Foster system is destroying children

Foster system is destroying children

By: BARBARA HOLLINGSWORTH
Local Opinion Editor
May 11, 2009
Judith Meltzer, the court-appointed monitor for D.C.’s famously horrible foster care system, recently reported that “progress in reducing the length of stay in foster care and ensuring a permanent home for every child has been stalled.” Wonderful.

What to know what the future is likely to hold for 600 children stuck in the Children and Family Services Agency’s Dickensian foster care system for five years or more? Ask Ron Huber. The Mount Airy resident spent most of his childhood in foster care, and recently published a book describing its horrors.

The retired Army staff sergeant and current GS-14 says he was “scarred for life” by the treatment he received at the hands of foster parents after he and two of his four brothers were taken away from their neglectful, alcoholic mother at the tender ages of 4, 3 and 2. Another brother died from a rat bite, and the youngest was adopted out.

The three boys put into foster care in Rockford, Illinois were constantly beaten, emotionally abused and forced to work on “slave farms.” Huber’s childhood memories include being forced to kneel on bricks, being belittled for poor grades, and watching one foster mother force his five-year-old brother’s head into a toilet because he wet the bed.

“I never saw any love during my whole childhood,” Huber told me. In “Facing the World Without Love,” he finally comes to terms with his loss, including a disastrous first marriage to a German woman who married him just so she could come to the U.S. “I married my foster mother,” he confesses. Happily married for the second time, he still vividly recalls the stinging tears he shed whenever he saw a parent hug their child.

The pain was even worse than what he suffered during the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam. “It’s just so prolonged,” he explained. “Nobody cares about you. And foster care is just as bad now as it was back then.”

Back then, many abused children were taken in by people who exploited them as cheap labor. Today, federal payments to states turn defenseless children into a different sort of economic asset.

But St. Louis Presiding Family Court Judge Jimmie Edwards says he’s no longer sure that terminating parental rights is the right thing to do. “There was a time when people felt that we needed to fix abuse and neglect by punishing the parent and taking away the children,” Judge Edwards told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I have the children of these parents. They’re now teenagers, and they are still in the system.” When they age out of foster care at 18, many will be emotionally crippled orphans with no families, no money, and no one to guide them into adulthood. Thanks for caring.

“On any given day, 30 percent of D.C. foster children are trapped in the worst form of foster care: group homes or institutions,” says Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. According to Meltzer’s report, CFSA is also unable to provide any data documenting its attempts to place abused and neglected children with relatives.

“Given this record, it’s hard to believe that Mayor Adrian Fenty and Attorney General Peter Nickles wouldn’t be too ashamed to even show their faces in court, much less ask to have CFSA freed from court oversight,” Wexler says.

Here’s the kicker: After five years of abject failure and embarrassing court receivership, CFSA Director Roque Gerald is starting a new program to recruit even more foster parents to destroy thousands more vulnerable D.C. children.

If this isn’t madness, I don’t know what is.

Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Washington Examiner’s local opinion editor.



Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/BarbaraHollingsworth/Foster-system-is-destroying-children-44704467.html#ixzz0tacgbGlY

Judge criticizes lack of support for struggling parents

Judge criticizes lack of support for struggling parents
Page last updated at 12:42 GMT, Tuesday, 13 July 2010 13:42 UK

The judge said more support is needed for parents struggling to raise children
A High Court judge has criticised the lack of help available for struggling parents who are at risk of having their children taken into care.

Mr Justice Weir made the remarks in a ruling relating to a Belfast mother who was accused of intentionally injuring her son.

He said he was often struck by the lack of "good, practical help" for parents, particularly those who did not have wider family support.

He added that in comparison, the level of help and respite provided for foster carers "seems for some reason to be very much greater."

The Family Court case concerned a woman, referred to as SM, who had three children with a man referred to as EWS.

The court heard that EWS was a heavy drinker who frequently would not get out of bed until midday and drifted in and out of the children's lives.

The judge described him as a selfish person who had "seriously and inexcusably failed" as a parent.

The two eldest children, who are now five and four, were placed into foster care in May 2007.

In February 2008 SM gave birth to her third child and was able to care for it with the help of an intensive support package.

In 2009 she asked to have her other two children returned to her.

With the help of a residential family support centre she was able to care for them but when she moved back into the community in November 2009 things went down hill.

She described how she became "more and more drained" as the support promised by EWS did not materialise.

