Mission Statement

This blog is set up to support families that have had their lives torn apart by various Social Services departments. To connect people to others who understand what they are going through, to provide links to resources, and to shed light on the abuse that is rampant in our social services department.

Daddy and Dulce

Daddy and Dulce
A week before Dulce was stolen away.

About Me

My photo
My wife and I are a father and mother(non-biological) who were accused of just about everything under the sun (never charged because it was untrue).The daughter of our heart was ripped out of her family. We are devastated and will never get over this. I have since found out I am not alone there are thousands of families that have been heartbroken over having their children literally kidnapped by the all powerful social services all over the world. I am hoping that by coming together we can help one another.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Teen Calls DCF Ineffective, Calls For Action Following Murder-Suicide

Posted: Aug 22, 2014 9:38 AM EST Updated: Aug 22, 2014 11:02 AM EST
 
Janice Lesko (left) and Gregory Pawloski, Jr. (right). (Facebook photos)
Janice Lesko (left) and Gregory Pawloski, Jr. (right). (Facebook photos)
COVENTRY, CT (WFSB) - It's been nearly a year since a murder-suicide rocked the town of Coventry.
Friday, 16-year-old Rachel Pawloski, daughter of Gregory Pawloski, Jr., plans to speak out about how the Department of Children and Families and court systems failed her family through the years.
She said DCF was begged to provide services to her family less than 60 days before Gregory Pawloski attacked Janice Lesko.
Police said Gregory Pawloski used a shotgun to kill Lesko and himself in a home on Stage Road last August.
Gregory Pawloski was no stranger to violence, according to the Connecticut Coalition against Domestic Violence.
The group said he had been arrested before for threatening his former partner, Kimberly Fontaine of East Hampton.
Since the murder-suicide, Rachel Pawloski created a nonprofit group called Youth Alliance Against Violence.
She said she will issue a plea to Gov. Dannel Malloy to demonstrate effective leadership and enact her proposals to protect families.
Rachel Pawloski's news conference was set for 11 a.m. in front of the Stage Road home where the incident happened.

http://www.wfsb.com/story/26345835/teen-calls-dcf-ineffective-calls-on-gov-to-act-following-murder-suicide

Monday, July 7, 2014

The Most Powerful Person in a Child Custody Case Isn't the Judge

July 6th, 2014

by MCMoewe

Courts in the U.S. have sentenced thousands of children to live with a parent who abused them. The family court judges who reach this decision — and restrict or end the relationship of the parent who reported concerns of abuse — usually do so based on the opinion of a court-appointed expert.
A quick look at how the family courts' multimillion-dollar expert industry operates reveals a system that is built to invite corruption.
The experts are paid thousands of dollars by one or both parents, facts on how their opinions were formed are forbidden to be reviewed by the public and state laws help shield these decision makers from potential lawsuits.


