False reports, attempted rape & forced abortion - your Child Protective Services at work
May 4, 8:19 AMAlbany CPS and Family Court ExaminerDaniel Weaver
Child Protective Services caseworkers around the nation were busy over the past few days, protecting your children and mine.
Here are a few stories I found that show how busy they were.
"SAN ANTONIO -- A Child Protective Services worker was fired after he allegedly tried to buy drugs with a young runaway in his custody and have sex with her."
Read the entire story at www.woai.com.
"Philadelphia--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."
Read the entire story at www.philly.com.
"Racine, Wisconsin--A Racine County Wisconsin Human Services child protective service investigator has been fired and is under criminal investigation for allegedly filing false reports on child abuse cases he never actually took the time to investigate."
Read the entire story at the journaltimes.com.
More About: Child Protective Services
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-14537-Albany-CPS-and-Family-Court-Examiner~y2010m5d4-False-reports-attempted-rape--forced-abortion--your-Child-Protective-Services-at-work
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Philadelphia Department of Human Services threatened to take away the teen’s other child if she didn’t get late-term abortion
Philadelphia Department of Human Services threatened to take away the teen’s other child if she didn’t get late-term abortion
A Philadelphia Department of Human Services caseworker pressured a pregnant Mayfair, PA 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. According to the Philadelphia Daily News, 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.
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2010/05/03/philadelphia-department-of-human-services-threatened-to-take-away-the-teen%E2%80%99s-other-child-if-she-didnt-get-late-term-abortion/
A Philadelphia Department of Human Services caseworker pressured a pregnant Mayfair, PA 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. According to the Philadelphia Daily News, 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.
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2010/05/03/philadelphia-department-of-human-services-threatened-to-take-away-the-teen%E2%80%99s-other-child-if-she-didnt-get-late-term-abortion/
DHS takes children from foster mom who spoke up
DHS takes children from foster mom who spoke up
By REGINA MEDINA
Philadelphia Daily News
medinar@phillynews.com 215-854-5985
The Department of Human Services, through its provider agency Concilio, yesterday removed four foster children from the home of a woman who alleged that DHS had coerced one of the children into having a late-term abortion.
About 3:30 p.m., two Concilio employees came to the house, armed with notice of the children's removal.
"As of 5/3/10 your home has been closed as a foster facility due to the incompliance of Concilio's Foster Parent Agency Agreement," read the letter signed by foster-care coordinator Jheovannie Williams, one of the employees who came to the house.
This reporter was on the scene when DHS began removing the foster children. The Mayfair teen who had the abortion; her 1-year-old daughter; another minor, 17; and her son, 1, were packed inside a black van and driven away.
Williams warned the foster mother, whose identity the Daily News is withholding, that trouble was in her future, she said.
"He told me, 'Find yourself lots of money because you're not going to come out from this one very well,' " the foster mother said.
Williams also said that "they were going to sue me," she said. "He said I had to find a lawyer."
The foster mother previously told the Daily News that she had overheard DHS worker Cynthia Brown tell her 16-year-old foster charge, whose name is being withheld because she is a minor, that she would separate the toddler and the unborn child if she went to term.
DHS later obtained a judge's order to allow the teen to get an abortion. Brown drove the teen, who was 24 weeks pregnant, to have an abortion in New Jersey for the first day of the two-day procedure. Abortions in Pennsylvania are illegal once a pregnancy reaches 24 weeks.
DHS paid for the procedure and then requested that two Concilio employees, social worker Marisol Rivera, who has since been fired, and Williams accompany the teen on the second day, Rivera and the foster mother said. Williams drove the Concilio van to the Cherry Hill Women's Center, Rivera and the foster mother said.
Williams refused to comment yesterday when asked about the removal, deferring all calls to Concilio's executive director, Joanna Otero-Cruz.
Calls were not answered at Concilio yesterday afternoon.
Donald F. Schwarz, the city's deputy mayor for health and opportunity, explained in a statement why the four minors had been removed from the house.
"It's now become clear that the foster mother has violated Pennsylvania state law regarding confidentiality [by discussing the teen's case with the newspaper], therefore potentially compromising the safety and well-being of the children in her care," Schwarz's statement read.
DHS Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose issued a statement late yesterday:
"It is unfortunate that the Daily News decided to print an inflammatory story riddled with inaccuracies. The DHS caseworker involved in this case did nothing wrong, in fact she followed departmental policy and procedure. DHS workers remain neutral in medical situations of this nature and would not coerce or force a child to do something that she does not want to do."
Robin Banister, the teen's child advocate, also issued a statement late yesterday:
"My client was not coerced by DHS or anyone else. . . . She is upset with the false representations reported about her case and she is upset that professionals have violated her right to privacy."
But the foster mother is sticking to her words.
"Me? I'm going to say the truth," she said. "I told [Williams] I'm going to tell the truth."
She and the teen's birth mother, who identified herself as Deborah M., maintained that the girl was excited about having her second child. She discussed a name and told her daughter that she was going to have a little brother, but her tone changed after she talked with Brown, the foster mother said.
The 17-year-old foster child, who had no connection to the case that was reported yesterday, was weeping when she learned she was to be removed from the home, the foster mother said.
The teen at the center of the case came home from school upset at her foster mother because the teen knew that she had talked with the Daily News.
"She already knew she was being removed."
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20100504_4_children_taken_from_foster_mom_who_spoke_up.html?submit=Vote&oid=2&mr=1&92760904=Y&cid=8500281&pid=92760904
By REGINA MEDINA
Philadelphia Daily News
medinar@phillynews.com 215-854-5985
The Department of Human Services, through its provider agency Concilio, yesterday removed four foster children from the home of a woman who alleged that DHS had coerced one of the children into having a late-term abortion.
About 3:30 p.m., two Concilio employees came to the house, armed with notice of the children's removal.
"As of 5/3/10 your home has been closed as a foster facility due to the incompliance of Concilio's Foster Parent Agency Agreement," read the letter signed by foster-care coordinator Jheovannie Williams, one of the employees who came to the house.
This reporter was on the scene when DHS began removing the foster children. The Mayfair teen who had the abortion; her 1-year-old daughter; another minor, 17; and her son, 1, were packed inside a black van and driven away.
Williams warned the foster mother, whose identity the Daily News is withholding, that trouble was in her future, she said.
"He told me, 'Find yourself lots of money because you're not going to come out from this one very well,' " the foster mother said.
Williams also said that "they were going to sue me," she said. "He said I had to find a lawyer."
The foster mother previously told the Daily News that she had overheard DHS worker Cynthia Brown tell her 16-year-old foster charge, whose name is being withheld because she is a minor, that she would separate the toddler and the unborn child if she went to term.
DHS later obtained a judge's order to allow the teen to get an abortion. Brown drove the teen, who was 24 weeks pregnant, to have an abortion in New Jersey for the first day of the two-day procedure. Abortions in Pennsylvania are illegal once a pregnancy reaches 24 weeks.
DHS paid for the procedure and then requested that two Concilio employees, social worker Marisol Rivera, who has since been fired, and Williams accompany the teen on the second day, Rivera and the foster mother said. Williams drove the Concilio van to the Cherry Hill Women's Center, Rivera and the foster mother said.
Williams refused to comment yesterday when asked about the removal, deferring all calls to Concilio's executive director, Joanna Otero-Cruz.
Calls were not answered at Concilio yesterday afternoon.
Donald F. Schwarz, the city's deputy mayor for health and opportunity, explained in a statement why the four minors had been removed from the house.
"It's now become clear that the foster mother has violated Pennsylvania state law regarding confidentiality [by discussing the teen's case with the newspaper], therefore potentially compromising the safety and well-being of the children in her care," Schwarz's statement read.
DHS Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose issued a statement late yesterday:
"It is unfortunate that the Daily News decided to print an inflammatory story riddled with inaccuracies. The DHS caseworker involved in this case did nothing wrong, in fact she followed departmental policy and procedure. DHS workers remain neutral in medical situations of this nature and would not coerce or force a child to do something that she does not want to do."
Robin Banister, the teen's child advocate, also issued a statement late yesterday:
"My client was not coerced by DHS or anyone else. . . . She is upset with the false representations reported about her case and she is upset that professionals have violated her right to privacy."
But the foster mother is sticking to her words.
"Me? I'm going to say the truth," she said. "I told [Williams] I'm going to tell the truth."
