Avalanche of Anguish
By DANA DiFILIPPO
Philadelphia Daily News
difilid@phillynews.com 215-854-5934
SHANNON BERTHIAUME knows she did something stupid, something she can't take back.
In a fit of frustration, the mother of three drove her minivan into a West Philadelphia elementary school in 2005 to protest the escalating racial bullying her kids had suffered there.
Although no one was seriously injured and the only damage was a scratch on the school door, Berthiaume was arrested and sentenced to a year of probation.
But her legal troubles were trivial compared to the avalanche of anguish that followed.
Social workers from the city's Department of Human Services took her kids away and kept them, pingponging between foster homes, for a year and a half.
When Berthiaume got them back, all three had been sexually molested in their foster homes, she said.
"My oldest son [then 14] came home bleeding from his rectum - a lot, like a woman bleeds [menstrually]," Berthiaume said.
That son, now 16, is in a group home for sex offenders, after DHS took him again when he molested his little brother. Her other two kids resent her for catapulting them into the misery that has marred their lives since their mother's arrest.
"DHS has destroyed my family," said Berthiaume, 37, wiping tears from her cheeks.
While judges and social workers often assume removing children from troubled homes will make them safer, the ordeal of Berthiaume and her family illustrates a disturbing epidemic in foster care:
Kids in foster homes are up to four times as likely to suffer sex abuse as other kids.
The odds worsen for kids unlucky enough to get placed in group homes and other institutional settings:
They're 28 times as likely to be sexually abused there, studies show.
And while predatory foster parents make the headlines, the abuse typically is child-on-child, experts agree.
As shocking as the statistics are, child advocates say sexual abuse occurs far more than even the most perverted mind can imagine.
"I've been doing this work for a long time and represented thousands and thousands of foster children, both in class-action lawsuits and individually, and I have almost never seen a child, boy or girl, who has been in foster care for any length of time who has not been sexually abused in some way, whether it is child-on-child or not," said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights, a New York-based nonprofit.
"It is quite common."
They were the only white kids in the school.
That didn't matter to Berthiaume, who married a black man and whose youngest son's father is Puerto Rican.
But it apparently did matter to some of their classmates, who rarely let an opportunity pass to call them racial names, beat them or otherwise bully them, the family said.
"My kids would come home crying every day. They were afraid to go to school," she said.
Berthiaume complained repeatedly to the school, the district, local and state politicians and even the U.S. Department of Education.
She still has a dog-eared file thicker than a phone book of her various fruitless pleas to people for help.
Finally, in May 2005, with the abuse unabated, she planned a protest outside the school.
She made up signs and kept them in her van, waiting for the perfect opportunity.
But fury overtook patience on May 24, when she picked up her kids from school - only to hear that bullies had pounced on her 8-year-old in the bathroom as he relieved himself, yanking painfully on his privates as they called him names, she said.
"I snapped," she said of the day that led to years of tears.
Berthiaume locked her kids in the van and steered toward Huey's front door. Berthiaume said she merely parked the van at the door to protest her kids' treatment; police said she rammed it.
Either way, she got arrested and spent the night in jail. Although acquitted of all but one (simple assault) of the five charges against her, she was sentenced to a year of probation, court records show. The case is the only blemish on her otherwise clean criminal record.
After her arrest, DHS took her kids, then ages 8, 10 and 12, and put them in foster care.
The three bounced around between 15 different placements, according to DHS records. Berthiaume's daughter was moved most, hopscotching between eight foster homes, according to DHS records.
She remembers none fondly.
"A lot of homes hit me, they beat me. Some of the homes, I starved; they would sit down at the table and say: 'You can't sit at this table because you're not part of this family.' So I'd have to eat at school," said the girl, now 14.
The Daily News is withholding her and her siblings' names due to the sexual nature of their alleged abuse.
At one home, Berthiaume's daughter said, a foster parent choked and threatened her after wrongly assuming she scratched a foster baby in the home.
Worst was the teenage boy in one home who pinned her down and fondled her as she struggled to escape in May 2006. She was 10 years old. She and Berthiaume sued DHS for the incident and won a $25,000 settlement from the city and its subcontracted provider in which DHS admitted no fault, DHS records show.
In infrequent phone calls and supervised visits, Berthiaume learned of her kids' struggles in foster care and worked hard to get them back. She earned her GED and took classes in parenting, nutrition and anger management to demonstrate her worthiness as a parent.
Still, DHS kept her two youngest until August 2006 and the oldest until October 2006.
Aside from the assault on Berthiaume's daughter, none of the three reported any maltreatment in foster care, said Dell Meriwether, deputy commissioner of DHS' Children and Youth Division.
Berthiaume said she first learned her sons had been molested two weeks after her eldest came home.
She walked into the boys' bedroom and saw her sons, who had been lying under a blanket, jump up. She thought she had interrupted the eldest trying to molest the youngest, so she called her DHS social worker.
Meriwether said, DHS investigators determined the eldest boy had performed oral sex on his little brother and then threatened him with violence.
"That is a pretty significant incident," Meriwether said.
DHS removed the boy again, and police charged him with a sex crime.
The criminal charges eventually were dropped, but DHS placed the boy, now 16, in a group home for sex offenders where he remains today.
A Family Court judge ordered the other two children to undergo therapy.
Berthiaume said both boys told counselors they'd been repeatedly raped while in foster care, although neither reported the abuse to social workers and DHS has no records of such reports, Meriwether said.
Berthiaume has spent the past three years struggling to rebuild relationships soured from simmering resentments and long absences.
"I love my mom, but I ain't even speak to her now without arguing with her. I have anger issues," Berthiaume's daughter said recently. "This [foster experience] damaged me. I just think of that day [when Berthiaume got arrested at Huey], and I think: If she wanted to get us out, she could have did it in a different way. 'Cause now, we're living a nightmare."
Berthiaume wishes she could take that day back.
"I feel bad, because I take responsibility for my actions," she said, crying. "I take on that burden that I got them placed in the system. If I wouldn't have did what I did, they wouldn't have suffered like they did."
Her house is quiet now.
Berthiaume's husband, tired of the drama, moved out last month.
Her two sons are gone.
DHS refuses to return Berthiaume's eldest son, despite professing, as most social-service agencies do, that family preservation is a top priority.
"Preservation of the family can only be possible when all of the children in the family can be safely maintained," Meriwether said. Further, the child "has not completed his sexual-offender therapy. He still is addressing his mental and behavioral health issues. [And] Ms. Berthiaume has not completed the requisite family therapy."
The eldest boy's "victim" - Berthiaume's youngest son - moved to another state a few weeks ago to live with his biological father, weary of fighting with his mother and rehashing things in interminable court-ordered therapy.
"I live in a four-bedroom house with one child," Berthiaume said. "This has broken my family."
A DHS social worker made a surprise visit to Berthiaume's home for the first time in years last week, shortly after the Daily News began asking DHS about the family.
But Meriwether denied any ill intent.
"Because there's an active child in placement, safety assessment visits should be done every six months. Those were not being done, so your call prompted that," Meriwether said.
But Berthiaume feels unfairly targeted.
"I just wish they would leave my family alone so we can heal from this," Berthiaume said. "They're supposed to be a child-protection agency. They could have left them with me, and they'd be fine. But instead, they say I'm not fit to be a mom, and then they place them with other people who abuse them. They didn't protect my children."
Overburdened systems
Cases like Berthiaume's exasperate Richard Wexler.
Wexler heads the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, a Virginia-based nonprofit that advocates family preservation.
"In every respect, this is a perfect microcosm of everything wrong with the Philadelphia child-welfare system," Wexler said. "This mother flew off the handle, but did nothing herself to harm her children. So these children were taken from a perfectly safe home only to be abused in foster care."
Fearful of the public criticism that comes after high-profile abuse deaths like Charlenni Ferreira and Danieal Kelly, Philadelphia is too quick to remove children from their biological homes, Wexler contended.
"Philadelphia takes away children at, by far, the highest rate of any major city," he said.
Philadelphia's rate of removal – entries into care divided by the number of impoverished children - is 31.3 children removed for every thousand impoverished children in the county, according to coalition statistics. The national average is 20.2.
"The more you overload your child-welfare system with children who don't need to be there, the greater the likelihood of abuse," Wexler said. "There are two reasons for that: You put your DHS in a position where they are begging for beds. Beggars can't be choosers, so there is an enormous incentive to lower standards for foster parents. The other problem is if you have too many children coming in, you cannot be careful about which foster children you put with other foster children. And one of the biggest problems in foster care is foster children abusing other foster children.
"The only way to fix foster care is to have less of it," Wexler added.
DHS Spokeswoman DeszereeThomas countered that DHS has been successful at reducing its removal rates, saying only 4,988 children were placed in foster homes, group homes, supervised independent living and other settings, as of fiscal year 2009. That's down about 20 percent from a recent high of 6,210 in fiscal year 2005, according to DHS data.
Thomas couldn't quantify how many of those children are in treatment as sex-abuse victims or offenders, saying such information isn't tracked centrally.
But the state Department of Public Welfare, which investigates reports of children abused in foster care, tallied 261 reported incidents statewide of sexual contact between children in foster homes in 2008 and 2009.
National studies suggest the actual incidence of abuse is far higher. For example, youths in foster care are at a higher risk of acquiring HIV, according to a 1999 Washington University study.
"If bad things happen to these children, for the most part, they're unreported," Robinson Lowry said. "And when a foster-care system does a really lousy job, there are really no consequences. These are systems that are usually isolated from public outcry (because of privacy protections). Very often, the only real accountability is when a system gets sued."
A family forever fractured?
Some kids dislike school.
Berthiaume's youngest son has sworn it off forever.
"I will never go back to a public school ever," he said.
Since getting her kids back in 2006, Berthiaume has home-schooled them, the family's faith broken in all public agencies.
She'd like to leave Philadelphia, the city that has brought her so much heartache. But she won't leave her eldest son behind.
So she waits to learn what else she must do to get him back.
"I shouldn't have felt driven to take matters into my own hands. I had this nightmare for five years. Where was the city for me? They're still failing me after all these years," she said of her unending battle to make her family whole. "Five years of people just turning their backs. It feels as though the weight of the world is on us. I'm tired."
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/82231247.html
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Sunday, February 7, 2010
The Dynamics of Shame in Interactions Between Child Protective Services and Families Falsely Accused of Child Abuse
The Dynamics of Shame in Interactions Between Child Protective Services and Families Falsely Accused of Child Abuse
February 6, 2010 yvonnemason
The Dynamic of Shame in Interactions Between Child Protective Services and Families Falsely Accused of Child Abuse
Sabrina Luza and Enrique Ortiz*
ABSTRACT: The concept of a shame-based family system in which parents shame their children was applied to the relationship between Child Protective Services (CPS) and families accused of child abuse. Twenty families who reported that they had been wrongly accused of child abuse completed a questionnaire. Content analysis of the questionnaires supported the hypothesis that the elements of a shame-based family system are present in the relationship between CPS and the families they investigate. The respondents indicated feelings of powerlessness, self- doubt, depression, and isolation, and perceived the CPS as omnipotent, abandoning them, quickly accusing them, and acting in emotionally harmful ways towards them.
Although child abuse has existed throughout history, only recently has society recognized that children have a right to be protected from their parents or guardians. Historically, the social values of the United States have been a deterrent to intervention in behalf of the child. The family unit was seen as private and inviolable and the parents were seen as having the right to control and supervise their child. This slowly changed with the establishment of the American Humane Association (AHA) in 1877 which was instrumental in encouraging legislation to protect the child. Abusing parents were viewed in a punitive light and were prosecuted under criminal codes. Protective services were a form of law enforcement. However, this punitive view did not help solve the socio-emotional causes of child abuse (Koerin, 1980).
In the 1930s the social work orientation became more apparent with the enactment of the Social Security Act, which stated that protective services would be delivered by public welfare agencies. This was a shift away from punishment of parents to treatment of families. In the 1950s and 1960s much information was disseminated by the AHA, and other disciplines have become active in the formation of child abuse policies. In 1962 the Children’s Bureau met with a multidisciplinary team with the purpose of developing models for state legislation for child abuse reporting laws; by 1967 the social policy of child protection was formalized by the passage of child abuse reporting laws by all fifty states (Koerin, 1980). In 1974 the Child Abuse and Treatment Act and Title XX of the Social Security Act both established protective services and treatment for abused and neglected children (Rodwell & Poertner).
The recent reporting laws state that a broad category of professionals must report any suspected case of emotional, physical or sexual abuse or neglect. This move has dramatically increased reported cases and has improved treatment services for maltreated children and families (Besharov, 1985). However the pendulum may have swung too far — the cost being undue state intervention into private family matters and grief to innocent parents and their children. Although in the past the emphasis on the privacy and sanctity of the family was partly to blame for the lack of protection of obviously abused children, the laws as they stand now have shifted to the other extreme. Coercive intervention into the family is unprecedented. If the social benefits outweigh the costs of intrusion then the reduction of privacy and autonomy can be justified. However this has not been the case (Stein, 1984).
While unwarranted interventions occur, the lives of children who are in genuine need for intervention are endangered. As the overburdened child protective (CP) worker allocates time to investigate an unfounded case, a child in serious danger is left waiting. In addition, unsubstantiated accusations, with the traumatic investigations that accompany them, cause much harm to innocent families. The number of families who have undergone these unfounded and intrusive investigations is much too high. According to the United States Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, 60% of all reports of suspected child maltreatment turn out to be unfounded (Besharov, 1985). In addition to the traumatic investigation, families are often ordered to accept treatment under threat of court action. About 50% of these cases are later found to be unsubstantiated (Besharov, 1985).
In the midst of a growing concern for children, a paradox has developed in the establishment of new child protective legislation. On one hand there is a deference for family privacy, and on the other, the problems of children and families are attributed to parental abdication of their responsibility. Thus, intervention into family life is prevalent (Melton, 1987). The tradeoff is that too many innocent families get caught in the attempt to identify abusive families. The mandatory reporting laws require many professions to identify abuse and report it, but these identifications are often based on minimal information. Therefore, reports of abuse are only judgment calls upon which CPS begins an potentially intrusive investigation into family life (Stein, 1984).
However, legislative decisions regarding child abuse are virtually undebatable due to the emotion-laden quality of abuse. Politically it is considered unwise to support less intervention because one may be thought of as a proponent of child abuse. Because the policies are seen as undebatable, they divert attention away from practical policy problems such as over-reporting of abuse cases which causes an overload in the system which leads to less accurate investigations of children at risk and an increase in false accusations.
Not much emphasis has been placed on the negative effects of a wrongful accusation. The bulk of research has explored the consequences of not intervening in a possibly abusive situation. This reflects the lack of concern for dealing with the issue of intrusion into the family. The research that does explore this illustrates many ill effects on innocent families due to coercive intervention. In many cases the effects are felt suddenly and without warning. The CPS is capable of moving with swift and absolute authority. A simple accusation of abuse leveled at a parent or guardian can bring devastating consequences for a family. People’s lives are changed forever in an instant.
Children may be removed from their homes and contact with their parents prohibited. In cases where more than one child is removed, siblings are often separated, so that a child may lose contact with his whole family. Sometimes there is no way to predict how long they will be separated. The amount of time may be as short as the time it takes for a physical examination, or it may be forever. Even if there is no separation a family may undergo painful investigations before allegations of child abuse are determined to be unfounded (Besharov, 1986). Accused parents are sometimes interrogated and other times completely ignored in an investigation (Miller, 1988).
