CPS, DCYF , runnin us ragged !!! help

[Marina]

Where was this meeting held?

Did you have representation?

Go to Child Welfare Information Gateway and search for "Juvenile Court."

The sequence is: removal hearing, adjudication hearing, disposition hearing, etc.

Adjudication means determining guilt/ innocence, and whether services are needed. If your court-appointed lawyer pulls you through this with a string, then you can't appeal the adjudication.

I would go to the courthouse and see what is on record. You may have been plea-bargained without knowing what hit you. Otherwise, why would there be a "disposition" hearing in 30 days?

Go to the courthouse and find out what is written down for the dispositon hearing.

You may want to consider filing an affadavit with the court: Objections and corrections, and Statement of Facts.

Due Process:
Object to the fact that you did not have legal counsel, or had inadequate counsel, etc. Also anything done wrong by CPS policy. No opportunity to be heard. No opportunity to submit evidence. No opportunity to call witnesses. Not following the constitution. No opportunity for jury trial. Motion to dismiss, etc.

Error of Facts:
Object to the Adjudication of neglect or "in need of services." Object to false evidence. Provide factual evidence.

Error of Law:
Object to their application of the laws to your case. The situation does not apply to the legal definition of neglect, etc. The situation does not apply to the legal definition of needing services, etc.

Good luck.

[kelz03103]

this is the order of things thus far for us , 1st was the priliminary hearing, which we basically waived, there was no removal hearing, we have the kids, however at the priliminary hearing legal supervision was awarded to dcyf and physical custody with us , today step 2.) was the structuring meeting,step 3.} for us is a pre trial/conference, then step 4 is adjudicatory then would be the dispositional hearing, we already know that signing the consent decree will jump us right to the dispositional hearing, and we have decided we will not be doing that. it is also an admission of guilt. Discovery is also in the works all the paper work was handed over to my lawyer today, and I will be getting copies of it in the next few days.

[Marina]

Well that explains things better. And you have a lawyer. That's good, if you can make the lawyer work for you.

Study, study, study.

Record, record, record.

I know of one person on here who won without a lawyer. When asked what her secret was, she said she had more paperwork than Child Welfare.

[kelz03103]

busy day today, we had a pre trial hearing (conference) well first off my baby sitter didn't show up, I started to panic a little bit , but I was told yesterday by my lawer it was basically just a formality, it was odd, all that happened was they scheduled a meeting for us tomorrow at dcyf , I did not make court today. however my ex did. from what i was told by my husband and my lawyer it was quite a show. the hearing was scheduled for 1pm. my ex showed up at 10am. he demanded his girls and this and that t the dcyf's lawyer, when she grew tired of explaining things to him, dcyf's supervisor told him , ok enough , go sit down. he got in the court room, with his spiked hair and tattoo's all over. the Judge said this and that and do you understand and he replied yeah. they were basically done in a short time, however he stood and asked if he could speak, Judge said well yes , this is not an actual trial or formal wutever, like I said i wasn't there, but the judge said if he felt the need to speak to go ahead., and the ex said , I'm here to get my girls. the Judge asked if he wanted to file for custody and he said yeah, the Judge explained to him how he could go about doing that by filing a petition for custody, or motion, or wutever, or both, and the exproclaimed he had no money to do all that and could not afford to be here for all these court dates due to the fact he lives 3 hours away. he also asked for a lawyer the Judge said he could not provide him with one, he would have to find his own. the ex got a little miffed, the Judge told him how things would go if he found th neglect charges to be true or NOT, asked him if he understood, he replied yeah. and then said so if she is guilty can I just go grab my kids, he aslso said he had not seen the girls in 7 years, (who are 7 years old).and he said or (me) or what ever the hell she calls herself , and the Judge stopped and said , that would be MRS XXXXXX. lol, then h etold him to be in court on oct something or other for his custody hearing , and then asked dcyf if they had any objections, and their lawyer stood and said yesss, and then went on to say that by his own words he had told them he had just got out of jail and had been in and out, he was working part time 2 days a week in a town 3 hours away but was staying with a friend here, we do not feel he can afford or furnish a stable home for 2 little girls. s the judge asked , the ex said well as soon as I get my kids I'm going to move back to XXXXx town, with the mother of 2 of my other children(he has 5 all together), and the judge asked so right now you are staying with a fiend, and why are you not now living with this woman with your other two children and he replied well uh thats a long story I do not want to get into right now., dont know wut happened next , but the hearing ended, and after another meeting was scheduled, that was not in our schedule before, this was decided today. I will pop on tomorrow for anyone who is interested in how that goes , Thnx to all for the support ~Kelz~

