Nashua Telegraph-Reader Takes Issue With Work of DCYF

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 Reader takes issue with work of DCYF This letter is about the state Division for Children, Youth & Families:

I would like to know if your workers are investigated before working for you, as they seem to have trouble telling the truth.

I understand the federal government pays the state $5,000 for every child in foster care. I read the papers and watch the news and talk to people.

You have a record of breaking up homes and lying about it. The boys are going to the same home; then that night they are put in separate homes.

You get an anonymous tip accusing someone and you go in and remove the child without checking anything. Or you go in and leave the child to be beaten and abused, saying you do not have enough workers or money.

A lot of the times the child you do take out of the house is returned without any findings – just a waste of money.

Pearl Besk

Merrimack

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/opinion/letters/452779-263/reader-takes-issue-with-work-of-dcyf.html

Time For NH DCYF Workers and Former DCYF Workers to Come Foreward

I am asking NH DCYF workers and former NH DCYF workers to come forward and speak up about the deceitful practices used on families in the illegal taking of their children. DCYF/CPS workers from other states are speaking up. It's time for NH workers to speak up also.
I am aware that Nashua DCYF workers have resigned, due to the illegal removal of so many children in the Nashua area, due to orders given by unsavory Supervisors. The former caseworkers have spoken up, but not to the people who can put a stop to these illegal practices.
If a Federal Class Action Lawsuit is started, none of you will be immune. The deceitful Supervisors will NOT protect any of you, as they will be defendents in this lawsuit also.They will be too busy trying to protect themselves. If you really want to help the families of NH, as you have already proclaimed, nows your chance.
We will NOT stop until the truth comes out and our illegally stolen children are returned.

In Response to David Johnsons letter in the Nashua Telegraph on Nov.7,2009

This is a letter I wrote and sent to the Nashua Telegraph, in response to David Johnsons letter published on Nov.7,2009. It has yet to be published, but I'm in hopes it will be.

I am writing in response to David Johnson's letter to the editor as to the Redress Grievance Caucus, as to bill's filed to remove a Judge and a Marital Master.
Mr. Johnson was quite correct in his letter and many of the citizens of NH, as well as people from other states are quite happy to see our Legislature is working toward helping the families of NH torn apart by the corruption of DCYF and our Judicial system. He's right, Republican's nor Democrats are safe from this corruption. Our children and families lives are at stake. It's about time someone within our government held DCYF and Judges accountable for the illegal practices used against families in the taking of their children. There is no Judicial accountability or Lawyer accountability in this state. Judges and Lawyers side with their own, as well as DCYF.
My grandson has been placed in a pre-adoptive home, scheduled to be adopted in December. From what I've been told, he's in the same foster strangers home where he was first placed, where he tried to hang himself at age six, because all he wanted was to be with his grandfather. He's been put adderal since then to calm down his newly found violent behavior since his removal by DCYF.
The Administrator in Concord stated in an e-mail to the Administrative Appeals unit that my grandson's name has been changed. To change a child's name before he's adopted is illegal, yet when does DCYF follow the law. They don't and neither do the Probate Court Judges. The Judges write the opposite of testmony heard in court in their decisions and the Supreme Court goes right along with them, seperating children from their families forever. I know this for a fact.
A DCYF worker told my husband and I that parental rights terminations in NH are never reversed.I myself have'nt seen this happen. She also told us our government gave them the power to do whatever they want and they do. No matter how many children they traumatize and families they tear apart. Do the Supreme Court Judges really believe that these Probate Judges or even District Court Judges are perfect? That they are alway's right? Or is it just a matter of siding with their own?
Something is definitely wrong with the NH Judicial system. I don't understand how our government can stand by and let this happen to it's own people. The people who voted them into office. I pray the Redress Grievance Caucus can straighten out this mess, seeing as they are the only elected official's with the gut's to go up against this corruption. Hopefully before my grandson succeeds in his next attempt to commit suicide.

