A Nation of Do-It-Yourself Lawyers
By JOHN T. BRODERICK Jr. and RONALD M. GEORGE
Published: January 1, 2010
AMERICA’S courts are built on a system of rules and procedures that assume that almost everyone who comes to court has a lawyer. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different. An increasing number of civil cases go forward without lawyers. Litigants who cannot afford a lawyer, and either do not qualify for legal aid or are unable to have a lawyer assigned to them because of dwindling budgets, are on their own — pro se. What’s more, they’re often on their own in cases involving life-altering situations like divorce, child custody and loss of shelter.
As the economy has worsened, the ranks of the self-represented poor have expanded. In a recent informal study conducted by the Self-Represented Litigation Network, about half the judges who responded reported a greater number of pro se litigants as a result of the economic crisis. Unrepresented litigants now also include many in the middle class and small-business owners who unexpectedly find themselves in distress and without sufficient resources to pay for the legal assistance they need.
As judges, we believe more needs to be done to meet this growing challenge: an inaccessible, overburdened justice system serves none of us well. California took a major step forward in October when it became the first state to recognize as a goal the right to counsel in certain civil cases. (The state also committed to a pilot project, financed by court fees, to provide lawyers for low-income citizens in cases where basic human needs are at stake.)
But this is only a beginning. It is essential that we promote other efforts to close the “justice gap.”
One such effort involves the “unbundling” of legal services. Forty-one states, including California and New Hampshire, have adopted a model rule drafted by the American Bar Association, or similar provisions, which allow lawyers to unbundle their services and take only part of a case, a cost-saving practice known as “limited-scope representation” that, with proper ethical safeguards, is responsive to new realities.
Traditionally, lawyers have been required to stay with a case from beginning to end, unless a court has excused them from this obligation. Now, in those states that explicitly or implicitly allow unbundling, people or businesses can hire a lawyer on a limited basis to help them fill out forms, to prepare documents, to coach them on how to present in court or to appear in court for one or two hearings.
For example, a lawyer could advise a client in a divorce proceeding about legal principles governing the division of marital assets or provide assistance in calculating child-support obligations. A lawyer might also draft pleadings or legal memos or provide representation at a hearing to obtain a domestic-violence restraining order.
What could be wrong with this? Well, some lawyers have expressed concern that limited legal representation will encourage litigants to dissect their cases in an effort to save money, sacrificing quality representation that the litigant might otherwise be able to afford. We have also heard the argument that by offering too much assistance to self-represented litigants, the courts themselves are undermining the value of lawyers and the legal profession. Apparently, some are concerned that the court system will become so user-friendly that there will be no need for lawyers.
We respectfully disagree. Litigants who can afford the services of a lawyer will continue to use one until a case or problem is resolved. Lawyers make a difference and clients know that. But for those whose only option is to go it alone, at least some limited, affordable time with a lawyer is a valuable option we should all encourage.
In fact, we believe that limited-scope-representation rules will allow lawyers — especially sole practitioners — to service people who might otherwise have never sought legal assistance. We also believe that carefully drafted ethical rules allowing lawyers to handle part of a case give the legal profession an opportunity to help the courts address the ever-growing number of litigants who cross our thresholds. This cause has special relevance now as state courts are faced with serious cutbacks in financing, forcing some to close their doors one day a week or a month, lay off front-line staff members and delay jury trials. None of this bodes well for the judicial system or for those seeking to vindicate their rights through the courts, whether they have a lawyer or not.
We need members of the legal profession to join with us, as many have done, in meeting this challenge by making unbundled legal services and other innovative solutions — like self-help Web sites, online assistance programs and court self-help centers — work for all who need them. If we are to maintain public trust and confidence in the courts, we must keep faith with our founding principles and our core belief in equal justice under the law.
John T. Broderick Jr. is the chief justice of New Hampshire. Ronald M. George is the chief justice of California.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/opinion/02broderick.html?scp=1&sq=do-it-yourself%20lawyers&st=cse
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
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
HOW THE FOSTER CARE REVIEW BOARD HURTS NEBRASKA CHILDREN (All Children, not just in Nebraska!)
Guest View: How the Foster Care Review Board hurts Nebraska children
StoryDiscussionBy Richard Wexler | Posted: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:30 am | No
TO “GOTCHA”: HOW THE FOSTER CARE REVIEW BOARD HURTS NEBRASKA CHILDREN
By Richard Wexler
Mary Callahan is a foster parent from Maine who got fed up with the fact that almost every child the state placed with her never needed to be taken from his or her birth parents. Her activism helped transform the Maine system into a national leader in keeping children safe by keeping families together.
Callahan has a term for how most child welfare systems work. They put a family under a microscope, judge anything and everything they do, and then lie in wait, for as long as it takes for a parent to slip up. Callahan calls it the “’gotcha’ moment.”
But I’d never encountered a state where this was the officially-recommended course of action – until I read the Annual Report of the Nebraska Foster Care Review Board. Now it’s no longer a mystery why Nebraska harms so many children by needlessly tearing apart families and holding children in foster care at higher rates than almost any other state.
The board is totally out-of-touch with best practice in child welfare, and clueless concerning what really works to keep children safe. Its report reads like a manual for getting to “gotcha.”
n In a state that takes children at one of the highest rates in the nation, the Review Board says removal decisions are correct at least 98 percent of the time. So either all those states that take proportionately fewer children – including those with strong records for keeping children safe - don’t know what they’re doing, or the Review Board is blind to Nebraska’s rampant needless destruction of families.
n Even the review board had to concede that in 22 percent of cases, the state failed to make “reasonable efforts” to reunify families after the child was removed, when it should have done so. So the real figure must be far higher.
n When children really can’t stay safely in their own homes, the best option is kinship care with a relative. Study after study has shown these kinship care placements to be better – and safer – for children than what should properly be called “stranger care.” But even though Nebraska uses kinship care at a rate below the national average, nearly every comment about kinship care in the Review Board report frets about the state doing too much of it.
n In contrast, the board loves the worst form of “care,” institutionalization. Even though Nebraska institutionalizes children at a rate well above the national average, the review board calls for even more of it, instead of demanding far better alternatives such as Wraparound programs. Indeed, the word Wraparound does not even appear in the report.
Worst of all is the angry, hectoring, patronizing tone the report takes toward families. Most parents who lose their children to foster care are neither sadists nor brutes. Often, their poverty is confused with neglect. Other times there are serious, real problems, but problems that can be fixed with a helping hand.
