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| The Plant answer DNA swab Question
On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 11:44:44 GMT, "Doug"
wrote: Kane writes: You are mistaken when it comes to assessing danger to themselves or others in an investigation. They simply lack the means at hand, if they are alone. Hence, as you have pointed out yourself, they take along someone that can act if a threat is presented, and they sure as hell DO sign complaints of criminal conduct if they are threatened. They try, by order, to avoid it as much as possible because part of their job is to induce the parent to rehabilitate themselves and an arrest isn't the best of starting places, don't you think? With a CPS investigator you and others assume they don't have that authority and go into challenge and even attack mode. The results are easily seen. While the investigator may not be trained to detain someone they have at their disposal, with the full support of the court under the law, LEO's to do the hands on work. If you don't think so, try getting in the face of a CPS investigator and see what happens. CPS workers do not have the power to detain adults and children only when they have a court order. Hair splitting again. It's obvious to any reader with half a brain that I am NOT going to define the circumstances, as you would wish, continuously down to infinity so you wan't have to respond. They know that I am not referring to all cases, as you yourself invoke on YOUR behalf later in this post. Law enforcement officers, who often accompany CPS workers as a courtesy can only arrest, detain or otherwise act in accordance with their regular procedures. In other words, if the officer acts, he acts in his capacity of enforcing criminal law not as an adjunct to the CPS worker's civil authority. Are you going to continue to prove my point but try to twist it into a refutation by claiming, yet again, wearily that I meant something I did not say? What a ****ant. Lacking a police escort they'll simply leave and go get one and the next encounter will not be as polite. There won't even be a question until the misinformed person is in cuffs. Not so. Or are you going to say again that this only happens in some cases? It does happen in those cases where citizens are charged with violating criminal law. Which would be the circumstance during an investigation where the worker comes under criminal threat. Do I have to spell everything I say out to an entire encyclopedia, or are you going to stop playing your silly journalistic mind squat? And that is a perfect way to precipitate removal of children if you wish to advise people to refuse to cooperate. The parent's response depends upon the individual situation, of course. Could there be a more profound truth in your post? I think not. How could you assume I would not write with that obvious fact in mind? Did you want me to google up a post where you advise parents to send CPS packing and not cooperate at all? Why, did you think I'd deny it. Some circumstances call for complete non-cooperation. I'd say the instant you are presented with a criminal charge, you do not speak, you do not sign anything, and you only ask for your attorney. This isn't rocket science. Dan keeps it simple. So do I but you want me to run out every scenario, and even then you'll still go rambling on finding something obscure to bring up. You are becoming tiresomely transparent in you "debating" methods. Did you want the children removed in such cases? If it's as I described above that would not be a matter of choice. When the parent goes out in handcuffs it's usually only a few minutes before the child(ren) leave as well in the DHS car. Or if it was a kickdown the door situation in the middle of the night, then the cop will drop them at the 24/7 receiving center/shelter, or whatever they call it in your area. Do you so advise? The parent's correct response depends upon the multiple, unique variables involved in their particular situation. It depends upon what brings the worker to the door. It is impossible to answer that question generally. The why do you insist that I answer YOU specifically constantly, when you know yourself each scenario is a speculation based on variable circumstances. The dangers and advantages inherent in each SHOULD however be examined. The problem we have here, though I'm sure some would argue, is that we aren't trying to coauthor a handbook or text on the entire thing, but just talking about bits and pieces. But you can't admit when I'm right, you have to qualify it in some way in a vapid and pointless attempt to refute me while essentially agreeing. Are you hoping people won't notice that you just said what I said but reframed for your purposes? Or, as you like to claim, the rhetorical: "have you stopped beating your wife?' What most people don't know, is that question has very valid uses. And it is correct when the speaker damn well knows you have been beating your wife. That's exactly why I ask it, because the reader can look one or two paragraphs up and see where you just said you had been beating your wife. As we both state later in our respective posts, the practice is cases where the allegations against the parent are credible and serious, the other parent is asked to take the child to a location where they can be interviewed (in some jurisdictions, an appointment may be made with a CARES unit; in others the parent and child may follow the worker to a facility practicing interview methods I described in my post). Nothing I have said in this thread precludes this from happening. Very little I've said is what you claim I've said. What I said precludes forcible removal of the child and taking the child into custody. Your saying then. Is it before or after my claim? And answer my question please. Not just another diversion. Why are you preaching? Since I am not preaching, it is impossible to answer "why" I am not doing so. Is this another "example?" Bull****. You've been "preaching" since the day I came to the ng, and on googling show that you have before then as well. Why have you stopped beating your wife? I don't beat my wife, but should I consider it I would stop before I started, because I know it would be worth my life should I even start. And that is the correct way to answer that question, honestly and fully, with tranparency and disclosure, instead of by your smarmy games. Didn't use the work automatically, and didn't say it would happen in every case their is an allegation. I gave NO freqency to the reply to Greegor the Whore. Just that it happens. Good. Thanks for clarifying. That should suffice then to answer your questions. Will you end or will you continue in your disengenuous and immoral defense of The Whore? Let's see, shall we. I continued the thread to answer your questions and to correct some misinformation you posted in your reply . . . as you can see. You "correct"ed ery little of my "misinformation" and in fact spent more than a moment or two reframing what I said without changing it's core meaning while artfully making it appear I was saying what I was not. CPS has no power to order the parents to do anything. Did I say CPS did? If so I stand corrected but I am unable to find that myself. Yes, you did. But it is now clarified. No it isn't. I am still unable to find where I claimed that "CPS has the power to order the parents to do anything." I can find a quote in this post. "You are mistaken. THEY [CPS] HAVE AS MUCH AUTHORITY AS ANY POLICE INVESTIGATOR DOES. If a police officer thinks someone poses a risk to others, or to the investigation they have the authority to take control of the situation." (My emphasis) Still doing it. I make it plan in the rest of the post that I am referring to the right of the worker to protect themselves by, if the situation warrants, having the officer arrest and then the worker sign a complaint against the acting out perp. While the investigator is not, unless they are a sworn police officer, authorized to affect the means they are authorized to call on those that are, LEOs. The CPS worker does not have the same authority as a police officer. Are you aware that they only difference between a private citizen and a sworn police officer lies in some very finely tuned areas of when and when they cannot shot? Laws in most states, which I've studied, point that out clearly. I can arrest someone. If I lack the means to detain them or they will not follow my legal order to desist and be detained then they are guilty, should they prove to have done the crime, of resisting arrest as surely if they had fought a cop. A cop does the same thing you or I are authorized to do should we witness a crime. He or she has to sign a "complaint" or get you or I too sign one. All he is is the instrument of detainment...it's called arrest. It means to stop the progress from the scene of the alleged perp. If a worker is questioning a parent and becomes aware of a criminal offense, and choses to pursue the investigation as criminal at that point, they can immediately order the perp to stay put, and wait for an officer to affect the physical custody and transport of the perp. You, my little friend, don't know diddly squat. As for the shooting part, the difference between a cop and a citizen is that I, a private citizen actually have more leeway, proven by case law, to use deadly force (sometimes shooting, but restricted to that instrument) in defense of myself or others based on my PERCIEVED theat by the perp. The Cop, while he can do the same, is held to a higher level of what is and isn't a perceived threat. But when the moment comes he or I can shoot, legally. He may have slightely more leeway or restraint based on rules of his agency. But little in fact. So, smart ass, if a worker has the means and the questioned person is a percieved threat the worker could use deadly force to protect him or herself or others. Because workers have policy and practice to contend with they go waaaay out of their way to avoid having to use such force, but they can. Look up the law in your area about what a private citizen can and cannot do in the way of use of deadly force. I have held licenses pertaining to same in four states. If the police officer acts, he acts in enforcing criminal law and under his agency's guidelines for arrest or detainment, not the civil authority of the caseworker. The point was and still is that we are, and YOU have made that clear, looking at different situations, different variables from case to case. I pointed out one in refutation of The Whore's general claim of who can do what. He was wrong. You are wrong to split hairs. Yet again. In lieu of that, they offer the parties involved options to cooperate in the best interests of all. If they refuse, it's LEO time. Are you saying in all cases or just some cases? When a person doesn't say "all' or "some" given the real world where it is rarely a matter of "all" would you not presume I meant "some?" It's always some unless the writer says all. Why do you think CPS investigators so often have the police meet them at the site of the investigation? Coffee and donuts? It is a common procedure done to protect the worker. Ho hum. Could you please not waste so much of my time proving me to be correct in my claims? It really makes you look manipulative and stupid. On the other hand, CPS is not the only player, as you well know. The just CAN order the parent and can take action if the parent does not. The investigator goes to the judge within a set number of hours after initial contact for that assignment of their enforcement role...by the judge. And the document produced is the same one presented to the feds for IV-E funding. You betcha one exists. As I mentioned in my prior post, courts were involved with only an estimated 17.5% of 517,449 child victims in 2001. http://tinyurl.com/9uhv Most CPS investigations do not involve the courts and it is rare that a worker will go to a judge for an order at this stage of the investigation. If she does, she will need to have gathered enough evidence so far in the investigation to establish probable cause. Bull****ting again, Doug. This number varies considerably. But it is not true. Virtually all such cases, after the initial visit, are going to court. It is required by law in all states I've every dealt with and certainly by ASFA. If the numbers vary considerably, which is not true? All I did was cite the USDHHS NCANDS data, which reports that 17.5% of child victims had a court involved in their case. http://tinyurl.com/9uhv All I did was say you are full of ****. I know that once or twice a day you aren't, but that doesn't diminish the fact that part of the day you are. Now what is your point in popping up stats that fly in the face of what no doubt five or six posters here know to be true. The worker has to appear in court with reason to retain custody or return the child home, or not remove the child at all. In all cases the judge can, at the suggestion of the PS worker, or the judges discretion, chose TC by the state, or the court...varies state to state....or not at all. But that worker damn well better attend to the court in this initial taking of the child into anykind of custody, or NOT doing so if a credible allegation was made. That makes it, except for something that would have to be some kind of rare snafu, like the worker getting in an auto accident on the way to court or some such, damn close to 100%. What those percentages are, once again, is your incessant tomfoolerly with data that doesn't apply to the actual issue at hand. The disposition of the child at the END OF A CASE is what that referes to...did a court have involvement, after that initial decision on TC? Was there a show cause hearing for termination? Was there a termination trial. We know that in at the very least it can be around 60% or so that don't ever get to that level and the child is reunited. The data on that is all over the place. That figure easily can contain 17% or so that didn't go as far as trial. In fact I'd say it's like sloppy reportage and the figure should be MORE, much MORE. That doesn't make CPS or the courts guilty of malfeasance or mistake. It's normal. And damn good if you ask me. I'm stunned at how few get to court later, and that suggests strongly to me, that while CPS is charged with following up on allegations it's doing quite a job getting those kids reunited with family. Your crap should be lapping at your chin by now. You can cut a fine hair on this one and say, no it isn't, but then you have to deal with the fact that the state will be penalized under ASFA if they do not in fact take every case where there is a removal of a child to a judge in a set number of hours. The vast majority of children who are substantiated as victims of child abuse or neglect are NOT removed from their homes at any time before, during or after the investigation. http://tinyurl.com/9psd I ran into a fairly young PS worker today where I go for lunch. She's quite candid with me. I've helped her return children to families. She is not the only one. Every PS worker I've talked with, and it's been many, tell me they do NOT want to remove children. And when they do what they want is the fastest road possible to reuniting. Many children don't even have their cases get past intake (the PS unit) before they are back home. I asked her if she felt children were being taken for frivolous reasons. She is too open and naive to sneedle me. She would have blushed. Her answer was, anything but. We can't respond to all the calls at the level we feel is needed for safety for the children. It's a scramble to find the time and staff to respond and what with budget cuts, lots of folks retiring, it's getting worse. She is scared of what she thinks is coming. Not for her job. She's an MSW that is also a LCSW. I asked her what brought the children into care. What happens that families lose children. She agrees with your 10% sexual abuse...but I'm asking myself where the CDC and the DOJ gets their figure of one in three females are sexually abuse? Must be the perps wait until they reach their majority, right? Next she said it's mostly abuse and neglect, with neglect running slightly ahead. I asked what she thought the cause was and it went like this. "Mary, what do you think the cau.........." "Meth" She didn't wait for me to finish. Meth meth meth, then she said thoughtfully, and mental illness, what the pros call "Dual Diagnosis." Not just meth, and not just mental illness but the two combined. I'll tell you something I feel very sure of and no flaming or silliness intended. My sense is that we have more than one methhead right on this ng. I worked with drug rehab for years, and I've listen to thousands of hours of babble of methheads, and when I come here it echoes in my head exactly like the memories of my drug work. That's called the penalty portion of a law. Nor are the parents under any obligation to sign the agreement. That depends entirely upon the evidence uncovered. But you are correct that is not obligatory. They can refuse and take the consequences. Yes. And an investigation has to take place to gather evidence. If the safety plan suggests they have done something they haven't done, they should not sign it. Dan has also suggested, if I understand him, that the parent should not sign anything without first consulting their attorney. This is rather far outside the topic of the claim I made. It isn't anything I have an argument with. In fact I have made the same suggestion myself. Though I've also made the suggestion that some attorney's are worth spit in such matters. They may well urge the client to agree to things they should not, and have been known to do so as reported in this ng. I believe, if I understand him correctly, that Dan advises not signing in just such circumstance, and signing and performing the plan if it does no define the signer as being guilty of some shortcomings. I have suggested before to families in similar circumstances that they do what business people do with such things. Simply get up with the document in hand, walk out of the meeting with the words, "I will have to review this CONTRACT and I will get back to you in three working days with my decision." Yep. Good procedure. Yep. And I'm not the orginator. Unless you are under arrest or being detained by the police (and even then you may well get away with it) that puts you back in control without appearing in any way uncooperative. In fact you can insist that you are cooperating MORE fully by your care and consideration of the CONTRACT. Precisely. I agree. I should hope. Don't know about the precision. You can run it at your leisure by an attorney, or use it to line your birdcage, but it important to think about your children who have been taken, if they have, and proceed with that in mind. It't common in other circumstances like these to treat the contracts with care, making and initialing needed changes (representing your interests), and with a service plan or safety plan (call it what you will in your area) include what the other party will do, and do not sign it until they do in your presence and that of a witness you have produced. All safety plans (treatment plans) should specify what CPS will do and the worker (supervisor) signs as a party. What..........did.................I............... just............say? You playing at "little echo"? Adding conditions, as you suggest, is an excellent idea. Absolutely. The willingness to sign is vital to being able to can their asses later in court, should the need arise. Only hand them back one copy...r r r r, keep the other for evidence of your attempt to comply. Parents should not be surprised if the caseworker refuses to sign, Whatever did you think my point was? The worker has two choices, sign and live with the results, which means the family damn well will get the kid back, which according to PS workers recently inteviewed is exactly what they want, or refuse and have that to deal with later. however, because she does not agree with the conditions. The point you miss, or do you really, is the one Dan keeps making so eloquently and the little turds here keep running from, is that you agree to what is reasonable...that gives you BIG JUJU. The problem in this ng is that the turds keep diverting reall needy folks who could profit by Dan's carefully thought out and FULLY TESTED WITH SUCCESSES advice and insist on being unreasonable as hell with self serving self centered selfish (am I getting across to you?) motives that will torpedo others here that really DO want their children back if they are sucked in by the blood suckers. Don't you be one too, Doug. I'd like to see better of you. Now think that over...the bit about how to corner and defeat CPS by agreeing to the reasonable. Hell, one can even agree to some of the unreasonable just to show their asses up in court. The game is best played with careful attention to logistics though. I'm including those. I'm very good at those. Dan hot with tactics, but when it comes to the low level mechanics, I'm probably unbeatable. I even will tell folks, given the color of the form, what color ink to use. Carry three pens. Black, blue, and red. All heavy tips that mark broadly. YOUR marks must stand out over theirs. Remeber, that document will last all the way to a courtroom, and YOU do not want to look wimply when the judge sees it. But you do want to look like you mean to follow through, and willingness to agree in bold strokes is a mind bender for the Workers and their Supers. You can be polite, calm, businesslike, but not obnoxious, and you will get the job done if you are innocent. If you aren't well, you can use my methods and go **** up a rope. They are designed to catch you as much as free the innocent. In such an instance, what would you suggest the parent do? Answered above. Make it reasonable changes, like don't try for the whole pot on the first hand, and you aren't going to see a lot of refusal. They may want to run it by Momma super, but it's likely to come back with their little chicken scratches and you can boldly mark it up again. Back and forth. Each passage amounts to a bell for the judge to wake up...that is if the worker hasn't heard if first and just runs you through the plan and out the other end with babes in arms. It is FAR less likely to get to termination if you think and act tactictly. My first encounter with CPS was very much like that. They caved. No service agreement contract was completed and the child was not removed from the parent. I'm not a lawyer and I don't give legal advice but I do point out what is sensible and well within any legal constraints or expectations. When asked to sign a contract one can refuse and take the consequences, or they can agree with stipulations as I've pointed out, time and editing priveleges, and refuse to sign a one sided contract...as it isn't unless both sides are represented. An agreement can be one sided, but a contract cannot and should not. So the object is to turn the onesided pile of crap into a nice two sided bouquet of flowers. While they are sometimes called "agreements", safety plans/treatment plans/service plans are contracts requiring the agreement of both parties. Are we becoming sweethearts or something? While I appreciate the effort of clarifying if it's meant to help the reader, assuming they need our help, it can look like more nonsense reframing to refute. Don't do that. You'll be wasting my effort to educate. And no, you are wrong on detail. It may LOOK like it's a two party agreement if all the content is about what YOU will do and nothing substancial about what the other will do, it's not a contract. It's toilet paper. An example: If it says, "Ms Client Millie will attend parenting classes, deliver herself and for bottle filling on demand, attend anger management therapy, and visit her children 4 times a week during her normal working hours at the bank, Ms Prissyass Worker will give serious and long contemplative consideration to the possiblility she might and maybe ask the judge if on his worst days he'll burp out "six more months" then we don't have a contract. We have an agreement that this is just rough toilet paper. Used at that. It should read much closer to: Parenting classes one night a week for the 10 week duration (mom) During which the child will remain with the mother (worker) Show for drug testing once a week (mom) If a drug evaluation shows risk of drug use in the recent past (worker) Attendance at an anger management class and ACOA or a twelve step to learn to deal with the other parties drug and anger issues (mom) (worker signs on for this too...meaningfull classes in the real world) (and don't give me **** about 12 steps being confession to drug or alcohol use. I have attended and I got a lot from it and have never been a drunk or drug user and I've seen many workers there that are attending with their clients out of real concern for them and their children) You get my drift here on how to tune up and maintain a contract? The last line should read, Upon completion of these time delimited and completion based activities or assignments, full legal custody of Annie, Sammy, Buster, and Julio wille be fully restored to client Millie. x sign here, and x sign here. By the way, if you do make editing changes to the document, do both copies and keep one for yourself unsigned. Innocent Parents often mistakenly sign this plan under actual or perceived threats. You are correct. The innocent mistakenly sign this plan. They should simply go to the wall and fight CPS from the getgo, having their children in foster care for up to a year, maybe year and a half, and very possibly lose them in the end. Are you saying that children are removed and forcibly kept in custody for a year and a half just because an innocent parent does not sign a service plan? No, I think I was saying DON'T DO THAT. It a suggestion of the idiots here. Play the fight the CPS game when your kids are on the line...oh sure. BTW, I never suggested that innocent parents "go to the wall and fight CPS from the getgo." Did I seem to single you out? Sorry. I meant some of the people YOU rarely (I've only seen once I think) have engaged when they suggest such garbage. You really do have to stop trying to fence walk Doug. It's very ugly. I know you think it look professional but tolerating some of the junk here with no comment, or coming back at me for going after them starts to put a little mud on your skirts you don't need. There are a host of options other than signing the plan as is or fighting CPS from the getgo. You have shared some of those options. Well, you can