Child Protection Reform by Sherry Holetzky

http://www.googobits.com/articles/p0...on-reform.html



Child Protection Reform

by Sherry Holetzky May 26, 2005

The current configuration of the U.S. child protection system is far
different from the criminal justice system, and the fact is that few
children are safer even though we spend billions of dollars each year to
protect them. Real abuse goes unnoticed, false accusations abound, and
poverty is often mistaken for neglect while reform efforts are stalled
by the system's insistence that more money and more workers are the only
requirements for change.

While most parents are good, loving people who care for their children
appropriately, unfortunately, some do hurt or neglect their own
children. It is very sad that in this day and age, some people have not
grown enough to realize that children are not property. Parents cannot
just do whatever they want to their children. That is why this country
employees protection agencies, which go by many names, but are
universally known as Children’s Protective Services, or CPS.

But, is CPS doing a good job of keeping children safe? How are families
treated once they come under an agency’s radar? Are innocent families
ever sucked into the system? The answers to these questions might
surprise you.
CONFIGURATION OF THE SYSTEM

Since the 1960's, child abuse and neglect have evolved into "illnesses"
rather than crimes. Well-intentioned social workers, doctors, and
therapists believed they could treat the disease. Prosecution of abusive
and neglectful parents stopped, in a large percentage of cases, and
abuse and neglect were relegated to "family" or "administrative" courts,
which ordered treatment plans based on the advice of these professionals.

The usual Constitutional safeguards we expect as American citizens are
not available in family and administrative law. Certain rights only
apply to the criminal justice system, such as being informed of your
rights, having an attorney present during questioning, and being
appointed an attorney if you cannot afford one.

Accused parents are also refused the right to a fair and timely trial,
the right to be tried by a jury of their peers; the right to face and
cross-examine their accusers, and the right to have evidence used
against them only when it meets the highest standards.

Also forgotten is the right to be free from unreasonable search and
seizure, the right to refuse to incriminate one's self, the presumption
of innocence until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt, the right
to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishments, and other due
process measures. None of these protections are afforded parents accused
of child maltreatment, unless and until they are criminally charged,
which rarely happens.

An accused pedophile that harms other people's children has more rights
and more protection of his rights, than a parent accused of maltreatment
does. What is worse is the fact that the pedophile has more protection
of his rights than the children do.

Children are frequently detained, interrogated, strip-searched and
forced to endure intrusive physical and psychological examinations. They
are removed from their homes -for vague reasons with little or no
evidence- and deposited with complete strangers. Frequently, removal
from home and all that it entails is far more traumatic for the child
than anything in the home environment, per many former foster children
who call themselves "survivors" of the system.

One of the biggest problems is the ultra lax standard of evidence
allowed in such cases. All it takes is "preponderance of the evidence"
which is loosely interpreted as an allegation being "more likely than
not." In other words, if 51% of the evidence -which is frequently made
up of second and even third-hand hearsay and a caseworker's opinion-
points toward abuse, the other 49% of the evidence that may well
vindicate the parent can essentially be disregarded.

With the advent of mandated reporting schemes and anonymous reporting,
more and more parents are finding themselves the subjects of
investigation. Many people think this is not a problem. They believe
that they will be dealt with fairly, and that since they are innocent
the truth will come out.

It is better to punish 100 innocents than let one abuser get away with
it, better to be safe than sorry, right? But, that is not the way our
system was designed. The cornerstone of our system is that every person
is innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. It was
designed that way for a reason; the opposite does not work, and children
are suffering because of it.
MANDATED REPORTED SCHEMES AND ANONYMOUS REPORTING

Most people do not realize that it only takes one --often completely
anonymous-- phone call to change life as you and your children know it.
Good names are tarnished by being listed on abuse registries, and some
parents will lose custody of their children even though there was no
real evidence of abuse or neglect.

Mandated reporters frequently over-report in order to protect themselves
from liability. They can be charged with a misdemeanor, fined, or lose
their licenses if they fail to report abuse. On the other hand, they are
rarely, if ever, held accountable for making inaccurate reports, even if
the report turns out to be malicious.

Anonymous reporting allows any person to make an accusation at any time,
without proof and without revealing his or her name. This means that
even if someone has made a false accusation of maltreatment against a
parent out of spite, the parent will have a difficult time proving it
since he or she is never allowed to know whom the accuser is.
STATISTICS AND OUTCOMES

Abuse is over-reported, overwhelming the already overburdened system, as
evidenced by the fact that out of approximately 3,000,000 abuse and
neglect reports taken each year, over 2,000,000 are unsubstantiated.
These numbers have remained fairly consistent since 1990.