Continue reading the main story
An outcome of permanent removal of children from their families is, too often, as much an indictment of a failed system as it is of inadequate parents

Mr Justice Weir
In December 2009 a doctor found "significant bruising" on her four-year-old son and as a result all the children were returned to foster care where they remain.

Initially the woman claimed the boy had fallen from a climbing frame but later said the injuries had been inflicted when she lost her temper and dragged him down the steps of a bunk bed.

Her account was considered by three forensic paediatricians acting on behalf of the Belfast Health Trust.

The doctors were sceptical of her account but could not definitively say what caused the injuries.

Mr Justice Weir ruled that the bunk bed explanation "more likely than that not" represented the true cause of the bruising.

He said SM had tried "very hard to succeed, virtually single-handedly, in the particularly difficult task of parenting these children."

He said that if if the children are returned to SM, as he hopes they will, she well need good, practical help.

He said people like her badly need more day to day support from people with parenting skills, probably more mature people who may have raised their own families and have learned from their own successes and mistakes.

The judge said such an approach would be more effective in the long term.

He added: "An investment in recruiting support of this type would be both effective and cost-effective in maintaining families within the community and avoiding the costly involvement of the care system.

"An outcome of permanent removal of children from their families is, too often, as much an indictment of a failed system as it is of inadequate parents."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/northern_ireland/10615484.stm

Reinstated, the foster parent struck off for allowing Muslim girl to convert to Christianity

Reinstated, the foster parent struck off for allowing Muslim girl to convert to Christianity

(This is bull! Foster stranger's are NEVER punished for their misdeed's or "Mistakes" as CPS/DCYF call's them, but the least minute mistake a biological parent makes, end's up in loss of their child!)

By JONATHAN PETRE
Last updated at 10:01 PM on 10th July 2010


Criticism: The case sparked a backlash against Maggie Atkinson, former head of Gateshead children's services
A foster parent struck off after a Muslim girl in her care converted to Christianity has won the right to be reinstated.
Gateshead Council’s decision to remove the carer from the register provoked a storm of controversy after it was highlighted by The Mail on Sunday last year.
The carer, who had looked after children for ten years and had a perfect record, was blamed for failing to ‘protect and preserve’ the girl’s Muslim faith when she was baptised, even though she was over 16 and had made up her own mind to change her religion.
Gateshead’s decision was quashed by a court in Leeds last week, prompting criticism of the former head of its children’s services, Maggie Atkinson, who is now Children’s Commissioner for England.
The foster carer, who cannot be named to preserve the anonymity of the girl, said last night that her loss of income had been ‘devastating’.
She added: ‘In addition to losing the Muslim teenager, another girl I was looking after was taken back into care. And I lost the farmhouse I rented to look after vulnerable teenagers.’
She said she was seeking damages from the council.
She added: ‘Despite my experiences, I still hope to foster again in the future. I simply enjoy helping young people.’
The carer, a devout Christian in her 50s, was asked to look after the Muslim teenager after the girl was threatened with an arranged marriage and faced violence from her family.
She said she never pressurised the girl to convert to Christianity and the council was aware that she was attending a Christian church, but her foster manager became ‘incandescent with rage’ when she was baptised.
Council officials advised the girl to reconsider her decision, and struck the carer off in November 2008.
Ms Atkinson said: ‘The decision to remove a carer would only be made if it were in the best interests of the children.
'I am sorry it had such an effect. I hope that the ruling and Gateshead’s move to reassess the situation will go some way to reversing this.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1293635/Reinstated-foster-parent-struck-allowing-Muslim-girl-convert-Christianity.html#ixzz0tZkdzOv8

Grand Jury critical of foster-care system in Tulare County

Grand Jury critical of foster-care system in Tulare County
BY DAVID CASTELLON • DCASTELL@VISALIA.GANNETT.COM • JULY 13, 2010

Children in Tulare County foster homes do not undergo routine mental-health evaluation and not all get monthly visits from their caseworkers, the Tulare County Grand Jury reported this month.



In its final report for 2009-10, the Grand Jury recommended that Child Welfare Services follow its own guidelines. Those guidelines call for caseworkers to visit children in foster care every month and have all children undergo mental-health evaluation.

The Grand Jury also recommends that caseworkers make periodic, unannounced visits to foster homes and that Child Welfare Services provide the Grand Jury with access to foster-care records "to monitor the progress of social workers and ensure the health and safety of children in foster care."