[kelz03103]

I am irritated and confused, we are in the middle of a home study, the new worker has been here once , to ask me many many questions , including our nationality and health history of every family memeber on both sides ect,, what I want to do with my life, and for work (stay at home mom) she is coming back like 5 or so times to get each one of the kids, finish with me and my husband. The first thing they pulled out of their hats is to have my 2 year old screened by easter seals for developemental delays or some such thing, even though I presented the worker with papers that say the baby is developementally normal and on track , and NO further recommendations were noted, from a DOCTOR. I am cooperating, but in my mind I am thinking what the hell does any of this have to do with helping us correct the situations that led to the petition?? which were , lack of supervision on my part , which was all bs by the way , NEVER happened, and a dirty house. they have me taking 4 of my kids to a councelor, who needed to ask cps what they want exactly. my 4th child is being screened to see if he needs daycare/ other educational services that THEY can make a buck on. we have the home study the doctors visits are done . and now dentists, and we have 2 court dates coming up. thats my update , my question of the day is this , the new worker walked through my house , then sat at my kitchen table with me , asking me questions, she was in a hurry to get to her next appointment, so we have to finish later in the week , she didnt say when, said she would call, so as she is leaving I asked ,, so how is the house? she never said one word , said oh the house is fine, and was on her way, we are super stressed trying to keep the house as perfect as possible with 4 kids , because it was the root of the petition, not one word has been said since the 8th of AUGUST, the house was soooo diplorable on the 5th , 3 days later it looked pretty good, and on the 11th the kids came home from a 6 day stay at grandmas, SIX days. the last "inspection" was the 13th,, still looked good. and then again on september 10th , almost a month later. ok so I guess I am wondering , wth is so wrong its been a month already they got me jumping through all these hoops , mostly medically related , and they said we would need to have meetings at the kids schools, what do they want? what does this stuff have to do with the petition? ok I am rambling, I will be back next week:) ty all again for the support ~Kelz~

[Marina]

It is a fishing expedition, where you don't give them a fish for a day, you teach them how to fish for a lifetime.

[Momoffor]

As Marina stated, they are fishing.

I dont know or have time to go back and see what state you are in. You should look up your states procedures to find out how all this is going to go.

For simple things, one would think, ok, the house is messy, now its clean its over right? WRONG. Its not that easy.

For instance:

In VA, you go through the investigation process first. In the investigation process, they determine whether immediate removal of the kids is needed, look at your references, get witnesses info, check with schools, ect ect ect, Decide if immediate services are needed.

With all the information they have, they decide if you are guilty or not guilty.

After they have determined you are guilty or not guilty, this is when you now have an ongoing case and are given an ongoing caseworker. This caseworker will keep checking up on you, sending you to services ect ect. When the ongoing case worker closes the file thats when you are 'done' (if you want to call it that).

No matter what level of case, or who it is in those offices/departments ect they ALL are trying to fish for info to force you into more of their 'services'. My ongoing worker tried pitting my husband against me by telling him I was leaving him and going to get the kids and they could help him if he would tell them what I services or help he thought I needed ect.

Even though my case was supposed to have been for supervision neglect, the ongoing worker kept insisting I had to let her check my home to make sure it was clean and kids had food bed ect, even though none of that was a part of it.

They just keep looking for as much as they can whereever they can to keep you in the system for as long as possible. The longer you are in the system and the more services you need, the more money they get!

Read up on your states codes/constitution to get a better idea how everything works there. It helps you to keep one step ahead of them.

[MaggieC]

Mom and Marina are correct. Ilost track as to whether or not you have an attorney. Ask your atty to object to an ongoing fishing expedition.

