My grand daughter was taken because she missed 5 days of school. We are trying to figure out what medicine will work best for her and if she’s Bi Polar or not. She was late and missed the day school started again, after Christmas break, the judge took her from us without taking into consideration that she had just started a new medication and was still adjusting to it to see if she was bi polar or not.
While in state custody 5 weeks now she has attended school 1 week and now is in a psych hospital where they won’t even allow her to talk to her mother or her grandmother.
The system is failing and she’s escalating out of control and we are helpless to save her. Please if you have any information that we can use it would be greatly appreciated. We need to get her home and get back to Idaho, where she and our other children can be safe and get the actual treatment that she needs.
After having been involved in my own custody battle and losing some of my children to my ex-husband due to the fact that I’m disabled, I sought support for my grief. In doing so, I met other parents who had been through the nightmare of child custody loss.
One married couple, David and Mandy, had lost custody temporarily and told me a tale so unbelievable I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t had first-hand experience of state corruption. Their custody of their newly born baby son George was taken – including their right to make medical decisions – because they went against orthodox medical advice.
David and Mandy didn’t have a child until they reached their 40’s. Mandy had an aggressive type of arthritis that required immune modulating medication; because of this they had decided it was best not to have children. As the years ticked by and Mandy got closer to menopause, she inevitably changed her mind and they managed to conceive quickly after altering the medication.
They were free spirited people, who had previously lived in a narrow boat but bought a house on learning that Mandy was pregnant. They had specific ideas for how they wanted the birth to be and for how they wanted to raise their child. They wanted to experience natural childbirth, and because Mandy was afraid of hospitals due to previous negative experiences, they hired a midwife in the hope of having a home birth.
Home Birth Hostility
Unfortunately the birth didn’t go to plan and they had to be transferred to hospital for an assisted delivery. That is where their nightmare began. Staff at the hospital seemed to be contemptuous because they had planned a home birth and because they were older first time parents. Their attitude only got worse when Mandy refused a forceps delivery and told them if they wanted to use forceps she would have to be sedated first. Although they complied with the unusual request, they viewed her as an oppositional patient.
The Fallacy of Informed Consent
After the birth of a healthy 8 lbs. son, they informed staff they were refusing Hepatitis B vaccine for baby George because it was a sexually transmitted disease and they knew that Mandy didn’t have Hepatitis B. The couple had been married more than 20 years and were sexually faithful to each other and the only way that George could contract the disease as a newborn was by infection during childbirth. As his mother wasn’t infected, this was impossible.
They knew that all drugs have side-effects and decided the injection was unnecessary for George. Informed consent or refusal of medical interventions is supposed to be a cornerstone of modern medical practice, but in reality, over-reaching authorities class ‘medical neglect’ as ‘not following medical recommendations’. Hostile staff informed child protective services.
They were allowed to leave the hospital with their baby but on arrival home had CPS knocking their door down. Instead of being able to enjoy their new baby, they faced a lengthy interview about their unorthodox views and were accused of ‘not trusting’ medical professionals and putting their baby at risk by attempting a home birth, delaying forceps intervention and refusing a vaccination.
Social workers questioned whether Mandy’s arthritis would make her a suitable carer for baby George since David was at work during the day. They held an emergency meeting and court hearing and decided that George should be placed in the custody of the state until the parents ‘prove’ their suitability to be his parents. Tiny George – only a few days old – was taken by force from the arms of his distraught and begging mother.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Big Brother is Watching You
They were only allowed to visit him in a DFS center where they would be monitored to see how they were looking after the baby (something reminiscent of George Orwell’s ‘1984’) and they had to be accompanied to all medical visits where the final say was with the state (although they didn’t force the vaccination that the parents had declined).
Eventually, when no neglect or abuse could be found and they had no ‘spurious’ reason to keep George from his parents, they were given physical custody with medical custody remaining with the state. Social workers visited their home daily and controlled most of what they did. They were prevented from using cloth diapers, as the social workers said this was ‘unhygienic’ and when Mandy made George home cooked food with a blender, she was told she had to feed him commercial baby food.
It took David and Mandy until their baby was nearly a year old to regain medical custody of him and far longer than that to repair their strained marriage.
Theirs is by no means the only case. Medical care is purported to be free to refuse, but if you say no to a proposed treatment, openly challenge a medical professional or make a choice that is a little ‘outside the box’ (for instance, home birth) you could be red flagged by social services or have your child taken away from you.
