 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
 | |  | |  |
Beware Child Protective Services: What Victims, Advocates, and Mandated Reporters Need to Know Introduction Part 1 - Key Facts About Child Protective Services Part 2 - Tips for Avoiding the Abuses of Child Protective Services for non-offending parents, advocates, and mandated reporters Links - About Child Protective Services Note: Throughout this text the terms Child Protective Services (CPS) and Child Welfare Agencies are used interchangeably. Introduction Probably no other public agency leaves victims and advocates more perplexed than Child Protective Services. On the one hand, people think of CPS with appreciation as they envision a selfless agency rescuing innocent children from horrific conditions. Indeed, CPS workers across the country do this routinely. The gratitude is deserved. At the same time, the agency seems to be perpetually marred by a steady drumbeat of nightmare stories about CPS emanating from the very families CPS is supposed to serve. This text deals with just one of these problems; the CPS practice of removing or threatening to remove children from the nonviolent, non-offending parent in cases of family violence. This guide explains why this happens with such frequency, how to help prevent it from happening in your case, and what to do about it if you're already caught in its grip. (Since the non-offending, nonviolent parent in these cases is usually the mother, we often refer to this parent as 'the mother', though there are certainly cases where the non-offending parent is the father.) The Situation as it Usually Unfolds In brief, the particular problem we cover usually unfolds like this. A mother herself seeks help from CPS or becomes involved with CPS through someone else's report of suspected child abuse. Her child has been physically or sexually abused by a family member, usually by a male family member, or there are concerns the child is living in a home where there is domestic violence. At first, the mother naturally anticipates that CPS will try to help her and her child, and try to punish and stop the perpetrator. So these mothers are stunned when suddenly the CPS/juvenile court system turns its sights on her, even though everyone agrees she didn't perpetrate the abuse or violence. Suddenly she is the one under investigation, and the perpetrator is seeming to be all but ignored. And worse, CPS is threatening to take her child from her, or has already done so without warning or notice, and is threatening to keep the child, right at the time that mother and child need each other most. She feels the system turn hostile toward her. Did she, the non-offending parent, protect the child from the violent parent? Did she protect the child from molestation? Did she protect the child from being exposed to domestic violence in the home? Well, no, obviously she did not, or could not, or, in the case of molestation, often didn't know about it. Instead of being treated more as a co-victim of a violent perpetrator, with help and guidance provided according to the mother's expressed needs, she is treated more as a co-perpetrator, with CPS establishing mandated controls over virtually any which aspect of her life CPS chooses, all under threat of losing her child. In addition to court dates at which it is her behavior that's in question, CPS gives her a mandated, often overwhelming set of programs and goals she must comply with to the satisfaction of the CPS/juvenile court system, in order to - maybe - get the child back - and maybe not. She is also held accountable for maintaining a cooperative attitude throughout, even though she is, in fact, in a profoundly adversarial relationship with CPS (which is why she's given an attorney at court time). At the same time, she begins to realize that the CPS/juvenile court system isn't pushing to hold the perpetrator accountable for his violence, nor is CPS even invested with the power to do so. Most mothers say they would rather be threatened with jail than to be threatened with the loss of her child. Yet as invasive, terrifying, and awesome as this governmental threat is, virtually all the decisions as to her fitness, compliance, and fate are being decided at the lowest judicial standard of evidence, 51% of the evidence, the 'preponderance of the evidence' standard. This is a far cry from the 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard the government must reach before sentencing someone to jail for even the briefest time. The level of proof against her that CPS is required to put forth is so minimal that it provides the mother little protection against any abusive, prejudiced, or discriminatory exercise of power by CPS. The low evidence burden on CPS also makes it nearly impossible for the mother to defend herself, especially against such vague accusations as 'failure to protect', or that 'she knew or should have known', things which don't even constitute a crime in the criminal system. And to top off the injustices, an all too common requirement on her must-do list is that she and/or the child must partake in family conferencing or a family reunification plan in which one or both must meet, mediate, or co-counsel with the perpetrator - the very same perpetrator from whom the mother has been accused of 'failure to protect' the child. The Dawn of Recognition Unfortunately, such stories are not the result of occasional human errors that are bound to occur in any public agency. They are, instead, inevitable and frequent outcomes stemming from the flawed founding premises and the weak legal underpinnings of the CPS/juvenile court system. The structure of the system drives toward these injustices no matter how well intentioned individual CPS workers may be. Nor is this to say that children should never be removed from the non-offending parent. There are circumstances in which they should. The problem is that the system is so arbitrary, sexist, secret, and outdated, that it tends toward abusive or mistaken results. In the last decade, there has been growing recognition and discussion of the CPS problem as it pertains to the non-offending parent. In 1999, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges put together the Greenbook Initiative, a set of 67 recommendations aimed at remedying precisely this set of problems. But though the Greenbook gives long overdue recognition to the issue, the recommendations don't call for installing any firm checks on the system, as will be discussed in more detail in a later section. And in 2004, in New York state, there was a landmark settlement in a class action lawsuit against that state's child welfare agencies. The lawsuit, Nicholson v. Scoppetta, had been brought by mothers who had their children removed for no other reason than that the mothers, victims of domestic violence, had failed to protect their children from 'exposure' to the domestic violence. The 2004 lawsuit agreement and an earlier injunction prohibited child welfare agencies from using this reason alone to remove children from non-offending parents. Though the lawsuit put CPS agencies around the country on notice of their wrongdoing and harm done in these cases, to date it has brought only modest change in practice. The vague laws and weak evidence standards governing CPS means that CPS workers need only adjust the language used in their justification for removing a child, offer the usual scant proof, and many juvenile courts continue removing children in these situations as before. Perhaps the brightest spot on the horizon is the year 2005 resolution passed by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in support of presumptively open hearings with discretion of courts to close. Since their founding, most CPS/juvenile court proceedings have been operating in secret, completely off the public record. This secrecy has mushroomed the system's tendency toward abuse. The judges' 2005 resolution in support of open hearings is not yet law, but it's a promising step. It's highly unlikely any of the system's abuses will be corrected until this essential public airing and public scrutiny of the system's proceedings is firmly set into law and practice. The Oppressive Swath of Danger and Damage The harm of the widespread CPS practice of removing or threatening to remove children from non-offending parents extends far beyond the dangers and injustices to individual mothers and children. The harm extends to nearly every poor, immigrant, or minority race mother who is trying to deal with family violence. Most have heard first hand stories of CPS removing children from other mothers in their neighborhoods. As a result, they become reluctant to seek help for their own situations for fear that the same thing might happen to them. Though we include a fair amount of information about the structure and history of CPS, the purpose of this guide isn't to do policy analysis nor to make recommendations for change. The purpose of this guide is to give family violence victims, advocates, and mandated reporters information and tips that can help you, as best as possible, to understand and avoid the pitfalls and abuses of the CPS/Juvenile Court system as they pertain to the non-offending parent. *** Part 1 - Key Facts About Child Protective Services and Child Welfare Agencies Though most of the information in this section is meant to explain why so many non-offending parents get victimized by the CPS system, we start by correcting a very common misconception about mandated reporting. 1. In California, and Many Other States, Mandated Reporters Do NOT Have to Report to Child Protective Services. We start here because so many counselors, teachers, doctors, and other mandated reporters, many of whom are already sympathetic to the problems mothers experience with CPS, say there's nothing they can do about it. They believe their state laws require that whenever they suspect child abuse, they must make a report to CPS. But that's not, in fact, what the law in California and many other states says at all. As you can see clearly in the California law printed here, the law gives mandated reporters a choice of institutions to which they can report. You can make your report to police, sheriffs, probation departments, or child welfare agencies. In fact, in California and many other states we're familiar with, the mandated reporting laws put child welfare agencies last on the list of options. Here is the section of the California State Mandated Reporter Law that pertains to whom one should report. California Penal Code Section 11165.9 11165.9. Reports of suspected child abuse or neglect shall be made by mandated reporters, or in the case of reports pursuant to Section 11166.05, may be made, to any police department or sheriff's department, not including a school district police or security department, county probation department, if designated by the county to receive mandated reports, or the county welfare department. Any of those agencies shall accept a report of suspected child abuse or neglect whether offered by a mandated reporter or another person, or referred by another agency, even if the agency to whom the report is being made lacks subject matter or geographical jurisdiction to investigate the reported case, unless the agency can immediately electronically transfer the call to an agency with proper jurisdiction. When an agency takes a report about a case of suspected child abuse or neglect in which that agency lacks jurisdiction, the agency shall immediately refer the case by telephone, fax, or electronic transmission to an agency with proper jurisdiction. Agencies that are required to receive reports of suspected child abuse or neglect may not refuse to accept a report of suspected child abuse or neglect from a mandated reporter or another person unless otherwise authorized pursuant to this section, and shall maintain a record of all reports received. One obvious question after reading this law is why are so many mandated reporters taught incorrectly that they must report to CPS when the law in many states so clearly gives mandated reporters a choice. The reasons will become clearer in the section on the history of child protection. But in brief, CPS agencies were established back in the late 1960's and 1970's at a time when a strong national consensus had developed that children shouldn't suffer abuse in the home. However, it was also a time when family violence was not yet viewed as criminal, and perpetrators were not held accountable. CPS powers and functions were shaped to reflect that ambivalent constellation of beliefs. And today, despite advances, there is still strong societal resistance to holding family violence perpetrators accountable. And there's a corresponding tendency to channel intrafamilial child abuse cases into CPS where policies and powers are set to detain the child and not the perpetrator. But the main point we want to underscore here is that mandated reporters in many states can choose not to report to CPS. You have other options, and often those other options will be much more beneficial for both the mother and the child. NOTE 1: Finding the Text of Your State's Mandated Reporting Law - Most states have their full legal codes on the Internet in searchable form. Go to your state's legal codes page. In most states, the mandated reporting laws will be in your state's Penal Code. Search 'child abuse mandated reporter' or similar term. NOTE 2: Cross Reporting - In California and in many other states the child abuse mandated reporting laws require 'cross-reporting' between agencies. This means that the agency which receives the initial report must immediately send copies of the report to other designated agencies. So if CPS receives the initial report, CPS must immediately send a copy of the report to the relevant police agency and to the District Attorney's office, and visa versa. This cross-reporting requirement has little effect on the problems we're trying to outline here because in general practice the agency that first receives the report is the agency which takes primary responsibility for handling the case. 2. CPS Does Not Have the Power to Open a Criminal Case Against the Perpetrator, Nor Do They Have the Power of Arrest. CPS agencies are not law enforcement agencies. They are social service agencies. This explains why CPS does not take action against the perpetrators of the violence. Child Protective Services do not have the power to open a criminal case against perpetrators of child abuse. They do not have the power to do criminal investigations of child abuse, nor the power of arrest. Nor does the juvenile court system that corresponds to CPS cases seek to prosecute the perpetrators, nor are these courts invested with the power to do so. CPS workers are not law enforcement officers, they are social service workers. Child Protective Services are a branch of your state social services department. They are not part of your justice department nor of your local law enforcement agencies. Understanding this is key to understanding why the CPS/juvenile court system does not hold perpetrators accountable for violent acts against a child, nor does it seek to gather evidence for prosecution, nor to punish the perpetrators for what they've done. The CPS/juvenile court system was never intended nor empowered to do so. So, if your daughter was raped by her stepfather, for example, CPS will not investigate his crime, will not seek to punish him, nor in any way hold him accountable. Likewise, if your husband is violent with you and CPS is looking into the status of the children, CPS has no power to hold the perpetrator accountable for his violence. NOTE 1: The CPS 'Investigation' - One of the things that creates confusion on this issue is that CPS and others use the word investigation to describe the CPS process of looking into the child abuse matter. But these are not criminal investigations where evidence is gathered to determine 'beyond a reasonable doubt' who committed a particular crime, and how, so that the perpetrator can be brought to justice. A CPS 'investigation' can be better understood as a social narrative report on the status of a child and the child's family. To be sure, the CPS report centers around the issue of the suspected abuse. But once CPS determines it's 'more likely than not' that the abuse occurred, that satisfies CPS inquiry into the incidents themselves. Different from a criminal investigation, the main purpose of the CPS report is to determine whether or not the child needs to be protected from future abuse, and if so, what needs to be done to protect the child from future abuse. As such, CPS reports focus in on detailing the family histories of the parents, the psychosocial and economic conditions of the home, the relationships between the family members, the school and educational status of family members, as well as covering the alleged abuse. All of these things, except for the abuse, would be completely irrelevant in a criminal investigation. NOTE 2: Juvenile Court Powers in CPS cases - In many states, juvenile courts do now have the power to order perpetrators into counseling, and in some states have the power to order the abuser out of the home. These decisions, however, are rendered with the purpose of protecting a child from future abuse, and not with the purpose of holding the perpetrator accountable. 