Do You Adopt For Money? Or Do You Adopt For Love?

 
Think Our Children Are Not Being Sold!

  3:28 PM Posted In Michigan Department of Human Services , Michigan DHS Edit This And we wonder why our nation is going broke. Do you adopt for money?
Or do you adopt for love?

SMITHFIELD, N.C. (CNNMoney) -- The Wards couldn't believe the news
when their tax preparer called to tell them they're getting a $54,000
refund this year.

Thelma Ward was speechless. She had to hand the phone to her husband
so she could dance around the living room floor in shock.

"I was thanking God like never before," she said.
"We're just overwhelmed -- that amount was so huge it was
unbelievable."

Even their tax preparer said she had to check the math -- 10 to 15 times.

"We couldn't believe it when we totaled everything up. We were like,
that can't be right," said Dee Carter, owner of the local H&R Block
where the Wards have brought their taxes for more than 10 years. "We
had never seen anything like it before, so we had to check it over and
over again."

So what's bringing this windfall? The federal adoption tax credit.

In the past few years, the Wards have expanded their already big clan
of seven children by adopting five new kids. For each of these adopted
children, they are eligible for a one-time tax credit of up to
$13,170.

The credit has been around since 1997, but this tax season it is
refundable for the first time -- which is the tax equivalent of
hitting the jackpot.

A refundable tax credit lets you get the cash even if you owe no
taxes. A non-refundable credit just offsets any taxes you owe, and
then rolls anything remaining to the next tax year.

The Wards adopted the five children over a span of three years, so
they've filed for the tax credit each year. But because they didn't
make enough money, the tax credit simply rolled over from year to year
and accumulated.


This year, because the credit became refundable, they are getting all
the previous years' leftovers in a lump sum. (The couple had an
earlier adoption, in 2004, but unused credits can only be carried for
up to five years.)

While the Wards haven't received the refund check yet, H&R Block
calculated that the unused adoption credits from the past five years
add up to $45,560 -- making up the majority of the $54,000 refund
they're expecting.

"When this was first coming through the tax reform legislation, we
just kept looking at it going, 'Wow, this is really, really
significant for people adopting,'" said Kathy Pickering, executive
director of The Tax Institute at H&R Block. "It's not a large
population who can claim it, but for those who do, it can really
change their lives."

A typical private adoption runs about $30,000, so the credit was
intended to help families by reimbursing expenses, such as court fees.
But the tax law allows parents who adopt "special needs" children to
receive the entire credit even if they had no expenses.

All of the Wards' foster children qualified as special needs, so
Thelma was able to claim the full credit even though there were no
adoption expenses. This is not unusual for foster children; about 80%
of these kids are considered to have "special needs."

They tried to deduct what?!
"People adopting from the foster-care community are typically lower
and moderate income, and most don't have a significant tax liability,
so the credit never helped them," said Mary Boo, assistant director of
the North American Council on Adoptable Children. "The expenses they
have are life-long, so the government really stepped up this year to
help these people."

It's significant to the Wards, who only make about $39,000 per year.

"We didn't get into foster care to adopt anyone, but when we started
being foster parents we couldn't let a child leave us without a place
to call home," said Thelma.

She had to quit her job at a daycare to take care of her new children.
And her husband, David, who works at a concrete company, had to take a
significant pay cut last year to keep his job. The one saving grace:
As foster parents, they receive about $3,300 a month from the state of
North Carolina until the children turn 18.

"Any little bit helps, but it still doesn't cover it," said Thelma,

who has had to learn to stay on a tight budget to afford giving her

children the care they need.

Kelli, only three years old, has a serious heart condition and has
required medical attention since she was born. She is scheduled for a
major heart surgery this month.

7 best apps for filing taxes
Octavius has a heart murmur and is in and out of the doctor's office
constantly. And all of them -- including Joquavius, Zoie and Mckayla
-- require either speech therapy, psychiatry or special classes for
learning disabilities.

This attention really adds up, both emotionally and financially. So to
save money, Thelma focuses on the little things, like using coupons
everywhere she can, selling her children's clothes at consignment
stores, buying everything used and holding yard sales.

While the kids are at school, Thelma goes to three grocery stores to
do her weekly shopping. But the family's weekly grocery bill still
totals around $400, including the more than three gallons of milk and
four loaves of bread the children go through. It usually takes five or
six trips to the car to get all the groceries unloaded.

