Hello Dear Social Worker. I appreciate what you are saying. But...in the cases I have been discussing...the relatives HAVE stepped in to help. The department takes the child from the grandparents when the grandparents have done nothing wrong....And third party custody??? I think the Stuths were the first in decades to have third party custody.
(A self identified reader has comments. In the Senate we worked into the evening and will work late tomorrow. So, I am going to bed. Jim is staying up to see Mitt Romney on Letterman.)
I am a social worker for the department. The Ombudsman's office needs more power, that I agree with. However, DCFS needs to change from the top down. The "good ole boy and girl" network is alive and well in DCFS in every region. There will be no changes in DCFS until it is no longer profitable for the higher ups to cover up the abuses in the department frequently perpetuated by the higher ups themselves.
The phrase "childnapping" appears often in this and other blogs. CPS can't remove children when there is no evidence of abuse or neglect. That's the bottom line. When a child needs to be removed from their home, relatives who will PROTECT THE CHILD, NOT THE PARENTS need to step up. Too often relatives will think the department is wrong while turning a blind eye to what is happening to the child and continue making excuses. There are many, many children in this state who are in guardianships or third party custodies with relatives who stepped in before the department had to. They are to be commended for putting the safety of the child first before family. I've seen case after case when parents have been arrested for drugs, alcohol offenses, domestic violence, assaults, and other crimes and relatives are "surprised" when CPS has to get involved. Where are the concerned relatives? Arrests are not secret. I've read statements on these blogs such as "I wasn't convicted." Well, guess what? Many people aren't convicted of crimes they've been arrested for or they plea bargain down from the original charge. This does not mean they are innocent; it just means they probably had a good lawyer. Meanwhile, the children continue to be subjected to their parents' behaviors.
Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even concerned "suitable persons in the community": if you know there are problems with parents, please protect those children before we have to step in. Anyone can go to court and file a third party custody petition. There are safeguards in place to prevent frivolous custody actions but if parents are unable to protect their own children, family or friends need to step in. If more families put children first before the parents, maybe there wouldn't be a need for CPS any longer
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25 comments:
Does this woman even know what she is talking about CPS has taken away thousands of childern and they have taken them away from good honest Grandparents that have raised these children & love them. These same Grandparents have had lies made up about them only to have their precious Grandchildren taken away from them & DCFS wants to take them from those loving families & adopt the out & not to the Grandparents that they have made up the lies about. I know that DCFS/CPS was originally designed to help the children & now it has become corrupt & it is no longer about the children, it is about the money & all about the money. This is why children keep on getting killed because this department is to busy taking children that should not be taken that they do not have time to help the ones that really need to be helped. This department has become EVIL. This department needs a major overhaul, from the bottom up or from the top down which ever. Meanwhile Heaven help these poor little children because they are truly the ones that are suffering.
This Social Worker obviously doesn't comprehend that in some instances a baby wasn't even born so that any relative could step in! BOTTOM LINE! NO ABUSE AND NEGLECT! And furthermore, if you walk into a hospital room for the birth of a baby who is NOT drug affected or alcohol affected and NO CHARGES OF ANY KIND of wrongdoing and CPS already steps in right from the hospital room; the BOTTOM LINE is that nobody did anything wrong and no relative was given the chance! BOTTOM LINE! No wonder we have problems in DSHS. BOTTOM line is that if a grandparent has never injured, harmed, anyone if any way, shape or form and there are children to PROVE that the parent's have not injured, abused, etc; the BOTTOM LINE is that there is NO CHILD ABUSE. It amazes me how a Social Worker thinks they know everything!
Dear Social Worker, I don't know what state your from, but I only wish DCYF and the courts in NH work the way you stated.
In NH, especially Nashua, children are taken after anonymous false reports are called in. My newborn granddaughter was taken because there was morphine in her system at birth. Morphine which was given to my daughter in labor for nineteen hours. We tried vehemently to tell DCYF and the courts, but they wouldn't listen. The Assessment worker testified in Probate court that she had no idea my daughter was given morphine. Prenatal records were never court-ordered. When we finally got them ourselves after them being missing for six months, the court-appointed puppet nor the Judge would put them into evidence.
Don't tell me grandparents and other family members don't come forward to take these children. They do. But their told,"Relative placement is not an option. The child is being placed in foster care, period. Relatives who plead for placement are slandered by DCYF. The Judges only listen to them. Parents aren't allowed to testify and family members aren't allowed into the courtroom.
As for people plea bargaining in criminal cases, even if they are innocent, they take a plea deal because they figure their going to lose any way.
For parents, when criminal charges of child endangerment are dropped, their children are still NOT returned.
