Who is the abuser? state? parent?

By LJ Nisse

Editor/Publisher

(Printed in the May 9, 2002 Latah Eagle and in an earlier edition of The Boomerang!)

Child Protective Service (CPS) excesses have been in the news a lot in the past few years with the Wenatchee trials (Wenatchee Witch Hunts – as they are sometimes referred) topping the list.

Smaller cases have come to light every few months or so. Recently a case in Spokane and another in northern Idaho are fresh in the news.

The Department of Children and Family Services (it has different names in different states) is more likely than not one of the most powerful agencies in the United States. They answer to virtually no one but the state governor himself. Governors usually take a “hands off” policy approach to CPS as it is not good for politics. As history has proven “absolute power corrupts . . . absolutely.”

One of the main charges the department has been given is to protect children. This is a worthy charge and an important one. The problem happens when a social worker or workers have determined all children must have a perfect life and their job is to make sure that happens. They take it upon themselves to remove children for reasons such as a messy house or the children may be exhibiting bizarre behavior, not in the social norm or perhaps not clean or dressed in what the worker(s) considers an appropriate manner.

In Washington State and Whitman County the agency is called the “Division of Children and Families”… the name itself is prophetic, as CPS there has achieved a reputation of “dividing” families when it is not warranted. They seem to desire to be the parents for all children in their jurisdiction with real parents being only babysitters or puppets doing their bidding. They have organized their armies carefully placing fear in schoolteachers, doctors and psychologists to report anything that could possibly be viewed as abuse or face loss of jobs and perhaps legal charges. The paranoia is rampant in America and especially in Whitman County with “spies” on every corner and in every neighbor’s home watching carefully all that happens so they can report to the generals in charge at CPS and win their stripes. The chaos that has been achieved through this system, set up and encouraged by CPS is enormous and has social workers chasing their tails over non-existent cases leaving those cases that truly need their attention left in the wings.

There are several things that need to happen in this department.

1. The department needs to answer to a citizen advisory board of some kind or a board set up through the state to deal with policies that continue to separate children from families unnecessarily.

2. Mandated reporting by schoolteachers and those not trained should be stopped. A teacher with good common sense can see when something happens that needs some intervention and should be allowed to make that determination with being “mandated.” Being mandated to report ALL things that look suspicious from a child coming to school without gloves in the winter to a dirty faced boy should stop. There are times a schoolteacher can even help intervene in a child with their family and help solve a problem before it gets to gigantic proportions, if they are allowed. They should be given that liberty without fear. (One school counselor told this author she reports everything to CPS that could even remotely be considered “abuse” because then she did not have to think about it and her job was secure.)

3. CPS departments should not be rewarded financially for removing children from homes but should be rewarded financially for keeping families together and working to make their lives better through services offered. It would be best if families would take care of themselves but as the government is insistent on playing nursemaid to families let them do so to the FAMILIES and keep them in tact.

4. Police investigating charges in conjunction with CPS need to have TWO officers respond. Small towns often only have one responding officer, as that is all that is available. In these cases a sheriff’s deputy should be called to respond with the local officer. Small town police more often than not do not have the expertise or experience to handle these cases and evaluate them properly. This should be policy or law if necessarily to avoid young officers in small towns innocently making incorrect decisions that hurt families.

5. Laws that determine the boundaries of abuse need to be better defined. They are obscure and left to interpretation by social workers that are oftentimes zealous and eager to “save a child” or even the reverse… to leave a child in real danger.

Many social workers say they would rather err on the side of excess and remove a child from the home even unnecessarily. That attitude is wrong and needs to be corrected. Removing a child from his/her home is, in itself, horrid child abuse and very traumatic for an innocence, unsuspecting child.

In a perfect world there would be no child abuse and there would be no agency called CPS. But even in this imperfect world we can achieve a common ground. More of the social and welfare work needs to be turned over to churches and compassionate service organizations… organizations that are not as driven by money as they are by heart. Neighbors need to become “neighbors” again and release their title of “spy.” Neighbors, in the human sense, are there to help their neighbor and perhaps offer a hand instead of a cold phone call to report something that may not be anything more than necessary parental discipline. — LJN

Absolute power corrupts... ABSOLUTELY!

by LJ Nisse, Editor and Publisher of the LatahEagle

There are two agencies in the United States that appear to be autonomous – IRS and CPS (Child Protective Services).

The IRS has had some limits put on them in recent years that say they must prove their suspects guilty. The suspects do not have to prove their innocence. It was not like this for many years. If you were called in to visit with an IRS auditor, you had to bring proof with you that you were innocent of charges. IRS agents were completely destroying individuals in the name of “good and right” . . . why? Because they could.

Remember – “Absolute power corrupts . . . absolutely.”

Innocent until proven guilty is the foundation upon which the United States law was built. It is the way it should be. Courts vow it is better to let several guilty go free than to sentence and incarcerate an innocent person.

CPS agencies do not run on that same principle. They have said it is better to err on the side of the child. Stated that way, you cannot argue. But in essence they are saying, “It is better to hang many innocent parents, than to give even one who has abused the benefit of the doubt.”

