Some of the many foster children abused in CPS custody

The Huffington Post has released a report on Child Protective Services (CPS) by Child Advocate and contributor Patricia Mitchell, founder of Patricia’s Children, Inc. The report is filled with documented data that is important for all families to know, due to the threat that CPS poses to literally every family in America.

Some of the data in the report will come as no surprise to the families impacted by medical kidnapping. While children and parents are being destroyed behind closed agency and courtroom doors, the majority of the public remains blissfully ignorant of the reality, much like the citizens in Eastern Europe were unaware of the atrocities happening to their fellow citizens in the concentration camps under the Nazi regime.

This is information that needs to be shared with friends and neighbors, politicians, media, and policy makers, and it needs to provide a catalyst for change. We simply cannot maintain this trajectory and survive as a culture. The cost – our children – is simply too high.

According to the report:

Southern states have had the highest numbers of babies dying in CPS custody, in the south CPS agencies commonly shred their files in lieu of reporting the deaths.

In the footnote to that statement, Patricia Mitchell notes that the:

Author of CPS Report was told by several professionals in the CPS industry that ―it is has become common practice in CPS agencies to shred the files of a child that dies or goes missing in CPS.

Retired CPS Supervisor a veteran of 30 years from Oklahoma, Marilyn Rainwater, has made it her mission to announce to the public these unsettling disturbing practices that occur daily in CPS offices across the nation.

Majority of Children in Foster Care are Abused – Foster Care Overall is Worse than Troubled Homes

At Health Impact News, we have learned that children are at least 6 times more likely to be abused, raped, molested, or killed in foster care than they would be even if left in troubled homes.

Excerpt from the CPS Report:

We have interviewed several retired CPS supervisors, with at least 30 years of experience, who have confirmed these trends and added brutal horror stories of their own. Newspaper articles from all over the country have reported children in CPS enduring months of serial rapes, vicious beatings, dehydration, and malnourishment.

Foster parents sedating foster children, placing them in cages, handcuffing them to objects, and locking them in dark rooms for days. Healthy children (including those as young as 3 months old) dubbed ― “emotional problems” once in CPS custody are given pharmaceuticals supplied by the CPS caseworker, paid for by our government, administered by the foster parents.

80 percent of children in CPS custody are considered having― “emotional problems” ripe for ‘meds,’ while more than half of all children in foster care are considered to have ― “chronic medical problems,” [Source] every time a caseworker labels a child, a prescription is made out for that child.

According to the Children’s Bureau, 64 percent of children in foster care are abused. [Source]

Many people closer to this industry believe the number is closer to 87 percent. 82 percent of the severely abused and deaths are under the age of four. [Source]

These children were taken from their birth parents and given to unqualified and unfit foster parents. CPS staff members and affiliates themselves also register as foster parents, as it suits their financial interests.

CPS-affiliated workers in every state have been charged with some of the most sadistic forms of child abuse, including the rape of toddlers and infants. [Source]

This includes caseworkers, CPS nurses, doctors, supervisors, and regional directors charged with raping newborns and toddlers, pornography, and child abuse.

These findings are consistent with what we have discovered in our research at Health Impact News.

Devani was taken from her parents based on allegedly false allegations. Arizona DCS placed her into a pedophile pornography ring. After she was taken out of that, DCS adopted her out to a woman who reportedly scalded 80% of her body. 

Excerpt:

Each year, thousands of more children and parents fall prey to CPS’s fractured system, with only 6 percent (or 39,000 out of 650,000) of these children having been in legitimate danger.

[Footnote] AFSCARS Report /Children’s Bureau/ Child Welfare Gateway. In these reports the charts read 39,000 (children) were in “high risk environments.” In the CPS industry this simply means endanger. Comparing the yearly number of children in foster care with the number of children in “high risk environments,” this comes out to only 6 percent of children in foster care were in dangerous environments.

Mitchell states the sad truth that we have seen time and time again:

Laypeople assume there was probable cause to have taken these children, and that CPS will give them a better life. But prior to CPS’s involvement, the majority of these children were healthy and happy.

Children often suffer permanent damage from both the abuse suffered in foster care and from the trauma of being separated from their real families.

Excerpt:

Relying on the current statistics, within a five-year period, that’s close to 5 million children separated from their parents, families, and homes. Many will suffer permanent damage, although the grand majority should have never been separated from their parents.

The Odonnell twins Abbie and Alexis developed anorexia and bulimia in foster care. Even though they are home with their family, they continue to suffer from the trauma that happened to them in state care. 

