COMMENTS BY OFFICIAL AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE ABOUT CPS
Moderators: family_man, LindaJM
COMMENTS BY OFFICIAL AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE ABOUT CPS
I could not decide where to put this. I thought it would be encouraging to know that some official people see the wrong side of CPS. I am editing this on May26th,2010 to put on Senator Nancy Schaefer's article on "The Corrupt Business Of Child Protective Services." It is believed that she and her husband were murdered for her stance against this corruption. She was one valiant woman! Here is a link to her report.
http://fightcps.com/2008/02/29/report-o ... orruption/
***************************************************
Hazel McBride, a contemporary suicide researcher and psychotherapist ... "No government and no court should be allowed to take a child from a parent unless there is a very, very, very good reason," says Dr. McBride. "Because to have a child ripped from you, it's the same as a child dying. It's absolutely uncivilized, barbaric and devastating for any parent. It's not uncommon for these people to suffer depressive breakdowns."
*****************************************************Judge Zinora Mitchell-Rankin, former presiding judge of the Family Division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia: "A termination of parental rights only changes the legal relationship between parent and child, not the biological relationship." http://www.childlaw.us/child_welfare_news/
*****************************************************
*****************************************************
http://fightcps.com/2008/02/29/report-o ... orruption/
***************************************************
Hazel McBride, a contemporary suicide researcher and psychotherapist ... "No government and no court should be allowed to take a child from a parent unless there is a very, very, very good reason," says Dr. McBride. "Because to have a child ripped from you, it's the same as a child dying. It's absolutely uncivilized, barbaric and devastating for any parent. It's not uncommon for these people to suffer depressive breakdowns."
*****************************************************Judge Zinora Mitchell-Rankin, former presiding judge of the Family Division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia: "A termination of parental rights only changes the legal relationship between parent and child, not the biological relationship." http://www.childlaw.us/child_welfare_news/
*****************************************************
*****************************************************
Last edited by Dazeemay on Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
**********************************
This is not legal advice;hopefully wisdom
To put it in simple terms…when the authorities ARE the perpetrators and the perpetrators ARE the authorities, there is no earthly justice or recourse, at the end of the day (unless the American people wake up).
Therefore, those who have achieved the highest levels of power seek to ‘enjoy’ the most grievous and extreme injustices. For many of those in the highest circles of power, the greatest statement of power is to perpetrate the greatest possible injustice…the savage, brutal traumatization and abuse of an innocent child.
http://themurkynews.blogspot.com/ MattTwoFour
"Ultimately, the law is only as good as the judge" --- D.X. Yue, 2005, in "law, reason and judicial fraud"
http://www.parentalrightsandjustice.com/index.cgi?ctype=Page;site_id=1;objid=45;curloc=Site:1
This is not legal advice;hopefully wisdom
To put it in simple terms…when the authorities ARE the perpetrators and the perpetrators ARE the authorities, there is no earthly justice or recourse, at the end of the day (unless the American people wake up).
Therefore, those who have achieved the highest levels of power seek to ‘enjoy’ the most grievous and extreme injustices. For many of those in the highest circles of power, the greatest statement of power is to perpetrate the greatest possible injustice…the savage, brutal traumatization and abuse of an innocent child.
http://themurkynews.blogspot.com/ MattTwoFour
"Ultimately, the law is only as good as the judge" --- D.X. Yue, 2005, in "law, reason and judicial fraud"
http://www.parentalrightsandjustice.com/index.cgi?ctype=Page;site_id=1;objid=45;curloc=Site:1
Judge Napolitano makes the solid case that there is a pernicious and ever-expanding pattern of government abuse in America’s criminal justice system, leading him to establish his general creed: The government is not your friend.”
http://www.jail4judges-indiana.info/CPSRelated.htm
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
In this alarming book, Fox News commentator Judge Napolitano makes the solid case that there is a pernicious and ever-expanding pattern of government abuse in America's criminal justice system, leading him to establish his general creed: "The government is not your friend." As an attorney, a law professor, a commentator, a judge, and now a successful television personality, Judge Napolitano has studied the system inside and out, and his unique voice has resonance and relevance. In this sensational book, Napolitano sets the record straight, speaking frankly from his own experiences and investigation about how government agencies will often arrest without warrant, spy without legal authority, imprison without charge, and kill without cause.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0785260838?tag ... C9MWTCKZ8&
http://www.jail4judges-indiana.info/CPSRelated.htm
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
In this alarming book, Fox News commentator Judge Napolitano makes the solid case that there is a pernicious and ever-expanding pattern of government abuse in America's criminal justice system, leading him to establish his general creed: "The government is not your friend." As an attorney, a law professor, a commentator, a judge, and now a successful television personality, Judge Napolitano has studied the system inside and out, and his unique voice has resonance and relevance. In this sensational book, Napolitano sets the record straight, speaking frankly from his own experiences and investigation about how government agencies will often arrest without warrant, spy without legal authority, imprison without charge, and kill without cause.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0785260838?tag ... C9MWTCKZ8&
**********************************
This is not legal advice;hopefully wisdom
To put it in simple terms…when the authorities ARE the perpetrators and the perpetrators ARE the authorities, there is no earthly justice or recourse, at the end of the day (unless the American people wake up).
Therefore, those who have achieved the highest levels of power seek to ‘enjoy’ the most grievous and extreme injustices. For many of those in the highest circles of power, the greatest statement of power is to perpetrate the greatest possible injustice…the savage, brutal traumatization and abuse of an innocent child.
http://themurkynews.blogspot.com/ MattTwoFour
"Ultimately, the law is only as good as the judge" --- D.X. Yue, 2005, in "law, reason and judicial fraud"
http://www.parentalrightsandjustice.com/index.cgi?ctype=Page;site_id=1;objid=45;curloc=Site:1
This is not legal advice;hopefully wisdom
To put it in simple terms…when the authorities ARE the perpetrators and the perpetrators ARE the authorities, there is no earthly justice or recourse, at the end of the day (unless the American people wake up).
Therefore, those who have achieved the highest levels of power seek to ‘enjoy’ the most grievous and extreme injustices. For many of those in the highest circles of power, the greatest statement of power is to perpetrate the greatest possible injustice…the savage, brutal traumatization and abuse of an innocent child.
http://themurkynews.blogspot.com/ MattTwoFour
"Ultimately, the law is only as good as the judge" --- D.X. Yue, 2005, in "law, reason and judicial fraud"
http://www.parentalrightsandjustice.com/index.cgi?ctype=Page;site_id=1;objid=45;curloc=Site:1
From the court case on "clear and convincing evidence."
Santosky v. Kramer
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/h ... 45_ZO.html
...
Since the litigants and the factfinder must know at the outset of a given proceeding how the risk of error will be allocated, the standard of proof necessarily must be calibrated in advance. Retrospective case-by-case review cannot preserve fundamental fairness when a class of proceedings is governed by a constitutionally defective evidentiary standard...
The State seeks to establish a series of historical facts about the intensity of its agency's efforts to reunite the family, the infrequency and insubstantiality of the parents' contacts with their child, and the parents' inability or unwillingness to formulate a plan for the child's future. The attorneys submit documentary evidence, and call witnesses who are subject to cross-examination. Based on all the evidence, the judge then determines whether the State has proved the statutory elements of permanent neglect by a fair preponderance of the evidence...
At such a proceeding, numerous factors combine to magnify the risk of erroneous factfinding. Permanent neglect proceedings employ imprecise substantive standards that leave determinations unusually open to the subjective values of the judge. ... In appraising the nature and quality of a complex series of encounters among the agency, the parents, and the child, the court possesses unusual discretion to underweigh probative facts that might favor the parent. .. Because parents subject to termination proceedings are often poor, uneducated, or members of minority groups, ... such proceedings are often vulnerable to judgments based on cultural or class bias.
The State's ability to assemble its case almost inevitably dwarfs the parents' ability to mount a defense. No predetermined limits restrict the sums an agency may spend in prosecuting a given termination proceeding. The State's attorney usually will be expert on the issues contested and the procedures employed at the factfinding hearing, and enjoys full access to all public records concerning the family. The State may call on experts in family relations, psychology, and medicine to bolster its case. Furthermore, the primary witnesses at the hearing will be the agency's own professional caseworkers, whom the State has empowered both to investigate the family situation and to testify against the parents. Indeed, because the child is already in agency custody, the State even has the power to shape the historical events that form the basis for termination...
The disparity between the adversaries' litigation resources is matched by a striking asymmetry in their litigation options. Unlike criminal defendants, natural parents have no "double jeopardy" defense against repeated state termination efforts. If the State initially fails to win termination, as New York did here, ... it always can try once again to cut off the parents' rights after gathering more or better evidence. Yet even when the parents have attained the level of fitness required by the State, they have no similar means by which they can forestall future termination efforts.
Coupled with a "fair preponderance of the evidence" standard, these factors create a significant prospect of erroneous termination. A standard of proof that, by its very terms, demands consideration of the quantity, rather than the quality, of the evidence may misdirect the factfinder in the marginal case. ...Given the weight of the private interests at stake, the social cost of even occasional error is sizable.
Raising the standard of proof would have both practical and symbolic consequences...
Santosky v. Kramer
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/h ... 45_ZO.html
...
Since the litigants and the factfinder must know at the outset of a given proceeding how the risk of error will be allocated, the standard of proof necessarily must be calibrated in advance. Retrospective case-by-case review cannot preserve fundamental fairness when a class of proceedings is governed by a constitutionally defective evidentiary standard...
The State seeks to establish a series of historical facts about the intensity of its agency's efforts to reunite the family, the infrequency and insubstantiality of the parents' contacts with their child, and the parents' inability or unwillingness to formulate a plan for the child's future. The attorneys submit documentary evidence, and call witnesses who are subject to cross-examination. Based on all the evidence, the judge then determines whether the State has proved the statutory elements of permanent neglect by a fair preponderance of the evidence...
At such a proceeding, numerous factors combine to magnify the risk of erroneous factfinding. Permanent neglect proceedings employ imprecise substantive standards that leave determinations unusually open to the subjective values of the judge. ... In appraising the nature and quality of a complex series of encounters among the agency, the parents, and the child, the court possesses unusual discretion to underweigh probative facts that might favor the parent. .. Because parents subject to termination proceedings are often poor, uneducated, or members of minority groups, ... such proceedings are often vulnerable to judgments based on cultural or class bias.
The State's ability to assemble its case almost inevitably dwarfs the parents' ability to mount a defense. No predetermined limits restrict the sums an agency may spend in prosecuting a given termination proceeding. The State's attorney usually will be expert on the issues contested and the procedures employed at the factfinding hearing, and enjoys full access to all public records concerning the family. The State may call on experts in family relations, psychology, and medicine to bolster its case. Furthermore, the primary witnesses at the hearing will be the agency's own professional caseworkers, whom the State has empowered both to investigate the family situation and to testify against the parents. Indeed, because the child is already in agency custody, the State even has the power to shape the historical events that form the basis for termination...
The disparity between the adversaries' litigation resources is matched by a striking asymmetry in their litigation options. Unlike criminal defendants, natural parents have no "double jeopardy" defense against repeated state termination efforts. If the State initially fails to win termination, as New York did here, ... it always can try once again to cut off the parents' rights after gathering more or better evidence. Yet even when the parents have attained the level of fitness required by the State, they have no similar means by which they can forestall future termination efforts.
Coupled with a "fair preponderance of the evidence" standard, these factors create a significant prospect of erroneous termination. A standard of proof that, by its very terms, demands consideration of the quantity, rather than the quality, of the evidence may misdirect the factfinder in the marginal case. ...Given the weight of the private interests at stake, the social cost of even occasional error is sizable.
Raising the standard of proof would have both practical and symbolic consequences...
.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings. ... ew&id=5126
Davidson, North Carolina 28036
May 23, 2006
Improving Proctection for Children Beyond CPS
The most helpful proposal to improve protection for children—as distinct from the failed “child protective services” (CPS) system—is to encourage and support nurture and rearing of children within natural families in spirit and in deed.
“A proper investigation from the beginning” applies infinitely more to actions and consequences of CPS investigations on behalf of under-age Americans than to the rightly criticized methods of Aruba, cruise lines and other nations fumbling to “find” young adult Americans missing beyond our borders.
SWAP (Social Work Again Proposal) was presented officially on July 26, 1994 to the Health and Human Resources Subcommittee of then Gov. George Allen’s Regulatory Review Committee in Richmond, Virginia.
It distills what can be done to replace what CPS has become: a parapolice arm of the prosecution. Results of its faltering focus—little interest in preserving natural family, the smallest but most vital building block of American society—were proved by Child and Family Service Reviews, failed by every state
A crystallized version of SWAP follows:
When families needing help do not ask, afraid it will hurt
For children hurting in foster care whose cries are ignored
Knowing not every child abuse report requires intervention
A SOLUTION for elected representatives at all government levels
Return Social Services to traditional family-supportive practice.
Have trained law enforcement, using due process and standard rules of evidence, investigate. (No more 3rd party, financially- interested hearsay to justify family-injuring interventions.)
ONLY if a child has no natural extended family willing or able to provide temporary housing should courts separate families.
Making “Paper Orphans” of children--especially babies marketable for adoption and post-adoption subsidies--is an unworthy contemporary American practice. It is enabled by federal and state legislation and funding. It encourages needless out of home and family placement. Taxpayers are defrauded and never harmed children are traumatized. Lady Justice is strangled as good people, entering social work with concern for children and families, learn to practice a parapolice type child saving that hurts children, families, taxpayers and justice.
There is a simple and right way to solve problems created because an adoption agenda and funding opportunities overshadowed best practice, Constitutional, and moral treatment of children and families. There is a just and rational way to return both science and common sense to child abuse investigations of the presumptively worst “crimes” (if one has been committed wittingly and intentionally). SWAP is the answer.
Barbara Bryan
First proposed officially 7/26/94 in Virginia to HHR Subcommittee of Gov. Allen’s Regulatory Review Committee
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When there are reasons that a child cannot be reared in his or her home by one or both birth parents, and there are no relatives supported sufficiently (always less expensively than with strangers) to accept and keep the children close to grandparents and siblings, then open adoption should be the order of the day “in the best interests of” children already traumatized.
If slowing the rampant removal and reallocation of children reported as abused or neglected cannot be achieved by restoring basic human and civil rights and Constitutional law to all dealings with America’s parents, those children purported to benefit from continued funding under PSSF reauthorization will thank those who let it die in 2006.
More money for a program that has performed perversely for three decades for children and families is not a reasonable or fiscally sound solution.
Counterproductive Services
Through many years I brought documented misfortunes to the attention of the appointed State Board of Social Services in the Commonwealth of Virginia at its public meetings, wherever they were throughout the Commonwealth and always at my own expense.
There were times, on behalf of beleaguered and broken-hearted officially injured families, when I described CPS as “counterproductive services” because it so often achieved the opposite effect assured under State law by its policies and regulations. That was because “practice” by agents with varying degrees of knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as mental health, often matched none of the above.