DHHS/DCYF Fraud in New Hampshire

This is a letter I sent out to all NH state officials May 01, 2009. It turned many heads!
DHHS Fraud
I am writing to report the Fraud and abuse by DHHS/DCYF in N.H. Children are being taken from their families due to false allegations of abuse and neglect. No services are given to at-risk families before the child is removed, which is a Federal mandate. These children are not placed with relatives. Relative placement is never even considered, another Federal mandate not practiced by DCYF in Nashua, N.H. The children are immediately placed in Foster care, where DCYF receives Federal funding fraudulently. "Reasonable efforts" to reunify the families is not practiced by DCYF in Nashua, N.H. nor anywhere else. Proof of innocence is hidden from the courts and assessment workers do not investigate before a child is removed. The reason being, they have orders from the higher ups to take the child and run. Money means more to them than the life of a child.
Perjury and other deceitful practices are used by DCYF caseworkers and DCYF Lawyers to remove and keep children from their entire families and then fraudulently adopted out. Children are placed in orphanages, at a cost to the state of three hundred dollars per day instead of being placed with relatives.
Families are double and triple billed by the state for their unwanted services. Parents are railroaded once a report comes in. DCYF believes they are psychics and remove children by saying their sure the child will be neglected in the future and the Judges fall for it.
Parents are given real estate Lawyers for their child custody cases, who don't have a clue. The Judges refuse to let the parents fire them, even though they do nothing to defend the parent and claim they didn't fight because the court is their boss. The Lawyer refuses to file any and all appeals. The Judge states it's too bad if the child was taken illegally, appeals weren't filed.
DCYF caseworkers and their Lawyers laugh in the faces of Parents when they state,"The Judge has no say. It's all up to me if you ever get your child back.
Foster parents are being asked to take more children into their households than the law permits. When they refuse, the DCYF Supervisor’s response,”Who’s going to know?” So then in retaliation against the foster parent, the children already placed with the fosters are removed, even after open adoption is planned by the parents. Why are caseworkers and Supervisors, not to mention district managers hired by DCYF with no background in the child protection agencies?
I and plenty of other people have proof that what I am saying is true. The Nashua District office is the most fraudulent one in the state of N.H. Families have nowhere to turn, as Governor Lynch nor the Attorney General, Kelly Ayotte want to claim responsibility for the deceitful practices of DCYF toward innocent families. They both claim they have no jurisdiction over DCYF. Then who does? DCYF corruption in our state and throughout our country needs to stop. Our children's lives depend on our government to stop this abuse aimed at the American family. Our children are not for sale!

CPS a national “empire built on taking children”: Georgia Senator Schaefer warns

CPS A National Empire Built on Kidnapping and Selling Children
November 20, 2009 yvonnemason
by Kurt Schulzke on June 3, 2008

As the Texas CPS horror unfolds, some American parents watch passively as if it couldn’t possibly happen to them. Be warned. What Texas CPS did to the FLDS en masse, other states’ CPSs do every day across the country to individual families. You rarely hear about them because they are intimidated into silence. They keep quiet, hoping against hope that silence will bring their children back. But just as with Jews in Nazi Germany, this strategy rarely works. One reason: the government kidnappers get paid for selling the kids on to adoptive parents.

Your own CPS horror could begin any day in any number of seemingly innocent ways. On this theme, Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer, in November 2007, published a scathing report on CPS in Georgia in which she wrote:

The Adoption and Safe Families Act, set in motion by President Bill Clinton, offered cash “bonuses” to the states for every child they adopted out of foster care. In order to receive the “adoption incentive bonuses” local child protective services need more children. They must have merchandise (children) that sell and you must have plenty of them so the buyer can choose. . .

[T]hrough the process of dealing with multiple . . . mismanaged cases of the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS), I have worked with other desperate parents and children across the state because they have no rights and no one with whom to turn.

I have witnessed ruthless behavior from many caseworkers, social workers, investigators, lawyers, judges, therapists, and others such as those who “pick up” the children. I have been stunned by what I have seen and heard from victims all over the state of Georgia.

In this report, I am focusing on the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS). However, I believe Child Protective Services nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken almost beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be warned of the dangers.

The Department of Child Protective Services, known as the Department of Family and Children Service (DFCS) in Georgia and other titles in other states, has become a “protected empire” built on taking children and separating families. This is not to say that there are not those children who do need to be removed from wretched situations and need protection. This report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in “legal kidnapping” . . .

It’s all about money, says Senator Schaefer and she is not alone:

Look who is being paid! There are state employees, lawyers, court investigators, court personnel, and judges. There are psychologists, and psychiatrists, counselors, caseworkers, therapists, foster parents, adoptive parents, and on and on. All are looking to the children in state custody to provide job security. Parents do not realize that social workers are the glue
that holds “the system” together that funds the court, the child’s attorney, and the multiple other jobs including DFCS’s attorney.

Remember: “They must have merchandise (children) that sell . . .”

Hmm. Choice is important to “buyers,” isn’t it? It’s like the dog pound. Well behaved little puppies are much easier to sell than older, misbehaving ones. Interesting, in light of Hill Country Mental Healthcare eye witnesses who were awstruck at how well behaved and well adjusted the FLDS kids were. They saw no signs of abuse. Just a bumper crop of clean, healthy once-happy kids. No trouble makers. Perfect product for the Texas CPS kiddy auction.

