medical providers with a civil lawsuit claiming that the agencies failed to recognize she was at risk for HIV and never tested her.
Based on documents detailing Alameda County's child welfare policies obtained by the Mercury News, the case raises the possibility of two troubling scenarios: If, as the suit contends, the county failed to test for HIV, then Alameda County violated its own protocol that calls for HIV testing when certain risk factors are present. In this case, it was the known drug use of the birth mother.
But even if the county tested the child for HIV, it failed to follow its own policy that states that caregivers must be told when a child is infected with HIV or at risk for the virus.
What is clear is that Baby J, as she is called in court documents, spent the first three years of her life without receiving any treatment for the virus, which pediatricians say can be critical to the long-term health of an HIV-infected child. And the family that adopted her was unwittingly exposed to the virus.
"This was a bombshell," said Baby J's adoptive mother. She asked that their identity not be disclosed to protect her daughter's privacy.
"Our close friends don't know; her grandparents don't know," the child's mother said. "I'm scared that once this gets out she's not going to have a normal childhood. Is she going to be kicked out of preschool? Is she going to be teased for the rest of her life? I love her so much I don't want her to have to be put through that. This is heartbreaking for me."
Couple seeks damages
The couple, who turned to Alameda County for a child after being unable to conceive on their own, say they have never thought of giving up Baby J, now 4. But they are seeking unspecified damages for emotional distress and for what they believe will be a lifetime of special medical needs, their attorney said.
Officials at four East Bay medical providers that allegedly saw Baby J as a patient while she was in foster care - Tri-City Health Center, Bayside Medical Group, Axis Community Health and St. Rose Hospital in Hayward, where she was born in 2000 - refused to comment; some cited patient confidentiality laws.
The county also wouldn't comment in detail.
"We are conducting an investigation of the information set forth in the lawsuit," said Richard Winnie, general counsel for Alameda County. "But I'm not prepared to confirm any of this."
The county has had trouble in the past regarding its child welfare services. In 2001, the Youth Law Center, a national firm, filed a suit accusing the county of continually violating state health and safety regulations designed to protect children in state care.
The suit, which was settled in 2003, was based in part on a 1999 state audit that found, among other things, that Alameda County lacked documentation showing that caregivers were provided with children's medical and educational backgrounds. The county was also unable to show that children were receiving the most current preventive physical health examinations.
Corrective action
The state ordered the county to correct the problems. According to two subsequent reviews, it did and was commended for doing so.
Bruce Waggstaff, deputy director of the state's Children and Family Services Division, would not comment on the suit but said that he is unaware of any other complaints regarding HIV and foster children in the state.
Trudi Martin, the attorney representing Baby J's family, said the history of Baby J's biological mother should have put the county on notice that the child was at risk for HIV.
State and county guidelines require caseworkers to gather background information about foster children and to share everything with prospective parents.
There is no state law requiring testing for HIV of children in foster care. But since about 1990, Alameda County has had an ``HIV protocol'' that directs caseworkers charged with the care of children born to mothers with a known history of drug use to ``pursue a physician's recommendation and permission for testing'' for HIV. That drug history includes use of amphetamines.
At Baby J's birth in 2000, St. Rose Hospital noted that she had been exposed prenatally to methamphetamines and that her mother had a positive urine test for amphetamines, according to hospital and county records provided to Baby J's adoptive parents.
Ten months after her birth, Baby J was placed with the couple that eventually adopted her. According to the suit, she seemed healthy but later developed chronic diarrhea and frequent rashes. Health documents do not show that an HIV test was ever suggested or performed. In fact, one document states that the child does not have a communicable disease.
"The parents relied on that for having ruled out the possibility of HIV," Martin said.
Baby J's adoption was completed in January 2003. She was diagnosed with HIV six months later when her adoptive parents took her to a private doctor for an evaluation.
Outcome is unclear
Joan Hollinger, an adoption law professor at the University of California-Berkeley, said the outcome of a case like Baby J's is unclear because there hasn't yet been a true legal test of the scope of a state's responsibility for providing medical care to children in state custody.
Even so, Hollinger said, given her biological mother's history of drug use, "You don't have to be a brain surgeon to think, 'Maybe we should consider an HIV test.' "
But Maria Nasjleti, a supervisor in Santa Clara County's Child Welfare Services Department, disagreed.
She said that a history of methamphetamine use alone would not have triggered a test in Santa Clara County, though there may be other factors that would have prompted a test.
Because protocols vary from county to county, Nasjleti said that adoptive parents "must do their homework."
"They need to consult with their own pediatrician," she said, "seek advice and consultation from whoever they please before they sign on the dotted line that they accept the risk."
Bremerton, WA - American Family Rights Association, will be holding a protest/rally on Monday, August 23, 2004 at the Bremerton CPS office, DSHS Children and Family Services office, 3423 6th St., Suite 217, Bremerton, between 3 and 5pm. We will be there with the AFRA float.
This is on behalf of all families and children who have been and are suffering the abuse and tyranny of CPS. We are protesting the awards being given to this department by the DSHS administration being presented by official Ruth Kagi. This award is not valid neither is it deserved.
We also will be assisting families experiencing difficulties involving child custody cases of children placed in the care of the Department of Children and Family Services in Washington.
American Family Rights Association is a national directory of existing groups and individuals who are working on issues concerning the rights of families, parents, and children. Washington site http://www.washingtonafra.com/ and our national site http://www.familyrightsassociation.com.
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