CHILD'S DEATH IN OVERCROWDED FOSTER HOME HIGHLIGHTS STATEWIDE PROBLEM

Kane writes:

PROBLEM; ADVOCATES CALL FOR STRIKE FORCE TO INVESTIGATE OVERCROWDING

AND ABUSE BY FOSTER PARENTS.


Kane: Overcrowding CAN'T be a problem. I have it on good authority.

I would have sworn someone in this ng, an obvious 'authority,' claimed
that due to changes in child abuse investigations (LEs being used
instead of caseworkers, except of course the LEs hired caseworkers to
'team' with them) foster populations were reducing in this state.

Must have been my imagination. No one here would lie, or be mistaken in
such things.

Hi, Kane,

Your authority was right on the mark. And you are correct that whoever
he/she is was not lying or mistaken.

The numbers of children being placed into foster care did drop considerably
after law enforcement took over the role of investigating child maltreatment
in some Florida counties. And the rate continues to drop as more counties
switch over (Florida is committed to apply the reform statewide).

5,365 children were removed from their families in Florida during 2003, a
20% drop from 6,449 removals the year before. Before the reform, a whopping
23,627 children were forcibly removed from their Families in 2000.

Child and family advocates have made considerable headway nationwide in
persuadng legislators to enact reforms that have forced CPS to remove less
children from innocent families. There has been a considerable drop in
removals nationwide and that trend continues, as reform legislation and
resulting policy has forced CPS to be less intrusive. This trend reflects a
reduction in overall "services/sanctions", of which removal is only one.

Florida is one example. After Gov. Bush's administration pushed through a
funding increase for that states child protective industry, removals
skyrocketed and an already overcrowded and abusive foster care system was
pushed to its busting point. 20 thousand children a year were forced into
the system. While the Florida foster care system remains overcrowded and
abusive, as the article Kane posts points out, new admissions into the
system has been reduced 400%.

It won't be long, now.

Ron wrote:

Thats right doug, send them home to their families, where the chances or
additional abuse, neglect, or even death are vastly higher. Lets face it
doug, what is needed is more foster homes, not sending the kids home to be
abused or neglected again, or even killed.

To which, Mark replies:

Ron, you are looking at this issue through blinders that you claim
everyone else does. Yes, child abuse exists. But in my time involved
with these issues I have come across many children that should have
never been placed in foster care in the first place (including my own).

Hi, Mark,

Ron makes the classical and bias-ridden assumption of stakeholders in the
system -- that all children in foster care have been maltreated. This
assumption leads him to say that returning a foster child to her family
increases her chances of "additional" abuse or "additional" neglect.

Most members of this newsgroup know, as you do, that many children who have
never been at risk of or actually maltreated are forcibly removed from their
families and placed into state custody. We also know that actual abuse and
neglect does occur and some children have to be removed from their homes.

We differ on the volume or percentage of wrongful removals.
Kane says it is exceedingly rare and happens somewhere within a "margin of
error" one can expect in human endeavors. Ron suggests that wrongful
removal is almost non-existant. I believe it is commonplace.

The numbers submitted to the federal government by the states tend to
support the contention that upwards of 40% of the children placed into
foster care were removed from families CPS determined to be innocent of risk
of or actual child maltreatment.

Those whose professional or advocational pursuits put them in contact with
CPS and its work, such as yourself, generally report that the agencies
consistently and regularly make grave errors on both sides of the issue --
they wrongfully remove children from innocent families and they leave truly
abusive families intact. I believe both errors are widespread and the fruit
of the identical systemic, foundational problems underlying CPS practice.

In either case, children are being horribly abused by the very agency
mandated to protect them.

Whatever one's position on CPS malpractice, it is not and never has been an
issue of "parents rights" versus "children's rights." It is wholely a
debate centered on children's rights. A child who has been wrongfully
removed from her family has had one of her most inalienable and precious
rights as a citizen violated. She has been emotionally abused by the state
in the name of all of us.

A child who is left in an abusive and dangerous home has been deceived by an
agency charged with protecting her rights to live in a safe environment. A
child who is wrongfully removed from a family CPS has unsubstantiated and
subsequently abused or killed in the overcrowded foster care system has been
betrayed by the agency who put her there -- especially because its workers
knew beforehand that the system was overcrowded and abusive.