Parents Often Bullied and Threatened into Silence – Public Largely Unaware of Atrocities in Foster Care

We hear repeatedly from parents who have been told not to talk about their stories. The CPS Report notes this as well.

Excerpt:

CPS caseworkers and court officials often tell traumatized parents that it won’t help their children’s well-being (or prospects of their children’s return) if they go to the press. Scared but silenced, these parents may never learn their children’s whereabouts or outcomes in time.

Many parents have told us horrific stories of medical kidnappings, only to be bullied into silence by social workers, attorneys, Guardian ad litems (GALs), or judges. There are stories that never reach the public eye because the parents are too frightened to risk retaliation by going public.

One of the most difficult stories that never made it to press was from the mother of a child who wrote of her medically fragile child being taken by CPS. She decided that it was too risky to go public with their story. Only a few months later, the same mother sent us her child’s obituary notice.

Many parents and even children have told us that they know that their freedom only came about because they took the chance in speaking up and taking their story to the public. It is in bringing the truth into the light that their children have been returned home.

Marcky Herrmann says that the only reason that he was reunited with his family is because he told his story to Health Impact News. 

Public attention helped to get the Giwa Children home. 

The gag orders to silence parents only serve to give the true perpetrators of abuse the cover of secrecy. The wicked deeds happen behind closed doors, shrouded in darkness. The very reason that the Founding Fathers included Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press in the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution was in order to avoid the very thing that is happening now.

Foster Care – A System of Destroying Families and Lives

Excerpts:

Children are kept in State Custody for as long as possible, even after the CPS caseworker and affiliates discover allegations against the parent(s) were false.

CPS protects the foster parents.

For example, a caseworker will assure prospective foster parents that CPS will not check in on them without calling first, most likely to further entice them into registering.

However, this practice has had unintended consequences, attracting pedophiles and predators to become foster parents.

An anonymous caller (i.e., a scorned girlfriend, sour neighbor, spiteful partner, envious family member) phones in a complaint against a parent, without any evidence that the allegation is true – that’s all it can take for children’s removal from their homes, snatched out of their parents’ arms by under-qualified CPS caseworkers.

Caseworkers have enough authority to direct police officers to escort them into any home, to take children away, regardless of whether the Officers, Doctors, Therapists, Judges, Mayors, Senators, or other professional experts adamantly disagree.

Sometimes those who fight against the system face retaliation. According to the CPS Report:

While serving as an Arizona State Senator, Rick Murphy’s children were taken away by CPS caseworkers. His case remained unresolved for over a year (with his children in foster care) and his local CPS agency had the ability to terminate his parental rights. [Source]

Many believe this was an act of defiance by CPS, without real concern for his children’s safety. [Source]

Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer’s murder is believed to be related to her exposure of the atrocities of CPS. 

Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer. 

Parents and children are manipulated by the various players in the CPS system, and the foxes are guarding the henhouse. Mitchell reports:

ALL court-appointed attorneys are paid through CPS, thus are a part of this system. The CPS courts have a tremendous amount of flexibility and plenty of room to manipulate each case to ensure the desired outcome. When Guardian Ad litems, therapists, psychiatrists, etc., do not support the CPS caseworkers’ allegations against the parents, or CPS’s decision where to place a child, CPS will almost always sever, and not renew, its contract with that professional. This has caused a conflict of interest, and has caused professionals not to act in the best interests of the child and parents.

CPS may keep a child in state custody for as long as it wants, for as long as it can. Even though States have internal rules (such as returning the child in three weeks – in some States, it’s seven days), no one is enforcing these internal rules, resulting in children left in foster care for three months on average, even after CPS courts know the allegations against the parent were false. Supervisors rarely, if ever, intervene.

The more children in foster care, the more money a CPS branch office will receive from the federal government. CPS staff and Affiliates’ salaries are directly affected by how many children the local CPS office places in State Custody. News of these loopholes (financial incentives) within the CPS industry has spread like wildfire throughout local communities. It became known as an easy way to ―“make a buck.”

Predators, pedophiles, drug addicts and the emotionally unstable gravitated toward CPS foster care as a means to make ends meet – to pay rent, put food on the table, and subsidize their alcohol or drug habits.

CPS often uses generic terms (i.e., a ―”history of substance abuse”), without offering any substantiation. A ―”history of mental illness” can be found in almost every CPS petition filed against a parent, without a doctors diagnoses, without referring to an incident or ‘a history.‘ I’ve spoken to mothers who’ve never taken drugs or been in the presence of drugs and never drank a glass of alcohol; yet their CPS petition against them suggests otherwise —‘history of substances abuse.’

