Alabama Supreme Court Decision Discusses the Best Interests of the Child

While this decision is not a child welfare case, it is exceptionally instructive into the legal principle known as the "bests interests of the child" and the improper application of that standard in the context of the presumption of parental fitness.

In this case, the parents decided that their children should not be permitted to see their grandparents. The grandparents petitioned the court for visitation under an Alabama statute which gives grandparents the right to petition the court for visitation rights with their grandchildren. The trial court granted visitation pursuant to the statute. The appeals court overturned, citing the grandparents did not prove that the children would be harmed by being denied contact with their grandparents. The Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court decision but for different reason.

The Alabama Supreme Court found the statute to be unconstitutional in its entirety.

The law on parental rights is exhaustively discussed in this decision, detailing the lineage of the law from the beginning to the current status of the rights of parents to make decisions regarding their children.

It emphasizes that the law clearly states a parent is presumed fit, and under that presumption, the state cannot even reach a decision regarding the best interests of the child. Because the Alabama grandparent visitation statute ignored the presumption of parental fitness and ignored the fact that the state has no right to second guess a parent's decisions or to substitute stated decisions for the parent's decisions absent a finding of parental unfitness, the statute was found to be unconstitutional.

This principle applies equally to child welfare agencies during a child abuse/neglect investigation and case. If one were to substitute "child welfare agency" for "grandparents," the case would read like a user manual for the proper administration of child welfare cases.

I particularly found the concurring discussion about how the institution of the family predates government to be encouraging. AFAC has been making this argument for nearly twenty years, and it is heartening to see a jurist who gets it.

Ex Parte Erg and Dwg Al

Surprising Twist in CPS Case Involving Psychotropic Drugs

The online Family Rights groups are all abuzz with this story from Texas.

Surprising Twist in CPS Case Involving Psychotropic Drugs: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

The not-so-astute leaders are rallying the masses, calling this case a victory. They just don't get that it's not a victory.

The article reports that CPS was adamant about terminating the parental rights. This is obviously in error.

When this hapless child was seized, it is obvious her permanency plan was reunification, because the agency imposed a treatment plan upon the parents. It is also mandated by law that the permanency plan be reunification unless there are aggravating circumstances, such as sexual abuse or the serious injury or death of a child/sibling.  Regardless of how they administered this case or threatened the family, the permanency plan was--officially-reunification, and the agency had to go through the motions consistent with that goal.

So the child is returned to her parents at eleven months into the case, based on "the parents doing all CPS had asked them to dan and months of negative drug tests" indicating this case was treated exactly like all other cases.  Permanency is, by law, mandated to happen at twelve months. So if they could not make the case for termination of parental rights, they had no choice but to reunify. Trust me, the County Attorney saw the handwriting on the wall, and decided to posture graciously in his utter failure to permanently snatch this child from non-abusive parents for redistribution into a state-approved home.

In this case, taking eleven months to return a child that was never demonstrably harmed by her parents is unconscionable, and cannot credibly be claimed as a victory. The child that was finally returned to her parents is not the child that was taken. She has been harmed, grievously harmed.

This child was placed on a cocktail of chemical restraints to control her behavior while in foster care. Can you imagine what kind of foster care givers would get fed up at her crying and night terrors or whatever acting out she did because she was taken from her mommy and daddy who loved her and have the child drugged into a stupor? What kind of doctor would even prescribe this treatment without first exploring why the child was so traumatized and advocating to treat the cause rather than the symptom? This goes against all standards of medical and psychological professional practice, yet is normal procedure when foster children are involved.

She didn't see her parents for months, despite the fact that her isolation from them obviously caused her problems. Is it any wonder that aggrieved families judge CPS as being callous, heartless, abusive and in it for the money?

This was no victory, and any organization that sees it as a victory is incompetent and profoundly ignorant. This child is damaged for life.

Putting a child on cocktails of mind-altering drugs while the brain is forming it's critical connections and pathways is barbaric. Drugging her into a stupor so her foster care givers could manage her trauma according to their own convenience is not in the best interests of the child, it is in the best interests of the government. There could be no more graphic illustration of this perversion of the letter and intent of the child welfare law.

