Stolen Children, Foster Children and Adopted Children -- The Sad Realities of CPS and the Foster Care System

Stolen Children, Foster Children and Adopted Children -- The Sad Realities of CPS and the Foster Care System

Posted: 03 Mar 2010 11:40 PM PST

By: Brenda Alexander
March 4, 2010
© All rights reserved

Note: If you like this article and want to post it on your blog or website, please feel free to do so. You do not need to ask my permission although credit and a link back to me would be appreciated but it's not mandatory. I'm not going for a pulitzer prize here, just stating my feelings in regards to CPS stealing and selling our children.

There's a term that's used by social workers for parents who have fought CPS and regardless of the outcome of their case, they're called "veteran parents." I think that's an apt name as we all know fighting CPS makes us feel like we've been in a war. We have post-traumatic stress disorder as well as any number of other mental health issues. We suffer from depression, anger, frustration, terror and at times we're seriously concerned that we might be paranoid. I'll tell you just like my husband's attorney told us, "just because you're paranoid does not mean that someone isn't out to get you." Never is that more true than when fighting CPS for custody of your children.


There's a myth going around that states if you lose your children to CPS, you must have done something horrible to deserve it. Well, that's just not the reality. The truly abused children are the ones that are allowed to remain in their own homes as they are simply too damaged to bring in any money on the foster/adopt market. CPS only wants the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, genetically sound, healthy children, especially those under the age of 5, as they're the ones in demand. Visit Adopt Us Kids and there's a form on there where you put in a special order for the child of your dreams. Once you've been approved as an adoptive parent (i.e., you have a lot of money), then they find a family with a child that fits the description, removes the child, terminates the parent(s) rights and wham! you got your kid! It's as simple as that. It's a hell of a lot better than having your own cos who knows, you might not get what you want that way but this is a sure-fire way of getting quality children at rock bottom prices. Isn't being online great? Nowhere else but in America can you special order a kid online. We should be so proud!

Now we are going to deal with foster children who are taken not to be adopted out but rather so they can be used as human guinea pigs. Big pharmaceutical companies don't have a ready supply of parents willing to let them experiment on their children so they have to find them somewhere. While I am unable at this time to prove my theory as fact, I am quite convinced that they give social service agencies (CPS) kick backs in the form of grants to place foster children on high powered, dangerous pharmaceuticals, especially anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. It's been proven that anti-depressants cause suicidal thoughts and ideation in children yet they continue placing foster children on these drugs.

Gabriel Myers was one such child. At the age of 7, he got into an argument with his 19 year old baby-sitter and went into the bathroom of his foster care providers and hanged himself from the shower head. He was taking a cocktail of drugs including Symbyax. The following statement came off the website Symbyax.com...

"Antidepressants may increase suicidal thoughts or behaviors in some children, adolescents and young adults especially within the first few months of treatment or when changing the dose. No increased risk has been shown for adults over age 24, and risk decreased for those over age 65. All patients starting therapy should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for new or worsening depression symptoms, suicidal thoughts or behavior, or unusual changes in behavior. Symbyax is not approved for children and adolescents."

It makes no sense to me that he was placed on any drugs, much less this one. Are they just seen as throw-away kids? Children that no one wants? How can anyone with a conscious do this to a child? He was only 7 years old when he died all because some social worker, most likely a sociopath, removed this child from his home supposedly because he was in severe danger only to be placed in a home where he died! Why was the State of Florida NOT held accountable for his death? No one cares except, of course, his real parents. It's not going to make any real difference in how things are done. Foster children are still going to be placed on drugs, parental rights terminated, foster children adopted out and "loved" until they turn 18.

Unfortunately I have read too many blogs and websites created by foster care providers. In one, a foster/adopt mother in Texas made the statement she regretted every adopting her oldest 2 foster children. She called them liars and slangers and posted their pictures up for the world to see. She stated she couldn't wait until they turned 12 so that she could put them in a group home. She said she was a bad mother. Well, duh! Of course she's a bad mother. Actually, she's not even their mother, not in any real sense of the word.


I am the mother of 5 children all with very different personalities. Some were easier than others to raise but they all came with their own set of challenges. I love them all in spite of their faults. My love for them didn't disappear on their 18th birthday. I didn't throw them out of my home. I didn't demand the government give me more money to keep them in my home. In fact, the government didn't give me anything to raise my children. My husband and I had to work to give them what they needed and some of what they wanted.


But that's not the way it is in foster care. Foster care providers are not "parents." Calling them foster mom or dad is politically incorrect. They get anywhere from $600 to $900 per month, per child. They also get WIC (when appropriate), SSI, Medicaid, child support, Title IV-E funding as well as others and when the foster care providers adopt the children, they get a baseline of $4,000 to $6,000. Of course the more "special needs" labels you can attach to the child, the higher your base pay rises. It is not unheard of for some children to bring in upwards of $100,000 from ASFA adoption bonus money alone.


For those who are not familiar with ASFA, it stands for the Adoption and Safe Families Act which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1997. Basically it states that if a child has been in the foster care system for 15 out of 22 months and it is determined that the parents aren't doing even the minimal amount of work required to regain custody, they can, at that time, be placed up for adoption. To further this goal, that's when they gave the individual states' the baseline as incentives to find homes for these poor, wretched waifs.


