Would you Weep- DFCS Stealing Children
January 8, 2010 yvonnemason
Georgia
Things That Make Us Weep
Would you weep if your daughter’s children had been seized and swept into foster care by the
Department of Family and Children Services (DFACS) that didn’t bother to
contact you before farming them out to strangers?
Would you weep if your granddaughters were placed with foster parents who already housed 18
foster children and were told they could adopt your grandchildren?
Would you weep if your oldest granddaughter told you that the foster father molested her on two
different occasions?
Would you weep if a juvenile judge reneged on a promise to remove your granddaughters from
that overcrowded foster home, where the foster father molested one of them?
Would you weep if that judge wrote a new order to send the girls to live with their father on the
West Coast, where he worked in “adult entertainment,” whose girl friend
worked as an “escort” and his brother, also in the business, had a sexual charge
brought against him?
Would you weep if the father of your granddaughters were to come knocking on your door to
take them, kicking and screaming, to California to live with him?
Would you weep if you had five years of debilitating experiences with a powerful government
agency that did the above and denied your right to visit your granddaughters?
_____________________________________________
The above facts, written here in the form of questions, outline a story related to Senator Nancy
Schaefer of District 50. The grandmother sorrowfully shared her desperation over continuing
circumstances surrounding the custody of her grandchildren. She told how agency personnel
had her daughter sign “a paper” to give up her children, if she ever wanted to see them again.
She signed and has never recovered from having her girls permanently taken away from her.
Senator Schaefer’s Findings. “Throughout this case and through the process of dealing with
multiple other 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 to turn [to]. 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.”
At the Mercy of a “Protected Empire”
“Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide,
I am convinced there is no responsibility and no accountability in the system.”
– Senator ancy Schaefer, District 50
————-
“The Department of Child Protective Services, known as 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,’ ineffective policies, and DFCS who do not remove a child or children
when a child is enduring torment and abuse.
“In one county in my District, I arranged a meeting for thirty-seven families to speak freely and
without fear. These poor parents and grandparents spoke of their painful, heart wrenching
encounters with DFCS. Their suffering was overwhelming. They wept and cried. Some did
not know where their children were and had not seen them in years.
“I had witnessed the ‘Gestapo’ at work and I witnessed the deceitful conditions under which
children were taken in the middle of the night, out of hospitals, off school buses, and out of
homes. In one county a private drug testing business was operating within the DFCS
department that required many, many drug tests from parents and individuals for profit. In
another county children were not removed when they were enduring the worst possible abuse.
“Due to being exposed, several employees in a particular DFCS office were fired. However,
they have now been rehired, either in neighboring counties or in the same county again.
According to the calls I am now receiving, the conditions in that county are returning to the
same practices that they had before the light was shown on their deeds. I have come to this
conclusion. Poor parents often times are targeted to lose their children because they do not have
the where-with-all to hire lawyers and fight the system.
“The Adoption and the 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 [will] sell and [they must] have plenty of them so the buyer
can choose. 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 federal dollars flowing.
“Children, of whom I am aware, have been raped and impregnated in foster care and the head of
a Foster Parents Association in my District was recently arrested because of child molestation.
Some parents are even told if they want to see their children or grandchildren, they must divorce
their spouse. Many, who are under privileged, feeling they have no option, will divorce.
“There’s 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, ‘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. There are no financial resources and no real drive
[for DFCS] to unite a family and help keep them together.”
S.B. 415 Limits DHR Power Over Children
When Senator Nancy Schaefer heard, repeatedly, that state agencies were taking far too many
children into custody and putting them in foster care, she began probing the system to get the
facts. Soon she was face to face with the real possibility of corruption in the Department of
Family and Children Services (DFACS), a division of the Department of Human Resources.
Senator Schaefer’s District 50 stretches into eight of Georgia’s northeast counties. Many of her
constituents have experienced instances in which children were, arbitrarily, seized by the state
and placed in foster care or given in adoption, without sufficient evidence of abuse or neglect
and without consent from parents who are intimidated into cooperating. Parents want their
children back, but have no idea where they are or whether they’ll see them again.
S.B. 415 was introduced by Senator Schaefer on February 6th to rectify unethical, if not illegal,
treatment by DFACS. The first thing the bill does is reduce from seven days to three days the
time children may be held without a court order. Currently, DHR has power to order unlimited
medical treatment for children without parental consent. If S.B. 415 passes, “no medication
shall be administered to the child over the objection of the custodial parent or legal custodian.”1
Current law gives blanket immunity from liability to DHR, its employees, agents, and assigns
that consent to medical treatment for children under their care and supervision. But, that will be
gone, if the following statement remains in the bill. “This immunity shall not extend to seizures
of children that are found to be in violation of this article nor to the administration of
medication to a child over the objection of the custodial parent or legal custodian.”
S.B. 415 includes another important change that requires DHR to place children with a relative,
unless there is no relative willing and able to accept the responsibility. DFACS would have to
prove reasonable efforts were made to contact each and every one of a child’s relatives via a
registered letter, phone calls and e-mails, before placing the child in DHR custody.
Current law allows closed hearings in deprived child cases, but S.B. 415 requires open hearings
in such cases unless the parents or guardians object. Section 5 prohibits DHR from badgering
parents by, repeatedly, filing the same charges, in efforts to terminate their rights.
Sections 6 and 7 give parents facing termination of parental rights the right to full disclosure of
the charges against them. Within 48 hours prior to the termination hearing, parents must have
access to the names, addresses, telephone numbers and statements (written or oral) of witnesses.
They must be allowed to inspect, copy or photograph all physical evidence to be introduced, as
well as photographs, police incident reports and other reports forming the basis of the charges.
Section 8 prohibits the practice of paying bonuses to agents that seize children by stating that no
entity of the State of Georgia shall apply for, obtain, receive, or accept any adoption incentive
payments under the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.
ACTION – Support. Contact Senate Judiciary Committee Senators Smith, Ch., 404 656-0034; Harp, 463-3931; Hamrick,
656-0036; Adelman, 463-1376; Brown, 656-5035; Carter, 651-7738; Cowsert, 463-1366; Fort, 656-5091; Hill, 656-0150;
Meyer von Bremen, 656-0037; Reed, 463-1379, Ex-Officio; Seabaugh, 656-6446 Ex-Officio; Wiles, 657-0406.
1Georgia Insight’s Proposed Amendment to Tighten S.B. 415
Specifically require DHR to obtain parental consent before medicating children. The current wording, actually,
allows DHR to drug children unless the parent proactively says they can’t. Parents need DHR to inform them
of pending medication, so parents would know they could and, probably, should opt their children out.
When elected officials in our representative republic think expanding government by creating an
appointed agency is a good thing, there’s something wrong.
House passed H.B. 881, Moving Charter Schools Further from Voters
It’s anti-parent, anti-voter and anti-local control.
It gives the federal government total control over schools, curriculum and students.
—————————————————————————————–
This subject is one of the most misunderstood things I’ve ever tried to explain. But, despite its
passage in the House by a vote of 119 – 48, here goes. (a) Charter schools are unconstitutional
in Georgia, because our constitution puts schools under the management and control of locally
elected school board members, who must reside within the territory embraced by the school.
(b) Charters are with the State Board of Education that’s appointed by the governor – one from
each of Georgia’s 13 congressional districts. (c) Therefore, the appointed State Board of
Education is not authorized by the state constitution to manage and control local schools.
Likewise, members of locally elected school boards are not authorized to give the State Board
of Education power to manage and control schools in the local board’s district.
(d) Charter schools are not projects of states, but were created by a federal initiative in order to
gain federal control over education. The control is a slick accomplishment via legal slight-ofhand.
This is how it’s done. Charter schools may waive local and state laws, policies, rules and
regulations, but they are not authorized to waive federal laws, policies, rules and regulations.
Background. The federal charter schools project surfaced in 1991 when the first President
Bush created the New American Schools Development Corporation to put a “radical, break-themold”
charter school in each congressional district throughout the country. About 1,000 charter
schools existed when President Clinton gave his 1997 State of the Union speech and said, “Our
plan will help America to create 3,000 of these charter schools by the next century.” With
funding of $500 million over five years granted in his Charter School Expansion Act of 1998,
schools took the bait, despite the loss of local rights or states’ rights or damages to education.
(e) In 1993 Georgia’s first charter school bill passed, allowing individual schools to apply to
local school boards for charter status. That continued until last session when S.B. 39 authorized
entire school systems to be chartered in unison. But, this year’s H.B. 881 “takes the cake!”
H.B. 881 passed the House January 31st, causing previous bills to pale in comparison. No
matter how hard I try, I cannot understand why our legislators voted for H.B. 881, knowing
they’re under oath to uphold the State constitution. Although they were elected, they are
willing to create a non-elected appointed commission to govern an unconstitutional form of
education in Georgia. It’s bad that parents are misled into believing charter schools will mean
more parental input and better education, when that’s only a sound byte to charter more schools.
http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/would-you-weep-dfcs-stealing-children/
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
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Foster care too often fails to keep kids safe
Foster care too often fails to keep kids safe
January 10, 2010 yvonnemason
http://extras.denverpost.com/news/foster0521a.htm
Foster care too often fails to keep kids safe
By Patricia Callahan and Kirk Mitchell
Denver Post Staff Writers
Eleven children were molested. One was forced to have sex with a dog.
One lay injured on a bathroom floor, his face smeared with his own feces. That toddler, Miguel Arias-Baca, later died.
They are the state’s dirty little secrets.
Foster children, wards of the state taken from abusive or neglectful relatives, suffered again in foster homes that were supposed to keep them from harm.
Colorado child-welfare officials have watched these horror stories and many others unfold in foster homes chosen and supervised by private foster-care businesses.
Yet, the state has done little or nothing to punish the businesses responsible for the children whose lives were damaged.
In fact, the state continues to pour millions in taxpayer funds – $36.7 million last fiscal year – into private agencies, which now oversee more than half of Colorado’s foster kids and collect more than three-quarters of the public’s foster-care dollars.
While state officials have made hollow threats to foster-care agencies that repeatedly break state rules, some foster parents and agency executives are mak ing six-figure incomes from the business of foster care.
Foster-care businesses “by and large are cash cows,” said K.C. Robbie, who manages financial data for the state’s child-welfare division.
A Denver Post investigation revealed that the state’s private foster-care system too often fails to protect abused and neglected kids.
Responsibility lies both with the Legislature, which controls the laws governing foster care, and the state Department of Human Services, which is supposed to protect the vulnerable children in foster care.
Among The Post’s findings:
- About 40 percent of the 2,440 children in the private foster-care system are supervised by businesses whose records included serious problems, such as using former criminals as foster parents, placing kids in homes where they later were abused or molested, or repeatedly violating state rules.
- Virtually anyone can become a foster parent with a private business, including most felons and people with alcohol, drug or serious psychological problems. The standards for becoming a mentor through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Colorado far exceed those for becoming a foster parent in Colorado.
- The state pays three times more for private foster care than it does for traditional, county-supervised foster homes, records show. Yet the two systems provide the same level of care, a 1998 state audit found.
- Government officials say they can’t regulate how taxpayer money is spent by foster-care businesses. The state doesn’t even know how much money the agencies pay their foster parents, the audit found. State officials say they have no power to prevent foster-care businesses from spending state subsidies for children on expensive offices and big salaries.
- Foster parents often skip from one business to another. Some foster parents have fallen into trouble at one agency, quietly quit and slipped to another agency that was unaware of the previous problems.
- Colorado’s system is unusual. It is one of only three states to grant permanent licenses to foster-care businesses. One state doesn’t license private agencies. All others have licenses that must be renewed, giving those states leverage to get problems fixed. And, Colorado is one of only 11 states that divide child-welfare duties between state and county offices, a split that critics say diffuses responsibility and accountability.
- Colorado asks foster-care businesses to report their own failings. The state, lacking money to send out the “self-assessment” forms each year, asks private agencies to re-use old forms with a different color pen.
Last year the state Department of Human Services declared the private foster-care network, which it oversees, to be primarily healthy.
“More than 85 percent of the facilities provide good care to children, costeffectively, and conduct their business responsibly,” the department report said. “Foster parents, in almost all cases, provide safe, nurturing environments for the children in placement.” While many of the state’s 40 private foster-care agencies have no serious problems, 11 foster-care businesses together amassed 1,057 violations of state rules from 1994 to 1999, state records show.
“When you have a system where there is virtually no accountability, these types of abuses are inevitable and simply predictable,” said Phyllis Roestenberg, a staff attorney at the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center. “Our system is sick.” For this investigation, The Denver Post crunched 1.8 million computer records from five state databases and examined every inspection report and abuse complaint in the private agencies’ state files. Reporters reviewed police reports, court records, tax returns, and interviewed experts, foster parents, government officials and agency executives.
When shown The Post’s results, a national child advocate was shocked.
“There are big problems in foster care nationally, but if what you’re describing is going on in the Colorado system, it certainly ranks up there with among the worst of the systems in the country,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, director of Children’s Rights Inc., a New York-based organization that has sued 11 cities and states for failing to protect kids.
“If this has been going on for a long time and the state has not acted to correct these problems, this is a system that is really ripe for litigation.”
Marva Livingston Hammons, a member of Gov. Bill Owens’ cabinet and head of Colorado’s Human Services Department, vowed to hold her staff accountable. Agencies should not be allowed to violate state foster-care rules repeatedly without consequences, she said.
“We have to be willing to take action,” Hammons said.
The problems in Colorado’s privatized foster care stem in part from the explosion of foster-care businesses and the state’s inability to keep up with them.
The number of foster-care homes supervised by businesses has increased by 800 percent in 13 years. In 1986, the state had 203 privately supervised foster homes. This year, there are 1,844.
A handful of child-placement agencies – the state’s name for the foster-care businesses – appeared in the 1940s to manage adoptions.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, counties had difficulty finding foster homes for kids who needed more help because of mental disabilities or severe medical problems.
The state turned to the businesses and increased the typical foster-care subsidy.
