U.S. Horror Stories - Nothing's Different in Canada
Adoptive Father Accused of Murder, Child Abuse
The Child Abuse Laws that Could Destroy Your Reputation
http://nafwa.org/general-nutrition/alternative-nutrition/29511-the-child-abuse-laws-which-could-destroy-your-reputation.html
By Dr. Mercola
(left: John Van Doorn)
from Democracy Now - The War and Peace Report
Shattered Families
http://arc.org/shatteredfamilies
The Applied Research Center (ARC) is a 30-year-old racial justice think tank that uses media, research and activism to promote solutions. ARC’s mission is to popularize racial justice and prepare people to achieve it. For more information on ARC’s work, please visit http://www.arc.org/.
ABOUT THE REPORT:
Link here to read the full report: http://www.nalacc.org/fileadmin/Documents/Biblioteca_recursos/ARC_Report_Shattered_Families_FULL_REPORT_Nov2011Release.pdf
Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System, a report by the ARC, is the first national investigation on threats to families when immigration enforcement and the child welfare system intersect.
It explores the extent to which children in foster care are prevented from uniting with their detained or deported parents and the failures of the child welfare system to adequately work to reunify these families. ARC’s yearlong research project found that Clara and Josefina’s children are among thousands of children currently in foster care who are separated from their family because of immigration enforcement.
Immigration policies and laws are based on the assumption that families will, and should, be united, whether or not parents are deported.2 Similarly, child welfare policy aims to reunify families whenever possible. In practice, however, when mothers and fathers are detained and deported and their children are relegated to foster care, family separation can last for extended periods. Too often, these children lose the opportunity to ever see their parents again when a juvenile dependency court terminates parental rights.
Child Protective Services: CPS and Police Abuse,
Constitution, Invading Homes, Kidnapping Children,
Ignoring Courts, and Criminalizing Americans.
Mass CPS Corruption P1
Mass CPS Corruption P2
CPS Wrongful Removal of Baby
DA Willing to Prosecute CPS Judges in Texas
Innocence Destroyed - Part 1
Innocence Destroyed - Part 2
Innocence Destroyed - Part 3
Alex Jones - CPS and Pedophilia - 6-9-09 Part 1/2
Alex Jones - CPS and Pedophilia - 6-9-09 Part 2/2
Former CPS director sentenced to 10 years for child molestation:
judge rejects recommendation of 1 year in jail and treatment
THE DAILY WORLD Gary E. Anderson, a former supervisor with Child Protective Services, was sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison Friday after pleading guilty to first-degree child rape and molestation.
Former Arizona CPS Official Arrested Child Molestation + Pornography
Arizona CPS Covers Up Child Abuse in Childrens Shelters, Group Homes, Auditor General Report
Pressure from the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center helped to nearly empty Arizona shelters 5 years ago + place more children with foster families. Then, as now, the state's overloaded child-welfare system was undergoing public scrutiny following highly publicized child injuries and deaths.
Adoptive Father Accused of Murder, Child Abuse
The Child Abuse Laws that Could Destroy Your Reputation
http://nafwa.org/general-nutrition/alternative-nutrition/29511-the-child-abuse-laws-which-could-destroy-your-reputation.html
By Dr. Mercola
Child abuse is a horrific act, no matter how you define it.
That's why we have so many laws, and public and private agencies, set up specifically with the charge to protect children and maintain their safety. It's exactly why so much funding is directed toward this goal.
But did you know that the money funneled to states and child protective services actually encourages them to accuse you of child abuse and even murder, and to take your children, even if you're not guilty, and even though they have absolutely no proof that you harmed your child?
The Legal Abduction of Children
Horrendous as it sounds, it's true: child abuse has become a business -- an industry of sorts -- that actually pays states to legally abduct your children and put them up for adoption!
Even more unbelievable is that, instead of pumping the money back into child protective service programs, some states actually are putting it into their general funds to help balance their budgets.
A number of groups have tried to reform this shady practice, but it was a California politician who caught media attention this past summer, when he said that, if elected, he would expose how local governments were amassing billions of dollars in annual reimbursements, in exchange for what amounted to legal abduction of children.
"Most people are not aware of how much profit many of these services provide the country, ' John Van Doorn told a San Diego newspaper. These profits are hard to ignore and even more difficult to pass up.
(left: John Van Doorn)
Counties can bring in thousands of dollars in excess revenue for each child in foster care, Van Doorn said - which means they have more inentive to remove children from their families than to keep families intact. "As such our country's government is a major factor in the dismantling of families and/or destruction of children's lives," he said.
He then cited San Diego CPS for "egregious behaviors" that included accusing parents of child abuse without any evidence.
The ugly truth is that San Diego isn't the only community where false accusations of child abuse occur. Across the nation, the practice has become so blatant that some of the leading experts on child abuse and foster care have started to cry "foul."
About the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA)
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) is the federal law on which almost all state and local legislation and funding for child protective services are based. Enacted in 1988, CAPTA directs the U.S. Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families to provide grants to communities for child abuse prevention programs.
As a federal mandate, CAPTA mandates states to implement child abuse laws on their own, so they can align themselves for the massive funding and grants that go along with the law.
In theory as the years went by, if the goal for this law - to reduce child abuse in this country - had been successful, then today we should need less funding for these programs, not more. Success also should have resulted in fewer children in foster care and even fewer being put up for adoption.
But in reality, the opposite happened. Instead of less children in foster care, the numbers went up for nine years after CAPTA was passed. And, layers and layers of state and federal government programs and agencies whose funding depends solely on child abuse occurring were created.
In 1999 foster care numbers started dropping - but only because of new laws that encouraged states to move children out of foster care and into adoptive homes.
Of course, that legislation came with funding too, giving CPS a new avenue for making more money and creating more jobs and more programs. The tragedy is what Van Doorn pointed out in his campaign: the financial incentives for rooting out child abuse actually encourage agencies to make false accusations against parents, and to tear families apart for something that did not occur.
How this Law Actually has Increased Child Abuse Reports
What happened in San Diego is not an anomaly, nor is it new. In 1991, the bi-partisan National Commission on Children had already figured out that children were being taken from their families "prematurely or unnecessarily" because federal formulas give states "a strong financial incentive" to do so rather than provide services to keep families together."1
As a result, the federal government and a number of states created legislation that was supposed to keep more families together. But as the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR) reports, those efforts only disrupted more families, and encouraged more adoptions.
