Science News
Birth Dates, School Enrollment Dates Affect ADHD Diagnosis Rates, Study Shows
ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2010) — Rising rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and large differences in diagnosis rates have led to fears that the condition is often being misdiagnosed. A new study from North Carolina State University demonstrates that these concerns are justified. The researchers found large discrepancies in diagnosis and treatment rates based on small differences in children's dates of birth.
"The question we asked was whether children who are relatively young compared to their classroom peers were more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD," says Dr. Melinda Morrill, a research assistant professor of economics at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the study. "To answer the question, we looked at children born shortly before the kindergarten eligibility cutoff date and children born shortly after the cutoff date and compared the rates of ADHD diagnosis and treatment."
The researchers figured that children born just a few days apart should have the same underlying risk of having ADHD. So finding a significant difference in diagnosis rates between children born only a few days apart is strong evidence of medically inappropriate diagnosis.
Morrill explains that the study shows that children born just after the kindergarten cutoff date were 25 percent less likely to be diagnosed as having ADHD than children born just before the cutoff date. "This indicates that there are children who are diagnosed (or not) because of something other than underlying biological or medical reasons.
"We believe that younger children may be mistakenly diagnosed as having ADHD, when in fact they are simply less mature," Morrill says.
Morrill stresses that "we are not downplaying the existence or significance of ADHD in children. What our research shows is that similar students have significantly different diagnosis rates depending on when their birthday falls in relation to the school year."
For the study, the researchers examined data from two national health surveys and a national private health insurance claims database to evaluate rates of ADHD diagnosis and treatment in children. The data sources covered different time periods ranging from 1996 to 2006.
The paper was co-authored by Morrill, Dr. William N. Evans of the University of Notre Dame, and Stephen T. Parente of the University of Minnesota.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by North Carolina State University.
Journal Reference:
Evans et al. Measuring Inappropriate Medical Diagnosis and Treatment in Survey Data: The Case of ADHD among School-Age Children. Journal of Health Economics, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2010.07.005
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817090802.htm
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Nearly One Million Children in U.S. Potentially Misdiagnosed With ADHD, Study Finds
Science News
Nearly One Million Children in U.S. Potentially Misdiagnosed With ADHD, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2010) — Nearly 1 million children in the United States are potentially misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder simply because they are the youngest -- and most immature -- in their kindergarten class, according to new research by a Michigan State University economist.
These children are significantly more likely than their older classmates to be prescribed behavior-modifying stimulants such as Ritalin, said Todd Elder, whose study will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Health Economics.
Such inappropriate treatment is particularly worrisome because of the unknown impacts of long-term stimulant use on children's health, Elder said. It also wastes an estimated $320 million-$500 million a year on unnecessary medication -- some $80 million-$90 million of it paid by Medicaid, he said.
Elder said the "smoking gun" of the study is that ADHD diagnoses depend on a child's age relative to classmates and the teacher's perceptions of whether the child has symptoms.
"If a child is behaving poorly, if he's inattentive, if he can't sit still, it may simply be because he's 5 and the other kids are 6," said Elder, assistant professor of economics. "There's a big difference between a 5-year-old and a 6-year-old, and teachers and medical practitioners need to take that into account when evaluating whether children have ADHD."
ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder for kids in the United States, with at least 4.5 million diagnoses among children under age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, there are no neurological markers for ADHD (such as a blood test), and experts disagree on its prevalence, fueling intense public debate about whether ADHD is under-diagnosed or over-diagnosed, Elder said.
Using a sample of nearly 12,000 children, Elder examined the difference in ADHD diagnosis and medication rates between the youngest and oldest children in a grade. The data is from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort, which is funded by the National Center for Education Statistics.
According to Elder's study, the youngest kindergartners were 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest children in the same grade. Similarly, when that group of classmates reached the fifth and eighth grades, the youngest were more than twice as likely to be prescribed stimulants.
Overall, the study found that about 20 percent -- or 900,000 -- of the 4.5 million children currently identified as having ADHD likely have been misdiagnosed.
Elder used the students' birth dates and the states' kindergarten eligibility cutoff dates to determine the youngest and oldest students in a grade. The most popular cutoff date in the nation is Sept. 1, with 15 states mandating that children must turn 5 on or before that date to attend kindergarten.
The results -- both from individual states and when compared across states -- were definitive. For instance, in Michigan -- where the kindergarten cutoff date is Dec. 1 -- students born Dec. 1 had much higher rates of ADHD than children born Dec. 2. (The students born Dec. 1 were the youngest in their grade; the students born Dec. 2 enrolled a year later and were the oldest in their grade.)
Thus, even though the students were a single day apart in age, they were assessed differently simply because they were compared against classmates of a different age set, Elder said.
In another example, August-born kindergartners in Illinois were much more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than Michigan kindergartners born in August of the same year as their Illinois counterparts. That's because Illinois' kindergarten cutoff date is Sept. 1, meaning those August-born children were the youngest in their grade, whereas the Michigan students were not.
According to the study, a diagnosis of ADHD requires evidence of multiple symptoms of inattention or hyperactivity, with these symptoms persisting for six or more months -- and in at least two settings -- before the age of seven. The settings include home and school.
Although teachers cannot diagnose ADHD, their opinions are instrumental in decisions to send a child to be evaluated by a mental health professional, Elder said.
"Many ADHD diagnoses may be driven by teachers' perceptions of poor behavior among the youngest children in a kindergarten classroom," he said. "But these 'symptoms' may merely reflect emotional or intellectual immaturity among the youngest students."
The paper will be published in the Journal of Health Economics in conjunction with a related paper by researchers at North Carolina State University, Notre Dame and the University of Minnesota that arrives at similar conclusions as the result of a separate study.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Michigan State University.
Journal Reference:
Elder et al. The importance of relative standards in ADHD diagnoses: Evidence based on exact birth dates. Journal of Health Economics, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2010.06.003
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817103342.htm?sms_ss=reddit
Nearly One Million Children in U.S. Potentially Misdiagnosed With ADHD, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2010) — Nearly 1 million children in the United States are potentially misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder simply because they are the youngest -- and most immature -- in their kindergarten class, according to new research by a Michigan State University economist.
These children are significantly more likely than their older classmates to be prescribed behavior-modifying stimulants such as Ritalin, said Todd Elder, whose study will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Health Economics.
Such inappropriate treatment is particularly worrisome because of the unknown impacts of long-term stimulant use on children's health, Elder said. It also wastes an estimated $320 million-$500 million a year on unnecessary medication -- some $80 million-$90 million of it paid by Medicaid, he said.
Elder said the "smoking gun" of the study is that ADHD diagnoses depend on a child's age relative to classmates and the teacher's perceptions of whether the child has symptoms.
"If a child is behaving poorly, if he's inattentive, if he can't sit still, it may simply be because he's 5 and the other kids are 6," said Elder, assistant professor of economics. "There's a big difference between a 5-year-old and a 6-year-old, and teachers and medical practitioners need to take that into account when evaluating whether children have ADHD."
ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder for kids in the United States, with at least 4.5 million diagnoses among children under age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, there are no neurological markers for ADHD (such as a blood test), and experts disagree on its prevalence, fueling intense public debate about whether ADHD is under-diagnosed or over-diagnosed, Elder said.
Using a sample of nearly 12,000 children, Elder examined the difference in ADHD diagnosis and medication rates between the youngest and oldest children in a grade. The data is from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort, which is funded by the National Center for Education Statistics.
According to Elder's study, the youngest kindergartners were 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest children in the same grade. Similarly, when that group of classmates reached the fifth and eighth grades, the youngest were more than twice as likely to be prescribed stimulants.
Overall, the study found that about 20 percent -- or 900,000 -- of the 4.5 million children currently identified as having ADHD likely have been misdiagnosed.
Elder used the students' birth dates and the states' kindergarten eligibility cutoff dates to determine the youngest and oldest students in a grade. The most popular cutoff date in the nation is Sept. 1, with 15 states mandating that children must turn 5 on or before that date to attend kindergarten.
