I know many of you don’t use drugs and this post doesn’t apply to you. This article is an appeal to people who think they can use drugs and be parents at the same time.

You never know how CPS agents will handle drug use. Sometimes they ignore it. Usually they’ll remove a child from the home even for suspected drug use. Sometimes drug-addicted parents can go through rehabilitation and get their children back. Sometimes they go through rehabilitation and still don’t get their children back. I find that the only consistent thing about CPS cases is that they are inconsistent.

If you are a parent and think it is okay to use drugs, even “just marijuana” - please consider this. Suppose that God is looking down on us and compassionately thinks marijuana use is okay. Suppose He put the plant here to be enjoyed, and in His sight you are not doing a bad thing.

However all around you there are people who think marijuana use is not okay. They are trained to report your drug use to CPS, and CPS agents are trained to consider your drug use as a form of child neglect. They think that if you’re using drugs of any kind, even just marijuana, you are not able to concentrate on watching your children. They think you spend your money on drugs rather than on your children. So you are on their list of people to take children away from.

In this scenario, it doesn’t matter what God thinks of you if the CPS worker is here on earth to take children away, and chooses yours.

I’m not saying that I think God approves of drugs. I’m just saying that if you think it is okay, then that’s your decision, for yourself. But once you have children to take care of, you’re responsible for them and if you know that CPS agents are looking for drug users to take children away from, you’re risking your children’s well-being and your own, because being in a CPS case is one of the most devastating things you can go through in life.

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Another type of drug use is that of CPS victim parents who are terribly depressed, confused, traumatized, lost without their children, and miserable. The temptation to turn to drugs during the course of a CPS case is very common. I know of way too many parents who could have had their children back, but instead went out and smoked marijuana during the course of the case… and somehow their CPS agent social workers found out and told the judge. Those children were adopted out to strangers.

Please don’t let this happen to you! If you’re a CPS victim parent, don’t give in to the temptation to use drugs no matter how miserable and depressed you are. This is the worst time ever to start using drugs of any kind, including cigarettes. Don’t do anything the CPS agents can use against you. It simply isn’t worth it.

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While I’m on the subject of drugs - let me tell you how I feel about CPS cases where the parents have lost their children due to drug use. First of all, I feel that drug use while parenting is foolhardy given the current laws in which children are taken away for that reason. But when a parent for some reason doesn’t realize that and doesn’t quit for the well-being of their children, if their children are taken, I do feel some sympathy for them. I want all parents to quit using drugs so they can keep their children. I want parents with children in CPS custody to rehabilitate themselves. I want families to be reunited.

No matter what, I believe it is wrong to adopt out the children of the living. I feel better about legal guardianships than I do about adoptions. I believe it is wrong to tell children to call someone else “Mom” or “Dad”… to tell them they have new “parents”. I believe that children have one set of parents and to tell them someone else took their place is like telling them it is okay to lie about who their real parents are.

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If you’re a parent, don’t use drugs unless a doctor prescribes them. If your doctor prescribes medical marijuana, find out if CPS workers in your state take children from medical marijuana users before deciding to use it. If you’re not a parent, I have nothing to say about whether you’re using drugs or not. Everyone makes their own decisions and I’m a “live and let live” kind of person. But when you have children at home - your first responsibility is to them. Doing something that could get them taken away from you by CPS is not a good idea.

I have owned this site for more than seven years. Before that I did what I could as an anti-CPS activist for ten years, including writing scathing articles about CPS that were published in newspapers. I’ve been publicly known as an activist in this field for about 18 years now, and even though I’ve had my own children living in my home all that time, they were never removed from my custody again.

I want to tell you why.

The main reason why my children were never removed from my home again is that I lived an impeccably straight and upright kind of existence. I lived for my children. I didn’t use drugs, didn’t drink to excess, didn’t do anything that could be construed as abusive. The other reason why my children were never removed from my home was that I was extremely lucky. As most of you know, if a CPS agent really wants to take your child, they can make things up, twist the truth to make you look wicked, or any number of tricks. I was disturbed that a local CPS agent came to my door several times during the last seven years, but despite his apparent interest in me due to my outspoken opinions and this website, he never had a reason to detain my children.

All I am asking, with this article, is to PLEASE not give CPS workers any reasons to take or keep your children. Drugs, whether good or bad, are a reason, so please turn away from the drug using lifestyle if that is how you’ve been living. Cure yourself with that wonderful, amazing will-power deep within you. It is right there in your heart, right next to your love for your children. Cure yourself and be free, and know that you’re doing the right thing for yourself and for your kids.

