My.Kidjacked.com

My name is R.W. I am a mother involved with DCFS in Louisiana. The incident that set all this in motion happened in Arkansas and is still in the process of being transferred to this state.

The judge in the parish we are having the case transferred to has already verbally agreed to take the case and actually from my understanding, has already signed the necessary paperwork to complete the process BUT I am finding it so difficult to get DCFS to act accordingly.

I have done and am still meeting all the requirements set forth by the judge and DCFS but I have yet been able to receive unsupervised visits. It has been 13 weeks and 4 days since the incident and we are still running on the same case plan we received within a few days of the worst night of my life.

Do you have any resources or information I could use to help me determine if DCFS is not acting in the best interest of my daughter? She needs her Mommy and since we have had to relocate to Louisiana from Illinois, she needs to get better acquainted with her new home. I don’t know why they won’t allow unsupervised visits, both my husband and I have had numerous clean drug screens and continue to go to counseling and outside meetings.

I feel so helpless I’ve been referred to a shrink for antidepressants and have lost close to 25 pounds through the amount of stress I’m under. So if you can help please do! I need all the help I can get. There are many more aspects to this case but I am a lazy typist!

Thank you,
R.W. in Louisiana

I have a situation where the case worker was actually in cahoots with what at the time was my wife. They filed false charges of abuse which has since been admitted to.

The case worker also took my kids even though her own legal department told her “DO NOT REMOVE THE KIDS.”  The wife and the case worker were trying to have put in prison for life. The courts have stepped in and the cps attorney and given me full custody or an “extended visit.”

I need an attorney to sue these people, do you know of any in North Idaho?

Thanks,
Mike K. from Idaho
208-704-7544

Hello everyone,
 
I am not sure how anyone else felt about the meeting and we may be alone in our frustration, but I thought I would share my feelings and the feelings of my daughters, who were suppose to be the population that was the subject of this meeting…
 
We were so excited to share our story, sitting there for several hours listening to a few stories from parents that made my daughters and I cry because of the similarities to what we went through.  But the majority of our time spent was listening to nonprofits promote their services and county officials promote the department, that to be totally frank, are all a part of that same broken system.
 
We watched as parent after parent (including myself) were cut off by time constraints, yet many of the “Non-parents” testifying were given 15 minutes to elaborate through questions from the panel.  For example the commissioner who spoke, anyone who has ever reported their end-of-the-year budget numbers can attest to the fact that those numbers can and are manipulated to read what they want them to.  Why was that even a part of the discussion?
 
Why were they given more time to explain away the county/department’s failures? Why were nonprofits able to speak to promote their goals?
 
Although I think that this meeting was a step in the right direction, It was, for me, no different than the many times I have stood in court and in DHS meetings, and rushed through, never having the opportunity to say what needs to be said.
 
For me it felt like a waste of time.  For my daughters, it felt like, yet again there were people claiming to care about what they have been through just to turn it into a discussion about everything except them, the children effected by DHS. 
 
They wanted me to tell our story and then ask the panel for permission for them to speak for the children.  After I spoke and sat down next to them they told me that it would be a waste of time for them to share because the panel was not listening anyway. That is how they felt, the children who were suppose to be at the heart of the discussion.
 
It is unfortunate that they didn’t get to hear our story because it would have given them just one of the many examples of the long-term damage inflicted by this broken system.  It would have given them a chance to hear how children were saved from possibly becoming one of those children who lost their life because of the department’s failures.  My children were saved, not by the department, or the court, but by the children’s bravery to continue asking for help until someone finally listened to them.
 
It’s unfortunate that they didn’t take the time to listen.
 
Thank you Rosemary, for including us and trying to give us a chance to tell our story.
 
Barb

Barb Farrell
3436 Hampton Drive
Fort Collins, Colorado  80525
970-308-2591 Cell
970-204-1682 Home
barbfarrell0519@yahoo.com

I am not really sure where to begin, but here in Murray county (northwest Georgia) you don’t really need evidence to take a child away and convict a person, you just need some kids (who have made false allegations before) to make allegations, and ignorant people to listen to them.

My Daddy's in Jail?

