Saturday, January 31, 2009
Child Fatality report in worse than thought
The number of Arizona children who died last year in unexpected and tragic ways rose sharply, according to a new report from the state department of health. Many significant areas, from suicide to drowning, also showed troubling increases.
Child deaths
The report, compiled annually by a team of volunteer doctors, psychologists and cops for the state Department of Health Services, reviewed every death of an Arizona resident under 18 in 2005. The researchers then did their best to determine whether the cause was accidental, medical, or criminal — and quantify whether the death could have been prevented.
As it turns out, the bad news is really bad. There was nearly a 10 percent leap in child fatalities in 2005. Even allowing for population growth, that's alarmingly high. "Preventable" deaths were higher than ever, notching a 25 percent increase from 2004.
The researchers also concluded that 50 children died because of maltreatment. That's the highest number of maltreatment deaths Arizona has ever recorded.
But what makes the deaths particularly tragic is that Child Protective Services had prior contact with almost half of the kids who died because of abuse or neglect, according to the report. And 14 of the 50 kids actually had open cases at the time of their deaths.
That, too, is a state record — albeit one you're never going to see touted in a press release.
Perhaps for that reason, the report has been ignored by just about every media outlet in the state. (The Arizona Republic gave the report so little coverage that its story failed even to mention CPS — much less note that the total number of deaths had increased. But to the paper's credit, other news outlets ignored the report entirely.)
Still, it's gotten the attention of some state legislators. And it's bringing CPS scrutiny its leaders would probably just as soon avoid.
Without context, numbers like the ones in the Department of Health Services report can be deceiving. For example, children drowning: Since 2003, there's been a 25 percent increase.
But researchers like Dr. Michael Durfee, the psychiatrist who serves as the chief consultant for the National Center on Child Fatality Review, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, cautions observers not to take yearly "trends" too far. Any 12-month window, after all, is an artificial construct.
"If I kill two of my kids in December, it isn't necessarily a trend if the number of deaths drops in January," Durfee notes.
Drowning deaths are a good example. Yes, the report shows a striking increase from 2003 to 2005. But a little more information puts the number in perspective. Turns out that the 2003 number represented a significant drop from the years prior — and the 2005 deaths aren't actually out of whack with the general trend. Sure, way too many kids drown for a state without a Great Lake or an ocean. (Pools should be fairly easy to fence; miles and miles of coastline are much less so.) But it's not like 2005 represents a new crisis so much as a longstanding problem.
There's also a question of definition: The fatality rate for Arizona kids is, overall, higher than the national average, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But when it comes to subcategories — how many kids were murdered? how many died from abuse? — it can be a judgment call. Fatality review teams often have different standards from state to state, Durfee says, and what Arizona calls a murder might well be an accident in Nevada, or vice versa.
Still, some numbers in the 2005 report can't be ignored.
There were no cases of kids dying because of a fire (either from smoke inhalation or burns) in either 2003 or 2004. Last year, there were 20 such deaths.
In 2004, six children died because of exposure. Last year, that number rose to 19 — most of them dying during attempts to cross the border during extreme heat.
And Dr. Mary Rimsza, the pediatrician who chairs Arizona's team and also serves as medical director at ASU's Center for Health Information and Research, says she's noticed a troubling rise in suicides.
"We used to get an occasional suicide in the 10-to-14-year-old range, but last year, we had 13," she says. "And it's even occurring now in the 5-to-9-year-old range." (The report shows one suicide in that age group last year.)
But it will likely be the Child Protective Services-related deaths that draw the Arizona Legislature's attention.
In 2003, at Governor Janet Napolitano's urging, the Legislature approved a mammoth funding increase for CPS, and funding has only continued to grow. Last year, the state earmarked $163 million for the Department of Children, Family, and Youth Services, almost double its allocation prior to Napolitano's election.
And though more kids than ever are in foster care, deaths from child abuse and neglect have continued to rise. The 2005 statistic isn't an anomaly, it's part of a steady uptick that began in 2002. (See "Suffer the Children," October 26, 2006.) More than two times the number of kids have died from abuse on Napolitano's watch than in a similar period under Governor Jane Hull.
Part of that, as Durfee cautions, is that the terms have changed. Rimsza, the task force chair, says that her team clarified its definition of "maltreatment" deaths in 2002 to include more cases, and numbers jumped accordingly. But it's also clear that since then, abuse-related deaths have continued to rise.
Even more troubling for the agency, more kids are being killed while their CPS files are still open.
State Senator John Huppenthal, a Chandler Republican, says that the funding increases were supposed to prevent just that. So was putting more kids in foster care.
"Their solution was, 'Pull out more kids, and the kids will be safer,'" he says. "But we've found there's no correlation between removal rates and safety. None at all. You would hope that, on some level, they would realize that this has failed."
Huppenthal points to one sobering statistic in the report: Nine of the kids who died in 2005 were in foster care at the time of their deaths.
Three were ruled dead from natural causes. But two were accidents, one was a suicide, and two more were murders. (The ninth death is officially "undetermined.")
After reading the report, Huppenthal requested CPS's report on the deaths. He was told there wasn't one.
Indeed, CPS seems more intent on explaining away the numbers than figuring out what's gone wrong. CPS spokeswoman Liz Barker Alvarez downplayed the numerical trends, telling New Times in an e-mail that it's "incorrect and unfair to make a correlation between budget increases to the agency and overall child deaths from maltreatment" because the issues are too complex.
Alvarez was also quick to explain that just because the report noted "CPS involvement" doesn't mean Arizona CPS was involved — it might have been a similar unit from another state, she wrote, or even the protective services workers with jurisdiction over tribal communities. (Alvarez then failed to respond to repeated follow-up requests asking just how many cases weren't connected to her agency.)
The sad thing is that letting out more information might actually help CPS fend off more legislative scrutiny. Last week, Senator Huppenthal met with CPS officials to try to get more answers on the foster care deaths. He feels better after hearing the agency's case-by-case summary. "It's not anything as troubling as I'd thought," he says, noting that some of the deaths were clearly not preventable: Some of the kids had congenital health problems, which is part of the reason they ended up in foster care in the first place. Two other deaths were due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
But information can be hard to come by. Durfee, medical director for the national registry, overall praises the work of Arizona's team. "Mary Rimsza is doing great work," he says. But he's critical of the report's willingness to stop at numbers when it comes to the kids who died from abuse.
The report contains no detail about their deaths other than showing where they fit into broad age ranges. And that's wrong, Durfee argues.
"You should know their age, their race, their gender, and how they died," he says. "If I understood this at a human level — if you can make these children real to me — then I understand that my neighbor's kids are my responsibility. That's what they need to be doing."
Child deaths
The report, compiled annually by a team of volunteer doctors, psychologists and cops for the state Department of Health Services, reviewed every death of an Arizona resident under 18 in 2005. The researchers then did their best to determine whether the cause was accidental, medical, or criminal — and quantify whether the death could have been prevented.
As it turns out, the bad news is really bad. There was nearly a 10 percent leap in child fatalities in 2005. Even allowing for population growth, that's alarmingly high. "Preventable" deaths were higher than ever, notching a 25 percent increase from 2004.
The researchers also concluded that 50 children died because of maltreatment. That's the highest number of maltreatment deaths Arizona has ever recorded.
But what makes the deaths particularly tragic is that Child Protective Services had prior contact with almost half of the kids who died because of abuse or neglect, according to the report. And 14 of the 50 kids actually had open cases at the time of their deaths.
That, too, is a state record — albeit one you're never going to see touted in a press release.
Perhaps for that reason, the report has been ignored by just about every media outlet in the state. (The Arizona Republic gave the report so little coverage that its story failed even to mention CPS — much less note that the total number of deaths had increased. But to the paper's credit, other news outlets ignored the report entirely.)
Still, it's gotten the attention of some state legislators. And it's bringing CPS scrutiny its leaders would probably just as soon avoid.
Without context, numbers like the ones in the Department of Health Services report can be deceiving. For example, children drowning: Since 2003, there's been a 25 percent increase.
But researchers like Dr. Michael Durfee, the psychiatrist who serves as the chief consultant for the National Center on Child Fatality Review, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, cautions observers not to take yearly "trends" too far. Any 12-month window, after all, is an artificial construct.
"If I kill two of my kids in December, it isn't necessarily a trend if the number of deaths drops in January," Durfee notes.
Drowning deaths are a good example. Yes, the report shows a striking increase from 2003 to 2005. But a little more information puts the number in perspective. Turns out that the 2003 number represented a significant drop from the years prior — and the 2005 deaths aren't actually out of whack with the general trend. Sure, way too many kids drown for a state without a Great Lake or an ocean. (Pools should be fairly easy to fence; miles and miles of coastline are much less so.) But it's not like 2005 represents a new crisis so much as a longstanding problem.
There's also a question of definition: The fatality rate for Arizona kids is, overall, higher than the national average, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But when it comes to subcategories — how many kids were murdered? how many died from abuse? — it can be a judgment call. Fatality review teams often have different standards from state to state, Durfee says, and what Arizona calls a murder might well be an accident in Nevada, or vice versa.
Still, some numbers in the 2005 report can't be ignored.
There were no cases of kids dying because of a fire (either from smoke inhalation or burns) in either 2003 or 2004. Last year, there were 20 such deaths.
In 2004, six children died because of exposure. Last year, that number rose to 19 — most of them dying during attempts to cross the border during extreme heat.
And Dr. Mary Rimsza, the pediatrician who chairs Arizona's team and also serves as medical director at ASU's Center for Health Information and Research, says she's noticed a troubling rise in suicides.
"We used to get an occasional suicide in the 10-to-14-year-old range, but last year, we had 13," she says. "And it's even occurring now in the 5-to-9-year-old range." (The report shows one suicide in that age group last year.)
But it will likely be the Child Protective Services-related deaths that draw the Arizona Legislature's attention.
In 2003, at Governor Janet Napolitano's urging, the Legislature approved a mammoth funding increase for CPS, and funding has only continued to grow. Last year, the state earmarked $163 million for the Department of Children, Family, and Youth Services, almost double its allocation prior to Napolitano's election.
And though more kids than ever are in foster care, deaths from child abuse and neglect have continued to rise. The 2005 statistic isn't an anomaly, it's part of a steady uptick that began in 2002. (See "Suffer the Children," October 26, 2006.) More than two times the number of kids have died from abuse on Napolitano's watch than in a similar period under Governor Jane Hull.
Part of that, as Durfee cautions, is that the terms have changed. Rimsza, the task force chair, says that her team clarified its definition of "maltreatment" deaths in 2002 to include more cases, and numbers jumped accordingly. But it's also clear that since then, abuse-related deaths have continued to rise.
Even more troubling for the agency, more kids are being killed while their CPS files are still open.
State Senator John Huppenthal, a Chandler Republican, says that the funding increases were supposed to prevent just that. So was putting more kids in foster care.
"Their solution was, 'Pull out more kids, and the kids will be safer,'" he says. "But we've found there's no correlation between removal rates and safety. None at all. You would hope that, on some level, they would realize that this has failed."
Huppenthal points to one sobering statistic in the report: Nine of the kids who died in 2005 were in foster care at the time of their deaths.
Three were ruled dead from natural causes. But two were accidents, one was a suicide, and two more were murders. (The ninth death is officially "undetermined.")
After reading the report, Huppenthal requested CPS's report on the deaths. He was told there wasn't one.
Indeed, CPS seems more intent on explaining away the numbers than figuring out what's gone wrong. CPS spokeswoman Liz Barker Alvarez downplayed the numerical trends, telling New Times in an e-mail that it's "incorrect and unfair to make a correlation between budget increases to the agency and overall child deaths from maltreatment" because the issues are too complex.
Alvarez was also quick to explain that just because the report noted "CPS involvement" doesn't mean Arizona CPS was involved — it might have been a similar unit from another state, she wrote, or even the protective services workers with jurisdiction over tribal communities. (Alvarez then failed to respond to repeated follow-up requests asking just how many cases weren't connected to her agency.)
