Foster father guilty on all counts
CHAMBERSBURG -- April 20, 2010 -- Franklin County President Judge Douglas Herman will formally read the guilty verdict in Tri Thanh Nguyen's rape and sexual abuse trial during a hearing tomorrow afternoon.
Herman did not immediately reach a finding following Nguyen's April 9 non-jury trial, but last Thursday issued a guilty on all counts verdict that has been recorded in the Clerk of Courts office, but not formally read to the former Path Valley man.
Nguyen was charged in 2008 with sexually molesting two young girls that he and his late wife had adopted at least a decade earlier. The charges, including two counts each of rape of a child, sexual assault, statutory sexual assault, indecent assault on a child less than 13 years old and aggravated indecent assault on a child less than 13 years old.
http://www.publicopiniononline.com/ci_14920744?source=most_emailed
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Social Security, Welfare, and Child Support Enforcement
Social Security, Welfare, and Child Support Enforcement
How federal welfare funding drives judicial discretion in child-custody determinations and domestic relations matters.
Get Back to the Nationwide Blueprint for Title IV-D Reform (CSE Reform)
By Lary Holland and Jason Bottomley
February 2006
Introduction
There is a growing pandemic in this country where the very fabric of our society, the family, is being attacked and destroyed.� Our children are systematically being torn away from willing and capable parents who want to be involved in parenting their children.� Families are systematically being torn apart instead of being helped when they turn to the states' family courts to solve domestic relations disputes.� This document demonstrates an attempt to trace this problem back to its source.
The topics and issues being discussed are quite complex because of the nature of the multiple welfare programs created within Title IV of the Social Security Act (SSA); so the authors have attempted to provide a simplified overview of how federal welfare funding motivates the state family court judges to remove a willful parent and create high child support orders.
The authors have spent a tremendous amount of time researching external economic factors that they believe drive judicial discretion and influence professional judgment in domestic relations matters.� Through their research and experience, the authors have concluded that a relationship exists between the federal funding of state welfare programs and the determinations made by state family court judges presiding over child-custody and domestic relations matters.� They believe that it is this relationship that de-emphasizes the importance of sharing parental responsibility, and instead emphasizes a manufactured public policy concerned only on the financial obligations of one parent - rather than on the real interests of the children involved.
The authors have also concluded that, while this relationship has successfully been masked behind what is commonly termed "the best interests of the child," the federal funding created within the Social Security Act provides clear monetary incentives to states that have a high-occurrence of one-parent households, where a child has the majority of access to only one of their parents.� The authors believe that this "best interests of the child" standard is loosely subjective, gives unlimited discretion to state family court judges, and ultimately leaves a tremendous amount of room for abuse.
In simplest terms:� State family courts are forcibly depriving children's access to a parent because it is a source of revenue for the states - and because they can.
Social Security Covers Welfare
The most basic component of the federal welfare system was originally created by the Social Security Act with the intent of providing assistance to families in which the parent who financially supported the family was absent due to death, or where a disability prevented that parent from providing for the family.� Unfortunately, the welfare system has shifted away from providing assistance to needy families into a system of entitlement and abuse by both the state and the welfare recipient.
Welfare programs are a combined effort between federal and state government.� Federal welfare programs impose voluntary guidelines on the states and provide block grant funding for compliance. These block grants similarly resemble how the states' are granted federal funding for enacting motorcycle-helmet and motor vehicle seat-belt legislation or risk losing substantial federal highway repair dollars.� States are not required to participate in the federal welfare programs created within Social Security; state participation is strictly voluntary - but by not participating, the state is turning down extremely large sums of federal money.
Title IV (four) of the Social Security Act consists of four parts (A, B, D, and E) and provides for the annual appropriation of block grant funding to subsidize the operation of various state-level welfare programs as outlined in each part of the title as long as the states are compliant to the federal guidelines.
Title IV, Part A (or IV-A) is the most widely recognized welfare program, and is referred to as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF.
Formerly known as AFDC, the TANF welfare program imposes federal guidelines to which all states must adhere in order to receive billions of dollars in federal block grant funding.� This money is only available to a state when that state fully or substantially complies with these federally imposed guidelines. The complying individual states can use the money they receive to pay for the administration of their own programs, and to provide cash assistance to "needy" families pursuant to the federal guidelines.
The type of program described in Title IV-A is referred to as an �entitlement� program at both the state and welfare recipient level because it entitles the complying states to receive blocks of grant money, and it entitles the recipients who qualify to receive a certain amount of money as well.
Eligibility Requirements in Title IV-A (TANF) Exclude the Middle-Class
Eligibility must be proven in order to receive services and cash assistance through the IV-A TANF welfare program.� The eligibility requirement, which uses income level as an indicator to demonstrate need, limits program participation to families with dependent children that show an actual need for income assistance.� Not every person is eligible to receive cash assistance benefits and services through the TANF welfare program, and sometimes eligibility is limited to only the children of "needy" families.
Paternity establishment is one requirement, except in limited circumstances, that determines continuing eligibility of benefits to a recipient.� If paternity is not already established or paternity is not actively being sought by the recipient, the recipient�s portion of any cash assistance is reduced or even completely discontinued.� If paternity is successfully established, the recipient is required to surrender and assign to the state any child support benefits established by court order.
Other eligibility requirements provide restrictions to the duration of Title IV-A benefits to 5 years and mandatory requirements for recipients to participate in certain work activities. Also, if the recipient is an un-emancipated minor with a child, the minor must be involved in schooling and be under the supervision of a responsible adult.
Welfare Reform
In the eyes of many, including Congress, the IV-A TANF welfare program has been widely abused since its inception.� People have been known to alter their living conditions to fit the eligibility requirements in order to receive the cash assistance offered by the program.� Abuse has prompted Congress to reform the entire Title IV welfare system by modifying the federal guidelines, changing how the states operate welfare programs - including who is eligible and for how long benefits may be received.
Attempts by Congress to reform welfare have caused the spurious growth of new and expanded programs within Title IV.� In addition to other programs, Title IV currently includes a Child Support and Establishment of Paternity welfare program in Part D (Title IV-D).
The federal Title IV-D program makes large sums of grant money available to the states through the Department of Health and Human Services' (DHHS) Administration for Children and Families' (ACF) Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). In Fiscal Year 2006, Congress appropriated $4,200,000,000 (4.2 billion dollars) for the states that operate programs in accordance with federal guidelines.
Child Support Enforcement is a Welfare Program
The purpose for the creation of the IV-D welfare program was to recover taxpayer money which was being spent by the federal government on needy families under Title IV-A (TANF).� The intent of Congress was to slow the drain that the Title IV-A (TANF) cash assistance program had on the budget. �The presumption was that single mothers with a high incidence of out-of-wedlock births were the proximate cause of the rising welfare expenditures. Congress attempted to shift the financial burden from their own budget to the parent who abandoned the family.
The result of Congress' intention was the creation of Title IV-D federally mandated guidelines, incentive block grants, and performance based grants being made available to the states for their operation of federally compliant programs.� States that would comply with the federal guidelines made it a priority to collect money (termed as "child support") from willfully absent parents who had abandoned their parental responsibilities to their children.� The goal was twofold:� To reimburse the expense of providing public assistance to children who had been willfully abandoned by a parent (and thus forced to become dependent on public assistance to satisfy basic needs), and to ensure continued financial support from willfully absent parents with children that were at risk of requiring public assistance if they didn�t receive support (to prevent them from requiring public assistance to satisfy basic needs).
In essence, the federal guidelines wanted the states to function as collection agencies, recovering financial support from parents who had willfully abandoned their parental responsibilities to their children.� The result, however, was different from the intent and has caused the state welfare programs to adjust their environment to have a greater need, which has caused the program to collect from willing parents that would ordinarily provide a loving environment for their children absent a court order limiting a parent's involvement. Despite the original intent of the IV-D welfare program, it now provides an incentive for the states to use their family courts to produce forcibly absent parents in order to increase the states' IV-D welfare caseload.
Nonexistent Eligibility Requirements for IV-D Welfare Isolate Children from Willing Parents
There are no limitations for participation, or eligibility requirements for recipients of the Title IV-D welfare program. This lack of eligibility requirements has been used to trap otherwise willing and fit parents, particularly of the middle-class, into participating in this program for the purpose of increasing federal reporting numbers.� The forced inclusion of the middle-class maximizes the federal block grants being allocated for the operation of each state's Title IV-D welfare program. The Title IV-D welfare model isolates children from an otherwise willing custodian.
The lack of any eligibility requirements for Title IV-D welfare services has caused exponential growth within this welfare program as well as in private �professional� sectors.� In fact, an entire industry has evolved from the creation of the federal CSE program, which will be discussed later in this document.� This entire private industry generates even more money from involvement in domestic relations disputes - turning a delicate private family matter into a money-maker for both the private and public sectors.
The lack of any eligibility requirements gives a huge financial incentive to every state to include middle-class divorcing parents, and to isolate a child from an otherwise willing and fit parent.� By including the middle-class, state family courts and associated state agencies have expanded the operation of their Title IV-D welfare programs well beyond needy families.� This lack of eligibility has led to the near complete inclusion of the middle-class, which has given a benefit to the state of larger child support awards to be collected from an otherwise willing and fit parent. The result is that children are being isolated from physical contact with a willing parent in lieu of financial gains enjoyed by the other parent, and by the state - all through the issuance of a court order.
The states have resorted to forcing parents involved in domestic relations matters into the welfare system either as wards of the state or as welfare recipients, whether or not either parent has actually willfully abandoned the child or requires public assistance.� After the parents are included into the operating Title IV-D welfare program, one parent is then groomed into a role of non-custodial or forcibly absent parent.� A court order is then issued against the now absent parent to pay child support through a state disbursement unit to the other parent who may or may not be equipped financially to run their own household in the first place - despite the other parent's ability to maintain an intact loving and caring household.
Inclusion of Middle-Class into Welfare = More Federal Funding
The exponential inclusion of the middle-class into the state operated Title IV-D Welfare System has facilitated and furthered a perceived need for increased funding from the federal government to the states.� Because there is an overwhelming majority of middle-class parents that have child support automatically withheld from their paychecks, there is the appearance of a tremendously successful state run Title IV-D welfare program - and it causes even more federal incentive payments and reimbursement funding to be received by the states.
Even amidst cutbacks by the federal government for entitlement block grants and restrictions on the use federal incentive dollars as matching funds, the states' standing remains to gain billions in funding by including more and more of the middle-class in their welfare programs.
To be more specific: We believe that Title IV welfare programs actually encourage the diminishment of parents' roles in the lives of their children, and that these programs actually provide financial incentives for the breakup of the family - which is incidentally the exact opposite of the purpose of Title IV in reducing family dependence on government and encouraging safe and stable families.
The consequence of how and why the states receive federal funding is providing financial incentives to the state, its agencies, its human services professionals, and its family courts in general to create court-ordered child-support paying absentee parents wherever it can, and by whatever means available.� The states' manufacturing of non-custodial parents maximizes incoming federal and state revenue redistribution.� Similar to those who were accused of abusing the Title IV-A welfare program, which prompted reform, the states are now modifying their own environment in order to receive more federal money.
Creating Non-Custodian = More Child Support = More Federal Funding
Title IV created incentives for the states that were intended to reduce the occurrence of single parent households; however these incentives have caused an exact opposite result.� Instead of looking to Congressional intent, one only needs to look at the results.
State family court judges, agencies, and both public and private professionals now have a pecuniary interest in establishing single-parent households in which the majority of a child�s time is limited by court order to be spent with only one parent.� There is now a disincentive for a child to be equally placed with both parents where those parents share equal responsibilities while maintaining their own homes and lifestyles.� If the state family courts do not produce an absent or �non-custodial� parent through their orders, the courts would effectively exempt the state (and any associated professional beneficiaries) from receiving the billions of dollars in federal funding which is offered through compliance with federally imposed welfare guidelines.