No investigation of the county's foster-care program had previously been conducted by the Grand Jury, officials said.

According to the report, the just-completed investigation stemmed from South Valley news reports of children:


Being placed in abusive homes.

Receiving inadequate medical and mental-health care.

Having poor school attendance.

Being unprepared to cope with life outside the foster-care system.
No incidents in Tulare County were cited.

The Civil Grand Jury is appointed every year to investigate public agencies in Tulare County to determine whether they are working efficiently and within the law.

The foster-care investigation involved interviews with foster parents, Child Welfare Services workers, court-appointed advocates for foster children, court personnel and young adults who recently left the foster-care program.

Records Reviewed

Grand Jury members also reviewed some foster-care records but were denied a review of random case files, according to the report.

Grand Jury members also were not allowed to ride along with child-welfare caseworkers or attend a juvenile court hearing, the report says.

The report states that Child Welfare Services based its denials on two California Welfare and Institutions Codes: Code 827, which restricts access of records and information on minors in the justice system; and Code 10859, which involves confidentiality of information about those receiving public services.

(2 of 2)

County Health and Human Services spokeswoman Allison Lambert said Monday that a response to the Grand Jury report is being prepared by her office, which oversees Child Welfare Services.



Health officials did not respond to a request for the number of children in the county's foster care system.

With the information the Grand Jury did receive, members came to these conclusions.


Some foster children have gone six months or more without visits by social workers.

Visits by birth parents often are traumatic for foster children, resulting in disruptive behavior.

Those leaving the foster system are given little or no instruction on how to access medical services, the Social Security system or money for education.
Program Eliminated

The report notes that California has eliminated the Independent Living Program, intended to prepare foster children to live on their own.

"The [program] was very beneficial to the success of foster children becoming productive members of society," the Grand Jury report states.

On a positive note, the Grand Jury reported that court-appointed special advocates provide effective advocacy for foster children.

http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/article/20100713/NEWS01/7130314

