Statement of Cynthia Huckelberry, Redlands, California, and Sushanna Khamis, Yucaipa, California

OVERVIEW OF NEGATIVE IMPACT RELATED TO THE CURRENT CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICE PROGRAM/REVISED:

Child Protective Services was designed to protect children and aid families that are in need of assistance in order to maintain the family unit. Unfortunately, today we are finding that C.P.S is targeting specific families with limited set budgets, where child removal is commonly practiced for personal financial gain. The lack of compassion exhibited by C.P.S caseworkers towards the impoverished children that they serve, further devalues their lives in the eyes of these caseworkers. Thus indicating, that a lack of understanding and caring related to the circumstances of these financially challenged families, creates further dissention, prejudicing these C.P.S workers from the very people they serve.

Within this document, the information provided will serve as an insight into the true source of the problems that plagues C.P.S today. Also, it will provide possible solutions that may be utilized to best serve a new restructured Child Protective Service Agency.

HOW C.P.S LEGALLY REMOVES CHILDREN FORM PARENTAL CUSTODY

C.P.S systematically removes children from their families, whom do not meet the criteria for removal, through vague and ambiguous interpretation of their own codes and policy and procedures. They are able to operate in this manner by selecting specific target groups.

The target groups that C.P.S has tagged are the poor, disabled, elderly, and the undereducated.  Parents/guardians unfamiliar with the law, with limited or no financial means to secure impartial unbiased legal representation, blindly trust the courts.  Therefore Child Protective Service is able to manipulate the court system to secure foster care or adoption status of these children for profit.

Example: Each child placed in foster care has an annual value of $30,000.  

More monies are available, up to $150,000 dollars per child, for those that meet the special needs criteria. After 24 months- during the concurrent foster care /adoption process, placement becomes final, where upon an $8,000 dollar bonus is dispersed to the county from the State. This bonus money is then divided amongst individuals that enabled the adoption process to be completed. This is not necessarily a positive solution for these children, but a personal financial gain to workers. Thus, this leads us to believe that some of the decisions made by C.P.S officials serve only as a means to enhance their personal budgets.

Upon removal, C.P.S creates a plan for reunification that is designed to promote the family’s failure.  These case plans do not allow the families the time needed to comply nor do they have the financial resources needed to meet the court assigned criteria.  Unbeknownst to the families, the courts, lawyers, and C.P.S workers falsely interject foster care criteria when family criteria should be utilized. Workers may also place long-term program demands on the parents that purposely overrun the 24-month time period.

This then allows the state to complete the adoption process to outside individuals.

In other cases, failure to protect –WIC 300b was cited to obtain removal of the children, when the custodial parents acted protectively, in accordance to the law, after a crime was committed against one of their children.  Currently all children from these cases remain in “protective custody” under the authority of C.P.S.

FAMILY COURT CUSTODY REMOVAL - PARENT ALIENATION SYNDROME

Let it be known, that Family Court officials regularly remove custody of children from one parent to another (usually mother to father), citing parent alienation syndrome. C.P.S agrees to serve as the tool to enable custody transfer, a corrupt process observed by the FBI. Where, in truth, caseworkers are never allowed to testify in family court under the cloak of C.P.S authority, due to possible misuse or conflict of interest related to the right to privacy laws.  FBI Agent/Lawyer Brenda Atkinson- San Francisco can verify this information by calling her at (415) 553-7400.

Child Protective Service also submits false documentation so as to provide a supportive basis necessary to substantiate their decisions. Thus the truth is purposely obstructed altered or omitted to justify case plans.

In many cases, C.P.S has failed to investigate additional outside reports from various professionals and agencies such as children’s physicians, police agencies, school system, etc. 

WHY DOES CPS SYSTEMATICALLY REMOVE CHILDREN FROM THEIR FAMILIES AND PLACE THEM IN FOSTER CARE?

Since Clinton enacted the adoption and Safe Families act in 1997, this has lead to widespread corruption within the child Protective Services Agency and outlying neighboring agencies.  By systematically removing children from predominantly poor families, C.P.S is able to secure foster care/ adoption status for these children with little or no parental encumbrance.