The real tragedy is that this injustice could have been truncated or aborted if the attorneys for the parents or the child did their jobs right.  But they often don't do their jobs right, the risk to their professional practice caused by vigorous advocacy is too much of a threat for most to overcome. The lawyers in these cases should be sanctioned, but, if past patterns hold true, they will undoubtedly earn a judgeship for their incompetence and fear.

This child has a viable cause of action against the state of Texas. Much more viable than the parents have. I hope they pursue it, because she's going to need all the help she can get for the rest of her life.

Child Welfare Case Analysis #1-Newborn born at home.

This is the first of our regular columns analyzing an actual child welfare case. We will present the background and development of the case in this blog. The analyses of the case will be conducted on two web sites. The first analysis will be from the perspective of the legal professionals representing the parents and children and the judge on our Legal Resources Web site. The other analysis will be from the perspective of the parent on the American Family Advocacy Center web site.

Case Background:
County child welfare agency (CPS) receives a hotline call from a mandated reporter that Mr. & Mrs. Smith have a newborn who is severely dehydrated and has not gained any weight since being born a week ago. The reporter states the child was born at home and this is the mother's first birth.

CPS sends an intake caseworker 36 hours after the report is received. The parents permit the caseworker entry into the family home after the caseworker threatens to get a court order. The caseworker's report observes that the home is in disarray. The caseworker reports the mother (aged 19) appears tired and overwhelmed and that the child is listless and unhealthy looking. Mother says she is breastfeeding, but she has a difficult time getting the baby to nurse very long. Mother reports the baby was born at home, but the child was taken to the pediatrician within hours of the home birth, and was seen again by the pediatrician yesterday. She admits the baby has lost some weight but she is working on getting the baby to nurse better. Caseworker determines that the child is in immediate danger and takes physical custody of the child. She leaves the parents a notice of hearing in five days. The child is placed in foster care. The caseworker makes no arrangements for the mother to provide breast milk for the infant.

In court, five days later, the parents are each appointed an attorney at the preliminary placement hearing. The parents have not seen their baby since it was seized. Their attorneys meet with them for the first time a few minutes in the hall before returning to the hearing. The parents each receive a copy of the petition which states the child is suffering from failure to thrive and was near death when the caseworker took custody. CPS cites the home birth as being medical neglect, and fails to report that the parents took the infant to see the pediatrician immediately after the birth and a week later. Each attorney advises each parent just to agree with keeping the child in foster care pending the adjudication.

The parents advise their attorneys that they have called the father's mother, who has come from out-of-state to their home. They want the attorney to ask the agency to return the child and offer the grandmother in the home as a supervisor until this can be resolved. The mother expresses concerns about breastfeeding the baby and her absence from the infant during this critical bonding period.

Mother's attorney agrees to present this option to the court. Father's attorney doesn't show much enthusiasm for this as it deviates from the normal procedure, saying "That's not the way it is done."

When the case is called, the caseworker paints a dire picture, mom is depressed and unable to care for the child, and states that the child is thriving in foster care. That the parents have medically neglected the child by having a home birth. She offers one hour a week supervised visitations upon the condition that the parents sign releases and have psychological evaluations.

The Guardian ad litem concurs. (He's never spoken to the parents and never seen the infant, or the infant's medical records. He has only seen the caseworker's report).

Mom's attorney objects and offers the alternative that grandmother stays in the home and the child can be returned home. Father's attorney concurs, but only under pressure from his client.

Magistrate Judge interrogates grandma about her role and insists she agree on certain conditions before the child can be returned to the parents. She can never have the infant out of her site, not even when she has to use the bathroom or shower. She must never leave the infant alone with mom or dad. She must immediately call the caseworker if the mother or father do anything that presents a risk to the child. Caseworker must be allowed entry into the family home upon demand, and a home health nurse will weigh the child weekly. If there is any weight loss, so much as an ounce, the baby will be placed back in foster care. The court reluctantly orders the child home with these conditions in place over the objection of the caseworker and the GAL.

The court also finds that it was contrary to the welfare of the child to remain in the family home at the time of the removal and that reasonable efforts were made to prevent removal. The county attorney representing the agency presented no evidence supporting the caseworker's statement that she had made reasonable efforts or in support of the contrary to the welfare finding. The GAL, and respondent parents attorneys did not object to those findings nor the lack of evidence supporting them.