“Sometimes the rates paid to private agencies to serve disabled children were higher because they literally had to bring in extra help from the outside to serve their needs,” said Dana Andrews, the state administrator who oversees the licensing of foster-care businesses.
That soon changed. The explosion came in the early to mid-1990s. Foster parents who were working for counties began defecting to the private agencies, where the subsidies remained much higher and the help was rumored to be better.
More private businesses appeared to compete for the subsidies. They, in turn, recruited more foster parents.
And the money followed.
Colorado developed a two-tiered system, public and private. Today, some 57 percent of foster children are placed in homes supervised by private businesses, while the rest are in county-supervised foster homes. But 78 percent of the $47.2 million the state spent on foster care last year went to private foster-care businesses.
In fiscal 1999, the average monthly subsidy for a child in privatized foster care was $1,529, while the average subsidy for a child in a county foster home was $519, according to the state.
Part of that larger subsidy is supposed to cover basic administrative costs and staff. Counties already have staff to cover those responsibilities. It also can include the cost of therapy.
In addition, the state and the foster-care industry claim that the private sector runs “therapeutic foster homes,” where highly trained foster parents take in kids with more severe problems.
A Post computer analysis of foster-child records found about an equal number of children deemed “high risk” in both county and private-agency foster homes. The state database did not provide a risk factor for roughly the same number of children in both types of homes.
The state auditor in 1998 found “no evidence that (privately managed) foster homes provide a higher quality of care than do the county-administered homes.” Auditors questioned the cost difference, noting private businesses have spent as much as 65 percent of state subsidies on administration and other costs not related to children’s care.
“Unlike many other publicly funded programs, there are no limits on what is spent or retained for administrative purposes,” auditors wrote, adding that the rate disparity “cannot be adequately justified.”
The state says it lacks the manpower to keep up with the ballooning number of foster-care businesses. Until last February, the Human Services Department had only eight people to monitor and inspect not just foster-care businesses but also facilities that house and treat children with psychological problems. Six of those people also monitored adoption agencies and supervised other state workers who inspected preschools, school extended-care programs and daycare homes and centers. A fiveperson monitoring team began working in April.
Marilyn Bernier, now the state’s deputy licensing administrator, said that when she was an inspector, she had nightmares about children being in danger as she juggled cases last year. Bernier inspected 25 foster-care businesses, supervised four people and monitored a company that in turn was responsible for inspecting 700 day-care homes.
“We’re supposed to be protecting children and making them safe, and then they get placed in situations where they are re-abused,” Bernier said. “That is very scary to me. I couldn’t let it go.” Although Colorado’s system follows a national privatization trend in foster care, some policy decisions have made the state’s approach unusual.
Colorado sets itself apart by dividing child-welfare responsibilities between its 63 counties and the state. Under this structure, state officials supervise both the county social services departments and the private agencies.
The state typically doesn’t visit the private-agency foster homes. That’s left to county caseworkers. Instead, the state reviews the files the businesses keep on foster kids.
Those businesses are supposed to supervise their own homes and report abuse cases to the county. County caseworkers investigate abuse complaints in foster homes. State inspectors then step in and look for licensing violations.
Critics say the system diffuses authority, lets abuse cases fall through the cracks and allows state and county workers to blame each other when things go wrong in foster care.
Also, the private agencies have a financial incentive to keep their foster homes open. If agencies close homes, they lose subsidies.
Richard Wexler, a critic of the way foster-care money is spent, called this practice “the ultimate example of the fox guarding the henhouse.”
“You are expecting these private agencies to turn themselves in and say, “We’ve been bad,’- ” said Wexler, who heads the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. “You will have children suffering enormous harm in secret behind closed doors.”
Asked about her experience in private-agency foster care, one teenager called foster parents in two of her previous homes “money grubbers.” When a county cut the monthly subsidy for the girl to $800, her foster mom told an agency caseworker that the girl “wasn’t worth $800,” according to an internal agency memo.
While other states face a shortage of foster parents, Colorado has plenty of foster homes for kids with all but the most severe needs, state officials say. In addition to the financial incentive to recruit more foster parents, relatives of abused children are coming forward to care for them, according to the state.
“We’ve seen a tremendous surge in the number of foster homes,” said Jane Beveridge, director of the state’s child-welfare division.
Many of those homes are run by dedicated foster parents who have helped turn troubled children’s lives around. Some of Colorado’s foster-care businesses run smoothly.
But some foster-care businesses have recruited foster parents with criminal records or questionable backgrounds.
Alpine Child Placement Agency recruited a Lakewood foster mom even though she had pleaded guilty to solicitation for prostitution. She had received a deferred judgment.
A Fort Collins woman who was charged with selling drugs out of her day-care home was later recruited by two different fostercare businesses. She pleaded guilty to drug possession and received a deferred judgment, court records show.
When that woman worked for Fort Collins-based Jacob Family Services Inc., her biological son sexually assaulted her 14-year-old foster daughter, court records show. That son also received a deferred judgment.
With her son awaiting trial, she moved to Maple Star Colorado, another foster-care business. When she left her foster children at home alone, her 15-year-old foster son forced two 9-year-old foster brothers to have sex with each other and made one of the boys have sex with a dog, court records show. Previously, that 15-year-old raped one of the 9-year-old boys, accord ing to court records.
Skipping from one agency to another when trouble arises is common. And sometimes it can have deadly results.
Last year, 2 1/2-year-old Miguel Arias-Baca was killed in a foster home supervised by All About Kids, a private business. Ricky Haney, his foster father, was charged with smearing Miguel’s face in his own feces and throwing the toddler to the floor with enough force to cause fatal bleeding in his brain.
Haney, who pleaded guilty to a felony child abuse charge two weeks ago, told police he had returned home from a Super Bowl party and was upset that Miguel had soiled his diaper. Haney and his wife, E’von, both had arrest records that went undetected because of a glitch at the state’s investigative bureau.
Prior to joining All About Kids, the Haneys worked for Synthesis, another private foster-care agency. But they left that agency after an abuse allegation was lodged against them, state officials said. Investigators didn’t substantiate the allegation, but Synthesis dropped them as foster parents.
“Looking back on it, there were all kinds of red flags,” the state’s Andrews told a panel of child-welfare experts last year.
The quality of foster parents varies because the businesses have different screening procedures and standards. Some private agencies do very thorough “home studies,” mandated assessments of a family’s ability to care for a foster child. Other agencies’ home studies are flimsy. Some agencies have failed to document prospective foster parents’ problems with alcoholism, addictions and psychiatric conditions, state records show.
“These are private businesses,” said licensing administrator Andrews. “We don’t have the right to tell private agencies who they can certify (as foster parents) and who they can’t.” The state requires agencies to get criminal records on each potential foster parent. But the only people barred from becoming foster parents are those convicted of certain felonies including some violent crimes, domestic violence, child abuse and sex offenses.
The state does not forbid agencies from certifying prospective foster parents who are “insane or mentally incompetent,” who have problems with alcohol or drugs or who are convicted of misdemeanor child abuse or misdemeanor violent crimes.
A state regulation says agencies may exclude people who fit those categories. But they don’t have to.
Six years ago, the Legislature inadvertently made it more difficult to crack down on problem agencies.
The state once granted foster care agencies and other child-care businesses licenses that had to be renewed every two years. If agencies broke rules, the state could refuse to renew a license.
But state inspectors monitored so many agencies that they weren’t processing renewals on time.
“If your caseload is too big, and you can’t get out to visit them, they had a license hanging on the wall that looked like it was expired,” Andrews said.
Child-care businesses balked. Rather than requesting enough licensing workers to do the job, the Human Services Department asked the Legislature for permanent li censes instead of renewable ones.
Now the state asks agencies to perform a “self assessment” when they send in their licensing fees every year. They are given a checklist of state rules, and they are asked to say whether they are following them. That way, visits by state inspectors don’t take as long.
Some agencies don’t fill out the checklist on time because the state doesn’t send out the forms every year.
“We don’t have the money to send them (checklists) out, so they’re supposed to use the same form but a different pen,” said Bernier, the deputy licensing administrator.
Some advocates think the selfassessment process is absurd: What agency is going to say it chronically breaks state rules?
“It’s outrageous,” said Roestenberg, of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center. “For the convenience of the licensing agency, we assume these enormous risks on the backs of children.” If state inspectors catch a bad agency, their only recourse is a suspension, revocation or probation of the business’ license, or the state can levy a fine.
It took three years for the state to put one foster-care business’ license on probation.
And sometimes the state threatens an agency but doesn’t follow through.
After a foster father with Grand Junction-based Jacob Center West sexually assaulted his foster son in 1996, a state inspector said, “There is a large amount of culpability that lies with Jacob Center West.”
The investigator threatened the agency’s license if another abuse case occurred in one of its homes. The agency, now known as Gateway Youth and Family Services, since has had five substantiated abuse complaints in its foster homes. The state has done nothing to the business’ license.
Prompted by The Post’s investigation, Andrews launched a review of Gateway and several other foster-care businesses. She said a newly formed team of five childwelfare monitors will hold agencies more accountable.
“I think what you’re seeing is a pattern of very high caseloads and staff who have a lot to do and can’t focus on one agency,” Andrews said. “That’s where you miss the followup. You write it down and you move on to 20 other things.” Patricia Callahan’s e-mail address is Pcallahan@denverpost.com. Kirk Mitchell’s e-mail address is Kmitchell@denverpost.com.
http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/foster-care-too-often-fails-to-keep-kids-safe/
January 10, 2010 yvonnemason
http://extras.denverpost.com/news/foster0521a.htm
Foster care too often fails to keep kids safe
By Patricia Callahan and Kirk Mitchell
Denver Post Staff Writers
Eleven children were molested. One was forced to have sex with a dog.
One lay injured on a bathroom floor, his face smeared with his own feces. That toddler, Miguel Arias-Baca, later died.
They are the state’s dirty little secrets.
Foster children, wards of the state taken from abusive or neglectful relatives, suffered again in foster homes that were supposed to keep them from harm.
Colorado child-welfare officials have watched these horror stories and many others unfold in foster homes chosen and supervised by private foster-care businesses.
Yet, the state has done little or nothing to punish the businesses responsible for the children whose lives were damaged.
In fact, the state continues to pour millions in taxpayer funds – $36.7 million last fiscal year – into private agencies, which now oversee more than half of Colorado’s foster kids and collect more than three-quarters of the public’s foster-care dollars.
While state officials have made hollow threats to foster-care agencies that repeatedly break state rules, some foster parents and agency executives are mak ing six-figure incomes from the business of foster care.
Foster-care businesses “by and large are cash cows,” said K.C. Robbie, who manages financial data for the state’s child-welfare division.
A Denver Post investigation revealed that the state’s private foster-care system too often fails to protect abused and neglected kids.
Responsibility lies both with the Legislature, which controls the laws governing foster care, and the state Department of Human Services, which is supposed to protect the vulnerable children in foster care.
Among The Post’s findings:
- About 40 percent of the 2,440 children in the private foster-care system are supervised by businesses whose records included serious problems, such as using former criminals as foster parents, placing kids in homes where they later were abused or molested, or repeatedly violating state rules.
- Virtually anyone can become a foster parent with a private business, including most felons and people with alcohol, drug or serious psychological problems. The standards for becoming a mentor through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Colorado far exceed those for becoming a foster parent in Colorado.
- The state pays three times more for private foster care than it does for traditional, county-supervised foster homes, records show. Yet the two systems provide the same level of care, a 1998 state audit found.
- Government officials say they can’t regulate how taxpayer money is spent by foster-care businesses. The state doesn’t even know how much money the agencies pay their foster parents, the audit found. State officials say they have no power to prevent foster-care businesses from spending state subsidies for children on expensive offices and big salaries.
- Foster parents often skip from one business to another. Some foster parents have fallen into trouble at one agency, quietly quit and slipped to another agency that was unaware of the previous problems.
- Colorado’s system is unusual. It is one of only three states to grant permanent licenses to foster-care businesses. One state doesn’t license private agencies. All others have licenses that must be renewed, giving those states leverage to get problems fixed. And, Colorado is one of only 11 states that divide child-welfare duties between state and county offices, a split that critics say diffuses responsibility and accountability.
- Colorado asks foster-care businesses to report their own failings. The state, lacking money to send out the “self-assessment” forms each year, asks private agencies to re-use old forms with a different color pen.
Last year the state Department of Human Services declared the private foster-care network, which it oversees, to be primarily healthy.
“More than 85 percent of the facilities provide good care to children, costeffectively, and conduct their business responsibly,” the department report said. “Foster parents, in almost all cases, provide safe, nurturing environments for the children in placement.” While many of the state’s 40 private foster-care agencies have no serious problems, 11 foster-care businesses together amassed 1,057 violations of state rules from 1994 to 1999, state records show.
“When you have a system where there is virtually no accountability, these types of abuses are inevitable and simply predictable,” said Phyllis Roestenberg, a staff attorney at the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center. “Our system is sick.” For this investigation, The Denver Post crunched 1.8 million computer records from five state databases and examined every inspection report and abuse complaint in the private agencies’ state files. Reporters reviewed police reports, court records, tax returns, and interviewed experts, foster parents, government officials and agency executives.
When shown The Post’s results, a national child advocate was shocked.
“There are big problems in foster care nationally, but if what you’re describing is going on in the Colorado system, it certainly ranks up there with among the worst of the systems in the country,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, director of Children’s Rights Inc., a New York-based organization that has sued 11 cities and states for failing to protect kids.
“If this has been going on for a long time and the state has not acted to correct these problems, this is a system that is really ripe for litigation.”
Marva Livingston Hammons, a member of Gov. Bill Owens’ cabinet and head of Colorado’s Human Services Department, vowed to hold her staff accountable. Agencies should not be allowed to violate state foster-care rules repeatedly without consequences, she said.
“We have to be willing to take action,” Hammons said.
The problems in Colorado’s privatized foster care stem in part from the explosion of foster-care businesses and the state’s inability to keep up with them.