The results -- both from individual states and when compared across states -- were definitive. For instance, in Michigan -- where the kindergarten cutoff date is Dec. 1 -- students born Dec. 1 had much higher rates of ADHD than children born Dec. 2. (The students born Dec. 1 were the youngest in their grade; the students born Dec. 2 enrolled a year later and were the oldest in their grade.)
Thus, even though the students were a single day apart in age, they were assessed differently simply because they were compared against classmates of a different age set, Elder said.
In another example, August-born kindergartners in Illinois were much more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than Michigan kindergartners born in August of the same year as their Illinois counterparts. That's because Illinois' kindergarten cutoff date is Sept. 1, meaning those August-born children were the youngest in their grade, whereas the Michigan students were not.
According to the study, a diagnosis of ADHD requires evidence of multiple symptoms of inattention or hyperactivity, with these symptoms persisting for six or more months -- and in at least two settings -- before the age of seven. The settings include home and school.
Although teachers cannot diagnose ADHD, their opinions are instrumental in decisions to send a child to be evaluated by a mental health professional, Elder said.
"Many ADHD diagnoses may be driven by teachers' perceptions of poor behavior among the youngest children in a kindergarten classroom," he said. "But these 'symptoms' may merely reflect emotional or intellectual immaturity among the youngest students."
The paper will be published in the Journal of Health Economics in conjunction with a related paper by researchers at North Carolina State University, Notre Dame and the University of Minnesota that arrives at similar conclusions as the result of a separate study.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Michigan State University.
Journal Reference:
Elder et al. The importance of relative standards in ADHD diagnoses: Evidence based on exact birth dates. Journal of Health Economics, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2010.06.003
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817103342.htm?sms_ss=reddit
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
9 Week Old Infant Seriously Abused in CPS Home, Multiple Broken Bones + Skull Fracture - Texas-CPS Strikes Again!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_6MpLMJbBg&playnext=1&videos=dCdyVSgzo8E&feature=recentu
Investigations v. Rights -CPS
Investigations v. Rights
By Linda Jo Martin
Not "rated" by the Author.
Last edited: Sunday, October 07, 2007
Posted: Sunday, September 09, 2001
Child protection investigation practices are meeting head-on with upholders of U.S. Constitutional Rights in courts across the nation. The people say, "It is time for a change!"
Do you have to allow a child protection investigator into your home if someone calls in an anonymous tip to report something? If you don't, what are the repercussions? These are questions I was recently asked in the course of my work as a family rights activist.
The answer should be simple. Search and seizure is covered by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the most basic law of our land, which clearly says:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." [1]
Of course, in the law, nothing remains simple for long.
If a child protection caseworker shows up with a law enforcement officer in your yard bearing a search and seizure warrant, then yes, you have to let them in and give them anything listed on the warrant. If not the officers will break down your front door and walk in anyway. As the Grateful Dead sang in their popular song, "Truckin'" - "If you've got a warrant I guess you're gonna' come in." Personally, I like my front door and would simply open it if given a chance, but I've heard of search warrant entries where unlocked doors were broken down by law enforcement officers, just for the sport, I guess. I hope this isn't the norm.
Because of the long-term habit of child protection caseworkers to ignore the Fourth Amendment in child welfare investigations, using coercion and intimidation to gain entry into homes of people who are not aware of their rights, they have become bold enough to press court action against parents who dare to deny what they ask. Usually they do not get warrants. In some areas laws have been passed on the unconstitutional assumption that parents accused of child abuse should have no right to privacy. Likewise, parents who have had the right to privacy in their home violated by caseworkers can sue, have sued, and will continue to sue until this problem is resolved.
Believing themselves to be immune from all prosecution, child protection caseworkers have forged ahead bullying innocent parents and doing whatever they wanted for about twenty-one years since the passing of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 and even before, when it was common for Native Americans to be prime targets instead of just poor citizens in general. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with total immunity in Wallis v. City of Escondido, a 1999 case. Judge Reinhardt wrote, "Immunity under S 1983 is governed by federal law; state law cannot provide immunity from suit for federal civil rights violations." [2]
Because of the decision in Wallis v. City of Escondido, the door is wide open for federal civil rights lawsuits to be filed against child protection workers. I found the appellate decision in Mabe v. San Bernadino County especially interesting because everyone was found to be immune from prosecution except caseworker Karen Perry, who is left as sole defendant to take the fall on her own. Perry may have based her decisions on what her supervisor told her to do, but the appeals court decided the supervisor and other caseworkers couldn't be blamed. [3]
At the present time a 1999 California case, Calabretta v. Floyd, holds that child protection caseworkers cannot violate the Fourth Amendment by coercing entry without a warrant. Originally the parents sued after a coerced entry, a forced private interview with a twelve-year-old child who was asked to strip the three-year-old, and a forced strip search of a three-year-old child. [4]
This case was taken to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by two of the defendants: caseworker Jill Floyd of the Yolo County Department of Social Services and police officer Nicholas Schwall of the Woodland California Police Department. They wanted the court to give a ruling on whether or not social workers and police officers are entitled to qualified immunity from prosecution for coerced entry while investigating a child abuse report, interrogation of a child, and a strip search of a child. In this case, all these things were done without a search warrant and in the absence of any emergency circumstances. The Appeals Court reasoned that it was not an emergency since the caseworker waited 14 days after receiving a report to take action on it.
The decision, written by Appellate Court Judge Kleinfeld, is clear in its intent to bar social worker entry into homes when there are no emergency circumstances. Kleinfeld wrote: "Appellants [Yolo County CA caseworker Jill Floyd and her co-defendant, Nicholas Schwall] urge us to adopt a principle that 'a search warrant is not required for home investigatory visits by social workers.' They claim qualified immunity on the ground that there is no clearly established principle to the contrary." Kleinfeld disagreed with this reasoning entirely. After examining a number of cases they had cited, Kleinfeld concluded, "Appellants presented no evidence they did 'consider the need for a search warrant.' They both imagined incorrectly that no search warrants were necessary to enter houses for child abuse investigations."
All three cases, Wallis v. City of Escondido, Mabe v. San Bernadino County, and Calabretta v. Floyd, were heard in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, so the cases are binding legal precedent for the following states: California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Alaska and Hawaii. You can find these cases on the web - see the references at the foot of this article. The cases make interesting reading, giving many details on what happened when the caseworkers showed up at the door.
Despite the clear ruling in Calabretta v. Floyd, a North Carolina appeals court recently ruled that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to caseworkers! In that case, a two-year-old child exited her country home stark naked early in the morning in an attempt to catch up with a kitten. She was outside only a few moments when her brother took her back indoors. The parents believe that a passing school bus driver was the likely source of a call to child welfare agents. [5]
Caseworker Tasha Lowery, an employee of the Cleveland County Department of Social Services, responded to this call by driving out to the Stumbo's rural residence. She demanded to interview all the children in private. Mr. And Mrs. Stumbo refused to allow a private interview with the children on Fourth Amendment grounds. The Department of Social Services filed charges saying the parents had interfered with a child abuse investigation. The Stumbos also claim the caseworker demanded entry to the home, however caseworker Lowery denies that she asked to go inside.
The Stumbo's attorney claimed in their appeal "that entry into the household by a social worker is a 'search,' and a private interview of a juvenile by a social worker is a 'seizure,' both requiring probable cause under the Fourth Amendment". Judge Hudson, speaking for the North Carolina Appeals Court, declared: "this case involves neither a search nor a seizure and, therefore, does not implicate respondents' Fourth Amendment rights."
To show how weak this decision is, Judge Greene, in a dissenting opinion, wrote: "Because I believe the investigation ordered in this case…constitutes a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, I dissent…. An interview of a reported victim child… without the consent of the child's parents, constitutes a seizure of the child within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment." He further states, "'seizure' under the Fourth Amendment occurs when government actors 'by means of [a] physical force or show of authority... in some way restrain the liberty of a citizen'."
