Is it necessary to fight?

Many advocates recommend fighting child welfare agencies and courts. I don't think this is the right posture to take. Even when I published my first book in 1996, I knew that fighting wasn't the answer. That's why title was "Asserting Your Parental Rights", not fighting for them. Nearly twenty years later, my belief in this reinforced. All those high-profile advocates that that advocate fighting are gone. They had no success with this advice and lost their support base. So, I'd like to leave you all with this thought, that formed the basis of my successful strategies for families who are involved with a child welfare intervention.

Profane Justice now available on Kindle

We are pleased to announce that Profane Justice: A Comprehensive Guide to Asserting Your Parental Rights, 2nd Edition, is now available on Kindle.  To obtain your copy, click on the image of the book.

Adoptive Parents. . .and Another Missing Adopted Child

Kansas. Again.

Kansas SRS terminated parental rights to the biological parents of a certain child and created a legal orphan. Then allowed these people to adopt him, and paid them a monthly stipend to be his parents. I wonder if family poverty played into Kansas SRS's reasons to seek termination of parental rights?

Doug and Valerie Herrman. Parents-for-Pay.

These parents collected that money for over ten years for a child that had gone ??? . . . missing. In fact, he's still missing. They never reported that he was missing. Yet, these are state-approved parents! They passed a background check, they passed the interview and home study. They are licensed to be parents based on the discretion, judgement and recommendation of a child welfare worker, indeed an entire child welfare team. Yet, nobody got an ooky feeling about them.  

So much for the state's seal of approval.

They got caught, and were convicted of fraud. For taking the money for an adopted child they no longer had, but the state believed they had. The boy, Adam, has been missing since 1999.

This raises an issue that most people are not aware of. Who cares about what happens to child after parental rights are terminated?

The biological parents care, but they are barred by law from seeing, contacting or even knowing about their child. The rest of the people who purport to care a just government bureaucrats doing a job. The child is a case file, not a person. Evidently, not one of these sterling professionals cared enough to see if the child was even there. Alive. Well. Safe.

Why should they care? If it turns out he's not alive, well or safe, it reflects badly on the agency and the caseworker. here is too much risk to their credibility, their job, their funding if they check on these kids in adoptive parent-for-paty homes.

The child can be "disappeared" and nobody will even question where the child is. They'll just keep paying out the subsidies to the adoptive parents-for-pay.

Meanwhile, a living, breathing person, a vulnerable child who was protected by the agency is missing. Where do these kids go? What happens to them?

It is actually simpler to make a child without parents disappear than an adopted child. But we are seeing a rash of stories being published where children have gone missing from adoptive parents-for-pay and never been missed. I want the reader to consider what happens to the legal orphans who have nobody to report them missing.

All a caseworker has to do is appear at the door of the foster care giver and say the child is being moved.  The child then is not placed with another foster family, but transferred to someone else. Someone who isn't interested in raising this child, but who has another use in mind for this child.

I have received calls from people who have seen airplane loads of legal orphans being flown overseas. The adults accompanying these children have reportedly identified them as children in the custody of child welfare.  These informers risked a lot to tell me, and were threatened with their lives for their disclosures, some even disappeared. Why are American children being shipped overseas by the planeload on flights that are listed in the flight records as being empty ferry flights intended to transfer an airplane from one location to another?

Isn't it convenient that there isn't even a record of the legal orphans leaving the country or traveling on commercial aircraft? The flight is "officially" empty. And isn't it more convenient that nobody who cares can even report the child as missing? The people who care, parents and family, are cut off and never know what happens to their child once parental rights are terminated. The only people who know are those transferring the children, and the airline employees who see what is going on but are warned to be silent.

Are American child being adopted in other countries? Perhaps. That would be the best scenario.

But my investigation into these events indicates something far more sinister. One of the known destinations is the Middle East. Among the known reasons is that these children are being used for domestic labor, sex, and body parts.

My investigation also reveals that the appropriate government agencies know about this practice.

It seems that legal orphans, damaged children, are not important enough to warrant protection from the child welfare agencies by the Federal government or the state government.

That seems to be a contradiction. And an abomination.

Should Parents Lose Custody of Obese Kids?

Again we have experts advocating the micromanagement of families by recommending that obese children should be removed from their parents (see article)  for no other reason than the child is fat. Fox News [dot]com reports:

Should parents of extremely obese children lose custody for not controlling their kids' weight? A provocative commentary in one of the nation's most distinguished medical journals argues yes, and its authors are joining a quiet chorus of advocates who say the government should be allowed to intervene in extreme cases.

These experts actually believe that removing a child from his non-abusive parents is far less damaging to him than the child being obese. Talk about denial. 

State intervention "ideally will support not just the child but the whole family, with the goal of reuniting child and family as soon as possible. That may require instruction on parenting," said Ludwig, who wrote the article with Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and a researcher at Harvard's School of Public Health.

Ideally state intervention will support the whole family? Since when is any government agency operated according to the ideals? Ideally, in all child welfare cases, the families would be allowed more than one supervised visit a week or month, and case plan that is not onerous, irrelevant and punitive, and a caseworker who isn't overworked, underpaid and making her recommendations based on a quotas rather than the best interests of the child. Hoping for the ideal administration of a child welfare case is not reasonable or rational.

"Despite the discomfort posed by state intervention, it may sometimes be necessary to protect a child," Murtagh said.

Discomfort?!!!  Forced separation from each other is much more than mere discomfort, it is sheer terror for most. Such an intervention holds the very real risk that the child will be abused in foster care, not to mention the psychological trauma caused by being torn from his parents. Then, there is the very real potential that parental rights will be terminated, presumably if the child doesn't lose the weight. These consequences are considered benign by these experts? Hello-oo? Losing your child to the state forever is far from benign.

