S/O Foster Care System

amother

Vermilion

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 2:19 am

#BestBubby wrote:

It is extremely rare for a child to say they want to be removed from the home - even if there was some abuse. Therefore, a child's asking to be removed is STRONG EVIDENCE. I am confident that if there was a jury trial and a child said they are suffering terrible abuse and WANT to be removed from the home - that child WOULD be removed.

Now I'm wondering who you are exactly because you seem to have an agenda. It's extremely rare? Really? Have you taken a poll? Because I have been in support groups with others like me and it's not rare at all. Most kids did wish someone would save them from their abusive parents. Can you please just stop making up things, you are very ignorant and people like you only hurt us more because you just don't get it. And no, court would not have believed me because my rich parents paid people to write reports that said I was mentally ill and I made up stories, they knew how to protect themselves.

#BestBubby

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 2:31 am

amother [ Vermilion ] wrote:

So YOU ARE RIGHT. A judge or jury would not have believed you because your parents are rich and would have hired experts to say you are mentally ill and making up stories.

Does that mean that government should be allowed to take children away with no real abuse, secret trials, and no jury?

Just because YOU were abused does not mean that all the children the government takes away were abused! Foster Care IS dangerous. Why don't you care about NON-ABUSED children who are being abused in foster care???

LovesHashem

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 2:34 am

#BestBubby wrote:

You are relying on a 6 year old abused and neglected scared child who may or may not be threatened into silence to be the one to ask to be removed? And if they speak up will it be taken seriously immediately? If that kid goes home even for one night they will get screamed at for hours on end, hit perhaps, but not enough to prove physical abuse. We be told how dirty and disgusting they are and how they will e responsible for all their siblings to be taken out, and how they don't love their parents, and they are selfish and they don't see and understand.

In addition. What happens when children think its normal to be neglected and emotionally abused?

LovesHashem

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 2:35 am

#BestBubby wrote:

Because there are WAY MORE abused children in the world than people who were taken into foster care by mistake.

#BestBubby

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 2:38 am

LovesHashem wrote:

Let me ask you - how do YOU want the system to work?

Do you want the government to be able to take children away with NO EVIDENCE of danger, in secret trials, No Jury - and put children into Foster Care where 80% of the children end up unemployed, in jail, teen pregnancy, homeless or dead?

Is that what YOU want???

LovesHashem

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 4:01 am

#BestBubby wrote:

My question is, is that number lower if the kids stay at home in an abusive environment?

You seem to be really in the dark about the effects of emotional abuse. I'm not sure if I should give you a bracha that you will be enlightened one day or a bracha to never truly know the hell of it.

Honestly you cannot educate someone like this. I'm not going to even try.
Do you want an inside look of a my therapy sessions? Or an in depth write up of how it's affected every part of my life and I will have to work so hard to break the pattern of abuse?

southernbubby

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 10:01 am

#BestBubby wrote:

I will say this from personal experience. I subbed several times in inner city schools that were predominantly for black kids. The schools assumed parenting roles such as providing students with baths, showers and laundry service because the parents were often incapable and those kids would have a devastating time in a foster care setting. So you may be correct that for some children, a drug addict mother is better than a foster home but that is basically because the community has gone the extra mile to make it possible for the family to remain intact. Basically they send groceries home with kids on weekends and get donations for all of the child's needs including Xmas gifts.
Obviously the more people who step up to the plate, the need for foster care is lessened. I saw one situation where neighbors undertook the care of a toddler whose mom became mentally ill. The CPS was going to remove the child who only received care at night when his father was home from work. Caring neighbors who were SAHMs saved the day. Had there been no available neighbors, CPS would have taken the child.

amother

Lemon

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 10:58 am

#BestBubby wrote:

So CPS accuses YOU of s-xual abuse and gets to take away your kids without having to show any evidence??? Then CPS can take away kids from ANYBODY WITH NO EVIDENCE - that is crazy.

There is a Jury and Let CPS prove there was s-xual Abuse.

Great idea.

Let's make a 4 year old testify before a jury of scary-looking people about how mommy raped her.

And better yet, let's make her live with daddy, who is beating the cr@p out of her, for the 10 months or more until there is a trial.

Hey, what could go wrong?

amother

Lemon

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 11:05 am

#BestBubby wrote:

The Parents WANT PUBLIC Trials - because their children are being unjustly taken without evidence. And children very rarely testify in Court - even in the secret hearings. Instead the child's "lawyer" or a "social worker" testifies what THEY say the child wants (no video tape so lawyer/social worker and make up whatever they want).

The Cruelest thing to a child is to take them away from their parents and put them with strangers where they are abused, neglected and molested. Unless the government can prove in PUBLIC Trial by Jury that the child is in danger of death/injury.

Very hard for me to understand how anyone can defend this atrocity of putting kids in foster care where 80% end up unemployed, in jail, teen pregnancy, homeless or dead - without any EVIDENCE that their parents were a danger to them.

Abusive parents want public trials in order to intimidate children into silence.

I've represented abused children. I've seen parents tell their children, if you testify against my boyfriend, you'll ruin my life. I've seem them say if you tell them what I did, you'll never be able to see me again. These children love their parents, no matter what.