The Story of Justina Pelletier
Teenager Justina Pelletier was taken from her parents when two hospitals that were treating her, disagreed over her care. Justina, a former ice skater with Mitochondrial disease, was admitted to Boston Children’s Hospital, where a junior doctor who said that mitochondrial disease did not exist and that their daughter really had Somatoform Disorder, a mental health disorder caused by stress.
Doctors at the hospital said she’d been misdiagnosed and falsely medicated. When her parents objected and said they would seek a second opinion from another hospital, child welfare workers were called in and the family were prevented from leaving the hospital. Custody was given to the state and Justina was locked in a psychiatric ward for 16 months.
She later told journalists that medical staff there were ‘so mean and nasty’ to her, accusing her of faking her illness. She was only allowed one hour a week to visit her parents.
Since getting her back in the ensuing court battle, Justina’s parents say that ‘it was all a mad psychiatric experiment’ and accuse Boston Children’s of experimenting on their daughter without consent. Although Justina is now home, because she was denied treatment for her mitochondrial disease during her forced detainment, she is now unable to walk and is confined to a wheelchair – a tragic example of what can happen if the state get their hands on your child.
Hi my name is Nikki. My 14 year old daughter flew to Columbia, SC from Dallas, TX to visit her aunt and paternal family on April 16, 2014. She got into trouble in school for trading her iPhone for cold medication and cigarettes on May 21st. On Thursday, May 22, she was taken into state custody and immediately placed in foster care.
Not My Children: A True Story of CPS and Government Funded Kidnappers
I received a text message on her aunt’s first court date stating, “Please call about Dominique Jackson.” I have placed my daughter in psychiatric care due to suicidal threats years ago but she has not had any issues since. This is my daughter, whom I have full custody, but I did not, and still have not, received a single phone call from DHS. They did not attempt to call a single family member pertaining to my daughters case either. Which to my understanding is breaking federal laws.
Her aunt says that all charges of negligence were dropped against her. Now they are placing her in a work camp! I have spoken to my daughter many times and she has told me that her case worker stated, “I don’t go chasing after grown folk. If you were my child, I would have already been up here raising hell, if your mom cares, she would have called the day you were taken into custody!”
I was not even aware until after the fact because I was not contacted. The DHS caseworker also told her aunt that she spoke with me and I said, “my daughter is not to live with any one but her aunt, and this is why she is in foster care.” I have NEVER spoken to DHS for fear they will twist my words and I will lose my temper, giving them an actual leg to stand on.
When I spoke with a man claiming to represent my daughter (court date) May 27th, he told me that I could “not come up there and bring her home. They will not release her to me.” I recorded the conversation. Now the caseworker said I could have taken her home that day! I can prove they have broken many federal laws.
They claimed they were worried about her mental state but if that is the case, why is she not in a psychiatric facility? Why is she in a foster home? I am trying to find a lawyer through legal aide but any direction you can point me in, I will be eternally grateful. This is my daughter and I want her home where she belongs right now. They are breaking the law and causing emotional stress on the entire family. Especially her little brother.
I’m a former foster child. I had suffered abuse at home with my step dad. I stood up to my abuser and asked for the help of child protective services. He confessed and was convicted for his crime and I was placed in foster care. Even though my step dad was the criminal he was released years before I was. Foster care had become such an abusive prison for me I finally ran away, homeless out on the streets, to young to work and no where to go.
Not only do I have physical scars from the abuse I received in foster care but some days I still cry from the type of mental maltreatment I received at the hands of my supposed protectors. I’d come a long way since foster care. I had worked full time and went to school at night to finish high school and continue further in my education to become a surgical dental assistant. Later, I changed my career path and began working for scholastic books. I refused to allow CPS, my therapist, and the foster parents opinions to control who I would become or to limit my future. (I was lucky to be stubborn and rebellious.)
Here recently I’ve had a great opportunity to become connected with other former foster children, and we each share our stories with each other and give each other support. But I started to notice something. The opinions and ordeals each former foster child had faced in foster care, seemed to echo the same opinion or same unacceptable situation when thrown into foster care. For example:
An ex foster child said something recently that had caught my attention. She said, “One thing that bothers me is society says parents who use drugs, abuse their kids, neglects them, and many more things, aren’t good enough to be parents and forcefully removes the children. This very same society looks the other way when we’re abused in foster care, moved several times, remain in limbo for years without any stability.