After the hearing, the respondent parent attorneys advise the parents to admit to the petition, under the no-fault provision in the state statutes. The treatment plan is ordered and includes parenting classes, infant massage classes, psychological evaluations for both parents, and grandma must live in the small apartment with the parents (never letting the child out of sight) until the case is closed. It takes nine months for this case to close.

The baby was returned to the home the day of the first hearing, still weighing less than when he was born. Mother was never able to successfully resume nursing the baby. Parents report that the infant was fussy and resistant for months after being returned from foster care and he suffered ongoing digestive problems from the formula, resulting in continued problems gaining weight. They expressed frustration at the level of scrutiny to which they were subjected as being invasive and demeaning. Dad's job was jeopardized due to the services he was force to comply with which were always scheduled during his work hours.

The agency's reports indicated that they had successfully rehabilitated the parents and they counted the outcome from this case as positive.

Another Abusive Adoptive Parent

Jeremiah Lovato gets 119.5 years

I have written quite a bit about El Paso County, Colorado Department of Human Services over the years, in part because their practices are so abysmally horrible, and in part because I live there.

So it comes as no surprise that they approved an adoption by the man pictured here. He adopted a teen boy. Nobody saw anything wrong with that. Then he proceeded to abuse and torture the boy.

For over two years.

Unnoticed.

Protected from scrutiny by DHS. Until the boy took matters into his own hands and ran away to avoid another beating. Way to go, El Paso County. Way to go Colorado. How many children sacrificed on the alter of saving children will it take before you get it through your thick heads that there is a better way to protect children than redistributing them to strangers?  Your tests, your inspections, your background checks are failing the children.

How about this. . .The real test would be if those strangers would adopt the kiddies without the adoption subsidy they get. If they don't want the kiddies sans the buck$$$, it should be a big clue. Oh, silly me, I'm not an "expert" on child welfare like you all are.

This man, Jeremiah Lovato, was just sentenced to 119 1/2 years for beating his adoptive son with implements like a meat tenderizer, and for stomping on his testicles, and more. This DHS-approved, artificially created father is pissed that his sentence is so harsh. What a shame he didn't feel any sympathy for the child that was redistributed by DHS and the court into his care as if the child were a puppy. The boy, his adopted son, gets life. . .a life sentence to live with the abuse this man inflicted upon him, and that DHS inflicted upon him, and the the Dependency Court judge inflicted upon him.

The real criminal is the caseworker who approved this monster as being a fit father, and the judge who granted the adoption. And most of all the attorney who was appointed to represent the best interests of this child, the bobble-headed Guardian ad litem who rubber stamped every recommendation the caseworker made instead of conducting his own investigation. Who are they? Why aren't they being held responsible? Oh, right, they have immunity from liability for their bad decisions, their bad practices and their bad judgement. Welcome to the twilight zone.

You can read the stories here, and here, and here.

Book Review: "Damaged" by Cathy Glass

It didn't take long before the author's long-suffering patience and selfless goodness on behalf of yet another abused child pegged the needle on my should-be-nominated-for-sainthood-NOT meter. Come one. The author writes under a pseudonym. I wouldn't put my real name on this delusional piece of self-stroking egotism, either.



However, the book is not a total loss. To the critical, inquiring mind, it is a treasure brimming with her blissfully-ignorant, unintended expose's of the inside working of child welfare agency practices, the malpractice, the malfeasance, the non-feasance and the just plain dopery, mopery and idiocracy.

I cite as one example: Foster carers taking child's statements about sexual abuse? Without proper training? Without documenting it? Without insuring that the interview techniques are proper? (They weren't). Inappropriate to say the least. Shocking to the astute observer. Damaging in the extreme.

This is not to discount the child's reported experiences, but rather, to expose the admitted failures of the system to protect, and effectively treat the child. It is safe to presume that while this child was being studiously ignored by the agency in her abusive home, they were too busy to rescue her because of all the non-abused children being swept into their nets. This child will never be a functioning, normal adult, if the author is to be believed. That is a tragedy that the author indicates was avoidable, if the system was doing its job. This is a powerful indictment against the wholesale removal of children without proof of serious harm.