3. The CPS/juvenile court System Has Only One Significant Power, the Power to Remove Children from their Parents. Although CPS does not have law enforcement powers, unlike most other social service agencies, CPS does have one awesome power, the power to take custody and remove children from the home. The stated purpose of this power is to protect the child from future abuse. The stated purpose is not to punish anyone, though obviously for parents and children who love each other this forced removal can be the worst punishment of all. The lack of law enforcement powers explains why CPS does not take action against perpetrators. The power to remove children explains why CPS so quickly turns its sights on the non-offending parent. Once CPS decides that abuse of a child or violence in the home has probably taken place, the CPS worker must then decide how best to protect the child from future abuse. Since it's usually obvious that the child should not be immediately returned to the perpetrator of the violence, CPS quickly turns to the question of whether or not the child should stay with the non-offending parent. That's how and why CPS becomes so fixated on 'investigating' the nonviolent parent. Did the mother protect the child from the abuse? Did she know, or should she have known, that the child was being molested? Did the mother protect the child from living in a home with domestic violence? Will she protect the child in the future? No matter how you look at it, the circumstances of these situations can almost always be construed to indicate that the mother didn't protect, and that she knew or should have known. After all, goes the thinking, she's the mother and she's living in the same home. NOTE 1: CPS does have other options than to remove the child. In fact, federal and state law governing CPS requires that CPS pursue family preservation as well as child safety, and that CPS first make "reasonable efforts" to establish a service plan for the family to follow so the child can stay in the home, or return to the home. But even if CPS is making a good faith effort to abide by these policies, it doesn't alter the adversarial (oppositional) nature of the relationship with CPS in which the mother finds herself. Even if CPS has not taken the child and lays out a program for the mother to follow so the child can stay in the home, the mother knows full well what this means. 'You do this program or we take your child'. The mother knows this doesn't feel like help. It feels terrifying, hostile, and punitive. Especially so as her must-do-list is often hugely overwhelming since so many of the mothers are poor and acutely stressed. And even more hostile as the mother begins to see how prone the CPS exercise of power is to be arbitrary, prejudiced, and with shifting input and goals, the frequency of which is partly explained by the following. 4. At best, CPS/juvenile court Decisions are Made on the Lowest Judicial Standard of Evidence, the 'Preponderance of the Evidence' Standard, i.e. 51% of the Evidence. The void of evidence and rigor in the CPS/juvenile court system leaves the decision making process wide open to the virtually unchecked influence of mistakes, bias, discrimination, prejudice, vengeance, hearsay, junk science, nonsense, and arbitrariness of all kinds. (The one exception to this is that a final termination of parental rights usually requires a 'clear and convincing' standard of evidence, which is still a much lower standard than the 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard of the criminal system.) When CPS seeks to establish the abuse, remove a child for up to 18 months, establish mandated service plans, determine visitation, etc., CPS must go into juvenile court to get these decisions authorized by the court. At first this may seem to provide the kind of oversight on CPS decisions that would make the process just, equitable, and safe from abuses. But read on. First, the body of law governing the CPS/juvenile court system is so vague and open ended that virtually any and all decisions made by these bodies falls within the scope of the laws. Second, at best, CPS and juvenile courts makes these decisions based on the 'preponderance of evidence' standard. This is the lowest judicial standard of evidence. The preponderance of the evidence standard is 51% of the evidence. It's sometimes called the 'more likely than not' standard. What this means is that all CPS needs to support a decision is evidence on their side, the CPS side, which is just a sliver more than the evidence on your side. This is a far cry from the 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard criminal officials must establish before they can convict someone of a crime, even a misdemeanor. Example of Preponderance of the Evidence: The mother tells CPS she didn't know that the stepfather was sexually molesting the daughter because the stepfather always did it while she (the mother) was watching television in another room. The CPS worker tells the court that the fact the mother was in the same house watching television while the stepfather molested the child is a good indication that the mother should have known what the stepfather was doing. Given the sloppiness of the 'preponderance of the evidence' standard, all the judge has to do is lean ever so slightly to the social worker's argument, and the judge can issue a finding that the mother 'knew or should have known', and then based on this finding grant the CPS petition to detain the child. Which is exactly what happened in this case. Many lawyers themselves are so scornful of the flimsy evidence standard of the CPS system they call it "a crap shoot", or the "anything goes" standard. The problem for the mother goes beyond the fact that CPS doesn't need much evidence against her. It also means that whatever opinion a CPS worker may have of you, the worker can usually support that opinion in court simply by fishing through the extensive family details the worker has gathered and then selecting out the one or two tidbits that favor the opinion. Add to this the huge initial mistake many women make of thinking of CPS as their advocate or friend or counselor. They pour their hearts out to the worker, giving the worker a whole ocean of intimate information in which to fish for evidence against them. Yes, it's true that with all this latitude, the CPS system can actually do things right and put its full resources into helping the mother and child to get safely on their feet together. And indeed, there are plenty of cases where this is exactly what happens. But there are a number of things that makes the system tend toward abusive responses. One of these is the cardinal truth of any power. Unchecked power always tends towards abuses of that power. And the power of CPS is hugely unchecked. And worse yet, as is discussed later, it is exercised in secret. A second thing that tends the system toward abusive and prejudicial responses is the class of the mothers themselves, and the heaping social prejudices that already prevail against them. The mothers who come to the attention of CPS are most often poor, or immigrant, or minority race, and themselves are the direct or secondary victims of family violence. The harsh realities of their lives are chaotic, frantic, and generally incomprehensible to people who don't live them. There is so much prejudice, stereotypes, ignorance, and blame against these women floating in society that the middle class social service system is primed from the start to blame these mothers, or at the very least, to believe it's the mothers that need to be fixed. NOTE 1: Lessons from the Native American Community. Prior to the passage of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, child welfare/juvenile court systems were removing up to 25% of the children from many Indian tribes, then terminating Indian parental rights, and adopting the children out to non-Indian families. Non-Indian social workers and judges were using rampant prejudicial and racist notions to justify these removals. In particular, CPS/juvenile courts were judging many traditional Indian child rearing practices to be abusive, in and of themselves. Native American peoples' were losing so many of their children to this process, many tribes labeled these child welfare policies as genocidal. The Indian tribes crafted the Indian Child Welfare Act with the aim of stopping this systematic removal of their children. In so doing, the Indians keenly understood how the use of the 'preponderance of evidence' standard gave free reign to the prejudices, racism, and arbitrary factors that were being used to justify taking their children. They understood that the more oppressed a person is the more they need a high standard of evidence to protect them from governmental abuse. So, among other things, the Indian Child Welfare Act requires that CPS/juvenile courts must use the stricter 'clear and convincing' standard of evidence before the state can put an Indian child in temporary foster care, and must use the even stricter 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard of evidence before the court can order termination of Indian parental rights. The act also requires that at any termination hearing, there must be expert witness testimony on Indian culture and child rearing. We feel strongly that these same protections should be extended to all who come before CPS, since most all of these families are members of historically oppressed groups. 5. The Flimsy 'Preponderance of the Evidence' Standard is Bad Enough, But Things are Actually Much Worse. Increasingly, the CPS/juvenile court systems are handing off their fact finding and decision making responsibilities to mediators, evaluators, and even to CASA volunteers, all of whom operate on NO standard of evidence at all. There's no doubt that the juvenile courts have become increasingly stressed over the last few decades as victims of family violence have emerged to seek help for their plights. But instead of adding resources to properly meet the need, the CPS/juvenile court system, like the family court system, has handed off more and more of its fact finding and decision making responsibilities to a whole phalanx of psychologists, mediators, evaluators, and even to volunteers. These are court janitors, really, brought aboard to mop up the judicial mess made by women and children who have found a way to make their needs and outrage heard. When a case becomes complicated or contentious, or is just more work than the judge wants to handle, the judge simply turns the case over to one of these evaluators to look into the case and come back to the judge with a set of recommendations. In nearly all cases, juvenile court judges blindly rubber stamp these recommendations with no further ado. What is absolutely critical to understand is that once handed off to these evaluators, you have been ushered out the court's back door, outside the rule of court law, and completely unprotected by rules of evidence. These evaluators operate under NO standard of evidence. NO rules of admissibility. NO legal protections at all. Hearsay, psychobabble, prejudice, lies, gossip, it all comes in. And it's often all against you because the perpetrators are usually expert manipulators and liars, and, in addition, they have likely already poisoned the social relationships around you. This is why it's the non-offending parent who most needs strict rules of evidence for protection, and is most hurt by their absence. NOTE 1 - CASA Volunteers - But it gets even worse. Many juvenile courts across the country are now handing off official fact finding and decision making responsibilities in these cases to CASA volunteers, people who are only required to have 30 hours training. And the juvenile courts are usually assigning these volunteers to the most egregious and complex cases of child abuse. The public has been thoroughly wooed to the feel good idea of having CASA volunteers to 'protect the interests of the child' in these cases. Indeed, there is great benefit for the child to be assigned a special person to talk to and even to advocate for the child through this process. The whole CASA program would be just fine if it ended there. But juvenile courts routinely swear these volunteers in as official court fact finders (investigators), as representatives of the child's stated interests, as representatives of the child's best interests, and, as formulators of recommendations to the court as to the best disposition of the child. A recent national study, the Packard Foundation funded Caliber Study, finds that juvenile court judges adopt ALL the recommendations of the CASA volunteers in over 60% of cases. This is a complete mockery and travesty of any and all notions of justice, and is particularly contemptful of mother's and children's rights. For so many reasons. But just for one, imagine if your surgeon sought out and took the recommendation of whether to amputate your leg from a volunteer with 30 hours training. You would be outraged! And you would never deal with this surgeon again. Yet this is exactly what juvenile court judges across the country are doing on the question of whether or not to remove the child from the mother, in the most complex and egregious of cases. They are turning over their fact finding, evaluation, and decision making responsibilities by swearing in persons with 30 hours training to act in any or all these official capacities. The courts say they are doing this because they want to be sure to hear the children's voices. But you only have to think for a moment to realize what the courts are really doing is avoiding the costs of a professional investigator, expert, or professional representation that is minimally needed to guarantee even minimal judicial standards for children. And these courts have the nerve to accuse the mothers of failure to protect! 6. Both the Federal and State Welfare Law Governing the CPS/Juvenile court System are Full of Vague, Non-mandatory Language, a Fact Which Further Promotes the 'Anything Goes' Atmosphere of CPS Proceedings. In addition, these laws almost always refer to the parents as an undifferentiated single unit, "the parents', a fact which puts a legal lock on viewing the non-offending parent with as much culpability as the abusive parent. Only recently has the legal language begun to recognize the existence of the 'non-offending parent' as separate or unique from the offending parent. As you read through the federal and state law governing child protective services you can see features of the law that further help explain the frequent arbitrary and biased actions of these agencies. Here are just two. Federal and state welfare law governing child protective services are vague, nonspecific, and use mostly non-mandatory language. For example, federal law 'encourages' child welfare agencies to provide their materials in languages other than English. It does not mandate that they do so. As such, many, if not most, non-English speaking mothers receive their CPS reports, their service plans, and notices in English only. Another example is that welfare law states a 'preference' for family reunification, and says social workers shall make 'reasonable efforts' to provide services that allow the family to stay together. This kind of language in the law leaves so much wiggle room that virtually anything the system decides will fall within the law, a fact which further magnifies the difficulties for a non-offending parent trying to defend herself or appeal these decisions. A second feature that runs throughout child welfare law is that it constantly refers to 'the parents' as an undifferentiated entity. There's very infrequent distinction in child welfare law between the offending and non-offending parent. In fact, if you were an alien from outer space reading this law, it would be a while before it even dawned on you that "the parents" are two separate human beings. This dubious framework stems from the archaic patriarchal view of marriage of not very long ago that the two become one and the one is the man. Naturally, this constant reference to "the parents" helps cement the system's huge blind spot to a woman's predicament when her partner is abusive. Clearly, the law can't see her more as a victim of the abuser, if the legal language lumps her in with the abuser. If the father is a domestic violence perpetrator, the mother, too, is automatically "engaging in domestic violence", which is precisely the language the system has used to justify taking the children from mothers who are victims of domestic violence. Legal recognition and distinctions between the offending and non-offending parent are coming at a snail's pace. 7. The CPS/Juvenile Court System Operates in Secrecy Off the Public Record. This secrecy fans the flames of the system's other tendencies to abuse. The reason that CPS/Juvenile Court findings, proceedings, mandates, and actions take place off the public record is ostensibly to protect the privacy of the child and family in what is viewed as a private family matter. But one certainly must ask, who really has been more protected by this secrecy, the CPS system or the families it serves? Nothing fans the flames of governmental abuse like governmental secrecy. Secret files, secret evidence, secret accusations, secret proceedings are a sure fire formula for allowing abuses to thrive and expand throughout the system. Since its inception, CPS/juvenile court activities have been off the public record with the exception of only a few states. The involved parents are informed. But, to date, neither the public nor any public watchdog has been allowed scrutiny or oversight of the handling of these cases. Fortunately, it looks like there is the possibility this may change. In 2005, The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges voted approval of presumptively open hearings with discretion of courts to close. This isn't yet law, but it's a big step in that direction. As part of the resolution the judges wrote the following, "Open court proceedings will increase public awareness of the critical problems faced by juvenile and family courts and by child welfare agencies in matters involving child protection, may enhance accountability in the conduct of these proceedings by lifting the veil of secrecy which surrounds them, and may ultimately increase public confidence in the work of the judges of the nation's juvenile and family courts." We would probably word this a little differently, 'Open court proceedings will increase public awareness of the critical problems faced by children and non-offending parents in matters involving child protection,.....' 