call HSLDA and if they decide they want to, maybe they'll get on the horn and start amendment spouting. That will last about ten seconds and the other worker waiting in the judges chambers with phone to ear will be the double beep that says..."go for it, warrant time." And you can be sure that when PS workers across the nation see that amendment HSLDA helped with there will be a new industry born. And if you think reasons to get a warrant can be obtained in the majority of cases you don't know police work. The tiniest of scratches or even the testimony of a witness that they exist can trigger a warrant. I put it to you that this new amendment to ASFA isn't going to do a damn thing but make the swim longer and the water deeper. If a warrant has to be served what do you think that is going to do to influence CRBs and family court judges? If you are in a corner and you have some scraps to through the lion why would you think that grabbing a twig and fighting for your life would be the best strategy. Feed the damn thing while you work your way out of the danger. Do I like that? Naw. I'd rather find an ax and cut his head off and have HIM for lunch, but that isn't how it works and you know it. I don't want to see workers at the door of innocent people any more than you do. But I am realistic enough to know that in the course of trying put some kind of limits on child abuse that it will happen, and can happen very often indeed. Giving the worker and those backing them some paper to look at, and holding off signing for a reasonable time...think about that a bit...gives you the breathing room to reconsider, call up a friend or two, that knows how to deal with it, and then come back fresh the next encounter. And those that are guilty but can rehabilitate? It's the only damn chance they got. The BETTER learn how to work the paper. No, they should calmly and with courtesy decline to sign a safety plan that suggests they have done something wrong if they haven't done anything wrong (innocent). Or, they should politely ask the caseworker to wait while they review the document with their attorney and receive her recommendation whether to sign it or not. And they should feel perfectly free to signal their cooperation to any judge waiting down the line somewhere in the process by editing and adding a line where the worker or supervisor (latter is prefered) has to sign it BEFORE the parent does, with witnesses who come with the parent. The safety plan already has a space for the worker and supervisor to sign. Both parties receive a copy, so I am not sure why the order of who signs first is important. Ah, tactics, Doug. Tactics. You do your editing and hand it too them unsigned. You DO NOT let them walk away with a copy with your signature on it without theirs. That's why you keep an unsigned copy yourself, and you don't sign the one you hand them. They could take it back and work it over and only sign it down the line when it suits them. Or never, and you know you've seen that. Hey, I'll tell you what. Let me sell you my pickup on contract. Write in the amount you'll pay, sign it and hand it to me and watch me walk away. How do you know I won't add a zero or two. NO no...put the price you'll pay on the paper, hand it too me, and even if I change your price and sign it YOU will be in control because your sig is NOT on it yet. You are free to change it again and hand it back, UNSIGNED BY YOU, until you are satisfied with the results. Get my drift here. Hell, I worked my way through college doing all kinds of things, and one was curbing cars. I could make about 2k per month doing it when that was a whoooooole lot of money. And I never handed a signed piece of paper to someone until they had signed it first. I can trust me. I can't trust you. And it's really that simple. And it's a super way to stall someone that wants to pull a fast one on you. sweetly "No, you first, please." Balking on the part of CPS at this point while retaining the child(ren) puts them in an untenable position in court. THEY didn't cooperate with perfectly reasonable requests of the parents. That's why the witnesses are important. Many a time CPS caves unless they have a solid case with ample evidence. Excellent advice. One does wonder, however, about what happens to those parents who do not have the savvy to proceed as you reccomend. One also wonders about all the people in the world cornered by the lion that don't have the savvy to throw it a bone before trying to run. Doug, one can argue forver with "yes but" Surely you know that. Don't yes butt me. Work through your "yes buts" until YOU have reached YOUR limit, then I might be able to come up with something "Yes but" just means I'm debating for effect and to keep from having to do something I want to be suspicious of because...well, because that's how most fools, like a few here, operate. In these cases, CPS proceeds to remove the children without ample evidence and a solid case. Doug. Have you seen me once deny that? What a nonsense argument. I can't stop them from doing that. They'll do it until the laws are piled up to the sky, and beyond. The idea is to develop a method for dealing with it. Not try to stop it. That way lies your police state, that in the end will become worse, as they always do. If you think CPS is hungry for business wait until you deal with cops. They want waaaay more toys than social workers want. Waaaay more expensive. Don't kid yourself about your favorite answer to CPS failure. It wil eat families alive. And fill those jails even fuller. The whole transaction takes on the tone of trickery and deceit. Preaching to the chorus. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. We are dealing with when it does. Stop pretending to more. It is an uneven playing field with the more powerful party willing to exploit the weaker unless the parents are privvy to outside information. Did you mean, inside information? That's the burden of society. All societies, and two or more is a society, have these kinds of challenges. Can't be stopped, only controlled. Frankly, though it makes my heart bleed...no sarcasm intended....there are those who will not learn to deal with any skill with the society they find themselves in. I've always been willing to teach people more skills. I do it all the time. I'm particularly disgusted with some of the stubborn numbskulls here, or was until I realilzed that WANT to be stupid...they think it will give them some kind of advantage and that it's really smart to be stupid. It doesn't sound much like "child protection," does it? I does. It sounds exactly like all agencies and functions of society work. Wobbly, but needed. I like them not TOO damn efficient. That is where folks can deal most effectively with them. Why do you think americans (and other folks) get up in arms over the curtailing of freedoms by increases in effeciency of people management? We know what we are doing, and one of the things I admired about Dan when I first came here was his adroit handling of the holes in the wobbly structure. And the payoff families got because of his neato numbers on the structure. This is one of the reasons why the systemic reform is called for. You will simply create a more efficient monster. Why do you think I'd be against an amendment that would appear, on the surface, to provide more protection for families? Hell, I like the idea, but I know it is crippled on it's premise..that it will cut anyone loose after the first few times it's involked. It will create a more efficient warrant mill and that's all it will do. At the minimum all parents have to be informed of how to negotiate the conditions of a safety plan. I tend to put the priority WAY over the minimum. That should be the subject of considerable study, and stop wasting their time with cries to defend their constitutional rights. It fails on the argument of children not being posessions with it's own dangers on having THAT go to the supreme court. No sane court is going to declare children property. In fact it could cause a fearce backlash from liberals. Blood everywhere and kids more being raised by "it takes a village" bull****. Just an excuse to preempt parents. If CPS was used right, instead of lied about, and deliberately crippled in what it supposed to do it could be the best tool the true conservative (not right with, just conserving) could hope for. So the advice I suggest in no way will help the guilty get their child back. Those instances should run the course to insure there WILL be compliance, but they can still and should, insist on both parties signing and outcomes spelled out clearly in the contract: "when steps one, two, three are completed the child will be returned within 48 hours" or words to that effect. In my jurisdiction a worker would not sign a safety agreement with such a stipulation because he or she could not commit to when a child would be returned. Then every family in the area needs to be canvassed and pamphleted to only agree to those terms should CPS show up at their door. Setting a time line on return of the child after the plan steps are completed is vital. It can have amendments to it, like 6 more months of supervison or whatnot, but it has to have a cutoff, or Doug, it is NOT a contract. All contracts require a completion date and criteria. All, and that is defensible in court. That decision is made later by what will then be a "team" of salaried experts who consider as one element the fact that the parent has completed "steps one, two and three." Nope. That is the weakness of the "fight CPS" crowd. They continually claim "it's hopeless, CPS has all the cards and they are big and we, poor dears, are helplessly small." All one has to do is be highly cooperative in some areas, and assertive in others, strategically. The stipulation more likely to be agreed to is that reunification will be considered when steps one, two and three have been completed. It Can read if no OTHER issues come up related to child safety. Surely a parent could deal with that. And it has to have time lines. The lack of them is a construct, and artificial barrier. In this lies the claim that the parent is "stupilating" to being guilty of something. That is the point of good tactics. Take that away from them but be very compliant about the required tasks. Hell, I've advised people to ask for MORE, and I'm sure got a laugh or ten here, and a claim that I'm a CPS apologist. Bull. It is exactly how to arrange for their defeat. "Ready, willing and Able, judge" is the message that needs to go out loud and clear. "haven't done a thing wrong but love to parent and parent well...read any good books lately you can recommend, judge? The client should become on the way to work on the way home weekends calling and leaving msgs for the worker, the biggest pleasant and cooperative pest on the planet. Look at how silly it makes the worker look that wants to claim that one BIGGIE THEY like to haul out at judicial hearings, "the client remains uncooperative and unwilling to participate in the assignments in her plan, your honor, or honorable CRB member." It won't fly. And the worker will know it. I know it sounds silly but it's based on rock solid human responses. I've tested it again and again. When I worked for others I used to get the best work evaluations because of it. I called it my, Okay boss, and what was the next thing I could work on to improve? Okay boss, and what next? Boss could you make some suggestions about my compusive drive toward perfection in my work?" Translated into workerese, it makes a little hero out of the worker. Putting the white hat on them, so to speak. A student loan office clerk taught me that. Had an apathetic loan officer. Clerk stopped me on the way out, "You've been hittin the books on loans and grants waaaaa too much. Let the loan officer save your butt" Ah ha, the light went on. I came back absolutely helpless the next week and watch an energized student loan councelor work his butt off for me. Same with anyone that goes into human services. Most are their because of a hero complex. Hey, I knows it when I sees it. Got a touch of it meself. ...Only if the parent's attorney has read the safety plan and advises the parent to sign it. One must be very careful not to stipulate to anything that may be determined to put the child at risk or suggest guilt, thereby negating their case at the adjucication hearing. This is the only opportunity the parent has to challenge CPS allegations and CPS has the burden of proof. That is exactly why the document should be returned with editing initialed by the parent but no signiture of the parent on it until CPS puts pen to paper. It's The Whore solution made sane and reasonable. But then his is not to get the child back but to sue later. That's an entirely different ballgame. Me, I want the child back. Don't call me when it's time to sue. I'm not well versed in that aspect. Agreeing to take a psychological evaluation from one of the therapists in CPS's stable is a crucial error. Bull**** again. You simply walk into the evaluation session with a copy of the evaluation of YOUR psychologist in hand and ask the current shrink, smiling of course, their opinion of this evaluation. Psychological evaluations for CPS are rarely -- if ever -- done by shrinks. oh stop the hair splitting. You certainly know that meant any kind of head shrinker, not just psychiatrists. Therapists (social workers, LPC's or sometimes psychologists) perform the evaluations, complete with assigning a DSM-IV diagnosis. Once you have the evaluation done by a therapist you have retained, there really is no reason to get the CPS therapist's opinion. Really? I think there is a very good reason. "the white hat" ploy for one. The other is your willingness to jump high for your kids. Think of what that would do to a judge when a lawyer says, "my client loves his child so much he is willing to under any level of pain, trouble, inconvenience, to convince the state of that love and have the child returned to him." I'm practically quoting what I've heard. Damn, don't you people know ANYTHING tactically? What actually works is so damn simple when you don't spend your time ranting hysterically to "kill CPS" when you are in no position to do so. Who has said that parents should kill CPS? You must miss alot in this ng. There was a claim that Brian Christine should have and would have and the poster said he would under similar circumstances. Want the citation? There is even Kill CPS posted in sig lines. Come on Doug. You are too full of your propaganda. It's clouding your judgement and your vision. You've let thugs go unchallenged here and it's becoming more and more noticable all the time. You are willing to challenge me when I'm only an insulting thug..r r r, but you let the ones that can and do advocate direct harm to workers, and by suggesting it, harm to a parent who might in their pain and despiration turn to violence. That doesn't go unnoticed. It might be forgiven but your credibility goes down a notch each time you let lies or threats go unchallenged FROM EITHER SIDE. If Dan said to kill abusive parents do you really think I would let that go unchallenged? Assholes like Greeg get exactly what they deserve based on exactly what they reveal here, but those that come here with decency and need are not threatened with death, and you know it, not by my side. So tell me, do you think, based on Gregs own story that he did no harm to the girl? That it is CPS fault that the child isn't in the home? That the Motion he posted here and was apparently presented to the court over his "fiances" signature, was calculated to get the child returned? How can you stomach him? As the Plant would say, "Shame on you." My worst cursing is nothing compared to the pain he delivered to that child. Mine causes momentary shock recovered from with a few words and a few minutes. That child gets to go to bed each night longing for her mother, painfully, for years. The reason I make it plain I don't like you is that you are lacking in moral fiber. It's that simple. You'll take a stand that's easy to maintain in this setting, but you'll igore what would be uncomfortable, to confront a "parent" r r r , that has lost "his" child and shows you just how he did it. Be a man. Stand for something besides endless debate with me on hairsplitting. They can STILL show the court their willingness to take the CPS pscyh eval. That is a very powerful statement. Of course if they ARE nuts this will bite them in the butt, but I have not a qualm about that. I prefer they face the truth. 1 Don't you? Psych evaluations have little to do with determining if someone is "nuts." You sir, are dead wrong. Dangerous conditions, to the victim and to others around him or her are clearly established by diagnosis and actions to protect all parties can be taken. One mother that used to regularly, when she got off her meds against orders, would swim her 2 to 6 month old baby out into a major river here. Usually a fisherman would come across them, both naked on an island somewhere and rescue them. This in freezing weather. She finally got it when once again her diagnosis was shared with her during a time she was stable, and someone had video taped her in the river. She screamed and cried when she saw the women in the river with the baby. She froze up when she saw the faces up close. She reliquished her baby shortly after, and now has a wonderful open adoption with a family that will keep both of them safe and connected, I hate what you say about CPS not because you are wrong, but because you do not say what is right, and you exaggerate and frankly you lie, far too much. You should be ashamed of yourself. Psych evals always result in a determination that criteria for one or more DSM-IV diagnoses have been met. Some of the labels are relatively mild, while others are major. All are negative. There is little point in your point. One of the major problems in the publics misperception of psychological evaluations. Yes. Why do you continue to perpetrate that misperception? It isn't an entertainment. The purpose is to chart a course of tx and often rx. And protect that person and those around them. That evaluation report will be provided to the client (the parent). Evaluators in CPS stable make a good deal of their income (if not all) from CPS and they provide the parent's evaluation report to their client (CPS). If a stable therapist doesn't have a history of saying what CPS wants to hear they are taken out of the stable. You are as usual either lying or badly misinformed. A few months back I spent a profitable afternoon, three billable hours, consulting with a worker that was finding a counselor evaluating (obviously to route a family back to MORE therapy) with bias...in fact three involved therapists. Nothing you have said above or below disputes what I have said. And it will always be up to the CPS worker to act on or ignore the psych eval. Taxpayer money need not be spent on consultants to so advise their caseworkers. Caseworkers routinely ignore the findings of a psych eval if it doesn't fit in with their plan. Lower slobbovia again doug? They don't where I come from. The only ignore when the practitioners overstep the reasonable application of the evaluations. And you yourself said caseworkers are not diagnosticians. So who will do the evaluations? And caseworker malfeasance is not an excuse for stripping clients of needed services. Stop that. The resolution? With my facilitation of the worker examining the circumstances and what SHE knew the family needed: reuniting without further services divided up between the three shrinks, just a few wind-up sessions for the family together, that little bull**** number by the shrinks ended. There is a lot of bull**** numbers pulled up by CPS stable therapists. Is a family's chances restricted to hoping the caseworker hires a consultant? You must live in hell. I see a lot of very careful work that results in a great deal of healing and recovery and children returned because children can be parented safely after parent treatment. I heard the howl from 50 miles away, but this is not an unusual action by a worker. I had to remind her that she was the case manager, not the shrinks. And they hadn't a decent argument to support their evaluation. Right. It is not an unusual action by a worker. Something a caseworker does all the time without a consultant. Who was howling? The therapists. It was one of those "treatem' the the end of the grant" numbers and the worker put her foot down. That particular worker, and there are something of a surplus of them in CPS, was, surprize, a licensed clinical social worker with about 8 years of therapeutic experience herself. Her services to vet some of her collegues cases came in handy and tamed the therapeutic world just a tad. You have a good one. Kane |
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The Plant answer DNA swab Question
Kane writes:
You are mistaken when it comes to assessing danger to themselves or others in an investigation. They simply lack the means at hand, if they are alone. Hence, as you have pointed out yourself, they take along someone that can act if a threat is presented, and they sure as hell DO sign complaints of criminal conduct if they are threatened. Hi, Kane! Yes, CPS workers commonly have police officers accompany them (termed a courtesy call or assist) on home visits. And, as I have said, the officers role in such situations is to protect the worker. In most cases, it is quickly discovered that the worker is in no physical danger. They try, by order, to avoid it as much as possible because part of their job is to induce the parent to rehabilitate themselves and an arrest isn't the best of starting places, don't you think? Well, in these situations, arrest would not occur unless the parents assualted the worker or threatened bodily harm. As mentioned, this rarely occurs. While the investigator may not be trained to detain someone they have at their disposal, with the full support of the court under the law, LEO's to do the hands on work. If you don't think so, try getting in the face of a CPS investigator and see what happens. CPS workers do not have the power to detain adults and children only when they have a court order. Hair splitting again. It's obvious to any reader with half a brain that I am NOT going to define the circumstances, as you would wish, continuously down to infinity so you wan't have to respond. They know that I am not referring to all cases, as you yourself invoke on YOUR behalf later in this post. Law enforcement officers, who often accompany CPS workers as a courtesy can only arrest, detain or otherwise act in accordance with their regular procedures. In other words, if the officer acts, he acts in his capacity of enforcing criminal law not as an adjunct to the CPS worker's civil authority. Are you going to continue to prove my point but try to twist it into a refutation by claiming, yet again, wearily that I meant something I did not say? It is good we have this clarified then. I took your wording to mean that CPS workers had all the powers of law enforcement and that police made arrests as an extension of the CPS worker's civil authority. If my wording agrees with your intent, as you state above, then we are agreed that police make arrests based upon their own, criminal criteria and not CPS's civil criteria. And, further, that police are there to protect the worker from assault or threat of same. Lacking a police escort they'll simply leave and go get one and the next encounter will not be as polite. There won't even be a question until the misinformed person is in cuffs. Not so. Or are you going to say again that this only happens in some cases? It does happen in those cases where citizens are charged with violating criminal law. Yes, it does happen when citizens are charged with violating criminal law. Since the vast majority of CPS child abuse/neglect actions do not involve charges of criminal law violations, such cases would be unusual. Which would be the circumstance during an investigation where the worker comes under criminal threat. Do I have to spell everything I say out to an entire encyclopedia, or are you going to stop playing your silly journalistic mind squat? I am glad we are in agreement. And that is a perfect way to precipitate removal of children if you wish to advise people to refuse to cooperate. The parent's response depends upon the individual situation, of course. Could there be a more profound truth in your post? I think not. How could you assume I would not write with that obvious fact in mind? Did you want me to google up a post where you advise parents to send CPS packing and not cooperate at all? Why, did you think I'd deny it. Some circumstances call for complete non-cooperation. I'd say the instant you are presented with a criminal charge, you do not speak, you do not sign anything, and you only ask for your attorney. This isn't rocket science. Dan keeps it simple. So do I but you want me to run out every scenario, and even then you'll still go rambling on finding something obscure to bring up. No. Nothing obscure. In the run and mill of CPS interventions, situations vary tremendously and each require different responses. You are becoming tiresomely transparent in you "debating" methods. Did you want the children removed in such cases? If it's as I described above that would not be a matter of choice. When the parent goes out in handcuffs it's usually only a few minutes before the child(ren) leave as well in the DHS car. Or if it was a kickdown the door situation in the middle of the night, then the cop will drop them at the 24/7 receiving center/shelter, or whatever they call it in your area. ....."A 72-hour hold." Police in our area, like all the states, have always had the absolute power to remove children and take them into custody. Physicians enjoy this same power. CPS workers in all but a couple of states, do not have such authority. Police and doctors rarely exercise their power to remove children. Do you so advise? If the above does not answer your question, please let me know. The parent's correct response depends upon the multiple, unique variables involved in their particular situation. It depends upon what brings the worker to the door. It is impossible to answer that question generally. The why do you insist that I answer YOU specifically constantly, when you know yourself each scenario is a speculation based on variable circumstances. I think we agree. |
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The Plant answer DNA swab Question
Continuing my response to Kane's single post....