The heartless cruelty of this system is well documented. As a foster carer, she boldly exposes her attempts to make the child hate her parents, ignorant of the harm that causes the child's ability to form attachments, and love herself. She sees no wrong in making a child doubt her own identity, her origins, her feelings for her parents (which cannot be denied no matter how sick the parents were), because it is more expedient for the agency to emotionally alienate the child from her parents rather than teach the child to recognize and refuse the sin, without having to hate herself because the sinners were her parents.

It shows the practitioner's systemic denials of the harms caused to the innocent victims by the child saver's well-intentioned <ahem> services, non-services, wrong-services, delayed services, inappropriate services and outright failures to provide services, yet they can pat themselves on the back and walk away bureaucratically secure in a job well done, as the human toll mounts.

I am glad she wrote the book. She had no clue the hero she tried to convince the world she is was more accurately exposed as one of the villains perpetuating the abuse of children under the guise of protecting them.

Aging Out of Foster Care

I aged out of foster care. The day I graduated from high school--with honors--I was booted out onto the street without a dime. I didn't have a driver's license or a car. I didn't have a job.

I went straight back to my father's home. That was June. By November, I had a job, a car and an apartment. I couldn't have done it without the support of my father, and the upbringing of my parents. Before I ever went into foster care they had taught me how to run a household, budget and shop, and take care of myself. I could delay gratification, exercise good judgment, make and achieve goals and I had a good work ethic. I was lucky to have been raised by my parents long enough for them to teach me what I needed to know for life.

My foster care givers taught me nothing, but were happy to exploit my housekeeping and child care skills to their advantage. Imagine this, they got paid to have me live in their home, cook their meals, babysit their children and clean their house. I must point out, this was a good foster home. I could have been placed in worse.

The Children's Advocacy Institute has released a report called The Fleecing of Foster Children which discusses children aging out of foster care.

I take exception to the popular myth that children suffer untold damage caused by abuse at the hands of their parents, a myth which is perpetrated by this publication. I was exposed to abuse in my family home, at least what is considered abuse by today's standards. Having been there and done that, I can firmly assert that the bond of love between me and my parents went extremely far to mitigate any long-term damage that might have occurred by virtue of purported abusive parenting practices. I suffer more trauma decades later from the emotional abuses I endured for the year I spent in my good foster home than from the more severe purported abuses at the hands of my parents during my entire childhood.  

Getting past that myth, the findings about the exploitation of children in foster care by their protectors is extremely enlightening. The lengths to which the child welfare professionals will go to line their own pockets at the expense of the children they protect is astonishing to the uninitiated and makes this report a valuable resource to the child welfare practitioner. 

This report focuses heavily on social security issues, but it also provides tidbits about other ways that children are exploited before being discarded.

And they are discarded. In Wichita, Kansas, children who age out of foster care are routinely driven by the caseworker to the local homeless shelter and dropped off without a dime. If they are lucky, they haven't been fingered for crimes committed by others in the foster home, as happened to K.C.  in Pennsylvania.

After being removed from the family home on false accusations, and being set up for termination of parental rights, then being vindictively removed from an excellent foster home where the foster parent actually advocated for him and worked with the parents, K.C. was placed in a group home and put on chemical restraints. When he aged out he was charged with sexually assaulting another foster child. He was summarily dumped into jail upon aging out of foster care. He had been told his parents didn't want him, despite the fact that they were begging the agency to tell them where he was once he turned eighteen. His father had died shortly before his mother found him. His trauma from this brand of child protection is incalculable, and permanent.

He is a throw-away person, primarily because the people who would have loved him enough to protect him were legally removed from his life. Not having that connection makes these children extremely vulnerable to the worst kinds of exploitation. These are the ones who are, for example, patsies, taking the fall for someone else's crime--often a foster care provider or friend who did the dirty deed--and they don't even know they can defend themselves, much less how to defend themselves. The justice system doesn't care who did it, they just want a conviction--the easiest conviction they can obtain. These children have absolutely no support network, no skills, poor education, and nobody who even cares what happens to them. They are alienated and isolated and targeted, and completely unable to protect themselves from any kind of exploitation that befalls them.

Attempts by foster children who age out to reunite with their real parents are thwarted by the agencies. They tell them the parents died, or don't want them, or anything else to deny these children any method to learn the other side of the story about what happened or reconnect with the parents they love and restore their support network.