The Wards hope to use their windfall refund to take their big family
on a vacation, pay bills, and buy new windows for their home -- which
needs a little repair after housing so many foster children over the
past years.

"We'll have to see what we can afford," said Thelma. "Money comes and
money goes, so we want to make sure we spend it all wisely."

Many more families are also finding themselves in the enviable place
of planning what to do with such a windfall. Tax preparer H&R Block
said 8,000 of its own clients have already claimed the credit, and the
company expects 150,000 total taxpayers to claim it this year.

How I'll spend my refund
That's a 50% jump from the 2009 tax year -- but not because adoptions
have increased that much. Instead, many people who had no tax
liability in previous years, and thus wouldn't have been helped by the
credit, are now filing. And some of the refunds it has seen range as
high as $90,000.

A couple from Alabama, Tina and Kenny Thomas, recently adopted five
kids from foster care and are now expecting a check for a whopping
$65,000, thanks to this credit. Like the Wards, they had absolutely no
idea it existed until they went to their tax preparer.

"We went in having no clue about the credit, and we even thought we
may have to pay money," said Tina Thomas. "We never, never would have
expected it."

But before you run out to adopt a child in order to cash in on this
credit, know that the IRS is a stickler for documentation and isn't
doling out refunds like this to just anyone.

"If you're claiming the credit because of the nature of the credit and
the size of the refund, there are many documentation requirements that
Congress included along with it," said Eric Smith, a spokesman for the
IRS. "It is a generous credit for those who qualify -- that's why
policymakers want to make sure the people who deserve it get it, and
those who don't, don't.

http://abusedswanblogger.blogspot.com/2011/04/think-our-children-are-not-being-sold.html

2nd woman fired from Gaston DSS for DWI

Posted: 5:01 pm EST November 11, 2011Updated: 7:21 pm EST November 11, 2011

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. -- For the second time in a month, a Gaston County social worker has been fired for drinking and driving.

The dismissal came just weeks after a different social worker was accused of driving under the influence with a child in the car.

Aaron McSwain said he cannot forget Amanda Carrigan, the woman he said weaved in and out of traffic on busy Union Road.

He said after Carrigan rear ended his SUV two weeks ago she tried to drive away from the accident. “She started backing up. That's when I put myself behind her vehicle to keep her from leaving the scene,” he said.

He said she appeared drunk.

When police arrived, she blew a 0.19, more than twice the legal limit.

McSwain later learned she was a DSS worker. “I was actually shocked,” he said.

Carrigan is the second off duty Gaston County DSS worker charged with DWI in the past month. Yvette Smithen blew a 0.22 with her 4-year-old child in the car.

Both women were fired.

County Commissioner and DSS Board Vice Chairman Tom Keigher said the department’s staff is large and sometimes there are issues that arise.

“When you deal with a county employee number of 1,500 you are going to have problems,” he said.

Carrigan said in a phone interview she has no memory of driving under the influence or of the accident. She said she had a mix of prescription sleeping pills and cough syrup the night before.

Carrigan has hired an attorney to help her get her job back.

Previous Stories:

• October 14, 2011: Major holes found in DSS hiring process after employee arrested for DUI
• October 14, 2011: Former Gaston DSS worker granted court attorney

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/29749131/detail.html#.TsC9oN3fK6k.facebook

Federal Judge Should Hear Arlington CPS Case



Judge George Varoutsos



One of the most disturbing stories I've ever written for The Washington Examiner was about a 3-week-old baby girl who was snatched from her mother's arms and placed in foster care by Arlington County Child Protective Services because she lost 10 ounces after birth. Baby Sabrina's story hit me hard in the gut because that could have been me; my youngest daughter lost a whole pound postpartum.

Newborn weight loss is normal, Sabrina was under a doctor's care and had even regained all of her lost birth weight when she was taken. Kit Slitor, a freelance video editor, and his wife, Nancy Hey, a federal employee, were never charged with or convicted of child abuse or neglect, and the Virginia Department of Social Services exonerated them of any wrongdoing. It didn't matter.

After doing everything social workers and the Arlington Domestic and Juvenile Relations Court, or DJR, demanded of them -- including home inspections, supervised visitation, and psychological testing -- their parental rights were terminated and Sabrina was put up for adoption. They spent more than $250,000 fighting for her, all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court, which declined to hear their case.

Four years later, their story still haunts me.

