Reforming Foster Care

by hilzoy

Every so often, a story appears that reveals just how inadequate our foster care system is. Here's one:

"How do you lose a chubby-cheeked and fidgety 5-year-old and not notice she's gone? For most parents, 15 minutes out of sight would be enough time to worry. For the state of Florida, it took 15 months.

A foster child removed from her drug-addicted mother's custody, Rilya Wilson was supposed to be living in Miami with Geralyn Graham, who says she is Rilya's grandmother (...) While in Graham's care, the child should have received monthly visits from caseworkers at Florida's Department of Children and Families. (...) The girl's caseworker resigned in March, amid accusations she had falsified visitation reports in other cases; when DCF began to examine the worker's old paperwork, it contacted Graham and realized the child had vanished.

DCF is supposed to conduct background checks on foster parents. But the Miami Herald reported that the agency placed Rilya with Graham despite the woman's convictions for grand theft and fraud, her use of 20 aliases, and a medical diagnosis that she suffers from "a psychotic syndrome.""

That case prompted an investigation that revealed that the Florida foster care program had "lost" 88 other children. There were thousands more elsewhere. Presumably, a number of these just ran away, and haven't been found because they don't want to be. But it shouldn't take the realization that one state's foster care program "lost" a five year old girl to get people to investigate and discover that children are missing.

Here's another:

"The parents of four boys adopted from New Jersey's troubled foster care system were arrested Friday, two weeks after the police found that the children, ages 9 to 19, had been starved to the point that none of them weighed more than 50 pounds, according to the Camden County prosecutor.

The boys were so badly malnourished that their shriveled bodies gave no hint of their ages, investigators said. At 19, the oldest was 4 feet tall and weighed 45 pounds. The police initially thought he was just 10 years old. The boys' condition was discovered when a neighbor called the police because the 19-year-old, Bruce, was looking for food in the neighbor's trash at 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 10, according to the county prosecutor, Vincent P. Sarubbi. The boys were removed from the home later that day. (...)

A caseworker from the Division of Youth and Family Services, the state agency that oversees the foster care system, had visited the house at 318 White Horse Pike 38 times in the past 2 years, investigators said. The parents, Raymond Jackson, 50, and his wife, Vanessa, 48, rented the house, which passed a safety assessment by the caseworker and her supervisor in June. (...)

The case is the latest in a series of discoveries revealing the collapse of New Jersey's child welfare system, which left the youngsters it was charged with protecting vulnerable to abuse and neglect in troubled homes with little oversight."

In that case, as in the first, one reason these children were allowed to suffer so much for so long was that the foster care system charged with protecting them was just broken (see also here and here):

"State workers did not follow their agency's own guidelines when visiting the Jacksons' Camden County home, when obtaining routine medical records for the boys and when checking the family's unsteady finances, according to a report released Thursday by the state's independent child advocate, Kevin Ryan.

In fact, the report said, the state's child welfare policy in general is so poorly understood or ignored by workers that it is ''almost meaningless.'' (...)

The report amounts to the latest and perhaps most damning portrait of a child welfare system that Gov. James E. McGreevey and others -- including the agency itself, the Division of Youth and Family Services -- conceded last year was broken almost beyond comprehension. The death of Faheem Williams, a 7-year-old foster child whose body was found hidden in a Newark basement in January 2003, spurred widespread calls for change and led Mr. McGreevey to create the post of child advocate."

Every time I read one of these stories, I have the same thought: why oh why don't we, the citizens, simply make it clear that this is intolerable? These are children. Children enter foster care because they are being badly abused or neglected. They deserve better from us. At a minimum, they deserve to have someone notice if they disappear for over a year, or if they are 19 years old and weigh 45 pounds. If that's not happening, it should be completely unacceptable, the way it would be unacceptable if we discovered that our soldiers or police had no weapons at all, or that the Congress had literally given away the Capitol Building to some Senator's fishing buddy.

The reason this continues, I suspect, is that fixing the foster care system would cost money, and anyone who proposed it would be accused of just wanting more "wasteful government spending." Money isn't the answer to all the problems of the foster care system, but providing more money is a necessary condition for fixing it. One constant that runs through all these stories is that the caseworkers are so overburdened that they don't have the time to really do their jobs. (The caseworker overseeing the home where the Jackson boys were starving to death had over twice the recommended maximum number of cases, as did the caseworker who lied about having visited Rilya Jackson.) Excessive caseloads compound a foster care system's problems by making it harder to recruit and retain good caseworkers; last year, 34 states identified (pdf) caseloads as a problem with their efforts to recruit caseworkers. And if caseworkers have colleagues who are themselves overworked, the likelihood that someone will be able to pitch in when one caseworker finds him- or herself with more than s/he can handle, or notice when a caseworker goes bad, shrinks to zero.

Jim McDermott has introduced what looks like decent legislation to fix some problems with foster care. The current eligibility requirements for federal foster care and adoption assistance are tied to a family's eligibility for AFDC in 1996. Because this eligibility requirement is not indexed for inflation, it means that fewer and fewer kids are eligible for federal assistance. This legislation fixes that. It also lets kids stay in foster care until they are 21, which is a very good thing. It is, in many ways, a good piece of legislation, and I wish Obama and Clinton would co-sponsor it.

However, it really falls down on the all-important question of money. It provides "$200 million per year for States to improve the ability of child welfare workers to ensure positive outcomes for children, with an emphasis on reducing caseloads per worker and increasing case worker training, retention and supervision." When I first read that, I thought: is that $200 million per state? Admittedly, it would make no sense to give the same amount to Wyoming or Utah as to California or New York, but it would make more sense than thinking that $200 million dollars is enough to fix the caseworker shortage for the entire country. It's not even close. And until we get caseloads down to some reasonable level, we are going to continue to have kids overlooked or lost by the system. Which is to say: children under our care will continue to be abused or killed because we can't be bothered to pay enough to protect them.

Having too few caseworkers is a problem whose solution clearly requires money: either money for hiring more caseworkers, or money for programs designed to prevent kids from having to go into foster care in the first place, or, preferably, both. That is money we ought to be willing to spend. If we were talking about adults, we could argue about whether they are responsible for finding themselves in a bad situation, and whether they should be expected to get out of it on their own. But no one can argue that Rilya Wilson, who was five years old when she disappeared, did not deserve our protection, or should have been able to take care of herself.

Personally, I'd prefer to pay for this by eliminating agricultural subsidies or pulling out of Iraq. But if that can't happen, I'd be happy to pay a few dollars more in taxes just to know that if some foster parents decide to starve children whom the government is charged to protect, or a five year old foster child vanishes, someone, somewhere will notice and do something to help.

Comments

[Fraud Guy]

Unfortunately, It does not matter how much money is funneled into child care agencies.

In Illinois, my home state, the best funded, private agency (under the control of the Archdiocese of Chicago), ran into a spot of trouble a few years back with suicides and rapes at their showcase campus. Their network was disbanded, but the principles they founded their care on (concentration of children, minimal staffing, and perks for the top level employees) have been transmitted to some of the agencies who took its place.

The agency I dealt with had more workers in their community relations, fundraising, and accounting staff than child care workers, and wanted to maintain their staff size while increasing the number of children served, because "more children would give us more money to serve the children."

The real question is on how to hold those receiving the funding accountable for their actions, as the current incentive program has been thoroughly gamed.