8. Most all CPS/juvenile court Systems deal ONLY with Intra familial Child Abuse. This schism between the way society deals with child abuse perpetrated by a family member versus child abuse perpetrated by an 'outsider' points out a staggering hypocrisy in the rhetoric about treating child abuse seriously. Behind the rhetoric is a child welfare and police system that in reality works hand in hand to let most child abusers walk free. Many people are very surprised when they call CPS to report a child abuse case perpetrated by a neighbor, a priest, a stranger, or by any one outside the family. CPS tells the caller they don't handle these cases. They only respond to cases in which the perpetrator is a family member. So in most cases in which the perpetrator is not a family member, CPS tells the caller they'll need to report to police. Another thing that may surprise you is that if you call police to report a case of child abuse perpetrated by a family member, police will often tell you should report the case to CPS. Granted police could take the report if they wanted to, and they should take the report. But police themselves are all too often on the same philosophical page as CPS. They too often believe that when fathers 'grow their own victim', the fathers shouldn't be held accountable like other offenders. And another thing. Even if police do take a report of sexual abuse perpetrated by a family member, chances are very good that the perpetrator, even if convicted, will get off lightly compared to an outside-the-family perpetrator. California law, like the law in many states, maintains gaping legal loopholes where, prosecutors can, and frequently do, charge intra familial child sex abuse under different codes which allow the family offenders much lighter sentences. In addition, the law allows convicted intra familial child sex offenders to be given probation, different from outsider child sex offenders who must go to prison. And the law allows convicted intra familial child sex offenders to stay off the state's public registered sex offenders lists, also unlike 'outside'. (For a good discussion of the legal loopholes for fathers and other family members who sexually molest their children see Child Sexual Abuse and the State by Ruby Andrew at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=904100) There isn't a civic leader out there that doesn't publicly rage to the heavens about what monsters child molesters are, and how these 'animals' should be strung up at the crack of dawn. But, remember, the overwhelming majority of all child sex abuse is perpetrated by family members. What this means is that, in reality, we have a system that publicly beats its chest over the small percentage of child molesters who attack someone else's child, while by legal slight of hand that same system lets the vast majority of child molesters go free. Not by accident, but by legal and institutional design. What's perhaps most telling is that, at least in California, these legal loopholes for intra familial perpetrators have been widened over recent years, rather than tightened. Or to put it another way, the more women and children have made demands on the system to stop family violence, the more the system has created ways to look good while paving the perpetrator's escape. The patriarchy with all its bluff and bluster to the contrary, still supports the notion that a man's home is his castle, and that his children are his to do with as he pleases. Unfortunately, CPS, with its hold-no-perpetrators-accountable system, is a vital part of the machinery for perpetuating these archaic and oppressive beliefs. =========================================================== Part 2: Tips for Avoiding the Abuses of Child Protective Services for non-offending parents, advocates, and mandated reporters A. Tips on How and Where to Report Child Abuse B. Tips for dealing with CPS if CPS has already opened a case regarding abuse of your child. C. Tips for getting the best possible representation from your court appointed attorney. A. Tips on How and Where to Report Child Abuse NOTE: If you are a mandated reporter outside California, please check your state's mandated reporting law to determine if your law, like California and many other states, allows mandated reporters the option of reporting to law enforcement rather than to CPS. * Whether you are a mandated reporter, an advocate, or a non-offending parent who suspects child abuse, DO NOT report to child protective services unless other options have failed. (see above note.) Make your child abuse report to police or other law enforcement agency, at least initially. The best way to protect the non-offending parent and the child victim from the inherent risks and abuses of the CPS system is to stay as far away from CPS as possible. If you are a mandated reporter, or any individual wishing to make a child abuse report, we highly recommend that you choose to make your report to law enforcement (i.e. to police or sheriff), and not to CPS. Remember, most state laws give mandated reporters a choice of where they can make their mandated reports. Contrary to widespread mistaken belief, mandated reporters in these states do not have to make their reports to CPS. (To see the text of California state law and earlier discussion of this point go to: In California and Many Other States, Mandated Reporters Do NOT Have to Report to Child Protective Services.) Here's an abbreviated review of why we strongly recommend that you make child abuse reports to law enforcement rather than to CPS. (For more discussion of these points go back to Part 1 here.) In broad summary, the criminal justice system responds to family violence, including child abuse, as crime. The criminal justice system aims to hold the offender accountable for the acts of child abuse, and to do so using a rigorous standard of evidence. At the same time, the criminal justice system does not and cannot assert any authority or control over the non-offending parent's life because under the criminal system the non-offending parent has not committed any crime. The criminal system strives to remove the abuser from the home, and not the child victim. Thus, by reporting to the criminal justice system, the primary response will be an effort to hold the perpetrator accountable. There will be virtually no risk that the non-offending parent will be investigated. And there will be a lower risk that the child will be removed from the non-offending parent, thus avoiding an event that is extremely traumatic and unjust for both the child victim and the non-offending parent. In contrast, the CPS/juvenile court system is not designed to treat child abuse, or any family violence, as crime. The CPS system does not seek to hold the child abuse offender accountable, and has virtually no power to do so. CPS does not have the power to open, nor to carry out, a criminal investigation, does not have the power of arrest, nor does CPS have the power to prosecute perpetrators. The only significant power CPS has is the power to remove children from one or both parents. Furthermore, the CPS system, unlike the criminal system, will frequently target the non-offending parent; i.e., will likely investigate the non-offending parent for non-criminal behavior such as 'failure to protect', 'knowing or should have known', 'instability', 'parental alienation', 'failure to cooperate', and other such vague, arbitrary, and non-criminal accusations. CPS will likely mandate the non-offending parent into a host of programs, and will do so using the threat of taking the child from the non-offending parent, or of not returning the child, which determination the CPS system makes on the lowest judicial standard of evidence with minimal due process protections for the parent. In general, the CPS system is geared to treat the non-offending parent more as a co-perpetrator than as an additional primary or secondary victim of the abuser. So, by reporting to CPS, there is no possibility CPS will hold the perpetrator accountable, and a serious risk that the child victim will be removed from the home and/or from the non-offending parent, and that the non-offending parent will be unjustly put under CPS investigation, controls, and threat of losing their child. The victim assistance programs in the criminal justice system provide social and counseling services to the child and/or the non-offending parent only when the non-offending parent wishes to receive these services. The criminal system victim assistance programs never force the child or non-offending parent to participate in any program, and never threatens to take a child if the non-offending parent chooses not to participate in social or psychological services offered. In stark contrast, CPS frequently mandates that the non-offending parent participate in a whole set of social service programs and tasks under an accompanying threat to take the child, or to not return the child. In this regard, again, CPS is treating the non-offending parent more as a CO-perpetrator of the abuse, than as an additional primary or secondary victim of the abuse. The criminal justice system never mandates or pressures that the non-offending parent or child meet, mediate, or reunite with the perpetrator. Nor does the criminal justice system order the non-offending parent to stay-away from the perpetrator. The criminal justice system has no power or jurisdiction over the non-offending parent because under criminal law the non-offending parent and the child victim are not suspected of committing any crime. CPS regularly mandates non-offending parents and/or the child to meet, mediate, co-counsel, reunify with, or stay away from, the perpetrator, and to do so under threat of CPS taking the child, or of not returning the child, to the non-offending parent. The police-criminal justice process does not take action unless it has developed sufficient evidence to substantiate facts of abuse. Nor does the criminal system investigate family matters beyond what is relevant to the immediate question of who perpetrated the abuse and how. The criminal system cannot take punitive action against an individual until the individual has been afforded the most rigorous standard of due process. The CPS/juvenile court system develops evidence of the abuse at the most minimal standard of evidence. At the same time, the CPS system extends the reach of its investigation over the whole family as far and wide and as deep as CPS wishes. The CPS system can move to remove a child from the non-offending parent at the lowest judicial standard of evidence on vaguely defined non-criminal accusations with only the weakest system of due process in place to protect this parent from CPS abuses. NOTE 1: If you make your child abuse report to police, it may be that at one point or other the police themselves may call in CPS to participate in handling the case to one degree or another. However, even if CPS does begin to take a role in the case, the non-offending parent and the child will still generally be much better off than if you had only made your report to CPS. This is because the criminal system will generally continue to take the lead in the case. In addition, even in the eventuality that the criminal system cannot produce enough evidence to obtain a criminal conviction, the police investigation, by itself, will often produce much evidence that's useful and protective to the non-offending parent in dealing with CPS. NOTE 2: Yes, the criminal system can be just as abusive as the CPS system. But, in general, the criminal justice system is very unlikely to target the non-offending parent. In addition, any criminal justice abuses against the non-offending parent would be an individual officer failing to follow established policy. As such, this abuse would be easier to correct. The abuses of the CPS system against the non-offending parent, on the other hand, are built into the CPS system. When CPS unjustly targets the mother as subject of investigation, accusations, and threats to take the child, these abuses are difficult to correct with advocacy, because they fall within the scope of standard CPS policy and practice. NOTE 3: According to a large array of studies, child abuse and domestic violence coexist in the same family in from 30 to 50% of cases, and in the vast majority of these cases it's the same parent that is the perpetrator of both the child abuse and the partner abuse. Because this is such a common dynamic, an effective strategy is to report both the child abuse and the partner abuse to police. This greatly increases the likelihood that police will be able to get a conviction on at least one of the counts. And remember, also, that most perpetrators of family violence are committing an array of related of crimes such as threats to kill, vandalism, false imprisonment, sexual violence, etc. If there's not enough evidence on one crime, there's likely plenty on the next. So don't just report the child abuse. Report any and all the domestic violence related crimes you suspect have been committed. NOTE 4: State laws require that mandated reporters make their child abuse reports to authorities in writing. But even if you're not a mandated reporter, it's still a good idea to make your initial report in writing as well as to report verbally. Don't forget to keep a copy for yourself. NOTE 5: In the civil rights case of Nicholson v. Scoppetta a number of experts testified that the trauma to children of being removed from the non-offending parent by a child welfare agency can be as severe or more severe than the trauma of witnessing domestic violence. The trauma to the child of being removed from the non-offending parent, according to these experts, is, in fact, exacerbated when there has been abuse in the home. (Nicholson v. Scoppetta was a class action civil rights lawsuit brought by mothers, domestic violence victims, who had their children removed by New York child welfare agencies for the sole reason that the mothers had 'failed to protect' the children from 'exposure' to domestic violence. The case resulted in a settlement in favor of the mothers and an injunction against New York child welfare agencies forbidding the agencies to remove children from non-offending parents solely because they were victims of domestic violence.) Watchdog the Police Response. If you make your initial child abuse report to law enforcement, it may be that the police officer will willingly take your report, work hard to investigate the case, and then pass it on to a prosecutor who will also work hard to see that justice is done and that the child victim and other non-offending family members are safe. Things are getting better, however slowly that may be. But be aware. A significant number of police and prosecutors themselves still hold to the mind set that family violence should not be treated as a crime. Some of these officers will say and do whatever they can to get rid of