When mental health professional or any expert witness/professional testifies ‘in favor’ of a parent; (against CPS’s decision to place the child in State custody) CPS caseworkers will insist that the professionals’ opinion’s are ONLY to be used to help CPS caseworkers and CPS employees make ‘their’ decision; reminding the judge that legal authority (where to place the child) remains solely with CPS (not with the pro’s & experts’ suggestions, evidence and opinions).

Financial Incentives to Create “Special Needs”

Excerpts:

The 1980 Act provided additional financial incentives for prospective foster parents. Its main provisions encouraged foster parents to adopt ―”special needs” children, who were eligible for the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. Foster parents are paid anywhere from $408 in the South, to $3,990 in Connecticut, per month, per child. The dollar amounts vary from State to State, according to the child’s age, health status, special needs, or ―”intensive structural and clinical level care.” The ―”intensive structural and clinical” children are the ones who can go for approximately $3,990 per month and up.

More typically, foster children go for $600 to $1,200 a month, with ―special needs children coming in at $900 to $3,990 a month, but can go as high as $13,000 a month for a severely disabled child. [Source]

Foster parents willing to adopt a child receive an additional *flat sum of *$2,000 to $4,000, a federal adoption tax credit, and health insurance incentives (with, again, the special needs and ―”intensive structural” children proving the most profitable). [Source]

According to the 1980 Act, a foster child with ―”Special Needs”

• Cannot be returned to the parents;
• Has a special condition, such that the child cannot be placed without providing assistance; and
• Has not been able to be placed without assistance.

With so much room for interpretation, the CPS caseworkers, alone, call the shots when it comes to labeling a child as ―”special needs” not a professional.

Malakai was healthy before entering foster care, but he was since starved and labeled as “special needs.” His family says that this was so they could get more money for him.

See his story here.

In one case, a CPS affiliate became a foster parent (a common practice) and registered the child as ―”special needs,” due to a small and common type of birthmark (called a ―”strawberry” or hemangioma), to receive larger checks each month.

Children in State Custody are often given unnecessary surgeries or, on the flip side, denied surgery for legitimate medical conditions, even in cases where the parent still legally holds parental rights, such as in this birthmark scenario.

The CPS paperwork clearly refers to the birthmark-removal procedure as ―”Elective surgery” [Source] – so here is yet another instance of the CPS openly flouting federal mandates. The birth mother pleaded with CPS not to perform surgery on her child, quoting the CPS law to the caseworker making the decision: ―”the child in state custody may be operated on if it is a life-threatening situation.”

The child”s doctor (not the CPS doctor) expressed his own concerns – if the surgery went awry, the child could be permanently damaged, with the possibility of a stroke or death. The mother (who still had parental rights) pleaded with CPS to allow her to be there for her two-year-old child before and after the unnecessary surgeries (five surgeries in total), but CPS refused.

The upshot?… The Guardian Ad litem, CPS doctors, judges, foster parents, and caseworker and all others involved with this child’s case received larger paychecks.

Caseworkers label perfectly healthy children as ―”special needs” for extra profit; and fraudulently report 82 percent of foster care children have ―”chronic medical problems.” Encouraged by caseworkers, a majority of foster parents sedate —”special needs” children 24 hours a day. CPS claims that 82 percent of children in foster care ‘are in need’ of medication, [Source] funded by our federal government. Note: Pharmaceutical companies have contracts with DHS/CPS.

Federal Funding to Steal Children

At Health Impact News, we have discussed many times the financial incentives for the state to take children from their parents. The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 that was instrumental in unleashing financial motivation for taking children is being manipulated by unscrupulous and corrupt agencies and individuals who don’t care about “protecting” children at all.

ASFA enables this corruption, and many of the problems that we see with children being taken from innocent families could be stopped if the flow of federal dollars were simply cut off.

Mitchell discusses these monetary incentives in her report.

Excerpts:

ASFA’s most troubling feature involves its ― “Title IV-E of the Social Security Act” funding- related amendment. State and local CPS offices interpreted this as a financial free-for-all, unlimited federal funds for the entire community. This law intended to ― “shift emphasis toward children‘s health and concerns, away from the policy of reuniting children with their birth parents.”

Days after this 1997 Act went into effect, CPS solidified its role as a Big Business, with American children as commodities. At this time CPS began to remove children from their homes and parents, with weak allegations.

Disgruntled neighbors, scorned exes, angry employees, and envious family members are using the CPS courts as weapons against innocent parents. This has become a common practice in every county. CPS supervisors are encouraged ― “to get there [sic] numbers up” which mean we need more kids in foster care, CPS caseworkers are known to target parents who are vulnerable in some capacity.

