Color of Law Constitutional Rights Violation Form

 To print this form for your own use, click on the image and it will direct you to the source.

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

Comprehensive Outline of the Systemic Process of Abuse for Profit Called “Child Protection Agencies” in America Today

Comprehensive Outline of the Systemic Process of Abuse for Profit Called “Child Protection Agencies” in America Today
as re posted from the website of the American Family Rights Association

"When the Adoption and Safe Families Act was passed in 1997, it was meant to create loving homes for children who had been “languishing” in foster care over a long period of time, some children had been in foster care for years, others had been bouncing around from one foster home to another with no hope of the security that an established home with a permanent family could offer.

Another seemingly good idea at the time, was the creation of the adoption bonuses for the state child protective system’s caseworkers, this idea was implemented for the sole purpose of creating a “get the job done” incentive for the case workers, to do something for the children, other than shuffling paper work and filing reports on these “shelved” children.

As these children were being adopted and began to leave the foster care system, the bonuses began to filter into the child protective systems around the nation. There were an overwhelming amount of couples, being enticed by the many different monetary conveniences of not having to support the children out of their own pocket, the foster care money would take care of that burden, on top of which there were offers from the government for tax credits and bonuses, to adopt these unwanted children. It wasn’t long before the demand for adoptions outweighed the supply of children in foster care.

The waiting list for an adoption could be years, the majority of waiting couples were not favorably receptive to the thought of waiting for years to adopt a child, so they took the required training to become foster parents, because as sanctioned foster parents, they were guaranteed a child within weeks. They would have a child placed with them, then subsequently adopt the child within 15 -22 months, after which these “foster parents” would disappear from the system after their need for a child had been met.

In some cases the child is adopted within a year, because the permanency hearing is to be scheduled within one year of the foster care placement, leaving precious little time for the natural parents to raise funds for the hiring of attorneys, file motions, petitions and/or appeals.

The majority of these parents are from the poor or middle working-class, and cannot afford the attorney fees, which have become unreasonably high over the years. One very well known child custody attorney asked for $12,000 down payment to take a case!

What would happen, I wonder, if ALL of these people were to strike in protest of their children being confiscated?

This country would stand still.

Now the legislators are wondering why all the GOOD foster parents are leaving the system? Because there are no such kind of people as “FOSTER” parents, they’re potential adopters, finding their incentive on the internet to adopt a child via foster care.

Foster CARE was meant to be temporary--NOT the foster parents.

After these foster parents are gone, the need for more foster parents increase. With all their false allegations, DFS is slowly obliterating ANY people who would make good potential foster parents.

There are even those instances when DFS will file false allegations of abuse against the adoptive or foster parents themselves....when DFS can find no more children to take, they just “repossess” children which have been previously adopted or placed into foster care.

At this point in time, there are NO foster parents, there are only adoptive parents in disguise....”When in Rome”...as the saying goes.

The case workers, in charge of these cases, became so intent on proving the unfitness of the biological parents, and creating false allegations to assure the termination of parental rights, that they lost all concern and common reason to prove the FITNESS of the ADOPTIVE parents, resulting in the problem that we now have.......children being abused and murdered in foster care and adoption.

According to the federal mandates of the Social Security Act, which governs the placement of a child into foster care, a child had to be “languishing” in foster care PRIOR to adoption, to guarantee that the state would receive the adoption bonus, when the child was finally adopted.

When the supply of children in foster care began to dwindle, there was a chance that the DFS agency would not get their bonus. That was when many rogue case workers and county DFS directors began to lodge false allegations of abuse against innocent parents, thereby creating an unlimited supply of children into foster care to meet the demand of adoptive couples who were disguised as “Foster Parents” and waiting in line for the children that were being taken into custody by DFS.

The children were, and still are, being taken into custody by DFS at an alarming rate, and immediately placed into foster care, sometimes within an hour, and with the sole intention to adopt.

Adoption became the only option, in order to receive the cash bonuses. Most of the adoption petitions in Lawrence County, Missouri, are filed before the child is even available for adoption, prior to evidence being heard at the permanency hearing.

The government funds for reunification and family preservation, has been used for other services to speed up the termination of parental rights. Therefore, the state stands guilty of adoption and foster care fraud, they obtained the money by violating the federal mandates.

Most parents are unaware of the fact that they are protected by these mandates, and can actually retrieve their children if an honest, intelligent attorney were on the case. The key word here for their protection is “Languishing” in foster care. The “languishing” pertains to the 15-22 month period following the day that Social Services places the child into foster care, but a hearing is available within 30 days........so forget the term “languishing.”

The termination of parental rights, cannot be filed until 15 months and 60 days from the date, that the child has been taken from the home. In some cases the GAL’s do not wait for the allotted time to pass, and will file prematurely for TPR.

The governor of each state, is compelled to sign an oath when he/she takes office, to uphold and protect those mandates, otherwise the governor can be held accountable for failing the child and the federal government, whenever those mandates are violated for the purpose of receiving the federal grants being paid for foster care. Social Services MUST obey those Federal Mandates to the letter, in order to receive the grants. Before placing a child into foster care, the case worker handling the case, must prove that every reasonable effort has been met to seek out and locate a fit and willing relative placement. An adult relative takes precedence and first consideration over an outside care giver, in the interest of family preservation and reunification of the family, which is in the best interest of the child.

This mandate is being ignored by poorly trained social workers who take children on “probable cause”, and yet this agency will never file criminal charges against the parents to prove guilt.

Why?

Kinship care is never considered a reasonable option by Social Services. Kinship care does not allow the state to collect federal monies for foster care/adoptions, so when the case worker takes the child, the paper work will be marked “NO RELATIVES” even though there are grandparents and other relatives available to take the child. Missouri DFS never seeks out those relatives.

This would save the state an exorbitant amount of money, and as of now Missouri is going bankrupt, due to the unnecessary overspending of DFS for foster care, adoption bonuses, attorney’s fees, Guardians ad Litem, contracted therapists, and medicaid.