Too often, stakeholders and apologists forget the very people CPS was
designed to help -- the children. Afterall, if the wrongful CPS removal of
a child caused her father to rise up to help other families mistreated by
CPS, wasn't the removal beneficial in the end? Isn't such a travesty of
justice just an excusable little error to remind us that CPS is not
"perfect"? No. Wrongful removal is a barbaric act that does unbearable
emotional damage to the children who were removed. It is not in the least
acceptable that children would suffer such abuse so that her parents can
grow stronger in their ability to fight governmental wrongdoing.

If, as the numbers suggest, wrongful removal happens 40% of the time, then
this malpractice falls well outside an acceptable "margin of error." To
say, as the public has been doing in increasing numbers the past few years,
that it is totally unacceptable is not seeking "perfection."

This problem needs to be addressed from many angles. The quickest
impact (and most just) would be made by returning children to families
that aren't abusive/neglectful, and not taking any more children that
don't need to be taken. That would be the first step.

Absolutely. And, thanks to the efforts of yourself and other advocates who
have approached their state legislature, reform has paved the way for those
steps. The numbers of children removed from their homes are dropping. In
2002, 169,000 substantiated children and 96,000 unsubstantiated,
non-victims, were removed from their homes. A year later, it dropped to
136,000 victims removed from their families and 69,000 unsubstantiated
children removed from their families. The biggest drop was in the number
of children taken from innocent families. The trend continues.

A surprise in California, in the form of a new governor passionate on this
issue, has resulted in major policy change in the state with the largest
foster care population. After declaring that the "state makes a horrible
parent," the governor of Nebraska has set up task forces to decrease the
foster care population and revise policy to take less children into custody.
New Jersey is now reducing its foster care population and rate of removal
after outside investigations of its CPS agency produced horrifying
discoveries. Michigan has reduced his foster care population tremendously
after coming to the conclusion that its citizen's money was best spent on
helping intact families.

If you do not believe that would make a significant difference, then
you still have a lot to learn about what really goes on with the system
as it stands. Neither Doug nor I want to see children abused or
neglected, and this is part of that. Taking children who are perfectly
safe and happy in their own homes and placing them in a new environment
with strangers puts those children at risk.

Precisely. I believe the practice continues, is commonplace, and involves
thousands of innocent children. That the rate of wrongful removals is going
down is a direct result of political action initiated by advocates for CPS
reform. Legislatures are putting pressure on CPS agencies in the executive
branch to reduce their intrusion upon families in the form of "services",
the most intrusive of which is taking children into state custody.
"Services/sanctions" imposed upon innocent families has gone from
708,000 children in 2002 to 614,000 children in 2003.

If you honsetly believe that all the children in foster care were
actually abused or neglected then you are naive. If not, then your
statment above is nothing better than inflammatory propoganda.

I think Ron believes that all of the children in foster care were actually
abused or neglected. If not, then I suspect he believes those who were not
represent a very small number. I think most of us here know that the
percentage of children in foster care who were never abused or neglected at
home represents a very large number. Some child welfare researchers have
concluded that upwards of 80% of the children in foster care do not belong
there.

Ron, if you are reading this, what percentage of children in foster care do
you believe were neither abused or neglected in their own homes?

At any rate, Mark, you are to be commended for your hard work in your
state's legislature to bring about reform. Child and family adovocates are
making headway. The drop in rates of removal is a real and honest tribute
to the work those advocates have done toward reform of CPS practice.

Doug wrote:
Ron wrote:

Thats right doug, send them home to their families, where the chances or
additional abuse, neglect, or even death are vastly higher. Lets face it
doug, what is needed is more foster homes, not sending the kids home to be
abused or neglected again, or even killed.

To which, Mark replies:

Ron, you are looking at this issue through blinders that you claim
everyone else does. Yes, child abuse exists. But in my time involved
with these issues I have come across many children that should have
never been placed in foster care in the first place (including my own).

Hi, Mark,

Ron makes the classical and bias-ridden assumption of stakeholders in the
system -- that all children in foster care have been maltreated.

And you can provide evidence from Ron's posts now or in the past that
would support your claim of his bias-ridden assumption?

Do you really think he thinks all children are rightly removed from
families? ALL?

This
assumption

Since I doubt he has any such assumption as you claim then your claim
about why he says what he says is obviously in error. Another of your
thinking errors.

leads him to say that returning a foster child to her family
increases her chances of "additional" abuse or "additional" neglect.

You are unable to deal with the same language by others you use
yourself in discussing datasets? Obviously it is always "some" do and
some don't, when looking at data.