We go years if not forever, waiting to be adopted by these people, but they go overseas to adopt. We get dumped out on the street and left to survive like animals when we age out of the system with absolutely nothing. Society doesn’t care what happens after we leave our unfit parents. When in some cases the unfit parents are 100% better than the numerous foster homes who have been checked out by the state and approved. Just because we leave our unfit parents doesn’t mean we live happily ever after.”
Here are some numbers found on Wikipedia that support this former foster child’s statement.
Maltreatment per 100,000 US children.
CPS Parents
Physical Abuse 160 59
Sexual Abuse 112 13
Neglect 410 241
Medical Neglect 14 12
Fatalities 6.4 1.5
I’ve also had an ex foster child contact me wondering why foster kids are treated so badly and no one pays attention. His reasoning, his temporary foster parent had run him over with her truck. He was pronounced dead but then had finally been revived. He sued the state for this and somehow only ended up with $40 thousand dollars and mass long term pain (his court appointed lawyer received the bulk of the money) and he also has many bills from the doctors, him and his bio mother are obligated to pay. ( I can understand his frustrations.)
I’ve been reading many ex foster kids stories (including having my own) and what I find is more atrocities after they were removed then what they experience at home. I can not help but wonder why this agency has made such great leaps and bounds on how to manipulate, maneuver through the law, and perfect how to remove children but they themselves have no idea how to raise children. They have spent millions upon million each year for over 30 or 40 years on these state run agencies yet in general all they have produced is abused and neglected children who go on to struggle in society.
Look at these statistics copied from children’s rights.org
12-30 percent struggled with homelessness
40-63 percent did not complete high school
25-55 percent were unemployed; those employed had average earnings below the poverty level, and only 38 percent of those employed were still working after one year
30-62 percent had trouble accessing health care due to inadequate finances or lack of insurance
32-40 percent were forced to rely on some form of public assistance and 50 percent experienced extreme financial hardship
31-42 percent had been arrested
18-26 percent were incarcerated
40-60 percent of the young women were pregnant within 12-18 months of leaving foster care.
Nancy Schaefer already further summarized all of this as, “The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in 1998 reported that six times as many children died in foster care than in the general public and that once removed to official “safety”, these children are far more likely to suffer abuse, including sexual molestation, than in the general population. Think what that number is today ten years later!”
Senator Nancy Schaefer reported, “that poor parents very often are targeted to lose their children because they do not have the where-with-all to hire lawyers and fight the system. Being poor does not mean you are not a good parent or that you do not love your child, or that your child should be removed and placed with strangers; that all parents are capable of making mistakes and that making a mistake does not mean your children are to be removed from the home. Even if the home is not perfect, it is home; and that’s where a child is the safest and where he or she wants to be, with family;
I’ve also read countless ex foster children’s stories of how they had been medicated for one thing after another and even witnessed an adopted child so overly medicated, he could not control himself. Thankfully after talking to his adoptive parents they agreed to slowly back him off of the 10 medications he was on. (He spent a lot of time in my home during this time) he has calmed down greatly and has now been able to focus and excel in school.
Some ex foster kids talk about the long term effects these medications have caused them, long after they have finally gotten off of the drugs. Some must continue taking different types of meds to help them deal with the after effects of the medications forced upon them in foster care, (all under the guise of being in their best interest).
Here’s one former foster child’s statement of what she had been through and how the medications affected her.
“I was living in Maryville, Tennessee and was 14 years old. I was depressed but I was a really quiet kid and a laid back type. These folks decided to start me on meds for my depression (a little red pill that I don’t know what it was) shortly after, I noticed I was feeling anxious and nervous. Then I noticed that I started having a short fuse when it came to my temper and it was more difficult to calm down. I told the group home owner this, but she wouldn’t have me taken off the meds.
I started spitting the meds into a paper Dixie cup they would give me water in to take my medications and crush the cup so no one saw. I started to feel normal again, I did that for a month before I was ratted out by another kid. Any way they took me to a doctor that put me on Paxil. The night they gave me that stuff, I was wired for sound and tried to play sumo wrestling with my roommate Donelle. The medication made me constipated and I felt overly psycho, again, no one would listen to me asking to be taken off the meds.