A family investigated for abuse is completely at the mercy of their CP worker. Most false accusations take a family completely by surprise. In this state of confusion a family is left defenseless and often has no idea of the possible consequences that await them (Besharov, 1986; Miller, 1988). “People falsely accused feel so alone. They tend to deny it … that something like this can happen in the United States” (Brown-Hawley, 1987). These people are left feeling powerless. In a study of wrongfully accused parents, Schultz (1986, 1989) found such effects as sleeplessness, weight loss, nausea, night-terrors, and depression. His respondents also reported job loss, divorce, reputational damage, and financial losses of such magnitude that selling the family home was required to pay for legal and expert fees. Some, however, did state that the investigation brought the family closer to one another because of the hardships endured together.
The Dynamics of Shame
The qualities and emotions displayed by families wrongfully accused of child abuse are strikingly similar to emotions demonstrated by adults and children who feel shame. Shame is an internal, subjective experience. The shamed individual sees himself as inadequate, inferior, worthless and defective. It affects the whole self-physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. Shame is a judgment of the self, and a failure of “being,” rather than a failure of “doing” (Potter-Efron, 1988).
As a dynamic social system, a family has a set of parenting rules and beliefs upon which its child rearing style is based. In all families the belief system forms the core of how children view themselves. Specifically, in a family where shame exists, the child’s core is one of a feeling of inadequacy. The family’s rules are shaming and abusive and the child internalizes these rules. The child is shamed by the parents for failing to attain the ideal. “Shame is the source of most of the disturbing inner states which deny full human life” (Kaufman, 1980). Self-doubt, isolation, alienation, and depression are some of the emotions linked with shame and are experienced by children who have been shamed by their parents (Bradshaw, 1988).
“Shame-based” in part means the creation of shame in others. The creation of shame in others is a way of avoiding feeling shame oneself. It is a means of displacing an unwanted feeling onto another, thereby protecting oneself from it. The feeling of shame is passed on to others and is therefore referred to as “passing the hot potato” in psychiatric literature. When someone feels shame, one reaction is to instill it in others. “We achieve a personal comfort denied the bearer of these labels” (Nathanson, 1987). Parents pass the shame to children in shame-bound families. These shamed children have many of the characteristics of families wrongfully accused of child abuse. In our questioning of the origin of shame in these families we began to wonder who was passing the hot potato to them. We began to see parallels between passing shame within the family and passing the shame from institutions to the family.
Shame and the Child Protection System
Much of the way families act within a shame-bound system appear to be reflected in institutions. In expanding the shame-bound system concept to include institutions, similar elements can be found. Those institutions or agencies which act in loco parentis, taking on the responsibility of the parent, seem to fit this schema best. One such institution is the Child Protective Service (CPS) system. Is the shame-bound system of families applicable to the relationship CPS systems have with families they investigate for abuse? Because CPS agencies intervene into the zone of the family when parents appear not to exercise proper control over their children, the CPS agency takes on a parental role. We propose that the CPS system and the family accused of child abuse form a shame-bound system much like the one between the shaming parent and the shamed child. This exploratory study examined the applicability of the shame-based system in which the CPS agency takes on the shaming rules of the parent and the family accused of abuse or neglect takes on the characteristics of the shamed child.
Although our study was confined to examining shame and the interaction between families accused of abuse and CPS, as well as looking at the possible effects on those families, we also explored what sources contribute to the expression of shame through the CPS. This was necessary as part of the development of our ideas regarding shame-based systems, and served as a base for our exploration of the transmission of shame to the families accused of abuse.
Legal policies affecting families of those suspected of abuse have much to do with the way CP workers address the problem of abuse. With the abrupt focus on the battered child syndrome (Kempe, Silverman, Steele, Droegemueller, & Silver, 1962) states rushed to enact new legislation, much of which is questionable in its constitutionality, to deal with the problem (Lloyd, Melton, & Rogers, 1987; Melton, 1984; Melton, 1985). Feeling the inadequacy to deal with the issue of child abuse, the states presented a quick-fix approach apparent in their enactment of mandatory reporting laws. However, the needed efforts to increase child protection have unfortunately increased the number of innocent families damaged by false accusations. In addition, there is little threat of penalty for those knowingly making a false accusation. As the laws stand now, anyone can become a victim of a false accusation. Because workers are overburdened with heavy caseloads, many children who are being abused are lost in the shuffle (Rebstock, 1987). In effect, the states have passed the hot potato onto the CPS agencies in order to alleviate their own feelings of inadequacy.
Child abuse laws are vague. Although intervention has increased with the expansion of child protective efforts, policies governing these interventions have not been made clear. Likewise, laws defining child abuse and neglect lack clarification and specificity. “These laws set no limits on intervention and provide no guidelines for decision making. They are a prime reason for the system’s inability to protect obviously endangered children, even as it intervenes in family life on a massive scale” (Besharov, 1985).
Because legal policies give no guidelines to decision making, the CP worker is given discretionary power regarding interventions. The CPS organization is also set up to promote this discretionary behavior. The front line workers act independently of one another and their supervision is based on their reports of what they are doing rather than on direct observation by a supervisor. Thus they each operate with a high degree of autonomy and are free to interpret policy as they choose (Gummer, 1979). It is particularly important to have a standard for decision making in services such as child protection because these services are involuntary — they are an extension of the power of the state, and families are not given a choice to accept them or not. But because of the individual interpretation of policies, decisions are made based on a CP worker’s idiosyncrasies and hunches. Rodwell and Poertner note: “With differing standards, the same case will be opened by one worker and left unattended by another. Some children needing protection will not be helped. Others will be removed from their homes when no need for state protection exists. Definitional disparity means that it is not possible to make the professional distinction between a worker acting to protect versus needlessly intruding because the basis for this judgment will never be clear.”
This legislative granting of decision-making power is based on a fundamental flaw that in the end decreases feelings of adequacy in the CP worker. It assumes that workers need the freedom to make judgments about whether or not a child needs protection. However, there is not sufficient scientific knowledge to assess and predict future parental behavior (Besharov, 1985). As Gummer (1979) points out, “workers are asked to make professional decisions about situations for which there is uncertain knowledge to guide the decision.” Too much responsibility is placed on the CP workers, especially in light of the little scientific knowledge that is available. The workers are put in a precarious position; they are given the power to decide based on unrealistic expectations of their capabilities, and at the same time are given only a few scientific tools with which to make a “good” decision. The loose legal policies are a reflection of society’s over-ambitious expectation of the abilities of CP workers. Thus there is a failure to provide specific guidelines (Besharov, 1985).
This conflict between what is expected and what knowledge is actually available helps contribute to feelings of inadequacy in CP workers. “To cope with this, workers resort to a variety of stress-reducing mechanisms that enable them to make decisions with relative ease. While these mechanisms are functional in terms of enabling the worker to make a decision, they have the serious dysfunction of creating ‘a spurious sense of certainty among social work personnel concerning the wisdom of decisions reached’ …” (Gummer, 1979).
Passing Shame to Families
This sense of omnipotence is a way of relieving oneself of the feelings of stress and inadequacy. Shame is described as a means of displacing an unwanted feeling onto another, thereby protecting oneself from it. By easily and quickly designating families as abusive, the CP workers pass blame to families, relieving themselves of the stress of the decision-making procedure and feelings of inadequacy imposed by vague laws and policies offering few guidelines. The CP workers have an extremely difficult task. In addition to the unreasonable caseload, insufficient funding, and few guidelines, they must act as law-enforcement officer, judge, jury and scientist (Schultz, 1986). This is asking too much and contributes to feelings of inadequacy. Yet the high expectations placed on them by society and legislators makes it difficult to admit these feelings. One outlet is to pass these feelings on to families accused of abuse.
The many elements of shame present in the parent-child system can be applied to the CPS-family system. Emotional harm is inherent in a shaming system. This can take many forms in the transmission from parent to child as well as from the CPS to the wrongfully accused family. It can be evidenced by the traumatic investigations undergone by the family. The thrust of these investigations is to gain support for the accusation rather than to determine the validity of the accusation (Hayden, 1988). In Schultz’s (1986) study of 50 parents falsely accused of sexual abuse, 16% felt the CP worker was biased toward supporting the charge prior to the investigation, 64% felt there was a lack of skill in gathering legal evidence, thus, the innocent were caught in the system rather than being quickly exonerated, and 34% felt there was not enough training for the CP workers in protecting all clients’ rights, especially the parents’ rights. “This tendency to assume the presence of abnormality and then seek supportive evidence fosters ‘overpathologizing,’ that is, the frequent misidentification of individuals as abnormal” (Faust & Ziskin, 1988).
The CPS also shames the falsely accused family even further for having objections to the allegations. These objections are treated by the CPS as even more proof of guilt. This reflects the parental shaming of the child for having needs or feelings (Nielsen, 1988). The inability of the CP worker to take into account the family’s objections leaves the family feeling powerless and frustrated, much like the shamed child.
Stemming from this mindset of guilty until proven innocent is the very real abandonment the family experiences. The family is often socially and economically abandoned because it is seen as guilty from the beginning. This parallels the parental shaming of the child through abandonment, which is a key issue in shame-bound systems (Bradshaw, 1988). The CPS abandons families by providing no victim welfare services (Schultz, 1986, 1989) and by failing to offer apologies or reparations for the damages done to innocent families (Hayden, 1988). The trauma to innocent families requires a wide variety of services which are not provided. Mechanisms are also not provided to insure effective and speedy appeal to accusations (Hayden, 1987). In the shame-bound family system, the parent lacks energy and time to nurture the child (Nielsen, 1988). Likewise, the CPS lacks the energy and time to provide fully for the family accused of abuse, especially after injury has been done to them through the investigation. Thus isolation, due to this abandonment, is a primary feeling of these families.
A collective denial that a problem may exist within the system is also apparent in the CPS as it is in shame-bound family systems. According to shame theory, to question is an act of disobedience and one is shamed for it. One of the sacred rules of the shame-bound system is not to question any of the rules, thus keeping the omnipotence of the shamer intact and strengthening the denial system (Bradshaw, 1988). Perhaps this is part of the reason that those committed to bucking the system and bringing to light the inefficiencies of the CP system are said to be siding with child abusers (Hayden, 1988). The CP system makes it shameful to say anything negative about its procedures. It fails to accept responsibility for the possible wrongs caused to families wrongfully accused of abuse. Those who object to the erroneous allegations, intrusive investigations and the quick-fix removal of children from their families are shamed into being seen as proponents of abuse.
By the same token, those who expose the CP agencies for inefficient attention to children at high risk may face persecution in the form of demotion, which itself is a shaming technique. Sydney Schanberg (1985) reports that the senior Supervisor of Child Services, Irwin Levin, was fined and demoted for revealing workers’ inadequacies in connection with the deaths of children whose abuse cases had been mismanaged. In a shame-bound system the belief is that it is better to shame another than to have one’s own inadequacies exposed. This seems to hold true for the CPS.
The CPS’s preconceptions of the family as guilty before the investigation is begun results in the use of such labels as “sick” and “moral failures” (Melton, 1987). This is yet another element present in shame-bound systems. Shamers use blame and labeling as a means of inducing shame in others. Shame promotes a feeling of “being” no good instead of “doing” something that is not good (Bradshaw, 1988). This then promotes feelings of inadequacy.
By labeling families as sick or bad, CP agencies equate the person and the behavior. It becomes more difficult for the family members wrongfully accused of abuse to exonerate themselves. If presented with factual evidence that would exonerate a family, the CPS will dismiss it because their belief in the “badness” of the family is still intact. This lowers the level of anxiety in the CP worker. By staunchly believing in the guilt of a family, the CP worker then does not have to deal with the possibility of a mistake. It is a means of ignoring accountability, much as the parent uses this labeling as a means of alleviating himself from looking at his own faults. It is also a means by which to control another, thus accruing power (Nielsen, 1988).
In a shame-bound family, the child is shamed for failing to attain the ideal (Potter-Efron, 1988; Fossum & Mason, 1986). Likewise, the family accused of abuse experiences shaming by the CPS and by society for failing to reach the standard set for what families should be capable of doing (Vallender & Fogelman, 1987). Thus, feelings of self-doubt result. Since guilt is presumed, the family is shamed by CPS for not being “good enough.” Similarly, the policy surrounding child abuse results in “symbolic statements of the proper ordering of human relationships” (Melton, 1987). This ideal of how the family should be, based on societal views, makes it difficult for the family to feel adequate, especially when charged with an accusation of child abuse which in society’s view is among the most loathed of transgressions.
Purpose of Study
We hypothesized that the Child Protective Service acts in a shaming way toward people it investigates for abuse, in much the same way that a parent shames a child in a dysfunctional family. The family takes on the characteristics of the shamed “child” and the CPS acts as the shaming “parent.” In this study we wanted to correlate elements of the dynamics of shame in families with the dynamics that occur between CP workers and families they investigate for abuse.
Parents shame through abandoning their children by physically leaving or being emotionally unavailable. Parents shame their children when they deny their identity in some way such as labeling them, placing them in rigid roles, denying their own problems, ignoring the child’s problems, and acting in shameless ways such as exhibiting omnipotence over their children. In outlining the elements of shame in a shame-bound system we found that a shamed child experiences and demonstrates isolation, powerlessness, self-doubt, inadequacy, and depression.
We hypothesized that the CPS demonstrates elements of shaming by causing emotional harm to families, socially and economically abandoning families, exhibiting omnipotence, and labeling families. We also hypothesized that families accused of abuse will report qualities associated with shame-isolation, powerlessness, self-doubt, inadequacy, and depression.
Method
Questionnaires
To examine whether these hypothesized dynamics existed between families accused of abuse and CP workers, we constructed two sets of questionnaires. Each questionnaire contained several questions to assess the presence of each element in the shame-based system. The questions were a mixture of open-ended questions and closed questions which used a Likert format. Some questions were combinations of open and closed questions in which respondents could answer “yes” or “no” and then elaborate if they answered “yes.” At the end of the questionnaire were questions asking the respondents how they felt about answering the questionnaire and if there was anything they would like to add. For many of the questions, the answer could potentially evoke more than one theme of shame.
For the CP worker questionnaire, 19 questions were designed to reflect hypothesized dynamics that would be displayed by a person who is acting as a shaming parent. Unfortunately, as is explained below, we were unable to administer these questionnaires as planned.
The questionnaire for the families wrongfully accused of abuse included 27 questions to investigate the presence of shame. In addition, the wrongfully accused were asked to describe the events and situations that led to attention from the CP agency, to describe their feelings upon becoming aware of being accused, and their feelings during the investigation. We thought that giving the respondents a chance to express themselves freely would provide us with additional information. The items on the wrongly accused questionnaire are shown in Appendix A.
Items on both questionnaires were pretested on social work students, in order to ascertain the clarity and neutrality of the questions. A few minor adjustments were made in terms of neutrality, otherwise, the questionnaires remained unchanged.
The questionnaires were self-administered which allowed the respondents to take as much or as little time as they chose. It also gave them an opportunity to reflect and recall information. The questionnaires were mailed out with instructions and confidentiality was guaranteed.