If two judges in the same court can't agree on what constitutes search and seizure, clearly there is a good chance the decision will be overturned in the higher court. The Stumbo's attorneys filed a notice of appeal with the Supreme Court of North Carolina on June 19, 2001.
I do not give legal advice because I am not an attorney, however I have no qualms telling you what I'd do if a child protective investigator showed up at my door. If caseworkers wanted to come into my house, I'd tell them they are not allowed entry into my home without a warrant because they are government agents. If they violated my rights, I'd sue. I would allow them to talk to my children in front of witnesses, who would be their parents and an attorney who I would hire to represent them. This is for the protection of the children. After all, if anyone is detained, it is the children, and most of them find this very traumatic. They are taken from their homes, parents, friends, pets, possessions, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and more. Many even lose their siblings in state custody, which causes an enormous measure of emotional pain. [6]
Sometimes CPS agents show up to investigate on nothing more than an anonymous referral possibly called in by some demented person who sees evil everywhere. Many other referrals come from retaliation attempts. The source of the tip should be considered.
In recent case law, Florida v. J.L. (March 28, 2000), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that anonymous tips are not sufficient grounds to constitute probable cause for a search. Judge Ginsburg, writing for the Supreme Court, stated, "Such an exception would enable any person seeking to harass another to set in motion an intrusive, embarrassing police search of the targeted person simply by placing an anonymous call.…" [7]
According to statistics from the U.S. Health and Human Services website, in 1999 (the most recent reporting year as of this writing in 2001) 54.7% of all child abuse or neglect reports are received from professionals like teachers, doctors, nurses, law enforcement, and therapists. The remaining 45.3% of the reports come from the general public, community members, ex-spouses and their families, angry neighbors, and other non-professional sources.
Of all the reports received (2,973,798 reports in 1999) only 18% were found to be substantiated or indicated cases of child abuse or neglect. 1,177,874 reports were screened out immediately, and 1,005,620 were investigated and eventually found to be unsubstantiated. Amazingly, at least 28.3% of the children placed in foster homes or other state custody facilities had charges in their cases unsubstantiated. I could give you a more accurate number, but only 28 of the states reported this incriminating statistic to the federal Health and Human Services agency. That's quite a startling error rate, especially in such a sensitive matter as separating children from their parents. [8]
While child protective investigators were pursuing a massive number of false and unsubstantiated reports, children who were truly in need of help were unnoticed by the system. Meanwhile thousands of parents complain that their children were taken for trivial reasons such as minor neglect based on poverty issues, having nothing to do with the actual criminal act of child abuse. This disparity in itself shows the absolute futility of a system where people are hired to try to do the work of God. The job is an impossible task, no matter what the training, no matter how pure the original motive. There will probably always be a very small percentage of children injured by their parents or other caretakers. It is tragic and heartbreaking, but it is a fact. Child protection agencies, twenty-one years young, are part of an expensive, failed experiment. [9] The task of investigating and prosecuting child abusers should be given back to law enforcement.
There is no doubt that child welfare in America is big business. As of September 1, 1999 there were 581,000 children in U.S. government custody. [10] Compare this with the size of a major city. Orlando, Florida has a population of 185,951 according to the year 2000 census data. There are enough children in government custody today to fill Orlando three times over. [11]
Child protection agents show up on a surprised family's porch to investigate, hoping to get the evidence they need to take away kids. Not allowing them into the home helps to prevent them from listing such "evidence" as a pile of dirty laundry or sink full of dishes. Don't help them, don't give them verbal or written statements of any kind, and you're much safer from unnecessary state tyranny. Anything you say can be misunderstood, misconstrue d, exaggerated, and used against you in juvenile court.
After reading this, you may wonder how likely it is for this to happen to the children you know. According to government statistics, up to 7.8% of the households with children in the United States were named in child welfare referrals in 1999 (2,973,988 referrals per 38,022,115 households with children under age 18). [8] The 7.8% figure may be slightly too high as some of the households could have been reported more than once. Using a more modest 5% figure, multiplying it by the 18 years of childhood, we come up with a 90% chance that a household with children will at some time be brought to the attention of the child protection system. The threat may never seem real unless it is your door they show up at. If you are living at or near poverty level, or if you have a special needs child, your children are more at risk of unjust detention because of the way child welfare funding is set up in our country.
References:
[1] United States Constitution
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/constitution/
[2] Wallis v. City of Escondido
http://laws.findlaw.com/9th/9755579.html
[3] Mabe v. San Bernadino County
http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/9th/9856561.html
[4] Calabretta v. Floyd
http://laws.findlaw.com/9th/9715385.html
[5] In re Stumbo
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=nc&vol=appeals2001/&invol=000408-1
http://www.hslda.org/legal/state/nc/19990915Stumbo/default.asp
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?article_id=22854
[6] "You Took Him" - a poem by John Francis Dunn
http://www.writtenbyme.com/content/49716
[7] Florida v. J.L.
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/98-1993.html
[8] National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information
http://www.calib.com/nccanch/
[9] Twenty-one years - based on time elapsed from the passing of the Adoption
Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 until the time of this writing in 2001.
[10] AFCARS Report (Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System)
Interim FY 1999 Estimates as of June 2001
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/afcars/june2001.htm
[11] U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/databank.html
Web Site: Fight CPS
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?AuthorID=4522
By Linda Jo Martin
Not "rated" by the Author.
Last edited: Sunday, October 07, 2007
Posted: Sunday, September 09, 2001
Child protection investigation practices are meeting head-on with upholders of U.S. Constitutional Rights in courts across the nation. The people say, "It is time for a change!"
Do you have to allow a child protection investigator into your home if someone calls in an anonymous tip to report something? If you don't, what are the repercussions? These are questions I was recently asked in the course of my work as a family rights activist.
The answer should be simple. Search and seizure is covered by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the most basic law of our land, which clearly says:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." [1]
Of course, in the law, nothing remains simple for long.
If a child protection caseworker shows up with a law enforcement officer in your yard bearing a search and seizure warrant, then yes, you have to let them in and give them anything listed on the warrant. If not the officers will break down your front door and walk in anyway. As the Grateful Dead sang in their popular song, "Truckin'" - "If you've got a warrant I guess you're gonna' come in." Personally, I like my front door and would simply open it if given a chance, but I've heard of search warrant entries where unlocked doors were broken down by law enforcement officers, just for the sport, I guess. I hope this isn't the norm.
Because of the long-term habit of child protection caseworkers to ignore the Fourth Amendment in child welfare investigations, using coercion and intimidation to gain entry into homes of people who are not aware of their rights, they have become bold enough to press court action against parents who dare to deny what they ask. Usually they do not get warrants. In some areas laws have been passed on the unconstitutional assumption that parents accused of child abuse should have no right to privacy. Likewise, parents who have had the right to privacy in their home violated by caseworkers can sue, have sued, and will continue to sue until this problem is resolved.
Believing themselves to be immune from all prosecution, child protection caseworkers have forged ahead bullying innocent parents and doing whatever they wanted for about twenty-one years since the passing of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 and even before, when it was common for Native Americans to be prime targets instead of just poor citizens in general. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with total immunity in Wallis v. City of Escondido, a 1999 case. Judge Reinhardt wrote, "Immunity under S 1983 is governed by federal law; state law cannot provide immunity from suit for federal civil rights violations." [2]
Because of the decision in Wallis v. City of Escondido, the door is wide open for federal civil rights lawsuits to be filed against child protection workers. I found the appellate decision in Mabe v. San Bernadino County especially interesting because everyone was found to be immune from prosecution except caseworker Karen Perry, who is left as sole defendant to take the fall on her own. Perry may have based her decisions on what her supervisor told her to do, but the appeals court decided the supervisor and other caseworkers couldn't be blamed. [3]
At the present time a 1999 California case, Calabretta v. Floyd, holds that child protection caseworkers cannot violate the Fourth Amendment by coercing entry without a warrant. Originally the parents sued after a coerced entry, a forced private interview with a twelve-year-old child who was asked to strip the three-year-old, and a forced strip search of a three-year-old child. [4]
This case was taken to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by two of the defendants: caseworker Jill Floyd of the Yolo County Department of Social Services and police officer Nicholas Schwall of the Woodland California Police Department. They wanted the court to give a ruling on whether or not social workers and police officers are entitled to qualified immunity from prosecution for coerced entry while investigating a child abuse report, interrogation of a child, and a strip search of a child. In this case, all these things were done without a search warrant and in the absence of any emergency circumstances. The Appeals Court reasoned that it was not an emergency since the caseworker waited 14 days after receiving a report to take action on it.
