Guilty until proven innocent: Parents accused of child abuse by DCFS
fight to clear their names
http://www.bnd.com/news/local/story/327965.html
BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK AND BETH HUNDSDORFER
News-Democrat
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services wrongly placed
more than 3,000 people on the state's official list of child abusers
over a five-year period, a News-Democrat investigation found.
That's an error rate of one in four, based on more than 11,000 cases
where people appealed to have their names removed from the list.
Parents and foster parents accused of child abuse or neglect can lose
their reputations, their jobs, even their children.
"They're not all bad, there are good ones," Nick Brunstein said of state
child abuse investigators, "but the bad ones have the power of God, and
with the stroke of a pen they can ruin your life."
Brunstein and his wife, Judi, of Belleville, are former foster parents
who battled the DCFS to clear their names and won, but spent thousands
of dollars on legal fees and lost their children.
"We went through two years of absolute hell," Judi Brunstein said.
A review of state child abuse records by the newspaper found that more
than 80,000 people were placed on the child abuse list -- called the
State Central Register -- from Jan. 1, 2002, to Aug. 1, 2007. Of those,
11,473 people appealed, and 3,051, or 27 percent, won their appeals and
had their names removed from the list or saw their cases tossed out due
to lack of evidence.
Another 1,426 appeals were denied; 3,178 were abandoned or withdrawn by
the accused; 3,289 cases were closed or dismissed through various
administrative processes, and 529 appeals were pending.
While DCFS will not release copies of administrative law judges'
decisions, several were obtained by the newspaper from parents who
appealed.
DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlowe acknowledged that mistakes are made, but
he said the vast majority of people on the State Central Register were
placed there properly, and that most remain on the list for the required
minimum of five years. He declined further comment.
Child abuse investigations are based on a lower standard of proof, or
"credible evidence," despite a 2004 recommendation by the Illinois
Supreme Court that DCFS raise the standard to "a preponderance of the
evidence" -- the standard used in civil courts.
As with all court proceedings, getting to the truth can be difficult,
and winning an appeal doesn't necessarily mean that in every case there
was no abuse or neglect.
"A lot of what happens at these hearings is it becomes a legal process,
not ... whether it happened or not, but whether enough evidence is
presented," said Meryl Paniak, the DCFS' chief administrative law judge.
"So does that mean some people are probably unfounded and shouldn't be?
Yes. And it's the same thing with some who are indicated and probably
shouldn't be."
However, attorneys who regularly represent parents at appeals hearings
-- which are closed to the public -- say that many child abuse
investigations are so flawed they are unreliable.
"They're supposed to be thorough. They're supposed to be fair. They're
supposed to follow their own rules. And in the majority of cases where
we represent people, that's not what's happening," attorney Diane
Redleaf, executive director of the nonprofit Family Defense Center in
Chicago, said.
"We see so many cases where the basic rules are being ignored completely
by the state investigators," she said.
Critics say the child welfare agency's caseworkers, bound by a legal
mandate to protect children, are too quick to turn on the very people
they rely on to make the system work, mainly dedicated and loving
parents, including foster and adoptive parents.
"I've told my friends not to adopt, not to foster through DCFS. They
will get it in the teeth if they do," said Tom Kennedy, a Clayton, Mo.,
lawyer formerly based in Alton who has many Illinois clients. "On the
one hand, they do a very bad job of investigating real serious cases of
abuse. On the other hand, they don't know how to rule out unmerited,
unwarranted claims."
A 2006 News-Democrat series "Lethal Lapses" re****ted that 53 children
died while under DCFS' care after flawed investigations by caseworkers
who did not follow their own rules.
Sup****ters of the system say where child abuse is suspected, caseworkers
must first protect children.
"All the social workers I saw in my own research were much more afraid
of leaving a child in a home where they could be harmed than they were
of falsely accusing a parent," said Jennifer Reich, an assistant
professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the
University of Denver.
In most child abuse cases there are no criminal charges, but people
still need to hire a lawyer to fight the child abuser designation the
state has placed on them -- even though many are poor and can't afford
legal help, Kennedy said.