Federal Funding: A Working Perspective
The U.S. Tax Payer is solely supporting the middle-class's inclusion in the Title IV-D program because there is no reimbursement to welfare.� For Fiscal Year 2006, Congress has appropriated $4,200,000,000 (4.2 billion dollars) from the collection of federal and Social Security taxes solely to fund the operations of federally compliant state IV-D welfare programs. Despite a commonly held public misconception that child support enforcement activities are funded by the people within the system, the fact is that this welfare program is funded with the money that comes from the U.S. Taxpayer in the form of federal and Social Security taxes.
The federal funding is based on the reported needs of the multitude of federal and state bureaucracies operating within the IV-D welfare program.� The need is further amplified by increasing the number of forced absentee parents being generated from the family courts each year.
In fact, an entire national special interest lobby comprised of judges� associations; national child support enforcement associations (representing both private and public sectors); state bar associations; labor unions representing government employees; social workers associations; and everyone else with a stake in the multi-billion-dollar industry that the Title IV-D welfare program has created, exists solely to ensure that the current annual flow of federal funding into the states continues increasingly and remains uninterrupted.
The U.S. tax payer is supporting two-thirds of the federal expenditures associated with the inclusion of the middle-class in the operation of the state Title IV-D programs.� The remaining one-third of the expenses for the inclusion of the middle-class is left up to the state and local governments - which again, is paid for with taxpayer money.� The bottom line is that the federal, state, and local governments are footing the bill with our tax dollars for the inclusion of the middle-class in the state operated Title IV-D welfare program.
Federal Reimbursement Funding
Out of the total $4.2 Billion appropriated by Congress for the operation of federally compliant state Title IV-D welfare program, there exists unchecked federal reimbursement funding to the states for the following: 66% of the costs of their Child Support Enforcement (CSE) operational activities (which range all the way down to the activities of each of the states� county prosecutors in domestic relations and paternity cases); 80% of the states� costs related to the improvement of technology as related to CSE activities; and, most recently changed to 66% from 90% for the costs of genetic DNA testing in paternity establishment cases.
Reimbursement funding has no performance standards or requirements, so even the most ill-performing state operated IV-D welfare programs still get federally reimbursed for their lackluster and ineffective operations.
The massive federal funding available to the states have led judicial discretion, government agencies, and professionals to establish that it is now in the �best interests of the child� to limit the child's involvement with one of their own otherwise willing, capable, and available parents.
In essence, the more cases involving Title IV-D welfare services that a court can create, the more operational expenses it will endure, and the more federal funding it will be able to pursue and receive as a reward for undermining a child's involvement with one of their own parents.
Performance Based Federal Incentive Funding
Title IV-D also provides performance-based federal incentive funding to the states based on certain criteria that is used to measure the states' performance of certain program functions.
Incentive funding comes from the total funding appropriated by Congress for the operation of the CSE program ($4.2 Billion).� The total incentive funding available to the states is a fixed amount per fiscal year.� For FY2006, the total available incentive funding is $458,000,000; and each participating state competes for a share of this total.
Each state competes based on their performance measure of the following criteria:
� The paternity establishment performance level.
� The support order performance level.
� The current payment performance level.
� The arrearage performance level.
� The cost-effectiveness performance level.
Conclusion
As Robert Burns once wrote in To a Mouse:
�The best laid schemes o� mice an� men gang aft agley� (which is popularly misquoted as: The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray).
Mr. Burns� concept seems to be applicable to Congress� intentions in Title IV-D as the intentions sound good, but the result actually undermines the stated purpose of Title IV welfare services.
The U.S. Tax Payer, including the poor, is currently footing the bill for the inclusion of the middle-class into state operated Title IV-D welfare programs because of the lack of eligibility requirements in the federally imposed guidelines. In order to strengthen families, and to better meet the goals of Title IV, it is imperative for eligibility requirements to be included in the federal guidelines to the states.� Without eligibility requirements, states will continue to have an incentive to limit children's involvement with an otherwise willing, caring, loving, and fit parent.
The states are currently undermining the purpose of Congress' Title IV, which is to keep families together. It's a commonly held belief that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions � Congress' intent may have been well-meaning, but the result has created another welfare abuser... the states.
http://www.laryholland.com/ssacse/
How federal welfare funding drives judicial discretion in child-custody determinations and domestic relations matters.
Get Back to the Nationwide Blueprint for Title IV-D Reform (CSE Reform)
By Lary Holland and Jason Bottomley
February 2006
Introduction
There is a growing pandemic in this country where the very fabric of our society, the family, is being attacked and destroyed.� Our children are systematically being torn away from willing and capable parents who want to be involved in parenting their children.� Families are systematically being torn apart instead of being helped when they turn to the states' family courts to solve domestic relations disputes.� This document demonstrates an attempt to trace this problem back to its source.
The topics and issues being discussed are quite complex because of the nature of the multiple welfare programs created within Title IV of the Social Security Act (SSA); so the authors have attempted to provide a simplified overview of how federal welfare funding motivates the state family court judges to remove a willful parent and create high child support orders.
The authors have spent a tremendous amount of time researching external economic factors that they believe drive judicial discretion and influence professional judgment in domestic relations matters.� Through their research and experience, the authors have concluded that a relationship exists between the federal funding of state welfare programs and the determinations made by state family court judges presiding over child-custody and domestic relations matters.� They believe that it is this relationship that de-emphasizes the importance of sharing parental responsibility, and instead emphasizes a manufactured public policy concerned only on the financial obligations of one parent - rather than on the real interests of the children involved.
The authors have also concluded that, while this relationship has successfully been masked behind what is commonly termed "the best interests of the child," the federal funding created within the Social Security Act provides clear monetary incentives to states that have a high-occurrence of one-parent households, where a child has the majority of access to only one of their parents.� The authors believe that this "best interests of the child" standard is loosely subjective, gives unlimited discretion to state family court judges, and ultimately leaves a tremendous amount of room for abuse.
In simplest terms:� State family courts are forcibly depriving children's access to a parent because it is a source of revenue for the states - and because they can.
Social Security Covers Welfare
The most basic component of the federal welfare system was originally created by the Social Security Act with the intent of providing assistance to families in which the parent who financially supported the family was absent due to death, or where a disability prevented that parent from providing for the family.� Unfortunately, the welfare system has shifted away from providing assistance to needy families into a system of entitlement and abuse by both the state and the welfare recipient.
Welfare programs are a combined effort between federal and state government.� Federal welfare programs impose voluntary guidelines on the states and provide block grant funding for compliance. These block grants similarly resemble how the states' are granted federal funding for enacting motorcycle-helmet and motor vehicle seat-belt legislation or risk losing substantial federal highway repair dollars.� States are not required to participate in the federal welfare programs created within Social Security; state participation is strictly voluntary - but by not participating, the state is turning down extremely large sums of federal money.
Title IV (four) of the Social Security Act consists of four parts (A, B, D, and E) and provides for the annual appropriation of block grant funding to subsidize the operation of various state-level welfare programs as outlined in each part of the title as long as the states are compliant to the federal guidelines.
Title IV, Part A (or IV-A) is the most widely recognized welfare program, and is referred to as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF.
Formerly known as AFDC, the TANF welfare program imposes federal guidelines to which all states must adhere in order to receive billions of dollars in federal block grant funding.� This money is only available to a state when that state fully or substantially complies with these federally imposed guidelines. The complying individual states can use the money they receive to pay for the administration of their own programs, and to provide cash assistance to "needy" families pursuant to the federal guidelines.
The type of program described in Title IV-A is referred to as an �entitlement� program at both the state and welfare recipient level because it entitles the complying states to receive blocks of grant money, and it entitles the recipients who qualify to receive a certain amount of money as well.
Eligibility Requirements in Title IV-A (TANF) Exclude the Middle-Class
Eligibility must be proven in order to receive services and cash assistance through the IV-A TANF welfare program.� The eligibility requirement, which uses income level as an indicator to demonstrate need, limits program participation to families with dependent children that show an actual need for income assistance.� Not every person is eligible to receive cash assistance benefits and services through the TANF welfare program, and sometimes eligibility is limited to only the children of "needy" families.
Paternity establishment is one requirement, except in limited circumstances, that determines continuing eligibility of benefits to a recipient.� If paternity is not already established or paternity is not actively being sought by the recipient, the recipient�s portion of any cash assistance is reduced or even completely discontinued.� If paternity is successfully established, the recipient is required to surrender and assign to the state any child support benefits established by court order.
Other eligibility requirements provide restrictions to the duration of Title IV-A benefits to 5 years and mandatory requirements for recipients to participate in certain work activities. Also, if the recipient is an un-emancipated minor with a child, the minor must be involved in schooling and be under the supervision of a responsible adult.
Welfare Reform
In the eyes of many, including Congress, the IV-A TANF welfare program has been widely abused since its inception.� People have been known to alter their living conditions to fit the eligibility requirements in order to receive the cash assistance offered by the program.� Abuse has prompted Congress to reform the entire Title IV welfare system by modifying the federal guidelines, changing how the states operate welfare programs - including who is eligible and for how long benefits may be received.
Attempts by Congress to reform welfare have caused the spurious growth of new and expanded programs within Title IV.� In addition to other programs, Title IV currently includes a Child Support and Establishment of Paternity welfare program in Part D (Title IV-D).
The federal Title IV-D program makes large sums of grant money available to the states through the Department of Health and Human Services' (DHHS) Administration for Children and Families' (ACF) Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). In Fiscal Year 2006, Congress appropriated $4,200,000,000 (4.2 billion dollars) for the states that operate programs in accordance with federal guidelines.
Child Support Enforcement is a Welfare Program
The purpose for the creation of the IV-D welfare program was to recover taxpayer money which was being spent by the federal government on needy families under Title IV-A (TANF).� The intent of Congress was to slow the drain that the Title IV-A (TANF) cash assistance program had on the budget. �The presumption was that single mothers with a high incidence of out-of-wedlock births were the proximate cause of the rising welfare expenditures. Congress attempted to shift the financial burden from their own budget to the parent who abandoned the family.
The result of Congress' intention was the creation of Title IV-D federally mandated guidelines, incentive block grants, and performance based grants being made available to the states for their operation of federally compliant programs.� States that would comply with the federal guidelines made it a priority to collect money (termed as "child support") from willfully absent parents who had abandoned their parental responsibilities to their children.� The goal was twofold:� To reimburse the expense of providing public assistance to children who had been willfully abandoned by a parent (and thus forced to become dependent on public assistance to satisfy basic needs), and to ensure continued financial support from willfully absent parents with children that were at risk of requiring public assistance if they didn�t receive support (to prevent them from requiring public assistance to satisfy basic needs).
In essence, the federal guidelines wanted the states to function as collection agencies, recovering financial support from parents who had willfully abandoned their parental responsibilities to their children.� The result, however, was different from the intent and has caused the state welfare programs to adjust their environment to have a greater need, which has caused the program to collect from willing parents that would ordinarily provide a loving environment for their children absent a court order limiting a parent's involvement. Despite the original intent of the IV-D welfare program, it now provides an incentive for the states to use their family courts to produce forcibly absent parents in order to increase the states' IV-D welfare caseload.
Nonexistent Eligibility Requirements for IV-D Welfare Isolate Children from Willing Parents
There are no limitations for participation, or eligibility requirements for recipients of the Title IV-D welfare program. This lack of eligibility requirements has been used to trap otherwise willing and fit parents, particularly of the middle-class, into participating in this program for the purpose of increasing federal reporting numbers.� The forced inclusion of the middle-class maximizes the federal block grants being allocated for the operation of each state's Title IV-D welfare program. The Title IV-D welfare model isolates children from an otherwise willing custodian.
The lack of any eligibility requirements for Title IV-D welfare services has caused exponential growth within this welfare program as well as in private �professional� sectors.� In fact, an entire industry has evolved from the creation of the federal CSE program, which will be discussed later in this document.� This entire private industry generates even more money from involvement in domestic relations disputes - turning a delicate private family matter into a money-maker for both the private and public sectors.