The reason to extend that hand is not for the sake of the parents, but for their children. Multiple studies document the inherent trauma of being thrown into foster care. Indeed, several landmark studies show that in typical cases, children fare better when left in their own homes than even comparably-maltreated children fare in foster care.
Yet instead of putting the children first and offering a helping hand, the Review Board puts its hatred of the parents first, and offers only a wagging finger – over and over and over again.
Yes, there are token references to prevention, but mostly, the board’s vision of prevention is really surveillance, complete with an Orwellian suggestion that every new mother be assessed by hospital staff to see if she is a potential child abuser. Best practices like drug court and pre-hearing conferences are perverted into ways to crack down on families. Visits are viewed not as a chance to help children, who desperately need to see their parents, but to hover over the parents, writing down every word and gesture, awaiting that “gotcha moment.”
Thirty-nine times, - an average of once every three pages - there are references to the need to assess parental “willingness” or parental “ability” or parental “appropriateness” and, most often of all, “parental compliance.” Reading this report was a bit like watching one of those Star Trek episodes in which the conquering Borg order those they’ve subjugated to “Comply! Comply!”
Governors and legislators come and go, but the Foster Care Review Board is always there, wagging its finger. Replacing the director is not enough. The whole Board needs to be replaced and reconstituted, with a membership that includes a far wider range of perspectives about child welfare.
Otherwise, no matter how hard Nebraska tries to move its child welfare system into the 21st Century, the Foster Care Review Board will keep dragging it into the 19th.
Richard Wexler is Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, www.nccpr.info. He has followed Nebraska child welfare for more than a decade and been a keynote speaker at two Nebraska child welfare conferences.
Posted in Columnists, Mailbag on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:30 am
http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnists/article_1e40cba8-ff98-11de-adf4-001cc4c03286.html
StoryDiscussionBy Richard Wexler | Posted: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:30 am | No
TO “GOTCHA”: HOW THE FOSTER CARE REVIEW BOARD HURTS NEBRASKA CHILDREN
By Richard Wexler
Mary Callahan is a foster parent from Maine who got fed up with the fact that almost every child the state placed with her never needed to be taken from his or her birth parents. Her activism helped transform the Maine system into a national leader in keeping children safe by keeping families together.
Callahan has a term for how most child welfare systems work. They put a family under a microscope, judge anything and everything they do, and then lie in wait, for as long as it takes for a parent to slip up. Callahan calls it the “’gotcha’ moment.”
But I’d never encountered a state where this was the officially-recommended course of action – until I read the Annual Report of the Nebraska Foster Care Review Board. Now it’s no longer a mystery why Nebraska harms so many children by needlessly tearing apart families and holding children in foster care at higher rates than almost any other state.
The board is totally out-of-touch with best practice in child welfare, and clueless concerning what really works to keep children safe. Its report reads like a manual for getting to “gotcha.”
n In a state that takes children at one of the highest rates in the nation, the Review Board says removal decisions are correct at least 98 percent of the time. So either all those states that take proportionately fewer children – including those with strong records for keeping children safe - don’t know what they’re doing, or the Review Board is blind to Nebraska’s rampant needless destruction of families.
n Even the review board had to concede that in 22 percent of cases, the state failed to make “reasonable efforts” to reunify families after the child was removed, when it should have done so. So the real figure must be far higher.
n When children really can’t stay safely in their own homes, the best option is kinship care with a relative. Study after study has shown these kinship care placements to be better – and safer – for children than what should properly be called “stranger care.” But even though Nebraska uses kinship care at a rate below the national average, nearly every comment about kinship care in the Review Board report frets about the state doing too much of it.
n In contrast, the board loves the worst form of “care,” institutionalization. Even though Nebraska institutionalizes children at a rate well above the national average, the review board calls for even more of it, instead of demanding far better alternatives such as Wraparound programs. Indeed, the word Wraparound does not even appear in the report.
Worst of all is the angry, hectoring, patronizing tone the report takes toward families. Most parents who lose their children to foster care are neither sadists nor brutes. Often, their poverty is confused with neglect. Other times there are serious, real problems, but problems that can be fixed with a helping hand.
The reason to extend that hand is not for the sake of the parents, but for their children. Multiple studies document the inherent trauma of being thrown into foster care. Indeed, several landmark studies show that in typical cases, children fare better when left in their own homes than even comparably-maltreated children fare in foster care.
Yet instead of putting the children first and offering a helping hand, the Review Board puts its hatred of the parents first, and offers only a wagging finger – over and over and over again.
Yes, there are token references to prevention, but mostly, the board’s vision of prevention is really surveillance, complete with an Orwellian suggestion that every new mother be assessed by hospital staff to see if she is a potential child abuser. Best practices like drug court and pre-hearing conferences are perverted into ways to crack down on families. Visits are viewed not as a chance to help children, who desperately need to see their parents, but to hover over the parents, writing down every word and gesture, awaiting that “gotcha moment.”
Thirty-nine times, - an average of once every three pages - there are references to the need to assess parental “willingness” or parental “ability” or parental “appropriateness” and, most often of all, “parental compliance.” Reading this report was a bit like watching one of those Star Trek episodes in which the conquering Borg order those they’ve subjugated to “Comply! Comply!”
Governors and legislators come and go, but the Foster Care Review Board is always there, wagging its finger. Replacing the director is not enough. The whole Board needs to be replaced and reconstituted, with a membership that includes a far wider range of perspectives about child welfare.
Otherwise, no matter how hard Nebraska tries to move its child welfare system into the 21st Century, the Foster Care Review Board will keep dragging it into the 19th.
Richard Wexler is Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, www.nccpr.info. He has followed Nebraska child welfare for more than a decade and been a keynote speaker at two Nebraska child welfare conferences.
Posted in Columnists, Mailbag on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:30 am
http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnists/article_1e40cba8-ff98-11de-adf4-001cc4c03286.html
To Reunite Families, Agencies Try a Holistic Approach
Social Services
To Reunite Families, Agencies Try a Holistic Approach
by Michelle Chen
Jan 2010
With a pert smile, S. kept a tight watch over her baby boy's crib in her modest, brightly painted Bronx apartment. It was a mundane scene, but in light of what she had gone through a few months earlier, S., who asked to remain anonymous, kept her joy closely guarded.
Last year, S. saw her baby taken from her after a heated argument with her son's father ended with police intervening and taking her into detention. Soon, S. recalled in an interview, she found herself isolated at the precinct, while child welfare authorities placed the baby in the father's care. S. couldn't make sense of the decision: The Administration of Children's Services had not only overlooked the father's criminal record, she said, but also ignored an offer from S's mother to take temporary custody.
