Adopted Teens Beaten, Starved, and the Court Knew

One feature of courts taking jurisdiction over children has always shocked me. How many times judges, Guardians ad litem and child welfare professionals know the child is being abuse or neglected, and turns a blind eye, or even in some misplaced desire to prove the allegations wrong so that their personal agendas are protected, places the child with the abuser.

Okay, justice is supposed to be blind, but when the scales of justice are tipped by the weight of evidence, it is not justified to put your thumb on the other side and call the scales balanced.

Here is a story of teenage twins who had years of reports about their adoptive parents beating, abusing and starving them, and the professionals and the judge saw fit to place the children with the abusers. Just look at them in this Facebook photo, they look so nice, so loving. They MUST be good parents. Yeah, right.

After twenty years of observations into the child welfare system, this outrageous practice, this lack of discernment, this shocking blindness to facts still renders me speechless.

Babies Stolen and Sold for Adoption

A BBC documentary has exposed a baby trafficking ring in Spain, perpetrated by the Catholic church.

A similar child trafficking ring was exposed in Kansas recently. Children were taken by SRS (Social and Rehabilitative Services) from parents at birth. These were parents who had older children taken, allowing the agency to seize subsequent children as they were born. However, the removal of the infant was not included in the official records of the agency.

The birth certificates of the stolen newborns were filled in with the names of the adoptive parents, and the parents were told the infant either died, or parental rights were terminated. Parents report not having the benefit of court hearings. One mother reportedly had several children taken by this method.

The ignorance of the parents was exploited by unscrupulous professionals masquerading as state action, and newborns were redistributed without benefit of judicial review.

Funny how this never got any widespread media coverage.

Social Worker Charged with Faking Records

It is rare we see a criminal prosecution of any child welfare professional for any reason. Kentucky, as every state, has laws against tampering with public records, but no matter how many complaints are made, there is almost never a prosecution. In El Paso County, Colorado, several years ago, we held a press conference and presented the DA with proof of the crimes. She declined to prosecute, referring us to the impotent Citizen's Review Panel.

That's not to say caseworkers conduct themselves with the utmost integrity, because, for whatever reason, they often don't.

The most common complaint by parents who are involved with child welfare agencies is that case workers falsify reports to the court, that the child welfare files are full of false information.

My investigation into the accuracy of child welfare records is consistent with the complaints by parents. The records, for whatever reason, are inaccurate in varying degrees. Okay, fine, the caseworkers are overworked, and they get things wrong. I've seen them mix up facts between cases, surely an honest mistake. I've seen case records from one case misfiled in the record of another case. I've seen case files "disappear" and get lost.

And, as this story so clearly describes, they deliberately falsify records and reports to the court. It is very easy to falsify subjective evidence, like visitation reports or interviews with parents, children and collateral witnesse or in their conversations with service providers. In this kind of "he said, she said" situation, the judges always believe the caseworker.

But I've also seen caseworkers deliberately tamper with objective evidence, including the results of drug tests.

In this instance, as often happens with unscrupulous child welfare caseworkers, they misrepresent the visits they made to the family, or to the child, or discussion they had with service providers, or making referrals.

This is egregiously harmful to parents and children, because these records follow the parents AND THE CHILDREN for the rest of their lives, wherever they go. Any child welfare agency in any state has access to these records. And because there is absolutely no provision under any state law whereby errors in these records can be corrected. In fact, in many states, the parents suffer retribution when they try to have the errors corrected, up to and including termination of parental rights.

 But there is more involved with falsifying records. When caseworkers falsify that the child was in danger in the home, fraud against the federal government comes into play under Title IV E of the Social Security Act. This is presented to the court, which is perjury. This is much bigger than tampering with public records.

Hats off to Kentucky. I've seen plenty of bad child welfare practices in Kentucky, hopefully they won't back out of this prosecution. Hopefully, this is only the beginning of reigning in these abuses.

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?

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.

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.

Here we go again. . .Wisconsin and Texas Contribute to Abuse of Children

Florida's child welfare agency, DCF, is not unique in losing children or placing the legal orphans they created in abusive "forever families."

In this case, two states are involved, Wisconsin, who removed the children from their parents and placed them with these state-approved parents, and Texas, where the parents lived.

Yes, Virginia, once a child is a legal orphan, they can be sent anywhere, even overseas, at the discretion of the child welfare agency. The beauty of this arrangement--for the agency at any rate--is the fact that there is nobody left who has standing or even knowledge to question where these children have been redistributed or if they are being mistreated. . .or killed. If they die, their real families never even get notified, can never attend the funeral, or visit their grave, assuming they even get a grave.