I will not know allow a social worker to disrespect any individual who has never injured, harmed or abused anyone to be maligned or insulted. That is why at the very least; I support parent's from that accusation if there baby was taken directly from a hospital room and their baby was not drug affected or alcohol affected and they have never had any children before. The bottom line is that it is the children of the parents (grandparents) who know what kind of a person their parents were NOT a Social Worker. Think about it! Do you know your parent's best? Think about it; wouldn't a seventeen year old in the family know more than you? If you were a seventeen year old in your family wouldn't you know more than me?
I believe the reason some relatives are surprised when a child is taken from a parent is because when the parents are really heavy with doing those things, there is little contact with the family as they don`t want anyone to know what`s going on in their lives. On the flip side of that,I myself DID talk with the intake part of cps on numerous occasions. The children in question had an open case and the parents were heavily into drugs for over 5 years before cps stepped in and took those kids. The parents are clean now and have the kids back but even they cannot understand why it took so long for intervention. They are able to think like reasonable people now and have their lives straightened out. The parents feel and so do I that there may have been a trgic ending if cps hadn`t stepped in to help. There are so many children needing the help. I DO have to disagree with the social worker saying children aren`t taken unless there is abuse or neglect. He or she has maybe never had to take a child because a superior has told them too. Dear social worker: Go back and read about the Stuth`s case if you`re not familiar with it and then say that children aren`t taken for no reason. There may not be many cases like that but there are some. One case like that is one too many. You are probably one of the caring social workers as there are many. There`s good and bad in every group but the bad in the case of dealing with the future of children is detrimental to our society as a whole. The children won`t stay little forever.
I have left several comments here but it is difficult to tell a story in a short sentence.
1) The grandparents were supporting the parents prior to CPS stepping in. They were providing the parents with shelter and food (not the state).
2) The grandparents themselves raised six children; we all love our parents (grandparents)regardless of how poor they were and even if they can make us mad (mom). They never lifted a finger to injure, hurt or harm any of us children (now adults)in any way, shape or form.
3) The parents themselves had never had any children so they were not child abusers or child neglecters. They walked into the proper medical facility (a hospital room)for the birth of their first newborn baby. Their newborn baby was born healthy; not drug affected or alcohol affected. They themselves were not alcoholics or drug addicts.
That is the bottom line!
This social worker is only painting part of the picture. Do you know how much it costs to file third party and then fight the parents? Who has that kind of money laying around? Because the parents are usually poor and dependent on DSHS funding, try taking the children without their permission. They want that money and will not let them go, so then it becomes a fight. I have heard of relatives paying out $80,000 in a court battle like this. Its not that easy and she is making it sound like it is.
Secondly, they put relatives under heavy scrutiny, so heavy in fact that it is almost impossible to pass their standards while at the same time giving foster care licenses out like they are candy with little regard to child safety. Workers like this like to quote child safety this and that, but are they really doing that in practice? No, they are not, and statistics don't lie. What statistics? Drop outs, jail, mental health, deaths, abuse by fosters and adopts, etc.
While it is a proven fact that relatives provide a more stable environment and children do better as a matter of course, the department ignores this. Lastly I do not recommend third party custody because it keeps the state meddling in your life. Go for guardianship at the very minimum.
Jan Smith
My daughter is involved in a nasty custody battle and I have been caught in the cross fire. It’s a long story and I would like the opportunity to discuss further.
This is the latest:
Well we had court on Monday and it didn't go very well. Commissioner continued the temporary parenting plan motion for another 3 weeks. She also added that I was not to be around my grandson at all based on a bunch of lies that were submitted against me by the father. She didn't care that CPS declared the false accusations against me as unfounded, she didn't care that the prior restraining order the father tried to get against me was dismissed and she didn't care that the father was notified by Snohomish County prosecutors’ office that they have declined to prosecute or charge me with anything in relation to the false accusations the father made against me. The commissioner didn’t even care that there were now four unfounded CPS reports against me, my daughter and her boyfriend made by this father in an attempt to keep custody of my grandson. So to say the least I am very upset as I am not even given the chance to defend myself against all the lies.
What about my due process? Why is this Commissioner treating me as guilty without being charged, tried and convicted of anything? What are my options? What can I do to clear my good name?
I'm the grandmother of the newborn infant that was taken away at birth from first time parents. I'm still in shock 24 years later, as my entire family is. Is this Nazi Germany or the United States? There are no laws, no protection whatsoever for the real parents, everything is for the government created parents.
These stupid people who talk about "abuse, neglect, unwanted", let's examine it!! Abuse and neglect are felonies. Are our prisons filled with mothers who have abused or neglected their children? I don't think so. If they are unwanted why do children in foster homes go into "the witness protection program"?
Someday the truth about this rotten system will come out.
Catherine
Amendment V
No Grand Jury indictment, no due process of law, and forced to testify against yourself. If a parent should say, they don't need parenting or anger management classes, that would be used as "evidence " against them.