In many cases the children are said to have been sexually molested, but the parent or perpetrator is rarely, if ever, formally charged and brought into a court of law, because in most of these cases, DFS hasn’t one shred of proof against the accused parent other than their own allegations on paper.

But innocent parents are still losing their parental rights in the end, due to ineffective judges who do little more than warm the bench, and do nothing to make the DSS provide proof of the allegations and their reasonable efforts to place the child with relatives.

It seems to be a “hate crime” and discrimination against parents who are poor. They are easy marks for DSS and cannot fight a system with a money tree such as the one backing DSS. Martha Stewart and Mario Lanza both came from underprivileged households. They went very far in the world.

When it is said that a child has been sexually abused, it would become medicaid fraud if these sexual abuse assessments and treatments are charged to medicaid, which is quite often the case.

This type of assessment and treatment, is to be paid by the Children’s Treatment Fund, but there is documentation that Medicaid is picking up the tab.

The CTF investigates each case quite thoroughly to determine if sexual abuse has actually occurred, and DFS does NOT want these investigations to bring the truth to the surface. So they send the bills to medicaid for payment, (I have one of those billings, and the assessment signed by a Missouri state contracted therapist.)

After the placement of the child into the foster care system, Missouri DFS then applies for the foster care grants, while at the same time forcing the parents to also pay for the foster care, under the term “Current Child Support.” This is also illegal on the part of DSS, who never uses the parent locator system to find a missing or absent parent.

If they actually find the absent or missing parent, there is a chance the child will be placed into the custody of that parent and not be available for adoption at a later date, therefore they allow a child support bill to accrue into the thousands of dollars, until it becomes FELONY NON-SUPPORT, damaging any chance of custody being won by that missing or absent parent.

The parents are also to provide medical insurance for the children. BUT....the premiums on this health insurance is unreasonably high. The father of a child in foster care, called one of the country’s leading insurance companies, and asked the representative WHY the premium was so expensive....the representative’s answer was, “A child in foster care is considered to be very high risk!”

These children are NOT “languishing” in foster care--they are placed into foster care, usually on the same day that they are taken into custody, and placed into foster care sometimes within an hour, for the express purpose of adoption, so that DFS can collect the adoption bonuses that each state will receive. The forget the children who have already been adopted and have aged out of the foster care system.

When a child resists bonding with the foster or adoptive parents, they are immediately admitted into therapy for psychological problems. And at times if the child becomes violent or combative, or prone to tantrums due to their anger of being the focal point of all the family destruction, they are placed into a mental health facility and subsequently started on medication known as “psychotropic” medication, or mind altering drugs to make them more docile, and easier to manage and control.

This is quite common in nursing homes for the elderly, if the patient is labeled as “combatant” or “combative.” I have seen the results of those types of “psychotropic”

drugs, and it is horrible. They rob the patient of any and all humane feelings.

Any child who has been deprived of what belongs to them by birth and nature, will invariably become combative at some stage during the transition of losing their own past lives, no matter how good or bad it may have been.

One child bit the finger off a school nurse as she was administering medication to him.

My own granddaughter, who was in foster care for 35 days, said it best, “They can’t bond with a stranger because they want their OWN parents, their OWN grandparents, their OWN room and their OWN stuff.”

That is the key word...... OWN! As in: that is MINE. I OWN that. It belongs to ME. It is MINE.

The obliteration of those personal things can destroy the child’s sense of belonging. How can one expect the child to accept anything new, if the feeling of belonging is deprived by the destruction of what had belonged to him/her to begin with?

That destruction of familiarity, will eventually bring about compulsive disorders, such as the need to clean or rearrange things, in an attempt to exercise control in their lives or numerous eating disorders.

We are becoming a nation which will lose the sanctity of home and family if we do not take a stand at the voting polls. Watch the reports of how your congressman and senators vote on bills. Then decide what you consider to be vitally important in a child’s life.

So think very hard and use common sense the next time you hear the term “Leave No Child Behind” this phrase has become quite unpopular with the common person, and has a more sinister meaning behind it, than one can imagine.

Stephen King has nothing on the creator of the “Adoption and Safe Families Act” of 1997.

It has been used to create a perpetual living nightmare for innocent parents, falsely accused by a system, in which greed has outgrown common decency, freedom and democracy. It has been used to create a living hell for the helpless children condemned to live within its dark boundaries, with no way out and no hope of rescue, and NO ONE asking them what their version of the truth is.

These children are the true victims.....and yet they are never asked about their own opinions and desires, by their GAL, nor their state contracted therapists, who are all being paid by the federal foster care grants, the foster parents are not going to relay what the child truly wants, the foster parents’ true goal is to adopt a tax dividend, at $10,000.00 a head!

The children in foster care are NOT being PROTECTED by foster care......they are being SILENCED!

Just try to get one of these children aside to speak with them, and you will have a dozen guns pointed at your head, that is the whole purpose behind “supervised visitation.”

But on the other side of the coin, there were 7 children who testified against a Lawrence County commissioner charged with sexual abuse. The charges were later reduced. Eventually in court, those charges were dropped, because one child recanted. In every other case where a child recants due to a false allegation being extracted from the child, there is no exoneration for the parent.

There are too many children in the world today that truly are suffering from abuse and neglect, but are being left to die. Why? Because the truly abused child is not a marketable commodity, they’re damaged goods. But if left to die at the hands of an abuser, these children are worth their weight in gold, and worth more dead than alive--so they are left behind, with their abusers, to do their part in the scheme of things.

They are not considered children; they are pawns, to be used for the benefit of DFS.

When a child dies of abuse, what is the first thing that one hears in the news media from Child Protective Services?

1.“We need more money to hire more workers; we are understaffed and under funded.”

2.“We need more power to take the children without warrants and having to PROVE abuse.”

3.“We need absolute immunity for anything that we do illegally.”

