based upon a true story
I was stupid. The hearing came and there was a meeting with the lawyers right before. It was all hurried because the court was full, even at nine AM. I discovered, first thing, that if I didn’t have a lawyer, I would have had to wait all day for my case to be heard and that even meant waiting while they broke for lunch.
To say it was horrible would be such an understatement—no one can imagine.
After the meeting, my lawyer told me they had statements from the school, from my son’s teacher, the nurse and the principal. They were not there in person, of course. If they were my lawyer might have gotten a chance to question them.
They also had statements from the doctor. I would learn later that CPS took my son to one of their doctors, one they used all the time and who, by everything my lawyer would be able to find out, was one who never went against what CPS wanted, who reported every initial-visit injury as physical abuse and every subsequent visit while a child was in CPS care as either accidental or nothing at all.
I know. You don’t think this is true. You think such things don’t happen. Well they happen all the time. Everywhere. In just about every state. In just about every CPS jurisdiction. Some are much worse than others.
So I asked my lawyer if my kids were coming home after the hearing. That’s when he told me they didn’t need proof, they didn’t need just about anything. The statements did not need to be verified, not at this hearing, and in fact at this hearing we wouldn’t even have a chance to do that.
My lawyer said he would be able to make a statement. He would be able to tell the court that I had a clean record, had never been in any kind of trouble, didn’t even have an outstanding parking ticket. He would be able to tell the judge that the school had never had issue with me, had never ever even had a thought about my child being abused at home.
What my lawyer didn’t know, and what we wouldn’t find out until much later, far into the trial, was that the school report being presented was edited. My child had, in fact, told everyone exactly what happened. He told the nurse, he told his teacher and he told first the assistant principal and then the principal.
But somehow, his telling all those people, and his friend telling them too, was omitted from the paperwork CPS presented. Then, quite propitiously for them, no one was there to personally testify. Apparently that was not required, even better, not permitted at the first hearing.
And so it happened. It happened so quickly if I had blinked I would have missed it. What I did see was the judge yawn about ten times, and it seemed, but I couldn’t swear to it, as if he were actually dosing off. (He would actually fall asleep during the trial.)
He banged down the gavel. The kids were remanded to CPS custody and the next hearing was scheduled for more than a month away. CPS was told to arrange visitation for me, but they didn’t and when the second hearing came around they lied and said I wasn’t interested in seeing my kids.
Preponderance of evidence—that was the legal standard. They would argue in due time that even if what I was saying was true, I was still guilty of neglect because my child got hurt.
Pick up a copy of Bill Wynn: The Second Hundred and all my works here:
By Peter Weiss
Child Abuse Pediatricians Destroying Families by Diagnosing “Abuse” When Medical Condition is Rickets (part 2)
by Allie Parker
Health Impact News
complete story at a glance here
(continued from part 1)
All of this because child abuse pediatricians refuse to educate themselves on the new science and medical data available.
We still have to go back to why the gold standard for diagnosing Osteomalacia in adults is the (DEXA) scan, but traditional x-rays are the standard practice for diagnosing rickets in children. Traditional X-rays show changes in bone density after bone loss of about 40 percent; a DEXA scan can detect changes as small as 1 percent, making it more sensitive and accurate [10].
With all the studies and medical data, child abuse pediatricians and radiologists are testifying against parents without doing a DEXA scan to check bone mineralization when it is readily available, more accurate and has less radiation exposure than the traditional x-ray.
Even when blood tests acknowledge a vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency (<20 ng/ml), they still rely on the results of the traditional x-ray, and the opinion of a radiologist, to rule out rickets and other metabolic bone diseases.
Based on the radiographic results alone, a diagnosis of child abuse is made, and a child is medically kidnapped.
The child abuse pediatricians often go so far as to say there is no evidence of a bone disease or rickets. This makes it difficult for CPS and the courts to accept another doctor’s conclusion for the fractures, which can be due to a metabolic bone disease and/or rickets.
The child abuse pediatrician has already diagnosed abuse, they have ruled out MBD and rickets, and because they are “experts” in child abuse, they have already acted as judge and jury for the family. See:
Pediatric Child Abuse “Experts” are NOT Experts in Anything
By not utilizing all the diagnostic tools available, such as the (DEXA) scan, these physicians are not acting in good faith. Many times they are claiming there is no evidence of rickets or a metabolic bone disease based solely on the x-rays, disregarding the laboratory data, but still treat the infants for rickets claiming, “vitamin D level is a laboratory value and not a diagnosis of disease.” [11]
The circular reasoning used by the child abuse pediatrician regarding rickets, MBD, and SBS is continuously called into question. Not only by the falsely accused, but by the defense attorneys, the public, and most importantly, other physicians who are questioning this circular reasoning and flawed science used to “diagnose” abuse, and ultimately destroy a family.
