Did DHS pressure teen to get abortion?
By REGINA MEDINA
Philadelphia Daily News
medinar@phillynews.com 215-854-5985
A DEPARTMENT OF Human Services caseworker pressured a pregnant Mayfair teenager to undergo a late-term abortion by threatening to take away either her toddler or her unborn baby if she had the child, according to the teen's foster mother.
The alleged strong-arm tactic happened one day after DHS learned of the pregnancy, when the girl was about 22 weeks pregnant, according to her foster mother and the girl's social worker, Marisol Rivera.
The foster mother did not want to be identified in order to protect the girl's identity.
The Daily News also learned that:
* DHS got a Family Court judge's order allowing it to take the girl for an abortion, after the girl's birth mother refused to approve the procedure.
* By the time DHS arranged for the abortion - in March - the girl was 24 weeks pregnant. She had to undergo the procedure in New Jersey because abortions in Pennsylvania are illegal at 24 weeks.
* Although it is DHS policy that a DHS worker accompany any minor who has a court-ordered medical procedure, this did not happen on the girl's first attempt to have the abortion. That attempt failed when the clinic wouldn't accept her Medicaid card and wanted cash, according to the foster mother. A DHS worker did accompany the girl on a later, successful, attempt.
* Rivera, the girl's social worker, said that she was fired by Concilio, which subcontracted with DHS to provide care, after she initially refused to accompany the teen for the abortion.
"They hired me to work in child protection, not to kill children," Rivera told the Daily News.
DHS officials said that they could not discuss the case because of medical-privacy laws. Attempts to talk to the teenager were unsuccessful.
But a source familiar with the case insisted that the girl was not coerced and that her foster mother, whose first language is Spanish, did not understand the conversation between the girl and the DHS worker, Cynthia Brown.
Brown declined to comment.
Abortions are a little-known aspect of DHS's oversight of children in its custody.
Donald F. Schwarz, the city's deputy mayor for Health and Opportunity, who oversees DHS, said that the agency "is supposed to take a neutral position and not supposed to be involved in the decision making" regarding an abortion.
Between September 2006 and March 31, Schwarz said, 335 minors under DHS care became pregnant. Of those, 119 resulted in abortions. Of those abortions, 54 were done by judge's order.
Eight of the abortions were performed out of state, Schwarz said.
Although federal and state law forbid the use of federal or state money for abortions, and DHS is a recipient of state and federal aid, that money is not used to pay for abortions, Schwarz said.
He said that money only from the city budget is used to pay for the procedures.
Art Caplan, director of the Center of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said that if the foster mother's allegations are true, the DHS worker was acting unethically.
"You can't or shouldn't be threatening to break up a family depending upon whether somebody gets an abortion or not," Caplan said. "That is . . . unethical practice, it's not even common sense."
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, said: "If DHS's behavior is as described, it is shameful and inexcusable. . . . Sadly, this is not surprising . . . . This kind of bungling, this is not unusual in child-welfare systems. Especially in Philadelphia."
Short-lived joy
The pregnant teen was excited about having the baby, her foster mother said. She learned that she was carrying a boy and told her 1-year-old daughter that she was going to have a little brother. She even talked about a name for the baby.
The teen's birth mother, who wanted to be identified only as Deborah M., also said that her daughter was excited to have a baby.
"Someone who went to go get an ultrasound, [found] out it's a boy, they give the boy a name, that's somebody who wants to have that baby," Deborah M. said. "But the next thing I know, she's going for the abortion."
The teen's foster mother - who is fluent in Spanish and understands basic English - said that she was present when DHS worker Brown discussed the pregnancy with the teen in the living room of her home.
The conversation occurred the day after the girl's ultrasound, the foster mother said.
She said that Brown told the pregnant teenager that DHS would separate her children if she had the second child.
"She said that if she decided to have the infant she wasn't going to let her have both babies, that I know [despite the language barrier]," the foster mother said. "They wouldn't be together."
During the conversation, Brown was "upset" and "agitated," the foster mother said, and the teen began to cry.
In an interview conducted in Spanish, the foster mother said that she had been listening to the two from the top of the stairs, but rushed down when the teen began crying.
She asked Brown, "Is there a problem?"
"Of course, there is a problem," the foster mother said Brown told her. "This girl is 16 years old, she's in school, she already has a baby. Yes, there is a problem."
By the next day, the teen was determined to get an abortion, the foster mother said.
Rivera, the girl's social worker, said, "Ever since DHS went there [to the foster home], the only alternative that she saw was abortion."
Deborah M., the girl's birth mother, said that she believed the foster mother's allegations because she'd witnessed Brown bullying her daughter once before.
Brown had discovered that the teen had not been taking her child to day care.
Brown, she said, rushed up close to the teen's face and said, "If you don't put your baby in day care, I'm gonna take your baby."
Deborah M. said that she then ordered Brown out of her home, and that she left.
Caring for pregnancies
Schwarz said that when DHS is alerted to a child's pregnancy, "the youth and her caseworker discuss the [youth's] plans regarding her pregnancy."
DHS offers counseling, family planning and other pregnancy-related services such as prenatal care, abortion and adoption, he said.
Rivera said that when she telephoned Brown with news that the teen was pregnant, the DHS worker was "shocked."
"Oh, my God, but that girl has to study," Rivera recalled Brown saying.
