DCFS’s Real Crime? Breaking Up families

By Diane L. Redleaf November 24, 2013 8:16PM

The recent news that DCFS investigations are missing the mark isn’t news to me. I have sued DCFS more than a dozen times and have established, through federal court findings, that the state’s child-welfare system has a staggering rate of error in its investigations. But the mistakes my cases have demonstrated are much different from the ones highlighted by recent news stories about child deaths. In fact, they are just the opposite: They show a DCFS too quick on the trigger to pull children from the care of suitable parents.

Without any oversight, review, or lawfully vested authority, DCFS regularly removes children from their homes and places them with relatives — a coercive separation that is often based on nothing the parent has actually done to harm the child.

DCFS also rampantly labels parents as guilty by innuendo, only to have its determinations overturned once a neutral judge reviews the evidence. These widespread errors never see the light of day because they don’t even make it to a juvenile courtroom, let alone a newsroom.

In other words, DCFS finds abuse where it doesn’t exist, while real abusers fall through the cracks.

The pain and trauma caused by the overly intrusive investigative practices leave long-lasting scars for the families and children DCFS touches.

In fact, in 2012, the Illinois Supreme Court declared void a policy under which DCFS investigates nearly a third of its cases annually. Instead of tightening its investigations in the face of this ruling and complying with the companion changes in state law, DCFS has continued to investigate and label more than 6,000 parents as child neglectors without any evidence of actual neglectful conduct in many of these cases. As a result, the Family Defense Center had to sue DCFS again in September to compel the agency to follow the clear mandate of the law.

The cases our office defends are not at all like the horrendous death cases recently reported. Our cases often involve a parent who turned her head at the same moment a child fell, or a false allegation made by a disgruntled spouse in a bitter divorce proceeding. This is the typical fare for DCFS. In fact, such situations account for more than two-thirds of the DCFS caseload.

In the wake of the recent tragedies, it’s important to keep in mind that calls for more DCFS investigators won’t fix the problem. That’s because DCFS resources are being misallocated by targeting too many families that shouldn’t be swept into the system in the first place. DCFS simply cannot investigate its way out of a lack of standards for assessing child abuse and neglect, insufficient training, failure to coordinate services (or to provide appropriate follow-up services) and lack of accountability.

The real challenge is to pare down the DCFS caseload in order to allow DCFS to focus on the serious abuse cases, so that tragic deaths do not recur. One step in the right direction would be for DCFS to renew its efforts to deflect cases based on poverty into support services so that it can concentrate precious investigative resources on serious physical and sexual abuse cases.

Children deserve protection from abusive parents and caregivers, and the public is entitled to demand such protection from DCFS. But accountability starts with having a clear definition of abuse and neglect and an ability to recognize which cases should be investigated and which families should be left alone. Not all Hotline calls are credible, and only a fraction of DCFS calls involve actual or serious threats of harm to a child.

To better protect children from dangerous parents, DCFS needs to stop trying to protect children from good parents who have not abused or neglected them. On both sides of getting it right, there is much room for improvement.

Diane L. Redleaf is the founder and executive director of the Family Defense Center, an organization that advocates for justice for families in the child welfare system.

 http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/23929829-452/dcfss-real-crime-breaking-up-families.html#!

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

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

The kidnapping of my son(Ordered by the Los Angeles Co. DCFS office's Marijuana Supplier)

by Robert James Patterson on Sunday, August 15, 2010 at 9:34pm

Affidavit of facts

On December 24th of 2008, I received a call from this lady and this made me very uneasy, as it said LA County DCFS right on the caller ID and she also introduced herself as "Denise Sherman from Children's Protective Services". They then talked on the phone in Yiddish or Hebrew, both which I am not familiar with. Once they hung up, I immediately begin to question this friend whom explains to me that this is the woman who helps him bring his children from Chili over here every year. He tells me not to worry and that I would be meeting her shortly as she called to "score some weed". We got into the red truck that Mr. Carvajal's mother was renting for him as he could not rent one due to the fact that he has no drivers license due to several DUIs on his driving record. We went to Reseda Discount Caregivers where Mr. Carvajal went in to make a purchase with the money that Ms. Sherman had given to him in the cab of the truck. He came back out and gave her an eighth of marijuana he had purchased for her. We rushed off as she was late for the cruise she was taking that was leaving that day. They dropped us off at the friends that we were to spend Christmas Eve with and we said goodbye.

