Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness

[This article is not dated, but I see that it matters not, as the information is still pertinent. ]

DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families
By Nev Moore
Massachusetts News
Child "protection" is one of the biggest businesses in the country. We spend $12 billion a year on it. 
The money goes to tens of thousands of a) state employees, b) collateral professionals, such as lawyers, court personnel, court investigators, evaluators and guardians, judges, and c) DSS contracted vendors such as counselors, therapists, more "evaluators", junk psychologists, residential facilities, foster parents, adoptive parents, MSPCC, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, YMCA, etc. This newspaper is not big enough to list all of the people in this state who have a job, draw a paycheck, or make their profits off the kids in DSS custody. 
In this article I explain the financial infrastructure that provides the motivation for DSS to take people’s children – and not give them back. 
In 1974 Walter Mondale promoted the Child Abuse and Prevention Act which began feeding massive amounts of federal funding to states to set up programs to combat child abuse and neglect. From that came Child "Protective" Services, as we know it today. After the bill passed, Mondale himself expressed concerns that it could be misused. He worried that it could lead states to create a "business" in dealing with children. 
Then in 1997 President Clinton passed the "Adoption and Safe Families Act." The public relations campaign promoted it as a way to help abused and neglected children who languished in foster care for years, often being shuffled among dozens of foster homes, never having a real home and family. In a press release from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services dated November 24, 1999, it refers to "President Clinton’s initiative to double by 2002 the number of children in foster care who are adopted or otherwise permanently placed." 
It all sounded so heartwarming. We, the American public, are so easily led. We love to buy stereotypes; we just eat them up, no questions asked. But, my mother, bless her heart, taught me from the time I was young to "consider the source." In the stereotype that we’ve been sold about kids in foster care, we picture a forlorn, hollow-eyed child, thin and pale, looking up at us beseechingly through a dirt streaked face. Unconsciously, we pull up old pictures from Life magazine of children in Appalachia in the 1930s. We think of orphans and children abandoned by parents who look like Manson family members. We play a nostalgic movie in our heads of the little fellow shyly walking across an emerald green, manicured lawn to meet Ward and June Cleaver, his new adoptive parents, who lead him into their lovely suburban home. We imagine the little tyke’s eyes growing as big as saucers as the Cleavers show him his very own room, full of toys and sports gear. And we just feel so gosh darn good about ourselves. 
Now it’s time to wake up to the reality of the adoption business. 
Very few children who are being used to supply the adoption market are hollow-eyed tykes from Appalachia. Very few are crack babies from the projects. [Oh… you thought those were the children they were saving? Think again]. When you are marketing a product you have to provide a desirable product that sells. In the adoption business that would be nice kids with reasonably good genetics who clean up good. An interesting point is that the Cape Cod & Islands office leads the state in terms of processing kids into the system and having them adopted out. More than the inner city areas, the projects, Mission Hill, Brockton, Lynn, etc. Interesting… 
With the implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, President Clinton tried to make himself look like a humanitarian who is responsible for saving the abused and neglected children. The drive of this initiative is to offer cash "bonuses" to states for every child they have adopted out of foster care, with the goal of doubling their adoptions by 2002, and sustaining that for each subsequent year. They actually call them "adoption incentive bonuses," to promote the adoption of children. 
Where to Find the Children
A whole new industry was put into motion. A sweet marketing scheme that even Bill Gates could envy. Now, if you have a basket of apples, and people start giving you $100 per apple, what are you going to do? Make sure that you have an unlimited supply of apples, right? 
The United States Department of Health & Human Services administers Child Protective Services. To accompany the ASF Act, the President requested, by executive memorandum, an initiative entitled Adoption 2002, to be implemented and managed by Health & Human Services. The initiative not only gives the cash adoption bonuses to the states, it also provides cash adoption subsidies to adoptive parents until the children turn eighteen. 