Judges appoint court experts, such as custody evaluators or guardians ad litem, to investigate and make recommendations about what is in the best interest of the child.
"The court follows the recommendations in the evaluation in over 90 percent of custody cases," according to Lawfirms.com.
As an investigative reporter, I have been collecting cases for years where an expert has determined that the alleged abuse of a child is not happening and, instead, the child or parent who fears abuse is the danger. The child is placed in the sole custody of the accused abuser, the protective parent is put on supervised visitation — or forbidden from seeing the child at all — and restrictions are placed barring other child welfare professionals from even talking to the child.
Custody cases are rarely written about in the media, but the Naples News wrote a story in 2011 about a family court judge who followed the advice of two court experts, giving a father who was then facing child abuse charges sole custody and restricting the mother, who feared for the child's safety, to supervised visitation.
In all the cases I have reviewed, I have yet to read about a single judge who has rejected the advice of their court-appointed expert.
The custody evaluation, a report that explains how these powerful expert opinions were decided, are sealed to protect the privacy of the family. Although the parents have likely paid thousands of dollars for an evaluation, often even they are not allowed to obtain a copy. If they want to see it, they must do so in their attorney's office.
"Therapeutic jurisprudence in the family courts ... substitutes the opinions of mental health practitioners for traditional evidence and decision-making procedures," according to the Liz Library, a website that has amassed years of research on the issue and advocates for courts to go back to attorneys presenting the facts and testimony to the judges, who make rulings based on those public facts.
While the process of court experts' decisions is murky, the financial toll on families is clear. Connecticut is developing a legislative reform that will prevent these experts from charging the common fee of $300 to $400 per hour. One father in the state said he paid $30,000 to a child guardian and was never clear what the expert was actually doing.
The Seattle forensic psychologist Stuart A. Greenberg helped build the multimillion-dollar court expert industry of today.
In 2007, Greenberg committed suicide after being arrested for secretly filming people in his office bathroom. If his staff had not become suspicious of an air purifier, Greenberg would probably still be commanding $450 an hour to determine what's best for children in custody cases. He was a well-respected past president of the American Board of Forensic Psychology, helped develop a national certification exam for his field and taught training classes to other experts.
His impact is still felt today by families nationwide. When I read documents from a custody case, it is common to find that Greenberg's 30-page Parenting History Survey was used to help evaluate the family.
When the arrest brought Greenberg's character and judgment into question, there was no way the Seattle Times or any other media organization could go back and review the evaluations he made that decided custody for hundreds of children. Unlike a judge's ruling, they are not public records. The Times observed, "The court doesn't keep count of cases assigned to a particular parenting evaluator, so it's impossible to tell how many families could be affected. But it's a given that all of Greenberg's pending cases will have to be reassigned to other evaluators -- a process that was already under way since his arrest and suspension of his license to practice psychology."
States also pass laws that shield these court-appointed experts from lawsuits. Often parents first have to petition the court for a second evaluator, a pricy prospect if granted, and only then do they have the right to sue. In Florida, the law once required a psychologist to follow the American Psychological Association's guidelines for custody evaluations. In 2008, lawmakers took out that requirement and the law now simply states that a psychologist must use standards of a reasonable psychologist. It offers no guidance about what is considered reasonable.


Another troubling trend I've noticed in these cases is that the family court experts often get the judges to restrict who can speak to the child. This isolates the child from anyone who might not agree with the expert. In a case this year, the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) had received a hotline complaint about potential abuse. When DCF went to the home, the custodial parent simply showed the investigators a family court order stipulating that only the two court psychological experts had the right to talk to the child.
The DCF investigator left without speaking to the girl.
This is the second in a series of articles about the treatment of abused children in the U.S. family court system. M.C. Moewe is a former criminal justice and investigative reporter for several newspapers with a B.A. in journalism from the University of North Texas. Email m AT moewe.com or use this link.
More articles on the abuse and unbridled violence against against our children.
Illinois and Virginia CPS' Conspire to Steal and Sex Traffic ...www.dcclothesline.com/.../illinois-virginia-cps-conspire-steal-sex-traffic-...May 17, 2014 - Illinois and Virginia CPS' Conspire to Steal and Sex Traffic Children ... of Virginia Child Protective Services is sex-trafficking in children that it .
California Family Courts Helping Pedophiles, Batterers Get ... www.sfweekly.com/.../family-court-parental-alienation-syndr... SF Weekly
by Peter Jamison - Mar 2, 2011 - Rex Anderson (left) and Henry “Bud” Parson were both convicted of child molestation after family courts awarded them custody of their ...

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2014/07/06/the-most-powerful-person-in-a-child-cust

Thursday, June 19, 2014

St. Johnsbury Mom Speaks Out On DCF Connection


ST. JOHNSBURY VT - The mother of the third toddler with Department for Children and Families connections to die in three months spoke out this week, saying she never harmed her son and she feels unfairly linked to two other cases in which caregivers are suspected of killing their children.