The decision, written by Appellate Court Judge Kleinfeld, is clear in its intent to bar social worker entry into homes when there are no emergency circumstances. Kleinfeld wrote: "Appellants [Yolo County CA caseworker Jill Floyd and her co-defendant, Nicholas Schwall] urge us to adopt a principle that 'a search warrant is not required for home investigatory visits by social workers.' They claim qualified immunity on the ground that there is no clearly established principle to the contrary." Kleinfeld disagreed with this reasoning entirely. After examining a number of cases they had cited, Kleinfeld concluded, "Appellants presented no evidence they did 'consider the need for a search warrant.' They both imagined incorrectly that no search warrants were necessary to enter houses for child abuse investigations."
All three cases, Wallis v. City of Escondido, Mabe v. San Bernadino County, and Calabretta v. Floyd, were heard in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, so the cases are binding legal precedent for the following states: California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Alaska and Hawaii. You can find these cases on the web - see the references at the foot of this article. The cases make interesting reading, giving many details on what happened when the caseworkers showed up at the door.
Despite the clear ruling in Calabretta v. Floyd, a North Carolina appeals court recently ruled that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to caseworkers! In that case, a two-year-old child exited her country home stark naked early in the morning in an attempt to catch up with a kitten. She was outside only a few moments when her brother took her back indoors. The parents believe that a passing school bus driver was the likely source of a call to child welfare agents. [5]
Caseworker Tasha Lowery, an employee of the Cleveland County Department of Social Services, responded to this call by driving out to the Stumbo's rural residence. She demanded to interview all the children in private. Mr. And Mrs. Stumbo refused to allow a private interview with the children on Fourth Amendment grounds. The Department of Social Services filed charges saying the parents had interfered with a child abuse investigation. The Stumbos also claim the caseworker demanded entry to the home, however caseworker Lowery denies that she asked to go inside.
The Stumbo's attorney claimed in their appeal "that entry into the household by a social worker is a 'search,' and a private interview of a juvenile by a social worker is a 'seizure,' both requiring probable cause under the Fourth Amendment". Judge Hudson, speaking for the North Carolina Appeals Court, declared: "this case involves neither a search nor a seizure and, therefore, does not implicate respondents' Fourth Amendment rights."
To show how weak this decision is, Judge Greene, in a dissenting opinion, wrote: "Because I believe the investigation ordered in this case…constitutes a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, I dissent…. An interview of a reported victim child… without the consent of the child's parents, constitutes a seizure of the child within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment." He further states, "'seizure' under the Fourth Amendment occurs when government actors 'by means of [a] physical force or show of authority... in some way restrain the liberty of a citizen'."
If two judges in the same court can't agree on what constitutes search and seizure, clearly there is a good chance the decision will be overturned in the higher court. The Stumbo's attorneys filed a notice of appeal with the Supreme Court of North Carolina on June 19, 2001.
I do not give legal advice because I am not an attorney, however I have no qualms telling you what I'd do if a child protective investigator showed up at my door. If caseworkers wanted to come into my house, I'd tell them they are not allowed entry into my home without a warrant because they are government agents. If they violated my rights, I'd sue. I would allow them to talk to my children in front of witnesses, who would be their parents and an attorney who I would hire to represent them. This is for the protection of the children. After all, if anyone is detained, it is the children, and most of them find this very traumatic. They are taken from their homes, parents, friends, pets, possessions, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and more. Many even lose their siblings in state custody, which causes an enormous measure of emotional pain. [6]
Sometimes CPS agents show up to investigate on nothing more than an anonymous referral possibly called in by some demented person who sees evil everywhere. Many other referrals come from retaliation attempts. The source of the tip should be considered.
In recent case law, Florida v. J.L. (March 28, 2000), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that anonymous tips are not sufficient grounds to constitute probable cause for a search. Judge Ginsburg, writing for the Supreme Court, stated, "Such an exception would enable any person seeking to harass another to set in motion an intrusive, embarrassing police search of the targeted person simply by placing an anonymous call.…" [7]
According to statistics from the U.S. Health and Human Services website, in 1999 (the most recent reporting year as of this writing in 2001) 54.7% of all child abuse or neglect reports are received from professionals like teachers, doctors, nurses, law enforcement, and therapists. The remaining 45.3% of the reports come from the general public, community members, ex-spouses and their families, angry neighbors, and other non-professional sources.
Of all the reports received (2,973,798 reports in 1999) only 18% were found to be substantiated or indicated cases of child abuse or neglect. 1,177,874 reports were screened out immediately, and 1,005,620 were investigated and eventually found to be unsubstantiated. Amazingly, at least 28.3% of the children placed in foster homes or other state custody facilities had charges in their cases unsubstantiated. I could give you a more accurate number, but only 28 of the states reported this incriminating statistic to the federal Health and Human Services agency. That's quite a startling error rate, especially in such a sensitive matter as separating children from their parents. [8]
While child protective investigators were pursuing a massive number of false and unsubstantiated reports, children who were truly in need of help were unnoticed by the system. Meanwhile thousands of parents complain that their children were taken for trivial reasons such as minor neglect based on poverty issues, having nothing to do with the actual criminal act of child abuse. This disparity in itself shows the absolute futility of a system where people are hired to try to do the work of God. The job is an impossible task, no matter what the training, no matter how pure the original motive. There will probably always be a very small percentage of children injured by their parents or other caretakers. It is tragic and heartbreaking, but it is a fact. Child protection agencies, twenty-one years young, are part of an expensive, failed experiment. [9] The task of investigating and prosecuting child abusers should be given back to law enforcement.
There is no doubt that child welfare in America is big business. As of September 1, 1999 there were 581,000 children in U.S. government custody. [10] Compare this with the size of a major city. Orlando, Florida has a population of 185,951 according to the year 2000 census data. There are enough children in government custody today to fill Orlando three times over. [11]
Child protection agents show up on a surprised family's porch to investigate, hoping to get the evidence they need to take away kids. Not allowing them into the home helps to prevent them from listing such "evidence" as a pile of dirty laundry or sink full of dishes. Don't help them, don't give them verbal or written statements of any kind, and you're much safer from unnecessary state tyranny. Anything you say can be misunderstood, misconstrue d, exaggerated, and used against you in juvenile court.
After reading this, you may wonder how likely it is for this to happen to the children you know. According to government statistics, up to 7.8% of the households with children in the United States were named in child welfare referrals in 1999 (2,973,988 referrals per 38,022,115 households with children under age 18). [8] The 7.8% figure may be slightly too high as some of the households could have been reported more than once. Using a more modest 5% figure, multiplying it by the 18 years of childhood, we come up with a 90% chance that a household with children will at some time be brought to the attention of the child protection system. The threat may never seem real unless it is your door they show up at. If you are living at or near poverty level, or if you have a special needs child, your children are more at risk of unjust detention because of the way child welfare funding is set up in our country.
References:
[1] United States Constitution
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/constitution/
[2] Wallis v. City of Escondido
http://laws.findlaw.com/9th/9755579.html
[3] Mabe v. San Bernadino County
http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/9th/9856561.html
[4] Calabretta v. Floyd
http://laws.findlaw.com/9th/9715385.html
[5] In re Stumbo
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=nc&vol=appeals2001/&invol=000408-1
http://www.hslda.org/legal/state/nc/19990915Stumbo/default.asp
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?article_id=22854
[6] "You Took Him" - a poem by John Francis Dunn
http://www.writtenbyme.com/content/49716
[7] Florida v. J.L.