Everybody makes money. If anyone really believes that these people are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, then I’ve got some bad news for you. The fact that this program is run by HHS, ordered from the very top, explains why the citizens who are victims of DSS get no response from their legislators. It explains why no one in the Administration cares about the abuse and fatalities of children in the "care" of DSS, and no one wants to hear about the broken arms, verbal abuse, or rapes. They are just business casualties. It explains why the legislators I’ve talked to for the past three years look at me with pity. Because I’m preaching to the already damned. 
The legislators have forgotten who funds their paychecks and who they need to account to, as has the Governor. Because it isn’t the President. It’s us. 
How DSS Is Helped
The way that the adoption bonuses work is that each state is given a baseline number of expected adoptions based on population. 
For every child that DSS can get adopted, there is a bonus of $4,000 to $6,000. 
But that is just the starting figure in a complex mathematical formula in which each bonus is multiplied by the percentage that the state has managed to exceed its baseline adoption number. The states must maintain this increase in each successive year. [Like compound interest.] The bill reads: "$4,000 to $6,000 will be multiplied by the amount (if any) by which the number of foster child adoptions in the State exceeds the base number of foster child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year." In the "technical assistance" section of the bill it states that, "the Secretary [of HHS] may, directly or through grants or contracts, provide technical assistance to assist states and local communities to reach their targets for increased numbers of adoptions for children in foster care." The technical assistance is to support "the goal of encouraging more adoptions out of the foster care system; the development of best practice guidelines for expediting the termination of parental rights; the development of special units and expertise in moving children toward adoption as a permanent goal; models to encourage the fast tracking of children who have not attained 1 year of age into pre-adoptive placements; and the development of programs that place children into pre-adoptive placements without waiting for termination of parental rights." 
In the November press release from HHS it continues, " HHS awarded the first ever adoption bonuses to States for increases in the adoption of children from the public foster care system." Some of the other incentives offered are "innovative grants" to reduce barriers to adoption [i.e., parents], more State support for adoptive families, making adoption affordable for families by providing cash subsides and tax credits. 
A report from a private think tank, the National Center for Policy Analysis, reads: "The way the federal government reimburses States rewards a growth in the size of the program instead of the effective care of children." Another incentive being promoted is the use of the Internet to make adoption easier. Clinton directed HHS to develop an Internet site to "link children in foster care with adoptive families." So we will be able to window shop for children on a government web site. If you don’t find anything you like there, you can surf on over to the "Adopt Shoppe." 
If you prefer to actually be able to kick tires instead of just looking at pictures you could attend one of DSS’s quaint "Adoption Fairs," where live children are put on display and you can walk around and browse. Like a flea market to sell kids. If one of them begs you to take him home you can always say, "Sorry. Just looking." The incentives for government child snatching are so good that I’m surprised we don’t have government agents breaking down people’s doors and just shooting the parents in the heads and grabbing the kids. But then, if you need more apples you don’t chop down your apple trees. 
Benefits for Foster Parents
That covers the goodies the State gets. Now let’s have a look at how the Cleavers make out financially after the adoption is finalized. 
After the adoption is finalized, the State and federal subsidies continue. The adoptive parents may collect cash subsidies until the child is 18. If the child stays in school, subsidies continue to the age of 22. There are State funded subsidies as well as federal funds through the Title IV-E section of the Social Security Act. The daily rate for State funds is the same as the foster care payments, which range from $410-$486 per month per child. Unless the child can be designated "special needs," which of course, they all can. 
