Protecting your family from Child Protective Services
Frequently The Idaho Observer receives stories of some horrifying report of government abuse that involves Child Protective Services (CPS). Due to our editor Don Harkins’ involvement with CPS in Oregon when he wrote for The Oregon Observer, he found himself so torn up inside by the magnitude of the problem that he shied away from reporting such stories until the Christine family case came to our attention. (See October 2001 and May 2002 editions of The I.O.) Since then he has selectively reported on a few of the most horrendous cases of abuse at the hands of the state. The trampling of parental rights has intensified in recent years and the volume of children taken into state custody where they are sexually assaulted and abused has become a national tragedy. The following article will empower parents to protect their children from state custody. It is more important today than ever before since the list of items justifying the removal of children from their homes has grown to include not vaccinating and homeschooling.
by Patricia Aiken
Mike Gibson spent ten years as an investigator for the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in Florida. He insists that the agency is neither for children nor families. A patriot and Christian, he joined the agency to assess how far government tentacles reach and to try and keep as many families out of “the system” as possible. As a senior investigator he spent about six months educating a circuit judge about dependency law (the laws that deal with children and families in Florida.) The result was a 90 percent reduction in the number of children taken away from their parents during the next two and a half years in the county Gibson worked in. Already privy to anyone’s financial, medical and even sealed and expunged criminal records, Gibson quit in disgust when he learned of plans for vaccine records to be downloaded to the DCF’s database. Office talk centered around the mass influx of children they would have to place in foster care when the Federal government begins mandatory vaccines. In Florida, refusing a mandatory vaccine is a 2nd degree misdemeanor with a sentence of six months in jail or forced quarantine.
Beginning this month, the Gibsons will be sharing vital information that every American family needs to safeguard their children from the voracious appetite of these greed driven agencies.
Although he’s encountered rogue investigators over the years, Gibson’s experience points to the supervisors and program administrators who pressure and intimidate caseworkers into removing children. “The bar has been set very low. Anyone can bring a complaint against a parent anonymously. Probable cause and imminent risk are the only guidelines. It’s a huge financial racket. If it wasn’t the government it would be covered under R.I.C.O. (The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). It’s all career advancement and a culture of fear,” says Gibson.
Mike Gibson’s philosophy for training and helping people is that they need to understand what they are up against, what the law requires of the agency and what rights a family has during an investigation.
Recently, Gibson stayed on the phone with a mother from his church, successfully coaching her to keep the six sheriff’s deputies at her door with a forged court order at bay.
“Make no mistake. Although the CPS worker doesn’t look like a cop, he is part of law enforcement and is considered a first responder. Parents need to have a real, doable, practical plan to deal with this agency when they come to their door. A large part of how much they can protect their children is how well they prepare their family for this marauding invader and how much they can keep their children out of the system. Keeping your family off their radar is always the best option,” Gibson advises.
Pissed off sheltering
Sheltering is a technical term for removing children from parents’ custody. Pissed off sheltering occurs when parents have angered CPS investigators to the point that they use the wide latitude of discretion they have to narrowly hit on some point and make their probable cause to a judge. Gibson once saw a mother lose her three children because she needed a daycare referral and the worker would not give it to her. The mother was very insistent and the worker set the mother up in a tangle of words, took her children and swore under oath to what the mother stated, although out of context, and got the judge to agree. It took the mother over a year to regain custody of her children.
Although Gibson’s expertise is with Florida law, he is confident laws are the same or very similar in other states since Florida is considered a model state for CPS nationwide. Knowing your rights as parents or legal guardians of children is imperative. Most state laws are structured so that parental rights are very strong and an agency has to have some type of imminent risk to interfere with those rights. Children’s safety and lives can depend on a parent being well-informed and having a clear understanding of what an agency can and cannot do. In Florida, parental rights are covered under Chapter 39 of Florida’s statutes. Other states have comparable laws. Once an agency becomes involved, it is paramount that parents themselves adhere to and demand the agency adhere to the law. Most agencies will either skirt around it or ignore the law. Sadly, according to the Gibsons, judges are ignorant of the Juvenile Rules of Procedures. Circuit judges loath hearing CPS cases, thinking these cases are an interruption of more important issues and a lower assignment than even traffic court.
Parents need to be well-versed in how to access the checks within the system and have a good idea how to maneuver through them. He says, “you don’t have to be a lawyer, just a zealous advocate for your own children.” Most state laws dealing with child protective services are available online and easily downloaded and printed. This is a must for parents to have and read. Also, there are ways to check on recent court decisions and parents should be able to also access those cases. “This may seem like a lot, and it is. But what is the most important aspect of your life? If it’s not your children, then maybe you need to reassess your values and priorities. Most parents know more about how the gadgets in the home and vehicles work than they have knowledge on how to keep their children safe.”
Phone Tree Strategy
Parents need to have family and friends they can call on at a moment’s notice. Having a list of three or four committed individuals, who in turn call three or four will help assure you of having someone come to your aid if a CPS social worker calls or shows up. The objective is to get other eyes on the situation as quickly as possible and to bring accountability to the agency. The goal is to find people that are within an easy distance to your home. Most contacts between families in these situations are between 30 to 60 minutes. Time is of the essence. The first two minutes of contact are critical. Parents need to periodically check their phone tree operation to assess how the system is working and make adjustments to ensure that it operates smoothly during a crisis. This takes planning and practice with a committed group of friends and family.
CPS at your door
Investigators are required to identify themselves to you and tell you why they are at your home. They can arrive by themselves or with law enforcement. They will generally say “May I come in and talk to you?” Under no circumstances should they ever be invited into your home. All child abuse investigations are felony investigations. Inviting them into your house is giving consent for them to gather evidence against you. Gibson counsels parents to step outside the door and close the door behind them.
Your first question should be “Am I an alleged perpetrator or a suspect in a criminal action?” You have several options that will buy the time you need to get more eyes on the situation. You can tell them that you want an attorney present. Second, you need to ask if they have a court order. They will need to go and get one. If law enforcement is present, you can tell them you want their road supervisor to be present. They are obligated to come to the scene at your request. If law enforcement is not present, you may want to call your local sheriff.
Use this time to call your phone tree and get your support team in place.
If allowed inside your home they will attempt to gather evidence to use against you. If they see anything such as drug paraphernalia or something they would deem as a threat to or unsafe for your child, they can search the rest of your home and place you under arrest. Parents with a firearm within reach of a child are arrested and jailed.
The Gibson’s recommend that parents have a video camera and small digital recorder. Keep the batteries charged. You have the right to videotape the investigator, and the right to record the conversation without their knowledge or consent.
Remember, if the judge would follow the law, CPS would have to prove that you are committing a felony act on your child. Judges are ignorant and investigators so poorly trained that neither knows or understands the law. Make it your goal to know the law and your family’s rights. You can be falsely accused at any time. Enlist an inner support circle for education, mutual protection and a phone tree. As the sign at Parris Island Marine base reads, “the more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war.”
The I.O. thanks Mike and Linda Gibson for sharing their expertise with us. The Gibsons are available for one-day seminars in your community. Contact Mike and Linda Gibson at 352-489-6521.
http://proliberty.com/observer//20091030.html
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Was The Death of former Georgia State Senator Nancy Schaefer By the Hand of Her Husband?
Was The Death of former Georgia State Senator Nancy Schaefer By the Hand of Her Husband?
From The Constitution Party Florida
The recent death of Nancy Scheafer, former Georgia State Senator, and, most recently, President of the Georgia Eagle Forum of Georgia has stirred some serious controversy. As a state senator, Nancy had become aware of extensive use of the Georgia Child Protection Services to kidnap children for profit, sexual exploitation, and, perhaps, other forms of abuse.
When she tried to get this problem exposed and addressed through the Georgia legislature, her fellow legislators acted to silence her efforts and, as promptly as possible, cause her to be defeated in her third term re-election effort. Undeterred and understanding the gravity of this unpublicized epidemic and the deep damage it was doing to children and families and our country, Nancy became President of the Georgia Eagle Forum and continued her efforts to get this issue addressed.
Because she was the only prominent advocate for this cause, families from all over Georgia came to her with the stories and evidence of the nightmares they had been going through, while agonizing that they could get no one but her to listen. She was in possession of damaging and dispositive information associated with prominent people in Georgia who had participated in and “benefited”, in one or another, from the activities of this “human trafficking” operation. If you understand the history of this kind of thing, you will recognize that she would have had enough information to put “important people” in jail.
On Thursday, March 26, it was reported that Nancy (73) and her husband Bruce (74) were found dead in their bed, her having been shot in the back while asleep, and he having been shot in the chest, and that there was a gun lying near him. Also found in the home was a four page “suicide letter”, purportedly from Bruce Shaefer.
In that context, here is what the law enforcement authorities disseminated through the media:
The first statement issued said that it was likely that the deaths were effected by Bruce Schaefer as part of a suicide pact with his wife, resulting from their mutual despondency over the terminal state of Mr. Shaefer’s his supposed cancer condition, and that they they were such a close loving couple that Nancy did not want to be separated from her husband by his death. Without going into great detail, anyone who understands the nature, mindset and worldview of someone like Nancy Schaefer, would have recognized that theory as being pure poppycock. And why would the investigators’ release such a statement without strong confirming information? In fact, this theory was quickly determined to be totally bogus, because, as an autopsy revealed, Mr. Schaefer had no terminal illness whatsoever.
The next theory proposed was that they had financial problems which caused Mr. Schaefer to kill his wife and himself, apparently without her consent. No murder-suicide pact here, just his independent action. But is there evidence that this financial condition so severe that this loving husband would kill his wife on his own initiative? They lived in the same community with their daughter who visited them every other day. Apparently she did not know about this very desperate state of financial affairs. These people were conservatives, and, although not a certainty, not likely to participate in financial speculation. (By the way, nothing I have seen so far states what his life’s work was.)
So what evidence did authorities have to speculate that financial problems were at the root of Mr. Schaefer’s purported actions. The answer is NONE. However, the language used by Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell and reported by the Atlanta Journal & Constitution implies vaguely that the evidence for financial destitution MIGHT be found in the aforementioned four page letter or in letters supposedly left for his children. However, what the Sheriff is really said is that they found nothing in the letter about financial problems, but that they are going to continue to look for it. Look at this peculiar statement from the AJ&C:
There may be indications that finances played a role in the case, Terrell said, but nothing he has seen so far establishes a clear motive.
“The evidence might be in the letters. It might not,” he said. “We might not ever know.”
Folks, how hard is to read a four page letter and determine if the writer was upset over financial matters? If THAT was the reason for what he purportedly did, wouldn’t it “stick our like a sore thumb”? Is this a bad reflection on the competence of the Georgia education system? What do they plan to do, use a magnifying glass to look for secret writing somewhere on the page? BOTTOM LINE: They have no motive for Bruce Shaefer to have “pulled the trigger” even once, not to mention twice.
So, who would have had solid motives? The obvious answer is government officials with whom Nancy Shaefer was very familiar. Who in public office in Georgia might not have known who Nancy was and what she was working on? Not many. But will the “investigators” turn their attention in that direction? It is commentary on the state of affairs in America that it would a miracle for the criminal justice to actually direct its attention to the most likely place evidence motivating the crime could be found. If we the people can’t change this, we have NO HOPE.
P.S., The newspaper stories do not mention the most relevant fact: namely that she had been working for years on the subject of “human trafficking” in the form of child abduction by the Georgia Child Protection agency.
http://www.cpflorida.com/blog/?p=208
From The Constitution Party Florida
The recent death of Nancy Scheafer, former Georgia State Senator, and, most recently, President of the Georgia Eagle Forum of Georgia has stirred some serious controversy. As a state senator, Nancy had become aware of extensive use of the Georgia Child Protection Services to kidnap children for profit, sexual exploitation, and, perhaps, other forms of abuse.
When she tried to get this problem exposed and addressed through the Georgia legislature, her fellow legislators acted to silence her efforts and, as promptly as possible, cause her to be defeated in her third term re-election effort. Undeterred and understanding the gravity of this unpublicized epidemic and the deep damage it was doing to children and families and our country, Nancy became President of the Georgia Eagle Forum and continued her efforts to get this issue addressed.
Because she was the only prominent advocate for this cause, families from all over Georgia came to her with the stories and evidence of the nightmares they had been going through, while agonizing that they could get no one but her to listen. She was in possession of damaging and dispositive information associated with prominent people in Georgia who had participated in and “benefited”, in one or another, from the activities of this “human trafficking” operation. If you understand the history of this kind of thing, you will recognize that she would have had enough information to put “important people” in jail.
On Thursday, March 26, it was reported that Nancy (73) and her husband Bruce (74) were found dead in their bed, her having been shot in the back while asleep, and he having been shot in the chest, and that there was a gun lying near him. Also found in the home was a four page “suicide letter”, purportedly from Bruce Shaefer.
In that context, here is what the law enforcement authorities disseminated through the media:
The first statement issued said that it was likely that the deaths were effected by Bruce Schaefer as part of a suicide pact with his wife, resulting from their mutual despondency over the terminal state of Mr. Shaefer’s his supposed cancer condition, and that they they were such a close loving couple that Nancy did not want to be separated from her husband by his death. Without going into great detail, anyone who understands the nature, mindset and worldview of someone like Nancy Schaefer, would have recognized that theory as being pure poppycock. And why would the investigators’ release such a statement without strong confirming information? In fact, this theory was quickly determined to be totally bogus, because, as an autopsy revealed, Mr. Schaefer had no terminal illness whatsoever.
The next theory proposed was that they had financial problems which caused Mr. Schaefer to kill his wife and himself, apparently without her consent. No murder-suicide pact here, just his independent action. But is there evidence that this financial condition so severe that this loving husband would kill his wife on his own initiative? They lived in the same community with their daughter who visited them every other day. Apparently she did not know about this very desperate state of financial affairs. These people were conservatives, and, although not a certainty, not likely to participate in financial speculation. (By the way, nothing I have seen so far states what his life’s work was.)
So what evidence did authorities have to speculate that financial problems were at the root of Mr. Schaefer’s purported actions. The answer is NONE. However, the language used by Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell and reported by the Atlanta Journal & Constitution implies vaguely that the evidence for financial destitution MIGHT be found in the aforementioned four page letter or in letters supposedly left for his children. However, what the Sheriff is really said is that they found nothing in the letter about financial problems, but that they are going to continue to look for it. Look at this peculiar statement from the AJ&C:
There may be indications that finances played a role in the case, Terrell said, but nothing he has seen so far establishes a clear motive.
“The evidence might be in the letters. It might not,” he said. “We might not ever know.”
Folks, how hard is to read a four page letter and determine if the writer was upset over financial matters? If THAT was the reason for what he purportedly did, wouldn’t it “stick our like a sore thumb”? Is this a bad reflection on the competence of the Georgia education system? What do they plan to do, use a magnifying glass to look for secret writing somewhere on the page? BOTTOM LINE: They have no motive for Bruce Shaefer to have “pulled the trigger” even once, not to mention twice.
So, who would have had solid motives? The obvious answer is government officials with whom Nancy Shaefer was very familiar. Who in public office in Georgia might not have known who Nancy was and what she was working on? Not many. But will the “investigators” turn their attention in that direction? It is commentary on the state of affairs in America that it would a miracle for the criminal justice to actually direct its attention to the most likely place evidence motivating the crime could be found. If we the people can’t change this, we have NO HOPE.
P.S., The newspaper stories do not mention the most relevant fact: namely that she had been working for years on the subject of “human trafficking” in the form of child abduction by the Georgia Child Protection agency.
http://www.cpflorida.com/blog/?p=208
Baby still in state care after case against parents was dropped
Baby still in state care after case against parents was dropped
(Sounds familiar. It happens in Nashua, NH all the time. Criminal charges are dropped and the children are still never returned.)
St. George » Infant was taken after police said photos showed sexual abuse; father will be deported.
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 03/29/2010 10:03:38 PM MDT
An infant remains in state custody and his parents in jail as attorneys try to sort out a tangled case that began when a couple was wrongly accused of sexual abuse.
"The problem we've got is one of those bureaucratic nightmares because they are alleged to be undocumented," said Alan D. Boyack, an attorney representing the baby's mother.
Two 5th District Court judges dismissed sexual abuse charges Monday filed against Sergio Diaz-Palomino, 34, and Alma Vasquez, 22, after prosecutors determined photographs given to police by a local film processing lab showed nothing more than "traditional family photos of a proud father with his son."
In the series of photos, Diaz-Palomino is affectionately posing with his naked 9-month-old son, Alex Uril Vasquez, and kissing him on various body parts -- head, forehead, arm, ear. One image shows the father kissing the infant's bottom and another appears to show him kissing the baby's genitals.
But Ryan J. Shaum, a Washington County deputy attorney, said there was no evidence the scenes depicted sexual molestation or any intent to harm the child and a medical exam showed no evidence of sexual abuse.
Diaz-Palomino told a police investigator that he was "proud to have a son and was sending the photos to family in Mexico," according to the charging document.
But the couple's immigration status and child-welfare policies could make getting their son back difficult, Boyack said.
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"Immigration has a hold on their custody, a legal hold, that the state can do nothing about even if the state wanted to," the attorney said. "I am trying work with immigration to see if, after the [child-welfare] case is completed, what if anything we can do to prevent the miscarriage of the child being separated from the parents."
Patti Vanwagoner, a spokeswoman for the Division of Child and Family Services, said she could not comment specifically on the Vasquez case.
But in general, dismissal of criminal charges does not necessarily end a child-welfare case, she said.
"We have a lot of situations where parents aren't formally charged," she said.
DCFS must determine whether a child is safe with his or her parents and then work toward reunification, which has to be ordered by a judge, she said.
In cases where parents of a child in state custody are deported, DCFS works with the Mexican consulate to see "if a child would be safe with relatives, if at all possible," Van Wagoner said.
A cousin said Diaz-Palomino has been in the U.S. for 10 years and was working at Red Robin restaurant in St. George.