[hilzoy]

Fraud Guy: I think both are key. It's crucial to reform agencies that need it. But I don't see how all the reforms in the world will help if caseworkers have double or triple the recommended maximum number of cases.

Moreover, as long as caseworkers are overloaded, it's really, really hard to attract the kind of good staff you'd need to make any reforms work.

[trilobite]

Not much to say, except that I agree with everything you said here.

This post and your post about Steiglitz are a matched pair, of course.

[jdog]

A friend of mine was raised by Catholic nuns until about age 7. At that point in time the state that she lived in decided that children should live in foster homes, which were supposed to be more like "real" families. Her view is that those families were primarily interested in the income provided by the state for the foster services. She and the other children were treated miserly--and shuffled off from home to home.

She believes being raised by the nuns would have been FAR better.

[hilzoy]

Trilobite: yes; when I wrote the Stiglitz post, I was riffling through my list of no-brainer spending items that shouldn't be ideological, and decided this one was too complicated to be in the Stiglitz post, but deserved its own. So I used infrastructure there instead.

[Jesurgislac]

Hilzoy: Having too few caseworkers is a problem whose solution clearly requires money: either money for hiring more caseworkers, or money for programs designed to prevent kids from having to go into foster care in the first place, or, preferably, both.

And money to pay for assessing (and training) people who want to be foster parents, and to subsidise the costs of having a foster child. It's something I'm personally interested in, and this is itself a project that costs: you want the right kind of people to apply to be a foster parent, you don't want anyone to apply for the money alone (a good assessment program should weed those people out, of course, but that costs money too) and you want to provide enough money per child that people can become foster parents even if they are themselves on a very low income - if the assessment program judges them suitable. Overloaded caseworkers and bad foster care are a recipe for disaster.

[GSP]

I think it is important to keep in mind that 99% of the "clients" are living in poverty and barely surviving with so many other issues such as transciency, addictions, their own unresolved abuse etc. How does someone that can not care for themselves, nevermind care for their children advocate for a better system? If the parents were healthier and able to fight for themselves, it is unlikely that Child Protection Services would even be involved in their lives. In short, the very people that are required to fix the system are themselves broken and incapable of doing it. As Obama said "(w)e are the ones we have been waiting for." In this case, the ones needing the change and the one's needing to make the change the most don't have the capacity. By no means am I saying that it is only the ones being effected that should be doing something about it but in reality no one would carry the level of credibility or passion as those that have been impacted by this corrupt system. Further, no one would have their level of commitment to the cause.

Second, I think we need to know the difference between Child Protection Services and the Foster Care System. Most Child Welfare involvement (at least in my experience in Canada but doubt it would be any different in US and elsewhere) has the children remain in the home while services are provided though I often question the quality of those services. Typically it is the children who are at high risk that are removed/apprehended from their parents/caregivers and placed in foster care. I think both aspects are broken (for lack of a better word, as I highly doubt it was ever unbroken or whole) but the foster care system especially sticks out taking into consideration F.C is supposed to be a better alternative than the horrible situation the children are being taken from.

Though F.C does have it's place I think due to high caseloads, burnout, etc Social Workers don't do their due diligence (in some cases the system or legislation does allow them to) in looking at other options such as extended family or others with special interest in the family/children, etc. F.C or as many like to call it, Stranger Care does not provide the kind of long term care that children need such as long term placement/security (i.e. it is not unheard of for children to be in 10 different foster homes in 2 years), roots to develop, etc. When the youth turns 18 or whatever the age of majority may be, they are given a tap on the butt and told to have a good life. How many of us would have survived life all alone at that age (add on top of it the scars that they are caring from the years of abuse) without our connections to parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc? If children need to be taken from their parents I believe the best option is to put more resources into supporting family members to care for the children (in the long term this is likely less costly and my experience has been, more successful). Who is more likely to WANT to care for these children and provide better care, strangers or family? In those cases where such a placement or arrangement is not possible then by all means look at foster care but it truly should be a last option and never seen as the soluation.

In the end, I'm not holding much hope in this system being fixed in the near or distant future.

gsp

PS. Hilzoy, great blog, really enjoy your insights and analysis.

[OCSteve]

I have a cousin who has a career in social work. The poor guy is literally paid so little that he had to move back home to live with his parents when he lost a roommate. He simply can’t afford to pay rent for an apartment on his salary (he lives in Long Island, in a high cost of living area). He has a position with a lot of responsibility and he’s literally on call 24x7 – yet he’s not paid enough to afford a one bedroom apartment. If you can manage to make $30,000 in the field you’re doing well.

[Phil]

Tangential to the real topic of the post, there are times when the deepest, darkest part of me believes that we need to bring back the stocks and other forms of public humiliation for certain crimes.

[Slartibartfast]

Every time I read one of these stories, I have the same thought: why oh why don't we, the citizens, simply make it clear that this is intolerable?

Because it doesn't do any good. The supervisory agency in question is the state, and the state, for the most part, doesn't care a bit about the welfare of children.

It does, however, care a great deal about the appearance of hoop-jumping. Placement rules must be followed, and can never be quesioned. Why, after all, pay any attention to a home study, when there's can of insecticide sitting on a high shelf that the rules say must be locked up in a strongbox? Why consider that people who have successfully raised other children just might know what they're about, as parents, when there's a box left unchecked on the list of things prospective foster parents Absolutely Must Do?

Been there, done that. It's almost as if the system was designed to discourage people with legitimate cares about children, while encouraging people who know they can abuse the child while the state isn't looking (which is a great deal of the time, post-placement).

And yes, I live in Florida. Florida is a lot of the reason we don't have three children. No regrets, because I think two just might be the right number for us.

Oh: to clarify, to adopt through the state of Florida, you have to satisfy the same set of requirements that foster parents do, and we were going to adopt through fostering anyway. Long story; not very interesting in its particulars, except those relevant to this. I think most of the problems in this chunk of the state's function is that keeping track of children is to an important extent proactive, and to a large degree state agencies are reactive.

[hilzoy]

Slarti: that sounds awful. That said: I haven't known anyone in child protective services, but I have known people in government who genuinely care about trying to do the right thing. But I can't imagine -- I mean, not at all -- how they would manage either to be a caseworker under present conditions, or how they would try to ameliorate the foster care program in some managerial capacity, so long as the funding, and thus the caseloads, are the way they are.

[Slartibartfast]

I think our basic problem, here, is that the state tends to hire administrative drones to run this sort of program, and they hire administrative worker-bees to take care of the day-to-day details. And, certainly, it's possible that the caseload is much too large.

China does a better job of taking care of its orphans than we do, I think, and they've got a lot more of them. That should give everyone pause: if China's doing a better job at taking care of its people in any way at all, as compared with us, we're doing it wrong.

[Jesurgislac]

Hilzoy, I think the kind of nitpicky assessment Slarti describes happens most frequently when the person assigned to check out a potential foster care home is being paid so little - and being given so little time - that all they can do is go through a checklist. (You see very similiar things happen whenever people assigned to do a job they know is important are given minimal time to accomplish it, less training, and the pay sucks: see airport security staff, etc.)

[Slartibartfast]

I mean, it's certainly possible to do it right, but that's not where we're headed.