Subjects
To obtain the CP worker sample we obtained approval from a local CPS agency for administration of the questionnaires. A mutually agreed-upon date for the actual survey-taking was sought, however contact was delayed for two weeks. We were then told we had to get approval from the Regional Social Service Manager and the Field Manager for Social Services. We contacted them and the project was approved. We therefore again contacted our original contact who now told us that the agency needed approval from the agency managers for a contact person inside the agency. Although the CPS agency was aware of the time limits of the study, we became entangled in bureaucratic red tape and were not able to administer the questionnaires. Whether the bureaucratic delay was intentional is still unknown.
A snowball sampling method was used in selecting subjects who had been wrongfully accused of abuse and investigated by the CPS. “Wrongfully accused of abuse” was defined as those who claimed to be innocent. This includes those who were not charged, yet action such as removal of the child took place, those who were charged and later the charges were dropped or reversed to unfounded, and those who were charged and imprisoned yet still claimed innocence.
We first contacted people belonging to the advocacy group VOCAL (Victims of Child Abuse Laws). These names were supplied to us by Tulane University’s School of Social Work Director of Research, Dr. Robert Hayden. These subjects resided in different states, from Oregon to Mississippi, as well as in Louisiana. We hoped that by contacting these VOCAL members by phone, other names of VOCAL members would be obtained. However, of these people, all but one declined participation in the study, citing reasons such as the desire to forget the incident, lack of interest, and a feeling of futility regarding the effects of another study. More success was encountered upon calling Michael Rebstock, District Liaison for Mississippi. Mr. Rebstock was instrumental in giving us the name of the VOCAL chapter head in Virginia, Barbara Bryan. Ms. Bryan was very helpful in facilitating the distribution of the questionnaires to other wrongfully accused persons. Although she did not provide the authors with names and addresses, she did distribute 50 questionnaires.
Of the 50 questionnaires sent out, 19 were returned. In addition to these 19 questionnaires, one participant was interviewed by the authors using the standard questionnaire and responses were recorded. Therefore, the total number of questionnaires received was 20. Fourteen came from Virginia and the remaining six came from Tennessee, Louisiana, Maryland, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Illinois.
Because the participants were obtained through VOCAL members, they may have been predisposed to expressing negative views. This limits the generalizability of our findings to all wrongfully accused families. Another limitation is that there is no means of verifying whether every participant is truly innocent.
Data Analysis
The responses from the 20 questionnaires were analyzed. A content analysis of the seven open-ended responses, as well as the open-ended portion of the nine combination open/closed-ended questions, was done in order to classify and code the responses according to our conceptual framework of shame. The responses were coded for manifest content, that is, the responses were scanned and recurrent words and phrases were recorded. Although the manifest content was coded, rather than the latent content, the latent content served as a guide to coding the manifest content. The recurrent phrases or words were used as indicators of larger themes, some of which were the themes of shame delineated previously and some of which were new themes. The same question on different questionnaires evoked a variety of responses. Thus each questionnaire was scanned for recurrent phrases which were classified under a theme. We found 14 different themes.
The presence or absence of indicators was recorded for each questionnaire. If the same indicator was stated more than once within the same questionnaire, it was simply recorded once. The total number of different indicators for each theme was then tallied for each questionnaire. For example, the four indicators for the theme of abandonment of the accused by the CPS are (1) providing the accused with few rights, (2) ignoring objections stated by the accused, (3) falling to listen to the accused person’s side of the story, and (4) refusing to conduct an investigation while taking action against the family.
The presence or absence of each indicator was recorded for all 14 themes for each questionnaire. If all four indicators were present for one of the themes in a questionnaire, the number 4 was recorded; if there were three present, the number 3 was recorded, and so on. This yielded a specific number of indicators for each theme for each questionnaire. We then determined the frequency and percentage of questionnaires that contained each number of indicators for each of the 14 themes. We also calculated the cumulative percentages.
Unlike the open-ended questions, the closed-ended questions targeted specific themes; therefore, the themes were predetermined by the questions. Several questions targeted each theme. Many of these themes were identical to those themes found in the open-ended responses. The questions targeting a specific theme were indicators of that theme.
The presence or absence of indicators was tallied for each theme across all questionnaires. For questions that supplied “yes” or “no” answers, “yes” would indicate the presence and “no” would indicate the absence of the indicator for a specific theme. For questions with Likert scales, a response of “none” or “very little” was coded as the absence of that indicator, while a response of “moderate,” “very much,” and “extreme” was coded as a presence of that indicator. The total number of indicators for each theme was then recorded for each questionnaire. For example, the indicators for the theme of powerlessness are three questions: “How much control did you feel you had over the investigation?,” “How much difficulty did you have in dealing with your emotions as a result of the investigation?,” and “Did the investigation change any plans you had for your family at the time it occurred?” The number of indicators present was recorded under the theme of powerlessness. This was repeated for each theme and for each questionnaire, as was done with the open-ended questions. Likewise, percentages were obtained from the frequencies.
Results
The indicators, which were phrases or words stated by respondents in open-ended questions, seemed to form separate groupings. These groupings were then classified under appropriate themes which reflected the essence of the indicators. Some themes were actual elements of shame proposed previously. Other themes that had not been proposed were also found. Table 1 presents the 14 themes along with their indicators for the open-ended questions. Table 2 shows the cumulative percentages for these themes.
The themes obtained from the closed-ended questions were similar. The indicators for the closed-ended questions were the questions themselves. Table 3 lists the eight themes obtained from the closed-ended questions and Table 4 indicates the cumulative percentages for these themes.
The themes found for both the open-ended and closed-ended questions in part supported our initial proposition suggesting the applicability of a shame-based system to the interaction between the CPS and families it accuses of child abuse.
Open-ended Questions
The four hypothesized elements of shame within the CPS were causing families emotional harm, abandoning the families, exhibiting omnipotence, and labeling families. The first three of these themes were represented in the groupings of indicators found in responses. We were unable to examine the theme of labeling since there were no questions formulated to assess labeling in the questionnaire developed for the families accused of abuse. The questionnaire for the CPS had contained items assessing labeling but since we could not administer this questionnaire the presence of labeling is unknown. However, certain indicators under the theme of accusatory posture of the CPS are related to labeling. One indicator, “presumed guilt of the accused,” is a precursor of labeling the family.
This same indicator, “presumed guilt,” is a form of emotional harm since it gives way to traumatic, intrusive methods such as removal of a child based on little or no evidence. Presuming an accused individual is guilty also leads to another element of shame, abandonment. The CPS seemed to offer almost no reparations to wrongfully accused families.
The elements of shame are not mutually exclusive but overlap, and many of those elements were found in several thematic categories. For example, the concept of emotional harm was not only supported by the indicators
under that theme, but also by indicators within other thematic categories. “Lack of rights given to the accused,” and “ignoring the objections of the accused” are two indicators that not only reflect the shaming theme of abandonment, but also the theme of emotional harm. The proposed theme of the CPS’s omnipotence was also indicated by responses such as “CPS lacks accountability” and that “the CPS does not recognize its inefficiencies.”
The elements of shame proposed to exist within the accused families were isolation, powerlessness, self-doubt, depression, and inadequacy. Of these, the themes of isolation, powerlessness, self-doubt, and depression were indicated by the responses. Table 1 shows the indicators in these three themes. Inadequacy was not a recurrent phrase in the responses to the open-ended questions and was not supported. The proposed theme of depression was recurrent in the responses, and served as an indicator of the larger theme of emotional pain. The proposed themes of isolation, powerlessness, and self-doubt were supported in this study.
The intensity of the themes is shown through the cumulative percentages of indicators pertaining to each of the 14 open-ended themes (Table 2). For example, under emotional pain, 5% of the questionnaires had at least five indicators, 25% had at least three indicators, and 95% of the questionnaires had at least one indicator. This suggests that many respondents felt mild emotional pain and a few felt extreme emotional pain, however almost all (95%) felt emotional pain to some degree.
Of the themes related to shame, the following demonstrated high percentages: isolation, in which 85% of the respondents stating at least one indicator, accusatory posture with 95%, abandonment with 95%, omnipotence with 45%, and emotional harm with 55%. The theme of self-doubt showed a low percentage of 20% of the questionnaires having at least one indicator. Likewise, the theme of powerlessness showed a low percentage of 25%. However, as is seen below, the percentages for these two themes for the closed-ended questions are much higher. This may be due to the fact that there were more closed-ended than open-ended questions assessing the two themes. Powerlessness may also be an emotion that is not readily discussed, but will be acknowledged if directly questioned about it.
New themes shown in Table 2 were emotional pain, with 95% of the respondents giving one or more indicators, anxiety about the future (40%), negative effect (60%), desire to fight back (85%), gaining a stronger support system (65%), and fighting back (85%). This suggests that respondents gained the support of others or became closer to their family as a result of fighting an outside enemy, the CPS. Despite these outcomes, families accused of abuse seemed to endure not only components of shame, but also other negative effects and emotions which were far-reaching.
One interesting theme was the CPS’s helpfulness to families accused of abuse which was indicated by 25% of the respondents. A closer examination of the statements of helpfulness recorded on the questionnaires indicated that some CP workers were helpful by informing the accused of the happenings and by giving information about CPS’s training and background. However, in this particular instance the workers’ jobs were threatened by the District Attorney. Another helpful worker recorded accurate and honest reports of a family but was told by supervisors that she must support the accusation. Yet another worker who had investigated a case and recorded it as “unfounded,” was fired because he had not conformed to the system. These examples display a willingness for honesty in the worker but coercive tactics by the CPS system toward these workers. Coercion is not only demonstrated toward the families accused of abuse, but also toward all who may stand in the way of the system. Some other responses indicated this by stating that friends of the accused who were to testify on behalf of the accused, as well as lawyers who wished to represent the accused, were threatened by the CPS. This coercion is highly indicative of one of our proposed elements of shame, omnipotence.
One of the indicators of abandonment, “CPS conducted no investigation,” appeared in 60% of the questionnaires. Not only does a traumatic investigation of a wrongfully accused family result in the characteristics of shame within that family, but the lack of an investigation while action is being taken against the family also leads to these characteristics. Many respondents indicated that their request for an investigation was ignored or denied.
Of the indicators for emotional pain, anger was the predominant emotion for the respondents (75%), with high percentages for shock (60%), and hurt (30%). Depression, which was one of the proposed elements of shame only received 15%. It appeared that the other more acute emotions overrode the more chronic emotion of depression.
The questionnaire also provided information about the nature of the alleged abuse. The abuse accusations consisted of sexual (40%), physical (24%), neglect (24%), and unknown (12%). The children involved were natural children (70%), foster children (10%), step children (5%), and grandchildren (10%). The accusations were reported by a variety of people including relatives, doctors, and the child, but with the largest percentage being former spouses (25%). More attention needs to be paid to custody battles and screenings must be designed to filter out vindictive false accusations.
The outcomes of the allegations were also reported; 25% of the respondents were imprisoned, 30% had the charges dropped or reversed to “unfounded,” and 60% had their children removed or all visitation rights denied. This 60% figure suggests that removal of the child may often be the initial intervention rather than a well thought-out recourse after other interventions have failed, as CPS policy dictates. Even if the respondents were assumed to be guilty of the allegations, it is debatable whether the drastic step of removal of the child from home or termination of visitation is warranted and whether this is truly in the best interest of the child. One can only imagine the harm done to the child and the family if the child is removed due to a wrongful accusation.
Closed-ended Questions
The themes reflected by the closed-ended questions which are associated with the proposed elements of shame are powerlessness, self-doubt, accusatory posture, abandonment, and omnipotence of CPS. Other themes, not specifically related to shame, are negative effects on families, positive effects on families, and objections to CPS’s methods. Whether these themes are supported is shown by Table 4, which gives the percentages of indicators pertaining to each of the eight closed-ended themes.
The percentages were high for at least one indicator for all eight themes. Powerlessness, which achieved a relatively low percentage for the open-ended themes, resulted in 100% of the respondents stating that at least two indicators were present for them. Self-doubt was another theme receiving a low percentage for the open-ended questions; however, 70% indicated a presence of at least one indicator for the closed-ended questions. As can be seen in Table 4, the presence of all themes in almost all of the questionnaires supports the hypothesized finding of elements of shame.
The other theme of positive effects is in keeping with the theme of becoming closer which was found in the open-ended questions. It seems that many family members supported one another while enduring what was often referred to as “the nightmare.” Objections to the investigation, or lack of investigation, were endorsed by 95% of the respondents. However these objections were ignored by the CPS in a majority of the cases.
The themes which were identical in both the open-ended and closed-ended questions corresponded well in terms of the percentages. Powerlessness and self-doubt were the two themes with some disparity. The closed-ended themes received slightly higher percentages than did the identical open-ended themes. This may have occurred because open-ended questions do not evoke a specific answer, whereas a closed-ended question forces a respondent to make a choice.
Discussion
In the questionnaires, we investigated the respondents’ perceptions of the intrusiveness of CPS intervention and examined whether the dynamics of shame fit the interaction between the CPS and families it investigates for abuse. Although this was an exploratory study, our results support the hypothesis that many elements of the shame-bound system exist in this relationship.
Our sample consisted of members of an advocacy group or persons having some relationship with that advocacy group; 85% of our sample is presently “fighting back” as best they can against the CPS and future interventions into their lives and the lives of others. Fighting back against a shaming source is in itself a sign that shame is being given back to the source of that shame. We wonder how many potential respondents did not answer and return the questionnaires due to the debilitating effects of shame. Some of the people we approached for participation in the study replied that they did not wish to participate because they were choosing instead to forget about their interactions with the CPS.
There seems to be another emerging pattern when a comparison is made of the questions in the questionnaire which deal with past events and questions which refer to the present or the future. A time element may be involved in the dynamic of shame. It is possible that as the time between the shaming event and the present increases, the shame of that event may be felt with less intensity.
For reasons of comparison, we would like to have obtained a sample of families who were not related to an advocacy group. However, a family which is isolated and is feeling confusion and shame about their situation is highly unlikely to be easily found by researchers. Who will know the story of a family that does not find the support or the resources to fight back?
Many respondents used the questionnaire to express angry feelings. This presented some difficulty in scoring because respondents would stray from the subjects of the questions. It became time consuming to scan the questionnaires for indicators of themes for the open-ended questions. Perhaps less time would have been spent had we been able to perform face-to-face interviews with the subjects.
It is unfortunate that interviews with the CP workers could not be coordinated. Interviews with them could have provided a rich source of information and brought up issues we could not have predicted, as occurred in the questionnaires of the falsely accused families. One thing we learned about trying to interview state workers is that it is best to approach such a bureaucracy with ample time. Procedures for approval of such a project as this one takes much time.
We had hoped to bring to light some of the dynamics between the two parties, balancing a view of their interactions. We felt it was important to do so, considering the emotionally charged atmosphere which surrounds the topic of child abuse and state intervention into the family. Falsely accused persons have made strong allegations against the CPS, charging the system with terrible abuses of power. The statement, “The CPS used power to instill fear” illustrates the omnipotence with which the system operates. What can justify such tactics? Perhaps this and other questions could have been answered from the CP worker’s point of view, had we been able to get information from them.
We were hoping that information about the use of self would have emerged from interviews with the CP workers. Such information could have been useful in piecing together the dynamics of such a system. CP workers are caught in a system which does not support them. On the one hand, legislation demands a solution to the problem of abuse in the family. On the other hand, when the legislation was passed, the problem was oversimplified and there was little knowledge about how to deal with the problem. Also, society’s commitment to the problem is waning, as is evidenced by an unwillingness to fund programs (Stein, 1984).