If a parent is suspected of child abuse CPS policies go something like this:

A social worker will talk with the child, taking them out of class at school or at a daycare facility. No parent is notified this is happening (not even the one parent that may be presumed innocent by CPS). This act in itself is frightening to a child and illegal.

After talking with the child they determine whether or not there has been abuse. As has been shown in previous cases, the children are often “led” by social worker’s questions and children will answer as they feel they “should” in order to please this big person.

After the parent has been determined by that one social worker to be an abuser, the police are called and the child is taken to a foster home, usually directly from school or daycare. The parents are left in the dark, scared to death their child has been harmed or abducted because no contact has been made to the parent during all this.

The social worker will come later in the day to the parents and let them know their child has been placed in protective custody because they feel the child is in imminent danger. They come to you with compassion in their voice and say they are there to help you as they, in reality, gather evidence, through your terror and confusion, to hang you up by your toes.

When you are found guilty you get a chance to “appeal” and if you decide to do this the CPS supervisor who deemed you “guilty” in the beginning reviews the case. You are not contacted or questioned further, no evidence is gathered, they look at your file – the file MADE by that department – and your appeal is rubberstamped “abuse.” If you appeal further it goes to the Department of Social and Health Services Board of Appeals and is heard by an administrative judge who obtains his living from hearing CPS cases. No one outside the department hears this case.

Laws are broken by CPS social workers such as the law that prohibits anyone (including the police) from questioning a child under 18 without a parent being informed (unless there is an emergency). This law doesn’t appear to pertain to CPS as they are autonomous and make their own rules and laws. There is no emergency when questioning a child at school or daycare as they are safe and out of their accused abuser’s reach.

Is there anything wrong with a department such as CPS making their own laws and policies? They are, after all, good people . . . no question about that. They have chosen a profession that is designed to help children. What could be nobler?

The problem with making your own laws and policies without any outside checks and balances is the laws and policies become self-serving. It is human nature to be self-serving and CPS social workers, no matter how good they appear, are definitely human.

The system needs to be pulled out of their autonomy and made to answer to someone, some group that does not depend on that department for their income or well being. A group that looks at all involved fairly, without bias. Does that group exist? If it doesn’t exist, lawmakers need to make it top priority to see that it is created and put into place. If not, the CPS excess that continues to escalate in this country will continue and get worse. It is a fact.

Absolute power corrupts . . . ABSOLUTELY. -- LJN

Child Abuser—a father’s perspective

By B. Bear Nisse, co-publisher of the LatahEagle

You would think after being a decorated police officer for 25 years and investigating hundreds of cases a father would understand what the accusation of child abuse could do to a family. I was a Detroit cop 30 years ago when there was no Child Protection Agencies. Back then the only thing I had any power to do was to transport the little abused, bleeding tikes to the hospital emergency room. An accusation of child abuse could only be made if someone, a spouse or neighbor, would file a complaint (and be willing to live with or next door to the abuser for a couple of months until the case made it to the courts). I wept for the children.

So when Child Protection agencies came into existence and laws were changed to protect our children from abuse I thanked God. I have heard the accounts of many parents and neighbors since then accusing CPS of false charges and destroying their families. In many of these highly publicized cases the person branded ‘child abuser’ is found to be innocent. Being found innocent of such a heinous act didn’t reprieve any of those innocent, loving people from the hell they were in. Their lives had been forever changed when the brand was put upon them. (I was found to be innocent of all charges, by the way, but the cost was over $30,000 financially and absolutely unlimited cost emotionally.)

It is said you cannot comprehend a man’s heart unless you walk a mile in his shoes. I’ve walked that mile. And when I die, I know I’m going to heaven because I’ve done my time in hell!

The hardest stripe CPS’s whip left upon me is knowing, as a father (whose older children cried outrage to CPS), that every member of my family had their hearts wrenched from the incident, and there was nothing I could do to relieve their pains.

Our society has always been either far right or far left. I wept for the little, abused children when I was the only one who seemed to love them. Now I weep for the innocent parents like myself who will endure the pain of having their families torn apart because of a CPS booboo. The system has swung from “there’s nothing we can do” to “We’ll sacrifice the family to protect the child”—even if innocent families are sometimes destroyed. Perhaps the commandment “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” painted on each CPS office wall would help caseworkers to focus more on the family than the game of put and take. The parent who may be accused of child abuse isn’t the only one who suffers from the ‘sentenced for life’ brand put upon them. It has an adverse affect upon the family members, neighbors and community where they live as well.

Don’t get me wrong. CPS isn’t Big Brother watching over us and making sure we all live up to their standards. The inadequate procedures they have been trained to follow are what I see as the problem. Instead of protecting each child at all costs, their focus could be protecting the family with children at all cost — a noble achievement in itself. This can only happen if the governors call for a few changes in their procedures.

My greatest fear is to watch the rift between CPS and families grow wider until our society does the same to them as it has to police officers. That is to take most of their power from them and expect them to do the same job they did before. A reform in their system now would avoid that inevitable happening. Unfortunately such reform can only come from the governors, and they apparently don’t want to get involved with the present turmoil between citizens and CPS (must be bad for politics). --BBN