On January 16th of 2009 Ruben Carvajal had became a big abusive drunk and was causing undo hardship upon my family, so I kicked him out. Well, he left quick, but then took his time leaving collecting his belongings.
Between January 18th and February 16th of 2009Mr. Carvajal would come and remove a couple of items at a time. He then arrived one day and went through the closet and started to demand to know what we had done with "it". They it was an envelope that he claimed to have hidden, and not taken on his last to visits to collect his belongs, that supposedly contained 1500 dollars! He went on to ad that we were no responsible for it and that if we did not come up with his money, then "I will take what is yours". He then started to call and ask if we had come up with his money and every time would threaten to "call Children's Protective Services" on us. He sent one of his henchmen one time as well whom terrorized my wife as I was not at home and she refused to open the door without my presence in the house.
On February 19th of 2009 Ms. Denise Sherman was at the call box of my apartment complex. Having forgotten all about this woman, I rushed to let her in. We spent the whole day talking to her about Mr. Ruben D. Carvajal, showing her all of the personal information that he had left behind. My wife DID recognize her, although she was not from where, I on the other hand did not. She called her office and scheduled a TDM for the 25th so they could discuss services with us that would help us out with affordable housing and so forth.
On February 25th of 2009, At the Chatsworth DCFS office we went into a room and several other parties where present, the facilitator came in and was obviously agitated by the fact that we were having this meeting. Kept telling Ms. Sherman that she did not have enough to take us to court and asking her why she was doing this to this family, he even threw up his arms at one point declaring that he would not be part of this and stormed out of the room. Well, we agreed to random drug testing and counseling, all though the only thing found in our system was marijuana, which we had legal papers for. We fought off her and her supervisors character assassination attempts and they did not remove our beloved son .
On March 3rd of 2009, Tuesday Ms. Sherman made an appointment with me to come by in the morning and cancelled it in the afternoon. I said something to her that day on the phone while she was speaking, and she replied with a very stern and angry, "I was talking", which is what clicked in my memory. Later on I was riding the MTA and thinking what I could do to be a better father to my little 'Manny' and why Ruben was not up for false reports and it all came flooding back. I spoke while she was speaking in the cab of the truck on December 24th and received the same response. I remembered her now!
On March 4th of 2009, I called up my friend Mesha, who has had a few run ins with DCFS and told her of the situation. She advised me that all I had to do was call them and advise them that I knew the worker from outside of her relationship with DCFS. I did, but her supervisor was not available, so I spoke with the shift supervisor, Ms. Sonia Polain, and told her that I knew Ms. Denise Sherman from outside relations. She advised me that she was going to advise her that she was not to come out to my house as they were going to assign me to a new worker. She called me back and told me that she had been advised and that I was to call Mr. Tony Kade on the following day to be assigned a new worker.
On March 5th of 2009, Went to the courthouse to try and get a subpoena for the incoming calls to my phone on December 24th of 2008 so I had proof of Ms. Denise Sherman's under handed antics. Well, Ms. Lorain Ramirez called me on my cell and advised me that there was an emergency TDM and that I really need to be in attendance. I advised her that it would take me sometime to get out there as I had someone else's car that I had to return and catch a bus out there. While I was on the bus, I received a frantic call from my wife whom was very upset as the school administrator whom goes by the A.K.A. of Mr. T confronted her and stated that they just took our son away about fifteen minutes ago and demanded to know what it was all about (although the law clearly states that rather then taking time to inflict emotional harm, he should have been on the phone calling both of us while this was happening). I told my wife to get to the DCFS office as quick as possible and I would meet her there. I was now greatly distraught and unable to think clearly anymore and got off at the wrong bus stop. I contacted my wife on her cell and our neighbor was driving her from the DCFS office where they had requested another drug test. They picked me up and we went to the testing site, wrong move. They were closed by the time we were done and our child was in there custody. Ms. Sherman made a lot of false allegations against us and against our other family members so that the child was, instead of as the law now requires, placed into foster case as opposed to being placed with family.