Nevertheless, local agencies, the Central office of Department of Social Services, the Secretariat, “family” courts (most not courts of record) and up the ladder—and too well served by the Office of the Attorney General, both attorney for the errant agency as well as the Commonwealth’s top law enforcer)—backed the errors. The sad seal of approval for local, hands-on child protection was given to agencies acting helpfully or ignoring a child to known battering in DeShaney.
Why? Most state laws, although legal because they are statutory, also are extraconstitutional and known to be so. Amending State Constitutions, as Virginia did, to claim “all laws are presumed to be constitutional” is no help to children and families literally dis-membered by agents of the state.
The burden to overturn a CPS agency error, and with more difficulty an extra-constitutional State law, is on the injured and/or affected citizen, obligated to go childless (a presumptive perspective itself) to the US Supreme Court with private resources. That person has a minuscule chance of ever having such a case heard to upend decades of allowed and funded CPS practice.
Anonymous Reporting
Although the old “evil empire,” the USSR outlawed anonymous reports in 1984 because of their unreliability, the Act that launched CPS under CAPTA (Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act) more than three decades ago required states to accept and act on anonymous reports and to maintain Central Registries of those reports of suspicions. Our nation has criticized Third World countries for similar practices in the “rule of suspect,” only in CPS cases we legally take and hold the children until “cooperation” or a confession is forthcoming.
No one wearing a black robe or sitting on a bench anywhere, and certainly not the US Surpremes who have penned the bitter words of DeShaney, wants to open the lid on the Pandora’s box in which CPS buries its mistakes.
With inferior resources to the purse and sword of the State, families often “give up” children, sometimes in exchange for promised health or mental health care, sometimes in the frequently vain hope they may be allowed to keep one or more of them, and sometimes only to learn per 1997 ASFA that subsequent newborns will be removed from the delivery room and handed over to pre-adoptive homes and there is financial incentive involved.
What is the difference between a now denounced ill-conceived official policy of sterilization and constructive serial sterilization: taking away children, one by one, only after a mother has conceived, nurtured and given birth to them, if through actions of its CPS agents “the people” and agents and courts are wrong as too often occurs?
Feigning concern for children and “family preservation” while giving equal and often greater weight to testimony of pre-adoptive foster parents, even in the cases of wrongful removals that will not be repaired if “Oh, well, the child has been there for 15 of the past 22 months so we HAVE to terminate your parental rights,” is a shell game practiced for decades and refined following ASFA
Legal Child Trafficking
Anywhere else on the planet that kind of trafficking in children would be decried. America made it legal, major media glorify it and promote the practice in subtle and blatant ways by extolling adoption minus particulars on the origins of infant availabilities as the smallest prizes. Far from telling the whole story of what CPS has been allowed to do, glory stories are played up and errors and horrors suggested as aberrations with proposed solutions of the usual mantra: “More money, more workers, more training.”
Multiple Response Systems (MRS) or “differential response” is CPS hiding behind a happy face mask. There are times when parents, most familiar with their own children and more protective than transient child protectors working under state laws purposefully disconnected from either State or US Constitutional Law, should say “No, thank you” to “parenting classes” and other seeming “services” such as coerced anti-Fifth Amendment mental health evaluations.
But, that makes them “uncooperative” re “participation in services” which “documents” a reason for proceeding with termination of parental rights.
“Preservation,” sometimes redefined as finding or creating a “forever home” somewhere with somebody, is a word meaning one thing to a natural parent trying desperately to liberate a child from system overreach and something quite different to CPS and State agents computing how many more children must be “adopted out” to exceed last year’s quota to qualify for an agency federal bonus.
Some tragic stories of agency-overloaded, if not we-just-can’t-say-no-to-the-child-and-the-check couples, also compute the fame (“Aren’t they the most amazing and good-hearted people.”) and gain. The work as well as the rewards go up in bottom line value if the child arrives with the right labels of “special needs” and “at risk,” near guaranteed labels for a “substantiated” abused or neglected child, accurate or not.
Government has been scammed enough through the years by CPS agencies to have HHS/IG auditors who know the whole truth and, prayerfully, have tried to convey it to large-hearted and level headed members of Congress.
Children and Taxpayers Cheated
There was Contra Costa County’s refusal to proceed with adoptions, even ones that natural parents approved, because money for various services but unshared with those who actually cared for the children could be used otherwise by the agency. There was the interesting exposure in Texas: labeling children along CPS and education lines and billing for counseling done by a psychologist in a distant state who never had a clue. Double-dipping against the taxpayers was simple and this was not by a white collar criminal in the private domain.
Taxpayers paid all. Children did NOT receive the benefits. Families were hurt. Agents of the state and monitors at federal levels danced with each other while Government supposedly watchdogs Government to explain the effectiveness and efficiency of spending federal appropriations FOR THE CHILDREN.
When CFSR auditors were stiffed in their initial efforts to gain supporting documentation for spending claims from Virginia’s CPS and foster care (and just maybe the tiny “preservation services” lumped in under foster care and adoption), they went back and had essentially the same welcome and result. No one connected with CPS (“confidential” and presumed to be on the side of angels) expects to be bothered or ever really held accountable.
After all, the nice judge nearly always accepts CPS recommendations (if he/she likes remaining on the bench) and a stroke of a judge’s pen immunizes all. Then there is that nice coverage from risk management and a taxpayer-provided lawyer in the form of an assistant DA, prosecutor, Commonwealth’s attorney. Why keep and show HHS/IG auditors annoying (and evidentiary) paperwork?
Why honor requests from Congress to prove that anyone really protected children or “served” them and preserved families when one is covered every which way by courts, free lawyers and is assumed by the public to be in there fighting “for children?”
Served or Severed?
IF members of Congress learned the language of child protection agencies and apparent “child (as distinct from “family”) advocates, the ones shamelessly covered by “the United States,” six other states and others defending government error at all costs (i.e., protecting tax coffers from taxpayers who know preventable error when they see it), they would welcome DeShaney redux as an illumination from the highest bench of the Judicial branch.
In that decision, a justice speaks for “poor Joshua,” noting that Child protective services, or CPS the agency, is the sole “support” and help for known injured children. When its agents are allowed to ignore a battered child to death—with the blessing of even the US Supremes—there are meanings shrouded in all the writings related to the quite often predictable travesty of a child death. Nothing truly “slipped through the cracks.”
We hear post-homicide statements from NYC’s CPC agency Commissioner (must be translated by the aware) that “We have no reports” on Lisa Steinberg or Nadine Lockwood or Elisa Isquierda. The actual meaning, among other possibilities is: (a) we declined to accept reports (we are required to investigate), (b) we never wrote down details of the calls we were planning to ignore anyway or (c) maybe they were written down but we’ve shredded them.
There must immediately be returned to the nation, through rational choices and educated awareness of its elected representatives, a presumption in favor of birth and natural family in all but true orphan status for babies and children.
Newborns should not be whisked from delivery rooms because a 1997 federal law enables trafficking in tiny human flesh because a mother has “lost” prior children to the system. For all the families who’ve had children succumb serially to once-unidentified genetic disorders, for all who’ve seen children react to overloads of vaccines (5-9 shots at one time for many welfare or military children whose brains swell, retinal hemorrhages are caused and suddenly their parents are accused of becoming angry, violently shaking them, never mind the law of physics proves there MUST be accompanying severe neck injury), an official policy that creates trauma where often there provably was little or none prior to CPS “intervention,” MUST CEASE AND DESIST.
So, someone goes to prison, a mother becomes childless, children are scattered from family and each other, and no one dares tell the whole story of overloads for some in situations, of too many shots at one time in relation to the current health status of a child, some of whom were preemies and given shots anyway by the “chronological” rather than gestational age.
Capital Punishment Equivalent
Mistakes are made. More child protection reports than anyone chooses to believe are not supportable IF those accused received the courtesies given serial killers under justice system options that include a death sentence.
Attorneys who bravely try standing between the feelings of the lowest line CPS worker and a never-abusive but about-to-be fractured family in purposely extraconstitutional courts (see pre-1899 comments about the first juvenile courts) correctly equate turning a family’s child into a “legal stranger” by a judge’s pen the civil (or supremely Uncivil) parallel of capital punishment under criminal justice. But, aren’t child abusers even WORSE than murderers? So why are not they—and alleged “evidence,” too often state-purchased hearsay—under the most carefully scrutinized rules of solid evidence?
Instead families have a choice: simply give up children—or watch them taken anyway under color of law—and maybe you get to live. What is life without the children that parents wanted, loved and for whom strong advocacy may have meant unwarily “starting something”?
That “something” may have been annoying a doctor, an educator, a professional with too many questions, quoting law or policy, or offering or challenging an opinion that did not match the child or what the parent knew of the child. For busy and annoyed and sometimes arrogant professionals a call to CPS to report “suspicions” has proved to be an almost guaranteed diversion and assurance any threats or costly or bothersome advocacy for a child will stop (“under color of law”).
Never mind the child, truly “in need of services,” is now subject to removal by CPS and near instant pre-adoptive placement? Who cares that adopters will likely have to promise not to pursue similar advocacy, even after they learn what the parent/s always knew: the child needed help and parents went to the agency that promised it.
Just as with Congressional interest in improving foster care, one can aim at “improv(ing) child protective services,” as one can attempt to reform or improve Frankenstein. The end result remains: a monster.
Barbara Bryan
.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings. ... ew&id=5126
Davidson, North Carolina 28036
May 23, 2006
Improving Proctection for Children Beyond CPS
The most helpful proposal to improve protection for children—as distinct from the failed “child protective services” (CPS) system—is to encourage and support nurture and rearing of children within natural families in spirit and in deed.
“A proper investigation from the beginning” applies infinitely more to actions and consequences of CPS investigations on behalf of under-age Americans than to the rightly criticized methods of Aruba, cruise lines and other nations fumbling to “find” young adult Americans missing beyond our borders.
SWAP (Social Work Again Proposal) was presented officially on July 26, 1994 to the Health and Human Resources Subcommittee of then Gov. George Allen’s Regulatory Review Committee in Richmond, Virginia.
It distills what can be done to replace what CPS has become: a parapolice arm of the prosecution. Results of its faltering focus—little interest in preserving natural family, the smallest but most vital building block of American society—were proved by Child and Family Service Reviews, failed by every state
A crystallized version of SWAP follows:
When families needing help do not ask, afraid it will hurt
For children hurting in foster care whose cries are ignored
Knowing not every child abuse report requires intervention
A SOLUTION for elected representatives at all government levels
Return Social Services to traditional family-supportive practice.
Have trained law enforcement, using due process and standard rules of evidence, investigate. (No more 3rd party, financially- interested hearsay to justify family-injuring interventions.)
ONLY if a child has no natural extended family willing or able to provide temporary housing should courts separate families.
Making “Paper Orphans” of children--especially babies marketable for adoption and post-adoption subsidies--is an unworthy contemporary American practice. It is enabled by federal and state legislation and funding. It encourages needless out of home and family placement. Taxpayers are defrauded and never harmed children are traumatized. Lady Justice is strangled as good people, entering social work with concern for children and families, learn to practice a parapolice type child saving that hurts children, families, taxpayers and justice.
There is a simple and right way to solve problems created because an adoption agenda and funding opportunities overshadowed best practice, Constitutional, and moral treatment of children and families. There is a just and rational way to return both science and common sense to child abuse investigations of the presumptively worst “crimes” (if one has been committed wittingly and intentionally). SWAP is the answer.
Barbara Bryan
First proposed officially 7/26/94 in Virginia to HHR Subcommittee of Gov. Allen’s Regulatory Review Committee
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When there are reasons that a child cannot be reared in his or her home by one or both birth parents, and there are no relatives supported sufficiently (always less expensively than with strangers) to accept and keep the children close to grandparents and siblings, then open adoption should be the order of the day “in the best interests of” children already traumatized.
If slowing the rampant removal and reallocation of children reported as abused or neglected cannot be achieved by restoring basic human and civil rights and Constitutional law to all dealings with America’s parents, those children purported to benefit from continued funding under PSSF reauthorization will thank those who let it die in 2006.
More money for a program that has performed perversely for three decades for children and families is not a reasonable or fiscally sound solution.
Counterproductive Services
Through many years I brought documented misfortunes to the attention of the appointed State Board of Social Services in the Commonwealth of Virginia at its public meetings, wherever they were throughout the Commonwealth and always at my own expense.
There were times, on behalf of beleaguered and broken-hearted officially injured families, when I described CPS as “counterproductive services” because it so often achieved the opposite effect assured under State law by its policies and regulations. That was because “practice” by agents with varying degrees of knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as mental health, often matched none of the above.
Nevertheless, local agencies, the Central office of Department of Social Services, the Secretariat, “family” courts (most not courts of record) and up the ladder—and too well served by the Office of the Attorney General, both attorney for the errant agency as well as the Commonwealth’s top law enforcer)—backed the errors. The sad seal of approval for local, hands-on child protection was given to agencies acting helpfully or ignoring a child to known battering in DeShaney.
Why? Most state laws, although legal because they are statutory, also are extraconstitutional and known to be so. Amending State Constitutions, as Virginia did, to claim “all laws are presumed to be constitutional” is no help to children and families literally dis-membered by agents of the state.
The burden to overturn a CPS agency error, and with more difficulty an extra-constitutional State law, is on the injured and/or affected citizen, obligated to go childless (a presumptive perspective itself) to the US Supreme Court with private resources. That person has a minuscule chance of ever having such a case heard to upend decades of allowed and funded CPS practice.
Anonymous Reporting
Although the old “evil empire,” the USSR outlawed anonymous reports in 1984 because of their unreliability, the Act that launched CPS under CAPTA (Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act) more than three decades ago required states to accept and act on anonymous reports and to maintain Central Registries of those reports of suspicions. Our nation has criticized Third World countries for similar practices in the “rule of suspect,” only in CPS cases we legally take and hold the children until “cooperation” or a confession is forthcoming.
No one wearing a black robe or sitting on a bench anywhere, and certainly not the US Surpremes who have penned the bitter words of DeShaney, wants to open the lid on the Pandora’s box in which CPS buries its mistakes.
With inferior resources to the purse and sword of the State, families often “give up” children, sometimes in exchange for promised health or mental health care, sometimes in the frequently vain hope they may be allowed to keep one or more of them, and sometimes only to learn per 1997 ASFA that subsequent newborns will be removed from the delivery room and handed over to pre-adoptive homes and there is financial incentive involved.
What is the difference between a now denounced ill-conceived official policy of sterilization and constructive serial sterilization: taking away children, one by one, only after a mother has conceived, nurtured and given birth to them, if through actions of its CPS agents “the people” and agents and courts are wrong as too often occurs?