She and the teen's birth mother, who identified herself as Deborah M., maintained that the girl was excited about having her second child. She discussed a name and told her daughter that she was going to have a little brother, but her tone changed after she talked with Brown, the foster mother said.
The 17-year-old foster child, who had no connection to the case that was reported yesterday, was weeping when she learned she was to be removed from the home, the foster mother said.
The teen at the center of the case came home from school upset at her foster mother because the teen knew that she had talked with the Daily News.
"She already knew she was being removed."
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20100504_4_children_taken_from_foster_mom_who_spoke_up.html?submit=Vote&oid=2&mr=1&92760904=Y&cid=8500281&pid=92760904
Monday, May 3, 2010
Parent Attorney Trial Notebook for Deprivation Cases in Georgia’s Juvenile Courts- In Jackson County Georgia This is Not Happening
Parent Attorney Trial Notebook for Deprivation Cases in Georgia’s Juvenile Courts- In Jackson County Georgia This is Not Happening
May 3, 2010yvonnemason
http://www.fcs.uga.edu/childfamilypolicy/proj/parentattorney.pdf
As most parents who have lost children to Child Protective Services know, lawyers as a general rule have no clue as to what to do or how to handle the case. Most of them are not trained, have not been trained and have no desire to be trained on how to get children back who have been snatched by Child Protective Services. They don’t know how to fight the case because they are totally lost in the quagmire. They don’t understand it is not a criminal case, yet the parent is accused of a felony. Now that charge is never sent to criminal court, it is in family court. Which is full of corruption, greed, collusion and abuse on the part of the court, and child protective services. It is all about the money.
That being said, this manual is a step by step manual to teach your attorney and you how to proceed with the case. In my experience with Jackson County Ga Public Defender’s office, they have no clue and when something is brought to their attention like the panel is open and they are allowed to be there in fact are supposed to be there. The public defender is being paid by your tax money. They are paid to repesent you and to fight your case to the fullest- not to just give it lip service or to hang you out to dry when it suits them because they don’t know what they are doing. It is time for them to work and to step up to the plate.
I am not a lawyer, I don’t pretend to be, however, I am smart enough to know that if I don’t know how to do something to go find it. I did. This manual and many more like it. Each parent should add this to the other information I have given you. Your Attorney works for you. He can’t just bail because he doesn’t know something. It is time for them to earn those tax dollars.
When you go before the panel you have the right to have your attorney present, if he is to busy or to lazy to go with you and to field the questions that are going to be thrown at you, then he needs to not get paid. He doesn’t have the right to tell you to get another attorney. He needs to do his job. They use that as a cop out.
The manual which was sponsored and supported by The Supreme Court of Georgia’s Committee on Justice for Children and The Georgia Public Defender Standard Council States:
“The purpose of these standards is to provide attorneys representing parents with a general guide to appropiate and zealous advocacy on behalf of clients in juvenile court deprivation and termination of parental rights cases.
Performance Standard 1:
The primary and most fundamental obligation of a family defender is to provide zealous and effective representation for his or her client at all stages of the juvenile court proceedings. The parent attorney’s duty is to promote and protect the parents expressed interest.
Standard 2:
Deprivation and termination of parental rights cases should not be taken on without the adequate experience and knowledge necessary to represent the client zealously.
2.1 Before practing in juvenile court, parent attorney should be proficient in applicable substantive and procedural Georgia juvenile law and federal laws relating to child abuse and neglect and should have appropriate experience, skills and training necessary to represent parents.
a. at a minimum parent attorney should observe at least ten hours of juvenile court including every stage of a deprivation/TPR proceeding. Parent attorney should obtain a minimum of six hours per year of training in relevant areas of practice.
b. It is highly recommended that parent attorney either work with a mentor before taking a case or have a mentor available to consult on a case.
2.2 Parent Attorney should be knowledgeable about and seek ongoing training in the following areas
a. DFCS policies and procedures
b.Federal Regulations relating to DFCS and foster care;
c. Services available to children and parents through the juvenile court and community
d. Child development
e. Adoption process/benefits available
f.Substance abuse, addiction recovery stages
g.Causes and available treatment for child abuse and neglect
h. Effective communication skills to communicate with child witnesses
i.Cultural competency
j.State and Federal government benefits
k Immigration laws relating to child welfare and child custody
l.Interstate Compact on Placement of Children
m. Medical and Dental Care
n.Domestic Violence
o. Disablities
2.5 Before agreeing to act as parent attorney or accepting appointment by a court, parent attorney has an obligation to make sure he/she has available sufficient time, resources, knowledge and experience to offer effective representation to a client in a particular matter. If it later appears that parent attorney is unable to offer effective representation in the case, he/she should move to withdraw.
2.7 If parent attorney is an Assistant Public Defender and parent attorney’s caseload becomes so large that he/she is unable to satisfactorily meet these performance standards, he/she shall inform the Circuit Public Defender’ for parent attorney’s judicial circuit and the court or courts before whom parent attorney’s cases are pending. If the Circuit Public Defender determines that the caseloads for the entire office are so large that parent attorney is unable to satisfactorily meet these performance standards, the Circuit Public Defender shall inform the court or courts before whom cases are pending and the Director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council.”
Which brings me to my next point. That being the Review Hearings also known as Panels.
Panels are made up of volunteers from the community and are approved by the Judge. They get to rake the parent over the coals. At this panel is the Caseworker, the supervisor, the foster parent, the guardian et litem and the COSA person. They all get their turn at the parent. According this manual the parent attorney is supposed to attend. It is considered a review hearing.
It states: Georgia Standards for Parent Attorney at Review Hearings.
Performance Standard 12
Parent Attorney’s Duty at Review Hearing
Commentary:
“Review hearings are court proceedings that take place after disposition in which the court reviews the status of the case. In many counties, this hearing is delegated to citizen review panels which do a full review of the case and make recommendations to the judge. The judge will then review the same case on paper and with the panel’s recommendations and will issue an order incorporating those recommendations, if appropriate.12.1 For Citizen review panels parent attorney should:
a. Request notice of the panel hearing
b. Prepare for and participate in the meeting when warranted;
c. If necessary, provide information in writing to the panel;
d. Discuss the proceeding with the client before and after the review;
e. Have client collect information on progress made on case plan and goals achieved to present to DFCS prior to the review, and to the panel at the review
f. Review the report of the panel and request judicial review or in-court review if needed
g. Confirm that the citizen review panel does not make any additional caseplan goals with a court hearing
12.2 For Judicial Review the Attorney should:
a. Request notice of the court date
b.Attend each review
c.Talk to service providers or others who may help client
d.Explore whether child can now be returned home or ensure that the current placement is still appropriate and the lest restrictive
e. Modify or increase the visitation schedule, as needed
f. Ensure the agency is making reasonable efforts by providing services to eliminate the need for placement of the child
g. Explore whether any additional court orders need to be mde to move the case toward successful completion
i. Determine whether the current custody order has expired
j.Explore the current permanency plan for the child and ensure that it is appropriate
k modify deadlines and timelines as needed
l Make a record of caseworkers changes.
12.3 Parent Attorney should request a review when court intervention is necessary to resolve a dispute in such matters as visitation, placement or services
12.4 Parent Attorney should request a review when any event occurs that may significantly affect the need for continued placement
12.5 Parent attorney should move the court to return the children or extend visitation in the least restrictive alternative if the client is meeting t he requirements of the case plan
12.6 Parent Attorney should move the court to require DFCS to provide services if they are not being provided. “
This is just a short list in the manual. Jackson County Public Defender’s office has not done any of these. They refuse to go to the panel with Samantha on May 19th – she was told they couldn’t go. According to their own manual they are supposed to go. They are supposed to work that panel just like they would if they were in front of the judge. They are to get her information- ie job searches, etc.
This is just another piece of the travesty and collusion that is going on in that county. If they are not experienced then they need to be educated, if they are not willing to do it then they need to assign her to someone who is. They are not truthful with their client. She is entitled to have him with her at that panel. She is entitled to an attorney who will fight for her. She is entitled to her public defender because she is indigent. She is entitled to the best defense she can get – she should not be given shoddy representation just because she is poor.
