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 this final review, I discuss the video game component of this presentation.

There are two games offered, one for attorneys representing parents in dependency cases, and one for attorneys representing children - Guardians ad litem (GAL). Each completed game is worth 2 California Minimum Continuing Legal Education credits.

The game takes you through a typical day in your dependency practice, including three areas of your practice; interviews with the client, court proceedings, and work performed in your office. The introduction to the games states, "The purpose of this game is to orient you to the kinds of situations you will encounter, give you an idea of the demands you would be facing in daily practice, and instill a set of professional values that will optimize your professional practice."

The case scenarios and the parties are similar for each game. You are presented with a case, in which a series of events is described. You are required to select actions to perform from a list of choices for three areas of your practice. One action is optimal, the others are varying degrees below that. Each choice carries a particular reward of consequence. No matter what you choose to do, the game explains how your choice rated and why. You can earn promotions and extra points depending on your responses.

You earn overall points for the quality of your response. You also learn credibility coins depending on the quality of your response in the context of the situation--and can be promoted and get a raise. You are also working on a burnout meter, and if your burnout level reaches 100%--again based on the stress any particular response causes, you will quit your job and the game ends.

I played both games. I found that politics was a contributing factor in the points awarded for certain responses. The game was clever in its application of a variety of factors that come into play during an attorney's representation in these cases. However, because it was limited to multiple choice answers, there was no room for creativity in representing your clients during these informal proceedings.

It is a competent basic orientation tool for a lawyer whose practice includes dependency cases. The game provides useful perspectives on dealing with adult and child clients, rewarding the player for tactful handling of their clients. It also seems to be reinforce some of the best practice models that many attorneys and agencies tend to avoid in the interests of expediency. This game stays more focused on the best interests of the child than real live practicing attorneys seem to. However, it is quite weak in the esoteric critical issues unique to child welfare cases. It is much stronger in management of your practice than in actual child welfare law. It is a fair start to a complex and unique area of practice.

Oh. It doesn't matter what your score is, you get the MCLE credits simply for completing the game. I can report that I got promoted and a raise, never got anywhere near burnout, and my final score was 1468 points. The game generates a California MCLE certificate with your points included.

You can obtain this disk from Center for Families, Children & the Courts, 455 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102-3668. (415)865-7739.

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.

Credible Child Welfare Reform Efforts Not Newsworthy?

The family rights grassroots movement is mourning the loss of former Georgia state Senator Nancy Schaefer. I did not work with her personally due to conflicts with those who were in contact with her, however I did follow her work to expose and correct the abuses in Georgia's child welfare administration. She was quite pro-active in the arena of child welfare reform. But to read the news articles, one would never know that.

Elected officials who advocate for reform or accountability in child welfare are frequently engaged in political suicide. I have seen the political careers of statesmen abruptly cut off for their pro-active attempts to reform child welfare in their legislative capacity. The stakeholders in the child welfare industry finance an opponent who invariably defeats the annoying incumbent in the next election. The boldness of their stand in support of families deserves some recognition.

In a search of articles reporting on this tragedy I found one  mainstream news article that mentioned this aspect of her career, but only in the context of a speech in Europe. Evidently the powers-that-be don't want this aspect of her work to be legitimized in the public eye.

On the other side of the coin, I have observed that the news media jumps at the opportunity to spotlight the highly vocal wackadoodles* in the family rights movement, affording them the public forum to spout their woe-is-me nonsense about their own cases and their rabid, kooky tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories, making all of us look like nothing more than disgruntled parents who deserved to have their children removed. Even now, the radicals are spouting theories of a child welfare agency conspiracy to murder her in an effort to capitalize on the headlines of her death.

Conspicuously absent from the public debate are discussions with credible representatives advocating balanced child welfare reform. Mainstream media's refusals to even acknowledge attempts by legislators to legislate reform contribute to that deafening silence and serve only to eliminate any reasonable solutions from public consideration. The public is left with only two extreme alternatives, leave children in dangerous homes or remove children who don't need to be removed and place them in foster care.

There is a third alternative, but nobody hears about moderate and sensible solutions to the problems alleged by both extremes in the child welfare debate because mainstream media panders to sensationalism in favor of solutions to controversial issues.

Based on what I have observed of former Senator Schaefer, I believe she considered her efforts to reform child welfare practices to be noteworthy among her accomplishments. I think the mainstream media has done a great disservice, both to her and to the public, by ignoring this important component of her work in their articles about her.

