One of the biggest crimes of child welfare is that federal funding starts when children are ripped out of their homes and placed in foster homes. Counties want that federal funding – apparently enough to destroy childhoods. Far from being child protection agencies, they run child exploitation agencies – a cash cow for financially ailing counties.

When a simple fix would work, why destroy the entire family?

I’m always reminded of a family that posted their caseworker report to the alt.support.child-protective-services newsgroup a few years back. Four children were ripped from their parents and placed in foster homes for a year, maybe more, because the parents needed to buy a new fan and a child safety gate for their indoor stairway. These items would have cost less than one hundred dollars, but social workers devastated that family and placed the children in foster homes costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

LEGISLATORS: How can you let this happen? I mention one isolated case, yet this needless family destruction is happening to thousands of families. Millions of dollars are being wasted in this country on foster care and so-called child welfare “services”.

Connecticut has come up with a partial solution – to provide what they call “flex funds” which social workers can apply for to help families with various needs such as rental payments and transportation.

More of this type of social work is needed.

SOCIAL WORKERS: Focus on helping families by providing what they need. Tearing families apart over trivial needs is cruel and inhumane, and will scar the children forever. It is not child protection to traumatize them needlessly. Be reasonable!

Source: Study: Problems Follow Foster Care – MIT Professor Says Those Taken From Families Are At Risk For Lives Of Crime, Unemployment, Teen Pregnancies By Charles Proctor for the Courant, published July 29, 2007.

Received in email:

Monday, July 30, 2007, WJR 760 AM Radio between 10 and 11 a.m. will, for the first time in Michigan (perhaps the nation) will allow the public to know what happens to parents and children with their tax dollars.

800-859-0957
Monday, July 30, 2007
10:00 to 11:00 a.m.

If you, or anyone you know (preferably in Michigan, but it does not have to be) has a story, now is the first opportunity for the public to know what goes on behind the scenes of Child Protective Services.

You do not have to provide you name, but try to keep your stories to a condensed 6 sentences, under 60 seconds. WJR is providing you with the freedom of speech and has opened the window of opportunity to redress governance.

Share your pain with the public and elected officials.

Even if you do not have a personal story, or do not know anyone who has had involvement with the state, call in and share your wisdom with the citizens of Michigan who deserve to be educated in the functioning of government.

Let’s let the general media know that we, as citizens, can no longer be silenced. The power of government is at the behest of us.

800-859-0957
Monday, July 30, 2007
10:00 to 11:00 a.m.

Note from Linda: Michigan is one of the states I’ve received complaints about most. I encourage all Fight CPS readers to consider sharing your story with this radio show. Remember to keep it brief, as they said. Only sixty seconds – one minute – about six short sentences. Think first about what you can say that will make the most impact, then make your call.

Howard Hendrick, head of the Oklahoma DHS state agency, is under investigation for child neglect. His 13-year-old son was injured while they were burning brush at a lake house earlier this month.

According to an article on the Tulsa World website, an anonymous caller complained that the director didn’t act quickly enough to get medical help for his child. The director said the nearest hospital was 45 miles away, so they waited until the next morning.

Hendrick says he phoned a doctor immediately when the injury occurred. If the doctor recommended waiting, then that should end the case. Hendrick wouldn’t comment on how badly his son was injured but did say he is doing well. He also said, “I think he will fully recover.” To me that sounds like there’s some possibility he won’t. They have my sympathy … especially the injured child.

A comment on the Tulsa World article says, “I hope things turn out fairly for this family but I also hope the director sees how innocent families are treated poorly and lied to during the investigation process.” Honestly, I doubt that he’ll learn how DHS or CPS social workers treat poor folks. This case work will be under intense scrutiny and anyone working on it will be unwilling to lie and frame the man using false accusations. (Just my opinion on what will happen with the case.) I think it will be dismissed almost immediately. Yes, they got a report (probably anonymous) and he’s being investigated, but that doesn’t mean there were be an open DHS case against this man.

Source: DHS Director investigated after child injured – an Associated Press article published on the Tulsa World website.

P.S. – Speaking as someone who lives 75 miles from the nearest hospital – if my children were injured and the local clinic was closed, I could phone our local ambulance service. They check out injuries and provide transportation if needed, the entire way to the hospital. 45 miles is nothing – when a child is badly injured, he should be seen as quickly as possible. I’m sure the director of Oklahoma DHS had a good car and could have easily made the drive to town. This is not meant as a criticism of the parents’ judgment in this matter. I don’t know all the circumstances and have no intention to condemn anyone.

I really don’t like to read stories like this.

Last Friday a couple felt compelled to leave a hospital in Michigan with their newborn infant because CPS social workers in Saginaw asked Lucas County CPS social workers to interview them.

If I remember right, CPS in Michigan is called FIA – the Family Independence Agency – or have they changed their name again?

My feelings are always so divided when I read about things like this. I scanned the article for clues to what led this couple to make this life-changing decision.

The results so far: The couple and baby are on the run. CPS now has legal custody of the baby according to a Toledo police sergeant, William Wauford, though before they left CPS had tried to get a court order and failed. And there are warrants out for the arrest of Fredrick and Margaret Badenhoop.

Why my feelings are divided:

I never advise parents to run with their children because I know, over the years, that in most cases where this happened, the parents were apprehended and the children ended up in foster homes anyhow. Plus I have a policy of never advising a parent to do something illegal, or something that would get them in worse trouble with the law. I believe that staying firm and fighting CPS in a court of law is a better choice. But this may be one of those cases where it wouldn’t have worked to do so. At the end of the article it says, “Child Protective Services had taken at least one other child from Margaret Badenhoop.”

According to a law passed in 1996, the Adoptions and Safe Families Act (ASFA), if anyone has had their rights to another child terminated, CPS can take future babies without benefits of any kind of service plan or visitations. This can lead to incredibly cruel and heartrending scenes in hospitals where CPS worker have walked in and pulled infants from the arms of loving mothers, for no reason except that another child was already taken.

I swear I cannot help but hate social workers who allow themselves to be the agents of such cruelty. Why on earth would anyone want the bad karma associated with someone who would do such a deed?

I don’t know what the issues are with the Badenhoops, or what their motivation was, but I do know that their problems are severe and they need all the prayers we can give them and their child.

I really, really don’t like it when things like this happen. My heart hurts so much for the people involved.

Source: Parents take their baby, flee hospital, face charges by Lania Coleman for The Saginaw News published on July 23, 2007.

Today I worked on improving the new Fight CPS Squidoo Lens. I wrote more text and added a place where you can add links to your favorite family rights site, your MySpace, family rights Yahoo groups, or whatever else you have going on here on the web.

Fight CPS is also at MySpace.

If you need help with a CPS case, the best way to get feedback is to log onto the message board here at Fight CPS.