Mason Keithan and his mother, Alicia Mitchell

The Department for Children and Families does not discuss specific cases, so details of St. Johnsbury 22-month-old Mason Keithan's ties to DCF were until now unknown.
Speaking publicly for the first time, Alicia Mitchell, 24, said DCF took Mason from her when he was 3 weeks old, returning him to her care when she agreed to live at a residential drug treatment center in Burlington.
Mitchell and her boyfriend, Mason's father, Vincent Keithan, regained custody of Mason on May 8, she said. He died May 31.
"I never harmed my baby. I never did anything wrong," Mitchell said.
An autopsy revealed no signs of trauma to the boy. Results of a toxicology screening are pending and police are still investigating the death. No charges have been filed.
The night Mason died, Mitchell said she came home from work at McDonald's, fed him, they played, she gave him a bath and then he went to sleep. He never woke up, she said.
"He went down and fell asleep and he didn't wake back up," she said.
Mason had a slight cold the night he died, she said, but nothing else abnormal. He was born with tracheomalacia, a condition that can cause the windpipe to collapse and make it hard to breathe, she said.



Her cabinets were locked and her cleaning supplies were up high, she said.
Mitchell also explained Mason's history with DCF. He was removed from his parents' custody because of her prior drug use, she said, and because Mitchell and Keithan failed to follow a family safety plan DCF created.
The lapse occurred when the man they were living with in Wheelock one day slept late and forgot to take them to the BAART addiction recovery center for their methadone treatment, she said.
DCF had assigned the man as Mason's primary caregiver. Mitchell said she agreed to the plan for fear DCF would take Mason away.
Mitchell also has a 5-year-old daughter who lives with the girl's father, she said. DCF struck a deal with Mitchell whereby she would relinquish custody of her daughter in order to keep her son and live at Lund, she said.
"They threatened me pretty much and made me do it and I listened," she said.
Details of Mitchell's case are impossible to confirm with DCF because the department does not discuss specific cases. 

http://www.benningtonbanner.com/region/ci_25994285/st-johnsbury-mom-speaks-out-dcf-connection


Saturday, May 31, 2014

Corruption Trials Shed Light On Blood Money Flowing Through Massachusetts DCF, Courts

 By , Communities Digital News


BOSTON, May 29, 2014  —  This month, dozens of high level Massachusetts politicians enjoyed immunity in exchange for their testimony in the corruption, bribery, and racketeering trials of various legislators and family court probation officers. Several of their co-conspirators have already been convicted and jailed for running an organized through their State offices.
The fall out from the court corruption scandals has left Massachusetts leaders saddled with important unanswered questions about the human toll organized crime may have taken on the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable families.
Are the Probation Department’s ineffective “offender rehabilitation” programs paid for with the blood of Massachusetts taxpayers?  How can Massachusetts do a better job of empowering competent, honest workers?
In order to answer these questions, we need to have a real conversation about Jennifer Martel’s murder, and why these same corrupt courtroom cronies repeatedly failed to save her life.
Most men voluntarily engage in safe, loving relationships with their families. But Martel’s murderer was not most men, he was a repeat violent offender and the son of a well connected Red Sox sportscaster.

READ ALSO: Former prosecutor questions integrity of court’s federal funding used to punish crime victims, reward violent offenders


“There is a revolving door at the courthouse, and it is preceded by a red carpet walkway for people of influence” says former prosecutor Wendy Murphy, who for decades has worked on criminal cases in the same Massachusetts courts that repeatedly let Jared Remy off the hook and rewarded him for committing violent crimes.