*Wackadoodles are those family members who have truly abused or neglected the children in their care and who are attempting to use the family rights movement to achieve public vindication for that abuse or neglect. The designation also includes batterers, con artists, control freaks and the mentally unstable. The family rights movement has more than their fair share of these unstable elements who seek leadership positions and undermine the efficacy and credibility of this movement. To be fair, the cadres of child welfare workers also demonstrate a disproportionately high percentage of wackadoodles, including a disproportionately high percentage of providers who were or believe they were abused as children. 

Review-presentation offered by Judicial Council of California

This is the first in a three part series reviewing Continuing Legal Education information provided to attorneys who represent children and parents in dependency cases in California. I requested and was graciously provided with a copy of the presentation for the purposes of this review. The DVD includes two discussions and a video game. Today's topic is a review of the first presentation, Substance Abuse: The Web of Addiction.

This presentation represents that addiction is a factor in majority of dependency cases. However, based on government statistics, neglect is the major factor. Anecdotal reports indicate that poverty is the root of most neglect cases. It seems to be lazy reasoning to conclude that because substance abuse is more prevalent in poorer areas, that substance abuse is directly responsible for child abuse. 

I do not dispute that substance abuse is a major factor in some child welfare cases, however, many jurisdictions have ruled that substance abuse is not in an of itself, a legitimate reason to remove children from the family home. If the use of substances affects the welfare of the children, i.e. the children's minimum basic needs are not being met by the caregiver, only then can the state justify intervention into the family unit. But even then, as the judge in this presentation noted, if the parent's or the child's attorney can demonstrate to the court that the child can be safely kept in the home, the state is not permitted to remove the children from the family home, or obstruct speedy reunification. Just how to accomplish that outcome was never discussed. 

During the presentation of the discussion on the biology of addiction, the spokesperson lawyer comments," We're talking about the abuse and neglect of little children, here." This is a graphic illustration of the effectiveness of the child saver's pervasive fear-mongering campaign which equates substance abuse with child abuse. 

An examination of the facts reveals that these are two distinct states which may have a cause and effect relationship, but which are equally likely not to have a cause and effect relationship. This video as much as admitted that there are functional addicts in every walk of life, including sitting on the benches of our courts. He asks where to draw the line between use of drugs and a presumed effect it is having on the children, ignoring the legal fact that the state bears the burden of proof that there is a legally sufficient reason to intervene into the family based solely on the parent's use of substances, including tobacco or alcohol. 

Attorneys on the panel recommend using the child as a way to leverage the parent's participation in agency recommended treatment as an effective tactic. The brutality of this practice, especially the effect of the prolonged removal and isolation from their parents upon the children, is a shocking illustration about how casually participants in these cases view the forced separation of children from their parents. They promote holding the children hostage  as part of the coercive methods employed in the imposition of inappropriate case plans which are in reality not designed to effect the purported rehabilitation of the parent. 

The presentations states that parents need support and services to overcome their addiction, But, the panel's suggestions for support do not include the services offered by trained and certified family advocates. This type of community based service has proven an effective model in other jurisdictions to insure parent's compliance with appropriate case plans, speeding up reunification, and providing non-abusive motivations for the parent's compliance coupled with forcing the agencies to fulfill their statutory mandates in child welfare cases. 

But while this presentation stresses the importance of parents seeking help with rehabilitation, we have received many report of parents seeking help in overcoming their addiction have had their children removed. This video seems to support the agency posture that any use of substances, even moderate use of legal substances, is grounds for state intervention and the removal of children. This obstacle to rehabilitation was never even addressed. 

This presentation is better directed toward addicts. It is an effective reinforcement for the child saver line that substance use is automatically a threat to the child, a premise that is unproven by the facts and unsupported by law. 

As a tool to train attorneys who represent parents and children in child welfare cases, it is a complete bust. It gives excuses for  the agency not to provide appropriate services to address alleged addiction, including lack of resources. 

The administrators and judges expect the parents to make change without requiring the agency to provide appropriate and effective services which will give the parent effective tools to overcome the substance abuse. It does not even enlighten attorneys as to what constitutes appropriate treatment plans and services in cases involving substance abuse, much less teach the attorneys how to vigorously represent the rights of the parents and the children during this kind of case. 

It was even advocated that the agencies heap extensive case plan requirements on the parents, totally oblivious to the fact that placing this kind of burden upon addicted parents who are already in a critically traumatic situations is a fail-safe recipe for failure.  All of this appears to forward the premise that parents must be nearly perfect as a condition of exercising the right to family association, rather than the legal reality that parents are only required under the law to provide the minimum of care, supervision, education, medical to maintain the integrity of the family unit. 

This presentation does have the redeeming feature of illustrating exactly what is wrong with the court-appointed representation that parents and children in child welfare cases must endure. They don't even properly present the applicable law with respect to representing parents and children in child welfare cases involving alleged substance abuse. 