Their proposed solution? Stranger foster care. A parent-for-pay who gets money to feed the child, money that--oh, I don't know--his biological parents could use to buy the right kind of food for him.

Ludwig said he starting thinking about the issue after a 90-pound 3-year-old girl came to his obesity clinic several years ago. Her parents had physical disabilities, little money and difficulty controlling her weight. Last year, at age 12, she weighed 400 pounds and had developed diabetes, cholesterol problems, high blood pressure and sleep apnea.

"Out of medical concern, the state placed this girl in foster care, where she simply received three balanced meals a day and a snack or two and moderate physical activity," he said. After a year, she lost 130 pounds. Though she is still obese, her diabetes and apnea disappeared; she remains in foster care, he said.

A year in foster care?!!!  Because mommy and daddy were too poor to buy healthy food?

A year in foster care? Just to give a child three balanced meals and exercise? This is horrendously overreaching and intrusive, not to mention unnecessarily expensive to taxpayers.

See how easily the experts find it to redistribute other people's children willy nilly, just to forward their own personal agendas? They have no qualms about taking control where they don't belong.

These doctors want to shirk their own responsibility for their patients and pawn the problem off to the state as a feel-good solution, rather than put their money where their mouth is and provide a professional or community solution that would prevent the family from being put through the horror of state intervention.

It is obvious these experts have no concept of the hurdles faced by working poor and middle class families to provide the necessities of life, especially in this economy. Good, healthy food is expensive! Most families simply cannot afford good, healthy food. Fruit and nuts are far more expensive than chips and cookies and white bread, all of which are poor choices for anyone, much less anyone on a diet. Yet, if they spend the money on wholesome food, then there won't be nearly as much food in the house, which is often used to as grounds to remove a child from the family home. Now, even if there is enough food, if it's the wrong kind, snatch the kiddies and pay the foster care givers to feed them.

Many of the targeted families get food stamps, and cannot make ends meet without buying groceries that are heavy on the processed foods, pasta, cereals and high-fat, high-calorie, high-sugar ingredients--those oh-so-bad "fluffy white" foods that cause so many health problems. Lean meat, fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains and low-fat dairy are simply not as affordable.  And the schools aren't any better than those dastardly family homes with their Federally funded cheap, high-fat, high-starch, high sugar content menus they offer for school lunches. How can the parents be held accountable for what their child eats outside of the home?

The law already has a better solution. If a child is obese and the state is considering removing the child, the agency must first provide the parents with services to prevent the child's removal, as mandated by reasonable efforts.

This means the agency must provide the family with the means to purchase the expensive low-fat, low calorie wholesome food.  They must provide a nutritionist to help the parents plan appropriate menus and a cook to teach those who don't know how to cook how to prepare the meals according to that menu. They must provide the child with an exercise program or participation in sports, and provide the transportation, access or equipment for the child to participate daily in the sports or exercise. And if they hope to succeed in slimming this child down, they must provide some sort of peer support group to help the child stay on a healthy diet and exercise program.

Only after the parents fail to insure the child eats right and exercises should the state consider removing the child, and then, only if the child is on the brink of death.

Advocating yet another reason to burden an already overburdened, underfunded, understaffed and incompetent agency with more child welfare cases is not only a heartless solution from the perspective of the child and family, it's poorly thought out, lazy and profoundly irresponsible.

Definitions of abuse or neglect change with the current social fads (satanic ritual abuse, shaken baby syndrome, child sex rings and other debunked past hysterias come to mind) and cannot be relied upon from one case to the next. This is just another fad. I entered foster care as a child of normal weight and height. When I left a year later, I had gained one hundred pounds. The foster care givers ate a high-fat, high-starch, high-sugar diet. They were very obese, even their children were fat.  This was deemed to be an appropriate placement at the time. Even today, foster care givers are fat, feed the foster kids cheap fluffy white food which is identical to what the child's parents fed him. Unless foster care givers are mandated to provide good, wholesome food to all foster children, this idea isn't even worthy of consideration.


Too fat, too thin, too smart, too stupid, breastfed or not breastfed, too affectionate (enmeshed) or not affectionate enough (emotionally distant), too involved in athletics or a couch potato . . . no matter what the issue, child welfare agencies can make it legal to take a child. That doctors advocate child removals  rather than providing competent medical care to help the child eat better and become more active in the family home is the height of hypocrisy.  Who better than the pediatrician to get his own patient on the right track to a healthy lifestyle?

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.

Numerous Checks Fail

One of the amici in Greene v. Camreta included this observation in their amicus brief:

Children's Advocacy Institute
". . .the system in place includes numerous checks to protect the rights of suspected parental abusers, including required “reasonable efforts” not to remove a child; a detention hearing before a neutral court with the burden on the State to show child danger; appointment of counsel for all involved parents;mandated “reasonable efforts” to reunify; jurisdiction hearing; disposition hearing (pendente lite); review hearings; and permanent placement hearings – all before the judiciary, and including liberal rights of appellate review."

CAI is absolutely correct. Congress has provided these checks in order to prevent the unnecessary removal of children from their family homes and to protect family integrity and privacy.

Do they work? In theory, yes, they do. In practice, rarely. Why? I'm so glad you asked. . .what you will read here is the result of twenty years of observation and analysis of this cases in courtrooms around the country. Yes, even in states with closed courts, I get in.