The lack of any eligibility requirements gives a huge financial incentive to every state to include middle-class divorcing parents, and to isolate a child from an otherwise willing and fit parent.� By including the middle-class, state family courts and associated state agencies have expanded the operation of their Title IV-D welfare programs well beyond needy families.� This lack of eligibility has led to the near complete inclusion of the middle-class, which has given a benefit to the state of larger child support awards to be collected from an otherwise willing and fit parent. The result is that children are being isolated from physical contact with a willing parent in lieu of financial gains enjoyed by the other parent, and by the state - all through the issuance of a court order.
The states have resorted to forcing parents involved in domestic relations matters into the welfare system either as wards of the state or as welfare recipients, whether or not either parent has actually willfully abandoned the child or requires public assistance.� After the parents are included into the operating Title IV-D welfare program, one parent is then groomed into a role of non-custodial or forcibly absent parent.� A court order is then issued against the now absent parent to pay child support through a state disbursement unit to the other parent who may or may not be equipped financially to run their own household in the first place - despite the other parent's ability to maintain an intact loving and caring household.
Inclusion of Middle-Class into Welfare = More Federal Funding
The exponential inclusion of the middle-class into the state operated Title IV-D Welfare System has facilitated and furthered a perceived need for increased funding from the federal government to the states.� Because there is an overwhelming majority of middle-class parents that have child support automatically withheld from their paychecks, there is the appearance of a tremendously successful state run Title IV-D welfare program - and it causes even more federal incentive payments and reimbursement funding to be received by the states.
Even amidst cutbacks by the federal government for entitlement block grants and restrictions on the use federal incentive dollars as matching funds, the states' standing remains to gain billions in funding by including more and more of the middle-class in their welfare programs.
To be more specific: We believe that Title IV welfare programs actually encourage the diminishment of parents' roles in the lives of their children, and that these programs actually provide financial incentives for the breakup of the family - which is incidentally the exact opposite of the purpose of Title IV in reducing family dependence on government and encouraging safe and stable families.
The consequence of how and why the states receive federal funding is providing financial incentives to the state, its agencies, its human services professionals, and its family courts in general to create court-ordered child-support paying absentee parents wherever it can, and by whatever means available.� The states' manufacturing of non-custodial parents maximizes incoming federal and state revenue redistribution.� Similar to those who were accused of abusing the Title IV-A welfare program, which prompted reform, the states are now modifying their own environment in order to receive more federal money.
Creating Non-Custodian = More Child Support = More Federal Funding
Title IV created incentives for the states that were intended to reduce the occurrence of single parent households; however these incentives have caused an exact opposite result.� Instead of looking to Congressional intent, one only needs to look at the results.
State family court judges, agencies, and both public and private professionals now have a pecuniary interest in establishing single-parent households in which the majority of a child�s time is limited by court order to be spent with only one parent.� There is now a disincentive for a child to be equally placed with both parents where those parents share equal responsibilities while maintaining their own homes and lifestyles.� If the state family courts do not produce an absent or �non-custodial� parent through their orders, the courts would effectively exempt the state (and any associated professional beneficiaries) from receiving the billions of dollars in federal funding which is offered through compliance with federally imposed welfare guidelines.
Federal Funding: A Working Perspective
The U.S. Tax Payer is solely supporting the middle-class's inclusion in the Title IV-D program because there is no reimbursement to welfare.� For Fiscal Year 2006, Congress has appropriated $4,200,000,000 (4.2 billion dollars) from the collection of federal and Social Security taxes solely to fund the operations of federally compliant state IV-D welfare programs. Despite a commonly held public misconception that child support enforcement activities are funded by the people within the system, the fact is that this welfare program is funded with the money that comes from the U.S. Taxpayer in the form of federal and Social Security taxes.
The federal funding is based on the reported needs of the multitude of federal and state bureaucracies operating within the IV-D welfare program.� The need is further amplified by increasing the number of forced absentee parents being generated from the family courts each year.
In fact, an entire national special interest lobby comprised of judges� associations; national child support enforcement associations (representing both private and public sectors); state bar associations; labor unions representing government employees; social workers associations; and everyone else with a stake in the multi-billion-dollar industry that the Title IV-D welfare program has created, exists solely to ensure that the current annual flow of federal funding into the states continues increasingly and remains uninterrupted.
The U.S. tax payer is supporting two-thirds of the federal expenditures associated with the inclusion of the middle-class in the operation of the state Title IV-D programs.� The remaining one-third of the expenses for the inclusion of the middle-class is left up to the state and local governments - which again, is paid for with taxpayer money.� The bottom line is that the federal, state, and local governments are footing the bill with our tax dollars for the inclusion of the middle-class in the state operated Title IV-D welfare program.
Federal Reimbursement Funding
Out of the total $4.2 Billion appropriated by Congress for the operation of federally compliant state Title IV-D welfare program, there exists unchecked federal reimbursement funding to the states for the following: 66% of the costs of their Child Support Enforcement (CSE) operational activities (which range all the way down to the activities of each of the states� county prosecutors in domestic relations and paternity cases); 80% of the states� costs related to the improvement of technology as related to CSE activities; and, most recently changed to 66% from 90% for the costs of genetic DNA testing in paternity establishment cases.
Reimbursement funding has no performance standards or requirements, so even the most ill-performing state operated IV-D welfare programs still get federally reimbursed for their lackluster and ineffective operations.
The massive federal funding available to the states have led judicial discretion, government agencies, and professionals to establish that it is now in the �best interests of the child� to limit the child's involvement with one of their own otherwise willing, capable, and available parents.
In essence, the more cases involving Title IV-D welfare services that a court can create, the more operational expenses it will endure, and the more federal funding it will be able to pursue and receive as a reward for undermining a child's involvement with one of their own parents.
Performance Based Federal Incentive Funding
Title IV-D also provides performance-based federal incentive funding to the states based on certain criteria that is used to measure the states' performance of certain program functions.
Incentive funding comes from the total funding appropriated by Congress for the operation of the CSE program ($4.2 Billion).� The total incentive funding available to the states is a fixed amount per fiscal year.� For FY2006, the total available incentive funding is $458,000,000; and each participating state competes for a share of this total.
Each state competes based on their performance measure of the following criteria:
� The paternity establishment performance level.
� The support order performance level.
� The current payment performance level.
� The arrearage performance level.
� The cost-effectiveness performance level.
Conclusion
As Robert Burns once wrote in To a Mouse:
�The best laid schemes o� mice an� men gang aft agley� (which is popularly misquoted as: The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray).
Mr. Burns� concept seems to be applicable to Congress� intentions in Title IV-D as the intentions sound good, but the result actually undermines the stated purpose of Title IV welfare services.
The U.S. Tax Payer, including the poor, is currently footing the bill for the inclusion of the middle-class into state operated Title IV-D welfare programs because of the lack of eligibility requirements in the federally imposed guidelines. In order to strengthen families, and to better meet the goals of Title IV, it is imperative for eligibility requirements to be included in the federal guidelines to the states.� Without eligibility requirements, states will continue to have an incentive to limit children's involvement with an otherwise willing, caring, loving, and fit parent.
The states are currently undermining the purpose of Congress' Title IV, which is to keep families together. It's a commonly held belief that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions � Congress' intent may have been well-meaning, but the result has created another welfare abuser... the states.
http://www.laryholland.com/ssacse/
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Nationwide Mother's Day Protest
Nationwide Mother's Day Protest
Help bring national attention to CPS abuse, legal kidnapping, child trafficking, and corruption of epic proportions. Participate in a national event to put CPS on the media hotseat.
When: May 9, 2010 -- Mothers Day
Where: Your City Court House sidewalk
If you live in the capital city of your state, go to the State Capital Building, or better still, join us at the White House.
What: Take a baby doll, stuffed animal or teddy bear to your local courthouse or state building and drop it on the sidewalk, as a memorial to our lost generation of children. Attach a note with a summary of your own story (or a friend's story).
It is our goal to make a public statement and attract publicity on Mother's Day nationwide. Therefore, we need dolls piled high in order to attract the press city to city and coast to coast.
Please spread the word.
Alert your local television and radio stations.
Send bulletins on all your social networks, forums and blogs.
We have 8-weeks to put this together, so please, move on this right away.
Thanks to all for your support. If all across the country on the same day – Mother's Day -- dolls show up on every courthouse sidewalk, representing our stolen children the reporters will come.
Mother's Day at the White House
Please join us on Sunday May 9th, 2010 at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington DC to ask Obama to meet with our delegates and investigate the family courts.
If you fear judicial retribution, please make a scarf and wear it over your face. You can embroider the names of your children/grandchildren in the scarf.
On your own, you can make a sign to explain why your face is covered. "I fear judicial retaliation for trying to protect my child (grandchild)."
For additional details and to get involved contact:
Survivors Helping Victims
P.O. Box 1365
Clifton Park, NY 12065
(518) 605-1637
Labels: Child Protective Services, Mother's Day, national, protest
posted by Annette M. Hall @ 3/24/2010 04:27:00 AM
Help bring national attention to CPS abuse, legal kidnapping, child trafficking, and corruption of epic proportions. Participate in a national event to put CPS on the media hotseat.
When: May 9, 2010 -- Mothers Day
Where: Your City Court House sidewalk
If you live in the capital city of your state, go to the State Capital Building, or better still, join us at the White House.
What: Take a baby doll, stuffed animal or teddy bear to your local courthouse or state building and drop it on the sidewalk, as a memorial to our lost generation of children. Attach a note with a summary of your own story (or a friend's story).
It is our goal to make a public statement and attract publicity on Mother's Day nationwide. Therefore, we need dolls piled high in order to attract the press city to city and coast to coast.
Please spread the word.
Alert your local television and radio stations.
Send bulletins on all your social networks, forums and blogs.
We have 8-weeks to put this together, so please, move on this right away.
Thanks to all for your support. If all across the country on the same day – Mother's Day -- dolls show up on every courthouse sidewalk, representing our stolen children the reporters will come.
Mother's Day at the White House
Please join us on Sunday May 9th, 2010 at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington DC to ask Obama to meet with our delegates and investigate the family courts.
If you fear judicial retribution, please make a scarf and wear it over your face. You can embroider the names of your children/grandchildren in the scarf.
On your own, you can make a sign to explain why your face is covered. "I fear judicial retaliation for trying to protect my child (grandchild)."
For additional details and to get involved contact:
Survivors Helping Victims
P.O. Box 1365
Clifton Park, NY 12065
(518) 605-1637
Labels: Child Protective Services, Mother's Day, national, protest
posted by Annette M. Hall @ 3/24/2010 04:27:00 AM
TPR and Your Lawyer
TPR and Your Lawyer
by Attorney Michael H. Agranoff
This page is intended for parents who are currently involved in a TPR trial.
I am sorry that it is so long. However, I urge you to read it.
THE NATURE OF TPR APPEALS
TPR is a parental death sentence. If you lose a TPR trial, and your kid is adopted, you are out of luck. It is true that the adopting parent may let you visit or call or send pictures, but they do not have to. So-called “open adoption agreements” are better than nothing, but they are not truly enforceable. If the adopting parent moves out of state, or claims that your visits and calls are harming the child, then no Judge will force that parent to allow visits or calls.
If you are sentenced to death in a criminal case, you have the right of appeal. If the appeal fails, you have “habeas corpus”, a legal proceeding to “collaterally attack the conviction.”
In plain language, this means that if you can show that you had ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC), you might get a new trial.
There might be other grounds for habeas in certain instances. And even if that doesn’t work, Project Innocence or reprieves may get you off the hook. You have years to try to prevail.
That is not the case in TPR.
And no matter what you do, once the adoption goes through, you are finished. You do not have the years of appeals and other hopes, as in a criminal death sentence. Since DCF moves fairly quickly on adoptions, there is no time to lose.