Kane writes: Are you aware that they only difference between a private citizen and a sworn police officer lies in some very finely tuned areas of when and when they cannot shot? Laws in most states, which I've studied, point that out clearly. No, I did not know that. Do you think this has practical application to the citizen on the street? I can arrest someone. If I lack the means to detain them or they will not follow my legal order to desist and be detained then they are guilty, should they prove to have done the crime, of resisting arrest as surely if they had fought a cop. Interesting. I did not know that, either. A cop does the same thing you or I are authorized to do should we witness a crime. He or she has to sign a "complaint" or get you or I too sign one. All he is is the instrument of detainment...it's called arrest. It means to stop the progress from the scene of the alleged perp. Of course, cops arrest plenty of people they did not witness doing the crime. I imagine you and I would have some difficulty doing it, though. If a worker is questioning a parent and becomes aware of a criminal offense, and choses to pursue the investigation as criminal at that point, they can immediately order the perp to stay put, and wait for an officer to affect the physical custody and transport of the perp. The officer will only effect the arrest if his investigation or observation gives him probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed under his department's criteria. In other words, he does not arrest on behalf of the CPS caseworker or under color of the worker's civil laws, but under the color of criminal law. He must have probable cause, independent of anything the CPS bureaucrat may believe, to make the arrest. The arrest is made under criminal procedures established by his department. As to the CPS worker "ordering the 'perp' to stay put, you have told us that any citizen can do this. If so, then this exercise of verbal audastity is hardly a hallmark of CPS worker authority. You, my little friend, don't know diddly squat. I know that CPS workers do NOT have as much authority as a police investigator. As for the shooting part, the difference between a cop and a citizen is that I, a private citizen actually have more leeway, proven by case law, to use deadly force (sometimes shooting, but restricted to that instrument) in defense of myself or others based on my PERCIEVED theat by the perp. The Cop, while he can do the same, is held to a higher level of what is and isn't a perceived threat. But when the moment comes he or I can shoot, legally. Hopefully, we will not arm CPS bureaucrats. He may have slightely more leeway or restraint based on rules of his agency. But little in fact. So, smart ass, if a worker has the means and the questioned person is a percieved threat the worker could use deadly force to protect him or herself or others. Sure. Any citizen has the right to use deadly force to protect his or her own life. We have the right to protect ourselves against life-threatening attack. However, if we "perceive" that another citizen has otherwise violated some criminal law, the question is whether we have remedy if we "order" them to stay somewhere or detain them. If there is an implied threat of consequence if they do not choose to be "detained," that sounds like kidnapping to me. In either case, if these are rights extended all citizens they are not exclusive to the authority of CPS bureaucrats. Because workers have policy and practice to contend with they go waaaay out of their way to avoid having to use such force, but they can. Look up the law in your area about what a private citizen can and cannot do in the way of use of deadly force. I have held licenses pertaining to same in four states. As far as protecting their own lives, I understand and agree with your contention. If the police officer acts, he acts in enforcing criminal law and under his agency's guidelines for arrest or detainment, not the civil authority of the caseworker. The point was and still is that we are, and YOU have made that clear, looking at different situations, different variables from case to case. I pointed out one in refutation of The Whore's general claim of who can do what. He was wrong. You are wrong to split hairs. Yet again. In lieu of that, they offer the parties involved options to cooperate in the best interests of all. If they refuse, it's LEO time. Now, this appears to be a different ballgame. I understand you to say here that if the parents do not cooperate "in the best interests of all" (defined by the caseworker) then cops swing into action. Are you still talking about a CPS worker defending herself? Are you saying in all cases or just some cases? When a person doesn't say "all' or "some" given the real world where it is rarely a matter of "all" would you not presume I meant "some?" It's always some unless the writer says all. Why do you think CPS investigators so often have the police meet them at the site of the investigation? Coffee and donuts? It is a common procedure done to protect the worker. Ho hum. Could you please not waste so much of my time proving me to be correct in my claims? It really makes you look manipulative and stupid. On the other hand, CPS is not the only player, as you well know. The just CAN order the parent and can take action if the parent does not. The investigator goes to the judge within a set number of hours after initial contact for that assignment of their enforcement role...by the judge. And the document produced is the same one presented to the feds for IV-E funding. You betcha one exists. As I mentioned in my prior post, courts were involved with only an estimated 17.5% of 517,449 child victims in 2001. http://tinyurl.com/9uhv Most CPS investigations do not involve the courts and it is rare that a worker will go to a judge for an order at this stage of the investigation. If she does, she will need to have gathered enough evidence so far in the investigation to establish probable cause. Bull****ting again, Doug. This number varies considerably. But it is not true. Virtually all such cases, after the initial visit, are going to court. It is required by law in all states I've every dealt with and certainly by ASFA. Nope. The majority of child abuse and neglect cases, substantiated or not, do not involve the courts in any way. If the numbers vary considerably, which is not true? All I did was cite the USDHHS NCANDS data, which reports that 17.5% of child victims had a court involved in their case. http://tinyurl.com/9uhv All I did was say you are full of ****. I know that once or twice a day you aren't, but that doesn't diminish the fact that part of the day you are. Now what is your point in popping up stats that fly in the face of what no doubt five or six posters here know to be true. The worker has to appear in court with reason to retain custody or return the child home, or not remove the child at all. In all cases the judge can, at the suggestion of the PS worker, or the judges discretion, chose TC by the state, or the court...varies state to state....or not at all. But that worker damn well better attend to the court in this initial taking of the child into anykind of custody, or NOT doing so if a credible allegation was made. ....The worker has a court order before removing the child. When the caseworker does remove the child, she is in Temporary Custody (TC) of the state. That makes it, except for something that would have to be some kind of rare snafu, like the worker getting in an auto accident on the way to court or some such, damn close to 100%. What those percentages are, once again, is your incessant tomfoolerly with data that doesn't apply to the actual issue at hand. The disposition of the child at the END OF A CASE is what that referes to...did a court have involvement, after that initial decision on TC? Was there a show cause hearing for termination? Was there a termination trial. No, the numbers refer to any court involvement at all. When looking at the percentage -- which seems to bother you -- keep in mind that we are talking the percentage of children substantiated in all child abuse and neglect findings. The vast majority of children substantiated as victims of child abuse or neglect are not removed from their homes. We know that in at the very least it can be around 60% or so that don't ever get to that level and the child is reunited. Many children in foster care and later returned to their homes had a court involved in their case at least once. They would be counted. The data on that is all over the place. That figure easily can contain 17% or so that didn't go as far as trial. In fact I'd say it's like sloppy reportage and the figure should be MORE, much MORE. No, the statistics refer to ANY court involvement, not just trials for Termination of Parental Rights. There are relatively few such trials, with a large percentage of them ending with the petition for termination being denied. In TPR proceedings, CPS must meet the "clear and convincing evidence" test, due to a US Supreme Court decision on due process rights. That doesn't make CPS or the courts guilty of malfeasance or mistake. It's normal. And damn good if you ask me. I'm stunned at how few get to court later, and that suggests strongly to me, that while CPS is charged with following up on allegations it's doing quite a job getting those kids reunited with family. Your crap should be lapping at your chin by now. You can cut a fine hair on this one and say, no it isn't, but then you have to deal with the fact that the state will be penalized under ASFA if they do not in fact take every case where there is a removal of a child to a judge in a set number of hours. The vast majority of children who are substantiated as victims of child abuse or neglect are NOT removed from their homes at any time before, during or after the investigation. http://tinyurl.com/9psd I ran into a fairly young PS worker today where I go for lunch. She's quite candid with me. I've helped her return children to families. She is not the only one. Every PS worker I've talked with, and it's been many, tell me they do NOT want to remove children. And when they do what they want is the fastest road possible to reuniting. Many children don't even have their cases get past intake (the PS unit) before they are back home. I am glad to hear that you are helping CPS workers return children to their families. I wonder how the worker is free to breach confidentiality in such cases. In what capacity do you find yourself helping a worker one on one with a family? And what calls upon the worker to seek and accept help from a member of the general public to reunite children with their parents? I don't intend to ridicule here at all. I am just curious as to your role. Apparently, I have misunderstood it. In my experience, most CPS workers do not want to remove children from their homes. However, many feel powerless to fight their own bureaucracies. They do as they are told. The situation becomes even more complicated after the child is in state custody. Then, the question about returning them home is up to many more people than just the caseworker's supervisor and their bureaucracy. By then, GAL's, juvenile officers, therapists, foster caregivers, "consultants," group home administrators, attorneys and others are involved in the "team" decision. (Decisions are usually reached before the actual 90-day permanency hearings, where the parents finally attend. Members of the "team" touch bases to "make sure they are on the same page" prior to these meetings). During the discussions prior to and during the permanency meetings, one of the caseworker's jobs is to advocate on behalf of the family being reunited. But she or he is but one voice. I asked her if she felt children were being taken for frivolous reasons. She is too open and naive to sneedle me. She would have blushed. Her answer was, anything but. We can't respond to all the calls at the level we feel is needed for safety for the children. If she wanted to keep her job, she would have been a fool to say anything else. Caseworkers do have forums to present their viewpoints on practice. Former and current caseworkers are among the harshest of critics on current removal policies. But they are expected not criticize their agencies work with members of the public -- most especially members of the news media. If she knows you well enough to have lunch with you, she is probably aware of your stance on these matters. She was telling you what you wanted to hear. She may or may not have been doing that intentionally. It's a scramble to find the time and staff to respond and what with budget cuts, lots of folks retiring, it's getting worse. She is scared of what she thinks is coming. Not for her job. She's an MSW that is also a LCSW. In my opinion, CPS caseworkers are crippled by spending too much of their time investigating unfounded cases. The vast majority of investigated/assessed cases are unsubstantiated. I think it is wonderful that an LCSW is involved in entry level casework. However, it concerns me that she in that position without specializing in the child welfare track for her MSW. Further, I have to wonder why an LCSW would be doing this low-paying work instead of reaping the usual financial rewards of private practice. I am puzzled why she would spend two + years in clinical practice to get her LCSW and then take a job as a CPS caseworker. As you may know, the biggest single complaint among social work academics and others in the profession is that too many graduate social work students are going into preparation for clinical work. The charge is made, of course, that they are "selling out" for the bigger pay of clinical practice. For the uninitiated reader, let me explain. Students in graduate social work programs are required to choose a specialty and spend most of their time during the 1 1/2 to 2 years in school taking classes in that specialty. One such specialty is child welfare. Others include chemical dependency, administration, social action, macro-group practice, and clinical practice. Candidates for an LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) must do supervised clinical work for two years after receiving their MSW (Masters in Social Work) before becoming licensed as a LCSW. An LCSW is a therapist. While most people think of psychologists when the word "therapist" is mentioned, the majority of therapists are, in fact, social workers. An LCSW can enter private practice. (Psychologists must have a Ph.D. to do clinical practice). My point to Kane is that his luncheon companion left a highly paid position to take on a lesser paying position. She did not specialize in child welfare, which would have been a far better choice for this line of work. At any rate, Kane, I think your jurisdiction is very lucky to have her working in the agency. I commend her for what appears to be her choice of working in the trenches instead of next to a couch. (Actually, sofas are out of date now. One of many antiques that went out with the increasing challenge of Freud and psychodynamic theory). I asked her what brought the children into care. What happens that families lose children. She agrees with your 10% sexual abuse...but I'm asking myself where the CDC and the DOJ gets their figure of one in three females are sexually abuse? Must be the perps wait until they reach their majority, right? No. I would like to see the Department of Justice figures -- a normal citation will be fine, a URL better. To my knowledge, the only people to make such an inflated claim were the writers of "The Courage to Heal" and the San Francisco writer I mentioned in our previous discussion of this subject. I am fully aware I could be wrong. Please point out the DOJ stuff so I can take a lot at it. Next she said it's mostly abuse and neglect, with neglect running slightly ahead. I asked what she thought the cause was and it went like this. "Mary, what do you think the cau.........." "Meth" Nationwide, neglect accounts for a substantial majority of removals, as you know. And, yes, methamphetamine is becoming increasingly problematic -- especially the manufacture of it. While mom's substance abuse problem in itself should not be cause for removal, possession of all of the chemicals used for the manufacture of meth is cause for automatic removal in some states -- for very good reason. Very caustic, dangerous stuff. She didn't wait for me to finish. Meth meth meth, then she said thoughtfully, and mental illness, what the pros call "Dual Diagnosis." The current flavor of the month is "co-occurring disorders." Dual diagnosis has taken on a new meaning in current practice. It refers to those who are dependent on more than one substance. Co-occurring Disorders, on the other hand, refers to someone with a chemical dependency problem and a mental illness, each with its own DSM-IV number, of course. Many clinicians still refer informally to the latter as "dual diagnosed." But the correct current terminology is co-occurring because it is rightfully thought that the latter term better describes the dynamics between the two problems. But you probably know how the terminology goes in this profession .. . . flavors of the month today become indigestible tomorrow. Not just meth, and not just mental illness but the two combined. Of course, it is a grave mistake to attempt to measure the latter in early-stage recovery or practicing addiction. Since symptoms of addiction tend to mimic Axis II personality disorders and other pathology, it is important to wait until the patient comes down before evaluating for MI. I agree with her that co-occurring disorders are more prevalent. Residential substance abuse centers are increasingly called upon to treat co-occurring disorders. (Successful treatment requires that both disorders be treated concurrently). I'll tell you something I feel very sure of and no flaming or silliness intended. My sense is that we have more than one methhead right on this ng. I understand that you do not intend to flame anyone. I wonder, though, how you can determine substance dependency based upon what a member posts to the newsgroup. I mention this in all due respect -- it is not my intention to flame anyone, either. I worked with drug rehab for years, and I've listen to thousands of hours of babble of methheads, and when I come here it echoes in my head exactly like the memories of my drug work. LOL! Well, the talkative presentation style diminishes during acute withdrawal, usually three days into social detox at the rehab. Presenting problems persisting in early recovery, however, are pretty devastating. The thought flow problems persist, as do major disruptions in pleasure/joy perceptions. Anger. Paranoid thinking patterns pepper most social interactions, even among fellow recovering addicts. There is mounting evidence that methamphetamine does permanent damage to the pleasure center of the brain, complicating a recovering person's search for alternative avenues of fulfillment. Nasty stuff. There is some evidence that methamphetamine users are becoming increasingly involved in child protection cases. Given the monumental push among law enforcement officials to locate and prosecute meth users and makers, it is possible one system is impacting the other. This is especially true in the midwestern part of the country. Meth users are likely to engage in other activities that would catch the eye of child protective workers. They tend to isolate their families, tape up their windows, and work throughout the night dismantling vehicles and losing the parts. They do tend to have clean houses, though. g |
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The Plant answer DNA swab Question
Continuing my response to Kane's single post . . . .