With so much controversy surrounding Shaken Baby Syndrome, the The Swedish Council on Technology and Social Evaluation and the Swedish National Medical Ethics jointly investigated the scientific basis for the diagnosis of Shaken Baby Syndrome and concluded:
There is insufficient scientific evidence on which to assess the diagnostic accuracy of the triad in identifying traumatic shaking (very low quality evidence), and there is limited scientific evidence that the triad and therefore its components can be associated with traumatic shaking (low quality evidence) [12].
Spokesmen/women for these hospitals claim the child abuse pediatric teams do not make decisions or recommendations about whether or how cases are pursued, including criminal prosecution, termination of parental rights, or removal of children from their homes.
To that, I ask this: why would the child abuse pediatrician in my case say: “…he is at risk for further, possibly more significant injuries, including death in the environment in which he was physically abused”? [11]
This is the statement that caused a family, my family, to be medically kidnapped.
References
[1] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/rickets-and-osteomalacia/
[2] Small, R.E., Uses and limitations of bone mineral density measurements in the management of osteoporosis, MedGenMed.com (2005)
[3] Cannell, J.J., Holick, M.F., Multiple unexplained fractures in infants and child physical abuse, Journal of Steroid Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (2016)
[4] Keller, K.A., Barnes, P.D., A national and international epidemic, (2008)
[5] Slovis, T.L., Chapman, S., Evaluating the data concerning vitamin D insufficiency/deficiency and child abuse, (2008)
[6] Cohen, M.C., Offiah, A., Sprigg, A., et al Vitamin D deficiency and sudden unexpected death in infancy and childhood: A cohort study, (2013)
[7] Ayoub, D., Limitations of radiology in rickets, [Letter to the editor] Pediatric and Developmental Pathology. 2013 Sep-Oct.
[8] Scheimberg, I., Perry, L., Does low vitamin D have a role in pediatric morbidity and mortality? An observation study of vitamin D in a cohort of 52 postmortem examinations, (2014)
[9] V. Vigorita, Orthopedic Pathology, Chapter 3, Metabolic Bone Disease, 2nd Edition, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, New York 2007.
[10] Carol Eustice, Medically reviewed by Richard N. Forgoros, MD, What is a DEXA scan? What to expect when undergoing this test (Updated March 13, 2049)
[11] Mohr, B., Medical record of D. Parker, University of Michigan (April 2018)
[12] SBU – Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services, Traumatic Shaking: The role of the triad in medical investigations of suspected traumatic shaking, a systemic review, (2016)
Pick up a copy of Bill Wynn: The Second Hundred and all my works here:
By Peter Weiss
Child Abuse Pediatricians Destroying Families by Diagnosing “Abuse” When Medical Condition is Rickets
by Allie Parker
Health Impact News
presented here in two parts but complete story at a glance here
The method of diagnosing rickets in infants has been proven to be incorrect, yet it is still considered the standard practice used by child abuse pediatricians to diagnose abuse in infants and children with blatant disregard for laboratory testing showing a vitamin D deficiency or other metabolic bone disease.
The diagnosis of rickets in infants is left solely on a radiologist, despite blood tests showing deficiency, insufficiency, and efficient vitamin D levels.
X-rays are the standard practice or “gold standard” of diagnosing rickets in infants. Rickets is a condition that affects bone development in children. It causes bone pain, poor growth and soft, weak bones that can lead to bone deformities and fractures.
Adults can experience a similar condition, which is known as osteomalacia or soft bones [1].
The dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA and DEXA scan) is the preferred technology for measuring bone mineralization, because of its ease of use, low radiation exposure, and ability to measure bone mineral density at both the hip and spine, DEXA is the most commonly used technique to measure bone mineral density [2].
The American Academy of Pediatrics: Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect (AAPCCAN) has issued guidelines for the evaluation of children with multiple unexplained fractures, concluding they are almost always due to abuse.
However, common sense questions still need answering:
- Why would abusive parents repeatedly seek medical care for the infant they abused?
- Why would chest trauma severe enough to fracture ribs not also results in lung damage?
- Why wouldn’t blunt chest trauma cause some inwardly angulated rib fractures instead of all perfectly aligned fracture ends?
- Wouldn’t parents who beat their infant severely enough to cause multiple fractures show evidence of psychopathology?
- Do infants who are beaten severely enough to cause multiple fractures show fear in the presence of the abuser?
- How often do the eyewitnesses to parental/infant interactions report the parents were concerned and loving parents? [3]
It’s shocking what the studies show in regards to radiologists looking at the same images and coming up with two different interpretations.
For example, two radiology professors at Stanford University diagnosed multiple fractures due to rickets on several infants, and concluded that there is a “national and international epidemic” of infantile rickets [4].
In another study, two board certified radiologists examined the same x-rays and diagnosed child abuse [5].
Another study of 41 infants who died due to SID’s found that only 7% of bone biopsy-proven rickets was picked up by pediatric radiologists [6,7].
In a more recent study (2014), a group of 52 children who died of various causes reported histological rickets in 10 children (19%) with vitamin D levels less that 10 ng/ml but pre-morbid x-rays missed the rickets 70% of the time.