Feigning concern for children and “family preservation” while giving equal and often greater weight to testimony of pre-adoptive foster parents, even in the cases of wrongful removals that will not be repaired if “Oh, well, the child has been there for 15 of the past 22 months so we HAVE to terminate your parental rights,” is a shell game practiced for decades and refined following ASFA
Legal Child Trafficking
Anywhere else on the planet that kind of trafficking in children would be decried. America made it legal, major media glorify it and promote the practice in subtle and blatant ways by extolling adoption minus particulars on the origins of infant availabilities as the smallest prizes. Far from telling the whole story of what CPS has been allowed to do, glory stories are played up and errors and horrors suggested as aberrations with proposed solutions of the usual mantra: “More money, more workers, more training.”
Multiple Response Systems (MRS) or “differential response” is CPS hiding behind a happy face mask. There are times when parents, most familiar with their own children and more protective than transient child protectors working under state laws purposefully disconnected from either State or US Constitutional Law, should say “No, thank you” to “parenting classes” and other seeming “services” such as coerced anti-Fifth Amendment mental health evaluations.
But, that makes them “uncooperative” re “participation in services” which “documents” a reason for proceeding with termination of parental rights.
“Preservation,” sometimes redefined as finding or creating a “forever home” somewhere with somebody, is a word meaning one thing to a natural parent trying desperately to liberate a child from system overreach and something quite different to CPS and State agents computing how many more children must be “adopted out” to exceed last year’s quota to qualify for an agency federal bonus.
Some tragic stories of agency-overloaded, if not we-just-can’t-say-no-to-the-child-and-the-check couples, also compute the fame (“Aren’t they the most amazing and good-hearted people.”) and gain. The work as well as the rewards go up in bottom line value if the child arrives with the right labels of “special needs” and “at risk,” near guaranteed labels for a “substantiated” abused or neglected child, accurate or not.
Government has been scammed enough through the years by CPS agencies to have HHS/IG auditors who know the whole truth and, prayerfully, have tried to convey it to large-hearted and level headed members of Congress.
Children and Taxpayers Cheated
There was Contra Costa County’s refusal to proceed with adoptions, even ones that natural parents approved, because money for various services but unshared with those who actually cared for the children could be used otherwise by the agency. There was the interesting exposure in Texas: labeling children along CPS and education lines and billing for counseling done by a psychologist in a distant state who never had a clue. Double-dipping against the taxpayers was simple and this was not by a white collar criminal in the private domain.
Taxpayers paid all. Children did NOT receive the benefits. Families were hurt. Agents of the state and monitors at federal levels danced with each other while Government supposedly watchdogs Government to explain the effectiveness and efficiency of spending federal appropriations FOR THE CHILDREN.
When CFSR auditors were stiffed in their initial efforts to gain supporting documentation for spending claims from Virginia’s CPS and foster care (and just maybe the tiny “preservation services” lumped in under foster care and adoption), they went back and had essentially the same welcome and result. No one connected with CPS (“confidential” and presumed to be on the side of angels) expects to be bothered or ever really held accountable.
After all, the nice judge nearly always accepts CPS recommendations (if he/she likes remaining on the bench) and a stroke of a judge’s pen immunizes all. Then there is that nice coverage from risk management and a taxpayer-provided lawyer in the form of an assistant DA, prosecutor, Commonwealth’s attorney. Why keep and show HHS/IG auditors annoying (and evidentiary) paperwork?
Why honor requests from Congress to prove that anyone really protected children or “served” them and preserved families when one is covered every which way by courts, free lawyers and is assumed by the public to be in there fighting “for children?”
Served or Severed?
IF members of Congress learned the language of child protection agencies and apparent “child (as distinct from “family”) advocates, the ones shamelessly covered by “the United States,” six other states and others defending government error at all costs (i.e., protecting tax coffers from taxpayers who know preventable error when they see it), they would welcome DeShaney redux as an illumination from the highest bench of the Judicial branch.
In that decision, a justice speaks for “poor Joshua,” noting that Child protective services, or CPS the agency, is the sole “support” and help for known injured children. When its agents are allowed to ignore a battered child to death—with the blessing of even the US Supremes—there are meanings shrouded in all the writings related to the quite often predictable travesty of a child death. Nothing truly “slipped through the cracks.”
We hear post-homicide statements from NYC’s CPC agency Commissioner (must be translated by the aware) that “We have no reports” on Lisa Steinberg or Nadine Lockwood or Elisa Isquierda. The actual meaning, among other possibilities is: (a) we declined to accept reports (we are required to investigate), (b) we never wrote down details of the calls we were planning to ignore anyway or (c) maybe they were written down but we’ve shredded them.
There must immediately be returned to the nation, through rational choices and educated awareness of its elected representatives, a presumption in favor of birth and natural family in all but true orphan status for babies and children.
Newborns should not be whisked from delivery rooms because a 1997 federal law enables trafficking in tiny human flesh because a mother has “lost” prior children to the system. For all the families who’ve had children succumb serially to once-unidentified genetic disorders, for all who’ve seen children react to overloads of vaccines (5-9 shots at one time for many welfare or military children whose brains swell, retinal hemorrhages are caused and suddenly their parents are accused of becoming angry, violently shaking them, never mind the law of physics proves there MUST be accompanying severe neck injury), an official policy that creates trauma where often there provably was little or none prior to CPS “intervention,” MUST CEASE AND DESIST.
So, someone goes to prison, a mother becomes childless, children are scattered from family and each other, and no one dares tell the whole story of overloads for some in situations, of too many shots at one time in relation to the current health status of a child, some of whom were preemies and given shots anyway by the “chronological” rather than gestational age.
Capital Punishment Equivalent
Mistakes are made. More child protection reports than anyone chooses to believe are not supportable IF those accused received the courtesies given serial killers under justice system options that include a death sentence.
Attorneys who bravely try standing between the feelings of the lowest line CPS worker and a never-abusive but about-to-be fractured family in purposely extraconstitutional courts (see pre-1899 comments about the first juvenile courts) correctly equate turning a family’s child into a “legal stranger” by a judge’s pen the civil (or supremely Uncivil) parallel of capital punishment under criminal justice. But, aren’t child abusers even WORSE than murderers? So why are not they—and alleged “evidence,” too often state-purchased hearsay—under the most carefully scrutinized rules of solid evidence?
Instead families have a choice: simply give up children—or watch them taken anyway under color of law—and maybe you get to live. What is life without the children that parents wanted, loved and for whom strong advocacy may have meant unwarily “starting something”?
That “something” may have been annoying a doctor, an educator, a professional with too many questions, quoting law or policy, or offering or challenging an opinion that did not match the child or what the parent knew of the child. For busy and annoyed and sometimes arrogant professionals a call to CPS to report “suspicions” has proved to be an almost guaranteed diversion and assurance any threats or costly or bothersome advocacy for a child will stop (“under color of law”).
Never mind the child, truly “in need of services,” is now subject to removal by CPS and near instant pre-adoptive placement? Who cares that adopters will likely have to promise not to pursue similar advocacy, even after they learn what the parent/s always knew: the child needed help and parents went to the agency that promised it.
Just as with Congressional interest in improving foster care, one can aim at “improv(ing) child protective services,” as one can attempt to reform or improve Frankenstein. The end result remains: a monster.
Barbara Bryan
.
.
http://fightcps.com/pdf/TheCorruptBusin ... rvices.pdf
The corrupt business of child protective services.
by Georgia senator
.
http://fightcps.com/pdf/TheCorruptBusin ... rvices.pdf
The corrupt business of child protective services.
by Georgia senator
.
.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings. ... ew&id=6197
Statement of Roma O. Amor, Tucson, Arizona
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Roma O. Amor, petitioner appearing as herself
ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC SECURITY (ADES) & ITS DIVISION OF CHILDREN YOUTH AND FAMILIES (DCYF) - CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES (CPS), Parties in Interest
MOTION FOR DECLARATORY RELIEF AND COMPLIANCE
Now comes Roma O. Amor seeking Declaratory Relief for Positive Enforcement to address the issues of the greater public interest of the Constitutional, federal statutory, and Federally-Protected Rights of families and their children who reside in the State of Arizona. Petitioner seeks relief against unconstitutional policies of ADES and CPS that violate Federal Child Welfare Funding Law (Federal Contracts). CPS has adopted an increasingly unbridled pattern of disregard for the law and its methods of intrusion into the private and family affairs resulting in unnecessary child fatalities and abuse while in ADES custody or under investigation by CPS Agents.
1. Jurisdiction is conferred by AZ Rule of Civil Proc. 57, AZ Rule of the Supreme Court 28(G), Arizona Constitution Article 6 Section 5
2. Venue is found in this court for State of Arizona policies and actions under color of state law of its CPS agency, its Office of the Attorney General, and the Juvenile Courts of its subdivisions.
3. Questions Raised:
a) Whether current child welfare laws of The State of Arizona are unlawful, illegal, and unconstitutional under Federal Statutory Child Welfare Funding Law (Federal Contract Law) and the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Arizona child welfare laws violate Federal Contract Law under the United States Constitution Article I Sec. 8 cl. 1 Spending Clause which gives the U.S. Congress power to place conditions on federal funding grants. Spending Clause legislation is a contract; in return for federal funds, the recipients (State of Arizona) agree to comply with federally imposed conditions.
See: Davis v. Monroe County Bd. of Ed. 526 U. S. 629, 640 (1999), Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman 451 U. S. 1, 17 (1981); see also Davis, supra, at 640; Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School Dist. 524 U. S. 274, 286 (1998); Guardians Assn. v. Civil Serv. Community of New York City 463 U. S. 582, 599 (1983) (opinion of White, J.); id., at 632-633 (Marshall, J., dissenting); Lau v. Nichols 414 U. S. 563, 568-569 (1974).
4. Supporting Statements and Standards of Law Incorporated Herein:
a) ARS 41-1962 “Federal law shall control.”
b) Detention/Removal Hearings, Federal Statutory Law, examples
- CFR Sec 1356.21(d) Documentation of Judicial Determinations (2) Neither affidavits nor nunc pro tunc orders will be accepted as verification documentation in support of reasonable efforts and contrary to the welfare judicial determinations. (3) Court orders that reference State law to substantiate judicial determinations are NOT acceptable, even if State law provides that a removal must be based on a judicial determination that remaining in the home would be contrary to the child’s welfare or that removal can only be ordered after reasonable efforts have been made.
If finding is not explicitly documented, Title IV-E funding is severed under federal law. 45 CFR 1356.21(c)
- 42 USC 672(a)(1) Court must make the finding that “continuance in the home of the parent or legal guardian would be contrary to the child’s welfare.” and “removal from the home was the result of a explicit judicial determination and that reasonable efforts have been made”.
This finding must be made at the time of the first court ruling authorizing removal of the child from the home or lose all Title IV-E federal funding. 45 CFR 1356.21(c)
- 42 USC 672(a)(2) Court must make finding that “placement and care are the responsibility of the State agency or any other public agency with whom the responsible state agency has an agreement.”
No federal funding until findings are made 45 CFR 1356.71(d)(1)(iii)
- 42 USC 671(a)(15), 42 USC 672(a)(1), and 45 CFR 1356.21(b)(1) Court must make the finding that “reasonable efforts have been made to prevent or eliminate need for removal.” Mandates Prevention to Prevent Removal
If explicit finding are not documented Title IV-E funding will be withdrawn. 45 CFR 1356.21(b)(1)(ii)
- PL 96-272 Judicial determinations are required to be explicit and so stated in the court order. The Senate Report on the bill that became Public Law 96-272 characterized the required judicial determinations as “important safeguard(s) against inappropriate agency action and made clear that such requirements were not to become “a mere pro forma exercise in paper shuffling to obtain Federal Funding.” (S. Rept. No. 336, 96th Congress, 2d Session. 16, 1980) “We concluded, based on our review of States’ documentation of judicial determinations over the past years that, in many instances, these important safeguards had become precisely what congress was concerned that they not become.”
c) State statutes and regulations cannot be construed to displace the protections of the United States Constitution, even when the state acts to protect the welfare of children. Cf. Lorillard Tobacco Co v. Reilly 533 U.S. 525, 540-41, 121 S.Ct. 2404, 2414 (2001)
d) “State courts can decide definitively only questions of state law that are not subject to overriding federal law.” Leiter Minerals Inc. v. United States 352 US 220 (CERT No 26, 1957)
e) “Public policy is better served by imposing a duty in such circumstances to help prevent future harm.” Gibson v. Kasey (AZ Supreme Court, No CV-06-0100-PR, 2006; AZ Ct App Div 1 No 1 CA-CV 05-0119) (En banc)
f) ARS 25-408(H)(I) Judicial acts and the court must adhere to previous agreed custody agreements
g) ARS 25-403 and 25-403.03 domestic violence and family law
h) Child abuse proceedings involve the government acting in an adversarial role toward the custodial parent, an entirely different circumstance and procedure than divorce proceedings where there is no governmental accusation of fault. “Persons faced with possible forced dissolution of their custodial rights have a more critical need for procedural protections than do those in ongoing family affairs.” Santosky 455 U.S. at 753
In Brittain v. Hansen, the 9th Cir. Court discussed the greater custodial liberty interest and procedural differences of child abuse and custody cases, and concluded that “by failing to recognize the lesser liberty interest in visitation Id. at 992 the court applied the erroneous legal standard “best interests of the child,” quoting Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 303-04 (1993) and held the “best interest of the child” legal standard applies to custody law not child abuse proceedings”
“Custodial parents have a greater liberty interest than those with visitation rights.” Brittain v Hansen, 451 F.3d 982, 991, 992 (9th Cir. 2006), quoting Weller v Dep’t of Social Svcs, 901 f2d 387, 394 (4th Cir. 1990), Zakrzewski v Fox, 87 F.3d 1011, 1013-14 (8th Cir. 1996), Wise v. Bravo, 666 F.2d 1328, 1332-33 (10th Cir. 1981); “A non-custodial parent lacks prudential standing to bring Establishment Clause challenge based on his relationship with his child.” Brittain, quoting Elk Grove Unified School Dist v. Newdow, 542 US 1, 13-18 (2004); “Liberty interests of parents with only visitation rights does not give rise to a constitutional violation” Brittain, (9th Cir.) quoting Wise (10th Cir. 1981)
i) “Substantive Due Process rights are those which involve greater liberties, as those guaranteed by the First Amendment”. Glucksburg 512 U.S. at 721-22
Anthony v. City of New York 339 F.3d 129, 139 (2nd Cir 2003) “(1) whether any policy makers of the municipality knew that it’s employees will confront or encounter a given situation,; (2) that the situation either presents the employees with a difficult choices of this sort and that training or supervision will make less difficult or that there is a history of the employees mishandling the situation; and (3) that the wrong choice by employees will frequently cause the deprivation of a Person’s Constitutional rights.” See also: King v Atiyeh, Monell v New York City Dept of Social Services
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 US 833, 901 (1992), quoting Miller v. Johnson, 515 US _ (1995) "Legislative purpose to accomplish a constitutionally forbidden result may be found when that purpose was the predominant factor motivating the legislature's decision.", Shaw v. Hunt 517 US _ (1996), Joseph P. Mazurek, AG of Montana v. James H. Armstrong et al (Cert. 9th Cir Ct App, No 96-1104, 1997)
5. ARS 8-821 standard of proof for temporary custody is unconstitutional under the USSC “Matthews Test” addressed by the AZ Supreme Court in Kent K. and Sherry K. ARS 8-821 provides for taking into temporary custody under the “reasonable grounds” standard, similarly vague to suspicion or probable cause. A parent’s interests at this stage are paramount; the interest of the government is to reunite the child with the custodial parent. This error of lowered standard of proof, “reasonable grounds,” at the early stage of proceedings stacks the deck against custodial parents’ greater interest in their child and familial association. Matthews v. Eldridge and Kent K and Sherry K set the minimum standard at “preponderance of evidence”. The goals at this stage are prevention and reunification not termination which does not enter the equation until 12 – 18 months later. Until the first 18 months pass, a real reunification effort with the custodial parent is mandated by federal statutory law (contract law). By giving the adverse party the greater interest and lowering the standard of proof thus increasing the risk of error, a parent’s case will be lost at the first stage of proceedings, a deprivation of substantive due process to protect the greater interests of the parent. There must be a concrete offer of due process afforded to the parent with the greater liberty interest in adversarial proceedings, not the current level of rubber-stamping and paper-shuffling to meet federal funding guidelines. These are families. Santosky 455 U.S. at 753 (holding child abuse proceedings involve the government acting in an adversarial role toward the custodial parent, and such “persons faced with possible forced dissolution of their custodial rights have a more critical need for procedural protections.”)