Most of these parents eagerly await the day their children turn eighteen and seek them out. Some never move, some have made the kiddie's bedrooms into shrines. Virtually all maintain a presence on the Internet, seeking and searching, and often finding their children featured on some adoption web site. Often, once their parental rights have been terminated, it turns out their children are not adoptable, and are then marketed by the child welfare agency like puppies in the pet store window. When they read about their children, they learn how damaged the children have become since being taken from their home, and many agonize over their impotence to help their own children.

Yet another set of state-approved adoptive parents have been arrested for viciously mistreating these children who were placed with them for protection.



I have extensive experience in Wisconsin. They have a history of removing children too quickly, and refusing to return them without justifiable cause, often to satisfy vindictive motives. I have documented on video, their propensity to tamper with photographic evidence and suborn perjury in their efforts to protect children. 

Texas is no model of best practices, either. It was several years ago that the state auditor revealed a shocking report on the placement of Texas foster children in a camp setting, without adequate toilet facilities or shelter from the weather. Where older children preyed and perpetrated on younger children, and where the staff was indifferent at best and abusive at worst. Texas is a hotbed of horror stories.

Both states rank in the top ten worst states for child welfare practices.

Few of these accounts reach the public. Most are covered up by the agency and the courts, often citing confidentiality to protect their malpractice from public scrutiny. Contrary to the prevailing propaganda, this type of conduct is not the exception. Spend a day searching for foster parent and adoptive parent groups online and you will see graphic discussion of the situations these children are forced to endure at the hands of these state-approved care givers.

These children resist bonding with strangers, and refuse to stop loving or needing their real parents. This is actually a very healthy emotional state for a child. . .unless you have made him a legal orphan. Often, the process of making the child a legal orphan requires a therapist to diagnose the child as not having a bond with their parents, a finding that is often consistent with what the caseworker demanded, but inconsistent with the actual emotional attachment maintained by the child. When this child is placed for adoption, this healthy attachment to his real parents must be purged, regardless of the harm to the child.

Most state-approved forever families cannot tolerate such emotional defiance as the child's attachment to his parents. The children MUST bond with these strangers and the real parents must be eliminated from the child's heart and mind.

In response to this malpractice by the experts, other experts have a developed complete pseudo-science on how to break the child's bonds with his real parents and purportedly transfer that bond to the state-approved adoptive parents known as attachment therapy. These techniques are universally harmful, even fatal. . .remember the deadly rebirthing therapy that killed ten-year-old Candace Newmaker in Evergreen, Colorado in 2000? They are based on the false premise that the child's attachment issues stem from the abuse he suffered in his home.

The experts are in complete denial that children have a bond with their own parents, need theirown  parents, no matter if the parents have abused or neglected them (which abuse or neglect is so subjective that often something claimed to be abuse, isn't). Regardless, the child inately loves and needs his mommy and daddy. The fact that they are imperfect isn't going to change that need, and removing them from the child's world, then attempting to use control and force to compel the child to no longer love or need his mommy and daddy is a recipe to destroy that child forever.

Which is why it becomes so important to keep the children in the family home with appropriate services if necessary. I seriously doubt these kids were abused or neglected by their biological parents to the extent they were abused by their state-approved, adoptive "forever family." This tragedy could have been prevented, if Wisconsin had complied with their statutory mandates.

Missing Adopted Boys in Colorado

Edward Bryant, 58, and Linda Bryant, 54, adopted nine children out of foster care. The concern of officials is that these parents fraudulently obtained adoption subsidies for two of these children who went missing in 2003 at ages seven and under. They are looking for these boys, but it seems to be too little, too late. 

El Paso County, Colorado, is the agency who licensed and approved these parents. This is the same agency that spearheaded the efforts to shut down the American Family Advocacy Center in Colorado because I was publicly critical of this agency's administration of child welfare cases, and of the judges who heard these cases.

The agency is not returning calls to the media about this case.They cite confidentiality, but it strikes me as quite convenient that this confidentiality protects them from public scrutiny and accountability for a very public exposure of their chronic failures to act in the best interests of the children they puportedly protect.



This incident will undoubtedly surface among the family rights whackadoodles as it being all about the money, and as usual, they miss the point. If you follow the money, you will find how the federal funding drives the redistribution of children, but that is not the be-all and end-all of the issue. For many of the whackadoodles, the money is just a convenient excuse that distracts from the fact that they needed intervention for abusing or neglecting their own children.