Again, the reason is financial: the new laws give "bounties to states of up to $8,000 or more per child for every adoption they finalize over a baseline number," NCCPR reports. And again, all the help goes to foster and adoptive parents. "About the only parents the federal government won't help indefinitely are birth parents," NCCPR found.
But the injustices don't stop there, because in order to get that money, states have to have children to take away and place - and therein lies the incentive to falsely accuse parents of harming their children and to forcibly remove children even when there is no evidence to do so.
"CPS nationally are doing a job they've never been trained to do," says Kim Hart, a trial strategist and facilitator who has been assisting attorneys in defending persons accused of child abuse for more than 18 years. They're investigating people who have never been charged, and calling them child abusers, and taking kids away, and they get paid to do it.
This mechanism is bigger than what most people know. It goes all the way back to the 1980s [It actually goes back much, much futher] with legislation that told states they had to develop registries with mandatory child abuse reporting."
The money that follows a child abuse accusation and subsequent placement of the so-called endangered children into foster care or adoption is the real catalyst for the epidemic of child abuse accusations, Hart said.
"And there is no incentive for any physician or anybody involved to be intellectually honest about this because the law also gives them immunity if they're wrong," she said.
"So what happens is that the minute CPS is involved - or the second the EMTs are called (for example, in sudden infant death or alleged shaken baby cases), parents are already labeled as child abusers."
How are States Spending this Extra Money?
According to NCCPR, in FY 2010 the federal government is expected to spend at least $7 more on foster care and $4 more on adoption for every $1 spent to prevent foster care or speed reunification. This is based on President Obama's $4.681 billion foster care budget for FY2010 - an increase of $21 million over FY2009. The number represents a decrease of 4,300 children a month in foster care.
But this decrease is based on "placement of children in more permanent settings." In other words, states are getting more money to take care of fewer children by placing more of them in adoptive homes.
The law also increases incentives for adoption by paying out $1,000 to $8,000 extra for certain types of children who are placed for adoption.
The twist is that states are not required to put this money back in to keeping families intact or even for preventing child abuse. Instead, by law, they can use it for non-child-related things, such as delivering meals to senior citizens or for transportation services, or a range of other home-based services!
In San Diego, Van Doorn couldn't get a direct answer when he demanded that city officials tell him where their $4,000 per adopted child was going. But a look at any state's budget - from Minnesota to Florida to Connecticut and back to California - can tell you that local governments and states are cutting back or flat-lining children's services and using these extra federal dollars to balance their budgets .
Not Enough Abused Children? Change the Definition of Child Abuse
This certainly is a convoluted way to stop child abuse, if for no other reason than it's a form of child abuse to tear families apart and take children away from parents who are accused of doing something they didn't do. It also doesn't explain one of the newer definitions of child abuse that came along after CAPTA was enacted, Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS).
Reliable statistics on SBS do not exist, but according to the National Shaken Baby Coalition (NSBC), as many as 1,500 babies a year are shaken by their parents, and either severely injured or killed.
While the numbers may not seem exceedingly large, they still add another arena in which CPS can seize children from their parents, and place them in adoptive homes - and claim the booty that the federal government gives them for doing this.
On the Backs of Children, an Industry Based on Child Abuse has Arisen
In San Diego, CPS proudly announced that due to their efforts, child abuse reports had gone down. But again, Van Doorn busted them - the numbers went down, he said, because the public had begun to catch on to the county's recent court cases they'd lost in conjunction with false child abuse allegations.
When you apply this same thinking to the national statistics, it makes you wonder how many other states and local municipalities are dealing with false allegations.
The truth is staggering, according to Hart, and is so prevalent that countless blogs have popped up addressing the problem, [This one included ! ] as well as entire websites devoted to helping people who've been falsely accused of child abuse.[Well done all of you! ]
Shaken Baby Syndrome - A Convenient Catch-All to Steal Babies Away?
Shaken Baby Syndrome has become an industry in itself, according to Dr. Edward Yazbak, a physician who has devoted the past 10 years to studying the issue and testifying as an expert witness on behalf of parents he believes are innocent of this crime.
"This is an inverted pyramid," Yazbak says. "It's an idea that has been added to and added to, but does not stand to science.
This shaken baby business has come out of nowhere and become an epidemic, and it's the other side that's making money - the child protective services, the funding, the grants that all these people get.
It's obviously a very popular and passionate thing with them. But they're literally convicting people before they're even accused. It's the only crime in the world like this, and many of these parents are perfectly innocent."
A short Internet search can show you what Dr. Yazbak is talking about. Hundreds of private adoption agencies around the nation are totally dependent on public welfare services supplying them with children - and funds - to keep their "businesses" going.
Likewise, hundreds of state, county and community agencies and governmental jobs are dependent on the same thing - legally abducting children to pay for the programs that have sprung up in the name of protecting children.
Again, the numbers tell the story:
In 1990, two years after CAPTA was created, nearly 2.6 million children nationwide were reported as abused and/or neglected, and referred for investigation. Despite the law, six years later, in 1996, 3 million children were reportedly abused, and under CPS "investigations." Today the number varies, depending on how federal authorities define child abuse. Under one definition, statistics show that the numbers have dropped by nearly a third.
But with a "more inclusive" definition, the numbers have stayed the same at about 3 million - or about 1 in every 25 children. In a 2010 report to Congress, the Administration on Children and Families explained how the numbers figure in the face of other data showing a decline in child abuse.
But no matter how you interpret them, or whether the numbers have stayed the same or dropped, the Congressional report doesn't explain why the President and Congress have continued to inflate budgets with more money to take children away from their families.
So what can you or I do about it?
According to Hart, this is an issue that can't be fixed with a single article or a few phone calls. It's a national problem that's gone on for decades, that needs local and federal pushes to change the laws that made these injustices possible.
Coincidentally, CAPTA is up for renewal in 2011, with billions more of your money proposed for the kinds of child abuse "prevention" that I've talked about here.
In an effort to change this, I encourage you to study the links I've included in this article [Am still working on posting these links - meanwhile go to URL address under title and use links there], and then contact your legislators and ask them to take a closer look at the monster that CAPTA has created.
While sunsetting the law or stopping its funding is probably only a dream, Hart believes it's possible that with enough pressure, you can lobby to have the "immunity" clause removed from this, so that at the very least, agencies who falsely accuse parents of child abuse can't do so without being held responsible.
References:
1 National Commission on Children, Beyond Rhetoric: A New American Agenda for Children and Families, (Washington, DC: May, 1991) p.290.