Do you honestly think Ron thinks all children are in fact at risk being
sent back to their families?

Most members of this newsgroup know, as you do, that many children who have
never been at risk of or actually maltreated are forcibly removed from their
families and placed into state custody.

The truth is that your claim against Ron as posed here by you,
unethically and in error, and lack of facts to back it up, is that in
the area of "many children."

You and he might disagree on what "many" means in the context of child
returns, removals, injuries, risk, etc. Why not argue honestly, Doug?
Why resort to this kind of weasel language insinuation?

Could it be because even you know in some part of you that you haven't
allowed to be corrupted that you have no real argument unless you use
insinuation as a debating tool?

We also know that actual abuse and
neglect does occur and some children have to be removed from their homes.

That's just self serving babble as usual, trying to cast yourself in
the role of being "reasonable." You aren't. You are a severely biased
individual that uses every opportunity, no matter how slim, to foist
your propaganda on this newsgroup.

We differ on the volume or percentage of wrongful removals.

Of course. And that comes down to a moral question, not a question of
numbers. What IS "many" and what is not "many?"

Kane says it is exceedingly rare and happens somewhere within a "margin of
error" one can expect in human endeavors.

That is almost correct.

Ron suggests that wrongful
removal is almost non-existant.

Quote him directly. Otherwise you are as usual, insinuating.

I believe it is commonplace.

"Commonplace," has the same propaganda value as "many," your most
favorite dodge'm word.

I consider my experience with unwarranted ... truly unwarranted, not
removals for investigation with later return, but REALLY TRULY wrongful
removals most deliberate and for NO reason that is ethically or morally
or by practice and policy acceptable, as "commonplace." In other words,
the exception is commonplace, even if it's only a few dozen a year.

The numbers submitted to the federal government by the states tend to
support the contention that upwards of 40% of the children placed into
foster care were removed from families CPS determined to be innocent of risk
of or actual child maltreatment.

No, that is not what tends to support. It supports that many of those
families, as the study I have posted here and referred you back to many
times are not CURRENTLY AT THE TIME OF THE ASSESSMENT STILL LIKELY TO
PUT THEIR CHILD AT RISK.

It has very little to do with actual past injury or risk to the child,
other than those being the triggering events that brought about the
assessment.

Those whose professional or advocational pursuits put them in contact with
CPS and its work, such as yourself,

Mark is smart enough to know that he is NOT as close as others, the
professionals, to be suckered by your egregious buttering up his
asshole.

generally report that the agencies
consistently and regularly make grave errors on both sides of the issue --

Please prove that they are correct, if they even do say it -- which I
doubt they consistently and regularly do -- by something other than
innuendo.

they wrongfully remove children from innocent families and they leave truly
abusive families intact.

I doubt anyone, Ron, or myself, or anyone else, with any real knowledge
of the system would claim otherwise. Ron has criticized CPS on other
occasions. The issue here is that the families RON has worked with have
obviously had a high enough level of abuse and neglect for him to note
it assertively here.

I believe both errors are widespread and the fruit
of the identical systemic, foundational problems underlying CPS practice.

I believe you are fool and a charlatan trying to peddle snakeoil that
will, if you have any success at all, destroy children and families in
ways unprecidented. But then we each have our opinions, don't we now?

In either case, children are being horribly abused by the very agency
mandated to protect them.

Any abuse is of a child is "horrible." Your hyperbole is noted.

And it's intent to manipulate the reader's emotions rather than lead
them to more justifiable conclusions that might in fact make for TRUE
reform of CPS.

Whatever one's position on CPS malpractice, it is not and never has been an
issue of "parents rights" versus "children's rights."

I beg your pardon?

Again and again you and yours in this ng has couched arguments in
exactly that format...that the parent's rights supercede the child's
rights.

And they do this by failing utterly to answer challenges noting that
disparity with anything that successfully shows that NOT defending a
child's rights against a neglectful or abusive parent is acceptable

I have seen some of your favorite pets, you might take Fern for
example, defend the rights of the parents when children were being
handed over to the parent's church for vicious beatings. That is only
ONE example of some of Fern's more famous pieces of BS YOU, who have
defended Fern against me, FAILED TO RESPOND TO IN THE MIDDLE OF THE
DEBATE THREAD.

You are a phony.

It is wholely a
debate centered on children's rights.

You are desparate to try and save your water by reframing the argument
as though this is actually what has been done here. It is a lie on your
part. All one need do is read posts from people such as greegor to know
that. And you have defended greegor as well.