This provides nothing substantive to attorneys who desire to vigorously represent parents and children in child welfare cases. 

Next: What Juvenile Dependency Attorneys Need to Know About Basic Child Development presentation.

Failure to File Paperwork Constitutes Child Endangerment

timesunion.com reports "Richard Cressy, 47, and Margie Cressy, 41, were charged with four misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child. . ."


And what was their alleged crime? How did they endanger their children? " The couple is accused of violating a state law that requires parents who are home schooling their children to register their curriculum with the local school district." Endanger in the welfare of a child is described in section 260.10 as


1. He knowingly acts in a manner likely to be injurious to the physical, mental or moral welfare of a child less than seventeen years old or directs or authorizes such child to engage in an occupation involving a substantial risk of danger to his life or health. 


So, now we want to take kiddies and jail parents who don't file paperwork with the bureaucracy? How does that help protect kids? New York ACS or the local sheriff don't have jurisdiction over homeshool issues. The board of education does. This is ACS's way of assuming jurisdiction where none legally exists.


It is quite a reach to allege that not filing paperwork constitutes endangering the welfare of a child. Can you spell R-E-T-A-L-I-A-T-I-O-N? This is the exact kind of reach child savers like to make in their efforts to control parental prerogatives when it comes to making child-rearing decisions, especially if mommy and daddy don't dot every i and cross every t. After all, parents are expected to be perfect as a condition of keeping their kiddies. 


Home School Legal Defense Association has agreed to take this case. 

Improper Child Interviews Exposed in Greene v. Camreta

Last time I discussed the ruling in Greene v. Camreta. This time I want to point out another typical tactic practiced during child abuse investigations. Improper interviews of children.

Camreta and Alford seek to justify the length of the seizure by pointing out that as the interview progressed, S.G. began disclosing sexual abuse by her father. S.G. maintains that for "over an hour" she repeatedly told Camreta that her father had never touched her in a bad way until she finally "just started saying yes to whatever he said." It is far from clear that it was reasonable for Camreta and Alford to continue to detain S.G. for an entire hour during which she continually denied such abuse even if it was reasonable to continue the interview once she started to say otherwise. Still, there is some case law applying the T.L.O. standard sanctioning a detention longer than an hour, and none refuting the justification Camreta and Alford offer for prolonging the detention beyond that - namely, that S.G. was just becoming - in their view - responsive.

Children are highly suggestible, and take their cues from the authority figure questioning them. In the case above, the caseworker, Camreta, broke the rules by asking the same questions over and over until the child wearily acquiesced and gave the response Camreta was seeking. Children will say whatever they think the authority figure wants to hear. We have conditioned them to "give the right answers." Their cue that they have given a wrong answer is when the question is repeated over and over. Even if Camreta stressed the importance that S.G. tell the truth, his refusal to accept that truth cued the child that she was giving a "wrong" answer.

A child cannot take much pressure before relenting and giving the "right" answer, which then become the facts of the case. The record on this case indicates Camreta was conducting a validation of his pre-concieved notions, not investigating to determine the truth. Can't blame Camreta, this is how it is done all the time.

I have a library of video-taped child interviews by "experts"  which parents have sent me over the years. Having been trained in the proper interviewing of children, I am asked to conduct an analysis of the interviews for attorneys. I also interview children about their interviews with child welfare agencies to uncover what motivated the child's responses.

I have advocated that all interviews with children should be video taped with all participants visible and face front to the camera, with a working clock in view. Proper practice dictates that the child should never be questioned prior to the taped interview. They should not be repeatedly interviewed, because repeated interviews taints the truth. And there is a right way and wrong way to question a child.

I had one case where the interviewer's back was to the camera. An examination of the video showed minimal improper questions, yet the girl changed her denials into accusations. When I interviewed her, she disclosed that she had changed her "story" because the authority figure's facial expressions indicated she was giving the "wrong" answer to his questions.

In another, a highly contested child sex abuse criminal case, a Denver, Colorado Children's Advocacy Center  interviewer blatantly violated every prohibition during their interview with the alleged child victim. She gave the child the answers she was seeking within the questions she asked. She asked leading questions. She repeatedly asked the same questions over and over until she got the answer she was seeking. She did not allow the child to tell the story in the narrative. She tainted that interview horribly, and an innocent man has had to stand trial three times on the same charges and still faces a fourth trial.

Camreta was just conducting over-zealous caseworker business as usual. This happens all the time, all over the country. It's no big deal. Children are removed, parental rights terminated, innocent people convicted and imprisoned, based solely on these tainted interviews. Just thought you should know.