Families at Risk
This is the third and final article in a series on the connections between the criminal justice and child welfare systems in New York City. Previously:
Going to Jail, Losing a Child -- When a mother goes to prison, she may have to give up her child as well as her freedom, and many families investigated for mistreating a child have had a member in prison. The two major institutions involved with protecting children interact in many families.
The Long Road Out of Foster Care -- Mothers who go to jail risk losing their children to the foster care system. Even if the families finally reunite, it can take years to repair the breach.
One Fanily's Story (video): Brenda Gittens talks about her journey through addiction and the child welfare system at a support group for mothers whose children have been removed. Her son Jacob's story was profiled in “The Long Road Out of Foster Care.” Jacob produced this video as part of an ongoing project of documenting his family's history. You can view it here.
In criminal court, S.'s case was quickly dismissed and the judge released her from detention. But it took weeks for her to wade through the family court process and scrutiny from children's services. Her contact with her baby was limited to supervised visitations; she even had to nurse her baby under the watch of an agency worker, S. recalled. "I was being looked at ... as a monstrous individual," she said.
Still, in a system where children may languish for months or years in foster care, S.'s separation from her son ended relatively quickly. Her rare example speaks to new strategies in the social service community to help distressed families cope.
In contrast to S.'s story, many troubled families get caught up in government systems. As parents and children try to deal with an array of interrelated problems -- such as mental illness, drugs, family violence, poverty and racial discrimination -- they get stuck in the bureaucracies that are supposed to hel them. But some advocates now recognize this web of crises and are trying new ways to enable families to untangle it.
The Whole Picture
S. got her son back, thanks to the Bronx Defenders, a public defender office that helps low-income families navigate the legal , welfare, housing and immigration systems. A lawyer, social worker and parent advocate teamed up to help S. deal with family court and criminal court simultaneously. This enabled her to arrange a visitation schedule and and support services, and regain custody soon after.
Kara Finck, managing attorney of the Bronx Defenders Family Defense Practice, said that in many cases, a child will be placed in care upon a parent's arrest, even if the charges are not related to the child's treatment. And even if the charges are later dismissed, their family court case will drag on, since the Administration for Children's Services will pursue its investigation of the parents' conduct independently. As their work continues, the child may remain with a relative or in foster care indefinitely.
If "a technicality in criminal court means you can't see your child for three months, and your child's three months old -- that's twice their life," Finck said.Over a family's lifetime, interwoven social and economic hardships can drive parents and children apart as they deal with police, courts, child protection agencies or some combination. Still, law enforcement and social service agencies may often operate separately without communicating -- despite research showing that in many cases, parents in the child welfare system have had past involvement with the criminal justice system or get arrested after losing their children. The bureaucratic dissonance, advocates say, can traumatize families, and could be avoided if agencies were more sensitive to the various burdens parents must juggle.
To harmonize those systems, groups like the Bronx Defenders have developed a holistic strategy for legal services. Attorneys know the ins and outs of the child welfare, legal and immigration bureaucracies, as well as how those institutions intersect when, say, a parent gets arrested in an immigration raid and her child winds up in foster care.
"The biggest thing that we're seeing within the system is this awakening that these children are present, and they bring with them a kind of extra burden," said Dee Ann Newell, a coordinator of http://www.sfcipp.org/rights.html national campaign to establish a Bill of Rights for children of incarcerated parents. "The stigma and the shame and the silence are for me the three S's that these children cope with, in addition to the fact that they have all these preceding risk factors."
A Web of Services
Since parents may see child-protection interventions as intrusive and humiliating, some groups use a "wraparound" approach focused on community bonds and group decision-making. Everyone, from siblings to grandparents to teachers, have a stake in planning a child's custody arrangement, for example, or a parent's drug treatment plan.
Carol Shapiro, a research scholar with Columbia University's < ahref="http://iserp.columbia.edu/"> Institute for Economic and Social Research and Policy, said that agencies could improve outcomes if they just stopped treating clients as "people that need to be fixed, and instead, building on their assets. ... We respond much better to things we feel good about."
When she led the New York-based nonprofit Family Justice (which has since been incorporated into the Vera Institute of Justice), Shapiro put this concept to the test in San Francisco with Communities of Opportunity. In neighborhoods where poor families frequently encounter law enforcement and child welfare, the program immerses at-risk parents at the center of a network of services including probation authorities, school officials, and health and social service agencies.
Back in Brooklyn, the Women's Prison Association helps formerly incarcerated mothers cope with the challenges of transitioning back into the community. Clients are typically eager to reunite with their children, but must wrestle with unemployment, lack of housing or emotional instability. Federal laws limiting the time a child can stay in foster care further complicate the process of regaining custody.
The association's transitional housing facility, Huntington House, gives homeless, formerly incarcerated women a space to prepare for reunification with children who have been placed in foster care. The program places mothers in apartments shared by other clients, where they receive personalized employment and treatment services. After children return to their custody, mothers move into family-style apartments. Staff continue supporting the entire family until they are ready to move on to independent housing in the community.
"We have a built-in way to avoid the trap of housing being the last barrier to getting your children back," said executive director Georgia Lerner.
The group also works uses an intensive "home-based service model" to help women at risk of losing custody. Case managers visit women at home to give them what they need to keep their households running, whether it's support for staying clean, working with probation authorities, keeping up with court dates or signing up for food stamps.
When working with formerly incarcerated women, Lerner said, part of the job is acknowledging that reunification is not the only possible goal and regaining full custody may be out of reach for some women. The Women's Prison Association may instead help a parent devise an alternative custody setup, such as living with a relative under legal guardianship. The central aim, Lerner said, is to protect the parent's role in determining the healthiest care arrangement for the child, and to empower mothers to "make the best decisions and to be full, informed participants in the decision."
Protecting Family Rights
Many advocacy groups also believe police and other government agencies must change the way they treat parents and the children whose safety they are trying to protect.
The Osborne Association, a New York-based nonprofit that works with families affected by the criminal justice system, has drafted guidelines to help state and local law enforcement deal with children of arrested parents. The clinical language hints at the emotional tension of a police encounter: Officers are advised to "consider arresting, handcuffing and questioning of parents out of the view of their children," and to be conscious that "children may feel safer about the situation when compassion is shown to the arrestee." The San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership, a coalition of community groups, service providers and government representatives,has published a Children of Incarcerated Parents Bill of Rights as a reference for families, service providers and government agencies. The core principles include the right to regular family visits, the right to be "considered in decisions about a parent," and the right to a "lifelong relationship" between parent and child.