On Sept. 16, a class-action lawsuit modeled after a similar pleading in Massachusetts was filed in federal court in Alexandria on behalf of eight children -- including Sabrina -- who have been placed in foster care by Arlington County.

The list of serious accusations contained in the lawsuit against DJR Judges George Varoutsos and Esther Wiggins, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Jason McCandless, and various Arlington CPS officials is long: perjury, RICO violations of civil rights, fraud upon the court, obstruction of justice, unconstitutional "ex parte" hearings, court orders that were never served, depriving parents of their due process rights, "missing" court orders, illegal searches and seizures, and felony removal of documents from court files, to name just a few.



Judge James Cacheris



Arlington CPS "has not implemented the reforms necessary to remedy the severe and persistent legal violations within its foster care system, despite its longstanding knowledge of these systemic ills," the lawsuit alleges. The allegations are so grave that if the judicial system were working properly, an emergency restraining order against DJR would be issued immediately.

Don't hold your breath. The "next friend" lawsuit was filed by nonlawyer James Renwick Manship, a disabled Navy cryptologist and court-appointed special advocate, on behalf of foster children and their impoverished parents. It's the longest of long shots aimed directly at a corrupt, unaccountable system that holds every card in the deck.

Or almost every card. Judge James Cacheris caused quite a legal stir in May when he cited the landmark Supreme Court Citizens United ruling to strike down a ban on corporate political donations. Campaign finance is an important issue, but it pales in comparison with judicial kidnapping, which strikes at the very heart of Americans' God-given rights.

If social workers and judges can take your child away without due process, the Constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper the powerful can continue to ignore with impunity.

There's still a chance that Cacheris, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan, will search his conscience, rise to the occasion, and allow this David vs. Goliath case to proceed to trial despite tremendous pressure from the legal establishment to ignore the compelling evidence of official misconduct and continue covering up this rot.

Stay tuned.

Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner's local opinion editor.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/11/federal-judge-should-hear-arlington-cps-case#ixzz1elNcKuFc

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/11/federal-judge-should-hear-arlington-cps-case

Arizona CPS Stonewalls Requests In Child’s Near Death

September 14th, 2011 by Robert Franklin, Esq.

Much like Los Angeles County, it’s now Arizona’s turn to hide the doings of CPS from public scrutiny.  Read about it here (Arizona Republic, 9/14/11).
Not long ago, I reported here on the Los Angeles County child welfare agency, the Department of Children and Family Services, that has given the one-finger salute to the state auditor who’s asking for records on child fatalities.  Never mind that the state legislature has specifically empowered the auditor to look into the activities of child welfare agencies in three separate counties.  Never mind that she unquestionably has the power to do the job the legislature gave her.  Never mind that LA County’s DCFS hasn’t a legal leg to stand on in resisting the auditor’s demand for records.

And above all never mind the fact that some 70 Los Angeles children in three years have died at the hands of parents, foster parents and others after their plight was brought to the attention of the DCFS.
No, Los Angeles County DCFS clearly has something - probably a lot - to hide, so it’s stonewalling, refusing to turn over the information to the auditor.  Stated another way, DCFS is refusing to allow the public whose taxes fund it to know what it does - and what it fails to do - to protect the children of the county.  Or, stated yet another way, DCFS’s clear message is “Just give us the money and don’t ask any questions.”
Apparently, great minds think alike.  I say that because The Arizona Republic has tried numerous times to find out what Phoenix CPS was up to in several cases of child injury that came close to, but didn’t, result in death.  And, much like in neighboring California, the bureaucrats are stonewalling.

Now, of course the California case involves stonewalling a public official whose job it is to find out the information DCFS is hiding.  In Arizona, it’s a newspaper trying to inform the public about what goes on behind the closed doors of CPS.  So the newspaper is only entitled to get public information, while the California state auditor has far greater authority.
Still, the bureaucratic instinct to hide from public view is on display for all to see in Arizona.  Consider the fact that a little girl called Baby Josephine was recently brought to an emergency room, battered to a pulp.  The baby had 14 broken bones to go with other injuries that left no one in any doubt that they’d been caused intentionally.
But that’s not all.  When she was hurt, little Josephine had been in the “care” of a “safety monitor” specifically approved by CPS.  Moreover, that “safety monitor,” Angelica Jimenez lived with her boyfriend, Steven Saldana, a convicted felon.  Keep in mind, this was a situation approved by CPS.


