PUT A STOP TO CPS

CORPUS CHRISTI – A mother is fighting to see her children that are in foster care. Stephanie Perez and Johnny Montalvo had three of their children placed in foster care last year. CPS took custody of the children after the mother tested positive for cocaine while she was expecting. There was also an incident where one of the couple’s children turned up with a broken arm. Montalvo discovered bite marks on 3-month-old Sebastian’s face and arms during his twice-a-week visit allowed by CPS. Now, the mother is fighting to see her children. “I was really looking forward to getting my visits back today. I mean, seeing my 3-month-old like that, not being able to see him or hold him. It’s really hard,” Perez said. Perez hasn’t been able to see him or her three other children in foster care for over a month. Perez was scheduled to have her bond issue hearing Thursday morning but her court-appointed Attorney Dee Ann Torres wasn’t able to make it. The hearing has been rescheduled and that could take as much as four weeks. The hearing will decide whether or not she would get her visitation rights back, which is something she lost after testing positive for cocaine and allegedly hurting her 1-year-old daughter. “I’ve never been through any of this, so it’s really hard. I honestly didn’t hurt my daughter the way they are assuming I did. I just really need help and want help,” Perez said. “If my son looked like that under my care, they would have removed him and I would have lost my rights right there and then, and it’s like under their care it’s OK.” KRIS 6 News contacted CPS in Austin to see why baby Sebastian isn’t in another foster home. “These cases are often complicated and this one is no exception. For confidentiality reasons, we can’t share everything about this case. It’s just not public information. What the biological parents may think they know may not be accurate,” Austin CPS Spokesman Patrick Crimmins said. Also, CPS has decided that it is in the best interest of Sebastian that he stay with the foster family where he allegedly received a bite mark to this face. “[Even with the pictures of Sebastian's face], they still feel that it is a safe place,” CPS spokesperson John Lennan said. “[To be removed from a foster home] they must have severe neglect or abuse to occur in that particular home or in a case.” After asked whether the bite mark on Sebastian’s face qualifies as severe enough, Lennan stated, “The person who is being held responsible for [that bite] is an 18-month-old child.” “I kind of feel like it’s a big laugh on us. We are reporting it and they are still going to keep them with her. I feel we are doing what we are doing, but it is still just a big laugh at us,” Perez said. “It doesn’t matter what the obstacles are, we aren’t going to give up. Those are our children. We will continue to fight ’til the end,” Montalvo said. “I am going to fight ’til my last breath, at least until I get them home,” Perez stated.

 The New Jersey Office of the Child Advocate wants to stop issuing information on individual cases of children killed in foster homes, preferring to focus on “annual reports on trends” instead, through their Child Fatality and Near-Fatality Review Board. New Jersey’s State Department of Children and Families apparently intends to continue to release details about cases in which children are killed when under supervision of the state child welfare system. There have been some terrible, mind-bending deaths of children in foster homes in New Jersey, including starvations. You can search the FightCPS archives for more New Jersey foster child death information. Source: Clarification: Child welfare deaths story published on August 3, 2009 at Philly.Com. The Cover-Up Back when I started investigating child protective services, it was rare to hear about children killed while in foster homes. It seemed foster child deaths were covered up, white washed, and forgotten. In one California county a series of file cabinets full of reports of children abused in foster homes were found in a back room, the reports uninvestigated. Child abuse in foster homes didn’t warrant investigations because there was no federal money to be made by taking children from bad foster homes. It still seems to be low-priority to many CPS social workers. Federal funding is only given for taking children from their natural family homes, not from foster homes. Things have changed in the last twenty years. Now foster child deaths are being reported on in newspapers more often, and those media businesses are demanding access to child welfare records about foster children killed while in state custody.