DCF is learning the hard way that employees should have backgroundchecks

On Feb 11, 11:34 am, LK wrote:
On Feb 11, 11:03 am, "dragonsgirl" wrote:





"LK" wrote in message

...
On Feb 11, 12:59 am, "dragonsgirl" wrote:

"Greegor" wrote in message

...

DCF is now searching through personnel records of its 13,500 employees,
looking for any red flags. But that needed to happen in November 2006,
when a policy change required that all new employees go through
background screening.

The agency is considered the front line of defense for children who are
victims of dysfunctional chaos. Displacement is traumatic enough
without
having to fear someone in the system.

DCF is on the right track, making sure it weeds out potentially
dangerous employees. And it's a clear message to other governmental
agencies that deal with children that background checks are necessary
for all employees.

From the agency viewpoint isn't it good Public Relations
for them to root out their own perverts?

If they find some raging perverts inside their agency
will they announce it publicly? I doubt it.

So they can do their own version of "keep it in the family"
with all of the pervs they find internally, right?

How are they going to test hard enough to
find the perves within their agency?

If some slip through won't it prove that they
don't know their head from their heiney?

If they can't even accurately screen
their own people, how do they pretend
any credibility screening parents?

They don't screen parents.

Maybe they don't call it that.

They take parent's behaviors into account when determining their ability
to
parent.

And everything else they can find.

***Such as?

Haven't you ever seen one of their initial assessment forms? There
is a whole list of generalized questions on that alone, I'm sure they
differ slightly from state to state, but you can't tell me that the
only thing that they factor in is the behavors of the parents.
Condition of the house, interviews with the children or professional
care providers, etc.

LK, Are you talking about the Risk Assessment "instrument"?

They have a document by that title that
caseworkers would see as an insult to their
intelligence IF only they were smart enough
to realize it is.

In the ascps newsgroup in the past, these
"idiot sheets" have been discussed.

They were created supposedly to make
the decisions objective and non-biased.

One outfit that created a set of these forms
was called "Structured Decision Making".
I was greatly amused that on their web site
they warned that their forms were NOT to
be used for decision making.

Imagine an outfit with that name having
to disclaim that their form is not for
making decisions.

It's a bit like actuarial tables but used to decide risk.

Single mother?
Under 30 years old?
Two or more kids?
Lives in the country?
Owns a hunting rifle (locked in gun safe)?
Butcher any farm animals?

In an example a woman has the first four
against her so she is considered guilty
before CPS even arrives at her door.

The "risk assessment" instrument is
supposed to be used after a family is
founded and set up for services to decide
what services are appropriate.

The "instrument" is only supposed to be
used by people who are thoroughly trained
to use it.

The problems:
These are often are brought out at the very
beginning of a "case" and used to decide
whether to "found" somebody.

Many people using them have not had the training.

Even if a set of these "idiot sheets" is used
only after a founded and to decide "services"
then they are assigning "services" based
on risk factors (actuarial tables) rather than
actual facts IN THAT CASE.

This would NOT be a legally acceptable
basis for assigning a "service".

The "serv ices" are not supposed to be assigned
but agreed to through a meeting of minds with
the family, first of all.

Secondly, an "actuarial table" rationale does
not seriously qualify as a material BASIS for a service.

But my personal favorite gripe is that the
"instrument" is supposed to be scientific,
impartial and objective, but throughout the
"instrument" there are places deliberately
intended to "fudge" the numbers.

If a caseworker is inclined for or against
somebody they have many places actually
arranged specifically to "fudge" the
numbers either for or against the "suspect family".

So the pretense of impartiality and objectivity
is just a load of BS.

By the way, the "SDM Structured Decision Making"
website disclaiming that their forms are NOT to be
used for DECISION MAKING was quickly changed.

SDM was a consortium of several states but later
incarnations of the "idiot sheet" forms appear
to be plagiarized BY those states. I doubt that
the ""expert material"" is something that can
actually even be copyrighted.

On Feb 11, 1:39*pm, "dragonsgirl" wrote:
"Greegor" wrote in message

...

DCF is now searching through personnel records of its 13,500
employees,
looking for any red flags. But that needed to happen in November
2006,
when a policy change required that all new employees go through
background screening.

The agency is considered the front line of defense for children who
are
victims of dysfunctional chaos. Displacement is traumatic enough
without
having to fear someone in the system.