The teen's birth mother and the foster mother said that they separately heard conversations between Brown and the teen where the word "abortion" was mentioned.
Both said that they heard no mention of other alternatives, they told the Daily News.
Rivera said that after the teen's confrontation with Brown, she counseled the girl about her pregnancy, including alternatives such as adoption.
Rivera said that she and Concilio's Family Services Supervisor, Zenaida Maravi, told the teen that she could keep both children if she carried the pregnancy to term.
The teen remained silent to their comments, Rivera said.
Getting the abortion
On March 10, the day after DHS secured the court order for the abortion, Concilio supervisor Maravi told the teen's foster mother that she must take the girl to an abortion clinic. The foster mother, who arranged for a relative to drive them, said that she was reluctant to go, believing that the girl was too far along for the procedure.
But when they arrived at the clinic, which the foster mother could not identify, it would not accept the teen's Medicaid card as payment, the foster mother said.
Six days later, on March 16, Brown, the DHS caseworker, took the teen to the Cherry Hill Women's Center without alerting the pregnant teen's foster mother or Rivera, the women said.
Rivera and the foster mother believed the clinic performed an abortion. A common procedure for late-term abortions is dilation and extraction. The procedure usually takes two or three days. On the first day, doctors inject a substance into the fetus to stop its heart as well and begin the dilation process. The woman typically goes home and returns the next day so that the fetus can be extracted.
The pregnant teen had left for school late that morning, out of character for the girl, the foster mother said. By 7 p.m., the teenager hadn't arrived home and the foster mother called Rivera in a panic. The social worker told her to call police by 10 p.m. if she wasn't home by then.
The girl arrived home around 8:30 p.m.
"What happened?" the foster mother asked her.
"The baby is dead," the teen answered. The teen told her that Brown had taken her out of school to get an abortion in New Jersey.
The next day, Concilio provided a van to take the girl back to the clinic for the second day of the procedure, according to Rivera.
Rivera initially refused to accompany the teen, but when she learned that the first step of the procedure had already been performed, she relented.
"That baby had to be taken out of her," Rivera said. "It couldn't stay in there much longer. It was against my will, but I had no other option. Instead of one dying, two were going to die [if the procedure was not completed]."
Rivera is fired
Rivera said that when she initially refused to take the teen to the clinic, Maravi, her supervisor,threatened to fire her for insubordination.
Rivera wrote a memo to Concilio's human-relations director complaining about the threat.
She was fired on April 14 for "deficiencies in your job performance" in a letter signed by Joanna Otero-Cruz, Concilio's executive director.
Rivera says she believes that she was fired for complaining about her supervisor's threat.
"The decision to terminate the life of the child had been made by another, I had nothing to do with it," Rivera told the Daily News. "I told [Maravi] that my religious beliefs, my moral beliefs would not allow me to participate in an action like this one. And at no moment when Concilio hired me did they tell me that I would participate in that."
Rivera and other Concilio employees said that the agency seemed wary of involvement in the teen's late-term abortion.
At a March 12 meeting of Concilio's foster-care staff, Maravi told the group, "Concilio will not become involved in that situation. DHS will resolve it," Rivera said.
But the following week, two Concilio employees and a Concilio van were used to take the teen to the abortion clinic.
Maravi said she could not discuss the case. Otero-Cruz did not return a phone call.
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/top_story/20100503__SHAMEFUL__PRESSURE_.html?page=1&c=y
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
Monday, May 3, 2010
Stranded in the Foster Care System
Stranded in the Foster Care System
unhappygrammy-Another case of Stolen from Relatives and placed in foster care!
Apr 30, 2010 11:00 p.m.
(WXYZ) - We do stories on kids abused in the foster care system. Action news has uncovered cases of foster kids who are loved and cared for by family members, but are still taken away. It's a heart-wrenching saga of children stranded in the system.
The Martins were Jake's foster parents when their niece couldn't care for the little boy.
Action News was there the gut-wrenching day little Jake was taken from the only family he has ever known--that was likely last time they would see him.
Renee Neal's step grandson Immanuel has been in her care since he was born. Now, he's gone.
"I just hope he's not feeling anything like I feel," she says.
Neal will likely never see him again.
Richard McNeil had hoped to adopt his great grandsons. But the state took them away.
"I can't put it into words. Take a mother who just had a baby taken away from her. It's the same feeling," says McNeil.
Records show the state admits all these children were loved and well cared for, but in each case the state decided the kids would be better off with someone else. The man who makes those decisions is Bill Johnson. He heads the Michigan Children's Institute. By law, he could not speak about specific cases when we interviewed him last year after the state took Jake
"...those obviously are people who you lived with, who cared for you and we are going to care for you here," says Johnson, explaining what new foster parents would tell foster kids. "It's sad, you're going to miss them, and the child will adjust."
But some believe it's too much power for just one man. Cases like these are examples of his power. In Jake's case Johnson removed him because Cheryl Martin, his great aunt and former foster mom, had a run in with the law because she was drunk in public. She has since quit drinking. Cheryl and her husband Rob Martin loaned money to a woman who later accused Rob of assault. He was charged though the woman's own daughter told the court her mother has made the same accusations of others she owes money.
"I'm not denying that I made mistakes, but we learn from our mistakes and move on. We don't get our children taken away," says Rob Martin.