Far too many parents have been “railroaded” by the child protection system, but that train is slowly being derailed.

Think about It!! You, the people, gave them that power by believing their manipulatory lies."

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

Report Fraud, Waste & Abuse

"Recovery.gov is the U.S. government's official website that provides easy access to data related to Recovery Act spending and allows for the reporting of potential fraud, waste, and abuse."

"This website was created under the Recovery Act to show the American public how Recovery funds are being spent by recipients of contracts, grants, and loans, and the distribution​ of Recovery entitlements and tax benefits."

Alaska

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

Congressman wants U.S. Attorney General to investigate Michigan Child Protective Services

Read more: Congressman wants U.S. Attorney General to investigate Michigan Child Protective Services


 


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

Parental alienation syndrome

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_alienation_syndrome

Initial description

Parental alienation syndrome was a term coined by child psychiatrist Richard A. Gardner drawing upon his clinical experiences since the early 1980s. The concept of one parent attempting to separate their child from the other parent as punishment or part of a divorce have been described since at least the 1940s, but Gardner was the first to define a specific syndrome. In a 1985 article, he defined PAS as "...a disorder that arises primarily in the context of child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child's campaign of denigration against the parent, a campaign that has no justification. The disorder results from the combination of indoctrinations by the alienating parent and the child's own contributions to the vilification of the alienated parent" also stating that the indoctrination may be deliberate or unconscious on the part of the alienating parent. PAS was originally developed as an explanation for the increase in the number of reports of child abuse in the 1980s. Gardner initially believed that parents (usually mothers) made false accusations of child abuse and sexual abuse against the other parent (usually fathers) in order to prevent further contact between them. While Gardner initially described the mother was the alienator in 90% of PAS cases, he later stated both parents were equally likely to alienate. He also later stated that in his experience accusations of sexual abuse were not present in the vast majority of cases of PAS. The initial work was self-published by Gardner, but later papers were released in peer reviewed scientific journals.

Characteristics

Gardner described PAS as a preoccupation by the child with criticism and deprecation of a parent. Gardner stated that PAS occurs when, in the context of child custody disputes, one parent deliberately or unconsciously attempts to alienate a child from the other parent.

According to Gardner, PAS is characterized by a cluster of eight symptoms that appear in the child. These include;
-a campaign of denigration and hatred against the targeted parent;
-weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for this deprecation and hatred;
-lack of the usual ambivalence about the targeted parent;
-strong assertions that the decision to reject the parent is theirs alone (the "independent-thinker phenomenon");
-reflexive support of the favored parent in the conflict;
-lack of guilt over the treatment of the alienated parent;
-use of borrowed scenarios and phrases from the alienating parent;
-and the denigration not just of the targeted parent but also to that parent's extended family and friends.

Despite frequent citations of these factors in scientific literature, "the value ascribed to these factors has not been explored with professionals in the field."
Gardner and others have divided PAS into mild, moderate and severe levels. The number and severity of the eight symptoms displayed increase through the different levels. The recommendations for management differ according to the severity level of the child's symptoms. While a diagnosis of PAS is made based on the child's symptoms, Gardner stated that any change in custody should be based primarily on the symptom level of the alienating parent.
-In mild cases, there is some parental programming against the targeted parent, but little or no disruption of visitation, and Gardner did not recommend court-ordered visitation.
-In moderate cases, there is more parental programming and greater resistance to visits with the targeted parent. Gardner recommended that primary custody remain with the programming parent if the brainwashing was expected to be discontinued, but if not, that custody should be transferred to the targeted parent. In addition, therapy with the child to stop alienation and remediate the damaged relationship with the targeted parent was recommended.
-In severe cases, children display most or all of the 8 symptoms, and will refuse steadfastly to visit the targeted parent, including threatening to run away or commit suicide if the visitation is forced. Gardner recommended that the child be removed from the alienating parent's home into a transition home before moving into the home of the targeted parent. In addition, therapy for the child is recommended. Gardner's proposed intervention for moderate and severe PAS, including court-ordered transfer to the alienated parent, fines, house arrest, incarceration, have been critiqued for their punitive nature towards the alienating parent and alienated child, and for the risk of abuse of power and violation of their civil rights. With time, Gardner revised his views and expressed less support for the most aggressive management strategies.


More can be read about this subject at wikipedia.org

To me, this reeks of a familiar CPS trend. How many parents (and grand parents) are kept from their children?

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

Asking for visitation

Our email asking for visitation of our grand children;

Good Morning Justin,

Clipper and I are waiting for our visitations to our grandchildren. The last time we talked you said that you would work on this for us. We have not heard from you yet. We have not seen or spoken to [L.R, M.R. and A.R.] since last October/November. Although we did get to see [D.D.] a month ago, we would like to see him again soon. This is a long time for little ones to go without hearing or seeing their grandparents. I am sure that you have a very busy case load, but would really appreciate some kind of indication that you are working to get this set up. Thank You for your time.

Clipper and Mary Ann Ordiway

 c.c.
jaylene.day@alaska.gov<jaylene.day@alaska.gov>;
heather.larrabee@alaska.gov<heather.larrabee@alaska.gov>;
christy.lawton@alaska.gov<christy.lawton@alaska.gov>;
judith.ringstad@alaska.gov<judith.ringstad@alaska.gov>;
ombudsman@legis.state.ak.us<ombudsman@legis.state.ak.us>;

UPDATE 9/22/12

We now have one weekly phone visits (no skype) with the oldest three (three or four so far). We also have visitation twice a week with D.D. for the parents. They have not missed any yet.

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

Social Security Act, the people behind it and social worker bonuses.