Why? Why is it so important that so many facts about these cases remains secret? That these discarded children are denied the information they need to reconnect with their real parents? Think about it. Decide for yourself what purpose this kind of secrecy serves.

Perspective From a Foster Child

I want to provide a perspective on foster care that many readers aren't aware of. That of a foster child.

So many people claim to speak for these children, and to act in the best interests of these children, but they don't have a clue what the child would say, or what would be best for that individual child.

Most of the child welfare professionals don't make their recommendations or take their actions based on what is best for each individual child. They are acting based on what is generically best for children. I know this because I ask every single one I encounter, "Do you make your recommendations and conduct your practice based on  each individual child's needs or based on what's best for children in general?" They respond, "It is too complicated to know what each child needs, I base my recommendations and practice on what's best for children in general." Reading their reports and recommendations, that was obvious to me, but I wanted them to admit it. And they do, unaware of the indictment that this admission implies.

This is significant because children are not automatons, or cut from the same cloth. They are individuals, each with their own needs and dreams and desires. To treat them with a cookie cutter approach does violence to the child, the rights of the child and the family, and destroys the statutory mandates governing child welfare.

I was a foster child. Based on my experience, and my discussions with other foster children, I have concluded that the child in foster care is not the real child. All anyone sees is a role the child is playing. It is too dangerous for a foster child to be himself in a stranger's home. A foster child must adapt to the stranger's home, and suppress important parts of himself in order to protect himself. He will say and do whatever pleases the authority figures who have control over his life to stay safe. He'll even deny abuse in the foster home if he thinks disclosing it is too dangerous. Interestingly, he will tell his parents during visits, expecting them to protect him. Instead, the visits will be cut off, because the caseworker will claim the parents are discussing in appropriate topics with the child.

Child welfare professionals are in denial about this chameleon foster child. They take the chameleon as the real child, which results in disaster for the child.

He cannot discern when they are lying to him, he just wants to make them happy so he can go home. That's what they promised him. He doesn't realize saying and doing what they want is most likely to prevent his reunification. Even if he acts out, he will acquiesce to the reasons his court-appointed therapist or caseworker suggests, grasping at any straw to win his way home.

But a child cannot maintain this masquerade forever. Once in a forever home, his misery at losing his parents must emerge. He feels abandoned by his parents, yet he still needs them and wants them. His new forever parents contribute to his agony, by badmouthing his parents and punishing him for loving them, needing them, wanting them. They try to control his feelings and this thoughts, based on the delusion that this is supposed to be a fairy tale. This child should be grateful to them for rescuing him and making him part of their family. But he's not, and that is intolerable. He gets hateful, and they don't know why. I know why.

I hated every attempt by my foster care givers to make me be someone I wasn't. I hated their constant badmouthing my father, and making me feel inferior because I continued to love him and need him. I hated their demands that were strange and uncomfortable. I hated the complete, forced isolation from my family. I had to endure their attempts to control me in silence. It's no wonder some children respond with passive aggressive tendencies and refusals to bond. Who wants to be forced to bond with someone who doesn't even understand your needs and cares more about their hurt adult feelings than your broken child's heart?

The experts' professional belief that you can control anyone's emotions and feelings, or use force to change some else's emotions and feelings, especially a child's, is insane. Yet, the entire child welfare industry is based on this premise, and applies it punitively to anyone who resists being controlled in this manner or forced to feel what the experts think is best. This practice results in an insulting and degrading violation of personal boundaries, involving coercion, emotional manipulation, denial of individuality and self-determination, and the wholesale use of controlling techniques far more abusive than most parents are alleged to have perpetrated upon their children which the state cited as warranting their removal from the family home. It is a graphic illustration as to how pervasively erroneous the practices perpetrated by experts in the name of protecting children really are.

Termination of parental rights (TPR) is not proving to be compassionate nor a worthy solution for the best interests of children, neither is expedited permanency. Since children's attachment are demonstrably not as malleable as the experts want us to believe, TPR should be reserved for the most egregious cases of abuse, never for neglect. When TPR and adoption must be employed, there should still be a mechanism for the child to validly own his feelings and needs for his real parents, and see them under safe conditions throughout his life. This is the only way to protect the child's emotional health into adulthood. That would be in the best interests of children in general, and individual children.