TPR can indeed be appealed. Such appeals are seldom successful, but they have happened. Sometimes TPR is overturned on the grounds that the evidence did not show that you failed to rehabilitate. Sometimes TPR is overturned on the grounds that the evidence did not show that DCF made reasonable efforts to reunify. Sometimes TPR is overturned because the Judge made a serious error in a ruling on evidence. That happens; but again, it is quite the exception. TPR cases are fact-bound, as lawyers say, and appeals courts seldom overturn trial judges on factual findings.
You have a better chance if you can show that you received IAC. You could then try to challenge the TPR through:
Habeas Corpus
Appeal
Motion for a new trial
However, TPR cases, at present, do not allow the right of habeas corpus. It is impossible to predict the future, but that right does not exist today (May 2008), and several experienced criminal lawyers have told me to forget it for TPR. In other words, you cannot count on it.
Neither is there a procedure for “executive reprieve”, or anything resembling Project Innocence to overturn the trial court TPR finding.
And legal aid and law school clinics, at present, show no inclination to help parents facing TPR. Why, I am not certain; but they do not.
In order to appeal, or file a motion for a new trial, you might have to show “on the record” that you received IAC.
“On the record” is a legal concept meaning that the evidence has to be brought out and recorded at the trial itself. You need testimony or exhibits or both. You cannot simply “allege” that you received IAC. There has to be some documentation.
WHAT CONSTITUTES IAC
There is, at present, no Connecticut case in which a new TPR trial was granted based on IAC. However, fortunately, there is a 2007 case from the Arizona Court of Appeals, called Donald W. That case may be persuasive evidence in a Connecticut court.
Without going into all the details, the Arizona court said that:
Habeas corpus criminal standards are not appropriate. What counts here is whether or not the parent, who wishes to preserve his or her family integrity, has the opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time in a meaningful manner.
The parent’s lawyer must provide this opportunity to be heard meaningfully.
Technical criminal standards should not apply. In TPR, the parent does not get a public jury trial in the first place. Also, if the lawyer was ineffective, the parent could not possibly get a fair trial.
What must the lawyer do? At minimum, the Court noted, the following:
Actively participate in every critical stage of the proceedings;
Investigate the procedural and factual history of the case;
Have constant contact with the parent;
Have contact with witnesses prior to the hearing;
Review all case documents, and the entire [DCF] case file;
Make reasonable efforts to get witnesses in support of the parent.
The Court made it clear that the above is not an exhaustive list. Based on what we know today, the Court might have added:
Use computer software when necessary to prepare a case chronology from multitudinous documents. Normally, in TPR, this is necessary.
Prepare the cross-examination of DCF witnesses. Include not only substantive issues, but investigate possible witness bias, which could be based upon financial ties to DCF.
Challenge all DCF documents that contain hearsay evidence. Try to keep such documents out of court whenever possible.
Prepare your own witnesses thoroughly, for both direct examination and cross.
Use every effort to get your favorable documents introduced.
Have a paper trail from the social worker, at reasonable intervals, listing precisely what the parent is doing or not doing that is inappropriate. This prevents you from being bagged at trial. Never, but never, rely on verbal statements in contested matters.
Attend as many DCF conferences as possible. Keep the parent away from situations in which he or she may be baited by DCF or service providers.
Ensure that the child’s lawyer visits the child, sees parent/child interaction, and is independently involved in the case. File a motion if needed.
File as many preliminary motions as are needed to ensure a fair trial. Your lawyer can explain this, but they include: not letting a psychologist tell the judge what the ruling should be; splitting up rehabilitation and best interest issues, so as not to prejudice the court; trying to stop hearsay evidence; and others.
Ensure that the psychological evaluation was fair, in terms of: questions; documents given to the evaluator; collateral contacts; use of valid tests (caution on projective tests and screening tools). If possible, try to get the court to pay for an independent evaluator.
Getting all the materials that you need from DCF, and never accepting stonewalling. File motions if administrative channels (up to the Commissioner) close up.
Ensure that you get every single piece of evidence that DCF has. Get the same releases and check the actual information carefully.
And this list, of course, is not exhaustive.
The point is clear: effectively representing parents in TPR proceedings is difficult. To my mind, it is the hardest part of DCF defense law. That is why I advised that the best defense is to avoid TPR in the first place. But sometimes that doesn’t work.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ARIZONA CASE
In the Donald W. case, the mother got lucky. Her lawyer was so incompetent that he actually argued with the mother on the witness stand. The mother had the presence of mind to testify that her lawyer had never met with her, except briefly in the courthouse, and had not bothered to procure evidence or challenge the State’s evidence. He even criticized the mother for not asking him to call witnesses! He also noted, after the trial started, that he really didn’t even know the State’s grounds for filing TPR. It almost seems comical, but he did not even tell the mother of the court date; she had to call the court herself.
This could be the stuff of a Monty Python movie. Seldom, in real life, has a lawyer so put his own foot in his mouth. However, there are many cases in which the lawyer takes no meaningful part in the TPR case. The Story of “Nicole”, in the TPR cases, is but one example.
The mother was granted a new TPR trial. I have no idea how it turned out, or what happened to her original lawyer.
WHAT CAN YOU DO ?
As mentioned earlier, the best way to win a TPR is to avoid it in the first place. If it happens, then you must work closely with your lawyer, and should have been working with your lawyer since the original neglect case.
But what if your lawyer will not work with you?
If your lawyer will not work with you, then losing the TPR is a virtual certainty. It is not 100% certain, but it is foolish to take chances, especially as the time for appeals is limited.
Your best chance, in that case, is to be sure that you testify in court as to IAC. However, this is not easy, since it is an emotional matter, you are not a lawyer, and your lawyer may be prepared for this. Also, the Court might not believe your testimony, and might conclude that you are “minimizing” or “shifting the blame.” It would help if you had documents or exhibits to introduce into evidence to back up your testimony, but non-lawyers often do not know how to do this, or to counter State objections to the introduction of those documents.
Nevertheless, if you are involved in TPR, and if your lawyer won’t work with you, then you had better be prepared to establish IAC; and use that as the basis for an appeal or a motion for a new trial.
CAN WE HELP YOU ?
Most people in this predicament cannot afford private lawyers. And if you hire one at a late date, that lawyer will need a postponement in order to get ready for trial. DCF will object on the grounds that the child needs permanency. It’s a difficult fight.
What our office can do is to help you prepare for the IAC defense. We will meet with you, hear your version, and offer detailed suggestions for your own testimony. However, this will only work if you have all the Court and DCF documents, and witness and exhibit lists, that you are entitled to. Therefore, you must either have these documents, or get them from DCF or your lawyer. We can also help you with that.
In effect, we will provide a second opinion to persons threatened with TPR. If you cannot retain us for trial, then the second opinion, at a reasonable charge, is limited to helping you to get a new trial on IAC grounds; should that be appropriate.
Admittedly, it is a long shot. It is up to you.
SUMMARY
A TPR is a parental death sentence. Appeal time is limited, and any appeals are impossible after the kid is adopted. If your lawyer is not working with you, then your major hope is a new trial with a different lawyer. That requires you to demonstrate ineffective assistance of counsel, which is not easy. We may be able to help in such cases.
©2009 The Law Offices of Michael H. Agranoff
99 Stafford Road, Rt. 30
Ellington, CT 06029
Phone: 860-872-1024
Fax: 860-871-1015
Email: attymikea@agranofflaw.com
http://www.agranofflaw.com/story_tprandyourlawyer.htm
by Attorney Michael H. Agranoff
This page is intended for parents who are currently involved in a TPR trial.
I am sorry that it is so long. However, I urge you to read it.
THE NATURE OF TPR APPEALS
TPR is a parental death sentence. If you lose a TPR trial, and your kid is adopted, you are out of luck. It is true that the adopting parent may let you visit or call or send pictures, but they do not have to. So-called “open adoption agreements” are better than nothing, but they are not truly enforceable. If the adopting parent moves out of state, or claims that your visits and calls are harming the child, then no Judge will force that parent to allow visits or calls.
If you are sentenced to death in a criminal case, you have the right of appeal. If the appeal fails, you have “habeas corpus”, a legal proceeding to “collaterally attack the conviction.”
In plain language, this means that if you can show that you had ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC), you might get a new trial.
There might be other grounds for habeas in certain instances. And even if that doesn’t work, Project Innocence or reprieves may get you off the hook. You have years to try to prevail.
That is not the case in TPR.
And no matter what you do, once the adoption goes through, you are finished. You do not have the years of appeals and other hopes, as in a criminal death sentence. Since DCF moves fairly quickly on adoptions, there is no time to lose.
TPR can indeed be appealed. Such appeals are seldom successful, but they have happened. Sometimes TPR is overturned on the grounds that the evidence did not show that you failed to rehabilitate. Sometimes TPR is overturned on the grounds that the evidence did not show that DCF made reasonable efforts to reunify. Sometimes TPR is overturned because the Judge made a serious error in a ruling on evidence. That happens; but again, it is quite the exception. TPR cases are fact-bound, as lawyers say, and appeals courts seldom overturn trial judges on factual findings.
You have a better chance if you can show that you received IAC. You could then try to challenge the TPR through:
Habeas Corpus
Appeal
Motion for a new trial
However, TPR cases, at present, do not allow the right of habeas corpus. It is impossible to predict the future, but that right does not exist today (May 2008), and several experienced criminal lawyers have told me to forget it for TPR. In other words, you cannot count on it.
Neither is there a procedure for “executive reprieve”, or anything resembling Project Innocence to overturn the trial court TPR finding.
And legal aid and law school clinics, at present, show no inclination to help parents facing TPR. Why, I am not certain; but they do not.
In order to appeal, or file a motion for a new trial, you might have to show “on the record” that you received IAC.
“On the record” is a legal concept meaning that the evidence has to be brought out and recorded at the trial itself. You need testimony or exhibits or both. You cannot simply “allege” that you received IAC. There has to be some documentation.
WHAT CONSTITUTES IAC
There is, at present, no Connecticut case in which a new TPR trial was granted based on IAC. However, fortunately, there is a 2007 case from the Arizona Court of Appeals, called Donald W. That case may be persuasive evidence in a Connecticut court.
Without going into all the details, the Arizona court said that:
Habeas corpus criminal standards are not appropriate. What counts here is whether or not the parent, who wishes to preserve his or her family integrity, has the opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time in a meaningful manner.
The parent’s lawyer must provide this opportunity to be heard meaningfully.
Technical criminal standards should not apply. In TPR, the parent does not get a public jury trial in the first place. Also, if the lawyer was ineffective, the parent could not possibly get a fair trial.
What must the lawyer do? At minimum, the Court noted, the following:
Actively participate in every critical stage of the proceedings;
Investigate the procedural and factual history of the case;
Have constant contact with the parent;
Have contact with witnesses prior to the hearing;
Review all case documents, and the entire [DCF] case file;
Make reasonable efforts to get witnesses in support of the parent.
The Court made it clear that the above is not an exhaustive list. Based on what we know today, the Court might have added:
Use computer software when necessary to prepare a case chronology from multitudinous documents. Normally, in TPR, this is necessary.
Prepare the cross-examination of DCF witnesses. Include not only substantive issues, but investigate possible witness bias, which could be based upon financial ties to DCF.
Challenge all DCF documents that contain hearsay evidence. Try to keep such documents out of court whenever possible.
Prepare your own witnesses thoroughly, for both direct examination and cross.
Use every effort to get your favorable documents introduced.
Have a paper trail from the social worker, at reasonable intervals, listing precisely what the parent is doing or not doing that is inappropriate. This prevents you from being bagged at trial. Never, but never, rely on verbal statements in contested matters.
Attend as many DCF conferences as possible. Keep the parent away from situations in which he or she may be baited by DCF or service providers.
Ensure that the child’s lawyer visits the child, sees parent/child interaction, and is independently involved in the case. File a motion if needed.
File as many preliminary motions as are needed to ensure a fair trial. Your lawyer can explain this, but they include: not letting a psychologist tell the judge what the ruling should be; splitting up rehabilitation and best interest issues, so as not to prejudice the court; trying to stop hearsay evidence; and others.