"When a parent is incarcerated, there's sort of an assumption that that that relationship is not as valuable as other parent-child relationships," said partnership coordinator Nell Bernstein. "And of course when a family is involved with child welfare, there's also an assumption of 'this is a bad parent.' Put those two together, and this is a family that is at tremendous risk of dissolution."
The Bill of Rights website features testimony by Ahmad, who was born during his mother's incarceration, adopted as a young child and reunified with his birth family as a teen. The turbulent journey taught him that the child welfare system ignores what matters most.
"All the system saw," he said, "was a drug-addicted mother. 'The baby could do better without her.' They wanted to protect little Ahmad. Why didn't they care about his mother? ... What would have helped me most is compassion for my mom. We have to bring the mom back, so the mom can be a mother to the child."
Michelle Chen is a freelance writer and a native New Yorker. This article is part of a series exploring the connections between the criminal justice and child welfare systems in New York City. The project was supported by a fellowship from the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/socialservices/20100113/15/3146/
To Reunite Families, Agencies Try a Holistic Approach
by Michelle Chen
Jan 2010
With a pert smile, S. kept a tight watch over her baby boy's crib in her modest, brightly painted Bronx apartment. It was a mundane scene, but in light of what she had gone through a few months earlier, S., who asked to remain anonymous, kept her joy closely guarded.
Last year, S. saw her baby taken from her after a heated argument with her son's father ended with police intervening and taking her into detention. Soon, S. recalled in an interview, she found herself isolated at the precinct, while child welfare authorities placed the baby in the father's care. S. couldn't make sense of the decision: The Administration of Children's Services had not only overlooked the father's criminal record, she said, but also ignored an offer from S's mother to take temporary custody.
Families at Risk
This is the third and final article in a series on the connections between the criminal justice and child welfare systems in New York City. Previously:
Going to Jail, Losing a Child -- When a mother goes to prison, she may have to give up her child as well as her freedom, and many families investigated for mistreating a child have had a member in prison. The two major institutions involved with protecting children interact in many families.
The Long Road Out of Foster Care -- Mothers who go to jail risk losing their children to the foster care system. Even if the families finally reunite, it can take years to repair the breach.
One Fanily's Story (video): Brenda Gittens talks about her journey through addiction and the child welfare system at a support group for mothers whose children have been removed. Her son Jacob's story was profiled in “The Long Road Out of Foster Care.” Jacob produced this video as part of an ongoing project of documenting his family's history. You can view it here.
In criminal court, S.'s case was quickly dismissed and the judge released her from detention. But it took weeks for her to wade through the family court process and scrutiny from children's services. Her contact with her baby was limited to supervised visitations; she even had to nurse her baby under the watch of an agency worker, S. recalled. "I was being looked at ... as a monstrous individual," she said.
Still, in a system where children may languish for months or years in foster care, S.'s separation from her son ended relatively quickly. Her rare example speaks to new strategies in the social service community to help distressed families cope.
In contrast to S.'s story, many troubled families get caught up in government systems. As parents and children try to deal with an array of interrelated problems -- such as mental illness, drugs, family violence, poverty and racial discrimination -- they get stuck in the bureaucracies that are supposed to hel them. But some advocates now recognize this web of crises and are trying new ways to enable families to untangle it.
The Whole Picture
S. got her son back, thanks to the Bronx Defenders, a public defender office that helps low-income families navigate the legal , welfare, housing and immigration systems. A lawyer, social worker and parent advocate teamed up to help S. deal with family court and criminal court simultaneously. This enabled her to arrange a visitation schedule and and support services, and regain custody soon after.
Kara Finck, managing attorney of the Bronx Defenders Family Defense Practice, said that in many cases, a child will be placed in care upon a parent's arrest, even if the charges are not related to the child's treatment. And even if the charges are later dismissed, their family court case will drag on, since the Administration for Children's Services will pursue its investigation of the parents' conduct independently. As their work continues, the child may remain with a relative or in foster care indefinitely.
If "a technicality in criminal court means you can't see your child for three months, and your child's three months old -- that's twice their life," Finck said.Over a family's lifetime, interwoven social and economic hardships can drive parents and children apart as they deal with police, courts, child protection agencies or some combination. Still, law enforcement and social service agencies may often operate separately without communicating -- despite research showing that in many cases, parents in the child welfare system have had past involvement with the criminal justice system or get arrested after losing their children. The bureaucratic dissonance, advocates say, can traumatize families, and could be avoided if agencies were more sensitive to the various burdens parents must juggle.
To harmonize those systems, groups like the Bronx Defenders have developed a holistic strategy for legal services. Attorneys know the ins and outs of the child welfare, legal and immigration bureaucracies, as well as how those institutions intersect when, say, a parent gets arrested in an immigration raid and her child winds up in foster care.
"The biggest thing that we're seeing within the system is this awakening that these children are present, and they bring with them a kind of extra burden," said Dee Ann Newell, a coordinator of http://www.sfcipp.org/rights.html national campaign to establish a Bill of Rights for children of incarcerated parents. "The stigma and the shame and the silence are for me the three S's that these children cope with, in addition to the fact that they have all these preceding risk factors."
A Web of Services
Since parents may see child-protection interventions as intrusive and humiliating, some groups use a "wraparound" approach focused on community bonds and group decision-making. Everyone, from siblings to grandparents to teachers, have a stake in planning a child's custody arrangement, for example, or a parent's drug treatment plan.
Carol Shapiro, a research scholar with Columbia University's < ahref="http://iserp.columbia.edu/"> Institute for Economic and Social Research and Policy, said that agencies could improve outcomes if they just stopped treating clients as "people that need to be fixed, and instead, building on their assets. ... We respond much better to things we feel good about."
When she led the New York-based nonprofit Family Justice (which has since been incorporated into the Vera Institute of Justice), Shapiro put this concept to the test in San Francisco with Communities of Opportunity. In neighborhoods where poor families frequently encounter law enforcement and child welfare, the program immerses at-risk parents at the center of a network of services including probation authorities, school officials, and health and social service agencies.
Back in Brooklyn, the Women's Prison Association helps formerly incarcerated mothers cope with the challenges of transitioning back into the community. Clients are typically eager to reunite with their children, but must wrestle with unemployment, lack of housing or emotional instability. Federal laws limiting the time a child can stay in foster care further complicate the process of regaining custody.