Because of a previous deportation order, Diaz-Palomino is likely to be deported, said Georgina Coon, an advocate with the La Raz/PAC, a Latino advocacy organization.
But she hopes Vasquez, who was arrested and jailed a week ago, will be released Tuesday on bond and allowed to reunite with her son. Vasquez has been in the U.S. for three years and works at a Motel 6.
"She has been crying a lot. I told her that we are doing everything we can to get her out of jail. The state has nothing to keep that baby," Coon said.
http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_14780588
(Sounds familiar. It happens in Nashua, NH all the time. Criminal charges are dropped and the children are still never returned.)
St. George » Infant was taken after police said photos showed sexual abuse; father will be deported.
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 03/29/2010 10:03:38 PM MDT
An infant remains in state custody and his parents in jail as attorneys try to sort out a tangled case that began when a couple was wrongly accused of sexual abuse.
"The problem we've got is one of those bureaucratic nightmares because they are alleged to be undocumented," said Alan D. Boyack, an attorney representing the baby's mother.
Two 5th District Court judges dismissed sexual abuse charges Monday filed against Sergio Diaz-Palomino, 34, and Alma Vasquez, 22, after prosecutors determined photographs given to police by a local film processing lab showed nothing more than "traditional family photos of a proud father with his son."
In the series of photos, Diaz-Palomino is affectionately posing with his naked 9-month-old son, Alex Uril Vasquez, and kissing him on various body parts -- head, forehead, arm, ear. One image shows the father kissing the infant's bottom and another appears to show him kissing the baby's genitals.
But Ryan J. Shaum, a Washington County deputy attorney, said there was no evidence the scenes depicted sexual molestation or any intent to harm the child and a medical exam showed no evidence of sexual abuse.
Diaz-Palomino told a police investigator that he was "proud to have a son and was sending the photos to family in Mexico," according to the charging document.
But the couple's immigration status and child-welfare policies could make getting their son back difficult, Boyack said.
Advertisement
"Immigration has a hold on their custody, a legal hold, that the state can do nothing about even if the state wanted to," the attorney said. "I am trying work with immigration to see if, after the [child-welfare] case is completed, what if anything we can do to prevent the miscarriage of the child being separated from the parents."
Patti Vanwagoner, a spokeswoman for the Division of Child and Family Services, said she could not comment specifically on the Vasquez case.
But in general, dismissal of criminal charges does not necessarily end a child-welfare case, she said.
"We have a lot of situations where parents aren't formally charged," she said.
DCFS must determine whether a child is safe with his or her parents and then work toward reunification, which has to be ordered by a judge, she said.
In cases where parents of a child in state custody are deported, DCFS works with the Mexican consulate to see "if a child would be safe with relatives, if at all possible," Van Wagoner said.
A cousin said Diaz-Palomino has been in the U.S. for 10 years and was working at Red Robin restaurant in St. George.
Because of a previous deportation order, Diaz-Palomino is likely to be deported, said Georgina Coon, an advocate with the La Raz/PAC, a Latino advocacy organization.
But she hopes Vasquez, who was arrested and jailed a week ago, will be released Tuesday on bond and allowed to reunite with her son. Vasquez has been in the U.S. for three years and works at a Motel 6.
"She has been crying a lot. I told her that we are doing everything we can to get her out of jail. The state has nothing to keep that baby," Coon said.
http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_14780588
Local judge favors open court pilot program
Local judge favors open court pilot program
Rep Moore's bill would allow public access to family court
By BOB WHITE
bwhite@thenewsenterprise.com
When 9th Circuit Judge M. Brent Hall came to Hardin County's second Family Court bench, he opposed public access to the dependency, neglect and abuse docket, or any other proceedings involving juveniles.
That was two years ago. Then, he said he worried juveniles could be negatively impacted by their, often sensitive, family matters becoming subject to public scrutiny.
Hall’s view from the bench has changed from the stance he took as an attorney working in Family Court.
Hall said that since taking the bench, he has learned that lawmakers and the public will remain ignorant of what problems exist within Kentucky’s child protection and permanency system so long as it remains behind closed doors.
Hall now supports the opening of Family Court to public eyes and ears so much that he’s requested his division participate in a pilot program to do just that under House Bill 407.
Sponsored by 26th District Representative Tim Moore, HB 407 proposes a pilot to allow limited public access to family courts in seven of Kentucky’s judicial circuits.
Moore said he proposed the bill after several people with young relatives being processed within the Family Court system indicated to him “that they’d been shut out of the process.”
“I understand that we need balance in the system, but I also understand that families need information as they and their children try to go through family court,” Moore said in a message. “I’m trying to do what's best for Kentucky kids and their families. That's what it's all about.”
Opening family courts could impact many throughout Kentucky.
According to data provided by Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services in late 2009, about 7,000 children annually are cared for by the state or foster families after being removed from their biological parents for various reasons.
Hall said, however, that those state statistics do not reflect another 10,000 Kentucky children being cared for by relatives – a practice known as kinship care – after being removed from their biological parents.
The data shows that about 17,000 Kentucky children have been processed by family court systems in just Kentucky in recent years.
The justice system’s involvement in family lives is costly, according to Hall, who said many people do not, and cannot understand just how costly it can be for the state to raise children removed from families.
Daily costs, depending on the services a child needs, range between $30 and $200 per child, Hall said.
Other aspects of family court, such as the adversarial stances different agencies take on — laying blame on their counterparts — and the justice system’s inability to access pertinent data and statistics that’s available to social workers and the agencies in charge of them, also could be made apparent to the public by opening family courts.
An open door to juvenile proceedings in family courts may shed light on disturbing problems, Hall said, but it also could lend itself to finding solutions that, in the end, would help Kentucky children and their families get what they need to lead productive and healthy lives.
Family courts are currently off limits to news media and all others not party to a specific case.
The bill passed the House March 1 with an 87-10 vote. It’s now in the Senate Judiciary Committee for review.
A summary of HB 407 as sponsored by Representatives T. Moore, S. Westrom and T. Burch:
An act relating to the Court of Justice.
Create new sections of KRS Chapter 21A relating to the Supreme Court to request the Supreme Court to create a pilot project for a limited opening of courts in three to seven jurisdictions when handling dependency, needy, neglect, and abuse cases involving children and termination of parental rights, set parameters, and require reporting to the Legislative Research Commission and the Interim Joint Committees on Health and Welfare and Judiciary; create a new section of KRS Chapter 610 relating to juvenile procedure to permit pilot project courts to open proceedings which otherwise would be closed.
Bob White can be reached at (270) 505-1750.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?053+article+News.Local+20100329095105053053003
Rep Moore's bill would allow public access to family court
By BOB WHITE
bwhite@thenewsenterprise.com
When 9th Circuit Judge M. Brent Hall came to Hardin County's second Family Court bench, he opposed public access to the dependency, neglect and abuse docket, or any other proceedings involving juveniles.
That was two years ago. Then, he said he worried juveniles could be negatively impacted by their, often sensitive, family matters becoming subject to public scrutiny.
Hall’s view from the bench has changed from the stance he took as an attorney working in Family Court.
Hall said that since taking the bench, he has learned that lawmakers and the public will remain ignorant of what problems exist within Kentucky’s child protection and permanency system so long as it remains behind closed doors.
Hall now supports the opening of Family Court to public eyes and ears so much that he’s requested his division participate in a pilot program to do just that under House Bill 407.
Sponsored by 26th District Representative Tim Moore, HB 407 proposes a pilot to allow limited public access to family courts in seven of Kentucky’s judicial circuits.
Moore said he proposed the bill after several people with young relatives being processed within the Family Court system indicated to him “that they’d been shut out of the process.”
“I understand that we need balance in the system, but I also understand that families need information as they and their children try to go through family court,” Moore said in a message. “I’m trying to do what's best for Kentucky kids and their families. That's what it's all about.”
Opening family courts could impact many throughout Kentucky.
According to data provided by Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services in late 2009, about 7,000 children annually are cared for by the state or foster families after being removed from their biological parents for various reasons.
Hall said, however, that those state statistics do not reflect another 10,000 Kentucky children being cared for by relatives – a practice known as kinship care – after being removed from their biological parents.
The data shows that about 17,000 Kentucky children have been processed by family court systems in just Kentucky in recent years.
The justice system’s involvement in family lives is costly, according to Hall, who said many people do not, and cannot understand just how costly it can be for the state to raise children removed from families.
Daily costs, depending on the services a child needs, range between $30 and $200 per child, Hall said.
Other aspects of family court, such as the adversarial stances different agencies take on — laying blame on their counterparts — and the justice system’s inability to access pertinent data and statistics that’s available to social workers and the agencies in charge of them, also could be made apparent to the public by opening family courts.
An open door to juvenile proceedings in family courts may shed light on disturbing problems, Hall said, but it also could lend itself to finding solutions that, in the end, would help Kentucky children and their families get what they need to lead productive and healthy lives.
Family courts are currently off limits to news media and all others not party to a specific case.
The bill passed the House March 1 with an 87-10 vote. It’s now in the Senate Judiciary Committee for review.
A summary of HB 407 as sponsored by Representatives T. Moore, S. Westrom and T. Burch:
An act relating to the Court of Justice.
Create new sections of KRS Chapter 21A relating to the Supreme Court to request the Supreme Court to create a pilot project for a limited opening of courts in three to seven jurisdictions when handling dependency, needy, neglect, and abuse cases involving children and termination of parental rights, set parameters, and require reporting to the Legislative Research Commission and the Interim Joint Committees on Health and Welfare and Judiciary; create a new section of KRS Chapter 610 relating to juvenile procedure to permit pilot project courts to open proceedings which otherwise would be closed.
Bob White can be reached at (270) 505-1750.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?053+article+News.Local+20100329095105053053003
NYS appellate court agrees with dad's petition to halt adoption proceedings without his permission
NYS appellate court agrees with dad's petition to halt adoption proceedings without his permission
(In NH fictitious father's rights are terminated, compliments of DCYF. When the real father's come forward, they are denied paternity tests and custody, told they have No Standing. Then the illegal adoptions occur.)
March 30, 6:01 AMAlbany CPS and Family Court ExaminerDaniel Weaver
The Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial Department in the Matter of Nicole J. has reversed an order by Monroe County Family Court Judge, John J. Rivoli, which dispensed with the consent of Nicole's biological father and allowed her adoption to go forward.
The father's attorney made his first appearance in Monroe County Family Court on December 1, 2008 on behalf of the father, only to be told that a hearing would be held the next day. He requested an adjournment until January 12, 2009 because he wa unaware that a hearing was scheduled for the next day. The judge denied his request and proceeded with the hearing.
In reversing Judge Rivoli's order, the appellate court said that the family court abused its discretion in denying the request for adjournment. The court went on to state:
"There is no evidence in the record that the father had notice that the hearing was scheduled to occur on December 1, 2008. Moreover, the record establishes that the proceedings were not protracted, that this was the father's first request for an adjournment and, indeed, that the court had adjourned proceedings concerning the child's biological mother to the precise adjournment date sought by the father. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the court should have granted the request of the father's attorney for an adjournment to enable the father to prepare for the hearing (see generally Matter of Stephen L., 2 AD3d 1229, 1231). We therefore reverse the order and remit the matter to Family Court for a new hearing."
For more info: Read more articles by Dan Weaver on family court, custody, child protective services, parental rights and other allied topics.
http://www.examiner.com/x-14537-Albany-CPS-and-Family-Court-Examiner~y2010m3d30-NYS-appellate-court-agrees-with-dads-petition-to-halt-adoption-proceedings-without-his-permission?cid=examiner-email
(In NH fictitious father's rights are terminated, compliments of DCYF. When the real father's come forward, they are denied paternity tests and custody, told they have No Standing. Then the illegal adoptions occur.)
March 30, 6:01 AMAlbany CPS and Family Court ExaminerDaniel Weaver
The Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial Department in the Matter of Nicole J. has reversed an order by Monroe County Family Court Judge, John J. Rivoli, which dispensed with the consent of Nicole's biological father and allowed her adoption to go forward.
The father's attorney made his first appearance in Monroe County Family Court on December 1, 2008 on behalf of the father, only to be told that a hearing would be held the next day. He requested an adjournment until January 12, 2009 because he wa unaware that a hearing was scheduled for the next day. The judge denied his request and proceeded with the hearing.
In reversing Judge Rivoli's order, the appellate court said that the family court abused its discretion in denying the request for adjournment. The court went on to state:
"There is no evidence in the record that the father had notice that the hearing was scheduled to occur on December 1, 2008. Moreover, the record establishes that the proceedings were not protracted, that this was the father's first request for an adjournment and, indeed, that the court had adjourned proceedings concerning the child's biological mother to the precise adjournment date sought by the father. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the court should have granted the request of the father's attorney for an adjournment to enable the father to prepare for the hearing (see generally Matter of Stephen L., 2 AD3d 1229, 1231). We therefore reverse the order and remit the matter to Family Court for a new hearing."
For more info: Read more articles by Dan Weaver on family court, custody, child protective services, parental rights and other allied topics.
http://www.examiner.com/x-14537-Albany-CPS-and-Family-Court-Examiner~y2010m3d30-NYS-appellate-court-agrees-with-dads-petition-to-halt-adoption-proceedings-without-his-permission?cid=examiner-email
L.A. County supervisors terminate relationship with foster care agency
L.A. County supervisors terminate relationship with foster care agency [Updated]
March 30, 2010 | 2:07 pm
Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to terminate their relationship with the troubled foster care agency that placed a 2-year-old girl with a woman who is now under investigation in connection with her death.
United Care, which oversaw 88 homes with 216 foster children under contract with the county, had been repeatedly cited in recent years after caregivers choked, hit or whipped their charges with a belt. In 2007, a foster child drowned while swimming unsupervised in a pool.
Craig Woods, United’s executive director, said the citation record obscured his agency’s strengths and urged the county to conduct a fuller investigation before severing ties.
“Terminating United Care’s contract will not accomplish what is needed to reform the system,” he said. “United Care has a stellar 21-year track record of partnership with the county.”
The foster mother, Kiana Barker, 30, and her boyfriend, James Julian, 38, were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of murder in connection with Viola Vancielf's death, according to Los Angeles police records. They were released two days later, with no charges filed.
Police are continuing to investigate the couple. Barker, a resident of South Los Angeles, told investigators Viola was trapped in a bed frame when she accidentally struck the child with a hammer while trying to free her, according to coroner's records.
Viola had multiple bruises on her body, records show. The county coroner deemed the death a homicide. During supervisors’ questioning of Woods and their deliberations about whether to terminate United, new details emerged about the missed warning signs that preceded the death.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said his vote to terminate United was at least partially supported by Woods' admission that the agency’s social workers made errors during visits to the Barker home. According to Yaroslavsky, they did not report that many of the home’s rooms were padlocked shut and there were video cameras in most of the rooms and corridors.
The purpose of the video cameras was not discussed. Additionally, Yaroslavsky said he was troubled that Barker was certified as a foster parent despite a criminal record. According to a Times review, Barker was convicted of felony theft in 2002.
The newspaper disclosed earlier that Barker also had been the subject of five child abuse complaints, including one substantiated case involving her biological child.
Julian had a record of armed robbery, but neither United Care nor the state regulator who licenses foster homes was aware he was living in the home, state records show.
Woods said his agency had been aware of Barker’s criminal record but did not believe it was a problem because she had obtained a decision from state regulators that it did not pose a danger.
“I would say that as many as half of the foster homes in Los Angeles County have a criminal background,” Woods said.
Supervisor Gloria Molina said she did not believe that number and would look into the matter. [Updated at 6:13 p.m.: A California Department of Social Services spokeswoman, Lizelda Lopez, said that only 4.67% of foster family agency parents have received an exemption for a crime that would otherwise bar them.]
Woods also faulted the county for missing the warning signs, saying the county was in the final stages of approving Barker to adopt Viola.
“Miss Barker was less than 30 days away from adopting this child. That adoption was being managed by DCFS,” Woods said. “That adoption home study is supposed to be a lot more extensive and intrusive than a foster home certification.”
-- Garrett Therolf at the L.A. County Hall of Administration
Read more in The Times' investigation: Innocents Betrayed
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/03/la-county-supervisors-terminate-relationship-with-foster-care-agency.html
March 30, 2010 | 2:07 pm
Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to terminate their relationship with the troubled foster care agency that placed a 2-year-old girl with a woman who is now under investigation in connection with her death.
United Care, which oversaw 88 homes with 216 foster children under contract with the county, had been repeatedly cited in recent years after caregivers choked, hit or whipped their charges with a belt. In 2007, a foster child drowned while swimming unsupervised in a pool.
Craig Woods, United’s executive director, said the citation record obscured his agency’s strengths and urged the county to conduct a fuller investigation before severing ties.
“Terminating United Care’s contract will not accomplish what is needed to reform the system,” he said. “United Care has a stellar 21-year track record of partnership with the county.”
The foster mother, Kiana Barker, 30, and her boyfriend, James Julian, 38, were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of murder in connection with Viola Vancielf's death, according to Los Angeles police records. They were released two days later, with no charges filed.
Police are continuing to investigate the couple. Barker, a resident of South Los Angeles, told investigators Viola was trapped in a bed frame when she accidentally struck the child with a hammer while trying to free her, according to coroner's records.
Viola had multiple bruises on her body, records show. The county coroner deemed the death a homicide. During supervisors’ questioning of Woods and their deliberations about whether to terminate United, new details emerged about the missed warning signs that preceded the death.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said his vote to terminate United was at least partially supported by Woods' admission that the agency’s social workers made errors during visits to the Barker home. According to Yaroslavsky, they did not report that many of the home’s rooms were padlocked shut and there were video cameras in most of the rooms and corridors.
The purpose of the video cameras was not discussed. Additionally, Yaroslavsky said he was troubled that Barker was certified as a foster parent despite a criminal record. According to a Times review, Barker was convicted of felony theft in 2002.
The newspaper disclosed earlier that Barker also had been the subject of five child abuse complaints, including one substantiated case involving her biological child.