Steven Saldana      Angelica Jimenez



The Department of Economic Security has once again thwarted my quest to find out what happened to baby Josephine, the 4-month-old who wound up with 14 broken bones and other injuries while in the care of a CPS-approved “safety monitor.”

The third time requesting the records wasn’t the charm, but it certainly was revealing.

The state has no intention of letting the public know what steps Child Protective Services took to keep this baby safe.

As the bureaucrats see it, we aren’t entitled to know whether the CPS checked the background of Angelica Jimenez or her live-in felon boyfriend, Steven Saldana, before handing over the infant.

Needless to say, it’s not the first time a child has been terribly injured, the paper asked for information and been turned down.

Just as they believe we aren’t entitled to know what the CPS did when called to come to the aid of a 10-year-old Gilbert boy - before his hands and feet were bound and he was forced to eat dog poop. Before he was repeatedly sodomized and his penis burned. The attacks came to light on Friday after his adoptive mother, Jennifer Louise Barnes, was arrested.



Jennifer Louise Barnes

 According to Gilbert police, the CPS received multiple reports about the boy. Just don’t dare ask what the agency did.

The cover behind which CPS is hiding is pretty thin.  It seems that there’s a state law that requires disclosure of CPS records only in the event of a child’s death or near death.

Baby Josephine stopped breathing in the dead of night on Aug. 3. She was having seizures when she arrived at Cardon Children’s Medical Center sporting 14 broken bones, bruises all over her face and a cigarette burn on her arm.

According to Chandler police, “Forensic doctors stated the child had suffered a near-death episode and the injuries were non-accidental trauma.”

So you’d think CPS would cough up their records, given the fact that the four-month-old had stopped breathing and doctors on the scene said she’s “suffered a near-death episode.”  But no.  In the interest of secrecy, they found their own doctors to contradict the ones’ who’d actually treated her at the ER.

“As we previously informed you, information regarding the CPS investigation involving Angelica Jimenez does not meet the qualifications for release because the incident that is the subject to your client’s public records request was not determined to be a near fatality caused by abuse or neglect,” Todd Stone, DES public-records-request coordinator, wrote on Monday to The Republic’s attorney, David Bodney, rejecting this, our third request for the records…

By the way, both state and federal law define “near fatality” as “an act that, as certified by a physician, places a child in serious or critical condition.”

I’d say that pretty much anyone confronted with a four-month-old child who’d been beaten so severely that she had 14 fractures, plus cigarette burns and who’d stopped breathing would say her condition was “serious.”  My guess is that 99% of people would say that, but apparently the other 1% work for CPS.  They of course have a vested interest in hiding their own incompetence, malfeasance, negligence, cronyism, etc.

And hide it they do, for as long as they can under whatever pretext is available.  Meanwhile, the children it’s their duty to protect suffer terribly, and we the people pay the bills.

http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=19244

Child Welfare in New York: Everyday Horrors

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

UPDATE, OCTOBER 6: At the end of this post see why the organizers of today's webinar will NOT be answering the questions raised in this post

  I read about a horror story last month.

            It wasn’t one of those cases where a child died even though the case file had more “red flags” than a Soviet May Day parade.  Nor was it one of those cases where a child was taken from parents who could have been mother- and father-of-the-year only to die in foster care.

            Those horrors are the extremes and they are very rare.

            What made this case so horrible is the fact that it’s so typical.  It’s also the kind of case child protective services (CPS) agencies almost always hide behind confidentiality rules.

            This one became public – minus identifying information and with all names changed – thanks to a webinar about ChildStat, the pride and joy of John Mattingly, former commissioner of New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS).  At ChildStat meetings, ACS officials go over data from one region and pour over one case, chosen at random.



John Mattingly

  It’s the 12-page narrative of that one case that provides this rare x-ray of the soul of a CPS agency.   They never got to it during the webinar, but they might during a follow-up webinar tomorrow.  They asked for questions in advance.  I've put mine at the end of this post.

To really get the picture, the entire narrative needs to be read, because, in every sense of the term, the devil is in the details.  I hope readers will take the time to go through it, and then compare this example of typical practice to an example of best practice from the latest newsletter of one of the smartest groups helping child welfare agencies improve, the Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group.  Readers also might want to consider these questions:

●How would your own family rate under the kind of scrutiny the family in the New York City case was forced to endure? 

●Can you imagine a government agency trying to micromanage a white, middle-class family the way ACS did in this case?

