By David Montero
A bill designed to add more layers before a child can be removed from a home by the Division of Child and Family Services passed through the House Thursday 54-13.
Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, said he believed there needed to be additional protections for parents who face losing their child and his measure, HB161, would require an interim committee to study and make findings on the division’s budget and whether they were unfairly removing children from homes.
In his proposal, he also wants parents to have the opportunity to seek a jury trial when faced with termination of parental rights as well as letting extended family intervene more easily before the division gets involved in removing a child.
Minority Leader David Litvack, D-Salt Lake City, worried about the bill’s language — notably a line that suggested the Division of Child and Family Services used an artificial standard to yank kids out of the home.
That line of the bill said that a parent’s right is protected and “does not cease to exist simply because a parent may fail to be a model parent.”
Litvack said that was a dubious implication and wanted it removed from the bill.
“I think we’re leaving a wrong impression when we say whether a parent is behaving in a model way or not,” Litvack said. “This is about striking that fine balance between protecting parental rights but also ensuring the rights and safety of children are protected.”
His amendment failed, and Christensen asked the lawmakers “from the bottom of my heart” to pass the measure.
It now moves to the Senate.
Source http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/53627825-90/bill-child-rights-division.html.csp
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.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Court: Aunts have no visitation rights with nieces - Minnesota
by Bob Collins
Sorry, aunts. You don't have any right to visit your nieces and nephews, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled this week in the case of a woman who wanted visitation rights with the daughter of her now-deceased twin sister.
The court ruled on the appeal of Kelli Rohmiller. After her sister and her boyfriend, Andrew Hart (the girl's father) split up, the girl and her mother lived with Rohmiller for five weeks. But when Ms. Rohmiller's sister died, Hart was awarded custody of the girl and cut Rohmiller off from visiting her niece.
A district court granted Rohmiller and her father unsupervised visitation with the girl, but the Court of Appeals reversed the ruling, saying Minnesota law does not grant a right to visitation to aunts.
In Minnesota, the law grants visitation rights to grandparents and great-grandparents as well as people with whom a child has lived for at least two years if the parent of a child is deceased. But Supreme Court Justice Lori Gildea said neither provision applies in this case.
"If the legislature wanted to include aunts as a class of individuals who could petition for visitation, it could have," she wrote.
Rohmiller said it would be "absurd" for the legislature to exclude step-parents, step-grandparents, step-siblings, cousins and "significant others" from visitation simply because they had not lived with a child for two years because "there is no magic relationship that is formed after two years."
The Supreme Court rejected the argument. "We have not found any reported Minnesota cases in which, over a fit custodial parent's objection, visitation was awarded to a non-parent who was not standing in loco parentis (ed. note: had parenting functions) with the child," Gildea said.
Since the father allowed the girl's grandfather to visit her, the Court said its decision this week would not prevent Rohmiller from being present when he does.
Here's the full opinion.
Source http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2012/03/court_aunts_have_no_visitation.shtml
Sorry, aunts. You don't have any right to visit your nieces and nephews, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled this week in the case of a woman who wanted visitation rights with the daughter of her now-deceased twin sister.
The court ruled on the appeal of Kelli Rohmiller. After her sister and her boyfriend, Andrew Hart (the girl's father) split up, the girl and her mother lived with Rohmiller for five weeks. But when Ms. Rohmiller's sister died, Hart was awarded custody of the girl and cut Rohmiller off from visiting her niece.
A district court granted Rohmiller and her father unsupervised visitation with the girl, but the Court of Appeals reversed the ruling, saying Minnesota law does not grant a right to visitation to aunts.
In Minnesota, the law grants visitation rights to grandparents and great-grandparents as well as people with whom a child has lived for at least two years if the parent of a child is deceased. But Supreme Court Justice Lori Gildea said neither provision applies in this case.
"If the legislature wanted to include aunts as a class of individuals who could petition for visitation, it could have," she wrote.
Rohmiller said it would be "absurd" for the legislature to exclude step-parents, step-grandparents, step-siblings, cousins and "significant others" from visitation simply because they had not lived with a child for two years because "there is no magic relationship that is formed after two years."
The Supreme Court rejected the argument. "We have not found any reported Minnesota cases in which, over a fit custodial parent's objection, visitation was awarded to a non-parent who was not standing in loco parentis (ed. note: had parenting functions) with the child," Gildea said.
