How many healthy families must die to save one victim?

“removal” and termination of parental rights itself inflicts the equivalent (or worse) death on the removed child and his parents and siblings”

have you read the texas family code? surely you know that the first goal is to reunify families. the second is family placement. only then is termination an option. services are to be offered to parents in attempt to try to help the parents get their children back.

it reads as though you have not studied the family code, and it is blatantly obvious that you do not work in child welfare law.

also, when i searched that statistic again i found a stat that 2000 children a year die due to abuse.

I’ll tell you what’s blatantly obvious CC0508, it’s blatantly obvious that Texas CPS doesn’t give a damn about the code.

Just because the “first goal is to reunify the family” doesn’t mean that this alleged goal translates into a code of ethics aimed at fulfilling that aim. The actions of CPS have spoken far louder than the lip service they’ve given the family. In reality their goals are far different than those outlined in their “Texas Family Code”.

CC0508 { 08.27.08 at 3:41 pm } “removal” and termination of parental rights itself inflicts the equivalent (or worse) death on the removed child and his parents and siblings”

have you read the texas family code? surely you know that the first goal is to reunify families. the second is family placement. only then is termination an option. services are to be offered to parents in attempt to try to help the parents get their children back.”

Right….that’s what happened in the middle of the night at YFZ ranch in Eldorado, TX, right?

That’s why 465 children–including nursing infants–were ripped from their mother’s loving arms by CPS.

Because the goal was to keep them together, right?

You’re something else.

Hey CC–

Wanna talk about the $4,000 per child adoption bonus PAID TO THE STATE by the Feds?

Wanna talk about the way funding for CPS is calculated? How the more children in custody in 2008, the *more* money is allocated for 2009?

West Texas just lost out on $1,860,000 in adoption bonuses AND the increased funding for CPS that the 465 FLDS children being held indefinitely in custody represented.

BIG blow to the budget, huh?

I’ve noticed you’ve been silent on the funding discussion.

Why is that?

Well according Carol Strayhorn’s report, 48 children died in Texas Foster care in 2005. After the report she made, apparently they stopped publishing the statistics. Here’s a quote from her report:

“If you compare the number of deaths of children in our state’s population to the number of deaths in our state’s foster care system, a child is four times more likely to die in our state’s foster care system”

If 48 children died in CPS care in Texas, multiply it by the rest of the state’s divisor into the 500,000 foster care children in the United States, and you’re probably looking at more than 700 deaths a year in American foster care.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg though, because 75% of all foster children grow up to be criminals and/or homeless. These former foster care beneficiaries set loose on society probably multiply the social ills.

From the NY Times:
“Numerous studies in recent years show that the effects of removal can be long lasting, often not showing up fully for a decade of more. In one study, Joseph J. Doyle, an economist with the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., found that children removed from their parents and taken into foster care, even for a relatively short period, were three times as likely to grow up to be juvenile offenders or have a teenage pregnancy than were children from similarly troubled homes who had been left with their parents.”
http://tinyurl.com/63mb22

Follow the money……therein lies the answer. It’s NOT about the kids.

It’s about all grown ups getting paid by the Feds to steal other people’s children and adopt ‘em out.

Federal Law not only says CPS can do that, it PAYS THEM to do it.

Thanks, Jeny!

CC, you make me laugh. “The first goal is to reunify” Yah, right. That’s why all the family service plans were the same & were intentionally designed to be vague & impossible to complete. I personally loved the fact that no one seemed to know WHO developed the plans, just that they couldn’t be changed one bit, not even to correct misspelled names.

And as for tossing the Constitution out the window when it comes to child abuse, no one said it better than Benjamin Franklin: Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

i do have sources….read the texas family code. read texas CPS policy. both are public record. of course mistakes and typos are made when hundreds of children have to be removed to prevent them from being raped by warren jeffs’ followers.

i am asking jeny for some information to back up her theory that CPS removes kids to earn money and that the flds kids were removed so the parents’ rights could be terminated and the children adopted. since we all know there are just people waiting in line to adopt older children.

