Rarely have I read anything so poignant and moving as the day-by-day account a loving mother is writing of the TPR trial she’s enduring. See: TPR Trial Blog. You may have to be logged into MySpace to read this. Get an account if you don’t have one already. This is really worth reading.

If that link doesn’t work for you, try this one: TPR Trial Blog.

For those who don’t know, TPR means “Termination of Parental Rights”.

I ask that this weekend everyone who reads this who is inspired to do so, please say a prayer for this family to be reunited, send positive energies, pray for the judge to make the right decision, and so on . . . because next Monday the trial continues.

This mother, who is a nurse, deserves our support and love and good wishes. Please keep praying that she’s able to bring her children home.

And to the mother: thanks for posting to Fight CPS and for giving us the link to your blog.

Sean’s mother, his most loving advocate, created a MySpace page for him: Foster Care ABUSE~Political PRISONER ! HOSTAGE CPS

Now do CPS workers want to suppress evidence by trying to force her her to take down Sean’s MySpace page?

According to a June 28, 2007 message she sent to her friend’s list at MySpace, CPS workers are mad as fire because they found out about the MySpace page on which Sean’s mother recounts details about her experiences with CPS.

Why?

One look at these photographs will tell the story.

Sean is being bruised in foster care!

This is what Sean’s mother saw during her visit with him:

[Photos used by permission.]

Sean’s mother says:

my case is all about POLITICS . Not even close to ABUSE. the abuse now is what they have done to SEAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3 Foster Homes and they tried to HIDE MY BABY !!!!.. and his BRUISES!!!

For more information, see Sean’s MySpace: Foster Care ABUSE~Political PRISONER ! HOSTAGE CPS

CPS caseworkers in Washington apparently failed to follow up on fifteen reports of child abuse, but when a neighbor told police a teenage foster child was locked in the closet, the girl was finally rescued from what appears to be a horrific foster care abuse situation. Detectives said the first fifteen complaints weren’t acted on because the foster parent moved from apartment to apartment, and they couldn’t find her, yet at the same time this woman collected foster parent benefits for housing the young girl.

My theory is different. I believe that cases of child abuse in foster homes are ignored because CPS doesn’t get any money for taking children from one foster home and putting them in another. They only get an increase in funding when they take a child from their natural families, then place them in a foster home. Therefore foster child abuse isn’t a priority for busy CPS caseworkers.

Fight CPS hopes to shed light on the problem of abuse in foster homes. Statistics have shown that child abuse of all types is about ten times more likely to happen in a foster home than in a natural family home.

The child, who is now sixteen, lived with foster parent Chornice Lewis, 33, for ten years. Acquaintances said Lewis was very polite and made a good impression on them.

Police allege that if the foster child caused any problems, Lewis put the child’s hand on a hot stove. And if she didn’t listen she had to stand next to her foster parent’s bed all night long. If she slept, a 10-lb weight was dropped on her feet. And once, when she wasn’t packing properly, an insulin needle was plunged into her eye, so the girl is now blind in one eye.

According to a KOMOTV.Com article, Cheryl Stephani, an employee of the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, DSHS, said “We missed it. . . . As a child welfare system. It’s all of us, the courts, the department, the children’s administration. We should hold each other accountable; we need to hold each other accountable.”

Holding CPS caseworkers accountable = Good Idea. When?

Source: Mother accused of abusing foster daughter for years by Bryan Johnson, for KOMOTV.Com, published June 26, 2007.

Jack and Casey He were going through hard times years ago when they gave their baby girl, Anna Mae, to temporary foster parents. When they tried to get their child back, Jerry and Louise Baker refused to let go. Now Anna Mae is eight years old and the foster parents are still filing court papers, trying to keep her. It is people like this who give foster parenting a bad name. This case has been ongoing for six years, since the Bakers filed a motion in 2001 to try to terminate the He’s parental rights.

In January the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that Anna Mae should be returned to her parents “in an expeditious manner” but Jack and Casey He are still waiting because the Bakers, with the help of their attorney, Larry Parish, made a federal court filing on June 12 asking that the Tennessee Supreme Court ruling be overturned. If the federal court doesn’t intervene, Anna Mae should be reunited with her family late in July.

Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper Jr. filed papers on June 18 criticizing the Bakers and Larry Parish for “a number of extreme and horrifying hypotheticals” included in the federal filing. For example, Parish wrote that the Tennessee Supreme Court was “amputating [the child’s] legs” and that Jack and Casey He were “strangers” who “have become monsters in her world”.

The only reason Jack and Casey He weren’t visiting Anna Mae is that Jerry and Louise Baker got a lower court judge to ban them from seeing her back in 2001. Is this is what the Bakers twist around to call ‘abandonment’? And if Anna Mae He now thinks of her rightful parents as “monsters” that most likely has been instilled in her by her foster parents. I believe this is called brainwashing.

The Bakers believe Anna’s rights are being violated. What about her right to live with the parents God gave her? What about her right not to have her mind poisoned by foster parents who hate her parents enough to fight with Jack and Casey He in court about custody of their daughter?