First, permit me comment on the grammar, ". . . protect the rights of suspected parental abusers. . ." They are accused of child abuse, not parental abuse. Suspicion of child abuse when one is only accused indicates a predisposition to presume guilt, a principle at odds with our judicial traditions. But the entire child welfare system is administered in a manner that initiates find shocking to our time-honored notions of justice.

So, let's move on to the checks, point by point.

1. " including required “reasonable efforts” not to remove a child" (tsk tsk tsk. . .the grammar again-a lawyer wrote this? Don't they have to have a certain degree of competence in language skills?) Congress has mandated the state make reasonable efforts to prevent removal. This means providing services intended to eliminate the risk of abuse and keep the child safely in the home. This can be as simple as removing the offinding parent from the family home. Yet this fails as a matter of usual practice, or even under the auspices of "best practice."  
1.  It fails because the caseworker did not/refused/neglected to offer any services to the parent that would keep the child safely in the home. Futhermore, the caseworker will refuse to accept any alternatives offered by the parents. But the caseworker will recite the proper incantation in her court documents, "reasonable efforts were made to prevent removal" without detailing what those efforts were and why they failed, as Congress has mandated.
2. It fails because the judge--who has the duty to require the agency to provide proof of reasonable efforts, doesn't require it, as Congress has mandated.The judge has the authority to require this sua sponte, but let's suppose this judge is particularily lazy/busy/biased. If the judge fails, there are two or three other participants whose job it is to give the judge a reason to find that reasonable efforts were not made.
3. It fails because the Guardian ad litem (GAL) refuses to demand the caseworker--the maker of the report--be placed under oath and testify to the services she offered and why they failed to prevent removal, as Congress has mandated. Futhermore, the GAL refuses to object to the court's finding that reasonable efforts were made without a shred of evidence in the record to support that finding. 
4. It fails because the respondent parent attorneys refuse to demand the caseworker --the maker of the report--be placed under oath and testify to the services she offered and why they failed, as Congress has mandated. Futhermore, the respondent parent attorneys refuse to object to the court's finding that reasonable efforts were made without a shred of evidence in the record to support that finding. 
5. Conclusion, is has been rendered impotent as a check on agency conduct with the express consent of all participants. 
2. "a detention hearing before a neutral court with the burden on the State to show child danger" This is correct. Yet this fails as a matter of usual practice, or even under the auspices of "best practice."  
1. The agency makes the allegations of the danger unopposed and without being under oath.
2. The judge wants these hearings over with quickly. He gets testy when a parent demands an evidentiary hearing. Even if he grants the evidentiary hearing, the parents are only permitted a brief amount of time to contest the danger. They are often denied the right to call witnesses and present evidence. In practice, it is a sham proceeding.
3. The GAL does not demand the caseworker be placed under oath to cross-examine her report. The GAL has the right and the duty in his capacity as acting in the best interets of the child to challenge everything the agency does and recommends. In practice, GALs appear as bobble heads to rubber stamp all agency findings and recommendations. GALs endorse the sham proceeding.
4. Respondent parent attorneys (especially court appointed) prepare for a hearing!? Hello! They advise their clients not to contest the removal of the child nor demand a contested detention hearing. "Just cooperate and you'll get your kids back." Besides, they have a number of other hearings today and are too busy running from one courtroom to the next for their five minute hearing. They claim they don't get paid enough to represent their clients at contested hearings. And if they are court appointed, they don't get paid enough, but they did sign up for the ~$700 flat fee so they lose all right to complain about their pay. If the parents dare to show up with evidence and witnesses, their attorney threatens to withdraw. They facilitate the sham proceeding.
5. Conclusion: A sham proceeding is devoid of any power as a check and balance to the state agency's acts.
3. "appointment of counsel for all involved parents"  True, again. But what good is appointed counsel if counsel refuses to provide competent representation?
1. For example, appointed counsel always tell parents, "cooperate with the agency." If a criminal attorney told a defendant,"cooperate with the DA," he could be sued for malpractice. 
2. For example, if the parents refuse to comply with his recommendations to waive all the shelter hearing, admit to the petition and do whatever the agency demands, the attorney moves the court to withdraw. The court grants him motion to withdraw, and refuses to appoint counsel to replace him. In fact, if the parents demand the degree of self-determination mandated in the statutes, complain about abuse in foster care, demand more frequent and meaningful visits and speedy reunification, the lawyer withdraws. 
3. The GAL is appointed for the child, and only serves to rubber stamp the agency findings and recommendations. Talk about stacking the deck in favor of the agency. . .
4. Conclusions: Counsel that acts a court-appointed facilitator to agency demands is devoid as a check and balance to state agency conduct.
4. "mandated “reasonable efforts” to reunify; See #1 above.  
1. What good is a check that has been reduced to a check box and incantation? It is devoid of any power to check agency conduct with the express participation of all participants.
5. "jurisdiction hearing" which is another name for the adjudicatory hearing, where the court finds the children are dependent and neglected and brings them under the jurisdiction of the court so the agency can provide services.
1. Does anyone remember me telling you the attorneys recommend the parents to admit to the petition or they will withdraw?
2. There are almost never adjudicatory hearings. In Colorado, out of over three thousand petitions filed a year, there are less than ten jury trials for this hearing and there are a few more to the court. If parents are coerced to waive these hearings by their attorneys, or threats of retaliation by the agency, what good is having the option? 
3. Before you get snotty and say the parent should just resist, just stop and think how strong your resolve would be if your kids were in a hostile stranger's home and visitation was being withheld for your admission to the petition?
4. If the parents are strong in their resolve, the attorney withdraws, and the court may or may not appoint a replacement and the hearing is delayed by as long a year, all this while the child remains in foster care; or, the attorney does not effectively represent the parent and the parent loses which results in another sham proceeding.
5. The GAL also has the right to demand a contested hearing on behalf of the child, but I've never heard of this happening.
6. If through coercion and threat, the parents waive this right, or if the hearing is reduced to a sham proceeding, it fails as a check and balance to state agency acts. 
6. "disposition hearing (pendente lite)" This is where the case plan is ordered by the court. Services are:
1. Uniformly inappropriate services based on a one-size-fits-all boilerplate plan,
2. proffered by incompetent, cut-rate providers, which do not conform to the standards of the profession or which encompass untested or questionable theories, and
3. not intended to address the legitimate issues that brought the children under the jurisdiction of the court. 
4. Parent and child attorneys refuse to contest the agency recommendations, or to demand a contested hearing, or to even challenge the fact that the parents were not permitted to participate in the formation of the case plan as the law mandates. 
5. Conclusion, if the hearing is reduced to yet another sham proceeding, it fails as a check and balance to the agency conduct. Once again, this could be resolved IF counsel or GAL were to demand a contested hearing instead of coercing the parents not to piss off the caseworker by challenging any service she recommends. 
7. "review hearings" Yes. . .every six months, AFTER the adjudication which the soonest that can occur is sixty days after removal. 
1. These cases go to permanency at twelve months. Pretty meaningless in the scheme of these cases. It usually means one review hearing before the permanency hearing. . .which brings us to. . .
2. Once again, these hearings are merely a pro forma exercise at paper shuffling, sham proceedings which do nothing as a check and balance to agency conduct. 
8. "and permanent placement hearings" – at twelve months after removal. Most kids don't get home before this hearing. Half of them never make it home. 
1. The agency presents their report and recommendations whether to return the child or terminate parental rights. Often, this information in this report is based on subjective information, and offers nothing measurable or objective to support the recommendations. 
2. GAL and parent attorneys do not want contested hearings, do not want to submit evidence or cross examine service providers or case workers. They act as rubber stamps for what the agency wants.
3. Conclusion: even if this weren't a sham proceeding, the damage has already been done with the faciliation of the court and attorneys for parents and children. It often cannot be undone, and the parents face termination of parental rights over fifty percent of the time.
9. "all before the judiciary," yes. . .but,
1. Judges get really testy if you contest anything the agency says, wants, recommends or demands. 
2. Who abhor contested hearings and parents being in denial, after all, any parent who wouldn't do anything the agency demands--regardless of the mertis of the demands--to get their child back must be a bad parent. 
3. who believe everything the agency says and believes all parents are liars and abusers. 
4. Who retaliate against attorneys who present a too-vigorous defense of the parents, by ruling against their other clients. 
5. Conclusion, if the judiciary are not fair and impartial, it renders this check and balance impotent.
10. "and including liberal rights of appellate review"  Form over substance. . .
1. You can only appeal issues that were raised on the record.
2. GALs and attorneys don't object, or preserve appealable issues. Remember, they advise the parents to waive all hearings, to admit, to comply. There is nothing on the record to preserve for an appeal. 
3. Conclusion: This is a meaningless option if the attorneys don't preserve the issues during the pendency of the case. 

