9-year-old boy allegedly stabs sister in back
By Lucas Sullivan | Monday, December 7, 2009, 11:28 AM
DAYTON - Police arrested a 9-year-old boy after he allegedly stabbed his 12-year-old sister in the back with a knife Sunday, Dec. 6.
Officers arrived to the 3400 block of Haberer Avenue about 10 a.m. to find the girl with a “severe” stab wound in her upper back, according to a police report.
The girl was standing in the kitchen crying and had to be taken by medics to Dayton Children’s Medical Center, the report stated.
She was having trouble breathing, but her injuries were described as non-life threatening, the report stated. She is expected to fully recover, police said.
Before leaving she told officers she and her brother were arguing and he returned to the kitchen with a knife and stabbed her, the report stated.
The children’s adoptive mother, Donna Patterson, 52, heard screaming and ran into the kitchen, but the girl had already been stabbed, the report stated.
Patterson said she wanted to press charges against the boy and he was fingerprinted at the county jail before placed in the county juvenile detention center on a felony assault charge, the report stated.
Patterson told officers she has asked Montgomery County Children’s Services to “reverse” the boy’s adoption because he is violent, but has received no resolution, the report stated.
Children’s Services spokeswoman Ann Stevens said Patterson adopted the boy in 2002 and his sister in 2005. Patterson recently requested the agency “intervene,” but the parties have yet to set a date to discuss her issues, Stevens said.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/daytoncrime/entries/2009/12/07/9yearold_boy_arrested_for_stab.html
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Lawsuit could hurt state’s foster care
Lawsuit could hurt state’s foster care
POINT OF VIEW Keeping families together is vital
BY RICHARD WEXLER The Oklahoman Published: December 6, 2009
Pity the vulnerable children of Oklahoma, trapped between a state agency that routinely lets them be abused in its care and some lawyers who mean well, but don’t have a clue how to stop it.
MultimediaPhoto
view all photos The horror show that is Oklahoma foster care is aptly symbolized by the foster parent who justified abusing foster children by declaring: "If you don’t beat them down, they will run all over you.” Less well known: The Oklahoma Department of Human Services declared the complaint against this foster parent "unconfirmed.”
The group that calls itself Children’s Rights (CR) deserves credit for bringing this case and many others to light through its lawsuit against DHS. It has helped keep these horrors in the news. That, in itself, may force some change for the better. But the lawsuit itself is likely to accomplish nothing and, if CR’s recent track record is any indication, it may even do harm.
That’s because the lawsuit ignores the issue that drives everything else, something made clear in a comprehensive performance audit of DHS from Hornby Zeller Associates, commissioned by the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Repeatedly, that report warns that "Oklahoma removes too many children from home.”
My organization’s data confirm that Oklahoma tears apart families at one of the highest rates in the nation, more than 50 percent above the national average, and double or triple the rate in states widely regarded as, relatively speaking, models for keeping children safe.
This hurts children in every possible way. Even when foster homes are not abusive — the majority are not — the inherent trauma of needless removal can destroy a child’s psyche for life.
One recent study of foster care "alumni” found they had twice the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder of Gulf War veterans and only 20 percent could be said to be "doing well.” A second study, of 15,000 typical cases, found that even maltreated children left in their own homes with little or no help fared better, on average, than comparably maltreated children placed in foster care.
Wrongful removal also overloads the system, stealing workers’ time from finding children in real danger who really should be taken from their homes.
The Hornby Zeller report insightfully dissects the reasons for Oklahoma’s obscene rate of child removal and offers some smart, specific solutions.
But Children’s Rights is silent on this. And the group’s recent track record is alarming: Its settlement in Michigan led that state to cut funds for prevention and family preservation in order to hire more workers to take away more children. So unless CR changes its approach, its lawsuit is likely to leave Oklahoma with the same lousy system only bigger.
If CR can’t get past its bureaucratic take-the-child-and-run mind-set and propose a settlement that emphasizes safe, proven programs to keep families together, then it should drop its suit and go away — before it makes things even worse.
Wexler is executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, www.nccpr.org.
My organization’s data confirm that Oklahoma tears apart families at one of the highest rates in the nation, more than 50 percent above the national average.
Read more: http://www.newsok.com/article/3422896?searched=Richard%20Wexler#ixzz0ZC0bNrEA
POINT OF VIEW Keeping families together is vital
BY RICHARD WEXLER The Oklahoman Published: December 6, 2009
Pity the vulnerable children of Oklahoma, trapped between a state agency that routinely lets them be abused in its care and some lawyers who mean well, but don’t have a clue how to stop it.