The state gave Jake to a couple who planned to adopt him, but Action News has learned that just three months later they changed their mind because Jake was having trouble adjusting. Now, he is with yet another foster family.
"It's so hard, I miss him so much," says Cheryl Martin, crying.
"Whether it's Christmas or birthday, there is no easy date," says Rob Martin.
In Immanuel's case, Renee Neal and the boy's grandpa were his foster parents. When they divorced, Immanuel stayed with Renee. Records show the state had granted Neal the right to adopt Immanuel. Records say it would be in Immanuel's "best interest" to remain in Neal's care.
"I was the only person who had an application in to adopt Immanuel," she says.
But Renee says when she complained about a social worker not getting Immanuel services the worker accused Neal of interfering with Immanuel's visitation with his grandpa--and recommended the adoption be revoked.
"...the only thing I had throughout the whole process was my word against the workers and they won," says Neal.
Now, Immanuel's grandpa is adopting the little boy and Neal has no right to see the seven-year old ever again.
"It's like a death," she says, crying.
Richard McNeil was the foster parent of his two great nephews. He was trying to adopt them when the state removed the boys based on a single accusation.
"I would rather have state police come to my home and do an actual investigation like it's supposed to be done, not some half-baked investigation all slanted one-sided..." he says.
The boys were taken when a nurse's aide accused McNeil's ex-wife of slapping the oldest one. At the time, they were visiting a friend at a nursing home.
"...being accused of this is devastating to me," says Anne McNeil, Richard's ex-wife. "I don't sleep."
The McNeil's say their nephew has attention deficit disorder. sometimes they hold is face to talk to him. They believe that is what the aide saw. The aide did not return our calls.
"What they did is not right. they say, oh the boy's will bounce back. yeah, right, sure," says Richard McNeil.
"I try to think about it as if I was to have a conversation with this child 20 years down the road," says Johnson. "Would I be able to say that the decision I made was something I could defend to the child?"
Johnson decides 2700 of these cases a year--but says only about 10 percent are complex. It's difficult to challenge Johnson. You need money for a lawyer to appeal him in court and the chances of succeeding are slim.
"It has been very rare that I have reversed him," say Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Mary Beth Kelly.
Kelly has presided over hundreds of adoption cases. She says although she often has disagreed with Johnson, the law limits her ability to reverse his decisions.
"...it's a very high legal standard," says Kelly.
"...you have power that is concentrated in the department of human services within specific branch to make life altering decisions for children," says Vivek Sankaran, assistant professor at the Child Advocacy Law Clinic at U-M. He also represents parents who appeal Johnson's decisions.
"They're relying on often one-sided information from a specific case worker without hearing, kind of getting the wealth and breadth of information from different parties..."
Sankaran says Michigan is unique in giving one person final say in adoptions. Most states rely on the courts to decide those cases and he believes Michigan should as well.
"...not because judges are perfect, but because we've created open processes," says Sankaran. "We don't have that type of openness right now in Michigan."
In written responses the state says it works hard to get foster kids in good homes and that adoptions increased 10 percent last year--the highest number of adoptions ever in one year. The Martins and Richard McNeil have taken their cases to court. Renee Neal does not have the money to appeal.
http://mobile.wxyz.com/w/main/story/10781036/p1/
unhappygrammy-Another case of Stolen from Relatives and placed in foster care!
Apr 30, 2010 11:00 p.m.
(WXYZ) - We do stories on kids abused in the foster care system. Action news has uncovered cases of foster kids who are loved and cared for by family members, but are still taken away. It's a heart-wrenching saga of children stranded in the system.
The Martins were Jake's foster parents when their niece couldn't care for the little boy.
Action News was there the gut-wrenching day little Jake was taken from the only family he has ever known--that was likely last time they would see him.
Renee Neal's step grandson Immanuel has been in her care since he was born. Now, he's gone.
"I just hope he's not feeling anything like I feel," she says.
Neal will likely never see him again.
Richard McNeil had hoped to adopt his great grandsons. But the state took them away.
"I can't put it into words. Take a mother who just had a baby taken away from her. It's the same feeling," says McNeil.
Records show the state admits all these children were loved and well cared for, but in each case the state decided the kids would be better off with someone else. The man who makes those decisions is Bill Johnson. He heads the Michigan Children's Institute. By law, he could not speak about specific cases when we interviewed him last year after the state took Jake
"...those obviously are people who you lived with, who cared for you and we are going to care for you here," says Johnson, explaining what new foster parents would tell foster kids. "It's sad, you're going to miss them, and the child will adjust."
But some believe it's too much power for just one man. Cases like these are examples of his power. In Jake's case Johnson removed him because Cheryl Martin, his great aunt and former foster mom, had a run in with the law because she was drunk in public. She has since quit drinking. Cheryl and her husband Rob Martin loaned money to a woman who later accused Rob of assault. He was charged though the woman's own daughter told the court her mother has made the same accusations of others she owes money.
"I'm not denying that I made mistakes, but we learn from our mistakes and move on. We don't get our children taken away," says Rob Martin.
The state gave Jake to a couple who planned to adopt him, but Action News has learned that just three months later they changed their mind because Jake was having trouble adjusting. Now, he is with yet another foster family.
"It's so hard, I miss him so much," says Cheryl Martin, crying.
"Whether it's Christmas or birthday, there is no easy date," says Rob Martin.