Ensure that the psychological evaluation was fair, in terms of: questions; documents given to the evaluator; collateral contacts; use of valid tests (caution on projective tests and screening tools). If possible, try to get the court to pay for an independent evaluator.
Getting all the materials that you need from DCF, and never accepting stonewalling. File motions if administrative channels (up to the Commissioner) close up.
Ensure that you get every single piece of evidence that DCF has. Get the same releases and check the actual information carefully.
And this list, of course, is not exhaustive.
The point is clear: effectively representing parents in TPR proceedings is difficult. To my mind, it is the hardest part of DCF defense law. That is why I advised that the best defense is to avoid TPR in the first place. But sometimes that doesn’t work.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ARIZONA CASE
In the Donald W. case, the mother got lucky. Her lawyer was so incompetent that he actually argued with the mother on the witness stand. The mother had the presence of mind to testify that her lawyer had never met with her, except briefly in the courthouse, and had not bothered to procure evidence or challenge the State’s evidence. He even criticized the mother for not asking him to call witnesses! He also noted, after the trial started, that he really didn’t even know the State’s grounds for filing TPR. It almost seems comical, but he did not even tell the mother of the court date; she had to call the court herself.
This could be the stuff of a Monty Python movie. Seldom, in real life, has a lawyer so put his own foot in his mouth. However, there are many cases in which the lawyer takes no meaningful part in the TPR case. The Story of “Nicole”, in the TPR cases, is but one example.
The mother was granted a new TPR trial. I have no idea how it turned out, or what happened to her original lawyer.
WHAT CAN YOU DO ?
As mentioned earlier, the best way to win a TPR is to avoid it in the first place. If it happens, then you must work closely with your lawyer, and should have been working with your lawyer since the original neglect case.
But what if your lawyer will not work with you?
If your lawyer will not work with you, then losing the TPR is a virtual certainty. It is not 100% certain, but it is foolish to take chances, especially as the time for appeals is limited.
Your best chance, in that case, is to be sure that you testify in court as to IAC. However, this is not easy, since it is an emotional matter, you are not a lawyer, and your lawyer may be prepared for this. Also, the Court might not believe your testimony, and might conclude that you are “minimizing” or “shifting the blame.” It would help if you had documents or exhibits to introduce into evidence to back up your testimony, but non-lawyers often do not know how to do this, or to counter State objections to the introduction of those documents.
Nevertheless, if you are involved in TPR, and if your lawyer won’t work with you, then you had better be prepared to establish IAC; and use that as the basis for an appeal or a motion for a new trial.
CAN WE HELP YOU ?
Most people in this predicament cannot afford private lawyers. And if you hire one at a late date, that lawyer will need a postponement in order to get ready for trial. DCF will object on the grounds that the child needs permanency. It’s a difficult fight.
What our office can do is to help you prepare for the IAC defense. We will meet with you, hear your version, and offer detailed suggestions for your own testimony. However, this will only work if you have all the Court and DCF documents, and witness and exhibit lists, that you are entitled to. Therefore, you must either have these documents, or get them from DCF or your lawyer. We can also help you with that.
In effect, we will provide a second opinion to persons threatened with TPR. If you cannot retain us for trial, then the second opinion, at a reasonable charge, is limited to helping you to get a new trial on IAC grounds; should that be appropriate.
Admittedly, it is a long shot. It is up to you.
SUMMARY
A TPR is a parental death sentence. Appeal time is limited, and any appeals are impossible after the kid is adopted. If your lawyer is not working with you, then your major hope is a new trial with a different lawyer. That requires you to demonstrate ineffective assistance of counsel, which is not easy. We may be able to help in such cases.
©2009 The Law Offices of Michael H. Agranoff
99 Stafford Road, Rt. 30
Ellington, CT 06029
Phone: 860-872-1024
Fax: 860-871-1015
Email: attymikea@agranofflaw.com
http://www.agranofflaw.com/story_tprandyourlawyer.htm
Social Security ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENTS
http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title04/0473A.htm
ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENTS
Sec. 473A. [42 U.S.C. 673b] (a) Grant Authority.—Subject to the availability of such amounts as may be provided in advance in appropriations Acts for this purpose, the Secretary shall make a grant to each State that is an incentive-eligible State for a fiscal year in an amount equal to the adoption incentive payment payable to the State under this section for the fiscal year, which shall be payable in the immediately succeeding fiscal year.
(b) Incentive–Eligible State.—A State is an incentive-eligible State for a fiscal year if—
(1) the State has a plan approved under this part for the fiscal year;
(2)(A) the number of foster child adoptions in the State during the fiscal year exceeds the base number of foster child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year;
(B) the number of older child adoptions in the State during the fiscal year exceeds the base number of older child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year; or
(C) the State’s foster child adoption rate for the fiscal year exceeds the highest ever foster child adoption rate determined for the State;
(3) the State is in compliance with subsection (c) for the fiscal year;
(4) the State provides health insurance coverage to any child with special needs (as determined under section 473(c)) for whom there is in effect an adoption assistance agreement between a State and an adoptive parent or parents; and
(5) the fiscal year is any of fiscal years 2008 through 2012.
(c) Data Requirements.—
(1) In general.—A State is in compliance with this subsection for a fiscal year if the State has provided to the Secretary the data described in paragraph (2)—
(A) for fiscal years 1995 through 1997 (or, if the first fiscal year for which the State seeks a grant under this section is after fiscal year 1998, the fiscal year that precedes such first fiscal year); and
(B) for each succeeding fiscal year that precedes the fiscal year.
(2) Determination of numbers of adoptions based on afcars data.—The Secretary shall determine the numbers of foster child adoptions, of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions, and of older child adoptions in a State during a fiscal year, and the foster child adoption rate for the state for the fiscal year for purposes of this section, on the basis of data meeting the requirements of the system established pursuant to section 479, as reported by the State and approved by the Secretary by August 1 of the succeeding fiscal year.
(3) No waiver of afcars requirements.—This section shall not be construed to alter or affect any requirement of section 479 or of any regulation prescribed under such section with respect to reporting of data by States, or to waive any penalty for failure to comply with such a requirement.
(d) Adoption Incentive Payment.—
(1) In general.—Except as provided in paragraph (2), the adoption incentive payment payable to a State for a fiscal year under this section shall be equal to the sum of—
(A) $4,000, multiplied by the amount (if any) by which the number of foster child adoptions in the State during the fiscal year exceeds the base number of foster child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year;
(B) $4,000, multiplied by the amount (if any) by which the number of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions in the State during the fiscal year exceeds the base number of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year; and
(C) $8,000, multiplied by the amount (if any) by which the number of older child adoptions in the State during the fiscal year exceeds the base number of older child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year.
(2) Pro rata adjustment if insufficient funds available.—For any fiscal year, if the total amount of adoption incentive payments otherwise payable under this section for a fiscal year exceeds the amount appropriated pursuant to subsection (h) for the fiscal year, the amount of the adoption incentive payment payable to each State under this section for the fiscal year shall be—
(A) the amount of the adoption incentive payment that would otherwise be payable to the State under this section for the fiscal year; multiplied by
(B) the percentage represented by the amount so appropriated for the fiscal year, divided by the total amount of adoption incentive payments otherwise payable under this section for the fiscal year.
(3) Increased incentive payment for exceeding the highest ever foster child adoption rate.—
(A) In General.—If—
(i) for fiscal year 2009 or any fiscal year thereafter the total amount of adoption incentive payments payable under paragraph (1) of this subsection are less than the amount appropriated under subsection (h) for the fiscal year; and
(ii) a State’s foster child adoption rate for that fiscal year exceeds the highest ever foster child adoption rate determined for the State, then the adoption incentive payment otherwise determined under paragraph (1) of this subsection for the State shall be increased, subject to subparagraph (C) of this paragraph, by the amount determined for the State under subparagraph (B) of this paragraph.
(B) Amount of increase.—For purposes of subparagraph (A), the amount determined under this subparagraph with respect to a State and a fiscal year is the amount equal to the product of—
(i) $1,000; and
(ii) the excess of—
(I) the number of foster child adoptions in the State in the fiscal year; over
(II) the product (rounded to the nearest whole number) of—
(aa) the highest ever foster child adoption rate determined for the State; and
(bb) the number of children in foster care under the supervision of the State on the last day of the preceding fiscal year.
(C) Pro rata adjustment if insufficient funds available.—For any fiscal year, if the total amount of increases in adoption incentive payments otherwise payable under this paragraph for a fiscal year exceeds the amount available for such increases for the fiscal year, the amount of the increase payable to each State under this paragraph for the fiscal year shall be—
(i) the amount of the increase that would otherwise be payable to the State under this paragraph for the fiscal year; multiplied by
(ii) the percentage represented by the amount so available for the fiscal year, divided by the total amount of increases otherwise payable under this paragraph for the fiscal year.
(e) 24-Month Availability of Incentive Payments.—Payments to a State under this section in a fiscal year shall remain available for use by the State for the 24-month period beginning with the month in which the payments are made.
(f) Limitations on Use of Incentive Payments.—A State shall not expend an amount paid to the State under this section except to provide to children or families any service (including post-adoption services) that may be provided under part B or E. Amounts expended by a State in accordance with the preceding sentence shall be disregarded in determining State expenditures for purposes of Federal matching payments under sections 424, 434, and 474.
(g) Definitions.—As used in this section:
(1) Foster child adoption.—The term “foster child adoption” means the final adoption of a child who, at the time of adoptive placement, was in foster care under the supervision of the State.
(2) Special needs adoption.—The term “special needs adoption” means the final adoption of a child for whom an adoption assistance agreement is in effect under section 473.
(3) Base number of foster child adoptions.—The term “base number of foster child adoptions for a State” means, with respect to any fiscal year, the number of foster child adoptions in the State in fiscal year 2007.
(4) Base number of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions.—The term “base number of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions for a State” means, with respect to any fiscal year, the number of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions in the State in fiscal year 2007.
(5) Base number of older child adoptions.—The term “base number of older child adoptions for a State” means, with respect to any fiscal year, the number of older child adoptions in the State in fiscal year 2007.
(6) Older child adoptions.—The term “older child adoptions” means the final adoption of a child who has attained 9 years of age if—
(A) at the time of the adoptive placement, the child was in foster care under the supervision of the State; or (B) an adoption assistance agreement was in effect under section 473 with respect to the child.
(7) Highest ever foster child adoption rate.—The term “highest ever foster child adoption rate” means, with respect to any fiscal year, the highest foster child adoption rate determined for any fiscal year in the period that begins with fiscal year 2002 and ends with the preceding fiscal year.
(8) Foster child adoption rate.—The term “foster child adoption rate” means, with respect to a State and a fiscal year, the percentage determined by dividing—
(A) the number of foster child adoptions finalized in the State during the fiscal year; by
(B) the number of children in foster care under the supervision of the State on the last day of the preceding fiscal year.
(h) Limitations on Authorization of Appropriations.—
(1) In general.—For grants under subsection (a), there are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary—
(A) $20,000,000 for fiscal year 1999;
(B) $43,000,000 for fiscal year 2000;
(C) $20,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2001 through 2003, and
(D) $43,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2004 through 2013.
(2) Availability.—Amounts appropriated under paragraph (1), or under any other law for grants under subsection (a), are authorized to remain available until expended, but not after fiscal year 2013.
(i) Technical Assistance.—
(1) In general.—The Secretary may, directly or through grants or contracts, provide technical assistance to assist States and local communities to reach their targets for increased numbers of adoptions and, to the extent that adoption is not possible, alternative permanent placements, for children in foster care.
(2) Description of the character of the technical assistance.—The technical assistance provided under paragraph (1) may support the goal of encouraging more adoptions out of the foster care system, when adoptions promote the best interests of children, and may include the following:
(A) The development of best practice guidelines for expediting termination of parental rights.
(B) Models to encourage the use of concurrent planning.
(C) The development of specialized units and expertise in moving children toward adoption as a permanency goal.