According to the NAATRIN State Subsidy profile from DSS, "special needs" may be defined as: "Physical disability, mental disability, emotional disturbance; a significant emotional tie with the foster parents where the child has resided with the foster parents for one or more years and separation would adversely affect the child’s development if not adopted by them." [But their significant emotional ties with their parents, since birth, never enter the equation.] 
Additional "special needs" designations are: a child twelve years of age or older; racial or ethnic factors; child having siblings or half-siblings. In their report on the State of the Children, Boston’s Institute for Children says: "In part because the States can garner extra federal funds for special needs children the designation has been broadened so far as to become meaningless." "Special needs" children may also get an additional Social Security check. 
The adoptive parents also receive Medicaid for the child, a clothing allowance and reimbursement for adoption costs such as adoption fees, court and attorney fees, cost of adoption home study, and "reasonable costs of food and lodging for the child and adoptive parents when necessary to complete the adoption process." Under Title XX of the Social Security Act adoptive parents are also entitled to post adoption services "that may be helpful in keeping the family intact," including "daycare, specialized daycare, respite care, in-house support services such as housekeeping, and personal care, counseling, and other child welfare services". [Wow! Everything short of being knighted by the Queen!] 
The subsidy profile actually states that it does not include money to remodel the home to accommodate the child. But, as subsidies can be negotiated, remodeling could possibly be accomplished under the "innovative incentives to remove barriers to adoption" section. The subsidy regulations read that "adoption assistance is based solely on the needs of the child without regard to the income of the family." What an interesting government policy when compared to the welfare program that the same child’s mother may have been on before losing her children, and in which she may not own anything, must prove that she has no money in the bank; no boats, real estate, stocks or bonds; and cannot even own a car that is safe to drive worth over $1000. This is all so she can collect $539 per month for herself and two children. The foster parent who gets her children gets $820 plus. We spit on the mother on welfare as a parasite who is bleeding the taxpayers, yet we hold the foster and adoptive parents [who are bleeding ten times as much from the taxpayers] up as saints. The adoptive and foster parents aren’t subjected to psychological evaluations, ink blot tests, MMPI’s, drug & alcohol evaluations, or urine screens as the parents are. 
Adoption subsidies may be negotiated on a case by case basis. [Anyone ever tried to "negotiate" with the Welfare Department?] There are many e-mail lists and books published to teach adoptive parents how to negotiate to maximize their subsidies. As one pro writes on an e-mail list: "We receive a subsidy for our kids of $1,900 per month plus another $500 from the State of Florida. We are trying to adopt three more teens and we will get subsidies for them, too. It sure helps out with the bills." 
I can’t help but wonder why we don’t give this same level of support to the children’s parents in the first place? According to Cornell University, about 68% of all child protective cases "do not involve child maltreatment." The largest percentage of CPS/DSS cases are for "deprivation of necessities" due to poverty. So, if the natural parents were given the incredible incentives and services listed above that are provided to the adoptive parents, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the causes for removing children in the first place would be eliminated? How many less children would enter foster care in the first place? The child protective budget would be reduced from $12 billion to around $4 billion. Granted, tens of thousands of social workers, administrators, lawyers, juvenile court personnel, therapists, and foster parents would be out of business, but we would have safe, healthy, intact families, which are the foundation of any society. 
That’s just a fantasy, of course. The reality is that maybe we will see Kathleen Crowley’s children on the government home-shopping-for-children web site and some one out there can buy them.
May is national adoption month. To support "Adoption 2002," the U.S. Postal Service is issuing special adoption stamps. Let us hope they don’t feature pictures of kids who are for sale. I urge everyone to boycott these stamps and register complaints with the post office.
I know that I’m feeling pretty smug and superior about being part of such a socially advanced and compassionate society. How about you?

