Why Children Die? Systematic Failure
From a Fit & Loving Mother’s Perspective
To explain the reasons why children die under the supervision of DCFS is a huge task because it is multi-factorial. I won’t try to address them all; as it will be quite challenging given that I don’t have actual data of all the cases to make such evaluation. However, awareness and understanding about the system inadequacies can give us an idea of the main cause. Legal child catching or kidnapping is on the rise, but no one knows what to do because of the tremendous power DCFS has. There is sufficient information to address the major weaknesses that contribute to such inefficacies which lead to hurtful and damaging abuse of power, miscarriage of justice, discrimination and sadly the dead of vulnerable children. Any form of discrimination is vicious and cruel and the workers’ behavior deeply hurt parents and their relationship with their children. Pertaining to profiling and discriminatory acts on behalf of the social workers in most cases, in addition to, their inability to maintain objectivity or show the ability to effectively perform social work in an ethical and neutral manner is appalling. There are some workers who genuinely care for their clients, but those are very few.
• Incompetency exists at every level in this agency.
1. Administrative incompetence occurs due to dysfunctional administrative behaviors that hinder DCFS’ ability to provide neutral assessments of cases to meet the needs of families in complex situations. Unfortunately, one size does not fit all and given that DCFS clients have different cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic standing, then this approach is set to fail either the family or the child and in some instances both. Administrative incompetence may also be blamed for the inadequacy in the application of failed policies and ill procedures resulting in racism, discrimination, abuse, misuse of taxpayer money and denial of real protection to children in need of a safe environment.
2. Job-related or Professional incompetence describes the culture and working conditions of social workers, child therapists, physicians, related agencies, contractors and other mental health and medical professionals. Fraudulent practice of social work violates positions of trust which is disgusting and reproachable. DCFS workers hide behind good faith laws to abuse families in vulnerable positions due to a mental and physical anxiety. They punish parents for challenging a social worker for failure to do as they say -no matter whether it is good or bad for the child and whether a parent is aware of it or not. The “how dare you question me” mentality drives many workers to make an example out of good parents, punish children emotionally and leave them with strangers who put them in greater risks. Many of them stretch themselves out of their professional capacities in order to intimidate and subdue parents to their wills. Such practice is risky and pervasive because cases are poorly assessed, good parents are deemed unfit, it sends off a bad message and it undermines the public’s trust on the agency. Such practice might put their lives in danger as well.
3. Team Decision Meetings have become a failure and a waste of taxpayer funds. Originally, these meetings were intended for the department to make a neutral assessment of a case. Instead, it has become a tool to victimize and take advantage of parents by using both their weaknesses and strengths against them in court. DCFS has changed the purpose and the protection these meetings give both the families with an open case and the unit working with the family. A TDM should be comprised of several professionals who assess the ability of a parent to provide for the physical, emotional needs of the children and a safe environment, not as means of bullying and extorting a family.
4. Ignorance is displayed at large in complex cases, especially cases that might involve children with disabilities or substantial medical challenges. Social workers make up scenarios and stretch the truth about cases just to blame fit and loving parents. Unfortunately, this is a hazard to already vulnerable children who are used as shields or pawns to make them dependent of the court and quick accessory of the process that leads to foster care placements and adoption.
5. Indifference has been shown for a long time despite the public outcry by many grassroots groups and child advocates. Rather than take action, DCFS has become more secretive, manipulative, conniving and aggressive in hiding their mishaps for fear that the department might be sued. In fact, alliances across fields have been made to bury and shut up the voices of the innocent families that have been abused by DCFS.
6. Over-reaction means to react with unnecessary or inappropriate force, emotional display, or violence. This is the shared sentiment expressed by almost every family that feels abused by DCFS practice. Most parents are so overwhelmed by pain and sorrow by the separation from their children that it becomes a daunting and almost impossible task to challenge DCFS since they have all the power and parents do not have the means to fight back.