In the same study, eight infants with vitamin D levels between 10-20 ng/ml had histological rickets, but pre-morbid radiology was normal in 100% of the infants, three of which had fractures. Again, radiologists missed biopsy-proven rickets more than 80% of the time [8].
Bone biopsy and (DEXA) scans are still not considered the gold standard when it comes to diagnosing rickets in children. A current textbook of orthopedic pathology states, “In subtle cases absolute certainty requires tissue examination.”
The author goes on to say, “a bone biopsy is indicated in every patient in whom a cause of fracture is unexplained.” (p.127) [9]
It’s a shame child abuse pediatricians don’t have the same train of thought, which is to be absolutely certain.
They aren’t diagnosing a disease, but a crime. A crime which, if founded, will result in the destruction of a family. The parents will lose parental rights of their child, who is often adopted out to strangers, and also sends one or both of the parents to jail. Not to mention the damage that occurs to the child, who is losing loving parents.
Despite all this knowledge, bone biopsies and even (DEXA) scans are rarely done when children present to a children’s hospital with unexplained fractures.
Instead, the hospital goes into “non-accidental trauma” auto-pilot, ordering tests that are not needed, subjecting the infants to unnecessary radiation exposure.
They are dilating the infant’s eyes to check for retinal hemorrhage when no neurological signs, symptoms or injuries have been noted.
Even when all of these tests come back negative, and all they have are fractures, they still only rely on the radiologist’s conclusion, which is any unexplained fracture is “highly specific” for abuse.
Even when a parent or guardian has a true and reasonable reason for the fracture, the child abuse pediatrician claims the “type” of fracture does not provide an adequate mechanism for the fracture.
A simple (DEXA) scan, which most children’s hospitals have on site, can be done to check for bone mineralization, and still, child abuse pediatricians disregard blood work suggestive of rickets simply because the x-rays do not confirm rickets or any metabolic bone disease.
Instead, they choose to accuse the parents of a crime. Some stating it is “diagnostic of abuse” which is an extreme amount of medical certainty.
Once the accusation of child abuse is made by a child abuse pediatrician, the family is guilty. Even though the burden of proof is on the prosecution in the civil case, the family is still the one tasked with finding and paying an attorney, if they are able, and finding and paying expert witnesses to review their case and testify on their behalf.
This doesn’t include the fact their children have been taken away from them, often put in foster care, and the parents are now on the central registry of child abusers. See:
Pick up a copy of Bill Wynn: The Second Hundred and all my works here:
By Peter Weiss
based upon a true story
The law says you have to have a hearing within three days. The weekend was in between so it would be six days before we got into court.
I was hard-pressed to find a lawyer. I called the GP lawyer I used and he recommended someone he knew of but didn’t actually know. I called immediately. Wow! Three hundred fifty dollars an hour and a five thousand dollar retainer. Where am I supposed to get this money, I asked. There was an awkward silence on the phone.
I made just barely too much money to be eligible for legal aid. What an eye opener that was. If I were an illegal alien I could have gotten legal aid. If I were an immigrant there were agencies to help me. It seemed as if I were all alone. And I was all alone, literally, my house was empty.
So I sucked it up. I called several friends and they all told me not to worry, to just go into court by myself and tell the judge what happened. Surely, they all agreed separately, the judge would believe me. No one could imagine that a judge wouldn’t believe me. I had no record. I had no previous contact with CPS. I’d never been in trouble. I was just a regular mom raising two kids on her own.
Yeah right. And pigs fly.
It was one of the worst weekends of my life. I cried all weekend long. My friends came over and sat with me for as long as they could. No one would dare bring their kids because they were afraid it would just plain set me off.
My parents live in a different state, so they couldn’t help other than to offer me support by phone. My father told me I needed to have a lawyer. I told him I couldn’t afford what lawyers cost. (When all was said and done, the legal bill would be well over $100,000.) He told me I couldn’t afford not to have a lawyer.
I listened to my father and called the lawyer back to retain him. We set up the meeting for the next day but I could only come up with a little over thousand dollars. My father agreed to send me some money, enough to cover the retainer, but it would take a few days for the check to arrive.
The lawyer took my check for a thousand dollars and said he could wait until the check from my father arrived for the rest of the retainer. In the course of things, the way things go, that was pretty nice of him altogether. He told me not to worry, that he couldn’t imagine this was anything other than a mistake and that if things went the way he hoped they would my kids would be returned after the hearing.
Yeah. Right.
I cried and cried and cried. Each morning for the next six days I would get up in despair, with this knot in the pit of my stomach and a headache that wouldn’t go away. I thought about going to my doctor to get something for the stress but the lawyer told me at the meeting to stay away from anything like that because anything like that would work against me.
I don’t want to say he was smug. I know he really felt for me and wanted to help me. But there I was in a law firm that owned its own building, and there he was behind a desk which probably cost more than all of my furniture altogether, wearing a suit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe and the wardrobes of my kids too. Such is the way of the world, I was to discover.
Oh God! How naïve and stupid I was. How innocent I was. I really believed that people were good and that they wanted the best for everyone.