Thus C.P.S victimizes those families that have no means available, to properly investigate C.P.S corrupt activities directed at their family.

Since Federal and state matching funds generate the budget for C.P.S, the single means utilized to elevate the budget is to increase foster care and adoption caseloads.

Bonus incentives for adoptions are currently $8,000 per child. $4,000 is given to the foster parents and another $4,000 is placed in a general fund, to reward workers for completing their job duties.  Workers in this county, state that they do not personally financially benefit from this fund.  Thus it leads us to believe, that other neighboring agencies are benefiting form this fund, in return for deceptive practices that support C.P.S decisions.

BABY TRAFFICKING

False Allegations of drug abuse have been logged against mothers and their newborn infants as a means to place these infants into protective custody.  The hospital staff has allowed C.P.S to remove infants (a hospital violation) prior to verification of blood and urine drug screen tests.  C.P.S is mandated to secure verification of drug allegations via blood and urine results, prior to removing the newborn infant from the hospital.  All cases known to us resulted negative for the mother and the newborn, but these infants were never returned, and were adopted outside of kinship.

In the past year, the FBI has arrested and imprisoned C.P.S workers who were actively involved in baby trafficking for profit.  These C.P.S workers knowingly abducted infants from the hospital where they in turn networked them into legal adoption agencies.  Augustus Fennerty, FBI director for Crimes against Children (Washington D.C) can verify this information. (202) 324-3000

CHILD SEX TRADE INDUSTRY

Southern California FBI District has videotape recorded CPS workers placing foster care children onto planes via LAX, destination Europe for child sex trade industry.  This can be verified through Ted Gunderson, (retired) FBI Director Southern California (310) 477-6565.

SEXUAL VICTIMIZATION IN FOSTER CARE

For the families in relation to our group in San BernardinoCounty, it has come to our attention while comparing similarities, that approximately half the children in foster care have been molested.

These children were not sexually abused by their parents, but by the foster fathers or others in the foster home. It was also noted that these foster homes are still operating in the same capacity prior to complaints, without any investigation into these allegations.  C.P.S officials were made aware of these accusations by the children, but failed to follow through with a criminal investigation.

In conclusion, Child Protective Service is nothing more than an “oasis’’ for child molesters, to make a profit, while at the same time committing a crime, only to be protected by a malignant system that delivers a never ending supply of victims

SYSTEMATIC FRAUDULENT MANEUVERS UTILIZED TO ENHANCE C.P.S BUDGET

• C.P.S manufactures multiple nonexistent /fictitious abuse case scenarios to offset true statistical abuse case information.

• C.P.S concurrently processes these children from foster care to adoption, in order to obtain perverse monetary incentives in the form of bonuses. 

• C.P.S provides a market to neighboring agencies and the courts (commissioners, psychologists, monitors, court mandated behavioral class instructors, court appointed legal counsel), in order for them to financially benefit from the foster care/adoption system.

• C.P.S victimizes innocent impoverished families, draws them into a corrupt system to utilize their children as pawns for commerce.

MALICIOUS OPERATIVE TECHNIQUES

• C.P.S is utilized by family court officials, as an adverse tool to extricate children from one parent to the other, with reference to “parent alienation syndrome”.   

• Where, in truth, caseworkers are never allowed to testify in family court under the cloak of C.P.S authority, due to possible misuse or conflict of interest related to the right to privacy laws.

• C.P.S utilizes coercive measures to persuade parents to submit to statements of prior alleged abuse, when these actions were nonexistent.   In other words, forcing desperate parents to “plea bargain” to a C.P.S fabricated crime, for the return of their children from foster care.

• C.P.S fabricates portions of investigations, where such duties have never been physically performed, to purposely mislead or direct a case. 

• C.P.S knowingly abandons children into foster care, conscious of the fact that some foster care parents and or individuals in the home physically and sexually abuse the children in their protective custody.