(D) The development of risk assessment tools to facilitate early identification of the children who will be at risk of harm if returned home.
(E) Models to encourage the fast tracking of children who have not attained 1 year of age into pre–adoptive placements.
(F) Development of programs that place children into pre-adoptive families without waiting for termination of parental rights.
(3) Targeting of technical assistance to the courts.—Not less than 50 percent of any amount appropriated pursuant to paragraph (4) shall be used to provide technical assistance to the courts.
(4) Limitations on authorization of appropriations.—To carry out this subsection, there are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of Health and Human Services not to exceed $10,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2004 through 2006.
ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENTS
Sec. 473A. [42 U.S.C. 673b] (a) Grant Authority.—Subject to the availability of such amounts as may be provided in advance in appropriations Acts for this purpose, the Secretary shall make a grant to each State that is an incentive-eligible State for a fiscal year in an amount equal to the adoption incentive payment payable to the State under this section for the fiscal year, which shall be payable in the immediately succeeding fiscal year.
(b) Incentive–Eligible State.—A State is an incentive-eligible State for a fiscal year if—
(1) the State has a plan approved under this part for the fiscal year;
(2)(A) the number of foster child adoptions in the State during the fiscal year exceeds the base number of foster child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year;
(B) the number of older child adoptions in the State during the fiscal year exceeds the base number of older child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year; or
(C) the State’s foster child adoption rate for the fiscal year exceeds the highest ever foster child adoption rate determined for the State;
(3) the State is in compliance with subsection (c) for the fiscal year;
(4) the State provides health insurance coverage to any child with special needs (as determined under section 473(c)) for whom there is in effect an adoption assistance agreement between a State and an adoptive parent or parents; and
(5) the fiscal year is any of fiscal years 2008 through 2012.
(c) Data Requirements.—
(1) In general.—A State is in compliance with this subsection for a fiscal year if the State has provided to the Secretary the data described in paragraph (2)—
(A) for fiscal years 1995 through 1997 (or, if the first fiscal year for which the State seeks a grant under this section is after fiscal year 1998, the fiscal year that precedes such first fiscal year); and
(B) for each succeeding fiscal year that precedes the fiscal year.
(2) Determination of numbers of adoptions based on afcars data.—The Secretary shall determine the numbers of foster child adoptions, of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions, and of older child adoptions in a State during a fiscal year, and the foster child adoption rate for the state for the fiscal year for purposes of this section, on the basis of data meeting the requirements of the system established pursuant to section 479, as reported by the State and approved by the Secretary by August 1 of the succeeding fiscal year.
(3) No waiver of afcars requirements.—This section shall not be construed to alter or affect any requirement of section 479 or of any regulation prescribed under such section with respect to reporting of data by States, or to waive any penalty for failure to comply with such a requirement.
(d) Adoption Incentive Payment.—
(1) In general.—Except as provided in paragraph (2), the adoption incentive payment payable to a State for a fiscal year under this section shall be equal to the sum of—
(A) $4,000, multiplied by the amount (if any) by which the number of foster child adoptions in the State during the fiscal year exceeds the base number of foster child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year;
(B) $4,000, multiplied by the amount (if any) by which the number of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions in the State during the fiscal year exceeds the base number of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year; and
(C) $8,000, multiplied by the amount (if any) by which the number of older child adoptions in the State during the fiscal year exceeds the base number of older child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year.
(2) Pro rata adjustment if insufficient funds available.—For any fiscal year, if the total amount of adoption incentive payments otherwise payable under this section for a fiscal year exceeds the amount appropriated pursuant to subsection (h) for the fiscal year, the amount of the adoption incentive payment payable to each State under this section for the fiscal year shall be—
(A) the amount of the adoption incentive payment that would otherwise be payable to the State under this section for the fiscal year; multiplied by
(B) the percentage represented by the amount so appropriated for the fiscal year, divided by the total amount of adoption incentive payments otherwise payable under this section for the fiscal year.
(3) Increased incentive payment for exceeding the highest ever foster child adoption rate.—
(A) In General.—If—
(i) for fiscal year 2009 or any fiscal year thereafter the total amount of adoption incentive payments payable under paragraph (1) of this subsection are less than the amount appropriated under subsection (h) for the fiscal year; and
(ii) a State’s foster child adoption rate for that fiscal year exceeds the highest ever foster child adoption rate determined for the State, then the adoption incentive payment otherwise determined under paragraph (1) of this subsection for the State shall be increased, subject to subparagraph (C) of this paragraph, by the amount determined for the State under subparagraph (B) of this paragraph.
(B) Amount of increase.—For purposes of subparagraph (A), the amount determined under this subparagraph with respect to a State and a fiscal year is the amount equal to the product of—
(i) $1,000; and
(ii) the excess of—
(I) the number of foster child adoptions in the State in the fiscal year; over
(II) the product (rounded to the nearest whole number) of—
(aa) the highest ever foster child adoption rate determined for the State; and
(bb) the number of children in foster care under the supervision of the State on the last day of the preceding fiscal year.
(C) Pro rata adjustment if insufficient funds available.—For any fiscal year, if the total amount of increases in adoption incentive payments otherwise payable under this paragraph for a fiscal year exceeds the amount available for such increases for the fiscal year, the amount of the increase payable to each State under this paragraph for the fiscal year shall be—
(i) the amount of the increase that would otherwise be payable to the State under this paragraph for the fiscal year; multiplied by
(ii) the percentage represented by the amount so available for the fiscal year, divided by the total amount of increases otherwise payable under this paragraph for the fiscal year.
(e) 24-Month Availability of Incentive Payments.—Payments to a State under this section in a fiscal year shall remain available for use by the State for the 24-month period beginning with the month in which the payments are made.
(f) Limitations on Use of Incentive Payments.—A State shall not expend an amount paid to the State under this section except to provide to children or families any service (including post-adoption services) that may be provided under part B or E. Amounts expended by a State in accordance with the preceding sentence shall be disregarded in determining State expenditures for purposes of Federal matching payments under sections 424, 434, and 474.
(g) Definitions.—As used in this section:
(1) Foster child adoption.—The term “foster child adoption” means the final adoption of a child who, at the time of adoptive placement, was in foster care under the supervision of the State.
(2) Special needs adoption.—The term “special needs adoption” means the final adoption of a child for whom an adoption assistance agreement is in effect under section 473.
(3) Base number of foster child adoptions.—The term “base number of foster child adoptions for a State” means, with respect to any fiscal year, the number of foster child adoptions in the State in fiscal year 2007.
(4) Base number of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions.—The term “base number of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions for a State” means, with respect to any fiscal year, the number of special needs adoptions that are not older child adoptions in the State in fiscal year 2007.
(5) Base number of older child adoptions.—The term “base number of older child adoptions for a State” means, with respect to any fiscal year, the number of older child adoptions in the State in fiscal year 2007.
(6) Older child adoptions.—The term “older child adoptions” means the final adoption of a child who has attained 9 years of age if—
(A) at the time of the adoptive placement, the child was in foster care under the supervision of the State; or (B) an adoption assistance agreement was in effect under section 473 with respect to the child.
(7) Highest ever foster child adoption rate.—The term “highest ever foster child adoption rate” means, with respect to any fiscal year, the highest foster child adoption rate determined for any fiscal year in the period that begins with fiscal year 2002 and ends with the preceding fiscal year.
(8) Foster child adoption rate.—The term “foster child adoption rate” means, with respect to a State and a fiscal year, the percentage determined by dividing—
(A) the number of foster child adoptions finalized in the State during the fiscal year; by
(B) the number of children in foster care under the supervision of the State on the last day of the preceding fiscal year.
(h) Limitations on Authorization of Appropriations.—
(1) In general.—For grants under subsection (a), there are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary—
(A) $20,000,000 for fiscal year 1999;
(B) $43,000,000 for fiscal year 2000;
(C) $20,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2001 through 2003, and
(D) $43,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2004 through 2013.
(2) Availability.—Amounts appropriated under paragraph (1), or under any other law for grants under subsection (a), are authorized to remain available until expended, but not after fiscal year 2013.
(i) Technical Assistance.—
(1) In general.—The Secretary may, directly or through grants or contracts, provide technical assistance to assist States and local communities to reach their targets for increased numbers of adoptions and, to the extent that adoption is not possible, alternative permanent placements, for children in foster care.
(2) Description of the character of the technical assistance.—The technical assistance provided under paragraph (1) may support the goal of encouraging more adoptions out of the foster care system, when adoptions promote the best interests of children, and may include the following:
(A) The development of best practice guidelines for expediting termination of parental rights.
(B) Models to encourage the use of concurrent planning.
(C) The development of specialized units and expertise in moving children toward adoption as a permanency goal.
(D) The development of risk assessment tools to facilitate early identification of the children who will be at risk of harm if returned home.
(E) Models to encourage the fast tracking of children who have not attained 1 year of age into pre–adoptive placements.
(F) Development of programs that place children into pre-adoptive families without waiting for termination of parental rights.
(3) Targeting of technical assistance to the courts.—Not less than 50 percent of any amount appropriated pursuant to paragraph (4) shall be used to provide technical assistance to the courts.
(4) Limitations on authorization of appropriations.—To carry out this subsection, there are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of Health and Human Services not to exceed $10,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2004 through 2006.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Searching for Emma: Father Fights for Daughter Given Up for Adoption
Comment from unhappygrammy
Just as John Wyatt has been denied his rights to raise his daughter, my two grandchildren's father's have been denied rights to their children. The difference in these cases in Nashua, NH, DCYF gave the court a fictitious mans name as my granddaughter's father. We were unable to locate her father when she was illegally placed in foster care. When we finally located him, he filed for custody and paternity testing twice and was denied both times. The Probate Court Judge stated he had no standing and granted adoption of my granddaughter knowing her real father's rights were NOT terminated. The Judge even lied in his decision, stating my daughter never filed an affidavit with the court stating the baby's father, yet a copy of the affidavit was in an objection brief filed by the NH Attorney Generals office months before, not to mention the father's name was in many of my daughter's medical record's.My grandson's father's rights were never legally terminated either. DCYF chose a man with the same name, twenty years younger, who lived in Nashua. When they were told this man was not my grandsons father, their response,"So what. No big deal." My grandson was illegally adopted also.I met another mother in Nashua whose rights were terminated over her three children. One of them has a different father than the other two and his name is on the birth certificate. Instead of terminating his rights, they terminated the other mans rights for all three kids.NH DCYF and the NH Judicial system clearly do NOT follow the law. This corruption and abuse toward men as well as all other family member's need's to stop. Terminating a fictitious mans rights makes it easier and faster to terminate the mother's rights, making sure DCYF's incentive money is paid to them faster. These men don't have a chance in hell to fight for their children, any more than the rest of the relatives do.
Searching for Emma: Father Fights for Daughter Given Up for Adoption
John Wyatt Said Ex-Girlfriend Had No Right to Give Daughter to Utah Couple
167 comments By SARAH NETTER
April 16, 2010
John Wyatt never got a chance to hold his daughter. He's never even seen her. All he has are a few pictures.
John Wyatt is in a custody dispute with ex-girlfriend over baby Emma.
He hopes that will eventually change.
Wyatt, 21, is embroiled in a multi-state custody dispute after his ex-girlfriend gave their daughter, Emma, up for adoption without his consent.
"I talked about raising the baby everytime I saw her. To me there was never really an option," he told "Good Morning America" today. "I knew that I would do anything to be there for my child because I know what it's like to grow up without a father."
When Colleen Fahland got pregnant at 19, Wyatt said, he was very clear that he wanted to raise their daughter.
"Every time we talked together it was clear we were going to make a decision together," he said.
But Emma, now 1, was adopted by a family in Utah, a state known for siding with mothers in out-of-wedlock cases.
Wyatt said that he told Fahland the night before the birth that he wanted to be in the delivery room. The next day, he couldn't reach her and panicked.