The number of foster-care homes supervised by businesses has increased by 800 percent in 13 years. In 1986, the state had 203 privately supervised foster homes. This year, there are 1,844.
A handful of child-placement agencies – the state’s name for the foster-care businesses – appeared in the 1940s to manage adoptions.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, counties had difficulty finding foster homes for kids who needed more help because of mental disabilities or severe medical problems.
The state turned to the businesses and increased the typical foster-care subsidy.
“Sometimes the rates paid to private agencies to serve disabled children were higher because they literally had to bring in extra help from the outside to serve their needs,” said Dana Andrews, the state administrator who oversees the licensing of foster-care businesses.
That soon changed. The explosion came in the early to mid-1990s. Foster parents who were working for counties began defecting to the private agencies, where the subsidies remained much higher and the help was rumored to be better.
More private businesses appeared to compete for the subsidies. They, in turn, recruited more foster parents.
And the money followed.
Colorado developed a two-tiered system, public and private. Today, some 57 percent of foster children are placed in homes supervised by private businesses, while the rest are in county-supervised foster homes. But 78 percent of the $47.2 million the state spent on foster care last year went to private foster-care businesses.
In fiscal 1999, the average monthly subsidy for a child in privatized foster care was $1,529, while the average subsidy for a child in a county foster home was $519, according to the state.
Part of that larger subsidy is supposed to cover basic administrative costs and staff. Counties already have staff to cover those responsibilities. It also can include the cost of therapy.
In addition, the state and the foster-care industry claim that the private sector runs “therapeutic foster homes,” where highly trained foster parents take in kids with more severe problems.
A Post computer analysis of foster-child records found about an equal number of children deemed “high risk” in both county and private-agency foster homes. The state database did not provide a risk factor for roughly the same number of children in both types of homes.
The state auditor in 1998 found “no evidence that (privately managed) foster homes provide a higher quality of care than do the county-administered homes.” Auditors questioned the cost difference, noting private businesses have spent as much as 65 percent of state subsidies on administration and other costs not related to children’s care.
“Unlike many other publicly funded programs, there are no limits on what is spent or retained for administrative purposes,” auditors wrote, adding that the rate disparity “cannot be adequately justified.”
The state says it lacks the manpower to keep up with the ballooning number of foster-care businesses. Until last February, the Human Services Department had only eight people to monitor and inspect not just foster-care businesses but also facilities that house and treat children with psychological problems. Six of those people also monitored adoption agencies and supervised other state workers who inspected preschools, school extended-care programs and daycare homes and centers. A fiveperson monitoring team began working in April.
Marilyn Bernier, now the state’s deputy licensing administrator, said that when she was an inspector, she had nightmares about children being in danger as she juggled cases last year. Bernier inspected 25 foster-care businesses, supervised four people and monitored a company that in turn was responsible for inspecting 700 day-care homes.
“We’re supposed to be protecting children and making them safe, and then they get placed in situations where they are re-abused,” Bernier said. “That is very scary to me. I couldn’t let it go.” Although Colorado’s system follows a national privatization trend in foster care, some policy decisions have made the state’s approach unusual.
Colorado sets itself apart by dividing child-welfare responsibilities between its 63 counties and the state. Under this structure, state officials supervise both the county social services departments and the private agencies.
The state typically doesn’t visit the private-agency foster homes. That’s left to county caseworkers. Instead, the state reviews the files the businesses keep on foster kids.
Those businesses are supposed to supervise their own homes and report abuse cases to the county. County caseworkers investigate abuse complaints in foster homes. State inspectors then step in and look for licensing violations.
Critics say the system diffuses authority, lets abuse cases fall through the cracks and allows state and county workers to blame each other when things go wrong in foster care.
Also, the private agencies have a financial incentive to keep their foster homes open. If agencies close homes, they lose subsidies.
Richard Wexler, a critic of the way foster-care money is spent, called this practice “the ultimate example of the fox guarding the henhouse.”
“You are expecting these private agencies to turn themselves in and say, “We’ve been bad,’- ” said Wexler, who heads the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. “You will have children suffering enormous harm in secret behind closed doors.”
Asked about her experience in private-agency foster care, one teenager called foster parents in two of her previous homes “money grubbers.” When a county cut the monthly subsidy for the girl to $800, her foster mom told an agency caseworker that the girl “wasn’t worth $800,” according to an internal agency memo.
While other states face a shortage of foster parents, Colorado has plenty of foster homes for kids with all but the most severe needs, state officials say. In addition to the financial incentive to recruit more foster parents, relatives of abused children are coming forward to care for them, according to the state.
“We’ve seen a tremendous surge in the number of foster homes,” said Jane Beveridge, director of the state’s child-welfare division.
Many of those homes are run by dedicated foster parents who have helped turn troubled children’s lives around. Some of Colorado’s foster-care businesses run smoothly.
But some foster-care businesses have recruited foster parents with criminal records or questionable backgrounds.
Alpine Child Placement Agency recruited a Lakewood foster mom even though she had pleaded guilty to solicitation for prostitution. She had received a deferred judgment.
A Fort Collins woman who was charged with selling drugs out of her day-care home was later recruited by two different fostercare businesses. She pleaded guilty to drug possession and received a deferred judgment, court records show.
When that woman worked for Fort Collins-based Jacob Family Services Inc., her biological son sexually assaulted her 14-year-old foster daughter, court records show. That son also received a deferred judgment.
With her son awaiting trial, she moved to Maple Star Colorado, another foster-care business. When she left her foster children at home alone, her 15-year-old foster son forced two 9-year-old foster brothers to have sex with each other and made one of the boys have sex with a dog, court records show. Previously, that 15-year-old raped one of the 9-year-old boys, accord ing to court records.
Skipping from one agency to another when trouble arises is common. And sometimes it can have deadly results.
Last year, 2 1/2-year-old Miguel Arias-Baca was killed in a foster home supervised by All About Kids, a private business. Ricky Haney, his foster father, was charged with smearing Miguel’s face in his own feces and throwing the toddler to the floor with enough force to cause fatal bleeding in his brain.
Haney, who pleaded guilty to a felony child abuse charge two weeks ago, told police he had returned home from a Super Bowl party and was upset that Miguel had soiled his diaper. Haney and his wife, E’von, both had arrest records that went undetected because of a glitch at the state’s investigative bureau.
Prior to joining All About Kids, the Haneys worked for Synthesis, another private foster-care agency. But they left that agency after an abuse allegation was lodged against them, state officials said. Investigators didn’t substantiate the allegation, but Synthesis dropped them as foster parents.
“Looking back on it, there were all kinds of red flags,” the state’s Andrews told a panel of child-welfare experts last year.
The quality of foster parents varies because the businesses have different screening procedures and standards. Some private agencies do very thorough “home studies,” mandated assessments of a family’s ability to care for a foster child. Other agencies’ home studies are flimsy. Some agencies have failed to document prospective foster parents’ problems with alcoholism, addictions and psychiatric conditions, state records show.
“These are private businesses,” said licensing administrator Andrews. “We don’t have the right to tell private agencies who they can certify (as foster parents) and who they can’t.” The state requires agencies to get criminal records on each potential foster parent. But the only people barred from becoming foster parents are those convicted of certain felonies including some violent crimes, domestic violence, child abuse and sex offenses.
The state does not forbid agencies from certifying prospective foster parents who are “insane or mentally incompetent,” who have problems with alcohol or drugs or who are convicted of misdemeanor child abuse or misdemeanor violent crimes.
A state regulation says agencies may exclude people who fit those categories. But they don’t have to.
Six years ago, the Legislature inadvertently made it more difficult to crack down on problem agencies.
The state once granted foster care agencies and other child-care businesses licenses that had to be renewed every two years. If agencies broke rules, the state could refuse to renew a license.
But state inspectors monitored so many agencies that they weren’t processing renewals on time.
“If your caseload is too big, and you can’t get out to visit them, they had a license hanging on the wall that looked like it was expired,” Andrews said.
Child-care businesses balked. Rather than requesting enough licensing workers to do the job, the Human Services Department asked the Legislature for permanent li censes instead of renewable ones.
Now the state asks agencies to perform a “self assessment” when they send in their licensing fees every year. They are given a checklist of state rules, and they are asked to say whether they are following them. That way, visits by state inspectors don’t take as long.
Some agencies don’t fill out the checklist on time because the state doesn’t send out the forms every year.
“We don’t have the money to send them (checklists) out, so they’re supposed to use the same form but a different pen,” said Bernier, the deputy licensing administrator.
Some advocates think the selfassessment process is absurd: What agency is going to say it chronically breaks state rules?
“It’s outrageous,” said Roestenberg, of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center. “For the convenience of the licensing agency, we assume these enormous risks on the backs of children.” If state inspectors catch a bad agency, their only recourse is a suspension, revocation or probation of the business’ license, or the state can levy a fine.
It took three years for the state to put one foster-care business’ license on probation.
And sometimes the state threatens an agency but doesn’t follow through.
After a foster father with Grand Junction-based Jacob Center West sexually assaulted his foster son in 1996, a state inspector said, “There is a large amount of culpability that lies with Jacob Center West.”
The investigator threatened the agency’s license if another abuse case occurred in one of its homes. The agency, now known as Gateway Youth and Family Services, since has had five substantiated abuse complaints in its foster homes. The state has done nothing to the business’ license.
Prompted by The Post’s investigation, Andrews launched a review of Gateway and several other foster-care businesses. She said a newly formed team of five childwelfare monitors will hold agencies more accountable.
“I think what you’re seeing is a pattern of very high caseloads and staff who have a lot to do and can’t focus on one agency,” Andrews said. “That’s where you miss the followup. You write it down and you move on to 20 other things.” Patricia Callahan’s e-mail address is Pcallahan@denverpost.com. Kirk Mitchell’s e-mail address is Kmitchell@denverpost.com.
http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/foster-care-too-often-fails-to-keep-kids-safe/
Fame VS Poor and Uneducated- Dealing with DFCS
Fame VS Poor and Uneducated- Dealing with DFCS
January 13, 2010 yvonnemason
I know this is a strange title but there is a purpose for it. In this morning’s paper The Palm Beach Post there was a headline that screamed out at me. The headline read “Lawmaker call for probe of bogus Woods claim”
The article was about a State Senator here in South Florida who was outraged that someone had called in to the Florida Abuse Hotline to report the children of Tigner Woods and his wife Elin were being abused. It seems this story was picked up by TMZ and reported all over the world. Her statement was “perhaps needlessly traumatizing the Woods children and wasting time and tax dollars. Do so is a felony.”
The artcle goes on to say that Senator Storm on Dec 16,2009 sent a letter to DCF Secretary George Sheldon to “fully investigate” the matter and to provide the Orange County State Attorney’s Office with evidence that would aid in prosecution.
Secretary Sheldon in a response assured Senator Storm that his office was currently reviewing the available information which surrounded the investigation.
Now while this article in itself may not seem important – it really is. The reason. Tiger Woods is rich and famous. There was a call to the hotline. Senators are screaming foul. I have sent senators, governors, tv stations and newspapers and a judge letter after letter about my daughter Alice Samantha Thomason and the abuse she and her children are suffering at the hands of Jackson County Ga DFCS and Judge Guidry. I not only don’t have them screaming foul and having the local paper doing a quarter page write up about the injustice, they don’t even respond to my letters. The difference, my daughter is poor and not as educated as Woods is. She doesn’t have millions of dollars at her finger tips and her face and name is not splashed all over the paper day after day after day. She doesn’t generate dollars back into the community or other cities by showing up to hit a little white ball with a club. She doesn’t have hundreds of sponsers beating a path to her door to put her name and face on their products. She is spending millions of dollars in Jupiter Florida in a gated community for the rich to build a home that is so large one must have a road map to find their way from room to room.
Fame VS Poor and Uneducated- Dealing with DFCS
January 13, 2010 yvonnemason Leave a comment Go to comments
1 Votes
I know this is a strange title but there is a purpose for it. In this morning’s paper The Palm Beach Post there was a headline that screamed out at me. The headline read “Lawmaker call for probe of bogus Woods claim”
The article was about a State Senator here in South Florida who was outraged that someone had called in to the Florida Abuse Hotline to report the children of Tigner Woods and his wife Elin were being abused. It seems this story was picked up by TMZ and reported all over the world. Her statement was “perhaps needlessly traumatizing the Woods children and wasting time and tax dollars. Do so is a felony.”
The artcle goes on to say that Senator Storm on Dec 16,2009 sent a letter to DCF Secretary George Sheldon to “fully investigate” the matter and to provide the Orange County State Attorney’s Office with evidence that would aid in prosecution.
Secretary Sheldon in a response assured Senator Storm that his office was currently reviewing the available information which surrounded the investigation.
Now while this article in itself may not seem important – it really it. The reason. Tiger Woods is rich and famous. There was a call to the hotline. Senators are screaming foul. I have sent senators, governors, tv stations and newspapers and a judge letter after letter about my daughter Alice Samantha Thomason and the abuse she and her children are suffering at the hands of Jackson County Ga DFCS and Judge Guidry. I not only don’t have them screaming foul and having the local paper doing a quarter page write up about the injustice, they don’t even respond to my letters. The difference, my daughter is poor and not as educated as Woods is. She doesn’t have millions of dollars at her finger tips and her face and name is not splashed all over the paper day after day after day. She doesn’t generate dollars back into the community or other cities by showing up to hit a little white ball with a club. She doesn’t have hundreds of sponsers beating a path to her door to put her name and face on their products. She is spending millions of dollars in Jupiter Florida in a gated community for the rich to build a home that is so large one must have a road map to find their way from room to room.
No my daughter is just an average 26 year old who was in an abusive relationship with a man who is a drug addict, a convicted felon and a liar and pshchopath. A relationship where she was beat down mentally, physically and emotionally for over seven years. She had no self esteem and felt she had no way out.