            Meanwhile, I’ll try to summarize.

            For starters, in half the states, this case never would have brought a CPS agency to the family’s door at all.  The allegation was “educational neglect,” something discussed often on this Blog.  According to a comprehensive study by the Vera Institute of Justice, a study commissioned by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, half the states wisely leave such cases to the schools to sort out.

            The allegation was that the older child, age 8, missed 25 days of school between September and early April, and was late 44 times.  The parents had gotten lots of warnings and they allegedly were too lenient when the child said she was sick. 

            That’s it.  No allegations of beating, torture, or starvation.  Nothing about sexual abuse or parental drug abuse.

            The parents are Hispanic, their income is about 140 percent of the national poverty line – and remember, this is New York City.  They sleep on a queen size bed.  (I have no idea why that is relevant to anything, but it’s included in the narrative.)

Clearly the family has plenty of reason for stress to begin with.  Nevertheless, the picture that emerges, in spite of the narrative, is of parents who love their children, have been trying their best and are guilty of, at worst, human fallibility.  They also had tried, without success, to get the school to help with the children’s problems – possibly engendering the hostility of the teacher who, by the mother’s account, treated her like dirt – and then reported her to ACS.

LIVES TURNED UPSIDE-DOWN

But this one allegation against this admirable family was enough to turn their lives upside down for at least a month (the case was still open when the narrative was written).  There was one inspection visit after another.  Over and over the children were questioned about the most intimate aspects of their lives.  Had anyone touched them inappropriately? (No.) Did their parents ever hit them? (Yes, they got spankings.) Did the parents ever hit each other? (No.)  Do they argue? (Yes – imagine that.)   Because of the spankings the caseworker was ordered to be sure she “assessed the children for marks and bruises each time she visited.”  I wonder what the children had to endure to meet that requirement?

           

            The parents underwent a similar grilling.  When ACS wasn’t at the door at all hours, ACS was dragging them down to the borough office.

            Though best practice in child welfare says you assess a family’s strengths as well as their weaknesses, from day one these parents were treated only as suspects.  Every alleged failing was documented in the most minute detail, creating a 12-page litany of finger-wagging. 

            “The parents denied any domestic violence substance abuse or problems with physical and mental health,” the narrative says.  Denied?  They’d never been accused of anything like that in the first place. Yet throughout the narrative that word, - denied - is used over and over to describe the parents’ responses.  The same information could have been conveyed to the ChildStat meeting by writing “the parents said they did not…” 

            And the denials were never enough.  When asked, the younger child, age 6, says Dad sometimes drinks alcohol.  So the caseworker is instructed to go back and grill the child about “what he drank and his behavior.”  The children repeatedly say there’s no domestic violence.   But a supervisor says “domestic violence assistance was also a possibility.” Another supervisor tells the worker to “inquire more about Joy’s [the older child’s] exposure to her parents’ arguments and how it might affect her.” 

            The Child Protective Manager (CPM), the highest-ranking official to look at the case,  

noted that her concern was that Joy held herself responsible for getting her mother into trouble because she did not want to go to school. The CPM added that the mother should have provided Joy with more structure regarding her school attendance.  … She added that [the mother] should take full responsibility for having not provided structure for her children.

            The caseworker concluded that the parents did not “demonstrate developmentally appropriate expectations of all children” and did not “attend to the needs of all children and prioritizes [sic] the children’s needs above his/her own desires.”  Apparently this was based on the fact that when the bus was late, they didn’t find another way to get the children to school.

 It wasn’t just the parents put through the wringer.  The amount of time put into the case by the caseworker boggles the mind.  At one point, the caseworker came out of a meeting with her supervisor with “a list of at least 22 follow-ups … to complete” including “counseling the parents about inappropriate uses of corporal punishment” though there was no allegation or evidence that this was a problem.  No wonder caseworkers are drowning in the demands placed upon them and may well miss a child in real danger, as is well documented in an excellent New York Magazine story.  According to the Vera Institute study, fully 19 percent of the cases investigated by ACS are allegations of “educational neglect.”

THE PRICE OF “SUCCESS”

At no time were the children taken from the home.  What happened to this family was probably the minimum amount of trauma a CPS investigation can inflict. In the end, the intervention by ACS may have improved the children’s attendance and prompted the school to get them some help the parents couldn’t get on their own. 

            But the family paid way too high a price for this “success” - and it was entirely unnecessary.

