Blogger note:
Many families caught up with CPS find that their children are being hurt or neglected in foster homes and in almost every case, when they report the situations to CPS, they are ignored or CPS downplays their concerns. This kind of problem can lead and has led to child deaths while in foster care. Many families will even bring this information up in court and sometimes to their state lawmakers and guess what? Those same people say they have complete faith in CPS. How can a family proctect their children in foster care when no one will hear them?
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Daughter in foster care had bumps, scratches
By DAVID COLE
COEUR d'ALENE - Samantha Richardson said she had three visits with her children in the two months they lived with foster parents in Post Falls in late 2008 and early 2009.
At each of those one-hour meetings, she said she saw changes, both physical and in behavior, in one of her three children, 2-year-old Karina J. Moore.
By early January 2009, Karina was in a coma in a Spokane hospital. Days after that, she was dead.
Now the foster parents, Amber M. Clark, 28, and Jeremy M. Clark, 36, have been indicted by a grand jury in Kootenai County, accused of felony injury to children, conspiracy to conceal evidence, and perjury. They were arrested and jailed, but then released on $25,000 bond.
"After three years, you're thinking these people might get off the hook," Richardson, 25, of Coeur d'Alene, said Monday.
She's eager to see the Clarks in front of a judge and jury, she said, and for an opportunity to take the witness stand and tell her side of the story.
Richardson had her three children taken from her in mid-November 2008 because she allegedly harmed her son, Shawn, who is 8 years old today. She said the alleged mistreatment turned out, upon investigation, to have been nothing more than an accident. She has had a fourth child, Saniyah, who is now 8 months old. She has custody of her children now.
In the first supervised visit at the end of November 2008, her daughter, Karina, had a big knot on her head, Richardson recalled.
The foster parents told state child protection employees that Karina had slipped and fallen on some ice. State employees then passed that story on to Richardson. She was concerned, but such a fall didn't sound unlikely.
But that wasn't all.
Karina's older brother Shawn told Richardson he didn't like it when the foster parents spanked Karina when she didn't put her clothes on herself.
"That was the very first thing he said to me in that visit," Richardson said.
State workers told Richardson that her son was exaggerating. "'Shawn is a liar,'" she said she was told.
Along with Karina and Shawn, Richardson had a third child, a daughter Aaliyah, who was a baby at the time, and also was living with the Clarks.
In the second visit, in early December, Karina had another knot on the side of her head, Richardson said.
This time the foster parents told child protection employees that Karina had run into another child and bumped her head. That message was forwarded on to Richardson.
"I didn't buy it," Richardson said. "I didn't buy it at all."
Karina's speech also had become "slurred" at this point.
"Her speech was gone," she said.
By the third visit, on Christmas Eve in 2008, Karina had black eyes and scratches on her face, Richardson said.
This time, she was told Karina hadn't gotten enough sleep lately, and had "raccoon eyes," and a dog had scratched her face, Richardson said.
She was concerned because Karina had been a healthy child and developing normally while in Richardson's care. That didn't seem to be the case while in foster care, she said.
"She never had anything wrong with her," she said.
Richardson, who got married in July 2009, but was a single mother at the time of Karina's death, said she complained about the changes she had seen in Karina. Karina's father lives in South Carolina.
Richardson went to both the state child protection employees and Karina's court appointed special advocate to voice her concerns.
However, the next time she saw Karina, the child was in a coma.
At 1 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2009, Richardson received a phone call from a restricted number.
A Post Falls police detective was on the line.
He told her, "'There has been a horrible accident, and Karina is being flown to Sacred Heart (Medical Center, in Spokane),'" she recalled the detective saying. "'We think you should get over there.'"
Richardson said, "My heart sank."
Too distraught to drive herself, Richardson got a ride to Spokane with her mother.
When Richardson reached the hospital, she was told by police that Karina had fallen down some carpeted stairs. Richardson couldn't be told anything else, as that was all police knew at that point, she said.
"Where were the baby gates?" she said.
Karina was lying on the hospital bed in a diaper and neck brace, she recalled.
"Her body was cold," Richardson said. "Her lips were purple."