I also noticed I had more issues than usual on concentrating on my school work and I started being mean to others, really mean, as in hitting folks and yelling, it was like I was losing control. I found myself withdrawing because of it and crying my eyes out at every turn. That’s the same year I started having panic episodes. One day decided to ditch school and just go walking… I was told that I cussed out all of the group home staff but I do not remember it… Eric blankenship could tell you a lot about that. I was picked up by the police and taken back to the group home but then I was moved to a teen psych ward.
There at the psych ward they gave me a higher dose of Paxil and added Milloril to my meds and some pill they were telling me was a vitamin but I’m sure it was a tranquilizer because not long after taking it, I could barely hold my head up.
This went on for a month solid until a caseworker (a man) showed up to take me to my next placement. I was on those meds from foster home to foster home then one day I was taken to an all girl group home in Knoxville, Tennessee where shortly after I was abruptly changed from the Paxil and Millorill, to Prozac and Trazedone. The first time they gave me the Prozac, I was 15 years old and was being given 3 Prozac a day and my head always felt like I had a chunk of lead tied to it. Schooling was hard because it was a new place and I felt crazy out of my head. I hated everyone and everything.
I felt as if my mind was working overtime and I was suicidal because i could not calm down and in that same place I was fondled by one of the men staff workers when we went on a trip to the University of Tennessee Race Track. I would scream in the night in my sleep and I would be so nervous every day. I got defiant with the staff and would cuss this one lady in particular named Deiadra. She was a reasonably nice person but I got to where nothing mattered.
Till this very day, I am a nervous type person and I still have the panic episodes that started as a teenager, I have a very hard time coming down from any emotion whether it be anger, anxiety, joy, depression, fear, etc. I know it was because of the meds because prior to the meds, I was able to keep my emotions in check. I’m angry that this has to be this way, with me but this crap has forever changed me, along with all the being passed around like a dooby. It, all has an effect on me that, will never be normal again. I still consider myself a glitch ”
Grays Harbor County: CPS has taken both my babies from the hospital. I admit I needed help when they first got involved. Aug 1 2012 I gave birth to my son & tested positive for drugs.
The next day CPS came and said I HAD to sign my temporary rights away. They let me have the baby though day & night the 3 days I was in the hospital. I chose to be honest with them thinking it would help me with my case but all I did was give them what they wanted and they used everything against me.
But how was I suppose to know my rights. I’m a good person. And why would I study my parental rights with CPS. I admitted I needed the help with drug treatment and have accomplished the obstacles. I have done everything they have asked and more from day 1.
I found out I was pregnant (again) in December 2012 with 2nd baby. which sped up me getting in treatment faster to Harbor Crest that treats pregnant women. I graduated a 26 day in-patient Jan 7th 2013. I also did a nurturing parent class in treatment and completed that. I graduated Intensive Out Patient April 1,2012. I graduated Out Patient early July 5th 2013. I graduated the 18 week “The Incredible Years” parenting class in July 2013.
I started mental health counseling at BHR, when I was pregnant with first baby and got letters from my counselor saying I was fully invested with getting my children home & doing well. I am in Parent Protection Group since July & still attending. I started individual D.V./Anger classes and my instructor was an advocate at needed times.
I’m working with Dr. Shawn Andrews at Elma Family Medicine regarding my Suboxine medication. I meet with the Dr. frequently during the months and she has written me several letters to my caseworker and judge stating I was doing well and it was in the children’s best interest to be home w/me.
My second pregnancy the CPS worker made me feel like I had to choose between my unborn baby and my 1 year old. But she didn’t bring up this baby I was carrying till May, the month before I had him. She gave me 2 options to adopt or she was filing for shelter care. Him coming home to me was not even an option.
She has threatened me, lied and so on. We had a meeting before I gave birth and she told me if I kept this baby also it would prolong my other baby coming home, which makes no sense because she has both my children. She also told me to write this baby a “good-bye letter”. And that I couldn’t take care of 2 baby’s. She was dead set on me adopting.
She had NO grounds on taking the new baby. Each reason she gave me I have documents resolving each of her decisions. Taking Kayden was premeditated. It was finalized before I gave birth. She told me the day before she was taking him, so obviously it wasn’t drugs because how could they determine if I was clean without having him born yet.
I even had a letter from my OBGYN saying I was in full compliance doing good. Something needs to happen. I want my boys home, I’ve never even gave the chance to be a mother to them so how can they judge me? How can they be for the family when you see your children once a week for 2 hours supervised.
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