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/98-1993.html
[8] National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information
http://www.calib.com/nccanch/
[9] Twenty-one years - based on time elapsed from the passing of the Adoption
Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 until the time of this writing in 2001.
[10] AFCARS Report (Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System)
Interim FY 1999 Estimates as of June 2001
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/afcars/june2001.htm
[11] U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/databank.html
Web Site: Fight CPS
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?AuthorID=4522
What to Do If Child Protective Services Social Workers Are Investigating You
What to Do If Child Protective Services Social Workers Are Investigating You
Fight CPS on 16 August, 2010 11:21:00
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What to do if Child Services Comes to your Door
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FightCPS - Here are some of my recommendations. Keep in mind that I am not an attorney and this is not legal advice — so consider the source. Get an attorney if at all possible, and discuss these things with him/her. Your attorney will understand local procedures better than I possibly could.
Stay Calm
As you deal with the interview remember to be polite. Child protective services workers have copped an attitude and gone after hostile and terrified parents, thinking they must have something to hide. Treat the social services caseworkers respectfully, but don’t give them any information, or leads to more information.
They may need to see your children in order to close the case, and they will probably want to talk to both parents. Don’t be afraid. Do whatever needs to be done in order to get the case closed.
The less said, the better. Child protective services social workers usually show up at your door with little to no evidence. If they are acting on an anonymous tip, they have NOTHING. They cannot get a court order on an anonymous tip. The only thing they can use against you is information you give them.
Record and Document Everything
Check your state recording laws. Print out a copy of your state’s law, and put it in a file folder entitled “Child Welfare Agents” near your front door. Have a tape recorder and blank tape or video campera handy in the house at all times. If a child protective services social worker shows up at your door, be prepared to tape the interview. You can, at that time, show them that you have a copy of the law. Don’t be coerced not to tape — this is your legal right if your state law says it is. Video tape is better than audio tape, if you can afford to do that instead.
Furthermore, you must document everything that happens in writing! Take notes. An English activist recommends you write down every word and insist that the worker must wait until the words are properly recorded. You have the right.
Keep a spiral-bound notebook on hand and use it to document every contact with child protective services or child protective services appointed “service providers”. Don’t back down on this! Prepare in advance, and stand firm against CPS agents!
After each contact, write a letter (some recommend having such a letter notarized) detailing what occurred, and request that the social worker confirm or deny the facts as you understand them within ten days of receipt of your letter. If no letter disputing the facts is received, then your statement of facts will be automatically confirmed. This form of documentation can later be used as evidence in your favor in juvenile court. See: Your Case Notebook – Is It Up To Date?
Don’t Invite The CPS Worker Inside
You are under no obligation to let a child protective services social worker into your house. Under the basic law of our land, the United States Constitution, Amendment Four, you have the right to privacy in your home. No government agent of any type is allowed to enter your home without your permission. We know of many cases where entry was coerced by statements such as “let me in or I’ll take your kids”. Do not give in! Do not give up your Constitutional Rights! Stand firm on this! If your rights are not honored, you can sue them later, but it is so much better to force them to honor your rights now. Check out Forced Entry Lawsuit.
The only exception would be if the child protective services agent shows up with a law enforcement officer bearing a search warrant. Usually that doesn’t happen — and I will tell you why. The child protective services agent is there at your door to gather evidence. Usually he doesn’t have enough real evidence to detain your child right away and there is not enough “probable cause” to obtain a search warrant. Typically, he will be just working on a phoned-in tip from someone who wants to retaliate against you for something. If you talk a lot, your words will be twisted in such a way as to be used against you in court. Also if you allow this person into your home, he will most likely find something there to complain about and use against you in court. A sink with 8 dishes needing washing can show up in his report as “a sink full of dirty dishes and a filthy kitchen” which of course would serve to make you look bad to a judge. Therefore, just don’t let these people into your home. You have no idea what an issue a child protective services social worker can make out of a pile of laundry sitting next to your washing machine!
If the complaint the child protective services social worker is there to investigate is that your house is dirty, you can go inside, take a few digital photos, and then go back outside to show her the house is just fine. Or, you can tell her that without a court order there will be no entry into your private home thanks to the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution. If she’s working with only an anonymous tip, she will not be able to get a court order. If instead, she has credible evidence, she may be able to get one.
Say As Little As Possible
Of course, when you first see child protective services social workers on your doorstep, you want these people to go away and close their case. This will make you want to tell them things to clarify that you are not a danger to your children. Be careful what you say. As any activist will tell you, anything you say can be twisted and used against you!
For example, I thought it was good that my spouse and I were already involved in therapy and a 12-Step group for adult children of alcoholics. However this statement was used against me. It was used as evidence that I had problems and needed “services”. The fact that I was already taking care of my own needs and didn’t need a court order to do these things didn’t help.
Another thing you really shouldn’t tell CPS agents is whether you were once in state custody. When you tell them you were a foster child, first of all they know there’s a file out there with your name in it from which they can pull documents to use as “evidence” against you. In my case, most of the paperwork in our thick file was pulled from my spouse’s very thick state custody file. They claimed they had evidence that he was violent from the time he was in kindergarten and they were prepared to use that juvenile file against us, even though he had never harmed our child. Second, if you tell them you were a foster child, it marks you as a victim and makes them think you can be victimized more. Former foster children have their children detained at a rate much higher than most, so just be on the safe side and don’t mention that fact if it pertains to you. It really is none of their business. You should not open your mouth to help them make a case against you.
It is also not wise to tell them something like, “I am not an abuser – I should know what that is – I was abused as a child.” What this says to them is that you were abused therefore you are likely to be an abuser. Believe me, no matter what terrible situation you went through as a child, it is better not to mention that to a social worker. They will not feel so sorry for you that they will just go away. No, it doesn’t work that way. They are looking for bad things to say about you to pad their caseworker report when they present it to a judge.
Yet another thing you shouldn’t say is whether your child was detained in the past. A history of child protective services interference in your family tells a caseworker you are on their hit list. If you have ever had a child taken from you by Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) move to another state or better yet, out of the country, and keep it a secret! There is a 1996 law (ASFA – the Adoptions and Safe Families Act) that gives the child protective services agents the right to take away all future children if you ever had a TPR in the past. If this law is used against you, there will be no reunification plan, no “reasonable efforts” to keep your family together, and most likely no visitation.
Another thing to beware of: they may ask you for referrals to people to help prove your fitness to parent. For example, I was asked for my ex-husband’s phone number. Thinking he would give me a good referral, I complied. As it turned out, he was told that making a statement against me would help him keep custody of our children. The most damaging “evidence” they got against me were false statements signed by this ex-husband and his girlfriend, who had only met me briefly once and had never been in my home! This woman had the gall to make a twelve page false statement typed on legal paper regarding my parenting abilities! She called it an “affidavit” but did not sign it under penalty of perjury, and for good reason! Therefore I advise that you NOT give them “leads” to your friends, family, ex-spouses, therapists, doctors, etc. They are just looking for “evidence” against you and they are experts at coercing this sort of evidence from people who know you. Make them find their own evidence — don’t help them find or make contacts!
So, if CPS agents are at your door, stand firm and say as little as you possibly can! If you feel they are making a case against you anyhow, get an attorney to help you through an interview in your attorney’s office.
Don’t Trust CPS Social Workers
In other words, know the enemy. Know who child protective services workers are. I used to work with child protective services workers in the Dept. of Public Social Services, Visalia, California, so I think I’m in a position to tell you what these government agents are like, though I’ve never been one. (I was a welfare eligibility worker.) The typical child protective services social worker is there for one reason: to have a job to pay his/her bills. This worker cannot afford to lose the job, so s/he will do whatever the supervisor says in order to maintain employment.