 The checks and balances built into the child welfare process have been reduced to mere formalities that lack any substance. By the time of the hearing to terminate parental rights, the record reflects exactly what the agency wants it to reflect. . .without a hint that the entire process was a sham.

Interviewing Children, the Perils and Pitfalls

In view of my recent discussion on SCOTUS hearing the Camreta case, I have occasion to discuss the prevailing practice by child welfare agencies of excluding parents, even non-offending parents from observing agency interviews with their children.

Many of the briefs in support of the parents in this case advocate the use of child advocacy centers for conducting interviews of children who are the subject of a child abuse or neglect investigation.They state the prevailing wisdom that the persons who conduct these interviews are highly trained experts who are less likely to taint the interview and more likely to elicit accurate information.

I will concede that this is the premise behind these centers, but that is only the theory. In practice, they commit the same errors that caseworkers commit. The same errors described in our subject case.

I have ample occasion to review the interview videos from these child advocacy centers. They ask leading questions, they repeat the questions over and over, they give verbal and non-verbal cues to the children, they use discredited techniques and props such as anatomically correct dolls, toys and drawing (the child does not distinguish between serious work and play when toys are used---sheesh), they discuss the facts with the child before/during the interview with the camera off, they have the "correct" facts written on a board off camera so the child can "remember" what she is supposed to say in front of the camera, and much more.

But let's assume that they didn't get it wrong, or make any mistakes in their technique. There is another very important factor that is totally ignored as significant in these interviews. The child's language and the family language.

I once accompanied a non-custodial mother to visit her children in another state. She had not seen her children for five years. As her visits progressed through the course of a few days, and because I was intimately immersed in their interactions, I noticed the parents and children quickly slipped into their familiar family language.

They used unfamiliar shorthand that they all understood, but which I did not necessarily grasp fully. They had esoteric terms to describe their memories and situations that were unique to their shared relationship, and not entirely consistent with common English usage, but which were meaningful by virtue of the context of their intimately shared experiences as a family.

This language of the family went deeper than funny words to describe body parts, it was a contextual language to which outsiders were not fluent. It was a style of interacting and communicating that formed a bond of understanding that survived years of separation. The family language forms as the relationship forms, and is added to when the children begin to contribute their baby language to the matrix of this highly personal communication. It evolves with the family's stages. But even as teens, these children still communicated with their family according to the language of their childhood family.

This is not the same thing you see when a family is in public. This is private, and increases emotional intimacy between the members of the family by virtue of enhanced understanding of the matters being communicated.

