National Coalition for Child Protection Reform / 53 Skyhill Road (Suite 202) / Alexandria, Va. 22314
(703) 212&2006 / info@nccpr.org / www.nccpr.org
THE EVIDENCE IS IN
Foster Care vs. Keeping Families Together: The Definitive Studies
NCCPR long has argued that many children now trapped in foster care would be far
better off if they had remained with their own families and those families had been given the right
kinds of help.
Turns out that’s not quite right.
In fact, many children now trapped in foster care would be far better off if they remained
with their own families even if those families got only the typical help (which tends to be little help,
wrong help, or no help) commonly offered by child welfare agencies.
That’s the message from the largest studies ever undertaken to compare the impact on
children of foster care versus keeping comparably maltreated children with their own families. The
study was the subject of a front&page story in USA Today, available here: http://bit.ly/5JpHmU
The first study, published in 2007, and available here,
http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/fostercare_aer.pdf looked at outcomes for more than 15,000 children.
It compared foster children not to the general population but to comparably-maltreated children
left in their own homes. The result: On measure after measure the children left in their own
homes do better.
In fact, it’s not even close.
Children left in their own homes are far less likely to become pregnant as teenagers, far
less likely to wind up in the juvenile justice system and far more likely to hold a job for at least
three months than comparably maltreated children who were placed in foster care.
One year later, the same researcher published another study,available here:
http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_jpe_aug08.pdf, his time of 23,000 cases. Again he compared
foster children to comparably&maltreated children left in their own homes. This time he looked at
which children were more likely to be arrested as adults. Once again, the children left in their
own homes fared better than the foster children.
Implications
● The studies use the term “foster care” generically; they include children placed in any
form of substitute care. That’s important because whenever information like this comes out,
people who want to warehouse children in orphanages try to use it to justify their schemes. But
these studies were not limited to family foster homes. And it takes three single&spaced pages just
to list all the other studies documenting the harm of orphanages. (Those pages are available
from NCCPR.)
● This does not mean that no child ever should be placed in foster care. But it
means many fewer children should be placed in foster care.
The studies excluded the most severe cases of maltreatment, a very small proportion of
any child protective worker’s caseload, precisely because, horror stories that make the front page
notwithstanding, these are cases where everyone with time to investigate would agree that
removal from the home was the only alternative.
Rather, the studies focused on, by far, the largest group of cases any worker sees, those
that can best be called the “in&between cases” where the parent is neither all victim nor all villain;
cases where there are real problems in the home, but wide disagreement over what should be
done. As the first study itself notes: “These are the cases most likely to be affected by policy
changes that alter the threshold for placement.” They also, are, of course, the cases most likely
to be affected by a foster&care panic – which also alters the threshold for placement. THE EVIDENCE IS IN/2
Even among these cases, the figures are averages. Certainly there are some individual
cases among the thousands studied in which foster care was the less harmful alternative. But
what the data make clear is that foster care is vastly overused, damaging large numbers of
children who would do better in life had they remained in their own homes, even with the minimal
help most child welfare agencies offer to families.
This says less about how well child protection agencies do in helping families than it does
about how enormously toxic a foster care intervention is. Anything that toxic must be used very
sparingly and in very small doses.
● Child welfare agencies have a disingenuous response to all this: “Why yes, of course,”
they like to say. “This research just shows what we’ve always said ourselves: foster care only
should be used as a last resort; of course we keep families together whenever possible.” But this
research shows that agency actions belie their words. These studies found thousands of
children already in foster care who would have done better had child protection agencies
not taken them away in the first place.
● The USA Today story quotes one deservedly well&respected expert as saying that the
2007 study was the first to produce such results. But that is an error. Actually it was at least the
second since 2006. A University of Minnesota study, available here: http://bit.ly/76Hhqk used a
different methodology and measured different outcomes, but came to very similar conclusions.
● Though the USA Today story says other “studies” go the other way, the one cited, with
less than 1/100
th
the sample size of the new studies, a shorter duration and at least one other
serious flaw (omitting foster children in care for less than six months) is the only one we know of.
And that study focused on reunification, not on children never removed in the first place.
And, of course, that study also compared foster care only to typical “help” for families in
their own homes, which generally is little or nothing. Providing the kinds of real help NCCPR
recommends (See Twelve Ways to do Child Welfare Right, available here:
http://nccpr.info/solutions-services/ ) would likely change the result and, in the case of the three
more recent and more rigorous studies, create an even wider gap in outcomes favoring keeping
families together.