A child who has been wrongfully
removed from her family has had one of her most inalienable and precious
rights as a citizen violated.

I suggest you consider the child's right to not be put at risk of their
lives, and subject to unneeded pain supercedes this right of PARENTS
you are trying so hard to cast as the right of the child.

She has the right to be not be abused by her own parents. And children
are NO judge of what is and isn't abuse or neglect.

She has been emotionally abused by the state
in the name of all of us.

Only if she is wrongfully removed or wrongfully returned, and you lie
regularly about what is and isn't "wrongful."

A child who is left in an abusive and dangerous home has been deceived by an
agency charged with protecting her rights to live in a safe environment.

Only if the agency does so with full knowledge of and belief in the
parents intent to do injury to the child. Otherwise CPS guess is likely
better than yours, or Mark's. Or mine.

A
child who is wrongfully removed from a family CPS has unsubstantiated and
subsequently abused or killed in the overcrowded foster care system has been
betrayed by the agency who put her there -- especially because its workers
knew beforehand that the system was overcrowded and abusive.

They had the choice of returning the child or not. You could do no
better, Doug.

Too often, stakeholders and apologists forget the very people CPS was
designed to help -- the children.

Let me see now. Ron, who I presume you are talking about, has fostered
many children over the years. I have helped many families retain the
child within branches of the family. Do you truly think that
constitutes a motive to forget and be an apologist?

Or could it be you are simply lying to further your propaganda war
against CPS at the cost to children and families?


Afterall, if the wrongful CPS removal of
a child caused her father to rise up to help other families mistreated by
CPS, wasn't the removal beneficial in the end?

What an interesting twist, weasel. Are you suggesting that Mark's
experience and his families is good for other children?

I would agree, but it goes against your theory that points to NO errors
being acceptable or natural.

Isn't such a travesty of
justice just an excusable little error to remind us that CPS is not
"perfect"?

No, it's not. It's dealing with reality. YOu aren't perfect. Or do you
think you are?

No. Wrongful removal is a barbaric act that does unbearable
emotional damage to the children who were removed.

It is neither "barbaric" and certainly not as or more than a parent
abusing his own daughter. And no, it does not consistently do
unbearable damage to a child, while parental abuse has a far greater
chance, if the state does NOT intervene, of leaving permanent and
unhealable damage to the child.

It is not in the least
acceptable that children would suffer such abuse so that her parents can
grow stronger in their ability to fight governmental wrongdoing.

It never is, with or without such an assumption. "Sob sob."

Nor is abuse by a parent.

Abusive parents rarely stop the abuse. The state, when it fails and a
child is injured can be stopped. And is. And the state is quite often
the very agent of change.

If, as the numbers suggest, wrongful removal happens 40% of the time,

You are, of course, as usual, lying. It is not wrongful removal. It is
removal for other reasons we have posted here innumerable times.

then
this malpractice falls well outside an acceptable "margin of error."

It has nothing whatsoever to do with error. I has to do with what is
and isn't substantiated abuse and neglect.

In addition, and I suspect it is the larger number, that 40% includes
those that where there must be an investigation to determine that no
injury or risk existed, or reached a level for doing no more than a
service plan or less.

To
say, as the public has been doing in increasing numbers the past few years,
that it is totally unacceptable is not seeking "perfection."

You like to think there is a great upheaval of public interest, but the
fact is that the public is sickened to death of the abuses perpetrated
by parents upon their own children.

This problem needs to be addressed from many angles. The quickest
impact (and most just) would be made by returning children to families
that aren't abusive/neglectful, and not taking any more children that
don't need to be taken. That would be the first step.

Absolutely. And, thanks to the efforts of yourself and other advocates who
have approached their state legislature, reform has paved the way for those
steps.

YOu pucker up so nicely.

The numbers of children removed from their homes are dropping. In
2002, 169,000 substantiated children and 96,000 unsubstantiated,
non-victims, were removed from their homes. A year later, it dropped to
136,000 victims removed from their families and 69,000 unsubstantiated
children removed from their families. The biggest drop was in the number
of children taken from innocent families. The trend continues.

Isn't it interesting that the rates of abuse aren't really dropping
much though

And what about the ones returned to their families and reabused? Did
you forget those?