In Re KG, SG, and TG (9th Cir. 2004), reaffirming the decision of the U.S.S.C., “This court has noted that the permanent termination of parental rights has been described as the family law equivalent of the death penalty. Consequently, parents must be afforded every procedural and substantive protection the law allows.”
6. ARS 8-824(F) is unconstitutional; the Standard of Proof is limited to “probable cause to believe that continued temporary custody is clearly necessary.” In applying this standard of proof, the court will make an erroneous determination of unfitness without offer of proof (common in juvenile court) and substantive and procedural due process of law which will lead to loss of the parent’s right to familial association, and in affect, terminated rights to custody. Kent K and Sherry K, quoting Santosky (holding erroneous determination of unfitness at this stage could lead to permanently extinguishing the relationship between a fit parent and her child).
7. The State of Arizona encouraged and instituted into state law a vague and easily misconstrued policy of mental illness as reason for removal of a child as well as for termination of parental rights. ARS 8-533(B)(3) and ARS 8-846(1)(b) “A State shall not be immune under the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States for violation of a federally protected right…remedies (both at law and in equity) are available.” Title 42 Chap. 126 Sec 12202 and Title 42 Chap. 21 Subchapter V 2000d-7, and Title 28 CFR, PART 35 Nondiscrimination on Basis of Disability, State and Local Government Services
Title II of the ADA, "No qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services or programs of a public entity [reasonable efforts to prevent removal and reunification programs of CPS], or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity." 42 USC 12132 A "public entity" is defined as "(A) any State or local government; or (B) any department, agency, special purpose district, or other instrumentality of a State or States or local government." 42 USC 12131
“Where a statute authorizes conduct that is ‘patently violative of fundamental constitutional principles,’ reliance on the statute does not immunize the official's conduct”. Grossman 33 F3d at 1209 See also: Meyers v. Contra Costa County Dept. Soc Svcs 812 F2d 1154, 1157, 1158 (9th Cir. 1987) and Miller v Gammie (No 01-1549, DC No CV-99-00275-HDM PHA, 9th CirCtApp. 2003)
8. Another usage of the wrong standard of law that needing addressed, is the “best interests of the child” standard in adversarial child abuse cases which invoke greater liberties and constitutional protections for familial association. “Best interests of the child” standard is erroneous in child abuse proceedings. Only when proceedings reach the permanency stage, specifically the disposition stage, does the balance of interests shift away from the custodial parent. Matthews
9. Much of A.R.S. Title 8 is unconstitutional and in violation of overriding federal law; for brevity petitioner provided examples. Vague policies, statutes, laws, or the encouragement thereof that violate Federal Child Welfare Funding Laws, constitutionally and federally-protected rights must be examined. Families have the right to be free from unbridled State intrusion into their private family life without afforded substantive and procedural due process of law. When a case of state custody is necessary, children and others in the custody of the state must be afforded the duty of care owed by the state and its agencies under the Fourteenth Amendment.
10. Federal laws of foster care and adoption, legislated by Congress with good intention, are routinely violated by the state. Rather than adhere to statutory preventative measures to provide assistance to keep families together, they many times remove children from their parents when less extreme measures should have been taken violating federal statutory law and the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Arizona ADES-DCYF-CPS often places children with abusive noncustodial parents or in abusive foster/shelter care. (State Created Danger)
11. State law and policies announced by Governor Napolitano encourage unlawful practices of use of these federal funds resulting in need for more monies as the number of children removed from their parents rise. Funds should be used to provide families assistance with food, shelter, furnishings, education, location to domestic violence shelters, state training of its agencies in recognizing common consequences of domestic violence on victims and their children, and other preventative measures to stabilize the family and prevent removal.
12. The most critical issue in The State is the additional large expenditures of monies to hire additional caseworkers, reportedly to handle the overflow of children, but the reality is that additional caseworkers coupled with current “take the child and run” policies encourage improper practices, erroneous and non-explicit findings of abuse, and has the beginnings of an enterprise whose practice is to break up the family. Hiring additional caseworkers creates more crisis and more child fatalities; more children are removed rather than focus on current cases; the state is not the parent and not able to provide the proper standard of care as is its duty, nor can it provide nurturing. If more monies need be spent, it should be appropriated to training current caseworkers in integrity and ethics characteristic to the social services Code of Ethics. Higher standards of care and duty to assist those in need are standards to which social workers should be held. It is time that the State of Arizona brings those ethics back into its ADES– DCYF Child Protection Services agency, perhaps with more experienced workers with families of their own who understand the value of the family.
13. AZDES CPS removes children on suspicion (substantive due process violations). Many children are then abused in state custody (six to ten times higher in state custody per NCCAA). Reasonable efforts must be made to preserve the First Amendment protection of familial association in Arizona. It is obvious that this petitioner, the Mays family, the Hill family, the Payne family and other families undisclosed to the public, the Governor’s office, the State of Arizona and its CPS agency, the Pima County Juvenile Court in the State of Arizona, the City of Tucson Police Department, and The People are aware that there are serious Constitutional policy/procedural deficiencies regarding the safety, care, and protection of children and their families in the State of Arizona under current CPS policies and procedures.
14. The announced policy statement by Governor Napolitano coupled with the seemingly endless supply of federal monies encourages wrongful state intrusion into the lives of families in Arizona and violates constitutional and federally-protected rights and federal law.
15. Pattern and Practice of State Created Danger
* Payne children, deceased 2007 (CPS - Domestic Violence)
* Emily Mays, deceased August 2005, (CPS)
* Dwight Hill, deceased November 2005, (CPS)
* D.R.A., Abused, October – November 2005 (CPS)
* Others unnamed to protect the families.
The State-Created Danger Doctrine See Penilla v. City of Huntington Park, 115 F.3d 707, 710 (9th Cir. 1997) “If affirmative conduct on the part of a state actor places a plaintiff in danger, and the officer acts in deliberate indifference to that plaintiff’s safety, a claim arises under §1983.”. Second, the official’s act did more than simply expose the plaintiff to a danger that already existed. See L.W. v. Grubbs, 974 F.2d 119, 121 (9th Cir. 1992); see also Dwares v. City of New York, 985 F.2d 94, 99 (2d Cir. 1993); Freeman v. Ferguson, 911 F.2d 52, 55 (8th Cir. 1990). Finally, the official acted with deliberate indifference to known or obvious dangers. See L.W. v. Grubbs, 92 F.3d 894, 900 (9th Cir. 1996) “The plaintiff must show that the state official participated in creating a dangerous condition, and acted with deliberate indifference to the known or obvious danger in subjecting the plaintiff to it.”
18 U.S.C 4 Misprision of Felony – parents report abuse of their innocent children in CPS custody and judicial, state, county, and other actors, with deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of families and their children to a duty of care in state proceedings and custody (Fourteenth Amendment), do not act to interfere or stop the abuse, and even retaliate on the reporting parent by termination of rights, terminating visitation, or relinquishing custody of the child to prevent further reports of abuse at the hands of state agency policies and procedures upon these children. This is appalling and an outrage.
16. Petitioner’s case parallels the Mays and Hill cases in the period of time of injuries, the nature of the injuries, and deliberate indifference of the court, CPS, state-appointed attorneys, GALs, and assistant attorney generals acting as counsel for ADES to step up to the plate to provide the owed duty of care to protect children in state custody from further harm (death in the Mays, Payne, and Hill, other cases). The Payne case, this petitioners, and others demonstrate the deliberate indifference of CPS and juvenile courts toward domestic violence victims and their children and the need for change of the improper standard of “best interests of the child” in child abuse cases to protect the greater liberty interests of the custodial parent. It also demonstrates the complete unlawful disregard for “previous custody agreements”. ARS 25-408(H)(I)
17. This petitioner and other parents have contacted (2003-2007) Arizona Office of The Governor, Arizona House and Senate Members, and other public officials (State, City, AZBAR, AZ and Pima County Courts, and the like) who have the ability to make changes to inadequate or dangerous policy both before and after herein stated violations. They are all aware there is a problem with their own policies regarding the constitutional right of familial association and the Doctrine of State Created Danger and the duty of care afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment involving child protection and related policies.
Instead of positive changes to policies or even investigation into violations, policies were changed to further deny the Constitutional Right to due process and to strengthen policies that violate Constitutional rights in adversarial CPS cases.
18. Bill SB1430, initiated by Senator Johnson would have strengthened due process protections for First Amendment rights for CPS TPR cases, Arizona State Senate Committee on Family Services Minutes, dated February 13, 2006. Petitioner spoke at this Senate committee hearing. In June 2006 it was voted down due to Napolitano’s threat of veto. Napolitano has at the same time publicly stated that caseworkers are to “err on the side of the child”, affecting increased removals and TPR and creating policy at CPS that violates due process to families under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. "It seems like a lot of trouble for something that's going to get vetoed." Rep. Pete Hershberger, R-Tucson, said before the bill died on the House floor.
Napolitano’s threatened veto and changes to policy removed jury trials for CPS TPR cases is in violation of the 1st, 6th, 7th, and 14th Amendments guaranteeing the right to trial by jury and the right of confrontation in any criminal or government adversarial trial where the value in controversy exceeds 20 dollars (a child’s life and the right of familial association is invaluable).
The excuse was that “most jury trials resulted in TPR anyway”. This statement illustrates by admission the lack of procedural and substantive due process in Arizona juvenile courts, demonstrating the need for reform policies that implement the Constitutional Due Process of Law protections of the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, Arizona Constitution, Federal and Statutory law. See: Cf. Lorillard Tobacco Co v. Reilly 533 U.S. 525, 540-41, 121 S.Ct. 2404, 2414 (2001)
AZ State Representative Laura Knaperek, as well as child advocacy expert Richard Wexler, spoke out strongly condemning Governor Napolitano’s policy saying it will deeply hurt Arizona’s families, and it has.
19. The Governor’s policy implementation (threat of veto, lowered standards of proof, and removal of jury trials) is a deliberate and knowing error as ruled by the Arizona Supreme Court decision in Kent K. and Sherry K. v. Bobby M. and Leeh M. where the Court, applying Matthews and Santosky, held that, "The private interest affected is commanding; the risk of error from using a preponderance standard is substantial; and the countervailing governmental interest favoring that standard is comparatively slight. Because the preponderance of the evidence standard essentially allocates the risk of error equally between the parents and the state, due process requires a higher standard of proof than “preponderance of the evidence”.
20. This petitioner spoke at Governor Napolitano’s CPS Reform conference in 2003 on domestic violence and the need for CPS to protect Mothers and their children. The recent horrific cases of Tyler and Ariana Payne and another unnamed father who dated a CPS supervisor parallels this case and the problem of Domestic Violence and CPS policies of separating Mother her child in favor of the noncustodial batterer, thus inflicting the sins of the batterer on the children, as addressed in an injunction against NY Child Protection in Nicholson et al v Scoppetta et al and Williams et al where the Court concluded:
“The City may not penalize a mother by separating her from her children; nor may children be separated from the mother, in effect visiting upon them the sins of their mother’s batterer” (In re Nicholson, 181 F supp 2d 182, 188 [ED NY Jan. 20, 2002], Nicholson v Williams, 203 F Supp 2d 153 [ED NY Mar 18, 2002] [108-pg elaboration grounds injunction]). The Court found that ACS unnecessarily, routinely charged mothers with neglect and removed their children where the mothers were the victims of domestic violence; that ACS did so without ensuring that the mother had access to the services she needed, without a court order, and without returning these children promptly; that ACS caseworkers and managers lacked adequate training about domestic violence, and their practice was to separate mother and child when less extreme measures should have been taken. The District court cited the testimony of a manager that it was common practice in domestic violence cases for ACS to wait a few days before going to court after removing the child because “after a few days of the children being in foster care, the mother will agree to ACS’s conditions without the matter even going to court” 203 F Supp 2d at 170.
See also: Pathologizing the Victim, a common tactic used in family court to applaud the actions of the abuser while labeling the victim unstable.
21. Common sense and civil law state that when government or agency policies are in violation of Constitutional Rights or of Federal Law or Federally protected rights, state and local governments and their agencies that institute or encourage policies are directly liable for wrongs and injuries that result. Governor Napolitano and the State of Arizona’s policies and deliberate indifference has assumed responsibility for injuries instilled upon families such as those of my child and of Emily Mays and Dwight Hill (infants) and further cases such as the Payne case (involving prior domestic violence and CPS change of custody) which show the sufferings and irreparable injury of parents and their children as a result. Children are no safer in state custody than with parents, nor are they any safer with CPS involvement. Child abuse is an issue for the police, not a social agency.
22. The federal law on child abuse and neglect is found primarily in Title IV-B&E of the Social Security Act transfers monies from the Social Security Fund to The State. Approximately seventy-five percent of the funds in Arizona is federal money which is available only if the state meets eligibility requirements; these funds can be withdrawn if requirements are not met.
The history and sources of the Child Welfare funding are primarily found in: Federal Payments for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance 42 USC 670-679b; the 1974 Walter Mondale Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, PL 93-247, 88 Stat. 4, 42 USC 5101-5107; and the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, PL 96-272, 94 Stat. 500, 42 USC 670-676 (and amending 620-628); 42 USC 107(b), 5106a(b)(1) Grants to States for child abuse and neglect prevention and treatment programs, as well as other sources such as the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC), a contract which provides financial incentives for interstate placement of foster children, reportedly to find permanence.
23. The State of Arizona is the governing body of AZDES-DCYF-CPS. The State collects Federal Funding, (42 USC 670-679b) (17 Trillion in 2004, U.S. total) from the United States Government in the form of Title IV (Parts B & E) funding, mandated to be used primarily for prevention and reunification purposes (42 USC 671). Title 42 Chapter 67: Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment and Adoption Reform also offers federal funding grants to CPS agencies through various eligibility programs such as fostering, adoptions, interstate placements, etc., as do other additional grants/receipts.