Source: Supreme Court Decision Stands for Anna Mae He by Teri Whitcraft, ABC News Law & Justice Unit, published June 26, 2007.

See also: the Jack and Casey He page at FamilyRights.Us where there’s an ongoing collection of articles about the He Family since 2001.

Spokane City Councilman Bob Apple launched an outspoken attack on a CPS social worker he claimed submitted false court documents in a child welfare case involving a former employee and campaign volunteer, Daniel Morgan. The City Councilman stated that CPS kidnapped a 2-year-old child, and that the assistant attorney general should be jailed.

From the article:

“It’s a sham… If this is how the court system operates, then it’s broken.” - Bob Apple

Of course CPS said that the charges were “ridiculous” because they go to court and state that the child is “at risk of imminent harm”.

In this case the ex-husband of Morgan’s wife has made accusations against Morgan in a custody dispute.

From the article:

Since 2002, the state agency has received a “number of referrals related to parental neglect of the children and alleged physical abuse of the children by Mr. Morgan,” according to the court documents. A state spokeswoman said she could not disclose how many of the complaints were made by Allen…..The Morgans said Allen has used the referrals “as payback” and to gain custody of the two children he had with Robin Morgan.

Now, this next part hits home with me:

“Unfortunately, in this field, when the custody of children is involved, everyone involved is willing to lie,” said Dave Wood, a lobbyist for Washington Families United, a nonprofit group seeking reforms to the child-welfare system. “You don’t know what the truth is. Something has to change.”

I find that so true - that too many people are willing to lie to get custody. That includes social workers, ex-spouses, girlfriends of ex-spouses, etc. And I plead with each one of you that if you’re in this situation, stay with the truth. Lies lead only to confusion. If you tell the truth, at least when it is all over, you still have your integrity.

City Councilman Bob Apple will advocate for any citizen that contacts him. Perhaps you might want to print out this article and take it to your city councilman (or woman) to see if that person is willing to go to bat for you. I’ve contacted my county supervisor several times, including for an issue involving CPS, and every time she’s been a great help and everything turned out perfectly.

Source: Apple puts spotlight on CPS by Benjamin Shors for the Spokane Spokesman Review, published June 23, 2007

This week I had guests on this website that are not sympathetic to our cause. John and Brooke, who post from Texas, seem to think they are God’s gift to Unfortunate Children … in other words, they are self-righteous foster parents. See the messages they contributed to this site at Texas: “The System Is Maxed”.

Normally I have no problem with having foster parents posting here at Fight CPS. Some foster parents are loving, kind, and truly on the side of parents who want to regain custody of their children. I appreciate that they care enough to come here and give advice to suffering parents and other natural family members.

John and Brooke did not fit that description. They apparently were here to insult and annoy the suffering people who this site was created to help. Some of their comments were inappropriate and unkind, and some of those are being held in the moderation queue because they are not appropriate for this site.

At first I didn’t know they were related though it was clear that John was backing up Brooke and railing against me, including a few rude comments along the way. I’d had enough of him when John finally declared, “I am not at all simpathetic [sic] to the people who complain about removal because I don’t know if they are truthful, I know that these parents will lie or tell only part of the story to gain simpathy [sic] from anyone that will listen.”

The people who come to this site - those for whom this site is intended - do not need to be insulted by being called liars.

In retrospect it is humorous to see that John is so unfamiliar with the concept of sympathy that he cannot even spell it right.

Because of John’s rude statement, I put his future comments on moderation by putting his Texas IP number in the comment moderation box in my blog administration panel.

I was surprised when I woke up the next day and found a comment from Brooke in my moderation queue! It was then that I noticed that Brooke and John were using the same IP number!

That day John finally admitted to being a foster parent receiving money from the state. It was as I’d suspected - he has his hands in the pockets of the system and so naturally is blind to anything that might be wrong with what he’s doing. He wrote, “I couldn’t really care less about the money I am financially secure without it.”

Does that qualify him to leave comments on this system where there are hundreds of suffering parents and family members seeking help every day, insulting everyone by calling them liars? I think not, and won’t tolerate it. So I decided that John and Brooke will not have any further comments published.

Brooke posted one more time - and I have not published it - her final comment remains in the moderation queue because it is an insult to another suffering parent who is trying to recover from heroin addiction. Like most people here, I’ve never tried heroin and never will, but I do not believe it is right to spew hatred and recriminations at people who are trying to recover from an addiction, as Brooke did in her final comment.

I honestly cannot understand why Brooke and John were so intent on posting here. They have no respect for the people who come to this site for help, and don’t have a clue as to why I started and maintain this site. They have their foster home money and some Unfortunate Children… and yes, I’m concerned about the children in their care. If this is how they respond to suffering people, those children may be receiving similar maltreatment at the hands of these self-righteous people.

The point of this story is in the title to the post. People who come to this site should be aware it is my intention to build suffering people up, not tear them down. Tearing them down is what CPS does. I’ve known for nearly twenty years that what CPS does is find people who are going through a rough spot in life, then the caseworkers kick them while they’re down, figuratively speaking, by destroying their families.