In Immanuel's case, Renee Neal and the boy's grandpa were his foster parents. When they divorced, Immanuel stayed with Renee. Records show the state had granted Neal the right to adopt Immanuel. Records say it would be in Immanuel's "best interest" to remain in Neal's care.
"I was the only person who had an application in to adopt Immanuel," she says.
But Renee says when she complained about a social worker not getting Immanuel services the worker accused Neal of interfering with Immanuel's visitation with his grandpa--and recommended the adoption be revoked.
"...the only thing I had throughout the whole process was my word against the workers and they won," says Neal.
Now, Immanuel's grandpa is adopting the little boy and Neal has no right to see the seven-year old ever again.
"It's like a death," she says, crying.
Richard McNeil was the foster parent of his two great nephews. He was trying to adopt them when the state removed the boys based on a single accusation.
"I would rather have state police come to my home and do an actual investigation like it's supposed to be done, not some half-baked investigation all slanted one-sided..." he says.
The boys were taken when a nurse's aide accused McNeil's ex-wife of slapping the oldest one. At the time, they were visiting a friend at a nursing home.
"...being accused of this is devastating to me," says Anne McNeil, Richard's ex-wife. "I don't sleep."
The McNeil's say their nephew has attention deficit disorder. sometimes they hold is face to talk to him. They believe that is what the aide saw. The aide did not return our calls.
"What they did is not right. they say, oh the boy's will bounce back. yeah, right, sure," says Richard McNeil.
"I try to think about it as if I was to have a conversation with this child 20 years down the road," says Johnson. "Would I be able to say that the decision I made was something I could defend to the child?"
Johnson decides 2700 of these cases a year--but says only about 10 percent are complex. It's difficult to challenge Johnson. You need money for a lawyer to appeal him in court and the chances of succeeding are slim.
"It has been very rare that I have reversed him," say Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Mary Beth Kelly.
Kelly has presided over hundreds of adoption cases. She says although she often has disagreed with Johnson, the law limits her ability to reverse his decisions.
"...it's a very high legal standard," says Kelly.
"...you have power that is concentrated in the department of human services within specific branch to make life altering decisions for children," says Vivek Sankaran, assistant professor at the Child Advocacy Law Clinic at U-M. He also represents parents who appeal Johnson's decisions.
"They're relying on often one-sided information from a specific case worker without hearing, kind of getting the wealth and breadth of information from different parties..."
Sankaran says Michigan is unique in giving one person final say in adoptions. Most states rely on the courts to decide those cases and he believes Michigan should as well.
"...not because judges are perfect, but because we've created open processes," says Sankaran. "We don't have that type of openness right now in Michigan."
In written responses the state says it works hard to get foster kids in good homes and that adoptions increased 10 percent last year--the highest number of adoptions ever in one year. The Martins and Richard McNeil have taken their cases to court. Renee Neal does not have the money to appeal.
http://mobile.wxyz.com/w/main/story/10781036/p1/
Sunday, May 2, 2010
So much bluster, but foster kids' drug nightmare continues
So much bluster, but foster kids' drug nightmare continues
BY FRED GRIMM
FGRIMM@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Gabriel Myers died for nothing.
His shocking death supposedly galvanized Florida. It would mean something, this suicide of a foster kid who had been drugged into nether-consciousness with antidepressants and antipsychotics never intended for any child, much less a 7-year-old.
A new law would be crafted. State-sponsored zombification of foster kids would be stanched. Something would be done.
More like nothing.
``I was shocked. I was devastated,'' said Mez Pierre, a young survivor of the unrestrained psychotropic regimes used to addle Florida foster kids.
THE PERPLEXING PUSHBACK
Pierre, 23, joined a number of child advocates, state officials, political leaders and judges in the Gabriel Myers Work Group formed by the Department of Children & Families. They met a dozen times over the past year, exploring legislative fixes for this stunning propensity to subdue foster children with adult-strength pharmaceuticals.
The group was born out of our collective shame. Gabriel Myers had been addled with Lexapro, Zyprexa and Symbyax -- a drug cocktail no real parent would countenance. On April 15, 2010, Gabriel locked himself in the bathroom of his Margate foster home, coiled a shower hose around his neck and shocked Florida into . . . nothing.
The widely supported bill designed to regulate the drugging of foster kids disappeared in the House of Representatives this week. Medical and drug-industry lobbyists, and a single powerful legislator, Rep. Paige Kreegel, chairman of the Health Care Services Policy Committee, managed to waylay the bill.
Bernard P. Perlmutter, director of the University of Miami's Children & Youth Law Clinic, was surprised that ``pushback came from doctors and psychiatrists, since the bill did little more than codify existing medical ethics standards and laws regarding consent from a child's parents or judge, and assent from the child, before psychotropic medication could be administered.''
Kreegel feigned unfamiliarity with Myers' case. ``I am shocked that the chairman never heard about Gabriel Myers, especially after the months of work by a task force of leading experts and then work by the Senate,'' said Broward child advocate Andrea Moore. ``Unfortunately, we know there are other children who have been harmed by the unfettered use of these drugs as chemical restraints. If a highly publicized death is not enough to galvanize the Legislature, I do not know what will do it.''
SPIRITS IN SHACKLES
Mez Pierre now understands Florida's priorities: Doctors matter. But foster children . . .
``They sent foster kids a message.'' he said.