Sure, everyone knows someone who would be GREAT at this kind of thing, but those people aren't, in general, working for the state. Could be an income issue, or it could be disdain for working as a nameless, faceless nobody in an organization of nameless, faceless nobodies. I have no idea how to remedy the latter, I confess.

[Slartibartfast]

that all they can do is go through a checklist

Maybe that, maybe they don't have the authority to go against the rules. I think some of this stuff is hooked firmly into state law, or at least that's what they tell us.

It is easier, though, to travel eight thousand miles or so to adopt a baby than it is to adopt a baby that lives ten miles from here. It's a good chunk of why we did that very thing, twice.

[Gary Farber]

"Sure, everyone knows someone who would be GREAT at this kind of thing, but those people aren't, in general, working for the state. Could be an income issue, or it could be disdain for working as a nameless, faceless nobody in an organization of nameless, faceless nobodies."

I don't believe that latter at all.

My parents were both social workers before I was born, and while I was young (later my mother segued into being an "attendence teacher," and then teaching reading; my father continued doing work as a psychologist/therapist for adolescents, until he was too crazy to work); most of their friends, whom I saw a lot of, were social workers and psychologists and the like; many worked for the NYC Board of Education, or the City, or other governmental organizations.

While I was hardly impressed with all aspects of each such person, I can certainly say that all were dedicated to helping out other people, and being varying degrees of idealistic, and that's why they chose government service.

I've also done a moderate mount of temping for government agencies in earlier decades of my life -- a few years worth -- and I'll also testify that more than not the people I knew who worked for government social agencies did so with a fair amount of idealism in mind, although certainly not every single one of them, and certainly some had gotten most of their's burn out. And, naturally, a steady and decent, though not spectacular, paycheck, with good benefits, was also usually part of the attraction.

But a notion that good people are generally prone to avoiding working for government social service agencies because of "disdain for working as a nameless, faceless nobody in an organization of nameless, faceless nobodies," doesn't jibe with my own experience very much.

I've frankly met an awful lot more people who have said they would never work for a large corporation for that reason.

Like, several hundred to maybe two. So MMV on this.

Which isn't to say that I've haven't met horrid people working for government agencies, including social service agencies, who treated people horribly, mind, because I've met some of them, too. But I've met more good people. (Although not so many working on the front lines of the NYC welfare agency, I have to say.)

And let me hasten to say that I totally believe your account of your experience, of course, Slarti, and I'm very sorry to hear about it.

[Child Person]

"Every time I read one of these stories, I have the same thought: why oh why don't we, the citizens, simply make it clear that this is intolerable?"

What makes you think the citizens, in general, consider these things intolerable?

I'm amazed and appalled at the comments regularly made to reports around the country of stories such as you cite here. Most people don't seem to care a whit about the failures of the system... or the living breathing children it fails. And the others who do care, find themselves blocked at any attempt to make changes.

For a while I was a CASA (a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate for Abused and Neglected Children). That position gave me legal access to all kinds of records concerning the children. Resistance by organizations was common! What you see on the surface of these cases is nothing more than the proverbial "tip of the iceberg." By law, I can't speak! Morally I couldn't remain quiet so I resigned. Whistle Blowers aren't believed when there's no proof! And as all these stories indicate, nothing is changed when there is proof!

It's sickening after a while to hear again and again about the lack of money, over-worked, under-trained inexperienced case workers, over burdened and unavailable supervisors, overcrowded courts, ad infinitum...all probably true, but in no way justifies the failure to protect children... or even just keep track of them!

In a 1977 Yale Law Journal book-review Hillary Rodham said:
"By and large, the legal profession considers children - when it considers them at all - as objects of domestic relations and inheritance laws, or as victims of the cycle of neglect, abuse, and delinquency."

I don't know if she still thinks that way, but I think she was on target. And yet 30 years later we still look to the legal profession, that probably still considers children "as objects" to change child welfare systems that depend on implementation by people whose basic human behaviors have gone awry. (See Andrew Vachss's articles).

Good article. Thank you!
A Child is Waiting.
Take care...be aware.
Nancy Gray (AKA Child Person From The South)

[Slartibartfast]

My experience is not one to be sorry for, Gary, although I do appreciate the thought. What's to be sorry about is the kids who are not finding homes, or the kids who are finding bad homes.

Our particular case had some other considerations that I won't go into, except for that we had to weigh whether it was fair to daughter #1 if we took on another child with possibly severe healthcare issues, and that helped tip us in the direction of calling it quits, family-size-wise.

Again: this isn't about us so much as it is about families that might otherwise form, if the state weren't being quite so much of an obstacle.

Your point about the nameless/faceless bit is taken, even if I'm not completely convinced by it. Not unconvinced, either.

My own experience of the large corporate environment, incidentally, is that it is easy to disappear in the crowd, but it's also easier than I thought, distinguishing myself from the crowd. Not easy, really; more like extremely difficult, but that's more related to me being effective enough to be noticed than actually getting noticed. Not that I ever cared about such things; getting noticed has been really a side effect of me taking on more responsibility for work that interests me.

/anecdote

[Jesurgislac]

It is easier, though, to travel eight thousand miles or so to adopt a baby than it is to adopt a baby that lives ten miles from here.

Oh, baby adoption. Yes. Certainly in the UK, given there are so few babies being abandoned by their mothers to the care of strangers these days, couples who are determined they only want to adopt a baby are being pushed through more and more hoops. There are, of course, plenty of children in need of secure and loving homes - but many people do prefer to travel to another country to get a cute little baby than look around for a child who needs a home in their own country.

[Slartibartfast]

Well, I wasn't talking about newborns, actually, but I don't think I'm comparing two completely differences by discussing adoption and fostering in the same thread.

In Florida, the requirements are roughly the same for each, as I've said. Also, the state practically wrestles you into the fostering track, with the insinuation that you can wind up adopting a child you foster. Which they can't guarantee.

Possibly all this is simply a result of that the State's care burdens are mostly kids in need of a foster home, but eventually a lot of those kids are going to wind up being adopted.

Or should be, on the off-chance that they're not returned to their abusive parents.

[Sebastian]

[long sigh]

I worked a year in a dependency clinic as the child advocate and I have stories. Counterintuitively, in California one of the problems is that there is so much shielded under privacy laws. I think if people could really hear about what happens on a completely routine basis, they wouldn't put up with it.

[Slartibartfast]

My wife worked with a woman that did foster parenting, a while back. One of her charges she had to sequester in his/her own room, to keep him/her from sexually molesting the other children, having grown up sexually abused by his/her parents.

The worst thing was, he/she was eventually returned to those same parents.

I've got other situations, but they're similarly depressing.

[Teresa]

I was a foster care case worker in SC for ten years. The one thing I prided myself on was that I never missed a home visit with a child. But the system desperately needs overhauling. For one thing, foster care costs are billed to medicaid. I never understood why no one at medicaid ever bothered to pick up the phone and do random checks with foster families to see whether or not they were getting home visits. (Most foster families want contact with their worker -- good ones anyway.)

There is a lot of pressure from the courts to send children home with relatives rather than licensed foster families. While this can be good at times, I found from hard experience that the apple rarely falls far from the tree. If Momma & Daddy are crack heads, then Grandma probably is too. I don't mean to sound like a hater, it is just the fact that disfunctional parents tend to be produced by other disfunctional parents. You would not believe the cycles of drug abuse, sexual abuse, and physical abuse that you see repeated generation after generation.