ASFA’s ―Title IV-E amendment created a long list of financial beneficiaries at the local levels.

There are anywhere from 150 to 300 counties in each State, there are approximately 2 to 6 CPS offices per county and have more than 300 employees per agency.

Not including all the sub agencies, like Family First and Head Start etc., there are approximately 10,000 to 20,000 CPS employees per state and have approximately 250 agencies/offices per state, not including the hundreds of CPS affiliates paid under the umbrella of the DHS federal funding that covers an even wider range of employees and services: CPS supervisors, caseworkers, and staff; foster parents; adoptive parents; attorneys; counselors, therapists and psychiatrists; investigators; sub-state agencies such as Family First; private agencies; outside contract agencies, insurance companies, magistrates; classes; child welfare researchers; child development programs; trauma crisis and intervention programs; pediatrics, emergency medicine, and mental health; probate and criminal law proceedings; education and substance abuse treatment.

All of these agencies and individuals receive salaries or supplemental income from DHS/CPS.

According to Marilyn Rainwater, a retired Oklahoma CPS Supervisor, who worked for CPS for 30 years, ― “It was drilled into supervisors on the local levels – if the caseworker did not meet the federal mandates of moving kids quickly in and out of the system [caseworkers interpreting this as taking custody of the child and quickly terminating their parental rights], then that CPS office would not receive the funding needed to keep the office open.”

There are now federal penalties to further ensure the CPS offices deliver their ― “numbers” (children).

What’s troubling is how the ― “moving kids quickly in and out of the system” language was originally created at the federal level to quickly move the children back home with their parents, and/or move the child from foster care into a permanent home, with real adoptive parents.

Unfortunately, CPS has re- interpreted it to mean the termination of innocent parents’ rights, and terminating them as quickly as possible.

Rainwater has vowed to dedicate the rest of her life to exposing the horrors occurring daily in the current CPS industry. As she shouted out to a packed auditorium at the Sister Giant Conference (in LA, Nov. 2012): ― “We are killing babies, hundreds of them, they are being raped and tortured every year and then thrown out like garbage, and no one is doing anything about it!

Rainwater continued: ― “caseworkers are shredding the dead child’s files so no one knows about it, caseworkers are overworked/overwhelmed and have begun to falsify paperwork to reach their ‘mandatory financial numbers.‘”

The Public Is Being Lied to and Data is being Manipulated to Hide the Truth

Excerpts:

National “intelligence” services, such as the Children’s Bureau’s Child Maltreatment Report, are misleading. For instance, regarding the statistics on foster parent child abuse vs. birth parent child abuse, the birth parents’ high numbers are based on CPS allegations, not on facts.

Once the allegations are proven false, CPS has no obligation to update its original reports, deceiving federal regulators who depend on these reports when deciding how and where to make system- wide adjustments.

…statistics reveal 64 percent of foster parents have been “reported” to mistreat the children in their care. As said earlier, experts close to this industry know the majority of foster parents’ abuse goes unreported and the percentage of foster parents abusing their foster children is closer to *87 percent, possibly as high as 94 percent.

Since CPS does not report or document abusive foster parents, the only foster care abuse numbers the Child Maltreatment Report has access to would come from local police departments. The Children’s Bureau receives its information solely from Child Protective Services.

Drastic Measures to Shut Down the System CAN Happen – It Happened with State Mental Hospitals

The corruption and inconceivable cruelty within the CPS industry are similar to those that once involved this country’s state mental hospitals. In the 1970s, when Dr. Robert Felix, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, was asked to explain his radical decision to close every State mental hospital in the country, he made it clear that drastic measures were called for.

For more than 100 years, the general public knew the mental patients in State (custody) hospitals were severely abused, raped, and medically experimented on, and so on; but the notion of releasing them out into the open was thought to be too risky and nobody had any solutions.

Nevertheless, Dr. Felix’s courageous decision was based on his statement; “We saw too many people who should have never been in there.”

Finally, in 1973, the federal government, through Dr. Felix’s recommendations, began to shut down/close the doors to every state hospital in the United States. It is not a perfect system, but it is more humane.

Ending the Corruption and Sadistic Culture within Child Protective Services is the Civilized Thing to do

The author concludes:

Currently, billions of dollars are used to support the barbaric treatment of our most vulnerable citizens. Ending the daily corruption and sadistic culture within Child Protective Services is the civilized thing to do.

We agree.

Read the entire article.