``You're just not important enough to protect.''
Pierre, 23, grew up in so-called ``therapeutic'' foster homes from age 5 to 18, shuffling from one zombie warehouse to another, where psychotropic drugs left him perpetually listless, filled his head with strange, often suicidal thoughts and caused serious physical side effects.
The brutal effects ended when he left foster care at age 18 and quit the psychotropics. Without the pills, the supposedly unruly young man has finished three years at Broward College. ``But what happened to me, what happened to Gabriel, it's still going on,'' Pierre said.
And all the work group meetings. All the talk. All the work. As if foster kids mattered.
It came to nothing.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/01/1608909/so-much-bluster-but-foster-kids.html#ixzz0mp1mne2N
BY FRED GRIMM
FGRIMM@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Gabriel Myers died for nothing.
His shocking death supposedly galvanized Florida. It would mean something, this suicide of a foster kid who had been drugged into nether-consciousness with antidepressants and antipsychotics never intended for any child, much less a 7-year-old.
A new law would be crafted. State-sponsored zombification of foster kids would be stanched. Something would be done.
More like nothing.
``I was shocked. I was devastated,'' said Mez Pierre, a young survivor of the unrestrained psychotropic regimes used to addle Florida foster kids.
THE PERPLEXING PUSHBACK
Pierre, 23, joined a number of child advocates, state officials, political leaders and judges in the Gabriel Myers Work Group formed by the Department of Children & Families. They met a dozen times over the past year, exploring legislative fixes for this stunning propensity to subdue foster children with adult-strength pharmaceuticals.
The group was born out of our collective shame. Gabriel Myers had been addled with Lexapro, Zyprexa and Symbyax -- a drug cocktail no real parent would countenance. On April 15, 2010, Gabriel locked himself in the bathroom of his Margate foster home, coiled a shower hose around his neck and shocked Florida into . . . nothing.
The widely supported bill designed to regulate the drugging of foster kids disappeared in the House of Representatives this week. Medical and drug-industry lobbyists, and a single powerful legislator, Rep. Paige Kreegel, chairman of the Health Care Services Policy Committee, managed to waylay the bill.
Bernard P. Perlmutter, director of the University of Miami's Children & Youth Law Clinic, was surprised that ``pushback came from doctors and psychiatrists, since the bill did little more than codify existing medical ethics standards and laws regarding consent from a child's parents or judge, and assent from the child, before psychotropic medication could be administered.''
Kreegel feigned unfamiliarity with Myers' case. ``I am shocked that the chairman never heard about Gabriel Myers, especially after the months of work by a task force of leading experts and then work by the Senate,'' said Broward child advocate Andrea Moore. ``Unfortunately, we know there are other children who have been harmed by the unfettered use of these drugs as chemical restraints. If a highly publicized death is not enough to galvanize the Legislature, I do not know what will do it.''
SPIRITS IN SHACKLES
Mez Pierre now understands Florida's priorities: Doctors matter. But foster children . . .
``They sent foster kids a message.'' he said.
``You're just not important enough to protect.''
Pierre, 23, grew up in so-called ``therapeutic'' foster homes from age 5 to 18, shuffling from one zombie warehouse to another, where psychotropic drugs left him perpetually listless, filled his head with strange, often suicidal thoughts and caused serious physical side effects.
The brutal effects ended when he left foster care at age 18 and quit the psychotropics. Without the pills, the supposedly unruly young man has finished three years at Broward College. ``But what happened to me, what happened to Gabriel, it's still going on,'' Pierre said.
And all the work group meetings. All the talk. All the work. As if foster kids mattered.
It came to nothing.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/01/1608909/so-much-bluster-but-foster-kids.html#ixzz0mp1mne2N
Foster child dies during sleepover
Foster child dies during sleepover
By The Canadian Press
SPRUCE GROVE, Alta. - RCMP are now saying that a 13-year-old foster child was actually on a sleepover at a friend's house when he died.
The boy's death in Stony Plain, Alta., on Friday - the third Alberta child in foster care to have died in the last year - prompted calls from opposition politicians for an inquiry.
But Children's Services Minister Yvonne Fritz says this boy was in a "stable, loving home" for years.
She says the foster family is devastated by the boy's death and are grieving his loss.
Const. Barbara Roy says police are trying to figure out what the boy was doing before they received the call at 9 a.m. on Friday that he was in distress and was having trouble breathing.
She says as far as police know, he had been in bed asleep.
"We're trying to track back to see what he had been doing and speak to people that had been around him, see what was going on," said Roy.
Nonetheless, critics say the recent deaths have them very concerned about the system.
"Too many children have died in the so-called care and custody of the province," said Liberal MLA Harry Chase.
"If the government makes the major decision to pull them out of the custody of their birth parents, then they have to ensure their quality of life and that has not been the case."
Fritz said there will be no public inquiry.
"This situation is one that is very intimate with this family about what has happened with the loss of this young man," said Fritz.
The cause of death will be determined following an autopsy which is scheduled early next week.
RCMP say no arrests have been made and they have no suspects, adding they don't even know yet whether the death was the result of foul play or natural causes.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/05/02/13796006-cp.html
By The Canadian Press
SPRUCE GROVE, Alta. - RCMP are now saying that a 13-year-old foster child was actually on a sleepover at a friend's house when he died.