When so many families are caused so much suffering, something is wrong. The mission of the Child Protection System is to protect children. Yet more than half of all cases reported to CPS “should not have come to the attention of the protective systems in the first place” (Stein, 1984). Where do the answers lie? Some short-term approaches have been proposed. Advocacy groups stress limiting the power of CPS to intervene in family life. It has become common knowledge that protective service workers need lighter case loads. Schultz (1986) suggests stricter definitions of what kinds of sexual trauma warrant state intervention, more money for state agencies, and better legal training for workers, among other things. Mia Pringle (Vallender & Fogelman, 1987) proposes that far-reaching changes need to occur; that society needs to change its views on parenthood, childhood and the relationship between professionals and parents. What is certain is that the way society treats its children and their families needs to change. The persecutive and shaming attitude of “getting the offender” is still pervasive, and unless far reaching changes occur, many innocent people will continue to suffer.
References
Besharov, D. J. (1985). Right versus rights: The dilemma of child protection. Public Welfare, Spring, 19-27.
Besharov, D. J. (1986). Unfounded allegations: A new child abuse problem. Public Interest, 83,18-33.
Bradshaw, J. E.(1988). Bradshaw on the Family ()()()(). Deerfield Beach: Health Communications, Inc.
Brown-Hawley, D. (1987, February 19). Area native works with victims of abuse laws. Alexandria Daily Town Talk.
Faust, D., & Ziskin, J. (1988). The expert witness in psychology and psychiatry. Science, 241, 31-35.
Fossum, M. A., & Mason, M. J. (1986). Facing Shame: Families in Recovery (). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Gummer, B. (1979). On helping and helplessness: The structure of discretion in the American welfare system. Social Service Review, June, 214-228.
Hayden, R. (1987, November 29). Abuse myths abuse families. Sun Advocate.
Hayden, R. (1988). False allegations of child abuse or neglect in America: A precis of concerns. Unpublished manuscript.
Kaufman, G. (1980). Shame: The Power of Caring ()(). Rochester: Schenkman Books.
Kempe, C. H., Silverman, F. N., Steele, B. F., Droegemueller, W., & Silver, H. K. (1962). The battered child syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association, 181, 17-24.
Koerin, B. B. (1980). Child abuse and neglect: Changing policies and perspectives. Child Welfare, 59(9), 542-550.
Lloyd, D., Melton, G. B., & Rogers, C. M. (1987). Sexually Abused Children and the Legal System. New York: Guilford Press.
Melton, G. B. (1984). Child witnesses and the First Amendment: A psychological dilemma. Journal of Social Issues, 40(2), 109-123.
Melton, G. B. (1985). Sexually abused children and the legal system: Some policy recommendations. American Journal of Family Therapy, 13, 61-67.
Melton, GB. (1987).The clashing of symbols: Prelude to child and family policy. American Psychologist, 42, 345-354.
Miller, R. (1988, May 29). Torn apart in Cleveland. The Sunday Times Magazine.
Nathanson, D. L. (1987). The Many Faces of Shame (). New York: The Guilford Press.
Nielsen, A. L. (1988). Substance abuse, shame, and professional boundaries. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 4, 109-137.
Potter-Efron, R. T. (1988). Shame and guilt: Definitions, processes, and treatment issues with AODA clients. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 4, 2-25.
Rebstock, M. (1987, October 18). Victims of false child abuse accusations need protection too. Sun Herald.
Rodwell, M. K. & Poertner, J. (undated). Social workers’ judgments about neglect: Family privacy versus child protection. Unpublished manuscript, University of Kansas, School of Social Welfare.
Schanberg, S. H. (1985, June 4). Child abuse revisited. New York Times.
Schultz, L. G. (1986). Fifty cases of wrongfully charged child sexual abuse: A survey and recommendations. Unpublished manuscript.
Schultz, L. G. (1989). One Hundred Cases of Unfounded Child Sexual Abuse: A Survey and Recommendations. Issues in Child abuse Accusations, 1(1), 29-38.
Stein, T. J. (1984). The child abuse prevention and treatment act. Social Service Review, June, 302-314.
Vallender, I., & Fogelman, K. (Eds.) (1987). Putting Children First: A Volume in Honour of Mia Kellmer Pringle (). Philadelphia, PA: The Falmer Press..
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr. Robert Hayden, our research supervisor for introducing us to the subject of false accusations of child abuse and for helping us with our literature search. His encouragement and wisdom added to our enthusiasm in conducting the research, while his support and guidance pushed us along the path to completion.
We would also like to thank Michael Rebstock for providing us with insight into the experiences of people falsely accused, and for supplying us with names of others in similar situations.
Barbara Bryan of Virginia deserves special mention for helping us to distribute our questionnaires to falsely accused people. We greatly appreciate all of her informative suggestions and support.
We also wish to thank all of the anonymous respondents to our questionnaire, who provided the data for our project.
* Sabrina Luza and Enrique Ortiz are social workers and can be contacted at 2716 Helena Ave., Kenner, Louisiana 70062. [Back]
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February 6, 2010 yvonnemason
The Dynamic of Shame in Interactions Between Child Protective Services and Families Falsely Accused of Child Abuse
Sabrina Luza and Enrique Ortiz*
ABSTRACT: The concept of a shame-based family system in which parents shame their children was applied to the relationship between Child Protective Services (CPS) and families accused of child abuse. Twenty families who reported that they had been wrongly accused of child abuse completed a questionnaire. Content analysis of the questionnaires supported the hypothesis that the elements of a shame-based family system are present in the relationship between CPS and the families they investigate. The respondents indicated feelings of powerlessness, self- doubt, depression, and isolation, and perceived the CPS as omnipotent, abandoning them, quickly accusing them, and acting in emotionally harmful ways towards them.
Although child abuse has existed throughout history, only recently has society recognized that children have a right to be protected from their parents or guardians. Historically, the social values of the United States have been a deterrent to intervention in behalf of the child. The family unit was seen as private and inviolable and the parents were seen as having the right to control and supervise their child. This slowly changed with the establishment of the American Humane Association (AHA) in 1877 which was instrumental in encouraging legislation to protect the child. Abusing parents were viewed in a punitive light and were prosecuted under criminal codes. Protective services were a form of law enforcement. However, this punitive view did not help solve the socio-emotional causes of child abuse (Koerin, 1980).
In the 1930s the social work orientation became more apparent with the enactment of the Social Security Act, which stated that protective services would be delivered by public welfare agencies. This was a shift away from punishment of parents to treatment of families. In the 1950s and 1960s much information was disseminated by the AHA, and other disciplines have become active in the formation of child abuse policies. In 1962 the Children’s Bureau met with a multidisciplinary team with the purpose of developing models for state legislation for child abuse reporting laws; by 1967 the social policy of child protection was formalized by the passage of child abuse reporting laws by all fifty states (Koerin, 1980). In 1974 the Child Abuse and Treatment Act and Title XX of the Social Security Act both established protective services and treatment for abused and neglected children (Rodwell & Poertner).
The recent reporting laws state that a broad category of professionals must report any suspected case of emotional, physical or sexual abuse or neglect. This move has dramatically increased reported cases and has improved treatment services for maltreated children and families (Besharov, 1985). However the pendulum may have swung too far — the cost being undue state intervention into private family matters and grief to innocent parents and their children. Although in the past the emphasis on the privacy and sanctity of the family was partly to blame for the lack of protection of obviously abused children, the laws as they stand now have shifted to the other extreme. Coercive intervention into the family is unprecedented. If the social benefits outweigh the costs of intrusion then the reduction of privacy and autonomy can be justified. However this has not been the case (Stein, 1984).
While unwarranted interventions occur, the lives of children who are in genuine need for intervention are endangered. As the overburdened child protective (CP) worker allocates time to investigate an unfounded case, a child in serious danger is left waiting. In addition, unsubstantiated accusations, with the traumatic investigations that accompany them, cause much harm to innocent families. The number of families who have undergone these unfounded and intrusive investigations is much too high. According to the United States Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, 60% of all reports of suspected child maltreatment turn out to be unfounded (Besharov, 1985). In addition to the traumatic investigation, families are often ordered to accept treatment under threat of court action. About 50% of these cases are later found to be unsubstantiated (Besharov, 1985).
In the midst of a growing concern for children, a paradox has developed in the establishment of new child protective legislation. On one hand there is a deference for family privacy, and on the other, the problems of children and families are attributed to parental abdication of their responsibility. Thus, intervention into family life is prevalent (Melton, 1987). The tradeoff is that too many innocent families get caught in the attempt to identify abusive families. The mandatory reporting laws require many professions to identify abuse and report it, but these identifications are often based on minimal information. Therefore, reports of abuse are only judgment calls upon which CPS begins an potentially intrusive investigation into family life (Stein, 1984).
However, legislative decisions regarding child abuse are virtually undebatable due to the emotion-laden quality of abuse. Politically it is considered unwise to support less intervention because one may be thought of as a proponent of child abuse. Because the policies are seen as undebatable, they divert attention away from practical policy problems such as over-reporting of abuse cases which causes an overload in the system which leads to less accurate investigations of children at risk and an increase in false accusations.
Not much emphasis has been placed on the negative effects of a wrongful accusation. The bulk of research has explored the consequences of not intervening in a possibly abusive situation. This reflects the lack of concern for dealing with the issue of intrusion into the family. The research that does explore this illustrates many ill effects on innocent families due to coercive intervention. In many cases the effects are felt suddenly and without warning. The CPS is capable of moving with swift and absolute authority. A simple accusation of abuse leveled at a parent or guardian can bring devastating consequences for a family. People’s lives are changed forever in an instant.
Children may be removed from their homes and contact with their parents prohibited. In cases where more than one child is removed, siblings are often separated, so that a child may lose contact with his whole family. Sometimes there is no way to predict how long they will be separated. The amount of time may be as short as the time it takes for a physical examination, or it may be forever. Even if there is no separation a family may undergo painful investigations before allegations of child abuse are determined to be unfounded (Besharov, 1986). Accused parents are sometimes interrogated and other times completely ignored in an investigation (Miller, 1988).
A family investigated for abuse is completely at the mercy of their CP worker. Most false accusations take a family completely by surprise. In this state of confusion a family is left defenseless and often has no idea of the possible consequences that await them (Besharov, 1986; Miller, 1988). “People falsely accused feel so alone. They tend to deny it … that something like this can happen in the United States” (Brown-Hawley, 1987). These people are left feeling powerless. In a study of wrongfully accused parents, Schultz (1986, 1989) found such effects as sleeplessness, weight loss, nausea, night-terrors, and depression. His respondents also reported job loss, divorce, reputational damage, and financial losses of such magnitude that selling the family home was required to pay for legal and expert fees. Some, however, did state that the investigation brought the family closer to one another because of the hardships endured together.
The Dynamics of Shame
The qualities and emotions displayed by families wrongfully accused of child abuse are strikingly similar to emotions demonstrated by adults and children who feel shame. Shame is an internal, subjective experience. The shamed individual sees himself as inadequate, inferior, worthless and defective. It affects the whole self-physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. Shame is a judgment of the self, and a failure of “being,” rather than a failure of “doing” (Potter-Efron, 1988).
As a dynamic social system, a family has a set of parenting rules and beliefs upon which its child rearing style is based. In all families the belief system forms the core of how children view themselves. Specifically, in a family where shame exists, the child’s core is one of a feeling of inadequacy. The family’s rules are shaming and abusive and the child internalizes these rules. The child is shamed by the parents for failing to attain the ideal. “Shame is the source of most of the disturbing inner states which deny full human life” (Kaufman, 1980). Self-doubt, isolation, alienation, and depression are some of the emotions linked with shame and are experienced by children who have been shamed by their parents (Bradshaw, 1988).
“Shame-based” in part means the creation of shame in others. The creation of shame in others is a way of avoiding feeling shame oneself. It is a means of displacing an unwanted feeling onto another, thereby protecting oneself from it. The feeling of shame is passed on to others and is therefore referred to as “passing the hot potato” in psychiatric literature. When someone feels shame, one reaction is to instill it in others. “We achieve a personal comfort denied the bearer of these labels” (Nathanson, 1987). Parents pass the shame to children in shame-bound families. These shamed children have many of the characteristics of families wrongfully accused of child abuse. In our questioning of the origin of shame in these families we began to wonder who was passing the hot potato to them. We began to see parallels between passing shame within the family and passing the shame from institutions to the family.
Shame and the Child Protection System
Much of the way families act within a shame-bound system appear to be reflected in institutions. In expanding the shame-bound system concept to include institutions, similar elements can be found. Those institutions or agencies which act in loco parentis, taking on the responsibility of the parent, seem to fit this schema best. One such institution is the Child Protective Service (CPS) system. Is the shame-bound system of families applicable to the relationship CPS systems have with families they investigate for abuse? Because CPS agencies intervene into the zone of the family when parents appear not to exercise proper control over their children, the CPS agency takes on a parental role. We propose that the CPS system and the family accused of child abuse form a shame-bound system much like the one between the shaming parent and the shamed child. This exploratory study examined the applicability of the shame-based system in which the CPS agency takes on the shaming rules of the parent and the family accused of abuse or neglect takes on the characteristics of the shamed child.
Although our study was confined to examining shame and the interaction between families accused of abuse and CPS, as well as looking at the possible effects on those families, we also explored what sources contribute to the expression of shame through the CPS. This was necessary as part of the development of our ideas regarding shame-based systems, and served as a base for our exploration of the transmission of shame to the families accused of abuse.
Legal policies affecting families of those suspected of abuse have much to do with the way CP workers address the problem of abuse. With the abrupt focus on the battered child syndrome (Kempe, Silverman, Steele, Droegemueller, & Silver, 1962) states rushed to enact new legislation, much of which is questionable in its constitutionality, to deal with the problem (Lloyd, Melton, & Rogers, 1987; Melton, 1984; Melton, 1985). Feeling the inadequacy to deal with the issue of child abuse, the states presented a quick-fix approach apparent in their enactment of mandatory reporting laws. However, the needed efforts to increase child protection have unfortunately increased the number of innocent families damaged by false accusations. In addition, there is little threat of penalty for those knowingly making a false accusation. As the laws stand now, anyone can become a victim of a false accusation. Because workers are overburdened with heavy caseloads, many children who are being abused are lost in the shuffle (Rebstock, 1987). In effect, the states have passed the hot potato onto the CPS agencies in order to alleviate their own feelings of inadequacy.
Child abuse laws are vague. Although intervention has increased with the expansion of child protective efforts, policies governing these interventions have not been made clear. Likewise, laws defining child abuse and neglect lack clarification and specificity. “These laws set no limits on intervention and provide no guidelines for decision making. They are a prime reason for the system’s inability to protect obviously endangered children, even as it intervenes in family life on a massive scale” (Besharov, 1985).
Because legal policies give no guidelines to decision making, the CP worker is given discretionary power regarding interventions. The CPS organization is also set up to promote this discretionary behavior. The front line workers act independently of one another and their supervision is based on their reports of what they are doing rather than on direct observation by a supervisor. Thus they each operate with a high degree of autonomy and are free to interpret policy as they choose (Gummer, 1979). It is particularly important to have a standard for decision making in services such as child protection because these services are involuntary — they are an extension of the power of the state, and families are not given a choice to accept them or not. But because of the individual interpretation of policies, decisions are made based on a CP worker’s idiosyncrasies and hunches. Rodwell and Poertner note: “With differing standards, the same case will be opened by one worker and left unattended by another. Some children needing protection will not be helped. Others will be removed from their homes when no need for state protection exists. Definitional disparity means that it is not possible to make the professional distinction between a worker acting to protect versus needlessly intruding because the basis for this judgment will never be clear.”