A surprise in California, in the form of a new governor passionate on this
issue, has resulted in major policy change in the state with the largest
foster care population. After declaring that the "state makes a horrible
parent,"

R R R ...I first heard a worker say this in 1980. Your ignorance is
soooo apparent.

the governor of Nebraska has set up task forces to decrease the
foster care population and revise policy to take less children into custody.

And the abuse has gone down or up? And is it reporting that goes down,
or is it abuse that goes down? Tell us, Karnac.

New Jersey is now reducing its foster care population and rate of removal
after outside investigations of its CPS agency produced horrifying
discoveries.

Among which was one of the most overloaded caseworkers in the nation.

Michigan has reduced his foster care population tremendously
after coming to the conclusion that its citizen's money was best spent on
helping intact families.

Which requires either violations of their civil rights, often cleverly
disguised as "public health" or other "community" services to get into
the home, or simply NOT investigating allegations of abuse until a
child is injured beyond recovery, or dead. You are a monumental fool.

If you do not believe that would make a significant difference, then
you still have a lot to learn about what really goes on with the system
as it stands. Neither Doug nor I want to see children abused or
neglected, and this is part of that. Taking children who are perfectly
safe and happy in their own homes and placing them in a new environment
with strangers puts those children at risk.

Precisely.

You are a precise fool. Some of the things you advocate have already
proven not to work as claimed. Cost more. And done less.

I believe the practice continues, is commonplace, and involves
thousands of innocent children.

You believe a lot of balogna.

That the rate of wrongful removals is going
down is a direct result of political action initiated by advocates for CPS
reform.

It is quite easy to get the "rate of wrongful removals" to go down. One
need only reduce the rate of removals. And ignore the results.

Taking the focus off abuse of children by their parents, and focusing
on "the poor parents" tends to work that way.

I've noticed the numbers of criminal abuse cases going up. Not the
civil cases, that of course CPS reports in it's data to the feds, but
the police cases. Cold there be a connection?

Legislatures are putting pressure on CPS agencies in the executive
branch to reduce their intrusion upon families in the form of "services",
the most intrusive of which is taking children into state custody.
"Services/sanctions" imposed upon innocent families has gone from
708,000 children in 2002 to 614,000 children in 2003.

So tell us, how will these "family support services" you claim are
coming down the pike be offered to families, and how willing will they
be to take such services?

If you honsetly believe that all the children in foster care were
actually abused or neglected then you are naive. If not, then your
statment above is nothing better than inflammatory propoganda.

I think Ron believes that all of the children in foster care were actually
abused or neglected.

I think you are full of **** and a menace to society. But then we all
have these extreme views of others. I make mine as laughable as
possible. You seem quite serious.

"all?" Ron believes that "all" are actually abused or neglected? I'd
say he probably sees mostly all, but surely not all. After all he
fostered for many years.

If not, then I suspect he believes those who were not
represent a very small number.

And he and I would then agree. YOU, and Mark, have your focus on only
the cases in that small number, comparatively, so you pump it up to
satisfy your bias and your propaganda. No big thing.

I think most of us here know

I think you are puckering up again, but I get the feeling that fewer
and fewer here are bending over and spreading their cheeks for you.

that the
percentage of children in foster care who were never abused or neglected at
home represents a very large number.

"A very large number," the weasel says.

I consider 10 a very large number. And that should be addressed if at
all possible.

Some child welfare researchers have
concluded that upwards of 80% of the children in foster care do not belong
there.

Do not belong there can mean many things. One of which would be, "no
longer belong there because the conditions have been met to return them
to their famlies...or, douggy the liar....conditions have been met
where parental rights should be terminated and the child moved to an
alternative permanent placement, such as adoption."

See how easy it is to catch you stretching other credulity along with
their assholes if they'll let you?

Ron, if you are reading this, what percentage of children in foster care do
you believe were neither abused or neglected in their own homes?

No, what percentage do YOU believe? Make your claim BEFORE you ask your
question. Your methods are transparent, liar.

At any rate, Mark, you are to be commended for your hard work in your
state's legislature to bring about reform.

Smack smack.

Child and family adovocates are
making headway. The drop in rates of removal is a real and honest tribute
to the work those advocates have done toward reform of CPS practice.

Only if it turns out abuse actually drops...not just reports of abuse,
but real abuse. We can't know that for many years, as is shown by the
current crop of adults who were never reported to CPS when they were
being abused as children...and that is a great many, Doug. Hidden
abuse. Because of a heavily crippled system.

One YOU want to, apparently, cripple more, again.

0:-

I had written:

We also know that actual abuse and
neglect does occur and some children have to be removed from their homes.