Kane writes: Nor are the parents under any obligation to sign the agreement. That depends entirely upon the evidence uncovered. But you are correct that is not obligatory. They can refuse and take the consequences. Yes. And an investigation has to take place to gather evidence. If the safety plan suggests they have done something they haven't done, they should not sign it. Dan has also suggested, if I understand him, that the parent should not sign anything without first consulting their attorney. This is rather far outside the topic of the claim I made. It isn't anything I have an argument with. In fact I have made the same suggestion myself. Though I've also made the suggestion that some attorney's are worth spit in such matters. They may well urge the client to agree to things they should not, and have been known to do so as reported in this ng. Hi, Kane! I agree that many attorney's do not understand this area of the law and do misrepresent parents. I believe, if I understand him correctly, that Dan advises not signing in just such circumstance, and signing and performing the plan if it does no define the signer as being guilty of some shortcomings. I have suggested before to families in similar circumstances that they do what business people do with such things. Simply get up with the document in hand, walk out of the meeting with the words, "I will have to review this CONTRACT and I will get back to you in three working days with my decision." Yep. Good procedure. Yep. And I'm not the orginator. Unless you are under arrest or being detained by the police (and even then you may well get away with it) that puts you back in control without appearing in any way uncooperative. In fact you can insist that you are cooperating MORE fully by your care and consideration of the CONTRACT. Precisely. I agree. I should hope. Don't know about the precision. You can run it at your leisure by an attorney, or use it to line your birdcage, but it important to think about your children who have been taken, if they have, and proceed with that in mind. I think your suggestions are excellent. I would think they would be particularly effective in cases where the child has not been removed but CPS is seeking to provide services. Often done under the implied or stated threat of removal, these cases are more common. It't common in other circumstances like these to treat the contracts with care, making and initialing needed changes (representing your interests), and with a service plan or safety plan (call it what you will in your area) include what the other party will do, and do not sign it until they do in your presence and that of a witness you have produced. All safety plans (treatment plans) should specify what CPS will do and the worker (supervisor) signs as a party. What..........did.................I............... just............say? You playing at "little echo"? ....Emphasis on ALL. ALL treatment plans should specify what each party will do. My point was even CPS will tell you that...it is a standard condition -- in fact, the very essence of the safety plan. My point is that we are not discussing anything novel. Adding conditions, as you suggest, is an excellent idea. Absolutely. The willingness to sign is vital to being able to can their asses later in court, should the need arise. Only hand them back one copy...r r r r, keep the other for evidence of your attempt to comply. Good idea. Parents should not be surprised if the caseworker refuses to sign, Whatever did you think my point was? The worker has two choices, sign and live with the results, which means the family damn well will get the kid back, which according to PS workers recently inteviewed is exactly what they want, or refuse and have that to deal with later. Yes. I understand. I can see this procedure working in many situations where CPS is seeking to secure a safety plan for an intervention. Most of these efforts will be made when the child has not been removed. My point was, in cases where the child has been removed, the individual worker may not be ABLE to agree to returning the child should the parent meet her conditions of the safety plan. I have sent out an email to workers in states around the country to check on their procedures. In jurisdictions I am familiar with, the decision to return the child is made by a team of people. In these jurisdictions, the caseworker could not sign a safety plan guaranteeing the return of the child in a certain time frame because it would be beyond his power to unilaterally perform that part of the contract (returning the child). however, because she does not agree with the conditions. The point you miss, or do you really, is the one Dan keeps making so eloquently and the little turds here keep running from, is that you agree to what is reasonable...that gives you BIG JUJU. I do miss this point. In fact, I understand and agree with your point. The problem in this ng is that the turds keep diverting reall needy folks who could profit by Dan's carefully thought out and FULLY TESTED WITH SUCCESSES advice and insist on being unreasonable as hell with self serving self centered selfish (am I getting across to you?) motives that will torpedo others here that really DO want their children back if they are sucked in by the blood suckers. Don't you be one too, Doug. I'd like to see better of you. What you see is what you get, for better or for worse. g Now think that over...the bit about how to corner and defeat CPS by agreeing to the reasonable. Hell, one can even agree to some of the unreasonable just to show their asses up in court. ....If the unreasonable does not compromise the parent's position or stipulate to allegations the parent can later challenge at the evidencial hearing (adjudication), where the merits of the child abuse/neglect allegations will be weighed. The game is best played with careful attention to logistics though. I'm including those. I'm very good at those. Dan hot with tactics, but when it comes to the low level mechanics, I'm probably unbeatable. I know what you mean about timing, logistics, etc. I would appreciate you sharing some of the insights you have gained, when you have the time. I even will tell folks, given the color of the form, what color ink to use. Carry three pens. Black, blue, and red. All heavy tips that mark broadly. YOUR marks must stand out over theirs. Remeber, that document will last all the way to a courtroom, and YOU do not want to look wimply when the judge sees it. Interesting. Orientation to detail can be very effective. CPS bureaucrats know that the devil is in the details, but they are not accustomed to being bitten by them. I admire your focus. But you do want to look like you mean to follow through, and willingness to agree in bold strokes is a mind bender for the Workers and their Supers. Beautiful. You can be polite, calm, businesslike, but not obnoxious, and you will get the job done if you are innocent. If you aren't well, you can use my methods and go **** up a rope. They are designed to catch you as much as free the innocent. In such an instance, what would you suggest the parent do? Answered above. Make it reasonable changes, like don't try for the whole pot on the first hand, and you aren't going to see a lot of refusal. They may want to run it by Momma super, but it's likely to come back with their little chicken scratches and you can boldly mark it up again. Of course -- offer, counter-offer. Moma super amending the contract opens the entire document for reconsideration and amendment, no? Wonderful. Back and forth. Each passage amounts to a bell for the judge to wake up...that is if the worker hasn't heard if first and just runs you through the plan and out the other end with babes in arms. It is FAR less likely to get to termination if you think and act tactictly. Well, hopefully it stops the case far, far short of termination. I think this is what you mean. The approach would be highly effective in cases where the child remains in home as well as those where the parent seeks rapid return of the child. ("Rapid" is used in a relative sense, of course). My first encounter with CPS was very much like that. They caved. No service agreement contract was completed and the child was not removed from the parent. Fantasic. I can see this approach working in just this way under similar circumstances -- BEFORE the child is removed. My take is that this would be the best situation for this approach. This situation is certainly the more common. I'm not a lawyer and I don't give legal advice but I do point out what is sensible and well within any legal constraints or expectations. When asked to sign a contract one can refuse and take the consequences, or they can agree with stipulations as I've pointed out, time and editing priveleges, and refuse to sign a one sided contract...as it isn't unless both sides are represented. An agreement can be one sided, but a contract cannot and should not. So the object is to turn the onesided pile of crap into a nice two sided bouquet of flowers. While they are sometimes called "agreements", safety plans/treatment plans/service plans are contracts requiring the agreement of both parties. Are we becoming sweethearts or something? While I appreciate the effort of clarifying if it's meant to help the reader, assuming they need our help, it can look like more nonsense reframing to refute. Don't do that. You'll be wasting my effort to educate. I did not intend to reframe or to refute. I meant to convey that safety plans (or treatment plans) are supposed to be contracts....they are intended to include conditions each side agrees to perform. In other words, this is what the instruments are supposed to be, regardless of the parent's push for them to be that way. You are right that the parent does have to push for tits in return for their tats. Suffice to say that we agree. And no, you are wrong on detail. It may LOOK like it's a two party agreement if all the content is about what YOU will do and nothing substancial about what the other will do, it's not a contract. It's toilet paper. An example: If it says, "Ms Client Millie will attend parenting classes, deliver herself and for bottle filling on demand, attend anger management therapy, and visit her children 4 times a week during her normal working hours at the bank, Ms Prissyass Worker will give serious and long contemplative consideration to the possiblility she might and maybe ask the judge if on his worst days he'll burp out "six more months" then we don't have a contract. We have an agreement that this is just rough toilet paper. Used at that. It should read much closer to: Parenting classes one night a week for the 10 week duration (mom) During which the child will remain with the mother (worker) Show for drug testing once a week (mom) If a drug evaluation shows risk of drug use in the recent past (worker) Attendance at an anger management class and ACOA or a twelve step to learn to deal with the other parties drug and anger issues (mom) (worker signs on for this too...meaningfull classes in the real world) (and don't give me **** about 12 steps being confession to drug or alcohol use. I have attended and I got a lot from it and have never been a drunk or drug user and I've seen many workers there that are attending with their clients out of real concern for them and their children) Hopefully, you attended "open meetings." Closed meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous are restricted to those who have a problem with drinking. I would hope that caseworkers would also honor the traditions of their host, Alcoholics Anonymous. They should not, under any circumstances, attend closed meetings with their client unless the caseworker has a problem with alcohol and has a desire to quit drinking. You get my drift here on how to tune up and maintain a contract? Yes I do. Good stuff. The last line should read, Upon completion of these time delimited and completion based activities or assignments, full legal custody of Annie, Sammy, Buster, and Julio wille be fully restored to client Millie. x sign here, and x sign here. I am following you fine, but here is where I run into a logistical problem. In my jurisdiction -- and others -- the caseworker and his supervisor do not have sole authority over returning the child. Therefore, the caseworker could refuse to sign a safety plan with a condition for return of full custody of the child because it is beyond her power to fullfil that condition. You see my point? What would you advise a parent who gets such a response from the caseworker? By the way, if you do make editing changes to the document, do both copies and keep one for yourself unsigned. Innocent Parents often mistakenly sign this plan under actual or perceived threats. You are correct. The innocent mistakenly sign this plan. They should simply go to the wall and fight CPS from the getgo, having their children in foster care for up to a year, maybe year and a half, and very possibly lose them in the end. Are you saying that children are removed and forcibly kept in custody for a year and a half just because an innocent parent does not sign a service plan? No, I think I was saying DON'T DO THAT. It a suggestion of the idiots here. Play the fight the CPS game when your kids are on the line...oh sure. BTW, I never suggested that innocent parents "go to the wall and fight CPS from the getgo." Did I seem to single you out? Sorry. I meant some of the people YOU rarely (I've only seen once I think) have engaged when they suggest such garbage. You really do have to stop trying to fence walk Doug. It's very ugly. I know you think it look professional but tolerating some of the junk here with no comment, or coming back at me for going after them starts to put a little mud on your skirts you don't need. There are a host of options other than signing the plan as is or fighting CPS from the getgo. You have shared some of those options. Well, you can call HSLDA and if they decide they want to, maybe they'll get on the horn and start amendment spouting. That will last about ten seconds and the other worker waiting in the judges chambers with phone to ear will be the double beep that says..."go for it, warrant time." And you can be sure that when PS workers across the nation see that amendment HSLDA helped with there will be a new industry born. And if you think reasons to get a warrant can be obtained in the majority of cases you don't know police work. I am in favor of the new ammendment to ASFA that was recently passed by Congress. It specifies that workers must tell parents what the allegations against them are and inform them of their rights. It also requires that caseworkers be trained in Constitutional rights, including rights to due process. The tiniest of scratches or even the testimony of a witness that they exist can trigger a warrant. I put it to you that this new amendment to ASFA isn't going to do a damn thing but make the swim longer and the water deeper. If a warrant has to be served what do you think that is going to do to influence CRBs and family court judges? I think there will be far less intrusions into homes. If you are in a corner and you have some scraps to through the lion why would you think that grabbing a twig and fighting for your life would be the best strategy. Feed the damn thing while you work your way out of the danger. LOL! I like the analogy. I would prefer to feed the damn thing until I was out of danger. Do I like that? Naw. I'd rather find an ax and cut his head off and have HIM for lunch, but that isn't how it works and you know it. True. I don't want to see workers at the door of innocent people any more than you do. But I am realistic enough to know that in the course of trying put some kind of limits on child abuse that it will happen, and can happen very often indeed. Yes. We agree. Giving the worker and those backing them some paper to look at, and holding off signing for a reasonable time...think about that a bit...gives you the breathing room to reconsider, call up a friend or two, that knows how to deal with it, and then come back fresh the next encounter. Absolutely! And those that are guilty but can rehabilitate? It's the only damn chance they got. The BETTER learn how to work the paper. No, they should calmly and with courtesy decline to sign a safety plan that suggests they have done something wrong if they haven't done anything wrong (innocent). Or, they should politely ask the caseworker to wait while they review the document with their attorney and receive her recommendation whether to sign it or not. And they should feel perfectly free to signal their cooperation to any judge waiting down the line somewhere in the process by editing and adding a line where the worker or supervisor (latter is prefered) has to sign it BEFORE the parent does, with witnesses who come with the parent. The safety plan already has a space for the worker and supervisor to sign. Both parties receive a copy, so I am not sure why the order of who signs first is important. Ah, tactics, Doug. Tactics. You do your editing and hand it too them unsigned. You DO NOT let them walk away with a copy with your signature on it without theirs. That's why you keep an unsigned copy yourself, and you don't sign the one you hand them. They could take it back and work it over and only sign it down the line when it suits them. Or never, and you know you've seen that. Okay, I see your point. It is well taken. Hey, I'll tell you what. Let me sell you my pickup on contract. Write in the amount you'll pay, sign it and hand it to me and watch me walk away. How do you know I won't add a zero or two. NO no...put the price you'll pay on the paper, hand it too me, and even if I change your price and sign it YOU will be in control because your sig is NOT on it yet. You are free to change it again and hand it back, UNSIGNED BY YOU, until you are satisfied with the results. Get my drift here. Yes, I do. Hell, I worked my way through college doing all kinds of things, and one was curbing cars. I could make about 2k per month doing it when that was a whoooooole lot of money. And I never handed a signed piece of paper to someone until they had signed it first. I can trust me. I can't trust you. And it's really that simple. And it's a super way to stall someone that wants to pull a fast one on you. sweetly "No, you first, please." ....With emphasis on sweetly, of course. Balking on the part of CPS at this point while retaining the child(ren) puts them in an untenable position in court. THEY didn't cooperate with perfectly reasonable requests of the parents. That's why the witnesses are important. Many a time CPS caves unless they have a solid case with ample evidence. Excellent advice. One does wonder, however, about what happens to those parents who do not have the savvy to proceed as you reccomend. One also wonders about all the people in the world cornered by the lion that don't have the savvy to throw it a bone before trying to run. Doug, one can argue forver with "yes but" Surely you know that. Don't yes butt me. Work through your "yes buts" until YOU have reached YOUR limit, then I might be able to come up with something "Yes but" just means I'm debating for effect and to keep from having to do something I want to be suspicious of because...well, because that's how most fools, like a few here, operate. In these cases, CPS proceeds to remove the children without ample evidence and a solid case. Doug. Have you seen me once deny that? What a nonsense argument. I can't stop them from doing that. They'll do it until the laws are piled up to the sky, and beyond. Well, efforts still have to be made to change those laws and to educate lawmakers that the intent of their laws is being ignored by CPS. Not everyone is interested in the macro-practice end of reform. Some prefer to restrict themselves to the micro-practice of helping one family at a time. There is most certainly nothing wrong with that. Children need them both. The idea is to develop a method for dealing with it. Not try to stop it. That way lies your police state, that in the end will become worse, as they always do. If you think CPS is hungry for business wait until you deal with cops. They want waaaay more toys than social workers want. Waaaay more expensive. Don't kid yourself about your favorite answer to CPS failure. It wil eat families alive. And fill those jails even fuller. The whole transaction takes on the tone of trickery and deceit. Preaching to the chorus. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. We are dealing with when it does. Stop pretending to more. It is an uneven playing field with the more powerful party willing to exploit the weaker unless the parents are privvy to outside information. Did you mean, inside information? Yes. Thank you. That's the burden of society. All societies, and two or more is a society, have these kinds of challenges. Can't be stopped, only controlled. Frankly, though it makes my heart bleed...no sarcasm intended....there are those who will not learn to deal with any skill with the society they find themselves in. I've always been willing to teach people more skills. I do it all the time. I'm particularly disgusted with some of the stubborn numbskulls here, or was until I realilzed that WANT to be stupid...they think it will give them some kind of advantage and that it's really smart to be stupid. It doesn't sound much like "child protection," does it? I does. It sounds exactly like all agencies and functions of society work. Wobbly, but needed. I like them not TOO damn efficient. That is where folks can deal most effectively with them. Why do you think americans (and other folks) get up in arms over the curtailing of freedoms by increases in effeciency of people management? We know what we are doing, and one of the things I admired about Dan when I first came here was his adroit handling of the holes in the wobbly structure. And the payoff families got because of his neato numbers on the structure. This is one of the reasons why the systemic reform is called for. You will simply create a more efficient monster. Why do you think I'd be against an amendment that would appear, on the surface, to provide more protection for families? Hell, I like the idea, but I know it is crippled on it's premise..that it will cut anyone loose after the first few times it's involked. I don't think reforms I seek would make the system more efficient at all. The reforms would lead to a more just and reasonable way of treating children and their families at the EXPENSE of efficiency. It will create a more efficient warrant mill and that's all it will do. The process of applying for and receiving a warrant is markedly inefficient. It is intended to be. At the minimum all parents have to be informed of how to negotiate the conditions of a safety plan. I tend to put the priority WAY over the minimum. That should be the subject of considerable study, and stop wasting their time with cries to defend their constitutional rights. It fails on the argument of children not being posessions with it's own dangers on having THAT go to the supreme court. When I discuss constitutional rights in relationship to child protective cases, I am primarily addressing the Constitutional rights of the child, not the parent. The child has a right to live in her own home with her own parents unless the state proves with clear and convincing evidence that she has been abused or her parents are unfit. No sane court is going to declare children property. In fact it could cause a fearce backlash from liberals. Blood everywhere and kids more being raised by "it takes a village" bull****. Just an excuse to preempt parents. I agree with you that the "it takes a village" dogma is worthless. However, I believe it is more often the state that takes a position suggesting it views children as property. If CPS was used right, instead of lied about, and deliberately crippled in what it supposed to do it could be the best tool the true conservative (not right with, just conserving) could hope for. I disagree. So the advice I suggest in no way will help the guilty get their child back. Those instances should run the course to insure there WILL be compliance, but they can still and should, insist on both parties signing and outcomes spelled out clearly in the contract: "when steps one, two, three are completed the child will be returned within 48 hours" or words to that effect. In my jurisdiction a worker would not sign a safety agreement with such a stipulation because he or she could not commit to when a child would be returned. Then every family in the area needs to be canvassed and pamphleted to only agree to those terms should CPS show up at their door. Good idea. Setting a time line on return of the child after the plan steps are completed is vital. It can have amendments to it, like 6 more months of supervison or whatnot, but it has to have a cutoff, or Doug, it is NOT a contract. I understand what you are saying. However, my problem remains what I have explained many paragraphs back. What if the worker cannot make a solid committment to returning the child? All contracts require a completion date and criteria. All, and that is defensible in court. True. Concerning safety plans, we hear "concrete, do-able and measurable" a lot. Completion dates are crucial. However, in my jurisdiction, the criteria on a certain date would more likely be a stipulation that return of the child would be REVIEWED at that particular date. That decision is made later by what will then be a "team" of salaried experts who consider as one element the fact that the parent has completed "steps one, two and three." Nope. That is the weakness of the "fight CPS" crowd. They continually claim "it's hopeless, CPS has all the cards and they are big and we, poor dears, are helplessly small." I did not claim that it was hopeless. Just that there are many people in on the decision to return a child to his parents. All one has to do is be highly cooperative in some areas, and assertive in others, strategically. Precisely. Your approach has considerable merit. |
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The Plant answer DNA swab Question
"Doug" wrote in message link.net...