They came up with a plan; even wrote a note telling one of the others what to say, at a child advocacy center with paper thin walls, so that each child can hear what the child before them said. (Yes, this was recorded at lovely Green House CAC) by a vindictive family that knows its way around the system (they have always been in it).

My husband and I have been caring for 6 children for several years now. He and his ex-wife had 4, one passed away shortly after birth, and it drove the mother to a life of alcohol and drugs. The mothers family only mad attempts to be involved in the family when they benefited from it, like at tax time and stuff like that.

Well, we also had one child of our own and two nieces, which were placed with us under the Kinship care program. We moved here from Columbus, GA to keep them from seeing how their mother was killing herself, and to keep them from the gang life. We left the youngest of his older three with the mother because the mother would do anything for her, that is where she wanted to be and we did not want to force her.

A few months after moving, we received a phone call from the mother; a very vulgar phone call about how this 9-year-old girl was a lying whore, she had told DFCS that a friend’s stepfather had raped her and her friend; well it turned out to be a plot to live in a foster home together.

We immediately drove down to pick her up; the mother had been spending weekends in jail and the child was home alone, free to run around in an undesirable neighborhood with no supervision. None of the children liked living here, they said that there were too many “Hicks” here and everyone was unintelligent. These children were very smart; loved to read my college textbooks and always asked if I would copy any homework pages so they could attempt to complete the assignment.

I never stopped my children from excelling (yes I say my children, I raised them for 6 years).

When we would not allow them to stay with their mom they decided to call The Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) with the same allegations that the youngest of the three had used before, and it worked. I have lost my little girl, and now my nieces are going through the adoption process, to be forever removed from our family and heritage.

This is what our tax money does for us! My baby keeps asking if her daddy is in jail, or dead, and all I permitted to say is, “Baby, your daddy loves you.” I am monitored at all times, because they think I am going to tell my 4 year old something. They have her convinced that Daddy is in Jail! My husband is safe and at home with me, fighting for his little girl.

With one last note, custody of his three eldest was awarded to their mother’s mother, but she doesn’t have them, their mother does.

D.B. from Georgia

I have not seen my granddaughter in almost 3 months now. If it were not for hurting my wife, I would make going postal look like child’s play.

Our president needs to make this his top priority or the GOP could use this reform to totally destroy the democratic party. All these politicians need to get their heads out of their rear ends and finally listen to the people who are crying in the wilderness.

Sincerely,
E.F. in St. Clair County, Alabama

Have you ever had a time in your life when you felt like the world was simply spinning and you were just along for the ride? I feel as though my life has been running me. Lots of good and bad things are taking place, more good really than bad but change is oh so stressful.

I wanted to let my faithful readers know that I am not gone, the news articles are still being added regularly, just not quite as many as I’d like. I am still approving posts on our yahoo group and trying to keep up with our Facebook page.

I am more than happy to post a well written story. I save them all and try to go through them when I have spare time. The week of 4th of July is one of our busiest weeks of the year for our business. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing.

The best news is that soon I will have help for the site and I have many changes in mind for Kidjacked. I’ve found a terrific freelance editor, I’ll be introducing her soon.

I would also like to give a huge thank you to all of you who are submitting news items and posting comments to our blog. One of the worst things that happens to a victim of false allegations, is the feeling of despair and the isolation one feels. Let’s face it, if you have been falsely accused of child molestation, child abuse or neglect; you must be guilty. No questions asked.

Many young mens lives have been ruined by absurb allegations of statutory rape (by the parents) of the boys own girl friend that is only two years younger, which is perfectly normal. The young man ends up on a sexual offender registry for the rest of his life.

The point is not everyone who is accused of wrong-doing, has done wrong. Some “child welfare” agencies are quick to remove children, slow to return them and do little to improve the nuclear families circumstances, while at the same time foster parents are handsomely paid for their (unnecessary) services. This is an injustice.

Children need and desire a safe, stable home within their own family unit and should never be removed from a home without substantial evidence of immediate danger or death. If the federal government wants to enrich the state with grants to assist families, I think it’s wonderful but the rules MUST change. Maybe the foster children should provide input as to whether or not a bonus should be paid for the services they have received. That might shake a few trees.