Social Security Act, (Aug. 14, 1935), original U.S. legislation establishing a permanent national old-age pension system through employer and employee contributions; the system was later extended to include dependents, the disabled, and other groups. 
 ...The Social Security Act has been periodically amended, expanding the types of coverage, bringing progressively more workers into the system, and adjusting both taxes and benefits in an attempt to keep pace with inflation.[1]

 In 1935, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins was fretting about finding a constitutional basis for the Social Security Act. Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone advised her, "The taxing power, my dear, the taxing power. You can do anything under the taxing power." [2]

Frances Perkins, original name Fannie Coralie Perkins   (born April 10, 1882, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died May 14, 1965, New York, N.Y.), U.S. secretary of labor during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Besides being the first woman to be appointed to a cabinet post, she also served one of the longest terms of any Roosevelt appointee (1933–45).
Perkins graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1902 and for some years taught school and served as a social worker. [3]

 Perkins has been called the "woman behind the New Deal." Her achievements include the adoption of the minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, worker's compensation, unemployment insurance, employer-provided health insurance, welfare, Social Security, job-creation programs and the banning of child labor.

Despite continuing impediments, Perkins, a social worker, successfully broke into a man’s world and was a major player for all 12 years of FDR’s administration. [Downey][A] deftly links the Progressive movement of the early 1900’s with the reforms Perkins helped FDR achieve, particularly in his first two terms.

Perkins made adjustments to fit into the male-dominated arena of politics. She changed her name from "Fannie" to Frances and dressed to remind men of their mothers. But after her cabinet appointment, she found herself in an awkward position. The wives of male cabinet members were expected to host social gatherings where the real business of government frequently was conducted. Perkins didn't fit the protocol.

Mary Harriman Rumsey came to the rescue. She rented a house in Georgetown and invited Frances to become her "roommate." History notes that the two were far more than roommates, and that Mary was far more than a typical cabinet wife.
 Mary died unexpectedly on December 19, 1934, from complications resulting from a fall from a horse. At the time of her death, Frances was in middle of the fight for Social Security and Roosevelt had given her a tight deadline. Because of the closeted nature of her relationship with Rumsey, only a few very close (and lesbian) friends could acknowledge the degree of her loss. [4]

In 1933, Thomas H. Eliot, together with many of his youthful fellow graduates from Harvard Law School, went to Washington, becoming Assistant Solicitor of the Department of Labor under Frances Perkins. Later, she appointed him Counsel for the Committee on Economic Security which drafted the social security bill. [5]

In 1933, Thomas H. Eliot, together with many of his youthful fellow graduates from Harvard Law School, went to Washington, becoming Assistant Solicitor of the Department of Labor under Frances Perkins. Later, she appointed him Counsel for the Committee on Economic Security which drafted the social security bill. After serving as General Counsel for the Social Security Board, he returned to Massachusetts, taught at Harvard, was elected to Congress from Massachusetts, joined the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis in 1952, and served as Chancellor of that institution during the period 1962-71. The problems faced in the drafting of legislation which could withstand constitutional challenges in the U.S. Supreme Court are the core of Mr. Eliot's presentation. He reports how the Court's earlier decisions on grants-in-aid provided the basis for the old-age assistance program and several other grant-in-aid programs in the 1935 Act; how the decision upholding tax offsets was used as the basis for the unemployment insurance legislation once the policy decision of State responsibility and administration had been made; and how events unrelated to social security may have had an impact on the Court's upholding the constitutionality of the old-age insurance program.[5]

 =============================================
[1]http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551412/Social-Security-Act
[2]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577508503320285454.html#printMode 
[3] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/452145/Frances-Perkins
[4]http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/cafe2/article/182
[5]http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/eliot_th.html

[A] The Best Possible Life 
      http://bestpossiblelife.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/praise-for-new-biography-of-frances-perkins/

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

FOSTER CARE, CHILD WELFARE REFORM IN REVIEW

This post is re-posted in it's entirety from Lifting the Veil Blog. 

Do not see what I say?  Say what others see.

FOSTER CARE, CHILD WELFARE REFORM IN REVIEW

---

THE LEGAL ORPHANS

“The story public family law tells about parenthood is both inaccurate and normatively misguided,” writes Cynthia Godsoe in a recent Brooklyn Law School Legal Studies Paper, Godsoe continues on to explain:

child welfare policy, embodied in the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) statutory scheme, is flawed in two significant ways. First, it fails to recognize the socioeconomic factors underlying most child maltreatment and instead defines maltreatment primarily based upon normative parental behavior standards unrelated to child safety. It relies upon a very small number of extreme abuse cases to define the problem and any proposed solutions. This results in the legal system addressing child maltreatment in an ineffective post hoc triage fashion in stark contrast to the medical community‟s preventive approach to the problem. Second, it ignores the real ties that exist between parents and children even after children have been removed from their parents‟ care. As a result, interventions at all stages of the child welfare process are misguided: before children are removed from their parents‟ care, while they are in foster care but the state still seeks reunification of the family, and after parental rights are terminated. The devaluation of the parent-child relationship after termination has led to perhaps ASFA‟s most disturbing legacy—over a hundred thousand “legal orphans.”

The impact of this “reform” on minority populations is particularly troubling. Writing in Alaska Law Review, Sheri L. Hazeltine explains that “rates of termination of parental rights and adoption of children from Alaska state foster care have exploded in recent years.” The dramatic increase “resulted from new and stricter child protection laws passed by the Alaska Legislature in 1998 that make it easier to terminate Alaska Native and non-Native parental rights. The legislature passed these new child protection statutes to conform with the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.”

Hazeltine explains that while it had been crafted to solve the problem of foster care drift, the new legislation instead resulted in other consequences, among them that the number of adoptive homes for children did not appear to have kept pace with the increase in terminations of parental rights, in turn creating a “cadre of legal orphans” – children legally severed from their natural parents without an adoptive home.

Hazeltine notes also that “the aforementioned outcomes directly conflict with the [Indian Child Welfare Act's] definition of the best interests of the Indian child and the ICWA’s goal of promoting the stability and security of Indian tribes and families.”