Otherwise it will never end........................CPS will keep you in the system forever. They need customers!!!!

[yellernboyz]

THEY are doing their fishing for money. If they can get your child in to their doctor, they will give them a diagnosis for your child so that they can get more money for the children once they are put in foster care. They get more funds for developementally disabled or ADD or whatever. Take them to your own doctor. Even if you can't afford it.

[kelz03103]

I have a small bit of good news, cant remember if i mentioned the Ex, the bio dad , he really is a total idiot. Yesterday I got the dispositional report, and case plan, social study in the mail. My worker attempted to have a meeting with the ex , who told her he could not get to my town from 2 hours away due to gas prices and lack of hours on his job at dunkin donuts. As a result she said she would call him the following day at xxx time, when she called "a lady" answered and relayed a message that he could not be there to get the call, and that he would call cps back at a later time, and as far as I know he has not. In the dispositional report it says he told the worker so far that he is staying with various friends. the papers say the ex has to obtan and maintain appropriate housing, which he wont be able to do, and says they need more cooperation from him to determine if he should see the girls.In the case plan it says family interaction plan with bio dad, and supervised visits by dcyf. Step ONE , social study, he can't even get that done. In other news , my babysiter came over sunday , and stole $400.00 out of my purse I was to use Monday morning for bills, just what I need right now, so all of our bills are going to get behind, and I no longer have a babysitter. We have a court date on Oct. 6th, I hope this does NOT include us agreeing to this case plan, which over all is not that bad , the ex is a HUGE issue , there will be no family interaction, or visitation, do not give a damn, it will not happen. the other issue I have with the "case plan " is the first paragraph. It infuriates me. This whole entire case started with a false report , I mean completely made up by a reporter, when I brought this matter up on two occasions at our dcyf structuring meetings , I was blown off, told this FALSE report needed to stay IN tact to show how the departent came to be involved and at my house on aug 5th.lies lies lies, this same bs report is the opening paragraph in the case plan, and it says repeatedly " the reporter" she is NOT annonomous, and I want her NAME on it. I also want to know why a reporter of any kind, tells a story and it is written down basically as facts , but when any of us , family, friends, neighbors , REPORT facts and things about the reporters or witnesses, there is NO record of it or mention of it in any way. The workers KNOW without a doubt their reporter LIED made a FALSE accusation, even had the wrong house. but if they admit this the case would be crap, too bad. the claimis that my 6 year old was observed wandering the city streets 2 days in a row, in fact my child was being brought to this reporters house to entertain her children while they drank booze. brought there without my permission or knowledge, she was supposed to be at a friends supervised by the friends mother. The mother of the friend allowed a man staying with them, also unknown to me, to take her child and MINE to the park,, not unsupervised or wandering . this jerk off later claims he didnt take them to the park, and that his friend , the reporter found her wandering, obviously its a bunch of bs.he wasn't lying about not taking the kids to the park, in fact he was taking them to the reporters house., no one will listen to me, so I am being charged with not properly supervising my child. this bs report keeps popping up in the paperwork, legal papers, permanant records.and every worker involved reads it , sees it ., and developes 50 ways for me to correct it. well I am frustrated all to hell, I will check back sometime after court on the 6th, thank you all once again ~Kelz~

[kelz03103]

I finally got "the child was found wandering the city streets "removed. I called and told my worker , look here take it out or I will recind my signiture on the concent decree, she was very cooperative in removing it. we went to court on the 6th. it was short, my changes to the reports were brought to the judges attention:)my worker attempted on 3 occations to do a social study with my ex , and he was un- cooperative and swore at her , and hung up on her , stating he was very angry , so guess what happened, she had him court ordered to attend anger management classes and parenting classes , I almost like this woman, lol. he was NOT in court , he could not afford the bus to get here , as he is homeless. so he will be getting the happy news in the mail. yesterday I met with the parent aide and family coucelor ,(court ordered) they are also called IHB . and are from a seperate office from dcyf . It's complicated for anyone that hasn't gotten to this step. We have a 3 month review of our progress in January. basically it came down to this . these workers need to councel us , and were all happy people, may have to come up with some small insignifigant things to keep THEM busy. one worker said she would come over after the initial paperwork is in and just join in family game night or some other activities , not thrilled. since we just started this phase , I will have to come back with updates. We went over the assesment paperwork, this is a seperate assesment from the dcyf one. We haven't actually filled out a thing yet, but while going over my exes status , this worker wanted to put that he still had his parental rights so he had legal custody , but we have physical, I would NOT allow her to put that in there . so they are due to come back on the 15th , and we'll see how things go, thanks again for the support. I hope that these things / steps we are going through might help other people that are steps behind us , maybe help to know what is coming. stay strong ~Kelz~