Now, if this child protective services social worker is put into a unit assigned to go investigate referrals and to make decisions regarding detainment of children, then naturally this person would be suspect if s/he never detained a kid! In order to maintain employment, this child protective services social worker will have to take a certain number of children into custody… therefore when they are at your home, they are thinking to themselves, “what can I find out about this family to build a case aimed at taking their kid?” They must have a case to take into court, and they are there, looking for evidence.
Even if they seem nice and harmless, remember, this is how child protective services makes money. To keep their jobs, they must take away children from their families. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They come to your door saying, “I’m just here to help.” The next thing you know, your children are in state custody and you are in court trying to prove your innocence. Remember, even if you like the person, behind every pleasant personality is a need to keep the child protective services social worker job. Behind every seemingly nice caseworker there is a more experienced child protective services supervisor who may tell your caseworker to “find something” to use to detain your child. You would not believe some of the idiotic allegations I have seen in caseworker reports… but if they can get a judge to rubber stamp their side of the story, they can get away with keeping your children in state custody. Don’t trust these people!
Service Plans
You need to understand that child protective services funding is closely tied in with “service providers”. It is likely that the social worker will offer some kind of deal, saying you can keep your kid if you agree to “services” like psychological testing, drug testing, therapy, etc. What this offer really means is that they don’t have enough evidence to take your child into their custody, but if you will just go to their “service providers” they may get the “evidence” they need through these “service provider” reports.
Say, for example, you are accused of drug use. They want you to go to a drug testing service to prove your innocence. You say, “Okay, I’m not a drug user, I’ll go”. But then you find yourself facing false-positive results … or if you miss an appointment, you are told that will count as a positive drug test. Your life is being severely interfered with because you have to go to scheduled appointments, miss work, make special child care arrangements, etc. Believe me, all this is not a “service” to you, no matter what they call it! It is only a way for child protective services social workers to try to get “evidence” against you so they can take your children away.
What I recommend based on what I’d do in similar circumstances: Do NOT sign their plans. Do NOT admit to anything. Force them to PROVE their cases in court, in a FULL TRIAL. Don’t accept just a hearing where you are coerced to sign guilty to the charges. They will try every trick in the book to get you to agree to their sick “service plans”. Stand firm and just say “no” when they ask you to sign your legal rights away.
Just Say “NO” To Private Interviews With Your Child
The CPS agents will want to talk to your child alone. Just say “NO”. Tell the agents that your child has the right to have an attorney present, and that if he insists on an interview then you and the attorney will be present and the interview will be recorded, preferably on videotape. Of course, if your child is attending a public school, you probably won’t get a chance to say “no”. What would happen is that the social worker would go to the school and, behind your back, get permission to talk with your children from the school employees. You can tell the school ahead of time (in writing) that you don’t permit such interviews, or anything other than basic education activities, however you cannot trust school employees to go by your wishes. It might help to ask your attorney to write a letter to the school forbidding interviews with CPS workers. Keep in mind that the public schools are one of the major sources of CPS referrals. I have heard that caseworkers complain that public school employees actually want more child detentions than CPS agents do!
My advice is not to trust the schools, and to homeschool if possible. I am a big homeschooling advocate because I believe it is best for kids, and one of these days I will write a page about that too… but in the meantime, just keep in mind that it is hard to say “no” to interviews if your child’s school will say “yes”.
Already the government puts child protective services social workers into public schools to look for target children. Eventually this may be the case in every public school. I think this is a good place for me to mention that I support the separation of school and state. Please check it out.
Be sure your children know that they have the right to say, “I don’t want to be interviewed without my parents and an attorney and a tape recorder present.” Child protective services social workers will not tell your child that s/he has the right to say that. If there is still time, you must be the one to train your child how to deal with government agents. Be sure your child knows the consequences of child protective services interviews. If anyone is detained, it is the child. If they say the wrong thing, they can be taken into custody and removed, possibly permanently, from parents, siblings, friends, their home town, their pets, and everything else they hold dear in life! They will be traumatized by that separation, and probably put on harmful adult psychotropic drugs to deal with the separation. See: Drugging Foster Children.
If they complain too much about being incarcerated in state custody homes, they may be put into mental hospitals, or placed in restraints, which are known to be deadly. “Teach your children well,” as the old song goes. We live in perilous times. We owe it to our children to help them learn to deal with government agents that may harm them. Remember, children are eight to ten times more at risk of abuse in foster and group homes, so we are not over-reacting in teaching our children these self-protective measures.
Advance Preparation
I’ve suggested that you keep the following things on hand: a tape recorder, blank tape, video camera, spiral-bound notebook, and a file folder marked “Child Welfare Agents”. If you have time to prepare for a visit before it happens, you are very lucky. Most people don’t take the threat of government interference in their lives seriously — until after it happens to them.
To prepare, I suggest the following items be printed out from the internet and placed in your folder: your state and federal laws regarding child welfare services; court cases that insure your rights; the Bill of Rights, newspaper articles and statistics showing that children are not safe in state custody homes. Be prepared to show these things to the social worker that comes to your door, and question them about the wisdom of taking children into state custody where they are eight to ten times more at risk of abuse.
If they want to take your kids, question them about the “reasonable efforts” requirement to keep families together, and about what “pre-placement preventative services” they are offering. If they want your child, ask about what “imminent danger” exists. Let them know that you know the laws!
For example, if they claim something happened on Monday to your child but they show up on Friday afternoon to pick your child up, you should be telling these social workers that obviously no “imminent danger” exists or they would have acted on the report right away! If you don’t stand firm and point out their mistakes, they will walk all over you and violate their own laws in many different ways. Yes, your child still might be detained, but if you show them you know their laws and can speak their lingo, they will think twice before choosing you as a new client.
In addition to the paperwork detailed above, keep on hand in this “Child Welfare Agents” file your pediatrician’s doctor reports showing that your child is healthy. Every time your child sees a physician, request in writing that the full report be sent to you. You should not give these reports to a CPS agent, but you can let him know you have evidence showing that you are a good parent, not an abuser. Flash the papers before his/her face, don’t hand them over to be read… these are your own valuable documents and you don’t need to share or tell the worker who the child’s doctor is. Let the worker find evidence on his/her own. Don’t help a CPS agent try to build a case against you.
The point of having this folder is to let the social worker know that you know the laws and you are prepared to defend yourself! You are not going to share your “evidence” with a social worker. They have no right to it unless the case goes to court, and then you share it with your attorney only – or if you’re representing yourself, you can enter items like pediatrician reports into the court records as evidence.
Coercion
Be prepared to face coercion, even from your own court appointed attorney. Just like many others, I too was told by my county attorney that I could take my child home that day if I would just sign guilty to the charges, and I was so desperate to get my baby, I signed. Thousands of us have done that. Believe me, it is better to say “No – I want a full trial – you must prove your charges!” If you give in to the coercion, you will be jumping through their “service plan” hoops for months to come. If you go through with a trial, there’s a possibility you will win your freedom from this government interference in your family’s life.
If you go through a trial, and your child is adjudged a state ward, and you are court-ordered to complete a “service plan” or “reunification plan,” then of course you should do your best to complete every part of it before the next court hearing. This plan will most likely include psychological testing and counseling — that is a standard waste of taxpayer money. If the social workers want to court order you to anything that does not apply to your case, you should insist that your attorney fight this requirement in court. For example, if they want you to go to drug testing despite the fact that you are not a drug user and they have no evidence that you might be, then fight it! After the court hearing, if social workers try to force you into “services” that are not in the court-ordered plan you can refuse to cooperate. You are only required to do things that the judge has ordered. You should document all such illegal requests for additional services that haven’t been required by a judge. You can request a state administrative hearing from the state social services department to discuss these requests with an Administrative Law Judge.
Likewise you may find that child protective services social workers are trying to delay setting up services that are court ordered. You must document your repeated requests for such services and the excuses the child protective services social workers give for delaying the start of such services. Child protective services agents have been known to delay services so that your case will last longer. If your child is in state custody for 15 months, your parental rights can be terminated on that basis alone. Your goal will be to get your child returned at the next court hearing, so don’t allow delays!