The ugly truth is that San Diego isn't the only community where false accusations of child abuse occur. Across the nation, the practice has become so blatant that some of the leading experts on child abuse and foster care have started to cry "foul."
About the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA)
White Children being Targeted for Abduction By Government Agencies
Jeanne Gelin, a member of The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, claims that there is a systematic policy of targeting "white" children on behalf of government agencies involved in child protective services. In areas like Orange County, there is a large demand for caucasian children. Hopeful parents pour vast amounts of money into the private adoption community. This, in turn sets up a system that rewards gov't agents for taking children that fall in line with that need. This seems to be a glaring example of misdirected and over reaching authority by social services agencies into the American family unit
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) is the federal law on which almost all state and local legislation and funding for child protective services are based. Enacted in 1988, CAPTA directs the U.S. Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families to provide grants to communities for child abuse prevention programs.
As a federal mandate, CAPTA mandates states to implement child abuse laws on their own, so they can align themselves for the massive funding and grants that go along with the law.
In theory as the years went by, if the goal for this law - to reduce child abuse in this country - had been successful, then today we should need less funding for these programs, not more. Success also should have resulted in fewer children in foster care and even fewer being put up for adoption.
But in reality, the opposite happened. Instead of less children in foster care, the numbers went up for nine years after CAPTA was passed. And, layers and layers of state and federal government programs and agencies whose funding depends solely on child abuse occurring were created.
In 1999 foster care numbers started dropping - but only because of new laws that encouraged states to move children out of foster care and into adoptive homes.
Of course, that legislation came with funding too, giving CPS a new avenue for making more money and creating more jobs and more programs. The tragedy is what Van Doorn pointed out in his campaign: the financial incentives for rooting out child abuse actually encourage agencies to make false accusations against parents, and to tear families apart for something that did not occur.
How this Law Actually has Increased Child Abuse Reports
What happened in San Diego is not an anomaly, nor is it new. In 1991, the bi-partisan National Commission on Children had already figured out that children were being taken from their families "prematurely or unnecessarily" because federal formulas give states "a strong financial incentive" to do so rather than provide services to keep families together."1
As a result, the federal government and a number of states created legislation that was supposed to keep more families together. But as the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR) reports, those efforts only disrupted more families, and encouraged more adoptions.
Again, the reason is financial: the new laws give "bounties to states of up to $8,000 or more per child for every adoption they finalize over a baseline number," NCCPR reports. And again, all the help goes to foster and adoptive parents. "About the only parents the federal government won't help indefinitely are birth parents," NCCPR found.
But the injustices don't stop there, because in order to get that money, states have to have children to take away and place - and therein lies the incentive to falsely accuse parents of harming their children and to forcibly remove children even when there is no evidence to do so.
This mechanism is bigger than what most people know. It goes all the way back to the 1980s [It actually goes back much, much futher] with legislation that told states they had to develop registries with mandatory child abuse reporting."
The money that follows a child abuse accusation and subsequent placement of the so-called endangered children into foster care or adoption is the real catalyst for the epidemic of child abuse accusations, Hart said.
"And there is no incentive for any physician or anybody involved to be intellectually honest about this because the law also gives them immunity if they're wrong," she said.
"So what happens is that the minute CPS is involved - or the second the EMTs are called (for example, in sudden infant death or alleged shaken baby cases), parents are already labeled as child abusers."
How are States Spending this Extra Money?
According to NCCPR, in FY 2010 the federal government is expected to spend at least $7 more on foster care and $4 more on adoption for every $1 spent to prevent foster care or speed reunification. This is based on President Obama's $4.681 billion foster care budget for FY2010 - an increase of $21 million over FY2009. The number represents a decrease of 4,300 children a month in foster care.
But this decrease is based on "placement of children in more permanent settings." In other words, states are getting more money to take care of fewer children by placing more of them in adoptive homes.
The law also increases incentives for adoption by paying out $1,000 to $8,000 extra for certain types of children who are placed for adoption.
The twist is that states are not required to put this money back in to keeping families intact or even for preventing child abuse. Instead, by law, they can use it for non-child-related things, such as delivering meals to senior citizens or for transportation services, or a range of other home-based services!
In San Diego, Van Doorn couldn't get a direct answer when he demanded that city officials tell him where their $4,000 per adopted child was going. But a look at any state's budget - from Minnesota to Florida to Connecticut and back to California - can tell you that local governments and states are cutting back or flat-lining children's services and using these extra federal dollars to balance their budgets .
Not Enough Abused Children? Change the Definition of Child Abuse
This certainly is a convoluted way to stop child abuse, if for no other reason than it's a form of child abuse to tear families apart and take children away from parents who are accused of doing something they didn't do. It also doesn't explain one of the newer definitions of child abuse that came along after CAPTA was enacted, Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS).
Reliable statistics on SBS do not exist, but according to the National Shaken Baby Coalition (NSBC), as many as 1,500 babies a year are shaken by their parents, and either severely injured or killed.
While the numbers may not seem exceedingly large, they still add another arena in which CPS can seize children from their parents, and place them in adoptive homes - and claim the booty that the federal government gives them for doing this.
On the Backs of Children, an Industry Based on Child Abuse has Arisen
In San Diego, CPS proudly announced that due to their efforts, child abuse reports had gone down. But again, Van Doorn busted them - the numbers went down, he said, because the public had begun to catch on to the county's recent court cases they'd lost in conjunction with false child abuse allegations.
When you apply this same thinking to the national statistics, it makes you wonder how many other states and local municipalities are dealing with false allegations.
The truth is staggering, according to Hart, and is so prevalent that countless blogs have popped up addressing the problem, [This one included ! ] as well as entire websites devoted to helping people who've been falsely accused of child abuse.[Well done all of you! ]
Shaken Baby Syndrome - A Convenient Catch-All to Steal Babies Away?
Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. F. Edward Yazbak
Internationally renowned natural health physician and Mercola.com founder Dr. Joseph Mercola and Dr. F. Edward Yazbak discuss the frequency of accusations of shaken baby syndrome.
Shaken Baby Syndrome has become an industry in itself, according to Dr. Edward Yazbak, a physician who has devoted the past 10 years to studying the issue and testifying as an expert witness on behalf of parents he believes are innocent of this crime.
"This is an inverted pyramid," Yazbak says. "It's an idea that has been added to and added to, but does not stand to science.
This shaken baby business has come out of nowhere and become an epidemic, and it's the other side that's making money - the child protective services, the funding, the grants that all these people get.