Pick up a copy of Bill Wynn: The Second Hundred and all my works here:
By Peter Weiss
based upon a true story
So it happened like this. He went out in the backyard with his friend where we have one of those bounce-screens that you can throw a baseball against and have it bounced back to you to catch. Jimmy likes to play on that, plays on it all the time. But this morning was different. For some reason, when his friend threw the ball up to the screen, Jimmy wasn’t looking and the ball bounced back and hit him in the eye.
I didn’t know it right away. Apparently he and his friend were having a great time, and like what happens with boys, at first they were throwing it nice and easy against the screen so that it was easy to catch. But they got a little bit excited, started throwing harder, and maybe competition kicked in so that one tried to best the other by throwing it harder and eventually they were throwing it really hard. It was one of those hard throws bouncing back that hit Jimmy in the eye.
I knew something was wrong when both boys came running in the house, Jimmy’s friend first holding the door for Jimmy. Jimmy had his hand over his eye and by the time I saw it, it was already swelling and all red. I told him sit down, and they both did, and I went to the freezer and got some ice which I put into a dish towel. At first I held the towel on Jimmy’s eye. But I still had to pack his lunch, and his sister was there sitting at the table in her high chair. Poor little thing, she had no idea what was about to happen to her or why. Just an innocent. We were all so innocent.
I shouldn’t have sent Jimmy to school. I should have kept him home, packed up his sister and taken them the doctor. But after having the ice on it for about 15 minutes, Jimmy said he was okay and that he wanted to go to school.
Stupid me. I sent him and his friend off on the school bus.
Then nothing. I did my regular day, took care of my daughter, took care of the house, ran errands, did all I usually do. Everything was fine. Just fine. No calls, nothing out of the ordinary.
About the time for the school bus, I began fixing Jimmy’s snack. My daughter was with me in the kitchen. No big deal. I made peanut butter and jelly for both of them, and she was eating hers in her high chair when the bus came. But there was no Jimmy.
Imagine.
So I called the school.
That’s when I learned that Jimmy had gone to the nurse and the nurse had called in the principal and the principal had called CPS. CPS came to the school at dismissal and took him. I wasn’t told, I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t called the school.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, CPS came with the police and took my daughter.
I was already frantic. I didn’t know what to do or who to call. I tried to show them the bounce-screen and explain what happened, but they flashed some paperwork in my face, didn’t listen to a thing, didn’t look at what I tried to show them, left me a carbon and absconded with my daughter.
Pick up a copy of Bill Wynn: The Second Hundred and all my works here:
By Peter Weiss
Another Form of Blackmail: Risk Losing Children to CPS For Failing to Comply with Mandatory Vaccines
Parents Risk Losing Children to CPS in NY if They Fail to Comply with Mandatory Vaccines
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
see complete story with pictures and supplementary letters here
As we reported last week, on June 13, 2019, the New York legislature quickly pushed a bill (A2371) to repeal the religious exemption to vaccination through both the Assembly and Senate in one day with no public hearings.
The unprecedented legislative coup, which cut the citizens of New York out of participating in the law making process, culminated in the Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo immediately signing the bill into law.
See: New York Quickly Removes Religious Vaccine Exemptions with No Public Hearings
Soon after this bill passed in New York, some parents apparently received letters from their children’s school districts informing them of the new law, and that any child who previously had a religious exemption to vaccines now needed to comply and get caught up on their vaccinations.
One of these letters, from Deer Park, New York, was posted on Facebook and quickly circulated, where James Cummings, the Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Personnel Services, let parents know that failure to comply and vaccinate their children would result in being reported to Child Protective Services (CPS).
CPS workers routinely seize children from parents who do not comply with medical directives. Today, you can lose your children to CPS for simply wanting to obtain a second opinion from a different doctor for medical treatments for your children.
These children are very often taken out of their homes and put into foster care, where the vast majority of them are abused.
Foster care is a billion dollar industry employing hundreds of thousands of people, and it is the main source of the United States’ very large, and very real, problem of child sex trafficking.
We have documented these cases of “medical kidnapping” for almost 5 years now on our MedicalKidnap.com website.
It would appear that State Legislators and governors imposing strict mandatory vaccination laws have now found another pipeline of putting children into this very lucrative foster care system to access federal funds, where corruption is the norm.
Pro Vaccine Extremists Move to Squelch Any Information About Vaccines that Contradicts Their Narrative
The vaccine debate in America today is a debate where only one side is allowed to voice their opinions: the most extremist view, that ALL vaccines are safe and effective for ALL people, ALL the time, by force if necessary. Dissenting opinions are not allowed (not even from doctors or attorneys), and vaccines are declared to be the only area in medicine or research where it is declared that “the science is settled.”
The vaccine extremists are represented by the pharmaceutical industry, the most powerful industry in the world today. They fund most of the corporate “mainstream” media, and their industry leaders also hold key positions in government, where many of the federal health agencies also hold patents on vaccines and profit from their sales.