Kane writes: You are mistaken when it comes to assessing danger to themselves or others in an investigation. They simply lack the means at hand, if they are alone. Hence, as you have pointed out yourself, they take along someone that can act if a threat is presented, and they sure as hell DO sign complaints of criminal conduct if they are threatened. Hi, Kane! Yes, CPS workers commonly have police officers accompany them (termed a courtesy call or assist) on home visits. Let me count the ways....r r r .. You are, as usual, pumping the readers full of your hot air. It is not "common" that "workers" do any such thing on "home visits." It is that they do on Protedtive Service interviews where the alleged abusers are known to be dangerous, or thought to be, on evidence. The claim you just made is one of those classics of yours that show either you are not as familiar with CPS as you'd like everyone to believe, or you are lying out your stinkin' pie hole. A "home visit" by a "worker" is made almost exclusively when the family is receiving IN HOME services, that is the child hasn't been removed. Obviously this would not be a family that was so deep in their **** as to be a menace or the children wouldn't be there. And workers don't visit such families, they make them come to the office for interviews and meetings. Didn't you know this Doug, or just up too late last night pounding out more flack? And, as I have said, the officers role in such situations is to protect the worker. Unnh...yeah, and? Did I not make that very case? Are you trying to lull the readers into a stupor again so you can have your way with them...? R R R R R In most cases, it is quickly discovered that the worker is in no physical danger. R R R R....Yah, and that's the truth, so help your ass. Something about Mace, handcuffs, a radio link to more cops, a .40 caliber Glock, a 12 guage Remington model 870 Police, with 7 rounds of 00 buck out in the unit rack, and a large and less than happy cop (they tend to just hate child abusers...yah know that?) tends to reduce the "physical danger" a tad. Thanks for pointed that out, again. I thought I made the point, but I guess you thought it important enough to reiterate. They try, by order, to avoid it as much as possible because part of their job is to induce the parent to rehabilitate themselves and an arrest isn't the best of starting places, don't you think? Well, in these situations, arrest would not occur unless the parents assualted the worker or threatened bodily harm. As mentioned, this rarely occurs. Let me see, is there anything new here at all. No, there isn't. I said all that. Did you snip it? Why? The "rarely occurs" is why the cop is invited. It's called deterence. Would you prefer more child protective workers were assaulted, and or injured or killed? I'm not quite sure what your point, or points is or are here. While the investigator may not be trained to detain someone they have at their disposal, with the full support of the court under the law, LEO's to do the hands on work. If you don't think so, try getting in the face of a CPS investigator and see what happens. CPS workers do not have the power to detain adults and children only when they have a court order. Hair splitting again. It's obvious to any reader with half a brain that I am NOT going to define the circumstances, as you would wish, continuously down to infinity so you wan't have to respond. They know that I am not referring to all cases, as you yourself invoke on YOUR behalf later in this post. Law enforcement officers, who often accompany CPS workers as a courtesy can only arrest, detain or otherwise act in accordance with their regular procedures. In other words, if the officer acts, he acts in his capacity of enforcing criminal law not as an adjunct to the CPS worker's civil authority. Are you going to continue to prove my point but try to twist it into a refutation by claiming, yet again, wearily that I meant something I did not say? It is good we have this clarified then. I took your wording to mean that CPS workers had all the powers of law enforcement and that police made arrests as an extension of the CPS worker's civil authority. You took my working correctly. Workers are advised of two things in training: one is that they have the same law enforcement powers of any citizen, which, sans the capacity to physically effect an "arrest" (though they can certainly, just as you or I declare an arrest) which is the same as an LE sans capacity to effect and arrest; and two, it is better to properly assess the situation and have a police officer along if called for. You are still babbling along, trying your damndest to be right by agreeing with me. If my wording agrees with your intent, as you state above, then we are agreed that police make arrests based upon their own, criminal criteria and not CPS's civil criteria. Opps! What has this to do with anything practical whatsoever? I and you have the power to ask for, recieve police backing, and make a charge as the cop does. Ask a cop. So, as I said, does the worker. And, further, that police are there to protect the worker from assault or threat of same. So, what did I say? Why do you go on with these little exercises? Too much time on your hands? Image building exercises? Just how desparate are you to keep your job? Lacking a police escort they'll simply leave and go get one and the next encounter will not be as polite. There won't even be a question until the misinformed person is in cuffs. Not so. Or are you going to say again that this only happens in some cases? It does happen in those cases where citizens are charged with violating criminal law. Yes, it does happen when citizens are charged with violating criminal law. Since the vast majority of CPS child abuse/neglect actions do not involve charges of criminal law violations, such cases would be unusual. snore Which would be the circumstance during an investigation where the worker comes under criminal threat. Do I have to spell everything I say out to an entire encyclopedia, or are you going to stop playing your silly journalistic mind squat? I am glad we are in agreement. On what, that you squat and **** on the readers regularly? And that is a perfect way to precipitate removal of children if you wish to advise people to refuse to cooperate. The parent's response depends upon the individual situation, of course. Could there be a more profound truth in your post? I think not. How could you assume I would not write with that obvious fact in mind? Did you want me to google up a post where you advise parents to send CPS packing and not cooperate at all? Why, did you think I'd deny it. Some circumstances call for complete non-cooperation. I'd say the instant you are presented with a criminal charge, you do not speak, you do not sign anything, and you only ask for your attorney. This isn't rocket science. Dan keeps it simple. So do I but you want me to run out every scenario, and even then you'll still go rambling on finding something obscure to bring up. No. Nothing obscure. In the run and mill of CPS interventions, situations vary tremendously and each require different responses. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz You are becoming tiresomely transparent in you "debating" methods. Did you want the children removed in such cases? If it's as I described above that would not be a matter of choice. When the parent goes out in handcuffs it's usually only a few minutes before the child(ren) leave as well in the DHS car. Or if it was a kickdown the door situation in the middle of the night, then the cop will drop them at the 24/7 receiving center/shelter, or whatever they call it in your area. ...."A 72-hour hold." Police in our area, like all the states, have always had the absolute power to remove children and take them into custody. That's nice. It does not diminish the power of the worker to call on the police to effect such a hold. Physicians enjoy this same power. I do hope they call a cop or hospital security, just like the worker would, before exercising that power. CPS workers in all but a couple of states, do not have such authority. That is why they take a cop if they have to. How fine do you wish to split your hair? A PS workers does not know, prior to entry and interview, what they will find, a civil matter or a criminal one. Who, dear boy, if they find a criminal one, signs the complaint? Ask a cop. Police and doctors rarely exercise their power to remove children. Yes. We know. And your point? Do you so advise? If the above does not answer your question, please let me know. What "question" did I ask? Your encyclopedic answer has now ended up showing that in fact the worker, just like you and I, can in fact charge someone criminally. They are usually constrained in doing so only by social work ethos. And you are completely wrong about their power to remove children for a civil action alleging abuse. All they need in their hot little hand is a warrant. If the parent wishes to push it that far, well the warrant will be issued. The parent's correct response depends upon the multiple, unique variables involved in their particular situation. It depends upon what brings the worker to the door. It is impossible to answer that question generally. The why do you insist that I answer YOU specifically constantly, when you know yourself each scenario is a speculation based on variable circumstances. I think we agree. Oh, isn't that nice. My apologies to the readers that thought you had a point. Kane |
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The Plant answer DNA swab Question
On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 05:40:24 GMT, "Doug"
wrote: Continuing my response to Kane's single post.... Kane writes: Are you aware that they only difference between a private citizen and a sworn police officer lies in some very finely tuned areas of when and when they cannot shot? Laws in most states, which I've studied, point that out clearly. No, I did not know that. Do you think this has practical application to the citizen on the street? Do you think it doesn't? In states with "shall issue" concealed weapons permit systems this has considerable implication. And for those states that do not, the citizen at home, it has considerable implication...as those folks would find if they did use lethal force and had to defend that action in court. There are ample numbers of cases to show that. If you are truly curious I suggest a visit and a lot of googling (there are a similar crop of anti cps type anti gun nuts on that ng too) to talk.politics.guns. But it's mix and match. Some of the advocates of the right to arm are also strong proponents of anti cps sloganeering. You should be quite comfortable there. One might also check out the ARA site as well. Look for citizens use of deadly force in stopping crime. It's not hard to find in a search. I can arrest someone. If I lack the means to detain them or they will not follow my legal order to desist and be detained then they are guilty, should they prove to have done the crime, of resisting arrest as surely if they had fought a cop. Interesting. I did not know that, either. Then I am remiss. I try at some point with everyone I talk with about social issues to point out their responsibilities and protections under the law. A cop does the same thing you or I are authorized to do should we witness a crime. He or she has to sign a "complaint" or get you or I too sign one. All he is is the instrument of detainment...it's called arrest. It means to stop the progress from the scene of the alleged perp. Of course, cops arrest plenty of people they did not witness doing the crime. I imagine you and I would have some difficulty doing it, though. That is why cops "arrest" as in arresting the progress of someone or something, and citizens sign the complaint. It isn't the cop unless he is a witness and no citizen is involved beyond the perp and buddies. Cops don't just go and arrest someone they haven't seen commit a crime because of rumor. They tend to rely on witnesses....ahhh.....like........ahhh.......other government agents....ahh....like........maybe...........prote ctive services workers. It is also why cop's hands were tied, until recent years, when a victim of domestic violence would not sign a complaint against the alledged perp-all too common. Now both, in many states, can be charged...that tends to get the victim motivated. In this case the unusual practice of the arresting cop being the complaintant is used, I would assume. I'll have to ask my relatives. Let me comment further on that domestic violence bit to point out where LE may be having to go. Victims of domestic violence, rather like those ever annoying neighbor to neighbor beefs, are an attempt by the caller to get the cop to come and intimidate the other party. In other words, come and be the bully for the complainer. The object is to scare the other party, of course, into stopping a pattern of behavior, mostly. It sucks, and did suck. That's why most jurisdictions have gone to charging both parties and collecting all the evidence available at the time....like marching them both, in custody, to have their pics taken...they can't refuse...they are under "arrest" which gives the cops a lot of leeway. Pics tend to show who got the worst of it, don'tchaknow. Case closed. If a worker is questioning a parent and becomes aware of a criminal offense, and choses to pursue the investigation as criminal at that point, they can immediately order the perp to stay put, and wait for an officer to affect the physical custody and transport of the perp. The officer will only effect the arrest if his investigation or observation gives him probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed under his department's criteria. You sir, are as usual, full of hot air. If a citizen is willing to sign a complaint the cop might, on lack of evidence, try to talk them out of it, but if it is a crime covered under statute that they would otherwise make an arrest for they will in this case, unless the complaintant won't sign a complaint. It's only the reluctance or absence of someone else that inhibits them arresting. Now of course, false testimony to get someone arrested and charged starts to get pretty serious. Give you any ideas? R R R R In other words, he does not arrest on behalf of the CPS caseworker or under color of the worker's civil laws, but under the color of criminal law. Who long are you going to carry this argument of yours forward by agreeing with me, while pretending I'm wrong? He must have probable cause, independent of anything the CPS bureaucrat may believe, to make the arrest. I beg your pardon? The testimony of the CPS bureaucrat WITNESS is sufficient. Are you really going to try and pawn off the idea that this is not true? I as a passer by could, should I witness the abuse or neglect of a child be the witness. We don't have to have four layers of bureaucrats lined up to effect an arrest. What nonsense you peddle. The arrest is made under criminal procedures established by his department. That is correct. And one of those is that agents of the government that call on them to effect an arrest are by virtue of their office witnesses and complaintants themselves, but then I know of know departmental proceedures that preclude any witnesses, including non agents. This ain't rocket science, Doug. What is new here? Anything at all? As to the CPS worker "ordering the 'perp' to stay put, you have told us that any citizen can do this. Yep...under threat of, if they turn up guilty, or injure the one ordering in any way, resisting arrest and or assualt charges. If so, then this exercise of verbal audastity is hardly a hallmark of CPS worker authority. Can you clarify please? My understanding is that the worker has a wide range of possibly actions, just like you or I. Why would anyone assume it was audacious to order someone to arrest their progress, stay in place awaiting law enforcement, if the one so ordering believed a crime had taken place? You, my little friend, don't know diddly squat. I know that CPS workers do NOT have as much authority as a police investigator. Then you are sadly mistaken. They have as much, but their roles are usually quite different, hence they appear to be of different authority levels. That authority accrues from law. And confining ourselves to civil authority first, for clarity, shows us that all the PS investigator need to, if they find cause, and wish to remove the children is report to the judge and ask for a warrant, should it be necessary. All they need do upon seeing a criminal action is order the perp to stay put and call in the waiting cop or the cop at the other end of the phone transmission. You are straining at your stool again, Doug. There is no practical difference, from the perspective of the parent involved between a cop and a PS investigator. Both can be stopped on the spot with deman for a warrant, and both can do everything legally allowed to effect their goals, the ones in their job descriptions, before or instead of obtaining a warrant. You are wasting people's time and energy with claims to the contrary. The current attempt to redefine the constitutionally declared rights of citizens may temporarily shift the marker slightly but on test it will die. And on the practicial aspects for parents, it is dead already. Despite the budget shortfalls that have crippled the courts along with other government services and agencies, there will simply be some empowered entities, specifically designated to issue quick warrants. There is no penalty for a warrant issued and not used, so PS workers will have a system in place to have warrants electronically signed remotely and will hit the road loaded for bear, as they say. In time, if need be, every PS call will have a warrant involved. There is no penalty for an incorrect or mistaken warrant issued or served. Are you aware of that? And attempts to civilly combat them will fail precisely because the courts will know and apply the knowledge that diddling the constitution has taken place. It will all escalate into something you won't like a bit. Or will you? Hmmmm....I wonder. As for the shooting part, the difference between a cop and a citizen is that I, a private citizen actually have more leeway, proven by case law, to use deadly force (sometimes shooting, but restricted to that instrument) in defense of myself or others based on my PERCIEVED theat by the perp. The Cop, while he can do the same, is held to a higher level of what is and isn't a perceived threat. But when the moment comes he or I can shoot, legally. Hopefully, we will not arm CPS bureaucrats. Oddly, (and you might try dropping the "bureaucrats" hyperbolic nonsense) there is a strong move in some states to arm PS workers and even ongoing CWs. Certainly CWs come into even more contact with the public than some LEOs in tense situations. Police can go days doing nothing but routine work that is only occasionally cause for caution. PS workers may see two or three or even more potentially dangerous situations per day. And resorting to violence has been on the rise a bit among child abuse perps. Interestingly it isn't the innocent that do that, but the guilty. Kinda makes one think doesn't it. Me, I stay away from such work, though I'm probably much more cogniscent of the means to protect one's self legally than more. He may have slightely more leeway or restraint based on rules of his agency. But little in fact. So, smart ass, if a worker has the means and the questioned person is a percieved threat the worker could use deadly force to protect him or herself or others. Sure. Any citizen has the right to use deadly force to protect his or her own life. We have the right to protect ourselves against life-threatening attack. However, if we "perceive" that another citizen has otherwise violated some criminal law, the question is whether we have remedy if we "order" them to stay somewhere or detain them. Do you never tire of your games? That last sentence, sans flack, would be better stated as, "if you think they did a crime can you stop them?" The answer is, of course, if you have the means you certainly can. So the trick is to have the means at hand. If there is an implied threat of consequence if they do not choose to be "detained," that sounds like kidnapping to me. Ah, the claim that CW workers illegally detain, or kidnap children. Perfect. Thank you. The answer to this and similar questions about a citizens right to detain a suspected perp is found in law. All it takes, in most every state, and very much so on federal property, is reason "cause to believe." So if it looks like a duck and qwacks like a duck and it walks like a duck, it doesn't matter to reasonable people if it turns out later to be a goose. The shooting of it is justified. Or, in this case, the holding. That is where so many fools scream about constitutional rights and are wrong. If you have done everything I need to look sufficiently like a criminal to a reasonable person (that's what judges and juries are for, in part) I an detain you and be perfectly, legally within my rights to do so. And will suffer no harm legally. Should you resist me you are in deep ****, innocent or not. In either case, if these are rights extended all citizens they are not exclusive to the authority of CPS bureaucrats. thanks I needed another nap...zzzzzzzz Because workers have policy and practice to contend with they go waaaay out of their way to avoid having to use such force, but they can. Look up the law in your area about what a private citizen can and cannot do in the way of use of deadly force. I have held licenses pertaining to same in four states. As far as protecting their own lives, I understand and agree with your contention. Then why would you go on and on endlessly babbling and stuffing hundreds of more words into the converstation? Looking to stun the onlookers? If the police officer acts, he acts in enforcing criminal law and under his agency's guidelines for arrest or detainment, not the civil authority of the caseworker. The point was and still is that we are, and YOU have made that clear, looking at different situations, different variables from case to case. I pointed out one in refutation of The Whore's general claim of who can do what. He was wrong. You are wrong to split hairs. Yet again. In lieu of that, they offer the parties involved options to cooperate in the best interests of all. If they refuse, it's LEO time. Now, this appears to be a different ballgame. I understand you to say here that if the parents do not cooperate "in the best interests of all" (defined by the caseworker) then cops swing into action. Are you still talking about a CPS worker defending herself? If a worker acting within their authority to take the children are met with refusal by the parents they have the athority to ask for police assistance, and receive it. We do not have an either-or situation, as you'd like to pretend. That's the nonsense that goes on here all the time perpetrated by the worst of this crowd of little thugs you hang out with. It can be, and sometimes is, both. Are you saying in all cases or just some cases? When a person doesn't say "all' or "some" given the real world where it is rarely a matter of "all" would you not presume I meant "some?" It's always some unless the writer says all. I love that you don't comment on such things. Forget to snip, didjah? Why do you think CPS investigators so often have the police meet them at the site of the investigation? Coffee and donuts? It is a common procedure done to protect the worker. Ho hum. Could you please not waste so much of my time proving me to be correct in my claims? It really makes you look manipulative and stupid. On the other hand, CPS is not the only player, as you well know. The just CAN order the parent and can take action if the parent does not. The investigator goes to the judge