Posted on 03/02/2006 8:49:11 AM PST by freepatriot32
NORWALK, Ohio - Some of the special-needs children who slept in cage-like beds fitted with alarms had asked for the structures to be built, their adoptive mother testified at a custody hearing.
Sharen Gravelle testified Wednesday that she and her husband Michael built bunk beds and attached a wooden playhouse the family called a club house for some of the children's toys.
The other children then requested them and the couple felt the brightly painted beds enclosed with wood and wire helped keep them from getting into trouble at night, she said.
The couple have pleaded not guilty to several charges, including child endangerment, in a separate criminal case. The custody hearing was scheduled to resume Thursday.
Prosecutors accuse the couple of locking some of their 11 adopted children in cages to discipline them, and want Huron County to take permanent custody them. The children have been in foster care since the enclosed beds were discovered last fall.
The Gravelles are fighting to regain custody. They deny abusing their adopted children, ages 1 to 15, and say the beds were necessary to protect the youngsters, who suffered from various psychological and behavioral problems.
Under questioning by her attorney, Ken Myers, Sharen Gravelle said that when the children became older they acted up more, including escaping from their regular beds in the middle of the night to fetch knives from the kitchen or to punch each other.
"They just didn't seem normal to me, I mean the behavior didn't and I didn't know what to do," she said.
The mother said she sought help from Huron County social workers and received none. So she did research on the Internet and found Elaine Thompson, an independent licensed social worker also charged in the case.
Gravelle said Thompson approved the beds and that at least one inspection for another adoption was done at the home in rural Wakeman about 60 miles west of Cleveland after the enclosures were built.
Huron County Juvenile Prosecutor Jennifer DeLand said the Gravelles have refused a court order to undergo psychological testing. She presented documents from the Gravelles' first adoption home study that she said proved the couple had lied about previous abuse allegations and investigations by a child protective agency in Lorain County, where they used to live.
Sharen Gravelle denied lying and said she had not seen the documents, although she acknowledged her and her husband's signatures were on the papers below a sworn statement that the information was true.
Sharen Gravelle said she met her husband in 1986 at a dinner for a child sex abuse support group. She said she was attending because a relative had been molested. Michael Gravelle was there because he was accused of inappropriate touching, a charge he denies. The couple married two months later.
The Gravelles are charged with child endangering, falsifying adoption applications and lying under oath when becoming qualified for adoption funding. If convicted, they would face one to five years in prison and a maximum $10,000 fine for each of 16 counts of felony child endangering.
Attorney Kenneth Myers, left, asks Sharen Gravelle questions as she testifies during a custody hearing in Huron County Juvenile Court Wednesday, March 1, 2006, in Norwalk, Ohio. Sharen and Michael Gravelle are accused of locking some of her 11 adopted, special-needs children in cages denied in teary testimony Wednesday that she and her husband were cruel to his biological children. Gravelle is holding photographs of the cages. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, Pool)
How much money does the government give these scum to torture these children?
Just a loving foster parent waiting for the children's monthly checks. These POS deserves to live in a steel bar cages of their own to determine whether their behavior would be modified.
From the article, it's easy to presume the kids were living in something resembling a kennel. If that is an accurate depiction, the mother is despicable, we all agree. But keep in mind: while we can all imagine a foster mother desperately spinning things to keep custody, we can also picture the media spinning an unusual circumstance into a horror story, can't we?
99% chance the woman is full of BS... but I'd want to see the "cages" first. What kid, assigned to the bottom bed of bunk beds, hasn't hung blankets to completely enclose his bed? There is a wierd sense of comfort of being enclosed.
Under questioning by her attorney, Ken Myers, Sharen Gravelle said that when the children became older they acted up more, including escaping from their regular beds in the middle of the night to fetch knives from the kitchen or to punch each other.
"They just didn't seem normal to me, I mean the behavior didn't and I didn't know what to do," she said.
The mother said she sought help from Huron County social workers and received none. So she did research on the Internet and found Elaine Thompson, an independent licensed social worker also charged in the case.
Have you ever dealt with "special-needs kids"? What if one of the kids had harmed another? People would be calling for punishing the foster parents for not doing something to prevent it.
There HAS to be plenty of better methods of scamming a few government buck than adopting "special-needs kids". One of those can be a handful.
My son saw something like this for sale at Costco ($500) and begged and whined and actually offered to work to save up the money for it. All the kids in the store were climbing around on it, playing in it, and begging their parents to let them have it.
One of my best friends is an autistic man, and I have learned a lot from him about how important it is for a person, even adults, with certain disorders, to feel safe. My friend has turned his room into a virtual cacoon, with bars and blankets over the windows, his bed is very small with many blankets piled on, so that he can actually feel the weight of them at night as he sleeps. It works for him. Who can say what works for kids?
http://www.templegrandin.com/templehome.html
This woman has done some bizarre things, like building herself an actual squeeze chute like they use for cattle, to comfort herself when she feels stress.
I don't know all the details of this case, in fact none of us do yet. I just know that there are sometimes things that special children need that seem really bizarre to the rest of us, and yet, as parents we need to move beyond that and do what is right for our children. Until we know all the facts, I refuse to condemn these parents out of hand.
I've read in other articles that the children were healthy, happy and educated - if parents can do that with foster or adopted special needs kids, they're doing something right.
Unless I was hearing all the evidence, I wouldn't want to come to a conclusion.
Mrs VS
If it works and keeps them from harming themselves/others, then who are we to decide. Now if cattle prongs and whips were involved, that would be a different story.
I built my "club" houses in the backwoods near the trailor park we lived from 5th to 10th grade. It sucked not have real woods/open ground to play in, even if it was an old strip mine.
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