In the judicial system, one cannot sue a pharmaceutical company for injuries resulting from vaccines due to a law passed in 1986 that requires everyone who is injured by vaccines, or had a child or loved one killed by vaccines, to take their case to a special government “vaccine court.”
However, due to the power of the Internet and with more people turning away from the corporate-sponsored media sources for information regarding vaccines, the tech giants that control the flow of information on the Internet are now starting to strike back and prevent anyone who wants to publish anything questioning vaccines from doing so.
These policies to stop the flow of information regarding vaccine safety and efficacy, even if the information comes from government publish sources, is a clear act of discrimination against a class of people who just want to tell the truth about vaccines.
As a result, some of the largest publishers of alternative health sources are today being attacked and silenced for one main reason: they do not comply with the extremist view of vaccines that ALL vaccines are safe and effective for ALL people, ALL the time, by force if necessary.
Pinterest was probably one of the first social media companies to start banning anyone publishing information that did not support the extremist view of vaccines.
They took down all of Health Impact News’ pins related to vaccines, and then banned our account completely:
A few days ago, Sayer Ji, owner of one of the largest alternative websites on the Internet, GreenMedInfo.com, announced to his followers that his email sending program, Mailchimp, was refusing to allow him to email his database of over 300,000 subscribers due to their views on vaccines.
And then yesterday, Dr. Joseph Mercola of Mercola.com, one of the Internet’s oldest and largest alternative health websites, informed his followers that Google completely de-listed his website from search results, apparently due to his position on vaccines.
Mike Adams, the “Health Ranger,” is another one of the oldest and largest alternative websites on the Internet, NaturalNews.com. Mike also publishes the truth about vaccines, and recently he announced to his followers that Facebook permanently banned him from posting anything on his Facebook Page that had over 2 million followers.
Medical Tyranny has arrived in the United States. If citizens do not take a stand against this tyranny, soon the medical cartel will control every aspect of our lives, and they will take away our children if we do not comply.
Pick up a copy of Bill Wynn: The Second Hundred and all my works here:
By Peter Weiss
article presented here in three parts, but see entire story here
The Department of Child Safety’s enforcement of confidentiality is peppered with exceptions — particularly when the public is paying attention.
Mary Jo Pitzl, Arizona Republic Updated 5:13 p.m. EDT May 6, 2019
(continued from part 2)
Informing the public
Informed public debate over whether a child-welfare agency is doing enough to protect children or why kids were taken from their homes can boost awareness and educate policy makers, said Martin Guggenheim, a professor at the New York University Law School and co-director of the school’s Family Defense Clinic.
“It’s one thing to protect the families from public attention; it’s another thing to protect the state from public attention,” said Guggenheim.
DCS says it can’t give details on why a given child was taken into state custody. But it does report aggregate data on the reasons for removal, categorizing them as either “abuse” or “neglect.”
But that information only tells so much.
More transparency would help lawmakers understand what policies might address the main causes for children being removed from their homes, whether it’s a lack of child care, food assistance, or drug counseling. Under the current application of confidentiality, the public doesn’t know what drives “neglect” removals.
“Neglect” is a very broad term that DCS does not define further in its reports. There’s no way for the public to know the dominant reasons for neglect, which accounts for 70 percent of the 9,300 removals last year.
Generation Justice, an advocacy group, has been pushing for release of more details on cases where substance abuse is involved in incidents that result in a child’s death or near death.
Its efforts are paying off: Legislation they championed was signed into law in April by Gov. Doug Ducey. It requires DCS to report if a child involved in a near-fatality or fatality report was exposed to alcohol or drugs and whether the report was called in by a mandatory reporter, such as a medical professional or a police officer.
Let the sun shine in?
More sunshine on how the agency and the courts operate would improve the system, said attorney Chris Phillis. She runs the Office of the Public Advocate in Maricopa County, which assigns public defenders to parents. In the past, she’s represented parents herself.
“I think parents would be treated better if more (people) were able to see what’s going on,” Phillis said. “It would help people understand where the system is broken, and how to fix it.”
Former AG Horne agrees.
The laws on privacy, he said, are “written over broadly and interpreted overly broadly” and need a legislative fix.
In his experience, Horne said, DCS doesn’t like to be challenged, and can retaliate — such as seeking court orders to not talk — if it perceives a parent or attorney has disclosed a child’s identity.
I think parents would be treated better if more (people) were able to see what’s going on. It would help people understand where the system is broken, and how to fix it.
“There’s wrongdoing I’d like to talk about, but I can’t,” he said, citing fear of backlash from the agency and its attorneys.
The agency can be quick to ask a court to order parents to not talk about their case or otherwise publicize their situation. But defense attorneys question how much that protects a child.
“I think they’re trying to hold the parents down rather than protect the child,” said attorney Brad TenBrook. He represented a couple whose child was removed.
To help out, relatives set up a GoFundMe page to help cover legal expenses, but DCS got a judge to order it shut down. The page, TenBrook said, referred to the child only by first name and did not name the parents.