The association's transitional housing facility, Huntington House, gives homeless, formerly incarcerated women a space to prepare for reunification with children who have been placed in foster care. The program places mothers in apartments shared by other clients, where they receive personalized employment and treatment services. After children return to their custody, mothers move into family-style apartments. Staff continue supporting the entire family until they are ready to move on to independent housing in the community.
"We have a built-in way to avoid the trap of housing being the last barrier to getting your children back," said executive director Georgia Lerner.
The group also works uses an intensive "home-based service model" to help women at risk of losing custody. Case managers visit women at home to give them what they need to keep their households running, whether it's support for staying clean, working with probation authorities, keeping up with court dates or signing up for food stamps.
When working with formerly incarcerated women, Lerner said, part of the job is acknowledging that reunification is not the only possible goal and regaining full custody may be out of reach for some women. The Women's Prison Association may instead help a parent devise an alternative custody setup, such as living with a relative under legal guardianship. The central aim, Lerner said, is to protect the parent's role in determining the healthiest care arrangement for the child, and to empower mothers to "make the best decisions and to be full, informed participants in the decision."
Protecting Family Rights
Many advocacy groups also believe police and other government agencies must change the way they treat parents and the children whose safety they are trying to protect.
The Osborne Association, a New York-based nonprofit that works with families affected by the criminal justice system, has drafted guidelines to help state and local law enforcement deal with children of arrested parents. The clinical language hints at the emotional tension of a police encounter: Officers are advised to "consider arresting, handcuffing and questioning of parents out of the view of their children," and to be conscious that "children may feel safer about the situation when compassion is shown to the arrestee." The San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership, a coalition of community groups, service providers and government representatives,has published a Children of Incarcerated Parents Bill of Rights as a reference for families, service providers and government agencies. The core principles include the right to regular family visits, the right to be "considered in decisions about a parent," and the right to a "lifelong relationship" between parent and child.
"When a parent is incarcerated, there's sort of an assumption that that that relationship is not as valuable as other parent-child relationships," said partnership coordinator Nell Bernstein. "And of course when a family is involved with child welfare, there's also an assumption of 'this is a bad parent.' Put those two together, and this is a family that is at tremendous risk of dissolution."
The Bill of Rights website features testimony by Ahmad, who was born during his mother's incarceration, adopted as a young child and reunified with his birth family as a teen. The turbulent journey taught him that the child welfare system ignores what matters most.
"All the system saw," he said, "was a drug-addicted mother. 'The baby could do better without her.' They wanted to protect little Ahmad. Why didn't they care about his mother? ... What would have helped me most is compassion for my mom. We have to bring the mom back, so the mom can be a mother to the child."
Michelle Chen is a freelance writer and a native New Yorker. This article is part of a series exploring the connections between the criminal justice and child welfare systems in New York City. The project was supported by a fellowship from the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/socialservices/20100113/15/3146/
Report Fraud in Child Welfare
Report Fraud in Child Welfare
Phone:
1-800-HHS-TIPS
(1-800-447-8477)
Fax:
1-800-223-8164
TTY:
1-800-377-4950
E-Mail:
HHSTips@oig.hhs.gov
Mail:
Office of Inspector General
Department of Health and Human Services
Attn: HOTLINE
PO Box 23489
Washington, DC 20026
Phone:
1-800-HHS-TIPS
(1-800-447-8477)
Fax:
1-800-223-8164
TTY:
1-800-377-4950
E-Mail:
HHSTips@oig.hhs.gov
Mail:
Office of Inspector General
Department of Health and Human Services
Attn: HOTLINE
PO Box 23489
Washington, DC 20026
Social Worker Reveals The Culture In Which She Works
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 From Pam Roach's Blogspot
Social Worker Reveals The Culture In Which She Works
Brought forward from a comment:
"I've been a social worker for DCFS for over 20 years and worked in different regions. Reading the blogs and comments on here make me very sad but the problems with the department begin with line supervisors and go up the "chain of command". There are many good social workers who are often targeted by supervisors due to their own inadequacies and lack of knowledge and experience. Often supervisors are not hired for their expertise and knowledge; they are hired for who they know regardless of the outcome on staff morale and departmental policies. I have always looked at relative placements first, many times to be told by a supervisor without any placement experience to "find a foster home". I have been told to place children in newly licensed foster homes because " they haven't had any placements yet" although there is a relative willing and able to be a placement. Sometimes it's not possible to place with relatives; when that's the case we should keep looking.
My experience with management is that workplace bullying is accepted in every region. Social workers are targeted if they have more experience and knowledge than their supervisors. In my current region, workers and good supervisors have left in droves during the past two years only to be replaced by the RA's pick of the week. Supervisors are encouraged to target employees if they disagree with the RA and AAs. Until this culture in DCFS is no longer tolerated, we will continue to read about cases such as Madison's. Financial circumstances should not have any effect on whether a family member can be a good placement. We are not supposed to remove children due to poverty; why would we not place a child with "poor" relatives when there is help available for that relative? A relative's medical problems may preclude them from taking placement if they are unable to care for themselves or have severe mental health issues.
I hold little hope in that the new leaders of DCFS will address any of these problems. A targeted employee frequently has little credibility with the leaders. I've seen it happen over and over again with good social workers finally having enough and leaving the agency only to be replaced with employees with little or no experience with children. Many of the young social workers have no children of their own; no exposure to children; and only what they are taught in school and by the department. You can't replace 5, 10, or 15 years of experience working with families yet that is what has happened over the years. Until DCFS gets rid of the "good old boy" mindset and hires competent, fair and unbiased line supervisors, AAs, and region administrators, nothing will change. My hope continues to be that DCFS and their treatment of their employees will actually be fully investigated. Social workers and other employees will only speak out with the strict assurance they will not be further targeted by management.
Pam, if only you could help us."
THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS ...PR
Posted by State Senator Pam Roach at 12:28 AM
http://pamroachreport.blogspot.com/2010/01/social-worker-reveals-culture-in-which.html
Social Worker Reveals The Culture In Which She Works
Brought forward from a comment:
"I've been a social worker for DCFS for over 20 years and worked in different regions. Reading the blogs and comments on here make me very sad but the problems with the department begin with line supervisors and go up the "chain of command". There are many good social workers who are often targeted by supervisors due to their own inadequacies and lack of knowledge and experience. Often supervisors are not hired for their expertise and knowledge; they are hired for who they know regardless of the outcome on staff morale and departmental policies. I have always looked at relative placements first, many times to be told by a supervisor without any placement experience to "find a foster home". I have been told to place children in newly licensed foster homes because " they haven't had any placements yet" although there is a relative willing and able to be a placement. Sometimes it's not possible to place with relatives; when that's the case we should keep looking.
