Posted on 12/27/2014 7:38:55 AM PST by Altariel
A Sioux Falls couple is preparing for a Christmas without their three children---who are now in the state's custody.
Parents Molly and Mike say their children were taken from their home after taking their 2 month old son to the E-R for an unknown injury. They say similar stories can be found all over the U.S.
"He wouldn't eat when he was crying we would see the cut on his tongue, so I called his doctor and he said we should take him to the ER. So we went to the ER," mother Molly Bowling said.
The couple says they told the doctor they had no idea how where the cut on their two month old came from, thinking it might have happened it daycare.
"They called Children's Voice and they said that Creedance needed to stay overnight there," Bowling said.
"As soon as I asked for a lawyer...they came here and took the other kids out of the house," father Mike Becker said.
They've now gone more than three weeks without their children with no idea when or how they might get them back.
"It makes me scared to take my kids to the doctor ever again. When we do get them back I'm just going to wrap all of my kids in bubble wrap so nothing ever happens to them, because if you do have to take them to the doctor, this is scary that this could happen," Becker said.
All they have is a letter saying there were no signs of abuse, but the CPS says it did find signs of neglect.
"Neglect can be a number of things, when the parents or caretakers don't meet the needs of their children. That could be not responding to a health issue, could be failure to thrive," Division of Child Protective Services Director Virgena Wieseler said.
Its one of many cases medical providers are required to report.
"It may not be full-fledged physical or sexual abuse, just not having the child taken care of, not properly feeding the child, certainly is another reason we will contact child protective services," Avera Emergency Physician Dr. Jared Friedman said.
"The only time a medical professional is going to contact law enforcement or child protection is if the child presents with an injury and the explanation by the caregiver or the parent is inconsistent with that injury," Wieseler said.
She says common injuries would not be reported.
"Parents should not be afraid to take their children to the doctor," Wieseler said.
"We don't want to have accidents happen or injuries happen where they are injured significantly and then they don't receive the proper evaluation and that leads to long term pain or long term disability for the child," Dr. Friedman said.
As for Mike and Molly, they still have no idea when their three young children will be able to come home. Right now they don't even known the next time they'll be able to argue their case in court.
National advocates say thousands of cases they call medical kidnapping are happening all over the country. In some cases taking children away from their parents for years.
Yet the authorities ignore cases of OBVIOUS abuse and 1000s of children die. This stinks.
My wife is a primary school teacher and has seen numerous cases of this as well as the other side where kids with obvious abuse, broken leg with strap marks on the leg, for instance, that are ignored. When our daughter fell off a jungle gym and broke her elbow we had Family Srvices threatening us.
Good grief! Having had 5 kids, I can attest to the fact that through the years, at least one of my kids had an unexplained cut on his tongue.
There is a concern that too many black children are being removed from homes compared to white children and there is pressure to ‘even up the numbers’. I suspect this family is white.
Creedance? Sounds like a sequence of steps set rhythmically to music and performed by a Canadian Indian tribe. Truly an odd name for a child.
One size fits all? These social workers would have gone screaming over the hill had they been around during the 20's and 30's...families torn apart by a real depression...abuse of children? Yes, but it was called survival instead.
Unless they were fans of (and misspelled) the band.
My eldest son, as an infant around 9 months, wanted to walk. He would pull himself up on a chair or table and then turn around and throw his head forward for momentum and try to make it to another object or piece of furniture. He made it most of the time but also banged his head sometimes when I could not catch him. I could not let him out of arms length for a few months and still he’d bruise himself. It was a nightmare, but thankfully no one accused us of hurting him. He did it at the doctor’s office, too. Finally, his legs were strong enough to walk. I was so relieved!
It will take months. There is a procedure to the state’s custody. First there is a protective custody hearing and the judge routinely takes the children into state’s custody, very similar to a preliminary hearing. Then there is an adjudication. The couple needs to get not just any attorney, but get one that does the child abuse/neglect (CA/N) cases routinely. A two month old baby is very vulnerable, and the failure to thrive generally means the baby has not gained or even has lost weight since birth. A “cut” on the tongue in a two month old could mean a cut on the tongue, although how would a two month old put something sharp enough to cut her tongue in her mouth, or the “cut” could be a commonly found in abused babies torn frenulum from having a bottle or something else jammed into her mouth, or it could be a wound in the tongue from dehyration, all of which are not good.
