A child care group today assailed Arizona’s child welfare system, saying it is in a “state of perennial panic.”

Child welfare system hobbled by 'left-right' stalemate

By Luige del Puerto,

http://www.azcapitoltimes.com/story.cfm?id=5812

Call for change Former state lawmaker Laura Knaperek joins Richard
Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child
Protection Reform, at a news conference in the Capitol today to call for
more openness in cases involving foster children. Photo by Bill Coates

A child care group today assailed Arizona’s child welfare system, saying
it is in a “state of perennial panic.”

From October 2002 to October 2004, the group said the number of
children taken away from homes increased by 40 percent, the largest
two-year spike in the country at the time.

The move did not necessarily result in fewer child abuse fatalities,
according to the Virginia-based National Coalition for Child Protection
and Reform.

“Four days after taking office in 2003, Gov. Napolitano ordered the
Child Protective Services workers to ‘err on the side of protecting the
child and we’ll sort it out later’. Four-and-a-half-years later, they
still haven’t sorted it out,” said the group’s executive director,
Richard Wexler.
Department of Economic Security spokeswoman Liz Barker did not dispute
data that the number children taken away from home had increased in
previous years. But she emphasized that a new program to provide in-home
service is slowing the numbers.

A 2006 DES report the annual rate of increase has “slowed from a high of
20 percent in FY 2003 to 12 percent in FY 2005.”

“Preliminary data suggests that the number of children in out-of-home
care has stabilized in the first half of (FY 2006),” the report said,
adding in-home service as an alternative to out-of-home care is a
priority of the department.

In a briefing at the Capitol today, Wexler detailed troubles in
Arizona’s childcare welfare system here and offered several
recommendations, including opening court hearings and asking the
Legislature to pump some $54 million in new child welfare spending.

“But every penny should go into safe, proven alternatives to substitute
care. No new money should go to taking away children and holding them in
foster care,” the group said.

The NCCPR cited an MIT study that compared foster children with
comparably maltreated children left in their own homes. The study had
looked into the cases of more than 15,000 children.

“Children left in their own homes are far less likely to become pregnant
as teenagers, far less likely to wind up in the juvenile justice system
and far more likely to hold a job for at least three months than
comparably maltreated children who were placed in foster care,” the
group said on its Web site.

Removing children from their homes should be done “sparingly and in
small doses,” the group said.

“There is nothing more important than protecting children,” former state
lawmaker Laura Knaperek said in a press release. “However, the
philosophy of ‘when in doubt, remove the child’ is a recipe for
disaster. It puts a target on children for physical, emotional and
educational risk,” she said.

Reform in the state has also been frustrated by a left-right stalemate,
according to NCCPR.

“Conservatives think DES can be stopped from needlessly taking away more
children by starving the agency,” NCCPR said. “But when Liberals wring
more money out of the Legislature, they throw almost all of it away on
hiring more workers to take away more children.”

The result is that the state ends up with the same system, only bigger.

“Arizona needs to spend more, but spend smarter,” the group said.

The group’s recommendations include:

*
Accelerate the reduction in the use of shelters, group homes and
other institutions.
*
Create an institutional provider of defense counsel for families
with support staff to do their own investigations and recommend
alternatives to CPS case plans.

“I’m not sure about the $54 million,” Sen. Linda Gray, R-10, who
sponsored the briefing, said. “(But) I’m willing to put more money into
bringing the services for parents to be able to work with their children
and not be under the stress that causes them to abuse their children.”

Gray said she will push for legislation to open court hearings.

“I think the media has been responsible in not exposing victims, in the
newspapers, and I hope that would continue,” she said.

Asked what would be the benefit of that, she said: “It opens to
everybody to be able to find out what’s going on in Arizona concerning
children and the courts.”





CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
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

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING HUNDREDS 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...