Jan Smith of Wa State on hunger strike in front of cps building-Another Grandmother's Rights Violated by CPS

Jan Smith of Wa State on hunger strike in front of cps building
Jane Boyer
show details 6:31 PM
From: Jan Smith [mailto:sunflowerinthemist2006@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 9:28 AM
To: undisclosed recipients:
Subject: Newstip and legal



Jan Smith of Washington State Extended Families is going on a hunger strike in front of the Olympia Department of Social and Health Services starting Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 9 a.m. She reports that the department regularly brings false and misleading information into the courts and judges are supporting a corrupt, dangerous system that is needlessly destroying families all over the state. "There is no due process of law for extended families," states Smith who has found herself vulnerable to verbal slander within court process when she is not a party to the case. "The public is duped thinking that the department cares about families and children when the reality is that it is about federal funding and win/lose."

While the department likes to create the illusion that it saves children, statistics show that a small percentage of children benefit by their cookie cutter programs and false advertising. "This is the only way to make a point on this. Going through the court is a waste of time and the department is too self serving to be of community benefit," she reports. "One child a month dies at the hands of CPS."

Smith states that a homestudy was filled with misinformation and there are no avenues for relief. "Extended families are finding that CPS is not a friend of the family, but have a strong determination to adopt out to strangers. They are nitpicking family to death while ignoring glaring deficits in foster adopt families." She says that they are going to adopt out her grandchildren to complete strangers when she is able and willing to take care of them. "This is the side to the system the public never sees. Most don't even believe it till it happens to them."

Justices affirm $5 million verdict for Seal Beach mom

Published: June 15, 2010
Updated: 2:11 p.m.
Justices affirm $5 million verdict for Seal Beach mom
By LARRY WELBORN
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Story Highlights
Woman contended her children were wrongfully taken away after O.C. social workers fabricated evidence against her.

ARTICLE
SANTA ANA – A Santa Ana appellate court has affirmed a nearly $5 million legal judgment delivered in 2007 against Orange County's Department of Social Services for wrongfully depriving a Seal Beach woman of her children.
In a 35-page opinion released on Monday, justices of the Fourth District Court of Appeal said a jury verdict in favor of Deana Fogarty-Hardwick was based upon on evidence of improper conduct by social workers.ADVERTISEMENT
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Lawyers for Fogarty-Hardwick contended that two social workers fabricated negative evidence against her and suppressed positive evidence to support their decision to recommend that her daughters, who were then 6 and 9, be taken from her care and control.
The lawsuit contended that an Orange County commissioner in 2000 removed the girls from Fogarty-Hardwick's custody because of the fraudulent statements by the social workers, and they were placed first in Orangewood Children's Home and then in foster care.
A civil jury in Superior Court Judge Ronald Bauer's courtroom voted 10-2 that Fogarty-Hardwick's right to raise her children free of governmental interference had been violated, said Shawn A. McMillan, one of her attorneys.
McMillan said the more than $4.9 million verdict included approximately $4.5 million in general damages against the county for providing inadequate training and/or supervision to the social workers and for showing deliberate indifference.
The verdict was one of the largest of its kind in the state and perhaps the nation.
But in May 2007, the county board of supervisors decided to appeal after Dr. Michael Riley, the director of Children and Family Services, contended that the verdict had been unfair.
The decision handed down Monday is the result of that appeal. It also affirmed $1.6 million in attorneys' fees.
In the opinion, Justice William Bedsworth wrote, "the evidence adduced at trial obviously caused both the jury and the judge to conclude not only that something seriously wrong was done to Fogarty-Hardwick in this case, but also that the wrongful conduct was not an isolated incident.
"This conclusion is something the County should be taking very seriously,'' Bedsworth added.
Justices Kathleen O'Leary and Eileen Moore concurred in the decision.
The opinion did strike two injunctions imposed against the Department of Social Services by Judge Bauer after the Fogarty-Hardwick trial.
Bauer ordered that the county be barred from including allegations of abuse, neglect or abandonment against parents in dependency cases without some evidence, and he also banned the agency from requiring a parent to sign a "voluntary agreement" waiving parental rights unless the agency had reasonable evidence that the child was in danger.
In the Fogarty-Hardwick case, she contended that she was coerced to sign such an agreement.
In a 2007 interview, Fogarty-Hardwick said that after her children were taken away by the county in February 2000, she was allowed only monitored visits for two years when they were at Orangewood Children's Home and with foster parents.
Her ex-husband was given custody of the children in 2002, and she was given visitation two weekends a month, Fogarty-Hardwick said. She later shared custody of her daughters with her ex-husband when they became teenagers.
Contact the writer: lwelborn@ocregister.com or 714-834-3784

http://www.ocregister.com/news/fogarty-253495-hardwick-children.html

Bridge Project aims to help abused kids NH

http://www.reformer.com/newenglandnews/ci_15305878

Bridge Project aims to help abused kids

Note: My comment is at the bottom of the article. Please go to the article annd comment!
By HOLLY RAMER / Associated Press