Julian had a record of armed robbery, but neither United Care nor the state regulator who licenses foster homes was aware he was living in the home, state records show.
Woods said his agency had been aware of Barker’s criminal record but did not believe it was a problem because she had obtained a decision from state regulators that it did not pose a danger.
“I would say that as many as half of the foster homes in Los Angeles County have a criminal background,” Woods said.
Supervisor Gloria Molina said she did not believe that number and would look into the matter. [Updated at 6:13 p.m.: A California Department of Social Services spokeswoman, Lizelda Lopez, said that only 4.67% of foster family agency parents have received an exemption for a crime that would otherwise bar them.]
Woods also faulted the county for missing the warning signs, saying the county was in the final stages of approving Barker to adopt Viola.
“Miss Barker was less than 30 days away from adopting this child. That adoption was being managed by DCFS,” Woods said. “That adoption home study is supposed to be a lot more extensive and intrusive than a foster home certification.”
-- Garrett Therolf at the L.A. County Hall of Administration
Read more in The Times' investigation: Innocents Betrayed
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/03/la-county-supervisors-terminate-relationship-with-foster-care-agency.html
Proposal for DSM-5 to Include Parental Alienation Disorder
Proposal for DSM-5 to Include Parental Alienation Disorder
Written by: Cameron
Share
Use of Our Content (Reposting and Quoting)
March 31st, 2010
The American Psychiatric Association has published early draft of its proposed changes for DSM-5 (also known as DSM-V), an upcoming version of its mental health manual scheduled for 2013, at its website APA DSM-5 Development. While the draft version does not yet contain a definition of parental alienation syndrome or disorder, the APA has indicated that a group of mental health professionals including William Bernet, Wilfrid von Boch-Galhau, Amy J. L. Baker, and Stephen L. Morrison has submitted a document discussing how to include parental alienation in DSM-5 and ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases, 11th Edition).
An abstract of their work is as well as complete versions are available at Parental Alienation, DSM-V, and ICD-11:
Parental alienation is an important phenomenon that mental health professionals should know about and thoroughly understand, especially those who work with children, adolescents, divorced adults, and adults whose parents divorced when they were children. We define parental alienation as a mental condition in which a child—usually one whose parents are engaged in a high-conflict divorce—allies himself or herself strongly with one parent (the preferred parent) and rejects a relationship with the other parent (the alienated parent) without legitimate justification. This process leads to a tragic outcome when the child and the alienated parent, who previously had a loving and mutually satisfying relationship, lose the nurture and joy of that relationship for many years and perhaps for their lifetimes. The authors of this article believe that parental alienation is not a minor aberration in the life of a family, but a serious mental condition. The child’s maladaptive behavior—refusal to see one of the parents—is driven by the false belief that the alienated parent is a dangerous or unworthy person. We estimate that 1% of children and adolescents in the U.S. experience parental alienation. When the phenomenon is properly recognized, this condition is preventable and treatable in many instances. There have been scores of research studies and hundreds of scholarly articles, chapters, and books regarding parental alienation. Although we have located professional publications from 27 countries on six continents, we agree that research should continue regarding this important mental condition that affects hundreds of thousands of children and their families. The time has come for the concept of parental alienation to be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V), and the International Classification of Diseases, Eleventh Edition (ICD-11).
Having personally seen multiple cases of moderate to severe parental alienation in children and adult children as well as alienation in progress of developing both in children in married families and those going through divorces, I’m convinced this is a serious problem for children of all ages from conflicted families. Including parental alienation as a mental health disorder in DSM-5 and ICD-11 would go a long way towards finally putting a stop to the political and social support for emotional child abuse via attempts to force parental alienation, a form of emotional abuse, to be ignored by way of abusive legislation.
Such ill-considered efforts to cover up this form of emotional abuse have been pursued by the National Organization of Women (NOW) and other organizations because significant numbers of their members are actively preventing their children from having good relationships with both of their parents. Recognizing parental alienation for what it is means acknowledging that these people are child abusers, something they obviously don’t want as they would prefer to continue abusing their children without accountability as they have been doing.
http://angiemedia.com/2010/03/31/proposal-for-dsm-5-to-include-parental-alienation-disorder/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Angiemedia+(angiemedia)
Written by: Cameron
Share
Use of Our Content (Reposting and Quoting)
March 31st, 2010
The American Psychiatric Association has published early draft of its proposed changes for DSM-5 (also known as DSM-V), an upcoming version of its mental health manual scheduled for 2013, at its website APA DSM-5 Development. While the draft version does not yet contain a definition of parental alienation syndrome or disorder, the APA has indicated that a group of mental health professionals including William Bernet, Wilfrid von Boch-Galhau, Amy J. L. Baker, and Stephen L. Morrison has submitted a document discussing how to include parental alienation in DSM-5 and ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases, 11th Edition).
An abstract of their work is as well as complete versions are available at Parental Alienation, DSM-V, and ICD-11:
Parental alienation is an important phenomenon that mental health professionals should know about and thoroughly understand, especially those who work with children, adolescents, divorced adults, and adults whose parents divorced when they were children. We define parental alienation as a mental condition in which a child—usually one whose parents are engaged in a high-conflict divorce—allies himself or herself strongly with one parent (the preferred parent) and rejects a relationship with the other parent (the alienated parent) without legitimate justification. This process leads to a tragic outcome when the child and the alienated parent, who previously had a loving and mutually satisfying relationship, lose the nurture and joy of that relationship for many years and perhaps for their lifetimes. The authors of this article believe that parental alienation is not a minor aberration in the life of a family, but a serious mental condition. The child’s maladaptive behavior—refusal to see one of the parents—is driven by the false belief that the alienated parent is a dangerous or unworthy person. We estimate that 1% of children and adolescents in the U.S. experience parental alienation. When the phenomenon is properly recognized, this condition is preventable and treatable in many instances. There have been scores of research studies and hundreds of scholarly articles, chapters, and books regarding parental alienation. Although we have located professional publications from 27 countries on six continents, we agree that research should continue regarding this important mental condition that affects hundreds of thousands of children and their families. The time has come for the concept of parental alienation to be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V), and the International Classification of Diseases, Eleventh Edition (ICD-11).
Having personally seen multiple cases of moderate to severe parental alienation in children and adult children as well as alienation in progress of developing both in children in married families and those going through divorces, I’m convinced this is a serious problem for children of all ages from conflicted families. Including parental alienation as a mental health disorder in DSM-5 and ICD-11 would go a long way towards finally putting a stop to the political and social support for emotional child abuse via attempts to force parental alienation, a form of emotional abuse, to be ignored by way of abusive legislation.
Such ill-considered efforts to cover up this form of emotional abuse have been pursued by the National Organization of Women (NOW) and other organizations because significant numbers of their members are actively preventing their children from having good relationships with both of their parents. Recognizing parental alienation for what it is means acknowledging that these people are child abusers, something they obviously don’t want as they would prefer to continue abusing their children without accountability as they have been doing.
http://angiemedia.com/2010/03/31/proposal-for-dsm-5-to-include-parental-alienation-disorder/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Angiemedia+(angiemedia)
Preserving family saves agency money
BUTLER COUNTY CHILDREN SERVICES
Preserving family saves agency money
For each dollar spent keeping troubled families together, county saves $4.36 in foster placement costs.
By Josh Sweigart
Staff Writer
Saturday, December 27, 2008
HAMILTON — For every dollar spent keeping troubled families together, Butler County Children Services saves $4.36 in foster placement costs, according to Children Services Director Michael Fox.
Fox said this was the finding of an internal study of how much the agency spent supplementing families to keep them together compared to placing children in foster care from August through December.
In August, Children Services spent an average $22,843 a day with 369 children in foster homes and institutions at a cost between $50 and $250 each a day. With 309 children in foster placement on the average day in December, the cost had dropped an average $5,865 per day. During this period, the agency spent an average of $32,696 per month on paying family members to watch the children. This netted a savings of $143,282 per month. This has allowed Children Services to cut its budget by 12 percent, Fox said.
Fox has focused on family preservation as key to keeping children safe while reducing the agency's cost. The idea is simple: put children taken out of their homes with family members, and help them cover the additional cost of taking care of the child.
In addition to a cultural shift at the agency, this has been controversial, with some questioning government paying rent, utilities and vehicle payments for families on brink of collapse.
Fox praised the work of foster families as well, saying there will always be a need for them to help in particularly volatile situations. He said the children's safety always comes first.
"I just keep telling caseworkers, they are not ever to sacrifice the standards that we have of safety," Fox said.
http://www.oxfordpress.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/12/27/hjn122708ChildServe.html
Preserving family saves agency money
For each dollar spent keeping troubled families together, county saves $4.36 in foster placement costs.
By Josh Sweigart
Staff Writer
Saturday, December 27, 2008
HAMILTON — For every dollar spent keeping troubled families together, Butler County Children Services saves $4.36 in foster placement costs, according to Children Services Director Michael Fox.
Fox said this was the finding of an internal study of how much the agency spent supplementing families to keep them together compared to placing children in foster care from August through December.
In August, Children Services spent an average $22,843 a day with 369 children in foster homes and institutions at a cost between $50 and $250 each a day. With 309 children in foster placement on the average day in December, the cost had dropped an average $5,865 per day. During this period, the agency spent an average of $32,696 per month on paying family members to watch the children. This netted a savings of $143,282 per month. This has allowed Children Services to cut its budget by 12 percent, Fox said.
Fox has focused on family preservation as key to keeping children safe while reducing the agency's cost. The idea is simple: put children taken out of their homes with family members, and help them cover the additional cost of taking care of the child.
In addition to a cultural shift at the agency, this has been controversial, with some questioning government paying rent, utilities and vehicle payments for families on brink of collapse.
Fox praised the work of foster families as well, saying there will always be a need for them to help in particularly volatile situations. He said the children's safety always comes first.
"I just keep telling caseworkers, they are not ever to sacrifice the standards that we have of safety," Fox said.
http://www.oxfordpress.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/12/27/hjn122708ChildServe.html
Agency: Half of foster parents criminals
Agency: Half of foster parents criminals
By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer
Posted: 03/30/2010 07:23:59 PM PDT
Updated: 03/30/2010 07:40:32 PM PDT
County officials plan to examine how many people have qualified to become foster parents in Los Angeles despite criminal backgrounds, after the head of a troubled nonprofit agency claimed Tuesday the figure could be up to half.
Members of the Board of Supervisors remained skeptical but asked county officials to look into the issue.
The statements came during a hearing in which the supervisors voted to terminate a contract with United Care, Inc. following the death of a 2-year-old girl in a South Los Angeles foster home under the nonprofit's oversight.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky asked United Care's executive director Craig J. Woods if he knew the child's foster mother had a criminal background.
He said he did, but she had been cleared and licensed by the state, like many foster parents.
"The state has an exemption process where it has a criteria that if the particular crime was not of a violent or drug-related nature, then many of our foster parents are exempted," Woods said. "And I would estimate that to be as many as a third to half of foster parents fostering today under state licensing exemptions."
In response, Department of Children and Family Services spokesman Neil Zanville said DCFS Director Trish Ploehn contacted the state Department of Social Services' Community Care Licensing Division to find out what percentage of foster parents have some sort of criminal background.
"I don't know that half of
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our foster care parents are criminals," Supervisor Gloria Molina said. "I disagree with that and I'm going to look into that because I think you're wrong."
The dust-up follows the death of Viola Vanclief, a girl who died as a result of "blunt force trauma" in a death listed as a homicide, Coroner's Office Lt. Fred Corral said.
The girl was a foster child in the care of a South Los Angeles couple, Kiana Barker, 30, and her boyfriend, James Julian, 38. The couple were arrested on suspicion of beating the girl to death, apparently with a hammer, but they were released when prosecutors referred the case back to police for additional investigation.
After the girl's death, Barker told investigators that the toddler had been trapped in a bed frame and that she accidentally struck the child with a hammer while trying to free her.
The death was the most recent in a string of highly-publicized ones in recent years. Last year, 17 children died from abuse or neglect after DCFS had investigated earlier complaints of mistreatment. The figure, an increase from 2008's total of 14 deaths, includes both open and closed investigations.
In a prepared statement, Ploehn said DCFS reviewed United Care's records and placed a "Do Not Use" designation on the agency.
Meanwhile, Ploehn said DCFS is going to assess the other 57 foster family agencies in the county that oversee 2,500 foster homes with 5,800 foster children.
"Children's social workers will investigate the homes, utilizing a special tool to assess safety criteria; interviewing all children and adults residing in the homes, assessing the home itself and reviewing the agency's records ensuring all adults have criminal background clearances and all other safety criteria are met," Ploehn said.
The Auditor-Controller's Office will assist DCFS by providing two investigators to review FFA records. DCFS and the County Counsel's Office have requested the involvement of the state Community Care Licensing Division, which licenses foster parents.
City News Service contributed to this story.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_14788933?nclick_check=1
By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer
Posted: 03/30/2010 07:23:59 PM PDT
Updated: 03/30/2010 07:40:32 PM PDT
County officials plan to examine how many people have qualified to become foster parents in Los Angeles despite criminal backgrounds, after the head of a troubled nonprofit agency claimed Tuesday the figure could be up to half.
Members of the Board of Supervisors remained skeptical but asked county officials to look into the issue.
The statements came during a hearing in which the supervisors voted to terminate a contract with United Care, Inc. following the death of a 2-year-old girl in a South Los Angeles foster home under the nonprofit's oversight.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky asked United Care's executive director Craig J. Woods if he knew the child's foster mother had a criminal background.
He said he did, but she had been cleared and licensed by the state, like many foster parents.
"The state has an exemption process where it has a criteria that if the particular crime was not of a violent or drug-related nature, then many of our foster parents are exempted," Woods said. "And I would estimate that to be as many as a third to half of foster parents fostering today under state licensing exemptions."
In response, Department of Children and Family Services spokesman Neil Zanville said DCFS Director Trish Ploehn contacted the state Department of Social Services' Community Care Licensing Division to find out what percentage of foster parents have some sort of criminal background.
"I don't know that half of
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our foster care parents are criminals," Supervisor Gloria Molina said. "I disagree with that and I'm going to look into that because I think you're wrong."
The dust-up follows the death of Viola Vanclief, a girl who died as a result of "blunt force trauma" in a death listed as a homicide, Coroner's Office Lt. Fred Corral said.
The girl was a foster child in the care of a South Los Angeles couple, Kiana Barker, 30, and her boyfriend, James Julian, 38. The couple were arrested on suspicion of beating the girl to death, apparently with a hammer, but they were released when prosecutors referred the case back to police for additional investigation.
After the girl's death, Barker told investigators that the toddler had been trapped in a bed frame and that she accidentally struck the child with a hammer while trying to free her.
The death was the most recent in a string of highly-publicized ones in recent years. Last year, 17 children died from abuse or neglect after DCFS had investigated earlier complaints of mistreatment. The figure, an increase from 2008's total of 14 deaths, includes both open and closed investigations.
In a prepared statement, Ploehn said DCFS reviewed United Care's records and placed a "Do Not Use" designation on the agency.
Meanwhile, Ploehn said DCFS is going to assess the other 57 foster family agencies in the county that oversee 2,500 foster homes with 5,800 foster children.
"Children's social workers will investigate the homes, utilizing a special tool to assess safety criteria; interviewing all children and adults residing in the homes, assessing the home itself and reviewing the agency's records ensuring all adults have criminal background clearances and all other safety criteria are met," Ploehn said.
The Auditor-Controller's Office will assist DCFS by providing two investigators to review FFA records. DCFS and the County Counsel's Office have requested the involvement of the state Community Care Licensing Division, which licenses foster parents.
City News Service contributed to this story.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_14788933?nclick_check=1
CPS Does About Face, Accuses Parents Of Abuse
CPS Does About Face, Accuses Parents Of Abuse
Updated: Tuesday, 30 Mar 2010, 10:24 PM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 30 Mar 2010, 10:24 PM CDT
RANDY WALLACE
Investigative Reporter
HOUSTON - Landon Weber, 4, is one of two little boys that FOX 26 Investigates presented that have spent alot of time in hospitals. The mothers of both little boys were under investigation by Childrens Protective Services for medical child abuse.
"That happens when for one reason or another the medical system is used to perpetrate physical abuse on the child," said Valerie Brock, an assistant County Attorney representing CPS.
While both cases are ongoing, FOX 26 has a dramatic development when it comes to little Landon.
His mother, as well as some doctors, say Landon has a rare disorder called Mitochondrial disease. Some studies claim the symptoms of that disease can cause false allegations of medical child abuse to be lodged against parents.
Two months ago this is what CPS had to say about Landon's mother: "She's having to care for a child who has a lot of medical needs. he's medically fragile the family just needs training," CPS's Estella Oguin told FOX 26 Investigates.
But now CPS believes the exact opposite -- that Landon Weber is the victim of medical child abuse.
"I think we all were a little surprised," said Brock.
CPS had an independent medical evaluation done on Landon. Just days ago, that doctor testified in court, Landon has no medical condition whatsoever. His problems are because of his mother.
"I think that given the findings that we have that the parents have been involved in some medical child abuse," said Brock.
"I'm horrified," said Landon's mother Jennifer Weber.
The court testimony accusing Landon's parents and even possibly his grandparents of causing his medical problems came as a shock to the Webers.
"It's about the worst thing you could have to do as a parent," that's how Landon's father James Weber described listening to the court testimony.
Landon has feeding and ostomy bags attached to his body.
"His digestive system has been described as dysfunctional," Brock said.
The doctor hired by CPS testified those bags had an unknown substance in them that could cause infections.
"They were not able to find out exactly what was in the bags," Brock said. "Still it was kind of a suspicious and concerning circumstance."
The judge granted CPS's request that Landon's parents and even his grandparents have absolutely no contact with him not even supervised visits.
"It's crazy, this is not justice", Charles Weber, Landon's grandfather said.
Charles Weber said cops ordered his wife out of Landon's hospital room.