  MassNews.com- Masschusett's Conservative Voice.



*The posts made in this blog are of our opinion only* Without Prejudice UCC 1-207

The criminalization of parents

Exclusive: Stephen Baskerville slams 'government behemoth' destroying families

Published: 03/14/2008 at 12:00 AM
World Net Daily(WND)

The California appeals court decision criminalizing parents who homeschool their children is only the tip of an iceberg. Nationwide, parents are already being criminalized in huge numbers, and it is not limited to homeschoolers.

During the Clinton years, the trend toward turning children into tools for expanding government power increased rapidly. Otherwise indefensible programs and regulations are now rationalized as “for the children.”
As a result, government now has so many ways to incarcerate parents that hardly a family in America has not been touched. The criminalization of parents is highly bureaucratic, effected through a bureaucratic judiciary and supported by a vast “social services” machinery that few understand until it strikes them. They then find themselves against a faceless government behemoth from which they are powerless to protect their children or defend themselves.

Homeschoolers are usually accused of “educational neglect,” a form of child abuse. Like other child abuse accusations, it does not usually involve a formal charge, uniformed police, or a jury trial. Instead the accusations are leveled by social workers, whose subjective judgment is minimally restrained by due-process protections. As Susan Orr, head of the federal Children’s Bureau points out, these social workers are in effect plainclothes police – but they are not trained or restricted like regular police.

Homeschoolers are not alone. Any parents can be charged with “child abuse” on the flimsiest of pretexts, because child abuse has no definition. Because of our presumption of innocence, crimes are generally defined as they are adjudicated: A crime has been committed if a jury convicts. But the roughly 1 million cases of child abuse annually (out of 3 million accusations) are “confirmed” or “substantiated” not by jury trials but by social workers or (sometimes) judges. Most such parents are not imprisoned. They merely lose their children.

Virtually every American can now tell of a relative or friend visited by the feared Child Protective Services because of a playground injury or a routine bruise. Too many dismiss these frightening ordeals as aberrations. In fact, they proceed from a bureaucratic logic that is driven by federal funding. The more “abuse” the social workers find, the more money they get to combat it.

But serious as this is, it is still mild compared to the largest sector of semi-criminalized parents: the involuntarily divorced. The moment one parent files for divorce, even when no grounds are evinced, the government automatically and immediately seizes control of the children, who become effectively wards of the state. Astoundingly, they are then almost always placed in the “custody” of the parent that initiates the divorce, placing the divorcing parent and the state in collusion against the parent that is faithful to the marriage and family. The non-divorcing parent, even if legally unimpeachable, can then be arrested for unauthorized contact with his or her own children. Here too abuse accusations can be readily fabricated out of thin air, further criminalizing the innocent parent. He (it is usually, though not always, the father) can then be arrested, even without a shred of evidence that any abuse has occurred. He can also be arrested if he cannot pay child support that may consume most or even all his income. He can even be arrested for not paying a lawyer or psychotherapist he has not hired.

But what is most striking here – in contrast to homeschoolers – is the absence of opposition. The genius of the feminists is to vilify fathers in terms designed to incur the revulsion of decent people – “pedophiles,” “batterers,” “deadbeat dads” – and too many conservatives and Christians are fooled.
In fact, the social science data are clear that these alleged malefactors are rare among biological fathers and almost entirely the creation of feminist propaganda. Accused fathers are no more likely to be criminals or child abusers than are homeschooling parents. They have merely fallen into the clutches of another sector of the child exploitation bureaucracy.

Indeed, it is well-known among scholars that true child abuse takes place overwhelmingly in single parent homes – homes without fathers. By removing fathers under trumped-up abuse accusations, the child abuse apparatchiks create the environment for real abuse, further expanding their business.

 Campaigns against homeschoolers and fathers are only the extreme manifestations of the larger attack on all parents. They indicate where we all may be headed if we do not take a united stand for parental rights against a judicial-bureaucratic machine that is not only destroying families but justifying its own expansion in the process.

Though conservatives often misuse the term, two features used by scholars to define totalitarian government were its highly bureaucratic methods and its willingness to invade and destroy the private sphere of life, particularly family life. Both these tendencies come together in the governmental leviathan that now administers our children: the education establishments, family courts, child protective services, child support enforcement agents, “human services” agencies, counseling services, domestic violence programs and much more.

The very idea that the criminal justice system has been diverted from its role of protecting society from dangerous criminals and instead used to threaten law-abiding parents with jail for educating or raising or simply being with their children should be seen by all Americans as a serious threat to our families and our freedom.

*The posts made in this blog are of our opinion only* Without Prejudice UCC 1-207

WND EXCLUSIVE Child 'protectors' accused of destroying families. Statewide audit launched in response to deaths, tales of abuse.