The sad thing is that letting out more information might actually help CPS fend off more legislative scrutiny. Last week, Senator Huppenthal met with CPS officials to try to get more answers on the foster care deaths. He feels better after hearing the agency's case-by-case summary. "It's not anything as troubling as I'd thought," he says, noting that some of the deaths were clearly not preventable: Some of the kids had congenital health problems, which is part of the reason they ended up in foster care in the first place. Two other deaths were due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
But information can be hard to come by. Durfee, medical director for the national registry, overall praises the work of Arizona's team. "Mary Rimsza is doing great work," he says. But he's critical of the report's willingness to stop at numbers when it comes to the kids who died from abuse.
The report contains no detail about their deaths other than showing where they fit into broad age ranges. And that's wrong, Durfee argues.
"You should know their age, their race, their gender, and how they died," he says. "If I understood this at a human level — if you can make these children real to me — then I understand that my neighbor's kids are my responsibility. That's what they need to be doing."
Friday, January 30, 2009
Bureaucrats running down the clock against parents
WASHINGTON -
When
Congress passed the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, it allowed
states to terminate parental rights after a child has been in foster
care longer than 15 months.
But the law, intended to keep
children from truly abusive homes from languishing in foster care for
years, had unintended consequences. States receive a $4,000 cash bonus
from the federal government for each child adopted, multiplied by the
percentage that the state exceeds its adoption goal.
The system
gives child protective agencies a powerful financial incentive to
terminate parental rights, something that they did more than 79,000
times nationwide in 2006, according to the federal Administration for Children and Families.
And
because infants and toddlers are much easier to place in adoptive
homes, they’re often targeted for removal by overzealous social workers
based on flimsy or anonymous evidence of parental abuse or neglect.
The
15-month clock, which starts ticking as soon as a child goes into
foster care, can easily be run down by months of forced psychological
testing and the filing of legal motions and other delaying tactics.
These
tactics give a clear advantage to child protective service bureaucrats,
who have unlimited time and financial resources to wage what often
amounts to legal warfare against stunned and beleaguered parents who
basically have to prove their own innocence.
If a person commits
murder or robs a bank, prosecutors must prove he or she is guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt. Not so in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of
CPS, where individuals and parents are considered guilty as charged by
anonymous tipsters whose hidden motivations are never brought to light.
Once the 15 months are up, that fact alone can be used as legal
justification to terminate parental rights.
It costs child
protective agencies $20,000 on average to keep a child in foster care,
versus $8,000 for in-home services for troubled families. This means
that a host of lawyers, social workers, therapists, psychologists and
other professionals make a lot more money when families are broken
apart.
And although CPS’ stated goal is family reunification, the
reality is that these agencies reap a second financial windfall when
the forced separation between child and parent becomes permanent.
When
Congress passed the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, it allowed
states to terminate parental rights after a child has been in foster
care longer than 15 months.
But the law, intended to keep
children from truly abusive homes from languishing in foster care for
years, had unintended consequences. States receive a $4,000 cash bonus
from the federal government for each child adopted, multiplied by the
percentage that the state exceeds its adoption goal.
The system
gives child protective agencies a powerful financial incentive to
terminate parental rights, something that they did more than 79,000
times nationwide in 2006, according to the federal Administration for Children and Families.
And
because infants and toddlers are much easier to place in adoptive
homes, they’re often targeted for removal by overzealous social workers
based on flimsy or anonymous evidence of parental abuse or neglect.
The
15-month clock, which starts ticking as soon as a child goes into
foster care, can easily be run down by months of forced psychological
testing and the filing of legal motions and other delaying tactics.
These
tactics give a clear advantage to child protective service bureaucrats,
who have unlimited time and financial resources to wage what often
amounts to legal warfare against stunned and beleaguered parents who
basically have to prove their own innocence.
If a person commits
murder or robs a bank, prosecutors must prove he or she is guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt. Not so in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of
CPS, where individuals and parents are considered guilty as charged by
anonymous tipsters whose hidden motivations are never brought to light.
Once the 15 months are up, that fact alone can be used as legal
justification to terminate parental rights.
It costs child
protective agencies $20,000 on average to keep a child in foster care,
versus $8,000 for in-home services for troubled families. This means
that a host of lawyers, social workers, therapists, psychologists and
other professionals make a lot more money when families are broken
apart.
And although CPS’ stated goal is family reunification, the
reality is that these agencies reap a second financial windfall when
the forced separation between child and parent becomes permanent.
Lawmaker says CPS officials guilty of ‘ruthless behavior’ so then why does it continue
WASHINGTON -
In August, the Free the Children Coalition
is planning a national rally in D.C. to expose what it says is judicial
fraud in the family court system and the violation of families’ rights
by child protective agencies nationwide.
Among the worst examples coalition leaders cite are these:
- California: Shirley Moore, national director of legislative affairs for the American Family Rights Association, says many Los Angeles
judges who rule on family court cases also sit on the boards of phony
nonprofit organizations created to generate state adoption/foster care
grants via federal funding. California’s 2003 Little Hoover Commission Report said up to 70 percent of children in foster care should never have been removed from their homes.
- Georgia:
State Sen. Nancy Schaefer is calling for an independent audit of her
state’s Department of Family and Children Services: “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 over the state of Georgia.”
- Illinois: A 2006 series in the Belleville News Democrat
found that 53 children in foster care died between 1998 and 2005 after
state child-welfare workers committed serious errors and ignored their
own rules.
- Michigan: Robert and Janet Coleman’s
two daughters, ages 6 and 2, were carried crying and screaming from a
hotel room by police officers and social workers while the family was
on vacation, based on what their parents say were false allegations by
people they knew and tried to help. The Colemans posted evidence of
what they describe as CPS officials “making it up as they go along” on YouTube.
- Missouri: Sonja De Vivo told The Examiner that her parental rights were terminated in 1999 after St. Louis
social workers forced her to undergo months of psychological testing
while her then 3-year-old daughter languished in foster care.
Missouri
CPS officials then used the forced separation as justification to move
the girl into adoption, claiming the mother-child bond had been
severed. The girl, now 14, lives with her single adoptive father and
his three teenage sons — not her own mother, who has never been charged
with either abuse or neglect.
- Wisconsin: The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled this month that a social worker violated the constitutional
rights of two young children when she strip-searched them in 2004 at
their private Christian school based on her suspicions that they had
been spanked by their parents. The search yielded no signs of injury to
either child.
In August, the Free the Children Coalition
is planning a national rally in D.C. to expose what it says is judicial
fraud in the family court system and the violation of families’ rights
by child protective agencies nationwide.
Among the worst examples coalition leaders cite are these:
- California: Shirley Moore, national director of legislative affairs for the American Family Rights Association, says many Los Angeles
judges who rule on family court cases also sit on the boards of phony
nonprofit organizations created to generate state adoption/foster care
grants via federal funding. California’s 2003 Little Hoover Commission Report said up to 70 percent of children in foster care should never have been removed from their homes.
- Georgia:
State Sen. Nancy Schaefer is calling for an independent audit of her
state’s Department of Family and Children Services: “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 over the state of Georgia.”
- Illinois: A 2006 series in the Belleville News Democrat
found that 53 children in foster care died between 1998 and 2005 after
state child-welfare workers committed serious errors and ignored their
own rules.
- Michigan: Robert and Janet Coleman’s
two daughters, ages 6 and 2, were carried crying and screaming from a
hotel room by police officers and social workers while the family was
on vacation, based on what their parents say were false allegations by
people they knew and tried to help. The Colemans posted evidence of
what they describe as CPS officials “making it up as they go along” on YouTube.
- Missouri: Sonja De Vivo told The Examiner that her parental rights were terminated in 1999 after St. Louis
social workers forced her to undergo months of psychological testing
while her then 3-year-old daughter languished in foster care.
Missouri
CPS officials then used the forced separation as justification to move
the girl into adoption, claiming the mother-child bond had been
severed. The girl, now 14, lives with her single adoptive father and
his three teenage sons — not her own mother, who has never been charged
with either abuse or neglect.
- Wisconsin: The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled this month that a social worker violated the constitutional
rights of two young children when she strip-searched them in 2004 at
their private Christian school based on her suspicions that they had
been spanked by their parents. The search yielded no signs of injury to
either child.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Dear Mr President my letter to Obama
Dear Mr president,
I heard you speak of ending Government corruption and greed I have been now for over 2 yrs fighting to pass a law to reform the way child services operates too many children are dying and being removed falsely for the sole purpose of the almighty dollar this to me is blood money human life has value and when one ends a life no matter the level of involvement they are held accountable.
I am asking you Mr President no I am begging you to bring back to America the peoples rights their constitutional rights their civil liberties that are being violated and disregarded for federal funding children are dying Mr president for state kick back funds I am asking you to put an end to this I voted for you as did millions you need to make good now on your word and stop the corruption and greed killing America's children our future the future of your country.
American families are being destroyed broken apart driven to even suicide please Pass Shavon's law every state every child the name for one child become the savior for all children I was told they are state paid and state protected I will never get this law passed I ask you Mr President how many more will die before you do.
Shavon deserves justice & recognition as do all murdered children and their families please pass her law and give back the people their country ,their rights make the system work for the ones in need of it.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/reform-child-protective-services.html
The words you have spoken on our civil liberties and justice
What we cannot continue to do is operate as if we are the weakest nation in the world instead of the strongest one, because that’s not who we are and that’s not what the US has been about, historically. It is starting to warp our domestic policies, as well. We haven’t even talked about civil liberties and the impact of that politics of fear–what that has done to us, in terms of undermining basic civil liberties in this country, what it has done in terms of our reputation around the world.
I will never forget that the only reason I’m standing here today is because somebody, somewhere stood up for me when it was risky. Stood up when it was hard. Stood up when it wasn’t popular. And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world.
Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people. Yes we can.
Speech following New Hampshire Primary January 8, 2008.
Barack Obama Quotes On Constitution
I am a great admirer of our founding charter and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root in this country. I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God’s mandate. I don’t think it’s healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism, or dialogue with people who disagree with them.
I heard you speak of ending Government corruption and greed I have been now for over 2 yrs fighting to pass a law to reform the way child services operates too many children are dying and being removed falsely for the sole purpose of the almighty dollar this to me is blood money human life has value and when one ends a life no matter the level of involvement they are held accountable.
I am asking you Mr President no I am begging you to bring back to America the peoples rights their constitutional rights their civil liberties that are being violated and disregarded for federal funding children are dying Mr president for state kick back funds I am asking you to put an end to this I voted for you as did millions you need to make good now on your word and stop the corruption and greed killing America's children our future the future of your country.
American families are being destroyed broken apart driven to even suicide please Pass Shavon's law every state every child the name for one child become the savior for all children I was told they are state paid and state protected I will never get this law passed I ask you Mr President how many more will die before you do.
Shavon deserves justice & recognition as do all murdered children and their families please pass her law and give back the people their country ,their rights make the system work for the ones in need of it.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/reform-child-protective-services.html
The words you have spoken on our civil liberties and justice
What we cannot continue to do is operate as if we are the weakest nation in the world instead of the strongest one, because that’s not who we are and that’s not what the US has been about, historically. It is starting to warp our domestic policies, as well. We haven’t even talked about civil liberties and the impact of that politics of fear–what that has done to us, in terms of undermining basic civil liberties in this country, what it has done in terms of our reputation around the world.
I will never forget that the only reason I’m standing here today is because somebody, somewhere stood up for me when it was risky. Stood up when it was hard. Stood up when it wasn’t popular. And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world.
Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people. Yes we can.
Speech following New Hampshire Primary January 8, 2008.
Barack Obama Quotes On Constitution
I am a great admirer of our founding charter and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root in this country. I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God’s mandate. I don’t think it’s healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism, or dialogue with people who disagree with them.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Key facts about child services
Probably no other public agency leaves victims and advocates more perplexed than Child Protective Services. On the one hand, people think of CPS with appreciation as they envision a selfless agency rescuing innocent children from horrific conditions. Indeed, CPS workers across the country do this routinely. The gratitude is deserved.
At the same time, the agency seems to be perpetually marred by a steady drumbeat of nightmare stories about CPS emanating from the very families CPS is supposed to serve. This text deals with just one of these problems; the CPS practice of removing or threatening to remove children from the nonviolent, non-offending parent in cases of family violence. This guide explains why this happens with such frequency, how to help prevent it from happening in your case, and what to do about it if you're already caught in its grip. (Since the non-offending, nonviolent parent in these cases is usually the mother, we often refer to this parent as 'the mother', though there are certainly cases where the non-offending parent is the father.)