It's obviously a very popular and passionate thing with them. But they're literally convicting people before they're even accused. It's the only crime in the world like this, and many of these parents are perfectly innocent."
Dr. Mercola Presents a Lecture by F. Edward Yazbak MD
Internationally renowned natural health physician and Mercola.com founder Dr. Joseph Mercola and Dr. F. Edward Yazbak discuss the frequency of accusations of shaken baby syndrome.
A short Internet search can show you what Dr. Yazbak is talking about. Hundreds of private adoption agencies around the nation are totally dependent on public welfare services supplying them with children - and funds - to keep their "businesses" going.
Likewise, hundreds of state, county and community agencies and governmental jobs are dependent on the same thing - legally abducting children to pay for the programs that have sprung up in the name of protecting children.
Again, the numbers tell the story:
In 1990, two years after CAPTA was created, nearly 2.6 million children nationwide were reported as abused and/or neglected, and referred for investigation. Despite the law, six years later, in 1996, 3 million children were reportedly abused, and under CPS "investigations." Today the number varies, depending on how federal authorities define child abuse. Under one definition, statistics show that the numbers have dropped by nearly a third.
But with a "more inclusive" definition, the numbers have stayed the same at about 3 million - or about 1 in every 25 children. In a 2010 report to Congress, the Administration on Children and Families explained how the numbers figure in the face of other data showing a decline in child abuse.
But no matter how you interpret them, or whether the numbers have stayed the same or dropped, the Congressional report doesn't explain why the President and Congress have continued to inflate budgets with more money to take children away from their families.
So what can you or I do about it?
According to Hart, this is an issue that can't be fixed with a single article or a few phone calls. It's a national problem that's gone on for decades, that needs local and federal pushes to change the laws that made these injustices possible.
Coincidentally, CAPTA is up for renewal in 2011, with billions more of your money proposed for the kinds of child abuse "prevention" that I've talked about here.
In an effort to change this, I encourage you to study the links I've included in this article [Am still working on posting these links - meanwhile go to URL address under title and use links there], and then contact your legislators and ask them to take a closer look at the monster that CAPTA has created.
While sunsetting the law or stopping its funding is probably only a dream, Hart believes it's possible that with enough pressure, you can lobby to have the "immunity" clause removed from this, so that at the very least, agencies who falsely accuse parents of child abuse can't do so without being held responsible.
References:
1 National Commission on Children, Beyond Rhetoric: A New American Agenda for Children and Families, (Washington, DC: May, 1991) p.290.
from Democracy Now - The War and Peace Report
Thousands of U.S.-Born Kids Languish in Foster Care as Immigrant Parents Detained, Deported [transcript below from video above]
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, continuing with immigration news, we turn now to a major new report that looks at thousands of U.S.-born children whose parents are detained or deported. It is called "Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System." http://www.nalacc.org/fileadmin/Documents/Biblioteca_recursos/ARC_Report_Shattered_Families_FULL_REPORT_Nov2011Release.pdf
According to the report, there are at least 5,100 children currently living in foster care who are prevented from uniting with their detained or deported parents. If nothing changes, researchers found 15,000 more children may end up in foster care in the next five years.
Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, continuing with immigration news, we turn now to a major new report that looks at thousands of U.S.-born children whose parents are detained or deported. It is called "Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System." http://www.nalacc.org/fileadmin/Documents/Biblioteca_recursos/ARC_Report_Shattered_Families_FULL_REPORT_Nov2011Release.pdf
According to the report, there are at least 5,100 children currently living in foster care who are prevented from uniting with their detained or deported parents. If nothing changes, researchers found 15,000 more children may end up in foster care in the next five years.
AMY GOODMAN: The Applied Research Center estimates the U.S. deported more than 46,000 parents of U.S. citizen children between January and June of this year (6 month period). The figures reflect a striking increase in the rate of removals of parents and raise serious concerns about the impact of these deportations on children, many of whom are left behind. The Center says most child welfare departments lack systemic policies to keep families united when parents are detained or deported.
We’re joined here in New York City by Seth Wessler, a senior researcher at the Applied Research Center, principal investigator for the new report, "Shattered Families." Seth is also a staff writer for ColorLines. His recent deportation article, "Thousands of Kids Taken from Parents in U.S. Deportation System." http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/11/thousands_of_kids_lost_in_foster_homes_after_parents_deportation.html
Seth, lay out what you have found, how kids are separated from their parents and put into foster care here.
Seth Freed Wessler
SETH FREED WESSLER: Well, the Applied Research Center found that there are at least 5,000 children who are now stuck in foster care, and they’re stuck there because their parents have been detained or deported. The United States has, in the last year, deported a historic number of people: 400,000 people. And one of the most troubling collateral effects of that, that we found after a year-long investigation, is that many children are now separated from their mothers and fathers for extended periods of time, sometimes permanently. Sometimes they never see their parents again.
I spent days on end inside of detention centers scattered around the United States—in Arizona, in Florida, in Texas. And I spoke with parents who were separated from their children. I met parents who had no idea where their children were, except that they were stuck in foster care. They didn’t know who they were with, and they had lost all contact with the child welfare system. Immigration detention effectively severs the critical line of communication that’s necessary between families and the child welfare system in order to keep children together. And draconian immigration enforcement policies are really the driver here.
So, I met a woman inside of a detention center in Arizona who was picked up by one of Joe Arpaio’s deputies. And she was picked up because she called police to report domestic violence. She and her abuser were arrested. But instead of them being released—her children were put in foster care at the time of the arrest. Instead of being released, she was held in immigration detention, is now facing deportation, and she has no idea where her children are.
This is something we heard happen all over the country. There are 22 states that we identified where there are parents and children who are separated because of this intersection of immigration enforcement and the foster care system. And there may be many more.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, let me ask you, when—during the big workplace raids in 2006, ’07 and ’08, the Bush administration came under a lot of criticism about the separation of families. And ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) adopted a policy, supposedly, where parents who had children would be released with ankle bracelets to maintain the families together. Is this now ICE policy, or is this a situation where local governments are taking matters into their own hands?
SETH FREED WESSLER: It’s a result of a number of things. I mean, ICE has said, and consistently says, that parents get to choose what happens to their children if they’re deported. The reality is, that our research and our investigation has found, that’s simply not happening. Now, ICE protocols for protecting families are really antiquated. They apply to old forms of immigration enforcement that were relevant when there were these workplace raids. Now we’re talking about the expansion of immigration enforcement to local police departments and where local police are now tasked with the job of immigration enforcement. So, as I described, there are people being picked up by local cops and then funneled into the detention process without any regard for their families, where their families are. These children are losing their parents. I met a foster father who said that the child he’s cared for has been in his care for a year, has forgotten Spanish, her mother’s language, and now are facing significant barriers to being reunified. That family may never come back together.