DCF is on the right track, making sure it weeds out potentially
dangerous employees. And it's a clear message to other governmental
agencies that deal with children that background checks are
necessary
for all employees.

From the agency viewpoint isn't it good Public Relations
for them to root out their own perverts?

If they find some raging perverts inside their agency
will they announce it publicly? I doubt it.

So they can do their own version of "keep it in the family"
with all of the pervs they find internally, right?

How are they going to test hard enough to
find the perves within their agency?

If some slip through won't it prove that they
don't know their head from their heiney?

If they can't even accurately screen
their own people, how do they pretend
any credibility screening parents?

BW * They don't screen parents.

LK Maybe they don't call it that.

BW They take parent's behaviors into account
BW when determining their ability to parent.

They're not qualified to "determine" any such thing.

I think you are wrong.
I think that they are very well qualified to determine when parents lack the
ability.
There are indicators, as you very well know.
Heavy drug use, perisistent physical abuse and neglect, mental instability,
etc.
You can't argue those points Greg, because you, yourself, point to them many
times when it suits you.
And yet, you are no more qualified than a social worker is.
You point to the mental status of Lisa's daughter's grandmother as reason
for the child not to be placed in her home, as an example.
If, in your case, that is, indeed, a reason for the child not to be placed
there, then do tell how you can determine that, and how DFS is not qualified
to make that determination in the case of others.



LK And everything else they can find.

BW ***Such as?

"Mowing the lawn with a broken lawnmower"
was one of their complaints in our case.

If DFS cited that as a reason for removal, then it was wrong. *No two ways
about it.
That has nothing to do with the ability of the parents to effectively raise
a child, and I would agree with you that it was absurd for them to bring
that up for any reason.



The child was forced to watch some Babylonian movie.
(Babylon 5, a sci fi show akin to Star Trek)

Again, that is no indicator of ability to parent...though I really don't see
any reason why someone would 'force' a child to watch a movie, and think
it's nuts to do so, it still has nothig to do with ability to parent.



The morons from CPS will write up anything
they hope will "score" for them.

Those above are very invalid points.
What about the valid ones?

And what do they need those for?

On Feb 11, 1:42*pm, "dragonsgirl" wrote:
"LK" wrote in message

...
On Feb 11, 11:03 am, "dragonsgirl" wrote:

"LK" wrote in message

...
On Feb 11, 12:59 am, "dragonsgirl" wrote:

"Greegor" wrote in message

....

DCF is now searching through personnel records of its 13,500
employees,
looking for any red flags. But that needed to happen in November
2006,
when a policy change required that all new employees go through
background screening.

The agency is considered the front line of defense for children who
are
victims of dysfunctional chaos. Displacement is traumatic enough
without
having to fear someone in the system.

DCF is on the right track, making sure it weeds out potentially
dangerous employees. And it's a clear message to other governmental
agencies that deal with children that background checks are necessary
for all employees.

From the agency viewpoint isn't it good Public Relations
for them to root out their own perverts?

If they find some raging perverts inside their agency
will they announce it publicly? I doubt it.

So they can do their own version of "keep it in the family"
with all of the pervs they find internally, right?

How are they going to test hard enough to
find the perves within their agency?

If some slip through won't it prove that they
don't know their head from their heiney?

If they can't even accurately screen
their own people, how do they pretend
any credibility screening parents?

They don't screen parents.

Maybe they don't call it that.

They take parent's behaviors into account when determining their ability
to
parent.

And everything else they can find.

***Such as?

Haven't you ever seen one of their initial assessment forms? * There
is a whole list of generalized questions on that alone, I'm sure they
differ slightly from state to state, but you can't tell me that the
only thing that they factor in is the behavors of the parents.
Condition of the house, interviews with the children or professional
care providers, etc.

*****No, and I was not implying that the behaviors of the parents are the
only thing that is taken into account.
I was simply pointing out that it is a major factor, nothing more, nothing
less.
I have seen an interview assessment form. *I do think that some of the
things on them are off the wall, such as whether or not family lives in the
vicinity of the parents, but also some of the questions are valid as well,
such as the condition of the home.

Well, when it comes to the behavior of parents, any true professional
would realize that no parent is going to be happy to see them.