Since the father allowed the girl's grandfather to visit her, the Court said its decision this week would not prevent Rohmiller from being present when he does.
Here's the full opinion.
Source http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2012/03/court_aunts_have_no_visitation.shtml
Thursday, March 1, 2012
County Child Welfare Workers to Undergo Criminal Checks
Blogger note:
Would've thought that criminal background checks would have been in place before anyone was hired by DCFS to work with children. Cart before the horse? Can't help but wonder if any children have suffered any kind of abuse or neglect at the hands of these unchecked worker's and it may be going unreported...
---
By City News Service
Several county child welfare workers have not undergone criminal background checks, a county supervisor said Tuesday, prompting the Board of Supervisors to call for an immediate start to the checks.
Supervisor Gloria Molina recommended that Department of Children and Family Services employees who work with children be electronically fingerprinted — a process called a Live Scan — for a California Department of Justice criminal record check.
All new county employees, employees transferring to other departments and being promoted undergo the Live Scan process, Molina said. But about 35 percent of county employees have not been scanned, including several DCFS employees, she said.
Staffers have been working for years on a feasibility study related to expanding the Live Scan process, which they were asked to expedite in September 2009.
Molina said she recently learned that state parks employees who interact with children undergo the same process.
“It’s hard to believe that all these years, we have not been doing the same,” Molina said.
She said she understood the county made a conscious decision not to do so in 1997, when legislation first passed related to Live Scan. Molina was elected in 1991.
The board unanimously voted to begin the scans immediately for DCFS employees and to begin discussions with union representatives related to the scans. It also directed staffers to report back in two weeks on the status of the overall feasibility study and plans to implement scans in other departments.
Source http://egpnews.com/2012/03/county-child-welfare-workers-to-undergo-criminal-checks/
Would've thought that criminal background checks would have been in place before anyone was hired by DCFS to work with children. Cart before the horse? Can't help but wonder if any children have suffered any kind of abuse or neglect at the hands of these unchecked worker's and it may be going unreported...
---
By City News Service
Several county child welfare workers have not undergone criminal background checks, a county supervisor said Tuesday, prompting the Board of Supervisors to call for an immediate start to the checks.
Supervisor Gloria Molina recommended that Department of Children and Family Services employees who work with children be electronically fingerprinted — a process called a Live Scan — for a California Department of Justice criminal record check.
All new county employees, employees transferring to other departments and being promoted undergo the Live Scan process, Molina said. But about 35 percent of county employees have not been scanned, including several DCFS employees, she said.
Staffers have been working for years on a feasibility study related to expanding the Live Scan process, which they were asked to expedite in September 2009.
Molina said she recently learned that state parks employees who interact with children undergo the same process.
“It’s hard to believe that all these years, we have not been doing the same,” Molina said.
She said she understood the county made a conscious decision not to do so in 1997, when legislation first passed related to Live Scan. Molina was elected in 1991.
The board unanimously voted to begin the scans immediately for DCFS employees and to begin discussions with union representatives related to the scans. It also directed staffers to report back in two weeks on the status of the overall feasibility study and plans to implement scans in other departments.
Source http://egpnews.com/2012/03/county-child-welfare-workers-to-undergo-criminal-checks/
Foster Care Children, Now Grown, Tell Their Stories - Florida
The Calizaire sisters lived with countless families, and say they were abused by some of their foster care parents
By Nathalie Pozo
Sophia and Princess Calizaire were introduced to foster care when they were seen wandering the streets looking for their mother, who had left them alone in a South Florida motel.
"We heard this big bang at the door," said Sophia Calizaire. "We were trying to figure out who it was."
It was the Florida Department of Children and Families coming to take them away, and they became foster care files that night, when they were just four and seven years old.
The Calizaire sisters lived with countless families and were moved from one school to another. They say they were abused while staying with some of those foster care parents.
"She took a belt, she started beating me with the belt, picked up a hanger, she started beating me with the hanger, picked up a heel and started beating me with the heel,” said Sophia.
Her sister, Princess, was outside the room and could hear everything. “I couldn’t do anything about it," Princess said, with tears coming down her face.
The Calizaire sisters remember one foster care parent making them sleep in a dog house and eat dog food. They say some foster care parents wouldn’t feed them, would keep locks on the refrigerator and would sometimes starve them as a form of punishment.