"About 5 minutes after the court hearing a police officer escorts her out of the room and takes her out of the building," the distraught grandfather said. "that's ridiculous."
"The frustrating thing is CPS isn't doing it's job," the Weber's attorney Chris Branson said.
Branson accuses CPS of ignoring doctors who say Landon is really sick.
"So they not only want to take the child away from the parents and grandparents they appear to want to put the parents in jail as well," Branson said.
CPS's next move, terminating the Weber's parental rights.
"I'm extremely concerned especially since we have'nt done anything to harm him," Landon's father said.
"It's a terrible thing that's happening and it needs to be stopped," Landon's mother said.
While CPS insists there is nothing physically wrong with Landon, his parents say they will do what they've been doing for 6 months. They will fight.
http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news/investigates/100330-cps-does-about-face-accuses-parents-of-abuse
Updated: Tuesday, 30 Mar 2010, 10:24 PM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 30 Mar 2010, 10:24 PM CDT
RANDY WALLACE
Investigative Reporter
HOUSTON - Landon Weber, 4, is one of two little boys that FOX 26 Investigates presented that have spent alot of time in hospitals. The mothers of both little boys were under investigation by Childrens Protective Services for medical child abuse.
"That happens when for one reason or another the medical system is used to perpetrate physical abuse on the child," said Valerie Brock, an assistant County Attorney representing CPS.
While both cases are ongoing, FOX 26 has a dramatic development when it comes to little Landon.
His mother, as well as some doctors, say Landon has a rare disorder called Mitochondrial disease. Some studies claim the symptoms of that disease can cause false allegations of medical child abuse to be lodged against parents.
Two months ago this is what CPS had to say about Landon's mother: "She's having to care for a child who has a lot of medical needs. he's medically fragile the family just needs training," CPS's Estella Oguin told FOX 26 Investigates.
But now CPS believes the exact opposite -- that Landon Weber is the victim of medical child abuse.
"I think we all were a little surprised," said Brock.
CPS had an independent medical evaluation done on Landon. Just days ago, that doctor testified in court, Landon has no medical condition whatsoever. His problems are because of his mother.
"I think that given the findings that we have that the parents have been involved in some medical child abuse," said Brock.
"I'm horrified," said Landon's mother Jennifer Weber.
The court testimony accusing Landon's parents and even possibly his grandparents of causing his medical problems came as a shock to the Webers.
"It's about the worst thing you could have to do as a parent," that's how Landon's father James Weber described listening to the court testimony.
Landon has feeding and ostomy bags attached to his body.
"His digestive system has been described as dysfunctional," Brock said.
The doctor hired by CPS testified those bags had an unknown substance in them that could cause infections.
"They were not able to find out exactly what was in the bags," Brock said. "Still it was kind of a suspicious and concerning circumstance."
The judge granted CPS's request that Landon's parents and even his grandparents have absolutely no contact with him not even supervised visits.
"It's crazy, this is not justice", Charles Weber, Landon's grandfather said.
Charles Weber said cops ordered his wife out of Landon's hospital room.
"About 5 minutes after the court hearing a police officer escorts her out of the room and takes her out of the building," the distraught grandfather said. "that's ridiculous."
"The frustrating thing is CPS isn't doing it's job," the Weber's attorney Chris Branson said.
Branson accuses CPS of ignoring doctors who say Landon is really sick.
"So they not only want to take the child away from the parents and grandparents they appear to want to put the parents in jail as well," Branson said.
CPS's next move, terminating the Weber's parental rights.
"I'm extremely concerned especially since we have'nt done anything to harm him," Landon's father said.
"It's a terrible thing that's happening and it needs to be stopped," Landon's mother said.
While CPS insists there is nothing physically wrong with Landon, his parents say they will do what they've been doing for 6 months. They will fight.
http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news/investigates/100330-cps-does-about-face-accuses-parents-of-abuse
he Strange “Suicide” of Nancy Schaefer Twist in Schaefer Murder-Suicide
The Strange “Suicide” of Nancy Schaefer
Posted by PUPPETGOV on Mar 31st, 2010 and filed under Headlines, New World Order, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
RELATED:
Twist in Schaefer Murder-Suicide
~Garland Favorito
On Friday, former Senator Nancy Schaefer and her husband were found dead in their home in Habersham County. Even before a GBI investigation could be initiated, media outlets began pronouncing that their death was a “murder-suicide” and shut off most public comment posting on their web sites. The “murder suicide” theory implies that Sen. Schaefer’s husband shot her and then killed himself (or vice versa). Both Habersham County and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began investigating the case as a “murder suicide” rather than the more obvious “murder made to look like suicide”. Like so many people, I have known former Sen. Nancy Schaefer for 15 years and spoken to several people who know her better than I do. They believe that the “murder suicide” theory is highly unlikely for any one of the following reasons:
1. It is totally against Nancy Schaefer’s consistently strong commitment to the sanctity of life principles that she has fought so valiantly to uphold;
2. Nancy and her husband, Bruce, have five children and more than a dozen grandchildren who they would not choose to leave behind so abruptly;
3. Bruce’s problem with cancer was corrected and under control so there was no reason to end his life as one senator tried to imply;
4. Nancy or Bruce would not likely agree to commit such an act that violates the fundamental principles of their Christian faith;
5. Bruce was retired and the couple did not appear to be in any type of dire financial crisis that would lead them to commit such acts;
6. Bruce and Nancy knew that her sister who had Alzheimer’s disease needed her to help take care of her;
7. Friends who knew the couple best state that Bruce would simply not have the capability to kill his wife;
8. Nancy was dedicated, as a national leader, to help needy people overcome abuse within Child Protective Services organizations;
9. Nancy was actively exposing corruption within the Department of Family & Child Services (DFCS) including actions by the DFCS director in the county where she lived.
10. Nancy knew that she was needed in the fight against child sex slave trafficking in Atlanta which has one of the highest activity rates in the country;
11. Bruce was highly supportive of Nancy’s work for decades and would have little or no reason to suddenly try to kill her at such a critical juncture in her career.
Specifically in Georgia, former Senator Nancy Schaefer had found during the last few years that:
- in Georgia housed children in a foster home with a known pedophile who molested the children.
- in Habersham County failed to remove six children from a home where they are being abused and tortured.
- in Georgia turned two girls over to a California father who had a pornographic video business.
A report that Nancy Schaefer produced on these remarkable cases can be found here:
http://fightcps.com/2008/02/29/report-of-georgia-senator-nancy-schaefer-on-cps-corruption/
Nancy Schaefer was also interviewed extensively by talk show host Alex Jones about corruption in Child Protection Services nationally. A multi-part series of her interview and an Eagle Forum presentation can be found on You Tube here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nancy+schaefer&search_type=&aq=f
In addition, Senator Schaefer led opposition to HB582 and SB304, two bills introduced by fellow Republicans that would have likely resulted in increasing child sex slave trafficking. These bills would have made it legal for teenagers to participate in certain illicit acts. The bills effectively removed the legal authority that police now have to pick teenagers up and get them into protective custody so that they can no longer be pimped for those acts.
As President of Georgia Eagle Forum, Nancy Schaefer planned to be in Alabama this weekend for an Eagle Forum convention. Instead she chose to stay in Georgia to develop new information that would have further exposed corruption in DFCS and beyond. Many Eagle forum members who were close to Sen. Schaefer were aware of her courageous efforts. None of them believe that either she or her husband was involved in any type of suicide.
It is particularly ironic that the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) chose to quote State Sen. Don Thomas in their March 26 article about Sen. Schaefer’s death. The AJC portrayed him as a friend of the couple even though he lives on the other side of the state from the Schaefer family and was diametrically opposed to many of their core beliefs. Sen. Thomas, the Chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee, immediately propagated and expanded the “murder-suicide” theory without any first-hand knowledge or evidence. That is very disturbing considering it is his committee that should have been helping to clean up the corruption at DFCS. Activists supporting Sen. Schaefer explained that he constantly advocated increased power and authority for DFCS in spite of the evidence showing the organization was misusing that authority.
With Nancy Schaefer no longer on the scene the question may be raised as to how best to continue her legacy. I believe that she would want conservatives, progressives, libertarians, constitutionalists as well as grass roots Democrats and Republicans throughout Georgia to unite and work to rectify the corruption in DFCS and eliminate child sex slave trafficking in Georgia.
http://www.puppetgov.com/2010/03/31/the-strange-suicide-of-nancy-schaefer/
Posted by PUPPETGOV on Mar 31st, 2010 and filed under Headlines, New World Order, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
RELATED:
Twist in Schaefer Murder-Suicide
~Garland Favorito
On Friday, former Senator Nancy Schaefer and her husband were found dead in their home in Habersham County. Even before a GBI investigation could be initiated, media outlets began pronouncing that their death was a “murder-suicide” and shut off most public comment posting on their web sites. The “murder suicide” theory implies that Sen. Schaefer’s husband shot her and then killed himself (or vice versa). Both Habersham County and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began investigating the case as a “murder suicide” rather than the more obvious “murder made to look like suicide”. Like so many people, I have known former Sen. Nancy Schaefer for 15 years and spoken to several people who know her better than I do. They believe that the “murder suicide” theory is highly unlikely for any one of the following reasons:
1. It is totally against Nancy Schaefer’s consistently strong commitment to the sanctity of life principles that she has fought so valiantly to uphold;
2. Nancy and her husband, Bruce, have five children and more than a dozen grandchildren who they would not choose to leave behind so abruptly;
3. Bruce’s problem with cancer was corrected and under control so there was no reason to end his life as one senator tried to imply;
4. Nancy or Bruce would not likely agree to commit such an act that violates the fundamental principles of their Christian faith;
5. Bruce was retired and the couple did not appear to be in any type of dire financial crisis that would lead them to commit such acts;
6. Bruce and Nancy knew that her sister who had Alzheimer’s disease needed her to help take care of her;
7. Friends who knew the couple best state that Bruce would simply not have the capability to kill his wife;
8. Nancy was dedicated, as a national leader, to help needy people overcome abuse within Child Protective Services organizations;
9. Nancy was actively exposing corruption within the Department of Family & Child Services (DFCS) including actions by the DFCS director in the county where she lived.
10. Nancy knew that she was needed in the fight against child sex slave trafficking in Atlanta which has one of the highest activity rates in the country;
11. Bruce was highly supportive of Nancy’s work for decades and would have little or no reason to suddenly try to kill her at such a critical juncture in her career.
Specifically in Georgia, former Senator Nancy Schaefer had found during the last few years that:
- in Georgia housed children in a foster home with a known pedophile who molested the children.
- in Habersham County failed to remove six children from a home where they are being abused and tortured.
- in Georgia turned two girls over to a California father who had a pornographic video business.
A report that Nancy Schaefer produced on these remarkable cases can be found here:
http://fightcps.com/2008/02/29/report-of-georgia-senator-nancy-schaefer-on-cps-corruption/
Nancy Schaefer was also interviewed extensively by talk show host Alex Jones about corruption in Child Protection Services nationally. A multi-part series of her interview and an Eagle Forum presentation can be found on You Tube here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nancy+schaefer&search_type=&aq=f
In addition, Senator Schaefer led opposition to HB582 and SB304, two bills introduced by fellow Republicans that would have likely resulted in increasing child sex slave trafficking. These bills would have made it legal for teenagers to participate in certain illicit acts. The bills effectively removed the legal authority that police now have to pick teenagers up and get them into protective custody so that they can no longer be pimped for those acts.
As President of Georgia Eagle Forum, Nancy Schaefer planned to be in Alabama this weekend for an Eagle Forum convention. Instead she chose to stay in Georgia to develop new information that would have further exposed corruption in DFCS and beyond. Many Eagle forum members who were close to Sen. Schaefer were aware of her courageous efforts. None of them believe that either she or her husband was involved in any type of suicide.
It is particularly ironic that the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) chose to quote State Sen. Don Thomas in their March 26 article about Sen. Schaefer’s death. The AJC portrayed him as a friend of the couple even though he lives on the other side of the state from the Schaefer family and was diametrically opposed to many of their core beliefs. Sen. Thomas, the Chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee, immediately propagated and expanded the “murder-suicide” theory without any first-hand knowledge or evidence. That is very disturbing considering it is his committee that should have been helping to clean up the corruption at DFCS. Activists supporting Sen. Schaefer explained that he constantly advocated increased power and authority for DFCS in spite of the evidence showing the organization was misusing that authority.
With Nancy Schaefer no longer on the scene the question may be raised as to how best to continue her legacy. I believe that she would want conservatives, progressives, libertarians, constitutionalists as well as grass roots Democrats and Republicans throughout Georgia to unite and work to rectify the corruption in DFCS and eliminate child sex slave trafficking in Georgia.
http://www.puppetgov.com/2010/03/31/the-strange-suicide-of-nancy-schaefer/
CPS Warrior Nancy Schaefer Gunned Down
CPS Warrior Nancy Schaefer Gunned Down
By Brenda Alexander CPS-A System Out Of Control
Posted: 30 Mar 2010 09:24 PM PDT
Quote:
From the Associated Press:
State investigators say the husband of former state Senator Nancy Schaefer shot his wife before turning the gun on himself. The couple’s bodies were found in their north Georgia home Friday. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted autopsies on the Schaefer’s Saturday—investigators say all evidence points to the deaths as a murder-suicide. The bodies of Nancy and Bruce Schaefer, 73 and 74 years old respectively, were found by their daughter at the couple’s home in Clarkesville. Nancy Schaefer was a two-term state Senator representing Georgia’s 50th district. She lost her seat in 2008. Schaefer was also a candidate for mayor of Atlanta, Georgia lieutenant governor and governor of the state.
The corporate media does not bother to mention that Schaefer exposed the abuses of CPS and the international child sex slavery ring.
Appearing on the Alex Jones Show last May, Schaefer detailed how CPS is involved in child trafficking rings (see video below). After watching Schaefer’s interview with Jones, if you think Schaefer was involved in a suicide pact with her husband, you may also be interested in a famous bridge for sale in Brooklyn.
YouTube - Nancy Schaefer on Alex Jones: "CPS criminality" 1of4
YouTube - Nancy Schaefer on Alex Jones: "CPS criminality" 2of4
YouTube - Nancy Schaefer on Alex Jones: "CPS criminality" 3of4
YouTube - Nancy Schaefer on Alex Jones: "CPS criminality" 4of4
YouTube - Nancy Schaefer exposes the EVIL CPS
Former Senator Nancy Schaefer and her husband were murdered for exposing CPS's child sex slave ring. "Authorities" claim this 74 and 73 year old couple suicide/murdered one another.
http://cpsasystemoutofcontrol.blogspot.com/2010/03/nccp-child-welfare-blog-case-of.html
By Brenda Alexander CPS-A System Out Of Control
Posted: 30 Mar 2010 09:24 PM PDT
Quote:
From the Associated Press:
State investigators say the husband of former state Senator Nancy Schaefer shot his wife before turning the gun on himself. The couple’s bodies were found in their north Georgia home Friday. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted autopsies on the Schaefer’s Saturday—investigators say all evidence points to the deaths as a murder-suicide. The bodies of Nancy and Bruce Schaefer, 73 and 74 years old respectively, were found by their daughter at the couple’s home in Clarkesville. Nancy Schaefer was a two-term state Senator representing Georgia’s 50th district. She lost her seat in 2008. Schaefer was also a candidate for mayor of Atlanta, Georgia lieutenant governor and governor of the state.
The corporate media does not bother to mention that Schaefer exposed the abuses of CPS and the international child sex slavery ring.
Appearing on the Alex Jones Show last May, Schaefer detailed how CPS is involved in child trafficking rings (see video below). After watching Schaefer’s interview with Jones, if you think Schaefer was involved in a suicide pact with her husband, you may also be interested in a famous bridge for sale in Brooklyn.
YouTube - Nancy Schaefer on Alex Jones: "CPS criminality" 1of4
YouTube - Nancy Schaefer on Alex Jones: "CPS criminality" 2of4
YouTube - Nancy Schaefer on Alex Jones: "CPS criminality" 3of4
YouTube - Nancy Schaefer on Alex Jones: "CPS criminality" 4of4
YouTube - Nancy Schaefer exposes the EVIL CPS
Former Senator Nancy Schaefer and her husband were murdered for exposing CPS's child sex slave ring. "Authorities" claim this 74 and 73 year old couple suicide/murdered one another.
http://cpsasystemoutofcontrol.blogspot.com/2010/03/nccp-child-welfare-blog-case-of.html
Kinship Care Versus Foster Care
Kinship Care Versus Foster Care
By Brenda Alexander CPS-A System Out of Control
Posted: 30 Mar 2010 09:25 PM PDT
Recently I read a rather nasty comment on my friend Yvonne's blog and I thought I'd write in her defense. The "family member" who ended up with her sister's children are the exception to the rule, not the norm. I don't know how many grandparents I have talked to begging for help getting their grandchildren out of the system. They took all the prerequisite classes, home inspections, medical/psychological evaluations but never ever were granted custody of the children. Why? Here's the answer.
Unless you are willing to take money, Medicaid, SSI, disability, Title IV-E funding, be involved in Medicaid fraud and accept child support all the while denying the REAL parents access to their children, you will NOT be a suitable placement. An dirty sink of dishes, not enough "proper food" (whatever that means); not enough bed, not a big enough home, both parents work, blah blah blah.
The truth is, only the sorry mother flubbers who want to sit on their collective asses all day, telling junior to fetch mom another beer or drink (food, drugs, whatever their drug of choice is) and play games online and bitch about how hard and tiring it can be to be a foster "mother" (their term, not mine).
The bottom line, play the game or get out. Don't tell me you do it for love unless you follow that it up "the LOVE of MONEY." Otherwise, why do you kick them out on their 18th birthday? You're sick people looking for easy money and damned if I our government doesn't hand it over to you free and clear. Don't worry about background checks, they don't really do much of them. They might look on the sex abuse register but they also might not. Oh, and just because someone hasn't been caught yet, that doesn't mean he's not a mean, twisted, perverted son-of-a-bitch. Women too and they gravitate to foster children because their case managers CHOOSE not be believe them and allow them to remain in unsafe, abusive homes when the reason they were originally taken was a dirty kitchen.
