Florida counters rise in child removal....

State counters rise in child removal

By Kathleen Chapman

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localne..._dcf_0617.html

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Hundreds of times every month, investigators are called to the homes of
vulnerable children in Palm Beach County and asked to predict the future.

If they leave them with their parents, the children could be beaten,
neglected or in rare cases even killed.

But if they cannot find a willing relative and have to take them into
foster care, the children face a scary and uncertain future far from
everyone they know. In the worst cases, they are separated from brothers
and sisters, raised by changing shift workers at shelters and moved so
many times they lose the ability to love. Some never find a parent to
adopt them and are turned out at age 18 - angry, frightened and alone.

In 2003 and 2004, the Department of Children and Families pushed to get
children out of foster care as it transferred cases to the contracted
private agency Child and Family Connections. But the number of children
living apart from their birth parents climbed from 1,315 on July 1,
2004, to 1,560 at the end of May.

State data show sharp spikes in removals of children after news of a
tragedy here. In 2004 and the beginning of 2005, the state took an
average of about six or seven children out of every 100 reports of
alleged abuse.

The number of children entering foster care peaked at 14 per 100 reports
in July 2006, double the rate it had been two years before. That month,
111 Palm Beach County children were taken from their families.

That spike came in the weeks after a DCF supervisor with two decades of
experience and glowing performance reviews was demoted for failing to do
enough in the case of Charles Edward Tyson Jr., whose father was charged
with smashing him against the hood of a car, then throwing him into a
canal to die.

John Brewer, a local attorney who represents parents who face losing
rights to their children, believes such cases have an effect on DCF workers.

"I fight with them every day, but I see that they are put in an
untenable position," Brewer said. "They are charged with predicting the
unpredictable, and when it goes awry, a huge hue and cry comes of it.
And subsequently, they shoot first and ask questions later on some cases."

The cases of children unnecessarily separated from loving families that
could have been helped are also tragedies, said Richard Wexler, who
advocates keeping families together as head of the National Coalition
for Child Protection Reform. But those cases rarely, if ever, become known.

Under Florida law, records of the state's involvement in a child's life
become public only when a child dies of abuse or neglect. Even if
parents allege their living child was wrongfully taken, the state cannot
legally comment on its role or release any files.

As a result, Wexler said, "in all the years I've followed child welfare,
I have never seen a caseworker fired, suspended, demoted, slapped on the
wrist - or attacked in a newspaper - for taking away too many children."

Child and Family Connections leaders are mindful of the harm that foster
care can cause to children of all ages, agency spokeswoman Brenda Oakes
said. It is crucial for babies to bond with a caregiver, she said, which
is disrupted if the baby is in a shelter with shift workers. And it is
critical for teenagers to learn independence, which is hard to do in a
system that requires background checks if they want to spend the night
at a friend's house.

Child and Family Connections Executive Director John McCarthy and DCF
District Administrator Ben Shirley are working together with experts
from around the state to roll back the tide of removals.

Shirley said alcohol or drug abuse is the main problem for at least
two-thirds of the parents who lose their children.

One of the most common circumstances, he said, is that the parent went
on a binge and neglected the child, leading to an accident or other
harm. Also common are parents who threaten harm to children or fight
around the kids, he said.

Some children can be left at home if the parents get treatment and
counseling, Shirley said.

Child and Family Connections spends $800,000 a year on a crisis
intervention program to help keep families together. Since July 1, 676
cases have been referred and 466 were accepted.

The majority of families that participated did not lose their children
to foster care, whether they officially finished the program or not,
McCarthy said.

The foster care agency and DCF also are trying a strategy that has
worked well in other parts of the state: getting together in a phone
conference before a child is taken from home.

John Cooper, district administrator for the region around Ocala, began
that strategy after tragedies there helped swell the number of children
in state care from 3,000 to 4,300.

Now the DCF investigator, supervisor and attorney sit down weekly with
up to a dozen other advisers, Cooper said.

At the meeting, everyone can propose resources to help the family that a
single investigator might not have thought of, and more people shoulder
responsibility for a difficult decision.

"I don't know if this is a solution for (Palm Beach County)," he said,
"but it is something that worked for us."



CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL
SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....

CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

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 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, 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.

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...