So during the adjudication, which has to take place within a very tight time deadline, the evidence will be presented by the investigators and the foster care case manager about the injury and the neglect.
During disposition, the foster care case manager will make recommendations for services for the family in order to meet the goal of reunification between parents and children. In this case, perhaps parenting classes, a parent aid, state funded day care so the parents can work, nutrition classes, maybe a drug evaluation, maybe a psychological evalution, to see if mom or dad has a drug problem (meth most commonly although presecription pain pills is another common problem) or a psychiatric issue. If the parents do everything that is asked, never miss their visits with the children, don’t miss court, learn that the children need snacks as well as meals, are feeding on demand as opposed to some wacko Christian food denial thing (I am a Christian, I am talking about those wacko child domination programs that force children to wait to eat til their parents are happy with them, not saying that is what goes on here, but it could be), and learn how to redirect as opposed to hitting for discipline (oh now the Freepers who love spanking will come out) the parents will be reunited with their children and will have learned something.
It could take 6 months or longer if the parents refuse to get with the program and if after 1 year, they haven’t been to their classes and evaluations, the state can move to have their rights terminated, but it is not easy to terminate their rights.
Meanwhile, if there is an appropriate aunt, uncle, or grandparent willing to take on the children, they should intervene in the case, go through the background checks and get licensed as a foster home and give the kids a family member to reside with while the process goes on. This is the preferred placement, with a willing and appropriate relative.
Yes the process is mysterious and frightening, but it is not the state stealing and selling kids. If the parents refuse to show they are drug free, psychologically ok and understand what a child needs to develop, it is difficult, otherwise it is not.
It’s cases like this that forced me to NOT take one of my kids for medical attention after he got injured in an accident with his mom playing with him. For a couple of hours I wasn’t sure if it would get better on its own, so I had contingency plans to get out of town...figuring that mom had a much better chance of keeping the kid. Thankfully it got better on its own (after a few hours), but then it happened a second time (probably weakened), and finally a third time - which was at school - and that was GREAT, because it meant we could finally get him treated. We did, and he never had the problem again (it was a dislocation, it needed to be immobilized), and no CPS files were ever opened.
It is a STATE LAW in Texas, and probably every other state, that ANY ADULT that has contact with a kid has to report everything that cannot be easily explained...we simply respond to that law.
BTT
Actions speak much louder than words...In these cases they are yelling...
How many children will have to suffer because of the fear of the state? You are putting caring parents in a tough spot...In so many words you and your kind are losing the faith and trust of your patients or their care-givers.
It is the state, and representatives of the state, using unlawful power with overwhelming arrogance.
How traumatic is tearing a child away from their parents? How often are the assumptions of the state wrong? When the default attitude is that the parents are bad, the state will get it wrong very often.
The very idea that the state has a right to take children from their parents for months while they determine if the parents are guilty of something, is outrageous. Especially if the concern is “neglect” (you’re not taking care of your child the way I think you should be).
If the state had any honest concern for the children, and suspected neglect, they would leave the children in the home and spend time observing, monitoring and HELPING the parents learn how to care for the children properly.
Forcibly removing the child should be the LAST option, not the default.
You make a statement that makes me shake my head in amazement: “...how would a two month old put something sharp enough to cut her tongue in her mouth...” Have you not been around a two month old? Good grief!! They pick up anything and everything and put it in their mouths.
The basic problem is a lack of humility, and the base-line arrogant attitude that the state knows better than we do...that, and a colossal disregard for the emotional well-being of the family should the state’s all-knowing wisdom be fallible.
So which one of those steps did Justina Peletier’s parents not follow?
I’ll sum it up. It’s all part of new conditioning by an evil Govt. Condition families that the State now has power of your family.
Like everything else happening today, it will get worse before it gets better (Dalton/Road House wisdom).
Yes, that appears on its face to be a bad one, one where the state was covering for a doctor who was playing God.
A two month old does not pick up everything and put it in her mouth, have you not ever been around a two month old? That is 8 weeks.
Believe me, some kids are delighted to be out of their parents’ home.
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