Topic: Constitutional Issues
Paper Orphans Family rights are being violated. With the swipe of a judge's pen families are being destroyed, thus creating paper orphan. Thousands of children are taken from their homes each year, fueling the federally subsidized child abuse industry.by Gwen Caldwell
(Libertarian)
Thursday, February 21, 2008
The Adoption and Safe Families Act, (ASFA), was passed in 1997 by the US Congress. The purpose of this Bill was to protect children from lingering in foster care. In some cases children were literally being lost in foster care in some of America's larger cities. The idea was to find permanent placement for children within a designated time frame. Attached to this movement of children would be financial incentives and bonuses to states for compliance with mandates. Thus, the Child Abuse Industry in America was now, subsidized by the Federal Government.
One would hope that ASFA would make our children safer, at lower risk for neglect, abuse, and lower numbers of children in foster care. This has not been the case! In my opinion the goals of ASFA have grossly failed! ASFA demands that the child welfare agency be responsible for ensuring the safety of children in out-of-home care. Yet, nationwide hundreds of children have died while in the care of "professional parents".
The actual outcome of ASFA has been a higher number of children in foster care. There has been a massive increase in parental terminations, and adoptions of America's children. The issue that needs to be pointed out here, is that not only are the parent's rights to have a relationship with their children terminated, all family members are terminated from having a relationship with these children.
Who is really benefiting from ASFA? The professional parents (foster/adoptive parents), the contracted mental health care providers, the residential and treatment centers, the growing demand for more social workers being hired to handle the caseloads, etc. According to statistics from the National Child Protection Reform each child that is in the system generates an estimated residual economic development figure of $250,000.00 or more per year! This tells me that our children are being harvested as a subsidized cash crop. When the market numbers increase then dividends in the form of bonuses are paid to the states.
The children who are being protected from their parents, (who are rarely if ever charged under any criminal abuse or neglect statue) are going to age out of the system without an adequate education, little or no social skills, little or no work experience, disenfranchised from their families and communities, on psychotropic drugs. What future does that hold for them? What are the residual costs to the taxpayers going to be? Are we just grooming our youth for their eventual commitment to our prison systems?
All of the proceedings that take place (with the exception of the rare criminal abuse charges,) are done by Administrative proceedings under a veil of secrecy. There is no jury, no evidence, only hearsay of the Case Worker, no witnesses or open trail, because of "the child's confidentiality". I don't know of one case where the child(ren) were present in court to testify. The parents are adjudicated and placed on the Nation Registry of Child Abusers. They lose their family. They are told by everyone who hears their story, "They can't do that!" But the fact remains it was done, is being done and will continue to be done until American families stand together to demand that their Constitutional right to parent their children is restored, and that the child protection system be reformed. However, they don't do that for fear they will some how suffer further consequences from the State. Or they believe the biggest lie…parents in America have all gone mad and only professional parents and social workers care about and are capable of loving these "poor" children!
I am not suggesting, nor do I believe that there are not children who are being abused. What I am saying is that thousands of children are being removed arbitrarily and without substantiated cause from their homes. Some of these families only needed services that could've been provided with the children still in the home. I would like to note that according to national statistics children in foster care are at much higher risk of sexual and physical abuse then in the home of their parents. Federal legislation provides a foundation for States by identifying a minimum set of acts or behaviors that define child abuse and neglect. The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) (42 U.S.C.A. §5106g), as amended by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003, defines child abuse and neglect as, at minimum:
Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or
An act or failure to act, which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.
After huge class action lawsuits were brought against 32 states, 30 of them reformed their child protection policies with great success in focusing on family preservation and in-home family services that reduced the cost to taxpayers and made children safer.
I know that most of you are thinking to yourself, "These parents have abused their children and are in denial, blaming the system." According to the statistics filed with the Child Welfare League of America (www. cwla.org) prior to ASFA in 1998 there were 55 adoptions in South Dakota and no children waiting to be adopted, 5 years later there were 144 adoptions and a staggering 464 children waiting to be adopted. The state last year received an adoption bonus of $56,000.00 for adoptions over their baseline number. Residential foster care in 2000 cost taxpayers in $4,498,452.00. Two years later in 2002 that amount had increased to $17,212,505.00! Folks, this is about the money, not about protecting children! From 1996 to 2004 the federal budget increased in SD by 128.6% and the state budget by 53.0%! Did all the parents in SD just start going nuts on their children over that six-year period? I think not! I believe money and economic development in the newly subsidized child abuse industry increased these numbers.