AMY GOODMAN: Seth, what needs to happen?
SETH FREED WESSLER: Well, first of all, we need to stop the clock on the detention and deportation and the child welfare process for these families. We also need to think about and implement alternatives to detention. Detaining massive numbers of parents is simply going to produce these sorts of outcomes. I mean, we found, through a Freedom of Information Act request, that there are 46,000 parents deported in the first six months of this year.
AMY GOODMAN: Is this unprecedented?
SETH FREED WESSLER: It’s unprecedented. It is a huge increase in number and proportion of total deportations that are parents. And the collateral effect is going—are going to grow and grow and grow. This is amongst the most troubling that I’ve seen, and we spent—we dug pretty deeply to find it.
AMY GOODMAN: And it’s also very possible it will lead to the deaths of women and children, because if women are afraid to report domestic violence, it means that they often will stay with their abuser.
SETH FREED WESSLER: Absolutely right. There are people who stayed—that I met in detention, who stayed for years in terribly violent relationships, because they feared deportation, and then finally called police and were detained and are facing deportation. And then, we have a situation where people are coming back for their children, after having been deported, and are being incarcerated in jails on criminal charges because of that deep-seated desire to be with their families. So—
JUAN GONZALEZ: Did you get any sense of the number of U.S. citizen children who end up leaving the country with their deported parents, because that’s the only way to stay together?
SETH FREED WESSLER: Many U.S. citizen kids do leave with their parents. Of those 46,000 parents in six months, almost 100,000 in a year, many go with their parents. Many are separated for long periods of time and stay here with extended family. And what we found is that some are actually permanently separated. Those families are shattered entirely.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us. We’ll link to your report, Seth Freed Wessler, a senior researcher at Applied Research Center, a staff writer for ColorLines magazine. His piece is called "Thousands of Kids Taken from Parents in U.S. Deportation System."
http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/11/thousands_of_kids_lost_in_foster_homes_after_parents_deportation.html
http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/11/thousands_of_kids_lost_in_foster_homes_after_parents_deportation.html
Shattered Families
http://arc.org/shatteredfamilies
ABOUT ARC:
The Applied Research Center (ARC) is a 30-year-old racial justice think tank that uses media, research and activism to promote solutions. ARC’s mission is to popularize racial justice and prepare people to achieve it. For more information on ARC’s work, please visit http://www.arc.org/.
ABOUT THE REPORT:
Link here to read the full report: http://www.nalacc.org/fileadmin/Documents/Biblioteca_recursos/ARC_Report_Shattered_Families_FULL_REPORT_Nov2011Release.pdf
Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System, a report by the ARC, is the first national investigation on threats to families when immigration enforcement and the child welfare system intersect.
It explores the extent to which children in foster care are prevented from uniting with their detained or deported parents and the failures of the child welfare system to adequately work to reunify these families. ARC’s yearlong research project found that Clara and Josefina’s children are among thousands of children currently in foster care who are separated from their family because of immigration enforcement.
Immigration policies and laws are based on the assumption that families will, and should, be united, whether or not parents are deported.2 Similarly, child welfare policy aims to reunify families whenever possible. In practice, however, when mothers and fathers are detained and deported and their children are relegated to foster care, family separation can last for extended periods. Too often, these children lose the opportunity to ever see their parents again when a juvenile dependency court terminates parental rights.
In fiscal year 2011, the United States deported a record-breaking 397,000 people and detained nearly that many. According to federal data released to ARC through a Freedom of Information Act request, a growing number and proportion of deportees are parents. In the first six months of 2011, the federal government removed more than 46,000 mothers and fathers of U.S.- citizen children. These deportations shatter families and endanger the children left behind.
Anecdotal evidence drawn from news and advocacy reports and ARC’s initial research over the last half decade have shown that a disturbing number of children with detained or deported parents are now in foster care.3
Systematic research on this topic is challenging, because child welfare departments and the federal government fail to document cases of families separated in this way. This “Shattered Families” report is the first to provide evidence on the national scope and scale of the problem. As more noncitizens are detained, the number of children in foster care with parents removed by ICE is expected to grow.
Without explicit policies and guidelines to protect families, children will continue to lose their families at alarming rates.
KEY RESEARCH FINDINGS:
Whether children enter foster care as a direct result of their parents’ detention or deportation, or they were already in the child welfare system, immigration enforcement systems erect often-insurmountable barriers to family unity.
KEY BARRIERS TO FAMILY UNITY:
As the federal government continues to expand its immigration enforcement infrastructure, detention and deportation will continue to pose barriers to family unity for families involved in the child welfare system. Federal, state and local governments must create explicit policies to protect families from separation.
These polices should stop the clock on the child welfare process and the immigration enforcement process to ensure that families can stay together and allow parents to make the best decisions for the care and custody of their children.
STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT:
This “Shattered Families” report will explore the treacherous intersection of immigration enforcement and the child welfare system. The report is divided into six sections. Section II, “Background on Immigration Enforcement, Child Welfare and Anti-Immigrant Bias,” will provide important background of the immigration enforcement and child welfare/juvenile dependency systems. It will then present ARC’s findings on systemic anti-immigrant bias in the child welfare system. Section III, “Immigration Enforcement, Detention and Shattering of Families,” explores ARC’s research findings on the treacherous intersection of immigration enforcement and child welfare and maps the paths that lead to children entering or remaining in foster care while their parents are detained or deported. Section IV, “Deportation, Systemic Bias and Barriers to Reunification”, discusses ARC’s findings on threats to family unity after a parent is deported and the failure of the child welfare system to adequately move toward reunifying these children with their parents or place them with family members in the United States.
This report concludes with a set of recommendations for change. An appendix that includes a full explanation of ARC’s research methods follows the report.
