PO Box 10
Los Gatos, CA 95031
408 395 6999
theacf@hotmail.com
IS THIS THE UNITED
STATES of AMERICA?
The State of California Department of Social Services (DSS)
is receiving funding from the Federal Government to the tune of 25 billion
dollars a year and this does not include incentive bonuses. The federal funding to California comes from
CAPTA (Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974) funds. The primary goal of CAPTA as stated in
federal law is child safety and family reunification. The laws are there but the DSS does not follow them, as there is
no effective oversight of the system that is now out of control. It has become readily apparent that SS takes
children from families, adopts them out and collects the federal monies for
this process.
95% of the children taken by the DSS are from low income and
minority parents. The next focus group
of families will be the middle-income parents.
DSS focuses on the low income and minority families because they cannot
afford proper legal counsel and will loose their children to the system. Why would DSS want to take and keep their
children? It is all about money! The system got out of control and was
flooded with foster children. The money
flows into the state to take care of these foster children. In 1997 the Adoptions and Safe Families Act
(ASFA) was passed and it provides a 4 thousand-dollar incentive bonus to the
state and counties to increase adoption quotas over the baseline to a set goal
to be reached in 2002. The intent of
ASFA was to help reduce the number of children lingering in the foster care
system. Unfortunately most of the older
children are not desirable to adopting parents. Since adoptions of older children could not increase, then the
most adoptable age of children would be 3 years old and under. The ASFA also started concurrent planning to
help move children especially 3 years and under through the adoption system
quicker. Concurrent planning is now confidentially acknowledged to have been a
mistake by the state as the counties are abusing the ASFA concurrent planning
to steal babies and adopt them out to meet their quotas. Children are now just a quota being used to
get a bonus paid to the state and counties.
ACF (Advocates for Children and Families) is a grass roots
self help organization of parents whom are being abused by the misuse of power
by state and local Department of Services Agencies (DSS). ACF exists to help families and children with
the administrative law process. ACF
survives on the donations of its members and has no governmental or outside
funding. The representatives of ACF
have joined together to help others in need.
ACF can provide help to those that want to learn the process to help
themselves and eventually others that are in similar situations. The primary goal of ACF is to help children
develop in a safe and loving environment and to secondly keep the family unit
functioning if at all possible.
The child welfare system in California involves two legal
processes consisting of the judicial system and the administrative law system
as seen on Figure 1. The judicial line
within this system consists of Superior Court at the top and the Commissioners,
Referees and Mediators at the bottom.
The judicial system (juvenile dependency) has jurisdiction over custody
of the children in detained by the SS, paternity and visitation with the parents. Administrative law governs all actions of
the SS. This is generally consistent
throughout the United States through federal oversight. The administrative complaint process or
State Fair Hearing is clearly shown in 45 CFR 205.10 et. seq. .; XIV Amend.
U.S. Constitution and Title 22 Division 22 22-000 et. seq. pursuant to
California’s state plan. Administrative
law is that legal process in which the SS operates.
Mother Convicted of
Attempted Murder of Daughter, Los Angles County DCFS Tries to Reunify
A mother in Los Angles County has been convicted twice of
attempted murder on her baby daughter by the criminal courts. The criminal courts have issued a
restraining order against the mother to make sure she can no longer harm this
poor child. The mother is currently out
of jail and seeking to fulfill her promise to kill the baby. Los Angles County Department of Children and
Families (DCFS) has decided it is the best interest of the child to reunify her
with her mother. The Juvenile Courts
and DCFS recommend that the child has unsupervised visits with the maternal
grandmother and mother thus seeking the Criminal Court to remove their
restraint. If this occurs, ACF believes
that the child will be at extreme risk.
To date the visits have not occurred but they will soon.
ACF has met with the agencies and Governor Gray Davis to
plead that the California State Department of Social Services intervenes on the
child’s behalf and courts to reconsider.
ACF has asked that the child be reunified with relatives that will not
threaten the child’s life. ACF has also
contacted the Federal Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to plead
for federal intervention. Interestingly, upon beginning investigation and
action on this matter, restructuring occurred to replace the persons acting to
the requests. This all appears to be a
huge cover up with the child’s life at stake.
To date none of the agencies have helped this poor child. Don’t children have the protection of the
“Bill of Rights”?
Girl Molested in Children
Shelter-County Cover up-Retaliated by Removal of baby.
The mother called the social services agency in
April for help with counseling for her children. Her 9-year-old daughter and her 11-year-old son had issues that
needed professional counseling for the best interest of the children. She knew this was a big problem that needed
professional counseling. CPS ordered
her to take the two children to the local police to talk. The police put the 11yo boy into juvenile
hall for two months. CPS put the girl
into the county children’s shelter.