South Dakota has a 9% total Native American population, according to the Governor's Commission on the Indian Child Welfare Act. Yet more than 65% of the children removed from the home are Native American. I believe this number, is also motivated by funding and opportunity. South Dakota has a statue that allows the Secretary of Social Services to collect funding from the Department of Interior for the cost of their care. Thus, Indian children are worth double the money to the state. Even though this has been denied by DSS at Appropriations and Government Operation and Audit Committee meetings, I find it hard to believe that they would go to the trouble of having legislation drafted for such an action and not utilize it. (Chapter 28 SDCL)
In a recent Rapid City Journal article it stated that 81% of the children were taken for reasons of neglect. What the Social Workers view as neglect is arbitrary. Virtually anything can be used against parents to justify the interrogation of your children at schools by police officers, social workers and counselors to intimidate children, ask leading and open ended questions that are used to ultimately destroy the family. These children then are removed from the school without the knowledge of the parents and placed in foster care. Poverty and its effects are often confused with neglect. Instead of the state, social and community organizations helping these parents overcome the financial struggles they suffer their children they are ripped from their lives.
The Government does not exist for any other reason than to protect the interests of the individual. The Government has no rights, only powers and duties. There is no provision for this non-governmental action in our Constitution. In fact the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled at least fifteen times on the right of parents to raise own their children.
The state of South Dakota has statues that forbid the State, it's officers or agent to violate the Constitution or US Supreme Court rulings. See SDCL 1-1A-1 and 1-1A-2. In Lehr vs. Robertson, 463 US 248,) The linkage between parental duty and parental right was stressed again in Prince v. Massachusetts ... The Court declared it a cardinal principle "that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder." In these cases, the Court has found that the relationship of love and duty in a recognized family unit is an interest in liberty entitled to Constitutional protection ... "State intervention to terminate such a relationship ... must be accomplished by procedures meeting the requisites of the Due Process Clause" Santosky v. Kramer .
America's children are not safer. Families are not being honored as the most primary social structure of our culture. The very foundation of a child's normal development is being disassembled by states. The States create the problem, than they are the solution. The States create orphans, than they are the adoption agency.
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2008 Gwen Caldwell, all rights reserved.
Published: Thursday, February 21, 2008
Last modified: Thursday, February 21, 2008
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Well, there's a lot of inaccuracies on this article. I can only speak for Massachusetts with regards to custody hearings. This article claims that custody of a child can be "given" to the state simply by an administrative hearing. Simply not true. ONLY a COURT, and specifically a JUDGE can grant custody of a child to any other enitity and only AFTER a full HEARING. Lawyers are appointed for all participants, including all parents and children. The judge orders custody based on evidence presented at the hearing. Hearsay is not evidence and not allowed in these proceedings. (Mass. General Laws, Chapter 119) ASFA has its flaws, no doubt. But, truth in "reporting" makes for more compelling arguments.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-02-22 08:32:14
Terrific article, Gwen.
I can't help but notice that Hickory's observation of Peter's comment is quite correct. Peter, we can't begin to address the real issues until people like you are willing to acknowledge that those real issues actually exist. Stop distracting from the real problems by picking apart legal quibbles and start addressing the real issues. Your failure to do this undermines your entire complaint about the article.
Gwen, your article is one of the main reasons I created this website. I was hoping that articles like this would be written and published here. This is an issue that desperately needs to see more light of day. Thanks for writing it. I hope you write more about this topic in the future.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-02-22 08:33:12
One quibble of my own. Families don't have rights, but parents have rights, and so do kids. We should remembe that rights are individual in nature, not group oriented.
If the system were so cut and dry I would take less issue with this problem.
The Adminstrative Hearings are in a court. A court that has a CORPORATE Judge, no outside participates allowed in the Courtroom to sign affidavits of truth for victims who's rights are being violated, no witnesses except a Social Worker who has no first hand knowledge. The parents and children are represented by attorneys that are officers of the same court.
As for hearsay, it is not only allowed, it is many times the only "evidence" in these cases. The abuse is rarely substantiated. If in fact the abuse was sustantiated there would be criminal charges brought against these parents in a Court of Law with a jury trial and evidence being presented. This is not happening!
You are assuming that because something is the law, that it is actually being practiced. I can assure you I have done extensive amounts of research on this issue, and this article does not have inaccuracies, nor does it misrepresent the facts of the problems we are facing in South Dakota.
Walt,
In most cases in South Dakota, families do in fact have rights under the federal and state Indian Child Welfare Act. Although your point is well taken.
The writer of this article needs to actually get involved in the system as a foster parent or perhaps a CASA volunteer. This writer needs to understand that the government does offer all the assistance the parents will need to get their children back. The law is all about reunification of the family. The law has already decided that what is in the "best interest " of the child is reunification. In fact, the reason most children linger and are bounced around in foster care their entire childhood is because the laws and courts are so remiss in terminating the parental rights. A good portion of the time the parents are only going through the motions in meeting the list of things Family Service is requiring them to do to get their children back. Once they have their children back they return to the same behavior. So the question is....how many chances should we give these parents?