MultimediaPhoto
view all photos The horror show that is Oklahoma foster care is aptly symbolized by the foster parent who justified abusing foster children by declaring: "If you don’t beat them down, they will run all over you.” Less well known: The Oklahoma Department of Human Services declared the complaint against this foster parent "unconfirmed.”
The group that calls itself Children’s Rights (CR) deserves credit for bringing this case and many others to light through its lawsuit against DHS. It has helped keep these horrors in the news. That, in itself, may force some change for the better. But the lawsuit itself is likely to accomplish nothing and, if CR’s recent track record is any indication, it may even do harm.
That’s because the lawsuit ignores the issue that drives everything else, something made clear in a comprehensive performance audit of DHS from Hornby Zeller Associates, commissioned by the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Repeatedly, that report warns that "Oklahoma removes too many children from home.”
My organization’s data confirm that Oklahoma tears apart families at one of the highest rates in the nation, more than 50 percent above the national average, and double or triple the rate in states widely regarded as, relatively speaking, models for keeping children safe.
This hurts children in every possible way. Even when foster homes are not abusive — the majority are not — the inherent trauma of needless removal can destroy a child’s psyche for life.
One recent study of foster care "alumni” found they had twice the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder of Gulf War veterans and only 20 percent could be said to be "doing well.” A second study, of 15,000 typical cases, found that even maltreated children left in their own homes with little or no help fared better, on average, than comparably maltreated children placed in foster care.
Wrongful removal also overloads the system, stealing workers’ time from finding children in real danger who really should be taken from their homes.
The Hornby Zeller report insightfully dissects the reasons for Oklahoma’s obscene rate of child removal and offers some smart, specific solutions.
But Children’s Rights is silent on this. And the group’s recent track record is alarming: Its settlement in Michigan led that state to cut funds for prevention and family preservation in order to hire more workers to take away more children. So unless CR changes its approach, its lawsuit is likely to leave Oklahoma with the same lousy system only bigger.
If CR can’t get past its bureaucratic take-the-child-and-run mind-set and propose a settlement that emphasizes safe, proven programs to keep families together, then it should drop its suit and go away — before it makes things even worse.
Wexler is executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, www.nccpr.org.
My organization’s data confirm that Oklahoma tears apart families at one of the highest rates in the nation, more than 50 percent above the national average.
Read more: http://www.newsok.com/article/3422896?searched=Richard%20Wexler#ixzz0ZC0bNrEA
CPS Worker Fatally Shot Outside Her Bronx Home
KAREN ZRAICK and AL BAKER
Published: December 7, 2009
A child protection specialist was fatally shot in the head outside her Bronx home early on Monday as she prepared to take her two young daughters to elementary school, the police and neighbors said.
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Lakisha Scriven, 30, was shot outside her home on Furman Avenue in the Wakefield section of the Bronx while she was putting her daughters, 5 and 8, in her vehicle to take them to school.
“I was getting ready to leave home and I heard the kids screaming,” said a neighbor, Pearl Rogers, 72. “She was saying, ‘Mommy! Mommy!’ It will never get out of my mind, the way that kid was screaming. It just hurt my heart.”
The victim, Lakisha Scriven, 30, appeared to have been the intended target of the gunman, who fired at close range at about 7:15 a.m., according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing. She was shot once in the back of the head and pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center an hour and a half hour later.
The police had not named any suspects as of Monday night. Detectives were speaking with Ms. Scriven’s companion, Clarence White, the father of the two girls, ages 5 and 8, the law enforcement official said. The couple had been living together in an apartment on Furman Avenue, but Ms. Scriven asked Mr. White to leave after a dispute on Friday, the official added. They had planned to share child care duties, with Ms. Scriven dropping the girls off at school and Mr. White picking them up. Monday was to be the first day of the new arrangement.
Ms. Scriven worked in a Bronx office of New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services. She had been employed there about four years and was promoted to a supervisory position in 2007, the agency said in a statement.
“Her bubbly love of life has been mentioned by all who knew her,” John Mattingly, the agency’s commissioner, wrote in an e-mail message to the staff on Monday afternoon.
