. At the
barbershop, enjoying a lovely beverage with friends, or jawing at the
office water cooler with colleagues, conversation sooner or later turns
to "rights"
Let's face it, "rights" are great to have and a favorite topic to talk about, yet few of you know your #1 "Right" ...
without which "Right" all your other "rights" are just empty promises.
If you have a "right" - let's say the "right" to run your business or
the "right" to protect trade secrets or the "right" to receive a fair
trial in a criminal case, and your "rights" are ignored by others, what can you do?
If you can afford to hire a trustworthy lawyer (an oxymoron in some
circles) you might pay lots of money and send your lawyer to court to: enforce
your "rights" for you ...
hoping with all your fingers crossed that
things will turn out ok, and the lawyer's fees don't drive you into
bankruptcy.
But, what if you can't afford a lawyer? Or, what if you aren't sure you can trust the lawyer you hire? What then? Related Information:
Standards of Practice for
Attorneys Representing Parents in Abuse and Neglect Cases
- ABA- 2006 (Download
pdf) This document out lines the many responsibilities of
what lawyers are susposed to do when working with their client.
May want to download and review this to document what your
lawyer actually does, in your particular experiences. Sections
include: 1) Summary of the Standards; 2) Basic Obligations of
Parents' Attorneys; 3) Obligations of Attorney Manager; and 4)
Role of the Court..
Until Jurisdictionary®,
your #1 "Right" has been hidden from you by the legal profession I've
belonged to since 1986, a profession that has never made any genuine
effort to reveal to the public or force our tax-supported schools to
teach our children just how simple the process of litigation really is
and how your tax-supported court system works!
Your #1 "Right" is the "right" to know how to enforce your "rights" in court! With the Jurisdictionary®
"How to Win in Court" 24-hour online law course, everyone can now know
what lawyers have refused to reveal since the dawn of time! Knowledge you and your children have a "right" to know and exercise to get Justice.
Knowledge that should NEVER be hidden from anyone!
Exercise your #1 "Right" without depending on the honesty and competence of expensive legal assistance.
Demand that the schools you support with your tax dollars teach this #1 "Right" that is your children's birthright!
It is nothing short of criminal for the legal profession to keep your
#1 "Right" a secret from you and your children, so their privileged few
can continue getting rich on exorbitant legal fees!
If you can afford to hire a lawyer, by all means do so ... but know what the lawyer could be doing (and should be doing) to earn his or her fee and win your case!
If you can't afford a lawyer, know what you can do to enforce your "rights" ... or risk losing before you've even begun.
Without your #1 "Right", the rest of your "rights" are just empty promises!
Knowing how to get Justice is everyone's #1 "Right".
Will YOU know how to get Justice when you need it most?
Or do you plan on mortgaging your home or borrowing against your
business to hire an expensive lawyer then closing your eyes and hoping
for the best?
"Dear
Mom & Dad" was written by Monica Epperson, founder of The Child of
Divorce. Monica experienced five divorces during her childhood and
started The Child of Divorce to provide resources to children who are
experiencing hurtful ramifications due to divorce.****
Turning Point Provides telephone crisis intervention, counseling and support to victims of sexual assault, their families and friends www.theturningpoint.org 800-886-RAPE (24 hr)
"According to a 2012 report from the National Council on Disability, in
custody cases, "removal rates where parents have a psychiatric
disability have been found to be as high as
70 percent to 80 percent;
where the parent has an intellectual disability,
40 percent to 80
percent in families where the parental disability is physical,
13
percent have reported discriminatory treatment in custody cases.
Parents who are deaf or blind report extremely high rates of child removal and loss of parental rights.
Parents with disabilities are more likely to lose custody of their
children after divorce, have more difficulty in accessing reproductive
health care, and face significant barriers to adopting children."
The goal of this report is to advance understanding and
promote the rights of parents with disabilities and their children. The
report provides a comprehensive review of the barriers and facilitators
people with diverse disabilities—including intellectual and
developmental, psychiatric, sensory, and physical
disabilities—experience when exercising their fundamental right to
create and maintain families, as well as persistent, systemic, and
pervasive discrimination against parents with disabilities. The report
analyzes how U.S. disability law and policy apply to parents with
disabilities in the child welfare and family law systems, and the
disparate treatment of parents with disabilities and their children.
Examination of the impediments prospective parents with disabilities
encounter when accessing assisted reproductive technologies or adopting
provides further examples of the need for comprehensive protection of
these rights.