"She told me to eat in front of my sister while she watched and my sister is hungry. I took out the chewed up piece of chicken from my mouth and gave it to her," said Sophia, who said she was caught by her foster care mother. "She filled up the bathroom sink and she took my head and started drowning me. She kept drowning me until she felt she was ready to stop."
Princess says the abuse not only came from the parents. “I stayed in a foster home down south where this boy used to try to rape me every night before I would go to sleep," she said. "I used to be scared to go to sleep at night. I ran away from there."
Mez Pierre, now 24, had a similar experience in foster care when he was a little boy. He says he was sexually abused by one of the teen foster kids staying in the same home.
“I was a little kid, they knew they could take advantage of me and I couldn’t fight back,” said Pierre. "But I did tell, I did tell someone and she didn’t do anything, she didn’t do anything."
In 2005, DCF completed privatizing foster care. They contracted with 20 lead agencies throughout the state to oversee the care and needs of children in foster care.
Our Kids manages Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, while Child Net handles Broward County. The abuse endured by Pierre and the Calizaire sisters happened before the agencies took over, but they still say the system is far from perfect.
Some child advocate attorneys say the current privatized system does not work because lead agencies like Our Kids sub-contracted other organizations to monitor foster care children.
"So you have multiple corporations and agencies who supposedly are in charge and responsible for the lives of the children but tragically these children, real human beings, fall through the cracks in the system,” said attorney Howard Talenfeld.
DCF disagrees and says when it was a statewide agency it became quite unmanageable.
"Out of the one or two cases that you hear which are horrible cases and we need to learn from, there are thousands of children and families that DCF and Our Kids helps on a yearly and daily basis," said DCF’s southern regional director, Esther Jacobo, who added that DCF is taking steps to improve the system.
Jacobo said case managers have to see a child in care every 30 days and must have private conversations with that child so they feel comfortable opening up. She says there is an electronic monitoring system in place for case workers, which snaps a picture of the child with a time, date and location.
"It’s kind of like a GPS and statewide Tallahassee monitors that so you know what is happening in terms of the child visit," Jacobo said.
Currently, there are just fewer than 20,000 children in foster care statewide, according to DCF. During a two-month span between August and October, there were 127 verified abuse cases across the state, 17 of them in the South Florida area.
Source http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Foster-Care-System-Through-The-Eyes-of-The-Ones-Who-Lived-It-140874593.html
By Nathalie Pozo
Sophia and Princess Calizaire were introduced to foster care when they were seen wandering the streets looking for their mother, who had left them alone in a South Florida motel.
"We heard this big bang at the door," said Sophia Calizaire. "We were trying to figure out who it was."
It was the Florida Department of Children and Families coming to take them away, and they became foster care files that night, when they were just four and seven years old.
The Calizaire sisters lived with countless families and were moved from one school to another. They say they were abused while staying with some of those foster care parents.
"She took a belt, she started beating me with the belt, picked up a hanger, she started beating me with the hanger, picked up a heel and started beating me with the heel,” said Sophia.
Her sister, Princess, was outside the room and could hear everything. “I couldn’t do anything about it," Princess said, with tears coming down her face.
The Calizaire sisters remember one foster care parent making them sleep in a dog house and eat dog food. They say some foster care parents wouldn’t feed them, would keep locks on the refrigerator and would sometimes starve them as a form of punishment.
"She told me to eat in front of my sister while she watched and my sister is hungry. I took out the chewed up piece of chicken from my mouth and gave it to her," said Sophia, who said she was caught by her foster care mother. "She filled up the bathroom sink and she took my head and started drowning me. She kept drowning me until she felt she was ready to stop."
Princess says the abuse not only came from the parents. “I stayed in a foster home down south where this boy used to try to rape me every night before I would go to sleep," she said. "I used to be scared to go to sleep at night. I ran away from there."
Mez Pierre, now 24, had a similar experience in foster care when he was a little boy. He says he was sexually abused by one of the teen foster kids staying in the same home.
“I was a little kid, they knew they could take advantage of me and I couldn’t fight back,” said Pierre. "But I did tell, I did tell someone and she didn’t do anything, she didn’t do anything."
In 2005, DCF completed privatizing foster care. They contracted with 20 lead agencies throughout the state to oversee the care and needs of children in foster care.