within a set number of hours after initial contact for that assignment of their enforcement role...by the judge. And the document produced is the same one presented to the feds for IV-E funding. You betcha one exists. As I mentioned in my prior post, courts were involved with only an estimated 17.5% of 517,449 child victims in 2001. http://tinyurl.com/9uhv Most CPS investigations do not involve the courts and it is rare that a worker will go to a judge for an order at this stage of the investigation. If she does, she will need to have gathered enough evidence so far in the investigation to establish probable cause. Bull****ting again, Doug. This number varies considerably. But it is not true. Virtually all such cases, after the initial visit, are going to court. It is required by law in all states I've every dealt with and certainly by ASFA. Nope. The majority of child abuse and neglect cases, substantiated or not, do not involve the courts in any way. So, a PS worker can go to a home, do an investigation, remove a child, and the courts not know about it, right? You do know, don't you, what this flies in the face of? Failure to obtain a signed description at the hand of the judge alone of cause of removal within the requisite 24 hours (time varies state to state) after removal results in a permanent loss (no later, "opps! we forget let's go back and do it now") of Title IV-E monies, if they are available. Want to bet the court doesn't see these cases, PDQ? By the way, I notice how far away you and others here stay from the real issues of Title IV-E monies and their actual availability. You do know that not all cases result in such monies being paid by the feds to the state, do you not? If the numbers vary considerably, which is not true? All I did was cite the USDHHS NCANDS data, which reports that 17.5% of child victims had a court involved in their case. http://tinyurl.com/9uhv All I did was say you are full of ****. I know that once or twice a day you aren't, but that doesn't diminish the fact that part of the day you are. Now what is your point in popping up stats that fly in the face of what no doubt five or six posters here know to be true. The worker has to appear in court with reason to retain custody or return the child home, or not remove the child at all. In all cases the judge can, at the suggestion of the PS worker, or the judges discretion, chose TC by the state, or the court...varies state to state....or not at all. But that worker damn well better attend to the court in this initial taking of the child into anykind of custody, or NOT doing so if a credible allegation was made. ...The worker has a court order before removing the child. Excuse me. I was sure I read, posted by you, just a few paragraphs up, that there were many cases where no court involvement was part of the proceedure. How can this be? When the caseworker does remove the child, she is in Temporary Custody (TC) of the state. The caseworker? r r r r I do appreciate your attempt to educate the dummies here that ignorantly babble their emotion driven rants of nonfacts, but had you not ignored them and focused on me I'd think you more credible. What'sa matter, chicken? Or scared of offending your constituents? If they can't figure out you are calling them ignorant I'll point it out for them. Every time you go into one of your lectures, and especially when you expand on my statements it is patently obvious you are playing to the gallery. You may think you are sparing their feelings thus avoiding their rath, but the fact is, they know at some level what you are up to. Eventually it will bite yah in the ass. That makes it, except for something that would have to be some kind of rare snafu, like the worker getting in an auto accident on the way to court or some such, damn close to 100%. What those percentages are, once again, is your incessant tomfoolerly with data that doesn't apply to the actual issue at hand. The disposition of the child at the END OF A CASE is what that referes to...did a court have involvement, after that initial decision on TC? Was there a show cause hearing for termination? Was there a termination trial. No, the numbers refer to any court involvement at all. When looking at the percentage -- which seems to bother you -- I'm not the least bothered. What would make you think so? keep in mind that we are talking the percentage of children substantiated in all child abuse and neglect findings. The vast majority of children substantiated as victims of child abuse or neglect are not removed from their homes. Oddly, that seems of little matter to the people in this ng, or to you, for other purposes. For the sake of argument you find it suddenly of great importance. Why is that? That part of the population of children would not be receiving services if they were not in the legal TC of the state. And you wish to claim that workers can do this without court knowledge and consent, eh? Go for it. We know that in at the very least it can be around 60% or so that don't ever get to that level and the child is reunited. Many children in foster care and later returned to their homes had a court involved in their case at least once. They would be counted. So, you tiresome twit, which is it, they are or they are not court involved? The data on that is all over the place. That figure easily can contain 17% or so that didn't go as far as trial. In fact I'd say it's like sloppy reportage and the figure should be MORE, much MORE. No, the statistics refer to ANY court involvement, not just trials for Termination of Parental Rights. There are relatively few such trials, They are matched and in some states slightly exceeded by voluntary relinquishments. I wonder if that tells you anything that you'll admit. with a large percentage of them ending with the petition for termination being denied. I've unfamiliar with the data supporting this claim of a "large percentage" being denied. Can you supply a reference? In TPR proceedings, CPS must meet the "clear and convincing evidence" test, due to a US Supreme Court decision on due process rights. Just an idle thought. I asked originally when I started this thread, what uses of DNA swabs of children by their parents could be put to to recover those children later. No one, least of all you has responded to the question posed. Certainly not The Plant. Now we are treated to another of your long lectures, much of it with far too many claims that require some data, missing of course, for support. Are you thinking you want us to do that research, or will you provide us with support for your claims? As for the USSC decision on due process, what has that to do with the question of what a worker can and cannot do to protect themselves and whether or not they can legally remove children from the home? That doesn't make CPS or the courts guilty of malfeasance or mistake. It's normal. And damn good if you ask me. I'm stunned at how few get to court later, and that suggests strongly to me, that while CPS is charged with following up on allegations it's doing quite a job getting those kids reunited with family. Your crap should be lapping at your chin by now. You can cut a fine hair on this one and say, no it isn't, but then you have to deal with the fact that the state will be penalized under ASFA if they do not in fact take every case where there is a removal of a child to a judge in a set number of hours. The vast majority of children who are substantiated as victims of child abuse or neglect are NOT removed from their homes at any time before, during or after the investigation. http://tinyurl.com/9psd I ran into a fairly young PS worker today where I go for lunch. She's quite candid with me. I've helped her return children to families. She is not the only one. Every PS worker I've talked with, and it's been many, tell me they do NOT want to remove children. And when they do what they want is the fastest road possible to reuniting. Many children don't even have their cases get past intake (the PS unit) before they are back home. I am glad to hear that you are helping CPS workers return children to their families. I wonder how the worker is free to breach confidentiality in such cases. Why would they have to breach confidentiality? I don't need details to assist. Nor would anyone. I wouldn't even need the name of the child or parent. You are so transparent. Someone can come here totally anonymously and share the most intimate of details in their "case" and it would not matter a whit to the state. And people can discuss another's details without knowing who that person is and again, no breach of confidence is made. What is it you REALLY want to know, Duplicitious? In what capacity do you find yourself helping a worker one on one with a family? Advice, council, support, tissues. And you? And what calls upon the worker to seek and accept help from a member of the general public to reunite children with their parents? I don't intend to ridicule here at all. I am just curious as to your role. Apparently, I have misunderstood it. Apparently you have. And of course you are curious. Your row of vultures are sitting just outside of view waiting for something they can attack me with. Keep on asking. Who knows, maybe I'll be sleepy one day and tell you. There are many roles, some played by the general public, that intersect with CPS. Work your way through them. You might figure it out. In my experience, most CPS workers do not want to remove children from their homes. What is your capacity that you know what CPS workers have in their minds? Are you sure they are telling you the truth, or what they think you want to hear possibly? And if you are sure, why? However, many feel powerless to fight their own bureaucracies. It is common for people to feel powerless. It is in the nature of not being able to control others. Those "bureaucracies" are made up of the managers, administrators, directors, and elected officials, legislators, as well as judges, boards of oversight, and the public whom they work for. Tough being a worker, don't you think? But every one will whine from time to time, then relieved, get back to work. They do as they are told. Which industries are you aware of where workers are paid to NOT do as they are told? It is the fate of workers in all businesses, industries, and agencies. The worker most always feels they know best. They do not have the global picture necessary to make such judgements effectively, and in fact can badly screw up things. A very few work long enough and think about their work enough, researching and analysing, to have more of the kind of long view needed to effectively buck the boss. That doesn't stop any Tommyrot, Dickhead, or Jerrybuilt in these news groups or the general public from putting in their oar, so why should it restrain a CPS worker? Hey, they got rights to be fools just like anyone else. The situation becomes even more complicated after the child is in state custody. Stating the obious doesn't make it more remarkable. In fact you diminish your argument by this silly ploy. Then, the question about returning them home is up to many more people than just the caseworker's supervisor and their bureaucracy. Well, I guess. This ng seems to have, to you at any rate, two purposes: the emotional rant of nutcases, some of whom are themselves abusers in denial; and bogus little twits who apparently are frustrated college professors. Are you ever going to stop switching back and forth from each of the above roles? y then, GAL's, juvenile officers, therapists, foster caregivers, "consultants," group home administrators, attorneys and others are involved in the "team" decision. Are you then prepared to advocate for one superworker who will do all of the task, unilaterally? PS investigator, intake worker, ongoing worker, with specialities in adolescent, newborn, toddler, latency age, and prenatal child protection? (some states do have laws protecting the fetus from drug effects) as well as make the final TPR judgement? You have surpassed, this day, your redundant pomposity to a degree that you should be congratulated for...maybe given a trophy cup, filled with the product of your nitwittery. You can use it to fertilize your Plant friend. Decisions are usually reached before the actual 90-day permanency hearings, where the parents finally attend. Members of the "team" touch bases to "make sure they are on the same page" prior to these meetings). Wouldn't it be nice if they all came with nothing but their raw notes? One look at them by a judge and he or she would order the bailiff to shoot the defendents. Some order has to be made with an eye to outcome and intent. Some want the children returned, some do not. The courtroom is where that is hopefully sorted out. I believe it's called a system of government. During the discussions prior to and during the permanency meetings, one of the caseworker's jobs is to advocate on behalf of the family being reunited. But she or he is but one voice. Yes. And each person in the room has but one voice. Have you forgotten the parent's attorney and the child's attorney and the GAL, etc.? I asked her if she felt children were being taken for frivolous reasons. She is too open and naive to sneedle me. She would have blushed. Her answer was, anything but. We can't respond to all the calls at the level we feel is needed for safety for the children. If she wanted to keep her job, she would have been a fool to say anything else. I don't control her job in any way. I have zero power, officially, within CPS. My power lies in my influence, and it is, after all these years, and contact with thousands (and I mean that literally...about 4 thousand roughly) of stakeholders, extraordarily effective. I just recently had a major blowup with some program managers over a waiting adoptive child website. I did not like the content (I am a brute when it comes to embarrassing children by breach of privacy, even when the state has the right to do so....it can come back 30 years later and ruin a person's life, not to mention losing then sensitive jobs or professions). I have been fighting for about 5 years for that website to come down. Oddly, I was cc'd a correspondance from one of the involved parties (workers have access to external e-mail) who I had strongly petitioned to put an end to this nonsense. I apparently was not removed from the mail group in the growing addy, and it, a reply, came to me mistakenly. It was an insulting lie about me, the website (which I had originally helped create..with an eye to careful preservation of child confidentiality) it's purpose and my reasons for wanting the site taken down. I replied with CC's to all major players from the begining of the project nearly 8 years ago. It was a rather influence and authority heavy list. I put on my raincoat and covered my head just before hitting the send button. I do not like **** on my clothes. .... r r r r I now have a lovely response from the little twit that lied about me and insulted the website, the children, the people who agreed with me that the website was long overdue for removal, that is an industrial strength grovel if ever I've seen one. I graciously forgave the person, and made the socially appropriate excuses for them for their "natural mistake under the circumstances." Trust me on this. When I find ways to chat up workers informally they take great delight in telling me what is really what. Now excuse me while I call and see if my white hat has been properly cleaned and blocked. I'll be right back. Caseworkers do have forums to present their viewpoints on practice. Yes. That's nice. And often they aren't listened to. It's a preemptive management device to mollify and misdirect the troops while the battle line moves closer. Former and current caseworkers are among the harshest of critics on current removal policies. Some are. The majority, say you are full of it. I've invited, over the years, caseworkers to view USENET discussions of their works. All I hear is a chorus of laughter at the outlandishly innane things posted here. My favorite, when we get together for lunch, and the topic turns occasionally to you ninnies, the cry that goes up for the bonus they are supposed to be getting for each child removed and placed in adoption. It usually sounds something like this, "Hey, Were they hell is My bonus? I've got an overdue payment on my .....fill in the expensive care of chioce...." But they are expected not criticize their agencies work with members of the public -- most especially members of the news media. All employees are expected not to. Fortunately union contracts put a stop to that nonsense. They can write letters to the editor if they wish and there isn't and there isn't a damn thing their boss can do other than politely request they be more circumspect. One word of threat and the union lawyer makes a call on that manager. If she knows you well enough to have lunch with you, she is probably aware of your stance on these matters. She was telling you what you wanted to hear. She may or may not have been doing that intentionally. Well, yah sure got me there. Would you mind extending that same understanding to YOUR interaction with workers, and in fact with the poor innocent "parents" such as The Whore who come here bleating and confessing all in one breath? It's a scramble to find the time and staff to respond and what with budget cuts, lots of folks retiring, it's getting worse. She is scared of what she thinks is coming. Not for her job. She's an MSW that is also a LCSW. In my opinion, CPS caseworkers are crippled by spending too much of their time investigating unfounded cases. The vast majority of investigated/assessed cases are unsubstantiated. Psychics don't come all that cheap, do they? So tell us, Karnac, just how are unfounded cases unfounded sans investigation? I think it is wonderful that an LCSW is involved in entry level casework. However, it concerns me that she in that position without specializing in the child welfare track for her MSW. Why would you assume she did not track child welfare in graduate school. My understand was that she did. Further, I have to wonder why an LCSW would be doing this low-paying work instead of reaping the usual financial rewards of private practice. R R R R, yah gotta be kidding. There is a massive surplus of LCSW out there plying the trade. Competition is terrible. And it takes a long time and a lot of money to establish a practice that is a viable income. I am puzzled why she would spend two + years in clinical practice to get her LCSW and then take a job as a CPS caseworker. Why would that puzzle you unless you were trying to hint at something sinister? As you may know, the biggest single complaint among social work academics and others in the profession is that too many graduate social work students are going into preparation for clinical work. So? What's that got to do with anything other than yet another vapid attempt to question my credibility? Do you think I'm lying about her? Hey, not only are my conversations with her profitable for my research, she is a cutey pie as well. I would have thought her ten years younger than she actually is. Looks like a highschool cheerleader. She's 32. Something about PS work must keep them lithe and in good shape. Could be the satisfaction of wresting children away from torturers. The charge is made, of course, that they are "selling out" for the bigger pay of clinical practice. zzzzz Please, write something interesting enough to keep me awake. Had a long hard day yesterday and I haven't had my coffee yet. For the uninitiated reader, let me explain. Students in graduate social work programs are required to choose a specialty and spend most of their time during the 1 1/2 to 2 years in school taking classes in that specialty. One such specialty is child welfare. Others include chemical dependency, administration, social action, macro-group practice, and clinical practice. Candidates for an LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) must do supervised clinical work for two years after receiving their MSW (Masters in Social Work) before becoming licensed as a LCSW. An LCSW is a therapist. While most people think of psychologists when the word "therapist" is mentioned, the majority of therapists are, in fact, social workers. An LCSW can enter private practice. (Psychologists must have a Ph.D. to do clinical practice). Careful, Doug. You give the ignorant folks in this ng too much fact and they'll lose their blathering emotive expositions and you'll have lost a lot of clients. My point to Kane is that his luncheon companion left a highly paid position to take on a lesser paying position. She did not specialize in child welfare, which would have been a far better choice for this line of work. She moved after completing her supervised clinical practice is my guess. I know she did move, can't say how it fit in with her professional path. I do know she is leaving CPS as soon as she takes her test and passes. ... though she has expressed some strong feelings in exactly the direction you mention....she feels guilty leaving PS work. She hates the idea of leaving children, the thousands like the hundreds she's removed, to their fate at the hands of those you excuse by neglecting to confront them yourself. At any rate, Kane, I think your jurisdiction is very lucky to have her working in the agency. I commend her for what appears to be her choice of working in the trenches instead of next to a couch. (Actually, sofas are out of date now. One of many antiques that went out with the increasing challenge of Freud and psychodynamic theory). Your contributions to this thread, no matter how far down the Grand Canyon you've descended, are greatly appreciated. I rather enjoyed the fall myself. I wonder if you'll climb out now and get back on the path we, or at least I, started out on. I asked her what brought the children into care. What happens that families lose children. She agrees with your 10% sexual abuse...but I'm asking myself where the CDC and the DOJ gets their figure of one in three females are sexually abuse? Must be the perps wait until they reach their majority, right? No. I would like to see the Department of Justice figures -- a normal citation will be fine, a URL better. To my knowledge, the only people to make such an inflated claim were the writers of "The Courage to Heal" and the San Francisco writer I mentioned in our previous discussion of this subject. I am fully aware I could be wrong. Please point out the DOJ stuff so I can take a lot at it. Tell you what. It's so easy to google I'll let you do your own research. Frankly jumping through hoops for you has become less and less fun over time. And I'll let Judith explain to you and the lying pack of little ****heads you run with just how the DOJ and FBI have managed to minimize sexual abuse. You gets one citation on this question that I have answered fully before, Doug, then that's it: http://www.drjudithreisman.org/whitep/fbi.pdf You seem to never tire of flogging that dead horse. But if it keeps you entertained you'll have to do your own pursuit... Next she said it's mostly abuse and neglect, with neglect running slightly ahead. I asked what she thought the cause was and it went like this. "Mary, what do you think the cau.........." "Meth" Nationwide, neglect accounts for a substantial majority of removals, as you know. And, yes, methamphetamine is becoming Becoming? It was the major topic of child welfare worker and adminstrators in 1981 when last I was in school. I talked personally with the daughter of Mother Hale in 1990 to consult about long term outcomes of crack, cocaine, heroin, and alcohol effected babies. Ms Hale's daughter had become a psychiatrist ( I did not feel that I should bother asking her specialty so don't bother looking for an exercising yet another diversion). For those curious, Mother Hale was a lady in NY that found herself babysitting (while mom went