Thoughts to consider, And yes many may get their feelers hurt. But we must do our homework and know a proper way to defend ourselves. Often shared the thought, If you don't know your rights, you have none.
Granpa Chuck Just an ol' guy, who has shared many family experiences. Including, facing the Child Protective AGENCY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not only that, but on our Viral video page of those who are in this "BATTLE" and are active in the field of one position or another, I purposely added two Studies to show the Conflict, even within the agency.
And, yes all on one web page so there is no misunderstanding. (go to webpage)
"Child Protection at the Crossroads: Child Abuse, Child Protection, and
Recommendations for Reform" Note: This employee, actually got demoted for sharing such a thing.
"Unto the Third Generation: A Call to
End Child Abuse in the United States within 120 Years (revised and
expanded) Note; This employee got promoted for sharing such a thing. and one of his statements "VI. The battle plan for ending child abuse" (pg.2)
So, do download and read these documents and watch the videos, and you may have a clearer picture of the BATTLE we all face.
and do Pass on this web page to others
However, I strongly encourage Parents, who have been in conflict with the Child Protective AGENCY, to take the Parent Survey>> Go here for the State index
Nationally, we now have over 500 parents that have taken this survey, Thanks and be that
"One Small Voice",
a common-law doctrine that the state's child welfare system uses to determine whether neglect has occurred on the basis of conditions that are “injurious to the child's well-being.
NOTE: Missouri and
about 30 other states allow courts to terminate a parent's connection to
a child if authorities conclude a mother or father has a mental illness
that renders them incapable of safely raising the child..."
"Officials
usually must present evidence that the illness poses a threat..."
"Most
cases involve significant mental illness, not run-of-the-mill depression
or anxiety..."
"Yet there need be no evidence of actual harm or neglect,.."
".. just a conclusion that there is a risk of it..."
FULL STORY BELOW: This story was co-published with The Daily Beast.
In August 2009, Mindi, a 25-year-old struggling new parent,
experienced what doctors later concluded was a psychotic episode. She
had been staying in a cousin's spare basement room in De Soto, Kansas,
while trying get on her feet after an unexpected pregnancy and an
abusive relationship. She'd been depressed since her daughter was born
and was becoming increasingly distrustful of her relatives.
Isolated, broke and scared, one Saturday morning, she
cracked. She woke to change her 5-month-old daughter's diaper. When
Mindi looked down, she believed the baby's genitals had been torn. Mindi's mind raced for an explanation. The one she came to? That her
baby had been raped the night before; that someone—she did not know
who—had put sedatives in the air vents.
Mindi called her pediatrician's office. A receptionist told her to
take her daughter to a children's hospital in nearby in Kansas City,
Missouri. Doctors there found no evidence that the girl had been harmed
or that any of what Mindi claimed had actually happened.
After Mindi started arguing, medical staff sent her for a
psychological evaluation and notified local child welfare authorities,
according to court records. (As is typical in child welfare cases, the
court documents do not include the full names of anybody in the family.
Mindi has asked ProPublica to use only her first name, as did other
parents in the story.)
In
2009, Mindi had a psychotic episode—she believed her five-month-old
daughter had been raped. But doctors found no evidence this was true,
and called authorities to take custody of the girl. (Steve Herbert for
ProPublica)
That night, authorities took emergency custody of Mindi's daughter,
who is referred to in court documents by her initials, Q.A.H. A
court-appointed doctor later concluded that Mindi had experienced
postpartum psychosis.
But Mindi rebounded after the episode. She began to attend therapy
and to see a psychiatrist, who prescribed an antidepressant. She found a
job as a shift manager at Kmart and moved into her own apartment. Each
morning, she'd call the foster home where her daughter had been placed
and she'd read Q.A.H. a book.
In time, her psychiatrist, therapist and even a panel of judges concluded that Mindi should get her daughter back.
"I found the help I needed to be healthy," says Mindi, a wide-eyed
woman with a round face and a chatty affect. "I was dealing with some
mental battles at the time."
Dr. Stanley Golan, the psychiatrist who treated Mindi, diagnosed her
with a mix of post-traumatic stress disorder—likely, a therapist later
said, related to abuse—depression and possibly a kind of "mild
delusional disorder." Still, the diagnoses, Golan said in court
testimony, "do not interfere with her parenting and she is able to
adequately care for Q.A.H."
"You can have these diagnoses and be symptom-free," he testified.