The boy's death in Stony Plain, Alta., on Friday - the third Alberta child in foster care to have died in the last year - prompted calls from opposition politicians for an inquiry.
But Children's Services Minister Yvonne Fritz says this boy was in a "stable, loving home" for years.
She says the foster family is devastated by the boy's death and are grieving his loss.
Const. Barbara Roy says police are trying to figure out what the boy was doing before they received the call at 9 a.m. on Friday that he was in distress and was having trouble breathing.
She says as far as police know, he had been in bed asleep.
"We're trying to track back to see what he had been doing and speak to people that had been around him, see what was going on," said Roy.
Nonetheless, critics say the recent deaths have them very concerned about the system.
"Too many children have died in the so-called care and custody of the province," said Liberal MLA Harry Chase.
"If the government makes the major decision to pull them out of the custody of their birth parents, then they have to ensure their quality of life and that has not been the case."
Fritz said there will be no public inquiry.
"This situation is one that is very intimate with this family about what has happened with the loss of this young man," said Fritz.
The cause of death will be determined following an autopsy which is scheduled early next week.
RCMP say no arrests have been made and they have no suspects, adding they don't even know yet whether the death was the result of foul play or natural causes.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/05/02/13796006-cp.html
children advertised like puppies on BAAF website
children advertised like puppies on BAAF website
By melthemoocher
Children being advertised like PUPPIES on BAAF website “I have just found MY twins on the adoption website the way social services have described them is unreal they are just babies not animals that have just started walking they are not noisey children they need to be at home with there real family not some people who think they can parent a child because they cant have them themselves i might be a young mum but i would never harm my children and they was taken away from me because i was a young SINGLE mum of twins its unfair young single parents should not be a traget its not very often you hear a teen mum harming her child infact on the news its been growen adults killing their children strarving them its disgusting social services should be ashamed and as for SHEENA ADAMS coming into my home and taking my beautiful children away from me half of them doesnt know what its like to be a mum MUMMY LOVES YOU KEISHA-JADE AND KACEY-JAYE WITH ALL MY HEART.” This is from the poor mother who has discovered her children for sale in the forced adoption catalogue courtesy of Cannock Social Services. This mother has obviously not willingly surrendered her children so those in doubt of the barbaric trade of forced adoption take heed. See this mothers beautiful twins here . Do they look abused or neglected ? From:http://staffordshiresocialservices.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/cannock-social-services-advertise-children-like-lost-puppies-on-baaf-website/ THESE TWO CHILDREN HAVE BEEN STOLEN FOR ADOPTION BY CANNOCK SOCIAL SERVICES AND ARE BEING ADVERTISED LIKE LOST PUPPIES ON A BAAF-AFFILIATED WEBSITE. I REPEAT: THESE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN STOLEN. PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THESE PICTURES FAR AND WIDE, WE NEED TO LET THE WORLD KNOW THAT LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN THE UK ARE CRIMINALS AND THE PROOF IS IN THE SCREENGRAB ABOVE!
http://melthemoocher.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/children-advertised-like-puppies-on-baaf-website/
By melthemoocher
Children being advertised like PUPPIES on BAAF website “I have just found MY twins on the adoption website the way social services have described them is unreal they are just babies not animals that have just started walking they are not noisey children they need to be at home with there real family not some people who think they can parent a child because they cant have them themselves i might be a young mum but i would never harm my children and they was taken away from me because i was a young SINGLE mum of twins its unfair young single parents should not be a traget its not very often you hear a teen mum harming her child infact on the news its been growen adults killing their children strarving them its disgusting social services should be ashamed and as for SHEENA ADAMS coming into my home and taking my beautiful children away from me half of them doesnt know what its like to be a mum MUMMY LOVES YOU KEISHA-JADE AND KACEY-JAYE WITH ALL MY HEART.” This is from the poor mother who has discovered her children for sale in the forced adoption catalogue courtesy of Cannock Social Services. This mother has obviously not willingly surrendered her children so those in doubt of the barbaric trade of forced adoption take heed. See this mothers beautiful twins here . Do they look abused or neglected ? From:http://staffordshiresocialservices.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/cannock-social-services-advertise-children-like-lost-puppies-on-baaf-website/ THESE TWO CHILDREN HAVE BEEN STOLEN FOR ADOPTION BY CANNOCK SOCIAL SERVICES AND ARE BEING ADVERTISED LIKE LOST PUPPIES ON A BAAF-AFFILIATED WEBSITE. I REPEAT: THESE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN STOLEN. PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THESE PICTURES FAR AND WIDE, WE NEED TO LET THE WORLD KNOW THAT LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN THE UK ARE CRIMINALS AND THE PROOF IS IN THE SCREENGRAB ABOVE!
http://melthemoocher.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/children-advertised-like-puppies-on-baaf-website/
Saturday, May 1, 2010
CPS & POLICE ABUSE CONSTITUTION, INVADING HOMES, KIDNAPPING CHILDREN, IGNORING COURTS, AS WELL AS CRIMINALIZING AMERICANS. POLYGAMIST FLDS RAID SHEDS
CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES: CPS & POLICE ABUSE CONSTITUTION, INVADING HOMES, KIDNAPPING CHILDREN, IGNORING COURTS, AS WELL AS CRIMINALIZING AMERICANS. POLYGAMIST FLDS RAID SHEDS LIGHT UPON MORE CASES.