you and the case, despite the fact that US state laws require that police treat family violence as crime. These officers may refuse to take the report, tell you to go elsewhere to make the report, shelve the report, fail to fully investigate, discourage the victims, lie to you and the victim, or use any one of hundreds of other ways they have of getting rid of cases they don't want to work. There are a number of resources available on our website to help you evaluate whether or not you're getting a proper criminal justice system response, and to help you press for corrections if needs be. See Advocating for Women in the Criminal Justice System Here we give just a couple tips on what to watch for at the starting point as you attempt to make your initial report to police. If for any reason the officer tells you you have to make your report elsewhere, the officer is wrong. An officer might tell you that you have to make this kind of report to CPS. Or, they may tell you that you're making the report to the wrong jurisdiction and that you have to go to another department. They may tell you that what you describe is not a criminal matter. They may tell you that since the child is too young to testify, police can't do anything on the case, etc., etc., etc.. None of these statements justify police refusal to take a child abuse report, and they're usually incorrect to begin with. Under most state laws, as in California, police are obligated to take your report. Here again is the section of text of the California law that mandates that police take your report. We have bolded the sections that pertain to this point. California Penal Code Section 11165.9 11165.9. Reports of suspected child abuse or neglect shall be made by mandated reporters, or in the case of reports pursuant to Section 11166.05, may be made, to any police department or sheriff's department, not including a school district police or security department, county probation department, if designated by the county to receive mandated reports, or the county welfare department. Any of those agencies shall accept a report of suspected child abuse or neglect whether offered by a mandated reporter or another person, or referred by another agency, even if the agency to whom the report is being made lacks subject matter or geographical jurisdiction to investigate the reported case, unless the agency can immediately electronically transfer the call to an agency with proper jurisdiction. When an agency takes a report about a case of suspected child abuse or neglect in which that agency lacks jurisdiction, the agency shall immediately refer the case by telephone, fax, or electronic transmission to an agency with proper jurisdiction. Agencies that are required to receive reports of suspected child abuse or neglect may not refuse to accept a report of suspected child abuse or neglect from a mandated reporter or another person unless otherwise authorized pursuant to this section, and shall maintain a record of all reports received. Remember, the reason California and so many other states have felt the need to pass a law mandating that police take child abuse reports is precisely because there are still so many police who wrongly continue to try to dump these cases in order to get out of doing these cases. If an officer outright refuses to take your report, or attempts to get you to make your report elsewhere, the best thing to do is to immediately call the officer's supervisor, or call the police agency's on-call sergeant, or the head of the family violence unit. There's just no sense continuing to deal with an officer who has already shown he or she is willing to violate the law to get out of responding even minimally to child abuse. But even if an officer does seem to be taking your report, you should still make sure the officer properly categorizes the report as a crime case report, and not just an informational report. The way to do this is to ask the officer for the crime case number after the officer has taken your report. One of the first things a police officer does when they begin to write a report is to obtain the assignment of a crime report number for the case from the main office. Crime report numbers are a matter of public record, even in child abuse cases. So if an officer refuses to give you the crime report number for the case that you're reporting, that's a pretty good indication things are headed in the wrong direction right from the start. Once again, it's time to make a phone call up the ranks. Don't feel shy about calling police supervisors or the on-call sergeant Remember, any officer that doesn't properly take a child abuse report is not simply violating the law. That officer is also attempting to deny protection and justice to the most vulnerable in society. Remember, too, your taxes pay these officers to do their job right. So don't be shy. Make that phone call up the ranks until you're assured the your report is properly taken. NOTE 1: With the possibility of encountering obstructions and resistance when reporting child abuse to police, you may be asking yourself, why should I even bother? Especially when CPS is more than willing to take the report without any fuss? That's an easy question to answer. It's much like the question, why should women in the 19th century have bothered with the struggle to get admitted into universities when they could so easily be admitted to finishing schools with no hassle at all? Clearly, the answer was that the real education was in the universities, and that education was worth fighting for. For the same reason, it's worth a possible extra effort to get police to handle your child abuse report properly, because the real powers of protection and justice for women and children are in the criminal justice system, and not in the CPS system B. Tips for Dealing with CPS if CPS has already opened a case regarding abuse of your child. (These tips, as with the entirety of this text, are designed to support the needs and rights of the non-offending, nonviolent parent.) Introduction: If you are the non-offending parent and CPS has already opened a case regarding your child, you probably already know you are in a difficult situation. First, you've likely been dealing with a violent or abusive family member for some time. Now, on top of that, you're dealing with CPS. It would be nice to believe that you're finally connected to an agency that really wants to help you. But you may have begun to sense the frightening reality that CPS is a powerful government agency that is plowing through the most intimate details of your life with the very real possibility they can take your child from you. Or perhaps CPS is ordering you into a complex of social programs under threat of taking your child if you don't comply. Or CPS may have already taken your child, and is setting conditions you must follow in order to get your child back. Instead of feeling helped, it seems the height of injustice that suddenly it's your behavior that's being judged, and your parental rights that are being threatened, even though everyone agrees you're not the one who perpetrated the abuse. Before anything else, understand that the intense fears and sense of betrayal you may be feeling as you deal with CPS are natural reactions to the unpredictable and often abusive exercise of power by the CPS/juvenile court system. CPS really can hurt you. CPS really can impose extensive controls over your life. And CPS can take your child using only the most flimsy of accusations against you, and based on virtually no evidence at all, with only the weakest mechanism of due process to protect you - even if you have done nothing wrong. The reason it's so important that you know your anxiety is a normal reaction is so that you don't start feeling worse about yourself, or start feeling that you're going crazy, or thinking that you're the only one this has happened to. In order to get CPS out of your life and get your children back home securely in your custody, you're going to need to think clearly, and keep yourself from panicking. You're going to have to pay close attention, and learn how this system works. And you're probably going to have to keep up this struggle for some time. You just can't do that if you're feeling down on yourself, defeated, and in despair. At the very least, try to keep in mind that there is a growing awareness of the injustices and near tyranny of the CPS system, and increasing efforts to correct these injustices, particularly as they pertain to the non-offending parent. You are not crazy for feeling victimized by CPS, and you're not alone in your fight. Because decisions made by the CPS system are so arbitrary and unpredictable, there are no guarantees that you can prevail. But if you follow the tips below, if you recognize that it's going to take some time, you can give yourself and your child the best possible chance that CPS will do more to help you than to hurt you. It will probably take a while. So get ready for the long haul. Step by step you probably can get CPS out of your life, and your children safely and securely in your home. So don't give up in despair. The tips that follow should help you do this as smoothly and as gently as possible. 1. Learn as much as you can about how and why the CPS system poses serious risks to you, the non-offending parent. The better you can understand why and how CPS is so prone to target the non-offending parent, the more you're going to automatically know how to handle yourself and your case with CPS. So as a number one step to protecting yourself as you deal with CPS, learn as much as you can about how this system works. Here are some information sources on the CPS/juvenile court system: Read Part 1 of this text if you haven't already done so. It will help you understand where and how the CPS system poses risks to you. It's fairly long. So even if you don't have time to read all of it, try at the very least to read the topic headings. In addition to the Part 1 section, there are a number of links to other informative guides and documents that can help answer your questions along the way. One particularly helpful document that gives step by step explanation of the CPS/Juvenile court process is this one, A Family's Guide to the Child Welfare Service System. It's very clearly written and well organized so you can quickly get the information you need. Another document you might find useful as you go through the process is the policy manual of your state's child welfare agency. Many states have their child welfare agency manual on the web. You can probably find it by going to the web site of your state's social service department and following links from there. Or, you can ask your CPS worker how to locate a copy. Remember, CPS is a government agency. So you have a right to see any and all CPS documents. All CPS documents, except for materials pertaining to other people's cases, must be made available to you on request. It can also be very helpful if you're willing to look up your state laws that govern the CPS/juvenile court process. In California all of this law is in searchable form on the net. For California law governing CPS, go to www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html , click on the Welfare and Institutions Code, and begin your search. Still another very helpful source of information is a Yahoo Groups Email list called 'childprotectionreform'. There are many people on this list who are going through the same kind of experience as yourself. And there are also people on the list who are very informed about the process, and willing to help others with their cases. But remember, these people are not professionals. So don't blindly trust the information you get. There are a number of additional informative web sites and Email lists that can be helpful in guiding you through the CPS process. But, as with everything you read on the Internet, be careful. One particular problem you should look out for in CPS information sites is that some of these sites are put together by child abusers who are upset with CPS for very different reasons than your reasons. 2. In all your dealings with CPS, even if your worker seems friendly and helpful, always keep in mind that the CPS system is NOT your friend, NOT your counselor, and NOT your advocate. Understand that you are in an adversarial (oppositional) relationship with CPS, that you are being evaluated and investigated by CPS, that CPS can take your child, and that every thing you say can and often will be used against you. The very words 'child protective services' sound so humanitarian, and so in tune with what mothers want, especially those mothers who are dealing with a violent partner, that women frequently make the serious mistake of thinking that CPS is their friend. Or they think that CPS will at least by on the same side with them, or that CPS will naturally work to support their needs and interests. This mistaken belief is even easier to fall into when the CPS worker is friendly or tells you directly that she or he wants to help you. In fact, your worker may truly believe that he or she is there to help you. CPS workers themselves are often blind to the underlying dynamics of the system they work for. The reality is that CPS system is a government agency armed with the enormous power to take your child, and to do so on only the most minimal pretext, with only the smallest sliver of evidence, and minimal due process rights for you. The CPS system is set up to investigate and judge whether or not you are a fit parent, even when everyone knows you are not the one who abused your child. So, if you are a non-offending parent, in all your dealings with CPS, remember, CPS is not your friend! CPS is not your counselor! CPS is not your advocate! If you always keep this in mind, it will help you avoid some common and tragic mistakes. It will also help you to take basic, but critical steps to protect yourself from CPS abuses of power along the way. Here are the kinds of mistakes so many women fall into when they believe that CPS is on their side. Women often pour their hearts out to CPS. They open their homes and family life to CPS, and give CPS all kinds of intimate information that CPS then can, and often will, use against you. Another big mistake women make when they think CPS is on their side, is that they trust that CPS is looking after their interests. They let their guard down. They don't pay attention to what's going on. They don't prepare and protect themselves. And, all too often, they don't wake up until it's too late. Example: Here's just one example of the kind of tragedy that occurs over and over again when women think CPS is on their side. An exhausted mother has been coping with an abusive husband for years. One day her 10-year-old daughter tells a teacher that the reason she's late to school is because her father got in a fight with her mother after breakfast and he started beating her mother. The teacher reports this to CPS. The CPS worker tells the mother she wants to help the family. The mother bares her heart to the worker. The mother tells the CPS worker how stressed she has been. How much trouble she has sleeping. How fearful she is in the home. She tells CPS that a year ago she went to a shelter, but soon returned to the abusive husband because she didn't think she could make enough money to feed the children. She says she tries to warn the children against being around the father when he gets in that mood. She says she doesn't know what to do. Then one day the mother gets a copy of the written CPS report. She is stunned to read that the worker has written that 'this mother is out of control, can't cope, is mentally unstable and unable to protect the child', and that, furthermore, the mother is 'alienating the children from the father'. And that based on this, CPS is petitioning the court to remove the child from the mother. It happens like this over and over again. So right from the beginning, understand that CPS is geared up and empowered to protect children against parents. CPS is not working on your behalf. Even if CPS lines up a whole set of programs for you to attend to help you keep your child, you need to realize that if you don't comply with these programs to CPS satisfaction, CPS holds the threat of taking your child. This does not constitute a friendly relationship. Even though every one agrees that you did not abuse the child, you are in an adversarial (oppositional) relationship with CPS, and a particularly precarious adversarial relationship at that. The proof that you are in an adversarial (oppositional) relationship with CPS is that (in most states) the juvenile court must assign you an attorney to represent your interests and protect you from CPS powers when you're in court with CPS. This is a huge clue that even the courts recognize that you, the non-offending parent, are in an adversarial relationship with CPS and that you need legal protection from CPS powers. Another way to look at this is to understand that the only special power authorized to the CPS/juvenile court system is a power that can hurt you badly, i.e., the power to take your child. CPS is not empowered in any special way to help you. It's true that CPS can give you referrals to various social and psychological services, but those are all things that you can do for yourself. Worse yet, when CPS gives you these referrals, they are usually mandated referrals given under threat of losing your child if you don't comply. But in terms of any unique governmental power designed to help you, the non-offending parent, CPS has nothing. CPS is not empowered to hold the perpetrator accountable, is not empowered to obtain justice for either you or your child, and is not empowered to protect you. It's critical that you understand that once CPS opens a case on your child, even though everyone knows you are not the abuser, you are being investigated and judged by the CPS system. And a determination is being made as to whether or not to take your child. This is not a friendly relationship. You are in an adversarial (oppositional) relationship with CPS. It's worth repeating. It does not matter how helpful, encouraging, or humanitarian your individual CPS worker might be, the CPS system is NOT your friend. They are investigating you. You are under threat of losing your child. NOTE: The CPS system was established in the middle of last century at a time when women's and children's rights within the family were not well established. Family violence was not viewed as a crime, i.e. was not viewed as a serious offense against society. A man's home was his castle, and women and children were his legal inferiors. CPS was structured in a way to conform to these very patriarchal views, and, for the most part, CPS structure and operation remains legally locked into those outdated and oppressive modes today. 