Indeed, in September 2011, Mindi, who was in another relationship,
gave birth again, to a boy named Jace, whom she's now raising capably on
her own. Citing Mindi's pending case over Q.A.H., Kansas authorities
took Jace at birth and placed him in foster care. But they soon returned
him after finding no evidence that Mindi posed any risk to her son. As a
family therapist testified, Mindi has provided a "nurturing, loving
environment and had met all of [Jace's] needs."
Yet four years later, after a protracted series of court fights, Mindi does not have her daughter back.
"I couldn't see how they could keep one while I had the other," said
Mindi, sitting on the carpet in a living room with her son, surrounded
by toy trains and a pile of books. "I don't think I should have to fight
for my own child to come home." (Missouri and county child welfare
officials declined to discuss the case.)
The question in Mindi's case is not about what authorities did when
she plunged into a mental health crisis—nearly everyone involved in the
case, including Mindi's own attorneys, agrees it was likely appropriate
to remove her baby that day. Instead, the issue is whether a mental
health diagnosis itself, in the absence of any harm, should be enough to
keep Mindi from ever getting her daughter back.
Mindi
received treatment for her mental illness—she was diagnosed with
depression, anxiety and a mild delusional disorder—and has since
rebounded. (Steve Herbert for ProPublica)
Under a concept sometimes called "predictive neglect" Missouri and
about 30 other states allow courts to terminate a parent's connection to
a child if authorities conclude a mother or father has a mental illness
that renders them incapable of safely raising the child. Officials
usually must present evidence that the illness poses a threat. Most
cases involve significant mental illness, not run-of-the-mill depression
or anxiety. Yet there need be no evidence of actual harm or neglect,
just a conclusion that there is a risk of it. (No Lawyer, No Problem>> Learn More) States typically do not track how many parental termination cases are
related to mental illness, or how often parents have lost children
based on a diagnosis. New York, one of the few states that does tally
such cases, has about 200 parental terminations annually based on mental
disability, a category that includes both mental illness and "mental
retardation." If there were a similar rate nationally, that would amount
to several thousand cases per year. The cases are typically sealed, and
there's no way to know how many involve court overreach.
But if it's impossible to know how many parents lose children
unnecessarily because of the stigma of mental illness, it's clear that
the process for deciding such cases is deeply flawed.
Courts' decisions rest on the recommendations of evaluators who often
do not observe parents at home or examine their actual record of
parenting.
Instead, they rely on psychological tests and case notes.
Incomplete evaluations are an "endemic problem," said Joanne Nicholson, who directed a unit that conducted parenting assessments for
Massachusetts child welfare agencies and is one the country's leading
researchers on parents with mental illness.
"Parents are often evaluated without a real analysis of their
supports, of the life they actually live," said Nicholson, currently a
psychiatry professor at Dartmouth College. As a result, "the diagnosis
starts to speak louder than real life."
Children can also pay a price when courts overstep. Research shows that forcing children in and out of different homes can leave lasting emotional scars.
The logic of removing kids from parents with serious mental illness
is straightforward.
Studies have shown that serious mental illness
correlates with higher rates of child neglect and abuse.
Parents who
can't take care of themselves aren't going to be in a position to take
care of a child.
And delusional thinking can lead to irrational,
dangerous behavior.
"You have to put protection first," said Mary Kay O'Malley, who
worked for years as a foster care caseworker, is now a professor at the
University of Missouri Law School and has dealt with many cases like
Mindi's daughter was taken by authorities after
Mindi had a mental health crisis. Mindi has never been able to get her
daughter back, even though she's now capably raising a son.
When officials fail to intervene to protect children from mentally
ill parents, the results can be tragic, irrevocable and front-page news.
In one notorious 2008 case, a Long Island, New York, mother drowned her
three children after county officials failed to respond to repeated
warnings from relatives that she was dangerously unstable.
But O'Malley says she's seen agencies and courts unnecessarily cut
off parents from their children. She says that's what happened to Mindi. ( No Lawyer, No Problem>> Learn More ) Six months after Mindi brought her daughter to the hospital, in
February 2010, a parenting counselor reported that Mindi "is ready to be
there for [Q.A.H.] emotionally, mentally, and [she] can support Q.A.H."
"The parent changed in this case," said O'Malley, who consulted for
Mindi's attorneys for free after learning about the case. "But the court
didn't."