Your ONLY source is the Texas Family Code? That’s like my proof of Russia’s intended neutrality being Putin’s promise not to invade small neighboring states. *Cough* Georgia *Cough*.

CC, maybe you’d have more credibility on this issue if CPS had actually read, much less followed, the Family Code and its own policies in the FLDS case. But, like the bullies they are, they did not even PROVE the 3 elements necessary to justify removal at the adversary hearing; they just sailed in & rode rough-shod over the Constitution, the Family Code, and the legal system as a whole.

They intentionally split up sibling groups for the purpose of “breaking the wall of silence” because they insisted the children were lying. They placed children from the same families in homes hundreds of miles apart, and refused to allow any contact between brothers & sisters==no phone calls, letters, or visits. Please explain to me how this is in the best interests of the children, when there were no allegations that siblings were abusing each other. Workers at the foster homes were told to not give the children “false hope” of ever returning home or seeing their parents or siblings again–more mental abuse heaped on them by CPS. So spare me your histrionics about “protecting” the children from abuse. If any parent had abused the children physically & mentally like CPS did, their rights would be terminated. Where does one go to terminate the “rights” of CPS?

When CC gets serious about having a *real* conversation, I’ll be happy to entertain the idea. Her continued ad-homs, rather than answers just don’t fly.

To wit:
CC0508 { 08.27.08 at 4:47 pm } jeny….that money is paid to foster parents as an incentive for them to adopt hard to place children….for example, minority children **(i know, your favorite) and sibling groups.** ”

My newborn niece Makina whom I am very proud of and love dearly like my own children is 1/2 white, 1/4 black and 1/4 Puerto Rican. I don’t appreciate the racial slander against me, nor Makina. You insinuate something about me that you know absolutely NOTHING about and it is inappropriate here. I’ve just about had it with your bullspit.

When you grow up and debate as an adult, I will converse with you, CC. If you continue with this $hit, I will not respond.

Your immaturity is dangerously showing. That you are allowed near *anyone’s* child scares the absolute hell out of me.

Best,
Jeny

“Joey { 08.27.08 at 4:15 pm } Well according Carol Strayhorn’s report, 48 children died in Texas Foster care in 2005. After the report she made, apparently they stopped publishing the statistics. Here’s a quote from her report:

“If you compare the number of deaths of children in our state’s population to the number of deaths in our state’s foster care system, a child is four times more likely to die in our state’s foster care system”

If 48 children died in CPS care in Texas, multiply it by the rest of the state’s divisor into the 500,000 foster care children in the United States, and you’re probably looking at more than 700 deaths a year in American foster care.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg though, because 75% of all foster children grow up to be criminals and/or homeless. These former foster care beneficiaries set loose on society probably multiply the social ills.

From the NY Times:
“Numerous studies in recent years show that the effects of removal can be long lasting, often not showing up fully for a decade of more. In one study, Joseph J. Doyle, an economist with the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., found that children removed from their parents and taken into foster care, even for a relatively short period, were three times as likely to grow up to be juvenile offenders or have a teenage pregnancy than were children from similarly troubled homes who had been left with their parents.”
http://tinyurl.com/63mb22 ”

I’m certain our good friend CC won’t bother to let facts get in the way of her happy delusions about the protection offered children by CPS.

*sigh*

http://nccpr.blogspot.com/2008/08/case-of-mismatched-shoes-and-other-ways.html

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

The case of the mismatched shoes, and other ways CPS workers waste their time

The call was one of more than 150,000 that are taken each year by Florida’s child abuse “hotline.” Someone was on the phone alleging that a child was in danger. Had the caller heard the child screaming in the night? No. Had the child complained about being mistreated? No. Had the caller seen welts and bruises? Uh, not exactly.

No. The warning sign that this child was in grave danger was his or her shoes. One was red and one was blue.