Wednesday June 16, 2010
CONCORD, N.H. -- Some abused children recover quickly once they’re in a safe environment. Others may shut down and prove harder to reach. Recognizing and responding to those differences are among the goals of a new project aimed at synchronizing the state agencies that serve the youngest victims of abuse, neglect and other trauma.
"We need to make sure we have providers and I have staff who are able to understand and recognize that trauma can play out in different ways with different children, including children in the same family," said Maggie Bishop, director of the state Division of Children, Youth and Families. "That trauma begins to play itself out in how they are becoming either healthy or unhealthy adolescents, and we want to make sure the sooner we can intervene on that, the better."
The Dartmouth Trauma Interventions Center at Dartmouth Medical School has been awarded a three-year federal grant to oversee the New Hampshire Bridge Project. The project will train managers and workers in Bishop’s agency, the juvenile justice system and the family court system to more effectively serve children with emotional and behavioral problems resulting from trauma.
Dr. Stanley Rosenberg, the center’s director, said the project builds upon the center’s previous work, which focused on bringing the best practices in treating childhood trauma to community mental health centers. But the highest-risk children
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don’t always have access to that treatment and are more likely to show up in the child welfare or juvenile justice system, he said.
"A child gets involved with the juvenile justice system because of delinquency or anti-social behavior, but we know that the great majority of kids in that system are themselves survivors of trauma and abuse scenarios, often undiagnosed and rarely treated appropriately," he said.
More than 200 representatives from state agencies and other service providers are expected to attend the project’s first meeting Thursday in Hanover, where they will hear from Charles Wilson, director of the Chadwick Center at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego. Both his center and the Dartmouth center are part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.
Wilson, who will serve as a consultant to the Bridge Project, said the goal is to train the agencies to perform their jobs in a way that takes into account a child’s trauma history.
"We realized that focusing on mental health treatment for traumatized treatment is necessary but not sufficient to help them recover, because these children live in families, live in communities and many are in systems like child welfare and juvenile justice," he said.
"And if those systems are not aware of trauma issues and helping support traumatized children and their families, no amount of mental health work by itself is going to work."
He described his own experience investigating child abuse complaints in the 1970s and said that back then, the focus was almost exclusively on a child’s physical safety in deciding whether to remove a child from a home. Today, physical safety is still the priority, but the emotional impact also is taken into account. That could mean something as simple as making sure the child has his favorite teddy bear when he’s moved.
"Often what we’re talking about are not radically different things, it’s being more aware and sensitive to the trauma needs of children. it doesn’t require people to work a lot harder, it just requires them to work differently and be aware of the impact of trauma," he said.
Bishop said the project will build upon progress the agencies have made in collaborating with each other. While the state hasn’t seen an increase in children experiencing trauma, the severity of their problems has increased, she said. Early intervention in those cases is especially crucial, she said.
"What’s key to treating trauma is breaking the cycle, that’s the major piece," she said.


Dot Knightly
Join the community
Manchester, NH
1 min ago

Maggie Bishop fails to mention that most of NH's traumatized children, are traumatized due to being yanked out of their homes Illegally by DCYF. Many of the parents are falsely accused. Their children are removed immediately, as DCYF claims every child is in imminent danger. Services to these families is never an option, even though they are mandated by our Federal government.
Maggie Bishop also fail's to mention these children traumatized by the loss of their families, who try to commit suicide and have new found violent behavior, are then fed psycho-tropic drugs by DCYF making them worth more money, especially once their parent's rights are terminated and they are auctioned off for adoption, which is common practice in NH, seeing as children are NEVER returned, all parent's rights are terminated and the NH Supreme Court never reverses a TPR.(Words of a Nashua DCYF caseworker). Today physical safety is NOT a priority, considering all the physically abused children in NH still suffering abuse because DCYF is too busy railroading innocent parents. They will snag a white child first, before a bi-racial child and alway's a baby first and foremost as they have a list of waiting foster to adopt stranger's who have put in their order's for a baby. The younger the better.
A child doesn't even have to be abused or neglected to be stolen by DCYF and in DCYF cases there is NO burden of proof. Hearsay will do the trick along with DCYF's psychic ability of stealing a child for "Neglect in the Future."
There wouldn't be so many children in NH with emotional and behavioral problems if DCYF were held accountable for their many deceitful practices. DCYF is turning our children into psycho's. Most of them don't even have children of their own and they have NO CLUE how to raise a child. They are too lazy and ignorant when it comes to dealing with a traumatized child, so they drug them. Ask her how she really feels about children. She sure told me when she said I should have left my daughter in jail to die and then asked why she isn't dead.Ask Maggie Bishop about all this. Oh, don't bother, all she'll tell you is lies. I believe it's time for Maggie Bishop to find a new line of work. Maybe she'd do well as a bank teller, seeing as all she see's is dollar sign's. How about hiring someone who REALLY believes in family preservation, not family destruction!