My experience with management is that workplace bullying is accepted in every region. Social workers are targeted if they have more experience and knowledge than their supervisors. In my current region, workers and good supervisors have left in droves during the past two years only to be replaced by the RA's pick of the week. Supervisors are encouraged to target employees if they disagree with the RA and AAs. Until this culture in DCFS is no longer tolerated, we will continue to read about cases such as Madison's. Financial circumstances should not have any effect on whether a family member can be a good placement. We are not supposed to remove children due to poverty; why would we not place a child with "poor" relatives when there is help available for that relative? A relative's medical problems may preclude them from taking placement if they are unable to care for themselves or have severe mental health issues.
I hold little hope in that the new leaders of DCFS will address any of these problems. A targeted employee frequently has little credibility with the leaders. I've seen it happen over and over again with good social workers finally having enough and leaving the agency only to be replaced with employees with little or no experience with children. Many of the young social workers have no children of their own; no exposure to children; and only what they are taught in school and by the department. You can't replace 5, 10, or 15 years of experience working with families yet that is what has happened over the years. Until DCFS gets rid of the "good old boy" mindset and hires competent, fair and unbiased line supervisors, AAs, and region administrators, nothing will change. My hope continues to be that DCFS and their treatment of their employees will actually be fully investigated. Social workers and other employees will only speak out with the strict assurance they will not be further targeted by management.
Pam, if only you could help us."
THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS ...PR
Posted by State Senator Pam Roach at 12:28 AM
http://pamroachreport.blogspot.com/2010/01/social-worker-reveals-culture-in-which.html
10 Famous Doctors who Made Medicine What it is Today
Surgical Technician Schools
Carolyn Friedman
Guide to online surgical tech degree programs iScrub
iScrub is a blog devoted to providing news, information, and resources to the healthcare community and those it serves. It is our goal to keep our hand on the pulse of the online health community and bring you, our loyal readers, the best of what we find. We strive to be focused in message, but informal in tone. We hope you enjoy.
10 Famous Doctors who Made Medicine What it is Today
During any time period, various changes can take place, particularly in the medical field. In the much earlier years, the doctors little black bag contained everything they needed to treat patients. A medical diagnosis was made more on intuition then scientific facts. But whether in the past or the present, there are those innovators whose compassion and love of learning allow them to make significant medical discoveries that have had a major effect on humankind and improved the quality of life. From medical inventions to performing life saving surgeries, we have compiled a list of 10 famous doctors who have made medicine what it is today.
1.Hippocrates (ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC) - Hippocrates is known as one of the most exceptional individuals in medical history. He was the first physician to believe that thoughts, ideas, and feelings come from the brain and not the heart as other colleagues in his era so adamantly thought . He described in detail disease symptoms and was the first doctor to precisely characterize the symptoms of pneumonia, as well as epilepsy in children. He believed in natural healing processes of relaxation, nutrition, fresh air and cleanliness. Hippocrates traveled through Greece practicing medicine. He founded a medical school on the island of Cos, Greece and began teaching his ideas. He soon developed an Oath for physicians that is still followed today, called the Hippocratic Oath . He died in 377 BC.
2.Jean Astruc (March 19, 1684 - May 5, 1766) - Jean was a French professor of medicine who discovered and wrote about the cure of syphilis and other venereal diseases. He quickly became one of the outstanding doctors of the 18th century recognized throughout the world. The publication in 1736 of his classic work, “De morbis venereis,” is a milestone in the history of syphilis. He was also involved in comprehensive research into the book of Genesis and wrote many acclaimed compositions on how Moses had originally written the book of Genesis.
3.Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec (February 17, 1781 – August 13, 1826) - Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec was a French physician who invented the stethoscope in 1816. Before then, the only way a doctor could hear the sounds of the heart and the chest was by placing his ear on the patients’ chest. However, this sound was not always clear, especially if the patient was obese. Through his original creation, he was able to explore sounds in the lungs and heart. This instrument helped him to determine diagnoses for the autopsies he performed. He was known to be the father of clinical auscultation and wrote many journals and clinical terms that are still used by physicians around the world today.
4.Henry Gray (1827-1861) - Dr. Gray was an English anatomist and surgeon who is most noted for publishing the book Gray’s Anatomy . With some help of his friend Henry Vandyke Carter, a skilled draughtsman and former demonstrator of anatomy at St. George’s Hospital. A second edition was prepared by Gray and published in 1860. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) at the age of 25 and held the positions of demonstrator of Anatomy, curator of the museum, and Lecturer of Anatomy at St. George’s Hospital. In 1861 he was a main candidate for the title of assistant surgeon. Sadly, he was overcome by an attack of smallpox, which he contracted while looking after a nephew, and died and untimely death at the young age of 34.
5.Joseph Lister (April 5, 1827 - February 10, 1912) - For almost a decade, doctors tried to understand why wounds became infected after surgical procedures. John Lister was one of them. An English surgeon and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, he completed comprehensive research on the origins of infection and created many of the sterilization procedures used in today’s hospitals that keep infection to a minimum. Lister successfully introduced carbolic acid to sterilize surgical instruments and to clean wounds, which led to the reduction of post-operative infections and safer surgical practices for patients.
6.Theodor Billroth( April 26, 1829 - February 6, 1894) - Dr. Billroth was an innovative surgeon as well as a teacher. He was directly responsible for a number of landmarks in surgery, including the first esophagectomy (1871), the first laryngectomyl (1873), and the first successful gastroduodenostomy (1881.) These procedures, of course with some modification, are still practiced by physicians when treating gastric cancers and some cases of peptic ulcer disease. At the University of Vienna, he promoted longer post medical school rotations in surgery. He started what where considered extended “apprenticeships” in surgery with a curriculum that contained 1 year of hospital work in general medicine, followed by a year of dissection on cadavers and animals, and ending with a 2 or 3 year assistantship in surgery under a senior surgeon. This was the start of modern day residency training in surgery as it is known today.