Amendment VI
No jury trial, you just lose your children. There's more
Amendment VIII
Cruel and unusual punishment.
Amendment IX
The enumeration of these rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. The people, even poor people, have always had the right to have children.
Who would support a country that takes their children away from them? One more.
Amendment IVX
Equal protection of the law. If you take children away from their parents because of poverty, then take children away from All poor parents.
Of course that is unconstitional, like everything else C.P.S. does.
C.P.S. will never admit that the adoptabibly of the child and personal hatred are involved. Catherine
Many of you do not know tha the burden off proof is different in civil court. That is they don't need as high of a level of proof in civil VS. criminal court.
Dear Social Destroyer
It would be the greatest thing to ever happen if CPS were only to take children actually abused, neglected or endangered.
This will never happen because child abuse and neglect is so hard to find predict or prevent. In fact this is a static human frailty that occurs in some degree to approximately 14 children per 100,000 within interdependent nuclear biological families.
The really grim statistics are abuse,neglect and fatality rates in CPS and foster care custody. THE ABUSE RATE IN FOSTER CARE IS 330,000 per 100,000 or one third, 80 percent of all sexual molestations occur in CPS/foster-care custody and a child is at 600 percent greater risk of violent death in CPS/foster care custody.
Your higher ups particularly the really higher ups are succinctly aware of all this and choose to intentionally fail our children for the money...
STOP the fraud stop trafficking in our children Child Welfare is by far the major perpetrator of maltreatment to children... and unnecessarily their families its how they stay in business.
All you armchair governors are forgetting the child's rights. Children arnt property and, in theory, the idea is that when removing a child, they are acting in the child's best interest to get it away from said screwball family. They are upholding the child's constituional rights to health and happyness and whatnot.
I'm guess that DSHS would argue the child's rights to be free of your chaos outweigh your own rights. Its also the burden of the victums to speak speak up. Our legal system is broken not psychic..if you have all these claim get your butts into court.
This Social Worker definitely has issues. Her thinking is warped. Where are the second set of grandparents in the story above regarding the newborn who disappeared directly out of the hospital room? They obviously could care less about the parents! Did you search for that second set of grandparents or relatives; the ones who could care less about their pregnant daughter?????? Twenty years later; where are they????? And that is the kind of relative you think you want more of; you're kidding me! The grandparents from the father's side protected their unborn child by providing the parents with shelter and food. It is another relative (father's side)who was willing to care for their children; however, lived in another state. How is that anything more than simply saying that they are willing to care for the children; meaning children first! Yet, the relatives who get attacked are the ones who show concern and a willingness to help; all for the sake of a couple who wants a blond, blue eyed little baby!
In civil court all you need is a good lie, no proof is needed!
When dealing with cps, the parents have to shift the burden of prof to the social worker in court, if you do not the social workers lies go on the record as fact.
As a foster parent, I need to tell you that the children that had suitable grandparents and relatives were moved to their homes. IF the relative allowed the parent to see the child unsupervised, then the child moved back into foster care. Most foster parents want what is best for the children.
I do not believe that a child should languish in foster care for years. They deserve to know that they are in a permenant home. Some parents do not get their acts together for years. Should a child stay in foster care for years? That is not fair to the child.
Put the child first instead of yourself.
My appellate attorney informed me that the truth is not credible in dependency cases!
Christy you are right CPS spurious allegations and lies become fact in 30 days if you do not administratively challenge them and this is where your attorney/advocates's DELIBERATE INDIFFERENCE good luck work in harmony with the state as this would disassociate them from their meal tickets and disfavor them from family court...
there was a recent Supreme Court ruling concerning founded allegations. BOTTOM LINE!!! They cannot find any allegation founded without proof! I will find it and post it here. Real recent.
Dear Social Worker: You do have part of the issue right with what you said about the cover ups and good ole boy syndrome. But if you would like to hear what happens to a child when the grandparents and mother do the right thing and step up...with NO ABUSE NO NEGLECT and NO FELONIES I can give you a story that would make you shudder. I am Lilly's grandmother and everything we do in life we do for her. The department took her in what they now call a misunderstanding....but is she home..... no..... my email is bariwillard@hotmail.com if you would like a very REAL story.
when you give your proof of forgery perjury and fraud committed by the department to a public defender who WILL NOT enter the PROOF into court throughout the entire process, then what happens...termination of family by one the process hearings numerous judges?
I would like to say that the statement about there has been no third party custody is an absolute false statement! My best friends sister has spent thousands of dollars to get her grandchild back from the people who are not related to the child! The mother was messed up and left the child with these people who are not related to the child. I'm ready to just give up on any hopes in this country. It's a nightmare at best.
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