To which, Kane replies:

That's just self serving babble as usual, trying to cast yourself in
the role of being "reasonable." You aren't. You are a severely biased
individual that uses every opportunity, no matter how slim, to foist
your propaganda on this newsgroup.

Hi, Kane,

That is the truth, as usual. Your attempt to paint some motive into a
rather obvious statement of fact is a reflection of your bias, not mine.

We differ on the volume or percentage of wrongful removals.

Of course. And that comes down to a moral question, not a question of
numbers. What IS "many" and what is not "many?"

It is a question of numbers. Counting children who are wrongly
substantiated for non-existing risk along with children subject to
allegations CPS has unsubstantiated, I would say 40% of the children who
have been placed into foster care were wrongfully removed from their
families. That is what many means to me.

Kane says it is exceedingly rare and happens somewhere within a "margin
of
error" one can expect in human endeavors.

That is almost correct.

How many is rare? How many children do you think are wrongfully removed
from their families?

"Commonplace," has the same propaganda value as "many," your most
favorite dodge'm word.

Commonplace and many were given a number in this post and the one that you
answer.

I consider my experience with unwarranted ... truly unwarranted, not
removals for investigation with later return, but REALLY TRULY wrongful
removals most deliberate and for NO reason that is ethically or morally
or by practice and policy acceptable, as "commonplace." In other words,
the exception is commonplace, even if it's only a few dozen a year.

I consider my experience with unwarranted removals to conclude such removals
happen as a matter of routine practice. The rule is commonplace.

The numbers submitted to the federal government by the states tend to
support the contention that upwards of 40% of the children placed into
foster care were removed from families CPS determined to be innocent of
risk
of or actual child maltreatment.

No, that is not what tends to support. It supports that many of those
families, as the study I have posted here and referred you back to many
times are not CURRENTLY AT THE TIME OF THE ASSESSMENT STILL LIKELY TO
PUT THEIR CHILD AT RISK.

No, CPS' finding of unsubstantiated means that the worker found no credible
evidence to suspect that the child involved in the allegation was abused or
neglected. http://tinyurl.com/3ygl6

Your "study" decidedly did not show what you claim. To the contrary, it
summarized a few studies that showed families were SUBSTANTIATED based upon
the caseworkers relationship with their superiors, co-workers, or feelings
about their job.

CPS is sent out to determine if the allegations in a report of child
maltreatment are true. In addition, caseworkers seek to determine if
abuse/neglect other than what was reported occurred. A finding of
substantiated is made if CPS finds reason to suspect the child was
maltreated. A finding of unsubstantiated is made if the worker failed to
find evidence under existing state law to conclude or suspect that the child
was maltreated.

Here is a breakdown of CPS determinations from the source who published the
numbers in each category.

a.. Alternative Response Victim: A conclusion that the child was
identified as a victim when a response other than investigation was
provided.
b.. Alternative Response Nonvictim: A conclusion that the child was not a
victim of maltreatment when a response other than investigation was
provided.
c.. Indicated: An investigation disposition that concludes that
maltreatment cannot be substantiated under State law or policy, but there
was reason to suspect that the child may have been maltreated or was at risk
of maltreatment. This is applicable only to States that distinguish between
substantiated and indicated dispositions.
d.. Substantiated: A type of investigation disposition that concludes that
the allegation of maltreatment or risk of maltreatment was supported or
founded by State law or State policy. This is the highest level of finding
by a State agency.
e.. Unsubstantiated: A type of investigation disposition that determines
that there is not sufficient evidence under State law to conclude or suspect
that the child has been maltreated or is at risk of being maltreated.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/p...tm#investigate

It has very little to do with actual past injury or risk to the child,
other than those being the triggering events that brought about the
assessment.

As you can see above, injury has EVERYTHING to do with injury to the child.
A ruling of unsubstantiated means the worker did not find sufficient
evidence to conclude or suspect that the child had been maltreated.

CPS caseworkers are sent out to determine if parents abused or neglected
their children. If they did, the allegations are substantiated. If they
didn't, the allegations are unsubstantiated. Do you believe there is any
such thing as an innocent parent? Does it ever happen that CPS determines
the allegations in the report are false?

If so, what determination does CPS make in those cases?

Those whose professional or advocational pursuits put them in contact
with
CPS and its work, such as yourself,

Mark is smart enough to know that he is NOT as close as others, the
professionals, to be suckered by your egregious buttering up his
asshole.

