The URL for this article is:
http://www.examiner.com/a-1413848~Is_it_child_protection_or_legal_kidnapping_.html

Special Reports
Is it child protection or legal kidnapping?
Barbara F. Hollingsworth, The Examiner
2008-05-29 13:04:58.0
Current rank: # 892 of 8,738

Children being taken from their homes, based on tips from anonymous telephone callers alleging abuse or neglect, has been cast in a harsh spotlight in the Texas polygamy case, and there’s growing evidence that more than a few of the 510,000 children placed in foster care annually don’t belong there.

In February, Georgia state Sen. Nancy Schaefer released a blistering assessment of the bureaucrats entrusted to protect children there: “I believe Child Protective Services (CPS) nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken almost beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be warned of the dangers.”

Armed with court orders and protected by confidentiality statutes that function as bureaucratic shield laws, CPS workers need just one anonymous phone call to a hotline to swoop in and remove children, regardless of the facts.

Such calls can be legitimate, coming from a legally mandated reporter such as a doctor or teacher. But it could also be a fabrication from a vindictive ex-spouse, a nosy neighbor, or a disgruntled relative.

Since no laws clearly define child abuse and neglect, parents have been accused of these serious crimes when what they actually did was yell, withhold TV privileges, or “repressing” their children by supervising them too much.

Dr. Steven Krason, professor of political science and legal studies at Franciscan University of Steubenville, is writing a book on CPS wrongdoing based on two decades of research.

Krason says CPS itself now poses “a grave threat” because “it is almost impossible to fully insulate one’s family from…a system that on very little pretense can simply reach into the home and take away one’s offspring.”

He’s convinced the number of real child abuse cases has remained fairly steady over the last three decades; what has been growing is an unprecedented government assault on innocent parents.

And if it doesn’t take much to have your children placed in foster care, getting them back can be another story. An anonymous call about a 10-ounce weight loss by their then 3-week-old daughter triggered a legal avalanche that buried Arlington residents Nancy Hey and Christopher Slitor.

Their parental rights were terminated last year by Arlington Judge James Almand even though Hey and Slitor had been exonerated by of all neglect charges nine months earlier.

In another local case, Georgetown residents Greg and Juliana Caplan had to spend $75,000 on lawyers and wait two weeks before their children were returned, even after five doctors confirmed that an injury sustained by one of their twin daughters was not caused by abuse.

The Caplans are still listed as possible child abusers in D.C., however, because they refused to submit to psychological counseling. Despite the stigma, that might have been a wise decision.

The psychological evaluation trap is one of the least expected obstacles facing parents snared unfairly in the CPS system. Most panicked parents promise to do anything to get their children back, often agreeing to a battery of psychological tests they naively believe will prove their parental competence and end the nightmare. But it doesn’t always work out that way.

Arlington social workers told Hey that she had to undergo psychological testing before she could get her baby back, so the longtime Federal Communications Commission employee readily agreed.

She was diagnosed with two clinical disorders by Dr. Giselle Hass at the Multicultural Clinical Center in Springfield. This psychological evaluation was cited in the court ruling terminating Hey’s parental rights.

But an independent, expert analysis of the report obtained by The Examiner included scathing critique of the methodology used to evaluate Hey, saying it “…reads more like advocacy than a professional psychological assessment… clear and frequent evidence of error… Any graduate student who turned in as poorly scored and interpreted a test as did this evaluator would probably have failed the first semester.”

Besides violations of standard practice and professional rules of ethics, the analysis noted numerous illustrations of bias in the psychological profile and “a consistent failure to include data that would be favorable to Mrs. Hey,”including 17 computer-generated scores on the Parental Stress Index that were all in the normal range.

This was a significant omission, given that Judge Almand cited Hey’s tendency of “freezing…in times of stress” as one of the main reasons she could not be trusted to raise her own child.

Hey – who has never been convicted of either abuse or neglect – has had no contact with three-year-old Sabrina since Judge Almand allowed her to be adopted by the same foster family Arlington CPS workers originally selected to care for her baby.

Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor.

Examiner

The URL for this article is:
http://www.examiner.com/a-1347693~Baby_snatching_by_Arlington_County.html

Editorial
Baby snatching by Arlington County
The Washington DC Examiner Newspaper
2008-04-18 07:00:00.0
Current rank: # 3,162 of 8,738

WASHINGTON -
There’s an empty highchair sitting in the kitchen of the Arlington home of Nancy Hey and Christopher Slitor. It’s their daughter Sabrina’s highchair. But it’s been empty for two years because thieves disguised as Arlington County social workers and judges took her from her parents. She was stolen with no public scrutiny or accountability. Arlington County social workers used unproven allegations of neglect in April 2005 to justify removing then-3-week-old Sabrina from her parent’s home. Her parents were accused - anonymously - of starving Sabrina. And they were deemed unable to care properly for their daughter, even with the frequent help of Nancy Hey’s mother and a full-time nanny. After more than two years of legal wrangling with the county’s Child Protective Services (CPS), Arlington Circuit Court Judge James Almand terminated the couple’s parental rights in June 2007.

But nine months earlier, Sabrina’s parents were completely exonerated by Virginia CPS hearing officer George Walton, who noted in his official report that, despite the baby’s worrisome 10-ounce weight loss soon after her birth by Caesarian section, nothing in the her medical record indicated she had ever been in danger. There was also no evidence, Walton added, that Sabrina’s “failure to thrive” resulted from parental neglect.

In fact, the record showed the opposite: Nancy Hey – who suffers from a developmental disorder that makes it difficult for her to recognize non-verbal signals from others – and her husband fully cooperated with medical professionals and CPS workers throughout their ordeal. In any case, Sabrina was at her proper weight when she was taken away by county officials, two days after her parents told social worker Dana Zemke that they were retaining a lawyer. Arlington Judge Esther Wiggins Lyles signed the removal order with neither Hey nor Slitor even aware of the proceedings, much less being present to contest the decision. Sabrina went to a politically influential local professional couple with no training as foster parents, despite CPS requirements that foster couples be trained before being entrusted with children.

Judge Almand later used the baby’s inappropriate removal to justify making the separation permanent, saying it would be too “traumatic” to return Sabrina to her natural parents. So, when Sabrina turned 3 April 3rd, she didn’t blow out her birthday candles in the kitchen where her heart-broken parents still keep her empty highchair. Even after spending $350,000 in legal fees, they have not given up hope. They’ve asked the Virginia Court of Appeals to return their child. Meanwhile, every Arlington County employee involved should be put under oath and questioned in public about their role in this outrage.

Examiner

CPS seems beyond the law and they will not give up their power easily! No one over sees their activites nor is anyone in authority willing to go up against them. This has to stop—where is the freedom where are the rights?

I will be there if at all possible!