● Perhaps most intriguing, these studies suggest it actually may be possible to quantify
the harm of a foster&care panic, a huge, sudden upsurge in needless removals after the death of
a child “known to the system” gets extensive news coverage.
Thanks to these studies, we now have an estimate of how much worse foster children do
on key outcomes compared with comparably&maltreated children left in their own homes. It’s also
usually possible to calculate how many more children are taken away during a foster&care panic.
So it should be possible to estimate how many more children will wind up under arrest, how many
more will become pregnant and how many more will be jobless as a result of a foster&care panic.
It also should be possible to estimate roughly how many children have been saved from
these rotten outcomes in states and localities that have reformed their systems to emphasize
safe, proven programs to keep families together.
These new studies and the Minnesota study are in addition to the comprehensive study
of foster care alumni showing that only one in five could be said to be doing well as a young adult
– in other words, foster care churns out walking wounded four times out of five. (See NCCPR’s
publication 80 Percent Failure (http://www.nccpr.org/reports/cfpanalysis.pdf)for more on this
study) and the mass of evidence showing that simply in terms of physical safety, real family
preservation programs have a far better track record than foster care. (See NCCPR Issue Paper
#1: http://www.nccpr.org/reports/01SAFETY.pdf)
The buzzword in child welfare is “evidence&based.” What that really means is: How dare
proponents of any new, innovative approach to child welfare expect to get funding if they can’t dot
every i and cross every t on evaluations proving the innovation’s efficacy beyond a shadow of a
doubt? Old, non&innovative programs, however, are not held to this standard. If they were, child
welfare would be turned upside down by the results of this new research.
Because now, more than ever, the evidence is in. Updated June 3, 2009
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
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Parents, civil rights groups support Detroit mom jailed over daughter's meds
Parents, civil rights groups support Detroit mom jailed over daughter's meds | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Detroit — A group of parental rights supporters and activists gathered at a northwest-side church this morning to raise awareness and money for a mother jailed after a 10-hour standoff with police over her daughter's medications.
Detroit — A group of parental rights supporters and activists gathered at a northwest-side church this morning to raise awareness and money for a mother jailed after a 10-hour standoff with police over her daughter's medications.
The family justice system is callous, corrupt and staggeringly expensive
The family justice system is callous, corrupt and staggeringly expensive - Telegraph
David Norgrove's interim review of the family justice system only scratches the surface of what has become a national scandal, says Christopher Booker.
David Norgrove's interim review of the family justice system only scratches the surface of what has become a national scandal, says Christopher Booker.
The Duties of Child Protective Caseworkers-Total Crock!
The Duties of Child Protective Caseworkers | eHow.com
E-How writes an article on the practices Child Protective Services are MANDATED to follow. Then why don't they? Would it mean less incentive money and federal funding? You're dam right it would! If only mandates were followed, the families that WOULD be PRESERVED, not destroyed! What do we have to do to make our Federal Government open their eyes to the deceitful practices used by CPS? The Federal funding just keep's rolling in, which can only mean one thing. CPS HAS to be falsifying the Fed's paperwork as well as everyone else's!
E-How writes an article on the practices Child Protective Services are MANDATED to follow. Then why don't they? Would it mean less incentive money and federal funding? You're dam right it would! If only mandates were followed, the families that WOULD be PRESERVED, not destroyed! What do we have to do to make our Federal Government open their eyes to the deceitful practices used by CPS? The Federal funding just keep's rolling in, which can only mean one thing. CPS HAS to be falsifying the Fed's paperwork as well as everyone else's!
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Davenport woman's baby dies while in foster care
Davenport woman's baby dies while in foster care - Quad Cities Online
Originally Posted Online: March 31, 2011, 6:45 pm
Last Updated: April 01, 2011, 11:22 am
Comment on this story | Print this story | Email this story
By Stephen Elliott, selliott@qconline.com
DAVENPORT -- Dawn Burkhardt has had a life of bad: bad checks, bad boyfriends, bad stints in jail.
But the worst came March 4 when her 9-month-old son, Brandon Jordan, died at the home of his foster parents.
"I was just getting out of jail for not paying a fine, and DCFS (the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services)told me, cold heartedly, 'Dawn, your son's dead,'" she said.