Some counties are known to give a $4,000 bonus for each child adopted and an additional $2,000 for a “special needs” child.

Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing; that there is double dipping. The funding continues as long as the child is out of the home. When a child in foster care is placed with a new family then “adoption bonus funds” are available. When a child is placed in a mental health facility and is on 16 drugs per day, like two children of a constituent of mine, more funds are involved; . . .

Sexual Abuse of our Children in the Fostercare System

November 20, 2009 yvonnemason
Sexual Abuse
A recent class action lawsuit filed on behalf of foster children in the state of Arizona, Sergio B. v Arizona, serves to indicate the extent of sexual abuse of children in state care. The suit alleges that over 500 of an estimated 4,000 foster children-about 12.5% of the state’s foster care population-have been sexually abused while in state care. The action charges that “the acts and omissions of Defendants were done in bad faith, with malice, intent or deliberate indifference to and/or reckless disregard for the health, safety and rights of the Plaintiffs.”

The sexual abuse of children in government custody appears to be a particularly widespread problem. In Maryland, a 1992 study found that substantiated allegations of sexual abuse in foster care are four times higher than those found among the general population (Benedict & Zuravin, 1992). A followup study of a sample group of foster children found that nearly 50% of the substantiated maltreatment reports involved sexual abuse. Foster fathers or other foster family members were found to be the perpetrators in over two-thirds of the substantiated cases, while other foster children in the home were determined to be the perpetrator in only 20% of the incidents (Benedict, et al., 1996).

In Kentucky, sex abuse in foster care was “all over the newspapers,” according to department head Larry Michalczyk. The former Commissioner explained that within a few years of time, his state saw a child die while in residential placement, a lawsuit filed against a DSS staff member on behalf of a foster child, and legislative inquiries into its child protection system (Committee on Ways and Means, 1991). Kentucky would prove to be a problematic state. Lowry points out that case reviews conducted in conjunction with a Children’s Rights action found that only 55% of the children in the state’s care had legally mandated case plans (Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation and the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, 1988).

Perhaps the most significant indicator of the true extent of sexual abuse in foster care was a survey of alumni of what was described as an “exemplary” and “model” program in the Pacific Northwest, observed Richard Wexler during recent Senate hearings. “In this lavishly-funded program caseloads were kept low and both workers and foster parents got special training. This was not ordinary foster care, this was Cadillac Foster Care” he explained. In this “exemplary” program, 24% of the girls responding to a survey said they were victims of actual or attempted sexual abuse in the one home in which they had stayed the longest. Significantly, they were not even asked about the other foster homes in which they had stayed (Subcommittee on Children and Families, U.S. Senate, 1995).

Children’s Rights has initiated a number of successful civil suits against foster care and child welfare systems. One such suit was brought against the Illinois foster care system by attorney Benjamin Wolf, who instituted the legal action after concluding that the state’s foster care system functioned as “a laboratory experiment to produce the sexual abuse of children” (Subcommittee on Children and Families, U.S. Senate, 1995). Yet, by many accounts, the sexual abuse of children in the state’s care has increased along with the increase in placements, successful lawsuits notwithstanding. Even Patrick Murphy, the outspoken Cook County Public Guardian, admits that sexual abuse of children in the care of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has probably increased (Golden, 1997).

Categories: Abuse By Foster Parents, Abuse by CPS, adoption and safe families act Tags: yvonne mason, abuse, CPS, DFCS, childl abuse by CPs is an epidemic, child abuse in the system CPS A National Empire Built on Kidnapping and Selling Children
November 20, 2009 yvonnemason

Systemwide Abuses of Our Children While in Fostercare

November 20, 2009 yvonnemason

A 1986 survey conducted by the National Foster Care Education Project found that foster children were 10 times more likely to be abused than children among the general population. A follow-up study in 1990 by the same group produced similar results (Maier, 1997). The American Civil Liberties Union’s Children’s Rights Project has similarly estimated that a child in the care of the state is ten times more likely to be abused than one in the care of his parents (Farber, 1993). As of 1996, class action lawsuits had been filed in 31 states, with 36 consent decrees overseeing the operations of child welfare and foster care systems. The most common complaints focused on noncompliance with family preservation requirements, while procedural safeguards, case planning, and placement quality were also frequently cited for noncompliance (Amstutz, 1996).

The advocacy group Children’s Rights has been in the forefront of such legal efforts at system reform, having been involved in actions against child welfare systems in the states of Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana and New Mexico, and the cities of Kansas City, Missouri; Louisville, Milwaukee, and New York City (Children’s Rights, Inc., 1997a). But such problems are not limited to the states which have been successfully litigated against. As Children’s Rights attorney Marcia Robinson Lowry explained to a Congressional subcommittee: “We have turned down requests from a number of other states to institute additional lawsuits, solely because of a lack of resources” (Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation and the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, 1988).