At every turn she has been abused by Jackson County DFCS. From the day her children were taken two years ago when the youngest was only two years old she was told they would be adopted out. She went through seven caseworkers in two years, over seven case plans a hearing without council, false evidence which she was not allowed to refute. A hearing without being able to have wintesses to speak on her behalf and continued threats- and harrassments from Diedrea Sands, the children’s advocate, and others.
The latest in this abuse happened on Monday Jan 11,2009 when she went to see her children. The baby who is now four years old told her told her she wanted to come home. She was also told that she could no longer take her children to the bathroom during visitation because the foster mother Donna Vaughen was upset because Samantha had told her children about someone she had reconnected with. Someone who she had known all of her life. This was not the only thing the foster mother has done. She had Shawnna the oldest one bring back one of her christmas presents her grandfather had given her because it was makeup. She told Shawnna that “She was not having that stuff in her house.” This is not the first time she has made Shawnna bring back a gift. Samantha had given Shawnna a hairbrush and Donna made her bring it back.
It gets worse. At this same visitation on one of the coldest nights of the year in Jackson County Ga, Samantha asked where her middle daughter Sara was. Diedrea told her she was sick. Samantha again said, “Where is Sara?” Diedrea in her snide and hateful voice said, “She is outside in the van” – Samantha said, “I want to see her now.” Diedrea didn’t want to take Sam to the Van where Sara was sitting with Donna Vaughn the foster mother. She had thrown up all over the parking lot in the cold, and was dry heaving. She was to sick to bring in to see her mother but not to sick to sit outside in the van whith the night time tempature in the 20’s.
Diedrea the children’s advocate listens in on the conversations between Samantha and her children and Samantha has been told she is not supposed to tell her children she loves them. She is not supposed to tell them she wants them home with her.
The question I have is where are the voices screaming in rage for my daughter? Where are the politicans, the Newspaper writeups. The investigation by the head of the Department of DFCS for the state of Ga. Where is the outrage like there is for Tiger Woods?
I tell you where it is. There is none because, the foster parents have been told they will be able to adopt my grandchildren. They are blond and blue eyes. Shawnna is extremly smart, Sara is funny and Carly is cute. They are the perfect product to be bought and sold. They will bring in lots of money for Jackson County DFCS as well as the foster parents who are currently the foster parents of seven kids. Hmmm what a windfall each month and let’s not forget that this year they can claim my grandchildren on their taxes plus they will get a tax credit.
When Samantha was told that she had to have a house with a bedroom for each girl, I asked her then caseworker Stephanie if the girls had their own room at the foster home. She told me no they shared rooms. Are you kidding me – this family has seven foster kids and they don’t have their own room but yet Samantha has to make sure they have their own room before she gets them back. This is just another tactic DFCS uses to keep Samantha discouraged and trying to force her to sell her children.
When Diedrea was told that Samantha had not one but two jobs she was not pleased. She doesn’t really want Samantha to do anything that will be in her favor to get her kids back. She has already told the foster parents they will be able to adopt the children.
Where is the outrage? Where are the people who can make this thing right? Where is Samantha’s Public Defender Crandell Heard? He told her he was done and that he couldn’t and wouldn’t help her anymore. He is also in bed with those who do her and her children harm.
http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/fame-vs-poor-and-uneducated-dealing-with-dfcs/
January 13, 2010 yvonnemason
I know this is a strange title but there is a purpose for it. In this morning’s paper The Palm Beach Post there was a headline that screamed out at me. The headline read “Lawmaker call for probe of bogus Woods claim”
The article was about a State Senator here in South Florida who was outraged that someone had called in to the Florida Abuse Hotline to report the children of Tigner Woods and his wife Elin were being abused. It seems this story was picked up by TMZ and reported all over the world. Her statement was “perhaps needlessly traumatizing the Woods children and wasting time and tax dollars. Do so is a felony.”
The artcle goes on to say that Senator Storm on Dec 16,2009 sent a letter to DCF Secretary George Sheldon to “fully investigate” the matter and to provide the Orange County State Attorney’s Office with evidence that would aid in prosecution.
Secretary Sheldon in a response assured Senator Storm that his office was currently reviewing the available information which surrounded the investigation.
Now while this article in itself may not seem important – it really is. The reason. Tiger Woods is rich and famous. There was a call to the hotline. Senators are screaming foul. I have sent senators, governors, tv stations and newspapers and a judge letter after letter about my daughter Alice Samantha Thomason and the abuse she and her children are suffering at the hands of Jackson County Ga DFCS and Judge Guidry. I not only don’t have them screaming foul and having the local paper doing a quarter page write up about the injustice, they don’t even respond to my letters. The difference, my daughter is poor and not as educated as Woods is. She doesn’t have millions of dollars at her finger tips and her face and name is not splashed all over the paper day after day after day. She doesn’t generate dollars back into the community or other cities by showing up to hit a little white ball with a club. She doesn’t have hundreds of sponsers beating a path to her door to put her name and face on their products. She is spending millions of dollars in Jupiter Florida in a gated community for the rich to build a home that is so large one must have a road map to find their way from room to room.
Fame VS Poor and Uneducated- Dealing with DFCS
January 13, 2010 yvonnemason Leave a comment Go to comments
1 Votes
I know this is a strange title but there is a purpose for it. In this morning’s paper The Palm Beach Post there was a headline that screamed out at me. The headline read “Lawmaker call for probe of bogus Woods claim”
The article was about a State Senator here in South Florida who was outraged that someone had called in to the Florida Abuse Hotline to report the children of Tigner Woods and his wife Elin were being abused. It seems this story was picked up by TMZ and reported all over the world. Her statement was “perhaps needlessly traumatizing the Woods children and wasting time and tax dollars. Do so is a felony.”
The artcle goes on to say that Senator Storm on Dec 16,2009 sent a letter to DCF Secretary George Sheldon to “fully investigate” the matter and to provide the Orange County State Attorney’s Office with evidence that would aid in prosecution.
Secretary Sheldon in a response assured Senator Storm that his office was currently reviewing the available information which surrounded the investigation.
Now while this article in itself may not seem important – it really it. The reason. Tiger Woods is rich and famous. There was a call to the hotline. Senators are screaming foul. I have sent senators, governors, tv stations and newspapers and a judge letter after letter about my daughter Alice Samantha Thomason and the abuse she and her children are suffering at the hands of Jackson County Ga DFCS and Judge Guidry. I not only don’t have them screaming foul and having the local paper doing a quarter page write up about the injustice, they don’t even respond to my letters. The difference, my daughter is poor and not as educated as Woods is. She doesn’t have millions of dollars at her finger tips and her face and name is not splashed all over the paper day after day after day. She doesn’t generate dollars back into the community or other cities by showing up to hit a little white ball with a club. She doesn’t have hundreds of sponsers beating a path to her door to put her name and face on their products. She is spending millions of dollars in Jupiter Florida in a gated community for the rich to build a home that is so large one must have a road map to find their way from room to room.
No my daughter is just an average 26 year old who was in an abusive relationship with a man who is a drug addict, a convicted felon and a liar and pshchopath. A relationship where she was beat down mentally, physically and emotionally for over seven years. She had no self esteem and felt she had no way out.
At every turn she has been abused by Jackson County DFCS. From the day her children were taken two years ago when the youngest was only two years old she was told they would be adopted out. She went through seven caseworkers in two years, over seven case plans a hearing without council, false evidence which she was not allowed to refute. A hearing without being able to have wintesses to speak on her behalf and continued threats- and harrassments from Diedrea Sands, the children’s advocate, and others.
The latest in this abuse happened on Monday Jan 11,2009 when she went to see her children. The baby who is now four years old told her told her she wanted to come home. She was also told that she could no longer take her children to the bathroom during visitation because the foster mother Donna Vaughen was upset because Samantha had told her children about someone she had reconnected with. Someone who she had known all of her life. This was not the only thing the foster mother has done. She had Shawnna the oldest one bring back one of her christmas presents her grandfather had given her because it was makeup. She told Shawnna that “She was not having that stuff in her house.” This is not the first time she has made Shawnna bring back a gift. Samantha had given Shawnna a hairbrush and Donna made her bring it back.
It gets worse. At this same visitation on one of the coldest nights of the year in Jackson County Ga, Samantha asked where her middle daughter Sara was. Diedrea told her she was sick. Samantha again said, “Where is Sara?” Diedrea in her snide and hateful voice said, “She is outside in the van” – Samantha said, “I want to see her now.” Diedrea didn’t want to take Sam to the Van where Sara was sitting with Donna Vaughn the foster mother. She had thrown up all over the parking lot in the cold, and was dry heaving. She was to sick to bring in to see her mother but not to sick to sit outside in the van whith the night time tempature in the 20’s.
Diedrea the children’s advocate listens in on the conversations between Samantha and her children and Samantha has been told she is not supposed to tell her children she loves them. She is not supposed to tell them she wants them home with her.
The question I have is where are the voices screaming in rage for my daughter? Where are the politicans, the Newspaper writeups. The investigation by the head of the Department of DFCS for the state of Ga. Where is the outrage like there is for Tiger Woods?
I tell you where it is. There is none because, the foster parents have been told they will be able to adopt my grandchildren. They are blond and blue eyes. Shawnna is extremly smart, Sara is funny and Carly is cute. They are the perfect product to be bought and sold. They will bring in lots of money for Jackson County DFCS as well as the foster parents who are currently the foster parents of seven kids. Hmmm what a windfall each month and let’s not forget that this year they can claim my grandchildren on their taxes plus they will get a tax credit.
When Samantha was told that she had to have a house with a bedroom for each girl, I asked her then caseworker Stephanie if the girls had their own room at the foster home. She told me no they shared rooms. Are you kidding me – this family has seven foster kids and they don’t have their own room but yet Samantha has to make sure they have their own room before she gets them back. This is just another tactic DFCS uses to keep Samantha discouraged and trying to force her to sell her children.
When Diedrea was told that Samantha had not one but two jobs she was not pleased. She doesn’t really want Samantha to do anything that will be in her favor to get her kids back. She has already told the foster parents they will be able to adopt the children.
Where is the outrage? Where are the people who can make this thing right? Where is Samantha’s Public Defender Crandell Heard? He told her he was done and that he couldn’t and wouldn’t help her anymore. He is also in bed with those who do her and her children harm.
http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/fame-vs-poor-and-uneducated-dealing-with-dfcs/
NH DCYF-The System(The CORRUPT SYSTEM)
Written by Parentassist
Our family was very devastated and has been very damaged by the NH DCYF/NH DHHS, and it was extremely stressful trying to advocate for my mentally ill child's disability rights to prompt treatment and family contact, and advocate on behalf of our family's civil rights while also being the object of a witch hunt type of trial because I tried to get my son the help he needed. Besides NH DCYF consciously inducing social stigmas (NH DCYF faxed my child's school a note which stated that they believe I had munchausen's disease, while they simultaneously changed their tune rather quickly in court upon learning that I tested negative for munchausen's disease, and in court they denied ever alleging that I was a munchausen's parent (which was the reason that they created their exparte emergency order and had to take my supposedly "perfectly normal/healthy child without any signs of mental illness" into NH DCYF custody to begin with...And very discreetly, NH DCYF's caseworker called my child's primary care doc during the end of my trial and told the primary care doc that I had munchausen's disease!), there have been severe financial difficulties, and health issues all "Courteousy of NH DCYF!" My children were so very traumatized by the whole NH DCYF ordeal and my son's mental illness has flourished at a much more severe level, which is a predictable situation given that NH DCYF ignored my son's symptoms and failed to get my child prompt evaluation and treatment while in their custody and instead NH DCYF cashed his social security mental disability checks....NH DCYF sent me a letter stating that their community health nurse felt that the doctor ordered evaluations were not necessary, so NH DCYF decided not to take my child to his doc ordered neurology appts...thereby stalling my child's neurology consult for approximately 8+ months! And they tried very hard to prevent my child's special needs testing and his chromosomal testing too! And you already know how they told the court that my son was going to be tested at McLean Hospital and then never even made the appointment.... THEY COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING TO HELP OUR FAMILY....Instead NH DCYF's refused to help and NH DCYF's supervisor stated that we didn't need such help as there had been no fatality/lethality yet....And NH DCYF consciously chose to damage our family with a vengeance instead of helping to prevent damage.
Houses can be replaced, jobs can be replaced, and even losing friends because of being stigmatized as a "parent whose child NH DCYF took away" can be survived, but FAMILIES CANNOT BE REPLACED! The damage done to my children and to our family over this entire matter is horrific and is far beyond measurement. SHAME ON NH DCYF for their conscious actions of inflicting emotional harm to children in the system and to the families of the children in the system. "The System" is very unethical, very immoral, very biased and extremely greedy for power and for money. NH DCYF destroys the very families and the very children that "The System" claims to serve and then "The System" puts their false claims of "keeping families healthy" and "encouraging health and growth" and "working with families" on their website. It's just so horrible.
So how do these NH DCYF "human" beings sleep at night, knowing the pain and the harm that they've caused others on purpose?
Our family was very devastated and has been very damaged by the NH DCYF/NH DHHS, and it was extremely stressful trying to advocate for my mentally ill child's disability rights to prompt treatment and family contact, and advocate on behalf of our family's civil rights while also being the object of a witch hunt type of trial because I tried to get my son the help he needed. Besides NH DCYF consciously inducing social stigmas (NH DCYF faxed my child's school a note which stated that they believe I had munchausen's disease, while they simultaneously changed their tune rather quickly in court upon learning that I tested negative for munchausen's disease, and in court they denied ever alleging that I was a munchausen's parent (which was the reason that they created their exparte emergency order and had to take my supposedly "perfectly normal/healthy child without any signs of mental illness" into NH DCYF custody to begin with...And very discreetly, NH DCYF's caseworker called my child's primary care doc during the end of my trial and told the primary care doc that I had munchausen's disease!), there have been severe financial difficulties, and health issues all "Courteousy of NH DCYF!" My children were so very traumatized by the whole NH DCYF ordeal and my son's mental illness has flourished at a much more severe level, which is a predictable situation given that NH DCYF ignored my son's symptoms and failed to get my child prompt evaluation and treatment while in their custody and instead NH DCYF cashed his social security mental disability checks....NH DCYF sent me a letter stating that their community health nurse felt that the doctor ordered evaluations were not necessary, so NH DCYF decided not to take my child to his doc ordered neurology appts...thereby stalling my child's neurology consult for approximately 8+ months! And they tried very hard to prevent my child's special needs testing and his chromosomal testing too! And you already know how they told the court that my son was going to be tested at McLean Hospital and then never even made the appointment.... THEY COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING TO HELP OUR FAMILY....Instead NH DCYF's refused to help and NH DCYF's supervisor stated that we didn't need such help as there had been no fatality/lethality yet....And NH DCYF consciously chose to damage our family with a vengeance instead of helping to prevent damage.