Ms. Scriven was “a hard-working advocate on behalf of the children of New York City,” he wrote. “She spent time in all the Bronx sites because staff knew she could go into a new unit and pick up responsibilities with enthusiasm and competence.”
Neighbors said Ms. Scriven had lived on the block with her daughters for about five years.
“She was a good mother,” said Gloria Garrett, 58, whose grandson is a cousin of Ms. Scriven’s. “She was always with her two little girls.”
Another neighbor, Maria Santacruz, 37, said she worried about the long-term effects of such a traumatic event on Ms. Scriven’s daughters.
“They’re very sweet girls,” she said. “This is something they’re never going to forget, to see their mother killed that way.”
Julie Bosman and Mathew R. Warren contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/nyregion/08mother.html?_r=2
Published: December 7, 2009
A child protection specialist was fatally shot in the head outside her Bronx home early on Monday as she prepared to take her two young daughters to elementary school, the police and neighbors said.
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Lakisha Scriven, 30, was shot outside her home on Furman Avenue in the Wakefield section of the Bronx while she was putting her daughters, 5 and 8, in her vehicle to take them to school.
“I was getting ready to leave home and I heard the kids screaming,” said a neighbor, Pearl Rogers, 72. “She was saying, ‘Mommy! Mommy!’ It will never get out of my mind, the way that kid was screaming. It just hurt my heart.”
The victim, Lakisha Scriven, 30, appeared to have been the intended target of the gunman, who fired at close range at about 7:15 a.m., according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing. She was shot once in the back of the head and pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center an hour and a half hour later.
The police had not named any suspects as of Monday night. Detectives were speaking with Ms. Scriven’s companion, Clarence White, the father of the two girls, ages 5 and 8, the law enforcement official said. The couple had been living together in an apartment on Furman Avenue, but Ms. Scriven asked Mr. White to leave after a dispute on Friday, the official added. They had planned to share child care duties, with Ms. Scriven dropping the girls off at school and Mr. White picking them up. Monday was to be the first day of the new arrangement.
Ms. Scriven worked in a Bronx office of New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services. She had been employed there about four years and was promoted to a supervisory position in 2007, the agency said in a statement.
“Her bubbly love of life has been mentioned by all who knew her,” John Mattingly, the agency’s commissioner, wrote in an e-mail message to the staff on Monday afternoon.
Ms. Scriven was “a hard-working advocate on behalf of the children of New York City,” he wrote. “She spent time in all the Bronx sites because staff knew she could go into a new unit and pick up responsibilities with enthusiasm and competence.”
Neighbors said Ms. Scriven had lived on the block with her daughters for about five years.
“She was a good mother,” said Gloria Garrett, 58, whose grandson is a cousin of Ms. Scriven’s. “She was always with her two little girls.”
Another neighbor, Maria Santacruz, 37, said she worried about the long-term effects of such a traumatic event on Ms. Scriven’s daughters.
“They’re very sweet girls,” she said. “This is something they’re never going to forget, to see their mother killed that way.”
Julie Bosman and Mathew R. Warren contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/nyregion/08mother.html?_r=2
Barbaric’ family courts behind state sponsored kidnap’ -Sound Familiar?
Barbaric’ family courts behind ‘state sponsored kidnap’ – Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof has launched an outspoken attack on the family courts system accusing it of routinely allowing “state sponsored kidnap” of vulnerable children.
By John Bingham
Published: 4:56PM GMT 07 Dec 2009
Bob Geldof Photo: Stephen Lock The singer and anti-poverty campaigner described the current child custody laws as “barbaric and abusive” and dismissed the system as a “disgraceful mess”.
He claimed that children’s futures are being decided on the basis of “mumbo jumbo” and “social engineering” with devastating long-term consequences for society.
Related Articles
Judge condemns councils for funding row that left foster parents with 'poison fruit'
Mother taken to court for refusing to allow daughter to have swine flu vaccination
Family courts prepare to open doors Mr Geldof, who fought for custody of his three daughters from his former wife Paula Yates, also alleged that British courts “consistently” show bias against men by handing custody to mothers.
His comments come in the foreword to a new report which draws together a clutch of recent research on the psychological effects of break-up on children.
The paper, published by The Custody Minefield, an internet legal advice service, and supported by Families Need fathers, the campaign group, calls for a change in the law on relocation cases in which separated parents apply for permission to move elsewhere.
It calls for the current guidelines to be changed to include an explicit ban on decisions favouring mothers on grounds of gender.
