@@What happens when the state takes your child

[jamaicam]

’No matter what I do, I’m not in control’: what happens when the state takes your child

I just read this article about children in state custody and the fight their mothers (usually poor and black) have to get them back. While unfortunately it does not surprise me that the system is biased against people who are already at a disadvantage, I still found it a moving and depressing read.  

[onomatopoeia]

I'd love to read this but the link just takes me back to this post?

[ellipses84]

I couldn’t read the link.

This article talks about some of the same issues, related to doctors misdiagnosing abuse, CPS putting them in foster care and the parents having a difficult time getting them back.

www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/child-abuse-or-medical-problem-wa-doctor-pushes-back-on-questionable-cases/#:~:text=The%20lawsuits%20follow%20a%20King

@@ PDQ

I know 2 young couples (18+) and who had their infants taken away from them in the past couple years due issues they immediately sought medical attention for but because they didn’t know the origin and wouldn’t admit to abuse they didn’t commit, the process took many months longer to resolve than if they admitted guilt. This article mentions a case just like one of theirs, where they are a BiPOC family and the bruises turned out to be birthmarks that became more apparent, and it still took them 9+ months to get full custody back due to a backlogged court system. If one parent said, I made a mistake and took my arm off baby and they fell off the bed while I was changing their diaper, the other parent could have possibly kept custody while they attended parenting classes. Since both parents said we didn’t do anything and we don’t know how it happened they were presumed guilty. Luckily in both cases they had middle class family who could help pay for lawyers and foster their babies (but even that took time to arrange while the infants were in temporary emergency foster care with strangers).

Then you hear about absolutely egregious abuse in other states where kids are left in abusive neglectful homes and slip through the cracks. If the immediate reaction is to take kids away the process to get children back shouldn’t take months and thousands in lawyer bills for questionable reasons.

[wawa]

link to the article I presume the OP meant to link:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/11/us-child-protective-services-family-mother

[CrazyLucky]

I spent a few years in NC as a Guardian ad Litem, which is a person assigned to the child who has been removed from the parents to look out for their best interest. Other states have a similar program called CASA. A GAL visits with the child at least once a month, can talk to teachers, parents, foster parents, their pastor, etc, in order to make recommendations. The GAL creates a report for the family court lawyer and appears in court. One example I can give is a child who was housed in a religious children's home that had its own school. The child had special needs, but private schools are not required to deal with IEPs. I advocated for him to go to public school where he could get the education he needed. That's all just for background so you know where I'm coming from.
I worked with kids of all races. I didn't see the experience discussed in the article. The goal is always reunification, even when it seems to me that reunification is bad. At the first hearing, very clear requirements are laid out for the parents. It's usually something like must have stable housing and a stable job, must submit to drug testing, they may have to go to parenting classes or anger management classes. In NC, if you didn't have a ride to the drug testing or classes, one was provided for you. Same for if you couldn't get to court. The lawyers assigned to the parents were hard workers. I'm not usually one to hold up NC as a model for anything, but if the systems are that much different state to state, NC is a good one to emulate, from my experience.

[jeaniebueller]

One of the bigger issues I see with CPS is that what happens on the case can vary based on who the worker is, even though the state does everything in its power to have one size fits all policies (which is also not good IMO), and that there are just not enough prevention services available. Our country needs to invest a lot more on the prevention side.

[jamaicam]

Oct 11, 2023 18:30:04 GMT -5 onomatopoeia said:

I'd love to read this but the link just takes me back to this post?

Sorry 

Try  www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/11/us-child-protective-services-family-mother or link

[ellipses84]

[mention]njchickinnc [/mention] I’m a huge fan of Guardian ad Litems and wish they had them in every CPS case and complicated child custody cases. Everything varies wildly by state (and CPS worker). Some don’t have GAL’s at all or only have them for extreme cases because they don’t have enough of them. My state has CASA.

[livinitup]

That article was devastating and very real. I do believe that nothing much changed in Christina’s parenting except time passed and the new judge. Based on my experience as a social worker for a children & family program in NYS, I would add that the change is court was probably triggered by the federal law/requirement to change the goal from “return to parent” to “adoption”. The article touched on it. If Christina was keeping up with her case goals, they wouldn’t have a case to defend the TPR (termination of parental rights). What the article didn’t get into was that the burden shifts - the state has to prove that they offered every service and the parent did not achieve the goals - so the agency goes on trial, (goes on the defense) to make the case that they did their job to reunify the child with a parent. It’s a pretty high bar. What I guess happened is that the agency couldn’t make the case, at all, so the child went home.

[meganew]

I will be very honest and say that the woman described in this article reminds me a lot of my mom- bipolar, on and off medication, big emotional swings, my mom was an addict so the missed drug checks are a red flag to me, always having an answer for everything- I don’t know. This is very much her side, I imagine her caseworker would have a very different story if they were allowed to speak on it.

As someone who has worked with children and been a mandated reporter for my entire adult life, I can’t think of a single case where I thought CPS has overreached their power- quite the opposite in fact.

[Michelle]

ellipses84 that is horrible.