Here’s the link to an article I wrote about child welfare investigations and your rights:
Investigations v. Rights
http://nationalexpositor.com/News/2785.html
Fight CPS on 16 August, 2010 11:21:00
Newsletter
Delivered by FeedBurner
Related news
What to do if Child Services Comes to your Door
Swat Team Attacks Family for Child Being Calcium Deficient
Question a Doctor and Lose your Child
SWAT Goons Dispatched On Homeschoolers in Colorado
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Oppose Vaccine Roundup
FightCPS - Here are some of my recommendations. Keep in mind that I am not an attorney and this is not legal advice — so consider the source. Get an attorney if at all possible, and discuss these things with him/her. Your attorney will understand local procedures better than I possibly could.
Stay Calm
As you deal with the interview remember to be polite. Child protective services workers have copped an attitude and gone after hostile and terrified parents, thinking they must have something to hide. Treat the social services caseworkers respectfully, but don’t give them any information, or leads to more information.
They may need to see your children in order to close the case, and they will probably want to talk to both parents. Don’t be afraid. Do whatever needs to be done in order to get the case closed.
The less said, the better. Child protective services social workers usually show up at your door with little to no evidence. If they are acting on an anonymous tip, they have NOTHING. They cannot get a court order on an anonymous tip. The only thing they can use against you is information you give them.
Record and Document Everything
Check your state recording laws. Print out a copy of your state’s law, and put it in a file folder entitled “Child Welfare Agents” near your front door. Have a tape recorder and blank tape or video campera handy in the house at all times. If a child protective services social worker shows up at your door, be prepared to tape the interview. You can, at that time, show them that you have a copy of the law. Don’t be coerced not to tape — this is your legal right if your state law says it is. Video tape is better than audio tape, if you can afford to do that instead.
Furthermore, you must document everything that happens in writing! Take notes. An English activist recommends you write down every word and insist that the worker must wait until the words are properly recorded. You have the right.
Keep a spiral-bound notebook on hand and use it to document every contact with child protective services or child protective services appointed “service providers”. Don’t back down on this! Prepare in advance, and stand firm against CPS agents!
After each contact, write a letter (some recommend having such a letter notarized) detailing what occurred, and request that the social worker confirm or deny the facts as you understand them within ten days of receipt of your letter. If no letter disputing the facts is received, then your statement of facts will be automatically confirmed. This form of documentation can later be used as evidence in your favor in juvenile court. See: Your Case Notebook – Is It Up To Date?
Don’t Invite The CPS Worker Inside
You are under no obligation to let a child protective services social worker into your house. Under the basic law of our land, the United States Constitution, Amendment Four, you have the right to privacy in your home. No government agent of any type is allowed to enter your home without your permission. We know of many cases where entry was coerced by statements such as “let me in or I’ll take your kids”. Do not give in! Do not give up your Constitutional Rights! Stand firm on this! If your rights are not honored, you can sue them later, but it is so much better to force them to honor your rights now. Check out Forced Entry Lawsuit.
The only exception would be if the child protective services agent shows up with a law enforcement officer bearing a search warrant. Usually that doesn’t happen — and I will tell you why. The child protective services agent is there at your door to gather evidence. Usually he doesn’t have enough real evidence to detain your child right away and there is not enough “probable cause” to obtain a search warrant. Typically, he will be just working on a phoned-in tip from someone who wants to retaliate against you for something. If you talk a lot, your words will be twisted in such a way as to be used against you in court. Also if you allow this person into your home, he will most likely find something there to complain about and use against you in court. A sink with 8 dishes needing washing can show up in his report as “a sink full of dirty dishes and a filthy kitchen” which of course would serve to make you look bad to a judge. Therefore, just don’t let these people into your home. You have no idea what an issue a child protective services social worker can make out of a pile of laundry sitting next to your washing machine!
If the complaint the child protective services social worker is there to investigate is that your house is dirty, you can go inside, take a few digital photos, and then go back outside to show her the house is just fine. Or, you can tell her that without a court order there will be no entry into your private home thanks to the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution. If she’s working with only an anonymous tip, she will not be able to get a court order. If instead, she has credible evidence, she may be able to get one.
Say As Little As Possible
Of course, when you first see child protective services social workers on your doorstep, you want these people to go away and close their case. This will make you want to tell them things to clarify that you are not a danger to your children. Be careful what you say. As any activist will tell you, anything you say can be twisted and used against you!
For example, I thought it was good that my spouse and I were already involved in therapy and a 12-Step group for adult children of alcoholics. However this statement was used against me. It was used as evidence that I had problems and needed “services”. The fact that I was already taking care of my own needs and didn’t need a court order to do these things didn’t help.
Another thing you really shouldn’t tell CPS agents is whether you were once in state custody. When you tell them you were a foster child, first of all they know there’s a file out there with your name in it from which they can pull documents to use as “evidence” against you. In my case, most of the paperwork in our thick file was pulled from my spouse’s very thick state custody file. They claimed they had evidence that he was violent from the time he was in kindergarten and they were prepared to use that juvenile file against us, even though he had never harmed our child. Second, if you tell them you were a foster child, it marks you as a victim and makes them think you can be victimized more. Former foster children have their children detained at a rate much higher than most, so just be on the safe side and don’t mention that fact if it pertains to you. It really is none of their business. You should not open your mouth to help them make a case against you.
It is also not wise to tell them something like, “I am not an abuser – I should know what that is – I was abused as a child.” What this says to them is that you were abused therefore you are likely to be an abuser. Believe me, no matter what terrible situation you went through as a child, it is better not to mention that to a social worker. They will not feel so sorry for you that they will just go away. No, it doesn’t work that way. They are looking for bad things to say about you to pad their caseworker report when they present it to a judge.
Yet another thing you shouldn’t say is whether your child was detained in the past. A history of child protective services interference in your family tells a caseworker you are on their hit list. If you have ever had a child taken from you by Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) move to another state or better yet, out of the country, and keep it a secret! There is a 1996 law (ASFA – the Adoptions and Safe Families Act) that gives the child protective services agents the right to take away all future children if you ever had a TPR in the past. If this law is used against you, there will be no reunification plan, no “reasonable efforts” to keep your family together, and most likely no visitation.
Another thing to beware of: they may ask you for referrals to people to help prove your fitness to parent. For example, I was asked for my ex-husband’s phone number. Thinking he would give me a good referral, I complied. As it turned out, he was told that making a statement against me would help him keep custody of our children. The most damaging “evidence” they got against me were false statements signed by this ex-husband and his girlfriend, who had only met me briefly once and had never been in my home! This woman had the gall to make a twelve page false statement typed on legal paper regarding my parenting abilities! She called it an “affidavit” but did not sign it under penalty of perjury, and for good reason! Therefore I advise that you NOT give them “leads” to your friends, family, ex-spouses, therapists, doctors, etc. They are just looking for “evidence” against you and they are experts at coercing this sort of evidence from people who know you. Make them find their own evidence — don’t help them find or make contacts!
So, if CPS agents are at your door, stand firm and say as little as you possibly can! If you feel they are making a case against you anyhow, get an attorney to help you through an interview in your attorney’s office.
Don’t Trust CPS Social Workers
In other words, know the enemy. Know who child protective services workers are. I used to work with child protective services workers in the Dept. of Public Social Services, Visalia, California, so I think I’m in a position to tell you what these government agents are like, though I’ve never been one. (I was a welfare eligibility worker.) The typical child protective services social worker is there for one reason: to have a job to pay his/her bills. This worker cannot afford to lose the job, so s/he will do whatever the supervisor says in order to maintain employment.
Now, if this child protective services social worker is put into a unit assigned to go investigate referrals and to make decisions regarding detainment of children, then naturally this person would be suspect if s/he never detained a kid! In order to maintain employment, this child protective services social worker will have to take a certain number of children into custody… therefore when they are at your home, they are thinking to themselves, “what can I find out about this family to build a case aimed at taking their kid?” They must have a case to take into court, and they are there, looking for evidence.