"It didn't sink in. The more I think about it, the more it hurts, the more pain and suffering I'm going through," she said."They took a baby from a parent that's fully functional."
Ms. Burkhardt, 29, is no stranger to DCFS. Shehas had six children; DCFS has placedtwo in foster care. Two live with an aunt and another is with its father. In June, DCFS also took Brandon from Ms. Burkhardt and placed him with foster parents,Deandrea and Roshanda Washington, in Peoria.
Now, Brandon is dead.He died from asphyxiation, according to Peoria County Coroner Johnna Ingersoll, who said the babyapparently had been left alone in his crib for nine hours.
"It is under investigation with the Peoria Police Department and the Peoria Coroner's Office," Ms. Ingersoll said Wednesday. "An inquest will likely be within the next couple of weeks.
"Perhaps it may be necessary to delay the inquest if the investigation is not complete within the next couple of weeks," she said."But, hopefully, it will be."
DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlowe confirmed the agency began investigating Brandon's death on March 5. He also said two other foster children living in the same Peoria home have been placed with another foster family.
The court granted temporary custody of Brandon to DCFS on June 17, 2010, Mr. Marlowe said. Custody is granted based on either abuse or neglect, he added.
There have been subsequent hearings on Brandon's status since his foster care placement, Mr. Marlowe said. Those hearing's files, he noted, generally are not open to the public.
Ms. Burkhardt said she left the Quad-Cities last year after an abusive relationship with Brandon's father.
"He's in prison right now," she said. "He's a very bad person. I don't bring him up. I had a baby by him, but when I got pregnant by him, I had already left him.
"But, things got worse," Ms. Burkhardt said. "He started beating on me, showing up at places I was at."
So she moved.She got a bus ticket to Peoria, where she contacted and resided at a domestic violence shelter.
"I felt if I didn't leave town, me and my baby wouldn't be alive," she said.
Ms. Burkhardt said that, after Brandon was born at OSF St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, he was taken from her by DCFS and put into foster care.
"DCFS took my child away at the hospital," Ms. Burkhardt said.
"I don't see how I can be unstable," she said. "It (the shelter)was a domestic violence place.They provided transitional housing, transportation if needed, clothing. They helped you get to the food stamp place to sign up for cash assistance. I had not had a chance to get everything situated."
Currently in Illinois, there are 15,540 children in foster care, according to Mr. Marlowe. That's down markedly from 1997, he said, when the state had more than 52,000 kids in state care.
"We've made tremendous progress through adoptions, guardianships, in reunifying children with their families," he said. "There is a large body of research showing children do better when they maintain ties to community and maintain their family ties to the family."
Mr. Marlowe said he could not comment specifically on Brandon's case. But he noted that every Illinois foster parent goes through a criminal background check and a DCFS background check.
DCFS takes numerous variables into account when determining a child's safety, he said.
"The difficulty is, neglect is very closely linked to poverty," Mr. Marlowe said. "Parents highly impoverished who may not mean to harm children may still place them in a neglectful situation."
Ms. Burkhardt believes Brandon was betrayed by the system. And she said she feels she's getting the run-around from authorities.
Until Thursday -- when she said she was told to leave -- Ms.Burkhardt had lived at the Humility of Mary homeless shelter in Davenport. She said she is working on her GED and plans to enter the massage therapy field.
For now, she and her current boyfriend, Tyrone Stewart, stay at shelters while seeking some footing. She said that, without Mr. Stewart, "I don't think I would be able to handle this."
On Thursday afternoon, the two were at Vander Veer Botanical Park as parents and grandparents passed, holding their children's hands or pushing them in strollers. Although children played close to where she on a bench, their two worlds were miles apart.
Ms. Burkhardt shared that she doesn't even know where Brandon is buried.
"Somewhere in Peoria," she said, her voice crackingslightly as she reached back for a memory of her son, trying to connect with a reality that never was.
"I was planning on getting Brandon back and making a healthy home for him," she said.
"He never got a chance to know his mother," she said."Part of me feels guilty; my son didn't get a chance to live in this world.
"My son cannot rest until something is done," she said. "I just want my son to have some justice."