So shut up unless you know exactly what you're talking about. It's wonderful your family is so perfect but there a lot of single parents out there with no one, they're former foster children themselves and literally don't have a "perfect" sister like you. How do we know for sure that you're not taking in them for worse abuse. Every convicted pedophile got by with it many times before being caught. How does we know that's not you? I'm not saying it is but i this day and age, with CPS and the foster care system being so corrupt, I don't trust any of you.
The dirty house thing reminds me of a poem...
I'm forever singing songs to Abigail that I only know half the words to, so whilst searching out the other half of the words to one on the internet, I found this poem, which I thought was very sweet......
I hope that my child, looking back on today
Will remember a mother who had time to play;
Because children grow up while you're not looking,
There are years ahead for cleaning and cooking.
So, quiet now cobwebs, dust go to sleep.
I'm nursing my baby, and babies don't keep.
from www.nurseryrhymes4u.com
http://cpsasystemoutofcontrol.blogspot.com/2010/03/nccp-child-welfare-blog-case-of.html
By Brenda Alexander CPS-A System Out of Control
Posted: 30 Mar 2010 09:25 PM PDT
Recently I read a rather nasty comment on my friend Yvonne's blog and I thought I'd write in her defense. The "family member" who ended up with her sister's children are the exception to the rule, not the norm. I don't know how many grandparents I have talked to begging for help getting their grandchildren out of the system. They took all the prerequisite classes, home inspections, medical/psychological evaluations but never ever were granted custody of the children. Why? Here's the answer.
Unless you are willing to take money, Medicaid, SSI, disability, Title IV-E funding, be involved in Medicaid fraud and accept child support all the while denying the REAL parents access to their children, you will NOT be a suitable placement. An dirty sink of dishes, not enough "proper food" (whatever that means); not enough bed, not a big enough home, both parents work, blah blah blah.
The truth is, only the sorry mother flubbers who want to sit on their collective asses all day, telling junior to fetch mom another beer or drink (food, drugs, whatever their drug of choice is) and play games online and bitch about how hard and tiring it can be to be a foster "mother" (their term, not mine).
The bottom line, play the game or get out. Don't tell me you do it for love unless you follow that it up "the LOVE of MONEY." Otherwise, why do you kick them out on their 18th birthday? You're sick people looking for easy money and damned if I our government doesn't hand it over to you free and clear. Don't worry about background checks, they don't really do much of them. They might look on the sex abuse register but they also might not. Oh, and just because someone hasn't been caught yet, that doesn't mean he's not a mean, twisted, perverted son-of-a-bitch. Women too and they gravitate to foster children because their case managers CHOOSE not be believe them and allow them to remain in unsafe, abusive homes when the reason they were originally taken was a dirty kitchen.
So shut up unless you know exactly what you're talking about. It's wonderful your family is so perfect but there a lot of single parents out there with no one, they're former foster children themselves and literally don't have a "perfect" sister like you. How do we know for sure that you're not taking in them for worse abuse. Every convicted pedophile got by with it many times before being caught. How does we know that's not you? I'm not saying it is but i this day and age, with CPS and the foster care system being so corrupt, I don't trust any of you.
The dirty house thing reminds me of a poem...
I'm forever singing songs to Abigail that I only know half the words to, so whilst searching out the other half of the words to one on the internet, I found this poem, which I thought was very sweet......
I hope that my child, looking back on today
Will remember a mother who had time to play;
Because children grow up while you're not looking,
There are years ahead for cleaning and cooking.
So, quiet now cobwebs, dust go to sleep.
I'm nursing my baby, and babies don't keep.
from www.nurseryrhymes4u.com
http://cpsasystemoutofcontrol.blogspot.com/2010/03/nccp-child-welfare-blog-case-of.html
Covering foster care in LA: The case of the selective sidebar
NCCP: Child Welfare Blog; The Case of the Selective Sidebar
TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2010
Covering foster care in LA: The case of the selective sidebar
I'LL BE DISCUSSING CHILD WELFARE IN LOS ANGELES THIS MORNING ON KPFK PACIFICA RADIO'S "SOJOURNER TRUTH" PROGRAM, SOMETIME DURING THE 7 TO 8AM HOUR, LOCAL TIME. IT ALSO SHOULD BE AVAILABLE AT KPFK'S WEBSITE.
Yesterday's Los Angeles Times story, apparently some kind of half-hearted effort to add context to the paper's child welfare coverage was accompanied by a sidebar apparently designed to reinforce the "master narrative" of Times reporting – that the only fatal mistake the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services makes is leaving children with dangerous parents.
Called "A timeline of death" a better title would have been "A highly-selective timeline of death." Because a quick check of NCCPR's own archive of child welfare news coverage turned up these cases, which the Times left out:
● 1999: Four-month-old Garnet Peels is placed with a foster mother who allows her brother – a narcoleptic – to drive the boy in his SUV. The infant was not in a car seat. He died when the foster mother's brother drove the SUV into a pole.
● 1999: Gilbreania Wallace is taken from her grandmother when the pipes in their rented house burst, flooding the basement and making the home a health hazard. Instead of helping them find another place to live, DCFS places Gilbreania in foster care. She dies there, allegedly killed by her foster mother. (DCFS, which would spend nothing to move the family offered $5,000 for the funeral). Just as in the case of Viola Vanclief more than a decade later (making it the one death of a foster child too recent for the sidebar to ignore), Gilbreania's foster mother has previous complaints against her, and the home is overseen by a private agency with a troubled history – the same agency that oversaw the case of Garnet Peels.
● 2001: Two-year-old Jasmine Garcia dies of what police call "catastrophic injury to her head." Jasmine was placed in a foster home overseen by another private agency – and there had been warnings to DCFS about alleged abuse of other children in the home. The foster parents are charged, but one foster parent is acquitted and charges against the other are dropped.
● 2003: Dakota Prince, age 5, and Nehemiah Prince, age 3, are taken from their mother because of what the DCFS deputy director at the time calls "just an inability to provide adequate care." They are placed with a foster mother who was under the supervision of still another private agency. The foster mother can afford the best – including a Cadillac Escalade SUV. But one day she forgets that she'd left Dakota and Nehemiah in the Escalade in 100 degree heat where, a deputy district attorney says, "they cooked inside the car and died." The foster mother is convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
There is nothing in the Times chronology to indicate why it only goes back to 1998 – seemingly an arbitrary choice. But perhaps it's because that avoids including another case, the particularly searing story of Jonathan Reid, taken needlessly from his mother only to die in foster care in 1997. You can read all about that case in this 2002 story - by Garrett Therolf, the Times reporter who now wants us to forget all about such cases, or at least write them off as aberrations, as he crusades to keep more children in the system that killed Jonathan - and Dakota, and Nehemiah, and Garnet, and Gilbreania, and how many others?
And for another example of the kind of story Los Angeles Times systematically avoids, check out today's lead story in the Philadelphia Daily News.
Posted by NATIONAL COALITION FOR CHILD PROTECTION REFORM at 6:20 AM
TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2010
Covering foster care in LA: The case of the selective sidebar
I'LL BE DISCUSSING CHILD WELFARE IN LOS ANGELES THIS MORNING ON KPFK PACIFICA RADIO'S "SOJOURNER TRUTH" PROGRAM, SOMETIME DURING THE 7 TO 8AM HOUR, LOCAL TIME. IT ALSO SHOULD BE AVAILABLE AT KPFK'S WEBSITE.
Yesterday's Los Angeles Times story, apparently some kind of half-hearted effort to add context to the paper's child welfare coverage was accompanied by a sidebar apparently designed to reinforce the "master narrative" of Times reporting – that the only fatal mistake the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services makes is leaving children with dangerous parents.
Called "A timeline of death" a better title would have been "A highly-selective timeline of death." Because a quick check of NCCPR's own archive of child welfare news coverage turned up these cases, which the Times left out:
● 1999: Four-month-old Garnet Peels is placed with a foster mother who allows her brother – a narcoleptic – to drive the boy in his SUV. The infant was not in a car seat. He died when the foster mother's brother drove the SUV into a pole.
● 1999: Gilbreania Wallace is taken from her grandmother when the pipes in their rented house burst, flooding the basement and making the home a health hazard. Instead of helping them find another place to live, DCFS places Gilbreania in foster care. She dies there, allegedly killed by her foster mother. (DCFS, which would spend nothing to move the family offered $5,000 for the funeral). Just as in the case of Viola Vanclief more than a decade later (making it the one death of a foster child too recent for the sidebar to ignore), Gilbreania's foster mother has previous complaints against her, and the home is overseen by a private agency with a troubled history – the same agency that oversaw the case of Garnet Peels.
● 2001: Two-year-old Jasmine Garcia dies of what police call "catastrophic injury to her head." Jasmine was placed in a foster home overseen by another private agency – and there had been warnings to DCFS about alleged abuse of other children in the home. The foster parents are charged, but one foster parent is acquitted and charges against the other are dropped.
● 2003: Dakota Prince, age 5, and Nehemiah Prince, age 3, are taken from their mother because of what the DCFS deputy director at the time calls "just an inability to provide adequate care." They are placed with a foster mother who was under the supervision of still another private agency. The foster mother can afford the best – including a Cadillac Escalade SUV. But one day she forgets that she'd left Dakota and Nehemiah in the Escalade in 100 degree heat where, a deputy district attorney says, "they cooked inside the car and died." The foster mother is convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
There is nothing in the Times chronology to indicate why it only goes back to 1998 – seemingly an arbitrary choice. But perhaps it's because that avoids including another case, the particularly searing story of Jonathan Reid, taken needlessly from his mother only to die in foster care in 1997. You can read all about that case in this 2002 story - by Garrett Therolf, the Times reporter who now wants us to forget all about such cases, or at least write them off as aberrations, as he crusades to keep more children in the system that killed Jonathan - and Dakota, and Nehemiah, and Garnet, and Gilbreania, and how many others?
And for another example of the kind of story Los Angeles Times systematically avoids, check out today's lead story in the Philadelphia Daily News.
Posted by NATIONAL COALITION FOR CHILD PROTECTION REFORM at 6:20 AM
Foster Care and Criminal Behavior: Are the two linked?
Foster Care and Criminal Behavior: Are the two linked?
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 1:54 pm
Are youth making the transition from out-of-home care to independent adulthood more apt to commit crime then others? A recent DOJ study comes to the following conclusions: the link between group care and violent crime was particularly strong for African-American youth, high numbers of foster-care placements contributed to increases in both violent and nonviolent crime and foster youth were much more likely than their peers to be arrested as they made the transition to adulthood.
Read the full report here.
http://thecrimereport.org/2010/03/30/foster-care-and-criminal-behavior-are-the-two-linked/
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 1:54 pm
Are youth making the transition from out-of-home care to independent adulthood more apt to commit crime then others? A recent DOJ study comes to the following conclusions: the link between group care and violent crime was particularly strong for African-American youth, high numbers of foster-care placements contributed to increases in both violent and nonviolent crime and foster youth were much more likely than their peers to be arrested as they made the transition to adulthood.
Read the full report here.
http://thecrimereport.org/2010/03/30/foster-care-and-criminal-behavior-are-the-two-linked/
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Help! My grandchildren have been taken by cps
Family Rights News
Help! My grandchildren have been taken by cps
March 30, 2010
The title is an actual internet search by which somebody found the AFRA website today. We get quite a few grieving grandparents desperately looking for help. They usually find our How to Fight CPS page, which should serve their needs.
However, there are a few comments I would like to add. Here's the LAW about "kinship preference"
42 U.S.C. § 671 : US Code - Section 671: State plan for foster care and adoption assistance was amended in 1996-
COATS (AND WYDEN) AMENDMENT NO. 4909 (Senate - July 18, 1996)
[Page: S8227]
Mr. ROTH (for Mr. Coats, for himself and Mr. Wyden) proposed an amendment to the bill, S. 1956, supra; as follows:
At the end of chapter 7, of subtitle A, of title II, add the following:
SEC. . KINSHIP CARE.
Section 471(a) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 671(a)) is amended--
(1) by striking `and' at the end of paragraph (16);
(2) by striking the period at the end of paragraph (17) and inserting `; and'; and
(3) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
`(18) provides that States shall give preference to an adult relative over a non-related caregiver when determining a placement for a child, provided that the relative caregiver meets all relevant State child protection standards.
This amendment is now fully incorporated in the law, but I wanted to point out who sponsored it and when it was amended.
The current rendering of 42 U.S.C. § 671 : US Code - Section 671 states-
(19) provides that the State shall consider giving preference to an adult relative over a non-related caregiver when determining a placement for a child, provided that the relative caregiver meets all relevant State child protection standards;
That's the law. I don't know when the word "consider" was sneaked in. However, many states have no intention of observing this law. That's exactly why you should memorize it.
Now what about the second part- "...provided that the relative caregiver meets all relevant State child protection standards"?
Here is where you have to quit playing "Winston" in "1984". YOU have to ask "What do I need to do to meet the State child protection standards?"
If the CPS agent wants to be coy with you, put the ONUS ON HER- "What do YOU need to do to HELP ME qualify?"
The #1 rule is- DOCUMENT everything said and done. Keep meticulous records of who said what, when. Keep any correspondence to and from the agencies.
Grandparents (and aunts, uncles and cousins) are nearly ALWAYS the best place for kids to be.
With the passage of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act in October 2008, Federal resources are supposed to be available to assist children who leave foster care for legal guardianships with family members.
Use this information wisely to keep YOUR relatives with family instead of going to stranger care.
COMMENTon this story
"Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own." --Aesop (c. 550 B.C.) legendary Greek fabulist
If CPS hasn't attacked YOUR FAMILY yet, see If you are ever approached by anyone from social services.... and WHEN THEY COME AFTER YOU
Learn as much as you can, as fast as you can at "How To Fight CPS"-
http://familyrights.us/how_to/fight_cps.html
Get YOUR VERSION OF HISTORY ON THE RECORD with your Sworn Affidavit-
http://familyrights.us/bin/FORMS/sworn_affidavit.html
Leonard Henderson, co-founder
American Family Rights Association
http://familyrights.us
"Until Every Child Comes Home" ©
"The Voice of America's Families" ©
Have you seen AFRA News Today?
http://familyrights.us/news
I am not a lawyer and I do not pretend to give legal advice. If you need legal advice, see AFRA's Lawyer Friends who certainly are not pretenders (http://familyrights.us/info/law) I merely relate the things I learned in the past that seemed to work in my own case or things that others have related to me that worked in their cases. I provide information for free and do not expect to receive any form of payment or reward on this side of heaven. Therefore, DO NOT rely on this information as legal advice. Real Legal advice would come from a real lawyer who hates CPS and prepares a VIGOROUS DEFENSE against a negative (proving nothing happened) instead an ATTORNEY (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/attorn) talking you into a plea bargain (http://familyrights.us/bin/The_Problem_with_Plea_Bargaining.htm)
http://familyrights.newscred.com/editorials/1413/help-my-grandchildren-have-been-taken-by-cps
Help! My grandchildren have been taken by cps
March 30, 2010
The title is an actual internet search by which somebody found the AFRA website today. We get quite a few grieving grandparents desperately looking for help. They usually find our How to Fight CPS page, which should serve their needs.
However, there are a few comments I would like to add. Here's the LAW about "kinship preference"
42 U.S.C. § 671 : US Code - Section 671: State plan for foster care and adoption assistance was amended in 1996-
COATS (AND WYDEN) AMENDMENT NO. 4909 (Senate - July 18, 1996)
[Page: S8227]
Mr. ROTH (for Mr. Coats, for himself and Mr. Wyden) proposed an amendment to the bill, S. 1956, supra; as follows:
At the end of chapter 7, of subtitle A, of title II, add the following:
SEC. . KINSHIP CARE.
Section 471(a) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 671(a)) is amended--
(1) by striking `and' at the end of paragraph (16);
(2) by striking the period at the end of paragraph (17) and inserting `; and'; and
(3) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
`(18) provides that States shall give preference to an adult relative over a non-related caregiver when determining a placement for a child, provided that the relative caregiver meets all relevant State child protection standards.
This amendment is now fully incorporated in the law, but I wanted to point out who sponsored it and when it was amended.
The current rendering of 42 U.S.C. § 671 : US Code - Section 671 states-
(19) provides that the State shall consider giving preference to an adult relative over a non-related caregiver when determining a placement for a child, provided that the relative caregiver meets all relevant State child protection standards;
That's the law. I don't know when the word "consider" was sneaked in. However, many states have no intention of observing this law. That's exactly why you should memorize it.
Now what about the second part- "...provided that the relative caregiver meets all relevant State child protection standards"?
Here is where you have to quit playing "Winston" in "1984". YOU have to ask "What do I need to do to meet the State child protection standards?"
If the CPS agent wants to be coy with you, put the ONUS ON HER- "What do YOU need to do to HELP ME qualify?"
The #1 rule is- DOCUMENT everything said and done. Keep meticulous records of who said what, when. Keep any correspondence to and from the agencies.
Grandparents (and aunts, uncles and cousins) are nearly ALWAYS the best place for kids to be.
With the passage of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act in October 2008, Federal resources are supposed to be available to assist children who leave foster care for legal guardianships with family members.
Use this information wisely to keep YOUR relatives with family instead of going to stranger care.