The laws permitting termination of parental rights were mostly
written in an era when serious mental illness was assumed to disqualify
patients from participation in normal life, including parenting. Parents
like Mindi may have been institutionalized. In many states, the
mentally ill or intellectually disabled could be sterilized. The
phrasing in the law has often changed—states have removed words like
"feebleminded" and "depravity"—but the same concepts echo.
Indeed, a 2012 presidential commission report
found that "parents with psychiatric disabilities experience the most
significant discrimination when they attempt to exercise their
fundamental right to create and maintain families."
"When [mentally disabled] people were institutionalized, they could
not keep their kids. Now they're living on their own, and they're not
allowed to keep their kids," said Patrick Yewell, who recently retired
from a career as a foster care caseworker, supervisor and administrator
in Kentucky's child welfare system.
Rudy's Story
Rudy, a 42-year-old West Indian-born man in the Bronx, New York, was
also denied custody of his daughter. His chance to raise her now rests
largely on a psychologist's evaluation consisting of two visits and a
review of Rudy's records.
Rudy has long struggled with chronic bipolar disorder, for which he
has been repeatedly hospitalized. Rudy is also intellectually delayed—an
IQ test placed him at the borderline of intellectual disability. He has no history of violence, abuse or neglect. His only child, J,
who is now 3, was removed from the hospital immediately after she was
born and placed in foster care. Rudy has been asking to be allowed to
raise his daughter with help from his mother and sister.
Authorities first took J because of significant concerns about her
mother. J's mother, from whom Rudy had separated before J was born, had
already lost three other children to foster care. One of the children
removed from J's mother and placed in foster care later died at the
hands of a relative of J's mother. And like Rudy, J's mother suffers
from mental illness and intellectual delays.
On June 28, 2010, Rudy watched as two Nassau County caseworkers and a
cop walked out of the hospital with 4-day-old J. (ProPublica confirmed
details of the case through court documents and multiple interviews.)
Rudy, who has closely cut hair and often dresses in baggy sports
jerseys, recalls the day his daughter was taken as the saddest of his
life. "I asked them why they took my daughter, and they didn't respond,"
Rudy remembered in a soft stuttering voice with an accent left over
from his childhood in St. Croix. "I asked them if I could hold her
before they took her, and they wouldn't let me hold her."
Rudy began what would become a weekly ritual: Riding two trains and a
bus every Tuesday from the Bronx to Long Island to spend 75 minutes
with J in a room in the county child welfare office. Some caseworkers
were suspicious of Rudy. "The major concern for the family is both
parents' mental health issues," child welfare officials wrote in a court
document.
Others described him as a loving, if inexperienced, father. One
caseworker note from a visit in September 2011 described Rudy as "gentle
and caring," rocking J to sleep on the couch at the county office. Two
weeks later, a different worker wrote that he was "getting more adept
at caring for the child." J's mother, meanwhile, stopped showing up for
visits and failed to appear in court.
But just over a year after J was first placed in foster care, two
Nassau County officials pulled Rudy into a meeting room after a visit
with J and told him that the county planned for J to be adopted by her
foster family, case documents show.
"They said I have a mental illness, they were trying to see if I
would sign away my rights," Rudy said as he sat one recent evening in
his Bronx apartment, a pot of rice steaming on the stove. "They expected
it to go smoothly, they expected me to surrender my rights."
In New York, counties are required to appoint an attorney for parents
at risk of losing their kids, but Rudy hadn't yet been given one.
Unsure of what was happening, Rudy went home and called his sister
Rubeka, in Tampa, Florida. (No Lawyer, No Problem>> Learn More ) "He sounded really upset. Not really angry, but more hurt," said Rubeka, who works as a psychiatric nurse. Rudy and Rubeka consulted a lawyer and came up with a plan in which
Rudy would move in with his sister and mother in Florida so they could
raise J together. J's mother, who was also facing the termination of her
parental rights, and whose mental health, according to case notes, was
deteriorating, agreed to the plan. (J's mother declined to discuss the
case with ProPublica, except to say she supported Rudy's effort to get
custody.)
But Nassau County officials told Rudy that he should have laid out
the plan months earlier and that because so much time had passed,
federal child welfare law required them to request termination of his
parental rights. The county's records suggest that caseworkers had
warned Rudy about this; Rudy said he did not understand he could lose
his rights so rapidly and that he waited because he believed J's mother
was going to regain custody. Caseworkers also noted that visits between
Rudy and J had gotten harder as she grew older—she would often cry
inconsolably; she knew her father only as the man she saw on Tuesdays
and considered her foster parents her real mother and father.
