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Richard Wexler: Taking away too many children weakens system
Richard Wexler
Taking away too many children weakens system Posted: June 8, 2008 http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dl...7/1002/OPINION It is tempting to look at the tragic deaths of TaJanay Bailey, and Destiny Linden as opposites. After all, Tajanay died after being returned to an abusive home, while Destiny died in foster care, after being taken from a mother whose only crime was to be attacked by her boyfriend. These cases conjure up images of a swinging pendulum, in which policy vacillates from taking too many children to doing too much to keep families together. But the data show that in Indiana it's almost exclusively a one-way pendulum. Advertisement From 2000 to 2005, the number of children taken from their homes in Indiana each year soared by more than 40 percent. The number inched down slightly in 2006, the most recent year for which data reported to the federal government are available. But odds are removals spiked again after TaJanay died in 2007 -- as workers terrified of having the next such case on their caseloads rushed to tear apart even more families. But such foster care panics don't work in reverse. There was no pressure to reduce removals in the wake of the death of Felix Chen, the Bloomington boy needlessly taken from his mother in 2004, only to die in foster care. That's because deaths of children in their own homes almost always lead to scapegoating efforts to keep families together, while deaths in foster care are written off as aberrations. So the pendulum swings only from taking away too many children to taking away far too many children. And that is almost certainly the root cause of both recent tragedies. It's easy to see how a take-the-child-and-run mentality could contribute to the death of Destiny, of course. But the needless removal of children from their homes overloads the entire system. Caseworkers lack the time to investigate any case properly. So even obvious warning signs are ignored. That's almost always the main reason for tragedies like the death of TaJanay. So these cases are not opposites. Wrongful removal drives everything else. Unfortunately, when public pressure forced change in child welfare, Indiana opted for bigger instead of better. The state hired new caseworkers, without a comprehensive reform plan built around keeping families together. So new caseworkers chased after new cases needlessly brought into the system. And now it seems the state is repeating its error. The Department of Child Services has a "domestic violence team" that apparently is clueless about the harm to children when they are taken from battered mothers. The trauma of being torn from everyone loving and familiar is bad enough under normal circumstances. But when the child is taken from a battered mother it is much worse. A young child feels he is being punished, so somehow he must be responsible for the abuse. That's why a class-action lawsuit in New York City banned this pernicious practice. One expert testified that, for a child, being taken from his mother just because the mother was beaten is "tantamount to pouring salt into an open wound." Apparently, the approach of DCS' new domestic violence team boils down to "please pass the salt." And the phony solutions don't stop there. There is not a shred of evidence that children are safer in states that have child welfare ombudsmen. For families under assault by the system, ombudsmen almost always make things worse. They ignore wrongful removal and often get into contests with child welfare agency chiefs over who can look tougher on child abuse. To really fix child welfare, we all have to become ombudsmen. We've all learned a lot about the enormous power and arrogance of child welfare agencies from the recent debacle in Texas, where more than 400 children were taken from a polygamist sect's ranch. But we learned it, in part, because in Texas, court hearings in these cases are open. That must become the norm in every state. Most records should be open, and any law supposedly requiring DCS to keep silent in the name of confidentiality should be repealed. The other lesson from Texas is the urgent need for meaningful due process. What a difference it makes when families have lawyers with reasonable caseloads and time to provide real representation. After four years of posturing, let the death of Destiny Linden not be in vain; let it be the catalyst for real reform. An Inconvenient Truth about Child Protective Services, Foster care, and the Child Protection "INDUSTRY" Child Protective Services Does not protect children... It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even killed at the hands of CPS. every parent should read the free handbook from connecticut dcf watch... http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US These numbers come from The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN) Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS Perpetrators of Maltreatment Physical Abuse CPS/Foster care 160, biological Parents 59 Sexual Abuse CPS/Foster care 112, biological Parents 13 Neglect CPS/Foster care 410, biological Parents 241 Medical Neglect CPS/Foster care 14 biological Parents 12 Fatalities CPS/Foster care 6.4, biological Parents 1.5 Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per 100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a bunch of social workers. THIS IS AMERICA'S HIDDEN HOLOCAUST Currently Child Protective Services violates more constitutionally guaranteed liberties & civil rights on a daily basis then all other agencies combined, Including the National Security agency/Central intelligence agency wiretaping programs… THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES BY: Nancy Schaefer Senator, 50th District of Georgia http://www.senatornancyschaefer.com/...s.php?filter=6 This is Child Protection? By Gregory A. Hession, J.D. http://www.jbs.org/node/4632 Mercenary Motherhood: "Memoirs of a Babystealer." http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...nion-rightrail FOSTER CARE IS A 80 PERCENT FAILU. A Brief Analysis of the Casey Family Programs. Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study. By Richard Wexler http://www.nccpr.org/reports/cfpanalysis.doc HOW THE WAR AGAINST CHILD ABUSE BECAME A WAR AGAINST CHILDREN http://www.nccpr.org/issues/1.html Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families By Nev Moore Massachusetts News http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/...May/mayds4.htm A recent study has found that 12-18 months after leaving foster ca 30% of the nation’s homeless are former foster children. 27% of the males and 10% of the females had been incarcerated 33% were receiving public assistance 37% had not finished high school 2% receive a college degree 50% were unemployed Children in foster care are three to six times more likely than children not in care to have emotional, behavioral and developmental problems, including conduct disorders, depression, difficulties in school and impaired social relationships. Some experts estimate that about 30% of the children in care have marked or severe emotional problems. Various studies have indicated that children and young people in foster care tend to have limited education and job skills, perform poorly in school compared to children who are not in foster care, lag behind in their education by at least one year, and have lower educational attainment than the general population. *Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support 80 percent of prison inmates have been through the foster care system. The highest ranking federal official in charge of foster care, Wade Horn of the Department of Health and Human Services, is a former child psychologist who says the foster care system is a giant mess and should just be blown up. http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2017991 Four rigorous studies have found that at least 30 percent of America’s foster children could be home right now if their parents had decent housing. This study found thousands of children already in foster care who would have done better had child protection agencies not taken them away in the first place. Front-page story in USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...m?csp=34#Close Read the studies online. Casey "alumni" study: "Improving Family Foster Ca Findings from the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study," http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publi...lumniStudy.htm MIT study: "Child Protection and Child Outcomes: Measuring the Effects of Foster Care," http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_fo...arch07_aer.pdf Texas comptroller's "Forgotten Children" reports: www.window.state.tx.us/forgottenchildren The bottom line? - Child Protective Services and the Foster Care system for the most part turns out young adults that are nothing more than walking wreckage... CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED LIBERTIES & CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAMS.... CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON... BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION... |
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