Starting pay for caseworkers is crappy. I never met a single caseworker who didn't have a second job to make ends meet unless they were married. We had to take turns carrying a beeper at night and on the weekends and being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to go to homes where people were pointing guns at us, drunk and verbally abusive, etc... Turnover is very high in both child welfare and foster care.

I will say that it was amusing to see that people with MSW's burned out the fastest and were typically the worst caseworkers. THey want to save the world and were unable to deal with the fact that most of casework is putting bandaids on situations while you run to the next situation.

I feel bad for people who want to be foster parents, but I also did a stint at foster home licensing as well. There are plenty of folks who could pass every qualification, but who I felt in my gut would be terrible foster parents. I had developed a pretty good radar for pedophiles by then. We would end up licensing people because there was no way to turn them down and then telling supervisors privately not to put kids with them. In the end, kids always did end up in those homes because there were too few homes and too many kids.

The worst thing to deal with however was the court system. Parents -- no matter how abusive -- are given chance after chance while their children rot in foster care. Judges listen to defense attorneys rather than the caseworker who is with the child all the time. I finally quit when a judge sent a girl home who had been sexually abused by two stepfathers when her dingbat mom showed up at court married to a third man. The judge said that should fix the problem because now Mom was properly married. Surprise, surprise: she had married another pedophile.

[hilzoy]

Teresa: thanks for the work you did. I imagine that if the kids you helped were reading here, they'd probably thank you too.

[trilobite]

I did a Legal Aid stint and saw some of those court cases -- the judges are basically following state policy which in all states is to try very hard to make the biological family work, for many reasons:

people throw very public s**tfits about the state stealing their children;

most parents are in fact more concerned for their kids than CPS and the foster care system can ever be;

Foster care costs the state money;

Being taken away even from a bad family is traumatic for any child. It may be the best of bad options, but it remains a harmful act, and the law has a strong status quo bias in all fields.

There is also a belief, which I think has far less foundation in reality, that kids are better off being returned to their families than staying with a foster family, other things being equal. I suspect that being bounced back and forth just magnifies the separation anxiety and attachment disorder, and that kids should be taken away for a few weeks or forever, nothing in between.

[Turbulence]

I had developed a pretty good radar for pedophiles by then.

Teresa,

Wow. In your experience, are there really that many pedophiles in the general population?

[felix culpa]

Stunning stuff.
Thanks to all.

[bc]

I have regular contact with child protective services and the foster care system. I think we're missing the point here. Foster care is not really a solution, but simply something to treat the symptom. Broken families are the problem. Foster care does nothing or very little to fix that. It does remove kids from dangerous situations, and to the extent it is limited to that, does its job.

However, CPS constantly oversteps its bounds. I've seen that in two states now. Sure, there are horror stories like Teresa's. But trilobite is right about the problems of removing a child even from a bad family. It causes a lot of trauma. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, extensive drug and alcohol abuse, sure, we have to remove. But removing a child for occasional spankings or accusations that haven't been corroborated?

As a society we have moved strongly towards having the government take care of our social problems instead of taking care of them ourselves. Instead of taking care of our parents in the older years, we put them in rest homes. Children are placed with foster parents instead of relatives.

I had two grandparents as clients that wanted to take in their granddaughter. They couldn't qualify as foster parents because the grandfather's prints couldn't be read (fingerprints of the elderly are often hard to read). The feds had two tries but by then six months had passed. The state wouldn't waive the requirement. The judge left the granddaughter with the foster parents.

I agree that there is much we could do and should do to fix the foster care system. But at the same time we need to put even greater energy into simply helping families. Otherwise we are must treating the symptom.

[RevealTruth]

We pay for governmental agencies to protection children, then we pay agencies to protect children from the agencies that are to protect. Redundant mis-use of funds. Investigators need to look at the allegations, then look for the actual supportive documentation time line. Much of what CPS documents is bogus, and they willing commit perjury together to conspire to make their lies a fact. The web they weave is intense, but false. But when there is a true abuse report, CPS fails to act. It seems as if they have no criteria or state laws to use as a guideline of what is true abuse or neglect. CPS workers can be subject, biased, and violate the rights of both parents and children, as CPS make up their own rules as they go. They are never held accountable, so who will stop their negligence?

Many children taken from their parents was done so for the state to profit from federal dollars by federal incentives, programs, bonuses, and grants. Many families throughout this nation are devastated, and the lives of children are meaningless to the gain of the dollar profits for the states. Child Protection Services is a facade of 'protection', but is really a human trafficking business.

In Indiana, like many other states in the nation, children have a price tag on their heads and large amounts of federal funding given to the state, as the state workers are allowed to commit perjury, make false bogus cases, and parents threaten to remain quiet. If the truth of what Indiana does against parents and children, or the crimes state workers are allowed to get by with, could only be revealed to all.

In the last several months, children have been murdered while under state care, but none of the Dept. of Children workers are investigated or held accountable. The prosecutor does nothing, the police do nothing, the head of the dept., James Payne, ignores and did ignore our cry for help, and the Governor, Mitch Daniels, refuses to respond to our requests to speak to him. The Attorney General protects Dept. of Children, as he refuses to do anything, as he is to protect them. But yet, the Attorney General says his office runs the Consumer Protection Agency. Conflict of interest? The Attorney General, Steve Carter, delights to say citizens can sit at dinner without soliciting phone calls, but forgets to mention we have to donate time to arrange and attend the funerals of many innocent children, who were horrifically murdered. The he protects the agency that did nothing when notified of the danger the children were in. We know the truth. Our legislators and senators, even the suppose to be accountable, governor, does nothing to prevent the state workers from committing crimes against both children and parents. There are many children that are listed under state care, that is just simply MISSING, but the state is still gain funding from the feds for those children. There is never audits, receipts given, or inspections of what is really going on within the dept of Child Protection Services.

If you only knew the crimes of the Indiana State governmental officials, you would literally throw up. Many citizens in Indiana are victimized and terrorized, but it depends on who you are to get help from such horror. The crimes behind the scenes and no one held accountable. Here in Indiana, Child Protection Workers can commit perjury, falsification of court records, police can make false reports, prosecutors can laugh at a 911 tape of a woman beaten in her own car, and also make false charges on the abused woman, to protect the man abuser.

My family is aware of the crimes against families and children, done so by Child Protection Services. The federal government also knows about the crimes, but do nothing. More and more money is utilized to literally kidnap children, in order to gain federal funds, programs, and grants. Children are used as calves, as we pay tax dollars to fatten, then the children are mentally and emotionally devastated for life, that is, it the children live. Families loose their own flesh and blood kinship, as children loose their heritage, religion, culture, and families.

More children die under state care, and they are never accountable or responsible for their negligence. Did you know that each state is given funds by the federal government, and as we noted for Indiana; CPS is a government agency that makes large profits from removing children from homes, but what happens to the children while under state care, is swept under the rug, as least, in Indiana.

Has anyone noticed that all states, including Indiana, received authorized appropriated federal funds in the sum of 325,000,000 each fiscal year, (per the Title IV, part B, Sub part 1) and then gain $43,000,000 for each fiscal years 2004 through 2008, (which is why more and more children are removed un-necessarily from safe homes to be placed into foster care), and more funds from the federal incentives programs, and grants of $100,000,000, then federal payments for foster care and adoption assistance, just to start off with. CPS is the only agency that does not have to show what they do with their money, as it is a secret.