Even if they seem nice and harmless, remember, this is how child protective services makes money. To keep their jobs, they must take away children from their families. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They come to your door saying, “I’m just here to help.” The next thing you know, your children are in state custody and you are in court trying to prove your innocence. Remember, even if you like the person, behind every pleasant personality is a need to keep the child protective services social worker job. Behind every seemingly nice caseworker there is a more experienced child protective services supervisor who may tell your caseworker to “find something” to use to detain your child. You would not believe some of the idiotic allegations I have seen in caseworker reports… but if they can get a judge to rubber stamp their side of the story, they can get away with keeping your children in state custody. Don’t trust these people!
Service Plans
You need to understand that child protective services funding is closely tied in with “service providers”. It is likely that the social worker will offer some kind of deal, saying you can keep your kid if you agree to “services” like psychological testing, drug testing, therapy, etc. What this offer really means is that they don’t have enough evidence to take your child into their custody, but if you will just go to their “service providers” they may get the “evidence” they need through these “service provider” reports.
Say, for example, you are accused of drug use. They want you to go to a drug testing service to prove your innocence. You say, “Okay, I’m not a drug user, I’ll go”. But then you find yourself facing false-positive results … or if you miss an appointment, you are told that will count as a positive drug test. Your life is being severely interfered with because you have to go to scheduled appointments, miss work, make special child care arrangements, etc. Believe me, all this is not a “service” to you, no matter what they call it! It is only a way for child protective services social workers to try to get “evidence” against you so they can take your children away.
What I recommend based on what I’d do in similar circumstances: Do NOT sign their plans. Do NOT admit to anything. Force them to PROVE their cases in court, in a FULL TRIAL. Don’t accept just a hearing where you are coerced to sign guilty to the charges. They will try every trick in the book to get you to agree to their sick “service plans”. Stand firm and just say “no” when they ask you to sign your legal rights away.
Just Say “NO” To Private Interviews With Your Child
The CPS agents will want to talk to your child alone. Just say “NO”. Tell the agents that your child has the right to have an attorney present, and that if he insists on an interview then you and the attorney will be present and the interview will be recorded, preferably on videotape. Of course, if your child is attending a public school, you probably won’t get a chance to say “no”. What would happen is that the social worker would go to the school and, behind your back, get permission to talk with your children from the school employees. You can tell the school ahead of time (in writing) that you don’t permit such interviews, or anything other than basic education activities, however you cannot trust school employees to go by your wishes. It might help to ask your attorney to write a letter to the school forbidding interviews with CPS workers. Keep in mind that the public schools are one of the major sources of CPS referrals. I have heard that caseworkers complain that public school employees actually want more child detentions than CPS agents do!
My advice is not to trust the schools, and to homeschool if possible. I am a big homeschooling advocate because I believe it is best for kids, and one of these days I will write a page about that too… but in the meantime, just keep in mind that it is hard to say “no” to interviews if your child’s school will say “yes”.
Already the government puts child protective services social workers into public schools to look for target children. Eventually this may be the case in every public school. I think this is a good place for me to mention that I support the separation of school and state. Please check it out.
Be sure your children know that they have the right to say, “I don’t want to be interviewed without my parents and an attorney and a tape recorder present.” Child protective services social workers will not tell your child that s/he has the right to say that. If there is still time, you must be the one to train your child how to deal with government agents. Be sure your child knows the consequences of child protective services interviews. If anyone is detained, it is the child. If they say the wrong thing, they can be taken into custody and removed, possibly permanently, from parents, siblings, friends, their home town, their pets, and everything else they hold dear in life! They will be traumatized by that separation, and probably put on harmful adult psychotropic drugs to deal with the separation. See: Drugging Foster Children.
If they complain too much about being incarcerated in state custody homes, they may be put into mental hospitals, or placed in restraints, which are known to be deadly. “Teach your children well,” as the old song goes. We live in perilous times. We owe it to our children to help them learn to deal with government agents that may harm them. Remember, children are eight to ten times more at risk of abuse in foster and group homes, so we are not over-reacting in teaching our children these self-protective measures.
Advance Preparation
I’ve suggested that you keep the following things on hand: a tape recorder, blank tape, video camera, spiral-bound notebook, and a file folder marked “Child Welfare Agents”. If you have time to prepare for a visit before it happens, you are very lucky. Most people don’t take the threat of government interference in their lives seriously — until after it happens to them.
To prepare, I suggest the following items be printed out from the internet and placed in your folder: your state and federal laws regarding child welfare services; court cases that insure your rights; the Bill of Rights, newspaper articles and statistics showing that children are not safe in state custody homes. Be prepared to show these things to the social worker that comes to your door, and question them about the wisdom of taking children into state custody where they are eight to ten times more at risk of abuse.
If they want to take your kids, question them about the “reasonable efforts” requirement to keep families together, and about what “pre-placement preventative services” they are offering. If they want your child, ask about what “imminent danger” exists. Let them know that you know the laws!
For example, if they claim something happened on Monday to your child but they show up on Friday afternoon to pick your child up, you should be telling these social workers that obviously no “imminent danger” exists or they would have acted on the report right away! If you don’t stand firm and point out their mistakes, they will walk all over you and violate their own laws in many different ways. Yes, your child still might be detained, but if you show them you know their laws and can speak their lingo, they will think twice before choosing you as a new client.
In addition to the paperwork detailed above, keep on hand in this “Child Welfare Agents” file your pediatrician’s doctor reports showing that your child is healthy. Every time your child sees a physician, request in writing that the full report be sent to you. You should not give these reports to a CPS agent, but you can let him know you have evidence showing that you are a good parent, not an abuser. Flash the papers before his/her face, don’t hand them over to be read… these are your own valuable documents and you don’t need to share or tell the worker who the child’s doctor is. Let the worker find evidence on his/her own. Don’t help a CPS agent try to build a case against you.
The point of having this folder is to let the social worker know that you know the laws and you are prepared to defend yourself! You are not going to share your “evidence” with a social worker. They have no right to it unless the case goes to court, and then you share it with your attorney only – or if you’re representing yourself, you can enter items like pediatrician reports into the court records as evidence.
Coercion
Be prepared to face coercion, even from your own court appointed attorney. Just like many others, I too was told by my county attorney that I could take my child home that day if I would just sign guilty to the charges, and I was so desperate to get my baby, I signed. Thousands of us have done that. Believe me, it is better to say “No – I want a full trial – you must prove your charges!” If you give in to the coercion, you will be jumping through their “service plan” hoops for months to come. If you go through with a trial, there’s a possibility you will win your freedom from this government interference in your family’s life.
If you go through a trial, and your child is adjudged a state ward, and you are court-ordered to complete a “service plan” or “reunification plan,” then of course you should do your best to complete every part of it before the next court hearing. This plan will most likely include psychological testing and counseling — that is a standard waste of taxpayer money. If the social workers want to court order you to anything that does not apply to your case, you should insist that your attorney fight this requirement in court. For example, if they want you to go to drug testing despite the fact that you are not a drug user and they have no evidence that you might be, then fight it! After the court hearing, if social workers try to force you into “services” that are not in the court-ordered plan you can refuse to cooperate. You are only required to do things that the judge has ordered. You should document all such illegal requests for additional services that haven’t been required by a judge. You can request a state administrative hearing from the state social services department to discuss these requests with an Administrative Law Judge.
Likewise you may find that child protective services social workers are trying to delay setting up services that are court ordered. You must document your repeated requests for such services and the excuses the child protective services social workers give for delaying the start of such services. Child protective services agents have been known to delay services so that your case will last longer. If your child is in state custody for 15 months, your parental rights can be terminated on that basis alone. Your goal will be to get your child returned at the next court hearing, so don’t allow delays!
Here’s the link to an article I wrote about child welfare investigations and your rights:
Investigations v. Rights
http://nationalexpositor.com/News/2785.html
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