[kelz03103]

we had court on the 6th , and then we had a lovely Bill f hearing on the 10th. guess what happened , the ex failed to show up for a hearing he demanded. the judge looked at us all kinda funny. the lawyer presented witnesses and showed proof of evidence , which is what would have been stated by the witnesses , had he shown up. we have a review hearing in 3 months, we're done with counceling already . now we are on the case plan / goals. my case worker for cps wants to be involved in every meeting i have. I dont know if she is supposed to , my new IHB workers say no. this is the confusing stage. i have a total of 4 workers coming into my home, the cps cae manager , casa , and 2 IHB workers. now this is supposed to be once a month , but they seem to drop in every 2 weeks. I can't tell you all how the case plan ect is going , because we are not done with the assesment phase yet , for IHB , its almost exactly like the cps one. where they ask you about your whole life history and if you ever had drug or alcohol issues ect. the answer is no to all of the questions by the way. i will pop back in with an update , the IHB folks are coming by monday! oh Joy. thnx again to all ~Kelz~

[LindaJM]

Hi, I just read through this entire thread. I would like to know how they coerced you into a guilty plea. Didn't you say you wanted a trial?

I'm sorry you're going through this terrible invasion of privacy. Though you have your children now, it appears they are putting your whole family in a fishbowl and looking for problems.

[kelz03103]