Then along comes an arrogant case worker who is clueless about this family's language, and interviews a young child. The young child is being probed about intimate family matters, and responds in the family's private language. He says something benign and this clod of a caseworker translates it using common usage, and viola', we have a disclosure. This is not speculation. I have seen it happen over and over. The case workers universally turn a deaf ear to the explanations of the parents.

If a family member where present to translate, this tragedy could have been avoided. Many times, the caseworker doesn't have the proper context to interpret what a child is saying. And a child is severely handicapped by virtue of his immaturity and cannot say what he means in the common language. . .remember, he is still learning the common language. His first real intense exposure to the common language is when he goes to school. He cannot understand it completely, nor translate quite yet, but his parents can, perhaps his older siblings can.

I have seen many of these cases turn sour on nothing more than erroneous translations of the child's use of the family language, or on the caseworkers use of the common language which the child misunderstands because he doesn't fully grasp the common language.

Since accurate communication is so critical to the proper administration of these cases, one would think that those who administer these cases would be interested in insuring that the child and the interviewer are actually communicating in the same language. One can only conclude, that if their expertise has not revealed this flaw to them, or if they haven't recognized this particular problem, they aren't interested in accurate communications.

Before you scoff about this family language observation, think about this. Lawyer have their own language, and they use it to trip up witnesses on the stand. The witness answers with his interpretation of the common usage of the word, the lawyer takes his admission as applying to the legal usage of the word. Medicine, science, law, youth, music . . .everything has it's own esoteric language, and we learn multiple usages of our native language depending where we live various portions of our lives. That the family has a personal dialect of the common language isn't so very far-fetched.

It would serve the children better if the professionals recognized this and conducted their investigations with a more sensitive ear.

Camreta Revisited by SCOTUS

In past posts here and here, I discussed a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling (Greene v. Camreta) which determined that removing a child from a classroom and subjecting that child to a two hour interrogation was a violation of the child's and the parent's fourth amendment rights. I mentioned that the states were in an uproar, doomsaying that this would cause more children to be abused. Gasp.

The question before the Supreme Court is whether police and child protective services investigators, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, may conduct a custodial interrogation of a child in a public school as to the details of her home life, without: (1) a warrant supported by probable cause, (2) consent of parent, (3) a court order, or (4) exigent circumstances. Press Supreme Court orders for the questions as framed in the petitions for certiorari.

The caseworker and the police officer sought certiorari because even thought the Ninth Circuit ruled that they had qualified immunity for this event (because the law was not clearly established at the time) they did violate fourth amendment rights of the family. This means that any subsequent incident would find the offending government official liable. 

I have been reading the merits and amicus briefs provided at The Family Defense Center web site. I observe that nine amicus briefs were filed in support of the caseworker/police officer and eighteen in support of the parents. I found the brief of the Attorneys General of forty-one states to be extremely revealing. I will note, for the record, the states listed do include the the worst states for child welfare outcomes and violations, i.e. Colorado, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin.

The states have expressed a compelling interest to continue running roughshod over the rights of parents and children as having, "gained wide acceptance as the best practice because such interviews are the most effective tool available for overcoming the many obstacles to obtaining reliable investigative outcomes. . ."

They view their abusive tactics as justified because, "By their nature, CPS investigations typically involve situations in which the perpetrator is a parent or other family member, and often a member of the child’s household. If, as the Ninth Circuit implies, CPS investigations are therefore to be seen as 'storming the castle,' see Greene, 588 F.3d at 1016, then one must also perceive the strength of the fortress walls behind which abused children await rescue."

Agencies view mothers who deny the father sexually abused the child (this involved a sexual abuse allegation based on third-hand hearsay from outside the home) as part of the problem, and therefore refuse to consider her as a non-offending parent, but as an enabler. I have analyzed many of these cases, and more often than not, the agency discounts the evidence showing daddy couldn't have possibly done it, such as daddy was out of state at the time the incident was alleged, and  insists mom is enabling the abuse. This is their justification for not seeking parental consent, nor obtaining a court order or warrant. 

Interesting that in this case, there was, as there usually is, a non-offending parent whose presumption that she acts in the best interests of her child means nothing because her child is "awaiting rescue" from mommy and daddy who hide behind the fourth amendment? How perverted is this delusion? The little girl that was the protected puked five times after the interrogation when she got home because her <ahem> well-intentioned, highly professional knights-in-shining-armor were just doing their job. They argue they need to do their job and the fourth amendment just gets in the way.

This might be arguable, IF they were as infallible as they believe they are. But S.G. (the victim) recanted saying that Greene kept telling her she was giving the wrong answer so she just said what he wanted to hear so he would leave her alone. I've seen this happen so often that it brings most disclosures under suspicion, and the biggest crime is that they don't video record these interrogations (they REFUSE to video record because it would expose them) so that you can prove they did it wrong. They get it wrong far more often than they get it right, so infallibility is not a valid consideration.

The doomsaying continues to run amok. Only WE (CPS) can protect the kiddies, parents don't ever protect their own children. Parents are perpetrators. Is it any wonder parents give these government agents the hairy eyeball when the agencies want to invade their castle?

The Attorneys General would have a lot more credibility if the state agencies could get it right, if they could administer a case without traumatizing the kiddies, bankrupting the parents and destroying the child's family, and if the children in foster care were safer than in their own homes.

I hope the Supremes recognize that the emperor has no clothes.

Insight into Immunity

Did I say there was no recourse when child welfare agencies and caseworkers do wrong? Here is a graphic example of caseworker immunity, where nobody wins but the caseworker. 

Unusual case evolves around welfare, abuse of siblings

By Kevin Vaughan

The Denver Post

Did I say in a prior post that this wrongdoing and abuse was institutionalized?