This legislative granting of decision-making power is based on a fundamental flaw that in the end decreases feelings of adequacy in the CP worker. It assumes that workers need the freedom to make judgments about whether or not a child needs protection. However, there is not sufficient scientific knowledge to assess and predict future parental behavior (Besharov, 1985). As Gummer (1979) points out, “workers are asked to make professional decisions about situations for which there is uncertain knowledge to guide the decision.” Too much responsibility is placed on the CP workers, especially in light of the little scientific knowledge that is available. The workers are put in a precarious position; they are given the power to decide based on unrealistic expectations of their capabilities, and at the same time are given only a few scientific tools with which to make a “good” decision. The loose legal policies are a reflection of society’s over-ambitious expectation of the abilities of CP workers. Thus there is a failure to provide specific guidelines (Besharov, 1985).
This conflict between what is expected and what knowledge is actually available helps contribute to feelings of inadequacy in CP workers. “To cope with this, workers resort to a variety of stress-reducing mechanisms that enable them to make decisions with relative ease. While these mechanisms are functional in terms of enabling the worker to make a decision, they have the serious dysfunction of creating ‘a spurious sense of certainty among social work personnel concerning the wisdom of decisions reached’ …” (Gummer, 1979).
Passing Shame to Families
This sense of omnipotence is a way of relieving oneself of the feelings of stress and inadequacy. Shame is described as a means of displacing an unwanted feeling onto another, thereby protecting oneself from it. By easily and quickly designating families as abusive, the CP workers pass blame to families, relieving themselves of the stress of the decision-making procedure and feelings of inadequacy imposed by vague laws and policies offering few guidelines. The CP workers have an extremely difficult task. In addition to the unreasonable caseload, insufficient funding, and few guidelines, they must act as law-enforcement officer, judge, jury and scientist (Schultz, 1986). This is asking too much and contributes to feelings of inadequacy. Yet the high expectations placed on them by society and legislators makes it difficult to admit these feelings. One outlet is to pass these feelings on to families accused of abuse.
The many elements of shame present in the parent-child system can be applied to the CPS-family system. Emotional harm is inherent in a shaming system. This can take many forms in the transmission from parent to child as well as from the CPS to the wrongfully accused family. It can be evidenced by the traumatic investigations undergone by the family. The thrust of these investigations is to gain support for the accusation rather than to determine the validity of the accusation (Hayden, 1988). In Schultz’s (1986) study of 50 parents falsely accused of sexual abuse, 16% felt the CP worker was biased toward supporting the charge prior to the investigation, 64% felt there was a lack of skill in gathering legal evidence, thus, the innocent were caught in the system rather than being quickly exonerated, and 34% felt there was not enough training for the CP workers in protecting all clients’ rights, especially the parents’ rights. “This tendency to assume the presence of abnormality and then seek supportive evidence fosters ‘overpathologizing,’ that is, the frequent misidentification of individuals as abnormal” (Faust & Ziskin, 1988).
The CPS also shames the falsely accused family even further for having objections to the allegations. These objections are treated by the CPS as even more proof of guilt. This reflects the parental shaming of the child for having needs or feelings (Nielsen, 1988). The inability of the CP worker to take into account the family’s objections leaves the family feeling powerless and frustrated, much like the shamed child.
Stemming from this mindset of guilty until proven innocent is the very real abandonment the family experiences. The family is often socially and economically abandoned because it is seen as guilty from the beginning. This parallels the parental shaming of the child through abandonment, which is a key issue in shame-bound systems (Bradshaw, 1988). The CPS abandons families by providing no victim welfare services (Schultz, 1986, 1989) and by failing to offer apologies or reparations for the damages done to innocent families (Hayden, 1988). The trauma to innocent families requires a wide variety of services which are not provided. Mechanisms are also not provided to insure effective and speedy appeal to accusations (Hayden, 1987). In the shame-bound family system, the parent lacks energy and time to nurture the child (Nielsen, 1988). Likewise, the CPS lacks the energy and time to provide fully for the family accused of abuse, especially after injury has been done to them through the investigation. Thus isolation, due to this abandonment, is a primary feeling of these families.
A collective denial that a problem may exist within the system is also apparent in the CPS as it is in shame-bound family systems. According to shame theory, to question is an act of disobedience and one is shamed for it. One of the sacred rules of the shame-bound system is not to question any of the rules, thus keeping the omnipotence of the shamer intact and strengthening the denial system (Bradshaw, 1988). Perhaps this is part of the reason that those committed to bucking the system and bringing to light the inefficiencies of the CP system are said to be siding with child abusers (Hayden, 1988). The CP system makes it shameful to say anything negative about its procedures. It fails to accept responsibility for the possible wrongs caused to families wrongfully accused of abuse. Those who object to the erroneous allegations, intrusive investigations and the quick-fix removal of children from their families are shamed into being seen as proponents of abuse.
By the same token, those who expose the CP agencies for inefficient attention to children at high risk may face persecution in the form of demotion, which itself is a shaming technique. Sydney Schanberg (1985) reports that the senior Supervisor of Child Services, Irwin Levin, was fined and demoted for revealing workers’ inadequacies in connection with the deaths of children whose abuse cases had been mismanaged. In a shame-bound system the belief is that it is better to shame another than to have one’s own inadequacies exposed. This seems to hold true for the CPS.
The CPS’s preconceptions of the family as guilty before the investigation is begun results in the use of such labels as “sick” and “moral failures” (Melton, 1987). This is yet another element present in shame-bound systems. Shamers use blame and labeling as a means of inducing shame in others. Shame promotes a feeling of “being” no good instead of “doing” something that is not good (Bradshaw, 1988). This then promotes feelings of inadequacy.
By labeling families as sick or bad, CP agencies equate the person and the behavior. It becomes more difficult for the family members wrongfully accused of abuse to exonerate themselves. If presented with factual evidence that would exonerate a family, the CPS will dismiss it because their belief in the “badness” of the family is still intact. This lowers the level of anxiety in the CP worker. By staunchly believing in the guilt of a family, the CP worker then does not have to deal with the possibility of a mistake. It is a means of ignoring accountability, much as the parent uses this labeling as a means of alleviating himself from looking at his own faults. It is also a means by which to control another, thus accruing power (Nielsen, 1988).
In a shame-bound family, the child is shamed for failing to attain the ideal (Potter-Efron, 1988; Fossum & Mason, 1986). Likewise, the family accused of abuse experiences shaming by the CPS and by society for failing to reach the standard set for what families should be capable of doing (Vallender & Fogelman, 1987). Thus, feelings of self-doubt result. Since guilt is presumed, the family is shamed by CPS for not being “good enough.” Similarly, the policy surrounding child abuse results in “symbolic statements of the proper ordering of human relationships” (Melton, 1987). This ideal of how the family should be, based on societal views, makes it difficult for the family to feel adequate, especially when charged with an accusation of child abuse which in society’s view is among the most loathed of transgressions.
Purpose of Study
We hypothesized that the Child Protective Service acts in a shaming way toward people it investigates for abuse, in much the same way that a parent shames a child in a dysfunctional family. The family takes on the characteristics of the shamed “child” and the CPS acts as the shaming “parent.” In this study we wanted to correlate elements of the dynamics of shame in families with the dynamics that occur between CP workers and families they investigate for abuse.
Parents shame through abandoning their children by physically leaving or being emotionally unavailable. Parents shame their children when they deny their identity in some way such as labeling them, placing them in rigid roles, denying their own problems, ignoring the child’s problems, and acting in shameless ways such as exhibiting omnipotence over their children. In outlining the elements of shame in a shame-bound system we found that a shamed child experiences and demonstrates isolation, powerlessness, self-doubt, inadequacy, and depression.
We hypothesized that the CPS demonstrates elements of shaming by causing emotional harm to families, socially and economically abandoning families, exhibiting omnipotence, and labeling families. We also hypothesized that families accused of abuse will report qualities associated with shame-isolation, powerlessness, self-doubt, inadequacy, and depression.
Method
Questionnaires
To examine whether these hypothesized dynamics existed between families accused of abuse and CP workers, we constructed two sets of questionnaires. Each questionnaire contained several questions to assess the presence of each element in the shame-based system. The questions were a mixture of open-ended questions and closed questions which used a Likert format. Some questions were combinations of open and closed questions in which respondents could answer “yes” or “no” and then elaborate if they answered “yes.” At the end of the questionnaire were questions asking the respondents how they felt about answering the questionnaire and if there was anything they would like to add. For many of the questions, the answer could potentially evoke more than one theme of shame.
For the CP worker questionnaire, 19 questions were designed to reflect hypothesized dynamics that would be displayed by a person who is acting as a shaming parent. Unfortunately, as is explained below, we were unable to administer these questionnaires as planned.
The questionnaire for the families wrongfully accused of abuse included 27 questions to investigate the presence of shame. In addition, the wrongfully accused were asked to describe the events and situations that led to attention from the CP agency, to describe their feelings upon becoming aware of being accused, and their feelings during the investigation. We thought that giving the respondents a chance to express themselves freely would provide us with additional information. The items on the wrongly accused questionnaire are shown in Appendix A.
Items on both questionnaires were pretested on social work students, in order to ascertain the clarity and neutrality of the questions. A few minor adjustments were made in terms of neutrality, otherwise, the questionnaires remained unchanged.
The questionnaires were self-administered which allowed the respondents to take as much or as little time as they chose. It also gave them an opportunity to reflect and recall information. The questionnaires were mailed out with instructions and confidentiality was guaranteed.
Subjects
To obtain the CP worker sample we obtained approval from a local CPS agency for administration of the questionnaires. A mutually agreed-upon date for the actual survey-taking was sought, however contact was delayed for two weeks. We were then told we had to get approval from the Regional Social Service Manager and the Field Manager for Social Services. We contacted them and the project was approved. We therefore again contacted our original contact who now told us that the agency needed approval from the agency managers for a contact person inside the agency. Although the CPS agency was aware of the time limits of the study, we became entangled in bureaucratic red tape and were not able to administer the questionnaires. Whether the bureaucratic delay was intentional is still unknown.
A snowball sampling method was used in selecting subjects who had been wrongfully accused of abuse and investigated by the CPS. “Wrongfully accused of abuse” was defined as those who claimed to be innocent. This includes those who were not charged, yet action such as removal of the child took place, those who were charged and later the charges were dropped or reversed to unfounded, and those who were charged and imprisoned yet still claimed innocence.
We first contacted people belonging to the advocacy group VOCAL (Victims of Child Abuse Laws). These names were supplied to us by Tulane University’s School of Social Work Director of Research, Dr. Robert Hayden. These subjects resided in different states, from Oregon to Mississippi, as well as in Louisiana. We hoped that by contacting these VOCAL members by phone, other names of VOCAL members would be obtained. However, of these people, all but one declined participation in the study, citing reasons such as the desire to forget the incident, lack of interest, and a feeling of futility regarding the effects of another study. More success was encountered upon calling Michael Rebstock, District Liaison for Mississippi. Mr. Rebstock was instrumental in giving us the name of the VOCAL chapter head in Virginia, Barbara Bryan. Ms. Bryan was very helpful in facilitating the distribution of the questionnaires to other wrongfully accused persons. Although she did not provide the authors with names and addresses, she did distribute 50 questionnaires.
Of the 50 questionnaires sent out, 19 were returned. In addition to these 19 questionnaires, one participant was interviewed by the authors using the standard questionnaire and responses were recorded. Therefore, the total number of questionnaires received was 20. Fourteen came from Virginia and the remaining six came from Tennessee, Louisiana, Maryland, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Illinois.
Because the participants were obtained through VOCAL members, they may have been predisposed to expressing negative views. This limits the generalizability of our findings to all wrongfully accused families. Another limitation is that there is no means of verifying whether every participant is truly innocent.
Data Analysis
The responses from the 20 questionnaires were analyzed. A content analysis of the seven open-ended responses, as well as the open-ended portion of the nine combination open/closed-ended questions, was done in order to classify and code the responses according to our conceptual framework of shame. The responses were coded for manifest content, that is, the responses were scanned and recurrent words and phrases were recorded. Although the manifest content was coded, rather than the latent content, the latent content served as a guide to coding the manifest content. The recurrent phrases or words were used as indicators of larger themes, some of which were the themes of shame delineated previously and some of which were new themes. The same question on different questionnaires evoked a variety of responses. Thus each questionnaire was scanned for recurrent phrases which were classified under a theme. We found 14 different themes.
The presence or absence of indicators was recorded for each questionnaire. If the same indicator was stated more than once within the same questionnaire, it was simply recorded once. The total number of different indicators for each theme was then tallied for each questionnaire. For example, the four indicators for the theme of abandonment of the accused by the CPS are (1) providing the accused with few rights, (2) ignoring objections stated by the accused, (3) falling to listen to the accused person’s side of the story, and (4) refusing to conduct an investigation while taking action against the family.
The presence or absence of each indicator was recorded for all 14 themes for each questionnaire. If all four indicators were present for one of the themes in a questionnaire, the number 4 was recorded; if there were three present, the number 3 was recorded, and so on. This yielded a specific number of indicators for each theme for each questionnaire. We then determined the frequency and percentage of questionnaires that contained each number of indicators for each of the 14 themes. We also calculated the cumulative percentages.
Unlike the open-ended questions, the closed-ended questions targeted specific themes; therefore, the themes were predetermined by the questions. Several questions targeted each theme. Many of these themes were identical to those themes found in the open-ended responses. The questions targeting a specific theme were indicators of that theme.
The presence or absence of indicators was tallied for each theme across all questionnaires. For questions that supplied “yes” or “no” answers, “yes” would indicate the presence and “no” would indicate the absence of the indicator for a specific theme. For questions with Likert scales, a response of “none” or “very little” was coded as the absence of that indicator, while a response of “moderate,” “very much,” and “extreme” was coded as a presence of that indicator. The total number of indicators for each theme was then recorded for each questionnaire. For example, the indicators for the theme of powerlessness are three questions: “How much control did you feel you had over the investigation?,” “How much difficulty did you have in dealing with your emotions as a result of the investigation?,” and “Did the investigation change any plans you had for your family at the time it occurred?” The number of indicators present was recorded under the theme of powerlessness. This was repeated for each theme and for each questionnaire, as was done with the open-ended questions. Likewise, percentages were obtained from the frequencies.
Results
The indicators, which were phrases or words stated by respondents in open-ended questions, seemed to form separate groupings. These groupings were then classified under appropriate themes which reflected the essence of the indicators. Some themes were actual elements of shame proposed previously. Other themes that had not been proposed were also found. Table 1 presents the 14 themes along with their indicators for the open-ended questions. Table 2 shows the cumulative percentages for these themes.
The themes obtained from the closed-ended questions were similar. The indicators for the closed-ended questions were the questions themselves. Table 3 lists the eight themes obtained from the closed-ended questions and Table 4 indicates the cumulative percentages for these themes.
The themes found for both the open-ended and closed-ended questions in part supported our initial proposition suggesting the applicability of a shame-based system to the interaction between the CPS and families it accuses of child abuse.