Panel examines policies on placing children in state custody

Panel examines policies on placing children in state custody
Posted on 15 June 2010
By Lewis Delavan
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Legislators questioned human services officials today on whether grandparents and other relatives are being given preferential treatment in placement of children removed from their parents’ custody.
Cecile Blucker, director of the Division of Children and Family Services at the Department of Human Services, told members of a legislative subcommittee the agency’s goal is to boost its services to families to avoid placing children in the foster care system. If family reunification is not possible, permanent placement with relatives or other adults who have a close relationship to the child is the preferred option, she said.
Blucker also gave a progress report on the training and placement of new foster care caseworkers as the subcommittee undertakes a comprehensive study of DHS goals, policy initiatives, programs, procedures and rules affecting grandparents and other relatives of children removed from their parents and placed in state custody.
The study proposal is sponsored by Reps. Mike Burris, D-Malvern, and Johnnie Roebuck, D-Arkadelphia.
Burris told DHS officials Tuesday that family members should receive preference for custody of children removed from their parents, but that his constituents have expressed concerns that the agency might remove children from parents without the knowledge of grandparents and other adult relatives.
He and Rep. Richard Carroll, D-North Little Rock, said they were concerned that family members would lose contact with children who are placed in permanent custody of a non-relative.
Act 1311 of 2009 requires DHS to notify all adult grandparents and other adult relatives within 30 days of a juvenile transferred to its custody. It also requires DHS to provide the circuit court with information and recommendations on child placement and visitation with a grandparent or other adult relative. Burris, who sponsored the act, said he wants to ensure the requirement is followed.
“What price do you put on connectivity and love?” Burris asked.
DHS attorney Lisa McGee said family members always receive preference for placement but other factors also are considered, such as the household’s financial ability to care for children or whether relatives were aware of abuse.
“A lot of times we find that family members knew abuse was occurring,” McGee said.
Blucker told the panel that new child welfare caseworkers are helping DHS improve its oversight of children in state custody. Filling 100 new caseworker slots last fall is just starting to show results, she said.
“We want to truly transform the (child welfare) system, rather than just meet standards,” Blucker told members of a House subcommittee on children and youth.
The Legislature last year authorized the new caseworkers as part of an upgrade of the state’s child welfare system in response to a string of cases involving the deaths and abuse of children in the state’s foster care program.
Blucker said DCFS is partnering with Casey Family Programs to improve its services. The Seattle-based private foundation is conducting staff training around the state, she said.
Improved compliance with its standards will help children, Blucker said.
“We want to hold people accountable and have the right person in each position,” she said.
Caseworkers are required to make monthly on-site visits to foster homes, but Blucker said currently about 64 percent of the visits are occurring. Likely more visits actually are being conducted but not properly documented, she said.
Staffing improvements should boost compliance, Blucker said.
Also, she said, staff turnover is down to about 20 percent to 22 percent, and adding caseworkers has helped improve morale.
She cited exit surveys that showed departing caseworkers felt they lacked their supervisor’s support. Placing the right person in supervisory slots and ensuring compliance with standards has boosted retention, she said.

http://arkansasnews.com/2010/06/15/panel-examines-polices-on-placing-children-in-state-custody/

Child abuse list: ‘Guilty until found innocent' (In NH, your Guilty even when proven innocent)

Child abuse list: ‘Guilty until found innocent'
By TERI SFORZA
tsforza@ocregister.com

Note-In NH your guilty even when proven innocent and your children are still NEVER returned!


Nearly 800 Orange County residents landed on the state’s list of child abusers last year — based on investigations that failed to determine whether any abuse actually occurred.
The names of these 792 maybe/maybe-not abusers can remain on the California Child Abuse Central Index for 10 years, and the list can be seen by employers, schools, local police departments, adoption agencies, etc.