The reason is that the standards are so lax and definitions so vague,
that any parent can be painted as abusive. Advocates of the system claim
that accused parents are guilty, but that there just isn't enough
evidence against them to prove it. With the ultra lax standard used in
such cases, workers would have to be completely incompetent to allow
2,000,000 guilty parents each year to get away with maltreating their
children.

If these figures remain consistent, this indicates that twenty million
families are needlessly intruded upon in a decade. Twenty million
families cannot all be wrong.

One reason the number of cases that are actually substantiated is so
high, is that a CPS worker does not have to prove abuse. If he or she
cannot find something specific, but feels that a parent does not measure
up to certain standards, the worker can simply say he or she feels the
child is “at risk” of future maltreatment. This is called "erring on the
side of the child."

An at risk assessment is based on a scientifically unproven, variable
and discriminatory checklist of indicators coupled with a caseworker’s
subjective opinion. Caseworkers are trained to look for abuse rather
than looking for the truth. Indicators include things like being a
single parent, being poor or uneducated, having more than three
children, or having been abused as a child. None of these things proves
that abuse is imminent, and not every abused child grows up to be an abuser.

Many parents, classified in the "at risk" category end up losing custody
of their children even though there is no evidence of abuse or neglect
having occurred. The exact number is unknown, since at risk cases are
not counted separately but are instead included in the tally of
substantiated reports. For more information on statistics, visit the
National Clearinghouse for Child Abuse and Neglect Information.

What about cases that were actually substantiated? How many of those
children were torn from their parents, their siblings, their home,
friends, neighborhood, church, school, and extended family due to
serious and intentional injuries or extreme neglect? Far fewer than most
people believe. Many people think that children are only taken in
extreme cases such as those that are sensationalized in the media.

The largest percent of cases, consistently about 60% nationwide, are
taken from home because of neglect allegations. But, are these cases of
willful neglect on the part of parents who have the ability and
resources to care for their children but choose not to? Or, are these
cases of families living in poverty? Since many children are taken due
to homelessness, inadequate shelter, lack of utilities, and other
similar situations, it appears to be the latter.

Observe the state of Pennsylvania. As they yet again restructured their
system, they finally made some progress. They placed a housing
specialist in every CPS office. Poor families are helped to find
adequate housing and the necessary financial assistance to obtain it.
Since this new program began, the number of “neglect” cases in
Pennsylvania has fallen consistently and dramatically.

Examining cases of alleged physical abuse, we see many children taken
away because they received a spanking, even in states where spanking is
not illegal and is not defined by law as abuse. According to court
cases, many of these were not cases where children were beaten or even
spanked roughly with resultant injuries. They are often cases of a
traditionally practiced form of discipline.

How is this possible? It is possible because CPS interprets the laws
according to their own "protocols" and defines physical discipline as
abusive, or at the least, as an indicator that there is a risk of future
maltreatment.
REAL REFORM

Horror stories are far too frequent, and this includes not just stories
of abusive parents, but also horrific stories of children abused in
state care. If the state cannot protect the child better than the parent
can, and cannot guarantee his safety, the child should not be removed
from the home.

Agencies continue to ask for more money and attempt to hire more
workers. Limiting the current caseload to actual cases of real abuse and
neglect would work far better. Improved training for workers who screen
hotline calls and investigate allegations would be far more worthwhile
than hiring more people to go through the motions.

All fifty states failed the latest federal child welfare review. Since
past reform efforts have yet to improve child safety, it is time to try
something else. If we keep doing what we are doing, we can expect to
keep getting what we are getting.

Re-naming and "restructuring" agencies hasn't changed the fact that
children are not safer. It is time to institute real reform efforts and
truly protect this nation's most vulnerable citizens.
The following suggestions have been compiled through research and
discussion with reform effort activists:

1. Treat child abuse as the crime that it is and mandate that
investigations be performed by law enforcement. Law enforcement officers
are trained to investigate and gather evidence. This change would keep
real abusers from getting away with their crimes, while far fewer
falsely accused parents would lose their children.

2. Repeal mandated reporting laws and end anonymous reporting. The
system would not be so overwhelmed with inaccurate and fabricated
reports if mandated reporters were not forced to report every scraped
knee, and other reporters were required to identify themselves. Rather
than wasting precious resources investigating innocent parents, children
in truly dire situations could get the help they deserve.