The Situation as it Usually Unfolds
In brief, the particular problem we cover usually unfolds like this. A mother herself seeks help from CPS or becomes involved with CPS through someone else's report of suspected child abuse. Her child has been physically or sexually abused by a family member, usually by a male family member, or there are concerns the child is living in a home where there is domestic violence. At first, the mother naturally anticipates that CPS will try to help her and her child, and try to punish and stop the perpetrator. So these mothers are stunned when suddenly the CPS/juvenile court system turns its sights on her, even though everyone agrees she didn't perpetrate the abuse or violence.
Suddenly she is the one under investigation, and the perpetrator is seeming to be all but ignored. And worse, CPS is threatening to take her child from her, or has already done so without warning or notice, and is threatening to keep the child, right at the time that mother and child need each other most. She feels the system turn hostile toward her. Did she, the non-offending parent, protect the child from the violent parent? Did she protect the child from molestation? Did she protect the child from being exposed to domestic violence in the home? Well, no, obviously she did not, or could not, or, in the case of molestation, often didn't know about it.
Instead of being treated more as a co-victim of a violent perpetrator, with help and guidance provided according to the mother's expressed needs, she is treated more as a co-perpetrator, with CPS establishing mandated controls over virtually any which aspect of her life CPS chooses, all under threat of losing her child. In addition to court dates at which it is her behavior that's in question, CPS gives her a mandated, often overwhelming set of programs and goals she must comply with to the satisfaction of the CPS/juvenile court system, in order to - maybe - get the child back - and maybe not. She is also held accountable for maintaining a cooperative attitude throughout, even though she is, in fact, in a profoundly adversarial relationship with CPS (which is why she's given an attorney at court time). At the same time, she begins to realize that the CPS/juvenile court system isn't pushing to hold the perpetrator accountable for his violence, nor is CPS even invested with the power to do so.
Most mothers say they would rather be threatened with jail than to be threatened with the loss of her child. Yet as invasive, terrifying, and awesome as this governmental threat is, virtually all the decisions as to her fitness, compliance, and fate are being decided at the lowest judicial standard of evidence, 51% of the evidence, the 'preponderance of the evidence' standard. This is a far cry from the 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard the government must reach before sentencing someone to jail for even the briefest time.
The level of proof against her that CPS is required to put forth is so minimal that it provides the mother little protection against any abusive, prejudiced, or discriminatory exercise of power by CPS. The low evidence burden on CPS also makes it nearly impossible for the mother to defend herself, especially against such vague accusations as 'failure to protect', or that 'she knew or should have known', things which don't even constitute a crime in the criminal system. And to top off the injustices, an all too common requirement on her must-do list is that she and/or the child must partake in family conferencing or a family reunification plan in which one or both must meet, mediate, or co-counsel with the perpetrator - the very same perpetrator from whom the mother has been accused of 'failure to protect' the child.
The Dawn of Recognition
Unfortunately, such stories are not the result of occasional human errors that are bound to occur in any public agency. They are, instead, inevitable and frequent outcomes stemming from the flawed founding premises and the weak legal underpinnings of the CPS/juvenile court system. The structure of the system drives toward these injustices no matter how well intentioned individual CPS workers may be. Nor is this to say that children should never be removed from the non-offending parent. There are circumstances in which they should. The problem is that the system is so arbitrary, sexist, secret, and outdated, that it tends toward abusive or mistaken results.
In the last decade, there has been growing recognition and discussion of the CPS problem as it pertains to the non-offending parent. In 1999, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges put together the Greenbook Initiative, a set of 67 recommendations aimed at remedying precisely this set of problems. But though the Greenbook gives long overdue recognition to the issue, the recommendations don't call for installing any firm checks on the system, as will be discussed in more detail in a later section.
And in 2004, in New York state, there was a landmark settlement in a class action lawsuit against that state's child welfare agencies. The lawsuit, Nicholson v. Scoppetta, had been brought by mothers who had their children removed for no other reason than that the mothers, victims of domestic violence, had failed to protect their children from 'exposure' to the domestic violence. The 2004 lawsuit agreement and an earlier injunction prohibited child welfare agencies from using this reason alone to remove children from non-offending parents.
Though the lawsuit put CPS agencies around the country on notice of their wrongdoing and harm done in these cases, to date it has brought only modest change in practice. The vague laws and weak evidence standards governing CPS means that CPS workers need only adjust the language used in their justification for removing a child, offer the usual scant proof, and many juvenile courts continue removing children in these situations as before.
Perhaps the brightest spot on the horizon is the year 2005 resolution passed by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in support of presumptively open hearings with discretion of courts to close. Since their founding, most CPS/juvenile court proceedings have been operating in secret, completely off the public record. This secrecy has mushroomed the system's tendency toward abuse. The judges' 2005 resolution in support of open hearings is not yet law, but it's a promising step. It's highly unlikely any of the system's abuses will be corrected until this essential public airing and public scrutiny of the system's proceedings is firmly set into law and practice.
The Oppressive Swath of Danger and Damage
The harm of the widespread CPS practice of removing or threatening to remove children from non-offending parents extends far beyond the dangers and injustices to individual mothers and children. The harm extends to nearly every poor, immigrant, or minority race mother who is trying to deal with family violence. Most have heard first hand stories of CPS removing children from other mothers in their neighborhoods. As a result, they become reluctant to seek help for their own situations for fear that the same thing might happen to them.
Though we include a fair amount of information about the structure and history of CPS, the purpose of this guide isn't to do policy analysis nor to make recommendations for change. The purpose of this guide is to give family violence victims, advocates, and mandated reporters information and tips that can help you, as best as possible, to understand and avoid the pitfalls and abuses of the CPS/Juvenile Court system as they pertain to the non-offending parent.
At the same time, the agency seems to be perpetually marred by a steady drumbeat of nightmare stories about CPS emanating from the very families CPS is supposed to serve. This text deals with just one of these problems; the CPS practice of removing or threatening to remove children from the nonviolent, non-offending parent in cases of family violence. This guide explains why this happens with such frequency, how to help prevent it from happening in your case, and what to do about it if you're already caught in its grip. (Since the non-offending, nonviolent parent in these cases is usually the mother, we often refer to this parent as 'the mother', though there are certainly cases where the non-offending parent is the father.)
The Situation as it Usually Unfolds
In brief, the particular problem we cover usually unfolds like this. A mother herself seeks help from CPS or becomes involved with CPS through someone else's report of suspected child abuse. Her child has been physically or sexually abused by a family member, usually by a male family member, or there are concerns the child is living in a home where there is domestic violence. At first, the mother naturally anticipates that CPS will try to help her and her child, and try to punish and stop the perpetrator. So these mothers are stunned when suddenly the CPS/juvenile court system turns its sights on her, even though everyone agrees she didn't perpetrate the abuse or violence.
Suddenly she is the one under investigation, and the perpetrator is seeming to be all but ignored. And worse, CPS is threatening to take her child from her, or has already done so without warning or notice, and is threatening to keep the child, right at the time that mother and child need each other most. She feels the system turn hostile toward her. Did she, the non-offending parent, protect the child from the violent parent? Did she protect the child from molestation? Did she protect the child from being exposed to domestic violence in the home? Well, no, obviously she did not, or could not, or, in the case of molestation, often didn't know about it.
Instead of being treated more as a co-victim of a violent perpetrator, with help and guidance provided according to the mother's expressed needs, she is treated more as a co-perpetrator, with CPS establishing mandated controls over virtually any which aspect of her life CPS chooses, all under threat of losing her child. In addition to court dates at which it is her behavior that's in question, CPS gives her a mandated, often overwhelming set of programs and goals she must comply with to the satisfaction of the CPS/juvenile court system, in order to - maybe - get the child back - and maybe not. She is also held accountable for maintaining a cooperative attitude throughout, even though she is, in fact, in a profoundly adversarial relationship with CPS (which is why she's given an attorney at court time). At the same time, she begins to realize that the CPS/juvenile court system isn't pushing to hold the perpetrator accountable for his violence, nor is CPS even invested with the power to do so.
Most mothers say they would rather be threatened with jail than to be threatened with the loss of her child. Yet as invasive, terrifying, and awesome as this governmental threat is, virtually all the decisions as to her fitness, compliance, and fate are being decided at the lowest judicial standard of evidence, 51% of the evidence, the 'preponderance of the evidence' standard. This is a far cry from the 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard the government must reach before sentencing someone to jail for even the briefest time.
The level of proof against her that CPS is required to put forth is so minimal that it provides the mother little protection against any abusive, prejudiced, or discriminatory exercise of power by CPS. The low evidence burden on CPS also makes it nearly impossible for the mother to defend herself, especially against such vague accusations as 'failure to protect', or that 'she knew or should have known', things which don't even constitute a crime in the criminal system. And to top off the injustices, an all too common requirement on her must-do list is that she and/or the child must partake in family conferencing or a family reunification plan in which one or both must meet, mediate, or co-counsel with the perpetrator - the very same perpetrator from whom the mother has been accused of 'failure to protect' the child.
The Dawn of Recognition
Unfortunately, such stories are not the result of occasional human errors that are bound to occur in any public agency. They are, instead, inevitable and frequent outcomes stemming from the flawed founding premises and the weak legal underpinnings of the CPS/juvenile court system. The structure of the system drives toward these injustices no matter how well intentioned individual CPS workers may be. Nor is this to say that children should never be removed from the non-offending parent. There are circumstances in which they should. The problem is that the system is so arbitrary, sexist, secret, and outdated, that it tends toward abusive or mistaken results.
In the last decade, there has been growing recognition and discussion of the CPS problem as it pertains to the non-offending parent. In 1999, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges put together the Greenbook Initiative, a set of 67 recommendations aimed at remedying precisely this set of problems. But though the Greenbook gives long overdue recognition to the issue, the recommendations don't call for installing any firm checks on the system, as will be discussed in more detail in a later section.
And in 2004, in New York state, there was a landmark settlement in a class action lawsuit against that state's child welfare agencies. The lawsuit, Nicholson v. Scoppetta, had been brought by mothers who had their children removed for no other reason than that the mothers, victims of domestic violence, had failed to protect their children from 'exposure' to the domestic violence. The 2004 lawsuit agreement and an earlier injunction prohibited child welfare agencies from using this reason alone to remove children from non-offending parents.
Though the lawsuit put CPS agencies around the country on notice of their wrongdoing and harm done in these cases, to date it has brought only modest change in practice. The vague laws and weak evidence standards governing CPS means that CPS workers need only adjust the language used in their justification for removing a child, offer the usual scant proof, and many juvenile courts continue removing children in these situations as before.
Perhaps the brightest spot on the horizon is the year 2005 resolution passed by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in support of presumptively open hearings with discretion of courts to close. Since their founding, most CPS/juvenile court proceedings have been operating in secret, completely off the public record. This secrecy has mushroomed the system's tendency toward abuse. The judges' 2005 resolution in support of open hearings is not yet law, but it's a promising step. It's highly unlikely any of the system's abuses will be corrected until this essential public airing and public scrutiny of the system's proceedings is firmly set into law and practice.
The Oppressive Swath of Danger and Damage
The harm of the widespread CPS practice of removing or threatening to remove children from non-offending parents extends far beyond the dangers and injustices to individual mothers and children. The harm extends to nearly every poor, immigrant, or minority race mother who is trying to deal with family violence. Most have heard first hand stories of CPS removing children from other mothers in their neighborhoods. As a result, they become reluctant to seek help for their own situations for fear that the same thing might happen to them.
Though we include a fair amount of information about the structure and history of CPS, the purpose of this guide isn't to do policy analysis nor to make recommendations for change. The purpose of this guide is to give family violence victims, advocates, and mandated reporters information and tips that can help you, as best as possible, to understand and avoid the pitfalls and abuses of the CPS/Juvenile Court system as they pertain to the non-offending parent.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Money, Child Protective Services, and Greed
We all hear the horror stories involving Child Protective Services but believe it will never happen to us. Maybe we like to believe that those horror stories are the exception to the rule. Maybe we like to think that the media is sensationalizing the facts for ratings and profit, after all, that i
s what the media does. Maybe we think that we are doing everything right and will never have to deal with the system.
