We’ve known for a long time that children are being overly medicated in foster care. State lawmakers seem very resistant to making laws to prevent this, probably because of pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.

Meanwhile thousands of children are mentally injured by psychotropic drugs after being placed in “chemical restraints” to control and subdue them.

Recently - just last April - a drugged seven-year-old foster child in Florida took his own life, and once again the spotlight is on this issue. Florida legislators, feeling the heat, are making the motions to do something about this. I looked through the FightCPS archives and found the same issue discussed in the news in 2001 and 2004, in Florida. They didn’t do anything about it then. What makes anyone think they’ll do it now?

I’ve had this issue bubbling under the surface of my usually calm demeanor for many months. Make that years. Well.. today I let it out. I compiled my research, found numerous YouTube videos exposing the matter, and put it all on one page, which you’re now welcome to visit: Drugging Foster Children. I look forward to getting some feedback on that page!

CPS Post Audit is a new blog tracking Kansas child welfare legislation and related topics.

It is vital to know about upcoming CPS child welfare legislation in your state if you want to help stop CPS injustice.

I would love to see a blog similar to this one created for all fifty states. Keep an eye on those state legislators and make sure they know what your issues are!

I’m grateful that I’ve spent twenty years as an activist exposing America’s sick child welfare system to the light of day.

I’m grateful for the emails and comments I received telling me how much this site has helped. Those testimonials mean a lot to me and always will.

Twenty years ago this month, my fourth child was born in Central California. Before I could leave the hospital a social worker visited my room to talk to me about my history of being battered by my child’s father. Later I learned that while I was there I nearly died, and during that time my child’s father threatened the doctor, so he decided to report us to CPS. I had to leave my baby in the hospital because she was premature, and on the day she was released a social worker picked her up and left a slip of paper on my front porch.

Only a few days later I learned what it was like to go into Juvenile Court to be given a social worker’s report filled with lies. That was the day I realized that our justice system was broken, that social workers could lie and nobody cared - and that they could get away with perjury. That was the day I started learning that our Constitution doesn’t apply in Juvenile Court and that I couldn’t have a jury trial. That was the day I started realizing how ineffective public defenders are for child welfare victims.

Okay - it has been twenty years. I am one of the very lucky ones who fought back, found an activist to help me, and who succeeded in getting my child home again (after eight months of separation.) Lucky me. But I was traumatized to an extreme - not only by my shock at the injustice of the child welfare system, but also by my family’s non-support, my need to cope with being a battered woman, and the end of my relationship with the man who battered me.

Trauma takes a long time to wear off, and twenty years later — honestly, I’m still dealing with it!

When this happened to me I was working as a welfare worker in the same Department of Social Services that contained the CPS agency that attacked and lied about me. I was sickened to learn that my employer allowed these vile social workers in the CPS unit to perjure themselves, violate regulations, and be rude to young, traumatized, suffering parents. My thought was that if they were doing this to me (another DSS employee) WHAT WERE THEY DOING TO ALL THE YOUNG PARENTS WITH LESS EDUCATION AND MONEY THAN ME? I was appalled. Shocked. Disgusted. I wanted to do something to help other parents going through this wretched system of injustice, and from the time my case closed in 1990 until now, I’ve been doing what I could when I could.

My main goal at first was to expose, expose, expose. I wanted the public to know what was going on in the social services department. I was fortunately led to a local weekly paper with a similar goal - to expose local government corruption. I wrote some articles. I contacted some child welfare victims and helped a few of them to file for State Administrative Hearings. I burnt out - and needed to turn my attention to raising my two youngest children - both preschoolers at that time.

Next I started a computer bulletin board service (BBS) via the FidoNet network. Anyone here know about FidoNet? I did that for five years and during that time contacted a few child welfare victims including the woman who wrote Don’ts and Do’s When Falsely Accused… she lived nearby and we got together quite a few times. When her case closed she moved out of state.

The internet got my attention next. I was handicapped by my finances - I was unable to afford a worthy computer for quite a few years. I learned to do some webdesign, and in 2000 started the Child Protection Reform Yahoo Group (which I’ve since given away) and next I created Fight CPS And Win - now simply called FightCPS. I’ve been developing this site since October 2000 - almost nine years.

Here’s the bad news (or maybe it is good news) . . . I’m ready to do something else with my life. I feel my most important goal here has been fulfilled. That goal was to expose the system to the American public. I feel that has been done, and that we’ve reached CRITICAL MASS in that now many people are speaking out about the injustice including wonderful state legislators in Georgia and Washington. Also the news media, especially television news, is speaking out to expose the system. That didn’t happen back when I started my activism, twenty years ago. Back then even child murders in the foster system were not carried in the news media, so I’m excited when I see television news commentators exposing CPS injustice. There are also multiple developing websites to cover this issue on the internet now, many more than when I started, and I see the seeds of greatness in some of them. Very exciting stuff! So I know that when I leave, there will be others to take my place and fill in the gaps. My mission here is complete.

I will always feel as I do about the crazy, unjust, and cruel child welfare system. I have not changed but I have other things to do now. I have no more children under age eighteen. I need to focus on other things in my life now.

I don’t know what will become of FightCPS.Com — and am considering all the options at this point. I won’t leave this month or next, but I’m sure by the end of 2009 I’ll no longer be doing this. Therefore I’m ready to hear from other activists or advocates who feel able to own and maintain this website. This will require someone to move the entire site to another server, so I’m looking for someone with confidence and competency in the web skills arena. It also requires someone with outstanding writing skills.

