You are to be someone who will do what they are told and cower into their corner.   WAKE up. It is your job to EQUIP yourself to do the job that you have volunteered to do. In doing this job, you are also protecting your children from the Storm.  So, stop whining and do your job.  I am here to help equip and empower you with knowledge. I will also help you know your way around a courtroom.

Stand up for something,
EVEN IF YOU STAND ALONE

But you are not alone.  I am standing beside you. I, and our entire NATIONAL FPLS TEAM (Foster Parents Legal Solutions)!

I just recently received my copy of the Legal Manual published by The National Foster Parents Association.  I recommend it highly.  I think that every foster parent should have a copy of it available to them. If you cannot afford to order one of your own, then form a support group in your home, of foster parents.  Take up a collection to order one and then set up a library to be made available to the members of your support group.

If there is a will, there is always a way.    It was in this informative manual that I found the following statement:

The Federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASAF) passed by Congress in 1997, gives foster parents, including pre-adoptive parents and relatives caring for children, the right to be heard in certain court hearings about the foster children in their home.  As a requirement of receiving the federal foster care funds, juvenile courts in every state must give foster parents “notice of, and opportunity to be heard in, any review of hearing to be held with respect to the child.” 

This means that the child’s current foster parents must be given the chance to let the child’s judge know information they believe will help the court in making decision about the child.  By passing this section of the federal law, Congress recognized that foster parents and relatives caring for the children often have valuable information that will help the court make its decisions.

Did you already know what you read above?  I didn’t know the date that is was completed, nor precisely what rights it gave us as foster parents. I have been counseling foster parents for 10 years.

Now, I do know, and will let every foster parent I deal with, know about it, too.  This is just as I would expect you to do—now that you know.

Then, take the time to find an attorney that you feel comfortable with prior to the need arising for the attorney.

 As said before:  Would you go in for a brain surgery without first finding a doctor who is a specialist in this field of medicine?  Would you trust a Podiatrist to do the surgery?

Then why wait until you are standing by, helplessly watching your foster child being ripped out of your arms by unfeeling, uncaring people called social workers?

It is a horrifyingly, damaging experience that no one should ever have to go through.  Not children, not parents, not families.

Please, begin the search for that special attorney who you are comfortable with. During the time when you have an investigation being conducted, you are not going to be in the best frame of mind to interview and locate a good attorney.

Do not wait until the STORM happens before finding an attorney. Do it NOW.

“What you don’t know,
 can and will hurt you.”

You need to equip yourself with knowledge.  No one expects you to know all that a trained attorney knows.  But, you need to at least know the basics and be prepared to fight for your family, your integrity and your life as you know it.  Your entire well- being is in jeopardy.

Later on, we will cover some of the legal jargon that you will run into in your search.  Please Note: See our legal terminology dictionary in the back of this booklet.

Here are two quotes that I want you to print from this booklet and hang them on your wall so that you can see them daily.  Read them daily and quote them to others:

“If you are going to live in a glass house,
then never be without glass coverage.”
“It is not a matter of IF you will have an allegation
filed on you, it is a matter of WHEN.”

You know, I always tell people that parenting in general is God’s first on-the- job training program.  All parents learn as we go.  When we make a mistake, we learn from that mistake and go on.  The thing that we need to remember is that this does not apply to the life of a foster parent:

As foster parents we are not allowed the
privilege of mistakes.  .Mistakes in this
instance can cost us our families.

Literally, CPS has the power to remove your own biological children when they remove your foster children. So, ANY mistake can and does effect our entire futures, as well as our entire families. It can be a very expensive ordeal indeed.

Our intention is not to scare you, my friend, but to equip you with facts to prepare you for entrance into a world that you know nothing about.  This is because it is kept secret from you – not because you do not have knowledge.  The intention is to prepare you for what to expect in this dark world of foster care that you have entered.

There is something that I want you to spend some time thinking about.  When I first served as a foster parent it was different for us.  It was a different time.  In dealing with teenagers and having six children of our own, we eventually we adopted three more. We always had a houseful of teens.  Our children would often bring other teenagers home who were experiencing problems with their biological parents.

We watched many of these parents and grew to understand one very important fact.  In almost every parent-child relationship, there is a time that the communications break down.  It is during this time that an outsider can step up to the plate and bat a home run on behalf of the parents who are at wits end with what to do with their rebellious teenager.