Vivek S. Sankaran hits the nail on the head with her article, “Change the culture of the foster care system,” posted today in The Detroit News. She said in part:

Change foster care

Wayne County recently joined cities across the country and celebrated the first national Reunification Day to recognize the accomplishments of those who help parents regain custody of children lost to the foster care system.

For years, the goal of reunifying children in foster care with their families has received short shrift. Even though most children come to the attention of child protective services for allegations of neglect, far too many are removed abruptly from their homes and placed with strangers.

Once in foster care, they see their parents and siblings infrequently, change placements too often and receive inadequate medical and mental health treatment. Their parents rarely receive the help they need and they lack a meaningful voice in court.

All of this does enormous harm to the children. Foster care is a toxic intervention that must be used sparingly. An MIT study revealed that outcomes for children in foster care were far worse than similarly maltreated children who remained at home.

There it is in black and white. From MIT, a study that shows outcomes for children in foster care are far worse than similarly maltreated children who remained at home.

Most courts up until this point have been filled with parents, pleading, crying and demanding their children be returned. It won’t be long until the courts are filled with angry, former foster children bringing lawsuits against the state for wrongful removal. The lives that have been destroyed are in the millions. Sankaran goes on to point out some other very interesting facts:

No state system passed recent federal audits evaluating the treatment of foster children in state custody.

These problems are particularly troublesome in Michigan. In 2008, only a third of children who exited foster care were returned to their parents, nearly 20 percentage points below the national average. And the time it takes for Michigan to reunify those families is double the national average.

In contrast, Michigan is swift and efficient at separating children from their parents forever. Our state has the seventh highest rate of terminating parental rights in the country. Michigan has the second largest population of “legal orphans” — children whose only parent is the state.

I haven’t checked but if I had to wager a bet. My money would be on California having the largest population of legal orphans. We remove more children from their parents than any other state in the country.

This is simply unacceptable.

Did you know that in most states a child has five years after his or her 18th birthday to bring legal action against the state? You can bet that most foster children have no idea they have a legal cause of action for their treatment while in foster care, more so, if they were wrongly removed.

The only way I believe we are going to get the attention of our government is to make it too expensive for them to steal our children. Money talks and it’s time they pay up for all the lives who have been destroyed by their evil deeds. Yes, folks, I said it. There is no other way around it. These people are just plain evil.

Kinship Care

I am a kinship provider to a grandchild. The parents have turned over their parental rights and our case is going into permanency planning. CPS asked us to adopt this child.

When the biological father heard about this (he lives in Arizona and has had little contact with anyone this entire three years we have cared for our grandson) he protested and stated that his parents were better to care for him. CPS is taking his side as we have a new social worker and my grandson wants to live with his father, as is natural for a child to want to live with a parent.

I wish I could start my own blog but I have posted a few concerns on line before and someone brought it to the attention of CPS. I defended what I wrote, but of course then I wasn’t on their list of bffs. So they see me as a meddling foster parent who they want to get out of the picture. After all these years I am now facing losing my grandson.

You may think that we have done something to deserve this, but I assure you we have not. I can give you an issue by issue list of the things we have done to follow the plan but you’re just gonna believe me or not.

My point of this email… CPS is watching. They are taking note of everything we do on line and using it to make their case – even when, especially when, they are dead wrong.

They are about to move a child into a family with active addiction, no job and I could go on. So, this nightmare continues…

I have reached out for help to numerous agencies, lawyers, politicians and supervisors, nothing. So I am giving it over to God and hope that the truth, the real truth, will be revealed. Thanks and I wish you the best.

Sam T.,
Washington

I am a father of four children in Collin County, Texas who is experiencing the anguish of a custody dispute in the family court system.  My spouse and I have been separated for more than seven years and I have still not been able to get my divorce completed. 

Collin County Corruption

The current case was filed over a year and a half ago and there is no sign of it completing anytime soon (this case has actually been filed four seperate times!).  The tragedy is that my soon-to-be-ex has systematically brainwashed my four children to the point where they will have nothing to do with me. 