Each of you parents go to this site and print this manual. It will save your life and maybe those of your children who have been stolen.
http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/parent-attorney-trial-notebook-for-deprivation-cases-in-georgias-juvenile-courts-in-jackson-county-georgia-this-is-not-happening/
May 3, 2010yvonnemason
http://www.fcs.uga.edu/childfamilypolicy/proj/parentattorney.pdf
As most parents who have lost children to Child Protective Services know, lawyers as a general rule have no clue as to what to do or how to handle the case. Most of them are not trained, have not been trained and have no desire to be trained on how to get children back who have been snatched by Child Protective Services. They don’t know how to fight the case because they are totally lost in the quagmire. They don’t understand it is not a criminal case, yet the parent is accused of a felony. Now that charge is never sent to criminal court, it is in family court. Which is full of corruption, greed, collusion and abuse on the part of the court, and child protective services. It is all about the money.
That being said, this manual is a step by step manual to teach your attorney and you how to proceed with the case. In my experience with Jackson County Ga Public Defender’s office, they have no clue and when something is brought to their attention like the panel is open and they are allowed to be there in fact are supposed to be there. The public defender is being paid by your tax money. They are paid to repesent you and to fight your case to the fullest- not to just give it lip service or to hang you out to dry when it suits them because they don’t know what they are doing. It is time for them to work and to step up to the plate.
I am not a lawyer, I don’t pretend to be, however, I am smart enough to know that if I don’t know how to do something to go find it. I did. This manual and many more like it. Each parent should add this to the other information I have given you. Your Attorney works for you. He can’t just bail because he doesn’t know something. It is time for them to earn those tax dollars.
When you go before the panel you have the right to have your attorney present, if he is to busy or to lazy to go with you and to field the questions that are going to be thrown at you, then he needs to not get paid. He doesn’t have the right to tell you to get another attorney. He needs to do his job. They use that as a cop out.
The manual which was sponsored and supported by The Supreme Court of Georgia’s Committee on Justice for Children and The Georgia Public Defender Standard Council States:
“The purpose of these standards is to provide attorneys representing parents with a general guide to appropiate and zealous advocacy on behalf of clients in juvenile court deprivation and termination of parental rights cases.
Performance Standard 1:
The primary and most fundamental obligation of a family defender is to provide zealous and effective representation for his or her client at all stages of the juvenile court proceedings. The parent attorney’s duty is to promote and protect the parents expressed interest.
Standard 2:
Deprivation and termination of parental rights cases should not be taken on without the adequate experience and knowledge necessary to represent the client zealously.
2.1 Before practing in juvenile court, parent attorney should be proficient in applicable substantive and procedural Georgia juvenile law and federal laws relating to child abuse and neglect and should have appropriate experience, skills and training necessary to represent parents.
a. at a minimum parent attorney should observe at least ten hours of juvenile court including every stage of a deprivation/TPR proceeding. Parent attorney should obtain a minimum of six hours per year of training in relevant areas of practice.
b. It is highly recommended that parent attorney either work with a mentor before taking a case or have a mentor available to consult on a case.
2.2 Parent Attorney should be knowledgeable about and seek ongoing training in the following areas
a. DFCS policies and procedures
b.Federal Regulations relating to DFCS and foster care;
c. Services available to children and parents through the juvenile court and community
d. Child development
e. Adoption process/benefits available
f.Substance abuse, addiction recovery stages
g.Causes and available treatment for child abuse and neglect
h. Effective communication skills to communicate with child witnesses
i.Cultural competency
j.State and Federal government benefits
k Immigration laws relating to child welfare and child custody
l.Interstate Compact on Placement of Children
m. Medical and Dental Care
n.Domestic Violence
o. Disablities
2.5 Before agreeing to act as parent attorney or accepting appointment by a court, parent attorney has an obligation to make sure he/she has available sufficient time, resources, knowledge and experience to offer effective representation to a client in a particular matter. If it later appears that parent attorney is unable to offer effective representation in the case, he/she should move to withdraw.
2.7 If parent attorney is an Assistant Public Defender and parent attorney’s caseload becomes so large that he/she is unable to satisfactorily meet these performance standards, he/she shall inform the Circuit Public Defender’ for parent attorney’s judicial circuit and the court or courts before whom parent attorney’s cases are pending. If the Circuit Public Defender determines that the caseloads for the entire office are so large that parent attorney is unable to satisfactorily meet these performance standards, the Circuit Public Defender shall inform the court or courts before whom cases are pending and the Director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council.”
Which brings me to my next point. That being the Review Hearings also known as Panels.
Panels are made up of volunteers from the community and are approved by the Judge. They get to rake the parent over the coals. At this panel is the Caseworker, the supervisor, the foster parent, the guardian et litem and the COSA person. They all get their turn at the parent. According this manual the parent attorney is supposed to attend. It is considered a review hearing.
It states: Georgia Standards for Parent Attorney at Review Hearings.
Performance Standard 12
Parent Attorney’s Duty at Review Hearing
Commentary:
“Review hearings are court proceedings that take place after disposition in which the court reviews the status of the case. In many counties, this hearing is delegated to citizen review panels which do a full review of the case and make recommendations to the judge. The judge will then review the same case on paper and with the panel’s recommendations and will issue an order incorporating those recommendations, if appropriate.12.1 For Citizen review panels parent attorney should:
a. Request notice of the panel hearing
b. Prepare for and participate in the meeting when warranted;
c. If necessary, provide information in writing to the panel;
d. Discuss the proceeding with the client before and after the review;
e. Have client collect information on progress made on case plan and goals achieved to present to DFCS prior to the review, and to the panel at the review
f. Review the report of the panel and request judicial review or in-court review if needed
g. Confirm that the citizen review panel does not make any additional caseplan goals with a court hearing
12.2 For Judicial Review the Attorney should:
a. Request notice of the court date
b.Attend each review
c.Talk to service providers or others who may help client
d.Explore whether child can now be returned home or ensure that the current placement is still appropriate and the lest restrictive
e. Modify or increase the visitation schedule, as needed
f. Ensure the agency is making reasonable efforts by providing services to eliminate the need for placement of the child
g. Explore whether any additional court orders need to be mde to move the case toward successful completion
i. Determine whether the current custody order has expired
j.Explore the current permanency plan for the child and ensure that it is appropriate
k modify deadlines and timelines as needed
l Make a record of caseworkers changes.
12.3 Parent Attorney should request a review when court intervention is necessary to resolve a dispute in such matters as visitation, placement or services
12.4 Parent Attorney should request a review when any event occurs that may significantly affect the need for continued placement
12.5 Parent attorney should move the court to return the children or extend visitation in the least restrictive alternative if the client is meeting t he requirements of the case plan
12.6 Parent Attorney should move the court to require DFCS to provide services if they are not being provided. “
This is just a short list in the manual. Jackson County Public Defender’s office has not done any of these. They refuse to go to the panel with Samantha on May 19th – she was told they couldn’t go. According to their own manual they are supposed to go. They are supposed to work that panel just like they would if they were in front of the judge. They are to get her information- ie job searches, etc.
This is just another piece of the travesty and collusion that is going on in that county. If they are not experienced then they need to be educated, if they are not willing to do it then they need to assign her to someone who is. They are not truthful with their client. She is entitled to have him with her at that panel. She is entitled to an attorney who will fight for her. She is entitled to her public defender because she is indigent. She is entitled to the best defense she can get – she should not be given shoddy representation just because she is poor.
Each of you parents go to this site and print this manual. It will save your life and maybe those of your children who have been stolen.
http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/parent-attorney-trial-notebook-for-deprivation-cases-in-georgias-juvenile-courts-in-jackson-county-georgia-this-is-not-happening/
TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES: DR. FLETCHER BROTHERS AND FREEDOM VILLAGE LEADING THE WAY
If This Article were not So True it would be laughable
May 3, 2010yvonnemason
TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES: DR. FLETCHER BROTHERS AND FREEDOM VILLAGE LEADING THE WAY
By Rick Kern
The black market teems with the sinister bustle of self-satisfied profiteers as they cash in from the shadows. Among the nation’s most enterprising entrepreneurs, their backrooms, alleys and restaurants host countless underhanded business transactions where the players move in and out like phantoms as they continue to sink to new lows and broker all kinds of seedy deals. Their inventory includes the usual goods and services -old standards such as harlotry, marijuana and other illicit drugs, electronics, bootlegged CDs and DVDs and on and on it goes. If someone wants it, someone else will find a way to sell it -there’s gold in them there cesspools.