Houses can be replaced, jobs can be replaced, and even losing friends because of being stigmatized as a "parent whose child NH DCYF took away" can be survived, but FAMILIES CANNOT BE REPLACED! The damage done to my children and to our family over this entire matter is horrific and is far beyond measurement. SHAME ON NH DCYF for their conscious actions of inflicting emotional harm to children in the system and to the families of the children in the system. "The System" is very unethical, very immoral, very biased and extremely greedy for power and for money. NH DCYF destroys the very families and the very children that "The System" claims to serve and then "The System" puts their false claims of "keeping families healthy" and "encouraging health and growth" and "working with families" on their website. It's just so horrible.
So how do these NH DCYF "human" beings sleep at night, knowing the pain and the harm that they've caused others on purpose?
Human Rights Violations in The USA
Human Rights Violations in The USA
The United States is the worlds biggest violator of human rights, since the Germans. How and why do I say this? Any time senators pass laws that allow a person’s children to be removed from a home, with out due cause, it is a human rights violation. When child protective services can enter your home, remove your children, and not allow the parents to see them, it is a human rights violation. When child protective services can have your child placed on mind altering drugs, it’s a human rights violation. When a school wants your child placed on medication, because they will receive funds from the drug maker. It’s a human rights violation. When the person that decides your child’s future has little more that a high school diploma, it’s a human rights violation. All of this takes me back to Nazi Germany, when families were torn a part in the middle of the night, by SS officers. No one wants to believe this is happening in this country. Most certainly not in the land of the free. Since the passage of the Mondale Act in 1974, families have been torn apart, children have been seized, adopted, never to see their parents again. Anyone can say you are abusing your child, and they will be picked up. Children are being snatched from loving homes every day, because of this system. When a child is picked up, CPS is going to receive over 200. 000 dollars, which will be divided between specific case worker, counselors, and foster parents. these children are placed with specific foster parents, because they are to be brain-washed, and taught how to behave, all of this is done in preperation for them receiving mental care. Eventually they will receive mind-altering drugs. When a foster parent cares for a child classified as having “behavior problems”, the parent receives more compensation. If that child is actually sent to a hospital. they are classified as being “institutionalized”, the pay more than doubles. Parents that try to fight this abuse, find themselves up against a brick wall, because people believe the state is always right, and you must be a “bad person”. If your child is in custody for 18 months, they can put them up for adoption. Don’t think someone new will adopt your child, because, that won’t happen. They knew who wanted your child, before they were picked up. The counselors, case workers, CASA, and GAL, all work to gain your child’s confidence, and they are coached in what to say, but remember, you can’t see your child. If a school hotlines you, they will get money from the drug company, and payments go to the teachers union. Usuall, there are specific teachers in schools that work directly with Child Protective Services, these teachers have children identified for the worker, they put a plan in motion to set the parents up. The CPS officer will hot-line you, all of this is done to build a case. If you know of a child that is being abused, or harmed in any way, try hot-lining the parent. You will probably never have a response to your tip, because the system is not equipped to deal with children in a real crisis. This is most unfortunate, because there a thousands of children that need help. If you have experienced any of these problems, you can visit the blog legally kidnapped, you will find links there to other sites. One person can’t fight this alone, united we are strong.
http://motherguides.com/human-rights-violations-in-the-usa/
The United States is the worlds biggest violator of human rights, since the Germans. How and why do I say this? Any time senators pass laws that allow a person’s children to be removed from a home, with out due cause, it is a human rights violation. When child protective services can enter your home, remove your children, and not allow the parents to see them, it is a human rights violation. When child protective services can have your child placed on mind altering drugs, it’s a human rights violation. When a school wants your child placed on medication, because they will receive funds from the drug maker. It’s a human rights violation. When the person that decides your child’s future has little more that a high school diploma, it’s a human rights violation. All of this takes me back to Nazi Germany, when families were torn a part in the middle of the night, by SS officers. No one wants to believe this is happening in this country. Most certainly not in the land of the free. Since the passage of the Mondale Act in 1974, families have been torn apart, children have been seized, adopted, never to see their parents again. Anyone can say you are abusing your child, and they will be picked up. Children are being snatched from loving homes every day, because of this system. When a child is picked up, CPS is going to receive over 200. 000 dollars, which will be divided between specific case worker, counselors, and foster parents. these children are placed with specific foster parents, because they are to be brain-washed, and taught how to behave, all of this is done in preperation for them receiving mental care. Eventually they will receive mind-altering drugs. When a foster parent cares for a child classified as having “behavior problems”, the parent receives more compensation. If that child is actually sent to a hospital. they are classified as being “institutionalized”, the pay more than doubles. Parents that try to fight this abuse, find themselves up against a brick wall, because people believe the state is always right, and you must be a “bad person”. If your child is in custody for 18 months, they can put them up for adoption. Don’t think someone new will adopt your child, because, that won’t happen. They knew who wanted your child, before they were picked up. The counselors, case workers, CASA, and GAL, all work to gain your child’s confidence, and they are coached in what to say, but remember, you can’t see your child. If a school hotlines you, they will get money from the drug company, and payments go to the teachers union. Usuall, there are specific teachers in schools that work directly with Child Protective Services, these teachers have children identified for the worker, they put a plan in motion to set the parents up. The CPS officer will hot-line you, all of this is done to build a case. If you know of a child that is being abused, or harmed in any way, try hot-lining the parent. You will probably never have a response to your tip, because the system is not equipped to deal with children in a real crisis. This is most unfortunate, because there a thousands of children that need help. If you have experienced any of these problems, you can visit the blog legally kidnapped, you will find links there to other sites. One person can’t fight this alone, united we are strong.
http://motherguides.com/human-rights-violations-in-the-usa/
The Truth About CPS/DCYF From the Inside
City Limits MAGAZINE
Date: December 2000 (Old article, but CPS hasn't changed and happens all over our Nation!)
TAKING LIBERTIES
She thought she was hired to protect children. But instead, a city child abuse investigator discovered that betraying her clients was part of her job description. Tales from a year inside the Administration for Children's Services. > By Akka Gordon
Emergency Children's Services is an inconspicuous, dingy building at the southern edge of Soho. About 30 to 40 kids come here each night, after they are taken away from their parents and while they're waiting for a foster home to take them in. When they get here, they cry, fight or sit silently on a stained couch, eyes glazed over. As an investigator for the New York City Administration for Children's Services, I spent many nights here.
When children first arrive at ECS they are taken through a metal detector by security. Some carry garbage bags containing their clothes; others tightly clutch just the one item they brought from home. Each is accompanied by an ACS child protective caseworker, who is given a number and waits to be called to check the kids in. On a busy night, of which there are many, this can take hours.
In the waiting room, some tattered old books and the odd toy lie about. A green banner hangs year round saying, "Seasons Greetings From Pre-Placement" and does little to conceal the cracking paint. The children hungrily eye a vending machine in the corner and beg their caseworkers for candy. And the caseworkers say, No way.
Some of these kids, who range from newborn babies to 17-year-olds, have been rescued from seriously abusive or neglectful parents. Others are here for reasons that are ambiguous, unjustified, even arbitrary. But they all come to the same dim room on Laight Street. And because the city's Administration for Children's Services has identified them as children in danger, this is the first of many unfamiliar places they'll be seeing as they journey through the city's foster care system.
Like me, the other caseworkers here are exhausted. Most of them are on the phone or stare up at the television hung from the wall. It is not part of the job to comfort the children just plucked from their homes. They are irritated and want to get home.
When I first started coming to ECS, I tried to reach out to all the children who were crying or sitting alone, shocked and terrified. It was easier with the little ones, because I could hug them and they would immediately respond. But the older ones were different. I asked them, "Do you know why you are here?" Chances were that they had only a vague idea; ACS investigators often do not tell the children they are removing exactly what is going on. Most of the time the kids shrugged and said, "I don't know." Or they knew pieces, like, "Because mommy didn't clean the house." Often it was, "Because mommy got arrested."
The more I ended up at ECS, the harder it became to comfort these children. When you had no idea where a child was going to end up that night, it was impossible to assure them of anything. When a child asks, "Am I going to get split up from my little brother?" you can't say no. Although all efforts are supposed to be made to place siblings together, there are countless exceptions. Instead you have to say, "Let's hope not, okay?"
One night I was at ECS with a 3-year-old named Christopher, whom I had picked up from a precinct in East Harlem. His mother was arrested that day on drug charges. He had been living in a crack house, according to the police who took him, and his arms and legs were caked with dirt. All he had with him was a pacifier and a scarf. I pulled the pacifier out of his mouth and asked him, "Are you going to talk to me?" He looked at me and said, "Fuck off." Other than this, he didn't speak.
In the waiting room he pulled a chair out from under a girl his age as she went to sit down. After she fell, crying, he jumped up and down, pointing and laughing at her. I tried to engage him, to keep Christopher from terrorizing the other children. Then another caseworker came in. He lifted him by one arm and shouted in his face, "Listen, you brat. You better sit down and SHUT UP." He tossed Christopher onto the couch and he bounced, landing on his head. The caseworker warned, "Don't even think about moving. I'm watching you." Christopher did not move or even cry. He looked at me for help.
The caseworker explained to me defensively, "That's the only way these kids listen. That's how they are treated at home, so that's the only way to get through to them." And I wondered, silently: If we aren't treating these children any better than they were treated in their homes, then what are we doing?
To the manager at ACS who makes the fateful decision to remove a child, and to the judge who approves it, a child exists on a piece of paper, alongside a list of disturbing circumstances. They don't see a child having a panic attack at 3 a.m. because he is suddenly alone in the world. Or slamming his head against a wall out of protest and desperation. The good intentions that go into the decision to remove a child often have little to do with the sometimes brutal outcomes of that choice. And the problem is not simply caseworkers who do not know how to talk to children. The whole system does not treat children with dignity and respect.
Usually, the kids fell asleep in my lap during the car rides to their new foster homes. But Christopher stayed awake all the way to his new home in Staten Island, until 3 a.m. He stared out the car window and watched Manhattan recede in the distance. He seemed to know exactly what was happening, like an adult trapped in a little body that couldn't speak. But when I finally had to leave him, he did what any 3-year-old would do in the face of abandonment. He clung for his life to my leg.
_______
When I graduated from college two years ago, I decided to become a caseworker for ACS. I wanted to learn how child welfare policy affects children and their families--not from reports and data, but on the front lines.
It may seem hard to imagine now, but in many ways I loved my job and had no plans to do anything else. As a caseworker, I was in a unique position to advocate for children and parents when they most needed help. Many of the parents and children I encountered made deep impressions on me, and I established close connections with some of them. I also enjoyed the investigative aspect of the job, the thrill of constantly going into unknown situations. At first, I saw it as a daily adventure.
But it did not take long for me to see that there was no adventure here. Many of these families were harassed, their rights systematically violated by ACS. Their children were being swallowed up by an agency that too often operated on virtually unchecked authority, wielded arbitrarily. And I represented that agency.
More and more, I felt that I could not do the job I believed I needed to do with an ACS badge around my neck. I resigned from the agency in October 1999, after working there for just over a year. After all that I had experienced, I felt, like many of my clients, crippled by feelings of powerlessness. At the time, the only thing I could do was write it all down.
In the year I worked there, the Administration for Children's Services investigated more than 50,000 reports of child abuse and neglect. I handled about 50 of them in my job as a child protective caseworker in the Manhattan field office. I went all over the city investigating cases--to housing projects, family shelters and, once, to an apartment where a father had made a robot for his kids out of old Metrocards. But except for the time I visited a family on the Upper West Side--who hired their own doctors to disprove ACS's allegations of child abuse--my work took me to low-income neighborhoods. The reality is that families who are likely to be reported to ACS are poor.
When I first started the job, my supervisor explained to me that bad caseworkers sympathize with the parents. "Being sentimental," he said, "is the worst way to be." If you relate to the parent, the wisdom goes, you cannot conduct an objective investigation.
The entire investigation process relies on the assumption that parents do not know their rights, starting with the moment they allow caseworkers to come into their homes. A lot of these families are so conditioned to caseworkers knocking on their doors that the presence of a city worker in their homes is just another part of life. Nearly half a million New York City children have been the subjects of ACS investigations. If you are poor and if you have had problems with the law, if you have ever been involved in a domestic violence dispute, if you took your child to the emergency room after an accident, if you have ever used drugs, if your children have problems in school, if you have ever been homeless, ACS has been a part of your life.
_______
Child protective specialists get about two to three new cases each week, sent to them by their supervisors. Those supervisors have their own supervisors, called managers. It's managers who sign off on the big decisions: whether a case is worth pursuing and, most critically, when to put children into foster care.
For a caseworker, each case represents a heavy set of tasks and responsibilities. First, unless the call was anonymous, she must contact the source of the report. Many calls come from professionals required by law to report suspected abuse or neglect, such as teachers, guidance counselors and hospital social workers. Other people call in reports, too, especially neighbors and family members. But many of these reports turn out to be false, and some of them are made purely for revenge.
Within 24 hours of a report, the caseworker has to visit the family at home. Caseworkers must interview each child and examine them all for marks and bruises. They must also interview every other member of the household, check every room for safety, check refrigerators and cabinets for food. Immunization records, birth certificates and proof of income must be verified. Next, caseworkers contact the children's schools and doctors. And in cases that involve drug allegations, the caseworker must accompany the parent to a drug test.