“What does the state get from withdrawing information from the GoFundMe page?” he asked. “Other than stopping the parent from paying for an attorney.”
Gillespie, another defense attorney, agreed a lot of the actions she’s seen are aimed at keeping parents from talking about their DCS experiences.
While DCS says parents have a right to tell their story, Gillespie is skeptical.
”I’d like to have that in writing,” she said. She’s had clients who were afraid to speak for fear of backlash.
DCS makes it clear that anything a parent says or writes can be used in court, which has a chilling effect.
(end)
Pick up a copy of Bill Wynn: The Second Hundred and all my works here:
By Peter Weiss
article presented here in three parts, but see entire story here
The Department of Child Safety’s enforcement of confidentiality is peppered with exceptions — particularly when the public is paying attention.
Mary Jo Pitzl, Arizona Republic Updated 5:13 p.m. EDT May 6, 2019
(continued from part 1)
Who does privacy protect?
There are good reasons for privacy.
For starters, it’s required by federal law. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act says states must protect the records and reports of child abuse and neglect out of concern for the privacy of the children and parents involved.
“It’s a pretty bright line that privacy prevails when you talk about a child,” said Professor Robert Fellmeth, director of the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego.
A news story that names a child who has been abused, or who has been in and out of the foster-care system, can be humiliating to the child and lead to bullying or worse, he said. With the internet, those stories can live forever.
However, other details about a case shouldn’t be shrouded in secrecy, Fellmeth said. For example, there’s no good reason why confidentiality should shield information about how a child-welfare agency operates.
“That’s a question that doesn’t in any way prejudice the case or the child,” he said. Asking why something occurred on an agency’s watch, or why kids were removed from their homes, is fair game, Fellmeth said.
In the eyes of defense attorneys, the confidentiality laws, at least the way they are currently interpreted, are a convenient excuse to limit public scrutiny of how the state’s child-welfare system works.
In Hobson’s case, for example, the public doesn’t know when the children were adopted or why the agency approved seven adoptions to a single parent. Nor does the public know the size of the financial subsidy she received for caring for the children, although agency attorneys said they have moved to cut off those payments. Because court files are sealed, the public doesn’t know if that funding is continuing or has been terminated. The Republic is seeking that information but DCS has yet to reply.
DCS and its attorneys argue the state stands to lose millions in federal child-welfare dollars if the confidentiality provisions are not followed.
Does that happen?
“Never, never, never, ever,” said Fellmeth. “They haven’t done it for any area that involves children.”
California lost some federal child-welfare support when it failed to get a computer-reporting system going, Fellmeth said. But he has never found a state that lost the dollars the feds send to support the foster-care system.
Open courts are a blurry window
The public’s biggest window into the child-welfare system is the juvenile courts, which are open. But the law requires a judge to bar disclosure of information that would personally identify the child or children involved in a DCS case.
This is referred to in the law as an admonition, and court rules spell out what information must be kept private: “name, address, date of birth, social security number, tribal enrollment number, telephone or telefacsimile number, driver license number, places of employment, school identification or military identification number or any other distinguishing characteristic that tends to identify a particular person.”
Delivered from the bench, the admonition was intended to be part of juvenile court hearings since lawmakers in 2003 opened courtrooms. That law reversed years of closed hearings that were accessible only to the parents, case managers and attorneys involved in a case.
But The Republic has been in courtrooms where the privacy admonition has never been issued. In other instances, the warning has been unevenly interpreted.
In late April, a Republic reporter sat in on a juvenile court hearing in a case involving an infant removed from her mother. No privacy admonition was read.
Judges also have the discretion to close a proceeding if they deem it’s in the child’s best interest.
In the case of a Chandler couple whose children were removed after a dramatic standoff with police who had a warrant to take the children, DCS moved quickly to close court proceedings. The judge declined to do so. But in one hearing, a Republic reporter was ordered to leave the court. In a subsequent hearing, another reporter was ordered to not publish anything about the proceeding.
Colleen McNally, who until fall 2017 was the presiding judge of the juvenile court in Maricopa County, said she’s not aware of any guidance on what constitutes “the best interest of the child.” But she has ordered parents to take down Facebook posts, or GoFundMe appeals if they identify a child. In one instance, a family was posting their child’s medical records.
“I just picture the children finding out,” McNally said, adding that information can follow the child well into adulthood.
Court closures are rare, she said.
“It’s more just a case of nobody’s there,” she said.
It’s unusual for media or observers to show up unless it’s a high-profile case.
While the courts are open, it’s hard to know when a given case is happening, unless a party to the case shares that information. Court dockets are not published online and not shared if a person calls the court clerk’s office to find out.
(continued tomorrow)
Pick up a copy of Bill Wynn: The Second Hundred and all my works here:
By Peter Weiss
article presented here in three parts, but see entire story here
The Department of Child Safety’s enforcement of confidentiality is peppered with exceptions — particularly when the public is paying attention.