The report lists a raft of academic research which it says shows that children with no paternal influence are more likely to have behavioural problems, lower exam results, mental health problems, and even lower IQs.
It follows a recent study which found that up to a third of children whose parents separate lost touch with their father permanently.
“In the near future the family law under which we endure will be seen as barbaric, criminally damaging, abusive, neglectful, harmful to society, the family, the parents and the children in whose name it purports to act,” wrote Mr Geldof.
“It is beyond scrutiny or criticism and like a secret society its members – the judges, lawyers, social and child ‘care’ agencies behave like any closed vested interest and protect each others’ backs.”
He described the system as: "A farrago of cod professionalism and faux concern largely predicated on nonsensical social guff, mumbo-jumbo and psychobabble.
“Dangling at the other end of this are the lives of thousands of British children and their families.”
In a reference to the famed wisdom of the Biblical King Solomon, he added: “Rather than Solomon-like resolving our tragically human disputes with understanding, compassion and logical pragmatism, the courts have consistently acted against society’s interest through the application of prejudice, gender bias and awful impartial cruelty.”
Presented with two women who both claimed to be the mother of a baby, Solomon is said to have suggested cutting the child in half. One of them immediately begged him to give the baby to her rival, demonstrating that she was the true mother.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "We are creating a family court system that is transparent, accountable, and inspires public confidence in its good work, whilst still protecting the privacy of children and families involved.
"That is why we have allowed greater media access to family courts which will lead to greater trust. We have also increased access to out of court family mediation by putting information about divorce, relationship breakdown and the family courts, and a link to the Family Mediation Helpline website, on the DirectGov website.
"It is for the court to consider the evidence put before them in each individual case. However, the child's welfare will always be the court's paramount consideration."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/6753273/Barbaric-family-courts-behind-state-sponsored-kidnap---Bob-Geldof.html
Bob Geldof has launched an outspoken attack on the family courts system accusing it of routinely allowing “state sponsored kidnap” of vulnerable children.
By John Bingham
Published: 4:56PM GMT 07 Dec 2009
Bob Geldof Photo: Stephen Lock The singer and anti-poverty campaigner described the current child custody laws as “barbaric and abusive” and dismissed the system as a “disgraceful mess”.
He claimed that children’s futures are being decided on the basis of “mumbo jumbo” and “social engineering” with devastating long-term consequences for society.
Related Articles
Judge condemns councils for funding row that left foster parents with 'poison fruit'
Mother taken to court for refusing to allow daughter to have swine flu vaccination
Family courts prepare to open doors Mr Geldof, who fought for custody of his three daughters from his former wife Paula Yates, also alleged that British courts “consistently” show bias against men by handing custody to mothers.
His comments come in the foreword to a new report which draws together a clutch of recent research on the psychological effects of break-up on children.
The paper, published by The Custody Minefield, an internet legal advice service, and supported by Families Need fathers, the campaign group, calls for a change in the law on relocation cases in which separated parents apply for permission to move elsewhere.
It calls for the current guidelines to be changed to include an explicit ban on decisions favouring mothers on grounds of gender.
The report lists a raft of academic research which it says shows that children with no paternal influence are more likely to have behavioural problems, lower exam results, mental health problems, and even lower IQs.
It follows a recent study which found that up to a third of children whose parents separate lost touch with their father permanently.
“In the near future the family law under which we endure will be seen as barbaric, criminally damaging, abusive, neglectful, harmful to society, the family, the parents and the children in whose name it purports to act,” wrote Mr Geldof.
“It is beyond scrutiny or criticism and like a secret society its members – the judges, lawyers, social and child ‘care’ agencies behave like any closed vested interest and protect each others’ backs.”
He described the system as: "A farrago of cod professionalism and faux concern largely predicated on nonsensical social guff, mumbo-jumbo and psychobabble.
“Dangling at the other end of this are the lives of thousands of British children and their families.”
In a reference to the famed wisdom of the Biblical King Solomon, he added: “Rather than Solomon-like resolving our tragically human disputes with understanding, compassion and logical pragmatism, the courts have consistently acted against society’s interest through the application of prejudice, gender bias and awful impartial cruelty.”
Presented with two women who both claimed to be the mother of a baby, Solomon is said to have suggested cutting the child in half. One of them immediately begged him to give the baby to her rival, demonstrating that she was the true mother.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "We are creating a family court system that is transparent, accountable, and inspires public confidence in its good work, whilst still protecting the privacy of children and families involved.