Richardson was told by doctors that Karina had a very high sodium level and low body temperature.
"I still to this day have no idea why her sodium level was so high," Richardson said.
She has her theories about why the girl's body temperature was so low.
Indictment documents filed in Kootenai County court said the Clarks were responsible for "causing the child's body temperature to drop under 96 degrees or permitting the same to occur; or by withholding medical care" for her.
Richardson has had a tough three years.
She starts a new job on Wednesday.
She hasn't been able to work since Karina's death, because she doesn't want to let her children out of her sight, she said.
She has regular counseling for anxiety, she said.
"I have the worst anxiety when it comes to the kids," she said. Karina's death "has messed with me a lot."
She said both she and her family and the Post Falls police are "relieved" that a grand jury has indicted somebody for Karina's death.
She was told of the indictment by the Kootenai County prosecutor's office and Post Falls Police Chief Scot Haug.
"They worked so hard on this in the last three years," she said.
Source http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_80a14f3b-d324-57ec-8100-b1f4eca9f1ca.html
CPS corruption hurts and destroys families worldwide. Please use caution posting about CPS here or anyplace on the internet. For your protection, using your full, real name and precise location is not advised. CPS has eyes everywhere and CPS is notorious for taking what people say, twisting it, embellishing on it and then using it against them in CPS "investigations" and at court proceedings.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Elected Officials Involved In Coverup Penn State Alleged Sexual Abuse Of Young Boys?
Information in this TMZ video suggests that more than university officials may have been involved the coverup at Penn State. It runs until about 21 minutes before it goes off onto another topic.
‘Culture of Secrecy” hid death of child in state welfare system - Kentucky
By Mike Farrell
Now we know why Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd declared a “culture of secrecy” exists at the state’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
That secrecy was necessary to hide from the public the state’s failure to protect a child who was bludgeoned to death.
“This case presents a tragic example of the potentially deadly consequences of a child welfare system that has completely insulated itself from meaningful public scrutiny,” Judge Shepherd wrote in the most recent decision over state records in the death of a child.
In a 19-page decision he issued Nov. 7, the judge detailed what he referred to as a “systematic breakdown” of the state’s child protective services, which contributed to the death of a nine-year-old Todd County girl in February.
The judge made it clear the cabinet failed to fulfill its responsibilities in this case. “(T)he Cabinet’s records document an alarming history of misfeasance, at best, or malfeasance, at worst, on the part of the Cabinet in addressing allegations of abuse and neglect” in this case.
Amythz Dye was murdered on Feb. 4 outside her home by her 17-year-old brother, Garrett Dye, who pleaded guilty last month. She had been bludgeoned. According to the court’s decision, she had been shoveling gravel outside the house on a cold night as punishment for stealing pudding and juice from a friend’s lunchbox at school.
The girl had been adopted by Kimberly Dye after she had been removed from her biological home in another state as a result of physical and sexual abuse. She was the great-niece of Kimberly Dye, who was then divorced and living with her two sons. The cabinet had approved the adoption, even though other relatives had indicated interest and the cabinet had previously confirmed the abuse of one of her sons by the father.
Judge Shepherd reported that the cabinet had received eight separate reports of suspicions that the girl was being abused.
• The first report in the cabinet’s file was that one of her two older brothers had thrown her across the bed and kicked her, leaving 5-inch bruises on her hips. The cabinet’s records indicate the report involved a “sibling altercation” and did not meet the criteria for investigation.
• One week later, the school nurse reported that the girl said the brother had been hitting her and knocked her off the bed. This incident was viewed much as the first, and after the cabinet talked to the mother, it took no further action.
• About a month later, the school nurse called again to report the girl had thumb prints on her face and her skin was peeling. She said the injuries were caused by the same brother, and that the mother had warned her she would be spanked if she told anyone. The mother told a cabinet worker the girl had been playing in gravel and rubbed it on her face. The cabinet record shows no further follow-up.
At the same time, the school nurse wrote a letter to the cabinet detailing six referrals of suspected abuse of the girl she already had made. She asked that a cabinet worker come to the school to talk to the girl.
