Yesterday's Suggestions for Regaining Trust will be available tomorrow.An Anonymous writer on August 23, 2010 at 9:09 PM wrote the following interesting comment.
Anonymous said...
“Social workers do not only remove children as a last resort. That is ridiculous and very untrue. Over the last seven years I have heard case after case where children were removed when other measures could have been put in place. Cases where more than one family member offered to care for the children but MCFD wouldn't even do the home studies. Cases where the children could have stayed with the parent if certain things were put in place but 'no funding' for that! Several situations where the children didn't even need to be removed. I think, if life is so bad for a child that they must be removed, there better be proof and I don't mean proof without evidence. I mean proof. Why screw up a child's future forever based on a few comments made by a neighbor or an angry ex spouse? And, when children are removed, parents should be told their rights just as it is when a person is charged with a crime because, in reality, what's the difference. Everything a parent says to a social worker will be used against them in court so why don't social workers tell parents that? Why don't social workers take statements from parents that are signed so that no statement can be later twisted and used against them?”
Among the points made were:- Kinship and Friend care should be prioritized when a removal is required during an investigation.
- Child Removal should truly be the last resort not merely on paper and in theory but in practice.
- A judge should never grant the Ministry a care order without substantial evidence.
- Something like U.S. Miranda rights should be required to read to parents before conversation, interrogation or investigation so incriminating statements or subjectively recorded entries cannot be used.
- Any statement from parent(s) to be filed should require parent(s)' signature.
In NYC, children are always removed. "Better safe than sorry" seems to be the mantra of the ACS (Administration for Children's Services). They have said so themselves in numerous media articles.
ReplyDeleteChildren in NYC, by statute, are NOT to be removed without a court hearing except when imminent danger exists.
But, ACS removes them anyway because what parent even knows the law?
By the time the parent, if same parent, gains access to a private attorney, the children are already deep within the system.
And, at that point, it is almost impossible to get them out.
Child Protection Services is renegade. They answer, obstenstively, to no one. Though, in
actuality, they are answerable, but the layers in which to call them answereable are daunting.
Yes, a Miranda Rights declaration at the onset of any CPS investigation is the way to go.
There had been a bill in the NY State Senate addressing same but I believe it was long ago buried in the muck and mire that is Child Protection Services.
Reader from NYC
An advocate for parents (and children before and after removal) would likely be of more use than a Miranda-style agreement in a civil arena.
ReplyDeleteThis gets us back to using a strictly criminal system that recognizes true crimes against children, proper thresholds and definitions for abuse and proper evidence production.
Benign child welfare needs to be separated from "protection." The Baynes would not be in their current situation if this model was in place,
I would be curious to know the criteria that was met be existing relative and family placements, and how these endure. I recall mention there are currently 5,000 or so children in such placements.
ReplyDeleteI believe there was an earlier blog that mentioned a program that was cancelled in favour of a different model that does not work as well, as far as placing children with relatives.
I can see MCFD worrying the moment they turn their backs, relatives will allow parents full unsupervised access to children and not inform the Ministry. How would this be enforced? Random surprise visits?
In NYC, one may find a child advocate but not before removal.
ReplyDeleteRemovals are usually done on weekends and unless a parent has the wherewithal to find an attorney or an advocate to contest such removal, the 1028 hearing (an objection to removal) may take weeks to be initiated or heard.
By then, ACS (CPS) willo have filed an Order of Protection, spoken with the District Attorney and the child will be lost to the system.
Pastor Ron knows that, in addition to my being a paralegal in NY, I had my own experience with ACS when my otherwise "normal" teenager who had recently graduated with honors from a private high school had a "break". She melted down and imagined abuse when there was none.
She went online and talked to strangers via Yahoo Answers, one of whom was a young pregnant foster child who suggested that my daughter call Child Protection Services. Six weeks before my daughter's 18th birthday she did same.
It was a nightmare.
If not for the fine support our family received from the NYPD, our beloved family doctor who has been our daughter's doctor since her birth and my law firm, my daughter would not now, I am sure, be entering her third year at University.
The key. We had legal representation at the get go. Why? Because I work in the field.
All parents subjected to an CPS investigation MUST be advised of their rights at the getgo. And, if they can not afford it, legal counsel must be provided to them from the very very start of an investigation,nevermind a removal.
Sorry, I had not signed the last anonymous post. I am Reader from NYC.
ReplyDelete