Good experiences with CFS? How to help children in need?

[yodaluver28]

New topic, the helping professions like MA level therapists and social workers and juvenile parole officers, generally get the shaft. If you look at what a cop makes versus an SW II who needs a master's makes, it's sick. After a while the ones who can get jobs in private institutions because they can't live off what they make. We really need to stop exploiting people who want to help people for a living.

Excellent point. My friend's mother is an MA social worker. She's seen it all. She worked for years in VA hospitals, then the Lafayette Clinic in Detroit (whose closure in 1992 sent a torrent of mentally ill people into the city and straight into homelessness or prison), and CFS. With CFS she informally specialized in families trying to stay together when a mentally ill single parent needed serious psychiatric care. She was usually successful because she cared so much that she wouldn't stop looking for solutions until she found one. But budgets keep getting cut and state mental hospitals shut down, 26 in the Michigan since 1981. She's a guidance counselor at a high school in an upper middle class neighborhood now because it was the only place she could find that would pay her enough to help her daughters with their college tuition and student loans. Since the pay is so bad, a lot of CFS social workers now are young and thus don't have enough experience to read a situation properly and have no more experienced figures in the office to run cases by for their opinion. The older ones that are left are usually either too cynical to go the extra mile to make things work or are counterproductively or even dangerously overzealous.

 

[Craig4]

To be brutally honest, if you have a BSW or an MSW you might as well write **** me stupid on the top of your resume. I am disgusted by how I've seen these people treated. Don't get me wrong, I am 100% okay with what police make. I used to be a federal, commissioned officer and I will slap stupid anyone who complains about my salary and pay; it's a tough job. That doesn't mean I think that helping professionals should have to pay a compassion tax in the form or a reduced pay scale because HR managers know people interested in that work aren't in it for the money.

We really need to value and appreciate the work of people who pick up the pieces after the police leave the DV crime scene or cart away the mom or dad for drunk and disorderly as much as the cop doing the dirty work. We're really at a point where we can't afford to not have quality, professional intervention for families in crisis. To quote Mark Cuban, "the risk never leaves the system". Right now we pass on the risk to the adult criminal justice system which is far more costly than quality early intervention. Honestly no one is doing comprehensive, quality intervention because it costs money.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

(shakes head)

I'm not sure I agree with "mandatory reporting". I don't see how any nation anywhere is "helped" by forcing one group of people to report on the activities of another group.
We already have anonymous hotlines; that a teacher can be fined or imprisoned for failure to report a bruised knee -especially in light of the terrible fallout a family may suffer over it- is a terrible idea.

"Bruised knee" is a complete distortion.

I'm a nurse practitioner and also required by law to report suspected abuse. I can guarantee you a knee bruise is nothing that would warrant reporting. And I've seen doctors reluctant to report obvious abuse (like a spiral humerus fracture the family claimed happened from a fall) because the doc was nervous about making a false complaint. Required reporting is essential.

 

[blutoski]

Here are a couple of questions I've been struggling with for a while now.

As a person with a left-leaning mindset, I believe there is space for government to step in when people's lives are endangered or threatened. This includes safety regulations, food and consumer goods inspections, and universal health care. A natural outcome of this belief is the government has both a right and a duty to intervene when a child's physical or mental health are in danger due to neglect or abuse.

But somewhere along the line things seem to have gone off the rails. I don't think I've seen any posts here on the forum from people who have been on the receiving end of CFS (Child and Family Services) assistance who aren't upset and bitter about the whole experience. From social workers interfering over trivial matters to inept foster parents who seem to do the work just for the money, I've seen very little positive press about these agencies.

Is this because only the bad stories--usually the spectacular failures that ended in the death of a child in care--make the papers? Or is it because the agencies are fundamentally failing in their mission?

My impression is that it's a reporting bias, partly caused by the media's preference for sensationalism, partly caused by the Ministry's accountability under the Privacy Act.

(Note: my current wife is a psychiatrist who faces an almost identical problem - the family can issue a press release and lie, lie, lie in order to muster public support... the Ministry is prohibited from giving any details about the case)

My questions for discussion are:

Has anyone here had an experience with CFS, as a parent, child, worker, or bystander, that can be rated as positive? (Positive may be a tricky thing to define, but for me it means an intervention that resulted in the parents and the children getting the care they needed, with the family reuniting and becoming a functional family again.)