California lawmakers have voted unanimously to order an audit of the state’s powerful Department of Child Protective Services after testimony from parents who stunned their representatives with testimony of atrocities.
“It’s the most helpless feeling in the world when this happens to you. It feels like there is no hope left. I have not seen my daughter since December… she doesn’t even look like the same child any more. There is nothing in her eyes. She looks hopeless and there is just nothing I can do…”
That was from Dr. Ruby Dillon, whose daughter, Alexis, was removed from her family 16 months ago.
The audit plan passed the committee unanimously, and now the California state auditor, who has subpoena powers, will investigate CPS.
Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, who sponsored the bill and organized parents to speak about their experiences, said it’s a good step forward.
“Now we are going to be able to pull back the veil and see what happened, what went wrong so that we can then gather data on how to fix it.”
Donnelly says a lot has gone wrong.
Child Protective Services is supposed to help children and families overcome stressful events in life, and stay together and healthy. But there are families who say that CPS does anything but that.
Family members testified before the legislative hearing that CPS actually has worked to destroy, not restore, their families. And others suggested there was a profit motive in the situation.
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) is the federal law that prompts most state and local legislation and funding for child protective services.
CAPTA was a federal mandate enacted in 1988. It directed that Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families provide grants to communities for child abuse prevention programs. It mandated that states implement child abuse laws on their own, in order to qualify for massive funding and federal grants that will match and reward those on the state level.
This experimental federal mandate, backed by significant funding, was intended to keep more families together. However, the National Coalition for Child Protection (NCCPR) reports that the results of CAPTA are quite different than the original intention. NCCPR says that CAPTA, in fact, disrupted more families, and has made life for children in this experimental government program much, much worse.
NCCPR says that the failings of today’s child welfare system “can be summed up by the very rationalization often used to justify the way it works today, an approach that can be boiled down to ‘take the child and run.’”
The parental rights group says that foster care is a bad answer to the suspicion of a problem. Their studies indicate that abuse in foster care is “far higher than generally realized and far higher than in the general population.”
They say orphanage abuse rates are even higher, so that is not the answer, either. NCCPR maintains that its research indicates that in most, but not 100 percent of cases, the best scenario is that the family remains intact until “due process” takes place.
That is not the way states are handling many cases today. One recent example is the Nikolayev case that has made national headlines.
On April 24, Alex and Anna Nikolayev took their young child, Sammy, to Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento, Calif., with flu-like symptoms. Baby Sammy was born with a heart condition, and they knew he would need surgery eventually.
While he was there, the Nikolayevs witnessed a nurse giving him antibiotics – something doctors later confirmed should not have happened.
Shortly afterward, they were told Sammy needed immediate open-heart surgery. Already questioning the treatment their son was receiving, they decided to seek a second opinion before putting their child through such a risky procedure.
They were told, “You can leave the hospital, but your baby cannot.”
The Nikolayevs decided to take Sammy to another hospital, despite the hospital saying they could not do so. Police and CPS agents showed up at the second hospital under the belief that Sammy was in danger. After seeing that the mother was pursuing medical care for her son, they concluded that the child was not in danger.
But that would not be the last the Nikolayevs heard of CPS.
The next day, Child Protective Services showed up at the Nikolayev home with five armed police officers. The mother, a German immigrant, was skeptical of government and captured the incident on video.
One officer can be heard saying, “I’m going to grab your baby, and don’t resist, and don’t fight me, okay?”
Donnelly said he felt compelled to act, as a father, and as a legislator.
“The footage is frightening for parents everywhere to think that your children might be confiscated should CPS disagree with your parental instincts. It’s chilling to think that a government agency can take your child right back to a hospital that you as a parent have lost faith in, but it happened.”
Donnelly began demanding answers. In a letter, he asked Sheri Heller, director of California’s Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees CPS, to account for how this was allowed to happen.
Heller responded that she couldn’t share that information with an assemblyman, unless a judge ordered her to do so. Donnelly responded, “It has become clear that CPS answers to no one, but this abuse of power cannot be tolerated.”
“I’m hearing all kinds of stories about children being horribly abused,” said Donnelly, “and CPS does not rescue the child from that imminent danger, which is why they have this immense power in the first place.”
The mother in the case, Anna Nikolayev, told WND that since that day, Sammy had a doctor’s appointment and is doing very well.
“He is gaining, weight,” she giggled, “he is even getting a little bit chubby!”
But in her case, a hearing has been delayed for 60 days, and she worries.
“The fear is that they might walk in my house and ask questions again to try to prove their case…(to make them) look good.”
She said that the worst thing that could happen is that “in 60 days (if) he hasn’t gained weight, they could say, ‘oh, she’s probably not holding him the right way, not feeding him correctly…’”
She said that she and her husband “always, always worry about that.”
Her hope is for quick resolution, but the court has ordered eight more visits, inside and outside of their home, before CPS makes a decision whether or not to continue their investigation of the family.
Orange County CPS spokesperson Ann Broussard said that she had “no comment” on the Baby Sammy Nikolayev case. But she described the scenario whereby CPS says it is entitled to take children without a warrant:

“We regularly bring police. Sometimes police call us. The term is exigent. If there is imminent danger to the child we do have the legal right, if it is deemed. There would be a social worker on site; they would consult with their supervisors, and the authorities. Often we are called by a hospital. They are mandated reporters. So is a school district.”

Such cases are not isolated. Another, making headlines in Orange County, contends that CPS testified in defense of the abuser.
There, Ruby Dillon’s 7 year-old daughter was removed from her family due to a custody battle, and has been held for 15 months.
Dillon accuses the father of sexual abuse that she says she has on tape. Bryan Claypool, her attorney in the case (who is suing CPS for $1 million per month), contends that CPS does not want the custody battle between the estranged spouses to end because it wants to profit off of the case.
According to a local CBS affiliate, Claypool commented that, “Simply put, the more children that are removed from a household (whether lawfully or not) the more money that flows to CPS through state and federal funding.”
Claypool further alleged that CPS is more motivated to protect its $2.2 billion budget than it is focused on child safety and adoption efforts. He calls it a “legal kidnapping.”
Claypool told WND the institutionalized corruption goes much deeper, and farther than the cases he represents. “Every word we have said we can back up,” he said.
CPS declined to comment on the case.
And yet another case alleged that two young girls were taken away from their mother based on a social worker’s fabricated story.
Deanna Fogarty won a $4.9 million judgment against Orange County, which ultimately paid $11 million after losing appeals all the way up to U.S. Supreme Court.
Orange County has never admitted to any wrongdoing although the court found the social worker involved had filed false reports and suppressed evidence that would have cleared Fogarty. That same employee was later promoted to supervisor in charge of training other social workers.
Appeals court justice William Bedsworth wrote in his opinion, “the evidence adduced at trial obviously caused both the jury and the judge to conclude not only that something seriously wrong was done to Fogarty-Hardwick in this case, but also that the wrongful conduct was not an isolated incident.”
Fogarty told WND the case destroyed her life, and that no amount of money changes that. She has become a volunteer spokesperson for the cause, because she says that “child abuse has become an industry that actually pays states to legally abduct your children and put them up for adoption.”
She continued, “Counties can bring in big dollars for each child in foster care. Lack of accountability allows unbridled access to this revenue creating more incentive to remove children from their families.”
She notes that these kinds of profits are hard to resist for these CPS workers, and also the foster parents.
Broussard declined comment on the case.
Fogarty warned other parents that something as minor as a trip to the ER, or a scrape that a school finds suspicious, can mean the family devastation that she endured.
“The minute CPS is involved or the second the EMTs are called, parents are already labeled as child abusers,” said Fogarty.
“Can you believed this happened in America?” Donnelly said.
“Instead of protecting kids at risk,” Donnelly says that, “CPS has become a rogue agency that is stealing kids away from good parents and returning them to bad ones and needs to be investigated and reformed. We cannot allow a government agency to exercise unlimited power in complete secrecy.”
He said the heart of the dispute really is “who is … in control of your child’s health care? If you don’t like a doctor’s decision, and seek a second opinion, could this nightmare happen to you? I’m afraid this is a foreshadowing of things to come as the government becomes more involved in health care.”
He said the problem in nationwide, too.
In Connecticut, he said, judges and court workers are accused of setting up businesses, then ordering children before the court to patronize those vendors, and families are ordered to participate in organizations where judges sit on the board of directors.

WND EXCLUSIVE

*The posts made in this blog are of our opinion only* Without Prejudice UCC 1-207