On Feb 11, 2:04*pm, Greegor wrote:
On Feb 11, 11:34 am, LK wrote:

On Feb 11, 11:03 am, "dragonsgirl" wrote:

"LK" wrote in message

...
On Feb 11, 12:59 am, "dragonsgirl" wrote:

"Greegor" wrote in message

...

DCF is now searching through personnel records of its 13,500 employees,
looking for any red flags. But that needed to happen in November 2006,
when a policy change required that all new employees go through
background screening.

The agency is considered the front line of defense for children who are
victims of dysfunctional chaos. Displacement is traumatic enough
without
having to fear someone in the system.

DCF is on the right track, making sure it weeds out potentially
dangerous employees. And it's a clear message to other governmental
agencies that deal with children that background checks are necessary
for all employees.

From the agency viewpoint isn't it good Public Relations
for them to root out their own perverts?

If they find some raging perverts inside their agency
will they announce it publicly? I doubt it.

So they can do their own version of "keep it in the family"
with all of the pervs they find internally, right?

How are they going to test hard enough to
find the perves within their agency?

If some slip through won't it prove that they
don't know their head from their heiney?

If they can't even accurately screen
their own people, how do they pretend
any credibility screening parents?

They don't screen parents.

Maybe they don't call it that.

They take parent's behaviors into account when determining their ability
to
parent.

And everything else they can find.

***Such as?

Haven't you ever seen one of their initial assessment forms? * There
is a whole list of generalized questions on that alone, I'm sure they
differ slightly from state to state, but you can't tell me that the
only thing that they factor in is the behavors of the parents.
Condition of the house, interviews with the children or professional
care providers, etc.

LK, Are you talking about the Risk Assessment "instrument"?


The one that the "Product Acquisition Team" comes to the door with.

They have a document by that title that
caseworkers would see as an insult to their
intelligence IF only they were smart enough
to realize it is.


Well they can't afford to have any independant thought going on in
there, can they?

In the ascps newsgroup in the past, these
"idiot sheets" have been discussed.

They were created supposedly to make
the decisions objective and non-biased.

One outfit that created a set of these forms
was called "Structured Decision Making".
I was greatly amused that on their web site
they warned that their forms were NOT to
be used for decision making.

Imagine an outfit with that name having
to disclaim that their form is not for
making decisions.

It's a bit like actuarial tables but used to decide risk.

Single mother?
Under 30 years old?
Two or more kids?
Lives in the country?
Owns a hunting rifle (locked in gun safe)?
Butcher any farm animals?

In an example a woman has the first four
against her so she is considered guilty
before CPS even arrives at her door.

The "risk assessment" instrument is
supposed to be used after a family is
founded and set up for services to decide
what services are appropriate.

The "instrument" is only supposed to be
used by people who are thoroughly trained
to use it.

The problems:
These are often are brought out at the very
beginning of a "case" and used to decide
whether to "found" somebody.

Many people using them have not had the training.

Even if a set of these "idiot sheets" is used
only after a founded and to decide "services"
then they are assigning "services" based
on risk factors (actuarial tables) rather than
actual facts IN THAT CASE.

This would NOT be a legally acceptable
basis for assigning a "service".

The "serv ices" are not supposed to be assigned
but agreed to through a meeting of minds with
the family, first of all.


Since when has what the family thought mattered?

Secondly, an "actuarial table" rationale does
not seriously qualify as a material BASIS for a service.

But my personal favorite gripe is that the
"instrument" is supposed to be scientific,
impartial and objective, but throughout the
"instrument" there are places deliberately
intended to "fudge" the numbers.

If a caseworker is inclined for or against
somebody they have many places actually
arranged specifically to "fudge" the
numbers either for or against the "suspect family".

So the pretense of impartiality and objectivity
is just a load of BS.

By the way, the "SDM Structured Decision Making"
website disclaiming that their forms are NOT to be
used for DECISION MAKING was quickly changed.

SDM was a consortium of several states but later
incarnations of the "idiot sheet" forms appear
to be plagiarized BY those states. *I doubt that
the ""expert material"" is something that can
actually even be copyrighted.

It's a generalized form. There are no check boxes, lots of open types
of questions.

"LK" wrote in message
...
On Feb 11, 1:39 pm, "dragonsgirl" wrote:
"Greegor" wrote in message

...

DCF is now searching through personnel records of its 13,500
employees,
looking for any red flags. But that needed to happen in November
2006,
when a policy change required that all new employees go through
background screening.