Moreover, to audit medical care by an insurance company, they review by medical record. So why isn't each case reviewed for use of funds by case number by an non-biased, nothing to gain, committee? After reviewing the federal Compilation of Titles IV-B, IV-E, and related sections of the SSA (May2006) and the appropriation guidelines and criteria for receiving the federal funds, Indiana state is pocketing billions upon billions of funds, under the facade of children in need of care. SEC.421. [42U.S.C. 621] (a), denotes the federal allotted funds, but does the state reflect the use of the funds, county to county? Does the county budget validate the funds they say they need?

And why is each entity of the Dept of Child Services, separated out to different budgets, but the funds all go toward the same agency? Does our state and county like to use deception of where our money is going? Just where is it going?

You will not find it as CPS Dept of Children has a tightly woven secretive web of distractions and hidden agendas, that never get to be viewed? Wake up Indiana, do you know all the funds given by the feds to the state, that is never exposed, as we pay over one billion dollars for services that is to help children?? Check our the Fair Access to Foster Care Act of 2005, or the Titles IV-B, IV-E, and all other grants and funding given to the state.

The re-reimbursement is never noted on the county budget. Each county should force the state to prove the need of our tax dollars with an itemized bill that actually has 1+1 to equal 2, because, somewhere, there is billions of dollars not appropriated to where we are told. Where does all this money show up on the county budgets? Why isn't all these allotted federal funds shown at the budget meetings? Why are we, the citizens paying taxes collectively of over one billion dollars to the state, to fund the negligence of a government agency, Dept. of Children, that uses hearsay, falsification of documentation, and violation of judicial process, which causes more harm to children, defames parents, and destroys families? Just where does all the money go?

The children are not getting it. And what about the money from SSI and DSSI, child support, and all the other grants and funds that are pouring into the state??
The federal agent, Federal Declare titlied agent #18097, is to validate and oversee the use of funds and validate the necessity, but this is quite impossible, as CPS or Dept of Children hide their books, falsify their use of funds, cannot keep accurate records, and fail to remember each lie they tell from interview to interview.

Moreover, all around the United States of American, parents are loosing their very own children by hearsay, lies, false documentation of CPS workers, and lack of judges from honoring their own oath. The business of removing children with intent to sell the children has become a big human trafficking government mofia, which is kept silent, as both children and parents are violated and victimized of the Human, Civil, and Constitutional Rights, our soldiers have and are laying down their lives for. This is a hush hush government reality. Parents have no where to go for help.

I am a woman that has witnessed how our government has taken away all rights for democracy, liberty, and justice, from a woman who fled with her infant from abuse, only for the infant to be given to the abuser, with great intent, by Child Protection Services. Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, who campaigned to have an open door policy regarding the crimes and negligence of Child Protection Services, now called Dept of Children, failed to do so, with purpose, as this governmental agency is a large money making business of human trafficking and literally defaming parents without regards for the Constitutional, Civil, or Human Rights. Lawmakers have no clue on the reality of what CPS is doing. What they say and what they really do, is a different as night is to day.

Be cautious of what the government in regards to the agency that is to 'protect', says and does, as they failed to honor all laws and rights citizens have, including the rights and wel-fare of children. Political officials make promises, but once elected, their campaign promises of the election is forgotten. I clearly remember the promise of Mitch Daniels, "I will have an open door policy regarding Child Protection Services". That is a laugh. When an agency of the government is given full reign without over sight, human trafficking, child laundrying business, and money laudrying, will become the only factor of the focus, not to protect. Mitch Daniels has failed to respond to many Indiana Citizens with his 'open door'. We, the citizens of Indiana and the United States know the truth of corruption, violation of Civil, Constitutional, and Human Rights, as we have be terrorized and victimized by the largest terrorist group in the world, The U.S. Child Protection Services, government agency.

How can democracy be upheld in the United States of America, when complaints against judges are reviewed by their own friend peers, Child Protection Services, investigated by their own department agency, or the Attorney General for the state to be the legal counsel for all government agencies, to deliberately ignore the crimes the state workers commit against citizens?

Who is legal counsel for the citizens?

We pay for the government to function, and we have to pay again with a private attorney to have our rights up-held!! In Indiana, the political figures function on their own agenda, not the needs of the citizens. Just like the attorney for Child Protection Services, as he threatens all who attempt to recite the laws, statutes, Civil, Constitutional, and Human Rights. When citizens inquire for information regarding the use of funds and the amount of federal re-inbursement given to the government agency, CPS, they refuse to honor the Freedom of Information Act and Open Access Indiana.

When citizens file complaints to the federal government, the feds just send a letter that they can not do anything, so take the complaints back to the state officials that are committing the crimes and victimization. Have we lost all our rights in the United States?

The fact that women and children are in much "lack of" protection in the United States, and ignored when cries for help is screamed out. I find it hard to believe, Republican President Bush, cares anymore for the victimizaiton of women and children in Indiana or elsewhere in the nation, as it IS the government agency that is allowed to perform in the horrific manner of harming more children than helping, defaming and financially burdening innocent parents, and allowing the states to use Magic words, to de-fraud the federal government pockets.

The Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels: After many letters, calls, and walk in visits to the State House, our Governor, Mitch Daniels, refuses to listen and failed to build that "Open door policy" he stated as a promise during his campaign. Indiana Representative, Evan Bayh, stated the “Governor is ultimately responsible for the actions or lack of actions of CPS”. Two employees under Mitch Daniels, were very well aware of what was happening to us and still happening to many others. Neither seem to be concerned. Though, Scott Zarazee, did write 2 years ago, he would look into the concern, but nothing more done or said.

The Attorney General, Steve Carter' office response: ..."the Attorney General acts as legal counsel for the State of Indiana . We do not have jurisdiction in issues such as yours." This means, the Attorney General will do nothing to protect the citizens, parents, or children! It is okay for Dept of Children to commit perjury and falsification of court records. It is not about protection, it is about getting children in the system to waste money. Also, this also means, that a large hospital can overdose infants, doctors can refuse a patient the right to choose their own trusted doctor, CPS can allow an overdose of medication to be administered, that is highly neurotoxin and nephrotoxin to a 5 day old infant, and allow the hospital staff to refuse to identify who they were. This is the same response from the Indiana Health Department. “There was not enough documentation in the medical record to make a judgment”. Well, duh, like the staff and doctors are going to document what they did? Furthermore, the response from the Indiana Attorney General is no surprise, as the Attorney Generals Office will always deny claims against CPS, as the Attorney General will protect CPS, regardless of the cries. Unfortunately, citizens believe the falsehood regarding the Attorney General protects Indiana citizens. Quite similar, as citizens also believe the facade that CPS actually “protects” children or “preserves” families! Are we, the citizens of Indiana , so naive that we are simply paying an enormous amount of taxes without concern for any true necessary services to be rendered from our political leaders?

The Attorney General Inspector, David Thomas, response: "" .. Do as you are told ... or loose...” He has known for over 14 years of the CPS crimes done to children, parents, and the mockery of the judicial system, but he ignores the crimes done by CPS. This means, the Attorney General Inspector is aware of the crimes and victimization of innocent citizens and harm to children, but no investigation will take place, citizens have no rights. But, isn't’t investigation his job? He does get paid, right? For what?