3. Criminally prosecute workers where appropriate, and do not allow them
to continue working in protective services if they abuse or allow abuse
of a child. The same should apply if they fabricate evidence against a
parent, if they lie in court or alter documents, or if they are
criminally negligent toward a child in their care.

4. Require more education and experience before workers are allowed to
come into contact with families and are allowed to make life-altering
decisions that affect the entire family. Most "caseworkers" today are
not even licensed social workers, though many represent themselves as
such. In some states, all it requires is a two-year degree -in any
field- to become a caseworker.

5. Require completely independent oversight, independent investigations
of agency wrongdoing, and an independent hotline and investigative team
for foster care and institutional abuse. Children are left in
substandard and dangerous placements, often far worse than the homes
they were taken from.

6. Adjust the federal monetary incentives to reflect proven success in
child safety, rather than rewarding the ever-increasing placements,
terminations of parental rights, and quickie adoptions. Right now states
receive federal dollars when children are removed, placed in foster
care, or adopted. They receive very little for family preservation or
reunification, which creates a twisted incentive to remove children (See
Title IV-E of the Social Security Act).

7. Disallow the use of any "risk assessment" tool that contains
scientifically unproven, variable, and discriminatory indicators.
Children should not be removed from home unless real abuse or neglect
has been proven.

8. Create real avenues for filing complaints. In many states, parents
can only file formal complaints against licensed social workers and as
noted, most caseworkers are not licensed. Conveniently, many child
protection agencies claim to have few complaints.

9. Guarantee due process. As it stands right now, a person who murders a
child has more protection of his rights than a parent that has had an
anonymous allegation made against him or her. He also has more rights
than a child caught up in a maltreatment investigation.

10. Create clear, concise definitions of what constitutes abuse or
neglect. Disallow vague definitions and put an end to agencies
overstepping their authority and “interpreting” the law differently than
the legislature intended.

On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:59:29 -0700, fx wrote:

http://www.googobits.com/articles/p0...on-reform.html



Child Protection Reform

by Sherry Holetzky May 26, 2005

Had Ms Holetzky posted a list of references, a bibliography, perhaps,
cited some experts she claims to be drawing some information from it
might not have occurred to me to check, but let's see who Ms Holetzky
is and how she might have come to express, in this article, such a
long set of standard propaganda statements, and egregious errors, one
after the other.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...oogle+S earch

I will mark (***) following a few of the errors, and trust the
interested reader to do some research on their own, so I will not
comment.

I've done so for years in this ng, to no avail, with those determined
to operate on propaganda and half truths, or the many bits of totally
incorrect information:

The current configuration of the U.S. child protection system is far
different from the criminal justice system,*** and the fact is that few
children are safer even though we spend billions of dollars each year to
protect them. Real abuse goes unnoticed,*** false accusations abound,*** and
poverty is often mistaken for neglect*** while reform efforts are stalled
by the system's insistence that more money and more workers are the only
requirements for change.***

While most parents are good, loving people who care for their children
appropriately, unfortunately, some do hurt or neglect their own
children. It is very sad that in this day and age, some people have not
grown enough to realize that children are not property. Parents cannot
just do whatever they want to their children.*** That is why this country
employees protection agencies, which go by many names, but are
universally known as Children’s Protective Services, or CPS.

But, is CPS doing a good job of keeping children safe? How are families
treated once they come under an agency’s radar? Are innocent families
ever sucked into the system? The answers to these questions might
surprise you.
CONFIGURATION OF THE SYSTEM

Since the 1960's, child abuse and neglect have evolved into "illnesses"
rather than crimes.*** Well-intentioned social workers, doctors, and
therapists believed they could treat the disease. Prosecution of abusive
and neglectful parents stopped, in a large percentage of cases,*** and
abuse and neglect were relegated to "family" or "administrative" courts,
which ordered treatment plans based on the advice of these professionals.

The usual Constitutional safeguards we expect as American citizens are
not available in family and administrative law.*** Certain rights only
apply to the criminal justice system, such as being informed of your
rights, having an attorney present during questioning, and being
appointed an attorney if you cannot afford one.***

Accused parents are also refused the right to a fair and timely trial,
the right to be tried by a jury of their peers; the right to face and
cross-examine their accusers, and the right to have evidence used
against them only when it meets the highest standards.***

Also forgotten is the right to be free from unreasonable search and
seizure,*** the right to refuse to incriminate one's self,*** the presumption
of innocence until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt,*** the right
to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishments, and other due
process measures. None of these protections are afforded parents accused
of child maltreatment, unless and until they are criminally charged,
which rarely happens.***

Oh, hell, I give up. It's a gabble of babble. Nearly everything in it
so far, and further along, is simply more of the same old propaganda
nosense, and ignorance.