They also must agree to cooperate fully with state investigators
--usually by accepting a state-drafted safety plan -- or risk losing
their children immediately.
For that reason, many people simply choose not to fight back, parental
advocates say.
"If you don't have a lawyer, you are lost," said Chicago attorney Robert
Lehrer, who formerly worked as a public guardian safeguarding abused
children's rights.
"DCFS is always represented by a lawyer who does nothing else. Most
people don't appeal. They can't afford a lawyer and don't believe they
have a chance," he said.
Sign and they'll go away
When a state official came knocking in February 2007, Nick and Judi
Brunstein already had been cleared of allegations that landed them on
the state's list of child abusers.
But they didn't know it yet, because their lawyer had not been notified
of the hearing judge's ruling.
Nevertheless, a DCFS worker offered to return their foster care license
and close the case if they signed a paper saying they were guilty of
licensing violations, the couple said.
"I told her that there is no way that we are going to sign anything and
admit to something we didn't do," said Nick Brunstein, a retired Army
officer and Desert Storm veteran.
The oldest of the Brunsteins' three foster children -- an 11-year-old
girl diagnosed as schizophrenic and bipolar -- accused the couple of
physically and emotionally abusing them.
She also said the Brunsteins were being overly strict by requiring the
children to do chores and homework.
The day after the caseworker's visit, the Belleville couple learned that
DCFS administrative law judge Judy Heineken believed them and ordered
their names removed from the child abuse list. They recently got their
foster care license back.
Heineken's 25-page ruling criticized DCFS caseworkers for basic errors
in the investigation and for presenting an abuse case dependent on the
uncorroborated word of the 11-year-old.
The judge also chastised the agency's main expert witness, a Belleville
psychologist, who didn't know the girl was schizophrenic and bipolar
because she never checked her medical files.
Heineken said school officials, friends and neighbors "wholly refuted"
the girl's accusations. She also noted the Brunsteins repeatedly asked
DCFS to resume supplying the same mental illness medication the girl
received when living with other foster parents, but the agency refused.
Fighting DCFS cost the Brunsteins $20,000 to hire a lawyer. And the
three girls they hoped to adopt -- ages 2, 5 and 11 -- were taken from
them and never returned.
"I don't know if you can call this a win," Nick Brunstein said. "Our
savings are wiped out, and our caseworker who wanted to take our foster
kids and hurt us did exactly that. No one at DCFS will be held
accountable."
Today, the Brunsteins are parents again. The day before the DCFS worker
came to the door, a surrogate mother delivered their daughter, Grace.
"Kids get bruises and scrapes when they play," said Judi Brunstein as
she watched Grace, now 14 months old, play with toys. "We are going to
be on their radar for the slightest thing. It wouldn't surprise me if
some day they try to get Grace."
Advice: Abandon son
People appeal for reasons other than being on the child abuse list.
Sometimes it's for more financial aid for foster and adoptive children.
Gary and Beverly Waltrip of Decatur appealed for more aid for their
13-year-old son, diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar and ***ually
aggressive with a borderline I.Q.
Data supplied by DCFS show that of 262 appeals for more money during the
2002-07 period, a judge granted 96 of them, or 37 percent.
DCFS supervisors wouldn't allow the Waltrips' 13-year-old adopted son to
return home when he was taken to a Decatur area hospital after he
allegedly ***ually molested his older adopted brother. DCFS officials
told the parents the teen's brothers and sisters could not be exposed to
the youth until he received treatment and was no longer a threat to the
other children.
So the Waltrips placed their other adopted son and biological children
tem****arily with relatives.
The Waltrips tried to get the teen into a residential treatment program,
as a DCFS psychiatrist recommended. Yet for nearly two years while the
family's other children lived apart and the boy's condition
deteriorated, caseworkers stalled, dispensed false information and
failed to provide the financial assistance necessary for residential
treatment, an outraged DCFS administrative law judge wrote in 2006.
