They don't like pictures like this, either.
Posted on 05/13/2008 8:13:30 AM PDT by greyfoxx39
SAN ANGELO, TX -- Although Texas officials have taken some criticism for removing hundreds of children from a religious compound, the Baptist agency caring for them has earned praise from the most important people: the children themselves.
Baptist Child and Family Services, an agency affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, was charged with caring for hundreds of children removed from the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints compound near Eldorado, Texas, in April. They coordinated the children’s care in nearby San Angelo for three weeks, after which 75 moved to the BCFS Youth Ranch near Luling.
"You’re nice," a 6-year-old girl announced last week as Nanci Gibbons, the agency’s executive vice president, walked past her on the ranch play ground.
"Why, thank you," Gibbons replied, "but how do you know I’m nice?"
"Because your shirt says 'BCFS,'" the girl answered, "and you know what BCFS stands for, don’t you?"
"Is it, 'Beef, Chicken, Fish and Sausage?'" Gibbons guessed, quoting the nickname many of the children had bestowed during their stay in San Angelo.
"Oh no," the girl said firmly. "It means, 'Best Care for Children.'"
"For the children to recognize that the folks in BCFS shirts are there to help and be nice is the best compliment we could get," BCFS chief executive Kevin Dinnin said. "Though there are significant differences, there is a common denominator between what we are doing with the FLDS children and what we did for Hurricane Katrina evacuees and victims of the Sri Lanka tsunami and what we're doing to help fight the international sex trafficking in Moldova -- we didn’t create the situation, but are working to meet the needs of those affected.
"Job one continues to be respecting each child’s dignity and making them as content as possible. Our overriding concern is to provide the children with safe, clean places to sleep, access to medical care, healthy food and people who care about them."
Placing 75 of the 462 children -- taken from the polygamist compound on suspicion of abuse -- at the Youth Ranch allowed Texas Child Protective Services to keep many sibling groups together.
It also kept BCFS in overdrive mode to staff the facility and activate support programs with local school districts. One of the mobile medical units was also stationed at the ranch.
In the move from San Angelo, one constant for children was the men and women in BCFS shirts.
"In San Angelo, our staff -- all wearing BCFS shirts -- quickly became known as the people you went to when you needed something, whether it was organic baby food or just someone to listen. And now the 75 children waiting to know what their future will be have promoted us several ranks, it seems."
The San Antonio-based agency was alerted April 4, just as the operation to remove the children from the compound got under way, to be ready to receive 24 children at the Youth Ranch. But the next day Dinnin was asked if BCFS could supervise sheltering operations in San Angelo "for up to 150 women and children." At the operation’s peak, the shelters housed 550 women and children.
As "incident commander," Dinnin and BCFS were tasked with providing oversight and coordination for all the agencies responding to the crisis. During the three weeks the children and mothers were housed in San Angelo before a court ordered the children placed in child-care facilities across the state, approximately 1,000 state, county, and city personnel and volunteers worked under BCFS supervision.
The agency interacted daily on critical incident decisions with the commissioners of the Texas Department of State Health Services, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the Texas Department of Public Safety, Gov. Rick Perry’s staff and other local and statewide elected officials.
BCFS deployed 55 employees, including most of its senior administrative staff, and more than $1 million in assets. In addition to two mobile medical clinics and a mobile feeding unit, BCFS provided communication technology for the operation, including VHF radios for communication between all responding agencies, satellite uplink for Internet telephones, 28 laptop computers, plasma-screen and projector displays for incident management and direct, real-time, visual incident-management communication with the Texas State Operations Center in Austin.
While state child-protection officials and Texas courts decided about placement of the children, BCFS ministered to emotionally stressed women and children around the clock; respected the FLDS adherents’ religious practices by providing organic, non-processed meals and acceptable toys and play activities; treated outbreaks of chicken pox and respiratory infections (FLDS children do not take inoculations); created an alternate phone system when the cable to the shelters and command post was accidentally cut; developed contingency plans for all possible court rulings; processed mountains of laundry; and handled all purchasing.