Mary Jo Pitzl, Arizona Republic Updated 5:13 p.m. EDT May 6, 2019
When news broke that a Maricopa woman had been accused of starving, pepper-spraying, and otherwise abusing seven adopted children, questions immediately turned to what the Department of Child Safety knew and when the agency knew it.
The case of Machelle Hobson and her foster-children-turned-adopted children drew an unusual amount of attention because some of the alleged abuse was related to the children’s performances for a popular YouTube channel.
But aside from confirming what police had already reported in the case — that child-welfare workers had removed the kids from the home — DCS said it could not comment due to confidentiality laws.
DCS frequently cites those laws and the financial penalty the state could suffer through loss of federal funds: when it requests courts to close proceedings, warns news media against showing the faces of foster children, and refuses to disclose seemingly routine details.
Six days after DCS’ “no comment,” DCS Director Greg McKay appeared to reverse course and issue a public statement that cast blame for the situation onto other agencies, as well as the general public.
In enumerating who had eyes on the children during the time of the alleged abuse, McKay revealed: “The adoptive home was certified and a judge finalized an adoption just weeks before this discovery.” He added that two police agencies were involved with the situation.
It’s one example of how the agency’s enforcement of confidentiality is peppered with exceptions — particularly when the public is paying attention. It also points to a lack of clarity on when children’s privacy rights prevail over the First Amendment right of parents to speak out, and the public’s right to know how their government is operating.
“It seems the department selectively pulls up the confidentiality flag,” said attorney DeeAn Gillespie, who encounters it in her work representing parents in DCS cases.
The secrecy, Gillespie said, fuels suspicion that DCS may be invoking it more to protect itself than the children in the case.
Complaints that DCS uses privacy when it suits them extend to no less than former Attorney General Tom Horne, whose office represented DCS.
“I didn’t realize this when I was AG, but now that I’m on the other side, they habitually try to use that (privacy) unethically,” said Horne, who has represented parents in DCS cases in his private legal practice.
Making exceptions to the rule
The confidentiality laws that cloak much of Arizona’s child-welfare system are intended to protect the privacy of the children and parents at the center of a case. DCS carefully monitors actions by families and the media that might identify children in state custody, by showing their faces, naming relatives or revealing details about a family’s prior involvement with the agency.
But there are numerous situations where such children are identified, including by the agency itself — from social media posts to GoFundMe pleas to police reports that detail the incident that brought the child into state custody.
When Taylor Swift brought her Reputation tour to Phoenix last year, photos of her performing a special concert preview for foster kids and their parents were all over Facebook and Instagram. Children in the widely shared images were identified as being in foster care.
The Republic posted foster parents’ excited social media posts about the event and was not reprimanded for publishing them. The Republic asked Swift’s representatives and DCS if there was any push-back for the publication, but did not receive a response. The posts remain on various social media platforms.
Foster parents can post pictures of the children in their charge as long as they are not identified as foster children, said Kim Vehon, founder of Foster Arizona, a private group that supports children in foster care.
DCS runs a “Children’s Heart Gallery” featuring photos and descriptions of children up for adoption. Foster Arizona posts videos of children needing adoption. AASK, a nonprofit social-services agency, does the same thing, focusing on children with special needs.
DCS did not respond when asked about why it is allowed to publicize images of the children’s faces.
But both Foster Arizona and AASK said the judge presiding over a child’s case must issue an order allowing use of the child’s image and name. Spokesman Clint Williams said AASK was unaware of any such requests, which are submitted by DCS case managers, being denied.
There’s an exception in the law for children who have been abducted from state custody. That’s what allowed DCS last year to issue a news release with photos of a child whose parents apparently took her from her state placement and fled.
In this case, lawmakers determined concerns about the child’s safety trumped her privacy rights.
DCS referred many of The Republic’s questions to the Attorney General’s Office, which represents the agency in legal matters. The AG did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
(continued tomorrow)
Pick up a copy of Bill Wynn: The Second Hundred and all my works here:
By Peter Weiss
see story on Arizona Republic here
MARY JO PITZL | ARIZONA REPUBLIC
9:00 a.m. EDT May 29, 2019
Sloppy work, lack of evidence and outright lies caused a father to lose parental rights to his daughter, the Court of Appeals argued in an opinion that criticizes the work of nearly everyone involved in the four-year-long case.
The Department of Child Safety, not the father, is to blame for circumstances that led to a juvenile-court decision last year to sever the father’s parental rights, the appeals court wrote.
“(A)ny perceived lack of a bond between Melody and Father was not because of Father’s lack of effort, but because of DCS’s delay, contact restrictions and substantial failure to try to unify Melody with Father,” the three-judge panel wrote.
The unanimous opinion overturned the July 2018 decision and sent the case back to juvenile court.
Parent attorneys hailed the opinion as a much-needed blow for accountability in a system that often is cloaked in privacy.
But it also raises questions for the people most intimately involved in the matter: The father, who lives in California, and the Valley-based foster mother who has parented the child, now 4½ years old, since soon after her birth. (The child’s mother had her rights terminated years ago and was not an issue in this case.)