The adoption subsidy/follow the money problem could be easily solved with two simple solutions:

1. Provide this subsidy to the child's family as part of their case plan before terminating parental rights, especially if neglect (often due to poverty) is an issue that brought the child under the jurisdiction of the court. This will dramatically improve reunification rates. This would be short term subsidies, not intende to last until the child turns eighteen.
2. Eliminate all adoption subsidies for children adopted out of foster care. This would effectively eliminate all adoptive parents whose motives are not centered on loving the legal orphans.
After all, why should adoptive parents get paid to raise the children their own parents couldn't afford to raise in the manner the state demanded? Dosen't it make more sense to help the parents get adequate housing, medical, and food for their kiddies in the family home rather than susidizing it in a stranger's home?

More on this story is at the Denver Post.

Florida DCF - Task Force Report into Death of Adopted Twin

The final report on Nubia Barahona's death at the hands of her adopted parents in Florida has been released.

This report was authored by experts, professionals in the field of child welfare. I have consistently bemoaned the fact that "professionals" dominate the issue when it comes to investigations, or recommendations, and that parents, who are the only true experts regarding their own children, are excluded from participation in every aspect of child welfare case administration and legislation.

It seems my concerns are justified. While this report was authored by professionals--experts--it reveals to the astute reader that professionals contributed to the practices that caused the death of this child, and the attempted murder of her brother.

I have linked the report for the reader's reference, but I can only address one issue at a time. Today, it will be item (1) of the Findings on page 6, which states:

The court-ordered psychological evaluation of Nubia and Victor performed on Feb. 12, 2008 by Dr. Vanessa Archer recommending adoption of Nubia and Victor by the Barahonas to be “clearly in their best interest” and “to proceed with no further delay” --- failed to consider critical information presented by the children’s principal and school professionals about potential signs of abuse and neglect by the Barahonas. That omission made Dr. Archer’s report, at best, incomplete, and should have brought into serious question the reliability of her recommendation of adoption. Several professionals, including the Our Kids’ case manager, the GAL, and the Children’s Legal Services attorney, as well as the judge, were, or should have been, aware of that significant omission, and yet apparently failed to take any steps to rectify that critical flaw in her report.

The psychologist's recommendation was found to be unreliable. Yet the court gave it great weight in arriving at it's determination that these children be adopted by the Barahonas.

How does this happen? I'm so glad you asked.

In practice, nationwide, these court-appointed professionals are under contract to the child welfare agency. They perform their evaluations and therapies at a discounted rate, deeply discounted. They obtain the large majority of--if not all--their referrals from the child welfare agency.

They have a vested, monetary interest in maintaining their flow of referrals. These referrals will dry up if the provider does not produce the recommendations and diagnoses the agency desires.

I have interviewed dozens of mental health professionals who have worked in some capacity on child welfare cases. Every one of them has disclosed that when the caseworker calls with the referral, she will invariably advise the service provider of the history of the client family, and state what diagnosis and recommendations she wants. She rigs the case, and the mental health professional goes along with it. Not surprisingly, those who maintained their professional ethics and conducted a competent evaluation consistent with the standards of their practice often returned diagnoses and recommendations that were refused by the caseworker, who then shopped for a more compliant professional to treat the family.

My investigations have revealed that the family history is often wrong, at the very least exaggerated and at the worst, completely false. Yet, the providers who rely on CPS referrals will accept this history as valid, and provide recommendations and treatments based on the false history, that conform to what the caseworker wants. Attempts by the parent to correct this erroneous history often results in the provider stating the parent is in denial, or out of touch with reality, and cite it as a contributing factor in their recommendation to keep the children out of the family home. The family members receive treatment for issues that do not exist, and these treatments invariably fail to remedy the issues. duh.

It appears this was a compliant mental health professional, who did exactly what the caseworker wanted. There is no way the caseworker, even knowing of the reports of abuse that raised concerns, was going to dispute the finding she had elicited. The GAL, being a typical GAL, rubber-stamped what the caseworker wanted. The judge did what judges do, accept agency recommendations without demanding evidence to support their recommendations.

This is one reason, a big reason, why the system failed Nubia. Why it fails all the children. I've stated this for years, and now, finally, some experts agree. It's about time.

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.

Oral Arguments Camreta v. Greene

Oral arguments were this morning. The transcript has been published.

What can I say? I am underwhelmed at the arguments presented on behalf of the respondent Greene, by Carolyn A. Kubitschek, Esq. She faced a court that appeared to be in support of the respondents, and hemmed and hawed apologetically for even daring to suggest that case workers do not have the right or authority to seize children without a court order, exigent circumstances or parental consent. It was almost as if she hadn't even read the amicus briefs in support of her client.

She was all over the issue, "yes we want the ruling vacated," "oops that's not what I meant, we don't want the ruling vacated."