“In a laudable attempt to protect children, the CACI process jeopardizes the reputation and employment status of thousands of Orange County residents, the Orange County Grand Jury says in “CACI: Child Abuse Central Index: Guilty Until Found Innocent.”
“The process and guidelines for placing someone on the Child Abuse Central Index (CACI) based on an Inconclusive finding are confusing, highly subjective and provide little protection for those individuals falsely accused of abuse.”
Problem is, California law requiresthat inconclusive investigations be reported to the child abuse index. “This represents a conflict with the American legal principle of innocent until proven guilty,” the grand jury declares.
How to fix? ” Orange County should join other counties in supporting a revision of the California Penal Code that would eliminate or modify the Inconclusive finding,” it says.
Which is sweet music to the ears of folks like George and Bette McFetridge, an Irvine couple who wound up on the child abuse list after an adoption-gone-awry.
The McFetridges fought back, and were ultimately removed from the list, but they’re suing the Orange County Social Services Agency in an attempt to change a system that they say shoots first and asks questions later.
“I’m thrilled that they took the time to investigate this, and they did a real good analysis of the law,” said George McFetridge (who, incidentally, is a deputy district attorney for Orange County). “The ‘inconclusive’ category has been eliminated in most states. Theoretically, there are 792 other lawsuits out there, and that’s just this year. This could get very expensive.
“It’s a great idea, you want to protect children, but a list that’s not accurate does more harm than good.”
Changing state law to eliminate the “inconclusive” finding “is something that’s been long overdue,” said Bette McFetridge.
The grand jury report comes at a time when other courts in the nation are declaring child-abuse registries like California’s to be unconstitutional, because alleged abusers had no chance to defend themselves before being listed.
The grand jury found that social workers are as frustrated with the system as the McFetridges. It also recommends that:
Orange County’s department of children and family services should be the central reporting agency for all county child abuse index reports, and should conduct all grievance hearings.
Case files should reflect oral and written notification of the suspects and any unsuccessful contact should be noted.
Registered mail should be considered for written notifications.
The county has 90 days to respond.
Read the full report here or here: child-abuse-report. Our reports on the McFetridges’ case are here:
Adoption gone awry lands couple on child abuse list
System branding people as child abusers under attack
Judge narrows suit regarding innocents on child abuse index

http://www.ocregister.com/news/strong-253493-state-innocent.html

 High Court To Review Appeal of Parental Rights Case

LeonKoziol.Com
1518 Genesee Street
Utica, New York 13502
(315) 735-2271
To: Â All Media and Interested Parties:

From: Â Admin@...

Subject: Â High Court To Review Appeal of Parental Rights Case

Date: Â June 14, 2010

Contact: Â Leon R. Koziol, J.D. at (315) 796-4000


--------- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE---------

Utica, NY, June 14, 2010 – On June, 9, 2010, the high court of New York commenced a process of reviewing an appeal filed by civil rights advocate Leon R. Koziol which challenges the Constitutionality of certain crucial child support and custody laws. Originating at the Appellate Division in Rochester, this case was litigated as an extraordinary petition under CPLR Article 78 against an Acting Supreme Court Judge (out of Family Court) and an acting Family Court Judge (out of Supreme Court) who presided over separated custody and support cases. No doubt due, in part, to his public background, the original uncontested divorce case filed in 2005 has since been scattered back and forth among multiple courts and some 18 trial level judges. The action was also taken against the State of New York, its Unified Court System, a state appointed “attorney for the child” and a state mandated “custodial parent.”

As a victim father, Mr. Koziol was recently reunited with his children after a state court found no merit to allegations made in a petition which deprived him of any meaningful parent-child relationships over a ten month period. Mr. Koziol has never been alleged or found to be an unfit parent, rather, as his lawsuit before the high court maintains, he has become the product of retaliation for his civil rights actions and public views on father discrimination over the years.

In order to make a proper case in the courts, it became necessary to assert a real life fact controversy better known as legal standing. Rather than represent other victims with exploitable backgrounds as the attorneys did in Roe v Wade, Mr. Koziol committed his personal and professional standing to this long overdue challenge. Remember that it was the Roe v Wade case which enabled women victims in 1973 to bypass arduous legislative processes to secure a constitutionally protected privacy right before the Supreme Court. Draconian child control laws have exceeded all rational limit under the Constitution by harming related privacy rights of mainstream parents today, including their families and children, indeed, our very productivity as a nation.