Originally Posted Online: March 31, 2011, 6:45 pm
Last Updated: April 01, 2011, 11:22 am
Comment on this story | Print this story | Email this story
By Stephen Elliott, selliott@qconline.com
DAVENPORT -- Dawn Burkhardt has had a life of bad: bad checks, bad boyfriends, bad stints in jail.
But the worst came March 4 when her 9-month-old son, Brandon Jordan, died at the home of his foster parents.
"I was just getting out of jail for not paying a fine, and DCFS (the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services)told me, cold heartedly, 'Dawn, your son's dead,'" she said.
"It didn't sink in. The more I think about it, the more it hurts, the more pain and suffering I'm going through," she said."They took a baby from a parent that's fully functional."
Ms. Burkhardt, 29, is no stranger to DCFS. Shehas had six children; DCFS has placedtwo in foster care. Two live with an aunt and another is with its father. In June, DCFS also took Brandon from Ms. Burkhardt and placed him with foster parents,Deandrea and Roshanda Washington, in Peoria.
Now, Brandon is dead.He died from asphyxiation, according to Peoria County Coroner Johnna Ingersoll, who said the babyapparently had been left alone in his crib for nine hours.
"It is under investigation with the Peoria Police Department and the Peoria Coroner's Office," Ms. Ingersoll said Wednesday. "An inquest will likely be within the next couple of weeks.
"Perhaps it may be necessary to delay the inquest if the investigation is not complete within the next couple of weeks," she said."But, hopefully, it will be."
DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlowe confirmed the agency began investigating Brandon's death on March 5. He also said two other foster children living in the same Peoria home have been placed with another foster family.
The court granted temporary custody of Brandon to DCFS on June 17, 2010, Mr. Marlowe said. Custody is granted based on either abuse or neglect, he added.
There have been subsequent hearings on Brandon's status since his foster care placement, Mr. Marlowe said. Those hearing's files, he noted, generally are not open to the public.
Ms. Burkhardt said she left the Quad-Cities last year after an abusive relationship with Brandon's father.
"He's in prison right now," she said. "He's a very bad person. I don't bring him up. I had a baby by him, but when I got pregnant by him, I had already left him.
"But, things got worse," Ms. Burkhardt said. "He started beating on me, showing up at places I was at."
So she moved.She got a bus ticket to Peoria, where she contacted and resided at a domestic violence shelter.
"I felt if I didn't leave town, me and my baby wouldn't be alive," she said.
Ms. Burkhardt said that, after Brandon was born at OSF St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, he was taken from her by DCFS and put into foster care.
"DCFS took my child away at the hospital," Ms. Burkhardt said.
"I don't see how I can be unstable," she said. "It (the shelter)was a domestic violence place.They provided transitional housing, transportation if needed, clothing. They helped you get to the food stamp place to sign up for cash assistance. I had not had a chance to get everything situated."
Currently in Illinois, there are 15,540 children in foster care, according to Mr. Marlowe. That's down markedly from 1997, he said, when the state had more than 52,000 kids in state care.
"We've made tremendous progress through adoptions, guardianships, in reunifying children with their families," he said. "There is a large body of research showing children do better when they maintain ties to community and maintain their family ties to the family."
Mr. Marlowe said he could not comment specifically on Brandon's case. But he noted that every Illinois foster parent goes through a criminal background check and a DCFS background check.
DCFS takes numerous variables into account when determining a child's safety, he said.
"The difficulty is, neglect is very closely linked to poverty," Mr. Marlowe said. "Parents highly impoverished who may not mean to harm children may still place them in a neglectful situation."
Ms. Burkhardt believes Brandon was betrayed by the system. And she said she feels she's getting the run-around from authorities.
Until Thursday -- when she said she was told to leave -- Ms.Burkhardt had lived at the Humility of Mary homeless shelter in Davenport. She said she is working on her GED and plans to enter the massage therapy field.
For now, she and her current boyfriend, Tyrone Stewart, stay at shelters while seeking some footing. She said that, without Mr. Stewart, "I don't think I would be able to handle this."
On Thursday afternoon, the two were at Vander Veer Botanical Park as parents and grandparents passed, holding their children's hands or pushing them in strollers. Although children played close to where she on a bench, their two worlds were miles apart.
Ms. Burkhardt shared that she doesn't even know where Brandon is buried.
"Somewhere in Peoria," she said, her voice crackingslightly as she reached back for a memory of her son, trying to connect with a reality that never was.