3. Because the CPS/juvenile court system is NOT your friend, and because you are in an adversarial (oppositional) relationship with CPS: * Do not pour your heart out to CPS. Always remember that anything you say to anyone in the CPS system can, and often will, be used against you. So don't pour your heart out to CPS workers, or to mediators, evaluators, investigators, court personnel, or anyone else. Think before you speak. Always be aware that, a) these workers are experienced at drawing out statements from you that you would not have given if you had time to think about it, b) they have the power to take your child, and c) your words can easily be misrepresented. Also, be aware that even if you can handle yourself well in business and social situations, it doesn't mean you'll be able to handle yourself well in conversations with the CPS system. This is because the subject matter of your conversations with CPS is so near and dear and painful to your heart. This makes you very vulnerable to the slightest of manipulations. Many CPS workers don't hesitate to play on this vulnerability. * Decide carefully about when and how to assert your rights. Understand how you are in a double bind when you assert your rights with CPS. Once you realize the risks of saying too much in your conversations with CPS, you might conclude that your best bet is just not talk to CPS at all. After all, like everyone else in America, you have a right to remain silent. Indeed, if you were being accused of a crime in the criminal system, every attorney in the world would advise you to remain silent. 'Don't even talk to the police', they would tell you. 'Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.' Even a person accused of murder has a right to remain silent, and to refuse to cooperate with government officials unless ordered to do so by a judge. Naturally, you have the same rights to remain silent in your dealings with the CPS system. Additionally, you have a right to refuse to let CPS into your home unless CPS has obtained a search warrant. You have a right not to cooperate with CPS. You have a right not to participate in any of the programs CPS says it wants you to go to. And you have many other rights as well. After all, you live in America, right? And no government agency can start ordering your life around, telling you to do this or that, or to go here or there, if they don't apply due process and present solid evidence in a court of law proving you did something against the law. The only order you have to obey is a judge's order! But here's the other half of the 'damned if you do, and damned if you don't' dilemma you have with CPS. On the one hand, since you're in an adversarial relationship with CPS, the best legal advice would be for you to assert your rights. On the other hand, CPS wields the ultimate awesome power of being able to take your child with the vaguest of accusations, the most minimal of evidence, and only the very weakest system of due process in place to protect you. And that right there is the catch. The double bind you are in. The terrible injustice and the near tyranny of CPS power. The legal and evidentiary constraints on CPS powers are so minimal, that if you do assert your rights to CPS, the CPS worker can easily retaliate against you using the system's virtually unchecked power against you. The worker can easily make vague and prejudiced accusations against you such as 'instability', 'alienating your child from the other parent', 'failure to protect', 'should have known about the abuse', or 'engaging in domestic violence' even though you're the victim of the violence. (None of which accusations are crimes.) And then the worker can support that accusation against you in the juvenile court with the smallest tidbit of evidence, even the most bogus of evidence, or with evidence that wouldn't even be admissible in a criminal court. And with that the CPS system can take your child. (Remember, the CPS/juvenile court system operates on the 'preponderance of the evidence' standard, 51% of the evidence, the lowest judicial standard of evidence. This means that all CPS has to do is present to the court 1% more evidence on their side than you present on your side, and CPS wins. So once CPS makes an accusation against you, it is extremely difficult for you to defend yourself, and very easy for CPS to railroad the case against you.) * So here are a couple tips for asserting your rights with CPS All the above adds up to the fact that you have to make some very careful and difficult decisions about if, when, and how you want to assert your rights with CPS. The goal is for you to get the most benefit and protection from asserting your rights while at the same time remaining cooperative enough to keep from triggering CPS into making new accusations against you. Our general advice is that if or when you do assert your rights, be sure to do so in a tone that is cooperative, professional, and polite. Here are some suggestions for different degrees of asserting your rights: a. In a situation where a CPS worker intrudes on you and you want to temporarily back them down and keep the situation more under your own control. For example, if a CPS worker knocks on your door and wants to come into your home, instead of saying, "Show me a search warrant or take a hike!", try this. Give the worker a friendly greeting, and say, "I'm sorry but this time won't work for me. I'm already late getting to an appointment. Please call me tomorrow morning and I'll make an appointment with you." Or if a CPS worker calls you on the phone, tell the worker you can't talk right now. Tell the worker you'd like to make an appointment later. Or if you're asked a question you don't want to answer, don't say, "That's none of your damn business," no matter how offensive the question. Tell the worker you don't feel the question is relevant, or that you'd like to answer the question at another time. Or, better yet, tell the worker you'd like to answer the question in writing. This gives you time to think through your answer. It guarantees your words won't get misrepresented. And at the same time, it shows your willingness to cooperate. Keeping meeting times under your control at least gives you psychological advantages as well as the benefit of being able to prepare for your interactions with CPS. It also sends a clear message to the CPS worker that you won't be easily trampled upon. But remember that one rule to live by to make this work best for you is to always keep your manner of communication cooperative, professional, and polite. Another rule to live by is this. Try not to get upset if the worker gets intimidating or threatening. For example, if a worker says to you, "Either you let me into your home now, or next time I come back it will be to take your child," don't take the bait! Don't panic. Don't say, "Over my dead body!" Instead, take a breath. Be confident in standing your ground. And just repeat your position, "I'm sorry, I'm late for an appointment. Call me tomorrow and I'll be happy to make an appointment! Remember, CPS workers are fully aware of your rights, so don't let them goad you into relinquishing those rights, or into responding in a way that can later be used against you. NOTE 1: Yes, there's no doubt about it. It's very difficult to keep your balance emotionally when you're dealing with CPS because just the thought of losing your child strikes at the core of your being. And the thought of losing your child to an unjust abuse of power, ignites every cell in your body into panic and rage. Holding back your instincts in these moments is a near unbearable act of restraint. So you need to remind yourself again and again and again. The best way to save your child is to maintain your cool in all interactions with the CPS system. NOTE 2: Always write up notes for yourself on these interactions with CPS right after they occur. b. Set conditions on your dealings with CPS. Another way of asserting your rights and shifting the balance of power a little more in your favor is by setting conditions on your dealings with CPS. One condition that we highly recommend is that you only meet with CPS if you are permitted to tape record the meetings. Another condition that we highly recommend is that you always have a support person accompany you in all your interactions with the CPS system. Before you set such conditions, think it through ahead of time. Think it through a couple of moves so that you don't get caught off guard. And so that you can keep things moving in the direction that most suits your needs. What do you want to do if the CPS worker says, 'no, you can't tape record the meeting'? Do you want to give in at that point and go ahead with the meeting? Do you want to go to the worker's supervisor? Do you want to ask that the meeting be postponed until the issue gets resolved? Or do you want to simply walk away and refuse to meet? The only right answer to these questions is the answer you come to after thinking it over ahead of time. If you want to protest a refusal of any of your conditions, do so in writing. Write a short note to the worker's supervisor or other ranking official. Explain that you want to cooperate, but that you also want the worker to respect your rights. Keep it short. Keep a copy. And remember: cooperative, professional, polite! NOTE: In California, you have a right to tape record in person meetings either openly or clandestinely, but you do not have a right to secretly tape record telephone conversations. Be sure and check the laws in your state. c. In situations where you want to fully assert your fundamental rights, always try to do so in writing. If you want to fully assert your fundamental right to remain silent, or to absolutely refuse unwarranted entry into your home, or to assert any other of the many rights you have, do so as much as possible in writing. Date, write, and sign a very short statement. Make copies for yourself to keep in a safe place. Then deliver, mail, or fax your statement to both the CPS worker and to the head of CPS. There are a number of form letters on the Internet for asserting your rights with CPS. You can use those letters. Or your notification can be as simple as the following: To CPS worker Nancy Wilson, I am very concerned about my own and my child's welfare. With that concern I am choosing to assert my right to remain silent in this process. I will not have any further conversations with you regarding this case. Signed Tricia Martinez, Mother of Gabriela Martinez 4. Know precisely what you are being officially accused of, and the evidence being presented against you. Read all the paperwork CPS or the juvenile court gives you. Pay special attention to the CPS report(s). Reading CPS and court reports can be difficult at first because much of the language in reports and court papers is unfamiliar. But don't give up. Just keep reading. It doesn't take long to start catching on to the lingo, particularly if you're willing to keep asking questions along the way. *** One of the very first things you need to look for, circle, and underline in these materials are the exact written words of the CPS accusations against you. If you don't know the exact written words of the accusations against you, it's virtually impossible to defend yourself. If CPS is preparing to put you through a program, or take your child, or hold your child, the CPS report will have a summary list at some place in the report that tells the judge - in writing - why the CPS worker believes it necessary to take the action against you. This list is the list of accusations against you. Find it! One of the first things we ask women when they come to us with a CPS problem is, "What are the CPS accusations against you?" So many women say they don't know, or they repeat something the social worker has said. But it does not matter what the social worker says. What the social worker says to you is not official, and it can change from one day to the next. What counts, what matters, what you need to know, is what the social worker (and evaluators, mediators, etc.) put into writing in their reports. So always read what's in the reports if you want to know the real deal of what your up against. Knowing exactly what you're being officially accused of is the absolute essential first step to preparing a good defense. *** Another thing to look for (and circle and underline) as you read the CPS report or court documents are any untrue written statements that are made, particularly untrue statements that reflect badly on you. It will be very helpful to you if you make a list on a separate sheet of paper of all the untrue or misconstrued evidence and statements that are being made against you. That list can guide your thinking as you develop a corresponding list of points and evidence to defend yourself. NOTE 1: You have a right to see and get copies of ANY and ALL reports pertaining to your child's case. This includes all court documents. If you are not automatically given copies of these documents as they're generated, ask your social worker to get you a copy within 24 hours. If this doesn't get a copy in your hands, immediately write a one page letter to the head of social services and to the judge on your case. Your up-to-date knowledge of what's in these reports is just too vital to your future to allow them any leeway in providing you with your reports. NOTE 2: Don't wait until the day before the next hearing or meeting before you start reading the documents. Read everything as soon after you get it as possible. NOTE 3: There's no doubt that reading these documents can be very depressing and dehumanizing because of the strange and often distorted way that CPS workers write about your family. Unfortunately, the unpleasantness of reading these documents is one reason many women put off reading them until it's too late to effectively respond. But you just can't afford to let these documents go unread. So try asking a friend or supportive family member to sit down at your side and read the documents with you. Not only can a friend help you get through these documents emotionally, a good friend will often notice important points in the documents that you can easily miss because you're so emotionally upset. * If you don't speak and read English well, insist on getting materials in your own language. Insist on it, as many times as is necessary. It's extremely important. And if your CPS worker or any one else in the system is speaking your language poorly, ask for a translator. And ask again. If the worker doesn't get you an interpreter after you've requested one, don't pretend you understand what's being said. Just the opposite, you need to keep indicating you don't understand what's being said. It's just so critical to you that you understand everything that's being said and written about your child's case. If your worker fails to provide you with proper language interpretation and written translations, try to find someone who can write out your requests and complaints. Your letter to the judge or to the head of CPS can be as simple as what follows. Dated To the Juvenile Court Judge, CPS is looking into an allegation of abuse regarding my child. The social worker, Ms. Seri, has given me a report and other documents pertaining to the case. All these documents are in English. I want very much to read these documents and inform myself so I can best respond in a helpful way. The problem is I don't speak or read English well. Three weeks ago, I asked the CPS worker to provide me with translated copies of the report. I also asked her to use a competent interpreter when discussing my child's case with me. But to date she has not done so. I am requesting that you postpone all proceedings on this case until I am provided with proper language translations and an interpreter. Thank you, signed 5. Get a notebook. Carry it with you everywhere. Write down brief notes on all your interactions, thoughts, and questions regarding the CPS case. Your notebook can win your case! Being involved with CPS is a huge emotional strain in a system that is unfamiliar, threatening, and bewildering. Getting and keeping a notebook may seem like one more chore too many. But, the reality is this notebook can save you tremendous time and anxiety. It can put you in control. Your notebook can win your case. So get that notebook and carry it with you at all times! Some of your best thoughts and strategies on your case will come to you at the oddest moments. And use it: * Take notes at all meetings, hearings, and phone conversations. * Write down names, questions, reminders, and thoughts on evidence. * Carefully outline what you want to say, what you want to ask, and what you want to accomplish, before you go into meetings or court hearings. Take time in meetings to refer to your notes. * Don't forget to date your entries. Also, get a big, secure folder where you can keep all your papers together in one place. 