I've dealt with parents who beat their kids. Parents who don't understand how to take their kids to school. Parents who don't feed their kids.

That's what you want to keep happening?

Social workers need smaller caseloads and better training, in order to avoid more errors -- both in leaving children in untenable situations, and in removing them wrongly. But what you advocate is a recipe for children suffering and dying needlessly.

amother

Lemon

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 11:16 am

#BestBubby wrote:

The thing is that most children DO NOT SAY THAT THEY WANT TO BE REMOVED FROM THEIR HOME.

I represented children whose mothers allowed their boyfriends to rape the children. Repeatedly. Children under the age of 6.

And you know what? They loved Mommy. They wanted to keep living with her.

So, you think that's OK? She still wants to live with Mommy, so I guess the rapes weren't that bad.

I represented a pre-adolescent girl whose mother raped her with objects, and lent her out to men for drug money. And still, she'd run away from foster care to try to find her mother.

Should we have left her with mom?

amother

Seafoam

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 11:40 am

[quote="amother [ Lemon ]"]Abusive parents want public trials in order to intimidate children into silence.

I've represented abused children. I've seen parents tell their children, if you testify against my boyfriend, you'll ruin my life. I've seem them say if you tell them what I did, you'll never be able to see me again. These children love their parents, no matter what.

I've dealt with parents who beat their kids. Parents who don't understand how to take their kids to school. Parents who don't feed their kids.

That's what you want to keep happening?

Social workers need smaller caseloads and better training, in order to avoid more errors -- both in leaving children in untenable situations, and in removing them wrongly. But what you advocate is a recipe for children suffering and dying needlessly.[/quote]

This. The system is flawed and needs to be adjusted. Better funding, more social workers who have lighter case loads and can spend more time vetting families and seeing how foster family placements play out etc. That would be a good solution. Im sure those intimately involved in this could offer some concrete policy and funding changes that can make big differences.
Are there sometimes tragic stories? I'm sure there are.
Are there mostly terrible but VERY NECESSARY steps being taken to protect innocent children? Yes.

#BestBubby

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 11:45 am

LovesHashem wrote:

1. Yes, the number of children who end up unemployed, in jail, teen pregnancy, homeless or dead is MUCH MUCH Lower if children stay with their parents - even if there is some "maltreatment". This is Proven in THREE studies of 18,000 - 23,000 children with "some" maltreatment (not severe abuse) that those who stayed with their parents did much much better in life than those who were put in foster care - which has a VERY high rate of abuse.

Here are the links:
1. https://www.aeaweb.org/article......1583
2. https://drive.google.com/file/...../view
3. http://cca-ct.org/Study%20Impa.....v.pdf

2. Yes, emotional abuse is BAD. BUT children are emotionally abused in foster homes also!

Last edited by #BestBubby on Mon, Aug 19 2019, 12:05 pm; edited 1 time in total

#BestBubby

Mon, Aug 19 2019, 12:04 pm

There are mothers on this thread who were abused by their parents.

As a result they have a mental block that does not allow them to process the fact
that abuse in foster homes is often WORSE than abuse in the homes the children were
taken from!

1. A former CPS worker, Carlos Morales, wrote a book "Legally Kidnapped" (on Amazon) where he stated that CPS does not rescue children, they destroy children. I.e. Children are put into homes that are WORSE than their parents. And separated from siblings and extended family. And bounced from one home to the next. And abused and molested/raped not only by foster parents but by other foster children in the homes.

2. Foster Care destroys the future of 80% of the children in it who as adults unemployed, in jail, teen pregnancy, homeless or dead. And three studies have shown where there is MILD "maltreatment" children who stayed in their homes have much LOWER rate of unemployment, jail, teen pregnancy, or death than those in foster care.

3. CPS DOES take away children where there is NO DANGER. I linked to three news stories where:
1. children were taken away because "father uncooperative". The investigating psychologist praised these parents to the skies and said he would not hesitate to have these parents care for his own children! The children were returned - but the parents are still listed on the registry of Child Abusers which bars them from many occupations. Just CPS revenge!

2. CPS took away a baby because parents took their child to hospital A and were told their child needed immediate heart surgery. Parents wanted a second opinion so they took their child to hospital B where the doctors said the child is fine and does NOT need any surgery!
Just for refusing to "obey" the doctors in hospital A and going for a SECOND OPINION, CPS took the baby away. The parents got the baby back.

3. CPS took away 5 children because "the parents made the children do homework for hours"

4. Justine Pelleir case where a hospital "medically kidnapped" a child and refused to allow the parents to transfer the child back to the doctors who had been caring for her since birth. It took a year for parents to get back custody - and only after they went to the newspapers.

In all these cases, children were taken from GOOD PARENTS without any EVIDENCE of Danger! And there are thousands more like that. 85% of children who are removed from the home is NOT for physical abuse or s-xual abuse but "Neglect" which could mean letting children play outside unsupervised, frequent absence from school, dirty house, etc.

Three studies and a former CPS worker show that Foster Care is WORSE than leaving children with parents in MAJORITY of the cases.

But these mothers who were abused cannot process the fact that I am NOT saying that Parents Abusing/Neglecting is good. All I'm saying is Foster Care is often MUCH WORSE.