"That is why we have allowed greater media access to family courts which will lead to greater trust. We have also increased access to out of court family mediation by putting information about divorce, relationship breakdown and the family courts, and a link to the Family Mediation Helpline website, on the DirectGov website.
"It is for the court to consider the evidence put before them in each individual case. However, the child's welfare will always be the court's paramount consideration."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/6753273/Barbaric-family-courts-behind-state-sponsored-kidnap---Bob-Geldof.html
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Nancy Grace Interview Contributed To Melinda Duckett Suicide, Professor Says
digg Huffpost - Nancy Grace Interview Contributed To Melinda Duckett Suicide, Professor Says
Ocala,Fla. — A Harvard professor says CNN Headline News host Nancy Grace's relentless questioning of a Florida mother three years ago contributed to her suicide, according to a filing in the family's wrongful death case.
Grace launched aggressive nightly coverage of 2-year-old Trenton Duckett's case shortly after he disappeared in 2006, usually with a collection of analysts. When the boy's mother, Melinda Duckett, appeared by telephone two weeks into the case, speculation was beginning to narrow on her possible involvement.
Dr. Harold J. Bursztajn, a clinical professor of psychiatry, wrote in a filing this week. that Grace "struck a highly accusatory tone."
The professor saw "a distraught young woman who is subject to repeated and increasingly sharp questioning by a hostile interviewer who displays increasing suspicion and anger towards Ms. Duckett."
The next day, the 21-year-old Duckett shot herself in the head.
"Her apparently unanticipated public humiliation on the nationally televised program in question was a substantial contributing cause of her suicide," Bursztajn wrote.
The family claims Grace's questioning, along with the network's decision to air the pre-taped interview the day Duckett committed suicide, inflicted severe emotional distress.
Grace and the network have denied any involvement in the suicide, and a CNN spokeswoman declined comment on the filing.
Trenton has still not been found, and Duckett is the only suspect.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/06/nancy-grace-interview-con_n_381846.html
Ocala,Fla. — A Harvard professor says CNN Headline News host Nancy Grace's relentless questioning of a Florida mother three years ago contributed to her suicide, according to a filing in the family's wrongful death case.
Grace launched aggressive nightly coverage of 2-year-old Trenton Duckett's case shortly after he disappeared in 2006, usually with a collection of analysts. When the boy's mother, Melinda Duckett, appeared by telephone two weeks into the case, speculation was beginning to narrow on her possible involvement.
Dr. Harold J. Bursztajn, a clinical professor of psychiatry, wrote in a filing this week. that Grace "struck a highly accusatory tone."
The professor saw "a distraught young woman who is subject to repeated and increasingly sharp questioning by a hostile interviewer who displays increasing suspicion and anger towards Ms. Duckett."
The next day, the 21-year-old Duckett shot herself in the head.
"Her apparently unanticipated public humiliation on the nationally televised program in question was a substantial contributing cause of her suicide," Bursztajn wrote.
The family claims Grace's questioning, along with the network's decision to air the pre-taped interview the day Duckett committed suicide, inflicted severe emotional distress.
Grace and the network have denied any involvement in the suicide, and a CNN spokeswoman declined comment on the filing.
Trenton has still not been found, and Duckett is the only suspect.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/06/nancy-grace-interview-con_n_381846.html
How States Fund Child Abuse
How states fund child abuse By Anne Grant
October 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Note: Cross posted from [wp angelfury] A Human Rights Issue-Custodial Justice
In the 1980s, I was the first woman pastor in a rural corner of Connecticut. Male clergy sometimes sent girls and women to my office when they needed to talk about things they could not tell a man. Until then I had no idea how many children are sexually abused in their own homes. That national nightmare has been reported in three recent films: Searching for Angela Shelton; Small Justice; and Family Court Crisis: Our Children at Risk.
In the 1990s, as executive director of the Women’s Center of Rhode Island, I learned how Family Court exacerbates problems of domestic violence and sexual abuse in the family. When I retired in 2003, I continued researching documents in custody cases that reveal the often-troubling role of guardians ad litem, clinicians, and lawyers at Rhode Island’s Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) and child protection agencies in other states.
Countless frontline DCYF staff do excellent, difficult work, but agency attorneys cause grave damage when they hold private (ex parte) meetings with lawyers defending litigants accused of molesting their own children. The other parent, usually the mother, is lulled into thinking DCYF will protect their children, while lawyers delay and derail critical evidence from reaching the judge.