But because the call came from a school official and a school official is a mandated reporter, and because it happened in Florida, the Case of the Mismatched Shoes became a full-scale child abuse investigation. And a full-scale child abuse investigation is not a benign act. Even when it does not result in removing a child from the home, it can scar that child emotionally for years, maybe for life.

The news story in which this example turns up offers no details. But typically, a full-scale investigation means an inherently traumatic interview of the child, in which he or she may be asked everything from whether he thinks his parents love him, to whether they beat him, to detailed questions about sex (to see if he knows “too much,” often deemed a “warning sign” of sexual abuse).

Until recently in Florida, the questioning would be followed by a mandatory stripsearch to see if there were any bruises. That still is a common part of such investigations all over the country.

Other investigations have been started in Florida for almost as little reason.

In Sarasota County, a private school phoned the hotline over what a newspaper aptly described as a “you show me yours, I’ll show you mine” incident involving two preschoolers.

Or consider this incident from the town of Fernandina Beach:

A first grader allegedly pulled down another boy’s pants in a school bathroom. And he placed his hand, palm up, on a chair just as a girl was about to sit there. She never did. The school guidance counselor and principal demanded that the boy’s teacher call the hotline and report the five-year-old as a possible sexual predator.

“I said ‘let me talk to the mother first’” the teacher would later testify. “Then [the guidance counselor] said ‘No, you may not talk to the mother because the mother may be in on it too.’”

The teacher refused, so the principal made the call. The teacher was suspended and the school board tried to fire her, but backed down when an administrative law judge ruled for the teacher. But at least she was an adult. The five-year-old became a suspect in a child abuse investigation, questioned not only by the Florida Department of Children and Families but also by a Sheriff’s detective.

That’s why the threshold for starting an investigation, and putting children through so much trauma, needs to be raised.

Bob Butterworth, the reform-minded Secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families, who left that job this month, recognized that. One of his last acts was to begin the process of creating a rational method for screening calls to the Florida child abuse hotline. His successor, George Sheldon, is following through.

It’s about time.

I know of no state which does a really good job of screening calls to its hotline, (though New Jersey reportedly is improving) but Florida has been particularly lax. And it’s not just family preservation advocates who think so. Back when the head of DCF was a fanatic about taking away children, she commissioned a study of the hotline, carefully selecting someone to do the study who shared her fanaticism. But even he couldn’t stomach what was going on. The study concluded that at least 35 percent of calls passed on for investigation should have been screened out.

The reason that’s a problem is not only the trauma inflicted on children in tens of thousands of cases. It’s also the fact that the false reports and trivial cases overload frontline workers. As a result, the study concluded, workers have less time for each investigation, increasing the likelihood that serious abuse will be missed.

“The hotline is supposed to be a gate,” the researcher who conducted the study said. “They’ve got the gate rusted, stuck open.” As a result, cases pile up, creating a backlog of uncompleted investigations. “I equate that to the game of playing Russian roulette. It’s just a matter of time before some child in the backlog pool is really badly injured.”

Not long after, the mandatory stripsearch requirement was repealed. But nothing was done to bolster screening.

But now that Florida is reforming, there is the usual hand-wringing from those who feel any trauma inflicted on a child is justified as long as it’s done in the name of cracking down on child abuse. It’s the usual set of hypothetical scare arguments: “What if…” “Maybe…” “There just might be…” And that’s true. But the chances that the child with mismatched shoes really is being abused at home are a lot slimmer than the chance that he was traumatized by the investigation. And the odds are greater that, all the time, money and effort investigating the Case of the Mismatched Shoes was diverted from some child in real danger who was overlooked.

The truth is there always will be screening in child welfare. The choice isn’t screening or no screening. It’s rational screening – in which hotline operators are trained to ask questions and apply reasonable criteria – or irrational screening, in which reports cascade down on overloaded workers and get screened in or out based on which one happens to be on the top of the pile that morning.

Either way some children in real danger will be missed. But a rational system of screening makes it more likely that more such children will be found.