My youngest, Emily, is just over 7 years old and I have always had a special relationship with her.  But under pressure from her mother and oldest siblings, even she will no longer speak with me.  I had a great relationship with these children (whom I dearly love) right up to the point when this action was filed in September of 2008.  You can probably imagine the anguish and heartbreak I have felt as each of them slipped away.
 
I was given the name of a very expensive attorney in McKinney who talked a great game about involving a custody evaluator, counselor, etc….  I put my trust and hopes in these “professionals” that they would objectively review what was happening and hopefully find a way to minimize any permanent damage to my kids and their relationship with me and my family (they have been extremely close to my parents and their cousins for their entire lives). 

Instead, I was ambushed by a group of biased parasites who have only made the problems worse.  It is so bad now, I have essentially come to accept that my children will grow up without their father in their lives (how unfair to them).  I have not been accused of abusing them or neglecting them.  These third-parties have instead simply decided to take the side of my STBX and have let her continue to emotionally abuse these kids.  And just to be clear, I never asked anyone to take “my side”.  I only wanted these people to see that these children have a father who has always loved and supported them, in it is in their “best interest” to have them in their lives.
 
These people (again, brought in by my attorney), have lied and mischaracterized virtually everything.  I thought I had protected myself to some extent by recording most of the sessions with the counselor and evaluator, but ultimately I believe that will not matter in court.  Our divorce trial was set for June 28th, but my lawyer withdrew from my case last week after taking more than $20,000 and doing absolutely nothing.  I now find myself in a situation to which there seems no solution.
 
This leads me to my reason for writing to you.  Through this entire process, I have had a gut feeling that something has been wrong and that this system is not focused on “the best interests of the child” at all.  Nobody has won in my conflict other than the lawyers, counselor, and custody evaluator (who has now recommended that I start seeing a friend of hers for counseling and that my STBX and I see another friend of hers as a “parenting facilitator”). 

I have searched high and low on the internet for any bit of information about this system and its players, but there has been almost nothing.  So I have decided to start a site that will function as a resource and community for the people in our county that are becoming sucked into this system.
 
Check out Colling County Corruption

My experience over the last 18 months has also put me in contact with CPS.  I know first-hand what they are up to and I am personally acquainted with two mothers who are being unfairly targeted by them.  For that reason, I am devoting an entire area of the forum to DFPS/CPS interactions so that local citizens can share information.
 
There is no political agenda behind this other than to expose the unfair practices and outright corruption that is so rampant in the judicial system here in Collin County.  I will admit that I have always been politically conservative, but my disgust with what has taken place is non-partisan.  I am hoping to build awareness in the site, get people to post their experiences and share their knowledge so that other parents and their children will be spared the heartbreak I have experienced. 

(And as a quick note, I do not believe there is any gender-bias in what is happening.  I am personally aware of both women and men who are being “victimized” by the family courts.)
 
The reason I decided to put this site together is that I realized the only way things will ever change is if people are made aware of what takes place and share their personal experiences.  I also believe that for any action to be effective, it must be local.
 
 
Kind regards,
David

As most of us are well aware, May has been declared National Foster Care Month. Yes, I realize I am getting this out a little late. Grandma always said, “Better late than never.” Actually, I don’t want to celebrate foster care month, not this May or next or any other month for that matter.

May is National Foster Care Month

The news has been full of heart touching foster care children, parents and facilities. As a previous foster child all I hear is that yet another family failed. Foster care can be a death sentence for many children. Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear of another foster child’s death.

There are very few families who don’t have someone who is willing to care for the children who have been deemed “child in need of care” by some authority or another. I simply can’t understand our closed court system that is rampant in the U.S. Any person who has a personal interest in the child in question should be welcomed by the court to speak on behalf of the child. To deny a child the right to have an advocate, a family member or person who gives a damn about the outcome of the hearing, is wrong on so many levels.

I would like to invite current or previous wards of the state — living in foster care — to create their own blog. Please share your personal story. Let your voice be heard. Were you treated fairly? Do you think you are better off now or were you wrongly removed from your home in your eyes?

June is an election month. If you know of a candidate who supports CPS reforms, please share here and on our Facebook page. We need to hear from your candidate.