COMMENTon this story
"Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own." --Aesop (c. 550 B.C.) legendary Greek fabulist
If CPS hasn't attacked YOUR FAMILY yet, see If you are ever approached by anyone from social services.... and WHEN THEY COME AFTER YOU
Learn as much as you can, as fast as you can at "How To Fight CPS"-
http://familyrights.us/how_to/fight_cps.html
Get YOUR VERSION OF HISTORY ON THE RECORD with your Sworn Affidavit-
http://familyrights.us/bin/FORMS/sworn_affidavit.html
Leonard Henderson, co-founder
American Family Rights Association
http://familyrights.us
"Until Every Child Comes Home" ©
"The Voice of America's Families" ©
Have you seen AFRA News Today?
http://familyrights.us/news
I am not a lawyer and I do not pretend to give legal advice. If you need legal advice, see AFRA's Lawyer Friends who certainly are not pretenders (http://familyrights.us/info/law) I merely relate the things I learned in the past that seemed to work in my own case or things that others have related to me that worked in their cases. I provide information for free and do not expect to receive any form of payment or reward on this side of heaven. Therefore, DO NOT rely on this information as legal advice. Real Legal advice would come from a real lawyer who hates CPS and prepares a VIGOROUS DEFENSE against a negative (proving nothing happened) instead an ATTORNEY (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/attorn) talking you into a plea bargain (http://familyrights.us/bin/The_Problem_with_Plea_Bargaining.htm)
http://familyrights.newscred.com/editorials/1413/help-my-grandchildren-have-been-taken-by-cps
Monday, March 29, 2010
Hush Little Baby Don't You Cry-For Trinity
Song For Trinity From Mommy
Hush little baby don't you cry,
and please don't do that thing with your eye.
Your feet are big & your toes are long,
I made up these words cuz I don't know this song.
You poop every morning at the same time,
being that cute shuld be a crime.
You pee on the floor like a little dog,
pees ok but not a log.
7 weeks old, already growing teeth,
when u grow up please don't cause me grief.
That pouty lip, & all that drool,
I'm already scared 2 send you 2 school.
Those big blue eyes & that pretty smile,
please stay a baby....if even just for awhile.....
Sent to me From Trinity's Mommy
CPS Hostage Speaks Out
CPS Hostage Speaks Out
March 26, 2010 yvonnemason
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWaxglL0Wb8
http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/cps-hostage-speaks-out/
March 26, 2010 yvonnemason
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWaxglL0Wb8
http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/cps-hostage-speaks-out/
Death of Sen. Nancy Schaefer - What the media won't tell you.
MONDAY, MARCH 29, 2010
Death of Sen. Nancy Schaefer - What the media won't tell you.
From a Facebook note by Julie Kempson:
From Garland Favorito
Note to VoterGA Supporters:
Normally my communications have been limited to subjects about our electronic voting method, ballot access for candidates and elections related investigations. I feel led to make an exception and bring to your attention another non partisan subject: The high profile investigation that has been initiated into Friday’s death of a former Georgia state senator.
Garland
http://conservativestateproject.blogspot.com/2010/03/death-of-sen-nancy-schaefer-what-media.html
Saturday March 27, 2010
On Friday, former Senator Nancy Schaefer and her husband were found dead in their home in Habersham County. Even before a GBI investigation could be initiated, media outlets began pronouncing that their death was a “murder-suicide” and shut off most public comment posting on their web sites. The “murder suicide” theory implies that Sen. Schaefer’s husband shot her and then killed himself (or vice versa). Both Habersham County and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began investigating the case as a “murder suicide” rather than the more obvious “murder made to look like suicide”. Like so many people, I have known former Sen. Nancy Schaefer for 15 years and spoken to several people who know her better than I do. They believe that the “murder suicide” theory is highly unlikely for any one of the following reasons:
1. It is totally against Nancy Schaefer’s consistently strong commitment to the sanctity of life principles that she has fought so valiantly to uphold;
2. Nancy and her husband, Bruce, have five children and more than a dozen grandchildren who they would not choose to leave behind so abruptly;
3. Bruce’s problem with cancer was corrected and under control so there was no reason to end his life as one senator tried to imply;
4. Nancy or Bruce would not likely agree to commit such an act that violates the fundamental principles of their Christian faith;
5. Bruce was retired and the couple did not appear to be in any type of dire financial crisis that would lead them to commit such acts;
6. Bruce and Nancy knew that her sister who had Alzheimer’s disease needed her to help take care of her;
7. Friends who knew the couple best state that Bruce would simply not have the capability to kill his wife;
8. Nancy was dedicated, as a national leader, to help needy people overcome abuse within Child Protective Services organizations;
9. Nancy was actively exposing corruption within the Department of Family & Child Services (DFCS) including actions by the DFCS director in the county where she lived.
10. Nancy knew that she was needed in the fight against child sex slave trafficking in Atlanta which has one of the highest activity rates in the country;
11. Bruce was highly supportive of Nancy’s work for decades and would have little or no reason to suddenly try to kill her at such a critical juncture in her career.
Specifically in Georgia, former Senator Nancy Schaefer had found during the last few years that:
· DFCS in Georgia housed children in a foster home with a known pedophile who molested the children.
· DFCS in Habersham County failed to remove six children from a home where they are being abused and tortured.
· DFCS in Georgia turned two girls over to a California father who had a pornographic video business.
A report that Nancy Schaefer produced on these remarkable cases can be found here:
http://fightcps.com/2008/02/29/report-of-georgia-senator-nancy-schaefer-on-cps-corruption/
Nancy Schaefer was also interviewed extensively by talk show host Alex Jones about corruption in Child Protection Services nationally. A multi-part series of her interview and an Eagle Forum presentation can be found on You Tube here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nancy+schaefer&search_type=&aq=f
In addition, Senator Schaefer led opposition to HB582 and SB304, two bills introduced by fellow Republicans that would have likely resulted in increasing child sex slave trafficking. These bills would have made it legal for teenagers to participate in certain illicit acts. The bills effectively removed the legal authority that police now have to pick teenagers up and get them into protective custody so that they can no longer be pimped for those acts.
As President of Georgia Eagle Forum, Nancy Schaefer planned to be in Alabama this weekend for an Eagle Forum convention. Instead she chose to stay in Georgia to develop new information that would have further exposed corruption in DFCS and beyond. Many Eagle forum members who were close to Sen. Schaefer were aware of her courageous efforts. None of them believe that either she or her husband was involved in any type of suicide.
It is particularly ironic that the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) chose to quote State Sen. Don Thomas in their March 26 article about Sen. Schaefer’s death. The AJC portrayed him as a friend of the couple even though he lives on the other side of the state from the Schaefer family and was diametrically opposed to many of their core beliefs. Sen. Thomas, the Chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee, immediately propagated and expanded the “murder-suicide” theory without any first-hand knowledge or evidence. That is very disturbing considering it is his committee that should have been helping to clean up the corruption at DFCS. Activists supporting Sen. Schaefer explained that he constantly advocated increased power and authority for DFCS in spite of the evidence showing the organization was misusing that authority.
With Nancy Shafer no longer on the scene the question may be raised as to how best to continue her legacy. I believe that she would want conservatives, progressives, libertarians, constitutionalists as well as grass roots Democrats and Republicans throughout Georgia to unite and work to rectify the corruption in DFCS and eliminate child sex slave trafficking in Georgia.
PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED
Garland
Death of Sen. Nancy Schaefer - What the media won't tell you.
From a Facebook note by Julie Kempson:
From Garland Favorito
Note to VoterGA Supporters:
Normally my communications have been limited to subjects about our electronic voting method, ballot access for candidates and elections related investigations. I feel led to make an exception and bring to your attention another non partisan subject: The high profile investigation that has been initiated into Friday’s death of a former Georgia state senator.
Garland
http://conservativestateproject.blogspot.com/2010/03/death-of-sen-nancy-schaefer-what-media.html
Saturday March 27, 2010
On Friday, former Senator Nancy Schaefer and her husband were found dead in their home in Habersham County. Even before a GBI investigation could be initiated, media outlets began pronouncing that their death was a “murder-suicide” and shut off most public comment posting on their web sites. The “murder suicide” theory implies that Sen. Schaefer’s husband shot her and then killed himself (or vice versa). Both Habersham County and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began investigating the case as a “murder suicide” rather than the more obvious “murder made to look like suicide”. Like so many people, I have known former Sen. Nancy Schaefer for 15 years and spoken to several people who know her better than I do. They believe that the “murder suicide” theory is highly unlikely for any one of the following reasons:
1. It is totally against Nancy Schaefer’s consistently strong commitment to the sanctity of life principles that she has fought so valiantly to uphold;
2. Nancy and her husband, Bruce, have five children and more than a dozen grandchildren who they would not choose to leave behind so abruptly;
3. Bruce’s problem with cancer was corrected and under control so there was no reason to end his life as one senator tried to imply;
4. Nancy or Bruce would not likely agree to commit such an act that violates the fundamental principles of their Christian faith;
5. Bruce was retired and the couple did not appear to be in any type of dire financial crisis that would lead them to commit such acts;
6. Bruce and Nancy knew that her sister who had Alzheimer’s disease needed her to help take care of her;
7. Friends who knew the couple best state that Bruce would simply not have the capability to kill his wife;
8. Nancy was dedicated, as a national leader, to help needy people overcome abuse within Child Protective Services organizations;
9. Nancy was actively exposing corruption within the Department of Family & Child Services (DFCS) including actions by the DFCS director in the county where she lived.
10. Nancy knew that she was needed in the fight against child sex slave trafficking in Atlanta which has one of the highest activity rates in the country;
11. Bruce was highly supportive of Nancy’s work for decades and would have little or no reason to suddenly try to kill her at such a critical juncture in her career.
Specifically in Georgia, former Senator Nancy Schaefer had found during the last few years that:
· DFCS in Georgia housed children in a foster home with a known pedophile who molested the children.
· DFCS in Habersham County failed to remove six children from a home where they are being abused and tortured.
· DFCS in Georgia turned two girls over to a California father who had a pornographic video business.
A report that Nancy Schaefer produced on these remarkable cases can be found here:
http://fightcps.com/2008/02/29/report-of-georgia-senator-nancy-schaefer-on-cps-corruption/
Nancy Schaefer was also interviewed extensively by talk show host Alex Jones about corruption in Child Protection Services nationally. A multi-part series of her interview and an Eagle Forum presentation can be found on You Tube here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nancy+schaefer&search_type=&aq=f
In addition, Senator Schaefer led opposition to HB582 and SB304, two bills introduced by fellow Republicans that would have likely resulted in increasing child sex slave trafficking. These bills would have made it legal for teenagers to participate in certain illicit acts. The bills effectively removed the legal authority that police now have to pick teenagers up and get them into protective custody so that they can no longer be pimped for those acts.
As President of Georgia Eagle Forum, Nancy Schaefer planned to be in Alabama this weekend for an Eagle Forum convention. Instead she chose to stay in Georgia to develop new information that would have further exposed corruption in DFCS and beyond. Many Eagle forum members who were close to Sen. Schaefer were aware of her courageous efforts. None of them believe that either she or her husband was involved in any type of suicide.
It is particularly ironic that the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) chose to quote State Sen. Don Thomas in their March 26 article about Sen. Schaefer’s death. The AJC portrayed him as a friend of the couple even though he lives on the other side of the state from the Schaefer family and was diametrically opposed to many of their core beliefs. Sen. Thomas, the Chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee, immediately propagated and expanded the “murder-suicide” theory without any first-hand knowledge or evidence. That is very disturbing considering it is his committee that should have been helping to clean up the corruption at DFCS. Activists supporting Sen. Schaefer explained that he constantly advocated increased power and authority for DFCS in spite of the evidence showing the organization was misusing that authority.
With Nancy Shafer no longer on the scene the question may be raised as to how best to continue her legacy. I believe that she would want conservatives, progressives, libertarians, constitutionalists as well as grass roots Democrats and Republicans throughout Georgia to unite and work to rectify the corruption in DFCS and eliminate child sex slave trafficking in Georgia.
PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED
Garland
DCF Worker Accused Of Killing Foster Child Found Not Guilty
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-dcf-suzanne-listro-not-guilty-0329,0,5350064.story
DCF Worker Accused Of Killing Foster Child Found Not Guilty
Connecticut Department of Children and Families employee Suzanne Listro stands at her arraignment in Superior Court in Rockville, Conn., Thursday, July 17, 2008 in this frame grab from WFSB-TV Hartford. Listro was charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of a 7-month-old foster child in May, 2008. ((AP Photo/WFSB-TV) / July 17, 2008)
Related
Suzanne Listro
Closing Statements Made In Death Of 7-Month-Old
Listro's Defense Targets 'Syndrome'
Stories
Chief Medical Examiner Testifies In Listro Manslaughter Trial
Topics
Justice System
Crimes
Murder
See more topics »
The Hartford Courant
2:54 p.m. EDT, March 29, 2010
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Share
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TOLLAND - A judge this afternoon found Suzanne Listro, a foster mother, not guilty of manslaughter in connection with the death of her 7-month-old foster child who died nearly two years ago.
Judge William Bright Jr. also found her not guilty of risk of injury to a minor.
"I'm not saying this was an accident. I don't know," the judge said. "I cannot say without a reasonable doubt that Ms. Listro inflicted the injuries upon Michael Brown Jr."
Brown died May 19, 2008 of blunt traumatic head injury. Listro had been accused of killing the child by violently shaking him.
Listro, 44, has said the boy died after falling from her bed.
Prosecutors in the case declined to comment Monday.
— Staff Reports
DCF Worker Accused Of Killing Foster Child Found Not Guilty
Connecticut Department of Children and Families employee Suzanne Listro stands at her arraignment in Superior Court in Rockville, Conn., Thursday, July 17, 2008 in this frame grab from WFSB-TV Hartford. Listro was charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of a 7-month-old foster child in May, 2008. ((AP Photo/WFSB-TV) / July 17, 2008)
Related
Suzanne Listro
Closing Statements Made In Death Of 7-Month-Old
Listro's Defense Targets 'Syndrome'
Stories
Chief Medical Examiner Testifies In Listro Manslaughter Trial
Topics
Justice System
Crimes
Murder
See more topics »
The Hartford Courant
2:54 p.m. EDT, March 29, 2010
E-mailPrint
Share
Text Size
TOLLAND - A judge this afternoon found Suzanne Listro, a foster mother, not guilty of manslaughter in connection with the death of her 7-month-old foster child who died nearly two years ago.
Judge William Bright Jr. also found her not guilty of risk of injury to a minor.
"I'm not saying this was an accident. I don't know," the judge said. "I cannot say without a reasonable doubt that Ms. Listro inflicted the injuries upon Michael Brown Jr."
Brown died May 19, 2008 of blunt traumatic head injury. Listro had been accused of killing the child by violently shaking him.
Listro, 44, has said the boy died after falling from her bed.
Prosecutors in the case declined to comment Monday.
— Staff Reports
The Power of Words - Foster Care Providers
The Power of Words - Foster Care Providers
Written by Brenda Alexander-CPS-A System Out Of Control
Posted: 28 Mar 2010 10:22 PM PDT
It seems a small thing, saying foster mother or father but to the biological parent whose children have been stolen by CPS, it is huge. We either carried these children for 9 months, gave birth, raised and nurtured them or, in the case of a father, he helped to create this remarkable human being. By virtue of that alone, you are a mother or father. Regardless of what CPS tells you or your children, YOU are their mother or father. You are they're parent.
Foster care providers are just that...they are supposed to provide interim care until the real parents are finally able to regain custody of their children. Only in extreme cases of abuse and neglect should a child ever be placed up for adoption out of the foster care system. Yet thousands of parental rights are terminated every single day in this country because stealing children and selling them to adopters are the norm these days. The federal government gives the states millions of dollars each year, earned off the backs of your children. They get money from the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA); Title IV-E funding; Medicaid and Medicaid fraud; child support from the biological parents, SSI and disability. The more "special needs" labels you can paste on the child, the more money the state gets.
Also, it use to be that when a foster care provider adopted a child, the money stopped pouring in. Oh, that's not the way it is now. Foster care providers continue to get money each month (between $600 and $900 per child/per month) until they reach 18. It's interesting to me that we're now hearing of all these homeless 18 year olds that the states are trying to help because they were kicked out of their "foster" home the day they turned 18. Now the government is saying they'll continue to give them money up to the age of 21 IF they are allowed to stay in the foster home!
Let me ask you an honest question. How many biological parents do you personally know who have kicked their 18 year old child out of the home without a job, money, place to go, etc? Me? I don't know of any but that's just me. Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that all this "love" that fosters talk about (saying stupid stuff like "I do it because I LOVE the children") is really the love of money? They want that 18 year old gone so they can make room for their next little nest egg.
So please, when you write articles, emails, letters to government officials, etc., use the term "foster care provider" rather than "foster parents." They haven't earned that right. When it stops being about the money then maybe they'll deserve the other word but until them, don't give them more power than they already have.
Note from unhappygrammy:I personally call them foster "stranger's", because that's all they are is stranger's to our illegally stolen children. Only strangers would hold our children hostage for CPS/DCYF.
Written by Brenda Alexander-CPS-A System Out Of Control
Posted: 28 Mar 2010 10:22 PM PDT
It seems a small thing, saying foster mother or father but to the biological parent whose children have been stolen by CPS, it is huge. We either carried these children for 9 months, gave birth, raised and nurtured them or, in the case of a father, he helped to create this remarkable human being. By virtue of that alone, you are a mother or father. Regardless of what CPS tells you or your children, YOU are their mother or father. You are they're parent.
Foster care providers are just that...they are supposed to provide interim care until the real parents are finally able to regain custody of their children. Only in extreme cases of abuse and neglect should a child ever be placed up for adoption out of the foster care system. Yet thousands of parental rights are terminated every single day in this country because stealing children and selling them to adopters are the norm these days. The federal government gives the states millions of dollars each year, earned off the backs of your children. They get money from the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA); Title IV-E funding; Medicaid and Medicaid fraud; child support from the biological parents, SSI and disability. The more "special needs" labels you can paste on the child, the more money the state gets.
Also, it use to be that when a foster care provider adopted a child, the money stopped pouring in. Oh, that's not the way it is now. Foster care providers continue to get money each month (between $600 and $900 per child/per month) until they reach 18. It's interesting to me that we're now hearing of all these homeless 18 year olds that the states are trying to help because they were kicked out of their "foster" home the day they turned 18. Now the government is saying they'll continue to give them money up to the age of 21 IF they are allowed to stay in the foster home!