In the United Kingdom, two men are imprisoned for defying child protective services orders, and helping foster children. One man is convicted of the terrible crime of ANSWERING THE DOOR when his teenage grandson knocked on it. The grandfather, Charles Roy Taylor, age 71, has been sent to prison for twenty months. The court decided he was “undermining the care plan”. Sadly, Mr. Taylor and his wife are the boy’s only living relatives. When the boy ran away, he wanted to see them.

The other case involves an unnamed 56 year old man with health problems who is now incarcerated for sixteen months. In that case a boy in foster care ran away from his foster home to see his mother. The man then drove the mother and son to Dover, and from there they went to Paris. He was convicted of “child abduction” though, as the writer of my source article points out, it is a strange kind of child abduction when the child, voluntarily and on his own, runs away from the foster care placement.

Source: Child protection? No, ruination by Camilla Cavendish, published March 13, 2008 in The Times.

People who need CPS defense lawyers can post their information here.

Please keep it brief - no more than 500 words.

If you post an email address to be contacted, please post it in this format:
“yourname - at - yourdomain.com” . . . this will prevent spammers from stealing your email address and innundating you with unwanted emails.

Please note: This does not guarantee that anyone will ever contact you. Lawyers are free to scan the postings to this page, and if they are interested in representing you, can contact you directly. This website doesn’t have the manpower to match people with lawyers, and there’s no money here for paying lawyers for you. Also please remember that most lawyers are not interested in doing pro-bono work. You will probably need to agree to some kind of payment obligation to get an attorney to work for you.

People who need CPS defense lawyers can post their information here.

Please keep it brief - no more than 500 words.

If you post an email address to be contacted, please post it in this format:
“yourname - at - yourdomain.com” . . . this will prevent spammers from stealing your email address and innundating you with unwanted emails.

Please note: This does not guarantee that anyone will ever contact you. Lawyers are free to scan the postings to this page, and if they are interested in representing you, can contact you directly. This website doesn’t have the manpower to match people with lawyers, and there’s no money here for paying lawyers for you. Also please remember that most lawyers are not interested in doing pro-bono work. You will probably need to agree to some kind of payment obligation to get an attorney to work for you.

Recently I introduced two site features: one, a place for people to post referrals to good CPS-fighting attorneys, and the other, a place for people to make a request for an attorney. Both posts have had good responses, yet I know without a doubt that most of the people asking for legal help will not find it by posting on this website. I’m sorry to say that, but it is true. There are few attorneys who are so hard-up for work to do that they’ll come here to pick and choose clients who are probably broke and looking for someone to work pro-bono (for free).

Get over the idea that you might find a good pro-bono attorney. It rarely happens. In the seven-plus years since I started this site I’ve seen it happen only once. An attorney represented a very high-profile case in Oregon AFTER the couple became so desperate they kidnapped their own children from state custody. That attorney lost the case and the couple has been imprisoned ever since.

The alternative to finding the dream-attorney is to take that court-appointed freebie do-nothing attorney the county provides, and make that person WORK for YOU.

The main problem with these court-appointed attorneys is that they are paid by the county; that same county that is your adversary in juvenile court. So how motivated can they be to go against the county and help you?

Turn the tables. Take charge of your case.

A way to control how your attorney handles your case is to decide, yourself, how you want it handled. Then sit down and write your attorney a comprehensive letter detailing exactly what you want to have done with your case.

A keyword to remember is proactive. YOU take the lead. Rather than REacting to what others are doing to you, start thinking ahead to what your next move should be. Keep your attorney informed with a series of letters.

Remind this person, your attorney, that you are the client and you need and demand request the attention your case deserves. If your attorney doesn’t do the things you request, that person is setting himself/herself up for a legal malpractice lawsuit. But if you don’t set forth your requests in writing, there’s no proof you asked for anything in particular to be done.

Let’s face it. These court-appointed attorneys are known for what they don’t do. They often meet a client at the door on the way into the courtroom. They look through the case file as if it were the first time they’ve seen it, trying to orient themselves to what’s going on. Of course there’s no time for them to do any type of adequate defense of the case. They don’t know you, your children, or your situation. They don’t know the truth and don’t know who’s lying. And it seems they just don’t care.

My apologies to all court-appointed attorneys who don’t fit this description, but I’m sure you know that these are the facts about many if not most court-appointed attorneys in juvenile law cases.

You have to do something to get a dead-beat court-appointed attorney’s attention. Writing letters is the way to go. It puts them on notice that (1) you have some legal knowledge, (2) you want your children back, (3) you want a better quality of representation than they are giving to most clients.

If I were to write a letter to an attorney in a new CPS case, it might go something like this:

You have been appointed to represent me as an attorney in the county juvenile court. Be on my side; I need your help. I am fighting for the release of my three children from state custody. I am innocent of any wrongdoing. The caseworker made assumptions about me that are false. My children need to be at home with me, for their well-being - mentally, emotionally, and physically.