Professor of law Dorothy Roberts explains how this “reform” came to be in an excerpt of her book Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare on PBS: “Congress has abandoned the focus on preventive and reunification programs it once expressed. Leading the way is the Adoption and Safe Families Act enacted by Congress in 1997 to amend the 1980 Child Welfare Act. President Clinton signed the law within a year of directing the federal government to take steps to double the number of foster children adopted annually to 54,000 by 2002. The new federal adoption law — known as “ASFA” — represents a dramatic change in the way the federal government deals with the overloaded foster care system. Its orientation has shifted from emphasizing the reunification of children in foster care with their biological families toward support for the adoption of these children into new families.”

Finally, the mainstream media is beginning to notice that something has gone terribly wrong with this well-intended piece of legislation. In a recent article aptly entitled “Failed Adoptions Create More Homeless Youths,” the New York Times examines the case of a “failed adoption,” one that “is part of a growing group that is entering the local shelter system for homeless youths after their families vanish as quickly as the government checks attached to them do.”

“I’m definitely seeing more failed adoptions,” said Anne Holcomb, the coordinator for the Night Ministry’s Open Door Youth Shelter. “I’m seeing more than I did in the ’90s and even more over the last four years, because these youths were adopted as kids and now they’re 18.”

Research shows that from 1988 to 2006, children were typically adopted at age 7. Now, a little more than a decade after the boom years of 1998 to 2001 — accounting for 22,057 adoptions — more youths are aging out of subsidies than ever before.

“There was a huge scramble to pressure people into permanency,” said Mark Ruckdaeschel, director of Neon Street Dorms, a homeless youths shelter in Uptown. “And there was a big discussion about the financial benefits for doing this. It was a selling point.”

Monthly subsidies range from $360 for an infant to well over $1,000 for a child with special needs, the Times explains.

As I explained in a previous article, rewarding states for adoptions is part of the problem, rather than a solution. It is gratifying to see the mainstream press beginning to come to this realization.

But ASFA isn’t the only piece of incremental tinkering to roll out under the banner of reform.

THE OTHER REFORMS

Writing in the NYU Review of Law & Social Change, Ian Vandewalker, of the Center for Reproductive Rights, describes yet another “get tough on child abuse” reform effort – one that targets the unborn children of mothers. This policy, Vandewalker notes, is itself creating yet another category of legal orphans:

Several states allow a mother and child to be permanently separated for something the mother did before the child was born; these states have made the use of illegal drugs while pregnant a ground for terminating a mother’s parental rights. The intuition motivating such a policy is that drug users are bad parents, and the state protects children by removing them from such parents. This presumption in favor of termination is fundamentally ill conceived. Termination of parental rights is a drastic and unwise response to the public health problems caused by illegal drug use: drug use or addiction does not, ipso facto, make someone unfit to care for a child, although it may cause behaviors which constitute bad parenting. If those behaviors do emerge and they rise to the level of abuse or neglect, they would be sufficient legal ground for government intervention to protect the child in every state in the nation. So, making drug use itself a ground for breaking up a family is unnecessary. Given that it also has various negative effects, including trammeling the constitutional rights of mothers and creating legal orphans, the policy should be abandoned.

All the while, would-be reformers continue to file cookie cutter lawsuits, ostensibly to “reform” the worst of the child welfare systems. Chief among them Children’s Rights, Inc., which currently has four “active, pre-judgment cases” on hand. These would be in Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Texas.

I first began to lose confidence in this organization when it took Richard Gelles on board. As Professor Roberts explains in her PBS commentary:

Advocates drummed up support for ASFA by pointing to cases where family preservation failed miserably. They recounted tragic stories of children who were killed after caseworkers returned them to blatantly dangerous parents. They passed around photographs of abused children to members of Congress. Perhaps the most effective rallying tool was The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children’s Lives by prominent family violence scholar Richard Gelles. The Book of David reported the events surrounding the suffocation of a little boy by his abusive mother after caseworkers sent him home from foster care. Gelles attributed this tragic lapse in judgment to the priority policy makers placed on families, rather than children. According to Gelles, caseworkers were interpreting the requirement to use “reasonable efforts” to preserve families to dictate reunification at all costs. Family preservation policies were a license to risk children’s safety. Gelles argued that “the basic flaw of the child protection system is that it has two inherently contradictory goals: protecting children and preserving families.” He advocated reinventing the child welfare system “so that it places children first.”

PROMISING EFFORTS

This is not to suggest that all reform efforts are in vain. The Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest recommended in September that efforts at privatizing the child welfare system be abandoned after a blistering state audit of the privatization initiative was issued.

“It’s time to say enough is enough,” said Sarah Helvey, an Appleseed attorney. “There is a growing body of evidence now that this reform is failing,” the Omaha World-Herald reports.

By October of 2011, Appleseed had found support among many other advocacy groups, and had gained the attention of the news media. Indeed, even the Nebraska Foster Care Review Board had joined forces with Appleseed and other advocacy groups in their mutual effort to reverse the “reform” effort before it damaged more children than it already had.

As I reported in a previous article, a report issued by Nebraska’s Platte Institute bears out the perverse financial incentives driving these reforms. The Institute found that: “The current system creates an incentive to shuffle a child into foster care, not because it is the best option for the child, but because in many cases funding is sure to follow. On the other hand, alternatives that actually cost less and are more effective are not taken into serious consideration.”

Indeed, it it is difficult to fathom how legislators could support such privatization efforts given the abysmal track record in Texas – the state that led the charge.

FUNDAMENTAL RESTRUCTURING NECESSARY

Professor of social work Leroy Pelton explains that the current structure of the child welfare system is dysfunctional, and that: “A fundamental restructuring of the system will be necessary before it can accommodate any large-scale expansion of family preservation and prevention programs and services.” Lacking such a restructuring, “any incremental approach or tinkering with the system in its present form will not change its focus from placement to prevention.”