The agency is considered the front line of defense for children
who
are
victims of dysfunctional chaos. Displacement is traumatic enough
without
having to fear someone in the system.

DCF is on the right track, making sure it weeds out potentially
dangerous employees. And it's a clear message to other
governmental
agencies that deal with children that background checks are
necessary
for all employees.

From the agency viewpoint isn't it good Public Relations
for them to root out their own perverts?

If they find some raging perverts inside their agency
will they announce it publicly? I doubt it.

So they can do their own version of "keep it in the family"
with all of the pervs they find internally, right?

How are they going to test hard enough to
find the perves within their agency?

If some slip through won't it prove that they
don't know their head from their heiney?

If they can't even accurately screen
their own people, how do they pretend
any credibility screening parents?

BW They don't screen parents.

LK Maybe they don't call it that.

BW They take parent's behaviors into account
BW when determining their ability to parent.

They're not qualified to "determine" any such thing.

I think you are wrong.
I think that they are very well qualified to determine when parents lack
the
ability.
There are indicators, as you very well know.
Heavy drug use, perisistent physical abuse and neglect, mental
instability,
etc.
You can't argue those points Greg, because you, yourself, point to them
many
times when it suits you.
And yet, you are no more qualified than a social worker is.
You point to the mental status of Lisa's daughter's grandmother as reason
for the child not to be placed in her home, as an example.
If, in your case, that is, indeed, a reason for the child not to be placed
there, then do tell how you can determine that, and how DFS is not
qualified
to make that determination in the case of others.



LK And everything else they can find.

BW ***Such as?

"Mowing the lawn with a broken lawnmower"
was one of their complaints in our case.

If DFS cited that as a reason for removal, then it was wrong. No two ways
about it.
That has nothing to do with the ability of the parents to effectively
raise
a child, and I would agree with you that it was absurd for them to bring
that up for any reason.



The child was forced to watch some Babylonian movie.
(Babylon 5, a sci fi show akin to Star Trek)

Again, that is no indicator of ability to parent...though I really don't
see
any reason why someone would 'force' a child to watch a movie, and think
it's nuts to do so, it still has nothig to do with ability to parent.



The morons from CPS will write up anything
they hope will "score" for them.

Those above are very invalid points.
What about the valid ones?

And what do they need those for?

***I didn't say they did.
I was simply agreeing with Greg that it was useless for those issues to be
raised in his case.

"LK" wrote in message
...
On Feb 11, 1:42 pm, "dragonsgirl" wrote:
"LK" wrote in message

...
On Feb 11, 11:03 am, "dragonsgirl" wrote:

"LK" wrote in message

...
On Feb 11, 12:59 am, "dragonsgirl" wrote:

"Greegor" wrote in message

...

DCF is now searching through personnel records of its 13,500
employees,
looking for any red flags. But that needed to happen in November
2006,
when a policy change required that all new employees go through
background screening.

The agency is considered the front line of defense for children who
are
victims of dysfunctional chaos. Displacement is traumatic enough
without
having to fear someone in the system.

DCF is on the right track, making sure it weeds out potentially
dangerous employees. And it's a clear message to other governmental
agencies that deal with children that background checks are
necessary
for all employees.

From the agency viewpoint isn't it good Public Relations
for them to root out their own perverts?

If they find some raging perverts inside their agency
will they announce it publicly? I doubt it.

So they can do their own version of "keep it in the family"
with all of the pervs they find internally, right?

How are they going to test hard enough to
find the perves within their agency?

If some slip through won't it prove that they
don't know their head from their heiney?

If they can't even accurately screen
their own people, how do they pretend
any credibility screening parents?

They don't screen parents.

Maybe they don't call it that.

They take parent's behaviors into account when determining their
ability
to
parent.

And everything else they can find.

***Such as?

Haven't you ever seen one of their initial assessment forms? There
is a whole list of generalized questions on that alone, I'm sure they
differ slightly from state to state, but you can't tell me that the
only thing that they factor in is the behavors of the parents.
Condition of the house, interviews with the children or professional
care providers, etc.

*****No, and I was not implying that the behaviors of the parents are the
only thing that is taken into account.
I was simply pointing out that it is a major factor, nothing more, nothing
less.
I have seen an interview assessment form. I do think that some of the
things on them are off the wall, such as whether or not family lives in
the
vicinity of the parents, but also some of the questions are valid as well,
such as the condition of the home.