Over-reaction is also shown when sensitive and negative stories about DCFS leaks to the press. Frenzy breaks out to try to “neutralize” and dilute the story, so it won’t make an impact in the community. A lot of PR tactics are used, mass emails to contracting agencies are sent to alert them not to talk to the media because they are dealing with the issue internally. Yet, nothing ever changes. Instead, DCFS become better and better at hiding its shortcoming and avoiding accountability.
Another type of incompetence shown by the agency is bias. Most social workers pad themselves on the back about their bias claiming that just like them “everyone has a bias”. It is important to note that in our judicial system, jury selection focuses on selecting juries without biases, so a defendant may get a fair trial. Yet, to break families apart, uproot children from good families and safe environments, there no consideration of how a projection of a worker’s perception may influence that process.
These are all valid reasons why DCFS has become obsolete and ineffective in most of the cases it handles. Yet, these are not the only reasons that support such a reckless and neglectful system. Please consider the following:
• Conflict of Interest is another reason why children under DCFS supervision remain un-protected and at risk of dying. A conflict of interest could impair an individual's ability to perform his or her duties and responsibilities objectively. Also, conflict of interest occurs in a situation in which a social worker, who is in a position of trust, has a competing professional or personal interest that could hurt the interest of that client. Such competing interests can make it difficult to fulfill his or her duties impartially. A conflict of interest exists even if no unethical or improper act results because a conflict of interest can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine the confidence in the internal worker or the unit, the organization as a whole and the county.
Conflict of interest exists in almost every interaction related to a case. For example, a social worker might call a therapist of a client. Most often, DCFS outsources therapeutic services to agencies contracted with the county. Rather than asking how a client is doing and making a neutral assessment, workers work hand in hand with these biased professional so therapist’s assessment of that client agrees with that of DCFS. Luckily, some therapists stand up for their clients and refuse to change their findings – which might help families stay together. This is the case with doctors, teachers, psychologists and even law enforcement. DCFS asks pediatricians to lie about parents in order to take their children away.
Unnoticeably, DCFS hires top gun doctors (paying them top money) to head their medical hub’s and oversee the children’s unit. With their expertise and knowledge these physicians could never be disqualified in Court because whether they are testifying truthfully or making up the evidence, their outstanding career would be enough to back up their claims. Unfortunately, these doctors are only used to rubberstamp anything DCFS and the malevolent county counsels want them to say. This situation opens up the door for children to be purposely misdiagnosed, poorly treated and given minimum care; if it can help blame a parent and benefit DCFS detain a child. In the interim, if the child dies, then DCFS can blame the parent and not take the blame themselves for the lack of proper care. This is truly a disservice to the children and it might be the reason why the LA Board of Supervisors does not want to release these records.
Regrettably, conflicts of interest are not limited to those who work directly with DCFS, but also with lawyers and judges. This last one is not only punitive and abusive, but unconstitutional also. Children’s Court is run by DCFS. Many judges fear DCFS retaliation if they side with parents and order more services for the families such as reunification and family maintenance. With such low standards such as “the preponderance of the evidence” DCFS manages to intentionally fabricate evidence, lie and interfere with any parent’s due process rights granted by the Constitution - since these judges won’t stand up to them. Every so often a judge may slap DCFS’ hand, but for the most part, judges refuse to step on the toes of conniving county counsels for fear of being removed from their post.
All states have "Rules of Professional Conduct" that all lawyers (judges included) have to abide by. The state bar association is who enforces the Rules of Professional Conduct, but nearly every state has adopted those same rules into their Supreme Court Rules for more power against those who break the rules. However, as with any broken system, very rarely do we hear dependency judges and attorneys get disciplined for obstructing justice.