At any point during the investigation, a manager can order children to be removed from their homes if it is determined that their lives are at risk. But under state law and ACS policy, removals are supposed to be a last resort. As an alternative, the agency offers a menu of services to help families deal with problems; counseling, parenting classes, drug treatment and housekeeping services are the most typical.
These investigations and interventions save children's lives and protect their well-being all the time. Caseworkers are trained to look beneath the surface, to not trust a parent's statement without evidence and to compile as much information about a family as possible. Caseworkers and their supervisors are accountable for each case; the days when cases piled up on desks without anyone contacting a family are long over.
But accountability, at ACS, is a one-way street. A manager or supervisor has no one to answer to if a child who shouldn't be in foster care is removed from home anyway. There is no penalty for the wrongful taking of a child. And the pressures to remove are intense. I was trained to do removals in cases that did not necessarily qualify as abuse or neglect because, as one of my supervisors reminded me, "prevention is better than a cure." When I was resistant to doing a removal on a case, that same supervisor's advice was, "It's better to be safe than sorry." And at moments of uncertainty, the mantra was "Cover your ass"--a phrase heard often around the office. It was backed up by a pervasive fear--among caseworkers, supervisors, managers and attorneys--of seeing our photograph in the Daily News as the person who made an error that was literally fatal.
Caseworkers, usually the only people who have had direct contact with a family, don't have much to say in the decision-making process. Managers generally think of them as being incapable of giving meaningful recommendations. One week after the investigation begins, caseworkers have to file an electronic report. The computer offers two options: "safe" and "unsafe." But my manager accepted only one. Any time I determined a child to be "safe," my manager rejected it and returned it to me. The first step to protect yourself, I quickly discovered, is to determine that a child is "unsafe" from the outset of an investigation.
_______
In my division, if the allegations were bad enough--and especially if they came from a teacher, doctor, or other professional required by law to report suspected abuse or neglect--our manager considered them to be absolute truth. Virtually every time, if a caseworker could not find evidence to prove that the allegations were unfounded, the manager would refuse to sign off on a case, clearing it from our ever-growing caseloads, until we marked it "indicated" in the computer system. Indicated means that ACS has found credible evidence that abuse or neglect has taken place.
Our manager indicated a case in which an 18-year-old mother was mistakenly picked up in a drug sweep and immediately released. The same woman had been indicated in an earlier investigation, after hot tea spilled on her child at a family shelter, even though the social worker whose tea it was witnessed that it was an accident. Still, the manager decided that this previous incident--along with a robbery conviction and marijuana use before the child was born--was reason enough to indicate the new case.
Throughout ACS, the proportion of cases that end up labeled indicated has jumped from 26 percent in 1994 to nearly 40 percent in 1998. From a manager's point of view, indicating cases gives them the legal leverage they need to order a removal at any given time. For a parent, it also means something else: Having an indicated case on her record means that she cannot adopt a child, become a foster parent or work with children in any capacity.
From there, the decision to remove is entirely up to the manager. By law, children are supposed to be removed only if their physical or emotional health has been harmed or they are in immediate danger or being hurt as a result of a parent's failure to "exercise a minimum degree of care." In practice, that can mean anything from a parent failing to show up for parenting classes to sending her child to the hospital with a broken limb. But sometimes children are removed for reasons the caseworkers themselves cannot fathom.
On the night I met a client I'll call Louise at the homeless shelter where she lived, she told me her 11-day-old son, Kevin, was born without drugs in his body. That she prayed to God and he gave her another chance. And that she got clean on her own, without any program. I asked her about her other children and she told me what I already knew: She had given birth to five children who were all taken away from her while she was still in the hospital because each time she tested positive for crack.
Back at the office, my manager ordered me to remove Kevin. My manager, like most of her colleagues, did not go for the "life transformation" stuff. It did not matter that all of Louise's drug tests had been clean for the past two years. The manager called it a straight case of neglect, since the woman's other children had all been taken from her. Besides, my manager reminded me, Louise is taking heavy psychotropic medication.
Before going to court, we received a letter written by Louise's psychiatrist, whom she had seen regularly for the past year. He wrote:
I remember thinking in her case no medication and certainly no therapy had been able to have the effect on her that her new child has had on her....The effect of the role of motherhood on her has defined her and given her grounding. It is our social and moral responsibility to support [Louise] in functioning as a mother. It is clear that [Louise] is ill. However, it is my assessment, in accord with all other senior clinicians [here], that [Louise] poses no immediate threat to her child.
My manager didn't see things the same way, and she made me file the case in court. "If we can't get a neglect finding on this mother, I might as well go work for the Parks Department," she told me. When ACS's attorneys initially wouldn't accept the case, she emailed the head of the legal division. And while I was away at a three-day training, she finally managed to get Kevin into foster care. Louise had stayed overnight with Kevin's father that week after she missed curfew at her shelter, and my manager had found an old order of protection against him--evidence of domestic violence. Louise was nailed with "failure to protect" Kevin from this potentially dangerous man.
(Only later did Louise tell me that she did not really have a history of domestic violence; she made it up a few years ago since she knew it was the only way she could qualify for emergency housing. I explained to her that it was the only reason ACS was able to take Kevin. "Well, what would you have done?" she asked me.)
In Family Court, Louise spoke up for herself, because her attorney did not. She argued her case herself and, with the help of testimony from her psychiatric nurse, won the judge over. Louise got Kevin back on the condition that she secure housing, submit to drug tests, continue to see her psychiatrist and comply with ACS supervision.
The ability to return a child to his or her parent is one of the few rewards of a caseworker's job. After picking up Kevin from his foster care agency in Queens, I sat with him in the Emergency Assistance Unit, the city's dispatch center for homeless families, waiting for his mother to arrive. The waiting room was filled with mothers and crying kids. A little girl came in the waiting area and asked the lady behind the counter for a piece of paper. "No paper," was the curt reply. I told the girl to come over to where I was sitting. My hands were full because I was feeding Kevin, but I told her that she could rip some pages out of my notebook. She stood there and tore out about 30 pages, one at a time. Every few moments she looked up at me waiting for me to say no. I just smiled at her. "That your baby?" she asked me.
"No," I told her.
"You homeless?"
I shook my head.
"You took that baby, didn't you?" she asked.
"I'm giving him back."
"Yeah, you better," she warned.
_______
In my year at ACS, I was lucky to see only a few children who were severely abused and neglected. I did see bruises, belt marks and burns on kids. I saw dirty and hungry children. I saw a baby with cockroaches crawling in her crib. There were kids who had never been to school.
I had to ask a kindergartner if her father put his penis in her mouth. I sat in the back of an ambulance with a 9-year-old boy lying on a stretcher who had been beaten up by his mother with a baseball bat. He clutched his HIP card, his only possession now, in his swollen hand. I had a 3-year-old child whose mother forced him to stay awake for four days and three nights because she thought he was possessed by a ghost and would die if he fell asleep.
And I met some parents who were dangerous not just to their children, but to me. I had to get an order of protection for myself against one, and was warned by another that I was going to be killed by the Bloods outside Family Court.
But all this is what I expected from the job. In a strange way, these really horrible cases turned out to be the easy ones. It was the cases that weren't so clear-cut that kept me up at night. I saw removals occur when parents were accused of failing to follow up with a preventive service program or counseling. Breaking rules at shelters. Using or selling marijuana, or not sending their children to school. Failure-to-protect cases were common. One time, I removed a child from a mother accused of neglecting her infant son when she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. It turned out the child was not yet even born when the suicide attempt occurred.
I worried about what I would do if my manager ordered me to remove. I worried about making mistakes myself.
_______
Two nights before Christmas 1998, I removed two children who I still believe should not have been taken from their home. I had been a caseworker at ACS for two months.
At the last minute, my supervisor instructed me to accompany an even greener coworker on a case I knew nothing about. On the way up the FDR, in the back of the city car, my colleague, Theresa, described the case to me. The children were to be removed because their 82-year-old great-grandmother, Ms. Ruth Jackson, was too old to care for them. Owen, 5, and Carla, 14, were in Ms. Jackson's legal custody, because their mother and grandmother were both absent, allegedly because of drug use.
According to the allegations from an after-school program she attended, Carla had recently slashed a girl in the face with a pocketknife at school and was beyond the great-grandmother's control. Theresa told me Ms. Jackson had medical problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes and glaucoma. Due to her "failing health," our supervisor believed that she was not an appropriate caretaker for the children.
The supervisor instructed Theresa to ask the great-grandmother to sign a form that would voluntarily place the children in ACS's custody. Theresa told me that she was instructed to call the police and remove the children only if the woman refused to sign the form. Our supervisor had informed Theresa that a refusal to sign would constitute neglect, because Ms. Jackson would not be complying with the best interests of the children.
"I don't believe that this is the right thing," Theresa complained to me. "The great-grandmother hasn't done anything wrong, and her health seems fine." I was furious at her for not telling me any of this before we left. I knew the options a family could be offered in a time of stress. A removal was to be done only in an emergency.
When we arrived, Ms. Jackson looked at us suspiciously and seemed reluctant to let us in. Decorated for Christmas, the apartment smelled like greasy chicken. It was 9 at night.
She instructed the children to go to their rooms. She sat on the sagging couch and asked, "What can I do for you ladies tonight?" She looked a little frail but seemed strong-willed.
I sat in the corner by the Christmas tree while Theresa tried to explain about the voluntary form. "You are old and you have so many health problems," she told Ms. Jackson unconvincingly. "Who will take care of the children if something should happen to you?"
Ms. Jackson said, "Ain't nothing happening to me. What if something happens to you?"
Theresa tried again. "It's not safe for the children to be living with you because you are too old to care for them properly and look after them." She looked at the floor as she said this, her voice shaking.
"What're you saying, miss? These children are not going anywhere. Nobody in this house is too old. I raised them kids since they were babies. The court gave me these children and nobody's going to take them away from me."
"My supervisor said that..."
"What?"
"My supervisor"
"Your what?"
"My supervisor. He wants you to sign this voluntary form so that the children will be safe." She placed the blank form on the coffee table.
"I don't know much about your supervisor, but nobody's signing these kids to them foster people. It's Christmas. Did you know that, dear?"
After about 15 minutes of this, Theresa signaled me to call the police. Out in the hallway I called 911, then went back into the apartment to wait for the cops.
Ms. Jackson had no idea they were coming. "Who would want to take these children?" she asked us. "It's Christmas. These children are happy. I take these children to school every day. I make sure they have everything they need to get along fine."
The cops banged on the door. "Who's that?" asked Ms. Jackson. "That your supervisor?"
I answered the door. Two cops stood around and did not say much. Theresa started crying, and everything fell into my hands. I explained to Ms. Jackson that the children were coming with us tonight and that she would have to come to court tomorrow to get them back. I had packed kids up quickly once before, so I braced myself to do it again.
The kids were watching The Brady Bunch, lying with their feet up on their great-grandmother's bed. I introduced myself and told Carla to pack up some clothes for herself and her brother. She looked at me as if the prospect of leaving might be exciting for a second. Owen wanted to know if "grandma" was coming. I told him no, and said some things about how everything was going to be okay. Ms. Jackson came in and put clean underwear on Owen, put his pajamas back on, and packed some clothes in a backpack for him.
As we continued to pack, Ms. Jackson stood in the bedroom doorway with her mouth half-open, no sound coming out. Carla ran down the stairs and waited for us in front of the police car.
In the back of the car on our way to ECS, Owen saw his big sister crying. He sat on my lap and started crying into my shirt.
_______
Almost all removals take place at night. Caseworkers are too busy during the day, and a family is also more likely to be home after dark. But some workers deliberately wait till after hours, for the time-and-a-half overtime. Doing a removal, staying out all night at ECS, and then taking the child to a foster home can mean more than doubling a day's pay. With caseworkers' salaries starting at under $32,000, overtime makes a big difference.
The caseworkers who want nothing to do with removals can rely on other caseworkers who volunteer for the money. When supervisors are desperate to find someone to do a removal, they often encourage caseworkers by reminding them, "You could use the extra cash." The consequence is caseworkers arriving at ECS with no idea why they just removed the kids who are with them. When the ECS intake worker or an ACS lawyer asks them why the children were removed, "I don't know, it's not my case" is a standard response. Or simply, "Because my supervisor told me to."
Any caseworker can tell you that they have done removals that they did not personally agree with. But they rarely complain to management, since they will never get in trouble for removing a child under supervisors' orders. Caseworkers are also quiet about unnecessary removals because doing a removal and then transferring a case to foster care takes them a lot less time than keeping it and trying to work with a family. Keeping a case obligates a worker to do regular home visits and follow-ups to make sure a family is getting preventive services. It also means dealing with anything that may go wrong and continuing to be responsible for the children's safety.
To become a child protective caseworker, you do not need to have any experience working with children, or demonstrate that you actually want to work with children. No one even asks if you like children. You must simply have a bachelor's degree in a social science field and pass a two-part exam. For the oral part we were asked to think of five questions we would ask a parent, based on a short case scenario. A "powerful rotting odor" is supposed to prompt test-takers to ask, "What is that smell?" For the written test, we listened to a series of voice mail recordings and wrote down phone numbers and other details. This was not a test of common sense, or even listening skills. It seemed to be a test to see if we were alive.
Once hired, caseworkers have six weeks of training, where they are taught how to conduct interviews, identify abuse and neglect, and carry out a removal. Legal issues, child development, domestic violence, sensitivity to cultural issues and handling angry clients were also part of the curriculum. Through it all, caseworkers are taught, it is essential to treat clients respectfully and professionally.
But the social work lingo of the training, where we spent two days discussing the need to "leave your baggage at the door," is far removed from the harsh reality of a field office. For new caseworkers, the obsessive concern with liability at the field offices quickly overshadows the reasonable criteria they have been taught for identifying abuse and neglect. Most quickly learn to abandon their training and to do what it takes to survive.