Let me ask you an honest question. How many biological parents do you personally know who have kicked their 18 year old child out of the home without a job, money, place to go, etc? Me? I don't know of any but that's just me. Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that all this "love" that fosters talk about (saying stupid stuff like "I do it because I LOVE the children") is really the love of money? They want that 18 year old gone so they can make room for their next little nest egg.
So please, when you write articles, emails, letters to government officials, etc., use the term "foster care provider" rather than "foster parents." They haven't earned that right. When it stops being about the money then maybe they'll deserve the other word but until them, don't give them more power than they already have.
Note from unhappygrammy:I personally call them foster "stranger's", because that's all they are is stranger's to our illegally stolen children. Only strangers would hold our children hostage for CPS/DCYF.
Foster mom gets probation in infant's death
Foster mom gets probation in infant's death
ShareThis PrintE-mail
By Larry Hartstein
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A foster mom who left a 9-month-old girl in a closed minivan, where the infant died of heat stroke, has been sentenced to probation, a fine and a community service.
More Atlanta area news »
Highs to hit 80 by Friday
Man shot to death outside Atlanta club
Cops: Man stabbed, house burned
Face-lift for Stone Mountain
Top news around the Web
Wendy Osborne, 31, received 12 months' probation and a $1,000 fine and was ordered to complete 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, a misdemeanor.
"There is no way the court can lessen the anger and frustration of those who loved the child," Judge Bob Adamson said at last week's sentencing in Jackson County Superior Court, according to the Braselton News. "This act is at the highest level of criminality of a misdmeanor involuntary manslaughter charge. If not for the recommendation of the district attorney, the court would have considered [jail] time in this case."
Osborne told authorities she returned from a doctor's appointment about 2:30 p.m. Sept. 2, 2008, and took her two adopted 3-year-old girls into her Nicholson home. She forgot about the baby in the car seat.
Osborne said she fell asleep, waking around 5 p.m. Then she remembered the baby in the minivan. The girl, Jessica Marie Scovil, was pronounced dead by emergency personnel called to the scene.
Osborne told authorities she had been sick for several days and was taking medication, which might have contributed to her drowsiness.
The infant had been living with Osborne for five months. Her birth parents were on the verge of regaining custody at the time of Jessica's death, relatives told the court.
"I will never understand how anyone could leave a 9-month-old baby in a hot van to die," said Jessica's grandmother, Georgia Nicholas, according to the Braselton News.
Osborne and her husband, Chris, had fostered several children before Jessica. Osborne even helped train new foster parents.
Before sentencing, witnesses testified on Osborne's behalf.
"I can't imagine that any punishment you can give her can be worse than what she's already been through," said Osborne's pastor, the Rev. Kent Barry, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. "She deals with this every day. She still has her two [5-year-olds] to care for, and when she looks at them, she can't help but see Jessica."
http://www.ajc.com/news/foster-mom-gets-probation-414567.html
ShareThis PrintE-mail
By Larry Hartstein
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A foster mom who left a 9-month-old girl in a closed minivan, where the infant died of heat stroke, has been sentenced to probation, a fine and a community service.
More Atlanta area news »
Highs to hit 80 by Friday
Man shot to death outside Atlanta club
Cops: Man stabbed, house burned
Face-lift for Stone Mountain
Top news around the Web
Wendy Osborne, 31, received 12 months' probation and a $1,000 fine and was ordered to complete 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, a misdemeanor.
"There is no way the court can lessen the anger and frustration of those who loved the child," Judge Bob Adamson said at last week's sentencing in Jackson County Superior Court, according to the Braselton News. "This act is at the highest level of criminality of a misdmeanor involuntary manslaughter charge. If not for the recommendation of the district attorney, the court would have considered [jail] time in this case."
Osborne told authorities she returned from a doctor's appointment about 2:30 p.m. Sept. 2, 2008, and took her two adopted 3-year-old girls into her Nicholson home. She forgot about the baby in the car seat.
Osborne said she fell asleep, waking around 5 p.m. Then she remembered the baby in the minivan. The girl, Jessica Marie Scovil, was pronounced dead by emergency personnel called to the scene.
Osborne told authorities she had been sick for several days and was taking medication, which might have contributed to her drowsiness.
The infant had been living with Osborne for five months. Her birth parents were on the verge of regaining custody at the time of Jessica's death, relatives told the court.
"I will never understand how anyone could leave a 9-month-old baby in a hot van to die," said Jessica's grandmother, Georgia Nicholas, according to the Braselton News.
Osborne and her husband, Chris, had fostered several children before Jessica. Osborne even helped train new foster parents.
Before sentencing, witnesses testified on Osborne's behalf.
"I can't imagine that any punishment you can give her can be worse than what she's already been through," said Osborne's pastor, the Rev. Kent Barry, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. "She deals with this every day. She still has her two [5-year-olds] to care for, and when she looks at them, she can't help but see Jessica."
http://www.ajc.com/news/foster-mom-gets-probation-414567.html
Rebecca Riley-- Death by Standard Psychiatric Care
Rebecca Riley--
Death by Standard Psychiatric Care
(801 word)
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
Author: THE ADHD FRAUD—How Psychiatry Make ‘Patients’ of Normal Children
28 Mar 2010
At 2 ½ years of age Rebecca Riley was diagnosed by psychiatrist Kayoko Kifuji to have ADHD and bipolar disorder. She was deemed ‘brain-diseased’/ ‘chemically imbalanced’ and in need of the chemical balancers—clonidine, Depakote and Seroquel—an especially poisonous antipsychotic. When she died at 4 it was said she was overdosed with clonidine by her parents, Carolyn and Michael Riley—both of them recently convicted of her murder.
Not only did organized psychiatry and her psychiatrist—Dr. Kifuji, get off scot-free but with clonidine blamed for her death, Depakote, Seroquel and most of the pharmaceutical industry, got a pass, as well.
District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said he believes the psychiatrist, Dr. Kifuji, who prescribed the drugs to Rebecca, should not be allowed to practice medicine in Massachusetts. He opined: “If what Dr. Kifuji did in this case is the acceptable standard of care for children in Massachusetts, then there is something very wrong in this state."
What Mr. Cruz seems ignorant of is that such glib, anti-scientific, diagnosing and drugging of normals, that Kifuji, and all psychiatrists, get away with, is psychiatry’s standard of care/practice not just in Massachusetts, but nationwide and worldwide. They brand every normal child brought to their offices ‘brain-diseased’/’chemically imbalanced’ and in need of chemical balancers—pills—just as Dr. Kifuji did to Rebecca Riley. This was the end of Rebecca’s life as a normal child.
On November 3, 2001, I wrote to Bernard S. Alpert, MD, President of the Medical Board of California:
“Dear Dr. Alpert, in the November 20, 2001, Family Circle magazine, Richard K. Harding, MD, President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) proclaimed that psychiatrists diagnose and treat "diseases” just like all other physicians.
Children and adults are told they have ‘brain diseases’/ ‘chemical imbalances,’ when, in fact, they are entirely normal.
Parents who resist are deemed ‘medically negligent’ and have their children taken from them, made wards of the court and diagnosed and drugged nonetheless.
Testifying before the Committee on Education and the Workforce, on “Behavioral Drugs in Schools,” September 29, 2000, I stated:
“It would be fraudulent of anyone to claim that any psychiatric condition is an actual disease.” Claims such as those in Family Circle, violate Senate Bill 836, under which: “… it is unlawful for any person licensed in the healing arts to disseminate any form of public communication, containing a false, fraudulent, misleading, or deceptive statement or claim.”
On June 14, 2002, Dr. Alpert responded:
Thank you for your letter relating to the mental health profession’s representation of emotional and psychological conditions as diseases of the brain. It is unfortunate that such advertising is allowed, and that it often serves to mislead consumers rather than educate them. As you have outlined in your letter, there is tremendous professional support for categorizing emotional and psychological conditions a diseases of the brain. In published materials…you will find that support from chairmen of psychiatric departments, the American Psychiatric Association and professors of major medical schools. It is clear that the psychiatric community has set their standard, and while one might disagree with it, that standard becomes the legal standard upon which the Board must base its actions.
Unbelievably, what Dr. Alpert, was saying here is that whatever the majority in a profession or specialty do--even lie and poison children and adults known to be physically/medically normal--that that becomes the unassailable, legal “standard of practice. ”
Conversely, for an ethical, scientific physician to tell patients the truth—that ADHD and all psychiatric diseases are not diseases at all, or to fail to prescribe drugs for each and every one would be contrary to the “standard of practice” putting that physician, a purveyor of truth and science--in legal jeopardy.
Now you know what the ‘standard of care,’ the ‘standard of practice’ is and how psychiatry commissioned by the pharmaceutical industry has authored it both in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and throughout their own entirely perverted, fraudulent ‘peer-reviewed,’ ‘scientific’ literature.
Do you wonder how they killed Rebecca Riley and got away with it?
Do you wonder that her parents were ‘fall guys’ convicted of her murder?
Nor is Rebecca alone. In the years, 1990-2000, 186 deaths due Ritalin/methylphenidate ‘treatment’ were reported to the FDA/MedWatch program—a number, like all such voluntary reporting systems thought to represent a mere one to ten percent of the actual number of deaths.
But then, this was the result of psychiatric care meeting psychiatry’s own best standard of care/standard of practice.
This is what was found to have been the case with Dr. Kifuji. This is why she is back labeling and drugging again, on the staff and faculty of the Tufts—New England Medical Center.
http://familyrights.us/bin/white_papers-articles/baughman-rebecca_riley.html
Death by Standard Psychiatric Care
(801 word)
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
Author: THE ADHD FRAUD—How Psychiatry Make ‘Patients’ of Normal Children
28 Mar 2010
At 2 ½ years of age Rebecca Riley was diagnosed by psychiatrist Kayoko Kifuji to have ADHD and bipolar disorder. She was deemed ‘brain-diseased’/ ‘chemically imbalanced’ and in need of the chemical balancers—clonidine, Depakote and Seroquel—an especially poisonous antipsychotic. When she died at 4 it was said she was overdosed with clonidine by her parents, Carolyn and Michael Riley—both of them recently convicted of her murder.
Not only did organized psychiatry and her psychiatrist—Dr. Kifuji, get off scot-free but with clonidine blamed for her death, Depakote, Seroquel and most of the pharmaceutical industry, got a pass, as well.
District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said he believes the psychiatrist, Dr. Kifuji, who prescribed the drugs to Rebecca, should not be allowed to practice medicine in Massachusetts. He opined: “If what Dr. Kifuji did in this case is the acceptable standard of care for children in Massachusetts, then there is something very wrong in this state."
What Mr. Cruz seems ignorant of is that such glib, anti-scientific, diagnosing and drugging of normals, that Kifuji, and all psychiatrists, get away with, is psychiatry’s standard of care/practice not just in Massachusetts, but nationwide and worldwide. They brand every normal child brought to their offices ‘brain-diseased’/’chemically imbalanced’ and in need of chemical balancers—pills—just as Dr. Kifuji did to Rebecca Riley. This was the end of Rebecca’s life as a normal child.
On November 3, 2001, I wrote to Bernard S. Alpert, MD, President of the Medical Board of California:
“Dear Dr. Alpert, in the November 20, 2001, Family Circle magazine, Richard K. Harding, MD, President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) proclaimed that psychiatrists diagnose and treat "diseases” just like all other physicians.
Children and adults are told they have ‘brain diseases’/ ‘chemical imbalances,’ when, in fact, they are entirely normal.
Parents who resist are deemed ‘medically negligent’ and have their children taken from them, made wards of the court and diagnosed and drugged nonetheless.
Testifying before the Committee on Education and the Workforce, on “Behavioral Drugs in Schools,” September 29, 2000, I stated:
“It would be fraudulent of anyone to claim that any psychiatric condition is an actual disease.” Claims such as those in Family Circle, violate Senate Bill 836, under which: “… it is unlawful for any person licensed in the healing arts to disseminate any form of public communication, containing a false, fraudulent, misleading, or deceptive statement or claim.”
On June 14, 2002, Dr. Alpert responded:
Thank you for your letter relating to the mental health profession’s representation of emotional and psychological conditions as diseases of the brain. It is unfortunate that such advertising is allowed, and that it often serves to mislead consumers rather than educate them. As you have outlined in your letter, there is tremendous professional support for categorizing emotional and psychological conditions a diseases of the brain. In published materials…you will find that support from chairmen of psychiatric departments, the American Psychiatric Association and professors of major medical schools. It is clear that the psychiatric community has set their standard, and while one might disagree with it, that standard becomes the legal standard upon which the Board must base its actions.
Unbelievably, what Dr. Alpert, was saying here is that whatever the majority in a profession or specialty do--even lie and poison children and adults known to be physically/medically normal--that that becomes the unassailable, legal “standard of practice. ”
Conversely, for an ethical, scientific physician to tell patients the truth—that ADHD and all psychiatric diseases are not diseases at all, or to fail to prescribe drugs for each and every one would be contrary to the “standard of practice” putting that physician, a purveyor of truth and science--in legal jeopardy.
Now you know what the ‘standard of care,’ the ‘standard of practice’ is and how psychiatry commissioned by the pharmaceutical industry has authored it both in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and throughout their own entirely perverted, fraudulent ‘peer-reviewed,’ ‘scientific’ literature.
Do you wonder how they killed Rebecca Riley and got away with it?
Do you wonder that her parents were ‘fall guys’ convicted of her murder?
Nor is Rebecca alone. In the years, 1990-2000, 186 deaths due Ritalin/methylphenidate ‘treatment’ were reported to the FDA/MedWatch program—a number, like all such voluntary reporting systems thought to represent a mere one to ten percent of the actual number of deaths.
But then, this was the result of psychiatric care meeting psychiatry’s own best standard of care/standard of practice.
This is what was found to have been the case with Dr. Kifuji. This is why she is back labeling and drugging again, on the staff and faculty of the Tufts—New England Medical Center.
http://familyrights.us/bin/white_papers-articles/baughman-rebecca_riley.html
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Child care reforms are investigated
Child care reforms are investigated
4:10am Sunday 28th March 2010
By Richard Vernalls »
THE rules around how children are taken into care across the county are being reviewed.
Councillors are forming a task force to look at the criteria for how vulnerable young people are taken into care.
Worcestershire county councillor Barry Gandy, chairing the task force, said the review decision had been taken in light of recent “high profile” cases of child neglect including that of Baby P in Haringey, north London, and Khyra Ishaq, in Birmingham, which had highlighted failures in other councils’ children’s services departments.
Members will look at the existing criteria in which children are taken into care in the county, the caseload of the children’s services child protection team and whether performance can be monitored.
http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/5170484.Child_care_reforms_are_investigated/
4:10am Sunday 28th March 2010
By Richard Vernalls »
THE rules around how children are taken into care across the county are being reviewed.
Councillors are forming a task force to look at the criteria for how vulnerable young people are taken into care.
Worcestershire county councillor Barry Gandy, chairing the task force, said the review decision had been taken in light of recent “high profile” cases of child neglect including that of Baby P in Haringey, north London, and Khyra Ishaq, in Birmingham, which had highlighted failures in other councils’ children’s services departments.
Members will look at the existing criteria in which children are taken into care in the county, the caseload of the children’s services child protection team and whether performance can be monitored.
http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/5170484.Child_care_reforms_are_investigated/
A timeline of death
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-child-death-chronology2-2010mar28,0,5124634.story
A timeline of death
12 troubled years for L.A. County's Department of Children and Family Services
RELATED
As more L.A. County children die, reform still falters
March 28, 2010
March 1998: A consultant sharply criticized oversight of the "non-system" of care provided by Los Angeles County's Department of Children and Family Services and its director, Peter Digre.
May 1999: Digre, hired eight years before as the troubled department faced possible state takeover, abruptly resigned amid signs he had worn out his welcome with supervisors. Board later hired Anita Bock, citing her toughness.
July 2002: Bock was forced out as supervisors complained of a failure to adequately staff the child-abuse hotline, quickly investigate abuse, streamline adoption and prepare children in the system for adulthood. David Sanders was later named director.
February 2004: Supervisor Gloria Molina tore into Sanders after a Canoga Park toddler was beaten to death by a mother who had been the subject of six previous abuse complaints.
January 2005: A 3-month-old baby was found dead in a washing machine after the mother burned down the house. The mother had been convicted of child abuse 10 years earlier.
October 2005: Sarah Chavez, 2, was beaten to death by her great-uncle, who later was convicted of manslaughter. The girl had been removed from a loving foster home months before.
June 2006: Sanders resigned. Trish Ploehn was later promoted to director.
April 2007: Two-year-old Angel Montiel died after being moved from foster care back to his parents. His mother later pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter after his battered body showed signs of burns and untreated fractures.
August 2007: A 2-month-old girl died, apparently of malnutrition and neglect, on skid row a day after a social worker investigated reports of possible abuse and left the 4-pound child with her mentally ill mother.
May 2008: A 2-year-old Pomona girl starved to death. She and her siblings had been taken from foster care and returned to their parents. Months earlier, social workers found they were doing well.
June 2008: A 5-year-old boy suffered what police called "unbearable physical and psychological abuse" at the hands of a mother and her girlfriend, both with histories of violence. Numerous agencies in the county interacted with the family but didn't communicate with one another.
April 2009: The Times reported that 14 children died of abuse and neglect in 2008 despite having been under the scrutiny of the Department of Children and Family Services. The next day, supervisors expressed shock but county officials acknowledged that 12 died under similar circumstances in 2007 and 14 in 2006.
June 2009: The Times reported that for at least 18 years, the county had ignored urgent and sometimes gruesome reminders that its agencies didn't share key information about neglected children.
July 2009: Six-year-old Dae'von Bailey was beaten to death by his mother's ex-boyfriend, who later pleaded guilty to his murder. The boy's family had been the subject of roughly a dozen abuse complaints, most of which were not substantiated by social workers.
December 2009: A 4-month-old in Santa Monica was beaten to death, allegedly by her stepfather. The girl was left in the home despite the recent removal of siblings because of allegations of abuse.