Now that Florida is figuring that out, I wonder when other states will as well.

Posted by NATIONAL COALITION FOR CHILD PROTECTION REFORM at 5:15 PM

don’t think that i support everything CPS does just because i’m not radical enough to condone child sexual abuse in the name of radical mormonism.

Well, when your attitude towards any materiel critical of CPS is to defensively call it “propaganda”, I do wonder.

not defensive at all, but the information quoted and posted here is propaganda. for example:
-links to blogs supporting your radical beliefs. propaganada.
-”emails” from “sources” close to the investigation
-websites with timelines and pictures of children who died in foster care

none of the information is factual. none of it is empirically based. none of it proves anything; it merely tugs on people’s heart strings and supports what you already believe to be true. propaganda.

my point in noting where that funding goes was to point out to jeny that CPS does not get money for adoptions, the adoptive parents do.

I guess you missed my question. How much is spent on bribing people to become adoptive parents and how much remains in CPS coffers?
You seem to be implying that CPS keeps none of it. Can you direct readers to a report on how that money is dispersed, and how much? Thanks

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05192008/news/regionalnews/fury_at_foster_abuse_111507.htm

Is that propaganda too?

Oh, and the girl from Maine was indeed killed by her foster mother. If the other link isn’t good enough for you, here’s one from the PBS website:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fostercare/marr/

CC0508 { 08.28.08 at 8:57 am } p.s. jeny, i never demanded my post be deleted. i wouldn’t want any of my posts deleted. i asked that mr. kurt not spread misinformation and assumptions about my occupation. you have a habit of making things up, don’t you? i now kind of enjoy it that you all assume i work for CPS. it shows the tendency you all have to make huge assumptions based on very limited information. it’s even funnier to me that you freaked out when i assumed you were a child abuser….my assumption was based on the same amount of information yours was, correct?
========

CC—I have you on ignore, but I will make this comment. As you call him–”Mr. Kurt” can absolutely refute your false claim that you *didn’t* demand your post be deleted and that you don’t want them deleted.

Your very post on here was a real doozy—you cut loose on us–then later regretted it and asked SEVERAL TIMES that “Mr. Kurt” delete your post–which he declined to do.

I’m a little busy now to go back and find your stupid demands, but I’m sure “Mr. Kurt” can back up my version of the story.

Back to ignore you go, he/she/it.

Best,
Jeny

PS. You’re the one who works with CPS–I suspect YOU are the one with the habit of making things up, and I guess you think we all live that way.

Newsflash: I don’t.

The blog I posted that CC objects to:

About NCCPR (www.nccpr.org)
NATIONAL COALITION FOR CHILD PROTECTION REFORM

The members of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform ****have encountered the child welfare system in their professional capacities****

Through NCCPR, we work to make that system better serve America’s most vulnerable children by trying to change policies concerning child abuse, foster care and family preservation.

NCCPR advocates for systemic reform. We regret that we cannot provide advice in dealing with individual cases. This blog usually is updated weekly, usually on Sunday evening or Monday morning.

Unless other wise noted, posts to this blog are by Richard Wexler, NCCPR’s Executive Director.

For more about NCCPR, including previous posts to this blog prior to March 15, 2007, please visit our website, http://www.nccpr.org

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fostercare/marr/

Now let’s see you try to protest about how factually inaccurate my former link was.

That Maine story is terribly sad. CPS broke that innocent young mother. And CPS claims FLDS control their women? The system is hypocritical, to put it mildly.

CC0508 { 08.28.08 at 9:12 am } curioustexan, can you? can jeny?

you just made some very serious claims. please provide some links to support these claims. anyone can make this kind of stuff up.
=============

CC—Have you backed yourself into a corner you can’t defend? We’ve posted those links for you, just like you asked.

Where are you? Hmmmmmmm. You’ve run your mouth so badly that you can’t back up the bilge you’ve spewed here, so you’ve decided just to disappear.

Nice. **rolling eyes**

and nobody was forced.