Wyatt said he went with the hospital, but was told she wasn't there. But she was there and had told the hospital not to list her as a patient. He tried to enter the nursery to see his daughter and was threatened with arrest.
He tried for days to find out what happened to Fahland and his baby and was devastated to find out Fahland had given the baby up to Utah couple.
Wyatt went to court in Virginia and won custody of the infant, setting off a legal dispute between Virginia and Utah.
"It's the worst experience I have ever been through in my life," he said.
Lawyers for Fahland told ABC News that she now has "regrets" about how the situation was handled.
Wyatt's lawyer, Stanton Phillips, said Utah has made such situations "impossible" for birth fathers.
"We're being told that Utah law overrides Virginia," Phillips said, accusing Utah of ignoring federal kidnapping laws that gives the child's home state, Virgnia in this case, the authority to decide custody.
The Utah couple who adopted Emma issued a statement to ABC News that they are "saddened that Mr. Wyatt has chosen to try this case in the media, rather than the courts where it belongs."
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/baby-emma-father-fights-daughter-adoption/story?id=10392464
Just as John Wyatt has been denied his rights to raise his daughter, my two grandchildren's father's have been denied rights to their children. The difference in these cases in Nashua, NH, DCYF gave the court a fictitious mans name as my granddaughter's father. We were unable to locate her father when she was illegally placed in foster care. When we finally located him, he filed for custody and paternity testing twice and was denied both times. The Probate Court Judge stated he had no standing and granted adoption of my granddaughter knowing her real father's rights were NOT terminated. The Judge even lied in his decision, stating my daughter never filed an affidavit with the court stating the baby's father, yet a copy of the affidavit was in an objection brief filed by the NH Attorney Generals office months before, not to mention the father's name was in many of my daughter's medical record's.My grandson's father's rights were never legally terminated either. DCYF chose a man with the same name, twenty years younger, who lived in Nashua. When they were told this man was not my grandsons father, their response,"So what. No big deal." My grandson was illegally adopted also.I met another mother in Nashua whose rights were terminated over her three children. One of them has a different father than the other two and his name is on the birth certificate. Instead of terminating his rights, they terminated the other mans rights for all three kids.NH DCYF and the NH Judicial system clearly do NOT follow the law. This corruption and abuse toward men as well as all other family member's need's to stop. Terminating a fictitious mans rights makes it easier and faster to terminate the mother's rights, making sure DCYF's incentive money is paid to them faster. These men don't have a chance in hell to fight for their children, any more than the rest of the relatives do.
Searching for Emma: Father Fights for Daughter Given Up for Adoption
John Wyatt Said Ex-Girlfriend Had No Right to Give Daughter to Utah Couple
167 comments By SARAH NETTER
April 16, 2010
John Wyatt never got a chance to hold his daughter. He's never even seen her. All he has are a few pictures.
John Wyatt is in a custody dispute with ex-girlfriend over baby Emma.
He hopes that will eventually change.
Wyatt, 21, is embroiled in a multi-state custody dispute after his ex-girlfriend gave their daughter, Emma, up for adoption without his consent.
"I talked about raising the baby everytime I saw her. To me there was never really an option," he told "Good Morning America" today. "I knew that I would do anything to be there for my child because I know what it's like to grow up without a father."
When Colleen Fahland got pregnant at 19, Wyatt said, he was very clear that he wanted to raise their daughter.
"Every time we talked together it was clear we were going to make a decision together," he said.
But Emma, now 1, was adopted by a family in Utah, a state known for siding with mothers in out-of-wedlock cases.
Wyatt said that he told Fahland the night before the birth that he wanted to be in the delivery room. The next day, he couldn't reach her and panicked.
Wyatt said he went with the hospital, but was told she wasn't there. But she was there and had told the hospital not to list her as a patient. He tried to enter the nursery to see his daughter and was threatened with arrest.
He tried for days to find out what happened to Fahland and his baby and was devastated to find out Fahland had given the baby up to Utah couple.
Wyatt went to court in Virginia and won custody of the infant, setting off a legal dispute between Virginia and Utah.
"It's the worst experience I have ever been through in my life," he said.
Lawyers for Fahland told ABC News that she now has "regrets" about how the situation was handled.
Wyatt's lawyer, Stanton Phillips, said Utah has made such situations "impossible" for birth fathers.
"We're being told that Utah law overrides Virginia," Phillips said, accusing Utah of ignoring federal kidnapping laws that gives the child's home state, Virgnia in this case, the authority to decide custody.
The Utah couple who adopted Emma issued a statement to ABC News that they are "saddened that Mr. Wyatt has chosen to try this case in the media, rather than the courts where it belongs."
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/baby-emma-father-fights-daughter-adoption/story?id=10392464
Red flags overlooked in prescription drug death of 12-year-old
Red flags overlooked in prescription drug death of 12-year-old
Apr 18th, 2010 | By admin | Category: Drugging
Denis Martez and mother, Martha Quesada
Miami Herald
Red flags overlooked in prescription drug death of 12-year-old
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
April 18, 2010
Born with autism, 12-year-old Denis Maltez was “hyper, needy, pesty,” his psychiatrist wrote following a May 2007 visit.
Dr. Steven L. Kaplan solved the 70-pound boy’s problems with a prescription pad, writing orders for two different anti-psychotic drugs along with a tranquilizer and a mood stabilizer — three of them in the highest doses recommended for adults, records show.
When state medical regulators sent Kaplan letters suggesting the dosages were worrisome, he ignored them.
Two weeks after Kaplan last saw the boy, on May 23, 2007, Denis simply stopped breathing. The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office attributed the death to a life-threatening side effect of over-medication, records show.
“I . . . never had any suspicion he was being overmedicated,” Kaplan testified in a November 2009 sworn statement.
A review of records from three state agencies, however, makes clear that plenty of other people did.
Though a number of Florida agency heads have wrung their hands about Kaplan’s methods for more than three years, he has never been disciplined. The state Medicaid program, which insures the needy, asked the state Board of Medicine to investigate Kaplan in 2008, but the complaint was dismissed, records show.
Disability administrators encouraged underlings to send him new patients just as the agency’s chief described his practices as “very disturbing.”
Florida’s regulatory history with Kaplan — which includes four state agencies and thousands of pages of records — raises important questions. Among them: Does the state have an adequate regulatory scheme for doctors who work with the most vulnerable? Can the state effectively oversee doctors who reject advice from their peers?
“Three agencies all raised concerns and red flags, and each agency was saying this is somebody else’s job to take it a step further,” said Department of Children & Families Secretary George Sheldon. “I’m not sure what the solution is.”
Sheldon blamed much of the problem on historically poor billing rates for doctors who are paid by Medicaid, the state and federal insurance program for the poor and disabled.
“I think it’s difficult to recruit in the Medicaid arena any child psychiatrist,” Sheldon said. “The rates really do have an impact on who is willing to do it.”
Kaplan, who mainly practices in Miami-Dade, declined to speak with a Miami Herald reporter.
With as many as 800 patients in South Florida — all but one percent of them disabled or impoverished children insured by either Medicaid or Medicare — Kaplan is listed by the Agency for Healthcare Administration as number five on their list of doctors whose mental health prescriptions were red-flagged by an oversight group.
Denis was 8 when his volatility and violent outbursts prompted his mother, Martha Quesada, to move him into a sparkling new Miami group home called Rainbow Ranch. Administrators for the Agency for Persons with Disabilities had recommended the home, run by a man who had once pleaded guilty to practicing medicine without a license.
In May 2006, the owner of Rainbow Ranch discontinued Denis’ treatment by a team at Jackson Memorial Hospital and instead hired Kaplan, who already was treating the group home’s other residents, Kaplan said in a deposition taken Nov. 2 by Quesada’s attorney, Howard Talenfeld.
In testimony that is part of an ongoing lawsuit by Denis’ mother, Kaplan acknowledged that he never once spoke to Quesada before prescribing powerful mind-altering drugs, and never sought nor obtained her consent for treatment.
“I was told that the boy’s mother had abandoned him,” Kaplan testified. In fact, Quesada had never been stripped of her parental rights by the state, and had remained actively involved in Denis’ care.
Denis was prescribed 20 milligrams of Zyprexa, 800 milligrams of Seroquel — the highest adult dose for both anti-psychotics, a reviewer said — one-half milligram of Klonopin, a tranquilizer and 2000 milligrams of Depakote, a mood stabilizer — also a high dose for Denis’ 70-pound frame. Neither of the anti-psychotic drugs has been approved for use with children.
In his deposition, Kaplan testified he was aware that the two anti-psychotic drugs both carried an “increased risk of sudden cardiac death.”
By early July, 2006, group home workers had told Kaplan the boy was “lethargic and unresponsive in the morning,” Kaplan said in his deposition. On July 17 that year, teachers at Denis’ school noted that he was sleeping through class, and he was taken to Miami Children’s Hospital for emergency medical treatment.
That same month, on July 24, Kaplan received a letter from the Medicaid Drug Therapy Management Program for Behavioral Health, a program of the Agency for Health Care Administration run by the University of South Florida, questioning his medication of Denis. On four “key” indicators, the letter said, Kaplan’s prescribing of drugs to Denis fell outside generally accepted practices.
And AHCA was not the only state agency with concerns.
DCF received its first report involving Denis on Oct. 26, 2006. The report made some findings of medical neglect based on a teacher’s complaints that Denis was “sleeping in class, shaking and trembling.”
And on Jan. 9, 2007, DCF received another report that, among other things, Denis had “a history of being overmedicated — based on an August 2006 visit to Baptist Hospital with symptoms of overmedication.
“Denis was sleepy because he was over-medicated,” a DCF investigator was told.
In all, DCF conducted six investigations of Denis’ wellbeing, some of them including allegations that Denis was being over-drugged, an APD report says. Sheldon said his agency had received a total of eight calls to the state hotline about Kaplan.
The disabilities agency also had been warned that Kaplan’s patients appeared to be drugged.
An April 2007 memo from an APD administrator said a number of caregivers in Miami had expressed concerns that Kaplan’s patients at Rainbow Ranch appeared to be overmedicated. A former group home manager said she found “clients always asleep and barely walking.” The mother of one boy said he went home for Thanksgiving all doped up.
Denis last saw his psychiatrist on May 10, 2007. In progress notes from the visit, Kaplan wrote the boy was sleepy during the day, and school officials felt he was drugged. He added: “Hyper, needy, pesty.”
Denis died two weeks later, on May 23, 2007. He was 12.
In his deposition, Kaplan said he is not responsible for Denis’ death. “I don’t believe he died of anything that I did,” he said.
After Denis’ death APD hired a psychiatrist, Jorge J. Villalba, to study the group home’s practices. He reported “overmedication with sedation of clients,” noting that 99 percent of the group home residents were on an anti-psychotic drug.
Villalba wrote that Denis had been on three different mental health drugs, two of them in the maximum dose, and that “in combination, all three of these agents have additive effects as a central nervous system depressant.” The drugs, he added, “may have been contributing factors in the client’s death.”
The following December, the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office concluded Denis did die of overmedication, from a disorder called Serotonin Syndrome.
A week after the Medical Examiner’s report was released, on Dec. 28, 2007, the then-head of the disabilities agency, Jane E. Johnson, called the case “very disturbing — especially if that psychiatrist is still providing services through [the] Medicaid state plan.”
During the next two years, administrators at both the heathcare and disabilities agencies continued to monitor Kaplan’s activities, writing dozens of emails and reports:
* A nurse on staff at APD noted on Feb. 5, 2008 that one boy under Kaplan’s care “was taking 10 medications in total,” including two anti-psychotic drugs and two tranquilizers. “All of the medication listed cause somnolence,” the nurse wrote.
* Thirteen days later, on Feb. 28, 2008, Kaplan received an “academic detailing” visit by a pharmacy expert from the University of South Florida, as part of the university’s effort to oversee problematic prescribers for the state healthcare agency. Though Kaplan was reportedly “very courteous and professional,” the reviewer noted, “he didn’t appear familiar with the material or interested in the guidelines.”