The reality is that states and counties receive $30,000 for each child removed from the home and put into the system. Those funds go up to between $40,000 and $150,000 if the child has special needs. If you think that kind of money doesn't breed corruption, think again. In March 2003 the city of San Francisco had 75,000 children in their system. 75,000 children at $30,000 each (that is assuming none of them were handicapped) is $2,250,000,000! Foster families receive between $3,000 and $8300 a year for fostering a child depending on the state. That is a nice little profit being made even after you account for salaries and other overhead. It would be interesting to know where several million dollars each year is going.
The Department of Child Protective Services is a relatively new department of the government. In 1974 the first child abuse case went before the courts. There were no child abuse laws at that time so the case was taken up by the Human Society of the United States. It was after that case that the first child abuse laws were written and the Department of Child Protective Services was put together. It wasn't long before around 500,000 children were placed into the system with nothing in place to either return the children to their parents to find permanent homes for them. I remember attending elementary school with several children who lived in an orphanage where these children were put and forgotten about by the system.
Like most government agencies, CPS has evolved over the years and undergone reform to prevent abuse of the system as well as to make things run smoother and more effectively. However, it seems that the more rules that are put in place the more loopholes there are for corruption.
In 1997 the Adoption and Safe Families Act was put into place by the 105th Congress of the United States. The Adoption and Safe Families Act states:
· Reasonable efforts shall be made to preserve and reunify families unless the parent(s) have committed murder or voluntary manslaughter; aided, abetted, attempted, conspired or solicited to commit murder or voluntary manslaughter; committed a felony assault that resulted in serious bodily injury of the child or another child of the parent; the parental rights of the parent to a sibling have been terminated involuntarily
· If a child is not to be returned to the parents that a permanency hearing will take place within 30 days and that finalization of the placement, either with a legal guardian or by adoption, will be handled in a expeditious fashion as well as the details of how this will be done.
· How much money is to be given by the Federal Government to carry out the bill including incentive payments for the adoption of children in the system.
Yes, incentive payments for the adoption of children in the system. How this works is that a base line number of adoptions has to happen by each state or they risk loosing money. I understand the thought pattern behind the push to adopt out children permanently placed in the system. However, providing monetary incentives opens a lot of doors for the abuse of power. The base line number of adoptions of each state was determined individually. The number of adoptions for the years 1995, 1996 and 1997 were added up and the average taken. Each state was given their number. For each adoption that takes place over that number the state gets $4000. An additional $2000 is given for each special needs child.
Where does all this money go? I wish I had the answer there. Every child that gets put into the system is automatically enrolled in Medicaid. That crosses medical care off the list of what that money pays for. Foster families get a stipend each month for each foster child they take care of to help cover food, clothes and other basic needs. That monthly payment is only a small fraction of that $30,000 given to the state.
From my personal experience I can tell you that none of that money goes into helping the families who have been torn apart. In fact, the social worker that showed up on my door step was driving a BMW. Apparently social workers do get paid that much. So much for horrible hours, horrible pay and it being a thankless job that has a high turn over rate. I will say that being a social worker takes a certain type of person and not everyone is cut out for the job.
Forget wanting to help families. Forget wanting to protect children. Maybe that is why people originally go into social work. To be successful at you have to have a sadistic side of you that enjoys watching people suffer, that way you don't get emotionally attached and you do what you have to do.
Don't believe me? Don't think the system is abused? Consider for a moment that every report that is made to Child Protective Services, regardless of the validity of the claim, has to be investigated or the state risks loosing federal monies that are tied to Social Security. This means that if you get into a fight with your neighbor, your mother-in-law, or a friend they can pick up the phone and call in a false report in retaliation and you will have a social worker show up on your doorstep.
If everything isn't picture perfect when that social worker arrives, a case is formed. It could be anything such as the garbage hasn't been taken out that day, there are dirty dishes in the sink or your kids haven't had a bath yet that day. These people are there to judge your parenting and if they show up on that off day they aren't going to believe you that it's not normally like that.
I have also learned first hand that if someone makes a false call and makes the story outrageous enough that there will be no investigation and your kids will be taken on the spot, and the social worker doesn't have to be professional about it. They are allowed to yell at you, make snap judgments without asking questions, make you stand in the rain for three hours as well as ask questions that are a violation of your personal rights.
The social worker involved in our case also did nothing to help us out. Her idea of help was coming back a week later with a zoning inspector and having the house we were living in condemned making us homeless. This was after she was ordered by the court to return our kids and pay for temporary housing until we could get moved. When we went back to court and she was questioned on this her argument was "We are not in the habit of putting up homeless families."
She violated court order after court order and the judge did not do much about it, beyond not letting her get her way of terminating our parental rights and putting the children in state care. I know that the numbers were adding up in her head. I have seven children. Some of them are considered special needs. If she could get them adopted out there would be a nice bonus of $28,000 minimum.
After a month and a half we did get our kids back, but not after our visitation awarded by the court was blocked for a week and a half, our oldest was put in an unapproved foster home (the woman was licensed to take care of relatives only) and been sexually assaulted and our other children spent just over a month sick because the group home they were put in were very lax about the special diets they had to be on for health reasons.
Nothing was put in place for the emotional and mental well-being of my children. There is no counseling that is automatically given to children in the system to help cope with being separated from their parents. Maybe it is because it is assumed that every child removed from their home and taken away from their parents will be relieved because the state has rules, regulations and procedures in place to prevent errors from happening. Forget that the system is set up with monetary incentives at every corner that those motivated by greed.
s what the media does. Maybe we think that we are doing everything right and will never have to deal with the system.
The reality is that states and counties receive $30,000 for each child removed from the home and put into the system. Those funds go up to between $40,000 and $150,000 if the child has special needs. If you think that kind of money doesn't breed corruption, think again. In March 2003 the city of San Francisco had 75,000 children in their system. 75,000 children at $30,000 each (that is assuming none of them were handicapped) is $2,250,000,000! Foster families receive between $3,000 and $8300 a year for fostering a child depending on the state. That is a nice little profit being made even after you account for salaries and other overhead. It would be interesting to know where several million dollars each year is going.
The Department of Child Protective Services is a relatively new department of the government. In 1974 the first child abuse case went before the courts. There were no child abuse laws at that time so the case was taken up by the Human Society of the United States. It was after that case that the first child abuse laws were written and the Department of Child Protective Services was put together. It wasn't long before around 500,000 children were placed into the system with nothing in place to either return the children to their parents to find permanent homes for them. I remember attending elementary school with several children who lived in an orphanage where these children were put and forgotten about by the system.
Like most government agencies, CPS has evolved over the years and undergone reform to prevent abuse of the system as well as to make things run smoother and more effectively. However, it seems that the more rules that are put in place the more loopholes there are for corruption.
In 1997 the Adoption and Safe Families Act was put into place by the 105th Congress of the United States. The Adoption and Safe Families Act states:
· Reasonable efforts shall be made to preserve and reunify families unless the parent(s) have committed murder or voluntary manslaughter; aided, abetted, attempted, conspired or solicited to commit murder or voluntary manslaughter; committed a felony assault that resulted in serious bodily injury of the child or another child of the parent; the parental rights of the parent to a sibling have been terminated involuntarily
· If a child is not to be returned to the parents that a permanency hearing will take place within 30 days and that finalization of the placement, either with a legal guardian or by adoption, will be handled in a expeditious fashion as well as the details of how this will be done.
· How much money is to be given by the Federal Government to carry out the bill including incentive payments for the adoption of children in the system.
Yes, incentive payments for the adoption of children in the system. How this works is that a base line number of adoptions has to happen by each state or they risk loosing money. I understand the thought pattern behind the push to adopt out children permanently placed in the system. However, providing monetary incentives opens a lot of doors for the abuse of power. The base line number of adoptions of each state was determined individually. The number of adoptions for the years 1995, 1996 and 1997 were added up and the average taken. Each state was given their number. For each adoption that takes place over that number the state gets $4000. An additional $2000 is given for each special needs child.
Where does all this money go? I wish I had the answer there. Every child that gets put into the system is automatically enrolled in Medicaid. That crosses medical care off the list of what that money pays for. Foster families get a stipend each month for each foster child they take care of to help cover food, clothes and other basic needs. That monthly payment is only a small fraction of that $30,000 given to the state.
From my personal experience I can tell you that none of that money goes into helping the families who have been torn apart. In fact, the social worker that showed up on my door step was driving a BMW. Apparently social workers do get paid that much. So much for horrible hours, horrible pay and it being a thankless job that has a high turn over rate. I will say that being a social worker takes a certain type of person and not everyone is cut out for the job.
Forget wanting to help families. Forget wanting to protect children. Maybe that is why people originally go into social work. To be successful at you have to have a sadistic side of you that enjoys watching people suffer, that way you don't get emotionally attached and you do what you have to do.
Don't believe me? Don't think the system is abused? Consider for a moment that every report that is made to Child Protective Services, regardless of the validity of the claim, has to be investigated or the state risks loosing federal monies that are tied to Social Security. This means that if you get into a fight with your neighbor, your mother-in-law, or a friend they can pick up the phone and call in a false report in retaliation and you will have a social worker show up on your doorstep.
If everything isn't picture perfect when that social worker arrives, a case is formed. It could be anything such as the garbage hasn't been taken out that day, there are dirty dishes in the sink or your kids haven't had a bath yet that day. These people are there to judge your parenting and if they show up on that off day they aren't going to believe you that it's not normally like that.
I have also learned first hand that if someone makes a false call and makes the story outrageous enough that there will be no investigation and your kids will be taken on the spot, and the social worker doesn't have to be professional about it. They are allowed to yell at you, make snap judgments without asking questions, make you stand in the rain for three hours as well as ask questions that are a violation of your personal rights.
The social worker involved in our case also did nothing to help us out. Her idea of help was coming back a week later with a zoning inspector and having the house we were living in condemned making us homeless. This was after she was ordered by the court to return our kids and pay for temporary housing until we could get moved. When we went back to court and she was questioned on this her argument was "We are not in the habit of putting up homeless families."
She violated court order after court order and the judge did not do much about it, beyond not letting her get her way of terminating our parental rights and putting the children in state care. I know that the numbers were adding up in her head. I have seven children. Some of them are considered special needs. If she could get them adopted out there would be a nice bonus of $28,000 minimum.
After a month and a half we did get our kids back, but not after our visitation awarded by the court was blocked for a week and a half, our oldest was put in an unapproved foster home (the woman was licensed to take care of relatives only) and been sexually assaulted and our other children spent just over a month sick because the group home they were put in were very lax about the special diets they had to be on for health reasons.
Nothing was put in place for the emotional and mental well-being of my children. There is no counseling that is automatically given to children in the system to help cope with being separated from their parents. Maybe it is because it is assumed that every child removed from their home and taken away from their parents will be relieved because the state has rules, regulations and procedures in place to prevent errors from happening. Forget that the system is set up with monetary incentives at every corner that those motivated by greed.
Senator Schaefer report on CPS corruption
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 the 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 back to the southeast, and 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 not recovered.
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 and children across the state because they have no rights and 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 over the state of Georgia.
In this report, I am focusing 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 almost 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 Service (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. This report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in “legal kidnapping,” ineffective policies, and DFCS who do does not remove a child or children when a child is enduring torment and abuse. (See Exhibit A and Exhibit B)
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 DFCS department that required many, many drug tests from parents and individuals for profit. In another county children were not removed when they were enduring the worst possible abuse.
Due to being exposed, several employees in a particular DFCS 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 deeds.
Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide, I am convinced there is no responsibility and no accountability in the system.
I have come to the conclusion:
* that poor parents often times 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 always 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 they are at work and while their children are separated from them. 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;
* that caseworkers and social workers are oftentimes guilty of fraud. They withhold evidence. They fabricate evidence and they seek to terminate parental rights. However, when charges are made against them, the charges are ignored;
* that the separation of families is growing as a business because local governments have grown accustomed to having taxpayer dollars to balance their ever-expanding budgets;
* that Child Protective Service 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, 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 social workers are the glue that holds “the system” together that funds the court, the child’s attorney, and the multiple other jobs including DFCS’s attorney.