On March 19th of 2009, I had another meeting with another Social Worker who is suppose to be of a different breed, although it has come to be known, she is as filthy as the rest, maybe even more so. Her name is Sheron Maitland and she, supposedly, is an officer of the courts. Well, I told her that I know Ms. Denise Sherman, that Ruben Carvajal had introduced her to me and that this was the vendetta that he had promised. She lied about our whole conversation, and outrageously at that. Stated that I had made claims of going to Las Vegas with Ms. Sherman, that I claimed she traveled to Chili to help Ruben bring his children to the states and then that me and my wife apologized for our statements concerning Ms. Denise Sherman and stated that we did not know her and that we made it all up. This woman is a master of all lies, and she has more power then a regular social worker as she is the one responsible for investigating if the social workers claims are valid! She tried to say that I said that the aunt was mentally unstable, but like the rest of the story that they told, it simply was not true. Even the statements I made regaurding the false statements were inaccurately record and just totally untrue.
On March 31st of 2009, Ms. Maitland visited Anatola Avenue Elementary School and had a conversation with our son. She wrote at "LAST MIUTE" INFORMATION report that is just really poor fiction! It is this paper that Ms. Maitland wrote that pushed me in the decision to appeal the case. That and the fact that it was this document in particular that made it so important that she make sure that my DUE PROCESS rights were totally violated so that these outrageous lies were entered into court as true and uncontested lest she perjure herself. She claims that Manny told her that I took Manny to outrageous parties where people were throwing champagne bottles against the wall until someone was injured. She then adds that she asked him how he knew that it was champagne and he said ( now get this, he is smart, but in first grade and spelling is not his top strength ) that he read it on the bottle and sounded it out. She then claims that he spelled out champagne to her and that he did it correctly. She then goes on to added that Manny, who has VERY rarely done anything to merit a swat on the behind with a hand, stated that when he is really bad, we beat him with a shoe or a belt. She also claimed that we smoke cigarettes and cigars in the house in his presence and suggests marijuana, which we never do any of the three in the house with him present. She also claimed that he stated that we fed him cereal four or five times a day, another lie. I am not saying that my son lied to the Dependency Investigator, the Dependency Investigator straight out lied about what my son had reported to her. I know this is a fact for several reasons, but the main one is directly from my son Manny. Upon his return home, I found it necessary to inquire about his care and wellbeing while out of the home. I asked him, "Were the foster parents nice to you, did anyone hurt you while you were there"? "No", he replied, "they were very nice to me, they really liked me". Then I asked him, "Were the social workers nice to you, did any of them threaten you in anyway"? He immediately replied "There is something wrong with them, they are so stupid they don't understand me and I had to keep telling them over and over, only with there hand". So now my son has been grilled, interrogated by the very people who are suppose to be protecting the children. What was the next step, water boarding? Now who do I report Ms. Maitland too for harassing my son?
On April 14th of 2009, we were all hyped up for our day in court, brought two witnesses, had Manny with us and we were anxiously awaiting or chance to testify and for the truth to finally be told. Again, Mr. Ben Curley had no interest in the truth being told, only concerned with a clean drug test. He had to call the labs to get them, as the Department of Children and Family Services were hiding them. We had been trying to get them ourselves as we knew we had to have two clean test by now and should have unmonitored visits. But our public defenders had to call to the labs to do what the social workers were supposed to have done. Not only that, but they were claiming that my wife had missed a drug test, but of course we had proof of all of the drug tests being attended, All of this was minor though, compared to the other proof that never got entered as evidence, the testimony that was kept out by the same kind of corruption that the good attorney Richard Fine was imprisoned for fighting. They kept offering us different deals with the prosecution; we kept refusing to deal with the prosecution and were waiting for our son to testify so that these lies were finally exposed. Ms. Maitland was noticeable nervous as were unwilling to deal, so they made a deal behind our backs. The only person to take the stand was me and the only thing I did there was enter three pictures of our apartment I had taken into evidence. So now that our right to due process was destroyed and we were in a trail not much different then the Jews found themselves in at the beginning of the holocaust, Ms. Maitland's bad fiction became a fact on the records.