Apart from that letter, Judge Shepherd said the cabinet’s records do not document three of those six referrals:
• Two weeks before the first incident documented in the cabinet’s records, a guidance counselor told the cabinet the girl had bruising on both thighs and said she had been hit by her brother.
• Between the second and third report in the cabinet’s documents, the school nurse reported the girl said “her private parts hurt” and she felt a burning sensation when she urinated.
• The next week, the same school nurse reported the girl had fingerprint bruises on both arms, which she blamed on the brother grabbing her and then shooting her with a BB gun.
• Three weeks later, the cabinet received a report that the girl was being hit in the head with a shovel by the brother. The mother told a cabinet worker the girl had hit her head on a desk. The only documented action was to refer the family to an outside agency.
• Another report came several months later. The girl said the brothers had hurt her, her eye was bruised and swollen, and she was covered in bites. Kimberly Dye told a cabinet worker that the girl had tripped and fallen while running, the same story the brothers told. The girl also was interviewed and she said she had fallen and hit her face on the ground. The cabinet concluded as a result of this information that the family did not need any services.
The court decision does not document further reports, meaning about three and a half years elapsed between the final referral reported to the cabinet and the girl’s murder. We know all of this only because the Todd County Standard sued the cabinet for the records, and in ruling for the newspaper, the judge laid out the story.
This decision was the third open records decision Judge Shepherd has issued against the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and the second in four days. The cabinet has refused to release records related to the deaths of children who were under its supervision, citing a federal requirement of confidentiality. In all three lawsuits filed by newspapers seeking the release of those records, Judge Shepherd has ruled federal laws do not require that confidentiality when a child dies.
“The Open Records Act is the only method available by which the public and the legislature can obtain information regarding the systematic breakdown of our child protective services that contributed so directly to this child’s death,” Judge Shepherd wrote.
So where is the public outrage? Perhaps citizens aren’t outraged because the cabinet has succeeded in keeping the public in the dark about its failures.
A young girl who had been abused in her biological home is placed into another home by the Kentucky cabinet, which then fails to recognize, despite multiple reports, that she is being abused again.
Why isn’t Gov. Steve Beshear demanding answers? Where is his message of assurance to the citizens of the state that changes will be made swiftly to ensure children who are being supervised by the cabinet will be protected?
Why does he allow the cabinet to continue this “culture of secrecy,” hiding behind a statutory requirement that exists only in its excuses?
The Courier-Journal reported after a 2009 investigation that nearly 270 Kentucky children had died of abuse or neglect during the past decade — more than half in cases in which state officials knew of or suspected problems.
The General Assembly has a responsibility to assess where the failure lies. Is it training? Is it staffing levels? Are the cabinet’s procedures defective? Is the cabinet simply too big to manage all of its responsibilities? Whatever the contributing factors, something is wrong when eight reports of suspicious injuries fail to bring a troubled family into the cabinet’s program of services.
The cabinet clearly has a difficult job to do with limited resources, trying to protect so many abused and neglected children. Nevertheless, its unwillingness to be accountable to citizens of this state by responding to open records requests is troubling. This cabinet and the administration, regardless of who is in the governor’s mansion, must be accountable to the public. It’s clear from the three lawsuits and the recent string of open records appeals that the cabinet does not understand how important it is that their work be subject to public scrutiny.
Perhaps an independent commission should be established to investigate the death of every child who is a victim of abuse or neglect. That would mean the commission would need staff, subpoena power, and be required to publish its findings and make recommendations.
Being a child protection service worker is a difficult, demanding and sometimes dangerous job. Most of those workers do an admirable job of protecting children and steering troubled parents and families to available assistance. We owe them our appreciation and support.
But the problem is with the officials who run the agency and who resist reasonable requests by citizens and the media for information and about individual cases of abuse and neglect.
All of our children deserve to be protected. We all must do more to ensure their safety and to demand that the state protect each one. And we must demand that the cabinet is accountable to the public for its actions. The little we know at this point we know only because of the work of three newspapers, the attorney general’s office and Judge Phillip Shepherd.
Mike Farrell is the director of the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center at the University of Kentucky and an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications. He was a journalist for nearly 20 years at The Kentucky Post. His views are his own and not those of the university or of KyForward.