Well, when it comes to the behavior of parents, any true professional
would realize that no parent is going to be happy to see them.

****Surely. I would agree with you. No parent would be happy to see social
services knocking on their door.
However, I am not referring to behaviors that are exhibited over the course
of an interview necessarily.
It's easy to imagine, and understand, a person being agitated, sometimes
rude, feeling on the defenseive, etc during an interview.
What is harder to swallow is persistent and extensive drug abuse, outbursts
of anger that cause lack of work, or minor injury to a child, destruction of
property, etc. I am talking about behaviors that are exhibited over time
before, and after social services interviews.
Not during the itnerview itself.
Those behaviors can be seen via police reports, court records, medical
records, etc, and are not based on the opinion of a caseworker, intake or
otherwise.
Some behaviors during an interview can be indicators, though.
Screaming at kids in the presence of a worker?
How about things people say? "I didn't whip Johnny with no belt, it was a
switch off that peach tree", for example.
People say and do stupid things, and sometimes they do them in the presence
of the wrong person...DFS, doctor, LE.
Does it take an assessment form and a genius to figure out there are serious
problems in that case?

To get back to the original topic, how do you think that
the caseworkers THEMSELVES would do if put
under the same scrutiny they use on others?

Curio Jones the famous mental case caseworker
did a LOT of harm to families before she became
a huge Public Relations liability to the CPS agencies.

Bring on the Witch Hunt to burn the perverts within the agency!

"LK" wrote in message
...
On Feb 11, 2:04 pm, Greegor wrote:
On Feb 11, 11:34 am, LK wrote:

On Feb 11, 11:03 am, "dragonsgirl" wrote:

"LK" wrote in message

...
On Feb 11, 12:59 am, "dragonsgirl" wrote:

"Greegor" wrote in message

...

DCF is now searching through personnel records of its 13,500
employees,
looking for any red flags. But that needed to happen in November
2006,
when a policy change required that all new employees go through
background screening.

The agency is considered the front line of defense for children
who are
victims of dysfunctional chaos. Displacement is traumatic enough
without
having to fear someone in the system.

DCF is on the right track, making sure it weeds out potentially
dangerous employees. And it's a clear message to other
governmental
agencies that deal with children that background checks are
necessary
for all employees.

From the agency viewpoint isn't it good Public Relations
for them to root out their own perverts?

If they find some raging perverts inside their agency
will they announce it publicly? I doubt it.

So they can do their own version of "keep it in the family"
with all of the pervs they find internally, right?

How are they going to test hard enough to
find the perves within their agency?

If some slip through won't it prove that they
don't know their head from their heiney?

If they can't even accurately screen
their own people, how do they pretend
any credibility screening parents?

They don't screen parents.

Maybe they don't call it that.

They take parent's behaviors into account when determining their
ability
to
parent.

And everything else they can find.

***Such as?

Haven't you ever seen one of their initial assessment forms? There
is a whole list of generalized questions on that alone, I'm sure they
differ slightly from state to state, but you can't tell me that the
only thing that they factor in is the behavors of the parents.
Condition of the house, interviews with the children or professional
care providers, etc.

LK, Are you talking about the Risk Assessment "instrument"?


The one that the "Product Acquisition Team" comes to the door with.

They have a document by that title that
caseworkers would see as an insult to their
intelligence IF only they were smart enough
to realize it is.


Well they can't afford to have any independant thought going on in
there, can they?

In the ascps newsgroup in the past, these
"idiot sheets" have been discussed.

They were created supposedly to make
the decisions objective and non-biased.

One outfit that created a set of these forms
was called "Structured Decision Making".
I was greatly amused that on their web site
they warned that their forms were NOT to
be used for decision making.

Imagine an outfit with that name having
to disclaim that their form is not for
making decisions.

It's a bit like actuarial tables but used to decide risk.

Single mother?
Under 30 years old?
Two or more kids?
Lives in the country?
Owns a hunting rifle (locked in gun safe)?
Butcher any farm animals?

In an example a woman has the first four
against her so she is considered guilty
before CPS even arrives at her door.

The "risk assessment" instrument is
supposed to be used after a family is
founded and set up for services to decide
what services are appropriate.