RESOURCES:
"How to Protect Your Parental Rights from Detention" Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project
Spanish / English (PDF)
"FAQ: Detained Parents with Minor Kids" Americans for Immigrant Justice (formerly, FIAC)
Spanish / English (PDF)
ADDITIONAL READINGS:
Thousands of Kids Taken From Parents In U.S. Deportation System ColorLines magazine by Seth Freed Wessler, Wednesday, November 2 2011
"Torn Apart by Immigration Enforcement: Parental Rights and Immigration Detention" Women's Refugee Commission
Lead-in article for below http://www.law.arizona.edu/depts/bacon_program/disappearing_parents_report.cfm
"Disappearing Parents: A Report on Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System" University of Arizona. Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program
"The Impact of Immigration Enforcement on Child Welfare" First Focus
Systematic research on this topic is challenging, because child welfare departments and the federal government fail to document cases of families separated in this way. This “Shattered Families” report is the first to provide evidence on the national scope and scale of the problem. As more noncitizens are detained, the number of children in foster care with parents removed by ICE is expected to grow.
Without explicit policies and guidelines to protect families, children will continue to lose their families at alarming rates.
KEY RESEARCH FINDINGS:
• ARC conservatively estimates that there are at least 5,100 children currently living in foster care whose parents have been either detained or deported (this projection is based on data collected from six key states and an analysis of trends in 14 additional states with similarly high numbers of foster care an foreign-born populations). This is approximately 1.25 percent of the total children in foster care. If the same rate holds true for new cases, in the next five years, at least 15,000 more children will face these threats to reunification with their detained and deported mothers and fathers. These children face formidable barriers to reunification with their families.
• In areas where local police aggressively participate in immigration enforcement, children of noncitizens are more likely to be separated from their parents and face barriers to reunification. For example, in counties where local police have signed 287(g) agreements with ICE, children in foster care were, on average, about 29 percent more likely to have a detained or deported parent than in other counties. The impact of aggressive immigration enforcement remains statistically significant when our research controls for the size of a county’s foreign-born population and a county’s proximity to the border.
• Immigrant victims of domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence are at particular risk of losing their children. Approximately one in nine of the stories recounted to ARC in interviews and focus groups involved domestic violence. As a result of ICE’s increased use of local police and jails to enforce immigration laws, when victims of violence are arrested, ICE too often detains them and their children enter foster care. Many immigrant victims face an impossible choice: remain with an abuser or risk detention and the loss of their children.
• ARC has identified at least 22 states where these cases have emerged in the last two years. This is a growing national problem, not one confined to border jurisdictions or states. Across the 400 counties included in our projections, more than one in four (28.8 percent) of the foster care children with detained or deported parents are from non-border states.
Whether children enter foster care as a direct result of their parents’ detention or deportation, or they were already in the child welfare system, immigration enforcement systems erect often-insurmountable barriers to family unity.
KEY BARRIERS TO FAMILY UNITY:
• Federal immigration enforcement uses local police and jails to detain noncitizens. As a result of aggressive local immigration enforcement, especially the expansion of Secure Communities, any interaction with police can spur ICE involvement and lead to detention and deportation. An incident with police that would not separate children from a citizen parent can result in a long-term or permanent separation if the parent is not a U.S. citizen.
• ICE does not protect families at the time of apprehension. ICE and arresting police officers too often refuse to allow parents to make arrangements for their children. Existing ICE guidelines are largely outdated and insufficient for the current immigration enforcement context in which ICE has shifted from high-profile raids to more-hidden and devolved forms of enforcement that operate through local police and jails and smaller-scale ICE enforcement actions.
• ICE detention obstructs participation in CPS plans for family unity. ICE consistently detains parents when they could be released on their own recognizance or expand the use of community-based supervisory programs. Once detained, ICE denies parents access to programs required to complete CPS case plans. Due to the isolation of detention centers and ICE’s refusal to transport detainees to hearings, parents can neither communicate with/visit their children nor participate in juvenile court proceedings. Child welfare caseworkers and attorneys struggle to locate and maintain contact with detained parents.
• Child welfare departments lack proactive policies to reunify children with deported parents. ARC’s research found that children are reunited with their deported parents only if foreign consulates are involved with the case. However, few child welfare departments systematically contact a foreign consulate when they take custody of the U.S. citizen children of a detained or deported noncitizen.
• Systemic bias against reunifying children with parents in other countries is pervasive in child welfare practice. CPS administrators, caseworkers, judges, and attorneys (including the children’s own lawyers) often believe that children are better off in the United States, even if those children are in foster care. This belief often supersedes the child welfare system’s mandate to move toward family reunification and places borders on family and parental rights.
• Structural barriers and systemic bias against undocumented parents and relatives threaten the reunification of families.
Despite clear child welfare policy [Problem is, this is in writing only! In fact, it is rarely the practice and certainly not the priority for CPS to reunite families.] that prioritizes placing children with their own families, many child welfare departments will not place children with their undocumented non-custodial parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents or other relatives. As a result, children of detained and deported parents are likely to remain in foster care with strangers when they could be with their own family.
As the federal government continues to expand its immigration enforcement infrastructure, detention and deportation will continue to pose barriers to family unity for families involved in the child welfare system. Federal, state and local governments must create explicit policies to protect families from separation.
These polices should stop the clock on the child welfare process and the immigration enforcement process to ensure that families can stay together and allow parents to make the best decisions for the care and custody of their children.
STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT:
This “Shattered Families” report will explore the treacherous intersection of immigration enforcement and the child welfare system. The report is divided into six sections. Section II, “Background on Immigration Enforcement, Child Welfare and Anti-Immigrant Bias,” will provide important background of the immigration enforcement and child welfare/juvenile dependency systems. It will then present ARC’s findings on systemic anti-immigrant bias in the child welfare system. Section III, “Immigration Enforcement, Detention and Shattering of Families,” explores ARC’s research findings on the treacherous intersection of immigration enforcement and child welfare and maps the paths that lead to children entering or remaining in foster care while their parents are detained or deported. Section IV, “Deportation, Systemic Bias and Barriers to Reunification”, discusses ARC’s findings on threats to family unity after a parent is deported and the failure of the child welfare system to adequately move toward reunifying these children with their parents or place them with family members in the United States.
This report concludes with a set of recommendations for change. An appendix that includes a full explanation of ARC’s research methods follows the report.
RESOURCES:
"How to Protect Your Parental Rights from Detention" Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project
Spanish / English (PDF)
"FAQ: Detained Parents with Minor Kids" Americans for Immigrant Justice (formerly, FIAC)
Spanish / English (PDF)
ADDITIONAL READINGS:
Thousands of Kids Taken From Parents In U.S. Deportation System ColorLines magazine by Seth Freed Wessler, Wednesday, November 2 2011
"Torn Apart by Immigration Enforcement: Parental Rights and Immigration Detention" Women's Refugee Commission
Lead-in article for below http://www.law.arizona.edu/depts/bacon_program/disappearing_parents_report.cfm
"Disappearing Parents: A Report on Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System" University of Arizona. Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program
"The Impact of Immigration Enforcement on Child Welfare" First Focus
Child Protective Services: CPS and Police Abuse,
Constitution, Invading Homes, Kidnapping Children,
Ignoring Courts, and Criminalizing Americans.