The Head of Department of Children Services, James Payne, response: ""... I concur with the agency’s action in this matter." This means that even though the CPS workers committed perjury, falsification of court records, and gave an infant to a man, not known to be the father, for him the bash in her head, beat her fragile body, then DCF staff refuse medical treatment, and then the staff to hand walk the abuser into court, and refuse to tell the judge of his cocaine, and THC use, Bi-polar and Manic Depression, multiple arrests for battery, theft, robbery, and more. Even though this agency knew their allegations were all false, they still say they “substantiated” the allegations. By what you may ask. By perjury and falsification of documentation, of the social workers and case managers, employees paid for by the state. Doesn't substantiated mean valid factual evidence? Not when it comes to CPS. They are not held accountable or responsible for the lives of any child. They willingly defamed an innocent mother, kept her new born child from her for 7 months, then CPS acted like nothing happened. This is NOT an isolated case, this is the norm. Child Protection Service staff are liars. I believe, that the Chief of Staff for Marion County Prosecutor' office, was slated in for judge by promise of James Payne to allow my family to be victimized and not charge the abusing man for his crimes, and to make multiple false police reports against the victimized mother, and allowed the infant to remain in danger. Lisa Borges, is now a judge. Um.

The Indiana Ethics Office: "We have received your complaints against FSSA and/or DCS. The Investigator General has already reviewed your complaint and determined that neither the Inspector General nor the Ethics Commission has jurisdiction over this case. Thank you for contacting us,...." This means that there is not one person in the state that will help a parent or child that is victimized by Child Protection Services. Not one. Not your Federal, State, or Local Representative, nor your City Council, Prosecutor, Police, not one person is willing to step in to stop the crimes of CPS toward innocent parents, children, and families as a whole. The Marion County Prosecutors office: " ..... We cannot help ... our hands are tied.....” , REFUSED TO ALLOW THE VICTIM TO FILE AGAINST HER ATTACKER, REFUSED TO ALLOW A PROTECTIVE ORDER TO BE SERVED. This means that regardless of the crimes of the agency, CPS and their affiliates, their crimes go un-punished. They walk about as a god.

The former Director of Prevent Child Abuse Indiana, Andie Marshall, response: “……..we advocate for systems that protect and support children. It is not an excuse but the sad reality is that Indiana has for too long allocated too little to meet the growing needs of families and people in stressful situations. We continually work to advocate for changes....(Editorial Indianapolis Indiana Star, by Tim Evans)….. It was about the children under state' care. Not parents. It was the total of children under state' care each year with a 25-30% of the annual total of children under the state' care to die at the hands under the state providers, state fosters, ect…..and has been for over the past decade..." Over the past decade 25-30% of the annual total of children under the state’ care, DIE at the hands under the state!!! Doesn't’t this scare anyone? This means that even though it is known children are seriously abused and killed at the hands of strangers, placed into harms way by the care of this agency, CPS, which is costing Indiana tax payers over 1 billion dollars a year, but they still get paid to cause more harm to our innocent and precious children!!! Why not pump gas into a tank with a large hole in it, the effectiveness would be the same.

The State Representative for my area; David Frizzell response: There was no response given to us as we sent hundreds of letters to all government officials begging for help from 4/20/05 through 12/05. No responses in return. But when we noted that the Attorney General does no more than to claim and deny any fault regarding the actions of all government agencies, big businesses, or big political supporters, David Frizzell responded 06/19/07 when I commented against Steve Carter’ office, IAG, quickly saying: “…… I am making serious accusations…..” So, the life of a child or the defaming hardship of an innocent young woman is unworthy to be concerned about and not important enough to respond to the constituent, but the statement of concern regarding the Attorney General’ lack of concern or lack of action of the harm being done to the citizens by government, Big businesses, and Big political supporters, are worthy to immediately respond to safeguard his fellow politician?

So, who is our elected officials to be the stewardship of service too? It is not, the citizens, at least, not in Indiana. NOW I AM IMFORMED THAT ALL THE CLAIMS MADE TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL WILL BE DENIED BY AN ELECTED OFFICIAL, BUT THE INVESTIGATION IS NOT COMPLETED AND WE HAVE NOT BEEN INFORMED THE CASES WHERE CLOSED AND DENIED. BUT THIS IS THE WAY STEVE CARTER' OFFICE RUNS, IT DENIES AND CLOSES CASES WITHOUT ANY INVESTIGATIONS, AS ONLY TO PROTECT GOVERNMENT, BIG BUSINESSES, AND BIG CAMPAIGN DONATORS, NOT THE PEOPLE!!!

The Villages, who locate foster homes for the children CPS snatch from their homes, makes a financial fortune from the corruption of Child Protection Services. The Villages are finding foster homes for children that most likely had safe homes, but due to the ability to make false reports by CPS without any question for validity, children are forced to suffer, parents lives come to an end with a broken heart, destroyed family, publicly defamed, and forced to loose every penny they have or ever will have, in attempt to get back their children. Once children are removed from their parents, by CPS, chances are they are seriously abused or killed before they reach the age of 18 years old.

Parents loose parental rights without a fair legal hearing. Hearsay is all that is used. Regardless of the facts, the truth, any and all evidence a parent has, the judge ignores the information, and the hearsay is rubber stamped as valid, false claims are documented as substantiated without evidence, and goodbye children!! Please, please, Don’t laugh, this is a reality. Governor, Mitch Daniels, Attorney Generals Office, Steve Carter, Attorney Generals Investigator, David Thomas, Head of Department of Children, James Payne, Indiana State Police, Marion County Prosecutor, Carl Brizzi, Local Police, and both CPS Attorneys and judges, are all aware of the fraudulent criminal actions of social workers and case managers, of CPS. However, it appears that no one has the integrity or ethical morals to do anything about it.

How many babies are stolen all over the state by a government agency, called CPS, that is no more than an agency that claims to "protect", but they make large amounts of money from the tax payers and the federal bonuses and grants? {Human Marketing & Human Trafficking} How many children are alienated from the parents and siblings without true cause? The greatest risk factors for children to be removed from their home has nothing to do with abuse or neglect, as single women, low income, battered and abused, or uneducated, are the targets to loose their children.

The Constitution is supposed to protect us. Our elected Politicians are supposed to support the written law, protect the citizens, and both listen and act up the concerns and needs of the people!! How corrupt can a state be? The Federal Government ignores the complaints and request complaints to be re-submitted to the people of the state who are committing the crimes and violations.

The rights of citizens are stomped on when CPS states, "Sign this paper or you will never see your child again". Or when a doctor forces un-necessary, very expensive, and very harmful medications, to an infant, with the aide of CPS placing the infant under state care without a court order, just because the mother wants to request her own, well know and trusted Pediatrician, to take over the health care needs of her infant. Many can testify to this bulling tactic.

Many children are removed from their parents and siblings, not because they needed to be protected, but because, the state needs children in the system to make a federal re-reimbursement profit. Doesn't this make anyone sick? Does it surprise anyone that none of our government officials believe the issue of children wrongfully removed from their home to be placed into harms way or for the state workers to lie and make a mockery of the courts, is worthy to be dealt with in a more vigorous manner? Indiana ' political official are more concerned for their political party issues, not the citizens!! It is the money, power, control to gain more money, at the expense of family unity and the children’s well-being. How many citizens are being abused by our own government? MILLIONS!!