This site has thousands of links pointing to it. It ranks well in the search engines. For that reason, I don’t want to just dump it. I worked hard to make it rank well so that people in need of help could easily find us. I think it is a valuable site for that reason, and that it would be a shame to just close it down. I really want someone else to take it over, love it, develop it, and leave it on the web as a beacon of hope to whoever goes to Google and types in “child protective services”. It is the only anti-CPS site that shows up in the first page of search results.

Anyhow, if you’re someone who could take on this project and make it work, please contact me. I’m interested in hearing from you. My webmaster email link is at the bottom of this page. Please note that if I don’t know who you are, that’s a problem. I don’t want some government-paid disinformation agent to take over this site and subvert its purpose. Getting the right person for site ownership is more important than any other consideration at this point.

On January 6, 2009, Kansas parents, family members, and community representatives spoke before state legislators regarding family rights violations and the injustice of social service agencies.

YOU can do this too!

Thanks to the person who sent the links to me.

On Friday, December 19, Arkansas legislators listened to the grievances of grandparents seeking visitation with children whose parents lost parental rights in TPR hearings. State employees attended the meeting to inform relatives they can file a petition requesting visitation.

The article doesn’t explain how this is done; it sounds like they were advised to take the matter back to court. I hope this works and would like to hear from any relative that has gone to court for visitation of a child after TPR - especially if the petition was granted!

Source: Grandparents Seek Visitation with Grandkids by Pete Thompson, published with VIDEO on December 19, 2008, at the KARK 4 News website.
…

I’d like to thank Marina, one of the moderators on our message board forum, for posting about this article in the “In The News” section of the message board. She’s done a wonderful job, keeping us informed about CPS news and much more. I found this article on the message board earlier today. Thank you so much, Marina!

A hearing on December 18, 2008 informed Connecticut state legislators of DCF injustice and cruelty to families. One participant, an out-of-state aunt, told legislators that family members were denied kinship care rights because the court ruled they had no bond with the child, a girl now totally separated from her natural family. Many others came forward to tell legislators their stories of injustice, trauma and distress at the hands of DCF caseworkers.

According to the article written by Arielle Levin Becker, State Representative Toni Walker, a Democrat from New Haven, wept and said, “We as a state have failed miserably in this situation.” One hundred and thirty eight people signed up to testify at this hearing, the last hearing of four, and apparently the only hearing allowing the public to testify. People spoke out about rude DCF social workers and unjust family devastation practices.

The hearings were scheduled in response to the death of an infant in foster care last May.

Source: Familiar Complaints Aired At Hearing On DCF by Arielle Levin Becker published on December 19, 2008 by the Hartford Courant.

Washington grandparents Doug and AnneMarie Stuth have every right and reason to be caretakers of their three-year-old granddaughter, yet caseworkers at Child Protective Services are making up unreasonable justifications to keep the cute little blonde girl in foster care. They say the Stuth’s aren’t making an effort to support the child’s reunification with her teen mother, the Stuth’s daughter. Yet a KING5 news video report proves they have done everything in their power to help the mother have access to her child.

The Stuths made their case high-profile through going to their state legislators including Senator Pamela Roach, and to the news media. They are fighting the case in court. They are a good example for the many thousands of other grandparents who want custody of their grandchildren who have been placed in foster homes. The denial of kinship care rights to grandparents is one of the worst aspects of current child protective services corruption. CPS agencies want to adopt children out to strangers so they can qualify for federal subsidy bonuses.

Source: Investigators: Grandparents passed over in favor of foster care by Susannah Frame on December 11, 2008, for KING5 News. Be sure to read through all the related content on this article! This is a major exposé!

A word to CPS workers: The word is out… everyone knows how corrupt the CPS agencies are. Come out of your dark offices and admit to the world and to yourselves that you’ve done wrong. Good always triumphs over evil. The love of family overcomes the evil of family destruction. In time you will see this is true.

A ten year old boy in Jacksonville Florida has had his life ruined by a CPS over-reaction to a false allegation. They ripped the boy from his mother, incarcerated him in foster care with foster parent Leticia Rodriguez, and left him to be molested by two teenage boys they’d already been told were abusing children.

The person who made the false allegation went to jail because of it. Unfortunately the Department of Children and Families dragged things out in court and managed to keep the boy away from his mother for four weeks. Time enough for him to be repeatedly abused by the foster parent’s two teenage sons.

Typical CPS social work abuse of children! Even though they KNEW the mother wasn’t guilty they pursued their case to keep a child in foster care and draw on those federal funding streams they love so much.

Does anyone here understand why I’m so angry at legislators for not changing the federal child abuse laws? Don’t legislators realize how many children they are HARMING? I sadly believe they DO know it and don’t bother doing anything to help because of some pressure from higher authorities. Tell me it isn’t so! Tell me American children are more important than that!

The mother intends to sue the state of Florida. I hope a lot of pathetic caseworkers lose their jobs over this, and that the state goes broke if it isn’t already.

Florida DCF spokesman John Harrell wouldn’t talk about the eight year old girl foster child who complained about being molested in that foster home NINE MONTHS before the boy stayed there. In all that time, how many other children have been abused? Quite a few, wouldn’t you think?

Source: Foster Child Sexually Abused in Foster Home by Jackelyn Barnard, published on November 12, 2008 by FirstCoastNews.Com (WJXX and WTLV).

Thanks to an Obama supporter, we’ve got contact information:

Here is his Senate office address:

Obama, Barack- (D - IL) Class III
713 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2854
Web Form: http://obama.senate.gov/contact/

From http://www.senate.gov

And here is his campaign ‘contact us’ info:

http://answercenter.barackobama.com/cgi-bin/barackobama.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

. . . . .

After you write your letter please post it here in comments.

Let’s keep our letters together, and keep them on the internet and see how much change we get.

Please remember that a handwritten letter on paper will probably get more attention than an email. Legislators often delete emails unread, or just scan the subject lines.