As Father’s Day in America approaches, the tired theme of absenteeism and “dead beat” slurs mark the stereotypes fashioned over the years against fathers generally. Campaigns for public office in Congress and our state legislatures remain devoid of discourse calling for reform in this crucial area of domestic relations. Nowhere in the Obama administration will anyone find “parental abuse” on the policy radar screen. This is principally due to the quiet transformation of mainstream society into a multi-billion dollar child control industry through the exploitation of custody and support laws.

A convenient summary of the case is found in the “issues presented” section of the “Preliminary Appeal Statement.” Significant to interested parties across the country, this is the same court which fashioned the “best interests of the child” standard in 1925 which became the touchstone for expansive government intrusion into every aspect of family privacy rights retained by the people under the Ninth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

As part of his journey through the federal and state courts on the subject of parental privacy and equity, Mr. Koziol is seeking financial, media, and staff support behind his cause. No longer a practicing attorney after nearly a quarter century of successful civil rights litigation, he cannot do this alone. To emphasize the critical nature of his journey, it must be noted that in the event Mr. Koziol is unsuccessful before the New York high court in coming months, he will then be in the position of filing a writ before the United States Supreme Court.

Mr. Koziol is available for media interviews, commentary and public speaking engagements on these and other contemporary civil rights issues which are impacting our productivity as a nation. He can be reached at (315) 735-2271.

Leon R. Koziol, J.D., is a civil rights advocate who has practiced law for nearly a quarter century in New York State. He has been a spokesperson for parenting rights and currently publishes an Internet blog site known as LeonKoziol.com, focused upon reform in our domestic relations courts.

###

Caldwell Adoptive mom sentenced for child abuse The judge says the woman stood by and helped husband beat adopted kids for 7 years

Caldwell Adoptive mom sentenced for child abuse
The judge says the woman stood by and helped husband beat adopted kids for 7 years.
BY KRISTIN RODINE - krodine@idahostatesman.com
Copyright: © 2010 Idaho Statesman
Published: 01/12/10




ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
FATHER'S SENTENCING
Kekoa Glenn Gaunavinaka will be sentenced Feb. 11 on two counts of felony injury to a child and one count of lewd conduct with a minor.

A jury found him guilty of sexually molesting a child from the time she was 11 until after her 13th birthday, and Gaunavinaka subsequently pleaded guilty to two child-injury charges for beating his adopted children.

Similar stories:
Caldwell man gets life for abusing kids
Caldwell mom gets up to 10 years in prison for allowing, abetting kids’ abuse
Caldwell man gets life sentence for molesting young girl, beating adopted kids
Extended family thanks Canyon prosecutors, others who helped on Gaunavinaka case
Letters to the Editor
Kaylynn Gaunavinaka, now going by her maiden name of Durham, could serve up to 10 years in prison, or she could be released on probation in as little as six months.
That's because 3rd District Judge Bradly Ford retained jurisdiction on the case for 180 days so Gaunavinaka, 35, can receive treatment and assessment in the state prison system. At the end of that time, Ford could release her on probation or order her to complete her prison sentence of three to 10 years for felony injury to a child.
Her ex-husband, Kekoa Gaunavinaka, is expected to face a much stiffer sentence when Ford decides his fate in February. Ford said the husband's offenses were more egregious than the wife's, but Kaylynn Gaunavinaka prolonged and assisted in the torment of the couple's three adopted children.
"These children could have been rescued at any time, (through) any effort from you," Ford told the sobbing woman Monday. "Instead they suffered seven years of unthinkable abuse, emotional and physical."
The three children, now ages 9 to 13, were recovering from an abusive home life when the Gaunavinakas adopted them in September 2001, Canyon County Deputy Prosecutor Erica Kallin said.
The children longed for love and stability, she said, "but what they got was a father who horrifically beat them and sexually tortured them, and a mother who went along with it, who covered it up, who threatened the children."
"She told her sons, 'stand up straight while he's beating you,'" Kallin said. "She put makeup on their bruises to cover them."
Although most of the beating and other abuse came from their adoptive father, the children also reported that their mother battered them.
Defense attorney Aaron Knox said his client was abused by her husband and was too afraid to step forward and get help for the children. He also cited a lack of self-esteem and said she is a good candidate for treatment and rehabilitation.
Kaylynn Gaunavinaka recently divorced her husband and gave up legal rights to the children, who have moved out of state to live with a family that is in the process of adopting them, Kallin said.
At her sentencing hearing, Gaunavinaka gave a brief statement apologizing to the kids, who did not attend. "I am so sorry for not doing my part as a mother and for not protecting my children," she said.
Kristin Rodine: 377-6447


Read more: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/01/12/1038105/caldwell-mom-sentenced-for-child.html?story_link=email_msg#ixzz0qxei9bmG