March 2010: A 2-year-old was beaten to death in the home of a foster mother who had been the subject of five previous abuse complaints. The woman lived with her boyfriend, a convicted armed robber.
March 2010: Deandre Green, 2, was beaten to death, allegedly by his mother's boyfriend. Family members said they had warned police and child-welfare officials about bruises and other injuries.
Source: Times reports
Los Angeles Times
A timeline of death
12 troubled years for L.A. County's Department of Children and Family Services
RELATED
As more L.A. County children die, reform still falters
March 28, 2010
March 1998: A consultant sharply criticized oversight of the "non-system" of care provided by Los Angeles County's Department of Children and Family Services and its director, Peter Digre.
May 1999: Digre, hired eight years before as the troubled department faced possible state takeover, abruptly resigned amid signs he had worn out his welcome with supervisors. Board later hired Anita Bock, citing her toughness.
July 2002: Bock was forced out as supervisors complained of a failure to adequately staff the child-abuse hotline, quickly investigate abuse, streamline adoption and prepare children in the system for adulthood. David Sanders was later named director.
February 2004: Supervisor Gloria Molina tore into Sanders after a Canoga Park toddler was beaten to death by a mother who had been the subject of six previous abuse complaints.
January 2005: A 3-month-old baby was found dead in a washing machine after the mother burned down the house. The mother had been convicted of child abuse 10 years earlier.
October 2005: Sarah Chavez, 2, was beaten to death by her great-uncle, who later was convicted of manslaughter. The girl had been removed from a loving foster home months before.
June 2006: Sanders resigned. Trish Ploehn was later promoted to director.
April 2007: Two-year-old Angel Montiel died after being moved from foster care back to his parents. His mother later pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter after his battered body showed signs of burns and untreated fractures.
August 2007: A 2-month-old girl died, apparently of malnutrition and neglect, on skid row a day after a social worker investigated reports of possible abuse and left the 4-pound child with her mentally ill mother.
May 2008: A 2-year-old Pomona girl starved to death. She and her siblings had been taken from foster care and returned to their parents. Months earlier, social workers found they were doing well.
June 2008: A 5-year-old boy suffered what police called "unbearable physical and psychological abuse" at the hands of a mother and her girlfriend, both with histories of violence. Numerous agencies in the county interacted with the family but didn't communicate with one another.
April 2009: The Times reported that 14 children died of abuse and neglect in 2008 despite having been under the scrutiny of the Department of Children and Family Services. The next day, supervisors expressed shock but county officials acknowledged that 12 died under similar circumstances in 2007 and 14 in 2006.
June 2009: The Times reported that for at least 18 years, the county had ignored urgent and sometimes gruesome reminders that its agencies didn't share key information about neglected children.
July 2009: Six-year-old Dae'von Bailey was beaten to death by his mother's ex-boyfriend, who later pleaded guilty to his murder. The boy's family had been the subject of roughly a dozen abuse complaints, most of which were not substantiated by social workers.
December 2009: A 4-month-old in Santa Monica was beaten to death, allegedly by her stepfather. The girl was left in the home despite the recent removal of siblings because of allegations of abuse.
March 2010: A 2-year-old was beaten to death in the home of a foster mother who had been the subject of five previous abuse complaints. The woman lived with her boyfriend, a convicted armed robber.
March 2010: Deandre Green, 2, was beaten to death, allegedly by his mother's boyfriend. Family members said they had warned police and child-welfare officials about bruises and other injuries.
Source: Times reports
Los Angeles Times
Family rights advocates mourn death of Nancy Schaefer
Family rights advocates mourn death of Nancy Schaefer
March 27, 10:29 PMFamily Rights ExaminerTeri Stoddard
Former Senator Nancy Schaefer
Related Links
2010 Family Preservation Festival
Nancy Schaefer's: Eagle Forum of Georgia
Nancy Schaefer's: Family Court Injustices to Men
Nancy Schaefer's: Cut the Power of the Family Courts
Nancy Schaefer's CPS speech on Youtube
Family rights advocates across the country are mourning the death of former Senator Nancy Schaefer. The bodies of Schaefer and her husband Bruce were found by their daughter Friday. They were both in the bedroom of their home in Georgia, and each had been shot once.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that The Georgia Bureau of Investigation found a suicide note written by Bruce, who was alledgedly suffering from cancer. Nancy had been shot in the back and Bruce was shot in the chest. People who knew Nancy balked at the idea that she committed a murder-suicide, as had been reported earlier, claiming a devout Christian wouldn't do such a thing.
Several people have posted on facebook that they had just spoken with Nancy, some saying they'd recently been with the couple. Each one saying that everything seemed fine. Mary Cadei Johnson wrote that she and Nancy had discussed, "the excitement of being able to meet each other in DC this July," adding, "she wanted to help me with a speech for my oldest daughter to give at the [Family Preservation] festival regarding Sibling Alienation."
Conservative Nancy Schaefer gained respect from both conservative and liberal family rights advocates for her bold and brave work exposing the corruption in Child Protection Services (CPS) and the US family courts. She gave a speech at the World Congress on Families in the Netherlands last year where she described how the US govt. was involved in human trafficking. View the speech HERE. Another speech on the subject can be seen in the video below.
Rumors abound that the couple were murdered for her work exposing this corruption, and that it was made to look like a murder-suicide.
More About: parental alienation · cps · child custody · family rights · parents rights · false allegations · Georgia · Sen. Nancy Schaefer
http://www.examiner.com/x-15873-Family-Rights-Examiner~y2010m3d27-Family-rights-advocates-mourn-death-of-Nancy-Schaefer?cid=examiner-email
March 27, 10:29 PMFamily Rights ExaminerTeri Stoddard
Former Senator Nancy Schaefer
Related Links
2010 Family Preservation Festival
Nancy Schaefer's: Eagle Forum of Georgia
Nancy Schaefer's: Family Court Injustices to Men
Nancy Schaefer's: Cut the Power of the Family Courts
Nancy Schaefer's CPS speech on Youtube
Family rights advocates across the country are mourning the death of former Senator Nancy Schaefer. The bodies of Schaefer and her husband Bruce were found by their daughter Friday. They were both in the bedroom of their home in Georgia, and each had been shot once.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that The Georgia Bureau of Investigation found a suicide note written by Bruce, who was alledgedly suffering from cancer. Nancy had been shot in the back and Bruce was shot in the chest. People who knew Nancy balked at the idea that she committed a murder-suicide, as had been reported earlier, claiming a devout Christian wouldn't do such a thing.
Several people have posted on facebook that they had just spoken with Nancy, some saying they'd recently been with the couple. Each one saying that everything seemed fine. Mary Cadei Johnson wrote that she and Nancy had discussed, "the excitement of being able to meet each other in DC this July," adding, "she wanted to help me with a speech for my oldest daughter to give at the [Family Preservation] festival regarding Sibling Alienation."
Conservative Nancy Schaefer gained respect from both conservative and liberal family rights advocates for her bold and brave work exposing the corruption in Child Protection Services (CPS) and the US family courts. She gave a speech at the World Congress on Families in the Netherlands last year where she described how the US govt. was involved in human trafficking. View the speech HERE. Another speech on the subject can be seen in the video below.
Rumors abound that the couple were murdered for her work exposing this corruption, and that it was made to look like a murder-suicide.
More About: parental alienation · cps · child custody · family rights · parents rights · false allegations · Georgia · Sen. Nancy Schaefer
http://www.examiner.com/x-15873-Family-Rights-Examiner~y2010m3d27-Family-rights-advocates-mourn-death-of-Nancy-Schaefer?cid=examiner-email
Senator Schaefer murder
Senator Schaefer murder
Mysterious murder of parenting advocate senator who spoke against USA Child Trafficking by corrupt FAMILY court judges.
Reference: Adoption and safe family act 1974 Walter Mondale and 1997-Enhanced by Clinton in 1997.
A 40 billion dollars business.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adv0Kxiu5wA
Mysterious murder of parenting advocate senator who spoke against USA Child Trafficking by corrupt FAMILY court judges.
Reference: Adoption and safe family act 1974 Walter Mondale and 1997-Enhanced by Clinton in 1997.
A 40 billion dollars business.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adv0Kxiu5wA
Nancy Schaefer Found Dead: Suicide Conspiracy Murder?
HTTP://WWW.POSTCHRONICLE.COM/NEWS/ORIGINAL/ARTICLE_212292307.SHTML
ORIGINAL NEWS
Published: Mar 27, 2010
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Nancy Schaefer Found Dead: Suicide Conspiracy Murder?
by Jack Ryan
Former State Senator Nancy Schaefer and her husband were found shot dead in their Georgia home. Police reported that the couple was both found at what looks like a murder-suicide.
Schaefer, 73, was a powerful Republican that represented North Georgia district twice in her life. Her husband was struggling against cancer at the time and was nearing his end of days. Authorities think it's possible that the couple decided to end their lives together to rid themselves of their daily pains, but the facts aren't adding up.
Authorities say they are investigating the scene as if it were a "murder-suicide" and are not sure what exact action led to their deaths. Police are conducting an investigation to find the exact cause of death. Police did not report any break-ins at the home.
In her last days, she was actively exposing the system of corruption and making the public aware of CPS (Child Protective Services). A government organization that she believes kidnaps children for money. CPS does not have over-sight Schaefer claims; she also claimed that young parents with no money were being targeted. There have been rumors that Schaefer was being targeted and murdered by CPS. (c) tPC
ORIGINAL NEWS
Published: Mar 27, 2010
Share This Article | Send Us A Tip | Site Search
Nancy Schaefer Found Dead: Suicide Conspiracy Murder?
by Jack Ryan
Former State Senator Nancy Schaefer and her husband were found shot dead in their Georgia home. Police reported that the couple was both found at what looks like a murder-suicide.
Schaefer, 73, was a powerful Republican that represented North Georgia district twice in her life. Her husband was struggling against cancer at the time and was nearing his end of days. Authorities think it's possible that the couple decided to end their lives together to rid themselves of their daily pains, but the facts aren't adding up.
Authorities say they are investigating the scene as if it were a "murder-suicide" and are not sure what exact action led to their deaths. Police are conducting an investigation to find the exact cause of death. Police did not report any break-ins at the home.
In her last days, she was actively exposing the system of corruption and making the public aware of CPS (Child Protective Services). A government organization that she believes kidnaps children for money. CPS does not have over-sight Schaefer claims; she also claimed that young parents with no money were being targeted. There have been rumors that Schaefer was being targeted and murdered by CPS. (c) tPC
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Autopsies being performed on Schaefer and husband
Report of Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer on CPS Corruption
MARCH 27, 2010...11:03 AM
Autopsies being performed on Schaefer and husband
State Sen. Don Thomas of Dalton said this morning he believed that Bruce Schafer had been ill
Couple’s daughter, who lives in the same gated community as the Schaefers, had no knowledge of any serious illness affecting her father
By Mitch Clarke and Stephen Gurr
mclarke@gainesvilletimes.com;
sgurr@gainesvilletimes.com
UPDATED March 27, 2010 11:42 a.m.
Autopsies are being performed today on the bodies of former state Sen. Nancy Schaefer and her husband, who were found shot to death Friday afternoon in an apparent murder- suicide at their Habersham County home.
Sheriff Joey Terrell said this morning that authorities believe they know who the shooter was, but wanted to wait until the autopsies are completed before releasing that information.
Terrell said the couple’s daughter, who lives in the same gated community as the Schaefers, discovered their bodies in a bedroom about 5:30 p.m. Friday. He said a handgun was used in the shootings and was found near the bodies.
Several notes were left behind, but Terrell declined to say who wrote them.
While State Sen. Don Thomas of Dalton said this morning he believed that Bruce Schafer had been ill, the sheriff said the couple’s daughter had no knowledge of any serious illness affecting him.
A prominent conservative Republican, Schaefer, 75, was known as a vocal opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage. She was elected to the state Senate in 2004 and served two terms, but she made several unsuccessful bids for public office prior to that.
State Rep. Rick Austin, whose district includes Habersham County, announced Schaefer’s death to a packed House chamber around 7:30 p.m. Friday and led lawmakers in a moment of silence.
Hall County legislators who had worked with Schaefer said they were saddened by the news.
“I had the privilege of serving with Nancy for several years in the State Senate and appreciated her kind heart and desire to serve the people of Georgia well,” said Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. “Nita and I will be praying for the entire Shaefer family and ask that the Lord will provide them with peace that passes all understanding during this difficult time.”
“The state of Georgia has lost two fine God-fearing people,” said state Rep. James Mills, R-Chestnut Mountain. “We should all pray for the family.”
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, said he served with Schaefer in his first term in the House. Because they served in adjoining districts, they often attended meetings together on White County issues, he said.
Collins said Schaefer served her district honorably.
“I always thought her to be an honest person who did what she thought was right,” Collins said. “It’s just a real sad event.”
Schaefer, who has been active in conservative Christian causes for many years, was president of Family Concerns, a Christian organization.
She was elected in 2004 after federally redrawn legislative districts created an open seat in the 50th District. She defeated two Republican challengers and a Democrat to win the seat.
Prior to that, Schaefer ran for mayor of Atlanta in 1993, was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 1994 and finished third in the GOP race for governor in 1998.
Before seeking re-election in 2008, she considered a challenge to Brown for the congressional seat. She later chose to run for re-election, but lost in the Republican primary to eventual winner Jim Butterworth.
She once hosted a daily commentary show on WNIV-AM, an Atlanta Christian radio station, according to her state Senate biography.
She was a former first vice president of the Georgia Baptist Convention, a frequent speaker to churches of all denominations, a speaker to civic and political organizations and a frequent guest on radio and local and national television programs.
In 2001, she became the first female trustee of Toccoa Falls College.
She and her husband lived in Atlanta for 35 years before relocating to Habersham County.
The 50th District, which she served, includes Habersham, Rabun, Towns, Stephens, Banks, Franklin, Hart and a portion of White counties.
Shaefer and her husband had five children and 13 grandchildren.
Staff writer Ashley Fielding and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
[not verified, but I do believe Sen. Nancy Schaefer was 73, her husband 75, and they had 16 grandchildren]
Recent Posts
Autopsies being performed on Schaefer and husband
Report of Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer on CPS Corruption
Sen. Nancy Schaefer and her husband Bruce have died
Senator Nancy Schaefer tells the TRUTH about Child Protective Services
Kids Murdered In Custody of CPS/DHS
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MARCH 27, 2010...11:03 AM
Autopsies being performed on Schaefer and husband
State Sen. Don Thomas of Dalton said this morning he believed that Bruce Schafer had been ill
Couple’s daughter, who lives in the same gated community as the Schaefers, had no knowledge of any serious illness affecting her father
By Mitch Clarke and Stephen Gurr
mclarke@gainesvilletimes.com;
sgurr@gainesvilletimes.com
UPDATED March 27, 2010 11:42 a.m.
Autopsies are being performed today on the bodies of former state Sen. Nancy Schaefer and her husband, who were found shot to death Friday afternoon in an apparent murder- suicide at their Habersham County home.
Sheriff Joey Terrell said this morning that authorities believe they know who the shooter was, but wanted to wait until the autopsies are completed before releasing that information.
Terrell said the couple’s daughter, who lives in the same gated community as the Schaefers, discovered their bodies in a bedroom about 5:30 p.m. Friday. He said a handgun was used in the shootings and was found near the bodies.
Several notes were left behind, but Terrell declined to say who wrote them.
While State Sen. Don Thomas of Dalton said this morning he believed that Bruce Schafer had been ill, the sheriff said the couple’s daughter had no knowledge of any serious illness affecting him.
A prominent conservative Republican, Schaefer, 75, was known as a vocal opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage. She was elected to the state Senate in 2004 and served two terms, but she made several unsuccessful bids for public office prior to that.
State Rep. Rick Austin, whose district includes Habersham County, announced Schaefer’s death to a packed House chamber around 7:30 p.m. Friday and led lawmakers in a moment of silence.
Hall County legislators who had worked with Schaefer said they were saddened by the news.
“I had the privilege of serving with Nancy for several years in the State Senate and appreciated her kind heart and desire to serve the people of Georgia well,” said Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. “Nita and I will be praying for the entire Shaefer family and ask that the Lord will provide them with peace that passes all understanding during this difficult time.”
“The state of Georgia has lost two fine God-fearing people,” said state Rep. James Mills, R-Chestnut Mountain. “We should all pray for the family.”
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, said he served with Schaefer in his first term in the House. Because they served in adjoining districts, they often attended meetings together on White County issues, he said.
Collins said Schaefer served her district honorably.
“I always thought her to be an honest person who did what she thought was right,” Collins said. “It’s just a real sad event.”
Schaefer, who has been active in conservative Christian causes for many years, was president of Family Concerns, a Christian organization.
She was elected in 2004 after federally redrawn legislative districts created an open seat in the 50th District. She defeated two Republican challengers and a Democrat to win the seat.
Prior to that, Schaefer ran for mayor of Atlanta in 1993, was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 1994 and finished third in the GOP race for governor in 1998.
Before seeking re-election in 2008, she considered a challenge to Brown for the congressional seat. She later chose to run for re-election, but lost in the Republican primary to eventual winner Jim Butterworth.
She once hosted a daily commentary show on WNIV-AM, an Atlanta Christian radio station, according to her state Senate biography.
She was a former first vice president of the Georgia Baptist Convention, a frequent speaker to churches of all denominations, a speaker to civic and political organizations and a frequent guest on radio and local and national television programs.
In 2001, she became the first female trustee of Toccoa Falls College.
She and her husband lived in Atlanta for 35 years before relocating to Habersham County.
The 50th District, which she served, includes Habersham, Rabun, Towns, Stephens, Banks, Franklin, Hart and a portion of White counties.
Shaefer and her husband had five children and 13 grandchildren.
Staff writer Ashley Fielding and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
[not verified, but I do believe Sen. Nancy Schaefer was 73, her husband 75, and they had 16 grandchildren]
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