Child Protective Services can take your young kids too. CPS has come to hold they have been upon top of a law as well as a Constitution, which they do not need a poke aver to come in to your home, tag we as a kid abuser for any reason as well as have we a rapist formed upon their perspective alone, take your young kids divided in a paddy wagon, as well as put your kids in to encourage homes tentative a justice conference where CPS will try their most appropriate to win as well as henceforth take carry out of your kids. If CPS loses, they will go upon to quarrel you, slandering your family as well as inventory we as a kid abuser in supervision databases. CPS is an violent supervision group spiraling utterly out of control. It’s time to close them down. The wrong dismissal of 468 young kids from a FLDS plantation in west Texas, has put CPS underneath a microscope. That box has led others to consternation if they can do which to FLDS children, can CPS do which to my children? CBS 42 inquisitive reporter, Nancy Wilson, shows us a single family who says a same thing happened to them, as well as 8 years after they have been still perplexing to transparent their names. This is a Gates family, Gary as well as Melissa have thirteen children, eleven of them adopted. They saw a need for kids from a acc**ulation of backgrounds who need adore in a fast home. Imagine their warn when eleven supervision employees, 6 military officers as well as 5 CPS workers, showed up upon their doorstep. The propagandize called CPS when they detected which a Gates pinned a relaxed with food wrappers inside a shirt of a single of a kids …
http://ccacpeel.org/child-protective-services-cps-police-abuse-constitution-invading-homes-kidnapping-children-ignoring-courts-and-criminalizing-americans-polygamist-flds-raid-sheds-light-on-more-cases/
Child Protective Services can take your young kids too. CPS has come to hold they have been upon top of a law as well as a Constitution, which they do not need a poke aver to come in to your home, tag we as a kid abuser for any reason as well as have we a rapist formed upon their perspective alone, take your young kids divided in a paddy wagon, as well as put your kids in to encourage homes tentative a justice conference where CPS will try their most appropriate to win as well as henceforth take carry out of your kids. If CPS loses, they will go upon to quarrel you, slandering your family as well as inventory we as a kid abuser in supervision databases. CPS is an violent supervision group spiraling utterly out of control. It’s time to close them down. The wrong dismissal of 468 young kids from a FLDS plantation in west Texas, has put CPS underneath a microscope. That box has led others to consternation if they can do which to FLDS children, can CPS do which to my children? CBS 42 inquisitive reporter, Nancy Wilson, shows us a single family who says a same thing happened to them, as well as 8 years after they have been still perplexing to transparent their names. This is a Gates family, Gary as well as Melissa have thirteen children, eleven of them adopted. They saw a need for kids from a acc**ulation of backgrounds who need adore in a fast home. Imagine their warn when eleven supervision employees, 6 military officers as well as 5 CPS workers, showed up upon their doorstep. The propagandize called CPS when they detected which a Gates pinned a relaxed with food wrappers inside a shirt of a single of a kids …
http://ccacpeel.org/child-protective-services-cps-police-abuse-constitution-invading-homes-kidnapping-children-ignoring-courts-and-criminalizing-americans-polygamist-flds-raid-sheds-light-on-more-cases/
Psych Drugging Foster Children Florida Senate Comm Pt2 – Gabriel Myers Bill
unhappygrammy-Drugging Foster children in ALL States needs to stop. If the state and their foster stranger's don't know how to handle a child without drug's, then STOP STEALING THEM!
Death Records Now
Psych Drugging Foster Children Florida Senate Comm Pt2 – Gabriel Myers Bill
by ADMIN on APRIL 29, 2010
Florida Senate Committee on Children, Families, and Elder Affairs – Psychotropic Drug Use Among Foster Children. Oct 7, 2009. Senators committee to discuss SB2718 after death of Gabriel Myers. Children are not given traditional therapy but instead are subjected to extreme psychotropic drugging. Point made that psychiatry is not what it used to be and has resorted to drugging; the move away from psychiatry which should be replaced with more traditional use of psychologists for therapy if needed – attachment disorder, trauma therapy.
Florida Senate 2010 SB 2718, to be effective July 2010. By Committee on Children, Families, and Elder Affairs; and Senator Storms. A bill to be entitled An act relating to the provision of psychotropic medication to children in out-of-home placements.
http://www.flsenate.gov/data/session/2010/Senate/bills/billtext/pdf/s2718c1.pdf
In Memory of 7 Year Old Gabriel Myers: In wake of childs suicide, Legislature moves to limit foster cares reliance on psychiatric drugs. St. Petersburg Times, By Cristina Silva, Times Staff Writer.
TALLAHASSEE, Fl. – A year after a 7-year-old boy heavily medicated on powerful psychiatric drugs hanged himself in his Margate foster home, lawmakers are pushing to reform state medical requirements for foster children.
The Senates Children, Families, and Elder Affairs Committee unanimously approved a measure Thursday designed to curb the prescription of mental-health drugs to children in state care.
The proposed law would require the state Department of Children and Families to assign volunteer guardians to oversee each childs mental health care. It prohibits foster children from being the subject of clinical drug trials and raises the age at which children are allowed to take these drugs from 6 to 11 in many cases.
The measure (SB2718 and HB1567) would also give children some say in the drugs they take.
We are not just going to medicate them until they turn 18 and then dump them into adulthood, said sponsor Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, chairwoman of the Children, Families, and Elder Affairs Committee.