There's a big problem with this law. The very children this law was designed to help are the ones who are still languishing in the foster care system. Most have been in there for at least 10 years. They're switched from foster home to foster home, what few belongings they have are in a plastic bag, and they stay there until either the foster care provider can't take care of them anymore or refuses to take care of them anymore. They act out and have problems bonding with their caretakers. These are the children that are used as human guinea pigs, given all these different drugs and getting tons of money from the drug companies and no one cares what it's doing to them. They're viewed as unwanted, unloved, uncared for and so what if the drugs kill them, they're never going to amount to anything anyway. It will be one less person draining our nation's resources.


The problem with this theory is that they are NOT unloved and unwanted. They have parents who loved them and did the best they could. If even half of the money given to foster care providers was given to biological parents, the vast majority of problems would go away and children could safely remain in their real homes. Substance abuse issues can be handled by sending the whole family into rehab. There's a few out there that take in the entire family, the Salvation Army being one of them. It's a very intense 6 month program and once you've successfully completed that, you move into transitional housing, also known as step-down. You live there for up to 2 years and are eligible for grants to go to school, job placement programs, all sorts of things to help make sure families are staying together. I will be writing an article regarding substance abuse and CPS in a later post so be on the look-out for it.


Another problem I see with foster care is that all these caretakers are swearing that they do it for love. Well, I guess in once sense that's true. They do "love" that money they're raking in. Now, I admit if you have just one foster child in your home, the $600 to $900 per month seems like chump change. However, the average foster home has 5 foster children living there at any point in time. So even if they receive the minimum, that's $3,000 per month, which is a lot more than most biological parents earn together in any given month.


That pays their mortgage, car payment, utilities, and there's right much left over for luxuries. Remember they don't have to pay for food as they get up to $300 per month, per child in food stamps. That varies from home to home though and the food stamps are supposed to go to the foster child only. Of course that's not reasonable. No one expects the families to cook 2 separate meals but it is suppose to equal out at the end of the month.


One of my best friend's has a 17 year old grandson who was adopted out of the foster care system and sneaks away to call her and his mom as often as he can. He called her recently asking if she would buy him a belt because he only had hand-me-down pants and they were 2 sizes too big. The adoptive parents would not buy him a belt. Nor was he allowed to wear his winter coat except when they went out as a family. They live in a very mountainous area. It's cold where they are but he's only allowed a windbreaker to wear to school. He got caught talking to his grandmother the other day and now they're trying to put him in an institution.


See, he will be turning 18 in November. He is going home. There's a new law that gives foster care providers their monthly stipend on up to the age of 21 IF they allow the children to stay past their 18th birthdays. Of course his adopted parents want to continue receiving money for him so they're trying to get him diagnosed as incompetent so he can't legally leave his foster care provider's home. Gone now are the days when monthly checks stopped at the time of adoption. No, they continue receiving a monthly check until the child turns 18 or 21, depending. How many biological parents do you personally know that have kicked their children out of their home, with no job, no money and nowhere to go on their 18th birthdays? I'm guessing none because that's how many I personally know. We don't magically stop loving our children on their 18th birthdays. Some children do move out but that's their choice, not ours. Many go on to college and live on campus or with roommates. Some even go back-packing in Europe. However, the vast majority of children not going to college are staying at home well past their 18th birthdays. There's nothing wrong with insisting they go to work and pay rent either. It teaches them fiscal responsibility. I just find it so amazing though that the love for a foster child just one day stops. How people can be like that and still sleep at night is beyond me. My oldest just turned 30 and I still love him. I always will and he, like all the others, have a place to live if they ever need it. Why? Because I'm their mother, that's why. It's what we do.


One last thing I want to touch on in this article is that the definition of child abuse and neglect varies from state to state, city to city, and county to county. Where it's legal and okay to spank your child here, it's illegal over there. The definitions are subjective and vague. They're left open to interpretation by the social worker in charge of your case. If you get one that's bitter and angry over a failed marriage, then he or she may take that out on you and your family. Often they try to force parents to separate in order for one of them to regain custody. They claim you're being physically and/or verbally abused and since it's impossible to prove a negative, there's very little you can do to combat these claims in court.


Social workers have absolute immunity from perjury. They can lie, twist facts, exaggerate and fabricate evidence and even if you can prove their lies, they're never held accountable. They make you think they have more power than law enforcement personnel and demand entry into your home without a warrant. It is vital for every family to know what their rights are, what to do and what NOT to do if CPS comes knocking. Don't wait until they investigate because then it's too late. No one is immune. I'm sure Charlie Sheen and Tiger Woods thought they were immune too but they know differently now.


So if you have a friend, family member, neighbor or co-worker who is fighting CPS for their children, rather than being judgmental, find out what they're investigating and why. The vast majority of abuse allegations are done so maliciously and falsely. A lot of people make these calls to get even but it's the children you would be hurting the most. Don't look for ways to get even, look for ways to forgive. That's much healthier for all in the long run.