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THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES

From the legislative desk of Senator Nancy Schaefer 50th District of
Georgia

November 16, 2007

THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES

BY: Nancy Schaefer

Senator, 50th District

My introduction into child protective service cases was due to a
grandmother in an adjoining state who called me with her tragic story.
Her two granddaughters had been taken from her daughter who lived in my
district. Her daughter was told wrongly that if she wanted to see her
children again she should sign a paper and give up her children.
Frightened and young, the daughter did. I have since discovered that
parents are often threatened into cooperation of permanent separation
of
their children.

The children were taken to another county and placed in foster care.
The
foster parents were told wrongly that they could adopt the children.
The
grandmother then jumped through every hoop known to man in order to get
her granddaughters. When the case finally came to court it was made
evident by one of the foster parent’s children that the foster
parents
had, at any given time, 18 foster children and that the foster mother
had an inappropriate relationship with the caseworker.

In the courtroom, the juvenile judge, acted as though she was shocked
and said the two girls would be removed quickly. They were not removed.
Finally, after much pressure being applied to the Department of Family
and Children Services of Georgia (DFCS), the children were driven to
South Georgia to meet their grandmother who gladly drove to meet them.

After being with their grandmother two or three days, the judge, quite
out of the blue, wrote up a new order to send the girls to their
father,
who previously had no interest in the case and who lived on the West
Coast. The father was in “adult entertainment”. His girlfriend
worked as
an “escort” and his brother, who also worked in the business, had a
sexual charge brought against him.

Within a couple of days the father was knocking on the grandmother’s
door and took the girls kicking and screaming to California.

The father developed an unusual relationship with the former foster
parents and soon moved back to the southeast, and the foster parents
began driving to the father’s residence and picking up the little
girls
for visits. The oldest child had told her mother and grandmother on two
different occasions that the foster father molested her.

To this day after five years, this loving, caring blood relative
grandmother does not even have visitation privileges with the children.
The little girls are in my opinion permanently traumatized and the
young
mother of the girls was so traumatized with shock when the girls were
first removed from her that she has not recovered.

Throughout this case and through the process of dealing with multiple
other mismanaged cases of the Department of Family and Children
Services
(DFCS), I have worked with other desperate parents and children across
the state because they have no rights and no one with whom to turn. I
have witnessed ruthless behavior from many caseworkers, social workers,
investigators, lawyers, judges, therapists, and others such as those
who
“pick up” the children. I have been stunned by what I have seen and
heard from victims all over the state of Georgia.

In this report, I am focusing on the Georgia Department of Family and
Children Services (DFCS). However, I believe Child Protective Services
nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken
almost beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be
warned of the dangers.

The Department of Child Protective Services, known as the Department of
Family and Children Service (DFCS) in Georgia and other titles in other
states, has become a “protected empire” built on taking children
and
separating families. This is not to say that there are not those
children who do need to be removed from wretched situations and need
protection. This report is concerned with the children and parents
caught up in “legal kidnapping,” ineffective policies, and DFCS who
do
does not remove a child or children when a child is enduring torment
and
abuse. (See Exhibit A and Exhibit B)

In one county in my District, I arranged a meeting for thirty-seven
families to speak freely and without fear. These poor parents and
grandparents spoke of their painful, heart wrenching encounters with
DFCS. Their suffering was overwhelming. They wept and cried. Some did
not know where their children were and had not seen them in years. I
had
witnessed the “Gestapo” at work and I witnessed the deceitful
conditions
under which children were taken in the middle of the night, out of
hospitals, off of school buses, and out of homes. In one county a
private drug testing business was operating within the DFCS department
that required many, many drug tests from parents and individuals for
profit. In another county children were not removed when they were
enduring the worst possible abuse.

Due to being exposed, several employees in a particular DFCS office
were
fired. However, they have now been rehired either in neighboring
counties or in the same county again. According to the calls I am now
receiving, the conditions in that county are returning to the same
practices that they had before the light was shown on their deeds.

Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide, I am convinced there
is
no responsibility and no accountability in the system.

I have come to the conclusion:

* that poor parents often times are targeted to lose their children
because they do not have the where-with-all to hire lawyers and fight
the system. Being poor does not mean you are not a good parent or that
you do not love your child, or that your child should be removed and
placed with strangers;

*that all parents are capable of making mistakes and that making a
mistake does not mean your children are always to be removed from the
home. Even if the home is not perfect, it is home; and that’s where a
child is the safest and where he or she wants to be, with family;

*that parenting classes, anger management classes, counseling
referrals,
therapy classes and on and on are demanded of parents with no
compassion
by the system even while they are at work and while their children are
separated from them. This can take months or even years and it
emotionally devastates both children and parents. Parents are
victimized
by “the system” that makes a profit for holding children longer and
“bonuses” for not returning children;

*that caseworkers and social workers are oftentimes guilty of fraud.
They withhold evidence. They fabricate evidence and they seek to
terminate parental rights. However, when charges are made against them,
the charges are ignored;

*that the separation of families is growing as a business because local
governments have grown accustomed to having taxpayer dollars to balance
their ever-expanding budgets;

*that Child Protective Service and Juvenile Court can always hide
behind
a confidentiality clause in order to protect their decisions and keep
the funds flowing. There should be open records and “court
watches”!
Look who is being paid! There are state employees, lawyers, court
investigators, court personnel, and judges. There are psychologists,
and
psychiatrists, counselors, caseworkers, therapists, foster parents,
adoptive parents, and on and on. All are looking to the children in
state custody to provide job security. Parents do not realize that
social workers are the glue that holds “the system” together that
funds
the court, the child’s attorney, and the multiple other jobs
including
DFCS’s attorney.