I tried to show my findings to the Chief Judge of Family Court, the Director of DCYF, the Child Advocate, the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and members of the General Assembly. I provided documentation from open court files, clinical reports, bills, and other records showing official abuse.
Most officials deflected the matter. Some blamed the children. A legislator told me, “Children lie all the time.”
DCYF usually seizes children who have been marginalized by poverty and racism, who have few adults with power to protect them. But two years ago, the agency removed two sisters from a town where dozens of people knew the girls and their mother. Even their state representative had noted the delightful way the children and their mother played together and interacted with neighbors at a local recreation spot.
When she was three, the younger girl protested her father’s behavior at home while her mother was at work and her sister at school. She drew graphic pictures and reenacted male masturbation that seldom harmed her body but obsessed her mind. A physician’s assistant phoned the state hotline. DCYF investigated and brought a finding of sexual molestation against the father, who left home.
The girls remained with their mother more than two years and then disappeared into DCYF’s archipelago of foster homes, shelters, and “therapeutic” remedies. People who knew the family sent a barrage of letters and met with state officials to no avail. They contacted me and sought an out-of-state attorney to pursue the case.
My search of court documents showed how a biased DCYF hearing officer had flipped the case in 2004 from a finding of molestation against the father to a charge of “parental alienation” against the mother, whom the hearing officer had never met. Rumors had been spread that the mother, a respected university scientist, had “mental problems.”
Meanwhile the hearing officer, an attorney in pursuit of her own divorce clients, published internet articles urging fathers to fight back against the “pedestal of holy motherhood.”
Under a public records request, I learned that DCYF has no requirement that its hearing officers be either professionally qualified or neutral. Nor does DCYF have procedures to track allegations and findings of sexual molestation.
The guardian ad litem, who is supposed to be unbiased, failed to interview neighbors. Her itemized bill shows that the father paid her thousands of dollars and that she conducted an intensive search for a psychologist willing to accuse the mother of “alienating” the children against him. This is a common legal strategy based on a bogus psychological theory, “parental alienation syndrome,” that was decisively denounced by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in 2006.
At a cost to tax payers of $30,000 per year per child in the shelter, the girls learned profanity, venting their rage in new ways. Having rarely seen television before, they complained of being forced to watch TV instead of doing the crafts they enjoyed. They could not share a room or eat together.
The younger girl was delivered for lengthy unsupervised visits with their father. After 509 days in state custody, DCYF gave her, at age 7, to his sole care in another state, claiming she had “recanted” her original accusation against him.
The older girl, 11, called it “torture” and was sent into foster care. Before she left the shelter, she drew a large floor plan of their lifelong home, like a prisoner trying to recall cherished details. She gave it to her mother on one of their two-hour weekly visits, closely supervised at a DCYF office, where they are forbidden to speak about anything that matters.
On August 6, 2007, their 487th day in state custody, three weeks before DCYF separated the sisters entirely, the older one made this list:
THINGS TO DO ON OUR 1st DAY HOME
wash clothes so they smell good
run around in back yard
play piano together
play a game
do arts + crafts
flop on our bed
clean car
go for a walk @ the beach
clean house
bake
go to Home Depot to get stuff to build clubhouse
plant in garden
After decades of resistance, our country began to litigate against pedophile priests who targeted children and took sanctuary in the Church. Now State legislators in Rhode Island and elsewhere must take a hard look at their own agencies established to protect children.
In an era when government deals aggressively with pedophiles who prey on other people’s children, we need more rigorous standards and effective responses to the age-old problem of sexual abuse within families.
http://courtwhores.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/p968-wordspphow-states-fund-child-abuseppby-anne-grantppin-1980s-woman-pastor-rural-corner-connecticut-male-clergy-girls-women-office-needed-talk-man-idea-children-sexually-abused-homes-national-night/
October 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Note: Cross posted from [wp angelfury] A Human Rights Issue-Custodial Justice
In the 1980s, I was the first woman pastor in a rural corner of Connecticut. Male clergy sometimes sent girls and women to my office when they needed to talk about things they could not tell a man. Until then I had no idea how many children are sexually abused in their own homes. That national nightmare has been reported in three recent films: Searching for Angela Shelton; Small Justice; and Family Court Crisis: Our Children at Risk.