"It's a seizure," "oops, the length of time determines if it's a seizure," "oops, it depends on if there are exigent circumstances."

The strongest statement she could muster was a wishy-washy ". . .that would be to -- to tell the officials who investigate child abuse that in the name of protecting children, they do not have free rein to do anything and everything that they think is appropriate, because what they do harms children, including the very children they claim to be trying to protect." Child welfare practices do much more than harm the children, and besides, child advocates claim that the harm the child suffers is minimal and justifiable.

The Justices gave her all the clues she needed to make effective and compelling arguments, and she missed them. Counsel was obviously a person who did not understand the practices in these kinds of cases, and she was clueless about the legal history surrounding this issue. She did not even appear to be convinced that caseworkers--government agents-- needed to obey the constitution in administering these cases.

Interviewing a child in school, without exigent circumstances, without a court order supported by evidence and affidavit, or without parental consent, starts a chain of events that becomes an juggernaut,virtually  impossible to turn aside or stop. It is the cornerstone violation of every subsequent violation of rights, privacy dignity and self-determination more often resulting in the destruction of the child's family, security, and assets  than resulting in any beneficial outcome for the child.

But counsel didn't appear to understand that simple and well-established principle, which pretty much makes her as dumb as the rest of the population who think the ends justify the means when protecting children.

She actually sounds like a respondent parent attorney before a hostile dependency judge, like Oliver Twist begging for more food, "Please, Your Honor, I'm sorry, my client insists on a contested hearing against my advice. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here."

No wonder the cause of family rights is so stifled. The people who set themselves up to speak for family rights are inarticulate and clueless.

Update March 2, 2011: Here's what other news organization said about her performance

See this editorial discussing Ms. Kubitschek's performance before SCOTUS.

CNN said in this article, "Arguing for the family, lawyer Carolyn Kubitschek offered seemingly conflicting answers on when it is proper for officials to question children without parents present. She suggested the one-hour-plus interrogation of S.G. was inappropriate but a shorter interview might have been all right."

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.

Quotes From Amici - Camreta v. Greene

In support of neither party:

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."

In support of the respondents:

Liberty Counsel
"Moving the seizure and interrogation of S.G. from the family's residence to a school office did not shield Petitioners from the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. A mere change in locale did not transform the
criminal investigation of alleged child abuse by a county child protection officer and deputy sheriff into a school discipline investigation by a principal or superintendent. The lessened expectation of privacy accorded to students in the latter circumstances cannot be applied to relieve Petitioners of their obligations under
the Fourth Amendment."

National Association of Criminal Defense Counsel
"History teaches that the Framers in the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century would not have countenanced government’s meddling with America’s families. They would not have allowed government officials to take children because of alleged abuse. Simply put, the Founders did not consider raising and rearing children government’s business. Warrantless rescues based on claimed abuse would therefore not have been tolerated. Nor did such a practice exist at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted."

"One’s right to family cannot depend on location. It follows the family."

". . .the class of potentially “dependent” children is huge. It encompasses all children in America. Infants, toddlers and young school-age children, like S.G., are all potential targets. This vast universe of potential “status” victims, coupled with mandatory reporting requirements, vague understandings of “neglect,” and undertrained investigators produces a significant error rate within the child protection system."

"Petitioners’ demand for a lower standard is premised less on a desire to protect children than to win unbridled discretion. History teaches, however, that license breeds abuse. See, e.g., Kolender v. Lawson,
461 U.S. 352, 358 (1983) (warning that 'virtually complete discretion in the hands of the police' cannot
be tolerated); Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972); Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-09 (1983). History teaches that 'unbridled discretion, however benevolently motivated, is
frequently a poor substitute for principle and procedure.' Gault, 387 U.S. at 18."

Liberty Counsel
"Rather than according Respondents' Fourth Amendment rights the respect required by Congress, Petitioners side-stepped the issue by conducting the investigation at S.G.'s school instead of the family home. Petitioners should not be permitted to evade their obligations under the Fourth Amendment by simply changing the venue for their investigations. Respondents' Fourth Amendment rights are not limited to the confines of their residence, and Petitioners should not be permitted to flout the will of this Court and Congress by doing at
a child's school what they cannot do in the home. Fourth Amendment rights should not be subjected to such gamesmanship."

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. 

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.

Couple charged with beating, starving 30-pound 6-year-old

"JEFFERSON COUNTY (Colorado) - A couple accused of beating and starving a 6-year-old adoptive son was formally charged on Thursday morning." See article.

