CPS Out Of Control, Who's Watching Child Protection Agencies - by Brenda Scott

OUT OF CONTROL, WHO'S WATCHING OUR CHILD PROTECTION AGENCIES?
By Brenda Scott, 1994
Contents:
Acknowlegement, Introduction
One: The System in Action
Two: Child Protective Services, A Brief History
Three: The Numbers Game
Four: This Thing Called Abuse
Five: The Specter of Sexual Abuse
Six: State-Sponsored Sexual Abuse
Seven: The Foster Care Nightmare
Eight: Tampered Witness
Nine: Undue Process
Ten: A Trial by Jury
Eleven: Wards of the State
Twelve: A Call for Change
Thirteen: The Best Defense
Notes, References

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CPS Focus Turns to Children in Shelters. DES officials, Attorneys from Calif Center to Meet. Oct 20, 2011. Top officials from Arizona's child-welfare agency will meet with California child-advocacy attorneys about how to reduce the number of babies and young children living in crisis shelters and group homes. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2011/10/20/20111020cp...

Time For A New Approach to Protecting Children? Oct 18, 2011. On Saturday, I wrote about the many times over the years that Child Protective Services has been reformed, only to see the same old result. More bodies washing into public view, more children dying while CPS was supposed to be watching.
After a decade's worth of reforms, we now have a record number of children in state custody, an overflowing foster care system, an astonishing number of open CPS investigations...And more bodies washing into public view.
As yet another governor embarks upon yet another round of CPS reforms, I wonder if it's time to consider a new approach to keeping kids safe.
Which is how I came to be calling Richard Wexler this week. Wexler has long decried Arizona's approach to child welfare, he terms the "Foster Care Panic".
He runs the Virginia-based National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. He's a former journalist who got interested in child welfare 35 years ago while doing a story on foster care.
Wexler's life's work is now devoted to making the case that children are best left with their families. Hear the man out. If we help stabilize families - providing intensive help, real drug treatment, subsidies for things like daycare and rent - he says we could actually do what we claim we want to do - help children.
"Arizona has never seriously tried any of this stuff," he said. "With Arizona, it's always Take The Child &Run, Year after Year after Year."
That attitude was spawned nearly a decade ago, he says, after incoming Gov Janet Napolitano said she would chart a new course for CPS caseworkers. "Err on the side of protecting the child," she said, "and we'll sort it out later."
The problem, says Wexler, is that we never sorted it out. 2 years after Napolitano's proclamation, the number of children in foster care jumped 40% with more to come.
Studies suggest that kids are actually better off when left with their families, even with minimal support, rather than bouncing around in foster care.
Wexler's Recommendations:
* Shut down places like the Crisis Nursery, what he calls "parking place shelters", + use the money to provide services to families. If a mother is reported for leaving her kids alone while she works, help her with daycare. If a parent can't provide a decent place to live, offer rent subsidy. If drug addiction is the problem, offer treatment.
* Offer a program of more intense services when warranted, allowing a social worker to spend several hours a day to helping a parent when a child is deemed unsafe. If after 6 weeks nothing changes, move to terminate that parent's rights.
* Seek a waiver from U.S. Dep't of Health + Human Services, so that $83 million in federal funds now designated for foster care can instead be spent on keeping families together.
* Provide quality defense lawyers + parent advocates, to help families get out of the CPS system when they don't need to be there to free up caseworkers to focus where they're most needed, on children who will die if no one comes to their rescue.
* Open All CPS Records, so we get a truer picture of what's really going on in the agency.
What Wexler is asking us to do is what a few other states have already done - to protect children by helping their parents. After a decade of failed reforms & bodies all over the place, you have to wonder - 11,000 kids in foster care means that something's not working. http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/LaurieRoberts/146123

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[mamasuntwinkle]

Be sure to watch

U.S. Mind Control Child Victim B Testimony Tucson Arizona, Christine deNicola

/watch?v=4XemGwhp6LM

[mamasuntwinkle]

October 31, 2011. Experts: Half of Foster Kids Quit High School, by Kelli Kennedy, AP

ydr (dot) com /local/ci_19233454

[mamasuntwinkle]

Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute’s 2011 Foster Youth Internship Report P80-82. Taking Re-abuse Into Account By Mitsu Klines:

"more physical + sexual abuse in foster + group homes" (NCCPR 2011). Federal gov't should implement accountability system that financially penalizes states for each instance abuse in state care. Abusers continue to be certified as foster parents + receive positive reports from state certifiers with no mention of the abuse...

[mamasuntwinkle]

@mamasuntwinkle

Marcia Robinson Lowry, a children’s advocate + attorney examined this issue during a Congressional hearing, "Foster care systems are cloaked in secrecy that often is used to conceal illegal + unconscionable practices. Every state in the country cloaks its foster care system in secrecy, prohibiting the disclosure of any information about children’s experiences in foster care." (Murphy and Vaillancourt, 2006).

Much more in the 2011 report

[realzoomy]

Good video, I will buy this book and pass the word

[riverratheather]

Good work, keep on exposing. Check out riverratheather channel, please help to spread it.