Child Protective Services can take your children too. CPS has come to believe they are above the law and the Constitution, that they do not need a search warrant to come into your home, label you as a child abuser for any reason and make you a criminal based upon their opinion alone, take your children away in a paddy wagon, and put your kids into foster homes pending a court hearing where CPS will try their best to win and permanently take custody of your kids. If CPS loses, they will continue to fight you, slandering your family and listing you as a child abuser in government databases.
CPS is an abusive government agency spiraling completely out of control. It's time to shut them down.
The unlawful removal of 468 children from the FLDS ranch in west Texas, has put CPS under the microscope. That case has led others to wonder if they can do that to FLDS children, can CPS do that to my children?
CBS 42 investigative reporter, Nancy Wilson, shows us one family who says the same thing happened to them, and eight years later they are still trying to clear their names.
This is the Gates family, Gary and Melissa have 13 children, 11 of them adopted. They saw a need for kids from a variety of backgrounds who need love in a stable home.
Imagine their surprise when 11 government employees, 6 police officers and 5 CPS workers, showed up on their doorstep.
The school called CPS when they discovered that the Gates pinned a baggy with food wrappers inside the shirt of one of the kids that was caught stealing. It included a two page explanation and who to call if there were questions.
The school did make a phone call, to CPS. Gates was shocked to find CPS workers in his home uninvited, especially when CPS refused to leave.
"How can you take 13 kids? That opened my eyes to a whole new way of government." - Gary Gates
CPS and Police completely ignored the 4th Amendment Constitutional rights of Americans, entered the Gates home, and took away all 13 of their children, without a court order, after a mere phone call. This is a very similar situation to the FLDS raid, except that the phone call that Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (CPS) used to kidnap the FLDS children was a hoax.
Later in court, the reason CPS gave for taking the Gate's children was that CPS felt that Mr. Gates was uncooperative with them taking away his children, and his unwillingness to cooperate put the children at risk.
Fortunately, the judge ordered the children returned immediately. An independent psychologist conducted his own review and wrote a glowing report, saying, "I've never said this about anyone I have evaluated: I admire the Gates, I would not hesitate to place my own children in their care."
However, even though the judge ordered the case dismissed, and the independent review was praiseworthy, CPS did not care. CPS called the praiseworthy review disappointing and continued to fight the Gates anyway, listing them in the state's central registry as child abusers.
Even though the Gates were innocent, CPS claims that because their opinion is that the the father emotionally abused one child by punishing him, and since all the kids saw it, that equals 13 counts of abuse. And, because the wife did not stop it, that equals another 13 counts of abuse for a grand total of 26 counts of child abuse.
The Gates were never charged with any crime, they are guilty based solely on the opinion of CPS.
The Gates have spent the past 8 years and $175,000 trying to get their names removed from the child abuser registry after CPS unjustly listed them.
CPS' unlawful and massive FLDS raid of the polygamist community's children may actually result in more Americans becoming aware of these abuses within CPS and the government.
Mass CPS Corruption P1
Mass CPS Corruption P2
CPS Wrongful Removal of Baby
CPS in Texas filed an affidavit with the courts stating, "Baby's mom was positive for illegal drugs." CPS said the house was unclean and unfit for the baby.
CPS LIED! For once, their lies did not work.
Drug test - NEGATIVE
Condition of House - Judge wanted to know why this statement was in the affidavit if known to be untrue.
Quote from transcripts:
Judge: I'm not cutting anybody off [...]but you have in the Affidavit [of Facts] that the house was dirty and there was dog stuff on the floor.
CPS: That's what it had alleged in the report, yes, sir.
Judge: Tell me about that.
CPS: The condition of the house was appropriate.
Judge: I'm sorry?
CPS: The condition at the home was appropriate for the child.
(END)
In seven weeks infant was in foster care she came home with a severe sunburn, diaper rash with pustules, asthma requiring breathing treatments throughout the day!
There is more and as time permits, we will post more.
This baby is so fortunate to have a mother and father who love her dearly, and a grandmother you do not want to mess with!
DA Willing to Prosecute CPS Judges in Texas
Innocence Destroyed - Part 1
Innocence Destroyed - Part 2
Innocence Destroyed - Part 3
Alex Jones - CPS and Pedophilia - 6-9-09 Part 1/2
Alex Jones - CPS and Pedophilia - 6-9-09 Part 2/2
Former CPS director sentenced to 10 years for child molestation:
judge rejects recommendation of 1 year in jail and treatment
Gary E. Anderson leaned into the podium, his head lowered and the blue jail jumpsuit draping off his thin frame.
The 67-year-old former Child Protective Services director told the court he did not understand how he could spend 36 years of his life defending children, including his own, and now stand guilty of raping a 9-year-old girl and molesting another girl of the same age.
“I’ve broken a sacred trust not only with these children, but those who love them,” he said Friday. “I broke their hearts. … I am sorry for what I’ve done.”
Anderson pleaded guilty to first-degree child rape and first-degree molestation last year for “numerous” times when he touched the two girls inappropriately, according to court records. He admitted his conduct in a plea agreement recommending an alternative sentence of one year in jail as well as sex offender therapy and supervision upon release.
Superior Court Judge Mark McCauley rejected the recommended Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative on Friday, saying Anderson deserved prison despite pleas from the victims’ families to grant treatment.
“I have really struggled with this decision,” the judge said. “There was such a trust. There are multiple victims. His conduct went on for years.”
McCauley sentenced Anderson to a minimum of 10 years to life in prison with annual reviews to determine whether he can ever be released.
Anderson’s eyes dropped to the table. His supporters in the audience wept softly.
“These crimes, from my point of view, are horrific crimes,” McCauley said, noting he had given substantial prison sentences to other offenders who never even touched a child.
The judge said the victims and their families have to live with the consequences of Anderson’s actions for the rest of their lives. He said he is also concerned about any chance Anderson could re-offend, despite his age.
“I just can’t in good conscience grant a (sentencing alternative),” McCauley said.
Court records stated Anderson first acknowledged he had touched the girls inappropriately when confronted by their parents in January of 2008. He was charged with raping one girl and molesting the other.