He is not as close as others, and much closer than others.

Can you see how those closest of all and involved in wrongful removals may
be a little biased?

Whatever one's position on CPS malpractice, it is not and never has been
an
issue of "parents rights" versus "children's rights."

I beg your pardon?

Again and again you and yours in this ng has couched arguments in
exactly that format...that the parent's rights supercede the child's
rights.

Again and again in this newsgroup you have seen me argue that wrongful
removal violates the child's rights. I have never stated, implied or
otherwise hinted that parent's rights supercede children's rights. The
debate is often whether the state has a right to supercede the child's
rights.

I have seen some of your favorite pets, you might take Fern for
example, defend the rights of the parents when children were being
handed over to the parent's church for vicious beatings. That is only
ONE example of some of Fern's more famous pieces of BS YOU, who have
defended Fern against me, FAILED TO RESPOND TO IN THE MIDDLE OF THE
DEBATE THREAD.

You are a phony.

You are obsessed with what you see as teams or groups of people. Rather
than argue with one author about what he or she has said, you talk about
members of this imaginary group say. Do you feel that I have an obligation
to jump to your defense if someone else says something to you in a thread?

I can only talk about my opinions and what I have said.

It is wholely a
debate centered on children's rights.

You are desparate to try and save your water by reframing the argument
as though this is actually what has been done here. It is a lie on your
part. All one need do is read posts from people such as greegor to know
that. And you have defended greegor as well.

This is what I have done since I have been here. I don't speak for anyone
else but myself.

A child who has been wrongfully
removed from her family has had one of her most inalienable and precious
rights as a citizen violated.

I suggest you consider the child's right to not be put at risk of their
lives, and subject to unneeded pain supercedes this right of PARENTS
you are trying so hard to cast as the right of the child.

I have considered just such a right and addressed it in the same post to
which you respond. There, as in the past, I said nothing about parents
rights superceding that of the child. Rather, in those incidences when the
state leaves a child in an abusive situation, it violates the rights of the
child.
In these cases, the child's rights have been violated by the state.

She has the right to be not be abused by her own parents. And children
are NO judge of what is and isn't abuse or neglect.

She has that right. She also has the right to leave peacefully with her
family should CPS determine that she was not abused or neglected. If she is
forcibly removed by the state under such circumstances, her rights have been
violated by the state.

She has been emotionally abused by the state
in the name of all of us.

Only if she is wrongfully removed or wrongfully returned, and you lie
regularly about what is and isn't "wrongful."

A child who is left in an abusive and dangerous home has been deceived by
an
agency charged with protecting her rights to live in a safe environment.

Only if the agency does so with full knowledge of and belief in the
parents intent to do injury to the child. Otherwise CPS guess is likely
better than yours, or Mark's. Or mine.

A
child who is wrongfully removed from a family CPS has unsubstantiated and
subsequently abused or killed in the overcrowded foster care system has
been
betrayed by the agency who put her there -- especially because its
workers
knew beforehand that the system was overcrowded and abusive.

They had the choice of returning the child or not. You could do no
better, Doug.

A child who is wrongfully removed from a family CPS has unsubstantiated and
subsequently abused or killed in the overcrowded foster care system has been
betrayed by the agency who put her there -- especially because its workers
knew beforehand that the system was overcrowded and abusive.

Afterall, if the wrongful CPS removal of
a child caused her father to rise up to help other families mistreated by
CPS, wasn't the removal beneficial in the end?

What an interesting twist, weasel. Are you suggesting that Mark's
experience and his families is good for other children?

Actually, it was YOUR twist:

"I'll close with this question: If your painful experience with CPS
resulted in some other family's child's nightmare of torture ending was
your pain not then worth it?"

Isn't such a travesty of
justice just an excusable little error to remind us that CPS is not
"perfect"?

No, it's not. It's dealing with reality. YOu aren't perfect. Or do you
think you are?

We are not talking about perfection. If 40% of removals are wrongful, then
we are talking about a lot bigger problem than a lack of "perfection." The
perfection argument could be used for anything.

"Well, Mrs. Lincoln, you can't expect the play to be perfect."

No. Wrongful removal is a barbaric act that does unbearable
emotional damage to the children who were removed.

It is neither "barbaric" and certainly not as or more than a parent
abusing his own daughter. And no, it does not consistently do
unbearable damage to a child, while parental abuse has a far greater
chance, if the state does NOT intervene, of leaving permanent and
unhealable damage to the child.

