Redstate

By rguyshipe Posted in Law — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

An investigative report by the Belleville News-Democrat out of Belleville, IL has found that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has a very high error rate in who gets put on the state's official child abusers list.

A big part of the problem here is that social workers generally have incredible power over the whole situation and all rights are held by the state. Read on for more from the investigative report.

From the investigative report:

When a state official came knocking in February 2007, Nick and Judi Brunstein already had been cleared of allegations that landed them on the state's list of child abusers.

But they didn't know it yet, because their lawyer had not been notified of the hearing judge's ruling.

Nevertheless, a DCFS worker offered to return their foster care license and close the case if they signed a paper saying they were guilty of licensing violations, the couple said.

"I told her that there is no way that we are going to sign anything and admit to something we didn't do," said Nick Brunstein, a retired Army officer and Desert Storm veteran.

The oldest of the Brunsteins' three foster children -- an 11-year-old girl diagnosed as schizophrenic and bipolar -- accused the couple of physically and emotionally abusing them.

She also said the Brunsteins were being overly strict by requiring the children to do chores and homework.

The day after the caseworker's visit, the Belleville couple learned that DCFS administrative law judge Judy Heineken believed them and ordered their names removed from the child abuse list. They recently got their foster care license back.

Heineken's 25-page ruling criticized DCFS caseworkers for basic errors in the investigation and for presenting an abuse case dependent on the uncorroborated word of the 11-year-old.

The judge also chastised the agency's main expert witness, a Belleville psychologist, who didn't know the girl was schizophrenic and bipolar because she never checked her medical files.

Heineken said school officials, friends and neighbors "wholly refuted" the girl's accusations. She also noted the Brunsteins repeatedly asked DCFS to resume supplying the same mental illness medication the girl received when living with other foster parents, but the agency refused.

Fighting DCFS cost the Brunsteins $20,000 to hire a lawyer. And the three girls they hoped to adopt -- ages 2, 5 and 11 -- were taken from them and never returned.

"I don't know if you can call this a win," Nick Brunstein said. "Our savings are wiped out, and our caseworker who wanted to take our foster kids and hurt us did exactly that. No one at DCFS will be held accountable."

Today, the Brunsteins are parents again. The day before the DCFS worker came to the door, a surrogate mother delivered their daughter, Grace.

"Kids get bruises and scrapes when they play," said Judi Brunstein as she watched Grace, now 14 months old, play with toys. "We are going to be on their radar for the slightest thing. It wouldn't surprise me if some day they try to get Grace."

More from the article that shows a lower burden of proof required and that you must prove your innocence to the state instead of the state proving your guilt:

Often, it's the most vulnerable families that come under DCFS scrutiny.

"The brunt of the system falls on the poor ... who cannot afford to appeal," said Lehrer, the Chicago attorney.

"While they need to go after people who are guilty of serious child abuse -- sexual abuse, burns, fractures -- the truth is that these kinds of cases represent a very modest number. Most of the investigations do not involve real abuse," he said.

People who are accused of child abuse, or "indicated," and appeal don't have the same protections as in criminal proceedings and are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

And names can get out, even though the state child abuse register is closed to the public, lawyers and exonerated parents say. The list is open to social workers, police officers, school officials, even members of neighborhood park district boards.

Lehrer said that evidentiary rules at DCFS hearings, which are closed to the public, allow both sides to introduce hearsay evidence that would be banned from a criminal courtroom.

While wrongly listing parents as child abusers is "terrible," it is not the result of malice on the part of DCFS investigators, said Reich, the University of Denver sociology and criminology professor.

"I think there is in this system -- because of its low burden of proof -- a logical belief that it's easy to identify abusers and mistakes aren't going to be made, but that's not true," she said.

When our legals system is built on the "best interest of the child" instead of the parental rights doctrine we can expect that the first people to lose will be the poor. The only way to have a chance against the system is to hire the best attorney but if you are poor you can't afford an attorney.

DCFS caseworkers ordered Kim Cooper to put a fence around her yard and new locks on her doors and windows at a cost of $5,000 because her severely mentally disabled daughter kept getting out.

The single mother from Collinsville also had to agree to allow a private agency worker hired by DCFS to sleep on the couch to provide 24-hour supervision.

Caseworkers first became involved when a neighbor called to say the 13-year-old girl, who has autism, was in their swimming pool.

While Cooper was talking to a DCFS caseworker one day at her kitchen table, the teen somehow slipped past them and ran outside. Cooper and the state employee gave chase and finally caught the girl.

The fence and locks proved ineffective.

After that, Cooper refused further DCFS demands, which landed her on the state child abuse list, indicated for neglect. Cooper appealed, and a DCFS hearing judge eventually sided with her. But while Cooper waited for that ruling, caseworkers removed the girl from the home.

"They took her out of my arms," Cooper said. "I didn't know where she was."

The next day, Cooper filed an emergency petition and went to court to get her daughter back. A St. Clair County judge ordered the child's immediate return.

Cooper found her daughter in a Granite City hospital's psychiatric wing.

"She was on a mattress on the floor. There wasn't anything else in the room. It was awful," she said. "It's the most horrible thing I've ever been through."

It is important to note that most of the social workers and others in the child protection service systems are good people who mean well. They are truly trying their best to help families and children. There are also real child abusers out there that need to be dealt with strongly. We cannot as a society tolerate child abuse. But it is also child abuse to take a girl from her mom and put her into a psychiatric ward. Falsely accusing parents of child abuse is also a form of abuse to the child. Taking or even threatening to take a child from a loving home is child abuse.

The system is broken. At the heart of the problem is our legal drift from the parental rights doctrine. While the Supreme Court has consistently favored parents...

The statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition. ... Simply because the decision of a parent is not agreeable to a child or because it involves risks does not automatically transfer the power to make that decision from the parents to some agency or officer of the state. -Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979)

and

Until the State proves parental unfitness, the child and his parents share a vital interest in preventing erroneous termination of their natural relationship. -Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982)

...we need to reestablish at the state and local levels the basic legal concept of "innocent until proven guilty."