And as is typical of even this squalid underside of corporate America, the roost is ruled by the law of supply and demand. But there is an alarming demand for one item so shocking that even the most artful brokers can’t keep the shelves stocked. What is this latest craze sweeping America -break out the Rolaids, sit down and buckle your seatbelts. It is our children. The foster care system is big business and business is booming big across the country. In fact, the cheerful chime of the cash registers has echoed so loud that our neighbors to the north have opened their own franchise, granting their counterpart of the United States’ Child Protection Services, (CPS), benignly dubbed the Children’s Aid Society, (CAS), powers so broad that they out-muscle and eclipse even the sweeping reach of our own Department of Social Services.
Tongue and cheek aside the problem is real, graphic and driven hard by our bourgeoning godlessness, ever declining moral standards and the devastating breakdown of the family. The issues facing Child Protection Services are complex and varied. Like most government agencies, they are under staffed, under funded and over burdened with profoundly consequential problems. Still, there is much more to the mix, but you have to dig down to the bottom of the sewer to get to it. Among those emerging on the local front as a force to reckoned with against these heartbreaking inequities is Pastor Fletcher Brothers, Founder and Director of Freedom Village USA. Established in 1974 the organization has been transforming the lives of troubled teens for some 30 years and catalogs a remarkable anthology of success stories. At any given time the group houses over 150 teens on its sprawling campus and addresses every problem imaginable including drug and alcohol addiction, rebellion, prostitution and even suicide with the love and grit necessary for struggling victims to get their lives back on track. And while Senator Hillary Clinton may not have had Freedom Village in mind when she wrote It Takes a Village, the comprehensive program has revolutionized thousands of shattered lives creating a mosaic of hope and stability among our nation’s traumatized youth that has earned Brothers even the grudging admiration of his many detractors.
Pastor Brothers learned of the widespread problems within the Social Services system by getting up-close-and-personal with the jagged edges of the many lives left shattered by it. They are not statistics that find a home on his desk, but savaged young lives that find a home in his heart. “Don’t get me wrong,” he declares in his typically forceful manner, “we need a system to protect children and there are many wonderful people working within it. But the system that is supposed to be protecting them is now part of the problem, the system’s out of control.”
He should know he has cradled its victims in his arms and brushed their tears away with his hands while crying his own. There are the stories, each more heartrending than the one before it. M, now a 23 year-old Freedom Village resident spent seven years in the system as M’s lesbian mother (along with her lover) was approved to be a foster parent and hosted children in an environment that rats would run from. She suffered every type of cruelty and neglect imaginable as the “foster parents” continually abused drugs and alcohol. According to M the children repeatedly endured beatings, primarily from her mother’s lover, and she was also sexually abused. The refrigerator was kept locked and things only grew worse whenever anyone complained or cried.
M estimates that during the course of her mother’s tenure as a foster parent, Child Protection Services visited their home over 200 times to evaluate the quality of the care being received by the children who resided there. She explains that she would sit on the steps during these visits with ripped clothes, unkempt hair, dirty, bruised and scratched wondering why the CPS workers could not see what was going on.
A, now 19 years-old, had similar experiences including foster parents as an infant who left her alone with only her young brother for two days. She wasn’t changed or bathed regularly and wound up hospitalized as a result of the care (or lack thereof) given her in the state approved home. When she was older she was placed in a foster home where she was continually locked in her room and rarely allowed to do anything. She was beaten frequently and even pushed down the stairs.
The stories reverberate like an aching echo throbbing through life after broken life. There is 15 year-old C who was in eight different foster homes and abused in four of them. And J, also 15 years-old, who spent nearly half of her life navigating the deadly reefs of the foster care system. Of the 26 foster homes she drifted through, J estimates that 17 of them were abusive. The same can be said for Z, aged 17, who endured unspeakable horrors in 17 of the 20 foster homes he lived in.
The nightmares are not confined to Western New York but have polluted the entire system. For example, in Superior Court of Arizona, Maricopa County, a class action lawsuit, Bogutz v. Arizona, was filed on behalf of foster children in 1994. It is emblematic of the alarming scope of sexual abuse of children in state care. The suit charged that more than 500 of an estimated 4,000 foster children had been sexually abused while in state care. The action also alleged, that “the acts and omissions of Defendants were done in bad faith, with malice, intent or deliberate indifference to and/or reckless disregard for the health, safety and rights of the Plaintiffs.”
As might be expected, the problems related to foster placements in Arizona are not confined to sexual abuse. Like the victims at Freedom Village, studies have shown that during a two-year period, one foster child died on average every seven and a half weeks in the state of Arizona. Four of them were reported as having been “viciously beaten to death” by their foster parents,” (Jeff Jacoby, “Catastrophe in Foster Care,” Boston Globe, July 18, 1995).
Similar tragedies have been reported from every corner of the country. Both Tai Aguirre, Executive Producer and host of Talk Radio’s Could YOU Be Next and The Charlotte World, an alternative news publication that publishes more stories each week than any other alternative news outlet, are among the media sources that have covered the disgraceful government sanctioned abduction of one year old Shaday Fasinro. The outrage occurred on Dec. 15, 2000 when social workers and police officers came into the couple’s home in the evening and took the terrified baby away. Aguirre quotes Yinka Fasinro the child’s distraught father on his web site, (www.couldyoubenext.com), “Agents from the Department of Social Services and police pushed their way in and forced our baby from our arms.”
According to Angie Vineyard’s disturbing story in The Charlotte World, the travesty was driven not by abuse or neglect that had been carefully investigated and documented, but by Yinka and Vanessa Fasinro’s religious convictions which “led them to a vegetarian diet, breast-feeding, and skepticism about vaccinations for their baby.” “These same convictions also led social workers to their door,” Vineyard reports, “who took their baby from them.” Interestingly, the couple is reported to embrace the Christian faith and Yinka is not Mr. but Rev. Fasinro, reflecting mounting concerns that a disproportionate number of Christians are finding themselves in the Department of Social Services’ crosshairs. Ms. Vineyard also covered a related, glaring scandal in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina that explains the how the well-intentioned system feeds off of itself in the hands of corrupt men.
A Charlotte World exclusive entitled The Fight For Spencer, was prefaced by the ominous warning, “Across the Carolinas, Christian families are battling local departments of social services for custody of their children and other basic parental rights.” Vineyard wrote, “After battling the Department of Social Services (DSS) in court for an entire year, a Christian couple has finally been given full custody of their oldest son. A hearing judge for the clerk of Mecklenburg County Superior Court ruled on February 19 that 18-year-old Spencer should immediately go home with his parents, Jack and Kathy Stratton.” The Strattons were allegedly victims of not just a deeply flawed system, but of Richard “Jake” Jacobsen, a predatory Director of the Department of Social Services (DDS) in Mecklenburg County who is accused by some of running an unthinkable money-making scam by franchising the very children he has been hired to protect. “There is a government run and sponsored black and interracial child slave trade operation in Mecklenburg County in which black and interracial children are illegally kidnapped from their parents, labeled “special needs” because they are black or interracial and then held for years in state custody while Mecklenburg County collects an estimated $30,000 to $150,000 per child per year,” claims the Family Rights Association on their web site. “We have first hand documentation of this racketeering operation because we are an interracial couple whose 10 children were illegally kidnapped from another county on January 30, 2001 by this Mecklenburg County cartel.” The charges continue, “The man hired to run this multi-billion dollar operation is Mecklenburg DSS Director Richard “Jake” Jacobsen, a man who was removed from the same position as DSS Director in San Diego, California in 1992 after two Grand Juries found his administration guilty of stealing children and committing other atrocities in San Diego.”
If the allegations are on target it is just another grim reminder that no system can be greater than the integrity of those who staff it. In 1997, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act a provision intended to expedite the removal of endangered children from perilous living conditions. Additionally, it provided financial incentives to states to encourage them to find adoptive or other permanent homes for foster children, especially those with special needs.
Under the “Adoption Incentive Payment” section of the act, a state can receive as much as $4,000 for adopting out a child. Under a subsequent provision, technical assistance is offered “through grants or contracts?to assist states and local communities to reach their targets for increased numbers of adoptions.” This financial assistance can be used to expedite the termination of parental rights and “encourage the fast tracking of children who have not attained 1 year of age into pre-adoptive placements.” Technical assistance is also appropriated to the courts to the tune of a whopping $5,000,000 for each fiscal year.