In a legal action brought by Children’s Rights against the District of Columbia’s child welfare system, LaShawn A. v. Kelly (1993), the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that “because of the appalling manner in which the system is managed, children remain subject to continuing abuse and neglect at the hands of heartless parents and guardians, even after the DHS has received reports of their predicaments.” The court ruled that youngsters who have been taken into the custody of the District’s foster-care system languish in inappropriate placements, with scarce hope of returning to their families or being adopted, and that the agency entrusted with their care had “consistently evaded numerous responsibilities placed on it by local and federal statutes.”

Among the deficiencies cited was “failure to provide services to families to prevent the placement of children in foster care.” The court determined that the agency had “consistently failed to provide services or otherwise use ‘reasonable efforts’ to prevent placement. The result has been an increased risk of arbitrary or inappropriate placements as well as an increased cost to the District.” Based on the case records of children in foster care as of December, 1989, whose goal was to return home and who had entered into care through voluntary placement, the Court found the agency “had failed to provide services in 77% of their cases.” Frustrated by the lack of progress after years of litigation, child advocates succeeded in placing the District of Columbia child welfare system into full receivership in 1995, making it the first such system in the nation to come under the direct control of the Court. (Gaouette, 1996).

In a Pennsylvania case, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Baby Neal v Casey (1994) ruled: “It is a matter of common knowledge (and it is not disputed here) that in recent years the system run by DHS and overseen by DPW has repeatedly failed to fulfill its mandates, and unfortunately has often jeopardized the welfare of the children in its care.” The original complaint, filed by Children’s Rights on April 4, 1990, alleged that systemic deficiencies prevent the Pennsylvania department from performing needed services, and that it consistently violated the due process rights of both parents and children:

Specifically, plaintiffs claim that these amendments confer the right not to be deprived of a family relationship; the right not to be harmed while in state custody; the right to placement in the least restrictive, most appropriate placement; the right to medical and psychiatric treatment; the right to care consistent with competent professional judgment; and the right not to be deprived of liberty or property interests without due process of law.

One of the plaintiffs in the Pennsylvania suit was “Tara M.” on whose behalf the advocacy group charged the city of Philadelphia with neglect. Human Services Commissioner Joan Reeves guaranteed the young girl an adoptive home with specially trained parents. In August of 1996, Tara M. would make the headlines once again as her new foster parents were sentenced for “one of the most appalling cases of child abuse” Common Pleas Court Judge Carolyn E. Temin said she had ever heard. Nine-year-old Tara had to undergo three skin grafts and wear a protective stocking during her recovery from burns over more than half her body. Police said the foster parents punished the girl by stripping her, forcing her into the bathtub and dousing her with buckets of scalding water. This was the very best of care the city could provide for Tara, a girl who had already endured years of physical and sexual abuse in the several foster homes into which she had been placed over the years (Associated Press, 1996).

Typical of more recent actions is a Youth Law Center suit in California which accused Eloise Anderson, director of the Department of Social Services, of refusing to carry out state and federal laws which require audits of county child welfare programs. Among the deficiencies cited in the lawsuit: “children in California’s child welfare system have been subjected to inadequate supervision, substandard conditions and inadequate health care and education” (Gunnison, 1996). Indeed, the health care and educational needs of foster children are all-too-often neglected by the child welfare agencies entrusted with their care. In a recent examination of whether the nation’s foster children were being adequately serviced with respect to their health care needs, the General Accounting Office (1995c) found that:

[D]espite foster care agency regulations requiring comprehensive routine health care, an estimated 12% of young foster children receive no routine health care, 34% receive no immunizations, and 32% have some identified health needs that are not met . . .

[A]n estimated 78% of young foster children are at high risk for human immunodeficiency virus as a result of parental drug abuse, yet only about 9% of foster children are tested for HIV . . .

[T]hat the Department of Health and Human Services has not designated any technical assistance to assist states with health-related programs for foster children and does not audit states’ compliance with health-related safeguards for foster children.

As for the educational needs of children in state care, the situation is equally as distressing. Miami attorney Karen Gievers, former President of the Florida Bar Association, filed a lawsuit in 1996, alleging that while 73% of Florida children among the general population graduate from high school or get an equivalent diploma, less than half of the state’s foster children do (UPI News Service, 1996

Categories: Abuse By Foster Parents, Abuse by CPS Tags: child abuse by CPS, DFCS, systemwide abuses in CPS, yvonne mason Sexual Abuse in the System