My first wife was a CPS officer here in BC, and I'd say she had positive stories every day, day after day. Although I'd qualify that by saying reuniting is not always the happy ending IMO - sometimes permanent separation is the best outcome.

Do CFS agencies do more harm than good? If your answer is "more harm", how would you fix it? By abolishing the agencies and letting kids fare for themselves? Improving funding and oversight?

The two things she wanted to see improved were 1) better support for fostering children with special needs, and 2) more support from the justice system to identify and prosecute false accusers and persons who undertake violence against the Officers.

I think one of the questions that came up earlier was about why the parents don't get arrested for threatening or assaulting a CP Officer... the CP Officer would ask the same question. Sometimes it happens right in front of police (such as during an escorted onsite medical inspection or removal).

So, that's a key element of privacy concerns for the Officers - if we can get the police to protect them, they'd be more comfortable with identification. Until then, the way things are right now, if they were publicly identified, they would all be dead within a few months.

 

[blutoski]

I agree that better pay and benefits for social workers would be a step in the right direction, because turnover is so huge. Kids in foster care may have four or five different social workers assigned to them over a single year's time, and never get to know or start to trust any of them.

I wonder if this is turnover or just bad luck? Ideally a kid (or kids, if they're related) will have as much continuity with one social worker as possible.

Turnover is more about burnout. My first wife was not interested in more pay as much as she was interested in a lower workload. There are actually peak periods, where a social worker may end up working 90 hour weeks. It's not clear that paying more would improve turnover.

I'd also like to see them do away with the practice of shuttling kids from one home to another to another. A social worker once told me they moved us around so we "wouldn't get attached" but that seems counter-productive to me.

It depends on the roadmap that has been worked out by the biological parents. If the biological family is committed to getting custodianship, the Ministry may want to mitigate the very real complication of the children suddenly being more attached to the foster family (parents/siblings).

However, attachment is not the same as 'parent figure' - it's possible for foster parents to provide good role modelling even if the fostered children are not emotionally attached.

I suspect, that the most common reason for moving a fostered kid from family to family would be if the kid revealed special needs, and the Ministry needed to assign him/her to the appropriately skilled foster family.

 

[blutoski]

"Bruised knee" is a complete distortion.

I'm a nurse practitioner and also required by law to report suspected abuse. I can guarantee you a knee bruise is nothing that would warrant reporting. And I've seen doctors reluctant to report obvious abuse (like a spiral humerus fracture the family claimed happened from a fall) because the doc was nervous about making a false complaint. Required reporting is essential.

Yup.

An earlier poster described sending a note to explain a 'suspicious injury' - the key word there being 'suspicious'.

A bruised knee is not in and of itself suspicious. Possibly if there is a pattern of bruisings, though.

My sister was accident prone and we once got a visit from CPS after a week where she came into the hospital with a broken wrist on Monday (fell off her bike Sunday afternoon), a broken ankle on Tuesday (bad step on the diving board), a missing adult tooth and black eye on Wednesday (fell down the stairs goofing off with her new crutches) and twenty stitches in her forearm on Friday (fell while carrying a bag of recycling, landed right on the bag with her crutches and broke the glass contents).

The ER nurse felt that it was a little too much to ignore, and called it in. The good news is that the CPS worker made the appropriate call after talking to my sister and parents and doing a quick tour of the house to see the accident locations.

 

[Beth]

My questions for discussion are:

Has anyone here had an experience with CFS, as a parent, child, worker, or bystander, that can be rated as positive? (Positive may be a tricky thing to define, but for me it means an intervention that resulted in the parents and the children getting the care they needed, with the family reuniting and becoming a functional family again.)

No

Do CFS agencies do more harm than good? If your answer is "more harm", how would you fix it? By abolishing the agencies and letting kids fare for themselves? Improving funding and oversight?

I think they do more harm. I would not abolish such agencies as they are needed for situations of serious abuse. I do think that the court records should be open and if there is enough suspicion of abuse to remove the children from the home, they should be charged with abuse. If they don't feel it's appropriate to charge the parents, then they should not be removing the children from the home.