Case of kids found on Facebook revives disputes

Case of kids found on Facebook revives disputes
By GILLIAN FLACCUS (AP) – 5 hours ago
MONTCLAIR, Calif. — Prince Sagala has pined for her son and daughter since her estranged husband took them and fled to Mexico 15 years ago — but she never gave up hope that she would see them again.
The Indonesian-born nursing assistant was rewarded for her faith earlier this year, when she stumbled on her daughter's Facebook page in a story that made national headlines.
But in the four months since that discovery, Sagala's unbridled joy has slowly turned to anguish. The case has led to the public airing of years-old domestic allegations against Sagala — information that will likely be used in court — and her now-teenaged children want nothing to do with her.
At Sagala's sole supervised visit at a Florida library recently, her son kept his nose in a book about witches and her daughter gave terse, one-word answers to her questions, Sagala said.
"She doesn't know me, her father's in jail. I guess she does blame me for this," Sagala said of her 17-year-old daughter. "She doesn't know the truth. I told her, you can see me right now, I'm not that person like what you thought for 15 years, like what your father told you."
The children's father, Faustino Fernandez Utrera, 42, was initially held in an Osceola County, Fla., jail after being arrested in May on kidnapping and child custody charges. During a hearing Monday, he was served with a governor's warrant from California and his bond was revoked. His Florida attorney said Utrera could be extradited to California anytime.
In an interview, Sagala recounted how Utrera took the children and fled to Mexico in 1995, when her son and daughter were just toddlers.
Sagala said Utrera, whom she married in 1993, had become abusive — a charge now denied by Utrera's attorney — and that she was about to seek a restraining order. Then Utrera called her at work one day to say he would take the children to the park and then to a movie. She told him they were sick and should be home early. When she returned home, they weren't there.
Several hours later, one of her husband's friends called to tell her Utrera had taken the children to his native Mexico and wasn't coming back. Sagala said she immediately called the police and also told her story to a Spanish-language TV network.
Montclair police pursued the case, but when they learned the children were in Mexico, they turned the file over to the San Bernardino County district attorney. It's unclear now why the case wasn't pursued by prosecutors in 1995, but Deputy District Attorney Kurt Rowley said it's unlikely Mexico would have extradited Utrera at the time.
Over the next 15 years, police checked in with Sagala each year and sent her a questionnaire, but she had no new information. She said she periodically tried to contact her estranged husband's friends and family in Mexico with no luck.
Eventually, Sagala said she tried to move on with her life. She started a long-term relationship with another man, gave birth to two more children — a girl and a boy — and threw herself into worship at her Jehovah's Witness church.
Sagala tried to recreate the life she lost with her first two when her new babies arrived: She gave birth at the same hospital, incorporated parts of their names in her new children's names and dressed them in the same tiny outfits she had saved.
"I went to church, I prayed, because as a mother, I'm not strong enough for the burden I have now. My two kids right now, they help me to be strong," Sagala said of her younger children. "Before, I missed everything as a mother, I missed their birthdays. It really hurts."
In March, friends told Sagala about Facebook. She had her younger daughter, now 12, tap her older daughter's name into a computer at the local library.
As she hovered nervously, three teenagers with her daughter's name popped up on the Facebook site. Sagala didn't know which teenager to try first until she realized that one girl looked like her younger daughter, Joana. The girl also had a Facebook friend with the same name as Sagala's missing son.
Sagala sent a message and received a heartbreaking reply. The 17-year-old wrote that she had a happy life, had been told bad things about her mother and had no interest in a relationship. Right before she took down her Facebook page, the teen signed off with a mysterious line of poetry: "A flower that was born in a forest can't live in the desert."
Sagala went to police, who were able to track the daughter to Florida based on the profiles of some of her Facebook friends. Utrera was arrested May 26.
Since then, Sagala's world has been turned upside down.
Her estranged husband's criminal attorney in California, Stephen Levine, said he plans to fight vigorously the charges against Utrera and has attacked Sagala's credibility with counter-allegations.
Levine said he has provided the district attorney in California with letters Sagala wrote to her husband in Mexico and has found witnesses from the small Oaxacan village where he was living for 12 years who claim Sagala called and spoke to Utrera several times on the community's public telephone. Levine alleges Sagala also sent money to Utrera for her children and received videos of them that she showed in her church — undermining her claims that she didn't know where they were.
Levine said Utrera decided to flee with the children because Sagala was having an affair with his brother and became mentally unstable when she was discovered.
Sagala's attorney, Keith Peterson, called those allegations "the desperate claims of a child abductor, the claims of a kidnapper. She was searching for her kids for 15 years."
Rowley, the district attorney prosecuting Utrera in California, said his office was aware of some of the allegations, had investigated and was confident the criminal case against Utrera would hold up in court.
"In her interviews with us, we feel that she has been very candid," Rowley said. "In child abduction cases, you'll get two very different stories. But having taken all that into account, there isn't any question in our mind that the acts that were done qualify as the crimes that were charged."
Should the DA's case prevail against Utrera, Sagala may still be denied what she wants most.
Ann Berner, a regional administrator for the Florida Department of Children & Families, said the teens were in foster care in Florida. She said because of their age, their wishes would be given substantial weight by the judge when deciding any custody arrangements.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5grkU6bwsM3D4zfrCARJvpQ1_fhWAD9GU39N00

Wayne Circuit Judge Waterstone to face trial

Wayne Circuit Judge Waterstone to face trial
Marisa Schultz / The Detroit News
Attorney General Mike Cox has the green light to prosecute a former Wayne Circuit Court Judge in a public corruption case, following a Michigan Supreme Court decision Friday.
Retired Judge Mary Waterstone is scheduled to appear Oct. 11 in 36th District Court for her preliminary exam before Judge David Robinson.
Waterstone was charged in 2009 with felony misconduct in office for allegedly allowing perjury to go uncorrected during a drug case. But the criminal case has stalled until now because Waterstone claimed Cox could not prosecute her based on a conflict of interest.
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On June 4, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in favor of Cox and allowed the prosecution to go forward. Waterstone asked the court to reconsider. On Friday, the Supreme Court denied Waterstone's request "because it does not appear that the order was entered erroneously."
Also charged are retired Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Karen Plants for conspiracy to commit perjury and misconduct in office; Inkster police officers Scott Rechtzigel and Robert McArthur were charged with conspiracy to commit perjury, perjury and misconduct in office. The Attorney General alleges the three conspired to hide that a witness who testified at a preliminary examination and trial was a paid confidential informant who assisted in a large-scale narcotics investigation.
mschultz@detnews.com (313) 222-2310


From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20100711/METRO/7110331/1409/METRO#ixzz0tZhnFZjo

5 YO Foster Child Dead in Arkansas 2/2, Foster Placement’s Violent History