            In one of the seminal works of the 20^th Century about child welfare, the late Joseph Goldstein, Anna Freud, and Albert J. Solnit write that:

Children react even to temporary infringement of parental autonomy with anxiety, diminishing trust, loosening of emotional ties, or an increasing tendency to be out of control. The younger the child, and the greater his own helplessness and dependence, the stronger is his need to experience his parents as his lawgivers, safe, reliable, all-powerful, and independent.

And that’s even without all those assessments looking for bruises from spankings.

            In this case mom is faulted for being too lenient, too willing to accept it when her daughter said she was too sick to go to school.  But what happens now, when she tries to be more assertive, after ACS has spent a month badgering the family and undermining mom’s authority?

            And then there’s the incident with the lamp.

            Sometime after the investigation began, the older child explained that Danny, the six-year-old, “burned himself on a lamp when he attempted to fix a light bulb that blew out. She said that Danny’s teacher told him that he needed to help his mother more and so her brother wanted to fix the light bulb. Joy said that the lamp hit Danny in his face, but he did not cry. Joy denied that her parents have been arguing.”

Yes, Danny explained the incident the same way, a pediatrician confirmed that this was a credible explanation and, fortunately, the caseworker accepted it.  But try to imagine the fear this family endured when it happened, knowing they were in the middle of a CPS investigation.

            The rationale for doing all this to a family, of course, boils down to “you never know.”  Like the fanatical drug warriors who see marijuana as a “gateway drug” today’s “child savers” to use the term their 19^th Century counterparts gave themselves, see educational neglect as a gateway allegation. The child missed school.  So maybe mom’s a drunk and dad’s a pervert – you never know, right?


            But there is no evidence that children suffer more abuse in the states that don’t require their CPS agencies to investigate “educational neglect.”  And after doing a comprehensive reading of a random sample of cases, the Vera Institute researchers found that the notion that educational neglect is the "tip of the iceberg," is nonsense. The study found that generally, "educational neglect" is the tip of nothing except some kind of school problem, often one that is not the parent's fault.  Sending a CPS worker to the door only makes the family defensive and makes it harder to solve whatever problem may be causing absenteeism.

  As regular readers of this Blog know, the study authors recommended that if New York must keep investigating “educational neglect” it should be done through “differential response” in which either the CPS agency or a private contractor sends out a worker to offer a helping hand instead of a wagging finger.   Had that been done here, the same potential positive results would have been achieved with no cross-examination of young children, no comprehensive visual inspections for bruises and no documentation in the case file of the size bed on which the parents sleep.

            State after state has adopted this approach.  Every study finds no compromise of child safety and some find that safety improves. 

            But for at least a decade, since before he ever got to ACS, John Mattingly has opposed differential response.  Finally, late in 2009, he agreed to pilot it in some educational neglect cases.  Several months later, and without announcing it publicly, he put the pilot on hold indefinitely, something uncovered by some enterprising journalism students.

            So right now, some other New York City family is enduring the same trauma as the one in this narrative.  It happens all the time.  That’s why it’s a horror story.

http://www.nccprblog.org/2011/10/child-welfare-in-new-york-everyday.html

An abridged version of this post is available on the website of the trade journal Youth Today.  

Legislators Want Answers To Ongoing Failures At DHS:

“Oklahoma’s Children Deserve Immediate And Absolute Protection…They Deserve Better

(Oklahoma City, OK ) With headlines and statistics telling the tale of failures to provide adequate protection for those children placed in their care and custody, state Rep. Mike Sanders, District 59 (R-Kingfisher) and Rep.Richard Morrissette, District 92 (D-OKC) are demanding an immediate halt to business as usual by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.

“This morning we awoke to yet another headline in the Oklahoman that tells of ongoing failures at the department resulting in the death of yet another Oklahoma child.” stated Sanders and Morrissette.

Fifty children - on average - continue to die annually under the care of the Department of Human Services. Oklahoma is one of four states that have had an increase in child deaths.




Rep. Mike Sanders

 “How long do they, the Commission, and Director Hendricks, expect us to abide this issue which is now clearly systemic within the department to the extent that we can predict with certainty a future tragedy?” asked  Rep. Sanders.

Rep. Mike Sanders serves as Vice Chairman of the House Human Services Committee which oversees the formation of policy and necessary statutory changes required to provide direction for the Department of Human Services.