Prosecutor Wendy Murphy

Remy’s final arrest last summer may have initiated the only peaceful time some of his victims may have ever known. His sentencing this week to a term of life in prison without the possibility of parole for Martell’s murder marked perhaps the first time in history that the Massachusetts court system has created a meaningful plan to protect the public from one of the system’s best customers.
At the time of Martel’s murder, Remy’s record was virtually clean. By September 2011, Remy’s privately bankrolled defense attorney Peter Bella had convinced Massachusetts judges to close a staggering 18 cases charging Remy with dozens of traffic, violence and/or drug related related offenses.  Only twice in 20-years did the courts find Remy guilty, and on ten occasions, the courts outright dismissed the charges against him. Remy was also granted six continuances without findings (CWOF’s) that resulted in dismissals.
According to Bella, there was no “pay to play” scandal involved with Remy’s case because his client never received any special treatment from the courts.  In other words, the Remy case was just some deadly business as usual in the Massachusetts courts.
Instead of providing Remy’s crime victims with safety and recovery support, the courts provided the offender himself with therapy and protection.  The sole beneficiaries of the State programs Remy was enrolled in appear to be the vendors who provided him with services.
According to former prosecutor Murphy, the system is not broken, it’s running exactly the way it’s creators intended.
“If there’s a sign of hope that arises from Martel’s vicious murder,” says Murphy, “let it be that the public takes a closer look at the gushing flow of money from DC that literally rewards violent male offenders with cash, therapy and training programs AFTER they get in trouble with the courts for assaulting the crime victims who live with them.”
TO END SYSTEMIC GREED AND CORRUPTION, FEED THE BEAST WITH TAX DOLLARS?
Two days before Martel was murdered, Remy was arrested for assaulting Martel, causing Martel to take out a restraining order against Remy. Once again, the Middlesex DA’s office and the Probation Department ignored Remy’s criminal history and immediately released him on $40 bail. According to the arrest report, on August 15, 2013, Remy stabbed Martel to death in front of their 4-year-old daughter while fighting off onlookers, bringing an abrupt end to the 20-years long State sponsored violent crime spree which had gone practically undetected.

READ ALSO: Convicted murderer’s family used cash, influence to buy leniency, custody of victims


In the days following Martell’s murder, an audit of the Middlesex DA’s response to the Remy case and determined that no comprehensive overhaul of the office was needed. By the time the new year arrived, two more children, a mother, and an elderly woman would be slaughtered in Middlesex County by the male offenders they lived with.
To say the justice system should have foreseen such Martel’s tragic demise is to is to assume wrongly that the officials who presided over Remy’s cases did not know what the financial forecast was.  Bloody with a touch of cash.
The 2010 arrests of several Probation Department leaders and legislators operating an organized crime ring from their State offices should have caused the courts to audit every court vendor and every case the corrupt court officials had been involved with. But that’s not what happened.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick

Just three months before Martel’s murder, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick announced that both the State’s Probation Department and the Department of Children and Families (DCF) would be getting a fresh start. Then DCF Commissioner Ed Dolan was appointed as Chief of Probation, and Olga Roche became the Commissioner of the State’s child protection agency. Neither agency offered effective help to Martel or her child in the days leading up to her death when she approached the courts for help.
Both agencies are now embroiled in corruption scandals.
Last month, Roche resigned from her post with DCF under pressure from legislators who expressed concern over various DCF funding misappropriation scandals involving several now dead children under the agency’s supervision, as well as their treatment of  Justina Pelletier, a sick Connecticut child who continues to languish in the Massachusetts foster care system.
Today Massachusetts released a report advocating for more funding, staff, training for the State’s troubled offender-friendly child welfare agency.
Walk into any given courtroom and what you will likely find is over a century’s worth of education and training that has already been obtained by the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney. To say that the highly trained professionals who were appointed onto Remy’s cases over the years were too vapid to recognize the haven of corruption they worked in for years, or that they lacked the qualifications to properly identify a troubled violent career criminal like Remy would be an insult if levied against any idiot off the street with even half their experience.
Massachusetts employs some of the smartest and most qualified judges and agency leaders I have ever had the privilege of crossing paths with. This is because the greater Boston region is home to the best universities in the world known for training some of the greatest legal scholars and activists the mankind has ever known. It is often from the region’s talented pool of scholars that the Massachusetts courts cherry pick the job applicants who go on to become the State’s future leaders.
The vast majority of professionals working in the Massachusetts courts are probably honest, hardworking, and really care about the troubled families on their caseloads. But in a corrupt system, cash is king, honest workers don’t always get a seat at the table, and the crooks get paid to ignore your arguments.
Feeding the beast is not the answer. Perhaps it’s time for someone other than the usual suspects to perform an audit on the way these agencies do business to ensure that oversight, transparency, and accountability will follow.
http://www.commdiginews.com/life/corruption-trials-shed-light-on-blood-money-flowing-through-massachusetts-dcf-courts-2-18518/