"I was planning on getting Brandon back and making a healthy home for him," she said.
"He never got a chance to know his mother," she said."Part of me feels guilty; my son didn't get a chance to live in this world.
"My son cannot rest until something is done," she said. "I just want my son to have some justice."
Confessions of a Child Protective Service Headhunter
Confessions of a Child Protective Service Headhunter - Grand Rapids Family Court | Examiner.com
August 28th, 2010 1:02 am ET
Sally Borghese
Grand Rapids Family Court Examiner
transcribed exclusive interview part 2 of 3
The following is a transcription of an audio tape from a former Child Protective Service Headhunter. Exclusive interview provided to journalist Georgie Hampton…..part 3 of 3.
(where marked (x-x), signifies the recording was unclear to transcribe)
My name is Black Michael and I granted way of Canada and Australia and the world my exclusive story as a retired headhunter who is trying to make amends for the over 25,000 children removed over a twenty-two year period.
CPS and other agencies paid me to falsify information to make these children wards of the court. As I said last week my job was to locate families on welfare, low income, low I.Q. or the least likely to be able to afford counsel that could get them their children returned to their custody. I was paid $1,800 per child I brought into care, with a $500.00 bonus if a child was in someway handicapped and a $10,000 bonus if a child was adopted out without parental consent.
I am not proud of what I did and I am now trying to see that as many children as I can will be returned to their loving families. This is why I am stepping forward to give testimony to what we headhunters do.
First, we located a family that fit the criteria. Then watched that family for a circumstance that really happened, that was not really dangerous. But, when which likely made it look likely abuse, neglect or some other endangerment was going on. We then made written, sworn statements to the agencies we worked for and a warrant would then be issued for the child or children in that family to be removed from the family home.
As headhunters, we often testified in court as to our allegations under oath and then to the false identity so that our names would not show as in a stream of cases before the court. It has come to my attention that CPS and other agencies in the last month have doubled the
2010 - 11 children can be brought into care quota. Instead of the approximately 240,000
children, the headhunter quota has risen from 80,000 souls and innocents 155 during this physical term.
It sickens me that this is happening to innocent families, and I am determined to see that those for whom I was responsible for falsifying records are returned home where possible.
I am at great risk doing this interview and would not have consented had Georgie had not agreed to keep my true identity hidden and my voice altered. If she had not agreed to these terms I would not be granting this exclusive interview.
With the economy as it is and the expected depression through by 2012, CPS and like organizations are doubling their quotas to stay in business and have no doubt for them this business is slowly monetary and has nothing to do with the safety of children in legitimate terms.
More children die in the hands of their foster parents than in the hands of their true parents for which I know I am responsible for the loss of life to these 11 of these children by falsifying records and statements.
Advertisement
I am not proud of the work I did, nor of the money I earned. All my efforts are now being put into bringing as many of these children home as possible. I have been instrumental in having 22 children now returned to their rightful families and I continue to work on bringing more home.
To (x-x) I have to step forward slowly and cautiously because should it become known that I am the one known who is contacting judges and prosecutors and recanting my testimony I would be dead within weeks, if not days.
As headhunters, we took a full week long course on how to spot vulnerable families, how to falsify allegations, how to testify to CPS benefit. This course also taught us that when children were taken into care the immediate program of separation of child from family would begin. The child would be rewarded for compliance and punished for defiance. A type of mind control would be used by foster parents even though these foster parents did not know they were being taught these skills during their training of two weeks.
Foster parents only have criminal checks. They are not interviewed by psychologists or trained personnel. They merely have to express their want to be foster parents and follow the instructions of care and reward and punishment to keep the children in their care under their control. The foster parent school is to separate the child from his or her parents as widely as possible.
The child, when the prearranged telephone call or visit has not produced, the child is told your mother and father hate you, they don't want you, that is why they never showed up. We love you, we want you, you are safe with us as long as you follow our simple rules and expectations. Very quickly most contact with birth parents and families is brought to very limited contact.
Every session and visit is monitored and if the parent probes into the well being of their child, the foster parent is taught how to reprogram the child's responses to such questions. In essence, they are taught to forget their former families and accept foster homes or adoption as their only recourse to being truly loved.
I have agreed to keep these interviews going with Georgie as I can to expose the system for the deceitful, despicable corporations that they are. While I am not beyond being called those same names, I do hope parents realize the great danger I am currently putting myself in exposing CPS and other like agencies and their reprogramming of children's lives.