“In 2008, I brought HB2596 with the intention of reducing the burden upon child welfare case workers and those who administer these cases on behalf of Oklahoma children taken into custody by the department because of abuse and neglect within the home. That legislation involved breaking the department into the three manageable divisions. The bill was not allowed to be heard in committee and children keep dyeing.” stated Rep. Morrissette in frustration.

The House of Representatives under Speaker Chris Benge did allow for a performance audit of the agency, which came with a price tag of more than $430,000. The audit report made suggestions for significant policy changes, but, to date, only a handful of those have been implemented and many others in only partial compliance.




Chris Benge


The Department of Human Services Commission, whose task is to oversee the workings at the agency, have openly admitted to not even having read the report.

“We now demand that these commissioners come before the legislature to answer directly as to why they continue to neglect their responsibilities and to ignore the needs of Oklahoma’s most vulnerable resulting in the deaths of so many innocent children.” stated Sanders.

DHS Commissioners admit openly to failing to read the in-depth performance audit prepared by Hornby Zeller Associates.

“This is an opportunity for the Commission to address the need for a complete overhaul of their mission statement, practices and procedures and to adopt the remainder of the audit recommendations: NO MORE PASSING THE BUCK! CHILDREN DESERVE BETTER…THE PEOPLE OF OKLAHOMA DESERVE BETTER!”

Rep. Morrissette has worked on this idea of requiring answers from DHS since 2008. Rep. Sanders has been very vocal during this past session regarding particular cases within his House district dealing with DHS incompetence.

The plan Rep. Morrissette and Rep. Sanders will outline at a press conference to be held Monday, October 17, 2011 at 2 PM will involve requiring DHS Commissioners, individually, to come before the legislature to answer direct questions regarding DHS policies and practices.

http://bixbybulletin.com/news/legislators-want-answers-to-ongoing-failures-at-dhs-oklahoma-s/article_e4b062f0-f5d0-11e0-920f-001cc4c002e0.html?fb_ref=story-bottom&fb_source=profile_oneline

Legislators Want Answers To Ongoing Failures At DHS: “Oklahoma’s Children Deserve Immediate And Absolute Protection…They Deserve Better

DHS Commission Could Use More Members Like Steven Dow

The Oklahoman Editorial   

Published: September 18, 2011

STEVEN Dow's deposition in a class-action lawsuit over Oklahoma's foster care system is an indictment of the state Human Services Commission. That and Dow's willingness to criticize the panel publicly have made him some enemies, no doubt, but also may affect real, overdue changes. We certainly hope so.

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Dow was named to the commission in early 2010. He soon became frustrated by what he saw as a lack of commission oversight of the Department of Human Services and, in the face of news stories about children dying while in the DHS system, what he saw as an unwillingness by board members to do little more than attend their monthly meetings.
Dow told attorneys for the nonprofit Children's Rights Inc. that he felt information provided to commissioners about DHS operations was “absolutely insufficient.” What objective measures are commissioners given to help them gauge DHS's child welfare performance? “None.”
Has anyone on the board expressed an interest in such objective performance measures? “Not to my knowledge.”



Chairman Richard DeVaughn



Read more: http://newsok.com/dhs-commission-could-use-more-members-like-steven-dow/article/3604720#ixzz1ZeKb1uuQ

http://newsok.com/article/3604720



Aja Johnson



Baby illegally Detained By DCFS - California

Baby Illegally detained by DCFS, placing infant at emotional risk

DCFS Give Us Back Our Children, mothers, grandmothers, family supporters and community members are holding a press conference to demand that the Department of Children and Family Services return Cashmere Alexander, a 14-month-old baby, to her maternal grandmother, Deborah Farris. Cashmere has been under Ms. Farris care since her birth. Ms. Farris has done an exemplary job of providing food, shelter, clothing, and other care for the baby while receiving no material support from DCFS.

The actions of DCFS in removing Cashmere from her family - a family ready, willing and able to care for her - removing her from everyone she has known and is attached to, exposed a happy and well adjusted child to feelings of abandonment and future problems of attachment. This is abusive first of all to Cashmere, but also to her primary caregiver Ms. Farris and other family members who are bearing the emotional trauma of this precious infant being snatched from them. No one at DCFS was able to tell the family over the weekend where Cashmere was or who was caring for her, and no one had inquired about allergies or other health issues Cashmere might have.