* that The Adoption and the Safe Families Act, set in motion 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 sell and you must have plenty of them so the buyer can choose. Some counties are known to give a $4,000 bonus for each child adopted and an additional $2,000 for a “special needs” child. Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing;
* that there is double dipping. The funding continues as long as the child is out of the home. When a child in foster care 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;
* that there are no financial resources and no real drive to unite a family and help keep them together;
* 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. Look at the waste in government that is forced upon the tax payer;
* that the “Policy Manuel” is considered “the last word” for 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 all children are not always safer. Children, of whom I am aware, have been raped and impregnated in foster care and the head of a Foster Parents Association in my District was recently arrested because of child molestation;
* 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.
* fathers, (non-custodial parents) I must add, are oftentimes treated as criminals without access to their own children and have child support payments strangling the very life out of them;
* that the Foster Parents Bill of Rights does not bring out that a foster parent is there only to care for a child until the child can be returned home. Many Foster Parents today use the Foster Parent Bill of Rights to hire a lawyer and seek to adopt the child from the real parents, who are desperately trying to get their child home and out of the system;
* 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 trying to get custody of their grandchildren. DFCS claims relatives are contacted, but there are 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.
* 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.
Please continue:
(See Final Remarks below)
FINAL REMARKS
On my desk are scores of cases of exhausted families and troubled children. It has been beyond me to turn my back on these suffering, crying, and sometimes beaten down individuals. We are mistreating the most innocent. Child Protective Services have become adult centered to the detriment of children. No longer is judgment based on what the child needs or who the child wants to be with 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 a director of DFCS.
I have witnessed such injustice and harm brought to these 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
Please continue to read:
Recommendations
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Call for an independent audit of the Department of Family and Children’s Services (DFCS) to expose corruption and fraud.
2. Activate immediate change. Every day that passes means more families and children are subject to being held hostage.
3. End the financial incentives that separate families.
4. Grant to parents their rights in writing.
5. Mandate a search for family members to be given the opportunity to adopt their own relatives.
6. Mandate a jury trial where every piece of evidence is presented before removing a child from his or her parents.
7. 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.”)
8. 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.
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 the 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 back to the southeast, and 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 not recovered.
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 and children across the state because they have no rights and 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 over the state of Georgia.
In this report, I am focusing 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 almost 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 Service (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. This report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in “legal kidnapping,” ineffective policies, and DFCS who do does not remove a child or children when a child is enduring torment and abuse. (See Exhibit A and Exhibit B)
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 DFCS department that required many, many drug tests from parents and individuals for profit. In another county children were not removed when they were enduring the worst possible abuse.
Due to being exposed, several employees in a particular DFCS 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 deeds.
Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide, I am convinced there is no responsibility and no accountability in the system.
I have come to the conclusion:
* that poor parents often times 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 always 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 they are at work and while their children are separated from them. 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;
* that caseworkers and social workers are oftentimes guilty of fraud. They withhold evidence. They fabricate evidence and they seek to terminate parental rights. However, when charges are made against them, the charges are ignored;
* that the separation of families is growing as a business because local governments have grown accustomed to having taxpayer dollars to balance their ever-expanding budgets;
* that Child Protective Service 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, 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 social workers are the glue that holds “the system” together that funds the court, the child’s attorney, and the multiple other jobs including DFCS’s attorney.
* that The Adoption and the Safe Families Act, set in motion 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 sell and you must have plenty of them so the buyer can choose. Some counties are known to give a $4,000 bonus for each child adopted and an additional $2,000 for a “special needs” child. Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing;
* that there is double dipping. The funding continues as long as the child is out of the home. When a child in foster care 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;
* that there are no financial resources and no real drive to unite a family and help keep them together;
* 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. Look at the waste in government that is forced upon the tax payer;
* that the “Policy Manuel” is considered “the last word” for 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 all children are not always safer. Children, of whom I am aware, have been raped and impregnated in foster care and the head of a Foster Parents Association in my District was recently arrested because of child molestation;
* 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.
* fathers, (non-custodial parents) I must add, are oftentimes treated as criminals without access to their own children and have child support payments strangling the very life out of them;
* that the Foster Parents Bill of Rights does not bring out that a foster parent is there only to care for a child until the child can be returned home. Many Foster Parents today use the Foster Parent Bill of Rights to hire a lawyer and seek to adopt the child from the real parents, who are desperately trying to get their child home and out of the system;
* 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 trying to get custody of their grandchildren. DFCS claims relatives are contacted, but there are 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.
* 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.
Please continue:
(See Final Remarks below)
FINAL REMARKS
On my desk are scores of cases of exhausted families and troubled children. It has been beyond me to turn my back on these suffering, crying, and sometimes beaten down individuals. We are mistreating the most innocent. Child Protective Services have become adult centered to the detriment of children. No longer is judgment based on what the child needs or who the child wants to be with 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 a director of DFCS.
I have witnessed such injustice and harm brought to these 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
Please continue to read:
Recommendations
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Call for an independent audit of the Department of Family and Children’s Services (DFCS) to expose corruption and fraud.
2. Activate immediate change. Every day that passes means more families and children are subject to being held hostage.
3. End the financial incentives that separate families.
4. Grant to parents their rights in writing.
5. Mandate a search for family members to be given the opportunity to adopt their own relatives.
6. Mandate a jury trial where every piece of evidence is presented before removing a child from his or her parents.
7. 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.”)
8. 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.
Daycare Worker Charged in Murder of Toddler
Benjamin Kingan parents had trusted the staff at the Minee Subee Day Care Center, but Wednesday afternoon, police say a teacher's assistant, 22-year-old Melissa Calusinski, became so frustrated she threw him to the ground.
"She told investigators she was having issues with children in the room. The children were making noise and things like that. She just lost her temper and threw the child down," said Adam Hyde of the Lincolnshire Police Department.Police say 16-month-old Benjamin of Deerfield, at first, showed no outward signs of injury. He crawled across the room, picking up a blanket and toy along the way, before climbing into a bouncy chair and eventually losing consciousness.
"The injuries are not immediately fatal. The injury to the head causes swelling and damage to the brain which takes time to cause the child to become unresponsive," said Lake County Coroner Dr. Richard Keller.
A total of eight children were in the room at the time the incident happened, along with two adults. The other day care staff member told police she did not see the incident.
Calucinski is the one first noticed Benjamin wasn't breathing and summoned help.
An autopsy revealed the child suffered a fractured skull and bleeding near the brain.
"A child falling ever from the height of a shoulder in and of itself would not do this sort of damage to the brain or cause the skull to fracture. It takes basically a much higher fall or an adult exerting pressure on the child as they are thrown to the floor," Keller said.
Calusinski is being held in the Lake County Jail on $5 million bond.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Tragic story of baby P this is his story
(This story was written in Peter’s point of view, how he may have seen things. Peter died after months of abuse that was known my Haringey Social Services, doctors and many others. I wrote this to help spread his story, bring awareness to child abuse and to share with others in the hope that they would do something about child abuse. )
Hello, My Name is Peter.
At the age of 1year 6months 2days I had to leave the earth.
I would like to share my story as a victim of abuse in hopes that you will be touched and help save another child from suffering the same fate as me. Maybe if you saw abuse through the eyes of a child, you might find it in your heart to help stop it.
This is my story …
I don’t really remember my life on earth, it all feels like was a dream….a nightmare really and I finally woke up. It was filled with monsters, lies and pain.
I was born on March 1st, 2006. I never knew what this world would have in store for me and I would not have guessed. I lived with my mommy and daddy in Haringey, London.
June, 2006
My mommy began dating a man she met at a pub, my daddy left our home. I guess this is where everything began to change for the worst.
Soon after, the bruises started appearing. I was taken to the hospital many times, with bruising all over my little body. For some reason though my mummy would always say I fell. I don’t know why. I didn’t fall, she knows the truth but I don’t understand why she tried to hide it. My mummy and my stepdaddy weren’t the only people who knew. Social workers saw that I was being injured but nothing was never ever done to protect me. My voice remained silent in their ears because I was so small. Maybe if they had taken the time to listen to the words I couldn’t say they would have done more to help me.
Before Christmas, 2006 I was taken from my mummy. I thought maybe I had a chance to make it. That I wouldn’t be another soul lost in this confusion.
It wasn’t long though till I was sent back by my mummy. The hurt continued.
I remember my first birthday. My stepdaddy was hugging me and kept me on his lap. No one knew but me the real reason why. He was trying to keep people from seeing the owies I had. People saw I was sad; I didn’t even get to play with my presents. I didn’t know until I came to Heaven that, that was not how birthdays were supposed to be.
I remember once my daddy kept me from my mummy. He was scared that something was going to happen. But mummy called the police; they made him give me back. I cried and screamed. I didn’t want to go back by my mummy, I wanted to be safe, and I wanted to stay with my daddy where there was no hurting. I needed to feel love, I needed to be safe.
But my wants and my needs were ignored.
I can still remember what my stepdaddy would do to me. He would hold me in the air then drop me to the floor. It hurt so bad. He wouldn’t stop there, he would hold my legs and swing me and let me hit what ever was there. There was so much pain. I couldn’t fight him off, he was too big. He would only laugh when I cried. He would slice off my finger tips and pull out my little nails with pliers. He would make me kneel in front him for more pain but I couldn’t. When I didn’t he would pick me up and toss me around. It hurt so badly but crying didn’t make it better. He would kick me and bite my head. He even let his doggies bite my head.
My stepdaddy wasn’t the only person to hurt me. Another man did too. Two against one, that’s not fair.
I thought my mummy loved me but even if she did, she didn’t help me. She would be in front of the computer instead of helping me. I would often look in her direction hoping she would help me….but she didn’t. I wondered if I was bad, if she really loved me.
Did I do something to hurt her so much that she would let them hurt me?
At night I was thrown into my crib and there I would lie there crying for someone to help me, to do something. I was left in a filled diaper for days but no one came. No one helped me. Those nights I wished I had a bigger voice, that I could scream for help and people would listen. That I could fight him off, and I could leave but I was too little.
Like it always does the bad got worse.
One day my stepdaddy had me across his knees. He was watching Television and smirking. I was scared. He was playing with me as if I was a doll. Then I heard a loud snap and I felt pain, so much pain I screamed with all I could for it to stop. I screamed so hard. He had snapped my spine in two. I was already hurting, now the pain was unbearable.
Later I went for a walk with me stepdaddy but I couldn’t even stand up. I kept falling over.
The last time I saw the social workers I was hurting so much. It was days before I went to Heaven. My mummy covered my owies with chocolate so they wouldn’t see the bruises. She gave me a biscuit and left me in my cot. When I saw her those whose job it is to protect me, I smiled. Even with my broken back, broken ribs and hurting everywhere. I smiled at her but she didn’t help me. The last thing I heard her say was “If you’re taking him out later, make sure you wash his face. It’s a disgrace.”
August 1st, 2007
My mummy took me to the doctor. I knew right there, that this was my last chance to be heard. I tried to make the doctor listen, for her to help me, to do something but she didn’t. She didn’t see my broken ribs, my broken back nothing.
August 2nd, 2007
I was left in my room, all alone. Then my stepdaddy came in and squeezed my fingertips. I waited for the pain but it didn’t come. I couldn’t feel it. I didn’t have the strength in me to scream for help. He hit me in my head but I still couldn’t feel it.
August 3rd, 2007
I was crying, I was crying because I was hurting and no one was listening. I had been left in the same diaper for days. I was crying to because I was hurting inside. Not my broken spine or the pain all over my body, I was hurting in my heart. There the worse pain of all was kept. It hurt so much.
I was crying when I heard my stepdaddy come and say “I’ll sort it”. I was scared and I kept crying for my mummy. He came into my room and I went silent. He punched me so hard in my mouth I swallowed my tooth.
The pain was too much and I couldn’t hold on any longer when I felt arms hold me. It was an Angel. She held me in my arms and wiped away my tears. She told me “Precious baby, it is time for you to leave this place,”. I was waiting for the pain because that was all I knew but it didn’t come. I felt something else, something I never felt before. Love.
She took me to Heaven where there is no pain, no tears, no black and blue on my skin, no hurt. There is only happiness, love and laughter. I was not the only child there though. I have many friends. Some younger than me and who have felt pain like mine. In Heaven I feel safe, I could smile now and run I got back my childhood. The one I lost on earth.