to court) children of drug mothers and drug effected themselves. She did it for many years and was the hands on developer of many techiques still used to comfort and save the lives of these victims of their mother's indulgences. She had passed already when I spoke to her daughter. There is no "becoming" about it, Doug. You minimize at risk of showing your true colors. Cocaine has been a problem for wester society for so long that it was the comic subject in a scene from a silent films era Charlie Chaplin film. The penitentary scene in the dining hall when Charlie kept adding more "sugar" to his cereal from the bowl some cons had hid their stash in when the bulls were coming. Funny, but not in real life. increasingly problematic -- especially the manufacture of it. Well, thanks for mentioning yet again, what I have claimed probably three dozen times in the past year. While mom's substance abuse problem in itself should not be cause for removal, Nope, you missed the boat again. "Use' is not cause. "Abuse" is precisely why mom is compromised and endangering her child. It wouldn't be referred to as "abuse" otherwise. Who cares as long as she isn't hurting her child? possession of all of the chemicals used for the manufacture of meth is cause for automatic removal in some states -- for very good reason. Very caustic, dangerous stuff. I think that is now a federal law, boobie. And it isn't just caustic. It is both carcinogenic, and volitile. Some of the fumes could kill a grown man with one good deep breath. And of course an open flame might just end the worry about air pollution and a tumor completely. She didn't wait for me to finish. Meth meth meth, then she said thoughtfully, and mental illness, what the pros call "Dual Diagnosis." The current flavor of the month is "co-occurring disorders." I'll try tossing that into the next conversation. Dual diagnosis has taken on a new meaning in current practice. It refers to those who are dependent on more than one substance. New one on me, but then I haven't been to many lunches lately...well, not with the right crowd apparently. Co-occurring Disorders, on the other hand, refers to someone with a chemical dependency problem and a mental illness, each with its own DSM-IV number, of course. And the jargon morphs. Many clinicians still refer informally to the latter as "dual diagnosed." But the correct current terminology is co-occurring because it is rightfully thought that the latter term better describes the dynamics between the two problems. Sounds logical. But you probably know how the terminology goes in this profession . . . flavors of the month today become indigestible tomorrow. As I said, morphology by the moment. Not just meth, and not just mental illness but the two combined. Of course, it is a grave mistake to attempt to measure the latter in early-stage recovery or practicing addiction. That's the same reasoning the supports the contention that everything in the universe can't be in the same place at once, nor all events happen at the same instant. I'm stunned at your logic and reason. Since symptoms of addiction tend to mimic Axis II personality disorders and other pathology, it is important to wait until the patient comes down before evaluating for MI. The issue for a child's welfare and safety isn't the clinical diagnosis down to it's finest detail, but what the hell will momma do when whatever she's bugged with next time she blows out. Last time it was bothersome kids butt on the stove coils. Permanent genital mutilation by burning portions of them off. Next time...who knows, but CPS will be blamed because they returned the child on the order of the judge, and blamed when the mother manages to do either more damage or infanticide while the docs dinked around trying to determine just what makes momma run. . I agree with her that co-occurring disorders are more prevalent. Residential substance abuse centers are increasingly called upon to treat co-occurring disorders. (Successful treatment requires that both disorders be treated concurrently). Well, of course you do deary, as it helps detract from the fact. It's about you do do these days. You lie about how many cases of child abuse there are, you obfuscate over what is and isn't risk to a child at the level that is cause to remove, you putter about trying to promote a police-crime answer to a social ill, and while you do children move inexorably closer to just such events in their lives at the hands of their loving parents. Or are placed in their casket. I'll tell you something I feel very sure of and no flaming or silliness intended. My sense is that we have more than one methhead right on this ng. I understand that you do not intend to flame anyone. I wonder, though, how you can determine substance dependency based upon what a member posts to the newsgroup. I mention this in all due respect -- it is not my intention to flame anyone, either. Gosh, read below. I worked with drug rehab for years, and I've listen to thousands of hours of babble of methheads, and when I come here it echoes in my head exactly like the memories of my drug work. LOL! Well, the talkative presentation style diminishes during acute withdrawal, usually three days into social detox at the rehab. Presenting problems persisting in early recovery, however, are pretty devastating. The thought flow problems persist, as do major disruptions in pleasure/joy perceptions. Anger. Paranoid thinking patterns pepper most social interactions, even among fellow recovering addicts. There is mounting evidence that methamphetamine does permanent damage to the pleasure center of the brain, complicating a recovering person's search for alternative avenues of fulfillment. Nasty stuff. Well, I suppose they can sue. There is some evidence that methamphetamine users are becoming increasingly involved in child protection cases. "Some evidence"? I'll have to take that one to lunch some day. It's becoming increasing rare meth isn't a factor. It's about to catch up with alcohol involvement I'm hearing. Not close yet but going up exponentially. It's so cheap to produce with a high profit margin, ease of transportability, and once in it's final form hard to detect by the usual means. Like you can't just smell it on someone's breath. Given the monumental push among law enforcement officials to locate and prosecute meth users and makers, it is possible one system is impacting the other. This is especially true in the midwestern part of the country. You are not in the capitol of meth manufacturing and use. It's the Pacific Northwest. Meth users are likely to engage in other activities that would catch the eye of child protective workers. They tend to isolate their families, tape up their windows, and work throughout the night dismantling vehicles and losing the parts. They do tend to have clean houses, though. g And they are very thorough in the abuses they dream up to visit on their children. The variety and severity of injuries has taxed law enforcement to track more as time passes. The use of hand tools to "discipline" has been on the rise, with propane torches, visegrips, and various flexible objects leaving marks and injuries that are difficult to extrapolate to the tools used. I personally made the exposure of one of them, marketed by a wonderful Christian family (well, it's they who make the noise about being Christian, just thought I'd help them advertise) to every single states attorney's general and every state department of child protection in the land a few years back. It's finally come to the attention of moral, I like to call "real" Christians, who are more than a little upset over The Rod. The magazine the manufacturers (brings a new meaning to small home based business) advertise in are being bombarded by requests to take down that ad. They are holding out. I'm tracking progress between the two factions: the blood thirsty Christians, and the moral and ethical Christians. I always have been fascinated by brothers and sisters fighting. By the way, I own The Rod. Just had to have one for my collection. It reminds me of what some parents will do to their children and rationalize as perfectly acceptable and even desired. I think that applies to some that come here. Keeps MY eye on the prize. Oh, and yes, I can make an estimation on what methhead babble sounds like. One has to listen for a few years, but eventually the patterns become clear. No other form of communication is quite like it. Kane |
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The Plant answer DNA swab Question
On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 06:50:56 GMT, "Doug"
wrote: Continuing my response to Kane's single post . . . . Kane writes: Snip...now we are talking.... All one has to do is be highly cooperative in some areas, and assertive in others, strategically. Precisely. Your approach has considerable merit. I won't continue the inflation our threads tend to do, but I will take issue with one item... The idea you put forth that you are for a system that will use the currently difficult process of warrant issuance to slow down caseworkers. May I point out the bureaucrats are adapt at getting the rest of the camel into the tent, and much practiced. What you are asking isn't the use of an awkward system of warrant issuing. What you are asking for, in the end, is a MORE efficient systme to meet the perceived need the bureaucrats have...and the public. I still stand with my approach. Keep a low profile, continue to teach CPS by defeat after defeat one case at a time, and educate parents, my favorite are homeschoolers who already have massive intercommunition going on about this will little need from the interference and dangerous tactics of HSLDA to intrude in govenment at the highest levels inviting efficiency drives. The latter will come though the new law needing, just as CAPTA and ASFA have clearly demonstrated, new definitions. I can hear the executive branch now, at all government levels. "We need a study to determine what is and isn't acceptable parenting. How can we enforce these laws if it isn't clearer and how can we convict without this?" And right behind that statement, probably waiting in the wings, HSLDA and other narrow special interest groupes, including universities with huge special interests in defining parenting (Think UOC and UW schools of social work) will burst out with RFP responses. I can hardly wait....gag. How do you think ASFA became such a piece of crap besides it's concept? States and the feds got tons of feedback from things like the Maine study...guess what purpose was....to show states how to enforce and improve exactly what you state you don't want to have happen. I watched it all evolve. I read the RFPs, and read the studies that resulted. You have noticed my "slavish" devotion to the tactics of one Dan Sullivan in these ngs. I have that interest for two reasons. I think Dan's a straight up guy, and his tactics mesh with MY political agenda. Keep the citizen (you may insert "parent") strong and the government....well, kinda so so, with only one broken kneecap. Braking the other one will just trigger the next big healthy strong player (the cops) on to the scene. And if you think CPS and ASFA are bad medicine, wait until you see what the cops, supported by the legislature and the judicial will do. You see, I don't want the worker telling the family what it's rights are. I want the FAMILY TELLING THE WORKER what it's rights are and what the workers limits are. My ****ymindedness at some of the organizations comes from the're over emotion driven ranting and spreading apopalectic "kill CPS" advice that it drowns out anything they might, in a moment of weakness, or by accident, offer that actually works. Frankly I think the membership of those organizations should be limited to people that will surrender their CPS records to a board for examination. The organizations stink of perps on denial raving trips. But then we each have our opinions. Kane |
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The Plant answer DNA swab Question
On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 14:23:15 -0400 (EDT), "Ricardo Montalban"
wrote: Kane wrote: You took my working correctly. Workers are advised of two things in training: one is that they have the same law enforcement powers of any citizen, which, sans the capacity to physically effect an "arrest" (though they can certainly, just as you or I declare an arrest) which is the same as an LE sans capacity to effect and arrest; and two, it is better to properly assess the situation and have a police officer along if called for. You are still babbling along, trying your damndest to be right by agreeing with me. Kane I'm glad you pointed out his babbling, Kane. It carries great weight coming from someone who, of course, has never babbled on this group. Apparently, Ricky, you haven't become a fan of Kane and read his many entertaining and informative posts. I have in fact stated that I babble. I wouldn't think of pointing to others their faults if I had none of my own and admitted to them. A partial list of my failings and my compensations for them: Fault: I am a bigot. So trained by a lifetime of media, the stories read to me as a child, movies, other white people like myself steeping me in the culture of racism. Compensation: I pay attention to any major or minor responses I have to people of color or those otherwise depicted as less than others. I assume, since I'm really a very loving guy that enjoys our planet's diversity more than most, that my feelings are wrong, my thoughts are right, and it's time to think and apply the answers to my feelings. And sure enough, yet another full human being as much a tenant of this planet and it's riches as I. Fault: I have very little patience with liars and thugs. Expecially those that were the face of cons, and speak with the tongue of cons. Compensation: None. Not a one. Shall I continue? Wouldn't want to boor you, trollass buddy. Kane |
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The Plant answer DNA swab Question
In continuing my responses to Kane's single post....
Kane writes: I know it sounds silly but it's based on rock solid human responses. I've tested it again and again. When I worked for others I used to get the best work evaluations because of it. I called it my, Okay boss, and what was the next thing I could work on to improve? Okay boss, and what next? Boss could you make some suggestions about my compusive drive toward perfection in my work?" Translated into workerese, it makes a little hero out of the worker. Putting the white hat on them, so to speak. A student loan office clerk taught me that. Had an apathetic loan officer. Clerk stopped me on the way out, "You've been hittin the books on loans and grants waaaaa too much. Let the loan officer save your butt" Ah ha, the light went on. I came back absolutely helpless the next week and watch an energized student loan councelor work his butt off for me. Same with anyone that goes into human services. Most are their because of a hero complex. Hey, I knows it when I sees it. Got a touch of it meself. I understand the hero complex. The fact remains that there is a point where the parent should agree to the need for a particular service and a point where they should not, depending on the facts of the individual case. Obviously, the CPS worker is advising parents to accept all services. While he would be overjoyed if the parent agreed and went further to volunteer for more, it may not be in the best interests of the family. The state would have no problem with your advice. ...Only if the parent's attorney has read the safety plan and advises the parent to sign it. One must be very careful not to stipulate to anything that may be determined to put the child at risk or suggest guilt, thereby negating their case at the adjucication hearing. This is the only opportunity the parent has to challenge CPS allegations and CPS has the burden of proof. That is exactly why the document should be returned with editing initialed by the parent but no signiture of the parent on it until CPS puts pen to paper. Sure. It's The Whore solution made sane and reasonable. But then his is not to get the child back but to sue later. That's an entirely different ballgame. Me, I want the child back. Don't call me when it's time to sue. I'm not well versed in that aspect. Well, hopefully, these tactics can be applied way before any children are taken into state custody. The vast majority of services are provided families whose children are not in temporary custody of the state and where children remain in the home. The practical application of some of your tactics would be before the child is emotionally traumatized by removal. Once the child is taken into state custody, she suffers major emotional injury -- often irreparable. Agreeing to take a psychological evaluation from one of the therapists in CPS's stable is a crucial error. Bull**** again. You simply walk into the evaluation session with a copy of the evaluation of YOUR psychologist in hand and ask the current shrink, smiling of course, their opinion of this evaluation. Psychological evaluations for CPS are rarely -- if ever -- done by shrinks. oh stop the hair splitting. You certainly know that meant any kind of head shrinker, not just psychiatrists. No, I didn't. I thought you meant psychiatrists. I have never heard anyone use the term head shrinker to refer to any other profession. But now I understand your meaning of the term. Therapists (social workers, LPC's or sometimes psychologists) perform the evaluations, complete with assigning a DSM-IV diagnosis. Once you have the evaluation done by a therapist you have retained, there really is no reason to get the CPS therapist's opinion. Really? I think there is a very good reason. "the white hat" ploy for one. The other is your willingness to jump high for your kids. In my opinion, whatever slight gains are won by submitting to a evaluation by a therapist in CPS stables is far outweighed by the disadvantages of contenting with one of the DSM-IV labels the stable member is going to tack on mom. The "white hat" cookie is not worth the risk of being evaluated by a therapist whose client is CPS. If mom has already had a psych eval done by an objective, private therapist, there is no reason to farm for a conflicting one from a therapist whose client is CPS. Think of what that would do to a judge when a lawyer says, "my client loves his child so much he is willing to under any level of pain, trouble, inconvenience, to convince the state of that love and have the child returned to him." I'm practically quoting what I've heard. Think what the judge is going to say when CPS's attorney introduces the psych eval performed by one of the agency's contracted therapists diagnosing mom with "Borderline Personality Disorder" or some other pathological label. If the CPS therapist wants to get paid, she will need to tack on a diagnosis. Naturally, the private therapists' evaluation is likely to contest the CPS diagnosis, but the judge now must weigh the two conflicting reports. He may want to "err on the side" of caution and consider that mom is mentally ill. Damn, don't you people know ANYTHING tactically? What actually works is so damn simple when you don't spend your time ranting hysterically to "kill CPS" when you are in no position to do so. Who said that killing CPS was proposed as a tactic? Depending on the situation the family finds itself in, a direct legal challenge ("motion for dismissal for failure to show cause") is often the successful tactic. As you have said, there are situations that require parents consider more defiant tactics. Who has said that parents should kill CPS? You must miss alot in this ng. There was a claim that Brian Christine should have and would have and the poster said he would under similar circumstances. Want the citation? Sure. There is even Kill CPS posted in sig lines. Come on Doug. You are too full of your propaganda. It's clouding your judgement and your vision. You've let thugs go unchallenged here and it's becoming more and more noticable all the time. While you have admitted you are posting propaganda, I have not done so because I don't believe I am. I do not think my judgment is being clouded. We just clearly disagree. You are willing to challenge me when I'm only an insulting thug..r r r, but you let the ones that can and do advocate direct harm to workers, and by suggesting it, harm to a parent who might in their pain and despiration turn to violence. That doesn't go unnoticed. I am not interested in joining you in insulting members of this newsgroup. It might be forgiven but your credibility goes down a notch each time you let lies or threats go unchallenged FROM EITHER SIDE. If Dan said to kill abusive parents do you really think I would let that go unchallenged? My credibility is not being judged by my willingness to call other posters names. As much respect as I have for Dan, I would not bother challenging him if he suggested killing abusive parents. Why would I? If he ever had that twist to his logic, there is nothing I can say to change his mind. Assholes like Greeg get exactly what they deserve based on exactly what they reveal here, but those that come here with decency and need are not threatened with death, and you know it, not by my side. You consistently insult newcommers to this newsgroup. A recent post of yours responds to a woman seeking help by falsely predicting what harsh, stupid things other members would say to her. So tell me, do you think, based on Gregs own story that he did no harm to the girl? That it is CPS fault that the child isn't in the home? That the Motion he posted here and was apparently presented to the court over his "fiances" signature, was calculated to get the child returned? It is my understanding that the motion was intended to get the little girl back home, yes. How can you stomach him? It is the ideas and child welfare information posted to this newsgroup that interests me, not the personalities who write them. I am not interested in praising or personally attacking members of this newsgroup. Greg has presented some very valid and useful information. I try to evaluate the information and its impact on the issues we discuss here, not the individual. As the Plant would say, "Shame on you." Regardless of the author, the shame on you comment does not apply. I have done nothing, in my opinion, to be ashamed of. Above, you -- not Fern -- attempt to place shame on an individual you disagree with. Besides the fact that no one can place shame on another, the statement is meaningless name-calling. It does not direct itself to the issues. My worst cursing is nothing compared to the pain he delivered to that child. Mine causes momentary shock recovered from with a few words and a few minutes. Your worst cursing is nothing compared to the institutional abuse suffered by thousands of children in this country each year. Your cursing is nothing compared to the agony suffered by children wrongfully taken from their homes. That does not make the name-calling any more appropriate than the abuse inflicted upon children by bureaucrats. That child gets to go to bed each night longing for her mother, painfully, for years. Yes. The situation is tragic. The reason I make it plain I don't like you is that you are lacking in moral fiber. It's that simple. Again, I care nothing about personalities. I could care less whether you like me or not. Your personal attack that I lack morality is as pointless and meaningless as it is untrue. You'll take a stand that's easy to maintain in this setting, but you'll igore what would be uncomfortable, to confront a "parent" r r r , that has lost "his" child and shows you just how he did it. I present information and take stands on child welfare issues, yes. I try my best not to personally attack individuals who take stands in opposition to mine. Be a man. Stand for something besides endless debate with me on hairsplitting. I am a man. I would become no more a man by joining you in personally attacking other members of this newsgroup. Name-calling is the act of a child. I would be less of a man if I went against my stand and engaged in what you are asking. They can STILL show the court their willingness to take the CPS pscyh eval. That is a very powerful statement. Of course if they ARE nuts this will bite them in the butt, but I have not a qualm about that. I prefer they face the truth. 