In the 1990s, as executive director of the Women’s Center of Rhode Island, I learned how Family Court exacerbates problems of domestic violence and sexual abuse in the family. When I retired in 2003, I continued researching documents in custody cases that reveal the often-troubling role of guardians ad litem, clinicians, and lawyers at Rhode Island’s Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) and child protection agencies in other states.
Countless frontline DCYF staff do excellent, difficult work, but agency attorneys cause grave damage when they hold private (ex parte) meetings with lawyers defending litigants accused of molesting their own children. The other parent, usually the mother, is lulled into thinking DCYF will protect their children, while lawyers delay and derail critical evidence from reaching the judge.
I tried to show my findings to the Chief Judge of Family Court, the Director of DCYF, the Child Advocate, the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and members of the General Assembly. I provided documentation from open court files, clinical reports, bills, and other records showing official abuse.
Most officials deflected the matter. Some blamed the children. A legislator told me, “Children lie all the time.”
DCYF usually seizes children who have been marginalized by poverty and racism, who have few adults with power to protect them. But two years ago, the agency removed two sisters from a town where dozens of people knew the girls and their mother. Even their state representative had noted the delightful way the children and their mother played together and interacted with neighbors at a local recreation spot.
When she was three, the younger girl protested her father’s behavior at home while her mother was at work and her sister at school. She drew graphic pictures and reenacted male masturbation that seldom harmed her body but obsessed her mind. A physician’s assistant phoned the state hotline. DCYF investigated and brought a finding of sexual molestation against the father, who left home.
The girls remained with their mother more than two years and then disappeared into DCYF’s archipelago of foster homes, shelters, and “therapeutic” remedies. People who knew the family sent a barrage of letters and met with state officials to no avail. They contacted me and sought an out-of-state attorney to pursue the case.
My search of court documents showed how a biased DCYF hearing officer had flipped the case in 2004 from a finding of molestation against the father to a charge of “parental alienation” against the mother, whom the hearing officer had never met. Rumors had been spread that the mother, a respected university scientist, had “mental problems.”
Meanwhile the hearing officer, an attorney in pursuit of her own divorce clients, published internet articles urging fathers to fight back against the “pedestal of holy motherhood.”
Under a public records request, I learned that DCYF has no requirement that its hearing officers be either professionally qualified or neutral. Nor does DCYF have procedures to track allegations and findings of sexual molestation.
The guardian ad litem, who is supposed to be unbiased, failed to interview neighbors. Her itemized bill shows that the father paid her thousands of dollars and that she conducted an intensive search for a psychologist willing to accuse the mother of “alienating” the children against him. This is a common legal strategy based on a bogus psychological theory, “parental alienation syndrome,” that was decisively denounced by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in 2006.
At a cost to tax payers of $30,000 per year per child in the shelter, the girls learned profanity, venting their rage in new ways. Having rarely seen television before, they complained of being forced to watch TV instead of doing the crafts they enjoyed. They could not share a room or eat together.
The younger girl was delivered for lengthy unsupervised visits with their father. After 509 days in state custody, DCYF gave her, at age 7, to his sole care in another state, claiming she had “recanted” her original accusation against him.
The older girl, 11, called it “torture” and was sent into foster care. Before she left the shelter, she drew a large floor plan of their lifelong home, like a prisoner trying to recall cherished details. She gave it to her mother on one of their two-hour weekly visits, closely supervised at a DCYF office, where they are forbidden to speak about anything that matters.
On August 6, 2007, their 487th day in state custody, three weeks before DCYF separated the sisters entirely, the older one made this list:
THINGS TO DO ON OUR 1st DAY HOME
wash clothes so they smell good
run around in back yard
play piano together
play a game
do arts + crafts
flop on our bed
clean car
go for a walk @ the beach
clean house
bake
go to Home Depot to get stuff to build clubhouse
plant in garden
After decades of resistance, our country began to litigate against pedophile priests who targeted children and took sanctuary in the Church. Now State legislators in Rhode Island and elsewhere must take a hard look at their own agencies established to protect children.
In an era when government deals aggressively with pedophiles who prey on other people’s children, we need more rigorous standards and effective responses to the age-old problem of sexual abuse within families.
http://courtwhores.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/p968-wordspphow-states-fund-child-abuseppby-anne-grantppin-1980s-woman-pastor-rural-corner-connecticut-male-clergy-girls-women-office-needed-talk-man-idea-children-sexually-abused-homes-national-night/
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