On April 21st of 2009, we had another TDM, they could not push anything on us and they didn't. Ms. Maitland had to comment on how hard it was to get a deal for us so she could spare us from a trail.
Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services is committing federal offenses by;
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 - Conspiracy Against Rights
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242 - Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 1001 - Fraud and False Statements
18 USC Sec. 1203TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDUREPART I - CRIMESCHAPTER 55 – KIDNAPPING
Title 42, U.S.C., Section 14141 - Pattern and Practice
My child had been wrongfully and unlawfully removed from my physical custody without Constitutional due process, or even the pretext of Reasonable Efforts having been offered as mandated by 42 U.S.C. § 671 (a) (15) and 672 (a) (15), which means that his removal meets the definition of KIDNAPPING according to 18 USC Sec. 1203. It was also obvious that the department was also acting in disregard to Amendment No.4909 of 42 U.S.C. § 671 (a) (the COATS (AND WYDEN) AMENDMENT) as the department also concocted stories to block the child from being placed with the maternal aunt. The Judge ordered that the allegations against the Aunt be investigated and if she was suitable to care for our son that he be placed there (Yaa, one small victory!)
On April 14th , Where was the justice????Mr. Curley spent the day coming out of the court room to offer me various deals from the prosecution and I kept telling him "no deals". He told me that my son said to the Dependency Worker that when he was really bad, we would beat him with a shoe or a belt and I told him that this was untrue. He said that the court was going to go on my son's testimony and I told him that this was good. We had our trail, but the only person to testify was me and all I did was enter three pictures into evidence. The Department of Children and Family claimed that Ms. Silva had missed a drug test, but she had the receipt for her attendance in her evidence book. . We also showed our defenders that we had evidence showing that we had a safety plan, that we had been calling the department and that they violated us intentionally, but they did not bring it up in court. They subpoenaed no evidence, no people, called no one to give testimony to their claims or anyone to challenge their claims although we did bring two witnesses to testify and our evidence book, none of it was used.
On June 8th of 2009, Ms. Silva received an email at 11:15pm asking if she would be available to work on a TV. She did not read it at the time it arrived as she had already retired for the evening.
On June 9th of 2009, Ms. Silva took her son to his physician Pejman Salimpour for an ear infection that had been causing him to miss school. She then went and filled the three prescriptions ordered by her sons physician. After that she returned home, cleaned and read her email. She was then visited by the Family Preservation worker named Suzi who helped her load her belongings in her sisters vehicle to go to the Van Nuys Flyaway.
On June 11th of 2009, Ms. Silva received a phone call shortly after arriving at LAX from Francisco Flores to inform her that she had a dirty test since she was a no show and that this would not look good to the judge. She was rather distraught by this statement and came home upset. I wrote Francisco Flores a letter and advised him on how to handle the situation professionally.
On June 12th Mr. Flores called Ms. Silva to advise her that she had to take her make-up test.
On June 25, 2009 Jonathan Cane called to advise Ms. Silva that he was to be her therapist and that he was calling to schedule an appointment. This is an attack on her 5th amendment rights.
On June 26th of 2009, I called Suzi Karapetyan's supervisor and advised her that thse actions were disrupting and detrimental to the functioning of the family unit and therefore was not incompliance with the wording of W.I.C. 300.0-304.7 as it clearly states that any services that the family is offered are to remain as unobtrusive to functioning of the family unit as possible. She was under the impression that the 'Family Preservation' services were court ordered so I faxed her a copy of the minute orders to show her otherwise. I also received a call from Mr. Nino of DCFS advising me that Fransico Flores was very busy and wanted to know if he could stop by this weekend to check on Manny. He is stopping by on Sunday at 10:30am which is very strange. That and the fact that he refused to email me concerning the issue, but I will be ready, video camera and Civil Rights Handbook in hand.
On June 27th of 2009, Mr. Nino refused to be video tapped while interviewing the minor child, so as I had an additional witness here, I did turn off the video camera. I have a bad feeling that I never should have done this, but now only time will tell. A lot of prayer is now needed.