So many times there was the opportunity to do the right thing, and they never took that opportunity. No wonder they don't like their secrets being exposed.

At least their jobs are safe. Even if the kiddies aren't. 

Kansas AG reports caseworker acted with ill will.

I happens rarely, but sometimes we will find a government agency or official who actually looks into wrongdoing by child welfare agencies, and even tries to hold wrongdoers accountable. 

I am reminded of a case in Ohio several years ago, where the mother was the victim of a false report of child abuse during a domestic relations custody dispute. Dad turned her in in order to resolve the custody dispute in his favor. Dad evidently turned the caseworker's head, and they developed an intimate relationship. Very intimate. All the better for the caseworker to overlook dad's abuse of the children he took from mom.

Naturally, all the bad that dad did was not reported to the court by this very affectionate caseworker. She saw the dirty deeds, she participated in them. She just didn't report them. She was also in a position to make false reports to the court about mom, and since, as we saw in the last article, the court tend to believe the experts, the court ruled against mom.

Mom's attorney did not regularly practice child welfare law, and consulted with AFAC to assist him with managing this case. He ultimately won, but was so outraged by the blatant violations perpetrated against the children and the mom, decided to run for district attorney. He won that race.

He then proceeded to prosecute the caseworker and the dad and dad's family, for criminal violations. But, since he was also a witness to the crimes, he had a conflict of interest. He resolved that by appointed a special prosecutor, who issued warrants, conducted his investigation and convened a grand jury.

The grand jury indicted the caseworker and the dad on multiple counts of felony violations associated with the administration of the child welfare case. The grand jury were reported as saying that they regretted not being able to indict them on more, because the prosecutor didn't ask for more charges.

Then, suddenly, without any explanation, as so often happens, the special prosecutor exercised his discretion and declined to prosecute. Mom was left in without remedy for the government abuse and conspiracy committed against her and her children.

Mom couldn't sue. Dad had nothing, The caseworker and the agency have immunity from civil liability. These agencies and actors have immunity to insure they can exercise their discretion without worrying about being sued. The courts and the legislatures reason that if a caseworker really does anything criminal, she can still be tried and convicted. Yeah. Right.

Prosecutors virtually never bring criminal charges against caseworkers who commit wrongful acts in the course of their official duties. Not even when presented with a list of victims and violations at a press conference. Not even when the caseworkers abuse the children they adopt, and yes, Virginia, they get the pick of the litter for adoptions.

Courts will virtually never do anything about the perjury caseworkers commit on the stand in the name of the "best interests of the child." In fact, in Laramie County, Colorado, if a judge even considers finding a caseworker in contempt for proven perjury or ordering the DA to prosecute, the caseworker's supervisor is known to jump up in the gallery and call out, "Immunity, Your Honor," which has proven sufficient to get His Honor to back down from holding the caseworker accountable for violating the dignity of the Court with her lies. His Honor won't even rule against the agency, in spite of those lies being proven false in court. Perhaps he is concerned about that caseworker removing his kiddies or grandkiddies? A little quid pro quo goes a long way in these cases.

Are these professionals really that petty and vidictive? A lawsuit in Kansas is proving they are. Stay tuned for the details.

The Federal Budget and Social Security

UPDATE Feb. 19, 2011
See this article on entitlement programs from Fox News. Social security and medicaid/medicare comprise 57% of the national budget.

Original post a few days ago:

You may be wondering what child welfare has to do with Social Security. I'm glad you asked.

Most people are not aware that the Federal Funding for state-run foster care and child abuse comes from the Social Security fund. This is authorized under 42 U.S.C. sec 670-679.  There are even more appropriations, for various state-administered child welfare services, all coming out of the Social Security fund. Children in foster care get their medical care through medicaid, more social security funding.

All fifty states have signed on to receive this funding. All fifty state legislatures have the option to opt out of this funding and the associated requirements imposed by the Federal Government. But they won't, because they have come to rely on the billions of dollars funneled from this retirement fund to support their state budgets.

The state economies would collapse if they decided to refuse this funding, whole state agencies would lose funding and thousands of state jobs would be eliminated. Thousands of contract service providers whose sole source of income is from child welfare agencies would have compete in the open marketplace to provide their services. Many will fold.

The government is proposing to raise the retirement age to 69 because the Social Security fund will be empty in a matter of years. Yet, present and future retirees aren't protesting this use of Social Security monies, probably because they don't know where all the money is going.

Now you do. Just in case it matters.

"Worst thing that ever happened"

Baby taken by child welfare agency at birth alleging mom had drugs in system at birth, and the agency refuses to return the child even after learning Mom's positive drug test result was in error. Oh, let's not forget, the baby had no drugs in her system at birth, either. How do you spell O-V-E-R-Z-E-A-L-O-U-S?

Taking a newborn baby (or any child) without conducting an investigation, without providing--or even considering--services designed to keep the child safely in the home pursuant to statutory reasonable efforts mandates, based solely on an unsupported hot-line call by a rabid child-saver collaborator is simply business as usual in our society. I call it "where there's smoke, there's fire knee-jerk syndrome." Except that often what the reporter sees isn't even smoke, it's only steam from a boiling pot of water, or dust stirred up from shaking a throw rug.

Mandated reporters have become expert at interpreting the most benign and innocuous events into life-and-death situations in order to have children seized and warehoused in stranger foster care.

Do you doubt these facts? Read the Complaint for yourself. It is a recitation of error after error committed by the agency in its rush to snatch a marketable baby to feed the voracious baby mill under the righteous guise of protecting children. Oh. . .and let's assume Mom refused to consent to drug testing. It's mandatory to consent, she refuses, they refuse to admit her for her childbirth. They then report her for medical neglect for leaving the hospital to have her baby. What a set-up.