Foster care was never meant to be a long term solution. Because TPR (termination of parental rights) takes so long now care has become long term. The longer a child is in a non-permanent situation the more angry and confused they become. As the number of children increases in care, the more foster homes are needed and that is when Family Service is liable to relax who they let in as foster providers. Now you have questionable providers and angry children which just creates a formula for trouble. Please do not misunderstand me....no one should be abusive to children. One has to remember these children would not have been in care had there not been problems to begin with.
For anyone to indicate that the government is in this to make money is just idiotic. Nationally our government is spending billions of dollars every year on the issues of child abuse and foster care. They are not making money. The spending doesn't stop there. Angry children will become angry adults. Angry adults will act out on society. Most people sitting in prison did not come from functional, loving, nurturing, permanent families. One needs to remember even the best foster home can only offer love and nurturing......they can not offer permanency until the parents have been TPR.
If you want to know the truth about how the government is harvesting children as a cash crop in this country, many who in fact are not being nelgected or abused, to maintain it's child abuse industry go to www.cwla.com and check how many children have been taken in your state and what the state gets to adopt those children to professional parents. While you're there compare numbers after 1997 when the Adoption and Safe Families Act started paying states adoption incentives. Go to www.freewebs.com/voiceofwomen and check out the Obituary Page and see how many children have died at the hands of their professional parents....that got financial incentives that parents were denied to raise these same children.
There are no incentives to the states to reunify families! The incentives are to terminate parental rights and adopt children to new families.
The writer works very closely with the CASA Program and has no desire to be a foster parent. I believe that children should be raised by their parents while getting in home services to address any substantiated problems.
The SYSTEM doesn't work or I wouldn't have the documentation nor the story to write!
Posted By: Naomi Johnson
Date: 2008-02-26 08:51:11
Rene, of course the government isn’t making money from the foster care industry. It is the cash cow with deep pockets that funds the industry to the tune of $12 B a year and rising. Everyone involved in the system (except the parents) receives income from the government: court-appointed attorneys, perpetual DSS-contracted counselors ($80 per hour), DSS-contracted psychiatrists ($150 per hour), unqualified DSS-contracted psych evaluators ($1000 per test), CASA (yes, they do – not the volunteers but the organization), contracted home-study providers ($3000 per home study), foster parents, adoptive parents, group homes ($129 per day per child), everyone connected in some way with pharmaceuticals, DSS (adoption bonuses), etc., etc., etc. The feds provide two-thirds of the funding, so the state is free to expand its “jobs-creation” program and cronyism for one-third the cost (taxpayers’ money).
A former SD legislator is now in prison for raping his foster daughters. Over a five-year period he collected $168,000 in foster care payments while chairman of the so-called oversight committee on DSS and a member of the appropriations committee where he voted the budget increases for programs of which he was a beneficiary. Another former legislator was on the board of Lutheran Social Services, largest foster care provider in the state who builds bigger and better group homes every year. “Build it and they will come.” Do the research on how much money the LSS receives in grants. Do you see the tip of the iceberg now concerning the subsidized industry?
Yet poor parents can get no meaningful help. The Native American population in SD is disproportionately harmed. Located on Indian reservations in SD are the two poorest counties in the US, thus making Native American families visible targets for DSS, that interprets poverty as neglect. Cute little Indian kids are easy to adopt. It is a fad now. They then lose their identity, culture, community, family, and inheritance to land, water, and mineral rights. There is $3B dollars in the Individual Indian Money account with the Dept. of Interior, payments for missing individuals. Adopted Indian children will never be able to claim their share without their original birth certificate (sealed at adoption). Some who age-out do not even know their birth name or tribe to find their roots. Just another way to phase out the reservation system and its populace that has been ongoing for over 100 years in violation of the federal ICWA and the UN genocide treaty.
CASA will not accept volunteers with even a hint of a belief in parental rights. They say that is a conflict of interest.
“Reunification” is the law. That’s why you will always see the word on documents, but in practice so many obstacles are placed in the way of parents to “comply” that the task is daunting. One appointment missed is non-compliance. “Non-compliance” is grounds for termination.
Termination of parental rights must take place within one year – not a long time (ASFA). It is pushed through sooner than that for the sake of “permanency”. “Permanency” means adoption or long-term foster care. A termination does not ensure the child will be adopted. Adoption does not ensure a “forever family”. Many adoptions are “disrupted” (a sanitized DSS word that means “your parents are exchanging you for a less-troublesome model”) The adoptive parents can then adopt another child (tax credits again) and the child can be re-adopted several times with the same repeated subsidies and bonuses.
I do agree with Rene’s statements: “Now you have questionable providers and angry children which just creates a formula for trouble” and “Angry children will become angry adults”, thus creating candidates for the next phase: government-funded private and/or public prisons.
Wouldn’t it be more humane, inexpensive, and safer to redirect some of the massive funds and efforts into family preservation, as five states have already done? Abuse in foster care is 4 times higher than in the general population.
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2008 Gwen Caldwell, all rights reserved.