As headhunters, we were aware that approximately 50% of children in foster homes are abused, sexually assaulted and mind controlled. We worked for pay and put those statistics to the back of our minds, shoved that knowledge away, knowing we were not the perpetrators of these atrocities. But the truth is, we put those children in harms way and are just as guilty as the foster parents who abuse these children on an ongoing and daily basis.
While child protection agencies are aware of these atrocities, they also ignore them for the greater part as conditioning of children and separation (x-x) from real families plays a real part of reprogramming of these innocent minds.
I will continue this interview at later date. Again my most humble apologies for the pain I have caused both parents and children for whom I was responsible in separating.
May God have mercy on my soul……..Black Michael
August 28th, 2010 1:02 am ET
Sally Borghese
Grand Rapids Family Court Examiner
transcribed exclusive interview part 2 of 3
The following is a transcription of an audio tape from a former Child Protective Service Headhunter. Exclusive interview provided to journalist Georgie Hampton…..part 3 of 3.
(where marked (x-x), signifies the recording was unclear to transcribe)
My name is Black Michael and I granted way of Canada and Australia and the world my exclusive story as a retired headhunter who is trying to make amends for the over 25,000 children removed over a twenty-two year period.
CPS and other agencies paid me to falsify information to make these children wards of the court. As I said last week my job was to locate families on welfare, low income, low I.Q. or the least likely to be able to afford counsel that could get them their children returned to their custody. I was paid $1,800 per child I brought into care, with a $500.00 bonus if a child was in someway handicapped and a $10,000 bonus if a child was adopted out without parental consent.
I am not proud of what I did and I am now trying to see that as many children as I can will be returned to their loving families. This is why I am stepping forward to give testimony to what we headhunters do.
First, we located a family that fit the criteria. Then watched that family for a circumstance that really happened, that was not really dangerous. But, when which likely made it look likely abuse, neglect or some other endangerment was going on. We then made written, sworn statements to the agencies we worked for and a warrant would then be issued for the child or children in that family to be removed from the family home.
As headhunters, we often testified in court as to our allegations under oath and then to the false identity so that our names would not show as in a stream of cases before the court. It has come to my attention that CPS and other agencies in the last month have doubled the
2010 - 11 children can be brought into care quota. Instead of the approximately 240,000
children, the headhunter quota has risen from 80,000 souls and innocents 155 during this physical term.
It sickens me that this is happening to innocent families, and I am determined to see that those for whom I was responsible for falsifying records are returned home where possible.
I am at great risk doing this interview and would not have consented had Georgie had not agreed to keep my true identity hidden and my voice altered. If she had not agreed to these terms I would not be granting this exclusive interview.
With the economy as it is and the expected depression through by 2012, CPS and like organizations are doubling their quotas to stay in business and have no doubt for them this business is slowly monetary and has nothing to do with the safety of children in legitimate terms.
More children die in the hands of their foster parents than in the hands of their true parents for which I know I am responsible for the loss of life to these 11 of these children by falsifying records and statements.
Advertisement
I am not proud of the work I did, nor of the money I earned. All my efforts are now being put into bringing as many of these children home as possible. I have been instrumental in having 22 children now returned to their rightful families and I continue to work on bringing more home.
To (x-x) I have to step forward slowly and cautiously because should it become known that I am the one known who is contacting judges and prosecutors and recanting my testimony I would be dead within weeks, if not days.
As headhunters, we took a full week long course on how to spot vulnerable families, how to falsify allegations, how to testify to CPS benefit. This course also taught us that when children were taken into care the immediate program of separation of child from family would begin. The child would be rewarded for compliance and punished for defiance. A type of mind control would be used by foster parents even though these foster parents did not know they were being taught these skills during their training of two weeks.
Foster parents only have criminal checks. They are not interviewed by psychologists or trained personnel. They merely have to express their want to be foster parents and follow the instructions of care and reward and punishment to keep the children in their care under their control. The foster parent school is to separate the child from his or her parents as widely as possible.
The child, when the prearranged telephone call or visit has not produced, the child is told your mother and father hate you, they don't want you, that is why they never showed up. We love you, we want you, you are safe with us as long as you follow our simple rules and expectations. Very quickly most contact with birth parents and families is brought to very limited contact.