Who can or will investigate? NO ONE IN OUR OWN GOVERNMENT FROM THE GOVERNOR DOWN TO THE POLICE Detective or Investigators! Child Protection Services, walk as a god, with disregard to all laws.

For it is written: "Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilts prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear: To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress" Psalm 10:17 - 18.

Do not the words, "One nation, under God, indefensible, with liberty, and justice for all", mean anything? Does it? What liberty, what justice, what rights in the Constitution, does CPS follow, honor, cherish, or give respect to? NONE! Again, the new age Hitler Dictatorship of CPS is real and stealing the rights of parents to be parents and children to bear the right to have heritage of their own family. What a shame, a criminal act towards all citizens in this state of Indiana , and of the nation!! We do not need more state workers in Indiana .

We need state workers that know the difference from truth and fiction, honesty and perjury, and skilled with the ability to assess all situations objectively rather than personally biased values to project their own subjective issues onto the families encountered. We need judges that have the desire to be involved with the families and the issues that can be managed as a family unit, to ask for evidence rather than accepting hearsay, and if the case has no basis, the judge should drop the case immediately! When a young mother fled an abusive man, to protect herself and infant from domestic abuse, CPS made sure the abuser could abuse the infant, and he did, CPS handed the infant to the man without any proof of being the father, allowed he to bash her skull in, then CPS workers, refused medical treatment for the infant.

Many pleads and begging for help at the Prosecutor’s Office were made, in person many times, phone calls, black and white evidence handed, 911 calls, and letters, to no avail, as Myron Hockman, Community Prosecutor, Linda Majors, Stacy Hawk, Lisa Borges, then Chief of Staff for Prosecutor' Office, refused to care, listen or act. Myron Hockman, laughed at the 911 tape of the mother being battered, and the courts refused to serve a protective order filed by an attorney, 11/08/05. "Shatter the Silence" is ignored by the political figures in the state of Indiana , as women and children are meaningless. (Keep in mind this young woman fled with infant for safety from the abuse of this man that has been in mental institutional care, leaving AMA, ect. and every agency in the state of Indiana ignored the woman's cry for protection, safety, and having her right to be heard. But in Indiana, women and children have no rights, and every agency that is to help the vicitm, only victimized the victim over and over again. What kind of emotional well-being does anyone think this woman could be in??? No where to go, no one to listen, no one in Indiana felt it important enough to lift a finger. From Mitch Daniels, Governor, to Carl Brizzi, Marion Co. Prosecutor. ) Is this an isolated case? No, this is the norm, in Indiana. Just what do any government workers do for the people in Indiana ? We pay for what? Victimization, ignored, lied to, terrorized, and oppressed. Why do we even have an election? Campaign promises are lies.

Perpetrators of Maltreatment is: Child Protection "Predator" Services CPS commits un-punished crimes against innocent parents and children and destroy families for Federal $$$Funds
Physical Abuse – 59 by parents 160 by CPS
Sexual Abuse – 13 by parents 112 by CPS
Neglect – 241 by parents 410 by CPS
Medical Neglect – 12 by parents 14 by CPS
Fatalities – 1.5 by parents 6.4 by CPS
FACT: Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the United States . These numbers come from The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) in Washington .

One in four children, under state care WILL die.

This is an issue all over the nation!!!!

For it is written: "Woe to those who make unjust laws, and those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people." Isaiah 10:1

I am a child of God, wife for 29 years to my high school sweetheart, mother of three grown children, grandmother of 4 precious children, and a Registered Nurse, BSN, a professional woman, that has witnessed how Methodist Hospital violated the right of a mother to choose her own well known and trusted doctor, as a Methodist doctor, who refused to sign off and give the case to the parent's selected doctor, and directed the violation of activity toward the patient, and all other hospital staff refused to allow the patient a Patient Advocate, professionals re-wrote the medical chart, forced the mother to sign a waiver for a second opinion on the legal document of Methodist Hospital as mother was threatened to never see her baby again it she refused to sign, forced the mother to also sign a CHINS paper for CPS, overdosed a 5 day old infant with a highly toxic medications without any rationale, signs or symptoms to pursue to do so, and CPS staff defamed an innocent mother, by perjury, falsification of documentation, and violating their own policies and procedures. CPS continued to hand an infant to a man that bashed in her skull concave, but the CPS workers refused to allow the infant medical care. My family' life and belief with NEVER be the same. This is how women and children are treated in Indiana . May God help us all who suffer? A lengthy horrific 911 tape of my daughter being attacked in her own car, as the man lounged through the driver' window, I sat paralyzed in the passenger' seat. The prosecutor's office, laughed. Pretend this is your daughter on the 911 tape, you sit in the passenger' seat, you know the man attacking your daughter is high on cocaine, you have in hand a court order to pick up the 10 month old baby girl, who is sitting in the man' back seat of his car, as his car is running, driver door open, parked in the middle of the street, the police refuse to honor the court order, allow the man to leave with the infant, and the prosecutor's office laughs at the 911 tape, and courts refused to serve a protective order. How you would feel? What would you do? The state of Indiana, especially, Marion County, allows this to happen to innocent women and children. This is a small amount of hell, we have suffered, and nothing was or is done. Women and children mean nothing in Indiana. How can the US help stop the citizens from being harmed in Iraq or teach the leaders in Iraq to care for their citizens, when innocent women and children are being victimized right here in the US, by our own government, and our elected officials ignore the issues? Since the government promoted bonuses to each state for adoptions, more and more children are being "stolen" from their loving and safe homes, CPS workers will commit perjury to use the "Magic Words" just to gain custody of a child without allowing parents due process, to be sold.

When did Indiana become a state of dictatorship?

*** Children's Bureau Express Nov 2004 http://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov HHS Awards Adoption Bonuses to States On October 14, 2004, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced the awarding of $17,896,000 in adoption bonuses to 31 States and Puerto Rico. The funding comes from the Adoption Incentives Program and is given to States that were successful in increasing the number of adoptions from the public child welfare system over the number of adoptions in 2002. ....The threshold to receive incentives has been reset based on the number of adoptions in FY 2002, making States that reached their highest number of adoptions in the earlier years of the program more likely to qualify for a bonus. ..." (THIS IS WHEN THE MASSIVE AMOUNT OF CHILDREN BEGAN TO BE REMOVED BY MERE FALSE ALLEGATIONS, parents defamed, families destroyed, AND CHILDREN SOLD LIKE CATTLE!)

Children, do not have to be abused, raped, or mistreated, or murdered, please, their voices must be heard!!!! Many children are being abused under state care, parents are being defamed, and families are being destroyed, needlessly. This must stop!! Please, help our leaders to see what is happening to the people they have been blessed by God, to serve for His Sake! My heart is full of sorrow, like never felt before, and tears flow without dryness near. Precious, innocent, unborn children, are slaughtered, not be cave men, but be educated professionals, and our leaders, turn their heads of the blood shed.

The United States citizens are victimized by the government agency, Child Protection Services and judges, that fail to protect those under their care. May the suffering and blood of every child, parent, and entire families, be on the hands of every politicial figure that has turned away to ignore the suffering of the cries of the US citizens. They all need our prayer for mercy to be given to them.

