Blogs by Deborah K. Frontiera
Fighting CPS
10/28/2012 4:30:15 PM
The purpose of this blog is to provide updates on some of the cases I reported in my book (Fighting CPS: Guilty Until Proven Innocent of Child Protective Services Charges ISBN 9-780-9800061-6-2) that had not been resolved when the book went to press, and to report other cases where CPS is not working up to par. I’d also like to hear about cases in which Child Protective Services did the right thing so those cases can serve as examples of what should be done. Occasionally, I will report helpful tips and web sites with advice on fighting CPS.
To comment on this blog, or to tell your story, email Deborah Frontiera at frontiera.fightingcps.deborah.gmail.com
The next post on this blog will post on Nov. 12, 2012.
Texas’s “Voluntary Safety Plan” Is another Way to Harass Grieving Parents
Following all the legal battles and generally “bad” name CPS in Texas got, and deserved, in 2008 over the San Angelo cases at Yearning for Zion ranch (see Fighting CPS, Case X pgs. 214-229, and also the report on this blog dated Aug. 13, 2012) the State of Texas found a new way to harass grieving parents and bend the law to their own purposes. Whenever a child is killed, missing, or whatever, for any reason, and law enforcement agencies are involved, law officers must, in the course of their investigation, report the incident to CPS. Since 2008, caseworkers have been instructed to ask parents to “voluntarily” place any other children in the care of someone else—an “end run” around the legal process of seeking a court order to do so.
The agency then does its own “investigation” into the safety of other children in the family. On the surface, this might seem like a “good” thing, and when children are truly in danger, perhaps it is. If one child is in danger, others might be as well—or so the theory goes. But such incidents have also been used by the agency to insert themselves into the lives of thousands of innocent families. Two cases illustrate this and both happened in Texas during the spring of 2012.
In one case, the mother of two young children put them down for a nap and then lay down herself. The family had recently come to Texas for better job opportunities. So here are two sleeping children and one stressed-out, exhausted mother who tried to snatch a cat nap. The older of the two young children woke up and managed to get out of the house. Mom awoke to find him missing. Four dreadful days later, his body was found drowned in a nearby lake. These grieving parents were then approached by CPS to sign a “voluntary safety plan,” told they didn’t need a lawyer, and also told that if they didn’t comply, they might lose their other child, too!
Another new mother was gunned down in a parking lot and her child abducted! The child was quickly recovered, but when the grieving father went to retrieve his newborn, he was questioned about a years-old drug charge and also pressured to sign a “voluntary safety plan” giving up his baby after his wife had been murdered!
Parents, when grieving or greatly stressed, do not think about the law or their legal rights. (I know we didn’t—and ours was not a “voluntary” action.) We, and many parents, have “deer in the headlights” moments and CPS jumps right in to take advantage of our weakest moments.
In both these instances, CPS stated that such “voluntary” actions are merely an investigative tool because there are some “legitimate” concerns. The problem is that, according to the Houston Chronicle, during the last year, there were some 11, 468 such “voluntary” agreements signed. According to some of the lawyers working with these families, “bullying tactics” are often employed by CPS to get parents to sign these papers. Many parents are not only told they don’t need a lawyer, but not to call one! The high number stated above shows how effective such tactics have been, how frightened parents are, and, sadly, how little parents know about their legal rights. CPS caseworkers, for all their “good intentions”, take advantage of parental ignorance of the law. It’s a little like someone putting a gun to your head when you answer a doorbell and then saying, “Let me in or I’ll shoot you, but it’s your choice.”
While courts have repeatedly warned CPS that they must comply with their own policies and get a court order, this abhorrent practice continues. Overworked, underpaid, inexperienced caseworkers make snap decisions about complex family issues about which they know nothing, and always fall back on the “we’re just doing our job” or “better to err on the side of caution” excuses while families, and children who are removed from their parents for no legitimate reason, suffer the trauma of an extended nightmare.
Where does it end?
Only when parents stand up and say, “NO! You can’t enter my home without a warrant. NO, I will not sign this paper until I have had a lawyer read it.” Sadly, that is not easy to do while stressed or grieving.
(Statistic reported above is from the Houston Chronicle, May 27, 2012, pg. B5)
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