One problem I see is that the child is not named as a plaintiff. She has the greatest claim to violations of her fundamental rights to family association. She has the right to the same protections as her parents, including a competent and ethical investigation, and the presumption that her parents are fit. She had the right to bond with her parents from birth--the most critical bonding time, which was stolen from her. She has the right to competent representation from her attorney, who won't rubber stamp agency actions at her expense. Her right were violated to a far greater degree than her parents's rights were.

The parents and attorneys are seeking some reform,

"I'm hoping that they'll either change their policies so it doesn't happen to another family, or they'll investigate it better before they take babies from their homes," said Ms. Mort, 21, joined by lawyers, her fiance Alex Rodriguez, 23, and 6-month-old Isabella Rodriguez at the American Civil Liberties Union's Oakland office. Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10302/1098960-455.stm#ixzz150R1NEX6

Changing policies won't prevent this from happening again to anyone else, or to this family in the future. Even if they win, these parents will lose. Nothing will change. Past lawsuits haven't prevented this from happening to this family.

YAWN. . .This story is nothing all that outrageous, or unusual. I've seen this same scenario over and over, thousands upon thousands of times since 1991. You'd think, after nearly twenty years, the so-called experts would get it right.

Since they haven't gotten it right yet, one can only conclude they aren't intended to "get it right." Certainly, the courts aren't enforcing the law, or the rights of the children and parents. Attorneys representing parents and attorneys aren't even demanding the agency get it right. So, is it any wonder the child welfare agencies are more rabid, more overzealous, more wrong than they were twenty years ago?

Getting it wrong has been institutionalized. Lots of luck with the lawsuit. . .the statutory immunity enjoyed by the agency, the workers and the hospital will make this an uphill battle. As for this suit being a catalyst for changes in policy or practice. . .dream on.

Exclusive: Florida DCF approved daycare raided by police

This story has not even been picked up by news organizations yet. 

A daycare center approved by DCF and used by parents accused of child abuse/neglect has been exposed as the source of abuse and neglect of children. The only reason parents weren't accused was because one of the parents was a client of Family Rights Advocacy Institute, whose advocacy exposed this abusive daycare facility.

Reports of child abuse reported against a parent (whose identity is protected for confidentiality) reveals that the abuse suffered by the children was perpetrated by Mrs. Beasleys's Daycare in Lakeland, Florida. Their own website declares:

We are a fully licensed and accredited day care center providing a safe and nurturing environment where children thrive and flourish.

False advertising:
    Reports from children in that daycare indicate that they are not fed, and that they arrive at home in the evening filthy. According to one parent who move their children to another daycare, "My son's socks were white in the morning when he was delivered, and white in the evening when I picked him up.

A very young child reports having lunch set in front of him in the new daycare, and when he was encouraged to eat, he remarked, "You mean this food is for me?" In Mrs. Beasleys's daycare, he was not permitted to eat his lunch and he arrived at home in the evening starving.

This is notable because Mr. Beasleys daycare was licensed by Florida DCF as an approved daycare. Many parents placing their children in this daycare did so as a part of their case plans under DCF child welfare cases. DCF vouched for this daycare.

On Friday, law enforcement and DCF workers was observed raiding Mrs. Beasley's and shut it down. Reports include allegations of unsafe driving causing injury to children in the Mrs. Beasley's vehicle and reported sexual assault of children by other children.

Here we go again. . .DCF demonstrates the inability to judge who is qualified to care for children. . .and permits children to be place with inappropriate and abusive caregivers upon pain of termination of parental rights.

Way to go, Lakeland, Florida.

When CPS Claim Parents are "Enmeshed" With Their Children. . .and it's Bad

. . .they are wrong.

I know, it sounds strange. . .CPS tells the court mom is "enmeshed" with her child. She dotes on him, pays too much attention to him, praises him, smothers him. They express concerns that the child is not permitted to be his own person. This is unhealthy, they say. The child must be protected from this sick parent. They ask the court to limit the parents's contact with this poor, unfortunate child so that the close bonds between the parent and child may be weakened, or broken. It is, after all, in the best interests of the child to disrupt this relationship.

According to a recent Health.com article, it is not bad for mothers to be affectionate or attentive to the kiddies. It seems there was a study done, following children from eight months to thirty years old. Researchers observed the mothers interacting with the kiddies and followed the effects of the various parenting style into adulthood. According to the article,

The psychologists rated the mother's affection and attention level on a five-point scale ranging from "negative" to "extravagant." The vast majority of the interactions (85 percent) were considered "warm," or normal.

In what is sure to be an ugly shocker to those know-it-all, micromanaging caseworkers--and the pompous judges who rely on them--researchers found that children whose mother's affection and attention were "extravagant" turned out to be the most well-adjusted adults:

The adults whose mothers had displayed "extravagant" or "caressing" affection (the two top ratings) were much less likely than their less-doted-on peers to be anxious. They were also less likely to report hostility, distressing social interactions, and psychosomatic symptoms.

Evidently, it is NEVER in the best interests of the child to interfere with the parent-child relationship simply because they are enmeshed. It seems a degree of enmeshment is healthy and beneficial for a child, and creates "a more stable mental health picture, a more stable individual."

So, if the child welfare agencies are really concerned about outcomes, leave the unharmed kiddies with their loving parents, even if you find that kind of attachment too disgusting. You should be more concerned about the disastrous outcomes associated with placing children in foster care.