But these were not the reasons Nassau County authorities listed when
they petitioned a county court to sever Rudy and J's legal ties.
Instead, the county filed to terminate his rights based on his mental
illness. Under New York law, parents can lose their children if courts
decide their mental disabilities render them incapable of parenting for
the "foreseeable future."
The Nassau County Department of Social Services would not respond to
questions from ProPublica about the case or any related policy issues.
The county referred ProPublica to the New York State Office of Children
and Family Services. That office declined to comment as well and
referred us back to Nassau County. The foster parents' attorney and the
attorney appointed to represent J also declined to discuss the specifics
of the case.
In the summer of 2012, a judge sent Rudy to Dr. Joseph Scroppo, a
psychologist and attorney who has held appointments at several New York
universities. Scroppo has a contract with Nassau County to perform
forensic psychological evaluations and make recommendations about
whether parents should keep their children.
Scroppo's evaluation was exhaustive compared with many in other
parental rights cases. He met with Rudy alone for nearly 10 hours. Then
Scroppo watched Rudy interact with J for 30 minutes. He gave Rudy an IQ
test, asked him to define words, stack blocks and read a few sentences.
He reviewed Rudy's mental health records, including his
hospitalizations for manic episodes, and case notes from the child
welfare department. Scroppo concluded that Rudy could not be trusted to raise his daughter.
Rudy's "score indicates that he is probably capable of
semi-independent living but would experience significant problems if he
were to attempt fully independent living," Scroppo wrote. Citing Rudy's
hospitalizations, Scroppo concluded that Rudy "is now, and for the
foreseeable future, unable to adequately care for the subject child."
During a hearing in May 2013 in Rudy's continuing parental rights
case, Rudy's lawyer, who was appointed to the case when the county filed
for termination, grilled Scroppo on his evaluation. "Your testimony...suggested that [Rudy] would have difficulty
functioning fully independently; is that correct?"
Rudy's lawyer, Lauren
Broderick, asked.
"Yes," Scroppo replied.
"[But] wasn't it your understanding that [Rudy] was cooking his own
meals at the time of your evaluation?" Broderick said, looking down at
her notes.
"I'm not sure whether he was cooking his meals or not," Scroppo said.
"Did you inquire?" Broderick asked, looking up.
"No, I did not," he said.
"Wasn't it true at the time of your evaluation that [Rudy] was paying
his bills?" she went on. "He was responsible for his own hygiene?"
"As far as I knew, yes," Scroppo said.
Broderick continued to push Scroppo to offer evidence from Rudy's
life. Instead, Scroppo said, "I based the [categorization of]
semi-independent status on the test that I administered to him." New York's law allows mothers and fathers to present alternative
evaluations in court, though funding is not always made available to pay
for them. Rudy's sister and brother scraped together several thousand
dollars to hire an evaluator for a second opinion.
Dr. Barry Rosenfeld, a psychologist who directs clinical training at
Fordham University, did not just administer tests. He spoke to the
people in Rudy's life to get a better sense of him—and pieced together a
very different picture.
He discovered that in the early 2000s, Rudy shared an apartment near
Tampa with Rubeka and their brother Mitchell. Mitchell had a baby boy
and Rudy would take care of him. "My son was around 3 or 4. We'd go out
for the night, or on the weekends, and Rudy worked less than us, so we'd
leave my son with him," Mitchell said recently over the phone from
Florida. "I never had any worries about that."
Rosenfeld learned from Norma Gonzalez, a caseworker who'd met
regularly with Rudy in the apartment building where he lived when J was
born, that "[Rudy] successfully manages his own day-to-day needs and has
done so consistently for 3 years."
Rosenfeld noted that Rudy's plan to raise J with his sister indicated
not incapacity, but a responsible recognition of his own need for help.
"There appears to be no evidence that [Rudy]...is unable to adequately
plan for care for his daughter," he wrote.
ProPublica asked a third party to read the two evaluations and to
assess the soundness of their methods. Maurice Feldman, a psychologist
based at the Centre for Applied Disability Studies at Brock University
in Ontario, Canada, researches parenting capacity evaluations. He said
that the two evaluators relied on different methods and assumptions.
Scroppo's evaluation didn't take into account the help Rudy planned
to have from his family; Rosenfeld's did. "The first evaluator makes the
assumption of the scenario that the parent has to parent the child
totally independently," Feldman said.