Ah well, possibly the author would care to come to this ng and discuss
her sources and her conclusions and opinions.

Roger that, dodger.

0:-]


An accused pedophile that harms other people's children has more rights
and more protection of his rights, than a parent accused of maltreatment
does. What is worse is the fact that the pedophile has more protection
of his rights than the children do.

Children are frequently detained, interrogated, strip-searched and
forced to endure intrusive physical and psychological examinations. They
are removed from their homes -for vague reasons with little or no
evidence- and deposited with complete strangers. Frequently, removal
from home and all that it entails is far more traumatic for the child
than anything in the home environment, per many former foster children
who call themselves "survivors" of the system.

One of the biggest problems is the ultra lax standard of evidence
allowed in such cases. All it takes is "preponderance of the evidence"
which is loosely interpreted as an allegation being "more likely than
not." In other words, if 51% of the evidence -which is frequently made
up of second and even third-hand hearsay and a caseworker's opinion-
points toward abuse, the other 49% of the evidence that may well
vindicate the parent can essentially be disregarded.

With the advent of mandated reporting schemes and anonymous reporting,
more and more parents are finding themselves the subjects of
investigation. Many people think this is not a problem. They believe
that they will be dealt with fairly, and that since they are innocent
the truth will come out.

It is better to punish 100 innocents than let one abuser get away with
it, better to be safe than sorry, right? But, that is not the way our
system was designed. The cornerstone of our system is that every person
is innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. It was
designed that way for a reason; the opposite does not work, and children
are suffering because of it.
MANDATED REPORTED SCHEMES AND ANONYMOUS REPORTING

Most people do not realize that it only takes one --often completely
anonymous-- phone call to change life as you and your children know it.
Good names are tarnished by being listed on abuse registries, and some
parents will lose custody of their children even though there was no
real evidence of abuse or neglect.

Mandated reporters frequently over-report in order to protect themselves
from liability. They can be charged with a misdemeanor, fined, or lose
their licenses if they fail to report abuse. On the other hand, they are
rarely, if ever, held accountable for making inaccurate reports, even if
the report turns out to be malicious.

Anonymous reporting allows any person to make an accusation at any time,
without proof and without revealing his or her name. This means that
even if someone has made a false accusation of maltreatment against a
parent out of spite, the parent will have a difficult time proving it
since he or she is never allowed to know whom the accuser is.
STATISTICS AND OUTCOMES

Abuse is over-reported, overwhelming the already overburdened system, as
evidenced by the fact that out of approximately 3,000,000 abuse and
neglect reports taken each year, over 2,000,000 are unsubstantiated.
These numbers have remained fairly consistent since 1990.

The reason is that the standards are so lax and definitions so vague,
that any parent can be painted as abusive. Advocates of the system claim
that accused parents are guilty, but that there just isn't enough
evidence against them to prove it. With the ultra lax standard used in
such cases, workers would have to be completely incompetent to allow
2,000,000 guilty parents each year to get away with maltreating their
children.

If these figures remain consistent, this indicates that twenty million
families are needlessly intruded upon in a decade. Twenty million
families cannot all be wrong.

One reason the number of cases that are actually substantiated is so
high, is that a CPS worker does not have to prove abuse. If he or she
cannot find something specific, but feels that a parent does not measure
up to certain standards, the worker can simply say he or she feels the
child is “at risk” of future maltreatment. This is called "erring on the
side of the child."

An at risk assessment is based on a scientifically unproven, variable
and discriminatory checklist of indicators coupled with a caseworker’s
subjective opinion. Caseworkers are trained to look for abuse rather
than looking for the truth. Indicators include things like being a
single parent, being poor or uneducated, having more than three
children, or having been abused as a child. None of these things proves
that abuse is imminent, and not every abused child grows up to be an abuser.

Many parents, classified in the "at risk" category end up losing custody
of their children even though there is no evidence of abuse or neglect
having occurred. The exact number is unknown, since at risk cases are
not counted separately but are instead included in the tally of
substantiated reports. For more information on statistics, visit the
National Clearinghouse for Child Abuse and Neglect Information.

What about cases that were actually substantiated? How many of those
children were torn from their parents, their siblings, their home,
friends, neighborhood, church, school, and extended family due to
serious and intentional injuries or extreme neglect? Far fewer than most
people believe. Many people think that children are only taken in
extreme cases such as those that are sensationalized in the media.