When the courts ordered the transfer of the children to facilities across the state, BCFS used GPS technology to track the bus convoys dispatched around Texas.
"To categorize the sheltering operations as 'highly successful' is a gross understatement," Dinnin added. "To quote Chief Colley of the Governor’s Division of Emergency Management, BCFS was the 'rock star' of the San Angelo operation. We do appreciate that -- but being noted for providing ‘Best Care for Children’ is the highest compliment possible."
In the past few years, BCFS has gained a national reputation for its expertise in such operations. Last month the Federal Emergency Management Agency asked it to be a "subject-matter consultant" to develop a "functional template" for special-needs shelters.
BCFS also is in charge of training Texas cities in setting up such facilities and recently began doing the same for the state of Nevada.
The BCFS incident-management team has undergone a nationally recognized training program and is credentialed through the Federal Emergency Management Agency in various aspects of emergency management. The team’s 55 members were pulled from BCFS programs across the state. Most worked 14- to 18-hour daily shifts on the front end of the operation.
Ping
Thanks!
bump
If only Helen Mar Kimball could have had such an agency.
Its a conspiracy!
First the Baptist buses and now this!
:0)
It is just the anti-establishment people ( I mean kooks ) who think we should just be an anarchy based community. They want no law enforcment at all and trash every LEO agency no matter what the context of the story.
They don't like pictures like this, either.
The ACLU must be having a fit. Sounds like a religious group is interfering in a secular government function!
After you’ve been abused by DCF, you get naturally suspicious.
I belong to a homeschool group, of whom the vast majority is very mainstream. I can count on both hands families that have been harassed, and know of only one case of actual abuse. So yes, I’m always cautious of overreaching government here.
All that said, I think these children have been abused.
It’s all lies, I tell you. We all know they’re being horribly abused in their current situation whereas before they had great lives. How dare the mean old government take them away from the wonderful lives they were living./s/
Gee, sounds like Utah! Or Arizona. Selective law enforcement.
Any updates on Elian Gonzales to go with this?
Amen...
LOL!
the reason those girls are smiling is the guy in the pink shirt and overalls was going to be their husband next week (I’d be smiling too!)
Imagine that. This little girl is finally seeing the lies she's been fed all these years. Hopefully, this is a start in breaking the cycle of brainwashing and abuse.
Oh, YEAH!
Nice tagline.
Whatever: I juz wanna know how the women get their hair to look so cool! Gotta admit: they all look healthy and old fashioned beautiful.
Well thank God for Baptists.
These children are probably learning some permanent lessons from watching healthy interaction between men and women that are free and faithful, and that are working so hard to do well in an activity that does not serve themselves or their group in any material way.
Due to the forced lifestyle and competitiveness even within the family structure of their previous existence these children may have never witnessed true altruistic behavior.
The memories of these Baptists will never leave them regardless of where their futures lead.
The french braids and scotch braids are cool....
The Elvis pompadours are a bit too early circa 1870 for me must require lots of hairpins!
In before the Baptist bashing begins...
(Belly laugh)...that is toooooo funny.
First, I’m going to put on my magical armor.
Now, It makes me wonder about the education these children have been given, (or about the education level of the reading public) when one of these girls says BCFS stands for Best Care For Children.
I never knew the word children had a silent ‘s’ in front of it.
Well, she is only 6.
She seems to be doing better than.... never mind....
I’m glad we have at least one great intellect here to pick up on that.
Go Baptists!
(from your Presbyterian friends. . .)
It’ really stands for
Best Care for Children’s Sanity.
CPS is not these people but imagine how one of those non-polygamous families in the compound must feel about their children being indoctrinated by strangers.
put the FLDS aside for the moment.
do we REALLY want CPS putting out ANY propaganda type pieces? WHY is this story in the media if not to CYA the CPS? Baptist services may be wonderful and nice but this does not change the fact this case is being tried in the court of public opinion rather than the courts of law.