• C.P.S intentionally fails to prosecute parents accused of child abuse, since in the majority of cases, no initial crime has been committed.

• C.P.S represents themselves in positive personas, by omitting, altering, and falsifying documents, so as to mislead the public and or government of their true actions as listed above. Thereby publicly grandstanding, displaying an inaccurate social martyrdom for the well being of children.

• C.P.S ignores crimes committed in foster care, such as the atrocious acts of unexplained deaths.

• C.P.S fails to question these individuals for their abusive conduct, whereby, if it were not a foster care parent, these individuals would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

SHOULD CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICE BE RESTRUCTURED?

The police should determine if a child has a true need for protection from his parents, since child abuse is a criminal offence.  Thus, C.P.S should be incorporated with Crimes against Children Units that are currently located within police, sheriffs and FBI agencies.

The merging of the two would reduce the amount of false allegations reported, since complaints made to a police unit is a criminal offence.  Also, the police have the training and resources needed to conduct a thorough investigation. This allows them to determine that if a crime has been committed that warrants the need for foster care.

A parent/guardian under the suspicion of the crime “Child Abuse” would meet the criteria for removal. This would activate the foster care system.  Only then would the foster care system be utilized as a response to a possible or suspected crime.

Thus in turn, this would eliminate the unnecessary utilization of the foster care system that has been grossly misused in the past.  Unwarranted victimization of children and their families would be greatly reduced and soaring costs would be contained. This would minimize the number of future cases that fall through the cracks and get lost in the system.

WHAT ROLE SHOULD THE SOCIAL WORKERS PLAY IN THE NEW CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICE?

•  All caseworkers must have a bachelor’s degree in social work from an accredited college.

• All states must create bachelor level licensing for social workers.

• All workers must have a current license to work within any state or county in the United States with reciprocity.

• All social workers must have a preceptor for at least three months prior to individual casework.

WHO SHOULD BE A MEMBER OF THE CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICE TEAM WITHIN THE CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN UNITS?

Other members from various agencies should be inclusive to this unit, since they bring their specific expertise to complete a proper investigation. It is our opinion that the following individuals who should comprise this team are as stated: Registered Nurse, School Principal, Detective, and Social Worker.

SHOULD AN OUTSIDE AGENCY SYSTEMATICALLY REVIEW THE CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICE TEAM’S PERFORMANCE?

All agencies must have an outside quality control board that monitors case investigations on a random basis and when requested by the public.  This Board must include members similar to the Child Protective Service team, with the addition of an individual from the public. No member may be employed more than three years, to maintain the integrity of the boards’ unbiased decisions.                        

SHOULD WE MAINTAIN A CHILD ABUSE INDEX LIST?

The child abuse index list shall be maintained only when an individual has been prosecuted and convicted by a court of law for a crime against a child. Today’s said list shall be destroyed, so as to prevent harm to those currently listed who have been accused of a crime against a child, but that have never been prosecuted or convicted. And, children should never be placed on any list that would categorize them in an adverse manner, such as this.

SHOULD THERE BE NEW RULES AND REGULATIONS RELATED TO FOSTER CARE?

There should be a limited number of children allowed to be placed in any single home under foster care, including adoption. No single family shall be allowed to adopt or provide foster care to more than two children at any time. The only exception shall be when siblings number more than two and are placed in the same single dwelling.  This will eliminate the financial incentive for monetary gain related to housing foster children and adoptions.

Redlands, California 92373
Yucaipa, California 92399
July 12, 2004

U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515-0542

To our Honorable U.S. House of Representatives,

It is unfortunate that Child Protective Service officials have mislead the government into believing, that increased funding is necessary to solve the multitude of problems that encompass C.P.S. This agency is utilizing the funding issue as the scapegoat for their problems, when in actuality the workers themselves, the lack of their personal accountability, are the source of the problem. Further funding will not solve C.P.S’S current crisis, only the restructuring of this agency will provide a solution.

Sincerely,

Cynthia Huckelberry

Sushanna Khamis