Here at Fight CPS we must do the opposite. When suffering people come here, we must give them hope, strengthen them, build them up, love them, care for them, understand them (we are all God’s children) . . . and give them tools to use to express themselves in court so that CPS workers aren’t the only ones going in with legal paperwork, prepared for court.

John and Brooke, be gone. We don’t need anyone telling people they have problems. Everyone who gets involved with CPS is aware already they’ve got a problem and/or made mistakes. They don’t need you stuffing your recriminations down their throats. God help the children you’re warehousing for the state.

…

* I know the exact city their IP number comes from but am concealing that information, for now.

Morris Brasovankin, 89, and his wife, Mildred, 86, enjoyed taking care of their five-year-old grandson, Steven. He was born in 2001 to a mother addicted to crack, three months premature, weighing just over two pounds. The mother left and the child’s father, Steven Brasovankin, 54, made the mistake of contacting CPS to help take care of his son.

The baby was placed in a foster home but his father found out the foster parents wanted to adopt so he fought to get his son home again. Grandparents Mildred and Morris Brasovankin helped take care of little Steven.

Four months ago the father took little Steven to the hospital for treatment for a cold. The hospital staff called DHS thinking the father was acting irrationally, due, he says, to financial problems and business failure. The court ordered psychological counseling for this father and gave temporary custody to the grandparents.

Then disaster struck on March 23 at a court hearing when the impatient child, after being confined for more than an hour in the waiting area, got away from his grandparents and ran up to the judge’s bench where he smacked a computer. Because the Brasovankins weren’t able to chase the child and control him, their attorney retrieved him.

A CASA worker, Kathleen Knese, recommended that Steven be taken from his grandparents because of his activity level and behavior. She said that the Brasovankins wouldn’t be able to take care of him properly. The judge agreed and ordered that little Steven be placed in foster care in 90 days.

Ten days ago a DHS worker, James Hood, showed up at Steven’s school and took the child. The Brasovankins were not even notified. When Steven didn’t come home on the bus they phoned the school and were given the news.

From the article at Philly.Com:
“Right away, I’m running down to the school. I must have been there in two minutes,” Morris said. “I’ll tell you something — I love that little boy. I’d do anything for him. Anything. It killed me when I went to that school and he was already gone because if I was there, he would have never been taken away.”

Source: Too Old To Be Parents? by Wendy Ruderman for the Philadelphia Daily News.

Katie Wernecke, 14, was taken from her family by CPS two years ago, not because she was being abused or neglected, but because CPS agents and doctors didn’t agree with her parents’ decisions regarding her cancer treatment. At the age of 12 Katie, a resident of Agua Dulce, Texas, had Hodgkin’s disease. Her parents sought an alternative treatment for her. That right was denied to them.

CPS took Katie Wernecke from her family and forced her to undergo court ordered medical treatments. A judge allowed her to go home in November 2005, and though the family is grateful to have been reunited they believe their Constitutional Rights were violated. The lawsuit, filed by a Frisco, Texas attorney, is based on violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. CPS child detentions are considered a seizure. The Fourteenth Amendment protects property and legal rights, and ensures that citizens have due process rights.

Many people have sued CPS in Federal Courts based on the violation of these Constitutional Rights.

Source: Wernecke family suing Nueces County, CPS by Erin Cargile of KRIS-TV.

***

The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution:

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

What are your thoughts about how CPS should be changed?

Please leave a comment here to tell us what’s wrong with the child protective services system and how you believe it should change.

The WCF Courier reported:

Marie Mahler, 39, of Cedar Falls, filed three reports between Aug. 27, 2004, and Oct. 7, 2004, used in a juvenile court case that she “knew or reasonably should have known were false” and that the reports would be used by a judge to make a decision in the case, according to court records obtained by the Courier.

Mahler repeatedly included misrepresentations of conversations, events and relationships of the people involved with the case, according to court records.

Court records say she claimed that Jesup police officers were called to the mother’s home for a drug investigation in August 2004. Records indicate an officer was called to the home not for drugs, but to prevent an altercation between two siblings. No signs of drugs were found.

Mahler, who has been a Buchanan County social worker since 1998, pleaded ‘not guilty’.

Roger Munns, a spokesman for her employer, the Iowa Department of Human Services, said “This is really quite unusual.”

Yes, we know that caseworkers lie in court documents and get away with it, and that having one criminally charged is unusual. However we hope that this will become common practice to stop lying CPS social workers everywhere.

***

Would you like to see your caseworker charged criminally for lying about you? If so, keep this in mind:

While the offenses occurred in 2004, Bernau said Mahler is exempt from Iowa’s statute of limitations law because she is still a state employee. In most felony cases, charges have to be filed within three years of the offense. However, that three-year period begins for state employees only after they are no longer working for the state.

Perjury is a Class D felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

(This is per Iowa state law. Your state laws may be different - do the research.)

Source: Social worker charged with perjury, by Josh Nelson, Courier Staff Writer, June 12, 2007

***

If you have ever had a caseworker lie about you in a court document, please leave a comment to this post, and tell us about it.

I’ve seen way too many lies in social worker reports to the courts.

It’s time for this criminal practice to result in prison sentences. Every perjury conviction will be a victory!