Even though I am in a safe place now, I could still hear the cries of children on earth. I see people who know what is happening but they don’t do anything about it. Is it because they are scared? Do they ever wonder how we must feel living in a nightmare where real monsters cause us pain?
We can’t fight those monsters but you can. By reporting the abuse, by doing something you are giving us a chance.
It seems everyday I get a new friend in Heaven. Why?
This is my plea, to please Stop the Abuse and report it. Please do something to help us. We can’t do this on our own. We need you. Please, help us.
Please become the voice today,
Angel Peter
2006 - 2007
P.S There is one thing everyone must remember
Child Abuse Kills and
Death is Forever
An Autopsy later revealed Peter had severe cuts on his head caused by either a dog or human bite. He had bruises all over his body. Peter had bleeding on his spine with that was 48 hours old. He had blackened finger and toenails nails. One finger was missing a nail and the skin had been stripped.
He had eight broken ribs that were 1-2 weeks old. Skin was missing from the top of his tongue and lips caused by a blow. The skin between his upper lip and gum was torn and his tooth had been knocked out. Don’t let his life and fight be in vain. We all must do something to help save a child from suffering the same fate. )
Hello, My Name is Peter.
At the age of 1year 6months 2days I had to leave the earth.
I would like to share my story as a victim of abuse in hopes that you will be touched and help save another child from suffering the same fate as me. Maybe if you saw abuse through the eyes of a child, you might find it in your heart to help stop it.
This is my story …
I don’t really remember my life on earth, it all feels like was a dream….a nightmare really and I finally woke up. It was filled with monsters, lies and pain.
I was born on March 1st, 2006. I never knew what this world would have in store for me and I would not have guessed. I lived with my mommy and daddy in Haringey, London.
June, 2006
My mommy began dating a man she met at a pub, my daddy left our home. I guess this is where everything began to change for the worst.
Soon after, the bruises started appearing. I was taken to the hospital many times, with bruising all over my little body. For some reason though my mummy would always say I fell. I don’t know why. I didn’t fall, she knows the truth but I don’t understand why she tried to hide it. My mummy and my stepdaddy weren’t the only people who knew. Social workers saw that I was being injured but nothing was never ever done to protect me. My voice remained silent in their ears because I was so small. Maybe if they had taken the time to listen to the words I couldn’t say they would have done more to help me.
Before Christmas, 2006 I was taken from my mummy. I thought maybe I had a chance to make it. That I wouldn’t be another soul lost in this confusion.
It wasn’t long though till I was sent back by my mummy. The hurt continued.
I remember my first birthday. My stepdaddy was hugging me and kept me on his lap. No one knew but me the real reason why. He was trying to keep people from seeing the owies I had. People saw I was sad; I didn’t even get to play with my presents. I didn’t know until I came to Heaven that, that was not how birthdays were supposed to be.
I remember once my daddy kept me from my mummy. He was scared that something was going to happen. But mummy called the police; they made him give me back. I cried and screamed. I didn’t want to go back by my mummy, I wanted to be safe, and I wanted to stay with my daddy where there was no hurting. I needed to feel love, I needed to be safe.
But my wants and my needs were ignored.
I can still remember what my stepdaddy would do to me. He would hold me in the air then drop me to the floor. It hurt so bad. He wouldn’t stop there, he would hold my legs and swing me and let me hit what ever was there. There was so much pain. I couldn’t fight him off, he was too big. He would only laugh when I cried. He would slice off my finger tips and pull out my little nails with pliers. He would make me kneel in front him for more pain but I couldn’t. When I didn’t he would pick me up and toss me around. It hurt so badly but crying didn’t make it better. He would kick me and bite my head. He even let his doggies bite my head.
My stepdaddy wasn’t the only person to hurt me. Another man did too. Two against one, that’s not fair.
I thought my mummy loved me but even if she did, she didn’t help me. She would be in front of the computer instead of helping me. I would often look in her direction hoping she would help me….but she didn’t. I wondered if I was bad, if she really loved me.
Did I do something to hurt her so much that she would let them hurt me?
At night I was thrown into my crib and there I would lie there crying for someone to help me, to do something. I was left in a filled diaper for days but no one came. No one helped me. Those nights I wished I had a bigger voice, that I could scream for help and people would listen. That I could fight him off, and I could leave but I was too little.
Like it always does the bad got worse.
One day my stepdaddy had me across his knees. He was watching Television and smirking. I was scared. He was playing with me as if I was a doll. Then I heard a loud snap and I felt pain, so much pain I screamed with all I could for it to stop. I screamed so hard. He had snapped my spine in two. I was already hurting, now the pain was unbearable.
Later I went for a walk with me stepdaddy but I couldn’t even stand up. I kept falling over.
The last time I saw the social workers I was hurting so much. It was days before I went to Heaven. My mummy covered my owies with chocolate so they wouldn’t see the bruises. She gave me a biscuit and left me in my cot. When I saw her those whose job it is to protect me, I smiled. Even with my broken back, broken ribs and hurting everywhere. I smiled at her but she didn’t help me. The last thing I heard her say was “If you’re taking him out later, make sure you wash his face. It’s a disgrace.”
August 1st, 2007
My mummy took me to the doctor. I knew right there, that this was my last chance to be heard. I tried to make the doctor listen, for her to help me, to do something but she didn’t. She didn’t see my broken ribs, my broken back nothing.
August 2nd, 2007
I was left in my room, all alone. Then my stepdaddy came in and squeezed my fingertips. I waited for the pain but it didn’t come. I couldn’t feel it. I didn’t have the strength in me to scream for help. He hit me in my head but I still couldn’t feel it.
August 3rd, 2007
I was crying, I was crying because I was hurting and no one was listening. I had been left in the same diaper for days. I was crying to because I was hurting inside. Not my broken spine or the pain all over my body, I was hurting in my heart. There the worse pain of all was kept. It hurt so much.
I was crying when I heard my stepdaddy come and say “I’ll sort it”. I was scared and I kept crying for my mummy. He came into my room and I went silent. He punched me so hard in my mouth I swallowed my tooth.
The pain was too much and I couldn’t hold on any longer when I felt arms hold me. It was an Angel. She held me in my arms and wiped away my tears. She told me “Precious baby, it is time for you to leave this place,”. I was waiting for the pain because that was all I knew but it didn’t come. I felt something else, something I never felt before. Love.
She took me to Heaven where there is no pain, no tears, no black and blue on my skin, no hurt. There is only happiness, love and laughter. I was not the only child there though. I have many friends. Some younger than me and who have felt pain like mine. In Heaven I feel safe, I could smile now and run I got back my childhood. The one I lost on earth.
Even though I am in a safe place now, I could still hear the cries of children on earth. I see people who know what is happening but they don’t do anything about it. Is it because they are scared? Do they ever wonder how we must feel living in a nightmare where real monsters cause us pain?
We can’t fight those monsters but you can. By reporting the abuse, by doing something you are giving us a chance.
It seems everyday I get a new friend in Heaven. Why?
This is my plea, to please Stop the Abuse and report it. Please do something to help us. We can’t do this on our own. We need you. Please, help us.
Please become the voice today,
Angel Peter
2006 - 2007
P.S There is one thing everyone must remember
Child Abuse Kills and
Death is Forever
An Autopsy later revealed Peter had severe cuts on his head caused by either a dog or human bite. He had bruises all over his body. Peter had bleeding on his spine with that was 48 hours old. He had blackened finger and toenails nails. One finger was missing a nail and the skin had been stripped.
He had eight broken ribs that were 1-2 weeks old. Skin was missing from the top of his tongue and lips caused by a blow. The skin between his upper lip and gum was torn and his tooth had been knocked out. Don’t let his life and fight be in vain. We all must do something to help save a child from suffering the same fate. )
the Tragic CPS failing of Sirita Sotelo
Three weeks before she was born, Sirita1 Sotelo was the subject of a Child
Protective Services (CPS) referral, alleging prenatal substance abuse by her
mother. After she tested positive for cocaine at birth on February 12, 2000, CPS
filed for dependency and placed Sirita in foster care.
Over the next three years, the department made numerous attempts to reunite
Sirita with her mother. Services were provided to address the mother’s
substance abuse and mental health issues. Four times Sirita was placed with
her mother, only to again be removed due to allegations of abuse or neglect.
During this period, Sirita experienced seven different placement episodes,
alternating between foster care and placement with her mother. She spent over
25 months in foster care, in eight different foster homes,2 and 19 months placed
with her mother. Significant periods of placement with the mother lasted four
months, five months and ten months. While efforts were being made to reunite
Sirita with her mother, the child’s father, who was notified of the dependency
action, did not involve himself in the dependency process, or seek placement of
Sirita.
In May 2003, the department filed for termination of parental rights, based on the
length of time Sirita had been in state care, the failed reunification attempts with
the mother, and the father’s lack of participation in the dependency action or
reunification efforts. However, after learning that the department was seeking to
terminate parental rights, Sirita’s father stepped forward and requested that she
be placed with him and his wife. The department then conducted a home study,
and developed a service plan for the father, which included a drug/alcohol
assessment, parenting classes, weekly visits with Sirita and a psychological
evaluation. The father successfully completed these services, and in November
2003, Sirita was placed with her father, stepmother and their four children.
Over the following 12 months, the department continued to supervise Sirita’s
placement with her father and provide case management services. Monthly
visits to check on Sirita’s health and safety occurred in December 2003, January
2004, February 2004 and the last visit occurred in May 2004. Although
caseworkers identified a need for counseling, this service was not implemented.
In November 2004, the dependency was dismissed, as the father had
established a parenting plan gaining custody of Sirita.
On January 22, 2005, only two months after the dependency case was closed,
CPS received a referral from law enforcement reporting a suspicious death of
four year-old Sirita. The stepmother and another relative had been with Sirita the
night of her death and reportedly called poison control stating that Sirita had
gotten sick eating glue. Later that evening, the relative checked on Sirita andfound her dead, and then called 911. According to law enforcement, the child
appeared gaunt, malnourished and pale. Medical examiners later determined
she died as a result of blows to the head and body causing a fractured skull and
severed liver. The stepmother later stated that she couldn’t handle Sirita’s fits
and tantrums and admitted she threw her in a cold shower and beat her after the
child wet her pants.
The Office of the Family and Children’s Ombudsman conducted a case
investigation of the Division of Children and Family Services’ (DCFS)
involvement with Sirita and her parents. The Ombudsman reviewed all records
and reports from DCFS, treatment reports, professional evaluations, as well as
applicable Children’s Administration (CA) Policy and Procedure and state law.
The purpose of the Ombudsman’s investigation was to determine DCFS’
compliance with department policy and procedure, and state law, and to identify
changes in law, policy and procedure that will better protect children from abuse
and neglect.
The Ombudsman identified the following areas of concern:
• Lack of services provided to Sirita, her father and stepmother, following
her placement in their care.
• Delay in establishing permanency for Sirita.
• Frequency of health and safety checks did not comply with CA policy.
• The father’s and stepmother’s CPS referral history may not have been
fully considered prior to placing Sirita in their home.
• Although the father completed both a psychological evaluation and
drug/alcohol assessment prior to Sirita’s placement, there was no similar
evaluation of the stepmother.
Based on our review of this case, the Ombudsman developed several
recommendations aimed at: strengthening case supervision following a child’s
return to a parent’s care; assuring that appropriate services for successful
reunification are provided; and improving assessment of other adult care-givers
in the parent’s home. These areas of concern and recommendations are
discussed in greater detail below.
On pp. 6 and 9 of this report, as well as in the Chronology of Placement
Episodes and Significant Events at the end of the report, the Ombudsman refers
to and/or states that on November 12, 2003, DCFS conducted a Child Protection
Team (CPT) staffing. This conclusion was based on information then available to
the Ombudsman, including the CPT Case Presentation Summary dated
November 12, 2003. On February 7, 2006, the Ombudsman was informed by the
Department of Social and Health Services, Division of Children and Family
Services, that although the CPT was scheduled, the CPT did not occur prior to
Sirita Sotelo’s placement with her father or prior to dismissal of the dependency a
year later. Section 2562 of Children’s Administration Practices and Procedures
Guide then required a CPT “[i]n all cases prior to return home or dismissal of
dependency, when the child is age six or younger and any risk assessment has
resulted in a risk level of moderately high or high risk.” Sirita’s case was
assessed as high risk; she was 3 years old at the time of placement with her
father; and age 4 when the dependency was dismissed.