The incessant piecemeal tinkering with the system serves only to strengthen it, even as it provides an intellectual trap for would-be reformers. “Just by calling for more workers, more training, better academic credentials, advocates serve to maintain the status quo,” Pelton explains, adding that: “Even radical critics have succumbed to the delusion that more of the same, albeit of higher quality, is what we need.”

EARLIER EFFORTS AT REFORM

Brenda McGowan (1983) points out that the field of child protection is one which has been repeatedly attacked “for its failure to insure permanency planning, its inability to prevent placement, its failure to place children in need of protection, its inherent racism and classism, its anti-family bias, its violations of parents’ and children’s rights, its arbitrary decision-making procedures, the incompetence and inefficiency of its staff, its costs, and its mismanagement” (p. 72). The era to which McGowan is generally referring is the 1960s. Little has changed since, save that a child protection lobby “whose power has increased in recent years as physicians have swelled the ranks of what was originally composed of social workers” (Finkelhor, 1979, p. 2) has formalized its operations, and that state and county agency administrators have become increasingly sophisticated in maximizing the inflow of federal dollars, often with the assistance of the private consulting firms.

Although competent practice strategies have been discussed frequently over the past several years, agency administrators and staff are often confused about how and where to make changes in policy and practice which would better serve children of color (Pierce & Pierce, 1996). As a result, the child welfare system operates to the detriment of the primary clientele it serves. To the extent that there are occasional successes, they are accidental and subject more to the winds of fortune than they are attributable to the knowledge base of the profession or the skills of its workers. While a great deal of clinical and empirical studies have been conducted, a relatively small number of facts have been produced. At best, conventional casework approaches yield a 50% success rate (Garbarino, 1984).

The permanency planning movement has failed to provide the promise of permanence and stability to foster children. It has been blamed for adding another bureaucratic layer to an already fragmented system, thus contributing to rapid turnover and uncovered caseloads (Kamerman & Kahn, 1989) and the failures of family preservation and reunification as major components of permanency planning have been likened to the outcomes of deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill (Fein & Maluccio, 1992).

Multidisciplinary approaches have recently been advanced as a solution to the “crisis” in child protection (U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1995), yet early findings from research on the effects of multidisciplinary treatment indicate that this method was successful only in 40% to 50% of cases (Williams, 1980). In an effort to increase adoptions of minority children, legislative proposals such as the Multiethnic Placement Act have been advanced. Yet few empirical studies have assessed the attitudes toward interracial or interethnic adoption from the perspective of people of color, and interracial adoption remains statistically rare (Bausch & Serpe, 1997). Citizen Review Panels have been established as an alternative to administrative review, yet an audit conducted by the Utah Legislative Auditor General (1996) found that the review type affected neither the length of stay nor the number of placements. Guardian Ad Litem programs have been universally established to protect the interests of children in the family courts. The results have been predictable, as the Program Evaluation Division of the Minnesota Legislative Auditor (1995) explains:

Many concerns have been raised about the use of guardians ad litem. Most complaints have centered on guardian actions in family court cases, primarily in contested divorce actions. Complaints have focused on guardian bias, lack of oversight and accountability, inadequate training, and inappropriate communication between guardians and judges. Parents have also complained that there is no place to seek relief if they have a problem with a guardian.

Among the Auditor’s findings: There is no regional or statewide system to process complaints about a guardian; there are no uniform statewide procedures to remove a guardian from a case or program; there is not a universally understood or consistently applied definition of the appropriate roles and responsibilities for guardians in Minnesota, leading to frequent confusion and differing expectations; thirty-three counties do not have any basic training requirements and 57 counties do not have any continuing education requirements. Perhaps not surprisingly, guardians ad litem also enjoy absolute immunity against prosecution for their role in family court.

Indeed, the entire child welfare system would appear to the casual observer to be in a perpetual state of “reform.” Incremental adjustments, such as alterations in caseworker training policies, efforts at involving law enforcement in varying degrees during the investigative stages, movement toward a “less adversarial approach” to interventions, and reorganizations of existing bureaucratic structures have been identified as among current reform efforts (Wilson, Vincent, & Lake, 1996). There have also been countless efforts at reform of these systems through litigation. As of 1990, George Miller and the members of the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families had counted over 45 lawsuits which had been won by child advocates based on violations of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act.

While some modest gains have been made from time to time, for the most part these gains have been temporary. In some instances, litigation has only worsened matters for children in care, as it did in Utah by virtue of further increasing the unnecessary removal of children from their homes. As Miller observed some years ago: “This system has been sued and sued and orders have been issued and people have just continued on their merry way” (Committee on Ways and Means, 1988). These efforts at reform have all failed because the core tasks of the child protection system-investigation of families and child removal-remain unchanged.

Not only has federal oversight has been all but nonexistent, but Congress has often waived penalties imposed on states for lack of compliance with the reasonable efforts requirements of Public Law 96-272 (Ellertson, 1994). After years of well-documented indifference on the part of child protection and foster care agencies toward the modest requirements of the law, Congress has decimated the meager protections it offered children through its enaction of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. I am hard pressed to find room for optimism in the face of recent legislative changes. The war against child abuse will likely continue for some additional years, until such time as the casualties of the war mount to such an extent that even Congress cannot overlook them. The misdirection of funding away from assisting the poor toward instead removing an ever-increasing number of their children is likely to continue unabated until such time as society reaches a more compassionate consensus and disassembles the child removal apparatus, establishing in its place a system which is genuinely supportive of families and children.

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See also: Reprise: The Ominous Parallels
Related reading
Rewarding States for Adoptions Part of the Problem, Rather Than a Solution
The Indian Child Welfare Act: Where Are We Today?
Adoption bonuses doled out, providing states with additional revenue maximization opportunities
Efforts at Reform: 2010 – Where Are We Today?

References

Bausch, R. S., & Serpe, R. T. (1997). Negative outcomes of interethnic adoption of Mexican American children. Social Work, 42,136-143.

Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives (1988). Foster Care, Child Welfare, and Adoption Reforms. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Ellertson, C. (1994). The Department of Health and Human Service’s foster care review system needs a major overhaul. Children and Youth Services Review, 16, 433-444.

Fein, E., & Maluccio, A. N. (1992). Permanency planning: Another remedy in jeopardy? Social Service Review, 66, 335-348.

Finkelhor, D. (1979). Sexually Victimized Children. New York: Macmillan.

Garbarino, J. (1984). What have we learned about child maltreatment? In Perspectives on child maltreatment in the mid ’80s. Washington, DC: National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect.

Hazeltine, S. L., (2002). Speedy Termination of Alaska Native Parental Rights: The 1998 Changes to Alaska’s Child In Need of Aid Statutes and Their Inherent Conflict with the Mandates of the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act, 19 Alaska L. Rev. 57.

Legislative Auditor General (1996). Digest of a sunset audit of the foster care citizen review panels. Report #96-08. Salt Lake City: Author.

McGowan, B. G. (1983). Historical evolution of child welfare services: An examination of the sources of current problems and dilemmas. In In B. G. McGowan & W. Meezen (Ed.), Child Welfare: Current Dilemmas – Future Directions () (pp. 45-90). Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock.

Pierce, R. L., & Pierce, L. H. (1996). Moving toward cultural competence in the child welfare system. Children and Youth Services Review, 18, 713-731.

Program Evaluation Division, Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor (1995). Guardians Ad Litem. St. Paul: Author.

Roberts, D., ASFA: An Assault on Family Preservation. Frontline: A failure to protect. Available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fostercare/inside/roberts.html

U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (1995). A nation’s shame: fatal child abuse and neglect in the United States. Washington, DC: Author.

Williams, G. J. (1980). Management and treatment of parental abuse and neglect of children: An Overview. In G. J. Williams (Ed.), Traumatic Abuse and Neglect of Children at Home (). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Wilson, C., Vincent, P., & Lake, E. (1996). An examination of organizational structure and programmatic reform in public child protective services. Report #96-12-4101. Olympia, WA: Washington State Institute for Public Policy.

Vandewalker, I., NYU Review of Law & Social Change, (2008). Vol. 32, p. 423.

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

Woman found injured at Fairbanks homeless camp dies

 This was our grand children's other Grandma. We had known "Elli" for 20 years or so. Despite our differences, she was a good friend and a great Gramma. We will miss her dearly.
We knew Elli when her and her family moved into the apartment complex we managed. Our grand kids dad [Archie] was just a punk kid then. He grew [way] up and pursued our daughter. They gave us the kids we have today.
Her husband Mel passed years ago, but I think he would have been proud of how she cared for and loved her grandkids. We loved Ellie and anyone who has a problem with that, well, can  kiss our ass. We know the police are pursuing her case and they will find the culprit. We hope that when they find that culprit, they will give him or her to the family of Ellie for Alaskan justice.  
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Woman found injured at Fairbanks homeless camp dies

by Mary Beth Smetzer/msmetzer@newsminer.com

Jul 08, 2012 | 7857 views | 10  | 8  |  | 

FAIRBANKS - Ellen Florence Juneby Rada, 58, who was found unconscious with serious injuries, June 28 at a Fairbanks homeless camp, died Sunday afternoon at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage.

Her sister, Adeline Juneby Potts, was at her bedside, holding her hand when she passed at approximately 4 p.m.

Because of bleeding from the brain, Rada was taken to Anchorage for specialized care. On Monday, July 2, life support was removed.

The Juneby family, from Eagle Village, lost another family member on July 1, when Isaac Juneby, 71, died in a car crash in Anchorage after spending hours at the hospital at his sister’s side.

Adeline, who traveled to Anchorage from her home in Minnesota, suffered a heart condition during the 10-day hospital vigil, but is recovering well.

Fairbanks Police Lt. Dan Welborn, said the investigation into the circumstances surrounding Rada’s injuries continues.

“It is a sad time,” he said. “We will be in contact with the family, and we will have additional followup information early this week.”

Rada’s body will be taken to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy.

A Fairbanks memorial service for Isaac and Ellen will be held at 4 p.m. today, Monday July 9, in the Chief David Salmon Tribal Hall. A luncheon fundraiser for the Juneby family precedes the service from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

A funeral service in Eagle for the siblings is slated for 1 p.m. Wednesday followed by burial at Eagle Village Cemetery.

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Woman found injured at Fairbanks homeless camp dies



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Celebrate the Declaration, and remember what it has meant to the United States and the rest of the world.

Celebrate the Declaration, and remember what it has meant to the United States and the rest of the world.

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From Townhall Magazine's July feature, "How to Celebrate the Fourth of July," by Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College:


Two hundred thirty-six years ago this Fourth of July, 57 men signed the document that created the American republic. They represented a people of about 3 million grouped in a series of 13 colonies along the eastern seaboard of the United States. They were all wanted men, sought by the commander of the British forces in North America for sedition and treason. He had behind him the resources of the greatest military power on earth. They had behind them the bare beginnings of a government, hardly anything of an army, but something mighty in the way of an idea.

This nation had therefore a desperate beginning. Who but the boldest could believe that the signers of the Declaration of Independence were laying the foundation of the greatest constitutional republic in history? Now that republic has spread across the continent, and its influence reaches around the world. Its population has increased a hundredfold. Its Constitution has provided government to a free people constantly growing in size and territory, each new state joining the union as an equal, its citizens never subjects, its people ever free. There is no story close to it in the history of man.

Statesmen and thinkers have attributed the strength and goodness of the nation to the principles in the Declaration. Many others have denied this. Statesmen and thinkers have proclaimed the Constitution a just and beautiful implementation of the principles of the Declaration. Many others have denied this. These denials are more common in times of crisis in our country. They are very common now.