Open-ended Questions
The four hypothesized elements of shame within the CPS were causing families emotional harm, abandoning the families, exhibiting omnipotence, and labeling families. The first three of these themes were represented in the groupings of indicators found in responses. We were unable to examine the theme of labeling since there were no questions formulated to assess labeling in the questionnaire developed for the families accused of abuse. The questionnaire for the CPS had contained items assessing labeling but since we could not administer this questionnaire the presence of labeling is unknown. However, certain indicators under the theme of accusatory posture of the CPS are related to labeling. One indicator, “presumed guilt of the accused,” is a precursor of labeling the family.
This same indicator, “presumed guilt,” is a form of emotional harm since it gives way to traumatic, intrusive methods such as removal of a child based on little or no evidence. Presuming an accused individual is guilty also leads to another element of shame, abandonment. The CPS seemed to offer almost no reparations to wrongfully accused families.
The elements of shame are not mutually exclusive but overlap, and many of those elements were found in several thematic categories. For example, the concept of emotional harm was not only supported by the indicators
under that theme, but also by indicators within other thematic categories. “Lack of rights given to the accused,” and “ignoring the objections of the accused” are two indicators that not only reflect the shaming theme of abandonment, but also the theme of emotional harm. The proposed theme of the CPS’s omnipotence was also indicated by responses such as “CPS lacks accountability” and that “the CPS does not recognize its inefficiencies.”
The elements of shame proposed to exist within the accused families were isolation, powerlessness, self-doubt, depression, and inadequacy. Of these, the themes of isolation, powerlessness, self-doubt, and depression were indicated by the responses. Table 1 shows the indicators in these three themes. Inadequacy was not a recurrent phrase in the responses to the open-ended questions and was not supported. The proposed theme of depression was recurrent in the responses, and served as an indicator of the larger theme of emotional pain. The proposed themes of isolation, powerlessness, and self-doubt were supported in this study.
The intensity of the themes is shown through the cumulative percentages of indicators pertaining to each of the 14 open-ended themes (Table 2). For example, under emotional pain, 5% of the questionnaires had at least five indicators, 25% had at least three indicators, and 95% of the questionnaires had at least one indicator. This suggests that many respondents felt mild emotional pain and a few felt extreme emotional pain, however almost all (95%) felt emotional pain to some degree.
Of the themes related to shame, the following demonstrated high percentages: isolation, in which 85% of the respondents stating at least one indicator, accusatory posture with 95%, abandonment with 95%, omnipotence with 45%, and emotional harm with 55%. The theme of self-doubt showed a low percentage of 20% of the questionnaires having at least one indicator. Likewise, the theme of powerlessness showed a low percentage of 25%. However, as is seen below, the percentages for these two themes for the closed-ended questions are much higher. This may be due to the fact that there were more closed-ended than open-ended questions assessing the two themes. Powerlessness may also be an emotion that is not readily discussed, but will be acknowledged if directly questioned about it.
New themes shown in Table 2 were emotional pain, with 95% of the respondents giving one or more indicators, anxiety about the future (40%), negative effect (60%), desire to fight back (85%), gaining a stronger support system (65%), and fighting back (85%). This suggests that respondents gained the support of others or became closer to their family as a result of fighting an outside enemy, the CPS. Despite these outcomes, families accused of abuse seemed to endure not only components of shame, but also other negative effects and emotions which were far-reaching.
One interesting theme was the CPS’s helpfulness to families accused of abuse which was indicated by 25% of the respondents. A closer examination of the statements of helpfulness recorded on the questionnaires indicated that some CP workers were helpful by informing the accused of the happenings and by giving information about CPS’s training and background. However, in this particular instance the workers’ jobs were threatened by the District Attorney. Another helpful worker recorded accurate and honest reports of a family but was told by supervisors that she must support the accusation. Yet another worker who had investigated a case and recorded it as “unfounded,” was fired because he had not conformed to the system. These examples display a willingness for honesty in the worker but coercive tactics by the CPS system toward these workers. Coercion is not only demonstrated toward the families accused of abuse, but also toward all who may stand in the way of the system. Some other responses indicated this by stating that friends of the accused who were to testify on behalf of the accused, as well as lawyers who wished to represent the accused, were threatened by the CPS. This coercion is highly indicative of one of our proposed elements of shame, omnipotence.
One of the indicators of abandonment, “CPS conducted no investigation,” appeared in 60% of the questionnaires. Not only does a traumatic investigation of a wrongfully accused family result in the characteristics of shame within that family, but the lack of an investigation while action is being taken against the family also leads to these characteristics. Many respondents indicated that their request for an investigation was ignored or denied.
Of the indicators for emotional pain, anger was the predominant emotion for the respondents (75%), with high percentages for shock (60%), and hurt (30%). Depression, which was one of the proposed elements of shame only received 15%. It appeared that the other more acute emotions overrode the more chronic emotion of depression.
The questionnaire also provided information about the nature of the alleged abuse. The abuse accusations consisted of sexual (40%), physical (24%), neglect (24%), and unknown (12%). The children involved were natural children (70%), foster children (10%), step children (5%), and grandchildren (10%). The accusations were reported by a variety of people including relatives, doctors, and the child, but with the largest percentage being former spouses (25%). More attention needs to be paid to custody battles and screenings must be designed to filter out vindictive false accusations.
The outcomes of the allegations were also reported; 25% of the respondents were imprisoned, 30% had the charges dropped or reversed to “unfounded,” and 60% had their children removed or all visitation rights denied. This 60% figure suggests that removal of the child may often be the initial intervention rather than a well thought-out recourse after other interventions have failed, as CPS policy dictates. Even if the respondents were assumed to be guilty of the allegations, it is debatable whether the drastic step of removal of the child from home or termination of visitation is warranted and whether this is truly in the best interest of the child. One can only imagine the harm done to the child and the family if the child is removed due to a wrongful accusation.
Closed-ended Questions
The themes reflected by the closed-ended questions which are associated with the proposed elements of shame are powerlessness, self-doubt, accusatory posture, abandonment, and omnipotence of CPS. Other themes, not specifically related to shame, are negative effects on families, positive effects on families, and objections to CPS’s methods. Whether these themes are supported is shown by Table 4, which gives the percentages of indicators pertaining to each of the eight closed-ended themes.
The percentages were high for at least one indicator for all eight themes. Powerlessness, which achieved a relatively low percentage for the open-ended themes, resulted in 100% of the respondents stating that at least two indicators were present for them. Self-doubt was another theme receiving a low percentage for the open-ended questions; however, 70% indicated a presence of at least one indicator for the closed-ended questions. As can be seen in Table 4, the presence of all themes in almost all of the questionnaires supports the hypothesized finding of elements of shame.
The other theme of positive effects is in keeping with the theme of becoming closer which was found in the open-ended questions. It seems that many family members supported one another while enduring what was often referred to as “the nightmare.” Objections to the investigation, or lack of investigation, were endorsed by 95% of the respondents. However these objections were ignored by the CPS in a majority of the cases.
The themes which were identical in both the open-ended and closed-ended questions corresponded well in terms of the percentages. Powerlessness and self-doubt were the two themes with some disparity. The closed-ended themes received slightly higher percentages than did the identical open-ended themes. This may have occurred because open-ended questions do not evoke a specific answer, whereas a closed-ended question forces a respondent to make a choice.
Discussion
In the questionnaires, we investigated the respondents’ perceptions of the intrusiveness of CPS intervention and examined whether the dynamics of shame fit the interaction between the CPS and families it investigates for abuse. Although this was an exploratory study, our results support the hypothesis that many elements of the shame-bound system exist in this relationship.
Our sample consisted of members of an advocacy group or persons having some relationship with that advocacy group; 85% of our sample is presently “fighting back” as best they can against the CPS and future interventions into their lives and the lives of others. Fighting back against a shaming source is in itself a sign that shame is being given back to the source of that shame. We wonder how many potential respondents did not answer and return the questionnaires due to the debilitating effects of shame. Some of the people we approached for participation in the study replied that they did not wish to participate because they were choosing instead to forget about their interactions with the CPS.
There seems to be another emerging pattern when a comparison is made of the questions in the questionnaire which deal with past events and questions which refer to the present or the future. A time element may be involved in the dynamic of shame. It is possible that as the time between the shaming event and the present increases, the shame of that event may be felt with less intensity.
For reasons of comparison, we would like to have obtained a sample of families who were not related to an advocacy group. However, a family which is isolated and is feeling confusion and shame about their situation is highly unlikely to be easily found by researchers. Who will know the story of a family that does not find the support or the resources to fight back?
Many respondents used the questionnaire to express angry feelings. This presented some difficulty in scoring because respondents would stray from the subjects of the questions. It became time consuming to scan the questionnaires for indicators of themes for the open-ended questions. Perhaps less time would have been spent had we been able to perform face-to-face interviews with the subjects.
It is unfortunate that interviews with the CP workers could not be coordinated. Interviews with them could have provided a rich source of information and brought up issues we could not have predicted, as occurred in the questionnaires of the falsely accused families. One thing we learned about trying to interview state workers is that it is best to approach such a bureaucracy with ample time. Procedures for approval of such a project as this one takes much time.
We had hoped to bring to light some of the dynamics between the two parties, balancing a view of their interactions. We felt it was important to do so, considering the emotionally charged atmosphere which surrounds the topic of child abuse and state intervention into the family. Falsely accused persons have made strong allegations against the CPS, charging the system with terrible abuses of power. The statement, “The CPS used power to instill fear” illustrates the omnipotence with which the system operates. What can justify such tactics? Perhaps this and other questions could have been answered from the CP worker’s point of view, had we been able to get information from them.
We were hoping that information about the use of self would have emerged from interviews with the CP workers. Such information could have been useful in piecing together the dynamics of such a system. CP workers are caught in a system which does not support them. On the one hand, legislation demands a solution to the problem of abuse in the family. On the other hand, when the legislation was passed, the problem was oversimplified and there was little knowledge about how to deal with the problem. Also, society’s commitment to the problem is waning, as is evidenced by an unwillingness to fund programs (Stein, 1984).
When so many families are caused so much suffering, something is wrong. The mission of the Child Protection System is to protect children. Yet more than half of all cases reported to CPS “should not have come to the attention of the protective systems in the first place” (Stein, 1984). Where do the answers lie? Some short-term approaches have been proposed. Advocacy groups stress limiting the power of CPS to intervene in family life. It has become common knowledge that protective service workers need lighter case loads. Schultz (1986) suggests stricter definitions of what kinds of sexual trauma warrant state intervention, more money for state agencies, and better legal training for workers, among other things. Mia Pringle (Vallender & Fogelman, 1987) proposes that far-reaching changes need to occur; that society needs to change its views on parenthood, childhood and the relationship between professionals and parents. What is certain is that the way society treats its children and their families needs to change. The persecutive and shaming attitude of “getting the offender” is still pervasive, and unless far reaching changes occur, many innocent people will continue to suffer.
References
Besharov, D. J. (1985). Right versus rights: The dilemma of child protection. Public Welfare, Spring, 19-27.
Besharov, D. J. (1986). Unfounded allegations: A new child abuse problem. Public Interest, 83,18-33.
Bradshaw, J. E.(1988). Bradshaw on the Family ()()()(). Deerfield Beach: Health Communications, Inc.
Brown-Hawley, D. (1987, February 19). Area native works with victims of abuse laws. Alexandria Daily Town Talk.
Faust, D., & Ziskin, J. (1988). The expert witness in psychology and psychiatry. Science, 241, 31-35.
Fossum, M. A., & Mason, M. J. (1986). Facing Shame: Families in Recovery (). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Gummer, B. (1979). On helping and helplessness: The structure of discretion in the American welfare system. Social Service Review, June, 214-228.
Hayden, R. (1987, November 29). Abuse myths abuse families. Sun Advocate.
Hayden, R. (1988). False allegations of child abuse or neglect in America: A precis of concerns. Unpublished manuscript.
Kaufman, G. (1980). Shame: The Power of Caring ()(). Rochester: Schenkman Books.
Kempe, C. H., Silverman, F. N., Steele, B. F., Droegemueller, W., & Silver, H. K. (1962). The battered child syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association, 181, 17-24.
Koerin, B. B. (1980). Child abuse and neglect: Changing policies and perspectives. Child Welfare, 59(9), 542-550.
Lloyd, D., Melton, G. B., & Rogers, C. M. (1987). Sexually Abused Children and the Legal System. New York: Guilford Press.
Melton, G. B. (1984). Child witnesses and the First Amendment: A psychological dilemma. Journal of Social Issues, 40(2), 109-123.
Melton, G. B. (1985). Sexually abused children and the legal system: Some policy recommendations. American Journal of Family Therapy, 13, 61-67.
Melton, GB. (1987).The clashing of symbols: Prelude to child and family policy. American Psychologist, 42, 345-354.
Miller, R. (1988, May 29). Torn apart in Cleveland. The Sunday Times Magazine.
Nathanson, D. L. (1987). The Many Faces of Shame (). New York: The Guilford Press.
Nielsen, A. L. (1988). Substance abuse, shame, and professional boundaries. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 4, 109-137.
Potter-Efron, R. T. (1988). Shame and guilt: Definitions, processes, and treatment issues with AODA clients. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 4, 2-25.
Rebstock, M. (1987, October 18). Victims of false child abuse accusations need protection too. Sun Herald.
Rodwell, M. K. & Poertner, J. (undated). Social workers’ judgments about neglect: Family privacy versus child protection. Unpublished manuscript, University of Kansas, School of Social Welfare.
Schanberg, S. H. (1985, June 4). Child abuse revisited. New York Times.
Schultz, L. G. (1986). Fifty cases of wrongfully charged child sexual abuse: A survey and recommendations. Unpublished manuscript.
Schultz, L. G. (1989). One Hundred Cases of Unfounded Child Sexual Abuse: A Survey and Recommendations. Issues in Child abuse Accusations, 1(1), 29-38.
Stein, T. J. (1984). The child abuse prevention and treatment act. Social Service Review, June, 302-314.
Vallender, I., & Fogelman, K. (Eds.) (1987). Putting Children First: A Volume in Honour of Mia Kellmer Pringle (). Philadelphia, PA: The Falmer Press..
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr. Robert Hayden, our research supervisor for introducing us to the subject of false accusations of child abuse and for helping us with our literature search. His encouragement and wisdom added to our enthusiasm in conducting the research, while his support and guidance pushed us along the path to completion.
We would also like to thank Michael Rebstock for providing us with insight into the experiences of people falsely accused, and for supplying us with names of others in similar situations.
Barbara Bryan of Virginia deserves special mention for helping us to distribute our questionnaires to falsely accused people. We greatly appreciate all of her informative suggestions and support.
We also wish to thank all of the anonymous respondents to our questionnaire, who provided the data for our project.
* Sabrina Luza and Enrique Ortiz are social workers and can be contacted at 2716 Helena Ave., Kenner, Louisiana 70062. [Back]
[Back to Volume 3, Number 2] [Other Articles by these Authors]
Copyright © 1989-2009 by the Institute for Psychological Therapies.
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http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/the-dynamics-of-shame-in-interactions-between-child-protective-services-and-families-falsely-accused-of-child-abuse/
WHEN A KID DIES, CPS IS USUALLY INVOLVED IN THE CASE
WHEN A KID DIES, CPS IS USUALLY INVOLVED IN THE CASE
A Houston mother who allowed her 8 year old, tube fed girl to die of malnutrition and Dehydration was under the “Supervision” of CPS; Until CPS decided the kid didn’t need any more food, and cut her off of all services.