As it is, a lower standard is required (at least locally) to remove the child and then the parents are pressured to 'confess' and agree to a 'reunification plan', often without any knowledge of their rights or other avenues to pursue to get custody back. Because custody of their children is involved, many parents will readily agree to whatever social services asks of them without being aware of later ramifications of such agreements. In my area, there have been cases where social services deliberately waited until late Friday to get an emergency order to take custody of children, forcing the parents to wait until Monday before they can get anything done about it.

 

[DragonLady]

DragonLady, I'd be interested to hear your overall impression of the role Winnipeg CFS played in the life of Phoenix Sinclair. The story of her life is covered in detail in pages 115-299, contained in Volume 2 of the report.

I'm still working on reading it. I'm on page 44 of Part 2 and am slowly slogging through it.

The things that leap out at me right away:

A young couple was met in their hospital room right after birthing their child. This meshes with my own experience, and I think it's appalling.
Generally, hospitals are supposed be "safe havens" to recuperate in. Here in the USA, it's typical to bar anyone but immediate family -even shutting out ex-spouses, best friends, cousins and benefactors. But for some inexplicable reason, they believe a flippin' social worker should be able to just waltz right in and start firing questions. The patients are in pain, usually drugged, their whole lives have just changed, and the last thing they need is someone =anyone= questioning them about their private lives.

Remember: these people have not been accused of any crime. They've done nothing illegal, are not committing any crimes at the moment, are attempting to go about their lives in peace, so there is NO EXCUSE for another private citizen (which a social worker is) to be entitled to disrupt their lives.

The social worker in this case was immediately upset by the fact the woman had already had another child who had been taken by the agency, apparently when she was just a teenager. So far, there's been very little said about the child, or her reasons for giving him up. I'm *guessing* they made it perfectly clear she was in care 'til she came of age, and the baby would be in care until he was of age, and they made visiting him so miserable and difficult she finally gave up. Of course, they can always retort with the age-old argument "well, if she REALLY loved him" but anyone who has been on the wrong side of one of their "reunification plans" knows they make it damn near impossible to comply. Of course, if someone does manage to comply, they have to leave...and the money they're getting for keeping that family hopping goes away, too.

Other points brought up were the woman had not sought prenatal care, and had not gone much (or anything) to prepare for the baby's arrival.

Here in the USA, failing to seek medical treatment is NOT a crime. We have the right to refuse it, even if we're dying. The fact she was pregnant did not change that; she didn't have to see a doctor if she didn't want to, and that was not necessarily a reflection on her ability to parent (although...I think most here would argue it's poor judgment, and THAT might reflect on her parenting).

She was unemployed, as was her boyfriend. Both were, I'm sure, aware they could start getting welfare money once the baby was born, and could use that to purchase the things the baby would need. But as far I'm aware, we don't give welfare to expectant moms -the funds are only available to those who have a living child. Considering she didn't have any prenatal care, she may not have been certain she was pregnant, and apparently were living pretty much hand-to-mouth, I'm not shocked or surprised they didn't use whatever funds they were able to scrounge to buy stuff for a "maybe baby". Again, maybe not great judgment, but people show remarkably bad judgment all the time, and we don't take their kids away for it. And again, there's no law that says a baby must sleep in a crib, or that expectant mothers must buy diapers. It's a social expectation, but it's not a legal mandate.

As I said, I'm now on page 44, where the SW is saying "Samantha appeared angry and annoyed that I was visiting". This is another sore spot: again, these people have committed no crime. They DO NOT have to let a SW into their homes if they don't want to. An LEO needs a search warrant, and in most states it's perfectly legal to shoot someone who just attempts to barge in unwanted. But social workers will blackmail people with threats of taking the children if they don't let them in, and most people don't know they have the right to say "No".