Most applaud the spirit of the law, to move children from foster homes into permanent adoptive placements thus establishing a greater level of stability. But the obvious danger is that the very governing state agency entrusted with protecting children from dangerous environments and working with parents to reunite their families, is also given fat bonuses by the federal government if they push to terminate parental rights and increase their adoption numbers. The counter productive potential of the kick-backs in the hands of unprincipled men is obvious and lend plausibility to the sinister allegations against the Mecklenburg DSS Director. Talk Radio’s Could YOU Be Next? also covered the Stratton nightmare on its web site, saying “A sworn affidavit by witness Gaston County Patrol Officer Jeannette Seagle states that “there was no need for the removal of the children.”
South Carolina apparently got gold fever and joined the rush as well. The Charlotte World also reported in a feature, Christian Family Ripped Apart that “with virtually no warning, the Greenville Department of Social Services came into Bill and Debbie Rettew’s home, removed 15 of their 18 children and placed them in foster homes.” The family, which was so talented and exemplary that Bill Rettew was named Father of the Year, (an honor reportedly bestowed by the South Carolina Attorney General), and invited to appear on Focus on the Family to meet Founder and president Dr. James Dobson and sing on his weekly radio broadcast. And while such an excessive seizure begs countless questions, in light of the federal incentives the internal dynamics of the Rettew family shed no small light on the subject. As the Charlotte World explains: “Having given birth to Will and Autumn, now 32 and 24, the Rettews felt strongly that it was their Christian mission to care for children others might not want. So they became foster parents and eventually adopted multi-racial kids and children with medical problems. Every one of their adopted 18 have physical, emotional or mental disabilities. The reasons the children were taken into DSS custody remain unclear since Family Court Judge Amy Sutherland placed a gag order on the Rettews and DSS officials, prohibiting them from discussing the case.”
In an article entitled, The Real Abuse, appearing in” National Review, (April 12, 1993), psychologist and author Dr. Seth Farber lamented “Only a small minority of these children have been separated from parents who are dangerous to them. The overwhelming majority have been separated from loving and responsible parents. One does not need to be a child psychologist to realize the devastating effect of removing a child from parents with whom he or she is deeply bonded.”
But what if those children were not only ruthlessly and unnecessarily stripped from their homes, but subsequently placed in same-sex households! WorldNetDaily.com ran a blockbuster expose last summer that loosely probed the probability of gay couples being supplied with children from heterosexual parents through the Social Services system (posted July 1, 2004). “The vast majority will come, because they already do come, from pre-existing heterosexual families,” wrote Stephen Baskerville. “In Massachusetts,” he continued, “Forty percent (40%), of the children adopted have gone to gay and lesbian families,” according to Democratic state Senator Therese Murphy.”
According to Pastor Brothers, Child Protection Services can, through the extremely broad powers granted them, be on your doorstep demanding your children based upon an anonymous complaint. And the way the system works, the agency removes the children first (to get them out of harm’s way), and asks questions later. However, the questions asked and the way they are posed can be insidious causing the protracted placement of your children into the foster care system until the truth can be ascertained and addressed by an overburdened court system. But by then the damage is done, potentially causing emotional damage and financial ruin for children and parents who incur costly legal expenses fighting the system to regain custody of their kids.
In her Parents Guide to the System, Cheryl Barnes, National Director of CPSWatch, a grassroots watchdog that advocates on behalf of victims of the SSD, notes some of the creative ways CPS workers “stack” their affidavits. The petition may read, “there’s a hole in the kitchen floor” when the truth is “there’s a tear in the linoleum.” Or the petition will read, “child was covered with bruises” when the truth is “the child has minor scrapes and bruises on shins from climbing trees.” And in an Oscar winning spin the petition reads, “home was piled to the ceiling with clutter,” when the truth is that “the parents were packing to move.”
The courts may be doing their jobs returning sixty to sixty-five percent (60 to 65%) of the children to their homes after declaring that the complaint (which can be a two-minute anonymous phone call remember) is Unfounded. However, Pastor Brothers notes that some seventy percent (70%) of those return on mind-altering drugs, usually prescribed via DSS physicians/mental heath professionals to help the children who have been traumatized because they have been torn from their homes and forced to live with strangers. In San Antonio, Texas the figure was closer to eighty-five percent (85%) according to an investigative report done by a television station there.
His counsel, “The average Christian doesn’t know their rights,” he says. “The minute you let the Department of Social Services in your house you’re surrendering your rights as a parent, you’re letting the Devil in your house.” Accordingly, he has begun an aggressive thrust to enlist Christians in Pre-Paid Legal Services, a bourgeoning program that offers a complex of attractive legal services for extremely reasonable fees. For more information about Freedom Village USA, one of the finest foster care facilities in New York State, call them at: 1-(800) 842-8679.
WORD NEWS
Christian News Buffalo, NY
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May 3, 2010yvonnemason
TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES: DR. FLETCHER BROTHERS AND FREEDOM VILLAGE LEADING THE WAY
By Rick Kern
The black market teems with the sinister bustle of self-satisfied profiteers as they cash in from the shadows. Among the nation’s most enterprising entrepreneurs, their backrooms, alleys and restaurants host countless underhanded business transactions where the players move in and out like phantoms as they continue to sink to new lows and broker all kinds of seedy deals. Their inventory includes the usual goods and services -old standards such as harlotry, marijuana and other illicit drugs, electronics, bootlegged CDs and DVDs and on and on it goes. If someone wants it, someone else will find a way to sell it -there’s gold in them there cesspools.
And as is typical of even this squalid underside of corporate America, the roost is ruled by the law of supply and demand. But there is an alarming demand for one item so shocking that even the most artful brokers can’t keep the shelves stocked. What is this latest craze sweeping America -break out the Rolaids, sit down and buckle your seatbelts. It is our children. The foster care system is big business and business is booming big across the country. In fact, the cheerful chime of the cash registers has echoed so loud that our neighbors to the north have opened their own franchise, granting their counterpart of the United States’ Child Protection Services, (CPS), benignly dubbed the Children’s Aid Society, (CAS), powers so broad that they out-muscle and eclipse even the sweeping reach of our own Department of Social Services.
Tongue and cheek aside the problem is real, graphic and driven hard by our bourgeoning godlessness, ever declining moral standards and the devastating breakdown of the family. The issues facing Child Protection Services are complex and varied. Like most government agencies, they are under staffed, under funded and over burdened with profoundly consequential problems. Still, there is much more to the mix, but you have to dig down to the bottom of the sewer to get to it. Among those emerging on the local front as a force to reckoned with against these heartbreaking inequities is Pastor Fletcher Brothers, Founder and Director of Freedom Village USA. Established in 1974 the organization has been transforming the lives of troubled teens for some 30 years and catalogs a remarkable anthology of success stories. At any given time the group houses over 150 teens on its sprawling campus and addresses every problem imaginable including drug and alcohol addiction, rebellion, prostitution and even suicide with the love and grit necessary for struggling victims to get their lives back on track. And while Senator Hillary Clinton may not have had Freedom Village in mind when she wrote It Takes a Village, the comprehensive program has revolutionized thousands of shattered lives creating a mosaic of hope and stability among our nation’s traumatized youth that has earned Brothers even the grudging admiration of his many detractors.
Pastor Brothers learned of the widespread problems within the Social Services system by getting up-close-and-personal with the jagged edges of the many lives left shattered by it. They are not statistics that find a home on his desk, but savaged young lives that find a home in his heart. “Don’t get me wrong,” he declares in his typically forceful manner, “we need a system to protect children and there are many wonderful people working within it. But the system that is supposed to be protecting them is now part of the problem, the system’s out of control.”
He should know he has cradled its victims in his arms and brushed their tears away with his hands while crying his own. There are the stories, each more heartrending than the one before it. M, now a 23 year-old Freedom Village resident spent seven years in the system as M’s lesbian mother (along with her lover) was approved to be a foster parent and hosted children in an environment that rats would run from. She suffered every type of cruelty and neglect imaginable as the “foster parents” continually abused drugs and alcohol. According to M the children repeatedly endured beatings, primarily from her mother’s lover, and she was also sexually abused. The refrigerator was kept locked and things only grew worse whenever anyone complained or cried.
M estimates that during the course of her mother’s tenure as a foster parent, Child Protection Services visited their home over 200 times to evaluate the quality of the care being received by the children who resided there. She explains that she would sit on the steps during these visits with ripped clothes, unkempt hair, dirty, bruised and scratched wondering why the CPS workers could not see what was going on.
A, now 19 years-old, had similar experiences including foster parents as an infant who left her alone with only her young brother for two days. She wasn’t changed or bathed regularly and wound up hospitalized as a result of the care (or lack thereof) given her in the state approved home. When she was older she was placed in a foster home where she was continually locked in her room and rarely allowed to do anything. She was beaten frequently and even pushed down the stairs.