Now we know why Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd declared a “culture of secrecy” exists at the state’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
That secrecy was necessary to hide from the public the state’s failure to protect a child who was bludgeoned to death.
“This case presents a tragic example of the potentially deadly consequences of a child welfare system that has completely insulated itself from meaningful public scrutiny,” Judge Shepherd wrote in the most recent decision over state records in the death of a child.
In a 19-page decision he issued Nov. 7, the judge detailed what he referred to as a “systematic breakdown” of the state’s child protective services, which contributed to the death of a nine-year-old Todd County girl in February.
The judge made it clear the cabinet failed to fulfill its responsibilities in this case. “(T)he Cabinet’s records document an alarming history of misfeasance, at best, or malfeasance, at worst, on the part of the Cabinet in addressing allegations of abuse and neglect” in this case.
Amythz Dye was murdered on Feb. 4 outside her home by her 17-year-old brother, Garrett Dye, who pleaded guilty last month. She had been bludgeoned. According to the court’s decision, she had been shoveling gravel outside the house on a cold night as punishment for stealing pudding and juice from a friend’s lunchbox at school.
The girl had been adopted by Kimberly Dye after she had been removed from her biological home in another state as a result of physical and sexual abuse. She was the great-niece of Kimberly Dye, who was then divorced and living with her two sons. The cabinet had approved the adoption, even though other relatives had indicated interest and the cabinet had previously confirmed the abuse of one of her sons by the father.
Judge Shepherd reported that the cabinet had received eight separate reports of suspicions that the girl was being abused.
• The first report in the cabinet’s file was that one of her two older brothers had thrown her across the bed and kicked her, leaving 5-inch bruises on her hips. The cabinet’s records indicate the report involved a “sibling altercation” and did not meet the criteria for investigation.
• One week later, the school nurse reported that the girl said the brother had been hitting her and knocked her off the bed. This incident was viewed much as the first, and after the cabinet talked to the mother, it took no further action.
• About a month later, the school nurse called again to report the girl had thumb prints on her face and her skin was peeling. She said the injuries were caused by the same brother, and that the mother had warned her she would be spanked if she told anyone. The mother told a cabinet worker the girl had been playing in gravel and rubbed it on her face. The cabinet record shows no further follow-up.
At the same time, the school nurse wrote a letter to the cabinet detailing six referrals of suspected abuse of the girl she already had made. She asked that a cabinet worker come to the school to talk to the girl.
Apart from that letter, Judge Shepherd said the cabinet’s records do not document three of those six referrals:
• Two weeks before the first incident documented in the cabinet’s records, a guidance counselor told the cabinet the girl had bruising on both thighs and said she had been hit by her brother.
• Between the second and third report in the cabinet’s documents, the school nurse reported the girl said “her private parts hurt” and she felt a burning sensation when she urinated.
• The next week, the same school nurse reported the girl had fingerprint bruises on both arms, which she blamed on the brother grabbing her and then shooting her with a BB gun.
• Three weeks later, the cabinet received a report that the girl was being hit in the head with a shovel by the brother. The mother told a cabinet worker the girl had hit her head on a desk. The only documented action was to refer the family to an outside agency.
• Another report came several months later. The girl said the brothers had hurt her, her eye was bruised and swollen, and she was covered in bites. Kimberly Dye told a cabinet worker that the girl had tripped and fallen while running, the same story the brothers told. The girl also was interviewed and she said she had fallen and hit her face on the ground. The cabinet concluded as a result of this information that the family did not need any services.
The court decision does not document further reports, meaning about three and a half years elapsed between the final referral reported to the cabinet and the girl’s murder. We know all of this only because the Todd County Standard sued the cabinet for the records, and in ruling for the newspaper, the judge laid out the story.
This decision was the third open records decision Judge Shepherd has issued against the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and the second in four days. The cabinet has refused to release records related to the deaths of children who were under its supervision, citing a federal requirement of confidentiality. In all three lawsuits filed by newspapers seeking the release of those records, Judge Shepherd has ruled federal laws do not require that confidentiality when a child dies.