Samantha stated she doesn’t know why CFS is still wanting to be involved and further stated that she has done everything that was asked of her – this worker explained that they are young parents that WCFS is available to offer any support needed.​

Right. She followed the plan, she did her part. There were imperfections on both sides, and CFS failed to provide some of the services they promised. But she did her part. So why were they still knocking on her door? She made it clear she did not feel any support was needed, and they could've gained 4,676,979,767,467 brownie points in her mind if the SW would've said "Okay, I'm glad to hear that. Here's my card; call me if you have problems or questions." ​

The fact they never, ever, ever go home after becoming involved is one of the reasons people dislike them, distrust them, and will hide problems they're having rather than asking for help. ​

On that note...back a page, there's another little blurb: ​

informed her that it was difficult to connect with them because they have no phone and when we attend the home no one is usually home – this is why we have to come out unannounced – Samantha stated “you could write me a letter”​

The part I've highlighted reads like a belligerent, flippant comment, which is probably exactly how it sounded to the SW. But...think about that for a moment. Writing a letter is a perfectly acceptable way to let someone know you're going to visit and...establishes a paper trail. That trail is one of the things CPS workers seem to be more afraid of than lions or tigers or bears. They love to carry 'round their own notes, love to compare internal memos and hold meeting and file reports, but they DO NOT like parents to hold up a document that records anything they've said or done.​

If CPS (or your local equivalent) shows up at your door, your rights do not just go out the window. You can tell them to leave, you can insist to have an attorney present, you can simply refuse to speak to them. If you are committing a crime, they will take the initiative to have you arrested. If not, they must go through legal channels just like everyone else. Never let them tell you otherwise.​

 

[Blue Mountain]

Overall, I agree with your comments so far. With regard to hospital visitors, in my experience here in Canada we're much more open to allowing visitors to a patient's bedside. I don't think I've ever been challenged when going to visit someone in a regular ward as to my relationship with that person (ICU is a different matter.)

The part of the report you're currently reading deals only with the actual interactions Phoenix's parents had with the agency. I'm not sure if the report addresses the issue of whether or not the agency's actions were even warranted, or simply assumes the agency had a role to play simply by virtue of existing.

It's been a while since I read the story of Phoenix's life. I should look at it again, asking at every interaction CFS had with the family, "Was it warranted? Was follow-up needed but not done, conversely was follow-up not needed but done anyway?"

My recollection of the events was everything was quite disjointed. Files were opened and closed with no apparent attempt on the part of people opening the new files to even locate and read the old ones. It was almost like every time the CFS interacted with Phoenix's family was the first time.

The agency's title is "Child and Family Services", which implies the agency is there to assist the child and family when deemed necessary (or even invited to do so). This contrasts with the title "Child Protection Services" which implies a more adversarial role. However, there was clearly a lot of tension between the agency and Phoenix's mother and father, due in no small part to both their interactions with that agency when growing up.

I'm reminded of a saying that goes, "If you see someone approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should turn around and run away." Despite the fact that CFS/CPS agencies are supposed to protect a child from harm, it appears they spend a lot of their time simply getting in the way.

 

[DragonLady]

It's been a while since I read the story of Phoenix's life. I should look at it again, asking at every interaction CFS had with the family, "Was it warranted? Was follow-up needed but not done, conversely was follow-up not needed but done anyway?"

Just as a place to start, think about the role of Dr Altman.

As part of her reunification plan, Samantha was to seek a psychiatric evaluation. Apparently she couldn't just call any doctor; rather it had to be with one the agency proscribed -and that was Dr. Altman. It took months to get an appointment with him, and they didn't fill him in on either of the two concerns CFS was supposed to be addressing: her parental capacity, and her parental commitment. Instead, they asked him to determine if she was depressed.

Now, on the surface of things, that makes sense. If she was suffering post partum depression, that would help account for her "flat affect" and addressing the illness might have made huge strides toward helping her become a better parent. However, having the doctor look for depression -and ONLY depression- was a kind of a straw man. "Seek treatment for depression" was NOT a tenant of the reunification plan -in fact, it said nothing about seeking medical care of any kind, only that she had to have an evaluation.

I feel like they were throwing a dart in the dark, hoping it would hit something. If the doctor said she was depressed, they would add "Seek treatment for depression" to her reunification plan -adding it, and any failures, medical side effects or other issues that it brought to the surface as yet more reasons for their continued involvement in her life.

As it was, the doctor did bring up other concerns, which to me were worth a much closer look, but CFS didn't seem to think it was important at all. I think addressing those concerns would've gone a long way to keeping the family intact, and that would've had the further effect of making it less and less and less likely they could continue dropping by unannounced, unwanted, and unwelcome.