The states growing use of adult medication on emotionally and mentally troubled children has sparked debate for years.
Multiple state studies show child-welfare doctors and case managers routinely failed to follow legally required treatment plans or properly document when and why drugs were given to foster children, creating a network of youth sedated by chemical straitjackets, Storms said.
The death of Gabriel Myers in April further revealed the shortcomings of 2005 legislation that required more information sharing, parental involvement and second-party review of doctors prescriptions for the youngest children.
Because foster children are often cared for by multiple service contractors, communication lapses and fragmented mental health care are still rampant, a recent state report on Myers death determined.
Our response to him was to medicate him, and medicate him, and medicate him, Storms said.
Under the bill, proposed medical treatment plans must be explained to a child and the child must consent to the treatment in many cases before taking the drugs.
What this means is less medication and more behavior analysis so that they are not just sedated little zombies, said Jan Montgomery, president of the Florida Association for Behavior Analysis, which would train legal guardians to observe and treat behavioral problems.
Still, Montgomery said she did not expect a sudden culture shift, given failed past efforts to track foster childrens medical records.
Its going to be a slow slide toward what we are hoping is the right way, Montgomery said.
http://gabrielmyers.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/in-wake-of-childs-suicide-legislature-moves-to-limit-foster-cares-reliance-on-psychiatric-drugs/
FDA warns psychiatrist who treated dead foster child.
http://gabrielmyers.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/fda-warns-psychiatrist-who-treated-dead-foster-child/
Duration : 0:6:3
http://www.deathrecordsnow.org/florida-death-records/psych-drugging-foster-children-florida-senate-comm-pt2-gabriel-myers-bill
Death Records Now
Psych Drugging Foster Children Florida Senate Comm Pt2 – Gabriel Myers Bill
by ADMIN on APRIL 29, 2010
Florida Senate Committee on Children, Families, and Elder Affairs – Psychotropic Drug Use Among Foster Children. Oct 7, 2009. Senators committee to discuss SB2718 after death of Gabriel Myers. Children are not given traditional therapy but instead are subjected to extreme psychotropic drugging. Point made that psychiatry is not what it used to be and has resorted to drugging; the move away from psychiatry which should be replaced with more traditional use of psychologists for therapy if needed – attachment disorder, trauma therapy.
Florida Senate 2010 SB 2718, to be effective July 2010. By Committee on Children, Families, and Elder Affairs; and Senator Storms. A bill to be entitled An act relating to the provision of psychotropic medication to children in out-of-home placements.
http://www.flsenate.gov/data/session/2010/Senate/bills/billtext/pdf/s2718c1.pdf
In Memory of 7 Year Old Gabriel Myers: In wake of childs suicide, Legislature moves to limit foster cares reliance on psychiatric drugs. St. Petersburg Times, By Cristina Silva, Times Staff Writer.
TALLAHASSEE, Fl. – A year after a 7-year-old boy heavily medicated on powerful psychiatric drugs hanged himself in his Margate foster home, lawmakers are pushing to reform state medical requirements for foster children.
The Senates Children, Families, and Elder Affairs Committee unanimously approved a measure Thursday designed to curb the prescription of mental-health drugs to children in state care.
The proposed law would require the state Department of Children and Families to assign volunteer guardians to oversee each childs mental health care. It prohibits foster children from being the subject of clinical drug trials and raises the age at which children are allowed to take these drugs from 6 to 11 in many cases.
The measure (SB2718 and HB1567) would also give children some say in the drugs they take.
We are not just going to medicate them until they turn 18 and then dump them into adulthood, said sponsor Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, chairwoman of the Children, Families, and Elder Affairs Committee.
The states growing use of adult medication on emotionally and mentally troubled children has sparked debate for years.
Multiple state studies show child-welfare doctors and case managers routinely failed to follow legally required treatment plans or properly document when and why drugs were given to foster children, creating a network of youth sedated by chemical straitjackets, Storms said.
The death of Gabriel Myers in April further revealed the shortcomings of 2005 legislation that required more information sharing, parental involvement and second-party review of doctors prescriptions for the youngest children.
Because foster children are often cared for by multiple service contractors, communication lapses and fragmented mental health care are still rampant, a recent state report on Myers death determined.
Our response to him was to medicate him, and medicate him, and medicate him, Storms said.
Under the bill, proposed medical treatment plans must be explained to a child and the child must consent to the treatment in many cases before taking the drugs.
What this means is less medication and more behavior analysis so that they are not just sedated little zombies, said Jan Montgomery, president of the Florida Association for Behavior Analysis, which would train legal guardians to observe and treat behavioral problems.
Still, Montgomery said she did not expect a sudden culture shift, given failed past efforts to track foster childrens medical records.
Its going to be a slow slide toward what we are hoping is the right way, Montgomery said.
http://gabrielmyers.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/in-wake-of-childs-suicide-legislature-moves-to-limit-foster-cares-reliance-on-psychiatric-drugs/
FDA warns psychiatrist who treated dead foster child.
http://gabrielmyers.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/fda-warns-psychiatrist-who-treated-dead-foster-child/
Duration : 0:6:3
http://www.deathrecordsnow.org/florida-death-records/psych-drugging-foster-children-florida-senate-comm-pt2-gabriel-myers-bill
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