Thank You Linda for reading the thread , I have been on these boards a lot during every step , hoping other people can use it as a guide ,like wuts next , I hope it helps. It helps me to come on the boards , tell my story and try to answer others questions. "fishbowl" got to love that . yes i have felt like we live in a fish bowl for years, or on display at some museum. or a circus act, yeh . our story is different from most , and I honestly give myself credit for that. a worker stood in my yard demanding to get in my home, while calling me a depressed drug addict. my obvious reaction was highly defensive. She then threatened us with , if we did not have any family that could come get my kids they were going to take them into states custody right then, and I believe they could have. they had an attitude with me for minute one, and had blown our house and this drug problem WAY out of proportion. So they could of got my kids by emergency protective order, the cops were here , so they could have done it and got the judge to okay it after the fact. they have been after me with a vengence for years. we have 2 free lawyers , who have said on a few occasions that this case really doesn't rise to the level. the level of anything , and should have never made it to court.more and more and more dirty house cases are making it to court though, be warned. i always believed that i was neglecting my house , and chores , not my kids , believed this made me a poor housekeeper not a bad parent. the very first hearing we waived it . then we had 2 meetings to get us to sign this consent decree, which i was against from day one. we had 2 meeting because i would not sign the first time. my ex did not sign , they did not like that and pursued him anyway , Hard, not that i mind cuz he's a piece of crap , but many other fathers are not , so its bad. meaning he is an out of home parent , lol and they hold him to the same standards , and his requirement of correcting the situation bllah blah .. here's where we get into a situation, where i believe 90% of the "situation" was resolved before court. how do u never ever have a dirty house with 4 kids? so i have been to domestic violence classes , counceling , early disability screenings for my 2 year old , which he doesnt NEED, and on and on, and I ask, what the hel does this have to do with keeping my house clean or the supposed situation?? absolutely nothing is the answer. now they are one us with this plan to help us , and all of the stress led to the house being a wreck. i cant wait to come tell you all what they decide to "help" us with. back to the consent order , this is hard, i was 100% sure no way i was signing it, both our lawyers pushed. said we would be found guilty , but they dont use the word guilty , and my husbands lawyer said , signing the thing is not an admission of guilt , but it IS, and i told him that. They also convinced me , if we went on with a trial and went to court , my ex would be all up in our business and have more to use for himself against us , and helping prove HIS case to get my kids, and to keep him at bay to NOT go to trial . also I am sure my lawyers didnt feel like it , maybe they had it in their minds innocent people , would never sign it . so when we caved , we were treated as guilty even before court. honestly i have fought of these types of allegations on my own 10 previous times , and won,, unfounded. i think i could of done it again, bbut this time they wanted us soo badly, it was not until the second meeting to get us to sign the consent that , the cps team started to back off a little, and they took things out of the initial report. wanna hear something funny, friday i got a letter sayingthey finished an asesment concerning my children the determination at this time is unfounded, irritating. this is part of the original affidavidt, slap to my kid causing a black eye, so, this is an item that didn't go to court , its complicated , it was in there , but then seperated , I was happy til i realized , it actually made it a seperate report on its own, making it # 11. by itself it would have been unfounded , by itself it didnt mean crap , so they decided to add it into the whole court case, or try to . so , i think to myself why cant i break up the rest of the afidavidt , drugs= unfounded. inapropriate touching= unfounded , ect ect . which probaly would of happened in court , right , NO. it does not work like that, purponderence of the evidence , and they had a lot, of bs . 36 seperate little complaints , mostly false. pictures , that didnt show chit , BUT would of had a nice perponderance of witnesses to back them up. they set us up to FAIL. the quick way , with the consent or the long way , with trial. on the day of court , the day we went to agree in court that we agreed . i brought up a good point , my lawyer made this point to their lawyer and their lawyer said well we WANT them to be found true, we think the kids were neglected , so if you bring up this point , we will recind on the consent , thinking back , I should of let her. but my lawyer said well see , better just keep going. the point was the judge did not have to enter a finding of true if the kids were NOT in out of home placement , but this case has gone along like they were. . and then my lawyer told the judge that i had signed the consent but wasnt thrilled about it. We want this done in 3 months at our next review, my damn cps case worker told me this week , 6 months. in my eyes , they are STILL assesing us , and they have nothing to work with , noting to correct , so they better get to digging and find some things. the whole thing is a total nightmare. fact is we got LUCKY, and kept our kids , lucky lucky, they went to my childrens school, and probably could have grabbed them then, i got called in again, by the school, it was 2 weeks til the end of the school year , I refused to send them , the biatch called it in and said to let you know mrs cps lady the kids have not been in school since you came here . so the next week , 4 days to go i sent them, they were going to try to get me right there for neglecting their education, the had already passed for the year , and yeh i was trying to keep them for being scooped up. i wonder if this same biatch called the day they returned to let the nice cps lady know.
I honestly feel bad for all the people in our situation , that were not as lucky and the united states nazi's got their children. Many people are no better or worse than we are. people charged with crimes against children, they are supposed to be actual CRIMES. NONE of us have comitted. the odds are stacked high against parents,i don't know what to do , but we need to change the odds. theres laws i absolutley hate the child protection act and all of its unconstitutional violations. now what I want to know is the rules , the book of guidelines , for cps workers to make families act like circus monkeys , and I believe they make this chit up as they go. where is the LAW , not the cps guidebook. for example, if you have your kids stolen the LAW says , you must do A B C and in some cases D . there isnt one. instead we have if your kids are stolen , cps can use their guide to tell you what to do how often for as long as they wish . and you dont get this guide book of rules, only cps does. to top it off the Judges Orders are too vague , and i fought this . if the judges are ordering you to follow all recomendations of the workers, first of all I had that changed to the recomendations instead of all , to make my point that I would not blindly agree to anything they pulled out of their ass. i still won't. I told my worker i will be refusing any recomendations from here on that i feel do NOT correct the situation that led to us getting screwed so for example if they tell me to take a cooking class , can you tell I cant think of an example, I will politely refuse , and run it by my lawyer , they will have to show me every time they make a recomendation that it has anything to do with my dirty house and "fixing" that. Of course i run the risk of them throwing non cooperation at me, but let them , I have been more than cooperative for years , and my cooperation has its limits. ok i hate when i go on and on, so I appreciate it once again , the support is great! ty! ~Kelz~