6. Consider making a report to police, even if CPS is already handling the case. Pursue the criminal case to the maximum extent possible. This advice may seem a little off track. After all, you've already got more than you can handle with the CPS case. So why consider opening up another case with police? But making a report to police, either of the child abuse or of domestic violence against you, or both, may be more help to you in your CPS case than anything else you can do. Our best advice is that you make a police report on the perpetrator's abuse of the child, as well as a separate police report on any of the violence or threats of violence the perpetrator has committed against you. A strong criminal case against the abuser can often protect you against CPS in a number of ways. * The existence of a criminal case against the perpetrator usually forces CPS to work in coordination with the criminal justice team. Since the criminal justice system only goes after the abuser and never goes after the non-offending parent, CPS is often forced to work more in that vein, too, and tends to move away from treating you, the non-offending parent, as a bad parent. * Police and prosecutors (the criminal justice team) usually aim to protect the child from contact with the perpetrator. This often puts a damper on any attempts by CPS to mandate mediations, family conferencing, and family reunification with the perpetrator. And, of course, if the abuser is incarcerated by the criminal system, that further curtails CPS attempts to reunify the child with the perpetrator. * Police and prosecutors will be much more rigorous than CPS in developing evidence against the abuser. Moreover, the evidence developed by police will be tightly focused on the abusive acts. By highlighting the perpetrator's violent criminal behavior, the evidence developed by police exposes the risky and threatening situation you were in as the child's mother, and the limited options you had for dealing with the situation. As such, the evidence developed by police can often be your best evidence for defending yourself from CPS accusations. * The criminal justice system packs more weight and power than CPS. So the criminal justice usually calls the shots at critical junctures in the handling of the case. The existence of a criminal case against the perpetrator doesn't guarantee that CPS will stop targeting you, the non-offending parent. But at the very least, it usually does tend to shift the overall blame more onto the perpetrator where it should be. And in many cases the existence of a criminal case may shift things enough to keep the CPS/juvenile court system from taking your child from you. NOTE: You may have to push a little to get police to take the report, particularly if CPS is already involved in the case. But if a family member has been violent with you or your child, police cannot refuse to take a report. And if you run into an officer who does refuse to take a report, go immediately over that officer's head to the sergeant or to the head of the department's family violence unit. If you still have trouble getting police to take your case seriously, there are a number of resources in our Online Handbook Advocating for Women in the Criminal Justice System 7. Know the purpose of and prepare ahead of time for all meetings with CPS workers, mediators, evaluators. Read and reread everything that your CPS worker has given you. Most of the time when mothers call us frantic about their CPS case, they are often unable to explain the status of the legal proceedings. And they often don't know the purpose of the next meeting or court hearing. This is not their fault. The CPS system is complex. And most CPS workers do not consider it their job to keep you informed. Unfortunately, aside from an attorney who may be assigned to your case when you go to court, there is no one in the CPS/juvenile court system who's job it is to act as your advocate. And, as will be discussed in more detail later, even if you have been assigned an attorney by the juvenile court, these attorneys are notorious for ignoring their clients needs. It isn't fair and it isn't just. But you have to take on the responsibility of keeping yourself informed as to exactly what's happening in your case. You need to know the purpose of each meeting, evaluation, and each court hearing before you attend. What is the issue that's going to be decided? What is the CPS position on this issue? Do I need to defend myself against the CPS position? How do I need to defend myself? You can't prepare effectively without having that information. Once you get in the habit of keeping yourself informed about the step-by-step status of your child's case, much of your anxiety and panic will be alleviated. 8. Never go alone to meet with CPS, to go to Juvenile Court, or to meet with your attorney. Having a smart, kind friend at your side makes you strong in so many ways. It lets the authorities know someone else is watching and cares about you. A friend at your side protects you from feeling intimidated, reminds you of questions you wanted to ask, helps you remember things that were said. Having a friend at your side discourages officials from mistreating you. Makes you feel stronger. Gives you someone to share the experience with before, during, and after. Makes you feel not so all alone. So always try to have a friend at your side at all your encounters with the CPS/juvenile court system. Don't wait until the last minute to make arrangements. Once you've found someone who will accompany you, inform your friend about the purpose of the meeting or hearing. Ask your friend if she or he would be willing to read some of the relevant documents. Talk with your friend about what role you would like her to play in meetings and hearings. Try to meet with your friend and go to the meeting or hearing together, rather than meeting up at the location. Treat your friend like gold. Say 'thank you' again and again. 9. Put it in writing! Put it in writing! Put it in writing! Don't let your words get misrepresented, twisted, or denied. To the greatest extent possible, communicate with the CPS/juvenile court system in writing. In addition, tape record conversations whenever possible. One of the most exasperating thing women experience going through the CPS system is having their words misrepresented, twisted, or denied. So to the greatest extent possible, communicate with CPS in writing. For tips on putting together short, quick, effective written communication go to How To Write an Effective Letter to Make the System Work. When dealing with the CPS system, * Write short notes summarizing your understanding of conversations you've had from CPS. Notes such as the example that follows make it virtually impossible for the CPS worker to later deny they said. Because, if there was a misunderstanding, the worker should have cleared it up immediately after receiving the note. Regularly following up on phone calls and meetings with such notes also establishes a recorded time line of events. And, perhaps, most important of all, these notes serve to put the CPS system on notice that there's no room for slippery slights of hand when dealing with you. All this, while at the same time, these notes convey a professional, cooperative tone. So write a lot of notes. And don't forget to keep copies! Dear Ms. Janson, I'm sending this note just to let you know what I understood from our phone conversation of June 2, 2007. I understood that you have given me permission to pick my child up from the group home and take my child to the pediatrician of my choice to remedy the rash on my child's back. Thank you, Signed, * Always voice any complaints you may have in a one page letter that follows the format outlined on this page How To Write an Effective Letter to Make the System Work. Even though these complaint letters take a little more time to put together, this form is highly effective in obtaining quick remedy to your complaint. * Always put your requests in writing. These written requests can be as simple as the note above for simple requests, or may call for a longer one page letter as suggested for the complaints. * Similar to your requests, it's always best to put your conditions and assertions of your rights into letter form. And once more for quality control: Always keep copies, and keep all your copies in a safe place. 10. Follow all court orders to the letter. Many court orders given you in a CPS case will seem completely unjust. Many of these orders are, in fact, unjust, and, worse, many are often contrary to the well being and safety of you and your child. But you must follow these orders to the letter, even as you fight to do everything you can to get these orders changed. There's nothing that upsets the court more than someone who breaks a court order. Even child abuse doesn't seem to upset officials as much as what they view as contempt for their court orders. So read and know what's written in the court order and obey it to the letter. The last thing you want is for the system to retaliate against you and take your child just because you failed to comply with a court order to attend this or that program. So keep in mind that it can happen just as easily as that. And obey all court orders to the letter. Another all too common occurrence you should watch out for is this. A CPS worker may tell you verbally that you don't have to do this or that part of what's written in the service plan which has been approved by the judge. Whatever you do, do not take the social worker at his or her word. Before you even think of changing any aspect of your compliance with the court orders or written service plans, insist that the social worker put any and all changes in writing! And that the social worker sign and date the statement. And that you have at least one copy of that signed statement in your hands. If the social worker fails to put the change in writing, continue to comply with the order and service plan as it is written. And if a social worker, or any other member of the CPS system, tells you to do one thing that's different from what's in the written order, you should write up a dated, signed note of your own. Address it to the judge or the head of social services. Explain briefly that your social worker told you to do x, but that you know you are obligated to follow the written order until such time as that order is changed in writing. Remember, what's written in black and white is what counts. It's worth repeating. Don't get fooled or misled by something a social worker says verbally one day, and then forgets they ever said it the next. Don't let abusers, evaluators, mediators, or anyone else influence you verbally into going against what's written in black and white. Even something as seemingly minor as altering a visitation schedule can and likely will be held against you in court. Get it in writing! Get it in writing! Get it in writing! Obey all written court orders as they are written! 11. Keep being your child's mother. If CPS has detained your child, remember, you are still your child's mother, and your child needs your mothering more than ever. Don't violate any court orders. But within the constraints of those court orders, do all that you can to keep being your child's mother. Be creative! Give thought ahead of time how to make the most of phone calls and visitations. C. Tips for getting the best possible representation from your court appointed attorney. If you've been appointed an attorney by the juvenile court, don't trust that your attorney will properly prepare and present your case. Many, many, many mothers wrongly lose their children to CPS, and the children wrongly lose their mothers, simply because the attorneys assigned to represent the non-offending parents often do little or nothing on behalf of their clients. No one in any situation can sit back and trust that their attorney will effectively fight for their case. You have to partner with your attorney. You need to understand your case, participate in preparing your case, and most important of all, you have to watchdog your attorney. But when you are the non-offending parent who has been assigned an attorney by the juvenile court in the CPS case, you need to multiply this advice by a factor of a thousand. As a rule, attorneys assigned to represent you in a CPS case are attorneys at their worst. They frequently fail to prepare, fail to fight back, fail to return phone calls, fail to meet with their clients, and often fail to know even the basic facts of the case. As a result, these attorneys frequently end up abandoning their clients to the most blatant abuses of CPS/juvenile court system. Don't let this happen to you. In order to effectively deal with an attorney assigned to represent you in a CPS/juvenile court case, it's helpful to first understand why the CPS/juvenile court system brings out the worst in so many attorneys. These attorneys usually have a very high volume caseload of clients who are in intense emotional pain and stress. Any discussion the attorney attempts to have with the clients is usually laced with the mother's agony and desperation. With scores of these desperation cases to handle every day, many attorneys unfortunately take the easy route and shut the clients out. Many don't return phone calls, don't meet with you to prepare the case, and often don't even meet with their clients before critical court hearings. This naturally increases the clients' desperation, which increases the attorney's effort to barricade against communicating with the clients, which leads to very bad lawyering for the mothers who need it most. The attorneys assigned to these cases know that their clients are among the most powerless and voiceless in society; poor women who are caught in the most dire circumstances. Right from the start, most of these attorneys can't even begin to imagine the kinds of circumstances their clients are going through. Nor are they likely to dig into the situation sufficiently (if at all) to unravel the complexities in search of the truth. Furthermore, these attorneys know their clients do not have the resources, (neither the time, money, nor standing) to mount a case of lawyer misconduct, no matter how bad a job the lawyers do. Family and juvenile law have very low status in the legal profession. Many attorneys assigned to cases like yours are not really there as a first choice. They're being rotated through the job. Or they took the job as a holding station while they look for better positions elsewhere. Or they simply need the easy money of a court assignment. Furthermore, they know that given the vague and flimsy legal standards of family and juvenile law, it's difficult to construct an effective defense against whatever claims or accusations CPS puts forth. So, they figure, why put up a fight? The whole CPS/juvenile court system operates in secret. No one is watching. Nothing is on the public record. Add to this the absence of rigorous standards and the attorneys know that no one in the system, including themselves, is likely to be held accountable for legal malpractice. Most of these attorneys are given their assignments at the pleasure