We always encouraged the teens that we took into our home to keep in touch with their bio parents. The reason?  Everyone makes mistakes in this first on-the-job training program.  We all make bad choices.  We all make mistakes along the way.

Of course, we do all know that there is such a thing as a bad parent.  People who either do not want the responsibility, or just regret their decision in having children at all. There are parents who are held by a stronger motivation than taking care of their children. That motivation can be things like drugs or alcohol.

So, we know that some parents will never achieve getting their act together so that they can, themselves, raise their children.  These parents are not the ones that we are discussing in this chapter. What we are saying is that all of us make mistakes and at times find ourselves overwhelmed by life’s problems.

It is during these times that relative, friends or acquaintances can take the helm for a short time, giving the captain of this particular ship, (the parents) time to regroup. And, get through whatever the problem was.  We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start over.

When I was growing up, I had parents who cared, and a Mother who taught me right from wrong.  Parents who did the best that they could do for me.  My parents, like all parents made mistakes. But, I had love.  I knew that both of my parents loved me.

Well. In the last thirty years or so, this scenario
has changed. Child Protective Services now says
that mistakes are intolerable. What used
to be acceptable, has a new name. Mistakes
are assigned to what is now called “child abuse.”

Child abuse, when I was growing up, had a whole different meaning. It meant that someone, a parent or someone else, had  physically, or sexually harmed a child.  Bruises were left, or other evidence of harm was evident.  Pictures were taken of this abuse.

Although this is the same term that we have heard for many years it now has a NEW, EXPANDABLE meaning. How far has this term expanded since the creation of CPS? Gregory Hession, an attorney from Massachusetts said in his article called This is Child Protection for the John Birch Society, (published in the magazine called New American):

“Child abuse” has an
elastic meaning
these days.

 As a result, almost anything we do as parents can now be called child abuse.  CPS takes full advantage of this in putting forth false allegations. The cases I have seen filed on foster parents are unbelievable in what is considered child abuse.  Just as a sampling, should any of the following occur, it is considered child abuse: 

a) Require children to have chores around the house.

b) To spank/ or in any way touch an unruly child under any circumstances.

c) Even giving a child a bath can be a risk, since our elementary schools have introduced terms like “Inappropriate touching” regarding our children.

d) So far, no one has ever been able to answer my question: “How do you properly dry a two or three-year-old child after a bath without touching them?  I want a social worker to demonstrate the correct way to accomplish this procedure.

e) Slapping a child’s hand for touching something he or she is not allowed to touch and has been told over and over and over is now child abuse. Even in teaching a child the very needed discipline of HOT, don’t touch, we are now limited to do so according to their rules.

f) You are to say NO NO and hope the child listens. Of course when the child gets burned from not learning properly, then we held responsible and are guilty of child abuse anyway.

g) Raising your voice to a child for any reason is child abuse.

h) Sending a child to bed without dinner.

i) Putting a child in time out for too long a time (a time limit to be determined by guess who).

j) A baby falling asleep in a highchair is child abuse.

k) Cutting a child’s hair without permission of, you guessed it, the “God” with a little g—the social worker.

l) Taking pictures of a bathtub scene (now called pornography).

m) Taking a bicycle helmet away from a child to teach respect for the cost of such an item.

n) Even feeding your child fast food. In this instance, it was McDonalds three times within one week.

o) Requiring a child to attend Church, or the teaching any religious beliefs. While keeping in mind that we are to incorporate these children into our homes and lives and treat them just like we would our own.

Child abuse is in the eye of the beholder.
To SOMEONE, (possibly a neighbor or social worker)
the actions above are considered to be “child abuse.” Child abuse is now an open term.
It is literally, an elastic term.

 You see, I have since been involved in literally hundreds of biological parents who have WRONGFULLY lost their children to CPS many due to some of the things listed above.  I am serious.  Allow me to explain.

A few months ago I received a phone call from a gentleman who said that he had a foster/adoptive parent standing in his office that was in the process of raving about our company.  She was telling Dennis Morris, the field representative for assemblywoman Sharon Runner of Northern California.

Since this occurrence I have gotten to know a little more about both of these individuals. I can tell you first-hand that these two individuals really care about biological parents and want to do all they can to help. But, they have also received an education on the plight of my foster/adoptive parents.

In exchange I have been privileged to inform them of what we, foster parents face on a daily basis.  Well, when Dennis called me he asked if our company could do for biological parents what we do for our foster parents.  I assured him that I would do whatever I could for anyone who required assistance.  That is precisely why we are here.  But, whatever I would be able to do would have to be in my spare time.   My first responsibility was to my foster parents.  He agreed to this.