Protective Services (CPS) referral, alleging prenatal substance abuse by her
mother. After she tested positive for cocaine at birth on February 12, 2000, CPS
filed for dependency and placed Sirita in foster care.
Over the next three years, the department made numerous attempts to reunite
Sirita with her mother. Services were provided to address the mother’s
substance abuse and mental health issues. Four times Sirita was placed with
her mother, only to again be removed due to allegations of abuse or neglect.
During this period, Sirita experienced seven different placement episodes,
alternating between foster care and placement with her mother. She spent over
25 months in foster care, in eight different foster homes,2 and 19 months placed
with her mother. Significant periods of placement with the mother lasted four
months, five months and ten months. While efforts were being made to reunite
Sirita with her mother, the child’s father, who was notified of the dependency
action, did not involve himself in the dependency process, or seek placement of
Sirita.
In May 2003, the department filed for termination of parental rights, based on the
length of time Sirita had been in state care, the failed reunification attempts with
the mother, and the father’s lack of participation in the dependency action or
reunification efforts. However, after learning that the department was seeking to
terminate parental rights, Sirita’s father stepped forward and requested that she
be placed with him and his wife. The department then conducted a home study,
and developed a service plan for the father, which included a drug/alcohol
assessment, parenting classes, weekly visits with Sirita and a psychological
evaluation. The father successfully completed these services, and in November
2003, Sirita was placed with her father, stepmother and their four children.
Over the following 12 months, the department continued to supervise Sirita’s
placement with her father and provide case management services. Monthly
visits to check on Sirita’s health and safety occurred in December 2003, January
2004, February 2004 and the last visit occurred in May 2004. Although
caseworkers identified a need for counseling, this service was not implemented.
In November 2004, the dependency was dismissed, as the father had
established a parenting plan gaining custody of Sirita.
On January 22, 2005, only two months after the dependency case was closed,
CPS received a referral from law enforcement reporting a suspicious death of
four year-old Sirita. The stepmother and another relative had been with Sirita the
night of her death and reportedly called poison control stating that Sirita had
gotten sick eating glue. Later that evening, the relative checked on Sirita andfound her dead, and then called 911. According to law enforcement, the child
appeared gaunt, malnourished and pale. Medical examiners later determined
she died as a result of blows to the head and body causing a fractured skull and
severed liver. The stepmother later stated that she couldn’t handle Sirita’s fits
and tantrums and admitted she threw her in a cold shower and beat her after the
child wet her pants.
The Office of the Family and Children’s Ombudsman conducted a case
investigation of the Division of Children and Family Services’ (DCFS)
involvement with Sirita and her parents. The Ombudsman reviewed all records
and reports from DCFS, treatment reports, professional evaluations, as well as
applicable Children’s Administration (CA) Policy and Procedure and state law.
The purpose of the Ombudsman’s investigation was to determine DCFS’
compliance with department policy and procedure, and state law, and to identify
changes in law, policy and procedure that will better protect children from abuse
and neglect.
The Ombudsman identified the following areas of concern:
• Lack of services provided to Sirita, her father and stepmother, following
her placement in their care.
• Delay in establishing permanency for Sirita.
• Frequency of health and safety checks did not comply with CA policy.
• The father’s and stepmother’s CPS referral history may not have been
fully considered prior to placing Sirita in their home.
• Although the father completed both a psychological evaluation and
drug/alcohol assessment prior to Sirita’s placement, there was no similar
evaluation of the stepmother.
Based on our review of this case, the Ombudsman developed several
recommendations aimed at: strengthening case supervision following a child’s
return to a parent’s care; assuring that appropriate services for successful
reunification are provided; and improving assessment of other adult care-givers
in the parent’s home. These areas of concern and recommendations are
discussed in greater detail below.
On pp. 6 and 9 of this report, as well as in the Chronology of Placement
Episodes and Significant Events at the end of the report, the Ombudsman refers
to and/or states that on November 12, 2003, DCFS conducted a Child Protection
Team (CPT) staffing. This conclusion was based on information then available to
the Ombudsman, including the CPT Case Presentation Summary dated
November 12, 2003. On February 7, 2006, the Ombudsman was informed by the
Department of Social and Health Services, Division of Children and Family
Services, that although the CPT was scheduled, the CPT did not occur prior to
Sirita Sotelo’s placement with her father or prior to dismissal of the dependency a
year later. Section 2562 of Children’s Administration Practices and Procedures
Guide then required a CPT “[i]n all cases prior to return home or dismissal of
dependency, when the child is age six or younger and any risk assessment has
resulted in a risk level of moderately high or high risk.” Sirita’s case was
assessed as high risk; she was 3 years old at the time of placement with her
father; and age 4 when the dependency was dismissed.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
6 month old abused so heinous courts decide if life support should be pulled
The parents of a 6-month-old Dallas boy are accused of abusing him so cruelly that he has severe brain damage, dozens of bone fractures and scars too numerous to count.
Now a court must decide whether he should be taken off life support.
David Coronado David Cesar Coronado Sr., 23, and Ruthy Marie Chabolla, 22, took their only child to Methodist Dallas Medical Center one evening last month. He wasn't breathing.
Hospital staffers revived the infant with CPR and rushed him to Children's Medical Center, where doctors quickly discovered appalling injuries.
The baby, identified in criminal district court records as David Coronado Jr., was barely alive.
In addition to severe brain and spinal cord injuries, a doctor noted that David had 42 skeletal injuries. His hands and feet appeared to have been pulled, twisted and crushed. His skin injuries included bruises and human bite marks.
One of his fingers appeared to have been bitten to the bone, records say. Another had lost a nail to some past trauma.
Many of the fractures had healed some, indicating they were several weeks old. It appeared the abuse had lasted at least a month.
"Overall, David has a pattern of injuries indicative of repeated severe and violent traumatic events," the doctor reported.
Ruthy Chabolla "Neurologically, David is exhibiting minimal movement," the doctor wrote. "If he survives his injuries he will have severe and permanent disability as a result of these injuries.
"
On Dec. 23, Dallas police arrested Coronado and Chabolla on charges of injury to a child. Each is being held in the Dallas County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.
Interview requests sent to the jail were not immediately responded to Friday.
Born in July
David Coronado Sr. and the infant's mother live with her father in a small white house on a quiet street in West Dallas.
Chabolla's father, who pulled into the driveway late Friday in an old Chevy pickup, declined to comment.
David Jr. was born full term on July 19. He weighed 4 pounds, 5 ounces. When evaluated by a family doctor on Dec. 1, he weighed more than 7 pounds, and the doctor noted nothing amiss.
But by the time he stopped breathing at Methodist, he was down to 6 pounds, 10 ounces.
"His appearance resembles a premature infant," a report by Child Protective Services noted.
Chabolla told police she fed her child from a bottle several times a day, though sometimes she would skip a feeding if he was asleep, the report said.
Parents' accounts
Coronado told police that about 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 17 he noticed his son in the baby swing acting fussy, with an unusual cry. He said he picked the infant up and patted him, then put him in his crib, where he fell asleep.
Several hours later, Coronado said, the infant woke up crying. So he changed his son's diaper and began giving him a bottle.
Coronado said his son threw up, began to gurgle and stopped breathing. Chabolla started CPR, and they left for the hospital.
Both parents told detectives that their son sometimes had trouble breathing and was given to blank stares. They denied deliberately causing any of his injuries.
"I would never hurt my child," Chabolla told police, according to a CPS report.
She said the marks on David's feet, described as bite marks by his doctors, were from where he had rubbed them together. The bruises up and down his body may have been from the buttons on his onesies, she said.
Further into the interview, however, Chabolla said she would sometimes bite her son in a playful manner.
She told detectives that her husband sometimes dreamt he was fighting and may have hit his son while they slept in the same bed.
Coronado, who is 6-foot-3 and 260 pounds, said maybe he picked his son up "too hard" in the middle of the night, but that he never hurt David intentionally.
CPS report
"Both parents are responsible for long-term, extensive physical abuse to their only infant son," a CPS report says. "Neither parent is able to provide a safe, nurturing environment for this or any other child, given the magnitude of the physical abuse and life-threatening physical neglect this infant has sustained while in their care.
"
On Monday, the infant's court-appointed guardian filed a motion in Dallas County juvenile court asking that doctors at Children's be permitted to remove David Jr. from life support.
The motion, noting that the parents "have not consented to withdrawal of support," argues it is in his best interest. Court records describe him as "neurologically devastated.
"
The motion could be decided next week.
Staff writer Tanya Eiserer contributed to this report.
Now a court must decide whether he should be taken off life support.
David Coronado David Cesar Coronado Sr., 23, and Ruthy Marie Chabolla, 22, took their only child to Methodist Dallas Medical Center one evening last month. He wasn't breathing.
Hospital staffers revived the infant with CPR and rushed him to Children's Medical Center, where doctors quickly discovered appalling injuries.
The baby, identified in criminal district court records as David Coronado Jr., was barely alive.
In addition to severe brain and spinal cord injuries, a doctor noted that David had 42 skeletal injuries. His hands and feet appeared to have been pulled, twisted and crushed. His skin injuries included bruises and human bite marks.
One of his fingers appeared to have been bitten to the bone, records say. Another had lost a nail to some past trauma.
Many of the fractures had healed some, indicating they were several weeks old. It appeared the abuse had lasted at least a month.
"Overall, David has a pattern of injuries indicative of repeated severe and violent traumatic events," the doctor reported.
Ruthy Chabolla "Neurologically, David is exhibiting minimal movement," the doctor wrote. "If he survives his injuries he will have severe and permanent disability as a result of these injuries.
"
On Dec. 23, Dallas police arrested Coronado and Chabolla on charges of injury to a child. Each is being held in the Dallas County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.
Interview requests sent to the jail were not immediately responded to Friday.
Born in July
David Coronado Sr. and the infant's mother live with her father in a small white house on a quiet street in West Dallas.
Chabolla's father, who pulled into the driveway late Friday in an old Chevy pickup, declined to comment.
David Jr. was born full term on July 19. He weighed 4 pounds, 5 ounces. When evaluated by a family doctor on Dec. 1, he weighed more than 7 pounds, and the doctor noted nothing amiss.
But by the time he stopped breathing at Methodist, he was down to 6 pounds, 10 ounces.
"His appearance resembles a premature infant," a report by Child Protective Services noted.
Chabolla told police she fed her child from a bottle several times a day, though sometimes she would skip a feeding if he was asleep, the report said.
Parents' accounts
Coronado told police that about 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 17 he noticed his son in the baby swing acting fussy, with an unusual cry. He said he picked the infant up and patted him, then put him in his crib, where he fell asleep.
Several hours later, Coronado said, the infant woke up crying. So he changed his son's diaper and began giving him a bottle.
Coronado said his son threw up, began to gurgle and stopped breathing. Chabolla started CPR, and they left for the hospital.
Both parents told detectives that their son sometimes had trouble breathing and was given to blank stares. They denied deliberately causing any of his injuries.
"I would never hurt my child," Chabolla told police, according to a CPS report.
She said the marks on David's feet, described as bite marks by his doctors, were from where he had rubbed them together. The bruises up and down his body may have been from the buttons on his onesies, she said.
Further into the interview, however, Chabolla said she would sometimes bite her son in a playful manner.
She told detectives that her husband sometimes dreamt he was fighting and may have hit his son while they slept in the same bed.
Coronado, who is 6-foot-3 and 260 pounds, said maybe he picked his son up "too hard" in the middle of the night, but that he never hurt David intentionally.
CPS report
"Both parents are responsible for long-term, extensive physical abuse to their only infant son," a CPS report says. "Neither parent is able to provide a safe, nurturing environment for this or any other child, given the magnitude of the physical abuse and life-threatening physical neglect this infant has sustained while in their care.
"
On Monday, the infant's court-appointed guardian filed a motion in Dallas County juvenile court asking that doctors at Children's be permitted to remove David Jr. from life support.