Judge Susan Wambach heard the Waltrips' request for increased services
for their son during an appeals hearing. Wambach ruled in their favor
and granted increased financial aid that allowed the boy to be placed in
the Onarga Academy, a treatment center about an hour's drive from Decatur.
During the hearing, Wambach learned that when police detained the boy in
connection with the alleged ***ual molestation, a frantic Beverly
Waltrip called a DCFS adoption specialist for help. The specialist
advised Beverly to let the prison system take him.
"It is shocking that an employee of the department would advise an
adoptive parent to request that the court system send their child to
prison," Wambach wrote in her 25-page decision.
Later, the same adoption specialist was promoted to child abuse
investigator. She could not be reached.
"You would think it would be us working with them to help the kids. But
it's not. It was them against us," Gary Waltrip said.
Fewer protections
Often, it's the most vulnerable families that come under DCFS scrutiny.
"The brunt of the system falls on the poor ... who cannot afford to
appeal," said Lehrer, the Chicago attorney.
"While they need to go after people who are guilty of serious child
abuse -- ***ual abuse, burns, fractures -- the truth is that these kinds
of cases represent a very modest number. Most of the investigations do
not involve real abuse," he said.
People who are accused of child abuse, or "indicated," and appeal don't
have the same protections as in criminal proceedings and are presumed
guilty until proven innocent.
And names can get out, even though the state child abuse register is
closed to the public, lawyers and exonerated parents say. The list is
open to social workers, police officers, school officials, even members
of neighborhood park district boards.
Lehrer said that evidentiary rules at DCFS hearings, which are closed to
the public, allow both sides to introduce hearsay evidence that would be
banned from a criminal courtroom.
While wrongly listing parents as child abusers is "terrible," it is not
the result of malice on the part of DCFS investigators, said Reich, the
University of Denver sociology and criminology professor.
"I think there is in this system -- because of its low burden of proof
-- a logical belief that it's easy to identify abusers and mistakes
aren't going to be made, but that's not true," she said.
Challenging the systemDCFS caseworkers ordered Kim Cooper to put a fence
around her yard and new locks on her doors and windows at a cost of
$5,000 because her severely mentally disabled daughter kept getting out.
The single mother from Collinsville also had to agree to allow a private
agency worker hired by DCFS to sleep on the couch to provide 24-hour
supervision.
Caseworkers first became involved when a neighbor called to say the
13-year-old girl, who has autism, was in their swimming pool.
While Cooper was talking to a DCFS caseworker one day at her kitchen
table, the teen somehow slipped past them and ran outside. Cooper and
the state employee gave chase and finally caught the girl.
The fence and locks proved ineffective.
After that, Cooper refused further DCFS demands, which landed her on the
state child abuse list, indicated for neglect. Cooper appealed, and a
DCFS hearing judge eventually sided with her. But while Cooper waited
for that ruling, caseworkers removed the girl from the home.
"They took her out of my arms," Cooper said. "I didn't know where she
was."
The next day, Cooper filed an emergency petition and went to court to
get her daughter back. A St. Clair County judge ordered the child's
immediate return.
Cooper found her daughter in a Granite City hospital's psychiatric wing.
"She was on a mattress on the floor. There wasn't anything else in the
room. It was awful," she said. "It's the most horrible thing I've ever
been through."
Contact re****ters George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
or 239-2625,
and Beth Hundsdorfer at bhundsdorfer@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
or 239-2570.
CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CONSTITUTIONALLY
GUARANTEED LIBERTIES & CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER
AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAMS....
CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.
every parent should read the free handbook from
connecticut dcf watch..
http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com
Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Wa****ngton. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS
*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*
Physical Abuse CPS/Foster care 160, biological Parents 59
***ual Abuse CPS/Foster care 112, biological Parents 13
Neglect CPS/Foster care 410, biological Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS/Foster care 14 biological Parents 12
Fatalities CPS/Foster care 6.4, biological Parents 1.5
Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and ***ual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.
CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...
BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLI****NG CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...
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