Court ordered visitation with the 9 year old was denied for
2 weeks by the Social Worker. At the
first visit, which was supervised by the social worker, the girl told her
mother and social worker that another girl in the shelter had touched her in
her private parts. The social worker
tried to get her to change her story but she would not. Further, this girl
disclosed she kicked the other girl to get her to stop. The mother filed official complaints with
the Santa Clara County sex abuse Hotline and the Santa Clara County
Ombudsman. The shelter has now claims
it never happened and that the 9yo was touched in the stomach. This is a very sick cover-up and no one is
helping the mother or child and in fact the mother’s attorney indicated that
the Counties subsequent actions were retribution for reporting the incident and
insisting on the court ordered visitation.
Since the mother complained about the abuse of her two
children, CPS then took her baby for no reason and took her older son. The 9yo girl was held in the shelter until
they could find a black family for her to be with (she is racially mixed)
despite state and federal statutes which not only mandate placement with a
“most like home” setting. This also excludes
her half sister from being placed in the same foster home. The social worker declared that the girl
should be placed with her “own ethnicity” ignoring she had been raised her
whole life in a white home, and taught she had two ethnicity’s. This is again clearly an abuse of the girl’s
civil rights and a Federal Multiethnic
Placement Act violation.
The social worker then violated this families freedom of
religion by denying a priest give the children a blessing and falsely stated to
the court that the mother sent a priest to gather information about the
children. This visit from the priest
happened only after the mother filed with the county Office of Civil Rights.
Four Gypsy Children Taken From
Grandparents in Monterey County on False Burglary Charges, Social Services
Recommends Termination of Parental Rights
We have here a clear case of civil and human rights
violations by Monterey County Social Services (DSS) being perpetrated upon a
innocent family of Gypsies (Roma Culture).
The grandparents and children’s mother and four children live in San
Bernardino County and were visiting Monterey County when the abuse started.
They were stopped by the Monterey police based upon
allegations that the children were being used to aid in burglaries of homes in
Monterey. The police gave the four
children to DSS whom subsequently put the children into foster care where they
have been for the past 24 months. All
charges against the family were dropped yet the children have not been
returned. DSS has claimed that the
mother is mentally disabled but again there is no proof. It clearly appears that the Roma people are
being discriminated against. Currently
DSS wants to terminate the mother’s parental rights. By keeping these children, the money flows into Monterey County
DSS. In the courtroom, the county
council made the statement in front of the family that “Gypsies are nothing but
liars and thieves” (this statement should sound familiar at it was made by
Adolph Hitler). The case has become a
cause for the local Gypsies and the Gypsy activists who see this as another in
a long line of attempts by the world to wipe out the Gypsy nation.
ABUSE OF CHILDREN BY SOCIAL SERVICES AGENCIES IS A NATION WIDE PROBLEM
Massachusetts News, By Edward G. Oliver
January 13--To the joy of all, the little girl featured on
the front page of Massachusetts News in December 1999, who endured harsh
treatment in DSS care, was placed back into the custody of her parents by Judge
Louis D. Coffin of Falmouth Juvenile Court on January 12, 2000.
A class action suit was filed against the state of New York
and the parents and children won. The
abuses of children and families has run out of control in this state and is
only now starting to be put in check with millions in fines. The class action case was called Marisol vs
Juliani (1999) U S District Court, Southern District with a case value of 250+
Million dollars in settlement.
Examining
the impacts of the privatization of foster care and family preservation
services in the state of Kansas.
After a decade of documented failings in the Kansas foster
care system; after eight years of litigation and hundreds of thousands of
dollars in legal fees, critics charge the state of Kansas still isn't close to
meeting even the minimum standards of care for its abused and neglected
children.
The town of Wenatchee, Wash., made world headlines in 1994
and 1995 when police and state social workers undertook what was then called
the nation's most extensive child sex-abuse investigation.
By the time it was done, at least 60 adults were arrested on
29,726 charges of child-sex abuse involving 43 children. Many of the accused
were poor or developmentally disabled. Many cases were settled on the strength
of confessions taken down by Wenatchee police Detective Bob Perez.
In February 1998, the Post-Intelligencer published a series
of articles that documented overzealous -- and even abusive -- actions by Perez
and social service caseworkers, civil rights violations by judges and
prosecutors as well as sloppy work by public defenders. Since then, many of the convicted have been
freed by higher courts, largely through the work of The Innocence Project, a
group of volunteer lawyers.
SUMMARY: WHO’S CHILD WILL BE SOLD NEXT AND CAN WE STOP THEM?
It is clear that the CDSS is not willing to provide due process to the citizens of California. The low-income families are targets of the DSS with their children being taken to keep the 25 billion dollar California machine oiled with cash. This problem clearly exists in all the states in the USA with money being the clear motivation. The legal community needs to help the defenseless targets of this systematic abuse.