of the court. The attorneys know that if they smoothly go along with CPS and court rulings without raising a fuss, the court will continue to assign them cases. On the other hand, if they regularly battle with CPS and take up court time fighting and objecting on behalf of their clients' rights, they know the chances are slim that the court will keep them around. When you look at all these factors in sum, you can easily see why the attorney you're assigned in the juvenile court system is so prone to doing a lousy job representing your interests. Fortunately, there are some things you can do that may perk up your attorney to a better level of performance on your behalf. * Tips to increase the chances your attorney will fight your case effectively: * Know what attorneys like. Most attorneys like to go into court armed with solid evidence. They like to look good in court, to win smartly, and to do all of the foregoing with the minimal of effort. Even better, they like to do so with no effort at all. What this means for you is that if you can arm your attorney with solid evidence that smartly answers the CPS case against you, and if you can do so by making the most minimal demand on the attorney's time, you stand a good chance of getting your attorney to bat hard for you in court. So.... * Be informed and be prepared. Know the written accusations against you. Know the exact purpose of the upcoming court hearing (i.e. what question is the upcoming hearing meant to resolve.) Then prepare yourself before you meet or communicate with your attorney, including before any phone conversations with your attorney. Make a brief set of notes to yourself on the main questions you want to ask, and the main points you want to communicate. Try to put these points in as condensed a form as possible so you can refer to them and read them at a glance. * In all your communications with your attorney, stick to the legal issue(s) at hand. This can be very difficult given the heart wrenching emotions of your situation. And it can be near unbearable to realize that your attorney isn't out there trying to move heaven and earth to make sure you don't lose your child to CPS. But it's very unlikely your attorney is going to be moved by your pain. If you vent your pain onto your attorney, it's much more likely you'll drive the attorney away rather than serving to draw the attorney into your cause. Keep reminding yourself that the best way to keep CPS from taking your child is to get your attorney to fight effectively for you in court, and the best way to get your attorney to fight effectively for you is to stick to the legal issue at hand. One way to help yourself do this is to imagine that you'll only have five minutes with your attorney. Then in the days leading up to your appointment with your attorney, ask yourself, what are the most important questions and points I need to communicate in those five minutes. This should help you get very focused and clear about what you want to say and ask. As mentioned above, write these points down in a brief set of notes to yourself. Have these notes in your hand for easy reference at a glance when you meet or talk with your attorney. * Prepare a one page written brief for your attorney. This one page brief should be a tight summary, ~ a point by point list ~, of the main points of information, evidence, and witnesses your attorney needs in order to successfully fight the upcoming legal issue at hand. In other words, in your thinking and preparation, you be the lawyer arguing your case. The end product you give your attorney should all fit on one, or maximum two, page(s) . Remember, these attorneys are buried in these cases. They will read one sheet of paper. They will appreciate one sheet of paper. But if you hand your attorney a fist full of papers, it's likely the attorney won't even read the first page. If there are supporting documents you think your attorney should have, briefly describe the documents you have on your one page brief. Indicate that you've attached a copy, or that you'll produce the documents when needed. If you have additional information you could not fit on the one page, say exactly that as your last point on the page. For example, write something like, "In addition to the above, I have two additional witnesses who can attest to the bruises on my child from a year ago. I have a copy of my temporary restraining order petition from that time (in which I noted the threats of violence against me). Also, I can obtain a letter from the counselor I was seeing at that time who can attest to my fears for myself and my child." Write your information out in points (the same as this text), with the most important points at the top. Don't forget to put your name, your phone number(s), the case number, and the date - and your attorney's name - all clearly at the top of the page. * Ask your attorney directly what he or she is going to argue and ask for in court. Don't be shy about this. It is completely appropriate to the attorney/client relationship for you to be very specific in asking your attorney how and what they are going to argue on your behalf in court. It is also completely appropriate, in fact it is the core of the attorney/client relationship, that you tell your attorney in detail, how you want your attorney to represent you. So speak up. Ask: "What evidence are you going to present in defense of the CPS accusation that I should have known my husband was abusing his stepdaughter?" "Are you going to present the letter from the counselor?" "Are you going to present the police reports of domestic violence from a year ago?" "Are you going to present the statement from my daughter's friend?" "What are you going to do if the judge will not return custody to me?" "I want you to ask for increased visitation." "I want you to argue forcefully against CPS telling me to CO-counsel with my husband." "I want you to argue against this based on the history of domestic violence." etc. Take notes on your attorney's answers and responses to these questions. It may be that some of your requests are not legally viable for a particular hearing. But your attorney should give you full, accurate, and reasonable explanations if that's the case. But bottom line, your attorney's job is to represent your interests court. * Always have extra copies of the brief for your attorney, and a set of notes for yourself, when you go to court. The sad fact is that even if you've given a copy of this one sheet briefing to your attorney a week before the hearing, there's still a real chance the attorney will not have read it. So bring copies to court. Once at the courthouse, you can be pretty certain that your attorney will read it, or reread it, as he or she sits there in the courtroom or out in the hallway as they wait for the case to be called. Waiting for a case to be called at court is often a very good time to catch your attorney's attention to exchange last minute thoughts anyway because they're pinned in place with nothing particular to do. But before you tap your attorney on the shoulder, as always, take a minute to jot down your points and questions. The reason it's so important that you have a set of notes for yourself when you go to court is because it's so easy to forget even the most important points when you're nervous and upset. The courtroom atmosphere can be very intimidating, chaotic, and confusing. So bring your written notes to yourself. Bring a copy of your notes to your attorney. * Remember: Bring a smart, supportive friend with you to meetings with the attorney and to court hearings. And bring your notebook, too, so you can write down new points and questions that occur to you during the court proceeding. * If, despite all of the above, your attorney fails you in court, does not present the evidence on your side, misrepresents your side, doesn't object to lies and false accusations against you, etc., you have every right to speak up for yourself, either immediately or later. But it's best to speak up immediately! In court, once your case is called, you will be seated right next to your attorney. The reason you're seated next to your attorney is because in order for you to have proper representation in court you must be able to communicate with your attorney as events unfold in court. Do not hesitate to talk to your attorney during your court hearing! Do not hesitate to talk to your attorney even if it means the whole court has to stop and wait while you confer with your attorney. Do not feel pressured out of exercising this critical right to stop everything while you talk with your attorney, even if all you need to do is to ask your attorney the meaning of one action or another. But if you see that your attorney is failing to present evidence he or she said they would present, or failing to accurately represent your position, it is absolutely essential that you turn to your attorney and say, "I need to confer with you for a minute." When you do that, your attorney should then turn to the judge and say, "Your Honor, I would like to take a moment to confer with my client." This is nothing unusual. It happens all the time in court that proceedings are stopped so attorneys and clients can take a minute or two to confer. So don't be shy or embarrassed at all about turning to communicate with your attorney as many times as you feel you need to throughout the court hearing on your case. Remember, you are fighting to save your relationship with your child. And you have a right to proper, accurate, and complete legal representation. If your attorney does not respond to you, if your attorney just rolls over your request and acts like he or she doesn't hear you, you, yourself, have a right to speak up directly to the judge. It can be very hard to do this in open court, but do it. "Your honor, I need a minute to confer with my attorney." This will work. The judge will stop everything and give you time to talk with your attorney, and more than likely, the judge will also give your attorney a dirty look. A look like, 'why on earth did your client have to go through me to get to you?' * Yes, you have the right to fire your attorney, even if your attorney is court appointed. If it is clear to you that your attorney is not prepared or not willing to properly represent your side of the case, you have a right to fire your attorney. Naturally, you should be sure this is what you need to do before you do it, since it will postpone court hearings and require that you be assigned a new attorney. However, if your attorney has refused to meet with you, or if your attorney has not prepared, or is hostile to your case, or for any other reason, you feel your attorney is going to fail you in court, firing your attorney may be the best thing you can do to protect your rights. If you're going to fire your attorney, it's a good idea to write a brief one paragraph statement to your attorney telling the attorney that he or she is fired. Fax this to your attorney, and bring a copy of the letter with you to court. When you go into court, be prepared to speak up to the judge when your case is called, and to give a copy of the letter to the judge. Don't feel embarrassed or shy about doing this either. This is not unusual. Many clients fire their attorneys. Many court hearings of all kinds are put over to another date so that clients have time to find a new attorney or to be assigned a new attorney. Many attorneys have lived through the experience of being fired. They know how to save face in these situations. Your attorney will not have a heart attack when you announce it in open court. And the judge won't be shocked either. They've all been through it before. So speak up and exercise your rights. You deserve proper legal representation, especially when it comes to saving your relationship with your child. Feel free to photocopy and distribute this information as long as you keep the credit and text intact. Copyright © Marie De Santis, Women's Justice Center, www.justicewomen.com rdjustice@monitor.net ============================================================== CPS = Steals,Rapes,Sells Childern, NOT Protect them, This is a Child Trafficing & Family Busting Operation !!! W.A.K.E. THE "F" UP ============================================================= THIS IS JUST 1 STATES NIGHTMARE UNCOVERED, IT IS COUNTRY WIDE TRUST ME, I KNOW 1ST. HAND .... ============================================================== The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services By: Nancy Schaefer Senator, 50th District From the legislative desk of Senator Nancy Schaefer 50th District of Georgia My introduction into child protective service cases was due to a grandmother in an adjoining state who called me with her tragic story. Her two granddaughters had been taken from her daughter who lived in my district. Her daughter was told wrongly that if she wanted to see her children again she should sign a paper and give up her children. Frightened and young, the daughter did. I have since discovered that parents are often threatened into cooperation of permanent separation of their children. The children were taken to another county and placed in foster care. The foster parents were told wrongly that they could adopt the children. The grandmother then jumped through every hoop known to man in order to get her granddaughters. When the case finally came to court it was made evident by one of the foster parent's children that the foster parents had, at any given time, 18 foster children and that the foster mother had an inappropriate relationship with the caseworker. In the courtroom, the juvenile judge, acted as though she was shocked and said the two girls would be removed quickly. They were not removed. Finally, after much pressure being applied to the Department of Family and Children Services of Georgia (DFCS), the children were driven to South Georgia to meet their grandmother who gladly drove to meet them. After being with their grandmother two or three days, the judge, quite out of the blue, wrote up a new order to send the girls to their father, who previously had no interest in the case and who lived on the West Coast. The father was in "adult entertainment". His girlfriend worked as an "escort" and his brother, who also worked in the business, had a sexual charge brought against him. Within a couple of days the father was knocking on the grandmother's door and took the girls kicking and screaming to California. The father developed an unusual relationship with the former foster parents and soon moved back to the southeast, and the foster parents began driving to the father's residence and picking up the little girls for visits. The oldest child had told her mother and grandmother on two different occasions that the foster father molested her. To this day after five years, this loving, caring blood relative grandmother does not even have visitation privileges with the children. The little girls are in my opinion permanently traumatized and the young mother of the girls was so traumatized with shock when the girls were first removed from her that she has not recovered. Throughout this case and through the process of dealing with multiple other mismanaged cases of the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS), I have worked with other desperate parents and children across the state because they have no rights and no one with whom to turn. I have witnessed ruthless behavior from many caseworkers, social workers, investigators, lawyers, judges, therapists, and others such as those who "pick up" the children. I have been stunned by what I have seen and heard from victims all over the state of Georgia. In this report, I am focusing on the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS). However, I believe Child Protective Services nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken almost beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be warned of the dangers. The Department of Child Protective Services, known as the Department of Family and Children Service (DFCS) in Georgia and other titles in other states, has become a "protected empire" built on taking children and separating families. This is not to say that there are not those children who do need to be removed from wretched situations and need protection. This report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in "legal kidnapping," ineffective policies, and DFCS who do does not remove a child or children when a child is enduring torment and abuse. (See Exhibit A and Exhibit B) In one county in my District, I arranged a meeting for thirty-seven families to speak freely and without fear. These poor parents and grandparents spoke of their painful, heart wrenching encounters with DFCS. Their suffering was overwhelming. They wept and cried. Some did not know where their children were and had not seen them in years. I had witnessed the "Gestapo" at work and I witnessed the deceitful conditions under which children were taken in the middle of the night, out of hospitals, off of school buses, and out of homes. In one county a private drug testing business was operating within the DFCS department that required many, many drug tests from parents and individuals for profit. In another county children were not removed when they were enduring the worst possible abuse. Due to being exposed, several employees in a particular DFCS office were fired. However, they have now been rehired either in neighboring counties or in the same county again. According to the calls I am now receiving, the conditions in that county are returning to the same practices that they had before the light was shown on their deeds. Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide, I am convinced there is no responsibility and no accountability in the system. I have come to the conclusion: that poor parents often times 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 always 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; that parenting classes, anger management classes, counseling referrals, therapy classes and on and on are demanded of parents with no compassion by the system even while they are at work and while their children are separated from them. This can take months or even years and it emotionally devastates both children and parents. Parents are victimized by "the system" that makes a profit for holding children longer and "bonuses" for not returning children; that caseworkers and social workers are oftentimes guilty of fraud. They withhold evidence. They fabricate evidence and they seek to terminate parental rights. However, when charges are made against them, the charges are ignored; that the separation of families is growing as a business because local governments have grown accustomed to having taxpayer dollars to balance their ever-expanding budgets; that Child Protective Service and Juvenile Court can always hide behind a confidentiality clause in order to protect their decisions and keep the funds flowing. There should be open records and "court watches"! Look who is being paid! There are state employees, lawyers, court investigators, court personnel, and judges. There are psychologists, and psychiatrists, counselors, caseworkers, therapists, foster parents, adoptive parents, and on and on. All are looking to the children in state custody to provide job security. Parents do not realize that social workers are the glue that holds "the system" together that funds the court, the child's attorney, and the multiple other jobs including DFCS's attorney. that The Adoption and the Safe Families Act, set in motion by President Bill Clinton, offered cash "bonuses" to the states for every child they adopted out of foster care. In order to receive the "adoption incentive bonuses" local child protective services need more children. They must have merchandise (children) that sell and you must have plenty of them so the buyer can choose. Some counties are known to give a $4,000 bonus for each child adopted and an additional $2,000 for a "special needs" child. Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing; that there is double dipping. The funding continues as long as the child is out of the home. When a child in foster care is placed with a new family then "adoption bonus funds" are available. When a child is placed in a mental health facility and is on 16 drugs per day, like two children of a constituent of mine, more funds are involved; that there are no financial resources and no real drive to unite a family and help keep them together; that the incentive for social workers to return children to their parents quickly after taking them has disappeared and who in protective services will step up to the plate and say, "This must end! No one, because they are all in the system together and a system with no leader and no clear policies will always fail the children. Look at the waste in government that is forced upon the tax payer; that the "Policy Manuel" is considered "the last word" for DFCS. However, it is too long, too confusing, poorly written and does not take the law into consideration; that if the lives of children were improved by removing them from their homes, there might be a greater need for protective services, but today all children are not always safer. Children, of whom I am aware, have been raped and impregnated in foster care and the head of a Foster Parents Association in my District was recently arrested because of child molestation; that some parents are even told if they want to see their children or grandchildren, they must divorce their spouse. Many, who are under privileged, feeling they have no option, will divorce and then just continue to live together. This is an anti-family policy, but parents will do anything to get their children home with them. fathers, (non-custodial parents) I must add, are oftentimes treated as criminals without access to their own children and have child support payments strangling the very life out of them; that the Foster Parents Bill of Rights does not bring out that a foster parent is there only to care for a child until the child can be returned home. Many Foster Parents today use the Foster Parent Bill of Rights to hire a lawyer and seek to adopt the child from the real parents, who are desperately trying to get their child home and out of the system; that tax dollars are being used to keep this gigantic system afloat, yet the victims, parents, grandparents, guardians and especially the children, are charged for the system's services. that grandparents have called from all over the State of Georgia trying to get custody of their grandchildren. DFCS claims relatives are contacted, but there are cases that prove differently. Grandparents who lose their grandchildren to strangers have lost their own flesh and blood. The children lose their family heritage and grandparents, and parents too, lose all connections to their heirs. that 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. That according to the California Little Hoover Commission Report in 2003, 30% to 70% of the children in California group homes do not belong there and should not have been removed from their homes. Final Remarks On my desk are scores of cases of exhausted families and troubled children. It has been beyond me to turn my back on these suffering, crying, and sometimes beaten down individuals. We are mistreating the most innocent. Child Protective Services have become adult centered to the detriment of children. No longer is judgment based on what the child needs or who the child wants to be with or what is really best for the whole family; it is some adult or bureaucrat who makes the decisions, based often on just hearsay, without ever consulting a family member, or just what is convenient, profitable, or less troublesome for a director of DFCS. I have witnessed such injustice and harm brought to these families that I am not sure if I even believe reform of the system is possible! The system cannot be trusted. It does not serve the people. It obliterates families and children simply because it has the power to do so. Children deserve better. Families deserve better. It's time to pull back the curtain and set our children and families free. "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and the needy" Proverbs 31:8-9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Learn More... Recommendations Exhibit A Exhibit B -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recommendations Call for an independent audit of the Department of Family and Children's Services (DFCS) to expose corruption and fraud. Activate immediate change. Every day that passes means more families and children are subject to being held hostage. End the financial incentives that separate families. Grant to parents their rights in writing. Mandate a search for family members to be given the opportunity to adopt their own relatives. Mandate a jury trial where every piece of evidence is presented before removing a child from his or her parents. Require a warrant or a positive emergency circumstance before removing children from their parents. (Judge Arthur G. Christean, Utah Bar Journal, January, 1997 reported that "except in emergency circumstances, including the need for immediate medical care, require warrants upon affidavits of probable cause before entry upon private property is permitted for the forcible removal of children from their parents.") Uphold the laws when someone fabricates or presents false evidence. If a parent alleges fraud, hold a hearing with the right to discovery of all evidence. Exhibit A December 5, 2006 Jeremy's Story (Some names withheld due to future hearings.) As told to Senator Nancy Schaefer by Sandra (Xxxx), a foster parent of Jeremy for 2 ½ years. My husband and I received Jeremy when he was 2-weeks-old and we have been the only parents he has really ever known. He lived with us for 27-months. (Xxxx) is the grandfather of Jeremy, and he is known for molesting his own children, for molesting Jeremy and has been court ordered not to be around Jeremy. (Xxxx) is the mother of Jeremy, who has been diagnosed to be mentally ill, and also is known to have molested Jeremy. (Xxxx) and Jeremy's uncle is a registered sex offender and (Xxxx) is the biological father, who is a drug addict and alcoholic and who continues to be in and out of jail. Having just described Jeremy's world, all of these adults are not to be any part of Jeremy's life, yet for years DFCS has known that they are. DFCS had to test (Xxxx) (the grandfather) and his son (Xxxx) (the uncle) and (Xxxx) to determine the real father. (Xxxx) is the biological father although any of them might have been. In court, it appeared from the case study, that everyone involved knew that this little boy had been molested by family members, even by his own mother, (Xxxx). In court, (XXX), the mother of Jeremy, admitted to having had sex with (Xxxx) (the grandfather) and (Xxxx) (her own brother) that morning. Judge (Xxxx) and DFCS gave Jeremy to his grandmother that same day. (Xxxx), the grandmother, is over 300 lbs., is unable to drive, and is unable to take care of Jeremy due to physical problems. She also has been in a mental hospital several times due to her behavior. Even though it was ordered by the court that the grandfather (Xxxx), the uncle (Xxxx) (a convicted sex offender), (Xxxx) his mother who molested him and (Xxxx) his biological father, a convicted drug addict, were not to have anything to do with the child, they all continue to come and go as they please at (Xxxx address), where Jeremy has been "sentenced to live" for years. This residence has no bathroom and little heat. The front door and the windows are boarded. This home should have been condemned years ago. I have been in this home. No child should ever have to live like this or with such people. Jeremy was taken from us at age 2 ½ years after (Xxxx) obtained attorney (Xxxx), who was the same attorney who represented him in a large settlement from an auto accident. I am told, that attorney (Xxxx), as grandfather's attorney, is known to have repeatedly gotten (Xxxx) off of several criminal charges in White County. This is a matter of record and is known by many in White County. I have copies of some records. (Xxxx grandfather), through (Xxxx attorney's) work, got (Xxxx), the grandmother of Jeremy, legal custody of Jeremy. (Xxxx grandfather) who cannot read or write also got his daughter (Xxxx) and son (Xxxx) diagnosed by government agencies as mentally ill. (Xxxx grandfather), through legal channels, has taken upon himself all control of the family and is able to take possession of any government funding coming to these people. It was during this time that Jeremy was to have a six-month transitional period between (Xxxx grandmother) and my family as we were to give him up. The court ordered agreement was to have been 4-days at our house and 3-days at (Xxxx grandmother). DFCS stopped the visits within 2-weeks. The reason given by DFCS was the child was too traumatized going back and forth. In truth, Jeremy begged us and screamed never to be taken back to (Xxxx) his grandmother's house, which we have on video. We, as a family, have seen Jeremy in stores time to time with (Xxxx grandmother) and the very people he is not to be around. At each meeting Jeremy continues to run to us wherever he sees us and it is clear he is suffering. This child is in a desperate situation and this is why I am writing, and begging you Senator Schaefer, to do something in this child's behalf. Jeremy can clearly describe in detail his sexual molestation by every member of this family and this sexual abuse continues to this day. When Jeremy was 5 years of age I took him to Dr. (Xxxx) of Habersham County who did indeed agree that Jeremy's rectum was black and blue and the physical damage to the child was clearly a case of sexual molestation. Early in Jeremy's life, when he was in such bad physical condition, we took him to Egleston Children Hospital where at two-months of age therapy was to begin three times a week. DFCS decided that the (Xxxx grandparent family) should participate in his therapy. However, the therapist complained over and over that the (Xxxx grandparent family) would not even wash their hands and would cause Jeremy to cry during these sessions. (Xxxx the grandmother), after receiving custody no longer allowed the therapy because it was an inconvenience. The therapist reported that this would be a terrible thing to do to this child. Therapy was stopped and it was detrimental to the health of Jeremy. During (Xxxx grandmother) custody, (Xxxx uncle) has shot Jeremy with a BB gun and there is a report at (Xxxx) County Sheriff's office. There are several amber alerts at Cornelia Wal-Mart, Commerce Wal-Mart, and a 911 report from (Xxxx) County Sheriff's Department when Jeremy was lost. (Xxxx grandmother), to teach Jeremy a lesson, took thorn bush limbs and beat the bottoms of his feet. Jeremy's feet got infected and his feet had to be lanced by Dr. (Xxxx). Then Judy called me to pick him up after about 4-days to take back him to the doctor because of intense pain. I took Jeremy to Dr. (Xxxx) in Gainesville. Dr. (Xxxx) said surgery was needed immediately and a cast was added. After returning home, (Xxxx), his grandfather and (Xxxx), his uncle, took him into the hog lot and allowed him to walk in the filth. Jeremy's feet became so infected for a 2nd time that he was again taken back to Dr. (Xxxx) and the hospital. No one in the hospital could believe this child's living conditions. Jeremy is threatened to keep quiet and not say anything to anyone. I have videos, reports, arrest records and almost anything you might need to help Jeremy. Please call my husband, Wendell, or I at any time. Sandra and (Xxxx) husband (Xxxx) Exhibit B Failure of DFCS to remove six desperate children A brief report regarding six children that Habersham County DFCS director failed to remove as disclosed to Senator Nancy Schaefer by Sheriff Deray Fincher of Habersham County. Sheriff Deray Fincher, Chief of Police Don Ford and Chief Investigator Lt. Greg Bowen Chief called me to meet with them immediately, which I did on Tuesday, October 16, 2007 Sheriff Fincher, after contacting the Director of Habersham County DFCS several times to remove six children from being horribly abused, finally had to get a court order to remove the children himself with the help of two police officers. The children, four boys and two girls, were not just being abused; they were being tortured by a monster father. The six children and a live in girl friend were terrified of this man, the abuser. The children never slept in a bed, but always on the floor. The place where they lived was unfit for human habitation. The father on one occasion hit one of the boys across his head with a bat and cut the boy's head open. The father then proceeded to hold the boy down and sew up the child's head with a needle and red thread. However, even with beatings and burnings, this is only a fraction of what the father did to these children and to the live-in girlfriend. Sheriff Fincher has pictures of the abuse and condition of one of the boys and at the writing of this report, he has the father in jail in Habersham County. It should be noted that when the DFCS director found out that Sheriff Fincher was going to remove the children, she called the father and warned him to flee. This is not the only time this DFCS director failed to remove a child when she needed to do so. (See Exhibit A) The egregious acts and abhorrent behavior of officials who are supposed to protect children can no longer be tolerated. Senator Nancy Schaefer 50th District of Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer 302 B Coverdell Office Building 18 Capitol Square, SW Atlanta, Georgia 30334 Phone: 404-463-1367 Fax: 404-657-3217 Senator Nancy Schaefer District Office P O Box 294 Turnerville, Georgia 30580 Phone: 706-754-1998 Fax: 706-754-1803 Please forward to anyone interested |