Every session and visit is monitored and if the parent probes into the well being of their child, the foster parent is taught how to reprogram the child's responses to such questions. In essence, they are taught to forget their former families and accept foster homes or adoption as their only recourse to being truly loved.
I have agreed to keep these interviews going with Georgie as I can to expose the system for the deceitful, despicable corporations that they are. While I am not beyond being called those same names, I do hope parents realize the great danger I am currently putting myself in exposing CPS and other like agencies and their reprogramming of children's lives.
As headhunters, we were aware that approximately 50% of children in foster homes are abused, sexually assaulted and mind controlled. We worked for pay and put those statistics to the back of our minds, shoved that knowledge away, knowing we were not the perpetrators of these atrocities. But the truth is, we put those children in harms way and are just as guilty as the foster parents who abuse these children on an ongoing and daily basis.
While child protection agencies are aware of these atrocities, they also ignore them for the greater part as conditioning of children and separation (x-x) from real families plays a real part of reprogramming of these innocent minds.
I will continue this interview at later date. Again my most humble apologies for the pain I have caused both parents and children for whom I was responsible in separating.
May God have mercy on my soul……..Black Michael
San Jose ordered to pay $3.2M in child seizure suit
San Jose ordered to pay $3.2M in child seizure suit - San Jose Mercury News
By Mike Rosenberg
mrosenberg@mercurynews.com
Posted: 04/01/2011 08:17:56 PM PDT
Updated: 04/01/2011 10:39:25 PM PDT
In the largest recent judgment against San Jose police, a federal jury on Friday awarded a family $3.25 million after siding with the parents, who accused officers of stealing their young children and placing them in protective custody.
The award came two days after a U.S. District Court jury in San Jose ruled that detective William Hoyt and Sgt. Craig Blank violated the constitutional rights of Tracy Watson, Renee Stalker and their children after the officers entered their home without a warrant in 2005 and seized the children, who were kept from their parents for more than a year.
"It's the most horrific thing (that) no parent should ever have to go through, no child should ever have to go through," Watson, 49, a marketer who now lives in Napa, said Friday. The "police charging into your house, stealing your kids."
At the time, police had become alarmed by the strange sexual behavior exhibited by the family's 8-year-old daughter, and the father's lack of cooperation during their abuse investigation. But the family argued the girl had never told investigators she had been molested, and there was no evidence of abuse.
City Attorney Rick Doyle said it was the largest settlement against the police department in his 15 years defending the city. He argued the settlement was excessive and is considering appealing.
Doyle said the 8-year-old daughter had masturbated in her Evergreen School District classroom and talked strangely,
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mentioning she was taking baths with her father, who refused to cooperate with authorities. Although Doyle acknowledged officers "probably" should have obtained a warrant before entering the home, he said police have the right to retrieve the children if they are in immediate danger.
"If you don't do anything and something happens, then you're second guessed for being negligent," Doyle said, citing the horrific Jaycee Lee Dugard case where a young girl had been kidnapped and abused for years in Antioch before officers discovered her. "It sort of puts the police in 'you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.' "
On June 29, 2005, Hoyt, Blank, five other police officers and county social workers came to the family's home on Braden Court and entered without a search warrant. The 3-year-old autistic son and an infant boy were home with their grandmother, and Doyle said officials could not reach the mother -- who was in the hospital for surgery -- and thought Watson was with the girl.
So they placed the boys into the custody of county child protective services, and then did the same with the girl the next day.
But Watson believes he was targeted because he had hired an attorney after a feud with the school district. He denies the girl had been doing anything sexual.
Even so, a San Jose municipal court judge ruled the officers acted correctly in taking the kids. It wasn't until the family moved to Napa County in 2006 -- nearly 1½ years after the initial seizure -- that social workers there reviewed the case and quickly returned the children to the family, said their attorney, Peter Johnson of Walnut Creek.
In 2007, the family sued the city, police, the county, the school district and several officials. The family settled with the county and school officials for an undisclosed amount.
The case against the city, however, went to trial last month, with jurors unanimously deciding that the officers did not have enough evidence to justify taking the kids and entering the home without a search warrant.
The jury found that the officers had violated the family's 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, and their 14th Amendment rights against government prohibiting "life, liberty or property" without taking proper measures. Jurors awarded financial penalties plus $2 million in punitive damages, which are designed to punish defendants for intentional wrongdoing.