Feldman also said that even though Scroppo's report was relatively
thorough, it exhibited a common flaw: It measured mental disability in
isolation from its impact on parenting.
"There is a conceptual leap that the first assessor used," Feldman
said.
He concluded that because Rudy scored "low on cognitive and
personality disorder measures, therefore he can't parent,"
Feldman said.
"But that is a fallacy."
"There is nothing in the first evaluator's report, none of the
materials cited, that would lead me to believe he can't take care of his
daughter."
Scroppo declined to speak with ProPublica about Rudy's case, citing
professional obligations to confidentiality. But he did speak in broad
terms about mental health evaluations in child protective cases, which
make up a significant part of his practice.
"Evaluators are tasked with evaluating the specific parents, not the
support system or other persons in their lives," Scroppo explained.
"It's driven by the fact that only the parent is going to have ultimate
decision making over the child. Although the parent may have —and I
think it would matter if they did—a team to help them, it would hinge on
their ability to be responsible. The law is for me to look at the
parent in and of her self."
Academic studies have found that mental health parenting evaluations
often take this self-sufficiency view of parenting. But as Feldman
argues, "Nobody raises their child in a vacuum."
The American Psychological Association guidelines actually encourage
evaluators to reach out to "extended family members and other
individuals when appropriate (e.g., caretakers, grandparents, clinical
and social services providers, and teachers)."
Yet often that doesn't happen. A decade ago, DePaul University
researchers reviewed 190 evaluations from Chicago's child welfare
system. Almost none of the evaluators called on family members or others
besides the parents. Often, the evaluators relied on single short
interactions with parents or failed to observe them with their children.
More recent studies by researchers in New York and at the University of
California, Berkeley found similar patterns.
"The tests are already less than perfect at measuring what they were designed to measure—IQ or psychopathology—and they are far less than perfect at measuring parenting," Karen Budd, the DePaul report's lead researcher, told ProPublica.
One reason evaluations come up short is money, said Nicholson, the
Dartmouth psychiatry professor who researches parents with mental
illness. "Really thorough evaluation is pretty resource-intensive, and
nobody wants to do them," Nicholson said. "Nobody can actually afford
that. Or they say they can't. Taking a kid away is expensive, too."
Even Scroppo agrees that these cases can be hard calls: "The severity
of the mental illness is important in making any determination. And
sometimes the line is not clear."
When Rudy is well, he is soft-spoken and thoughtful.
"I am really focusing on being a father to my daughter.
My dad was a
good dad—he worked hard, he took care of us, and I want to do the same
thing for my daughter," Rudy said last fall, after returning from work
at the grocery store where he stocked shelves.
He also knows he would likely struggle to raise J by himself. Rudy
has bouts of numbing depression and high-paced mania. At their worst,
Rudy's manic states can flare into delusions. He has believed that he's a
businessman and that YouTube videos carry secret messages. The last
time he was hospitalized was in the winter of 2013. He and his sister
Rubeka say the stress of the case, and the threat of losing his
daughter, finally overwhelmed him.
But raising J alone, of course, hasn't been the plan. "If he slipped
into an episode, we would know it," Rubeka says. "We would have been
there to support her together."
Rudy acknowledges there are no easy answers nor perfect endings. The
case has now dragged on for nearly four years. And more hearings are
scheduled for June in the Nassau County family court.
J has "been in foster care for a long time," Rudy said. "It will be
hard to take her out of foster care. [The Department of Social Services]
is saying that she bonded with the foster mom. It's a tough case, you
know."
The Feds MANDATE
When authorities take a child, a 1997 federal law mandates that they
must provide parents with access to the programs and services they need
to reunite with their children (Ref: Reasonable Efforts).
If the issue that brought a child into
foster care is homelessness, child welfare systems must find parents
housing.
If it's drugs: treatment.
If it's abuse: parenting classes.
Parents can be compelled to attend anger management classes, seek
counseling or leave an abusive partner
(PARENTS: Big Note here. If you sign something, make sure you: >>read it carefully and that >>you are a part of the development.)
But the law does not explicitly cover disabilities, mental or
physical. And in the absence of a clearly applicable federal standard,
at least five states—Alaska, Arizona, California, Kentucky and North
Dakota—have listed mental illness as one of a few "aggravating
circumstances" that exempt authorities from having to provide help to
attempt to piece families back together. Among the handful of other
circumstances? Murdering, torturing or sexually abusing a child.