*that The Adoption and the Safe Families Act, set in motion by
President
Bill Clinton, offered cash “bonuses” to the states for every child
they
adopted out of foster care. In order to receive the “adoption
incentive
bonuses” local child protective services need more children. They
must
have merchandise (children) that sell and you must have plenty of them
so the buyer can choose. Some counties are known to give a $4,000 bonus
for each child adopted and an additional $2,000 for a “special
needs”
child. Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing;

*that there is double dipping. The funding continues as long as the
child is out of the home. When a child in foster care is placed with a
new family then “adoption bonus funds” are available. When a child
is
placed in a mental health facility and is on 16 drugs per day, like two
children of a constituent of mine, more funds are involved;
that there are no financial resources and no real drive to unite a
family and help keep them together;

*that the incentive for social workers to return children to their
parents quickly after taking them has disappeared and who in protective
services will step up to the plate and say, “This must end! No one,
because they are all in the system together and a system with no leader
and no clear policies will always fail the children. Look at the waste
in government that is forced upon the tax payer;

*that the “Policy Manuel” is considered “the last word” for
DFCS.
However, it is too long, too confusing, poorly written and does not
take
the law into consideration;

*that if the lives of children were improved by removing them from
their
homes, there might be a greater need for protective services, but today
all children are not always safer. Children, of whom I am aware, have
been raped and impregnated in foster care and the head of a Foster
Parents Association in my District was recently arrested because of
child molestation;

*that some parents are even told if they want to see their children or
grandchildren, they must divorce their spouse. Many, who are under
privileged, feeling they have no option, will divorce and then just
continue to live together. This is an anti-family policy, but parents
will do anything to get their children home with them.

*fathers, (non-custodial parents) I must add, are oftentimes treated as
criminals without access to their own children and have child support
payments strangling the very life out of them;

*that the Foster Parents Bill of Rights does not bring out that a
foster
parent is there only to care for a child until the child can be
returned
home. Many Foster Parents today use the Foster Parent Bill of Rights to
hire a lawyer and seek to adopt the child from the real parents, who
are
desperately trying to get their child home and out of the system;

*that tax dollars are being used to keep this gigantic system afloat,
yet the victims, parents, grandparents, guardians and especially the
children, are charged for the system’s services.

*that grandparents have called from all over the State of Georgia
trying
to get custody of their grandchildren. DFCS claims relatives are
contacted, but there are cases that prove differently. Grandparents who
lose their grandchildren to strangers have lost their own flesh and
blood. The children lose their family heritage and grandparents, and
parents too, lose all connections to their heirs.

*that The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in 1998 reported
that six times as many children died in foster care than in the general
public and that once removed to official “safety”, these children
are
far more likely to suffer abuse, including sexual molestation than in
the general population.

*That according to the California Little Hoover Commission Report in
2003, 30% to 70% of the children in California group homes do not
belong
there and should not have been removed from their homes.

FINAL REMARKS

On my desk are scores of cases of exhausted families and troubled
children. It has been beyond me to turn my back on these suffering,
crying, and sometimes beaten down individuals. We are mistreating the
most innocent. Child Protective Services have become adult centered to
the detriment of children. No longer is judgment based on what the
child
needs or who the child wants to be with or what is really best for the
whole family; it is some adult or bureaucrat who makes the decisions,
based often on just hearsay, without ever consulting a family member,
or
just what is convenient, profitable, or less troublesome for a director
of DFCS.

I have witnessed such injustice and harm brought to these families that
I am not sure if I even believe reform of the system is possible! The
system cannot be trusted. It does not serve the people. It obliterates
families and children simply because it has the power to do so.

Children deserve better. Families deserve better. It’s time to pull
back
the curtain and set our children and families free.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights
of
all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of
the poor and the needy” Proverbs 31:8-9

Please continue to read:
Recommendations
Exhibit A
Exhibit B

RECOMMENDATIONS

1) Call for an independent audit of the Department of Family and
Children’s Services (DFCS) to expose corruption and fraud.
2) Activate immediate change. Every day that passes means more families
and children are subject to being held hostage.
3) End the financial incentives that separate families.
4) Grant to parents their rights in writing.
5) Mandate a search for family members to be given the opportunity to
adopt their own relatives.
6) Mandate a jury trial where every piece of evidence is presented
before removing a child from his or her parents.
7) Require a warrant or a positive emergency circumstance before
removing children from their parents. (Judge Arthur G. Christean, Utah
Bar Journal, January, 1997 reported that “except in emergency
circumstances, including the need for immediate medical care, require
warrants upon affidavits of probable cause before entry upon private
property is permitted for the forcible removal of children from their
parents.”)
Uphold the laws when someone fabricates or presents false evidence.
If a parent alleges fraud, hold a hearing with the right to discovery
of
all evidence.