California law that stipulates every effort must be made to place children with family members before detaining them was broken when Cashmere Alexander was detained by DCFS on Friday, July 23, 2010. Additionally, Federal law under the American Disabilities Act was also broken, since Cashmere was detained after her primary caregiver, her maternal grandmother had a seizure brought on by continuous harassing by the social worker.

The mothers and grandmothers in the group say that their relationship with their children is not seen as important and valued, making it too easy for their children to be taken and placed needlessly in foster care with strangers or put up for fast track adoption.

They also say that all too often families are penalized for simply being poor and that rather than making resources available to help mothers or grandmothers care for children, families are torn apart. The resources that could help these families instead are diverted to foster care with strangers. Also past records of contact with the criminal justice system and/or DCFS are used to block family members who now have clean records, and whose contact with criminal justice were for minor offenses to begin with. This has a disproportionate impact on communities of color which, due to poverty, institutional racism and more, are more likely to have been under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system. Black children are detained at a disproportionate rate: Black children are 8% of the total LA County child population but are 34% of the foster children. LA County takes away children at a higher rate than most major metropolitan areas – and the number of families torn apart has increased most years since 2004.

Those victimized most are the children – taken needlessly from mothers and grandmothers whose only crime may be poverty, and then consigned to the chaos of foster care. Study after study has found that in typical cases children left in their own homes do better in later life. According to the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (nccpr.org), foster care “alumni” found they had twice the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder of Gulf War veterans and only 20% could be said to be “doing well”.

We demand the immediate return of Baby Cashmere to her grandmother.

“DCFS Give Us Back Our Children!” is a self-help, multi-racial support and action group of mothers, other family members and supporters working together to end the unjust removal of children from their families by the Department of Children and Family Services. They are coordinated by Every Mother is a Working Mother Network, have a sister group the Philadelphia-based DHS-Give Us Back Our Children, and are part of a growing national movement.
Their DEMANDS are:

DHS/DCFS to prioritize –in practice – the protection, reunification and maintenance of families, recognizing that most children are safer and better off in their own home.

Prioritize placing children with family members if they truly can’t remain with their own parents (according to state law), not fostering them out to strangers. Children are almost always safer with family than with strangers.

2/3 of those who were in foster care report sexual abuse by an adult in a foster care facility (Casey Family Programs)

Stop removing children from a mother because she is suffering domestic violence. Families need protection from violence, not the further violence of separation.
The Federal Government, the State and County must provide adequate resources for mothers to keep families together, including financial support, housing, childcare day or night, family-centered drug treatment, support for people with mental and physical disabilities, legal and other help. A financial crisis is no excuse for inaction since this kind of assistance costs less than warehousing children in foster or group homes and destroying their futures.

One third of children would be home tomorrow if their parents just had decent housing! Richard Wexler, Natl Coalition for Child Protection Reform

End financial incentives for DHS/DCFS and provider agencies to keep children in foster care.
Families need access to free, respectful and accountable legal representation. Professionals must explain clearly what is happening in each case
DHS/DCFS and related agencies must stop hiding behind confidentiality to keep information from the public; allow families to decide if they want their case heard in courts open to the public.
End discrimination on the basis of race, gender, poverty, age, disability, immigration status, cultural differences, sexual preference, being a victim of domestic violence or any other.
End the run-around, delaying of cases and abuse of power by workers, lawyers, so-called “child advocates” and others, and give mothers the time they need to meet DHS/DCFS goals. Children need their mothers and/or other family members who love them, not be detained and then given a teddy bear.
Mothers and families must be treated with respect, not threats, harassment and arrogance. They have the right to the support and accompaniment of family and community members in all dealings with DHS/DCFS and Family Court.

Black children are more likely to be taken from their homes, to stay in protective custody longer and never to return to their parents. (Cincinnati Post)

Mothers must not be forced to choose between homelessness and staying with an abusive partner who may be her only source of financial support – either way the child is hurt and they risk losing custody. Welfare must be available.

When childcare arrangements fall through or when children are sick, mothers must not have to choose between staying with their children and getting fired, or leaving children alone or with inadequate care. Welfare must be available.
Independent public scrutiny of how cases are handled.
Accountability by case workers, supervisors & administrators for the welfare of children.
Accountability on how DHS/DCFS and related agencies are allocating their funding, ie how much goes into foster care and adoption and how much to services families need to stay together.

http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/content/baby-illegally-detained-dcfs-press-conference