The stories reverberate like an aching echo throbbing through life after broken life. There is 15 year-old C who was in eight different foster homes and abused in four of them. And J, also 15 years-old, who spent nearly half of her life navigating the deadly reefs of the foster care system. Of the 26 foster homes she drifted through, J estimates that 17 of them were abusive. The same can be said for Z, aged 17, who endured unspeakable horrors in 17 of the 20 foster homes he lived in.
The nightmares are not confined to Western New York but have polluted the entire system. For example, in Superior Court of Arizona, Maricopa County, a class action lawsuit, Bogutz v. Arizona, was filed on behalf of foster children in 1994. It is emblematic of the alarming scope of sexual abuse of children in state care. The suit charged that more than 500 of an estimated 4,000 foster children had been sexually abused while in state care. The action also alleged, that “the acts and omissions of Defendants were done in bad faith, with malice, intent or deliberate indifference to and/or reckless disregard for the health, safety and rights of the Plaintiffs.”
As might be expected, the problems related to foster placements in Arizona are not confined to sexual abuse. Like the victims at Freedom Village, studies have shown that during a two-year period, one foster child died on average every seven and a half weeks in the state of Arizona. Four of them were reported as having been “viciously beaten to death” by their foster parents,” (Jeff Jacoby, “Catastrophe in Foster Care,” Boston Globe, July 18, 1995).
Similar tragedies have been reported from every corner of the country. Both Tai Aguirre, Executive Producer and host of Talk Radio’s Could YOU Be Next and The Charlotte World, an alternative news publication that publishes more stories each week than any other alternative news outlet, are among the media sources that have covered the disgraceful government sanctioned abduction of one year old Shaday Fasinro. The outrage occurred on Dec. 15, 2000 when social workers and police officers came into the couple’s home in the evening and took the terrified baby away. Aguirre quotes Yinka Fasinro the child’s distraught father on his web site, (www.couldyoubenext.com), “Agents from the Department of Social Services and police pushed their way in and forced our baby from our arms.”
According to Angie Vineyard’s disturbing story in The Charlotte World, the travesty was driven not by abuse or neglect that had been carefully investigated and documented, but by Yinka and Vanessa Fasinro’s religious convictions which “led them to a vegetarian diet, breast-feeding, and skepticism about vaccinations for their baby.” “These same convictions also led social workers to their door,” Vineyard reports, “who took their baby from them.” Interestingly, the couple is reported to embrace the Christian faith and Yinka is not Mr. but Rev. Fasinro, reflecting mounting concerns that a disproportionate number of Christians are finding themselves in the Department of Social Services’ crosshairs. Ms. Vineyard also covered a related, glaring scandal in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina that explains the how the well-intentioned system feeds off of itself in the hands of corrupt men.
A Charlotte World exclusive entitled The Fight For Spencer, was prefaced by the ominous warning, “Across the Carolinas, Christian families are battling local departments of social services for custody of their children and other basic parental rights.” Vineyard wrote, “After battling the Department of Social Services (DSS) in court for an entire year, a Christian couple has finally been given full custody of their oldest son. A hearing judge for the clerk of Mecklenburg County Superior Court ruled on February 19 that 18-year-old Spencer should immediately go home with his parents, Jack and Kathy Stratton.” The Strattons were allegedly victims of not just a deeply flawed system, but of Richard “Jake” Jacobsen, a predatory Director of the Department of Social Services (DDS) in Mecklenburg County who is accused by some of running an unthinkable money-making scam by franchising the very children he has been hired to protect. “There is a government run and sponsored black and interracial child slave trade operation in Mecklenburg County in which black and interracial children are illegally kidnapped from their parents, labeled “special needs” because they are black or interracial and then held for years in state custody while Mecklenburg County collects an estimated $30,000 to $150,000 per child per year,” claims the Family Rights Association on their web site. “We have first hand documentation of this racketeering operation because we are an interracial couple whose 10 children were illegally kidnapped from another county on January 30, 2001 by this Mecklenburg County cartel.” The charges continue, “The man hired to run this multi-billion dollar operation is Mecklenburg DSS Director Richard “Jake” Jacobsen, a man who was removed from the same position as DSS Director in San Diego, California in 1992 after two Grand Juries found his administration guilty of stealing children and committing other atrocities in San Diego.”
If the allegations are on target it is just another grim reminder that no system can be greater than the integrity of those who staff it. In 1997, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act a provision intended to expedite the removal of endangered children from perilous living conditions. Additionally, it provided financial incentives to states to encourage them to find adoptive or other permanent homes for foster children, especially those with special needs.
Under the “Adoption Incentive Payment” section of the act, a state can receive as much as $4,000 for adopting out a child. Under a subsequent provision, technical assistance is offered “through grants or contracts?to assist states and local communities to reach their targets for increased numbers of adoptions.” This financial assistance can be used to expedite the termination of parental rights and “encourage the fast tracking of children who have not attained 1 year of age into pre-adoptive placements.” Technical assistance is also appropriated to the courts to the tune of a whopping $5,000,000 for each fiscal year.
Most applaud the spirit of the law, to move children from foster homes into permanent adoptive placements thus establishing a greater level of stability. But the obvious danger is that the very governing state agency entrusted with protecting children from dangerous environments and working with parents to reunite their families, is also given fat bonuses by the federal government if they push to terminate parental rights and increase their adoption numbers. The counter productive potential of the kick-backs in the hands of unprincipled men is obvious and lend plausibility to the sinister allegations against the Mecklenburg DSS Director. Talk Radio’s Could YOU Be Next? also covered the Stratton nightmare on its web site, saying “A sworn affidavit by witness Gaston County Patrol Officer Jeannette Seagle states that “there was no need for the removal of the children.”
South Carolina apparently got gold fever and joined the rush as well. The Charlotte World also reported in a feature, Christian Family Ripped Apart that “with virtually no warning, the Greenville Department of Social Services came into Bill and Debbie Rettew’s home, removed 15 of their 18 children and placed them in foster homes.” The family, which was so talented and exemplary that Bill Rettew was named Father of the Year, (an honor reportedly bestowed by the South Carolina Attorney General), and invited to appear on Focus on the Family to meet Founder and president Dr. James Dobson and sing on his weekly radio broadcast. And while such an excessive seizure begs countless questions, in light of the federal incentives the internal dynamics of the Rettew family shed no small light on the subject. As the Charlotte World explains: “Having given birth to Will and Autumn, now 32 and 24, the Rettews felt strongly that it was their Christian mission to care for children others might not want. So they became foster parents and eventually adopted multi-racial kids and children with medical problems. Every one of their adopted 18 have physical, emotional or mental disabilities. The reasons the children were taken into DSS custody remain unclear since Family Court Judge Amy Sutherland placed a gag order on the Rettews and DSS officials, prohibiting them from discussing the case.”
In an article entitled, The Real Abuse, appearing in” National Review, (April 12, 1993), psychologist and author Dr. Seth Farber lamented “Only a small minority of these children have been separated from parents who are dangerous to them. The overwhelming majority have been separated from loving and responsible parents. One does not need to be a child psychologist to realize the devastating effect of removing a child from parents with whom he or she is deeply bonded.”
But what if those children were not only ruthlessly and unnecessarily stripped from their homes, but subsequently placed in same-sex households! WorldNetDaily.com ran a blockbuster expose last summer that loosely probed the probability of gay couples being supplied with children from heterosexual parents through the Social Services system (posted July 1, 2004). “The vast majority will come, because they already do come, from pre-existing heterosexual families,” wrote Stephen Baskerville. “In Massachusetts,” he continued, “Forty percent (40%), of the children adopted have gone to gay and lesbian families,” according to Democratic state Senator Therese Murphy.”
According to Pastor Brothers, Child Protection Services can, through the extremely broad powers granted them, be on your doorstep demanding your children based upon an anonymous complaint. And the way the system works, the agency removes the children first (to get them out of harm’s way), and asks questions later. However, the questions asked and the way they are posed can be insidious causing the protracted placement of your children into the foster care system until the truth can be ascertained and addressed by an overburdened court system. But by then the damage is done, potentially causing emotional damage and financial ruin for children and parents who incur costly legal expenses fighting the system to regain custody of their kids.