24. ADES receives federal funding through the state which then provides funding to domestic violence shelters and programs through its Community Services Administration (CSA) and collects information such as Name, Address, Age, Phone Number, Children’s Names and Ages, Income, Disability Status, and other personal information. ADES maintains its own private database on Mothers and children who receive domestic violence services. Recent events in the Payne case as well as this petitioner and others show a pattern of disregard for Mothers and their children who are victims of domestic violence.
25. The Supreme Court of the State of Arizona has power to issue declaratory relief in the form of Arizona State Congressional investigation into state records of specific practices of this agency such as the use of federal funding to meet federal eligibility requirements regarding prevention, inconsistencies in individual case documentation, nonexplicit rubber-stamped judicial findings, paper-shuffling to meet federal statutory law, foster provider licensing, state-contractor conflict-of-interests (fishing expeditions to build a case through forced services to justify unlawful removals post facto), and for examination or positive enforcement of federal law that overrides state law matter of child welfare.
26. This petitioner prays this AZ Supreme Court will honor Declaratory Positive Relief to address the problems in the Child “Protection” Services of the State of Arizona, such as amending state statutes and state policy to properly comply with overriding federal funding contract law.
Dated this 17th day of May, 2007
Signed in ink for the court
Roma O. Amor, Appearing as herself
SUBMISSION OF TESTIMONY FOR THE RECORD
ABOLISH CPS. Let police handle it!
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT
CHILD WELFARE HEARING 5-15-07
Submitted for:
Roma O. Amor and Dante R. Amor (Rafe)
All Arizona families and for those children that suffer.
.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings. ... ew&id=6197
Statement of Roma O. Amor, Tucson, Arizona
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Roma O. Amor, petitioner appearing as herself
ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC SECURITY (ADES) & ITS DIVISION OF CHILDREN YOUTH AND FAMILIES (DCYF) - CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES (CPS), Parties in Interest
MOTION FOR DECLARATORY RELIEF AND COMPLIANCE
Now comes Roma O. Amor seeking Declaratory Relief for Positive Enforcement to address the issues of the greater public interest of the Constitutional, federal statutory, and Federally-Protected Rights of families and their children who reside in the State of Arizona. Petitioner seeks relief against unconstitutional policies of ADES and CPS that violate Federal Child Welfare Funding Law (Federal Contracts). CPS has adopted an increasingly unbridled pattern of disregard for the law and its methods of intrusion into the private and family affairs resulting in unnecessary child fatalities and abuse while in ADES custody or under investigation by CPS Agents.
1. Jurisdiction is conferred by AZ Rule of Civil Proc. 57, AZ Rule of the Supreme Court 28(G), Arizona Constitution Article 6 Section 5
2. Venue is found in this court for State of Arizona policies and actions under color of state law of its CPS agency, its Office of the Attorney General, and the Juvenile Courts of its subdivisions.
3. Questions Raised:
a) Whether current child welfare laws of The State of Arizona are unlawful, illegal, and unconstitutional under Federal Statutory Child Welfare Funding Law (Federal Contract Law) and the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Arizona child welfare laws violate Federal Contract Law under the United States Constitution Article I Sec. 8 cl. 1 Spending Clause which gives the U.S. Congress power to place conditions on federal funding grants. Spending Clause legislation is a contract; in return for federal funds, the recipients (State of Arizona) agree to comply with federally imposed conditions.
See: Davis v. Monroe County Bd. of Ed. 526 U. S. 629, 640 (1999), Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman 451 U. S. 1, 17 (1981); see also Davis, supra, at 640; Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School Dist. 524 U. S. 274, 286 (1998); Guardians Assn. v. Civil Serv. Community of New York City 463 U. S. 582, 599 (1983) (opinion of White, J.); id., at 632-633 (Marshall, J., dissenting); Lau v. Nichols 414 U. S. 563, 568-569 (1974).
4. Supporting Statements and Standards of Law Incorporated Herein:
a) ARS 41-1962 “Federal law shall control.”
b) Detention/Removal Hearings, Federal Statutory Law, examples
- CFR Sec 1356.21(d) Documentation of Judicial Determinations (2) Neither affidavits nor nunc pro tunc orders will be accepted as verification documentation in support of reasonable efforts and contrary to the welfare judicial determinations. (3) Court orders that reference State law to substantiate judicial determinations are NOT acceptable, even if State law provides that a removal must be based on a judicial determination that remaining in the home would be contrary to the child’s welfare or that removal can only be ordered after reasonable efforts have been made.
If finding is not explicitly documented, Title IV-E funding is severed under federal law. 45 CFR 1356.21(c)
- 42 USC 672(a)(1) Court must make the finding that “continuance in the home of the parent or legal guardian would be contrary to the child’s welfare.” and “removal from the home was the result of a explicit judicial determination and that reasonable efforts have been made”.
This finding must be made at the time of the first court ruling authorizing removal of the child from the home or lose all Title IV-E federal funding. 45 CFR 1356.21(c)
- 42 USC 672(a)(2) Court must make finding that “placement and care are the responsibility of the State agency or any other public agency with whom the responsible state agency has an agreement.”
No federal funding until findings are made 45 CFR 1356.71(d)(1)(iii)
- 42 USC 671(a)(15), 42 USC 672(a)(1), and 45 CFR 1356.21(b)(1) Court must make the finding that “reasonable efforts have been made to prevent or eliminate need for removal.” Mandates Prevention to Prevent Removal
If explicit finding are not documented Title IV-E funding will be withdrawn. 45 CFR 1356.21(b)(1)(ii)
- PL 96-272 Judicial determinations are required to be explicit and so stated in the court order. The Senate Report on the bill that became Public Law 96-272 characterized the required judicial determinations as “important safeguard(s) against inappropriate agency action and made clear that such requirements were not to become “a mere pro forma exercise in paper shuffling to obtain Federal Funding.” (S. Rept. No. 336, 96th Congress, 2d Session. 16, 1980) “We concluded, based on our review of States’ documentation of judicial determinations over the past years that, in many instances, these important safeguards had become precisely what congress was concerned that they not become.”
c) State statutes and regulations cannot be construed to displace the protections of the United States Constitution, even when the state acts to protect the welfare of children. Cf. Lorillard Tobacco Co v. Reilly 533 U.S. 525, 540-41, 121 S.Ct. 2404, 2414 (2001)
d) “State courts can decide definitively only questions of state law that are not subject to overriding federal law.” Leiter Minerals Inc. v. United States 352 US 220 (CERT No 26, 1957)
e) “Public policy is better served by imposing a duty in such circumstances to help prevent future harm.” Gibson v. Kasey (AZ Supreme Court, No CV-06-0100-PR, 2006; AZ Ct App Div 1 No 1 CA-CV 05-0119) (En banc)
f) ARS 25-408(H)(I) Judicial acts and the court must adhere to previous agreed custody agreements
g) ARS 25-403 and 25-403.03 domestic violence and family law
h) Child abuse proceedings involve the government acting in an adversarial role toward the custodial parent, an entirely different circumstance and procedure than divorce proceedings where there is no governmental accusation of fault. “Persons faced with possible forced dissolution of their custodial rights have a more critical need for procedural protections than do those in ongoing family affairs.” Santosky 455 U.S. at 753
In Brittain v. Hansen, the 9th Cir. Court discussed the greater custodial liberty interest and procedural differences of child abuse and custody cases, and concluded that “by failing to recognize the lesser liberty interest in visitation Id. at 992 the court applied the erroneous legal standard “best interests of the child,” quoting Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 303-04 (1993) and held the “best interest of the child” legal standard applies to custody law not child abuse proceedings”
“Custodial parents have a greater liberty interest than those with visitation rights.” Brittain v Hansen, 451 F.3d 982, 991, 992 (9th Cir. 2006), quoting Weller v Dep’t of Social Svcs, 901 f2d 387, 394 (4th Cir. 1990), Zakrzewski v Fox, 87 F.3d 1011, 1013-14 (8th Cir. 1996), Wise v. Bravo, 666 F.2d 1328, 1332-33 (10th Cir. 1981); “A non-custodial parent lacks prudential standing to bring Establishment Clause challenge based on his relationship with his child.” Brittain, quoting Elk Grove Unified School Dist v. Newdow, 542 US 1, 13-18 (2004); “Liberty interests of parents with only visitation rights does not give rise to a constitutional violation” Brittain, (9th Cir.) quoting Wise (10th Cir. 1981)
i) “Substantive Due Process rights are those which involve greater liberties, as those guaranteed by the First Amendment”. Glucksburg 512 U.S. at 721-22
Anthony v. City of New York 339 F.3d 129, 139 (2nd Cir 2003) “(1) whether any policy makers of the municipality knew that it’s employees will confront or encounter a given situation,; (2) that the situation either presents the employees with a difficult choices of this sort and that training or supervision will make less difficult or that there is a history of the employees mishandling the situation; and (3) that the wrong choice by employees will frequently cause the deprivation of a Person’s Constitutional rights.” See also: King v Atiyeh, Monell v New York City Dept of Social Services
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 US 833, 901 (1992), quoting Miller v. Johnson, 515 US _ (1995) "Legislative purpose to accomplish a constitutionally forbidden result may be found when that purpose was the predominant factor motivating the legislature's decision.", Shaw v. Hunt 517 US _ (1996), Joseph P. Mazurek, AG of Montana v. James H. Armstrong et al (Cert. 9th Cir Ct App, No 96-1104, 1997)
5. ARS 8-821 standard of proof for temporary custody is unconstitutional under the USSC “Matthews Test” addressed by the AZ Supreme Court in Kent K. and Sherry K. ARS 8-821 provides for taking into temporary custody under the “reasonable grounds” standard, similarly vague to suspicion or probable cause. A parent’s interests at this stage are paramount; the interest of the government is to reunite the child with the custodial parent. This error of lowered standard of proof, “reasonable grounds,” at the early stage of proceedings stacks the deck against custodial parents’ greater interest in their child and familial association. Matthews v. Eldridge and Kent K and Sherry K set the minimum standard at “preponderance of evidence”. The goals at this stage are prevention and reunification not termination which does not enter the equation until 12 – 18 months later. Until the first 18 months pass, a real reunification effort with the custodial parent is mandated by federal statutory law (contract law). By giving the adverse party the greater interest and lowering the standard of proof thus increasing the risk of error, a parent’s case will be lost at the first stage of proceedings, a deprivation of substantive due process to protect the greater interests of the parent. There must be a concrete offer of due process afforded to the parent with the greater liberty interest in adversarial proceedings, not the current level of rubber-stamping and paper-shuffling to meet federal funding guidelines. These are families. Santosky 455 U.S. at 753 (holding child abuse proceedings involve the government acting in an adversarial role toward the custodial parent, and such “persons faced with possible forced dissolution of their custodial rights have a more critical need for procedural protections.”)
In Re KG, SG, and TG (9th Cir. 2004), reaffirming the decision of the U.S.S.C., “This court has noted that the permanent termination of parental rights has been described as the family law equivalent of the death penalty. Consequently, parents must be afforded every procedural and substantive protection the law allows.”
6. ARS 8-824(F) is unconstitutional; the Standard of Proof is limited to “probable cause to believe that continued temporary custody is clearly necessary.” In applying this standard of proof, the court will make an erroneous determination of unfitness without offer of proof (common in juvenile court) and substantive and procedural due process of law which will lead to loss of the parent’s right to familial association, and in affect, terminated rights to custody. Kent K and Sherry K, quoting Santosky (holding erroneous determination of unfitness at this stage could lead to permanently extinguishing the relationship between a fit parent and her child).
7. The State of Arizona encouraged and instituted into state law a vague and easily misconstrued policy of mental illness as reason for removal of a child as well as for termination of parental rights. ARS 8-533(B)(3) and ARS 8-846(1)(b) “A State shall not be immune under the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States for violation of a federally protected right…remedies (both at law and in equity) are available.” Title 42 Chap. 126 Sec 12202 and Title 42 Chap. 21 Subchapter V 2000d-7, and Title 28 CFR, PART 35 Nondiscrimination on Basis of Disability, State and Local Government Services
Title II of the ADA, "No qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services or programs of a public entity [reasonable efforts to prevent removal and reunification programs of CPS], or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity." 42 USC 12132 A "public entity" is defined as "(A) any State or local government; or (B) any department, agency, special purpose district, or other instrumentality of a State or States or local government." 42 USC 12131
“Where a statute authorizes conduct that is ‘patently violative of fundamental constitutional principles,’ reliance on the statute does not immunize the official's conduct”. Grossman 33 F3d at 1209 See also: Meyers v. Contra Costa County Dept. Soc Svcs 812 F2d 1154, 1157, 1158 (9th Cir. 1987) and Miller v Gammie (No 01-1549, DC No CV-99-00275-HDM PHA, 9th CirCtApp. 2003)
8. Another usage of the wrong standard of law that needing addressed, is the “best interests of the child” standard in adversarial child abuse cases which invoke greater liberties and constitutional protections for familial association. “Best interests of the child” standard is erroneous in child abuse proceedings. Only when proceedings reach the permanency stage, specifically the disposition stage, does the balance of interests shift away from the custodial parent. Matthews
9. Much of A.R.S. Title 8 is unconstitutional and in violation of overriding federal law; for brevity petitioner provided examples. Vague policies, statutes, laws, or the encouragement thereof that violate Federal Child Welfare Funding Laws, constitutionally and federally-protected rights must be examined. Families have the right to be free from unbridled State intrusion into their private family life without afforded substantive and procedural due process of law. When a case of state custody is necessary, children and others in the custody of the state must be afforded the duty of care owed by the state and its agencies under the Fourteenth Amendment.
10. Federal laws of foster care and adoption, legislated by Congress with good intention, are routinely violated by the state. Rather than adhere to statutory preventative measures to provide assistance to keep families together, they many times remove children from their parents when less extreme measures should have been taken violating federal statutory law and the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Arizona ADES-DCYF-CPS often places children with abusive noncustodial parents or in abusive foster/shelter care. (State Created Danger)
11. State law and policies announced by Governor Napolitano encourage unlawful practices of use of these federal funds resulting in need for more monies as the number of children removed from their parents rise. Funds should be used to provide families assistance with food, shelter, furnishings, education, location to domestic violence shelters, state training of its agencies in recognizing common consequences of domestic violence on victims and their children, and other preventative measures to stabilize the family and prevent removal.
12. The most critical issue in The State is the additional large expenditures of monies to hire additional caseworkers, reportedly to handle the overflow of children, but the reality is that additional caseworkers coupled with current “take the child and run” policies encourage improper practices, erroneous and non-explicit findings of abuse, and has the beginnings of an enterprise whose practice is to break up the family. Hiring additional caseworkers creates more crisis and more child fatalities; more children are removed rather than focus on current cases; the state is not the parent and not able to provide the proper standard of care as is its duty, nor can it provide nurturing. If more monies need be spent, it should be appropriated to training current caseworkers in integrity and ethics characteristic to the social services Code of Ethics. Higher standards of care and duty to assist those in need are standards to which social workers should be held. It is time that the State of Arizona brings those ethics back into its ADES– DCYF Child Protection Services agency, perhaps with more experienced workers with families of their own who understand the value of the family.