The mother is in jail pending trial, the CPS workers who cut the child off are off working to kill somebody else’s kid.
TEXAS, IT’S A WHOLE OTHER KIND OF CHILD ABUSER.
HOUSTON — A Houston woman is accused of starving her 8-year-old daughter, who weighed just 15 pounds when she died in January 2009, Child Protective Services said.
CPS spokeswoman Estella Olguin says Almita Nicole Lockhart, 34, is accused of neglecting Halle Smith, who was unresponsive when she was taken to a hospital.
The girl, who was born prematurely, suffered a stroke and had other health issues that required her to be fed through a tube, said Olguin.
Harris County Sheriff’s Office electronic records showed Lockhart was jailed Friday on a charge of injury to a child by omission. Bail was $30,000 for Lockhart, who was booked Tuesday.
Jail records had no listing of an attorney for Lockhart. Her next court date is Feb. 24.
The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the girl’s death a homicide. Lockhart was arrested this week once an autopsy and further investigation led authorities to believe the girl’s condition was intentionally inflicted, according to Olguin.
Lockhart allegedly kept the girl in an empty apartment and apparently did not feed her, investigators said.
“The medical examiner said her death was a homicide and said it was due to malnutrition and dehydration,” district attorney’s spokeswoman Donna Hawkins said.
A 2006 CPS home visit found the girl weighed about 46 pounds, said Olguin, but at some point Lockhart apparently stopped receiving in-home care for Halle.
Information from KHOU-TV: www.khou.com
http://www.flds.ws/2010/02/05/when-a-kid-dies-cps-is-usually-involved-in-the-case/
Post meta
This entry was written by Bill and posted on February 5, 2010 at 12:51 pm and filed under Abuses of the State, CPS, CPS Abuse, TEXAS CHILD ABUSE. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment(Latest is displayed first) or leave a trackback: Trackback URL
A Houston mother who allowed her 8 year old, tube fed girl to die of malnutrition and Dehydration was under the “Supervision” of CPS; Until CPS decided the kid didn’t need any more food, and cut her off of all services.
The mother is in jail pending trial, the CPS workers who cut the child off are off working to kill somebody else’s kid.
TEXAS, IT’S A WHOLE OTHER KIND OF CHILD ABUSER.
HOUSTON — A Houston woman is accused of starving her 8-year-old daughter, who weighed just 15 pounds when she died in January 2009, Child Protective Services said.
CPS spokeswoman Estella Olguin says Almita Nicole Lockhart, 34, is accused of neglecting Halle Smith, who was unresponsive when she was taken to a hospital.
The girl, who was born prematurely, suffered a stroke and had other health issues that required her to be fed through a tube, said Olguin.
Harris County Sheriff’s Office electronic records showed Lockhart was jailed Friday on a charge of injury to a child by omission. Bail was $30,000 for Lockhart, who was booked Tuesday.
Jail records had no listing of an attorney for Lockhart. Her next court date is Feb. 24.
The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the girl’s death a homicide. Lockhart was arrested this week once an autopsy and further investigation led authorities to believe the girl’s condition was intentionally inflicted, according to Olguin.
Lockhart allegedly kept the girl in an empty apartment and apparently did not feed her, investigators said.
“The medical examiner said her death was a homicide and said it was due to malnutrition and dehydration,” district attorney’s spokeswoman Donna Hawkins said.
A 2006 CPS home visit found the girl weighed about 46 pounds, said Olguin, but at some point Lockhart apparently stopped receiving in-home care for Halle.
Information from KHOU-TV: www.khou.com
http://www.flds.ws/2010/02/05/when-a-kid-dies-cps-is-usually-involved-in-the-case/
Post meta
This entry was written by Bill and posted on February 5, 2010 at 12:51 pm and filed under Abuses of the State, CPS, CPS Abuse, TEXAS CHILD ABUSE. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment(Latest is displayed first) or leave a trackback: Trackback URL
Freedom Speaks-Write Letters to Your Elected Officials
Check out Freedom Speaks
Write letters to your elected officials
FREEDOMSPEAKS.COM is the only completely non-partisan political social network that allows its members to write letters to their publicly elected officials. With the click of a mouse, a single letter can be delivered via both email and fax to one or all of the public officials you select! We currently have data for Federal, State, County & City officials, including their addresses, telephones, faxes, emails and websites. It's time for you to speak out and be heard America - with FREEDOMSPEAKS
http://www.freedomspeaks.com/default.aspx
Write letters to your elected officials
FREEDOMSPEAKS.COM is the only completely non-partisan political social network that allows its members to write letters to their publicly elected officials. With the click of a mouse, a single letter can be delivered via both email and fax to one or all of the public officials you select! We currently have data for Federal, State, County & City officials, including their addresses, telephones, faxes, emails and websites. It's time for you to speak out and be heard America - with FREEDOMSPEAKS
http://www.freedomspeaks.com/default.aspx
Theft investigation triggers big changes at Vt. DCF
Theft investigation triggers big changes at Vt. DCF
Theft investigation triggers big changes at Vt. DCF Local News More>>Search for missing S. Burlington manUVM weighs a tuition hikeTests zero in on Tritium leakStudents create tribute to former school secretaryVermont Toyota dealers prepare for recallsPerennial plunger to retireStorm backs up airportsPolice capture double-murder suspect Anthony PavoneAbate admits to misconductVt. man pleads guilty in dog's shooting deathMontpelier, Vermont - February 3, 2010
"It's kind of the worst nightmare," said Steve Dale, the commissioner of the Vt. Dept. of Children and Families.
The nightmare for DCF started in October, says Dale, when a bank called his office worried someone was trying to cash state checks for personal purposes.
"Our first step was to see what happened here and what we can do to prevent it," Dale explained.
A federal probe was launched into the financial dealings of Kathy Lantagne. A check of public records shows Lantagne was earning nearly $58,000 as the director of the Newport Reach-Up office of the Department of Children and Families serving needy Vermonters. But an IRS agent says that salary apparently wasn't enough for the 19 year state employee.
A federal application for a search warrant for records handled by Lantagne accuses her of writing $500,000 in checks to herself and to relatives over a 5-year period.
"There need to be proper checks and balances," Dale said.
Dale says DCF has added additional review of where checks are going and has built in limits on dollar amounts individuals can approve. He also tells WCAX News he expects an auditor's report soon on possible weaknesses in his department's financial systems.
"He's spent the last couple of months looking at all our systems," Dale said.
"I think people are going to get very angry about this one," said David Orrick, a criminologist at Norwich University.
Orrick says embezzlers believe people won't be hurt by their crimes and rationalize their behavior by telling themselves they handle so much money, small piles of cash won't be missed. He thinks embezzlement is more common than anyone knows.
"A private corporation doesn't always want to admit it's been the victim of embezzlement and may do a lot to make it go away. The state can't do that," Orrick explained. "The popular theory now is that the people who do it don't have self-control."
That lack of self-control may have tripped up Kathy Lantagne. Court papers say she approved more than 250 suspicious checks-- money meant to help low-income Vermonters get to work and improve their lives.
"I don't think anyone can say because that money was taken, a specific other person didn't receive funds. But, it adds to the overall burden we all carry," Dale said.
We asked Commissioner Dale about the IRS agent's claim the theft took more than 5 years to detect. Dale would only say he hopes to find out more about that when and if the federal investigation results in criminal charges.
As of right now, Kathy Lantagne has not been charged with anything. Lantagne lives in West Charleston. We're told by other residents of West Charleston that she's the Kathy behind Kathy's Corner Store there. We called the store Tuesday night and were hung up on. We also called Lantagne's sister's house in Newport-- she's named in the federal papers. We got hung up on there, too.
Jack Thurston - WCAX News
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=11929035
Theft investigation triggers big changes at Vt. DCF Local News More>>Search for missing S. Burlington manUVM weighs a tuition hikeTests zero in on Tritium leakStudents create tribute to former school secretaryVermont Toyota dealers prepare for recallsPerennial plunger to retireStorm backs up airportsPolice capture double-murder suspect Anthony PavoneAbate admits to misconductVt. man pleads guilty in dog's shooting deathMontpelier, Vermont - February 3, 2010
"It's kind of the worst nightmare," said Steve Dale, the commissioner of the Vt. Dept. of Children and Families.
The nightmare for DCF started in October, says Dale, when a bank called his office worried someone was trying to cash state checks for personal purposes.
"Our first step was to see what happened here and what we can do to prevent it," Dale explained.
A federal probe was launched into the financial dealings of Kathy Lantagne. A check of public records shows Lantagne was earning nearly $58,000 as the director of the Newport Reach-Up office of the Department of Children and Families serving needy Vermonters. But an IRS agent says that salary apparently wasn't enough for the 19 year state employee.
A federal application for a search warrant for records handled by Lantagne accuses her of writing $500,000 in checks to herself and to relatives over a 5-year period.
"There need to be proper checks and balances," Dale said.
Dale says DCF has added additional review of where checks are going and has built in limits on dollar amounts individuals can approve. He also tells WCAX News he expects an auditor's report soon on possible weaknesses in his department's financial systems.
"He's spent the last couple of months looking at all our systems," Dale said.
"I think people are going to get very angry about this one," said David Orrick, a criminologist at Norwich University.
Orrick says embezzlers believe people won't be hurt by their crimes and rationalize their behavior by telling themselves they handle so much money, small piles of cash won't be missed. He thinks embezzlement is more common than anyone knows.
"A private corporation doesn't always want to admit it's been the victim of embezzlement and may do a lot to make it go away. The state can't do that," Orrick explained. "The popular theory now is that the people who do it don't have self-control."
That lack of self-control may have tripped up Kathy Lantagne. Court papers say she approved more than 250 suspicious checks-- money meant to help low-income Vermonters get to work and improve their lives.
"I don't think anyone can say because that money was taken, a specific other person didn't receive funds. But, it adds to the overall burden we all carry," Dale said.
We asked Commissioner Dale about the IRS agent's claim the theft took more than 5 years to detect. Dale would only say he hopes to find out more about that when and if the federal investigation results in criminal charges.
As of right now, Kathy Lantagne has not been charged with anything. Lantagne lives in West Charleston. We're told by other residents of West Charleston that she's the Kathy behind Kathy's Corner Store there. We called the store Tuesday night and were hung up on. We also called Lantagne's sister's house in Newport-- she's named in the federal papers. We got hung up on there, too.
Jack Thurston - WCAX News
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=11929035
Nun accused of kidnapping was a guardian ad litem
Nun accused of kidnapping was a guardian ad litem
Similar stories:•Baby returned after police say nun kidnapped her
Baby returned after police say nun kidnapped herSister Mary had taken an interest in the girl before she was born, befriending her pregnant mother, driving her to doctor appointments and the grocery store.
Jose Ochoa Avalos and Adai Lopez Vasquez left Mexico for sleepy central Florida town of Eustis, with few friends and speaking little English. The nun's kindness seemed a godsend as they transition to life in a new country. But once the baby was born, Sister Mary's helping hand turned into a controlling grip as she threatened to call immigration officials if they didn't let her keep baby Maria. She once offered them $2,000 for the girl, authorities said. Last fall, she took the baby anyway.
On Tuesday, the couple held a red-faced crying Maria, now 2, for the first time in six months. Sister Mary, also known as Laura Caballero, was arrested in Miami, charged with taking the girl to Argentina to start a new life.
•Mom starved daughter to exorcise demons
Mom starved daughter to exorcise demonsKimberly McZinc, age 4, starved to death in a mobile home on a dirt road here in the Florida Panhandle. The refrigerator was stocked with food. Four other children in the home were plump and beloved.
Kimberly's mother, in the grip of twisted fundamentalism, is a college graduate with a masters in public administration. She believed her spunky little girl was possessed by demons.
To exorcise the evil, she denied Kimberly food and made the weakened child run "with Jesus," her tightly braided pigtails flying behind her.
•How a foster care tragedy led to reform
How a foster care tragedy led to reformFlorida child welfare administrators had seen children in their care get raped, tortured, strangled, starved. They had seen one plunged head-first into a toilet as punishment for a potty-training accident.
But never before Rilya Wilson had a foster child simply vanished.
Cute, pig-tailed and with a name -- Remember I Love You Always -- that belied the horrors of her childhood, Rilya's story led the scandal-rich cable news for weeks.
•Missing baby found in box under sitter's bed
Missing baby found in box under sitter's bedInvestigators spent five days searching dense vines and marshes for a missing infant, only to find her lying quietly in a two-by-three-foot cedar box that had been shoved under her baby sitter's bed.
Clothing was packed around it to muffle any sounds, and baking powder was placed inside to mask the stench of dirty diapers.
Authorities said the baby's mother, Chrystina Lynn Mercer, gave the infant to baby sitter Susan Elizabeth Baker early Saturday, then reported her missing about 10 hours later.
•Guardian Ad Litem gives a voice to abused
Guardian Ad Litem gives a voice to abusedSurrounded by her three grandchildren, Juanita Martinez named all the ways Andi Steinacker has helped her family: Uniforms for the kids. Transportation to and from court. Someone to call.
And, with Steinacker's guidance, Martinez was able to officially adopt her grandchildren in 2006 after their mother died.
``She's always there for me,'' said Martinez, 60, of Miami. Steinacker is no guardian angel but a Guardian Ad Litem, or GAL -- volunteers who speak up for abused and neglected children in court. They visit with the children they represent and make recommendations on their behalf.
By KELLI KENNEDY
Associated Press Writer
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A nun charged with taking a 2-year-old girl from her parents and fleeing to another country was also a guardian ad litem for the state, officials said Thursday.
Sister Mary, or Laura Caballero, has been a guardian ad litem since 2002, working with 19 cases, said Marcia Hilty, a spokeswoman for the Florida statewide guardian ad litem office. Guardian ad litems are appointed by the court to neutrally represent a child's interests.
She could not confirm whether Caballero was a guardian for Maria Lopez Vazquez, the child she is accused of taking.
Hilty says Caballero was in good standing and completed all requirements for the program, including a criminal background check, interview, references and 30 hours of training. Caballero was removed from the program after her arrest at a Miami airport in January.
"We are shocked and saddened by the events," Hilty told The Associated Press.
Caballero was charged with false imprisonment after taking the baby last year from her parents and fleeing to Argentina with a handyman from the church. The family was reunited in Orlando on Tuesday, six months after the girl was taken.
Authorities said Sister Mary was controlling and threatened to turn her parents into immigration officials if they did not give her the child. Her parents are illegal immigrants. At one point, detectives said she offered the parents $2,000 for the girl.
Caballero said she is a nun at St. Filumena in central Florida. It is not a Roman Catholic church affiliated with the Orlando Diocese or the Vatican, nor are its clergy and nuns.
No one answered the phone at Caballero's on Thursday.
The Department of Children and Families investigated the family last May after receiving a call that the child might be in danger, but the case was closed with no findings of abuse. The family later moved to South Carolina, yet Sister Mary continued to contact the child investigator, insisting that Maria was "her child" and her parents didn't take care of her, according to an arrest report.
Sister Mary told the investigator she hired a private eye to find the family and later informed the investigator she had Maria and that her parents had given her custody, according to the arrest report.
It's unclear why the case wasn't investigated until the family called the police months later.