Sunday, May 25, 2014

DCF Exodus

The Department of Children and Families crisis returns to Page One today, and with reason.
Two stories, neither favorable. First, the Herald reports that social workers have bolted the embattled agency this year faster than DCF has replaced them. Second, Walpole cops claim a DCF foster care contractor running a school for children with behavioral problems didn't notify local authorities about a recent sexual assault allegation. (Margery Eagan, infuriated by the latter situation, writes an impassioned accompanying column.)


Compelling spot-news photos improve any news section, and staffer Mark Garfinkel took a Page One-worthy doozy yesterday. A low bridge on Route 1A in Eastie claimed another victim — snagging its second big rig in two days. Talk about maxed-out headroom! The state yesterday finally improved signage at the intersection imploring trucks over 12 feet not to bang that particular left onto the highway's southbound on-ramp. (Now there's an idea ...) 

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/page_one_blog/2014/05/may_22_2014_dcf_exodus

Eagan: A Child’s Allegations Swept Away — Again


 Just call the cops. Dial 911. Let police officers trained to investigate do their jobs.
But instead, after allegations of a sexual assault by 13-year-old boy on a 9-year-old boy at the Walpole campus of the Home for Little Wanderers, staff there called the state Department of Children and Families. Most of us, for good reason, have lost all confidence in DCF’s ability to protect children or, sadly, even to tell the truth.
DCF Commissioner Olga Roche is gone. Yet nothing has changed. Joan Wallace-Benjamin, who runs the Home for Little Wanderers, might have offered some clarity yesterday.
But she declined interviews and the home put out a statement that raised questions about its own credibility and DCF’s even more.
The home downplayed the “incident,” calling it a “behavioral health matter.”
Walpole police, however, called “the incident” a sexual assault — a rape, in fact. And the social worker at Norwood Hospital, which treated the 9-year-old, apparently agreed with police. That social worker alerted cops by requesting a sexual assault evidence collection kit.
“The home would typically call the local police,” the home’s statement read, “if and when we suspect and have reasonable cause to believe a crime has been committed.”
What are we to make of that? That the home is right, but police and Norwood Hospital and now the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, which is investigating, too, are wrong?
Walpole Deputy Police Chief John Carmichael told the Herald this is just the latest example of the home’s reporting crimes there too late or not at all.

Olga Rochecaption

To be clear, we don’t know for sure what happened in Walpole.
But in January, in the midst of exposing a series of tragic mistakes by DCF, the Herald reported on an 11-year-old child whose claims of sexual assault were dismissed by DCF as “consensual sex.” That’s hard to fathom when the legal age of consent in Massachusetts is 16; under federal law, it’s 18. And this was an autistic child in foster care.
DCF never explained its bizarre conclusion.
Here’s a safe bet: Neither DCF nor the home will ever detail why its staff did what it did in this case either.
Yesterday the home said that “out of respect for the dignity of the children” and “the ongoing investigation we are unable to provide further information.”
But an agency’s refusal to explain itself is almost never about dignity or ongoing investigations. It’s about hiding misdeeds.
“No one wants anyone else to know what they’re doing,” longtime victims’ advocate Laurie Myers said yesterday — which means horrible things will keep happening to children, in secret. And nobody pays.

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/margery_eagan/2014/05/eagan_a_child_s_allegations_swept_away_again

