Here’s an attorney explaining how to organize case documentation. Organizing notes this way may be helpful to any attorney you consider hiring.

To subscribe to this attorney’s account, go to Accused Falsely. He has other videos there that may be of interest to you.

This is something I wrote and posted long ago; it has been linked on the right-side column for several years. I’m bringing it to the blog section of the site now because I’ve been getting a lot of comments and emails saying “Please someone, do something to help me!” I think these people need this message. Plus, I want to bring all those old articles into the blog, so expect to see a lot of old material crop up here in the coming months. - ljm
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The caseworkers almost always go to court working against you. At court the judge can and often does rule in favor of the families and against the social meddlers.

Be dignified around caseworkers - do not lose your temper. Do not let them see you in fear. Do not bother trying to kiss up to the caseworker. Do not try to give them more evidence of how good you are. Your evidence is to be shared with your lawyer and presented in court to the judge or juvenile court referee. If you give evidence to a caseworker you’ll find out everything you say can be twisted and used against you. This is a LEGAL case. Caseworkers are not nice friendly do-gooders trying to help you.

Caseworkers are your adversaries, though they are very deceptive and pretend to be your friend so they can get more evidence against you. What they do is practice sick deception for family destruction. They spend their days preparing a case against YOU.

To win in juvenile court and get a judge to rule in your favor, you must be able to present “a preponderance of the evidence”. That’s the standard of proof needed in juvenile court. To come up with a preponderance of the evidence, you must give the court more documentation & evidence than the other side.

Listen, very few of us are ever gifted with a good lawyer. We won (those of us who did) through our own hard work. We gathered the evidence. We documented things in writing and on tape. We typed up our own legal documents. We learned how to do it because we had to, for the wellbeing of our children trapped in the inhumane child “welfare” system.

If you feel you can’t type your own legal documents, then find a typist or paralegal to do it for you at a lot less than an attorney charges.

You can give your compiled legal documents and evidence to your attorney for review. Be sure to do it a few weeks before court so there’s time for the attorney to look it over and file it at the county clerk’s office for you. If the attorney won’t talk to you send the documents via certified mail along with a letter demanding his time and response on the documents so you’ll be prepared for court. You deserve fair representation - be sure your attorney knows you’re aware of the law.

If it’s too late for that - prepare legal documents anyway. The judge may accept them in court. Be sure you have plenty of copies for the judge, your attorney, the child’s attorney and the CPS attorney. You may have to ask for a continuance while your attorney deals with your compiled legal documents and evidence.

Use online resources, and help from friends, but mainly - it’s up to YOU.

PREPARE for court.
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See these sample documents: The FightCPS Legal Document Library

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Written by Linda Martin for Fight CPS.

A New York based advocacy group called Children’s Rights is suing the state of Michigan in federal court on behalf of 19,000 foster children who may be endangered by maltreatment in the foster care system.

The Michigan Department of Human Services refused to provide documentation on sixty-seven foster children who died in state care there since 2004. At least three of those children were killed in state licensed foster homes. Circumstances regarding the other deaths are unclear as the state refuses to release records.

At a hearing on Tuesday, August 7, 2007 U.S. District Judge Nancy G. Edmunds ruled that an expert must be hired to assess the Michigan foster care system’s adequacy. The expert, Christopher Baird of the Children’s Research Center, will study 460 random Michigan foster care files

Judge Edmunds also ordered the state to release certain foster care documents by August 31, 2007.

Sources:
Court fight over Mich. foster care system set for Tuesday by Jack Kresnak, Free Press Staff Writer

U.S. judge names expert to assess Michigan foster care system, an AP article posted at WoodTV.Com.

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.