My recollection of the events was everything was quite disjointed. Files were opened and closed with no apparent attempt on the part of people opening the new files to even locate and read the old ones. It was almost like every time the CFS interacted with Phoenix's family was the first time.

Yes; that was very much the case. It happens a lot here, too. The caseworkers are swamped, the whole system is always overburdened with the sheer number of people they're following 'round and harassing, but it never, ever, ever gets suggested they just lighten the load by a considerable amount by butting out and going home in those cases where no crimes have been committed.

"We've seen both parents arrested for assault, and so this case will become an ongoing file."

vs

"We don't approve of these people. We don't like their ways of doing things, and disagree with their lifestyle. However, they've committed no crimes, we have no evidence they ever will, and it's time for us to stop rubbernecking."

 

[DragonLady]

I'm reminded of a saying that goes, "If you see someone approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should turn around and run away." Despite the fact that CFS/CPS agencies are supposed to protect a child from harm, it appears they spend a lot of their time simply getting in the way.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" - Ronald Reagan

 

[DragonLady]

"This worker cautioned him about drinking alcohol while the children are in the home -this can lead to the children being removed from his care- Steve nodded and stated he is well aware of this and stated that Jenny will care for them."

(image page 57 of part 2)

Again with the threats to remove the children for an act that is not a crime, is not an act of abuse, and is not necessarily negligent. Drinking alcohol with a child in the house is a common occurrence and rarely leads to anything bad.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Well, first we'd have to prove alcoholism or being caught up in fighting are criminal acts or somehow harm the kids.

If their behavior isn't harming the kids, then why do we feel we have to intervene?

If is harming the kids, then we shouldn't have any trouble having them charged for the crime.

If "parental alcoholism" isn't currently a crime, but we think it should be, we can attempt to have that legislation put into place.

If we can't prove many of these behaviors actually cause enough harm to be made into criminal acts, then we shouldn't use them as excuses to destroy families.

Do we need to cut back on the criticisms when a child reported to them dies at the hands of an abuser? Those cause quite the controversy.

 

[Blue Mountain]

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" - Ronald Reagan

The quote goes back further than Reagan. It's one of the Three Big Lies:

• "The cheque is in the mail."
• "Of course I'll respect you in the morning."
• "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

(image page 57 of part 2)
Again with the threats to remove the children for an act that is not a crime, is not an act of abuse, and is not necessarily negligent. Drinking alcohol with a child in the house is a common occurrence and rarely leads to anything bad.

There's social drinking (wine at dinner, beers while watching a game on TV) and then there's drinking. The location where most of these encounters between Phoenix's caregivers and CFS occurred is the North End of Winnipeg. It's a poor area and is notorious for drinking parties where the aim is simply to consume as much alcohol as possible. There are usually two or three deaths every year resulting from these parties. I get the impression that at times both Samantha and Steven may have been participating in these.

There's an interesting section of the criminal code:

(Corrupting children) 172. (1) Every one who, in the home of a child, participates in adultery or sexual immorality or indulges in habitual drunkenness or any other form of vice, and thereby endangers the morals of the child or renders the home an unfit place for the child to be in, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

(An indictable offence in Canada is the same as a felony in the US.) I have no idea how often charges are laid under section 172. Which leads to the question, if CFS feels they should intervene under section 172, why don't they press charges and remove the child? One answer I can think of is it creates a lot more paperwork, gets the police and courts involved, and could leave the parents with a criminal record. The counterpoint is that under that section the child is in danger. Anything below that level is just meddling.

 

[Blue Mountain]

Do we need to cut back on the criticisms when a child reported to them dies at the hands of an abuser? Those cause quite the controversy.

For sure they cause controversies. Dragon Lady and I are discussing exactly one such occurrence, which led to a commission of inquiry. We're discussing the inquiry's report.

As I said in the OP, I'm usually in favour of the government getting involved when people's lives are in danger. Dragon Lady is much less convinced of that, and we're using this report to see how (in this case) CFS got involved and still didn't manage to save the life of the girl. Dragon Lady is doing a good job of showing that CFS wasn't protecting Phoenix; they were meddling in the affairs of a couple of admittedly dysfunctional parents. For sure Phoenix got off to a rough start, but was she in any way helped by CFS?