This child was adopted through Jefferson County Social Services when he was two. At that time, the article describes he was of above average height and weight. Four years later, he had lost weight, suffered bruising all over his body and his brain was bloody and swelling.

Arnolds took custody of the boy on a foster-to-adopt program when he was two and a half years old. That adoption was completed in 2006, . . .

I have seen Jefferson County Social Services in action. In my experience, their decisions are not based on the best interests of the child. They are petty, abusive and incompetent. They take children from imperfect homes and give them to dangerous homes. Nice work, JeffCo.  They trained, supervised and licensed these superior parents. They approved of them. They preferred them over the child's real mommy and daddy. It seems their judgement was somewhat impaired. 

Nobody will be held accountable for this dreadful outcome. No caseworker will be investigated or sanctioned for her deplorable misuse of her discretion. The agency will not come under any scrutiny. As one caseworker stated the typical attitude with a shrug of her shoulders, "These things happen." Gee, it's a real shame some of us can't be so blase' about this kind of outcome.

The child's biological parents will never know what happened to the child that Jefferson County found or manufactured some reason not to reunify with his parents. Perhaps their case plan wasn't really designed to correct the issues that brought this family under their scrutiny. Perhaps they didn't provide the proper services, or timely services. Perhaps the parents never had a chance. Who knows? It's all water under the bridge. But what if we could know? What if Jefferson County was just too eager to remove this marketable child rather than provide appropriate, compassionate in-home services to keep him with his mommy and daddy? Wouldn't that make this tragedy more deplorable?

We'll never know what happened to cause this child to be declared a legal orphan and redistributed to better parents by the infallible state. All we do know is that this child abuse statistic will be reported as physical abuse by a parent. Not adoptive parent. Parent. The state will not distinguish abuse committed by biological parents as opposed to artificial parents-for-pay. It's all one and the same to the government. If the child dies, his biological parents will never be told where his grave is. 

We'll never know if adoptive homes are safer for children than imperfect biological homes as long as the reports do not distinguish between biological parents and adoptive parents. The only indication we have are these news articles that keep popping up in every community, showing that too many children are abused or killed by these state-approved parents.

Guaranteeing Reunification Failure

The generally accepted practice when a child is at risk of abuse or neglect is to swoop in and remove the child, rather than remove the danger from the child's environment.

The most absurd snatch and grabs occur in hospitals, shortly after the child is born. Right when the most critical bonding between the mother and the child is supposed to occur. According to an article in The Scientific American,

"It’s fairly easy to wrap our heads around the notion of the mother-child bond. The two are intimately connected during the nine months of pregnancy. Hormones, such as oxytocin, that course through a mother’s body biologically link her to the baby. Their heartbeats can even synchronize. Following birth, a mother provides a natural food source for the newborn."

Child welfare professionals insist that this bonding is not critical, at least not as critical as insuring the safety of the child by placing the child in foster care--where studies have proven children are 10 to 35 times more likely to be abused. It is, after all, better for the child to deny him his bond with his mother, his mother's milk, and the comfort of the heartbeat he has heard for the past nine months.

But it gets worse. Science has now proven that dads bond with babies, too. And like the mother, this bonding requires close proximity to the baby, because touch and smell play an important part in this bonding process. According to the article, It seems that this bonding involves hard-wiring the brain, the baby's brain and the father's brain.

"We are now learning that in the first few days after birth, changes occur in the brains of both the dad and the baby, depending on whether the father is around or not."

Child welfare professionals cite "the best interests of the child" as justifying the removal of newborn children from their parents. This argument is only valid if these professionals discount the child's biological and psychological needs for the very two people they have excluded from this child's world.

". . .it seems a child. . . may be born with a brain that expects this bond to form in the first place. "

And the absence of the father from the child's world has proven to cause problems for the child as he grows up.

So. . .let me get this right. . .rather than go through the bother of conducting a valid investigation and providing appropriate in-home services to the parents, it is best for the child to inhibit this bond with his parents by excluding them from his world. Shuffle the child from stranger's home to stranger's home. Expose him to abuse, neglect and abandonment. Put him on drugs when he acts out, dump him on the street when he turns eighteen without a dime, without a job, without the safety net a family affords, and take the babies he makes to repeat the cycle because he's a product of the system and presumed unfit to be a parent.

Yeah, right.

Given the overwhelming recommendations to terminate parental rights based on the lack of the child's bond with the parent, because the "professionals" felt one hour a week was sufficient time to facilitate that bond, removing the child instead of providing in-home services looks remarkably like a set up to fail. After all, these "professionals" are presumed to know what a child needs, and they can't possibly argue they didn't know removing a newborn from his parents would insure the child would not bond with them, could they?