The father is identified only as “Donald W.” in the court filing, making it impossible to locate him. Calls to the father’s attorney were not returned.
The foster mother said she’s struggling with what to do next. She was prepared to adopt Melody in light of the now-overturned court ruling that cut off the father’s rights. She and the girl’s father have been in regular contact and developed a civil, cooperative relationship over the years, she said.
“I don’t want to have this conversation with him yet because I’m too emotional,” she said when asked what’s next for the child. But, she added, she needs to ask the father if he thinks it would be in Melody’s best interest to move to California to live with him after spending her life so far living with her.
She wouldn’t answer when asked if she thinks remaining with her would be in the girl’s best interest. “I’m trying to take myself out of the equation,” she said.
‘Devoid of evidence’
Judge Paul J. McMurdie dissected the case that started in January 2015, when the father contacted DCS after learning a woman with whom he had had a brief relationship had given birth to a child in Arizona. Donald heard the child had been promptly taken into DCS custody. He offered to take a paternity test, as he rightly suspected he was the father.
From there, everything went downhill, according to the appeals court’s account. DCS added the father to the case that put the child in DCS custody, writing that he was unable to parent the child due to neglect, an inability to care for her basic needs, and abandonment. The juvenile court accepted DCS’ filing and directed the child to be placed in foster care.
But, McMurdie wrote, DCS’ allegations of neglect and abandonment were done “without any investigation,” and were not backed up by any facts. He called the allegations “generic assertions” that started a long process that denied the father the ability to establish a bond with his child.
“The record is devoid of any evidence supporting the unfitness allegations in the petition, a fact DCS acknowledged at oral argument before this (appeals) court,” McMurdie wrote.
AG, judges also at fault
Filing a petition to remove a child from her parent when there is no factual basis also raises questions of legal ethics, the court also noted. That pointed a finger at the Attorney General’s office, which represents DCS in court cases. The opinion did not name the assistant attorney general who filed the original petition.
The opinion also criticized the conduct of some of the four juvenile-court judges who handled the case over its four-year duration. DCS’ original move to remove Melody from her father was accepted by the court based on a “preponderance of evidence” — evidence that didn’t exist, the appeals court concluded.
When the girl was 1½ years old, DCS asked the juvenile court to sever the father’s rights. By then, the child had been in state care for more than the 15 months that state law sets as the threshold for beginning severance of parental rights. DCS also stated that the father had abandoned his child.
However, the record showed there was little basis for this, the appeals court found. The father had been investigated by California’s child-welfare agency through an interstate process that governs movement of children from one state to another. The California report concluded that he was an excellent parent to his other children, and he had been diligent in seeking custody of Melody from Arizona DCS.
He also had traveled from California to visit his daughter as his limited expenses allowed, and had been exchanging pictures and videos via a messaging platform to maintain communication with Melody.
Review board flags problems
The Foster Care Review Board threw up a red flag on DCS’ position that the father was an unfit parent when the case came before it. There wasn’t enough information to properly review the case, the board reported.
Review board members said they were concerned about a lack of communication from DCS: Case worker Lucero Garcia did not show up for the review hearing and did not provide the father’s case plan for the board to review. Additionally, review-board efforts to contact the case manager and her supervisor were unsuccessful.
It wasn’t until Melody was 2½ years old, with limited contact with her father, that DCS hired a doctor to determine if there was a parental bond between father and child.
A few months later, DCS was in court, pressing to have father’s rights terminated. Among other things, he had not kept to the regular visitation schedule DCS wanted for him and his daughter, reducing opportunities to form a bond.
Punishment for being poor
At trial, the juvenile-court judge then assigned to the case asked why DCS didn’t send Melody to California. The record showed the father had money issues that kept him from making regular trips from his Sacramento home. The case worker said she wasn’t aware the state had financial assistance to offer the father.
That judge concluded the court “could not sever rights because people are poor, rejected the DCS motion and ordered the state to finance the father’s transportation costs to Arizona to visit his daughter.
In the following months, DCS dragged its feet in providing that aid, and later got court approval to reimburse the father for his expenses. However, those reimbursements were slow to arrive, further hampering the ability of the father to visit and bond with his daughter.
Rights cut off
By the time the girl was more than 3 years old, DCS again moved to sever the father’s rights, based in part on the fact that he had made limited visits to her. In July 2018, a new juvenile-court judge who inherited the case granted the motion.
It is unclear from the appeals court opinion which of the four judges over the duration of the case declined to sever the father’s rights and which judge ultimately granted the motion. The court record lists Karen A. Mullins, Jacki Ireland (a pro-tem judge), William Brotherton (now retired) and Joan A. Sinclair.
The foster mother filed a petition to adopt Melody, but it was put on hold because the father appealed the decision.
In the appeals-court opinion, McMurdie wrote that DCS’s actions—from slow-walking financial assistance for father-child visits, to poor communication, to lying about the father missing most of his telephone contacts with his daughter—led the juvenile court to wrongly cut off his parental rights.
Judges Randall Howe and Jennifer Campbell joined in the decision.