At least this is one that can't be blamed on 'publik skools.'
I think her comment was swee....oops...I mean kind. It was a kind comment.
which CPS person authorized a repoter to do this story.
how are reporters getting access to the children when their purported parents are being shut out. (even the monogamous families)
Does this mean ANY stranger can have access to these children if CPS thinks you will give them a positive spin?
Not enough WHY being asked around here.
Remember these CPS are the people who think ALL families are bad.
Ooopppps...I am not Baptist either...(RC)...I surely hope these wonderful people don’t catch any ‘heck’ for their kindness shown towards these kids. You know no good deed ever goes unpunished...
Well, I’m amazed! It’s amazing to me that she would have the “idea” of initialism in the first place at the age of six even if she did miss it a bit.
Acronym? In any event, I agree...she is a bright little girl :)
FLDS was the first to take it to the court of public opinion, setting up a website to release its talking points, and even sending out its trolls to boards such as this one to attack Texas for both the raid and for separating the children from the cult.
I just talked to Elian. He said to tell you that you're an idiot.
When this first went down I told yall the Baptist were gonna do what CPS couldn’t the Baptist are good at this.
I could go find the story and link I guess but I’m lazy and FR is slow today
I thank God for the cooperative program that makes this kind of ministry possible.
Desperate to hijack the thread?
Really?
Every CPS person I ever dealt with was a family first kind of person....to the point they would do everything in their power to try to get fractured, messed up, trainwreck families back together. Even if those rotten parents didn’t deserve their kids-— the judges and SW would go out of their way to give the parents every chance to redeem themselves. Get off drugs, get a job/place to live with electricity, take their meds and stop raging at their spouses and kids etc....
BTW, two of the best CPS SW I knew were super-conservative pastor’s wives who really believed in trying to make the world better for the kids in their care. In fact, just about every CPS worker in this neck of the woods is a conservative....go figure.
VR your forgot to add sending out the ‘well spoken’ moms to Larry King. That was a slam dunk in the court of public opinion too...the gals left such an ‘impression.’
Non-polygamous families? Got a link?
(Still looking for the fruit that "befits repentance" tho--perhaps a few of those telling those lies will come forth for confession & penance)
Initialism is like IRS or HTML or ESP.
Heh...don't think I'm so smart...I had to look it up.
Of course those evil Baptists must just be doing this in order to indoctrinate the children.
do we REALLY want CPS putting out ANY propaganda type pieces? WHY is this story in the media if not to CYA the CPS?
Maybe someone in the media though the public might be interested and thought it might be nice to get a different point of view other than just the claims of the FLDS members and their lawyers accusing the CPS while the CPS rarely comments in response.
Baptist services may be wonderful and nice but this does not change the fact this case is being tried in the court of public opinion rather than the courts of law.
Most of what we have heard from the CPS has been either from submissions made to the court, or responses when they were questioned by the state legislature.
It is the FLDS that has made the effort to put pressure on the CPS and the courts by swaying public opinion, not the CPS.
Are you suggesting that the media be banned from saying anything good about the care that the children are receiving, and all they should be able to report on is what they are told by FLDS members and their lawyers?
It seems to me that you're not opposed to propaganda. You just don't like seeing news articles that don't support your views, even if they are based on fact.
Makes you wish the kids were still in their care. One of the few bright spots in the story. Of course, no surprise that if you want the government to do something right, don’t let government do it, give it over to the private charities.
;)PaMom
Let’s pretend that in the near future, after Obama packs the courts, that it is made a crime to teach “intolerance” to homosexuality. The CPS raids your church and confiscates your kids. The children are then sent to a camp run by the local gay, lesbian and bi-sexual alliance. I can assure you the volunteers would treat your kids well and involve them in all the traditional camp games. Then, when oicked by leaders of the group the most enthusiastic kids will tell how wonderful their counselors are.
It may happen to you in the future. May as well be aware of how propaganda works.
Yes, Big Brother is always your friend. Big Brother likes children...now what book did I read something like that in?
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