 

[ponderingturtle]

For sure they cause controversies. Dragon Lady and I are discussing exactly one such occurrence, which led to a commission of inquiry. We're discussing the inquiry's report.

As I said in the OP, I'm usually in favour of the government getting involved when people's lives are in danger. Dragon Lady is much less convinced of that, and we're using this report to see how (in this case) CFS got involved and still didn't manage to save the life of the girl. Dragon Lady is doing a good job of showing that CFS wasn't protecting Phoenix; they were meddling in the affairs of a couple of admittedly dysfunctional parents. For sure Phoenix got off to a rough start, but was she in any way helped by CFS?

But if they did prevent that death would anyone actually feel they were helped by this? Would Phoenix think in 10 years wow they saved my life, or would she blame the inevitable trauma on them?

 

[Blue Mountain]

But if they did prevent that death would anyone actually feel they were helped by this? Would Phoenix think in 10 years wow they saved my life, or would she blame the inevitable trauma on them?

That's exactly the question I'm asking. There's little doubt Phoenix had a bad start in life. Reading the inquiry report, it looks like for all the attempts CFS made to help Phoenix and keep her safe from harm, all they ended up doing was annoying her caregivers.

 

[DragonLady]

But if they did prevent that death would anyone actually feel they were helped by this? Would Phoenix think in 10 years wow they saved my life, or would she blame the inevitable trauma on them?

In my experience, both. I've heard more than one person aging out of the system saying "CPS saved my life. But now I'm not sure it was ever worth saving."

 

[deadrose]

Around here they were trying to get some support in place so that kids aging out get a hand with finding an apartment & job & the essentials of life instead of just being shown the door at 18. Of course, that was before the recession, so I doubt it still exists.

I've noticed CPS seems to be funded in waves. A child dies, the media clamors, the legislature throws money at CPS to hire more workers and effect more programs. As the hoopla settles, the budget for CPS is cut, and cut, and cut again, until everything is back where it started. Rinse & repeat, ad nauseam.

I've called CPS once, on a mother who belted her kid hard enough to leave a cut under his eye, in the middle of the toy store where I worked. She then demanded we call the police on the kid, who was pale, teary, and shaking with fear, and refused to let him get in the car (in a Canadian winter). My managers refused to get involved and told me I wasn't allowed to call them either.

So I copied her address off her cheque, and phoned from a pay phone on my lunch break, asking if someone could contact me that evening at home. I know nothing about what happened from there, but the worker did tell me she was well-known to them.

*That* is the sort of time I think they should definitely be involved.

On the other hand, my kids and I ended up in the system because one kid's counselor decided I was neglecting his autism - because I refused to take him to a Body Talk practitioner that she recommended. So I jumped through everyone's hoops, did parenting evaluations and all the other things they wanted to prove I was a fit parent, and we went back to court to get back out of the system, with the caseworker saying everything was peachy. But the judge disagreed.

Because the caseworker's notes mentioned that my teenage son hadn't showered that day and had armpit odor, the judge refused to close the case and we had to spend another 3 months in the system. The caseworker, who was actually a pretty decent woman, was appalled and apologetic. At least since everything had already been done, we all just sat quietly for 3 months with token visits, my son scrubbed himself half-raw before the next evaluation, and we were set free, so to speak.

But what a huge mess that was, and what a waste of money when there were kids in the system who actually *needed* the time and money. Perhaps they could have gotten around to the woman who was found in a drunken stupor with one of her children dead of starvation & dehydration, and the other close to death.

And all because I wouldn't accept the woo.

 

[DragonLady]

On the other hand, my kids and I ended up in the system because one kid's counselor decided I was neglecting his autism - because I refused to take him to a Body Talk practitioner that she recommended.

Yes; that meshes my experiences, too. A counselor with very little or no medical background cheerfully reporting a parent for "medical neglect" because they haven't prayed hard enough, had auditing done, gone to foreign countries for questionable treatments, etc.

It's not just those with no medical backgrounds, either. Here's a case I vaguely remember reading about some time ago that shows how even medical professionals can let their "good intentions" lead to behavior that ultimately destroys families: http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=16108