ACS has been making strides cutting down heavy caseloads, but it's still a stressful and at times tedious job--each case, no matter how trivial, calls for the same 15-page report. A contradiction at the heart of it all makes the work even more difficult. Caseworkers are trained to be service providers and advocates for families. To work together with families to uncover and solve problems in the home, caseworkers must establish an intimate rapport with their clients. Yet at the very same time they are engaged in an act of betrayal: as they write down parents' statements and survey their homes and behavior, caseworkers are building a potential court case against them. At no point are they able to tell their clients that everything they say can be used against them in court. The relationship of caseworker and client becomes one of manipulation, characterized by a deep lack of trust on both sides.
Although many of the best caseworkers get fed up and leave the agency, there are good workers who have been at ACS for years. They have survived because they have learned how to manipulate the system to make it work for themselves and their clients. They purposely omit or obscure facts about families in their case records and in their discussions with their supervisors to save clients from unnecessary court action. The most fortunate have supervisors who share their commitment to respecting families' rights. I was one of them: One of my supervisors was a mentor to me, and I considered her directives highly valuable.
Several months before I left the agency, an Emergency Children's Services supervisor who was resigning after more than 10 years blanketed the agency with a stunning email. He began by saying that he is not leaving the agency any better than when he started. He blamed this lack of improvement on ACS Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, whom he accused of being more preoccupied with making the agency look good in the media than with making substantial changes that help clients. "ACS cares more about statistics than they do about children, forgetting that those statistics represent real children," he wrote. The supervisor had equally harsh words for protective caseworkers: "ACS workers cannot absolve themselves of responsibility for doing wrong removals by blaming them on their supervisors or managers or on agency policy." He compared the level of obedience and complacency at the agency to Nazi soldiers who killed 11 million civilians during World War II because "they too were just carrying out orders." Nobody around me talked about the email, not even to disagree.
_______
Carla and Owen were placed in foster care that night. The next day, Theresa went to court. The judge, who happened to be in his seventies himself, ordered that Owen be returned home immediately. The judge stated the obvious: Old age is not grounds for neglect. Carla, however, was to remain in foster care because of her behavior problems. When the judge asked Theresa if she felt the children were in imminent danger, she answered that in her opinion they were not.
__._,_.___
Date: December 2000 (Old article, but CPS hasn't changed and happens all over our Nation!)
TAKING LIBERTIES
She thought she was hired to protect children. But instead, a city child abuse investigator discovered that betraying her clients was part of her job description. Tales from a year inside the Administration for Children's Services. > By Akka Gordon
Emergency Children's Services is an inconspicuous, dingy building at the southern edge of Soho. About 30 to 40 kids come here each night, after they are taken away from their parents and while they're waiting for a foster home to take them in. When they get here, they cry, fight or sit silently on a stained couch, eyes glazed over. As an investigator for the New York City Administration for Children's Services, I spent many nights here.
When children first arrive at ECS they are taken through a metal detector by security. Some carry garbage bags containing their clothes; others tightly clutch just the one item they brought from home. Each is accompanied by an ACS child protective caseworker, who is given a number and waits to be called to check the kids in. On a busy night, of which there are many, this can take hours.
In the waiting room, some tattered old books and the odd toy lie about. A green banner hangs year round saying, "Seasons Greetings From Pre-Placement" and does little to conceal the cracking paint. The children hungrily eye a vending machine in the corner and beg their caseworkers for candy. And the caseworkers say, No way.
Some of these kids, who range from newborn babies to 17-year-olds, have been rescued from seriously abusive or neglectful parents. Others are here for reasons that are ambiguous, unjustified, even arbitrary. But they all come to the same dim room on Laight Street. And because the city's Administration for Children's Services has identified them as children in danger, this is the first of many unfamiliar places they'll be seeing as they journey through the city's foster care system.
Like me, the other caseworkers here are exhausted. Most of them are on the phone or stare up at the television hung from the wall. It is not part of the job to comfort the children just plucked from their homes. They are irritated and want to get home.
When I first started coming to ECS, I tried to reach out to all the children who were crying or sitting alone, shocked and terrified. It was easier with the little ones, because I could hug them and they would immediately respond. But the older ones were different. I asked them, "Do you know why you are here?" Chances were that they had only a vague idea; ACS investigators often do not tell the children they are removing exactly what is going on. Most of the time the kids shrugged and said, "I don't know." Or they knew pieces, like, "Because mommy didn't clean the house." Often it was, "Because mommy got arrested."
The more I ended up at ECS, the harder it became to comfort these children. When you had no idea where a child was going to end up that night, it was impossible to assure them of anything. When a child asks, "Am I going to get split up from my little brother?" you can't say no. Although all efforts are supposed to be made to place siblings together, there are countless exceptions. Instead you have to say, "Let's hope not, okay?"
One night I was at ECS with a 3-year-old named Christopher, whom I had picked up from a precinct in East Harlem. His mother was arrested that day on drug charges. He had been living in a crack house, according to the police who took him, and his arms and legs were caked with dirt. All he had with him was a pacifier and a scarf. I pulled the pacifier out of his mouth and asked him, "Are you going to talk to me?" He looked at me and said, "Fuck off." Other than this, he didn't speak.
In the waiting room he pulled a chair out from under a girl his age as she went to sit down. After she fell, crying, he jumped up and down, pointing and laughing at her. I tried to engage him, to keep Christopher from terrorizing the other children. Then another caseworker came in. He lifted him by one arm and shouted in his face, "Listen, you brat. You better sit down and SHUT UP." He tossed Christopher onto the couch and he bounced, landing on his head. The caseworker warned, "Don't even think about moving. I'm watching you." Christopher did not move or even cry. He looked at me for help.
The caseworker explained to me defensively, "That's the only way these kids listen. That's how they are treated at home, so that's the only way to get through to them." And I wondered, silently: If we aren't treating these children any better than they were treated in their homes, then what are we doing?
To the manager at ACS who makes the fateful decision to remove a child, and to the judge who approves it, a child exists on a piece of paper, alongside a list of disturbing circumstances. They don't see a child having a panic attack at 3 a.m. because he is suddenly alone in the world. Or slamming his head against a wall out of protest and desperation. The good intentions that go into the decision to remove a child often have little to do with the sometimes brutal outcomes of that choice. And the problem is not simply caseworkers who do not know how to talk to children. The whole system does not treat children with dignity and respect.
Usually, the kids fell asleep in my lap during the car rides to their new foster homes. But Christopher stayed awake all the way to his new home in Staten Island, until 3 a.m. He stared out the car window and watched Manhattan recede in the distance. He seemed to know exactly what was happening, like an adult trapped in a little body that couldn't speak. But when I finally had to leave him, he did what any 3-year-old would do in the face of abandonment. He clung for his life to my leg.
_______
When I graduated from college two years ago, I decided to become a caseworker for ACS. I wanted to learn how child welfare policy affects children and their families--not from reports and data, but on the front lines.
It may seem hard to imagine now, but in many ways I loved my job and had no plans to do anything else. As a caseworker, I was in a unique position to advocate for children and parents when they most needed help. Many of the parents and children I encountered made deep impressions on me, and I established close connections with some of them. I also enjoyed the investigative aspect of the job, the thrill of constantly going into unknown situations. At first, I saw it as a daily adventure.
But it did not take long for me to see that there was no adventure here. Many of these families were harassed, their rights systematically violated by ACS. Their children were being swallowed up by an agency that too often operated on virtually unchecked authority, wielded arbitrarily. And I represented that agency.
More and more, I felt that I could not do the job I believed I needed to do with an ACS badge around my neck. I resigned from the agency in October 1999, after working there for just over a year. After all that I had experienced, I felt, like many of my clients, crippled by feelings of powerlessness. At the time, the only thing I could do was write it all down.
In the year I worked there, the Administration for Children's Services investigated more than 50,000 reports of child abuse and neglect. I handled about 50 of them in my job as a child protective caseworker in the Manhattan field office. I went all over the city investigating cases--to housing projects, family shelters and, once, to an apartment where a father had made a robot for his kids out of old Metrocards. But except for the time I visited a family on the Upper West Side--who hired their own doctors to disprove ACS's allegations of child abuse--my work took me to low-income neighborhoods. The reality is that families who are likely to be reported to ACS are poor.
When I first started the job, my supervisor explained to me that bad caseworkers sympathize with the parents. "Being sentimental," he said, "is the worst way to be." If you relate to the parent, the wisdom goes, you cannot conduct an objective investigation.
The entire investigation process relies on the assumption that parents do not know their rights, starting with the moment they allow caseworkers to come into their homes. A lot of these families are so conditioned to caseworkers knocking on their doors that the presence of a city worker in their homes is just another part of life. Nearly half a million New York City children have been the subjects of ACS investigations. If you are poor and if you have had problems with the law, if you have ever been involved in a domestic violence dispute, if you took your child to the emergency room after an accident, if you have ever used drugs, if your children have problems in school, if you have ever been homeless, ACS has been a part of your life.
_______
Child protective specialists get about two to three new cases each week, sent to them by their supervisors. Those supervisors have their own supervisors, called managers. It's managers who sign off on the big decisions: whether a case is worth pursuing and, most critically, when to put children into foster care.
For a caseworker, each case represents a heavy set of tasks and responsibilities. First, unless the call was anonymous, she must contact the source of the report. Many calls come from professionals required by law to report suspected abuse or neglect, such as teachers, guidance counselors and hospital social workers. Other people call in reports, too, especially neighbors and family members. But many of these reports turn out to be false, and some of them are made purely for revenge.
Within 24 hours of a report, the caseworker has to visit the family at home. Caseworkers must interview each child and examine them all for marks and bruises. They must also interview every other member of the household, check every room for safety, check refrigerators and cabinets for food. Immunization records, birth certificates and proof of income must be verified. Next, caseworkers contact the children's schools and doctors. And in cases that involve drug allegations, the caseworker must accompany the parent to a drug test.
At any point during the investigation, a manager can order children to be removed from their homes if it is determined that their lives are at risk. But under state law and ACS policy, removals are supposed to be a last resort. As an alternative, the agency offers a menu of services to help families deal with problems; counseling, parenting classes, drug treatment and housekeeping services are the most typical.
These investigations and interventions save children's lives and protect their well-being all the time. Caseworkers are trained to look beneath the surface, to not trust a parent's statement without evidence and to compile as much information about a family as possible. Caseworkers and their supervisors are accountable for each case; the days when cases piled up on desks without anyone contacting a family are long over.
But accountability, at ACS, is a one-way street. A manager or supervisor has no one to answer to if a child who shouldn't be in foster care is removed from home anyway. There is no penalty for the wrongful taking of a child. And the pressures to remove are intense. I was trained to do removals in cases that did not necessarily qualify as abuse or neglect because, as one of my supervisors reminded me, "prevention is better than a cure." When I was resistant to doing a removal on a case, that same supervisor's advice was, "It's better to be safe than sorry." And at moments of uncertainty, the mantra was "Cover your ass"--a phrase heard often around the office. It was backed up by a pervasive fear--among caseworkers, supervisors, managers and attorneys--of seeing our photograph in the Daily News as the person who made an error that was literally fatal.
Caseworkers, usually the only people who have had direct contact with a family, don't have much to say in the decision-making process. Managers generally think of them as being incapable of giving meaningful recommendations. One week after the investigation begins, caseworkers have to file an electronic report. The computer offers two options: "safe" and "unsafe." But my manager accepted only one. Any time I determined a child to be "safe," my manager rejected it and returned it to me. The first step to protect yourself, I quickly discovered, is to determine that a child is "unsafe" from the outset of an investigation.
_______
In my division, if the allegations were bad enough--and especially if they came from a teacher, doctor, or other professional required by law to report suspected abuse or neglect--our manager considered them to be absolute truth. Virtually every time, if a caseworker could not find evidence to prove that the allegations were unfounded, the manager would refuse to sign off on a case, clearing it from our ever-growing caseloads, until we marked it "indicated" in the computer system. Indicated means that ACS has found credible evidence that abuse or neglect has taken place.
Our manager indicated a case in which an 18-year-old mother was mistakenly picked up in a drug sweep and immediately released. The same woman had been indicated in an earlier investigation, after hot tea spilled on her child at a family shelter, even though the social worker whose tea it was witnessed that it was an accident. Still, the manager decided that this previous incident--along with a robbery conviction and marijuana use before the child was born--was reason enough to indicate the new case.
Throughout ACS, the proportion of cases that end up labeled indicated has jumped from 26 percent in 1994 to nearly 40 percent in 1998. From a manager's point of view, indicating cases gives them the legal leverage they need to order a removal at any given time. For a parent, it also means something else: Having an indicated case on her record means that she cannot adopt a child, become a foster parent or work with children in any capacity.
From there, the decision to remove is entirely up to the manager. By law, children are supposed to be removed only if their physical or emotional health has been harmed or they are in immediate danger or being hurt as a result of a parent's failure to "exercise a minimum degree of care." In practice, that can mean anything from a parent failing to show up for parenting classes to sending her child to the hospital with a broken limb. But sometimes children are removed for reasons the caseworkers themselves cannot fathom.
On the night I met a client I'll call Louise at the homeless shelter where she lived, she told me her 11-day-old son, Kevin, was born without drugs in his body. That she prayed to God and he gave her another chance. And that she got clean on her own, without any program. I asked her about her other children and she told me what I already knew: She had given birth to five children who were all taken away from her while she was still in the hospital because each time she tested positive for crack.
Back at the office, my manager ordered me to remove Kevin. My manager, like most of her colleagues, did not go for the "life transformation" stuff. It did not matter that all of Louise's drug tests had been clean for the past two years. The manager called it a straight case of neglect, since the woman's other children had all been taken from her. Besides, my manager reminded me, Louise is taking heavy psychotropic medication.