I am a professional woman that has witnessed first hand the lies and crimes of CPS and how there is no where to go for protection of this government agency that walks as a god, but does evil to destroy the innocent. Citizens have no avenue for protection against this government agency that causes more harm than good, and "protection" is the least of the motivation, as money is the controlling factor. Interesting web page of victimized parents who have choosen to speak the truth of the crimes of the US government agency, Child Protection Services, and the violation of Human Rights, and the US Constitution.
I will continue to pray for the Hand of God to reveal the truth about the crimes, of Child Protection Services.

The truth of what is happening is that CPS violates the rights of all citizens, not held accountable, responsible, or punished, and ignore and fail to 'protect'. Don't let this happen to your family and friends, please. CPS is the largest government agency that has no accoutability or responsibility, no oversight, and able to function in secrecy throughout the nation. This is no more than a business of human trafficking, done so as a mofia organization.

Just one testimony for the millions of citizens that is being terrorized by their own county. Didn't the US sign a treaty to up-hold the Human Rights, at the United Nations? Well, they lied about that too! CPS will show graphs and charts, budgets and numbers, but it depends on the audience, as we found that the numbers do not add up, nor can CPS explain the discreprancies. They lie. They are out of control. They answer to no one.

Our family will never be the same, and our faith of what true liberty, justice, and democracy, stood for, has been forever stomped to non-existence. We know the truth of how Child Protection Services can easily commit perjury and make a mockery of our justice system. CPS is accountable to no one, not even the children in their graves related to the 'protection' under state care. CPS answers to no one.

I stand behind every word I stated.

www.honkforkids.com
www.honkforkids.com/videoindex.htm

What Indiana Hoosiers stands for:
As two Indiana children sit at the lunch table during school, one child asks another child, "Why is Indiana called the Hoosier State, and what does Hoosier mean?"

The other child replied quite quickly, "Oh, that is easy. It is because it is the most used words in Indiana by many. Hoos ier mommy? Hoos ier daddy? Hoos ier sister? Hoos ier brother? Hoos ier grandma and grandpa?"

The inquiring child sat quietly, then tearfully responded, "You're right. Do you know Hoos ier mommy?"

The other child sadly responded, "No, but I am given an anti-depressant so I don't think about my mommy a lot. I was told my sister was in 11 different foster homes, and now, she is homeless."

The reality of suffering and devastation endured by Indiana children, as Indiana government officials enjoy the federal incentive bonus packages of financial profit. This is as you know a national issue, but our federal government ignores the outcry of the citizens. CPS is out of control. Until they are held accountable and responsible for their actions and lack thereof, children will continue to be murdered at the hands of strangers, and parents will be violated of their rights and defamed, leaving the family unit scarred for life. We know the truth, we now live in the poor house as we attempting to save the child, now under our care. Thank God.

[RevealTruth]

After the bogus fraudulent case was closed, the state was still listing the child under foster care and to who was receiving the funds for foster care for one full year, still is unknown.

We reported this fraudulent mis-use of funds, but when concerns regarding funds for Child Protection Services, they investigate themselves and hide their crimes well.

Child Protection Workers walk as a god, they are never responsible or accountable, and those poor children that are abused and murdered under state care by foster homes and institutional care, are noted as unfortunate deaths or inevitable deaths. The murderers do not get prosecuted.

The lives of children are not a concern for our government. The rights of parents and children, alike, are stomped on, ignored, and violated. There is no where to go for help. No where. When attempting to get help from the coersion and threats used by CPS, not even the law enforcement would listen. The courts are made a mockery of by CPS, and the judges forget the oath taken. Hearsay is utilized, perjury and falsification of court documents by CPS workers are ignored, and the deaths of children continue needlessly, as the federal government continues to send states re-imbursments, grants, program funds, and incentive bonuses, for the states to profit.

CPS is never forced to keep accurate records of the children, which allows many children to be lost in the system, as many children are missing and unable to be located. This governmental agency consumes billions of tax payers money, but the money is wasted, as CPS has no success, only a trail of dead children under their care.

CPS never has to account for the use of funds. There is no over sight, no mandated proof of necessity for spending the funds, and no receipts are required. This is the largest governmental agency that can parade a facade to 'protect children', but actually harm more children than that of parents. We pay CPS to harm children, we pay to protect ourselves from this out of control agency, who functions mainly on bogus hearsay lies.

[Gary Farber]

I think this puts paid to any complaints that I ever post any of the longer comments here.

;-)

That piece is a cut-and-paste job from here, and here, and comments here, and likely elsewhere.

[tom]

"Every time I read one of these stories, I have the same thought: why oh why don't we, the citizens, simply make it clear that this is intolerable? These are children."

Simple: Because nobody really cares. And by "nobody" I mean the tax paying citizens of this country.

That includes me. One who recently "fought" this system for 4 years and $40,000 (50? 60?). I know too many people on both sides (the good foster parents, and the good case workers) and even then I found myself on the losing side of too many of those battles (40K was not always enuf)

In the end it all worked out... I am fine, and more important, my sons are fine. My ex... went to prison, and I finally got to stop proving my innocence. My oldest graduated a couple of years ago, and the 2nd does this year. Why? Because I CARED.

Children who end up in foster care, do so because NOBODY cares.

All too often we beat up on the overworked case workers because they take a weekend for themselves. I have a very good friend who is one of these caseworkers and I marvel at his stamina, at his toughness in dealing with things we cannot imagine (losing a child is the least of it). He has been doing it for 20 plus years. (and acquiered a very dark sense of humor in the process)

So what are your solutions? Do we just sit here and bitch about the inequities of it all? The innocence lost? Or DO something?

And what would it be?

I will admit it. That is all I am incapable of little more just now. I am tired. I have saved 2. But I am all out of ideas. And money. However, my buddy Rich can use a little help in saving a half dozen or so (as a foster parent). He still cares. So does his wife. They are among my heros.

tom

[hilzoy]

tom: the only thing I can think of is to keep trying to convince people -- the citizens who vote for the people who could try to fix this but never do -- that we have to hold people accountable for failures like this. There is no earthly reason why a country that can send someone to the moon cannot devise a better way of protecting its children than the one we have now. None at all.

[martha hyde]

Below is an email that I received from this film director asking for folks in New Jersey and area to meet with him in order to expose Child Protective Services Corruption by documentary!

I urge you all to go to this meeting!

Hello All,

I am thinking of having the meeting on Wednesday Night, July 23, 2008. I am suggesting we meet at the Peter Pank Diner on Route 9 in South Amboy. Sometime around 7:00PM. This way people will have a chance to get home from work, or drive directly from work.

This location is convenient for all. It is located off the GSP, Near the Turnpike, Near 287, etc.

If you are going to attend, be prepared to buy a meal. They are not going to let us hang out there for a few hours free of charge.

If you know of someone that would be interested in this meeting, by all means, bring them.

I was also told about an event going on in W.D.C. on August 14th. If the person that told me about that event would get back in touch with me, I would really appreciate it.

I look forward to meeting you and getting one step closer to making this documentary a reality.

Michael

[Joseph]

This article came up while searching blogs for overcrowded courts in New Jersey on Google. I appreciated finding it since it explains one reason for the overcrowded courts, and it relates to one real life situation I am aware of. Something has been lost with family life and moral values in America. No amount of state money or case workers can take care of all the children if parents are not going to be responsible.