Judges are supposed to recluse themselves from cases when personal conflicts of interest may arise. For example, if a judge has participated in a case previously in some other judicial role he/she is not allowed to try that case. Recusal is also expected when one of the lawyers in a case might be a close personal friend, or when the outcome of the case might affect the judge directly, such as whether a county physician has a working relationship with that judge. This is required by law under Continental civil law systems and by the Rome Statute, organic law of the International Criminal Court, but not required in Juvenile and Family Law Courts. At least disclosure should be on the record.
Codes of ethics help minimize problems with conflicts of interests because they can spell out the extent to which such conflicts should be avoided, and what the parties should do where such conflicts are permitted by a code of ethics (disclosure, recusal, etc.). Therefore, social workers, lawyers, judges cannot claim they were unaware that their improper behavior was unethical. It is important to mention that social workers do not have immunity, even though many behave as if they do. Policy change to stress the need of boundaries is exigent. The threat of disciplinary action (for example, a lawyers being disbarred, social workers prosecuted for lying under the penalty of perjury, social workers found responsible in civil matters, judges removed from their posts) would help to minimize unacceptable conflicts or improper acts when a conflict is verified and avoidable.
• Dirty Tricks are normally employed by DCFS. Substantiation of abuse and neglect using trickery, inflammatory tactics and fabricated evidence can only result in the violation of a parent’s right to due process. Very often parents are not given due process, when it is people in the county who are saying the parent did something to their child, especially when there is no clear evidence of such - other than the hearsay and providers making false claims. Often these claims are arrived by without an unbiased true professional making such diagnosis. Sometimes it is a social worker who is making that assessment. Often time with such behavior, workers can and do cause so much emotional trauma on a family that affects their psychological state.
• Toxic Culture, it is quite appalling that so many of these workers employ intimidation tactics forcing parents to admit fault even though evidence claims otherwise.
· Self-policing - it is negligence of the state to allow social services to continue to police themselves. It is the biggest hypocrisy and waste of taxpayer money. So often, social services and other compliance units of these agencies turn away parents who have real and convincing evidence of abuse from a worker. In turn, they work hard to cover it up, destroy the evidence or water it down, so the parent cannot sue the county. Court reports are often tarnished and carefully put together so DCFS doesn’t look responsible. That leads to the lack of disclosure and transparency.
· Lack of Disclosure- there has been an effort by many civil rights and children’s activist to demand public disclosure of the cases where children have died under the county supervision. However those efforts have been minimized by special interests such as lobbyist and the social worker’s union. It is a disgrace that such efforts have been trampled by those who benefit directly from the pain and death of innocent children. Misused policies, unethical practices, and questionable procedures employed by DCFS workers are in direct violation of a parent’s constitutional rights, under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution; which is the freedom to raise and associate with one’s child free from governmental interference.
• Financial Incentives do exists due to current legislation that allows for DCFS to receive aid from the Federal and State government to operate. The financial incentives workers, administrators, foster parents and agencies have are massive. These incentives increase with the number of children detained. No wonder DCFS claims to have a backlog of cases that seem to never decrease. The more children under DCFS’ supervision the bigger the budget and the bigger the federal handout. That allowance per child is greater if the child has a disability. This situation sets a requirement for state and federal aid to “protect” these children in bad situation. Often time the reality is other. With family maintenance, most children could stay in their current households, but if so, then DCFS would lose the enormous budget to run the foster care system. Consequently, there would be less social worker, fewer administrators, fewer therapists and fewer contracting agencies biding and lobbying to keep a failed system such as foster care.
• Political Games – DCFS has various groups (special interests) lobbying for an increase of these harmful policies that serve the agenda of few. Since many of DCFS efforts are driven by financial incentive, then they exploit the opportunity to get more money and grow the agency’s budget.