In her Parents Guide to the System, Cheryl Barnes, National Director of CPSWatch, a grassroots watchdog that advocates on behalf of victims of the SSD, notes some of the creative ways CPS workers “stack” their affidavits. The petition may read, “there’s a hole in the kitchen floor” when the truth is “there’s a tear in the linoleum.” Or the petition will read, “child was covered with bruises” when the truth is “the child has minor scrapes and bruises on shins from climbing trees.” And in an Oscar winning spin the petition reads, “home was piled to the ceiling with clutter,” when the truth is that “the parents were packing to move.”
The courts may be doing their jobs returning sixty to sixty-five percent (60 to 65%) of the children to their homes after declaring that the complaint (which can be a two-minute anonymous phone call remember) is Unfounded. However, Pastor Brothers notes that some seventy percent (70%) of those return on mind-altering drugs, usually prescribed via DSS physicians/mental heath professionals to help the children who have been traumatized because they have been torn from their homes and forced to live with strangers. In San Antonio, Texas the figure was closer to eighty-five percent (85%) according to an investigative report done by a television station there.
His counsel, “The average Christian doesn’t know their rights,” he says. “The minute you let the Department of Social Services in your house you’re surrendering your rights as a parent, you’re letting the Devil in your house.” Accordingly, he has begun an aggressive thrust to enlist Christians in Pre-Paid Legal Services, a bourgeoning program that offers a complex of attractive legal services for extremely reasonable fees. For more information about Freedom Village USA, one of the finest foster care facilities in New York State, call them at: 1-(800) 842-8679.
WORD NEWS
Christian News Buffalo, NY
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Russian Orphanage Offers Love, but Not Families
Russian Orphanage Offers Love, but Not Families
James Hill for The New York Times
At Orphanage No. 11. in Moscow, the rooms are filled with toys. , But what the orphanage does not have are many visits from potential parents.
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: May 3, 2010
MOSCOW — There is nothing dreary about Orphanage No. 11. It has rooms filled with enough dolls and trains and stuffed animals to make any child giggly. It has speech therapists and round-the-clock nurses and cooks who delight in covertly slipping a treat into a tiny hand. It has the feel of a place where love abounds.
Multimedia
Back Story With The Times's Clifford J. Levy
What it does not have are many visits from potential parents.
Few of its children will ever be adopted — by Russians or foreigners. When they reach age 7 and are too old for this institution they will be shuttled to the next one, reflecting an entrenched system that is much better at warehousing children — and profiting from them — than finding them families.
The case of a Russian boy who returned alone to Moscow, sent back by his American adoptive mother, has focused intense attention on the pitfalls of international adoption.
But the outcry has obscured fundamental questions about why Russia has so many orphans and orphanages in the first place.
In recent days, senior Russian officials have begun to acknowledge how troubled their system is.
The chairwoman of the parliamentary committee on family and children, Yelena B. Mizulina, spotlighted what she said was a shocking statistic: Russia has more orphans now, 700,000, than at the end of World War II, when an estimated 25 million Soviet citizens were killed.
Ms. Mizulina noted that for all the complaints about the return of the boy, Artyom Savelyev, by his adoptive mother in Tennessee, Russia itself has plenty of experience with failed placements. She said 30,000 children in the last three years inside Russia were sent back to institutions by their adoptive, foster or guardianship families.
“Specialists call such a boom in returns a humanitarian catastrophe,” she said.
She reeled off more figures. The percentage of children who are designated orphans is four to five times higher in Russia than in Europe or the United States. Of those, 30 percent live in orphanages. Most of them are children who have been either given up by their parents or removed from dysfunctional homes by the authorities.
Her comments offered a sense of the frustration over the state of Russia’s orphanage system, which has long been resistant to reform.
Over the years, proposals to reduce the system’s size — the deinstitutionalization that occurred decades ago in the United States and elsewhere — have gone nowhere.
Despite the horror stories recounted about Russian orphanages, social welfare experts say that conditions in many are not terrible; some are excellent. The more pressing issue is the warehousing of young children in large-scale facilities, which experts say can hold back their social and intellectual development.
But the system’s defenders said that until the government figures out how to cut down on social problems like drug and alcohol abuse to improve family life, there is no alternative.
“It would be a lot better if there were no orphanages, and every child were happy in the family that he or she has,” said the director of Orphanage No. 11, Lidiya Y. Slusareva. “But if there are bad families, then it is better that the children are here.”
The scrutiny of the Russian system comes as Russian and American diplomats are working out new rules for adoptions.
Russian officials, who have often seemed embarrassed that their country cannot care for all its children and has to give some up to foreigners, demanded the new rules after Artyom was returned.
The Foreign Ministry said adoptions by Americans would be suspended until an agreement is reached. It is not entirely clear whether adoptions are actually frozen, or whether the process is just being dragged out.
In recent years, the Russian government has repeatedly pledged to bolster efforts to help families stay together, to increase the number of children who are adopted and to expand foster care. But it has not had notable success.
Indeed, while Russia has its share of social problems, the large number of orphans stems in part from a policy that does not place a high value on keeping families together.
The Russian government spends roughly $3 billion annually on orphanages and similar facilities, creating a system that is an important source of jobs and money on the regional level — and a target for corruption.
As a result, it is in the interests of regional officials to maintain the flow of children to orphanages and then not to let them leave, child welfare experts said. When adoptions are permitted, families, especially foreign families, have to pay large fees and navigate a complex bureaucracy.
“The system has one goal, which is to preserve itself,” said Boris L. Altshuler, chairman of Right of the Child, an advocacy group in Moscow, and a member of a Kremlin advisory group.
“That is why the process of adoption in Russia is like going through the circles of hell,” he said. “The system wants these children to remain orphans.”
He said that in 2008, 115,000 children in Russia were designated as without parental care, typically after being removed from their homes by caseworkers. Only 9,000 children were returned to their parents that year. In the United States, where reuniting families is a primary goal, the percentage is far higher, he said.
Over all, 13,000 children were officially adopted in 2008 — 9,000 by Russians and 4,000 by foreigners, officials said.
The system’s stagnation can be seen at Orphanage No. 11, which houses 45 to 50 children. Most have health or behavior difficulties, but the staff coaxes wonders from them.
In the auditorium on a recent day, a group rehearsed a dance wearing 18th-century ball costumes, then went back to the dressing room before returning in Russian peasant outfits for a traditional dance. It was hard not to be charmed.
Even so, only a single child has been adopted from the orphanage this year.
Since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, a total of 74 children have been adopted — an average of about four a year, said the director, Ms. Slusareva, who plays no role in their placement. The total comprises 20 adoptions to Russians, 24 to Americans and 30 to other foreigners.
The case of Artyom at first spurred a strong reaction, with some Russians saying that a country whose population is shrinking should never send its children abroad.
But Ms. Slusareva did not agree. The primary goal, she said, should be to locate good homes for these children — preferably in Russia, but if not there, then elsewhere.
“The hardest thing is when a child asks, ‘When will a mama come for me?’ ” she said. “So the best moment for me is when a child leaves the orphanage with a family.”
A version of this article appeared in print on May 4, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/world/europe/04adopt.html
James Hill for The New York Times
At Orphanage No. 11. in Moscow, the rooms are filled with toys. , But what the orphanage does not have are many visits from potential parents.
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: May 3, 2010
MOSCOW — There is nothing dreary about Orphanage No. 11. It has rooms filled with enough dolls and trains and stuffed animals to make any child giggly. It has speech therapists and round-the-clock nurses and cooks who delight in covertly slipping a treat into a tiny hand. It has the feel of a place where love abounds.
Multimedia
Back Story With The Times's Clifford J. Levy
What it does not have are many visits from potential parents.
Few of its children will ever be adopted — by Russians or foreigners. When they reach age 7 and are too old for this institution they will be shuttled to the next one, reflecting an entrenched system that is much better at warehousing children — and profiting from them — than finding them families.
The case of a Russian boy who returned alone to Moscow, sent back by his American adoptive mother, has focused intense attention on the pitfalls of international adoption.
But the outcry has obscured fundamental questions about why Russia has so many orphans and orphanages in the first place.
In recent days, senior Russian officials have begun to acknowledge how troubled their system is.
The chairwoman of the parliamentary committee on family and children, Yelena B. Mizulina, spotlighted what she said was a shocking statistic: Russia has more orphans now, 700,000, than at the end of World War II, when an estimated 25 million Soviet citizens were killed.