13. AZDES CPS removes children on suspicion (substantive due process violations). Many children are then abused in state custody (six to ten times higher in state custody per NCCAA). Reasonable efforts must be made to preserve the First Amendment protection of familial association in Arizona. It is obvious that this petitioner, the Mays family, the Hill family, the Payne family and other families undisclosed to the public, the Governor’s office, the State of Arizona and its CPS agency, the Pima County Juvenile Court in the State of Arizona, the City of Tucson Police Department, and The People are aware that there are serious Constitutional policy/procedural deficiencies regarding the safety, care, and protection of children and their families in the State of Arizona under current CPS policies and procedures.
14. The announced policy statement by Governor Napolitano coupled with the seemingly endless supply of federal monies encourages wrongful state intrusion into the lives of families in Arizona and violates constitutional and federally-protected rights and federal law.
15. Pattern and Practice of State Created Danger
* Payne children, deceased 2007 (CPS - Domestic Violence)
* Emily Mays, deceased August 2005, (CPS)
* Dwight Hill, deceased November 2005, (CPS)
* D.R.A., Abused, October – November 2005 (CPS)
* Others unnamed to protect the families.
The State-Created Danger Doctrine See Penilla v. City of Huntington Park, 115 F.3d 707, 710 (9th Cir. 1997) “If affirmative conduct on the part of a state actor places a plaintiff in danger, and the officer acts in deliberate indifference to that plaintiff’s safety, a claim arises under §1983.”. Second, the official’s act did more than simply expose the plaintiff to a danger that already existed. See L.W. v. Grubbs, 974 F.2d 119, 121 (9th Cir. 1992); see also Dwares v. City of New York, 985 F.2d 94, 99 (2d Cir. 1993); Freeman v. Ferguson, 911 F.2d 52, 55 (8th Cir. 1990). Finally, the official acted with deliberate indifference to known or obvious dangers. See L.W. v. Grubbs, 92 F.3d 894, 900 (9th Cir. 1996) “The plaintiff must show that the state official participated in creating a dangerous condition, and acted with deliberate indifference to the known or obvious danger in subjecting the plaintiff to it.”
18 U.S.C 4 Misprision of Felony – parents report abuse of their innocent children in CPS custody and judicial, state, county, and other actors, with deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of families and their children to a duty of care in state proceedings and custody (Fourteenth Amendment), do not act to interfere or stop the abuse, and even retaliate on the reporting parent by termination of rights, terminating visitation, or relinquishing custody of the child to prevent further reports of abuse at the hands of state agency policies and procedures upon these children. This is appalling and an outrage.
16. Petitioner’s case parallels the Mays and Hill cases in the period of time of injuries, the nature of the injuries, and deliberate indifference of the court, CPS, state-appointed attorneys, GALs, and assistant attorney generals acting as counsel for ADES to step up to the plate to provide the owed duty of care to protect children in state custody from further harm (death in the Mays, Payne, and Hill, other cases). The Payne case, this petitioners, and others demonstrate the deliberate indifference of CPS and juvenile courts toward domestic violence victims and their children and the need for change of the improper standard of “best interests of the child” in child abuse cases to protect the greater liberty interests of the custodial parent. It also demonstrates the complete unlawful disregard for “previous custody agreements”. ARS 25-408(H)(I)
17. This petitioner and other parents have contacted (2003-2007) Arizona Office of The Governor, Arizona House and Senate Members, and other public officials (State, City, AZBAR, AZ and Pima County Courts, and the like) who have the ability to make changes to inadequate or dangerous policy both before and after herein stated violations. They are all aware there is a problem with their own policies regarding the constitutional right of familial association and the Doctrine of State Created Danger and the duty of care afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment involving child protection and related policies.
Instead of positive changes to policies or even investigation into violations, policies were changed to further deny the Constitutional Right to due process and to strengthen policies that violate Constitutional rights in adversarial CPS cases.
18. Bill SB1430, initiated by Senator Johnson would have strengthened due process protections for First Amendment rights for CPS TPR cases, Arizona State Senate Committee on Family Services Minutes, dated February 13, 2006. Petitioner spoke at this Senate committee hearing. In June 2006 it was voted down due to Napolitano’s threat of veto. Napolitano has at the same time publicly stated that caseworkers are to “err on the side of the child”, affecting increased removals and TPR and creating policy at CPS that violates due process to families under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. "It seems like a lot of trouble for something that's going to get vetoed." Rep. Pete Hershberger, R-Tucson, said before the bill died on the House floor.
Napolitano’s threatened veto and changes to policy removed jury trials for CPS TPR cases is in violation of the 1st, 6th, 7th, and 14th Amendments guaranteeing the right to trial by jury and the right of confrontation in any criminal or government adversarial trial where the value in controversy exceeds 20 dollars (a child’s life and the right of familial association is invaluable).
The excuse was that “most jury trials resulted in TPR anyway”. This statement illustrates by admission the lack of procedural and substantive due process in Arizona juvenile courts, demonstrating the need for reform policies that implement the Constitutional Due Process of Law protections of the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, Arizona Constitution, Federal and Statutory law. See: Cf. Lorillard Tobacco Co v. Reilly 533 U.S. 525, 540-41, 121 S.Ct. 2404, 2414 (2001)
AZ State Representative Laura Knaperek, as well as child advocacy expert Richard Wexler, spoke out strongly condemning Governor Napolitano’s policy saying it will deeply hurt Arizona’s families, and it has.
19. The Governor’s policy implementation (threat of veto, lowered standards of proof, and removal of jury trials) is a deliberate and knowing error as ruled by the Arizona Supreme Court decision in Kent K. and Sherry K. v. Bobby M. and Leeh M. where the Court, applying Matthews and Santosky, held that, "The private interest affected is commanding; the risk of error from using a preponderance standard is substantial; and the countervailing governmental interest favoring that standard is comparatively slight. Because the preponderance of the evidence standard essentially allocates the risk of error equally between the parents and the state, due process requires a higher standard of proof than “preponderance of the evidence”.
20. This petitioner spoke at Governor Napolitano’s CPS Reform conference in 2003 on domestic violence and the need for CPS to protect Mothers and their children. The recent horrific cases of Tyler and Ariana Payne and another unnamed father who dated a CPS supervisor parallels this case and the problem of Domestic Violence and CPS policies of separating Mother her child in favor of the noncustodial batterer, thus inflicting the sins of the batterer on the children, as addressed in an injunction against NY Child Protection in Nicholson et al v Scoppetta et al and Williams et al where the Court concluded:
“The City may not penalize a mother by separating her from her children; nor may children be separated from the mother, in effect visiting upon them the sins of their mother’s batterer” (In re Nicholson, 181 F supp 2d 182, 188 [ED NY Jan. 20, 2002], Nicholson v Williams, 203 F Supp 2d 153 [ED NY Mar 18, 2002] [108-pg elaboration grounds injunction]). The Court found that ACS unnecessarily, routinely charged mothers with neglect and removed their children where the mothers were the victims of domestic violence; that ACS did so without ensuring that the mother had access to the services she needed, without a court order, and without returning these children promptly; that ACS caseworkers and managers lacked adequate training about domestic violence, and their practice was to separate mother and child when less extreme measures should have been taken. The District court cited the testimony of a manager that it was common practice in domestic violence cases for ACS to wait a few days before going to court after removing the child because “after a few days of the children being in foster care, the mother will agree to ACS’s conditions without the matter even going to court” 203 F Supp 2d at 170.
See also: Pathologizing the Victim, a common tactic used in family court to applaud the actions of the abuser while labeling the victim unstable.
21. Common sense and civil law state that when government or agency policies are in violation of Constitutional Rights or of Federal Law or Federally protected rights, state and local governments and their agencies that institute or encourage policies are directly liable for wrongs and injuries that result. Governor Napolitano and the State of Arizona’s policies and deliberate indifference has assumed responsibility for injuries instilled upon families such as those of my child and of Emily Mays and Dwight Hill (infants) and further cases such as the Payne case (involving prior domestic violence and CPS change of custody) which show the sufferings and irreparable injury of parents and their children as a result. Children are no safer in state custody than with parents, nor are they any safer with CPS involvement. Child abuse is an issue for the police, not a social agency.
22. The federal law on child abuse and neglect is found primarily in Title IV-B&E of the Social Security Act transfers monies from the Social Security Fund to The State. Approximately seventy-five percent of the funds in Arizona is federal money which is available only if the state meets eligibility requirements; these funds can be withdrawn if requirements are not met.
The history and sources of the Child Welfare funding are primarily found in: Federal Payments for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance 42 USC 670-679b; the 1974 Walter Mondale Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, PL 93-247, 88 Stat. 4, 42 USC 5101-5107; and the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, PL 96-272, 94 Stat. 500, 42 USC 670-676 (and amending 620-628); 42 USC 107(b), 5106a(b)(1) Grants to States for child abuse and neglect prevention and treatment programs, as well as other sources such as the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC), a contract which provides financial incentives for interstate placement of foster children, reportedly to find permanence.
23. The State of Arizona is the governing body of AZDES-DCYF-CPS. The State collects Federal Funding, (42 USC 670-679b) (17 Trillion in 2004, U.S. total) from the United States Government in the form of Title IV (Parts B & E) funding, mandated to be used primarily for prevention and reunification purposes (42 USC 671). Title 42 Chapter 67: Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment and Adoption Reform also offers federal funding grants to CPS agencies through various eligibility programs such as fostering, adoptions, interstate placements, etc., as do other additional grants/receipts.
24. ADES receives federal funding through the state which then provides funding to domestic violence shelters and programs through its Community Services Administration (CSA) and collects information such as Name, Address, Age, Phone Number, Children’s Names and Ages, Income, Disability Status, and other personal information. ADES maintains its own private database on Mothers and children who receive domestic violence services. Recent events in the Payne case as well as this petitioner and others show a pattern of disregard for Mothers and their children who are victims of domestic violence.
25. The Supreme Court of the State of Arizona has power to issue declaratory relief in the form of Arizona State Congressional investigation into state records of specific practices of this agency such as the use of federal funding to meet federal eligibility requirements regarding prevention, inconsistencies in individual case documentation, nonexplicit rubber-stamped judicial findings, paper-shuffling to meet federal statutory law, foster provider licensing, state-contractor conflict-of-interests (fishing expeditions to build a case through forced services to justify unlawful removals post facto), and for examination or positive enforcement of federal law that overrides state law matter of child welfare.
26. This petitioner prays this AZ Supreme Court will honor Declaratory Positive Relief to address the problems in the Child “Protection” Services of the State of Arizona, such as amending state statutes and state policy to properly comply with overriding federal funding contract law.
Dated this 17th day of May, 2007
Signed in ink for the court
Roma O. Amor, Appearing as herself
SUBMISSION OF TESTIMONY FOR THE RECORD
ABOLISH CPS. Let police handle it!
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT
CHILD WELFARE HEARING 5-15-07
Submitted for:
Roma O. Amor and Dante R. Amor (Rafe)
All Arizona families and for those children that suffer.
.
CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CPS by Georgia Senator UPDATED
http://www.senatornancyschaefer.com/new ... ?filter=43
UPDATED - September 25, 2008 - THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 16, 2007
Updated: September 25, 2008
THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES
BY: Nancy Schaefer
Senator, 50th District
My introduction into Child Protective Service cases was due to a grandmother in an adjoining state who called me with her tragic story. Her two granddaughters had been taken from her daughter who lived in my district. Her daughter was told wrongly that if she wanted to see her children again she should sign a paper and give up her children. Frightened and young, the daughter did. I have since discovered that parents are often threatened into cooperation of permanent separation of their children.
The children were taken to another county and placed in foster care. The foster parents
were told wrongly that they could adopt the children. The grandmother then jumped through every hoop known to man in order to get her granddaughters. When the case finally came to court it was made evident by one of the foster parent’s children that the foster parents had,
at any given time, 18 foster children and that the foster mother had an inappropriate relationship with a caseworker.
In the courtroom, the juvenile judge, acted as though she was shocked and said the two girls would be removed quickly. They were not removed. Finally, after much pressure being applied to the Department of Family and Children Services of Georgia (DFCS), the children were driven to South Georgia to meet their grandmother who gladly drove to meet them.
After being with their grandmother two or three days, the judge, quite out of the blue, wrote up a new order to send the girls to their father, who previously had no interest in the case and who lived on the West Coast. The father was in “adult entertainment”. His girlfriend worked as an “escort” and his brother, who also worked in the business, had a sexual charge brought against him.
Within a couple of days the father was knocking on the grandmother’s door and took the
girls kicking and screaming to California.
The father developed an unusual relationship with the former foster parents and soon moved to the southeast. The foster parents began driving to the father’s residence and picking up the little girls for visits. The oldest child had told her mother and grandmother
on two different occasions that the foster father molested her.
To this day after five years, this loving, caring blood relative grandmother does not even
have visitation privileges with the children. The little girls are, in my opinion, permanently traumatized and the young mother of the girls was so traumatized with shock when the
girls were first removed from her that she has never completely recovered. The mother
has rights but the father still has custody of the children.
Throughout this case and through the process of dealing with multiple other mismanaged cases of the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS), I have worked with other desperate parents across the state of Georgia and in many other States because their children were taken for no cause and they have no one with whom to turn. I have witnessed ruthless behavior from many caseworkers, social workers, investigators, lawyers, judges, therapists, and others such as those who “pick up” the children. I have been stunned by what I have seen and heard from victims all across this land.
In this report, I have focused mainly on the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS). However, I believe Child Protective Services nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be warned of the dangers.
The Department of Child Protective Services, known as the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS) in Georgia and other titles in other states, has become a “protected empire” built on taking children and separating families. This is not to say that there are not those children who do need to be removed from wretched situations and need protection. However, this report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in “legal kidnapping,” ineffective policies, and an agency that on certain occasions would not remove
a child (or children) when the child was enduring torment and abuse.
In one county in my District, I arranged a meeting for thirty-seven families to speak freely and without fear. These poor parents and grandparents spoke of their painful, heart wrenching encounters with DFCS. Their suffering was overwhelming. They wept and
cried. Some did not know where their children were and had not seen them in years. I
had witnessed the “Gestapo” at work and I witnessed the deceitful conditions under which children were taken in the middle of the night, out of hospitals, off of school buses, and out
of homes. In one county a private drug testing business was operating within the agency’s department that required many, many drug tests from parents and individuals for profit.
It has already made over $100,000.
Due to being exposed, several employees in this particular office were fired. However, they have now been rehired either in neighboring counties or in the same county again. According to the calls I am now receiving, the conditions in that county are returning to the same practices that they had before the light was shown on their evil deeds.
Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide, and now hundreds and hundreds across this nation and in nearly every state, I am convinced there is no responsibility and no accountability in Child Protective Services system.
I have come to the conclusion:
that poor parents very often are targeted to lose their children because they do not have the where-with-all to hire lawyers and fight the system. Being poor does not mean you are not a good parent or that you do not love your child, or that your child should be removed and placed with strangers;
that all parents are capable of making mistakes and that making a mistake does not mean your children are to be removed from the home. Even if the home is not perfect, it is home; and that’s where a child is the safest and where he or she wants to be, with family;
that parenting classes, anger management classes, counseling referrals, therapy classes and on and on are demanded of parents with no compassion by the system even while the parents are at work and while their children are separated from them. (some times parents are required to pay for the programs) This can take months or even years and it emotionally devastates both children and parents. Parents are victimized by “the system” that makes a profit for holding children longer and “bonuses” for not returning children to their parents;
that caseworkers and social workers are very often guilty of fraud. They withhold and destroy evidence. They fabricate evidence and they seek to terminate parental rights unnecessarily. However, when charges are made against Child Protective Services, the charges are ignored;
that the separation of families and the “snatching of children” is growing as a business because local governments have grown accustomed to having these taxpayer dollars to balance their ever-expanding budgets;
that Child Protective Services and Juvenile Court can always hide behind a confidentiality clause in order to protect their decisions and keep the funds flowing. There should be open records and “court watches”! Look who is being paid!
There are state employees, lawyers, court investigators, guardian ad litems, court personnel, and judges. There are psychologists, and psychiatrists, counselors, caseworkers, therapists, foster parents, adoptive parents, and on and on. All are looking to the children in state custody to provide job security. Parents do not realize that the social workers are the glue that hold “the system” together that funds the court, funds the court appointed attorneys, and the multiple other jobs including the “system’s” psychiatrists, therapists, their own attorneys and others.
that The Adoption and the Safe Families Act, set in motion first in 1974 by Walter Mondale and later in 1997 by President Bill Clinton, offered cash “bonuses” to the states for every child they adopted out of foster care. In order to receive the “adoption incentive bonuses” local child protective services need more children. They must have merchandise (children) that sells and you must have plenty so the buyer can choose. Some counties are known to give a $4,000 to $6,000 bonus for each child adopted out to strangers and an additional $2,000 for a “special needs” child. Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing;
State Departments of Human Resources (DHR) and affiliates are given a baseline number of expected adoptions based on population. For every child DHR and CPS
can get adopted, there is the bonus of $4,000 or maybe $6,000. But that is only the beginning figure in the formula in which each bonus is multiplied by the percentage that the State has managed to exceed its baseline adoption number. Therefore States and local communities work hard to reach their goals for increased numbers of adoptions for children in foster care.
that there is double dipping. The funding continues as long as the child is out of the home. There is funding for foster care then when a child is placed with a new family, then “adoption bonus funds” are available. When a child is placed in a mental health facility and is on 16 drugs per day, like two children of a constituent of mine, more funds are involved and so is Medicaid;
As you can see this program is ordered from the very top and run by Health and Human Resources. This is why victims of CPS get no help from their legislators. It explains why my bill, SB 415 suffered such defeat in the Judicial Committee, why I was cut off at every juncture. Legislators and Governors must remember who funds their paychecks.
that there are no financial resources and no real drive to unite a family and help keep them together or provide effective care;
that the incentive for social workers to return children to their parents quickly after taking them has disappeared and who in protective services will step up to the plate and say, “This must end! No one, because they are all in the system together and a system with no leader and no clear policies will always fail the children. Just look at the waste in government that is forced upon the tax payer;
that the “Policy Manuel” is considered “the last word” for CPS/DFCS. However, it is too long, too confusing, poorly written and does not take the law into consideration;
that if the lives of children were improved by removing them from their homes, there might be a greater need for protective services, but today children are not safer. Children, of whom I am aware, have been raped and impregnated in foster care;
It is a known fact that children are in much more danger in foster care than they are
in their own home even though home may not be perfect.
that some parents are even told if they want to see their children or grandchildren,
they must divorce their spouse. Many, who are under privileged, feeling they have no
option, will divorce and then just continue to live together. This is an anti-family policy,
but parents will do anything to get their children home with them. However, when the
parents cooperate with Child Protective Services, their behavior is interpreted as
guilt when nothing could be further from the truth.
Fathers, (non-custodial parents) I must add, are oftentimes treated as criminals without access to visit or even see their own children and have child support payments strangling the very life out of them;
that the Foster Parents Bill of Rights does not stress that a foster parent is there temporarily to care for a child until the child can be returned home. Many foster parents today use the Foster Parent Bill of Rights as a means to hire a lawyer and seek to adopt the child placed in their care from the real parents, who are desperately trying to get their child home and out of the system. Recently in Atlanta, a young couple learning to be new parents and loving it, were told that because of an anonymous complaint, their daughter would be taken into custody by the State DFCS. The couple was devastated and then was required by DFCS to take parenting classes, alcohol counseling and psychological evaluations if they wanted to get their child back. All of the courses cost money for which most parents are required to pay. While in their anxiety and turmoil to get their child home, the baby was left for hours in a car to die in the heat in her car seat by a foster parent who forgot about the child. This should never have happened. It is tragic. In many cases after the parents have jumped through all the hoops, they still do not get their child. As long as the child is not returned, there is money for the agency, for foster parents, for adoptive parents, and for the State.
that tax dollars are being used to keep this gigantic system afloat, yet the victims, parents, grandparents, guardians and especially the children, are charged for the system’s services.
that grandparents have called from all over the State of Georgia and from other states trying to get custody of their grandchildren. CPS claims relatives are contacted, but there are many many cases that prove differently. Grandparents who lose their grandchildren to strangers have lost their own flesh and blood. The children lose their family heritage and grandparents, and parents too, lose all connections to their heirs.
that The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in 1998 reported that six times as many children died in foster care than in the general public and that once removed to official “safety”, these children are far more likely to suffer abuse, including sexual molestation than in the general population. Think what that number is today ten years later!
That according to the California Little Hoover Commission Report in 2003, 30% to 70% of the children in California group homes do not belong there and should not have been removed from their homes.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Call for an independent audit of all State Child Protective Services (CPS) and
for a Federal Congressional hearing on Child Protective Services nationwide.
Activate immediate change. Every day that passes means more families and children are subject to being held hostage and their lives destroyed.
Abolish the Federal and State financial incentives that have turned Child Protective Services into a business that separate families for money.
Grant to parents their rights verbally and in writing.
Mandate a search for family members to be given the opportunity to adopt their
own relatives if children need to be removed permanently.
Mandate a jury trial where every piece of evidence is presented before permanently removing a child from his or her parents. Open family court. Remove the secrecy. Allow the press and family members access. Give parents the opportunity in court to speak and be a part of their children’s future.
Require a warrant or a positive emergency circumstance before removing children from their parents. (Judge Arthur G. Christean, Utah Bar Journal, January, 1997 reported that “except in emergency circumstances, including the need for immediate medical care, require warrants upon affidavits of probable cause before entry upon private property is permitted for the forcible removal of children from their parents.”)
Uphold the laws when someone fabricates or presents false evidence. If a parent
alleges fraud, hold a hearing with the right to discovery of all evidence made available
to parents.
FINAL REMARKS
On my desk are scores of cases of exhausted families and terrified children. It has
been beyond me to turn my back on these suffering, crying, and beaten down individuals.
We are mistreating the most innocent. Child Protective Services have become an adult centered business to the detriment of children. No longer is judgment based on what the child needs or who the child wants to be or with whom, or what is really best for the whole family; it is some adult or bureaucrat who makes the decisions, based often on just hearsay, without ever consulting a family member, or just what is convenient, profitable, or less troublesome for the social workers.
I have witnessed such injustice and harm brought to so many families that I am not sure if I even believe reform of the system is possible! The system cannot be trusted. It does not serve the people. It obliterates families and children simply because it has the power to do so.
Children deserve better. Families deserve better. It’s time to pull back the curtain and set our children and families free.
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and the needy” Proverbs 31:8-9
http://www.senatornancyschaefer.com/new ... ?filter=34
Protect Children in DFCS Custody - By Sue Ella Deadwyler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sue Ella Deadwyler, President of Eagle Forum of Georgia writes in her commentary on WMVV Radio on March 17, 2008.
During two terms in office, Senator Nancy Schaefer heard so many horror stories about the way the Department of Family and Children Services takes children and handles them while they're in custody, she decided it's time for a change.
On February 6 she introduced S.B. 415 to address some of the issues. Since current law requires closed hearings in cases of delinquency, deprivation or unruliness, she decided open hearings could result in more accountability. Also, though delinquent and unruly acts are easily spotted, deprivation is very subjective. So, to prevent corruption and assure accountability from all parties involved, S.B. 415 requires deprivation hearings to be open to the public. At the same time, it allows a parent or guardian to present a written request for their hearings to be closed.
Under current law, the Department of Human Resources, its employees and agents have total immunity from liability in the care and supervision of children. So, DHR can consent to the medication of children and, whether the medication helps or harms the child, DHR and its personnel will not be held responsible. That would change under S.B. 415, because it removes DHR's authority to medicate children if a parent or guardian objects and it would hold DHR and its agents responsible if the children experience seizures.
Another problem with the taking of children goes back to 1997 when Congress passed the Safe Families Act that offers financial incentives for state agencies to provide children for adoption. While that could be a good thing, it's now bordering on "legal kidnapping." Unethical officials have been charged with taking children from good homes and adopting them out, simply, for the money. For each child adopted out of state child protective systems, the state is entitled to as much as $6,000 in federal money. To counteract that, S.B. 415 prohibits any state entity from applying for financial incentives provided under the Safe Families Act.
S.B. 415 was a good bill, but it was gutted, watered down, made worthless. So rather than accept a do-nothing bill, Senator Schaefer took it off the table and it's dead.
UPDATED - September 25, 2008 - THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 16, 2007
Updated: September 25, 2008
THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES
BY: Nancy Schaefer
Senator, 50th District
My introduction into Child Protective Service cases was due to a grandmother in an adjoining state who called me with her tragic story. Her two granddaughters had been taken from her daughter who lived in my district. Her daughter was told wrongly that if she wanted to see her children again she should sign a paper and give up her children. Frightened and young, the daughter did. I have since discovered that parents are often threatened into cooperation of permanent separation of their children.
The children were taken to another county and placed in foster care. The foster parents
were told wrongly that they could adopt the children. The grandmother then jumped through every hoop known to man in order to get her granddaughters. When the case finally came to court it was made evident by one of the foster parent’s children that the foster parents had,
at any given time, 18 foster children and that the foster mother had an inappropriate relationship with a caseworker.
In the courtroom, the juvenile judge, acted as though she was shocked and said the two girls would be removed quickly. They were not removed. Finally, after much pressure being applied to the Department of Family and Children Services of Georgia (DFCS), the children were driven to South Georgia to meet their grandmother who gladly drove to meet them.
After being with their grandmother two or three days, the judge, quite out of the blue, wrote up a new order to send the girls to their father, who previously had no interest in the case and who lived on the West Coast. The father was in “adult entertainment”. His girlfriend worked as an “escort” and his brother, who also worked in the business, had a sexual charge brought against him.
Within a couple of days the father was knocking on the grandmother’s door and took the
girls kicking and screaming to California.
The father developed an unusual relationship with the former foster parents and soon moved to the southeast. The foster parents began driving to the father’s residence and picking up the little girls for visits. The oldest child had told her mother and grandmother
on two different occasions that the foster father molested her.
To this day after five years, this loving, caring blood relative grandmother does not even
have visitation privileges with the children. The little girls are, in my opinion, permanently traumatized and the young mother of the girls was so traumatized with shock when the
girls were first removed from her that she has never completely recovered. The mother
has rights but the father still has custody of the children.
Throughout this case and through the process of dealing with multiple other mismanaged cases of the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS), I have worked with other desperate parents across the state of Georgia and in many other States because their children were taken for no cause and they have no one with whom to turn. I have witnessed ruthless behavior from many caseworkers, social workers, investigators, lawyers, judges, therapists, and others such as those who “pick up” the children. I have been stunned by what I have seen and heard from victims all across this land.
In this report, I have focused mainly on the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS). However, I believe Child Protective Services nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be warned of the dangers.
The Department of Child Protective Services, known as the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS) in Georgia and other titles in other states, has become a “protected empire” built on taking children and separating families. This is not to say that there are not those children who do need to be removed from wretched situations and need protection. However, this report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in “legal kidnapping,” ineffective policies, and an agency that on certain occasions would not remove
a child (or children) when the child was enduring torment and abuse.
In one county in my District, I arranged a meeting for thirty-seven families to speak freely and without fear. These poor parents and grandparents spoke of their painful, heart wrenching encounters with DFCS. Their suffering was overwhelming. They wept and
cried. Some did not know where their children were and had not seen them in years. I
had witnessed the “Gestapo” at work and I witnessed the deceitful conditions under which children were taken in the middle of the night, out of hospitals, off of school buses, and out
of homes. In one county a private drug testing business was operating within the agency’s department that required many, many drug tests from parents and individuals for profit.
It has already made over $100,000.
Due to being exposed, several employees in this particular office were fired. However, they have now been rehired either in neighboring counties or in the same county again. According to the calls I am now receiving, the conditions in that county are returning to the same practices that they had before the light was shown on their evil deeds.
Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide, and now hundreds and hundreds across this nation and in nearly every state, I am convinced there is no responsibility and no accountability in Child Protective Services system.
I have come to the conclusion:
that poor parents very often are targeted to lose their children because they do not have the where-with-all to hire lawyers and fight the system. Being poor does not mean you are not a good parent or that you do not love your child, or that your child should be removed and placed with strangers;
that all parents are capable of making mistakes and that making a mistake does not mean your children are to be removed from the home. Even if the home is not perfect, it is home; and that’s where a child is the safest and where he or she wants to be, with family;
that parenting classes, anger management classes, counseling referrals, therapy classes and on and on are demanded of parents with no compassion by the system even while the parents are at work and while their children are separated from them. (some times parents are required to pay for the programs) This can take months or even years and it emotionally devastates both children and parents. Parents are victimized by “the system” that makes a profit for holding children longer and “bonuses” for not returning children to their parents;
that caseworkers and social workers are very often guilty of fraud. They withhold and destroy evidence. They fabricate evidence and they seek to terminate parental rights unnecessarily. However, when charges are made against Child Protective Services, the charges are ignored;
that the separation of families and the “snatching of children” is growing as a business because local governments have grown accustomed to having these taxpayer dollars to balance their ever-expanding budgets;
that Child Protective Services and Juvenile Court can always hide behind a confidentiality clause in order to protect their decisions and keep the funds flowing. There should be open records and “court watches”! Look who is being paid!