1 Psychological evaluations do not determine if someone is nuts. What they do consist of are vague, unsupportable judgments of people. All psychological evaluations will end up in a negative DSM-IV diagnosis since all classifications in the DSM-IV are negative. Too often, these evaluations are little more than witchcraft wrapped up in psycho-babble. People involve in the child welfare system run across therapists all the time. We often meet their children. Our personal experiences tell us this is far, far less than a concrete science. The future of a child should not be determined by a psychological diagnosis made by a stakeholder to CPS agencies. Don't you? Psych evaluations have little to do with determining if someone is "nuts." You sir, are dead wrong. Dangerous conditions, to the victim and to others around him or her are clearly established by diagnosis and actions to protect all parties can be taken. Nope. With the exception of a few major diagnosis, evaluations do not establish dangerous conditions for people around the person with MI. Most MI afflicted people are not a danger to anyone. One mother that used to regularly, when she got off her meds against orders, would swim her 2 to 6 month old baby out into a major river here. Usually a fisherman would come across them, both naked on an island somewhere and rescue them. This in freezing weather. Are you saying the mother has a diagnosed mental illness? If so, what is the diagnosis? Is the problem here that the mother was on meds? No, the problem here is the mother is taking her infant with her into freezing water -- a dangerous situation that risks the child's life. All people with mental illness do not go swimming with their infants in unsafe conditions. She finally got it when once again her diagnosis was shared with her during a time she was stable, and someone had video taped her in the river. She screamed and cried when she saw the women in the river with the baby. She froze up when she saw the faces up close. She reliquished her baby shortly after, and now has a wonderful open adoption with a family that will keep both of them safe and connected, What was she taking meds for? Are you suggesting that the first therapist was wrong in her diagnosis? Was she on her meds when you saw her crying at the pictures? I hate what you say about CPS not because you are wrong, but because you do not say what is right, and you exaggerate and frankly you lie, far too much. I don't lie. I say things you don't like to hear. You cannot challenge the information, so you resort to this sort of stuff. You should be ashamed of yourself. No, actually, I shouldn't. I have done nothing to be ashamed of. teria for one or more DSM-IV diagnoses have been met. Some of the labels are relatively mild, while others are major. All are negative. There is little point in your point. One of the major problems in the publics misperception of psychological evaluations. Yes. Why do you continue to perpetrate that misperception? It isn't an entertainment. The purpose is to chart a course of tx and often rx. And protect that person and those around them. That evaluation report will be provided to the client (the parent). Evaluators in CPS stable make a good deal of their income (if not all) from CPS and they provide the parent's evaluation report to their client (CPS). If a stable therapist doesn't have a history of saying what CPS wants to hear they are taken out of the stable. You are as usual either lying or badly misinformed. A few months back I spent a profitable afternoon, three billable hours, consulting with a worker that was finding a counselor evaluating (obviously to route a family back to MORE therapy) with bias...in fact three involved therapists. Nothing you have said above or below disputes what I have said. And it will always be up to the CPS worker to act on or ignore the psych eval. Taxpayer money need not be spent on consultants to so advise their caseworkers. Caseworkers routinely ignore the findings of a psych eval if it doesn't fit in with their plan. Lower slobbovia again doug? They don't where I come from. The only ignore when the practitioners overstep the reasonable application of the evaluations. Yes, they would term their reason for ignoring the evaluations something like that. And you yourself said caseworkers are not diagnosticians. So who will do the evaluations? And caseworker malfeasance is not an excuse for stripping clients of needed services. Stop that. Independent therapists should do the evaluations. Evaluations should not be ordered unless there is probable cause to believe there is mental illness. The resolution? With my facilitation of the worker examining the circumstances and what SHE knew the family needed: reuniting without further services divided up between the three shrinks, just a few wind-up sessions for the family together, that little bull**** number by the shrinks ended. There is a lot of bull**** numbers pulled up by CPS stable therapists. Is a family's chances restricted to hoping the caseworker hires a consultant? You must live in hell. I see a lot of very careful work that results in a great deal of healing and recovery and children returned because children can be parented safely after parent treatment. I see a lot of children wrongfully removed from innocent parents because of hazy labels placed on parents by therapists looking, like your stable of psychs above, for ongoing business. I heard the howl from 50 miles away, but this is not an unusual action by a worker. I had to remind her that she was the case manager, not the shrinks. And they hadn't a decent argument to support their evaluation. Right. It is not an unusual action by a worker. Something a caseworker does all the time without a consultant. Who was howling? The therapists. It was one of those "treatem' the the end of the grant" numbers and the worker put her foot down. That particular worker, and there are something of a surplus of them in CPS, was, surprize, a licensed clinical social worker with about 8 years of therapeutic experience herself. So, she was an LCSW who disagreed with the psych evaluation done by other therapists. Happens all the time. A lot of disagreement. That is why the parent should seek out their own independent therapist. Why did the worker leave clinical work after 8 years? Her services to vet some of her collegues cases came in handy and tamed the therapeutic world just a tad. You have a good one. You, too, sir! |
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The Plant answer DNA swab Question
Kane writes:
Yes, CPS workers commonly have police officers accompany them (termed a courtesy call or assist) on home visits. Let me count the ways....r r r .. You are, as usual, pumping the readers full of your hot air. It is not "common" that "workers" do any such thing on "home visits." Hi, Kane! I was talking about workers visiting homes for assessments and investigations. Meeting an officer at the scene is common practice. These courtesy or assist calls are the rule rather than the exception. It is that they do on Protedtive Service interviews where the alleged abusers are known to be dangerous, or thought to be, on evidence. Obviously, they have no evidence until after they visit the home and start investigating. Calling for a police assist is commonplace, including those reports when, as in most cases, the accused parents are not "known" to either agency. The claim you just made is one of those classics of yours that show either you are not as familiar with CPS as you'd like everyone to believe, or you are lying out your stinkin' pie hole. I used the term "visit" generically. In context with this thread, I was talking about CPS investigations, which require an on site visit for assessment/investigation. A "home visit" by a "worker" is made almost exclusively when the family is receiving IN HOME services, that is the child hasn't been removed. Obviously this would not be a family that was so deep in their **** as to be a menace or the children wouldn't be there. In-home visits with families receiving services is an ongoing role assumed by CPS caseworkers. For many, such in home services cases make up the lion's share of their caseload. Often these cases do involve parents who you would consider a possible menace to their children. Which is, of course, why the family is receiving in-home services. Gravity of the abuse/neglect, or whether the parents were substantiated or unsubstantiated for same, has little to do with removal of children. Workers make bi-weekly or monthly visits to these homes WITHOUT a police officer. And workers don't visit such families, they make them come to the office for interviews and meetings. Incorrect. It is really quite crucial that the children and their family be visited in their home environment. The worker needs to observe their interaction and the condition of the home itself. This is why, of course, they call these interviews "home visits." Didn't you know this Doug, or just up too late last night pounding out more flack? I know what I have posted above, which differs substantially from what you claimed. You have a habit of posting false information and lambasting folks for not "knowing" it. Well, if it is false, of course they don't "know" it. They may know the opposite to be true. You may want ask your lunch group about CPS field practice. They will be happy to inform you about home visits to families receiving in-home services and the importance of observing a family system in its home environment. Best practices. They can fill you in on the percentage of their time that is dedicated to such work. And, as I have said, the officers role in such situations is to protect the worker. Unnh...yeah, and? And it is NOT to enforce any real or imagined civil authority of the caseworker against the children or their parents. Did I not make that very case? Are you trying to lull the readers into a stupor again so you can have your way with them...? R R R R Excellent. If that was the point you were making, then we are in agreement. In most cases, it is quickly discovered that the worker is in no physical danger. R R R R....Yah, and that's the truth, so help your ass. Something about Mace, handcuffs, a radio link to more cops, a .40 caliber Glock, a 12 guage Remington model 870 Police, with 7 rounds of 00 buck out in the unit rack, and a large and less than happy cop (they tend to just hate child abusers...yah know that?) tends to reduce the "physical danger" a tad. The vast majority of in home investigations/assessments do not involve child abusers. More than 60% are unfounded reports and upwards of 30% involve grey-area situations of possible risk, with no abuse or neglect having occurred. Thanks for pointed that out, again. I thought I made the point, but I guess you thought it important enough to reiterate. You are most welcome. They try, by order, to avoid it as much as possible because part of their job is to induce the parent to rehabilitate themselves and an arrest isn't the best of starting places, don't you think? Well, in these situations, arrest would not occur unless the parents assualted the worker or threatened bodily harm. As mentioned, this rarely occurs. Let me see, is there anything new here at all. No, there isn't. I said all that. Did you snip it? Why? No, I did not snip it. I replied to your post paragraph by paragraph. It is a pretty rare event when we talk about anything new. The "rarely occurs" is why the cop is invited. It's called deterence. Right. Would you prefer more child protective workers were assaulted, and or injured or killed? No. Nothing I said suggested that I would prefer that any worker be injured or killed. It remains for you to decide whether you want to knock off your straw man. I'm not quite sure what your point, or points is or are here. Well, I have done my best in this post to clarify them. While the investigator may not be trained to detain someone they have at their disposal, with the full support of the court under the law, LEO's to do the hands on work. If you don't think so, try getting in the face of a CPS investigator and see what happens. Perhaps you can clarify what you mean in the statement above so I do not run the risk of being accused of repeating something you think you said. Is your statement above restricted to the officer's role of protecting the worker against assualt or responding to the battery of a worker? If so, why would this protective role require the "full support of the court?" CPS workers do not have the power to detain adults and children only when they have a court order. Hair splitting again. It's obvious to any reader with half a brain that I am NOT going to define the circumstances, as you would wish, continuously down to infinity so you wan't have to respond. They know that I am not referring to all cases, as you yourself invoke on YOUR behalf later in this post. I am having difficulty understanding why stating that CPS workers need a court order to restrain or remove children from their homes would be hair splitting. But we can consider the hair split. Law enforcement officers, who often accompany CPS workers as a courtesy can only arrest, detain or otherwise act in accordance with their regular procedures. In other words, if the officer acts, he acts in his capacity of enforcing criminal law not as an adjunct to the CPS worker's civil authority. Are you going to continue to prove my point but try to twist it into a refutation by claiming, yet again, wearily that I meant something I did not say? If you meant that the police officer's role and her exercise of police power is restricted to protecting the worker, then yes, I have repeated what you have said. I did not take your statement to mean that, so I clarified mine. It is good we have this clarified then. I took your wording to mean that CPS workers had all the powers of law enforcement and that police made arrests as an extension of the CPS worker's civil authority. You took my working correctly. Workers are advised of two things in training: one is that they have the same law enforcement powers of any citizen, which, sans the capacity to physically effect an "arrest" (though they can certainly, just as you or I declare an arrest) which is the same as an LE sans capacity to effect and arrest; and two, it is better to properly assess the situation and have a police officer along if called for. While I do not doubt there may be some vague, academic foundation for your assertion that all citizens have police powers, we are talking about the real world. In the world I am familar with, police have one hell of a lot more power than civilians. But if this is your point, then the CPS worker's only authority in this context is drawn from her status as a citizen, not as a state worker. You are still babbling along, trying your damndest to be right by agreeing with me. If that is what you were saying, and we are in agreement, then my clarification was indeed babbling and I apologize for it. I was under the impression in the first post that we were not saying the same thing at all. If my wording agrees with your intent, as you state above, then we are agreed that police make arrests based upon their own, criminal criteria and not CPS's civil criteria. Opps! What has this to do with anything practical whatsoever? It has quite a bit to do with the family's situation when its members are confronted by a CPS caseworker and a police officer. I and you have the power to ask for, recieve police backing, and make a charge as the cop does. Ask a cop. So, as I said, does the worker. I did have the opportunity to ask few cops that question. It was well past lunch time. They said that if you insisted on a "citizens arrest," they may have their hands tied to effect it, depending on circumstances. They suggested they would advise against it with some passion. "The 'citizen' better be damn sure they are right, I can tell you that. It is a huge risk." Why? Well, the cops said, if there was probable cause that the individual committed a felony, THEY would affect the arrest on behalf of their agency, regardless of the citizen's wishes. If there was not probable cause, and the citizen insists upon making a "citizens arrest", then that citizen is open to lawsuit. The cops said you were confusing a complaintant with a arresting party. They laughed about the part about all citizens having the same power they do. But what other reaction would one expect? g Police arrest those suspected of felonies on behalf of the jurisdiction they represent. That is why the case will be entitled: "The State of Nebraska v John Doe. Once the arrest is made, it is up to the prosecutor -- NOT the complaintant -- to decide to persue the charges or drop them. One of the myths held by some members of the general public is that they can "drop" charges. In reality, the complaintant has no such right, since the case is one of the state against the arrestee. And, further, that police are there to protect the worker from assault or threat of same. So, what did I say? If it was just that, just that. Why do you go on with these little exercises? Too much time on your hands? Image building exercises? Just how desparate are you to keep your job? What job? Lacking a police escort they'll simply leave and go get one and the next encounter will not be as polite. There won't even be a question until the misinformed person is in cuffs. Not so. Or are you going to say again that this only happens in some cases? It does happen in those cases where citizens are charged with violating criminal law. Yes, it does happen when citizens are charged with violating criminal law. Since the vast majority of CPS child abuse/neglect actions do not involve charges of criminal law violations, such cases would be unusual. snore Which would be the circumstance during an investigation where the worker comes under criminal threat. Do I have to spell everything I say out to an entire encyclopedia, or are you going to stop playing your silly journalistic mind squat? I am glad that you have restricted this to cases that involve the CPS worker coming under criminal threat. I thought you were saying something different, so I clarified my statements. I see that you have clarified yours. I am glad we are in agreement. On what, that you squat and **** on the readers regularly? No, not on that. That is your strawman. It remains for you alone to reach a meeting of the minds with him. And that is a perfect way to precipitate removal of children if you wish to advise people to refuse to cooperate. The parent's response depends upon the individual situation, of course. Could there be a more profound truth in your post? I think not. How could you assume I would not write with that obvious fact in mind? Did you want me to google up a post where you advise parents to send CPS packing and not cooperate at all? Why, did you think I'd deny it. Some circumstances call for complete non-cooperation. I'd say the instant you are presented with a criminal charge, you do not speak, you do not sign anything, and you only ask for your attorney. This isn't rocket science. Dan keeps it simple. So do I but you want me to run out every scenario, and even then you'll still go rambling on finding something obscure to bring up. No. Nothing obscure. In the run and mill of CPS interventions, situations vary tremendously and each require different responses. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz You are becoming tiresomely transparent in you "debating" methods. Did you want the children removed in such cases? If it's as I described above that would not be a matter of choice. When the parent goes out in handcuffs it's usually only a few minutes before the child(ren) leave as well in the DHS car. Or if it was a kickdown the door situation in the middle of the night, then the cop will drop them at the 24/7 receiving center/shelter, or whatever they call it in your area. ...."A 72-hour hold." Police in our area, like all the states, have always had the absolute power to remove children and take them into custody. That's nice. It does not diminish the power of the worker to call on the police to effect such a hold. ....This is a whole different ball game. In such a case, the caseworker works with a court order to remove the children and the police officers' involvement is based upon authority of the court. The police officer can exercise his power as a police officer to remove unilaterally, but they rarely do. In those rare cases, the responsibility is on the police department as to whether the removal was proper or not. Physicians enjoy this same power. I do hope they call a cop or hospital security, just like the worker would, before exercising that power. CPS workers in all but a couple of states, do not have such authority. That is why they take a cop if they have to. How fine do you wish to split your hair? Nope. The police officer has authority to remove on his initiative and authority. Not on behalf of the caseworker's civil authority. I don't think this is hair-splitting. I am disagreeing with you...I think. g A PS workers does not know, prior to entry and interview, what they will find, a civil matter or a criminal one. Who, dear boy, if they find a criminal one, signs the complaint? Ask a cop. I did. The cops say the complaintant signs the complaint. The complaintant is NOT the arresting party. Police and doctors rarely exercise their power to remove children. Yes. We know. And your point? ....That police officers and doctors rarely exercise their power to remove children. Do you so advise? If the above does not answer your question, please let me know. What "question" did I ask? You asked, "do you so advise?" My answer was to refer you to my narrative above. Your encyclopedic answer has now ended up showing that in fact the worker, just like you and I, can in fact charge someone criminally. They are usually constrained in doing so only by social work ethos. A citizen can make a criminal complaint. It is up to the prosecutor to make a criminal charge. Police will not arrest someone named in a complaint without probable cause. They determine probable cause based on their training and policy (founded on case law), not the complaintant. And you are completely wrong about their power to remove children for a civil action alleging abuse. All they need in their hot little hand is a warrant. Correct. Then they act under authority of the court. If the parent wishes to push it that far, well the warrant will be issued. As said before, situations vary considerably. In many cases, no, the warrant would not be issued -- or even applied for. The party applying for the warrant has to prove probable cause. "No warrant shall issue absent probable cause." The parent's correct response depends upon the multiple, unique variables involved in their particular situation. It depends upon what brings the worker to the door. It is impossible to answer that question generally. The why do you insist that I answer YOU specifically constantly, when you know yourself each scenario is a speculation based on variable circumstances. I think we agree. Oh, isn't that nice. It is, isn't it? My apologies to the readers that thought you had a point. ....A refreshing change for you, sir. As long as you are in the mood, you may want to consider apologizing to those who saw the point. |
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