But one does not justify the other. And systemic dysfunction leads CPS to
make both mistakes.

The numbers of children removed from their homes are dropping. In
2002, 169,000 substantiated children and 96,000 unsubstantiated,
non-victims, were removed from their homes. A year later, it dropped to
136,000 victims removed from their families and 69,000 unsubstantiated
children removed from their families. The biggest drop was in the
number
of children taken from innocent families. The trend continues.

Isn't it interesting that the rates of abuse aren't really dropping
much though

Who says? Where is the citation on that one?

And what about the ones returned to their families and reabused? Did
you forget those?

Not at all. Those are included among the substantiated cases.

A surprise in California, in the form of a new governor passionate on
this
issue, has resulted in major policy change in the state with the largest
foster care population. After declaring that the "state makes a horrible
parent,"

R R R ...I first heard a worker say this in 1980. Your ignorance is
soooo apparent.

The foster care population is going down rapidly in California. Did that
happen in 1980?

the governor of Nebraska has set up task forces to decrease the
foster care population and revise policy to take less children into
custody.

And the abuse has gone down or up? And is it reporting that goes down,
or is it abuse that goes down? Tell us, Karnac.

The foster population has gone down.

New Jersey is now reducing its foster care population and rate of removal
after outside investigations of its CPS agency produced horrifying
discoveries.

Among which was one of the most overloaded caseworkers in the nation.

Still overloaded, but the agency practice has improved.

Michigan has reduced his foster care population tremendously
after coming to the conclusion that its citizen's money was best spent on
helping intact families.

Which requires either violations of their civil rights, often cleverly
disguised as "public health" or other "community" services to get into
the home, or simply NOT investigating allegations of abuse until a
child is injured beyond recovery, or dead. You are a monumental fool.

Where were families civil rights violated? Do you have more information on
this state using deceitful practices to get into the home? How does this
apply to the foster care population being drastically reduced?

If you do not believe that would make a significant difference, then
you still have a lot to learn about what really goes on with the system
as it stands. Neither Doug nor I want to see children abused or
neglected, and this is part of that. Taking children who are perfectly
safe and happy in their own homes and placing them in a new environment
with strangers puts those children at risk.

Precisely.

You are a precise fool. Some of the things you advocate have already
proven not to work as claimed. Cost more. And done less.

No, nothing foolish about working to end the practice of taking children who
are perfectly safe and happy in their own homes and placing them in a new
environment with strangers who put those children at risk.

I believe the practice continues, is commonplace, and involves
thousands of innocent children.

You believe a lot of balogna.

That the rate of wrongful removals is going
down is a direct result of political action initiated by advocates for
CPS
reform.

It is quite easy to get the "rate of wrongful removals" to go down. One
need only reduce the rate of removals. And ignore the results.

Legislatures are putting pressure on CPS agencies in the executive
branch to reduce their intrusion upon families in the form of "services",
the most intrusive of which is taking children into state custody.
"Services/sanctions" imposed upon innocent families has gone from
708,000 children in 2002 to 614,000 children in 2003.

So tell us, how will these "family support services" you claim are
coming down the pike be offered to families, and how willing will they
be to take such services?

As I mentioned above, services are being reduced dramatically.


And he and I would then agree. YOU, and Mark, have your focus on only
the cases in that small number, comparatively, so you pump it up to
satisfy your bias and your propaganda. No big thing.


Some child welfare researchers have
concluded that upwards of 80% of the children in foster care do not
belong
there.

Do not belong there can mean many things. One of which would be, "no
longer belong there because the conditions have been met to return them
to their famlies...or, douggy the liar....conditions have been met
where parental rights should be terminated and the child moved to an
alternative permanent placement, such as adoption."

These researchers were specifically referring to children who were
wrongfully removed from their homes. Neither of the two variables you
mention above were a factor.

See how easy it is to catch you stretching other credulity along with
their assholes if they'll let you?

I wasn't stretching anything. The orginal statement by the researchers
meant exactly what it was taken to mean. Your interjection of two random,
exterior variables does not change the meaning of the researchers conclusion
because neither was a factor in their research.

So your response here does nothing to "catch" anybody other than yourself at
stretching the truth.

Ron, if you are reading this, what percentage of children in foster care
do
you believe were neither abused or neglected in their own homes?

No, what percentage do YOU believe? Make your claim BEFORE you ask your
question. Your methods are transparent, liar.

40%, for the third time.