Criticism of LA Times' Series on Foster Care; the Agency Leadership and the Federal Funding Scheme

The Los Angeles Times has recently published a series of articles by reporter Garrett Therolf on child protecive services highlighting some of the cases with horrible outcomes that resulted from allowing children "known to the system" to remain in their homes vs. placing them in foster care. 

The nature of the reporting came under fire from several critics, including Daniel Hempel of Fostering Media Connections, Celeste Fremon of the Blog WitnessLA, and Richard Wexler of the National Coalition of Child Protection Reform.  Times' Assistant Managing Editor, David Lauter's response to that criticism appeared on the Times' Readers' Representative web page, and Lauter's response generated additional criticism as well as several reader comments.

One reader's comment began with "I don't know what this fuss is about...", which I took personally.  Thinking about these cases in the abstract is so far removed from the visceral, real-life experince of being a cast member in the actual drama. 

As a result, I posted the following comment on the Blog, which you can find at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/readers/2010/11/times-responds-to-criticism-of-foster-care-coverage.html.

Thank you, William, for wondering what all the fuss is about.

Here's what it's about for me: in April of 1999, my wife and I had our two sons taken from their elementary school one afternoon. They were first placed into a group home and then into foster care. It never should have happened.

I very much appreciate the incisiveness of the criticism -- much deserved -- leveled by Mssrs. Heimpel and Wexler against the Times' reporting in the recent series of articles by Mr. Therolf. Celeste Fremon is correct when she identifies the straw man arguments constructed by David Lauter in his response. I hope that Mr. Lauter will get past them, make his way into a more forthright self-examination of the Times' reportage and continue this very important conversation.

The underlying fuss, beyond the reportage, is about a curious system of financial incentive/disincentive, imposed upon counties by federal policy that reimburses counties ONLY for the costs of out-of-home placement of children, even though other alternatives may be more effective, less costly and most importantly, less damaging and traumatic for children and families.

Presently Los Angeles County, along with Alameda County and the State of Florida, have been granted waivers from compliance with that federal policy, and are able to use federal reimbursement dollars in the best interests of child welfare. That waiver is making a very positive difference in Florida outcomes, and under the right child welfare agency leadership, it can do the same in Los Angeles County.

Though we were lucky in the foster care department (incredibly supportive family friends volunteered and were approved to act as our sons' foster parents, although we were not allowed contact with them absent a monitor for many months), our children, my wife, who has multiple sclerosis and whose condition worsened considerably under the stress of the separation, and I endured much emotional trauma. Our family nightmare, which took place in Orange and not LA County, ended when we were reunited ten and one-half months after that horrible day in April, 2009.

Our lives were forever changed -- and not in a good way -- because of an institutional bias toward removing children from their homes that prevails in most places in this country under the current child welfare funding scheme. Far too many families experience similar treatment. THAT's what the fuss is all about.

Yes, child abuse and neglect are real. And yes, child protective services are a necessary thing. However, they need not be the necessary evil which they far too often are. If we are going to provide those services, let's fund them in ways that eliminate institutional bias, give children what is best for their welfare, help deserving families that need help, and improve outcomes, both social and fiscal. Let's get child protection right.  *     *     *     *     *     * 

This is just one small step forward toward reform, a step toward the elimination of the institutional bias in favor of removing children from their homes resulting from the Federal funding scheme.  Each case needs to be viewed individually, and all options in the best interest of the child's welfare -- and the family -- need to be considered without any financial incentive or disincentive toward any such option.  That would be one more way of getting child protection right.
   

Es su CASA mi CASA? I don't think so; at least it wasn't in our case.

Today I saw that  friend of mine had become a fan of the Facebook Cause that supports the National Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program.  On the National CASA web page I found this quote:  "The joy of being involved as a voice for a child needing a safe and permanent home or helping a family to regenerate and become parents  is like Christmas every time!"—CASA volunteer Freddy W. Baugh writing on National CASA’s Facebook page.  (Italics added)

As a parent who, to this day, still feels very victimized by my family's experience ten years ago in what I can only describe as the meatgrinder of the Child Protective Services - Dependency Court system in Orange County, California, I initially bristled at reading that information.  Not because my friend did anything to intentionally hurt me, because he certainly did not.  I am sure that he is just trying to do something positive for the world and for children. 

My reaction is partly frustration that I still do not know what more I can do other than drumming up support for a wonderfully effective organization, The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, http://www.nccpr.org/ , through my own Facebook Cause, "Getting Child Protection Right".  And it's also partly frustration and, yes, resentment, that despite the presence of a CASA volunteer in our courtroom, no one from CASA ever spoke to me or to my wife.  I wish they had.