The motion, noting that the parents "have not consented to withdrawal of support," argues it is in his best interest. Court records describe him as "neurologically devastated.
"
The motion could be decided next week.
Staff writer Tanya Eiserer contributed to this report.
Friday, January 16, 2009
California want's to revise Jessica's law Sex offenders have no rights children do
If I may be blunt I don't give a shit if these cockroaches have to sleep in a dumpster why don't they go back under the rock they slithered out from then we won't have this problem or hey here is an idea for shits and giggles why don't we start executing child killers & molesters since they cannot be rehabilitated are a waste of tax payer dollars and just get out on our tax dollars to kill & re-offend anyways right Mark honey give them hell what about Jessica's right to life what about all the children what about the children damnit !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thought they were the future
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A movement is afoot to revise "Jessica's Law," with some officials saying the California law limiting where sex offenders can live is counterproductive.
The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that a state board has found that the restrictions on where released sex offenders can live has left many of them homeless and more likely to return to a life of crime. Also, state taxpayers wind up paying $25 million a year to house some of them.
The law passed by California voters two years ago bans sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools, parks and other areas where children gather. But the state Sex Offender Management Board said in a report sent to lawmakers this week that has drastically curtailed where the offenders can live and hasn't shown to be effective in reducing crime.
"It seems unwise to spend such resources as a consequence of residence restriction policies which have no track record of increasing community safety," board members wrote.
State lawmakers would need a two-thirds majority to change the law. State Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, who helped push the law through, still supports it.
"I do believe the general public would say a child molester should not live across the street from a school," Runner said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was also a strong supporter but is now open to considering revisions.
Do you live in California? How do you feel about this? Let them know... or else they will change it without asking you!
Email Arnold Schwarzenegger
http://gov. ca. gov/interact
write or call
Governor's Office:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-558-3160 ( new number )
or contact George Runner
http://cssrc. us/web/17/contact_us. aspx
This Is the story of Shavon Miles & why I fight for reforming child service's
During the first years of Shavon Miles’ life, doctors and counselors warned state child welfare officials that she appeared to have been abused. She ended up in foster care, blind, and suffering from seizures and a mental disability.
In the last years of her life, the pattern emerged again, with school officials and a relative warning the Department of Children and Family Services about Shavon’s safety.
Shavon’s mother and stepfather are scheduled to appear Monday in Cook County Circuit Court on murder charges, and will enter their pleas in the death of the 13-year-old girl last month.
But records obtained by the Tribune point to at least 10 separate allegations of abuse against Shavon investigated by the state, including a swollen face and arm fractures.
Cook County Public Guardian Robert Harris said he believes DCFS ignored a growing mountain of evidence in the case.
“You’d have to work really hard not to notice she was in danger,” Harrissaid. “It’s a sad state of affairs when the child welfare system that is putin place to protect children doesn’t do it, either on purpose or turns a blindeye.
“I don’t know if it was deliberate indifference or negligence. It probably veered over to deliberate indifference just because of all the signs that were there, all the calls that were made from people who would be in the position to be credible.”
DCFS officials have said they are “deeply saddened” by the tragedy, but they declined to make further comments or to address Harris’ charges.
Shavon, a fraternal twin, was born March 10, 1994. Within months, she and her brother were in the hospital, where doctors determined that the twins had internal injuries and were blind from being shaken. Caseworkers took custody of the children.
In an unusual letter sent at the time, a doctor warned DCFS of the potential dangers in the birth home, saying blunt trauma caused some of the children injuries.
“The still unidentified perpetrator is likely to have sadistic tendencies that could lead to very serious harm even of an older child,” he said. “I ask that you and your co-workers keep this in mind.”
In 1997, a counselor wrote in an evaluation that the severity of the initial abuse should not be forgotten.
“No perpetrator has been identified,” the counselor said. “It is critical in this case that we don’t lose sight of this obvious glaring fact of omission.”
A year later, the mother had complied with court-ordered counseling services, and the twins were returned home.
After their return, caseworkers investigated the family five times, butthey did not find credible evidence of abuse or neglect. The details of those allegations were not available.
In 2006, a teacher told DCFS that Shavon had come to school with a swollen right shoulder, an injury that the girl initially said was caused by carrying groceries.
When school officials called Shavon’s stepfather, he told them that Shavon was clumsy and was faking her injury, according to state documents.
Shavon then told a doctor that a bully at school had caused the injury, a charge school officials denied. The doctor said the injury was not consistent with carrying groceries but could have been caused by a bully.
For some teachers, the injury was yet another sign that things were going wrong in Shavon’s home.
“[Shavon] is always observed with bruising and scratches on face and arms,”the teacher told a child-care worker. “[Shavon] will come to school sleepy,dirty and interaction between child and parents is not good.”
When interviewed, Shavon told a DCFS worker that “she is sometimes afraid of [her] parents,” according to state documents. When asked what happened at home when she got into trouble, Shavon “closed up and did not respond,” state documents show.
A DCFS supervisor reviewed the allegations and found “concerns regarding the injury and the many inconsistencies reported by the family and the child.”
Within weeks, Shavon came to school with a swollen, bruised face. At one hospital, a doctor suspected abuse.
“A doctor informed[state workers] that from the X-rays, he could tell that the minor has been abused, but he reported that he could not differentiate if the abuse was from someone hitting the minor or if the minor fell,” according to a state document·
But at a second hospital, doctors concluded the girl had severe allergies.
In July, a relative called DCFS and said she was very concerned about Shavon and her brother. DCFS investigated but found no abuse or neglect.
One month later, the girl was dead. Shavon’s mother and stepfather have been accused of beating her to death after she fainted outside the family’s Marquette Park home.
Lynnesia Hiles-Sloan, 34, and Gabriel Sloan, 31, have been charged with first-degree murder. Judge Raymond Myles ordered them held without bail.
Assistant State’s Atty. Luann Snow said that after Shavon fainted,Hiles-Sloan and Sloan became enraged.
“[Sloan] accused the victim of faking it, then threw her inside the house and bashed her head against the floor and wall,” Snow said.
Snow said that Hiles-Sloan then whipped her daughter with an electrical cord and beat her with a 2-by-4. When the two noticed that Shavon was unresponsive, they called 911 and said she had suffered a seizure.
Shavon was extremely underweight, according to state documents, and had”unexplained marks to her neck and head.”
A DCFS worker interviewed Shavon’s brother after his sister’s death, and wrote: “Minor would state ‘I don’t know,’ when questioned about injuries or whether someone in the home physically abused them.”
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Children with Nazi inspired names removed by C.P.S. why ?
HOLLAND TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- Three New Jersey siblings whose names have Nazi connotations have been placed in state custody, police said. The children, ranging in age from 3 to under 1, were removed from their home Friday. They drew attention last month when a supermarket bakery refused to put the name of the oldest - Adolf Hitler Campbell - on a birthday cake.
State workers didn't tell police why the children were taken, police Sgt. John Harris said.
A spokeswoman for the state Division of Youth and Family Services, Kate Bernyk, said she would not comment on any specific case, but she said the state would not remove children from a home simply because of their names.
A family court hearing is scheduled for Thursday. Court officials said the matter is sealed and they could not release information about what might be decided at the hearing.
The other two children, both girls, are JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell.
The father, Heath Campbell, had no comment when contacted by The Express-Times of Easton, Pa. The Associated Press could not locate a working telephone number for the family Wednesday.
State workers didn't tell police why the children were taken, police Sgt. John Harris said.
A spokeswoman for the state Division of Youth and Family Services, Kate Bernyk, said she would not comment on any specific case, but she said the state would not remove children from a home simply because of their names.
A family court hearing is scheduled for Thursday. Court officials said the matter is sealed and they could not release information about what might be decided at the hearing.
The other two children, both girls, are JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell.
The father, Heath Campbell, had no comment when contacted by The Express-Times of Easton, Pa. The Associated Press could not locate a working telephone number for the family Wednesday.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The O.K.D.H.S. failing of Kelsey Brigg's
Kelsey Briggs who was born in Oklahoma on December 28, 2002 and passed away on October 11, 2005 at the age of 2. We will remember her forever.
After nine months of documented abuse and two court hearings a Judge sent Kelsey back home to an abusive home. She remained in state custody and was to be supervised by state agencies. Her father was in Iraq fighting for our country while Kelsey was here fighting for her life.
On October 11, 2005 she was murdered. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the abdomen. Two weeks later her stepfather was arrested on first degee murder. Her mother was later charged with two felonies of Child Abuse and Enabling Child Abuse. In April 2006 Kelsey's body was exhumed for a second autopsy where sexual abuse was documented. The stepfather's charges were amended to add the sexual abuse.
On February 2, 2007 a plea negotiation was entered and approved by the paternal family. The stepfather plead guilty to a reduced charge of Enabling Child Abuse and received 30 years in prison. He has no possibility of parole for 25.5 years.
The mother was found guilty of Enabling Child Abuse and sentenced to 27 years in prison. She is asking for a new trial. Trial notes for Raye Dawn's trial are available on kelseyspurpose.org
A new law has been named for Kelsey in Oklahoma to prevent this type of failure in our state system.
For more on Kelsey's story go to www.kelseyspurpose.org
After nine months of documented abuse and two court hearings a Judge sent Kelsey back home to an abusive home. She remained in state custody and was to be supervised by state agencies. Her father was in Iraq fighting for our country while Kelsey was here fighting for her life.
On October 11, 2005 she was murdered. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the abdomen. Two weeks later her stepfather was arrested on first degee murder. Her mother was later charged with two felonies of Child Abuse and Enabling Child Abuse. In April 2006 Kelsey's body was exhumed for a second autopsy where sexual abuse was documented. The stepfather's charges were amended to add the sexual abuse.
On February 2, 2007 a plea negotiation was entered and approved by the paternal family. The stepfather plead guilty to a reduced charge of Enabling Child Abuse and received 30 years in prison. He has no possibility of parole for 25.5 years.
The mother was found guilty of Enabling Child Abuse and sentenced to 27 years in prison. She is asking for a new trial. Trial notes for Raye Dawn's trial are available on kelseyspurpose.org
A new law has been named for Kelsey in Oklahoma to prevent this type of failure in our state system.
For more on Kelsey's story go to www.kelseyspurpose.org
Tragic failing by C.P.S. of Summer Phelp's
Summer Phelps ( Lytle), a sweet, developmentally disabled child, 4 years old…in Spokane,Wa. was murdered this weekend . Her “dad” and “stepmom” are currently under arrest for her horrific and unbelievable torture and murder.
Before reading further, you might want a strong drink, maybe an Alka Seltzer and definitely a box of Kleenex.
Summer’s biological “mom” asked that Summer be allowed to stay a month last August with her “dad” and stepmonster, Johnathan 28, and Adriana, 32.
Sgt. Joe Peterson from the Spokane Police Dept. has stated :
“This is the worst case I’ve ever seen and my detectives feel the same,” Peterson said. “It’s probably the worst case of abuse that any of us in hundreds of combined years in this unit have ever seen.”
This little child was forced to wear an electronic dog collar, wash her own clothes while standing in her own urine and waste in the bathtub, suffered multiple human bite marks ( “dad” says Summer kicked Adriana in the shin, so Adriana bit her.) Summer had been violated with a broom stick, and had severe bruisng from the soles of her feet to the top of her head.
Nurses who were attending to the child went into the room to help and almost universally came out crying.
Before reading further, you might want a strong drink, maybe an Alka Seltzer and definitely a box of Kleenex.
Summer’s biological “mom” asked that Summer be allowed to stay a month last August with her “dad” and stepmonster, Johnathan 28, and Adriana, 32.
Sgt. Joe Peterson from the Spokane Police Dept. has stated :
“This is the worst case I’ve ever seen and my detectives feel the same,” Peterson said. “It’s probably the worst case of abuse that any of us in hundreds of combined years in this unit have ever seen.”
This little child was forced to wear an electronic dog collar, wash her own clothes while standing in her own urine and waste in the bathtub, suffered multiple human bite marks ( “dad” says Summer kicked Adriana in the shin, so Adriana bit her.) Summer had been violated with a broom stick, and had severe bruisng from the soles of her feet to the top of her head.
Nurses who were attending to the child went into the room to help and almost universally came out crying.
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