7.Charles Richard Drew (June 3, 1904 - April 1, 1950) - Dr. Charles Richard was an African American physician and medical researcher. His studies were in the field of blood transfusions and creating advancements in procedures for blood storage. He focused his knowledge on developing blood banks on a larger scale early in World War II. This caused thousands of lives to be saved in the armed forces. He protested against the practice of racial segregation in the donation of blood saying there was no clinical scientific evidence. These beliefs were a contributing factor of his termination. Finally in 1943, he was recognized for his actions and became the first black surgeon to serve as a medical examiner for the American Board of Surgery.
8.Virginia Apgar (June 7, 1909 - August 77, 1974) Virginia was an American doctor who was dedicated to the advancement of anesthesia and pediatrics. Because of her expertise in the fields of teratology and anesthesiology, she familiarized the field of neonatology . Even more, she is highly respected for the development of the Apgar test, which is a procedure that is used to determine the health of newborn babies. This test has significantly decreased the mortality rate of infants in countries across the globe.
9.Christiaan Neethling Barnard (November 8, 1922 - September 2, 2001) - The West African physician served as a cardiothoracic surgeon at Groote Schuur Hospital in 1958, where he established the hospital’s first heart unit. He had been experimenting for several years with animal heart transplants after he performed the first successful kidney transplant in West Africa in 1959. He followed with the first heart transplant in 1967, where he was assisted by Dr. Michael DeBakey. This operation lasted nine hours and required a team of more than 25 people. These procedures played a substantial role in urology and cardiac surgeries performed by doctors in today’s operating rooms.
10.Peter Safar (April 12, 1924 – August 2, 2003) - Dr. Safar was the thought provoking voice behind both cardiopulmonary resuscitation and critical care medicine. As an honored professor of resuscitation medicine at the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine, he created this country’s first intensive care unit and paramedic ambulance services that have changed the outlines of emergency services for patients. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in medicine 3 times.
With the aid of technological advancements and the introduction of antibiotics and other vital drugs, these doctors have paved the way for their successors to shed light on traditional beliefs in medicine and open up endless possibilities to equipment and procedures that would never have been thought possible years ago.
Complete Listing of our Articles
•Examining Cosmetic Surgery: 4 Considerations Before You Go Under the Knife
•100 Best Blogs for Living Healthy on a Budget
•Introducing iScrub
•The Surgery is Over… Now What? 4 Tips for A Successful Rehab
•Top 100 Doctor Bloggers
•100+ Ways to Spring Clean Your Mind and Body
•The Top 50 Surgeon Bloggers
•52 Ways To Lower Your Carbon Footprint In College
•What Does a Surgical Technician Do?
•How Do I Apply to Surgical Technician School?
•Where Do Surgical Technicians Work?
•What Is Surgical Technician School Like?
•What Is the Salary and Employment Outlook for a Surgical Technician?
•10 Famous Doctors who Made Medicine What it is Today
http://surgicaltechnicianschools.org/?page_id=94
Carolyn Friedman
Guide to online surgical tech degree programs iScrub
iScrub is a blog devoted to providing news, information, and resources to the healthcare community and those it serves. It is our goal to keep our hand on the pulse of the online health community and bring you, our loyal readers, the best of what we find. We strive to be focused in message, but informal in tone. We hope you enjoy.
10 Famous Doctors who Made Medicine What it is Today
During any time period, various changes can take place, particularly in the medical field. In the much earlier years, the doctors little black bag contained everything they needed to treat patients. A medical diagnosis was made more on intuition then scientific facts. But whether in the past or the present, there are those innovators whose compassion and love of learning allow them to make significant medical discoveries that have had a major effect on humankind and improved the quality of life. From medical inventions to performing life saving surgeries, we have compiled a list of 10 famous doctors who have made medicine what it is today.
1.Hippocrates (ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC) - Hippocrates is known as one of the most exceptional individuals in medical history. He was the first physician to believe that thoughts, ideas, and feelings come from the brain and not the heart as other colleagues in his era so adamantly thought . He described in detail disease symptoms and was the first doctor to precisely characterize the symptoms of pneumonia, as well as epilepsy in children. He believed in natural healing processes of relaxation, nutrition, fresh air and cleanliness. Hippocrates traveled through Greece practicing medicine. He founded a medical school on the island of Cos, Greece and began teaching his ideas. He soon developed an Oath for physicians that is still followed today, called the Hippocratic Oath . He died in 377 BC.
2.Jean Astruc (March 19, 1684 - May 5, 1766) - Jean was a French professor of medicine who discovered and wrote about the cure of syphilis and other venereal diseases. He quickly became one of the outstanding doctors of the 18th century recognized throughout the world. The publication in 1736 of his classic work, “De morbis venereis,” is a milestone in the history of syphilis. He was also involved in comprehensive research into the book of Genesis and wrote many acclaimed compositions on how Moses had originally written the book of Genesis.
3.Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec (February 17, 1781 – August 13, 1826) - Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec was a French physician who invented the stethoscope in 1816. Before then, the only way a doctor could hear the sounds of the heart and the chest was by placing his ear on the patients’ chest. However, this sound was not always clear, especially if the patient was obese. Through his original creation, he was able to explore sounds in the lungs and heart. This instrument helped him to determine diagnoses for the autopsies he performed. He was known to be the father of clinical auscultation and wrote many journals and clinical terms that are still used by physicians around the world today.
4.Henry Gray (1827-1861) - Dr. Gray was an English anatomist and surgeon who is most noted for publishing the book Gray’s Anatomy . With some help of his friend Henry Vandyke Carter, a skilled draughtsman and former demonstrator of anatomy at St. George’s Hospital. A second edition was prepared by Gray and published in 1860. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) at the age of 25 and held the positions of demonstrator of Anatomy, curator of the museum, and Lecturer of Anatomy at St. George’s Hospital. In 1861 he was a main candidate for the title of assistant surgeon. Sadly, he was overcome by an attack of smallpox, which he contracted while looking after a nephew, and died and untimely death at the young age of 34.
5.Joseph Lister (April 5, 1827 - February 10, 1912) - For almost a decade, doctors tried to understand why wounds became infected after surgical procedures. John Lister was one of them. An English surgeon and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, he completed comprehensive research on the origins of infection and created many of the sterilization procedures used in today’s hospitals that keep infection to a minimum. Lister successfully introduced carbolic acid to sterilize surgical instruments and to clean wounds, which led to the reduction of post-operative infections and safer surgical practices for patients.