The state Department of Social & Health Services said he worked for Child Protective Services for 36 years and retired in 2000. He supervised social workers, but rarely interacted with children.
Anderson was arrested in March of 2008 and unanswered questions about other possible victims delayed his sentencing for months.
Deputy prosecutor Katie Svoboda said everyone involved should be better off with the long case finished.
“It took a lot of work,” she said. “This is a hard case and a hard call (by the judge).”
Svoboda had joined the defense in recommending the alternative sentence with therapy, but said a prison sentence was “well-warranted.”
Defense attorney Brett Purtzer called a polygraph examiner and a psychotherapist to the stand Friday to testify about Anderson’s chances of benefiting from treatment.
“If Mr. Anderson is not an individual that qualifies for (the alternative sentence),” Purtzer argued, “then that person does not exist.”
The attorney presented several letters of support for Anderson and one of the victim’s parents asked the court to allow for treatment instead of prison.
Anderson said he had taken full responsibility and wanted the chance to understand why he had done such things. He believed the alternative sentence and treatment would give him that chance.
“This (sentencing alternative) truly is a privilege,” McCauley told him. “There’s no right to go through this treatment.”
[ I'd like you to ask yourself, what Foundation are you donating to? Most of the Foundations (if not all) that you are donating to, fund this sort of behavior and give Grants to CPS, such as United Way just as an example. Foundations have become the small business of the modern generation by government officials, Judges, an those within the DHHS organization; either directly or indirectly.. so next time you Donate.. ask yourself.. who are YOU hurting?.. I will do an article on Foundations one day, hopefully soon]
Former Arizona CPS Official Arrested Child Molestation + Pornography
Arizona CPS Covers Up Child Abuse in Childrens Shelters, Group Homes, Auditor General Report
Aug 2009. AUDITOR GENERAL REPORT:
Arizona Child Protective Services is missing 98% of deadlines to investigate complaints of abuse in group homes + treatment centers. The report is the result of an audit that found CPS investigators did not look into such complaints on time which placed kids at risk for further abuse. The audit also showed that CPS allowed treatment-center employees who had complaints of abuse filed against them to get new jobs in group homes, where the abuse allegedly continued. According to the Office of the Auditor General, CPS wrapped up in its investigations on time in just 4 of 147 cases (2%) since 2007. http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/54559087.html
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CPS focus turns to children in shelters
DES officials, attorneys from Calif. center to meet
by Mary K. Reinhart - Oct. 20, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2011/10/20/20111020cps-focus-turns-to-children-shelters.html
Top officials from Arizona's child-welfare agency will meet with California child-advocacy attorneys about how to reduce the number of babies and young children living in crisis shelters and group homes.
CPS focus turns to children in shelters
DES officials, attorneys from Calif. center to meet
by Mary K. Reinhart - Oct. 20, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2011/10/20/20111020cps-focus-turns-to-children-shelters.html
Top officials from Arizona's child-welfare agency will meet with California child-advocacy attorneys about how to reduce the number of babies and young children living in crisis shelters and group homes.
Pressure from the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center helped to nearly empty Arizona shelters 5 years ago + place more children with foster families. Then, as now, the state's overloaded child-welfare system was undergoing public scrutiny following highly publicized child injuries and deaths.
Attorney Carole Shauffer, the center's executive director, said there's now an even greater body of research showing the damage group care can do to small children removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect.
"We know even more about how bad this is for young children," Shauffer said.
In a letter last month to state Dep't of Economic Security Director Clarence Carter, who oversees CPS, Shauffer said the center and the Annie E Casey Foundation had used Arizona as a model for other jurisdictions seeking to reduce the number of foster children in group care.
But the influx of children into state custody in recent months and a net loss of hundreds of foster homes forced Arizona to ask shelter + group-home operators to begin caring for CPS children for the first time in years.
Shauffer said that trend needs to stop or the state could face litigation, as it did in 2006, based on state law and constitutional due-process rights. "They've got a flood of kids," Shauffer said. "They've got a mess."
Decades of research shows that young children fare better with relatives or in family foster homes than in institutional settings, in part because of their need to establish a lasting relationship with one significant grown-up. Group care also is more expensive than family foster care.
State rules limit shelter placements to 21 days, with weekly reviews by a Juvenile Court judge required thereafter.
A joint legislative committee meets today to discuss three state audits on CPS, including recommendations to more quickly investigate reports of abuse and neglect in shelters, group homes and residential treatment centers.
As of Aug. 31, the latest figures DES provided, among the nearly 1,500 children in group settings, there were 23 babies and children younger than 4 living in shelters and 10 children younger than 7 in group homes.
That compares with March, when 16 children younger than 4 years were in shelter care, and group homes housed two children younger than 7.
Marsha Porter, who runs the 15-bed Crisis Nursery in Phoenix, said most of the young children she's cared for in recent months are part of sibling groups. She said a few days in a shelter, particularly to keep siblings together and assess their well-being, is fine for children.
Porter and Chris Scarpati, founder and CEO of the East Valley Child Crisis Center, said they're also getting CPS children so traumatized that their first foster families couldn't handle them.
Porter said she's turning away 20 to 30 requests for CPS placements every month.
Shauffer's company has worked around the country to eliminate group care for children younger than 3 and has successfully sued to close shelters in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
In 2006, Maricopa County shelters were housing nearly 100 babies and young children, following a 60 percent increase in the number of foster children since 2002.
But with financial and technical help from the Casey Foundation, and pressure from the law center, state officials brought those numbers to near zero.
Reach the reporter at maryk .reinhart@arizonarepublic.com.
Marsha Porter, who runs the 15-bed Crisis Nursery in Phoenix, said most of the young children she's cared for in recent months are part of sibling groups. She said a few days in a shelter, particularly to keep siblings together and assess their well-being, is fine for children.
Porter and Chris Scarpati, founder and CEO of the East Valley Child Crisis Center, said they're also getting CPS children so traumatized that their first foster families couldn't handle them.
Porter said she's turning away 20 to 30 requests for CPS placements every month.
Shauffer's company has worked around the country to eliminate group care for children younger than 3 and has successfully sued to close shelters in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
In 2006, Maricopa County shelters were housing nearly 100 babies and young children, following a 60 percent increase in the number of foster children since 2002.
But with financial and technical help from the Casey Foundation, and pressure from the law center, state officials brought those numbers to near zero.
Reach the reporter at maryk .reinhart@arizonarepublic.com.