While you are my attorney, please keep in mind that you are working for me, not for the county that pays you. As my attorney I expect you to give me the best legal representation available. I therefore request face-to-face meetings with you at least once monthly to make sure you are actively working on my case, and not letting it slide between the cracks.

I understand that many court-appointed attorneys tend to simply guide parents through the juvenile court system, advising them to plead guilty to charges to make things easier for everyone else in the courtroom. This is not the kind of representation I’m requesting. I’m asking you to be actively involved in proving my innocence.

I’m hereby asking that you take my case to trial and make the caseworker prove all charges. Since they are false charges, I think it would be in my best interest, and the best interest of my children, if I were to fight to prove my innocence with a full trial. Do not under any circumstances ask me to plead guilty to false charges against me.

As you know, parents involved in CPS cases have to complete a ’service plan’ yet many do so and still do not get their children returned. I would like to avoid doing any kind of ’services’ and request that you refuse all services, and/or force the caseworkers to prove the need for any services requested. I do not want to be in the position of many parents in these cases forced to have psychological evaluations when there is no evidence of mental illness, or forced to do drug testing when there’s no evidence of drug abuse. Please honor my request, protect my best interests, and see that my time is not wasted by unnecessary court-ordered ’services’. Of course they would also be a waste of taxpayer money. Do everything you can to resist these services in my case. As you are my attorney I’m trusting you to fight these issues individually and fiercely.

I expect you to be 100% aware of what is happening with my case at all times, and to inform me immediately of any changes.

I expect you to obtain and share with me a complete copy of the case file including all case narratives.

I expect you to help me compile substantial evidence to prove my innocence in this case by preponderance of the evidence.

I expect you to produce legal paperwork including a complete response to all caseworker reports, declarations supporting my side of the case, and other documents as needed, and to present those documents to the judge or juvenile court referee who hears our case.

I expect you to do everything you can to prevent my name from being included on the central index, blacklisting people from working with children. I am innocent and my name should not be included on that list.

Please respond to my requests in writing within ten days; I will need your written response for my records in this case.

Sincerely,

Name of Client

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NOTE: Some of these suggestions are for people with NEW cases; if your case has gone beyond the initial phases your needs will be different. Don’t just copy what I wrote; put these ideas into your own words. TYPE your letters. MAKE COPIES FOR YOUR RECORDS and keep them in a safe place.

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Comments? I would like to get other ideas from the people reading this on what could be included in letters to attorneys. What do you want from your attorney? Let’s brainstorm this and come up with some great ideas that people who come here in the future will be able to benefit from. Are there any phrases all letters should contain? Anything you think we shouldn’t ask the attorney?

An astute judge, Melba Marsh of the Common Pleas Court in Hamilton County, Ohio, discovered her orders were not being followed by CPS social workers. Last month she wrote a letter to three county commissioners about it. She wanted a child to live with relatives and to have supervised visits with parents, but her orders were ignored for more than four months.

Because of this incident, CPS social worker Angela Harrison was found negligent and fired. She lost a $35,900/yr. job. Her supervisor, Michael Battle, retired from his job which brought him $57,137 annually.

What To Do If Your CPS Social Worker Neglects To Follow Court Orders

In my years of running the Fight CPS website I’ve heard from many people who say their social workers were not following court orders. A common scenario is that a judge orders a list of services - such as counseling, psychological testing, and parenting classes. Many CPS social workers drag their feet in getting these services started. Then, when they go back to court after six months they can say, “The parent has not complied with services.” Though technically it is the caseworker’s fault for not getting services started, the parents are blamed for not having had enough services to earn the right to have their children home again.

If your caseworker is playing this game, be sure to keep good records of all contacts with the CPS social worker, write letters requesting that the services be started immediately, and phone the social worker every couple of days until you get what you need. By keeping good phone records and copies of your letters you may be able to use this documentation in court to show your judge that it is your caseworker’s error, not yours. Remember, good documentation is essential to fighting a CPS case in court.

If need be, you can file an Administrative Hearing Request with your state department of social services, telling them that your CPS social worker isn’t providing services ordered by the judge. You have the right to this “Fair Hearing” process any time you’re dealing with an agency in the USA. If you request a hearing, an Administrative Law Judge from the state offices will go to your county to meet with you and CPS employees to review the case and make a decision about your complaints. I have done this several times as a representative for parents, and found it to be an effective way to get a case back on track when the caseworkers are doing their own thing and making families suffer because of it.

The Importance of Child Protection

According to an article about the Ohio CPS social worker firing, posted at Enquirer.Com, a Hamilton County administrator, Patrick Thompson, said, “It is imperative we send a message that this county will not stand for neglect of duty and that child protection is of the utmost importance to our Job and Family Services Department.”