Review-presentation offered by Judicial Council of California

In the second presentation for dependency lawyers, the Hon. Pat Bresee hosts What Juvenile Dependency Attorneys Need to Know about Basic Child Development. This program was presented in a game show format, where four hypothetical situations taken from actual case files are described, two contestants play, and a panel of four experts discuss the hypothetical situation. 

This format facilitated the presentation of multiple viewpoints and analyses which might explain each situation. While much more balanced than the prior presentation, there was still a slight leaning toward the prevailing child saver mentality, which is predisposed against an accused parent.

There were some sterling examples of best practices presented by the panel that should apply to the administration of these cases, but the presentation was deficient in recognizing the full range of effects associated with removing a child from his parents.

The analyses tended to overlook legitimate causes for the problems a child was exhibiting that could have been attributed to certain detrimental exposures outside the family home. For example: During play therapy, a four year-old child infers inappropriate sexual situations five months after being placed in foster care. The discussion never even considers the idea that this development may be the result of sexual abuse while in the foster home rather than in the family home. This failure to objectively examine all potential origins of this development places the child at serious risk of chronic abuse in foster care.

In another situation about an older child who has been in foster care and group homes for a while, the scenario describes the child who begins acting out. The analysis ignores the effects of what the caregivers and administrators have told the child, including his parents are deficient, or don't want him or love him. It ignores the effects of the delayed reunification and minimal contact permitted under existing visitation schemes.This is a common occurrence reported by many foster children. Being children, they lack the confidence to trust their own instincts about their parents, and are severely traumatized by this kind of revelation. This posture often is a result of concurrent planning, which is intended to prepare a child for termination of parental rights.

Administrators, service providers and care givers blithely expect the child to respond to this perceived abandonment or rejection by his parents as if it isn't the most horrifying sense of loss a child could ever face. There is no discussion of preserving the protecting the parent-child bonds by forbidding anyone to disparage the parents to the child or undermine the child's relationship with the parent, nor any recognition that the the lack of meaningful and sufficient contact with his parents is a factor in a child's tendency to act out in foster or institutional care.

Despite the systemic blindness to certain realities of child welfare out-of-home placements, there are some redeeming elements in this presentation. I would hope that the credible discussions of what should be done are more than theory, and that attorneys utilizing this tool would actually dare to apply them in their representation of parents and children in child welfare cases.

Controlling Adult Political Conduct by Holding Children Hostage

During the Civil Rights movement in our country, the state engaged in a hush-hush practice designed to quell any first amendment activities (petition the government for redress of grievances, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of religion) of civil rights activists.

We all know about the well-publicized efforts of local, state and Federal government agencies to classify the legal conduct of civil rights activists as crimes in order to silence the more outspoken by arresting, prosecuting and imprisoning them. We also know that these attempts ultimately failed because the government's strategies violated the constitutional rights of the targeted activists, and were effectively challenged repeatedly.

But one practice was not challenged. The practice of removing children from their activist parents in an attempt to control their political conduct. We don't know about it because it worked.

And it works, today, as well.

In 1996, I began publishing my web site, which was one of the first web sites that addressed child welfare abuses. At that same time, I forwarded the argument that as long as activists seeking child welfare reform engaged the issue on the existing terms i.e. Parental Rights vs. Children's Rights, our reform effort would fail. In a contest of these competing interests, Children's Rights would always prevail. So, I redefined our side of the issue to Family Rights. Who could be against the family? This principle stuck, and it has grown to the Family Rights grassroots movement.

This is a chaotic movement, without effective leadership, populated by many damaged people who indiscriminately lash out against friend and foe alike for the smallest real or imagined slight. Whether those people were unstable before the state intervened, or whether the state intervention made them unstable is a question I and my colleagues have debated often, without arriving at a consensus. It is evident that this particular kind of state intervention, more so than any other alphabet state agency intrusion, is emotionally, financially and psychologically devastating to all persons whom the state agency is helping.

I see one of the biggest problems is that these injured souls want reform. They inherently know they and their children have been wronged, but they don't know how or why. They claim that the state's actions are illegal and don't understand when the court says they are legal. They rabidly scream corruption and insist the world believe them because of the horrors they and their children experienced. Their self-professed leaders are angry, and exhort their mob to fight, fight, fight with useless tactics that have the single virtue of making the person feel better, at the expense of alienating the public and incurring retaliation from the courts and agencies.

This retaliation is exhibited by the gag orders I discussed yesterday, and by issuing other illegal orders like ordering parents to take down their web sites which are critical of child welfare agencies and service providers, to stop associating with similarly-minded reform activists, to censor their speech which is critical of the courts or agencies. Case workers, CASAs, GALs, and hostile foster caregivers troll the internet and online groups to find parents and use their political free speech and publications against them in their court proceedings. If the parents attend a public rally or a legislative hearing, these same hostile actors take down license plates and names of attendees from sign-up sheets. The courts allow the parent's political conduct to be used as proof of parental unfitness and lack of compliance with treatment plans. Parents who attend the wrong church have their children seized in order to compel the parents to remove themselves from the membership of the unapproved church.

Retaliation against activists is inevitable in any social reform effort. The powers-that-be want to maintain the status quo, their power base. . .their jobs.  Since the retaliation is inevitable, it should anticipated and exploited to effect the desired reform. History has given us the models, we only need to know and understand them in order to exploit them.

Alas, the current family rights leadership is only able to bitch and piss and moan about the violations of rights. These self-professed gurus don't "get it" and can't see past their own pain and anger. They can't anticipate the retaliation, they can't exploit it, can't enforce their rights and in so doing, they surrender their rights, and their children, and the rights of other activists and their children to the alter of child protection. Not an effective strategy in my mind.