Monday, May 19, 2014

Justina Pelletier Case: GovernmentIs Is A Terrible Parent



I vividly remember when I first learned that I was going to be a dad. My wife and I visited her doctor for an ultrasound and saw the oval-shaped head of our little girl distinct on the black-and-white monitor.
The day she was born, I held my daughter in my arms and stared into her eyes. It was a wonderful moment. I thought about all the things that lay ahead for her – and for my wife and me as we entered this new phase in life called parenting.
Growing up as the oldest of 19 kids (and counting), I thought I knew a thing or two about children. My little girl is now four years old, and with two little brothers right behind her, my kids remind me daily that nothing can adequately prepare you for what parenthood.  It’s a heavy responsibility knowing that you will shape who your children become.
As I tuck my own children in bed at night, I can’t help but think of Justina Pelletier and her family.
The Pelletier family has four daughters, so they also know something about raising children. Jennifer, Jessica, Julia and their youngest Justina, who is 16-years-old.
Lou and Linda Pelletier shared with me that they faced a long road when their now 26-year-old daughter Jessica was first diagnosed with Mitochondrial Disease five years ago. They sought top-notch medical care, and were able find ways to help their daughter cope with this rare condition, and miraculously she began to get better.
In 2011, like her older sister, then-13-year-old Justina was also diagnosed with Mitochondrial Disease, and the Pelletiers found themselves again turning to medical experts for help. They took Justina to Tufts Medical Center in Boston where they connected with a specialist named Dr. Mark Korson, the Chief of Metabolic Services at Tufts.  He is one of America’s leading experts in treatment of Mitochondrial Disease. She also received special care from Dr. Alex Flores, a gastroenterologist at Tufts. Not long after she began treatment, she was able to return to a relatively normal life.
In February of 2013, Justina developed some flu-like symptoms. So her family left their home in Connecticut to make the two-hour drive to visit Dr. Flores, Justina’s specialist who had recently transferred to Boston Children’s Hospital. When they arrived at the emergency room however, Dr. Jurriaan Peters was instead assigned to see Justina.
Dr. Peters had completed medical school just seven months prior, and within 25 minutes of seeing Justina he delivered his own diagnosis, without consulting Dr. Flores or any of her previous expert medical team, who had been treating her for many years.
Dr. Peters concluded that Tufts was wrong, that Justina wasn’t suffering from Mitochondrial Disease, but instead from a psychiatric condition called Somatoform Disorder.
Dr. Peters pushed Lou and Linda Pelletier to sign papers for a new treatment plan which would remove Justina from her medications, place her in a psych ward, and prevent her parents from receiving a second opinion. When Justina’s parents refused to sign, saying they wanted to take her back to Dr. Korson at Tufts, BCH did something no parent can fathom.
BCH called the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF), charging the parents with “medical abuse” for their intention to follow the protocols recommended by the doctor they trusted and who had written Justina’s treatment plan. Not only did DCF charge the Pelletiers, but after a brief emergency hearing, DCF removed Justina from her parents’ permanent custody.
In the last 15 months, not only has Justina’s condition worsened and her lack of proper treatment caused her to suffer, but Justina, once an active teen girl, has been cut off from her family and subjected to physical and emotional harm.
Her parents’ visitations are limited to only one hour per week and a short 20-minute phone call. Justina hasn’t been able to attend any religious services, and DCF has refused to even allow her minister to visit her. She was forced to spend Christmas and Thanksgiving all alone in a hospital bed.
To top it all off, the Pelletiers aren’t alone in DCF’s extremely poor decision-making.  In fact, the Boston Globe has uncovered at least five other cases that are strikingly similar, where children were taken from parents for similar “treatment.”
Allegations of neglect include over 134 children who have been completely lost while in DCF’s system, numerous cases of abuse and even 95 children who died between 2001 and 2010.
To top it all off, the Pelletiers aren’t alone in DCF’s extremely poor decision-making.  In fact, the Boston Globe has uncovered at least five other cases that are strikingly similar, where children were taken from parents for similar “treatment.” Allegations of neglect include over 134 children who have been completely lost while in DCF’s system, numerous cases of abuse and even 95 children who died between 2001 and 2010.
Last week, DCF moved Justina to a Connecticut facility. While it may appear to be an improvement, the reality is that DCF still has custody and there is no guarantee Justina will be returned to her parents.
As DCF has shown, the government is not always adept at decision-making, and it really does make a terrible parent.
Josh Duggar, a star of TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” is executive director of Family Research Council Action.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/05/19/justina-pelletier-case-government-is-terrible-parent/