I too believe child protection is of the utmost importance. And I believe one thing we need to protect our children from is institutional child abuse perpetrated by the child welfare industry. Children forced into a life of suffering in foster homes when they yearn for their parents, grandparents, and siblings; children forced to take drugs to control their tantrums and traumatization brought on by the legal destruction of their families; children forced into mental hospitals because foster care providers can’t handle them; children abused in foster homes; - this is the kind of institutional child abuse that Fight CPS is concerned about.

In most cases, children are better off at home where they are loved and cared about. Leave foster homes for those few children with no relatives who can care for them, who have been severely physically abused. Every other case of family destruction is abusive.

Source: Caseworker, boss out of jobs; Actions follow judge’s criticism by Kimball Perry for the Enquirer.

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.

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.

In Orange County a mother has been awarded 4.9 million dollars in a case against CPS caseworkers and the Department of Social Services.

The mother, Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick, who lives in Seal Beach, claimed that CPS workers took her two young daughters in February 2000, and ‘intentionally misinformed the court’. The children were 9 and 6 at the time.

The kids were place in Orangewood Children’s Home for a month, then in a foster home for two months. After that they were placed with their father for two years. The parents now have joint custody.

Caseworkers failed to inform the court that the children were emotionally distressed by being separated from their parents, and refused to place them with relatives, whose Kinship Care rights should have been honored.

Jurors in this case wanted to send a message to social workers by awarding such a large amount of money to the mother.

The Director of Social Services was surprised, saying that he cannot recall ever seeing such a large settlement award (4.9 million dollars) but stated also that the caseworkers named in the lawsuit will keep their jobs, and that he supports their decisions.

Source: LA Times

I would like to remind the CPS director of this case in 2000: 4 million settlement in LA for a brain damaged foster child - too many CPS drugs ruined this child for life!

If you’re a parent living in the USA with young children, and if you don’t know what the Fourth Amendment is, please pay attention. This information could save your family.

The Fourth Amendment states that government workers can’t enter your home without your permission, unless they have a warrant based on ‘probable cause’.

Here’s the exact text of the Fourth Amendment:

“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.”

It has been established that this protection applies to Child Protective Services (CPS) caseworkers just as it applies to law enforcement officers. Despite the clear text of this section of the Bill of Rights, many caseworkers still think they can force parents to allow them into their homes.

Recently, near the end of January 2007, a child protection caseworker showed up at the door of a Michigan homeschooling family. She would not read a paper the mother handed her regarding her rights, and yelled at the mother, insisting that she should be allowed to enter immediately to do a “strip search” of one of the children. She was basing her intrusion on an anonymous tip stating that the children listened only to Christian music, that they “ate their cheerios dry”, that their only socialization was through the church, and that the mother pinched and hit her children in church to keep them quiet.

Since when is listening to Christian music or socializing in church a form of child neglect? And eating dry cheerios - is that a crime? If the caseworker had kept her complaint to ‘pinching and hitting’ she wouldn’t have lost her credibility and we wouldn’t be laughing at her now. However remember, this was all based on an anonymous tip, and who knows what the motivation of that phone call might have been?

The mother contacted an attorney, Chris Klicka, of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). He sent the caseworker a letter regarding her rude and unprofessional behavior toward the family. He noted that she obviously hadn’t received the social worker training in the Fourth Amendment. A year and a half earlier HSLDA helped pass a law in that state which requires all caseworkers to be trained in their “duty to protect both statutory and constitutional rights of those being investigated.” Klicka also informed the caseworker that she would be held liable for violating the family’s civil rights.

Meanwhile the mother responded to the investigation by getting a statement from her children’s doctor indicating that her children were not abused. She also got letters from people who stated that they were good parents to their children.

The caseworker continued to try to interview the children and strip search them, and threatened to get a court order to do so. Klicka informed her that she had no ‘probable cause’ for a warrant because anonymous tips don’t qualify as credible evidence. The caseworker insisted she would get a court order, but instead, a few days later she contacted the family saying she would drop the case.

I guess she finally figured out what the Fourth Amendment was, and what ‘probable cause’ meant.

HSLDA, the Home School Legal Defense Association, serves mostly homeschooling Christians, but will provide legal defense for any homeschooler regardless of religion, so long as the dues are paid. This defense extends to homeschooling families facing accusations and investigations from Child Protective Services. HSLDA lawyers have been instrumental in going to court for homeschooling families with CPS problems, and have managed to establish very positive case law protecting anyone facing false accusations of abuse. For that, HSLDA lawyers should be praised by all families, forever.

[Note: I am not a member of HSLDA and never have been. I am not trying to get new memberships for them. However I very much appreciate what they’ve done for families facing false child abuse allegations.]

References:

Homeschooler Listening Only to Christian Music Turned in for Child Abuse

US Constitution, Fourth Amendment