They also found the city did not properly train its officers, but not in a "deliberately indifferent" way.
Watson said although he feels vindicated by the ruling, it's been a struggle to get his family back together since being reunited.
"What's normal after that?" he said. "You try, but you're always a little edgy around cops after that. You just are. Your whole sense of safety as a family has just been violated."
Contact Mike Rosenberg at 408-920-5705.
BEFORE THE VERDICT
June 29, 2005: Detectives, police officers and social workers entered the home without a warrant and removed two of their children.
2007: The family sued the city, police, the county and school district and several officials. The family settled with county and school officials for an undisclosed amount.
By Mike Rosenberg
mrosenberg@mercurynews.com
Posted: 04/01/2011 08:17:56 PM PDT
Updated: 04/01/2011 10:39:25 PM PDT
In the largest recent judgment against San Jose police, a federal jury on Friday awarded a family $3.25 million after siding with the parents, who accused officers of stealing their young children and placing them in protective custody.
The award came two days after a U.S. District Court jury in San Jose ruled that detective William Hoyt and Sgt. Craig Blank violated the constitutional rights of Tracy Watson, Renee Stalker and their children after the officers entered their home without a warrant in 2005 and seized the children, who were kept from their parents for more than a year.
"It's the most horrific thing (that) no parent should ever have to go through, no child should ever have to go through," Watson, 49, a marketer who now lives in Napa, said Friday. The "police charging into your house, stealing your kids."
At the time, police had become alarmed by the strange sexual behavior exhibited by the family's 8-year-old daughter, and the father's lack of cooperation during their abuse investigation. But the family argued the girl had never told investigators she had been molested, and there was no evidence of abuse.
City Attorney Rick Doyle said it was the largest settlement against the police department in his 15 years defending the city. He argued the settlement was excessive and is considering appealing.
Doyle said the 8-year-old daughter had masturbated in her Evergreen School District classroom and talked strangely,
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mentioning she was taking baths with her father, who refused to cooperate with authorities. Although Doyle acknowledged officers "probably" should have obtained a warrant before entering the home, he said police have the right to retrieve the children if they are in immediate danger.
"If you don't do anything and something happens, then you're second guessed for being negligent," Doyle said, citing the horrific Jaycee Lee Dugard case where a young girl had been kidnapped and abused for years in Antioch before officers discovered her. "It sort of puts the police in 'you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.' "
On June 29, 2005, Hoyt, Blank, five other police officers and county social workers came to the family's home on Braden Court and entered without a search warrant. The 3-year-old autistic son and an infant boy were home with their grandmother, and Doyle said officials could not reach the mother -- who was in the hospital for surgery -- and thought Watson was with the girl.
So they placed the boys into the custody of county child protective services, and then did the same with the girl the next day.
But Watson believes he was targeted because he had hired an attorney after a feud with the school district. He denies the girl had been doing anything sexual.
Even so, a San Jose municipal court judge ruled the officers acted correctly in taking the kids. It wasn't until the family moved to Napa County in 2006 -- nearly 1½ years after the initial seizure -- that social workers there reviewed the case and quickly returned the children to the family, said their attorney, Peter Johnson of Walnut Creek.
In 2007, the family sued the city, police, the county, the school district and several officials. The family settled with the county and school officials for an undisclosed amount.
The case against the city, however, went to trial last month, with jurors unanimously deciding that the officers did not have enough evidence to justify taking the kids and entering the home without a search warrant.
The jury found that the officers had violated the family's 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, and their 14th Amendment rights against government prohibiting "life, liberty or property" without taking proper measures. Jurors awarded financial penalties plus $2 million in punitive damages, which are designed to punish defendants for intentional wrongdoing.
They also found the city did not properly train its officers, but not in a "deliberately indifferent" way.
Watson said although he feels vindicated by the ruling, it's been a struggle to get his family back together since being reunited.
"What's normal after that?" he said. "You try, but you're always a little edgy around cops after that. You just are. Your whole sense of safety as a family has just been violated."
Contact Mike Rosenberg at 408-920-5705.
BEFORE THE VERDICT
June 29, 2005: Detectives, police officers and social workers entered the home without a warrant and removed two of their children.
2007: The family sued the city, police, the county and school district and several officials. The family settled with county and school officials for an undisclosed amount.
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