Looking at the phrase above, "helping a family to regenerate and become parents", presupposes that a family has stopped being a family and parents have stopped being parents.  But how does that happen?  In our case, it happened because no one in the system bothered to investigate us in any depth prior to taking action to separate parents from children.  It happened becuase there is no CASA that is there for parents.  Oh, of course there is an attorney, but our attorney (or, in our case, attorneys, plural, because of a potential legal conflict of interest between my wife and myself, despite no REAL conflict) were not able to get the court to really see how unbelievably we parents were being mistreated by the system until a hearing that took place some nine months from the time our boys were taken into custody.  NINE MONTHS.  Do you know what effect nine months of nights away from our kids did to the course of my wife's multiple sclerosis?

I feel the pain of parents who write to me through "Getting Child Protection Right".  Their pain is my pain.  No doubt they could use a CASA, too.

I think I'll share this blog entry with my friend.  I think he'll understand.







 

So What's a Father to Do?

I've found quite a few websites relating to the struggles parents have had in dependency court. It's certainly understandable how the pain and frustration of the experience leads people to seek a place where they can vent their feelings and maybe figure out a way to either "get back"at the beast that bit them or help others stay out of the meat grinder of the CPS system. One thing that is common to all of these websites is that the parents believe that they have been wronged.

I am wondering whether there are any serious academic studies of dependency court cases. Given that these cases are confidential, any studies would no doubt have to de-identify the parties involved. The first thing it would be interesting to know is just what percent of petitions filed against parents by the state are contested by the parents, and what percent are not. When we had our very first hearing, I wanted to contest the allegations of the petition. I was certain that if my wife and I had the opportunity to explain our side of things, someone in a position of authority would certainly listen to reason, realize that the whole matter was a huge mistake and dismiss it at once.

Boy, was I naive.

Child Protection Reform

After our boys were taken away from us by CPS in 1999, I began to search the Internet for information that might help us to get them back. One of the websites that I found was that of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, www.nccpr.org. That organization advocates for systemic reform to policy makers and legislative bodies but does not deal with individual cases.

A helpful website was created by Suzanne Shell.  After reading it, I purchased a copy of her book, Profane Justice. Although my belief system differs from Suzanne's, I found her practical approach to be very helpful guidance. I was very impressed with her efforts to train family advocates and to proactively let people know what they needed to know in order to protect themselves from systemic abuses.

One thing that most impacted my family's situation was the administrative law flavor of dependency cases. Neither fish nor fowl, dependency court was different from both criminal court and civil court, where, presumably, rules of evidence apply and hearsay can only be admitted under certain exceptions to the exclusionary rule. In dependency court, social workers were free to include whatever they wanted to in their reports, without regard to hearsay.  Not only were inaccuracies and untruths included, many of their written statements were highly objectionable from a legal standpoint.  Nonetheless, those reports were admitted wholesale into evidence.  I found that the court typically accepted whatever the Department of Social Services said as truth, without question.  Thus, once accused in the allegations of a filed petition, parents were treated as guilty until they could prove themselves innocent.

Consequently, the first things I recommend are that the burden of proof be shifted and the standard for proof be changed.  These cases should require the state to prove guilt, and to do so by virtue of the standard of, at a minimum, clear and convincing evidence.  This is NOT just a preponderance of the evidence, but clear and convincing evidence.

Next, the mandated reporter provision in the law regarding the reporting of suspected cases of child abuse and/or neglect needs to be eliminated.  Allowing teachers, coaches, etc. no discretion to make a reasoned assessment before reporting cases to CPS is one of the things that caused us to end up in the meat grinder.  It was all so needless.  Once the ball started rolling, though, there was no way to stop it.

In our case, the injury that lead to our boys being taken away was a black-and-blue mark left behind after an accidental bump on our younger son's forehead.  And even more ridiculously, on that particular morning, we had costumed our son as Thomas Alva Edison, for he was to present a book report on a biography of the inventor.

My wife fashioned a costume that came close to the depiction of Edison on the cover of the book, and I went so far as to put gel in his hair and part it right down the middle, as in the style worn by Edison.  When I did so, it uncovered that black-and-blue mark on his forehead that had otherwise been hidden by the straight hair bangs that normally fell down to his eyebrows.


Now, I ask:  would I -- or would anyone -- have done such a thing if they had any inkling that they might be accused of child abuse?

For all of you out there who either are parents or were once a child yourself (and I hope that covers everyone!), I must ask whether you or your child ever bumped your head by accident.  Let me see a show of hands, please.  O.K, looks like about half of you, if not slightly more. So if a child has a bump on his head, should teachers be mandated to report that to CPS or should they be allowed the discretion to try to find out what happened?

I am convinced that had we been given the opportunity to meet with the mandated reporter, she would have realized that what was suspected child abuse was clearly the result of our son having accidentally bumped his head, an incident that his parents had absolutely nothing to do with.  In fact, our son did not even remember at first how he did it.  Only later did he recall the details of what had happened.  It was entirely innocent and accidental, and no one else was involved.   

That was just the tip of the iceberg for us.  So many other things could have been done to prevent the case from going forward if only some reasonable efforts had been made to do a thorough investigation of our family. I'll go into that topic in a subsequent post.