“The Open Records Act is the only method available by which the public and the legislature can obtain information regarding the systematic breakdown of our child protective services that contributed so directly to this child’s death,” Judge Shepherd wrote.
So where is the public outrage? Perhaps citizens aren’t outraged because the cabinet has succeeded in keeping the public in the dark about its failures.
A young girl who had been abused in her biological home is placed into another home by the Kentucky cabinet, which then fails to recognize, despite multiple reports, that she is being abused again.
Why isn’t Gov. Steve Beshear demanding answers? Where is his message of assurance to the citizens of the state that changes will be made swiftly to ensure children who are being supervised by the cabinet will be protected?
Why does he allow the cabinet to continue this “culture of secrecy,” hiding behind a statutory requirement that exists only in its excuses?
The Courier-Journal reported after a 2009 investigation that nearly 270 Kentucky children had died of abuse or neglect during the past decade — more than half in cases in which state officials knew of or suspected problems.
The General Assembly has a responsibility to assess where the failure lies. Is it training? Is it staffing levels? Are the cabinet’s procedures defective? Is the cabinet simply too big to manage all of its responsibilities? Whatever the contributing factors, something is wrong when eight reports of suspicious injuries fail to bring a troubled family into the cabinet’s program of services.
The cabinet clearly has a difficult job to do with limited resources, trying to protect so many abused and neglected children. Nevertheless, its unwillingness to be accountable to citizens of this state by responding to open records requests is troubling. This cabinet and the administration, regardless of who is in the governor’s mansion, must be accountable to the public. It’s clear from the three lawsuits and the recent string of open records appeals that the cabinet does not understand how important it is that their work be subject to public scrutiny.
Perhaps an independent commission should be established to investigate the death of every child who is a victim of abuse or neglect. That would mean the commission would need staff, subpoena power, and be required to publish its findings and make recommendations.
Being a child protection service worker is a difficult, demanding and sometimes dangerous job. Most of those workers do an admirable job of protecting children and steering troubled parents and families to available assistance. We owe them our appreciation and support.
But the problem is with the officials who run the agency and who resist reasonable requests by citizens and the media for information and about individual cases of abuse and neglect.
All of our children deserve to be protected. We all must do more to ensure their safety and to demand that the state protect each one. And we must demand that the cabinet is accountable to the public for its actions. The little we know at this point we know only because of the work of three newspapers, the attorney general’s office and Judge Phillip Shepherd.
Mike Farrell is the director of the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center at the University of Kentucky and an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications. He was a journalist for nearly 20 years at The Kentucky Post. His views are his own and not those of the university or of KyForward.
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Meanwhile, CEO of former coach Sandusky's youth charity resigns
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Sunday, November 13, 2011
Kinship Care and Child Only Cases
Blog Author Notes:
We feel that kinship care is under untilized by state CPS systems. We also find that CPS goes out of their way to make it next to impossible for relatives to get kinship placement of their family members in the system, especially if the kinship placement is not formal, no matter the ethnicity of the family. We feel the reason for this is because states get less federal funding than they would if the child is placed in a state recognized foster home or institution. The numbers have shown this to be true, time and time again. It's a shame because the one's who suffer most are the very children that states claim to be looking out for. What states are really looking out for is their bottom line, which is sad.
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Here is an informative link for our readers to check out concerning tribes and kinship placement:
http://www.peerta.acf.hhs.gov/uploadedFiles/Kathy%20Deserly.pdf
We feel that kinship care is under untilized by state CPS systems. We also find that CPS goes out of their way to make it next to impossible for relatives to get kinship placement of their family members in the system, especially if the kinship placement is not formal, no matter the ethnicity of the family. We feel the reason for this is because states get less federal funding than they would if the child is placed in a state recognized foster home or institution. The numbers have shown this to be true, time and time again. It's a shame because the one's who suffer most are the very children that states claim to be looking out for. What states are really looking out for is their bottom line, which is sad.
-----
Here is an informative link for our readers to check out concerning tribes and kinship placement:
http://www.peerta.acf.hhs.gov/uploadedFiles/Kathy%20Deserly.pdf
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