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BATTERED TWICE?: VICTIMS, OFFER CRITIQUE OF COURTS
BATTERED TWICE?: VICTIMS OFFER CRITIQUE OF COURTS http://www.citylimits.org/content/ar...med ia_type=4 A compilation of the experiences of 75 survivors of domestic violence shows that many feel Family Court adds to their families' problems. By Bosede Adenekan Convinced that Family Court proceedings do not adequately protect battered mothers and their children, a grassroots survivors' group is working to alter the court's ways – and has a new report to back up its call for change. Members of the Brooklyn-based group Voices of Women Organizing Project (VOW) met with Family Court Administrative Judge Joseph Lauria recently to discuss their report, "Justice Denied: How Family Courts in NYC Endanger Battered Women and Children." This was the first in a series of meetings to discuss the group's judgment that court practices not only leave battered moms feeling unsafe, but also contribute to children being removed from the mothers' custody and given either to the accused abusive partner, or to foster care. “When my mother was charged with child abuse, no one even asked me if it was true, and it was not,” says a teenager quoted in the report. Now in foster care, this youth remains perplexed and frustrated by the court’s ruling. The survey and analysis of women's experiences, by VOW's Battered Mothers' Justice Campaign, includes four major allegations: that court procedures violate policy; that decisions endanger children; that the court system underrates claims of domestic violence, neither protecting victims nor holding abusers responsible; and that the court system is both biased against women, and gives preferential treatment to the wealthier party. “We issued the report because we really want to get administrative judges to look at the seriousness of our findings and recommendations and get things implemented,” said VOW Director Susan Lob. (The report will be available soon at the group's website.) According to Judge Lauria, it sounds like that goal is on the way to being met. “It was a productive and constructive meeting," he said last week. "The issues raised are very important to family court and family court personnel and we will consider them." The report was produced through surveys, conducted in 2006, of 75 women with ongoing family court cases since 2005 or 2006. Only one out of 19 people interviewed felt that the "law guardian," or child's attorney, represented their children’s wishes. Forty-two percent of interviewees felt the law guardian did not advocate for the safety of their children or take the history of domestic violence seriously. The report found that in violation of court policy and procedure, law guardians sometimes recommended children to be removed from the battered woman’s custody without actually meeting the mother and child or seeing them interact. Taken together, these factors can cause the victim of domestic violence to lose custody of the child for whom she was once a primary caregiver. Though the report lacks the two hallmarks of scientific study, randomized samples and statistically significant results, when it comes to legal violations, one person's tale can be enough to raise eyebrows and rally others. According to the findings, law guardians at times act contrary to Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye’s administrative order issued in October 2007 specifying the function of these attorneys. Attorney Karen Freedman, executive director of Lawyers for Children – a nonprofit group offering free legal and social work support on behalf of children – explained the ruling. “Basically, if a child is capable of knowingly and voluntarily articulating his or her position, the attorney will advocate for the child’s wishes, unless the child’s position places them at substantial risk of imminent, serious harm. Absent this level of harm or in the situation where a child does not have the capacity to articulate a position, we do not substitute our judgment for that of a child,” she said. “It is the judge and not the attorney who is charged with the responsibility to determine what is in the child’s best interests." Freedman is currently working with the New York State Bar Association to develop a standard of conduct for law guardians. The VOW report recommends that the guidelines be enforced once they are completed. The report also recommends that law guardians receive training on domestic violence – but Judge Lauria said lawyers already receive such training. He mentioned the Lawyers Committee Against Domestic Violence, which holds workshops every eight weeks. And while the report claims that the city Administration for Children's Services (ACS), which oversees child protection and foster care, does not adequately protect children in foster care despite allegations of child abuse, the agency said it’s committed to ensuring the safety of children. It has developed "Practice Guidelines" for addressing relationship abuse in foster care, addressing relationship abuse in the preventive agency setting, and for addressing teen relationship abuse in the foster care setting, according to ACS spokeswoman Sharman Stein. "These guidelines were created to help agencies in their role as investigators to collect information that is critical to the health and safety of the children and families we serve. ACS has mailed these guidelines to all agencies, and has been engaging the agencies to conduct trainings that support the well-being of children and adolescents in our care," says a statement issued last week by ACS. "Completed in 2006, these guidelines with their focus on assessment will be better able to create partnerships with domestic violence service providers and preventive and foster care agencies to further enhance best case practice.” In the statement, ACS also said it “does not penalize mothers because they are victims of domestic violence—and does not prevent them from seeing their children. ACS’s goal is child safety, and safe reunification with the family." But the report also found that 54 percent of interviewees, all victims of domestic violence, felt that they were given no help by ACS to reunite with their children placed in foster care. “It’s really difficult to get the kids back once they are placed in foster care. ACS should help with housing if that was what was standing in the way or help with financial issues. The ACS worker is supposed to provide services; it okays housing vouchers and subsidies,” said Lob from VOW. She recounted an interviewee's experience, in which her daughters were released from foster care back to her as teenagers when she was living in a homeless shelter; the woman did not receive the support from ACS that she needed. This is just one of many testimonies documented in the report using international human rights documentation standards and participatory research methods. “If human rights standards are violated just one time, it’s enough. We need to do something about it,” said Ramona Ortega, assistant social scientist at the Women of Color Policy Network at NYU's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. As former director of the Urban Justice Center’s Human Rights Project, Ortega assisted in training VOW members in the human rights documentation standards used for large-scale war crime tribunals. This type of study has been also done in Denver, Arizona, and Massachusetts to document domestic violence cases. It provides community organizations that are not equipped to do academic studies with the opportunity to produce a study that is both qualitative and quantitative. And it validates a grassroots critique by questioning adherence to international law, even if breaches of city, state or federal law are not indicated. “These women are victims of human rights violations, which point to systemic problems that may be overlooked,” Ortega said. Judge Lauria wants to continue discussions with VOW, but he has his doubts about the report. “The title’s description is about family court, but only a fifth of the report relates to family court. Four-fifths is about other agencies,” he said. “It does not seem accurate. I was disappointed with the report because there’s no empirical basis of the data, just anecdotal information.” Lauria said meeting with him, which was always an available option, would have been more appropriate than the report. He met with VOW members regularly until their last meeting in 2005. 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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