It is a sign of our time that the sitting chief executive of our country eschews the permanent meaning of the Declaration and the idea of fixity in the Constitution. In the “Audacity of Hope,” Barack Obama writes: “Implicit in [the Constitution’s] structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or “ism,” any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course. …”

Obama has stuck to this theme during his presidency. This May at Barnard College, he proclaimed the great virtue of the Constitution to be its openness to change: “It allowed for protests, movements, and the assimilation of new ideas that would repeatedly, decade after decade, change the world—a constant forward movement that continues to this day.” There is neither form nor firmness. All is fluid, according to Obama, and this liberates us to do whatever we will.

America has gone very far down the trail that Obama is blazing. Right now, the expenditures of all government—state, local and federal—exceed 40 percent of the gross domestic product. If trends continue, the public sector will soon grow larger than the private sector, and then the government will have more resources than those it governs.
Moreover, it governs increasingly without authority from the branches that are elected by the people. The new Dodd- Frank finance law creates something called a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This agency does not get its budget from Congress. Rather, its money comes from a guaranteed percentage of the budget of the Federal Reserve, which gets its money from its operations as a bank. Congress is even specifically forbidden in the law to hold hearings into the budget of the new CPFB. And it has wide examining power over every form of consumer finance in the nation. In unfettered scope of authority, and in near perfect separation from popular control, it is different from anything before it in America.
Because we have come so far from the founding institutions, it is worthwhile to remind ourselves what they are. This anniversary of the Declaration of Independence provides a splendid occasion, because both the principles of the nation and its institutions are summarized beautifully in its 1,300 words. Let us then read it for a moment.
Notice first of all how remarkable it is that the document should begin universally. The authors were obviously mindful of the fact they were wanted men. They conclude the Declaration with a solemn promise, made to each other in the mood of soldiers facing battle: “In support of this Declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” (emphasis added). The particularity of this commitment, each man speaking for himself in promise to the others in the room, is what one might expect of legislation passed on the eve of a war, legislation that is itself a written act of treason.
If these men were in a situation urgent unto death, how can we account for the abstract and universal nature of the beginning of the Declaration? It begins with an “absolute truth” (to use the president’s term) expressed in words that have rung around the world: “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them …” (emphasis added).
Notice that this quotation refers to no particular time, but to any time in the course of human events. Notice that it refers not to the American people, but to “one people,” meaning any people. It is a very absolute and universal way of talking. It issues immediately a proclamation of truth: “We hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
Just as the Founders did, so may anyone look for his rights under these “laws of nature and of nature’s God.” Anyone whose rights are denied will feel their weight. The Jew rounded up by the Nazis, the black slave held in Mississippi in 1840, may both look to this document as the charter by which he can advance. Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder, was aware of this and wrote that indeed, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” These principles place every man and woman deprived of their rights in the same place that the Founders occupied on July 4, 1776: they may appeal to an absolute truth, written in the nature of man and in the nature of things, against any power that will offend their rights. Perhaps they cannot find the strength to overcome their oppression. Never mind: their cause is still the just one. They will see, and even in moments of clarity their oppressors will see, that the great self-evident truth that all men are created equal means nothing more nor less than that all men are men. It means nothing less than that no one may rightly govern another except by his consent. It means that the purpose of government is to “secure these rights”: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
These are the principles of the United States. The fact that they were announced at the onset of its revolution, and the fact that the revolution proceeded in their name, seals them in the blood and the history of this land.
The Declaration is not only about principles; it also describes institutions, the kind of institutions best adapted to protect the rights of a people. These institutions are expressed in the middle section of the document, the section in which the specific crimes and injustices of the king of England are described. The three broad constitutional principles that he violated form the backbone of the later Constitution of the United States. The first step in understanding that Constitution is not to learn its details, although they are relatively few. The first step is to understand the grand arrangements of government necessary to constitutional rule.
The first of these three principles is representation. The king is said to have interfered with the representatives of the people in their attempt to pass laws “most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” The Declaration recognizes that human beings are made to live under law, and they have a right for those laws to be passed by people who represent them. This right is not to be interfered with by any force. Any force doing so interferes with the consent of the governed and cannot rightfully claim obedience. Violation of the representative principle is, by itself, cause for revolution.
The second of these principles is separation of powers. At the outset of the American Revolution, the king and his governors were the executive branch. By interfering with the legislature, the king violated not only the right of the people to representative government but also the necessity for separation of powers. He violated this necessity also by making “judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.” God is named four times in the Declaration, once as each of the three branches of government, and once as a founder. The lesson is simple: God may well be the maker of the laws of nature and of nature’s God, and He may well be at the same time the Supreme Judge of the world, and He may also be Divine Providence. But no man or small group of men may rightly combine in their own hands all the powers of government. That is for God alone.
Finally, the Declaration calls for a limited government. The king was taxing America’s forefathers without their consent, and he was using the money, among other things, to pay for a hired army to oppress them. He sent many officials to make sure that his will was followed on all occasions, whatever the commoners may wish. The Declaration charges him with erecting “a multitude of new offices, and [sending] hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” In other words, the king offended against the principle of limited government. He was building a structure too strong for the people to manage.
The modern bureaucratic state reproduces many of the features that led to the writing of the Declaration of Independence and that gave shape to the Constitution of the United States, which follows these three basic principles in its entire structure. Go before the bureaucracy and see that it is arranged both to make and enforce its own rules, and if one objects he must appear first before a judge who is employed by that same bureaucracy. And now a bureaucracy has been created that operates on a budget outside the control of the Congress.
This Fourth of July, we might well remind ourselves of the beauty, the greatness and the long serviceability of our constitutional institutions and of the principles from which they flow. This Fourth of July is a great time to recall these things, because the Declaration gives the Constitution its cause and also its basic form and function. We Americans may choose to discard this legacy and give up our birthright. Let us at least know what we are doing.
Celebrate the Declaration, and also remember its meaning. It is what a citizen does on the Fourth of July.
 http://townhall.com/tipsheet/elisabethmeinecke/2012/07/04/how_to_celebrate_the_fourth_of_july

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