* In mid-March 2008, several disabilities administrators exchanged emails voicing worries about Kaplan. “He’s still practicing and we’re concerned,” Chuck Faircloth, APD’s inspector general, wrote on March 12.
The next day, Evelyn Alvarez, a top Miami administrator wrote: “Our medical case manager as well as I continue to have concerns regarding the abundance of meds that he is prescribing to some of our consumers.”
* Two months later, another USF monitor visited Kaplan in his office. Kaplan, he wrote, said that his patients are “schizophrenic and become violent, aggressive, dangerous” — making such medication necessary. “Provider states that he does not use antipsychotic medication for sedation,” a report says.
* In June, 2008, while both agencies were expressing concern about Kaplan’s use of mental health drugs, at least two APD administrators suggested he be considered for new patients when scores of disabled people were to be moved from a large institution in Fort Myers into group homes.
“He has lots of clients, so he may well qualify from the point of view of a large and varied practice,” wrote Alvarez, who only three months earlier had expressed concerns.
* A USF monitor once again visited Kaplan on May 15, 2009.
“He said he did not find the time to deal with non-important things such as paperwork,” a report says of the visit. “He said he had been practicing long enough to know how to treat his patients and was tired of being told what to do.”
In his deposition, Kaplan acknowledged he received “hundreds” of letters from the state suggesting he revise his prescribing practices. “I didn’t think it required any kind of response,” he said. He later added: “I never thought of myself as a red-flagged physician.”
Talenfeld, Quesada’s lawyer, urged healthcare and disability administrators in a letter to better protect disabled children, “who are powerless to protect themselves from being unnecessarily drugged for the convenience of staff…Without proper oversight and action by your respective state agencies, these individuals will continue to be in harm’s way.”
Administrators at AHCA declined to discuss the agency’s history with Kaplan at length. In an email to The Herald, the agency’s spokeswoman, Tiffany Vause, said it was “extremely difficult to measure the quality of prescribing practices” based upon Medicaid claims.
The USF program, she said, enables doctors to explain their practices — which may be entirely appropriate — or to change their habits once they are better informed.
“Dr. Kaplan is being monitored through this system and has received feedback from the USF clinical staff, Vause said. “The agency is closely monitoring this physician’s claims and the unique patient caseload he treats and will take appropriate action. This can include termination from the Medicaid program.”
http://www.psychsearch.net/psych_news/?p=83
Apr 18th, 2010 | By admin | Category: Drugging
Denis Martez and mother, Martha Quesada
Miami Herald
Red flags overlooked in prescription drug death of 12-year-old
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
April 18, 2010
Born with autism, 12-year-old Denis Maltez was “hyper, needy, pesty,” his psychiatrist wrote following a May 2007 visit.
Dr. Steven L. Kaplan solved the 70-pound boy’s problems with a prescription pad, writing orders for two different anti-psychotic drugs along with a tranquilizer and a mood stabilizer — three of them in the highest doses recommended for adults, records show.
When state medical regulators sent Kaplan letters suggesting the dosages were worrisome, he ignored them.
Two weeks after Kaplan last saw the boy, on May 23, 2007, Denis simply stopped breathing. The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office attributed the death to a life-threatening side effect of over-medication, records show.
“I . . . never had any suspicion he was being overmedicated,” Kaplan testified in a November 2009 sworn statement.
A review of records from three state agencies, however, makes clear that plenty of other people did.
Though a number of Florida agency heads have wrung their hands about Kaplan’s methods for more than three years, he has never been disciplined. The state Medicaid program, which insures the needy, asked the state Board of Medicine to investigate Kaplan in 2008, but the complaint was dismissed, records show.
Disability administrators encouraged underlings to send him new patients just as the agency’s chief described his practices as “very disturbing.”
Florida’s regulatory history with Kaplan — which includes four state agencies and thousands of pages of records — raises important questions. Among them: Does the state have an adequate regulatory scheme for doctors who work with the most vulnerable? Can the state effectively oversee doctors who reject advice from their peers?
“Three agencies all raised concerns and red flags, and each agency was saying this is somebody else’s job to take it a step further,” said Department of Children & Families Secretary George Sheldon. “I’m not sure what the solution is.”
Sheldon blamed much of the problem on historically poor billing rates for doctors who are paid by Medicaid, the state and federal insurance program for the poor and disabled.
“I think it’s difficult to recruit in the Medicaid arena any child psychiatrist,” Sheldon said. “The rates really do have an impact on who is willing to do it.”
Kaplan, who mainly practices in Miami-Dade, declined to speak with a Miami Herald reporter.
With as many as 800 patients in South Florida — all but one percent of them disabled or impoverished children insured by either Medicaid or Medicare — Kaplan is listed by the Agency for Healthcare Administration as number five on their list of doctors whose mental health prescriptions were red-flagged by an oversight group.
Denis was 8 when his volatility and violent outbursts prompted his mother, Martha Quesada, to move him into a sparkling new Miami group home called Rainbow Ranch. Administrators for the Agency for Persons with Disabilities had recommended the home, run by a man who had once pleaded guilty to practicing medicine without a license.
In May 2006, the owner of Rainbow Ranch discontinued Denis’ treatment by a team at Jackson Memorial Hospital and instead hired Kaplan, who already was treating the group home’s other residents, Kaplan said in a deposition taken Nov. 2 by Quesada’s attorney, Howard Talenfeld.
In testimony that is part of an ongoing lawsuit by Denis’ mother, Kaplan acknowledged that he never once spoke to Quesada before prescribing powerful mind-altering drugs, and never sought nor obtained her consent for treatment.
“I was told that the boy’s mother had abandoned him,” Kaplan testified. In fact, Quesada had never been stripped of her parental rights by the state, and had remained actively involved in Denis’ care.
Denis was prescribed 20 milligrams of Zyprexa, 800 milligrams of Seroquel — the highest adult dose for both anti-psychotics, a reviewer said — one-half milligram of Klonopin, a tranquilizer and 2000 milligrams of Depakote, a mood stabilizer — also a high dose for Denis’ 70-pound frame. Neither of the anti-psychotic drugs has been approved for use with children.
In his deposition, Kaplan testified he was aware that the two anti-psychotic drugs both carried an “increased risk of sudden cardiac death.”
By early July, 2006, group home workers had told Kaplan the boy was “lethargic and unresponsive in the morning,” Kaplan said in his deposition. On July 17 that year, teachers at Denis’ school noted that he was sleeping through class, and he was taken to Miami Children’s Hospital for emergency medical treatment.
That same month, on July 24, Kaplan received a letter from the Medicaid Drug Therapy Management Program for Behavioral Health, a program of the Agency for Health Care Administration run by the University of South Florida, questioning his medication of Denis. On four “key” indicators, the letter said, Kaplan’s prescribing of drugs to Denis fell outside generally accepted practices.
And AHCA was not the only state agency with concerns.
DCF received its first report involving Denis on Oct. 26, 2006. The report made some findings of medical neglect based on a teacher’s complaints that Denis was “sleeping in class, shaking and trembling.”
And on Jan. 9, 2007, DCF received another report that, among other things, Denis had “a history of being overmedicated — based on an August 2006 visit to Baptist Hospital with symptoms of overmedication.
“Denis was sleepy because he was over-medicated,” a DCF investigator was told.
In all, DCF conducted six investigations of Denis’ wellbeing, some of them including allegations that Denis was being over-drugged, an APD report says. Sheldon said his agency had received a total of eight calls to the state hotline about Kaplan.
The disabilities agency also had been warned that Kaplan’s patients appeared to be drugged.
An April 2007 memo from an APD administrator said a number of caregivers in Miami had expressed concerns that Kaplan’s patients at Rainbow Ranch appeared to be overmedicated. A former group home manager said she found “clients always asleep and barely walking.” The mother of one boy said he went home for Thanksgiving all doped up.
Denis last saw his psychiatrist on May 10, 2007. In progress notes from the visit, Kaplan wrote the boy was sleepy during the day, and school officials felt he was drugged. He added: “Hyper, needy, pesty.”
Denis died two weeks later, on May 23, 2007. He was 12.
In his deposition, Kaplan said he is not responsible for Denis’ death. “I don’t believe he died of anything that I did,” he said.
After Denis’ death APD hired a psychiatrist, Jorge J. Villalba, to study the group home’s practices. He reported “overmedication with sedation of clients,” noting that 99 percent of the group home residents were on an anti-psychotic drug.
Villalba wrote that Denis had been on three different mental health drugs, two of them in the maximum dose, and that “in combination, all three of these agents have additive effects as a central nervous system depressant.” The drugs, he added, “may have been contributing factors in the client’s death.”
The following December, the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office concluded Denis did die of overmedication, from a disorder called Serotonin Syndrome.
A week after the Medical Examiner’s report was released, on Dec. 28, 2007, the then-head of the disabilities agency, Jane E. Johnson, called the case “very disturbing — especially if that psychiatrist is still providing services through [the] Medicaid state plan.”
During the next two years, administrators at both the heathcare and disabilities agencies continued to monitor Kaplan’s activities, writing dozens of emails and reports:
* A nurse on staff at APD noted on Feb. 5, 2008 that one boy under Kaplan’s care “was taking 10 medications in total,” including two anti-psychotic drugs and two tranquilizers. “All of the medication listed cause somnolence,” the nurse wrote.
* Thirteen days later, on Feb. 28, 2008, Kaplan received an “academic detailing” visit by a pharmacy expert from the University of South Florida, as part of the university’s effort to oversee problematic prescribers for the state healthcare agency. Though Kaplan was reportedly “very courteous and professional,” the reviewer noted, “he didn’t appear familiar with the material or interested in the guidelines.”
* In mid-March 2008, several disabilities administrators exchanged emails voicing worries about Kaplan. “He’s still practicing and we’re concerned,” Chuck Faircloth, APD’s inspector general, wrote on March 12.
The next day, Evelyn Alvarez, a top Miami administrator wrote: “Our medical case manager as well as I continue to have concerns regarding the abundance of meds that he is prescribing to some of our consumers.”
* Two months later, another USF monitor visited Kaplan in his office. Kaplan, he wrote, said that his patients are “schizophrenic and become violent, aggressive, dangerous” — making such medication necessary. “Provider states that he does not use antipsychotic medication for sedation,” a report says.
* In June, 2008, while both agencies were expressing concern about Kaplan’s use of mental health drugs, at least two APD administrators suggested he be considered for new patients when scores of disabled people were to be moved from a large institution in Fort Myers into group homes.
“He has lots of clients, so he may well qualify from the point of view of a large and varied practice,” wrote Alvarez, who only three months earlier had expressed concerns.
* A USF monitor once again visited Kaplan on May 15, 2009.
“He said he did not find the time to deal with non-important things such as paperwork,” a report says of the visit. “He said he had been practicing long enough to know how to treat his patients and was tired of being told what to do.”
In his deposition, Kaplan acknowledged he received “hundreds” of letters from the state suggesting he revise his prescribing practices. “I didn’t think it required any kind of response,” he said. He later added: “I never thought of myself as a red-flagged physician.”
Talenfeld, Quesada’s lawyer, urged healthcare and disability administrators in a letter to better protect disabled children, “who are powerless to protect themselves from being unnecessarily drugged for the convenience of staff…Without proper oversight and action by your respective state agencies, these individuals will continue to be in harm’s way.”
Administrators at AHCA declined to discuss the agency’s history with Kaplan at length. In an email to The Herald, the agency’s spokeswoman, Tiffany Vause, said it was “extremely difficult to measure the quality of prescribing practices” based upon Medicaid claims.
The USF program, she said, enables doctors to explain their practices — which may be entirely appropriate — or to change their habits once they are better informed.
“Dr. Kaplan is being monitored through this system and has received feedback from the USF clinical staff, Vause said. “The agency is closely monitoring this physician’s claims and the unique patient caseload he treats and will take appropriate action. This can include termination from the Medicaid program.”
http://www.psychsearch.net/psych_news/?p=83
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