Ms. Mizulina noted that for all the complaints about the return of the boy, Artyom Savelyev, by his adoptive mother in Tennessee, Russia itself has plenty of experience with failed placements. She said 30,000 children in the last three years inside Russia were sent back to institutions by their adoptive, foster or guardianship families.
“Specialists call such a boom in returns a humanitarian catastrophe,” she said.
She reeled off more figures. The percentage of children who are designated orphans is four to five times higher in Russia than in Europe or the United States. Of those, 30 percent live in orphanages. Most of them are children who have been either given up by their parents or removed from dysfunctional homes by the authorities.
Her comments offered a sense of the frustration over the state of Russia’s orphanage system, which has long been resistant to reform.
Over the years, proposals to reduce the system’s size — the deinstitutionalization that occurred decades ago in the United States and elsewhere — have gone nowhere.
Despite the horror stories recounted about Russian orphanages, social welfare experts say that conditions in many are not terrible; some are excellent. The more pressing issue is the warehousing of young children in large-scale facilities, which experts say can hold back their social and intellectual development.
But the system’s defenders said that until the government figures out how to cut down on social problems like drug and alcohol abuse to improve family life, there is no alternative.
“It would be a lot better if there were no orphanages, and every child were happy in the family that he or she has,” said the director of Orphanage No. 11, Lidiya Y. Slusareva. “But if there are bad families, then it is better that the children are here.”
The scrutiny of the Russian system comes as Russian and American diplomats are working out new rules for adoptions.
Russian officials, who have often seemed embarrassed that their country cannot care for all its children and has to give some up to foreigners, demanded the new rules after Artyom was returned.
The Foreign Ministry said adoptions by Americans would be suspended until an agreement is reached. It is not entirely clear whether adoptions are actually frozen, or whether the process is just being dragged out.
In recent years, the Russian government has repeatedly pledged to bolster efforts to help families stay together, to increase the number of children who are adopted and to expand foster care. But it has not had notable success.
Indeed, while Russia has its share of social problems, the large number of orphans stems in part from a policy that does not place a high value on keeping families together.
The Russian government spends roughly $3 billion annually on orphanages and similar facilities, creating a system that is an important source of jobs and money on the regional level — and a target for corruption.
As a result, it is in the interests of regional officials to maintain the flow of children to orphanages and then not to let them leave, child welfare experts said. When adoptions are permitted, families, especially foreign families, have to pay large fees and navigate a complex bureaucracy.
“The system has one goal, which is to preserve itself,” said Boris L. Altshuler, chairman of Right of the Child, an advocacy group in Moscow, and a member of a Kremlin advisory group.
“That is why the process of adoption in Russia is like going through the circles of hell,” he said. “The system wants these children to remain orphans.”
He said that in 2008, 115,000 children in Russia were designated as without parental care, typically after being removed from their homes by caseworkers. Only 9,000 children were returned to their parents that year. In the United States, where reuniting families is a primary goal, the percentage is far higher, he said.
Over all, 13,000 children were officially adopted in 2008 — 9,000 by Russians and 4,000 by foreigners, officials said.
The system’s stagnation can be seen at Orphanage No. 11, which houses 45 to 50 children. Most have health or behavior difficulties, but the staff coaxes wonders from them.
In the auditorium on a recent day, a group rehearsed a dance wearing 18th-century ball costumes, then went back to the dressing room before returning in Russian peasant outfits for a traditional dance. It was hard not to be charmed.
Even so, only a single child has been adopted from the orphanage this year.
Since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, a total of 74 children have been adopted — an average of about four a year, said the director, Ms. Slusareva, who plays no role in their placement. The total comprises 20 adoptions to Russians, 24 to Americans and 30 to other foreigners.
The case of Artyom at first spurred a strong reaction, with some Russians saying that a country whose population is shrinking should never send its children abroad.
But Ms. Slusareva did not agree. The primary goal, she said, should be to locate good homes for these children — preferably in Russia, but if not there, then elsewhere.
“The hardest thing is when a child asks, ‘When will a mama come for me?’ ” she said. “So the best moment for me is when a child leaves the orphanage with a family.”
A version of this article appeared in print on May 4, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/world/europe/04adopt.html
The 9th Circuit Rules for Families Two recent rulings favor family rights over government intrusion
CPS WATCH
The 9th Circuit Rules for Families
Two recent rulings favor family rights over government intrusion
Two recent federal court rulings establish clearly the rights of families to be free of unwarranted government intrusion into their daily lives. The rulings further established that government officials may be held personally libel in a court of law for overstepping their authority and trampling the sanctity of the family.
In the first case, Calabretta vs. Floyd, a social worker and police officer coerced entry into the Calabretta home by threatening to beat the door down if the mother refused to let them in. Once in the home, the social worker questioned the family's 12 year old daughter outside the presence of her mother and strip searched her 3 year old sister.
The court upheld that in the absence of "exigent circumstances", a government official may not enter a home with out a search warrant, specifically stating, "Any government official can be held to know that their office does not give them an unrestricted right to enter peoples' homes at will." And that families have a "well-established right to privacy from inspections by social workers."
An important part of this case is the fact that the social; worker and the police officer were held personally liable for their actions. They couldn't hide behind their position.
CPS watch urges families to keep a copy of this case near the door. If a social worker or a police officer tries to enter your home without a search warrant,give them a copy of this case, pointing out that they may be held personally liable forcoercing or forcing entry into your home. They will consider their actions more carefully when made aware of the fact that their agency won't be able to bail them out if they violate your rights. It is one thing to think the agency may be sued or may even fire you, it is quite another thing to think you personally may lose your home or be ordered to pay a substantial amount of damages.
To read and/or print the full decision
In the second case Wallis vs City of Escondido, a relative in a mental facility phoned police claiming the family planned to sacrifice their son to Satan on an upcoming cult holiday. Without conducting further investigation, police removed the families two children without a court order and placed them in a county run facility.
Several days later, without obtaining judicial authorization and without notifying their parents, police took the children to a hospital for the performance of highly intrusive anal and virginal physical examinations.
The court upheld that the police didn't have reasonable cause to remove the children without an investigation or a court order. Further more, in the absence of court order, parental permission is required to take children for a physical exam.
To read and/or print the full decision
NOTE: Calbretta Vs Floyd case citation in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals docket number 97133585. Wallis Vs City of Escondido case citation in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, docket number 9755579.
http://www.bountylicenserecovery.com/cpswatch.html
The 9th Circuit Rules for Families
Two recent rulings favor family rights over government intrusion
Two recent federal court rulings establish clearly the rights of families to be free of unwarranted government intrusion into their daily lives. The rulings further established that government officials may be held personally libel in a court of law for overstepping their authority and trampling the sanctity of the family.
In the first case, Calabretta vs. Floyd, a social worker and police officer coerced entry into the Calabretta home by threatening to beat the door down if the mother refused to let them in. Once in the home, the social worker questioned the family's 12 year old daughter outside the presence of her mother and strip searched her 3 year old sister.
The court upheld that in the absence of "exigent circumstances", a government official may not enter a home with out a search warrant, specifically stating, "Any government official can be held to know that their office does not give them an unrestricted right to enter peoples' homes at will." And that families have a "well-established right to privacy from inspections by social workers."
An important part of this case is the fact that the social; worker and the police officer were held personally liable for their actions. They couldn't hide behind their position.
CPS watch urges families to keep a copy of this case near the door. If a social worker or a police officer tries to enter your home without a search warrant,give them a copy of this case, pointing out that they may be held personally liable forcoercing or forcing entry into your home. They will consider their actions more carefully when made aware of the fact that their agency won't be able to bail them out if they violate your rights. It is one thing to think the agency may be sued or may even fire you, it is quite another thing to think you personally may lose your home or be ordered to pay a substantial amount of damages.
To read and/or print the full decision
In the second case Wallis vs City of Escondido, a relative in a mental facility phoned police claiming the family planned to sacrifice their son to Satan on an upcoming cult holiday. Without conducting further investigation, police removed the families two children without a court order and placed them in a county run facility.
Several days later, without obtaining judicial authorization and without notifying their parents, police took the children to a hospital for the performance of highly intrusive anal and virginal physical examinations.
The court upheld that the police didn't have reasonable cause to remove the children without an investigation or a court order. Further more, in the absence of court order, parental permission is required to take children for a physical exam.
To read and/or print the full decision
NOTE: Calbretta Vs Floyd case citation in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals docket number 97133585. Wallis Vs City of Escondido case citation in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, docket number 9755579.
http://www.bountylicenserecovery.com/cpswatch.html
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