I learned something in this process.  Something that I believe God Himself wanted me to see. When I first started counseling foster parents I always heard that biological parents hated foster parents and vise-versa.  Understandably, we as foster parents are caring for children in the foster care system. Some of these children have suffered horrible abuse at the hands of their own bio parents.  We pick up the pieces for these children. Of course, we think that these are the most horrid people on earth to abuse children this way.

Child abuse is the reason a majority of the biological parents that lose their children.  However, please keep in mind:

Some biological parents have lost their children
without any normal due process of law,
and without being proven guilty
of any wrong doing.

I asked the same question you have in mind right now.  How could this happen in America? I have since discovered that it is not the biological parents who blame the foster parents for the loss of their children.  They tend to believe that we are trying to steal their children’s love away from them.

My discovery is this.  I have overheard conversations between social workers and bio parents, as well as conversations between social workers and foster parents. I have heard, with my own ears, these social workers telling the bio parents that we injured one of their children but the hero social worker took care of it and immediately moved the child to another foster home.

When, in fact, the child was moved because
the Foster Parents were getting too
attached to the child.

In one case the foster parents were told they loved the child TOOOOOO much.  How in God’s name can you ever love a child too much?    Now I know that what social workers report to the bio parents about the moves their children have endured.

Sometimes, these moves amount to four or five in a two- year period.  This is because of too much love?

In reality it is to collect the money
that the bonuses represent to the agency!

I usually laugh when I hear the statement “In the Best Interests of the Child.”  This is the most outrageous saying I have ever heard. It is no longer the best interests of the child if is in the interest of the TREASURE CHEST OF THE AGENCY.

Also, as a side note:  The latest trend in services to biological parents and their children is to make sure there are NO SERVICES.  Instead of assisting biological families in dealing with their problems and working  their children, the most recent development is for CPS:

To take the children, first, without
trying to resolve any of these problems

Child Protective Services can do pretty much whatever they want to do.  No one steps in to protect the biological parents.  Unless, of course, they have the money to purchase justice in our system.   Like us, many just don’t have the financial resources to fight this GIANT ENTITY that I call GOLIATH.

This government-funded giant has unlimited funds to furnish its soldiers with the best equipment, the best  attorneys, and the best testimonies money can buy.  You get the picture.  I have since discovered that the biological parents and grandparents are victims and facing the same common enemy – CPS!

Then, on the other end of the scenario, we as foster parents witness time and time again, where the courts are still playing the game as intended, and giving the BAD biological parents opportunity-after-opportunity to get their lives together and get their children back. 

One side is trying to unify, while the other side of this equation is deliberately tearing those same families apart.  This is not for The Best Interests of the Child.  It is for money.  Remember this.

It is not about The Best Interests of the Children”
It is about the MONEY

The courts get $0.00 out of serving the children. CPS gets it all. It adds up to $billions. You will witness this reunification of the children to the biological parents and the child coming back into the foster care system again and again and again. Each time, more and more damaged by emotional and psychological problems.  It is CPS that does the most harm to the children in  removing them from the biological parents.

Next time your foster child wants to talk, listen to what this child is saying. After talking to your foster child ask yourself these questions:  Was it the child’s biological parents who ripped this child from home, out of the arms of parents who love them?  Was it the parents who left the children sitting a room for hours while they filled out paperwork?  Was it the parents who made this child sleep on the floor of an office while they desperately tried to find a temporary home to place him/her in?

Was it the parents who placed him in a group home where he/she was molested by older children?  Children who have been entrenched in the foster care system for years? Was it during the time the bio parents were caring for this 15-year-old girl who became pregnant, or while in the custody of CPS?

These things take place each and everyday
within the walls and confines of our
Foster Care System in America.

It always intrigues me how we are examined so closely and the social workers, supervisors, and others actually lose (misplace) children within their paperwork nightmare of a system. The children in the system rarely see their social workers. These people LIE to the judge who is in charge of these “Wards of the Court.”  The facts are twisted to suite CPS’s own needs to move children around like pawns in a huge chess game. All of these things mentioned above are done in the name of: 

“The Best Interests Of the Children”

This is not the case at all.  It is called manipulation of a system that is totally out-of-control.  Agencies get bonus money from the Federal and State government:

$$
Per Child, Per Move.
Each and every time CPS removes a child
From their home, foster home or adoptive home.