In New York, courts can relieve child welfare departments of having
to prove they have made efforts to reunify families if judges deem a
mother or father too mentally disabled to parent. That has been Nassau
County's position regarding Rudy. "The department is not under any
obligation to make reasonable efforts to return the child and to make
recommendations [for services] to him," the county's lawyer said in a
November 2013 hearing.
The rationale for denying services is often explained this way: If a
parent is indeed so mentally ill that they're never going to be able to
safely raise a child, why drag that family through an extended legal
case and compel taxpayers to make futile expenditures?
But without setting up supports and services, there may be very
little way to know whether a parent can raise a child. Rudy was not
offered parenting classes or help moving to an apartment where J could
join him. No caseworker tried to help Rudy find a program that could
support him to raise his daughter, though supportive-parenting programs
exist in New York City.
"Nobody ever offered me any help," Rudy says.
In Missouri, where Mindi's case unfolded, the state's obligation to
explore support for mentally ill parents has become an issue in the
courts.
In 2012, a state appellate court reversed a termination based largely
on the testimony of a psychologist who'd administered tests but never
actually observed the mother with her child.
"Even a mental condition that renders a parent unable to provide
adequate care for a child alone does not provide a basis for termination
if the parent has access to additional support because parenting is
frequently 'a group effort,' " the appeals court wrote. "It is because
of the frequently group nature of modern parenting that [the law] does
not allow for the termination of parental rights simply because a parent
cannot shoulder the entire burden of raising a child on his or her
own."
While ProPublica spoke to dozens of attorneys around the country
about questionable cases, few termination cases are appealed and fewer
still are reversed—higher courts are typically deferential to trial
court decisions. Missouri appeals courts and the state's Supreme Court
have overturned at least seven other mental-health-based terminations
since 2000. We found another seven cases since 2000 in which New York
appellate courts overturned mental disability terminations.
In the last decade, states including Idaho, Utah and Vermont
have added language to their child welfare statutes to protect parents
with disabilities, including psychiatric disabilities. "A court may not
remove a child from the parent's or guardian's custody on the basis
of...mental illness," the Utah law reads.
But mental health advocates say progress is too slow. They say that
even in states where mental illness is not listed explicitly as a reason
for terminating parental rights, parents still face bias and aren't
getting the help they need.
"People have focused on the language of disability or mental illness
in the laws, and that is important," said Jennifer Mathis, deputy legal
director of the Bazelon Center, a mental health advocacy groups. "But
you also need to provide supports."
In 2011, two years after Mindi's child was removed, Missouri's
legislature adjusted the child welfare laws to recognize the rights of
disabled parents. The change came after news broke of a blind couple
whose baby had been removed over concerns that their disabilities
impaired their ability to raise a child.
The measure affirmed that nothing in the state's laws should "be
construed to permit discrimination on the basis of disability or
disease." Children cannot be removed, nor can parental rights be
terminated, the bill maintained, "without a specific showing that there
is a causal relation between the disability or disease and harm to the
child."
As it was originally introduced, the Missouri legislation noted that
in making child removal and parental termination decisions, the state
"shall consider the availability and use of accommodations for the
disability or disease, including assistive technology and support
services." That language—the sort that advocates for parents and for
people with psychiatric diagnoses say is needed to stop unnecessary
family separations—was removed from the final legislation.
Back to Mindi in Missouri
In Mindi's case, her daughter's foster parents and the state of
Missouri asked the judge in 2011 to terminate Mindi's parental rights
and for Q.A.H. to be adopted. The reason her rights should be
terminated? Citing state law, lawyers for Q.A.H.'s foster family wrote
that Mindi has "a mental condition which is shown by competent evidence
either to be permanent or such that there is no reasonable likelihood
that the condition can be reversed."
The petition rested largely on reports of the event three years
earlier, when, after the delusion about her daughter's rape, Mindi
brought her daughter to the hospital.
In 2012, a Missouri trial court granted the petition to terminate
Mindi's parental rights, formally severing her connection to Q.A.H.
Mindi was "unable to knowingly provide [Q.A.H.] the necessary care,
custody, and control" because, the judge wrote, she "has delusions that
then become her reality."
Earlier in the case, Mindi had regained custody of Q.A.H. after eight
months of separation only to lose it again after refusing to allow
visits from Q.A.H.'s father, who Mindi says was abusive. Such lack of
cooperation is not legally sufficient to permanently separate children
from their parents, but the judge who terminated Mindi's parental rights
chalked up her claim of abuse to ongoing delusions—though no evidence
was presented on this, one way or the other. Q.A.H. was placed back in
foster care, this time with a new couple.