Lying Social Worker gets PROMOTED and trains others

An Orange County social worker who lied to a juvenile court commissioner in order to take away a woman’s two daughters — and cost the county $4.9 million in a court judgment — was later promoted to a supervisor, county officials confirmed.
She now trains other social workers.
It took Seal Beach mother Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick six-and-a-half years to regain custody of her children, who were 6 and 9 when they were taken from her in 2000.
Fogarty-Hardwick’s oldest daughter, Kendall, is now 20, and filed her own lawsuit against the county and three of its social workers for depriving her of a relationship with her mother.
Orange County Social Services social workers Marcie Vreeken and Helen Dwojak filed false reports and held back evidence which would have cleared Fogarty-Hardwick, an Orange County jury found in 2007. A third social worker was cleared of liability.
The jury awarded Fogarty-Hardwick $4.9 million in damages, with the county responsible for the bulk of the award. The county appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied the county’s request to be heard last week.
Vreeken and Dwojak were never disciplined.
In fact, Vreeken was later promoted, according to county records. She earned $103,441.48 last year as a senior social services supervisor, according to county records.
Dwojak, who was Vreeken’s supervisor, retired from the county in 2006, according to county records.
“I am certain and I stand by my social workers that they did not fabricate, they did not suppress any information and they did not perjure themselves,” said Dr. Michael Riley, director of the Orange County Social Services Agency. “If they had I would have dismissed them.”
Social Services conducted an investigation into how the social workers handled the case and found no wrongdoing, Riley said. “This woman is the epitome of integrity,” Riley said of Dwojak. “They did nothing wrong.”
According to court papers, Vreeken threatened that if Fogarty-Hardwick did not “submit” to her will, she would never see her children again. The social workers also tried in 2000 to coerce Fogarty-Hardwick to sign a document saying she was a bad parent by threatening to take her daughters away, Fogarty-Hardwick alleged.
Fogarty-Hardwick refused.
According to daughter Kendall Hardwick’s lawsuit, Vreeken “attempted to coerce Kendall into visiting her father by threatening that if Kendall did not visit with her father she would be taken away from her mother and ‘put in a home.’ ”
Kendall Hardiwick’s lawuit accuses Vreeken of lying in a Feb. 17, 2000 court report, including failing to disclose her threats against Kendall and her sister that left the two girls in tears and a subsequent argument between Vreeken and Fogarty-Hardwick.
A county commissioner ordered Fogarty-Hardwick’s daughters taken from their mother and put in Orangewood Children’s Home immediately. Vreeken and another social worker went with a uniformed police officer to to take Kendall’s younger sister, who was “screaming and crying for her mother as she hid under the principal’s desk,” according to Kendall’s lawsuit. Kendall was also forcibly removed, leaving her “devastated.”
The girls were later put in foster care.
Kendall Hardwick’s lawsuit also accuses Vreeken of repeatedly lying in court reports and on the stand to thwart Fogarty-Hardwick’s attempts to regain custody of her daughters.
In a March 31, 2000 letter, a therapist wrote to the agency that “Kendall … shows signs of emotional regression. She was tearful throughout the session, begging to go home. … She doesn’t know how much longer she can cope and visibly shook while relating this.”
“Defendants knew of Plaintiffs emotional collapse,” the suit reads. “Yet, while testifying in the juvenile court trial, Vreeken refused to acknowledge the children were mentally deteriorating.”
The social workers instead reported the children “were doing well,” according to the lawsuit.
Fogarty-Hardwick gave her ex-husband full custody in 2002, hoping to protect her daughters. She was then allowed two supervised visits a month for two years. She eventually won 50-50 custody in 2006.
Fogarty-Hardwick sued the county in 2002, arguing the Social Services Agency and its two social workers violated her civil rights. A jury ruled against her.
She sued again, arguing this time county’s policies violated her constitutional rights, including her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Fogarty-Hardwick’s accused the county of violating her constitutional rights by removing her children without making a finding of imminent danger or serious physical injury; interviewing her daughters without a parent present; holding her children without cause; fabricating evidence; and failing to properly train employees about parents’ constitutional rights.
The jury voted 10-2 in favor of Fogarty-Hardwick. The county appealed.
In the Fourth District Court of Appeal opinion, Justice William Bedsworth wrote, “the evidence adduced at trial obviously caused both the jury and the judge to conclude not only that something seriously wrong was done to Fogarty-Hardwick in this case, but also that the wrongful conduct was not an isolated incident.”
“Despite Fogarty-Hardwick’s complaints, and the concerns expressed by others about the handling of this dependency case, SSA did not investigate the situation or consider assigning different social workers to the matter. Neither of the social workers involved was disciplined. Instead, Vreeken was promoted to supervisor in 2001,” Bedsworth wrote.
Child Protective Services cases are not open to the public, a fact which Riley says prevents him from providing the whole picture.
“We have no agenda to disrupt families,” Riley said. “Our goal is to keep families together.”

http://amiablyme.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/lying-social-worker-gets-promoted-and-trains-others/