Our Kids manages Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, while Child Net handles Broward County. The abuse endured by Pierre and the Calizaire sisters happened before the agencies took over, but they still say the system is far from perfect.
Some child advocate attorneys say the current privatized system does not work because lead agencies like Our Kids sub-contracted other organizations to monitor foster care children.
"So you have multiple corporations and agencies who supposedly are in charge and responsible for the lives of the children but tragically these children, real human beings, fall through the cracks in the system,” said attorney Howard Talenfeld.
DCF disagrees and says when it was a statewide agency it became quite unmanageable.
"Out of the one or two cases that you hear which are horrible cases and we need to learn from, there are thousands of children and families that DCF and Our Kids helps on a yearly and daily basis," said DCF’s southern regional director, Esther Jacobo, who added that DCF is taking steps to improve the system.
Jacobo said case managers have to see a child in care every 30 days and must have private conversations with that child so they feel comfortable opening up. She says there is an electronic monitoring system in place for case workers, which snaps a picture of the child with a time, date and location.
"It’s kind of like a GPS and statewide Tallahassee monitors that so you know what is happening in terms of the child visit," Jacobo said.
Currently, there are just fewer than 20,000 children in foster care statewide, according to DCF. During a two-month span between August and October, there were 127 verified abuse cases across the state, 17 of them in the South Florida area.
Source http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Foster-Care-System-Through-The-Eyes-of-The-Ones-Who-Lived-It-140874593.html
Effort at Parental Rights Amendment in Georgia Stalls
Georgia parents could no longer put their children in time-outs or impose other discipline if the U.S. Senate ratifies an international treaty on children’s rights. Or so says state Rep. Jay Neal (R-LaFayette) and other backers of a proposed Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Neal asked state House colleagues Tuesday to call on Congress to back a constitutional amendment declaring that parents – not the government — have the right to direct their children’s upbringing and education.
But the clock ran out during a time-shortened meeting of the House Children and Youth Committee, and Neal’s resolution was tabled, quite possibly killing it for this year’s legislative session. The motion to table passed on a 9-7 vote.
Parentalrights.org, whose top officers run the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association, is backing the amendment nationally. In Georgia, the group’s leader is Jonathan Crumly, attorney for a non-profit that helps funnel tax-subsidized scholarships to students attending private Christian schools.
Crumly told committee members Tuesday that the treaty — the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child – under Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, would become “the law of the land” if ratified. As such, he said, the treaty would override state laws regarding discipline, education and determinations of child neglect or abuse.
The treaty would prevent parents from imposing any discipline that is “unnecessarily embarrassing or confrontational,” he said, “and that can and has included things like simple timeouts.”
Advocates also fear the treaty could prevent parents from instilling religious views in their children, Crumly said.
Democrats on the committee pushed back, saying the amendment is not needed and is based on faulty interpretations of the treaty and U.S. Supreme Court decisions on parental rights.
The United States and Somalia are the only countries in the world that have not ratified the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child, which took effect in 1990.
Source http://jjie.org/measure-georgia/76241
Neal asked state House colleagues Tuesday to call on Congress to back a constitutional amendment declaring that parents – not the government — have the right to direct their children’s upbringing and education.
But the clock ran out during a time-shortened meeting of the House Children and Youth Committee, and Neal’s resolution was tabled, quite possibly killing it for this year’s legislative session. The motion to table passed on a 9-7 vote.
Parentalrights.org, whose top officers run the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association, is backing the amendment nationally. In Georgia, the group’s leader is Jonathan Crumly, attorney for a non-profit that helps funnel tax-subsidized scholarships to students attending private Christian schools.
Crumly told committee members Tuesday that the treaty — the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child – under Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, would become “the law of the land” if ratified. As such, he said, the treaty would override state laws regarding discipline, education and determinations of child neglect or abuse.
The treaty would prevent parents from imposing any discipline that is “unnecessarily embarrassing or confrontational,” he said, “and that can and has included things like simple timeouts.”
Advocates also fear the treaty could prevent parents from instilling religious views in their children, Crumly said.
Democrats on the committee pushed back, saying the amendment is not needed and is based on faulty interpretations of the treaty and U.S. Supreme Court decisions on parental rights.
The United States and Somalia are the only countries in the world that have not ratified the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child, which took effect in 1990.
Source http://jjie.org/measure-georgia/76241
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