6.Theodor Billroth( April 26, 1829 - February 6, 1894) - Dr. Billroth was an innovative surgeon as well as a teacher. He was directly responsible for a number of landmarks in surgery, including the first esophagectomy (1871), the first laryngectomyl (1873), and the first successful gastroduodenostomy (1881.) These procedures, of course with some modification, are still practiced by physicians when treating gastric cancers and some cases of peptic ulcer disease. At the University of Vienna, he promoted longer post medical school rotations in surgery. He started what where considered extended “apprenticeships” in surgery with a curriculum that contained 1 year of hospital work in general medicine, followed by a year of dissection on cadavers and animals, and ending with a 2 or 3 year assistantship in surgery under a senior surgeon. This was the start of modern day residency training in surgery as it is known today.
7.Charles Richard Drew (June 3, 1904 - April 1, 1950) - Dr. Charles Richard was an African American physician and medical researcher. His studies were in the field of blood transfusions and creating advancements in procedures for blood storage. He focused his knowledge on developing blood banks on a larger scale early in World War II. This caused thousands of lives to be saved in the armed forces. He protested against the practice of racial segregation in the donation of blood saying there was no clinical scientific evidence. These beliefs were a contributing factor of his termination. Finally in 1943, he was recognized for his actions and became the first black surgeon to serve as a medical examiner for the American Board of Surgery.
8.Virginia Apgar (June 7, 1909 - August 77, 1974) Virginia was an American doctor who was dedicated to the advancement of anesthesia and pediatrics. Because of her expertise in the fields of teratology and anesthesiology, she familiarized the field of neonatology . Even more, she is highly respected for the development of the Apgar test, which is a procedure that is used to determine the health of newborn babies. This test has significantly decreased the mortality rate of infants in countries across the globe.
9.Christiaan Neethling Barnard (November 8, 1922 - September 2, 2001) - The West African physician served as a cardiothoracic surgeon at Groote Schuur Hospital in 1958, where he established the hospital’s first heart unit. He had been experimenting for several years with animal heart transplants after he performed the first successful kidney transplant in West Africa in 1959. He followed with the first heart transplant in 1967, where he was assisted by Dr. Michael DeBakey. This operation lasted nine hours and required a team of more than 25 people. These procedures played a substantial role in urology and cardiac surgeries performed by doctors in today’s operating rooms.
10.Peter Safar (April 12, 1924 – August 2, 2003) - Dr. Safar was the thought provoking voice behind both cardiopulmonary resuscitation and critical care medicine. As an honored professor of resuscitation medicine at the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine, he created this country’s first intensive care unit and paramedic ambulance services that have changed the outlines of emergency services for patients. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in medicine 3 times.
With the aid of technological advancements and the introduction of antibiotics and other vital drugs, these doctors have paved the way for their successors to shed light on traditional beliefs in medicine and open up endless possibilities to equipment and procedures that would never have been thought possible years ago.
Complete Listing of our Articles
•Examining Cosmetic Surgery: 4 Considerations Before You Go Under the Knife
•100 Best Blogs for Living Healthy on a Budget
•Introducing iScrub
•The Surgery is Over… Now What? 4 Tips for A Successful Rehab
•Top 100 Doctor Bloggers
•100+ Ways to Spring Clean Your Mind and Body
•The Top 50 Surgeon Bloggers
•52 Ways To Lower Your Carbon Footprint In College
•What Does a Surgical Technician Do?
•How Do I Apply to Surgical Technician School?
•Where Do Surgical Technicians Work?
•What Is Surgical Technician School Like?
•What Is the Salary and Employment Outlook for a Surgical Technician?
•10 Famous Doctors who Made Medicine What it is Today
http://surgicaltechnicianschools.org/?page_id=94
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Cops & Child Protective Services abuse children when they take them from innocent parents
Examiner Bio Cops & Child Protective Services abuse children when they take them from innocent parents
July 27, 8:27 AMAlbany CPS and Family Court Examiner Daniel Weaver
I have often argued that Child Protective Services and the police are guilty of abusing children. I don't mean they are guilty of abuse when they take children from homes where the parents have sexually and physically abused them, or where children have been neglected through starvation and the like. What I mean is that when children are taken from innocent parents, which happens a lot more than the public realizes, they are often abused.
I will be writing some more about this in the coming weeks. Today, however, I wanted to focus on how Child Protective Services and the police traumatize children during the removal process. Can you imagine being four years old or eight years old or even a teenager, and a number of cops and/or Child Protective Services investigators show up at your house. Your parents have done nothing wrong. They have never hurt or neglected you. Yet here is a big cop with a gun, handcuffs and a taser. You start crying. Your mother or father naturally get upset because you are being taken. The cops then threaten your parents. Finally, the cops drag you to the police car, kicking and screaming.
Taking children from families, without due process, and in many cases when the parents have done nothing wrong, is a widespread phenomenon in the western world. It is child abuse. Nothing more. Nothing less. In part two of this series, I will discuss how children are sometimes abused during the interrogation process.
To read this entire article, please go to:
http://www.examiner.com/x-14537-Albany-CPS-and-Family-Court-Examiner~y2009m7d27-Cops--Child-Protective-Services-abuse-children-when-they-take-them-from-innocent-parents
July 27, 8:27 AMAlbany CPS and Family Court Examiner Daniel Weaver
I have often argued that Child Protective Services and the police are guilty of abusing children. I don't mean they are guilty of abuse when they take children from homes where the parents have sexually and physically abused them, or where children have been neglected through starvation and the like. What I mean is that when children are taken from innocent parents, which happens a lot more than the public realizes, they are often abused.
I will be writing some more about this in the coming weeks. Today, however, I wanted to focus on how Child Protective Services and the police traumatize children during the removal process. Can you imagine being four years old or eight years old or even a teenager, and a number of cops and/or Child Protective Services investigators show up at your house. Your parents have done nothing wrong. They have never hurt or neglected you. Yet here is a big cop with a gun, handcuffs and a taser. You start crying. Your mother or father naturally get upset because you are being taken. The cops then threaten your parents. Finally, the cops drag you to the police car, kicking and screaming.
Taking children from families, without due process, and in many cases when the parents have done nothing wrong, is a widespread phenomenon in the western world. It is child abuse. Nothing more. Nothing less. In part two of this series, I will discuss how children are sometimes abused during the interrogation process.
To read this entire article, please go to:
http://www.examiner.com/x-14537-Albany-CPS-and-Family-Court-Examiner~y2009m7d27-Cops--Child-Protective-Services-abuse-children-when-they-take-them-from-innocent-parents
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