The "instrument" is only supposed to be
used by people who are thoroughly trained
to use it.

The problems:
These are often are brought out at the very
beginning of a "case" and used to decide
whether to "found" somebody.

Many people using them have not had the training.

Even if a set of these "idiot sheets" is used
only after a founded and to decide "services"
then they are assigning "services" based
on risk factors (actuarial tables) rather than
actual facts IN THAT CASE.

This would NOT be a legally acceptable
basis for assigning a "service".

The "serv ices" are not supposed to be assigned
but agreed to through a meeting of minds with
the family, first of all.


Since when has what the family thought mattered?

Secondly, an "actuarial table" rationale does
not seriously qualify as a material BASIS for a service.

But my personal favorite gripe is that the
"instrument" is supposed to be scientific,
impartial and objective, but throughout the
"instrument" there are places deliberately
intended to "fudge" the numbers.

If a caseworker is inclined for or against
somebody they have many places actually
arranged specifically to "fudge" the
numbers either for or against the "suspect family".

So the pretense of impartiality and objectivity
is just a load of BS.

By the way, the "SDM Structured Decision Making"
website disclaiming that their forms are NOT to be
used for DECISION MAKING was quickly changed.

SDM was a consortium of several states but later
incarnations of the "idiot sheet" forms appear
to be plagiarized BY those states. I doubt that
the ""expert material"" is something that can
actually even be copyrighted.

It's a generalized form. There are no check boxes, lots of open types
of questions.

****That is not true.
At least, not on the form I have seen, and I believe I provided that form
some time back, maybe two years ago, for viewing with personal information
of the subjects (no, not me) blacked out.
It was a grid type form, each column had a heading...can't recall exactly
what they said, but something like 'Physical appearance', and other types of
generalizations.
Under those were descriptors in boxes, and the worker was apparently to
check mark the descriptor that best described the conditions that applied.
For instance (because I'm not making myself clear, I don't think), under the
heading 'Environment', for example, there would be several boxes that said
things like (box 1) "Homeless", (box 2) Living with friends or family, (box
3) "Inadequate housing' and that box would go on to name what constituted
such...no heat, no utilities, over crowding, etc. in each case.
I can't recall what the risk ratings were, but for each category there was a
no risk, low risk, moderate risk, and high risk box.
The end of the assessment asked for the number of moderate to high risk
check marks, and then gave a determination as to the over all risk based on
that.

"Greegor" wrote in message
...
To get back to the original topic, how do you think that
the caseworkers THEMSELVES would do if put
under the same scrutiny they use on others?

I think that the vast majority of them would fail their own tests miserably.
I think that the majority of them know that.

I can't recall if I ever mentioned this in the group.
There was a family that lived on my block.
The parents had two kids that were the same ages as my two oldest.
It was weird...after my kids went to bed at night and I'd go out on the
porch to smoke I would see their little girl, then only about seven, riding
her bike. I once stopped her...it was like 11 or 11:30 at night, and I told
her to get her butt home and stay inside, and asked where her mom and dad
were. She told me her dad was home, but she didn't know where her ma was.
Then, one day, I was taking a shirt over there that their kids had left in
my yard and it was summer...oh my god, the smell from that house being so
dirty almost knocked me off the front porch, and the door hadn't even been
opened yet!
The last day of school my son and this other boy got into an argument on the
way home and the boy took out a pocket knife and held it to my son's throat.
Of course, I marched right over there to get onto their mom.
She answered the door and asked me to come in. The place was literally a
pig stye...some of the links to photos that have been posted here made that
lady's house look CLEAN!
I almost gagged at the smell.
When I told her why I was there she started telling me that she hadn't the
time to keep an eye on her kids, she was busy going to college to become a
social worker for the county.
I got pretty ****ed off, and I told her that she'd better hope that she
never got a call to come to my house because I'd laugh her ass right off the
lawn.


Curio Jones the famous mental case caseworker
did a LOT of harm to families before she became
a huge Public Relations liability to the CPS agencies.

Bring on the Witch Hunt to burn the perverts within the agency!

Some of the assessment seems to be more about
determining the family's ability to fight back or
resist the agency's demands.

Support systems like friends and church as well
as lots of relatives living nearby can all cause
gigantic difficulties for the agency.

Lots of people who could testify on behalf of the
family? Family with serious money for a legal warchest?
This threatens CPS.