There are state employees, lawyers, court investigators, guardian ad litems, court personnel, and judges. There are psychologists, and psychiatrists, counselors, caseworkers, therapists, foster parents, adoptive parents, and on and on. All are looking to the children in state custody to provide job security. Parents do not realize that the social workers are the glue that hold “the system” together that funds the court, funds the court appointed attorneys, and the multiple other jobs including the “system’s” psychiatrists, therapists, their own attorneys and others.
that The Adoption and the Safe Families Act, set in motion first in 1974 by Walter Mondale and later in 1997 by President Bill Clinton, offered cash “bonuses” to the states for every child they adopted out of foster care. In order to receive the “adoption incentive bonuses” local child protective services need more children. They must have merchandise (children) that sells and you must have plenty so the buyer can choose. Some counties are known to give a $4,000 to $6,000 bonus for each child adopted out to strangers and an additional $2,000 for a “special needs” child. Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing;
State Departments of Human Resources (DHR) and affiliates are given a baseline number of expected adoptions based on population. For every child DHR and CPS
can get adopted, there is the bonus of $4,000 or maybe $6,000. But that is only the beginning figure in the formula in which each bonus is multiplied by the percentage that the State has managed to exceed its baseline adoption number. Therefore States and local communities work hard to reach their goals for increased numbers of adoptions for children in foster care.
that there is double dipping. The funding continues as long as the child is out of the home. There is funding for foster care then when a child is placed with a new family, then “adoption bonus funds” are available. When a child is placed in a mental health facility and is on 16 drugs per day, like two children of a constituent of mine, more funds are involved and so is Medicaid;
As you can see this program is ordered from the very top and run by Health and Human Resources. This is why victims of CPS get no help from their legislators. It explains why my bill, SB 415 suffered such defeat in the Judicial Committee, why I was cut off at every juncture. Legislators and Governors must remember who funds their paychecks.
that there are no financial resources and no real drive to unite a family and help keep them together or provide effective care;
that the incentive for social workers to return children to their parents quickly after taking them has disappeared and who in protective services will step up to the plate and say, “This must end! No one, because they are all in the system together and a system with no leader and no clear policies will always fail the children. Just look at the waste in government that is forced upon the tax payer;
that the “Policy Manuel” is considered “the last word” for CPS/DFCS. However, it is too long, too confusing, poorly written and does not take the law into consideration;
that if the lives of children were improved by removing them from their homes, there might be a greater need for protective services, but today children are not safer. Children, of whom I am aware, have been raped and impregnated in foster care;
It is a known fact that children are in much more danger in foster care than they are
in their own home even though home may not be perfect.
that some parents are even told if they want to see their children or grandchildren,
they must divorce their spouse. Many, who are under privileged, feeling they have no
option, will divorce and then just continue to live together. This is an anti-family policy,
but parents will do anything to get their children home with them. However, when the
parents cooperate with Child Protective Services, their behavior is interpreted as
guilt when nothing could be further from the truth.
Fathers, (non-custodial parents) I must add, are oftentimes treated as criminals without access to visit or even see their own children and have child support payments strangling the very life out of them;
that the Foster Parents Bill of Rights does not stress that a foster parent is there temporarily to care for a child until the child can be returned home. Many foster parents today use the Foster Parent Bill of Rights as a means to hire a lawyer and seek to adopt the child placed in their care from the real parents, who are desperately trying to get their child home and out of the system. Recently in Atlanta, a young couple learning to be new parents and loving it, were told that because of an anonymous complaint, their daughter would be taken into custody by the State DFCS. The couple was devastated and then was required by DFCS to take parenting classes, alcohol counseling and psychological evaluations if they wanted to get their child back. All of the courses cost money for which most parents are required to pay. While in their anxiety and turmoil to get their child home, the baby was left for hours in a car to die in the heat in her car seat by a foster parent who forgot about the child. This should never have happened. It is tragic. In many cases after the parents have jumped through all the hoops, they still do not get their child. As long as the child is not returned, there is money for the agency, for foster parents, for adoptive parents, and for the State.
that tax dollars are being used to keep this gigantic system afloat, yet the victims, parents, grandparents, guardians and especially the children, are charged for the system’s services.
that grandparents have called from all over the State of Georgia and from other states trying to get custody of their grandchildren. CPS claims relatives are contacted, but there are many many cases that prove differently. Grandparents who lose their grandchildren to strangers have lost their own flesh and blood. The children lose their family heritage and grandparents, and parents too, lose all connections to their heirs.
that The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in 1998 reported that six times as many children died in foster care than in the general public and that once removed to official “safety”, these children are far more likely to suffer abuse, including sexual molestation than in the general population. Think what that number is today ten years later!
That according to the California Little Hoover Commission Report in 2003, 30% to 70% of the children in California group homes do not belong there and should not have been removed from their homes.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Call for an independent audit of all State Child Protective Services (CPS) and
for a Federal Congressional hearing on Child Protective Services nationwide.
Activate immediate change. Every day that passes means more families and children are subject to being held hostage and their lives destroyed.
Abolish the Federal and State financial incentives that have turned Child Protective Services into a business that separate families for money.
Grant to parents their rights verbally and in writing.
Mandate a search for family members to be given the opportunity to adopt their
own relatives if children need to be removed permanently.
Mandate a jury trial where every piece of evidence is presented before permanently removing a child from his or her parents. Open family court. Remove the secrecy. Allow the press and family members access. Give parents the opportunity in court to speak and be a part of their children’s future.
Require a warrant or a positive emergency circumstance before removing children from their parents. (Judge Arthur G. Christean, Utah Bar Journal, January, 1997 reported that “except in emergency circumstances, including the need for immediate medical care, require warrants upon affidavits of probable cause before entry upon private property is permitted for the forcible removal of children from their parents.”)
Uphold the laws when someone fabricates or presents false evidence. If a parent
alleges fraud, hold a hearing with the right to discovery of all evidence made available
to parents.
FINAL REMARKS
On my desk are scores of cases of exhausted families and terrified children. It has
been beyond me to turn my back on these suffering, crying, and beaten down individuals.
We are mistreating the most innocent. Child Protective Services have become an adult centered business to the detriment of children. No longer is judgment based on what the child needs or who the child wants to be or with whom, or what is really best for the whole family; it is some adult or bureaucrat who makes the decisions, based often on just hearsay, without ever consulting a family member, or just what is convenient, profitable, or less troublesome for the social workers.
I have witnessed such injustice and harm brought to so many families that I am not sure if I even believe reform of the system is possible! The system cannot be trusted. It does not serve the people. It obliterates families and children simply because it has the power to do so.
Children deserve better. Families deserve better. It’s time to pull back the curtain and set our children and families free.
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and the needy” Proverbs 31:8-9
http://www.senatornancyschaefer.com/new ... ?filter=34
Protect Children in DFCS Custody - By Sue Ella Deadwyler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sue Ella Deadwyler, President of Eagle Forum of Georgia writes in her commentary on WMVV Radio on March 17, 2008.
During two terms in office, Senator Nancy Schaefer heard so many horror stories about the way the Department of Family and Children Services takes children and handles them while they're in custody, she decided it's time for a change.
On February 6 she introduced S.B. 415 to address some of the issues. Since current law requires closed hearings in cases of delinquency, deprivation or unruliness, she decided open hearings could result in more accountability. Also, though delinquent and unruly acts are easily spotted, deprivation is very subjective. So, to prevent corruption and assure accountability from all parties involved, S.B. 415 requires deprivation hearings to be open to the public. At the same time, it allows a parent or guardian to present a written request for their hearings to be closed.
Under current law, the Department of Human Resources, its employees and agents have total immunity from liability in the care and supervision of children. So, DHR can consent to the medication of children and, whether the medication helps or harms the child, DHR and its personnel will not be held responsible. That would change under S.B. 415, because it removes DHR's authority to medicate children if a parent or guardian objects and it would hold DHR and its agents responsible if the children experience seizures.
Another problem with the taking of children goes back to 1997 when Congress passed the Safe Families Act that offers financial incentives for state agencies to provide children for adoption. While that could be a good thing, it's now bordering on "legal kidnapping." Unethical officials have been charged with taking children from good homes and adopting them out, simply, for the money. For each child adopted out of state child protective systems, the state is entitled to as much as $6,000 in federal money. To counteract that, S.B. 415 prohibits any state entity from applying for financial incentives provided under the Safe Families Act.
S.B. 415 was a good bill, but it was gutted, watered down, made worthless. So rather than accept a do-nothing bill, Senator Schaefer took it off the table and it's dead.
Opinion for GREENE V. CAMRETA, 06-35333
Here's my all time favorite quote in case law so far, published opinion for GREENE V. CAMRETA:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/12/10/06-35333.pdf
You have built an amazing web site and forum!
Thank you for the countless hours in putting this all together.
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/12/10/06-35333.pdf
As this brief description makes clear, resolving the constitutional
claims at issue in this case involves a delicate balancing
of competing interests. On one hand, society has a
compelling interest in protecting its most vulnerable members
from abuse within their home. The number of child abuse
allegations is staggering: In 2007, for example, state and local
agencies investigated 3.2 million reports of child abuse or
neglect. See U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
SERVICES, ADMINISTRATION ON CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES.
CHILD MALTREATMENT 2007 (2009), available at
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm07/
chapter2.htm.
On the other hand, parents have an exceedingly strong
interest in directing the upbringing of their children, as well
as in protecting both themselves and their children from the
embarrassment and social stigmatization attached to child
abuse investigations. Of the 3.6 million investigations conducted
by state and local agencies in 2006, only about a quarter
concluded that the children were indeed victims of abuse.
See id. This discrepancy creates the risk that “in the name of
saving children from the harm that their parents and guardians
are thought to pose, states ultimately cause more harm to
many more children than they ever help.” Doriane Lambelet
Coleman, Storming the Castle to Save the Children: The
Ironic Costs of a Child Welfare Exception to the Fourth
Amendment, 47 WM. & MARY L. REV. 413, 417 (2005).
You have built an amazing web site and forum!
Thank you for the countless hours in putting this all together.
Re: COMMENTS BY OFFICIAL AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE ABOUT CPS
thats very strong what u put up.
-
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 5:39 pm
Re: COMMENTS BY OFFICIAL AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE ABOUT CPS
yo dezemey!!! i was listening to the recordings of nancy before she and her hubby were popped, wacked, nightmare came to life! it all sounded like she was being set up! the way she talked,and the way people were asking her questions. if you listen closely, it all sounded like a set up. and what did aggreement did they tell her? i know it had to be an empty promise. i wonder if she had a fallen out with them and decideded to open up! or maybe she felt she had to do the right thing.
- littleplanet
- Posts: 44
- Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2011 10:31 am
- Location: Toronto Canada
- Contact:
Re: Opinion for GREENE V. CAMRETA, 06-35333
masoly wrote:Here's my all time favorite quote in case law so far, published opinion for GREENE V. CAMRETA:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/12/10/06-35333.pdfOn the other hand, parents have an exceedingly strong
interest in directing the upbringing of their children, as well
as in protecting both themselves and their children from the
embarrassment and social stigmatization attached to child
abuse investigations. Of the 3.6 million investigations conducted
by state and local agencies in 2006, only about a quarter
concluded that the children were indeed victims of abuse.
See id. This discrepancy creates the risk that “in the name of
saving children from the harm that their parents and guardians
are thought to pose, states ultimately cause more harm to
many more children than they ever help.” Doriane Lambelet
Coleman, Storming the Castle to Save the Children: The
Ironic Costs of a Child Welfare Exception to the Fourth
Amendment, 47 WM. & MARY L. REV. 413, 417 (2005).
- This kinda says it all, doesn't it?..............harming 75% to
(save) 25%?
But to me..........it's not the numbers.
Is it the dumbing down of collective smarts that should employ consistently competent
educational models capable of proper training in the fine art of figuring out just who is
abused and who isn't?
Why do I get the feeling that a veteran Iowa farmer or a veteran NYC cabbie might be a
better candidate as far as being in possession of the right kinds of smarts?
........just asking.
On the other hand, when a system is warped beyond repair by a profit motive, and our
troubled times cause what may be otherwise moral people to protect their jobs at all
costs....(so that they can properly care for their families, and keep their own kids out
of the clutches of CPS, the lord be praised!) - well, you can see how dark that irony is.
Perhaps Nancy Shafer was right to arrive at that conclusion: take it down and start over.
just let me laugh when it's funny
but when it's sad, let me cry
but when it's sad, let me cry
-
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2012 9:42 am
Re: COMMENTS BY OFFICIAL AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE ABOUT CPS
I was wondering if there is anything I can do for false information given to the cps. Just because the acuser was mad at me.
![Mad :x](./images/smilies/icon_mad.gif)
![Mad :x](./images/smilies/icon_mad.gif)
Re: COMMENTS BY OFFICIAL AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE ABOUT CPS
christinaandjerry wrote:I was wondering if there is anything I can do for false information given to the cps. Just because the acuser was mad at me.
Making a false child abuse claim is illegal in every state, but only a few states have designated it a felony. Regardless, you were the victim of a crime and should absolutely call the police and ensure that they do a complete investigation. It will put the person on notice that you'll not allow this to go unchecked. Even if the police/district atty decline to press charges, at least you'll have it documented for when this person does it again and/or CPS tries to steal your kids because you have "a history" with CPS.
You can track down your state's laws using the federal Dept of Health & Human Services website:
http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/ ... orting.cfm
scroll down to "Penalties for Failure to Report and False Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect: Summary of State Laws"
where you will find this document: http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/ ... ortall.pdf
Advice & opinions provided are no substitute for genuine legal assistance. Laws & rules vary by state/jurisdiction so do your homework and get
an education in CPS laws, rules & practices so that you can FIGHT for your children's rights. I am not a lawyer. Your mileage may vary.
----<>----<>----<>---- BREED WITH CAUTION ----<>----<>----<>----
an education in CPS laws, rules & practices so that you can FIGHT for your children's rights. I am not a lawyer. Your mileage may vary.
----<>----<>----<>---- BREED WITH CAUTION ----<>----<>----<>----
-
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2012 11:41 pm
Re: COMMENTS BY OFFICIAL AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE ABOUT CPS
I think everybody should read about Nancy Schaefer. Ishe is my hero! She stood up for children when nobody else would. It probably cost her... her life. She was so brave, which is what makes her more of a hero to me. I think she has a lot of rewards in heaven for being the voice for thousands of innocent children, and for standing up for what she believed in. Wikipedia has a lot of information about her, plus links to the articles they got their information from, which is what I found interesting.
Re: COMMENTS BY OFFICIAL AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE ABOUT CPS
Agreed . . . she was inspirational and effective. Her death was such a great loss.
Sample Document Library
Please keep in mind that none of us are lawyers and we can't give legal advice. We are simply telling you what we would do in a similar situation. It is to your advantage to get a lawyer.
"Evil flourishes when good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke ... so try to do something to change the system ...
Please keep in mind that none of us are lawyers and we can't give legal advice. We are simply telling you what we would do in a similar situation. It is to your advantage to get a lawyer.
"Evil flourishes when good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke ... so try to do something to change the system ...
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 43 guests