The judge also said in his opinion that Mindi had made strange faces
while sitting in court, an "affect," the judge wrote, which "is quite
unusual in termination of parental rights proceeding, but is consistent
with mental health diagnosis given by [the court-appointed
psychiatrist]."
Mindi's lawyers and other attorneys who represent parents like her
say the judge's reaction is common: Actions and statements that might
pass without notice in people without a mental illness are pathologized
in people with a diagnoses. "People who have those records at the back
of their mind are looking for something to support their theory that
she's not stable," said Sandra Wirtel, Mindi's court-appointed attorney.
Mindi and her lawyers appealed the 2012 ruling, and the following
year a Missouri appellate court sided with her. The trial court
decision, a three-judge panel ruled, "utterly fails to establish that
[Q.A.H.] would be harmed by a continued relationship with Mother."
The appellate judges added that the judge's observation of Mindi's
facial expressions "does not constitute reliable and substantial
evidence on the critical question of Mother's present mental condition."
Mindi began preparing for Q.A.H. to return, setting up a bedroom with
a pink bedspread. They had not seen each other for nearly a year, and
to rebuild their relationship, Mindi and Q.A.H. were allowed to begin
visits. Her daughter was bigger, more talkative, her dark blond hair now
in long curls. At first, Q.A.H. was shy, feeling out her relationship
with this woman she'd been separated from. But then she asked her mother
to play a game Mindi had made up when Q.A.H. was younger. "She
remembered that," Mindi said.
Mindi thought her daughter would be home for Christmas. But in late
2013, Mindi's lawyer called her to tell her the case was not over.
Q.A.H.'s foster parents, joined by the state, had appealed the case to
the Missouri Supreme Court. Visits were halted again. The judges heard
arguments in the case two months ago.
In
2011, Mindi gave birth to a son named Jace, whom she's now raising
capably on her own. “I couldn’t see how they could keep one while I had
the other,” says Mindi. (Steve Herbert for ProPublica)
When she's with her son, Mindi can, for a moment, forget that
for the last three years her life has been consumed by the fight for
her daughter. Mindi enrolled in college again. She spends a lot of time
at her Baptist church—Wednesday night Bible study and Sunday services.
She now lives in the home of a family friend who is mostly away—Mindi's
father died when she was young and she's estranged from her mother. Late last year, she started to meet with the foster parents for
monthly mediation sessions. Q.A.H. had lived with them for more than two
years now.
To her attorneys, Mindi's case still seemed like a sure win. In 2007,
the Missouri Supreme Court restored the parental rights of a young
mother who'd been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Judge Richard Teitelman sits on the Supreme Court of Missouri.
Speaking broadly about such cases, he told ProPublica, "given the number
of people in this world who are bipolar, or have some mental illness
and who raise children very effectively,it would not seem to me that it
should be a status thing—that anyone can say, if you're mentally ill you
can't be a parent, you can't have a child. That does not seem to
comport with today's reality." (No Lawyer, No Problem>> Learn More) In the early afternoon of March 25, Mindi received a phone message
from the lawyer appointed to represent her in her parental rights case.
The news was what she feared. "I just lost my daughter," Mindi wrote in a
message to ProPublica.
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled, 6-to-1, that the lower court should
be granted broad discretion in making decisions about the facts of a
parental termination case. Though the judges noted that the state still
had an obligation to prove that a parent's mental condition poses a risk
to the child, they wrote that since the trial court had believed Mindi
was a danger, the Supreme Court, which did not hear testimony from
witnesses, was in no position to disagree.
Judge Teitelman issued a short lone dissent. "The evidence in this
case...fails to demonstrate clearly that the Mother is currently unable
to adequately care for the child and that she will be unlikely to do so
in the future," he wrote, adding that the court's decision had been
"simply speculative."
But did anyone listen??
In early May, Q.A.H.'s adoption went through. Mindi has no contact with her daughter. This project was supported by the Reporting Award at NYU's Arthur
L. Carter Journalism Institute. Research assistance was provided by
Lecia Bushak and Amy Zhang.
Note: You
may find, when searching on "single" criteria, 0 results
may show up. A hint that perhaps many issues still haven't be
addressed in this state?
Rethinking Foster Care: Molly McGrath Tierney at TEDxBaltimore 2014 Let's Make This Go Viral ~ Please Share While Watching ~
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