The largest percent of cases, consistently about 60% nationwide, are
taken from home because of neglect allegations. But, are these cases of
willful neglect on the part of parents who have the ability and
resources to care for their children but choose not to? Or, are these
cases of families living in poverty? Since many children are taken due
to homelessness, inadequate shelter, lack of utilities, and other
similar situations, it appears to be the latter.

Observe the state of Pennsylvania. As they yet again restructured their
system, they finally made some progress. They placed a housing
specialist in every CPS office. Poor families are helped to find
adequate housing and the necessary financial assistance to obtain it.
Since this new program began, the number of “neglect” cases in
Pennsylvania has fallen consistently and dramatically.

Examining cases of alleged physical abuse, we see many children taken
away because they received a spanking, even in states where spanking is
not illegal and is not defined by law as abuse. According to court
cases, many of these were not cases where children were beaten or even
spanked roughly with resultant injuries. They are often cases of a
traditionally practiced form of discipline.

How is this possible? It is possible because CPS interprets the laws
according to their own "protocols" and defines physical discipline as
abusive, or at the least, as an indicator that there is a risk of future
maltreatment.
REAL REFORM

Horror stories are far too frequent, and this includes not just stories
of abusive parents, but also horrific stories of children abused in
state care. If the state cannot protect the child better than the parent
can, and cannot guarantee his safety, the child should not be removed
from the home.

Agencies continue to ask for more money and attempt to hire more
workers. Limiting the current caseload to actual cases of real abuse and
neglect would work far better. Improved training for workers who screen
hotline calls and investigate allegations would be far more worthwhile
than hiring more people to go through the motions.

All fifty states failed the latest federal child welfare review. Since
past reform efforts have yet to improve child safety, it is time to try
something else. If we keep doing what we are doing, we can expect to
keep getting what we are getting.

Re-naming and "restructuring" agencies hasn't changed the fact that
children are not safer. It is time to institute real reform efforts and
truly protect this nation's most vulnerable citizens.
The following suggestions have been compiled through research and
discussion with reform effort activists:

1. Treat child abuse as the crime that it is and mandate that
investigations be performed by law enforcement. Law enforcement officers
are trained to investigate and gather evidence. This change would keep
real abusers from getting away with their crimes, while far fewer
falsely accused parents would lose their children.

2. Repeal mandated reporting laws and end anonymous reporting. The
system would not be so overwhelmed with inaccurate and fabricated
reports if mandated reporters were not forced to report every scraped
knee, and other reporters were required to identify themselves. Rather
than wasting precious resources investigating innocent parents, children
in truly dire situations could get the help they deserve.

3. Criminally prosecute workers where appropriate, and do not allow them
to continue working in protective services if they abuse or allow abuse
of a child. The same should apply if they fabricate evidence against a
parent, if they lie in court or alter documents, or if they are
criminally negligent toward a child in their care.

4. Require more education and experience before workers are allowed to
come into contact with families and are allowed to make life-altering
decisions that affect the entire family. Most "caseworkers" today are
not even licensed social workers, though many represent themselves as
such. In some states, all it requires is a two-year degree -in any
field- to become a caseworker.

5. Require completely independent oversight, independent investigations
of agency wrongdoing, and an independent hotline and investigative team
for foster care and institutional abuse. Children are left in
substandard and dangerous placements, often far worse than the homes
they were taken from.

6. Adjust the federal monetary incentives to reflect proven success in
child safety, rather than rewarding the ever-increasing placements,
terminations of parental rights, and quickie adoptions. Right now states
receive federal dollars when children are removed, placed in foster
care, or adopted. They receive very little for family preservation or
reunification, which creates a twisted incentive to remove children (See
Title IV-E of the Social Security Act).

7. Disallow the use of any "risk assessment" tool that contains
scientifically unproven, variable, and discriminatory indicators.
Children should not be removed from home unless real abuse or neglect
has been proven.

8. Create real avenues for filing complaints. In many states, parents
can only file formal complaints against licensed social workers and as
noted, most caseworkers are not licensed. Conveniently, many child
protection agencies claim to have few complaints.

9. Guarantee due process. As it stands right now, a person who murders a
child has more protection of his rights than a parent that has had an
anonymous allegation made against him or her. He also has more rights
than a child caught up in a maltreatment investigation.

10. Create clear, concise definitions of what constitutes abuse or
neglect. Disallow vague definitions and put an end to agencies
overstepping their authority and “interpreting” the law differently than
the legislature intended.