DCF says the agency was not informed of any change in custody. They closed the case finding the girl was safe with her parents.
"The next official communication that we received regarding this child was a call to help the parents this week," DCF spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner said.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1463555.html
Similar stories:•Baby returned after police say nun kidnapped her
Baby returned after police say nun kidnapped herSister Mary had taken an interest in the girl before she was born, befriending her pregnant mother, driving her to doctor appointments and the grocery store.
Jose Ochoa Avalos and Adai Lopez Vasquez left Mexico for sleepy central Florida town of Eustis, with few friends and speaking little English. The nun's kindness seemed a godsend as they transition to life in a new country. But once the baby was born, Sister Mary's helping hand turned into a controlling grip as she threatened to call immigration officials if they didn't let her keep baby Maria. She once offered them $2,000 for the girl, authorities said. Last fall, she took the baby anyway.
On Tuesday, the couple held a red-faced crying Maria, now 2, for the first time in six months. Sister Mary, also known as Laura Caballero, was arrested in Miami, charged with taking the girl to Argentina to start a new life.
•Mom starved daughter to exorcise demons
Mom starved daughter to exorcise demonsKimberly McZinc, age 4, starved to death in a mobile home on a dirt road here in the Florida Panhandle. The refrigerator was stocked with food. Four other children in the home were plump and beloved.
Kimberly's mother, in the grip of twisted fundamentalism, is a college graduate with a masters in public administration. She believed her spunky little girl was possessed by demons.
To exorcise the evil, she denied Kimberly food and made the weakened child run "with Jesus," her tightly braided pigtails flying behind her.
•How a foster care tragedy led to reform
How a foster care tragedy led to reformFlorida child welfare administrators had seen children in their care get raped, tortured, strangled, starved. They had seen one plunged head-first into a toilet as punishment for a potty-training accident.
But never before Rilya Wilson had a foster child simply vanished.
Cute, pig-tailed and with a name -- Remember I Love You Always -- that belied the horrors of her childhood, Rilya's story led the scandal-rich cable news for weeks.
•Missing baby found in box under sitter's bed
Missing baby found in box under sitter's bedInvestigators spent five days searching dense vines and marshes for a missing infant, only to find her lying quietly in a two-by-three-foot cedar box that had been shoved under her baby sitter's bed.
Clothing was packed around it to muffle any sounds, and baking powder was placed inside to mask the stench of dirty diapers.
Authorities said the baby's mother, Chrystina Lynn Mercer, gave the infant to baby sitter Susan Elizabeth Baker early Saturday, then reported her missing about 10 hours later.
•Guardian Ad Litem gives a voice to abused
Guardian Ad Litem gives a voice to abusedSurrounded by her three grandchildren, Juanita Martinez named all the ways Andi Steinacker has helped her family: Uniforms for the kids. Transportation to and from court. Someone to call.
And, with Steinacker's guidance, Martinez was able to officially adopt her grandchildren in 2006 after their mother died.
``She's always there for me,'' said Martinez, 60, of Miami. Steinacker is no guardian angel but a Guardian Ad Litem, or GAL -- volunteers who speak up for abused and neglected children in court. They visit with the children they represent and make recommendations on their behalf.
By KELLI KENNEDY
Associated Press Writer
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A nun charged with taking a 2-year-old girl from her parents and fleeing to another country was also a guardian ad litem for the state, officials said Thursday.
Sister Mary, or Laura Caballero, has been a guardian ad litem since 2002, working with 19 cases, said Marcia Hilty, a spokeswoman for the Florida statewide guardian ad litem office. Guardian ad litems are appointed by the court to neutrally represent a child's interests.
She could not confirm whether Caballero was a guardian for Maria Lopez Vazquez, the child she is accused of taking.
Hilty says Caballero was in good standing and completed all requirements for the program, including a criminal background check, interview, references and 30 hours of training. Caballero was removed from the program after her arrest at a Miami airport in January.
"We are shocked and saddened by the events," Hilty told The Associated Press.
Caballero was charged with false imprisonment after taking the baby last year from her parents and fleeing to Argentina with a handyman from the church. The family was reunited in Orlando on Tuesday, six months after the girl was taken.
Authorities said Sister Mary was controlling and threatened to turn her parents into immigration officials if they did not give her the child. Her parents are illegal immigrants. At one point, detectives said she offered the parents $2,000 for the girl.
Caballero said she is a nun at St. Filumena in central Florida. It is not a Roman Catholic church affiliated with the Orlando Diocese or the Vatican, nor are its clergy and nuns.
No one answered the phone at Caballero's on Thursday.
The Department of Children and Families investigated the family last May after receiving a call that the child might be in danger, but the case was closed with no findings of abuse. The family later moved to South Carolina, yet Sister Mary continued to contact the child investigator, insisting that Maria was "her child" and her parents didn't take care of her, according to an arrest report.
Sister Mary told the investigator she hired a private eye to find the family and later informed the investigator she had Maria and that her parents had given her custody, according to the arrest report.
It's unclear why the case wasn't investigated until the family called the police months later.
DCF says the agency was not informed of any change in custody. They closed the case finding the girl was safe with her parents.
"The next official communication that we received regarding this child was a call to help the parents this week," DCF spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner said.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1463555.html
Fatal Misunderstandings About Reactive Attachment Disorder Dangerous misunderstandings harm foster children and others
Note from unhappygrammy-I've posted this article, but it doesn't mean I agree with it.
Child Myths
Straight Talk About Child Development
by Jean Mercer, Ph.D. Jean Mercer is a developmental psychologist with a special interest in parent-infant relationships. See full bio Fatal Misunderstandings About Reactive Attachment Disorder Dangerous misunderstandings harm foster children and others.
Published on February 6, 2010
When I began this blog, I chose the name "child myths" because of my concern about misunderstandings that are potentially harmful to children. As some readers know, my interest in this issue began some years ago with a study of so-called Attachment Therapy and its role in the death of Candace Newmaker in 2000 (described in Mercer, J., Sarner,L., & Rosa, L. [2003], "Attachment Therapy On Trial". Westport, CT: Praeger). The fact that other children have also died at the hands of parents acting on the instructions of unconventional therapists has also motivated me to pursue the correction of "child myths".
A number of myths about children are part of mistaken beliefs about the childhood mental health problem called Reactive Attachment Disorder and given the code 313.89 in DSM-IV-Tr. The criteria for Reactive Attachment Disorder involve children's age-inappropriate relationships with adults, with behaviors that are either less engaged and dependent than is typical for the child's developmental stage, or, alternatively, excessively dependent and "clingy" compared to other children of the same age. Regrettably, these criteria are little understood by the general public, but are replaced by myths and misunderstandings that are reinforced by careless journalists. For example, the newsletter of a middle-western foster and adoption group (http://www.mfcaa.org/img/files/newsletters/2010/Feb%202010%20News... ) claims that Reactive Attachment Disorder is characterized by the following symptoms: superficially charming behavior, refusal to make eye contact on parents' terms, "crazy lying", and false allegations of abuse, among other things. This misinformation is repeated by print and television journalists until "everybody knows" it's true-- even though it's obvious that this set of behaviors has little or nothing to do with Reactive Attachment Disorder as defined earlier.
The spread of misinformation is a problem for more reasons than one, and is especially problematic because misinformed people can easily make misinformed decisions. Such decisions have resulted in death and injury of children who have been mistreated systematically by caregivers, often with the encouragement of caseworkers. Michael Shermer, writing in "Scientific American" several years ago, referred to these adverse events as "death by theory", and indeed it is hard to see how such things could have occurred if the adults had not been blinded to the obvious by their beliefs about child development.
There have been quite a few reports of harm to children resulting from misinformed beliefs about Reactive Attachment Disorder. One account of an investigation of a foster home following the death of a child gives examples of these beliefs and their impact. Relevant correspondence and investigation reports may be seen at http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/fhs/brs/reports/CP140201012_SIR_2008C..., but I will refer to some of the important statements referring to beliefs held by the caseworkers in this situation. (I will omit some of the material dealing with carelessness in the original acceptance of these foster parents into the system.)
1. One child in the family had a tantrum in the car, and following the foster mother's actions to deal with this, complained that she had broken his leg. He was found to have a "linear displaced fracture of the proximal tibial epiphysis" [the growth plate area at the end of an immature bone] and a cast was applied. The caseworker said, however, "DHS believes it is possible that [he] never really felt any pain in his leg, that he was just using this as another control mechanism, and he is bewildered by the fact that he now has a cast on an injury that he was ‘inventing' in order to get the foster parent into trouble."
2. An anonymous referral said that a child had been locked out of the house on several occasions and had screamed and cried for close to an hour, begging to be let in (this was in December in Michigan). The caseworker, however, said the complaint was "consistent with her knowledge of [his] classic Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) behaviors, as he frequently yells and screams out toward foster mom, accusing her of mistreating him", and that he might have gone outside of his own accord and then taken the opportunity to accuse the caregiver.
3. One child was found locked naked in an abandoned outdoor shed. He was taken to the emergency room, where doctors expressed concern about bruises and bite marks on him. Two caseworkers stated their opinions that these marks were self-inflicted.
4. Another of the foster children stated that a foster parent had made her run barefoot in the snow for "discipline", made her run up and down the stairs in the middle of the night, dragged her through the mud as punishment, and sometimes withheld food. No investigation followed these disclosures.
Do these examples of mistreatment show anything other than the fact that human beings can be unbelievably cruel to children? I believe they do show something else: that the caseworkers who were supposed to advocate for the children believed that their treatment was appropriate. They had accepted some ideas current among unconventional therapists and frequently repeated by unwary journalists. These included the belief that complaints of pain or sickness by children said to have Reactive Attachment Disorder are all lies and attempts to manipulate and exploit other people. Also included was the belief that allegations of abuse by "RAD children" are always lies and attempts to cause trouble to their caregivers, even when there is physical evidence of injury. In addition, not only the individual caseworkers, but one or more of their supervisors apparently believed that pain, hunger, fear, and humiliation were appropriate treatments for children who were less than satisfactory to their caregivers.
Until we can correct these myths, and until we educate caseworkers, foster and adoptive parents, teachers, and the general public, about them, the most vulnerable of our children remain in real danger from those who are supposed to care for them. Please, journalists, take note, and do not exacerbate this problem by circulating dangerous mistaken beliefs!
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/child-myths/201002/fatal-misunderstandings-about-reactive-attachment-disorder
Child Myths
Straight Talk About Child Development
by Jean Mercer, Ph.D. Jean Mercer is a developmental psychologist with a special interest in parent-infant relationships. See full bio Fatal Misunderstandings About Reactive Attachment Disorder Dangerous misunderstandings harm foster children and others.
Published on February 6, 2010
When I began this blog, I chose the name "child myths" because of my concern about misunderstandings that are potentially harmful to children. As some readers know, my interest in this issue began some years ago with a study of so-called Attachment Therapy and its role in the death of Candace Newmaker in 2000 (described in Mercer, J., Sarner,L., & Rosa, L. [2003], "Attachment Therapy On Trial". Westport, CT: Praeger). The fact that other children have also died at the hands of parents acting on the instructions of unconventional therapists has also motivated me to pursue the correction of "child myths".
A number of myths about children are part of mistaken beliefs about the childhood mental health problem called Reactive Attachment Disorder and given the code 313.89 in DSM-IV-Tr. The criteria for Reactive Attachment Disorder involve children's age-inappropriate relationships with adults, with behaviors that are either less engaged and dependent than is typical for the child's developmental stage, or, alternatively, excessively dependent and "clingy" compared to other children of the same age. Regrettably, these criteria are little understood by the general public, but are replaced by myths and misunderstandings that are reinforced by careless journalists. For example, the newsletter of a middle-western foster and adoption group (http://www.mfcaa.org/img/files/newsletters/2010/Feb%202010%20News... ) claims that Reactive Attachment Disorder is characterized by the following symptoms: superficially charming behavior, refusal to make eye contact on parents' terms, "crazy lying", and false allegations of abuse, among other things. This misinformation is repeated by print and television journalists until "everybody knows" it's true-- even though it's obvious that this set of behaviors has little or nothing to do with Reactive Attachment Disorder as defined earlier.
The spread of misinformation is a problem for more reasons than one, and is especially problematic because misinformed people can easily make misinformed decisions. Such decisions have resulted in death and injury of children who have been mistreated systematically by caregivers, often with the encouragement of caseworkers. Michael Shermer, writing in "Scientific American" several years ago, referred to these adverse events as "death by theory", and indeed it is hard to see how such things could have occurred if the adults had not been blinded to the obvious by their beliefs about child development.
There have been quite a few reports of harm to children resulting from misinformed beliefs about Reactive Attachment Disorder. One account of an investigation of a foster home following the death of a child gives examples of these beliefs and their impact. Relevant correspondence and investigation reports may be seen at http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/fhs/brs/reports/CP140201012_SIR_2008C..., but I will refer to some of the important statements referring to beliefs held by the caseworkers in this situation. (I will omit some of the material dealing with carelessness in the original acceptance of these foster parents into the system.)
1. One child in the family had a tantrum in the car, and following the foster mother's actions to deal with this, complained that she had broken his leg. He was found to have a "linear displaced fracture of the proximal tibial epiphysis" [the growth plate area at the end of an immature bone] and a cast was applied. The caseworker said, however, "DHS believes it is possible that [he] never really felt any pain in his leg, that he was just using this as another control mechanism, and he is bewildered by the fact that he now has a cast on an injury that he was ‘inventing' in order to get the foster parent into trouble."
2. An anonymous referral said that a child had been locked out of the house on several occasions and had screamed and cried for close to an hour, begging to be let in (this was in December in Michigan). The caseworker, however, said the complaint was "consistent with her knowledge of [his] classic Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) behaviors, as he frequently yells and screams out toward foster mom, accusing her of mistreating him", and that he might have gone outside of his own accord and then taken the opportunity to accuse the caregiver.
3. One child was found locked naked in an abandoned outdoor shed. He was taken to the emergency room, where doctors expressed concern about bruises and bite marks on him. Two caseworkers stated their opinions that these marks were self-inflicted.
4. Another of the foster children stated that a foster parent had made her run barefoot in the snow for "discipline", made her run up and down the stairs in the middle of the night, dragged her through the mud as punishment, and sometimes withheld food. No investigation followed these disclosures.
Do these examples of mistreatment show anything other than the fact that human beings can be unbelievably cruel to children? I believe they do show something else: that the caseworkers who were supposed to advocate for the children believed that their treatment was appropriate. They had accepted some ideas current among unconventional therapists and frequently repeated by unwary journalists. These included the belief that complaints of pain or sickness by children said to have Reactive Attachment Disorder are all lies and attempts to manipulate and exploit other people. Also included was the belief that allegations of abuse by "RAD children" are always lies and attempts to cause trouble to their caregivers, even when there is physical evidence of injury. In addition, not only the individual caseworkers, but one or more of their supervisors apparently believed that pain, hunger, fear, and humiliation were appropriate treatments for children who were less than satisfactory to their caregivers.
Until we can correct these myths, and until we educate caseworkers, foster and adoptive parents, teachers, and the general public, about them, the most vulnerable of our children remain in real danger from those who are supposed to care for them. Please, journalists, take note, and do not exacerbate this problem by circulating dangerous mistaken beliefs!
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/child-myths/201002/fatal-misunderstandings-about-reactive-attachment-disorder
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