Before going to court, we received a letter written by Louise's psychiatrist, whom she had seen regularly for the past year. He wrote:
I remember thinking in her case no medication and certainly no therapy had been able to have the effect on her that her new child has had on her....The effect of the role of motherhood on her has defined her and given her grounding. It is our social and moral responsibility to support [Louise] in functioning as a mother. It is clear that [Louise] is ill. However, it is my assessment, in accord with all other senior clinicians [here], that [Louise] poses no immediate threat to her child.
My manager didn't see things the same way, and she made me file the case in court. "If we can't get a neglect finding on this mother, I might as well go work for the Parks Department," she told me. When ACS's attorneys initially wouldn't accept the case, she emailed the head of the legal division. And while I was away at a three-day training, she finally managed to get Kevin into foster care. Louise had stayed overnight with Kevin's father that week after she missed curfew at her shelter, and my manager had found an old order of protection against him--evidence of domestic violence. Louise was nailed with "failure to protect" Kevin from this potentially dangerous man.
(Only later did Louise tell me that she did not really have a history of domestic violence; she made it up a few years ago since she knew it was the only way she could qualify for emergency housing. I explained to her that it was the only reason ACS was able to take Kevin. "Well, what would you have done?" she asked me.)
In Family Court, Louise spoke up for herself, because her attorney did not. She argued her case herself and, with the help of testimony from her psychiatric nurse, won the judge over. Louise got Kevin back on the condition that she secure housing, submit to drug tests, continue to see her psychiatrist and comply with ACS supervision.
The ability to return a child to his or her parent is one of the few rewards of a caseworker's job. After picking up Kevin from his foster care agency in Queens, I sat with him in the Emergency Assistance Unit, the city's dispatch center for homeless families, waiting for his mother to arrive. The waiting room was filled with mothers and crying kids. A little girl came in the waiting area and asked the lady behind the counter for a piece of paper. "No paper," was the curt reply. I told the girl to come over to where I was sitting. My hands were full because I was feeding Kevin, but I told her that she could rip some pages out of my notebook. She stood there and tore out about 30 pages, one at a time. Every few moments she looked up at me waiting for me to say no. I just smiled at her. "That your baby?" she asked me.
"No," I told her.
"You homeless?"
I shook my head.
"You took that baby, didn't you?" she asked.
"I'm giving him back."
"Yeah, you better," she warned.
_______
In my year at ACS, I was lucky to see only a few children who were severely abused and neglected. I did see bruises, belt marks and burns on kids. I saw dirty and hungry children. I saw a baby with cockroaches crawling in her crib. There were kids who had never been to school.
I had to ask a kindergartner if her father put his penis in her mouth. I sat in the back of an ambulance with a 9-year-old boy lying on a stretcher who had been beaten up by his mother with a baseball bat. He clutched his HIP card, his only possession now, in his swollen hand. I had a 3-year-old child whose mother forced him to stay awake for four days and three nights because she thought he was possessed by a ghost and would die if he fell asleep.
And I met some parents who were dangerous not just to their children, but to me. I had to get an order of protection for myself against one, and was warned by another that I was going to be killed by the Bloods outside Family Court.
But all this is what I expected from the job. In a strange way, these really horrible cases turned out to be the easy ones. It was the cases that weren't so clear-cut that kept me up at night. I saw removals occur when parents were accused of failing to follow up with a preventive service program or counseling. Breaking rules at shelters. Using or selling marijuana, or not sending their children to school. Failure-to-protect cases were common. One time, I removed a child from a mother accused of neglecting her infant son when she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. It turned out the child was not yet even born when the suicide attempt occurred.
I worried about what I would do if my manager ordered me to remove. I worried about making mistakes myself.
_______
Two nights before Christmas 1998, I removed two children who I still believe should not have been taken from their home. I had been a caseworker at ACS for two months.
At the last minute, my supervisor instructed me to accompany an even greener coworker on a case I knew nothing about. On the way up the FDR, in the back of the city car, my colleague, Theresa, described the case to me. The children were to be removed because their 82-year-old great-grandmother, Ms. Ruth Jackson, was too old to care for them. Owen, 5, and Carla, 14, were in Ms. Jackson's legal custody, because their mother and grandmother were both absent, allegedly because of drug use.
According to the allegations from an after-school program she attended, Carla had recently slashed a girl in the face with a pocketknife at school and was beyond the great-grandmother's control. Theresa told me Ms. Jackson had medical problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes and glaucoma. Due to her "failing health," our supervisor believed that she was not an appropriate caretaker for the children.
The supervisor instructed Theresa to ask the great-grandmother to sign a form that would voluntarily place the children in ACS's custody. Theresa told me that she was instructed to call the police and remove the children only if the woman refused to sign the form. Our supervisor had informed Theresa that a refusal to sign would constitute neglect, because Ms. Jackson would not be complying with the best interests of the children.
"I don't believe that this is the right thing," Theresa complained to me. "The great-grandmother hasn't done anything wrong, and her health seems fine." I was furious at her for not telling me any of this before we left. I knew the options a family could be offered in a time of stress. A removal was to be done only in an emergency.
When we arrived, Ms. Jackson looked at us suspiciously and seemed reluctant to let us in. Decorated for Christmas, the apartment smelled like greasy chicken. It was 9 at night.
She instructed the children to go to their rooms. She sat on the sagging couch and asked, "What can I do for you ladies tonight?" She looked a little frail but seemed strong-willed.
I sat in the corner by the Christmas tree while Theresa tried to explain about the voluntary form. "You are old and you have so many health problems," she told Ms. Jackson unconvincingly. "Who will take care of the children if something should happen to you?"
Ms. Jackson said, "Ain't nothing happening to me. What if something happens to you?"
Theresa tried again. "It's not safe for the children to be living with you because you are too old to care for them properly and look after them." She looked at the floor as she said this, her voice shaking.
"What're you saying, miss? These children are not going anywhere. Nobody in this house is too old. I raised them kids since they were babies. The court gave me these children and nobody's going to take them away from me."
"My supervisor said that..."
"What?"
"My supervisor"
"Your what?"
"My supervisor. He wants you to sign this voluntary form so that the children will be safe." She placed the blank form on the coffee table.
"I don't know much about your supervisor, but nobody's signing these kids to them foster people. It's Christmas. Did you know that, dear?"
After about 15 minutes of this, Theresa signaled me to call the police. Out in the hallway I called 911, then went back into the apartment to wait for the cops.
Ms. Jackson had no idea they were coming. "Who would want to take these children?" she asked us. "It's Christmas. These children are happy. I take these children to school every day. I make sure they have everything they need to get along fine."
The cops banged on the door. "Who's that?" asked Ms. Jackson. "That your supervisor?"
I answered the door. Two cops stood around and did not say much. Theresa started crying, and everything fell into my hands. I explained to Ms. Jackson that the children were coming with us tonight and that she would have to come to court tomorrow to get them back. I had packed kids up quickly once before, so I braced myself to do it again.
The kids were watching The Brady Bunch, lying with their feet up on their great-grandmother's bed. I introduced myself and told Carla to pack up some clothes for herself and her brother. She looked at me as if the prospect of leaving might be exciting for a second. Owen wanted to know if "grandma" was coming. I told him no, and said some things about how everything was going to be okay. Ms. Jackson came in and put clean underwear on Owen, put his pajamas back on, and packed some clothes in a backpack for him.
As we continued to pack, Ms. Jackson stood in the bedroom doorway with her mouth half-open, no sound coming out. Carla ran down the stairs and waited for us in front of the police car.
In the back of the car on our way to ECS, Owen saw his big sister crying. He sat on my lap and started crying into my shirt.
_______
Almost all removals take place at night. Caseworkers are too busy during the day, and a family is also more likely to be home after dark. But some workers deliberately wait till after hours, for the time-and-a-half overtime. Doing a removal, staying out all night at ECS, and then taking the child to a foster home can mean more than doubling a day's pay. With caseworkers' salaries starting at under $32,000, overtime makes a big difference.
The caseworkers who want nothing to do with removals can rely on other caseworkers who volunteer for the money. When supervisors are desperate to find someone to do a removal, they often encourage caseworkers by reminding them, "You could use the extra cash." The consequence is caseworkers arriving at ECS with no idea why they just removed the kids who are with them. When the ECS intake worker or an ACS lawyer asks them why the children were removed, "I don't know, it's not my case" is a standard response. Or simply, "Because my supervisor told me to."
Any caseworker can tell you that they have done removals that they did not personally agree with. But they rarely complain to management, since they will never get in trouble for removing a child under supervisors' orders. Caseworkers are also quiet about unnecessary removals because doing a removal and then transferring a case to foster care takes them a lot less time than keeping it and trying to work with a family. Keeping a case obligates a worker to do regular home visits and follow-ups to make sure a family is getting preventive services. It also means dealing with anything that may go wrong and continuing to be responsible for the children's safety.
To become a child protective caseworker, you do not need to have any experience working with children, or demonstrate that you actually want to work with children. No one even asks if you like children. You must simply have a bachelor's degree in a social science field and pass a two-part exam. For the oral part we were asked to think of five questions we would ask a parent, based on a short case scenario. A "powerful rotting odor" is supposed to prompt test-takers to ask, "What is that smell?" For the written test, we listened to a series of voice mail recordings and wrote down phone numbers and other details. This was not a test of common sense, or even listening skills. It seemed to be a test to see if we were alive.
Once hired, caseworkers have six weeks of training, where they are taught how to conduct interviews, identify abuse and neglect, and carry out a removal. Legal issues, child development, domestic violence, sensitivity to cultural issues and handling angry clients were also part of the curriculum. Through it all, caseworkers are taught, it is essential to treat clients respectfully and professionally.
But the social work lingo of the training, where we spent two days discussing the need to "leave your baggage at the door," is far removed from the harsh reality of a field office. For new caseworkers, the obsessive concern with liability at the field offices quickly overshadows the reasonable criteria they have been taught for identifying abuse and neglect. Most quickly learn to abandon their training and to do what it takes to survive.
ACS has been making strides cutting down heavy caseloads, but it's still a stressful and at times tedious job--each case, no matter how trivial, calls for the same 15-page report. A contradiction at the heart of it all makes the work even more difficult. Caseworkers are trained to be service providers and advocates for families. To work together with families to uncover and solve problems in the home, caseworkers must establish an intimate rapport with their clients. Yet at the very same time they are engaged in an act of betrayal: as they write down parents' statements and survey their homes and behavior, caseworkers are building a potential court case against them. At no point are they able to tell their clients that everything they say can be used against them in court. The relationship of caseworker and client becomes one of manipulation, characterized by a deep lack of trust on both sides.
Although many of the best caseworkers get fed up and leave the agency, there are good workers who have been at ACS for years. They have survived because they have learned how to manipulate the system to make it work for themselves and their clients. They purposely omit or obscure facts about families in their case records and in their discussions with their supervisors to save clients from unnecessary court action. The most fortunate have supervisors who share their commitment to respecting families' rights. I was one of them: One of my supervisors was a mentor to me, and I considered her directives highly valuable.
Several months before I left the agency, an Emergency Children's Services supervisor who was resigning after more than 10 years blanketed the agency with a stunning email. He began by saying that he is not leaving the agency any better than when he started. He blamed this lack of improvement on ACS Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, whom he accused of being more preoccupied with making the agency look good in the media than with making substantial changes that help clients. "ACS cares more about statistics than they do about children, forgetting that those statistics represent real children," he wrote. The supervisor had equally harsh words for protective caseworkers: "ACS workers cannot absolve themselves of responsibility for doing wrong removals by blaming them on their supervisors or managers or on agency policy." He compared the level of obedience and complacency at the agency to Nazi soldiers who killed 11 million civilians during World War II because "they too were just carrying out orders." Nobody around me talked about the email, not even to disagree.
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Carla and Owen were placed in foster care that night. The next day, Theresa went to court. The judge, who happened to be in his seventies himself, ordered that Owen be returned home immediately. The judge stated the obvious: Old age is not grounds for neglect. Carla, however, was to remain in foster care because of her behavior problems. When the judge asked Theresa if she felt the children were in imminent danger, she answered that in her opinion they were not.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
CPS/DCYF Corruption You Tube Videos
Bring Austin Home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC0yPZQGKp0
Nancy Schaefer Exposes the Evil CPS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TcDTJlPWbE
Child Protective Services is Legal Kidnapping in U.S.A.-Nancy Schaefer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdoS-JStH3k&feature=related
Nancy Schaefer on CPS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1HjVU-UIQU&feature=related
Crime and Punishment-CPS BUSTED!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTPVm8qKu_E&feature=related
CPS ~ Project CPS Reform Video Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNg0lr8_nQI
Child Protective Worker Training Video - Volume 2 - How to Make Money from Child Protective Services
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_QQvBgDvsU
The truth about CPS *COPY & SEND TO CONGRESS*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSP9WFx6Plo
CPS IS A FRAUD !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoiMBW4zqeQ
Secret recording of CPS board meeting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CexYtuDIcE
Weidner & Wagener EXPOSE CPS - STOP the FEDERAL FUNDING
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqbJyhUAeq4&feature=related
Family Court ordered Abuse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J4nKYM5F9o&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC0yPZQGKp0
Nancy Schaefer Exposes the Evil CPS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TcDTJlPWbE
Child Protective Services is Legal Kidnapping in U.S.A.-Nancy Schaefer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdoS-JStH3k&feature=related
Nancy Schaefer on CPS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1HjVU-UIQU&feature=related
Crime and Punishment-CPS BUSTED!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTPVm8qKu_E&feature=related
CPS ~ Project CPS Reform Video Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNg0lr8_nQI
Child Protective Worker Training Video - Volume 2 - How to Make Money from Child Protective Services
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_QQvBgDvsU
The truth about CPS *COPY & SEND TO CONGRESS*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSP9WFx6Plo
CPS IS A FRAUD !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoiMBW4zqeQ
Secret recording of CPS board meeting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CexYtuDIcE
Weidner & Wagener EXPOSE CPS - STOP the FEDERAL FUNDING
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqbJyhUAeq4&feature=related
Family Court ordered Abuse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J4nKYM5F9o&feature=related
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