Sadly, most politicians aware of these issues use the pain of these families and children as collateral to get votes. Countless of local politicians only show interest to their community just in time to be re-elected. After they get elected, they forget and nothing truly changes. As codes of ethics cannot cover all situations, there should be grassroots groups with no loyalty or ties to a political party ready to challenge DCFS when these cases surface. An ethics commission should be appointed by the legislature and should report to the legislature and charges should be brought upon individuals who commit these crimes regardless of the titles and position of power. With that said, people should contact their legislators to address these issues. The reality is that current agencies, who are supposed to watch out for these behaviors, rather cover them up when parents complain.
• The Best Interest of the Child is the most deceptive argument DCFS and Family Court System use to victimize and traumatize families. DCFS meddles in child custody proceedings favoring the parent who has the most money, more likeable personality and most of all, the one who is the better liar. So often, DCFS asks family members to turn against the parent with an open case with the luring offering of the ability to keep the child and receive monthly allowances for doing so. This practice is despicable and intrusive as it corrodes the familiar bond among relatives.
Conclusion: Suing is the Remedy
Most parents really believe that by cooperating with their social workers they can get their children back after completing mandatory programs. That is not always the case. It is unconstitutional to force an individual to admit guilt. The concept of innocent until proven guilty does not apply in Dependency proceedings which easily leads to discrimination, violation of due process rights and doubt of the constitutionality of the dependency proceedings. Parents who have not put their children in eminent danger of neglect and abuse are often violated by this agency.
The fact of the matter is that someone who commits murder has more rights in criminal proceedings than a parent who may or may not have abused or neglected their child in dependency proceedings. It is an uphill battle for any parent to take on this system because of the tyrannical power it possess. Very few parents are able to sue them and hold the system accountable to serve its clients rather than serve itself and leave clients vulnerable.
In the public sector negligent behavior is punishable by the law. “In Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc. 472 U.S. 749 (1985), the Court held that "[i]n light of the reduced constitutional value of speech involving no matters of public concern...the state interest adequately supports awards of presumed and punitive damages — even absent a showing of 'actual malice.'"[66] Despite varying from state to state, private individuals generally need prove only the negligence of the defendant.” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/)
Many parents don’t know that social workers are held liable in civil proceedings for defamation, fabrication of false evidence, bullying and discrimination. It is hard to prove, but it can be done. Until the laws change, it is imperative to teach parents to 1) not be afraid to stand up for themselves and the rights of their children, 2) learn and be empowered to understand the dirty tactics and 3) be ready to defend themselves even if they have limited resources. For this to happen, parents have to ensure that they have the best interest of their child and that they would do what is right for them no matter what happens.
Sadly, in LA County there is a group that reviews the death of children and gathers professionals from different fields to give input and provide directive to the county about how these deaths happened and how to avoid them. Shockingly, the same county doctors who misdiagnose children in DCFS proceedings, the same social workers who are responsible for running families to the ground, and the same judges who weight in cases are part of this panel. These judges in these panels have working relationships with these physicians and workers, yet they do not recluse themselves from hearing cases involving allegations of abuse and neglect brought by these workers and county physicians. Everyone question should be: where is the independency???
The answer is that there is none. Lack of independence might be the reason why these failed policies never change. It is not convenience for the county or DCFS to show independence since it would bring about scrutiny to every case where a child died and DCFS was involved. It could be that evidence would show that it was not the parent who was neglectful, but it may have been DCFS who purposely misdiagnosed a child or put a child in greater harm than he was exposed to at a home that may had just need services……May you be the judge!!!!!
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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/presiding-judge-prepares-to-open-dependency-courts-.html
Lundy Bancroft
http://lundybancroft.blogspot.com/2011/11/judge-hulsing-jails-mother-because-her.html Judge Jon Hulsing appears to have a history of targeting mothers whose children report abuse by their fathers, either jailing them or cutting them off from contact with their children.
latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-thanks-20111124,0,5083188.story
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-childdeaths-20111011,0,6420330.story#tugs_story_display
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-miguel11-2009oct11,0,4795548.story
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/09/la-county-child-deaths.html
www.childadvocacy.com/books/1713
