Case Study #3: To Feed or not to Feed?

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pstrongHow Do I Help My Daughter?br /br / Carmen's* Story/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby PNN/p pI knew that there was something wrong with my daughter. I knewbr / that she was sick, had some sort of illness that was making her continue tobr / gain weight. She just kept gaining and gaining, and I knew that her healthbr / was at risk. What I didn'tbr / know was how to help her. All I could do was try to take care of her inbr / the best way, the only way that I knew how. No parent wants to sit therebr / and watch their child become sicker and sicker, weaker and weaker. Nobr / parent wants to believe that they are helpless to aid their child, or evenbr / worse, that they are making their child even more ill. But then again,br / there is no parent who could find it easy to deny their child food, tobr / forcefully stop her from eating when all she can do is plead for more./p pWe were trying to help our daughter. We took her to doctors, andbr / all they did was confuse us even more. No one seemed able to give us anybr / real answers about what was happening to her. So when Child Protectivebr / Services came to take her away that day, we could say nothing to defendbr / themselves. Watching my daughter being taken away from us, seeing her inbr / so much fear, so much misery, it was like my whole world was falling apart.br / Not only was this poor little child facing this terrible illness, but nowbr / she was being removed from the only family that she ever knew, the onlybr / people who had ever nurtured and loved her. Why these people believed thatbr / foster parents, strangers, in fact, could take better care of our daughterbr / than we could, I will never know. All I do understand is that instead ofbr / helping us, instead of keeping us united as a family, and providing us withbr / the resources and information that we needed to battle my daughtersbr / condition and the resulting weight problem, these officials ripped mybr / family apart. The very organization whose job it is to work for andbr / protect children and families decided instead to subject a defenselessbr / three- year- old girl to a trauma like none she had ever known before./p pNow we know that my daughter probably has a disease that preventsbr / her from ever knowing that she is full. She gets no satisfaction frombr / eating, and that's why she can't seem to stop. Instead of helping us tobr / learn about this disease and how to help her, however, C.P.S. and thebr / courts have kept us and our daughter apart. Not only are we facing abr / struggle against my daughter's health problems, but now we are alsobr / dealing with another tragedy: the separation that our family has had tobr / endure, and the trauma that my daughter experienced because of it./p pi*names changed to protect identity./i/p pbCourtWatch Responds***/b /ppIn the case of Carmen* and her daughter, the staff at CourtWatchbr / felt immediately obligated to assist and advocate for this family in anybr / way that we could.br / We first heard about this injustice on a talk radio show on KGO. Itbr / captured our attention because Carmen's daughter was removed from herbr / parents' care with little or no investigation of her health condition, evenbr / though there was a strong possibility that her weight was a result of abr / rare disorder and not neglect on the part of her family. Rather thanbr / offering to help Carmen's family find the resources that they needed tobr / address their daughter's problem, Child Protective Services criminalizedbr / the parents and mercilessly ripped their child away from them, placing herbr / in the care of foster parents who knew even less about her condition thanbr / Carmen and her husband./p pBecause the case received a great deal of attention from the media,br / the judge instituted a gag order, and the staff at Poor Magazine was unablebr / to receive any further information about the case or to make contact withbr / the family itself. Since we felt that it was imperative to offer thembr / whatever help we could, however, we decided to advocate for Carmen and herbr / husband in the form of a series of communications with the judge who heardbr / the case and the C.P.S. worker who was handling it. We also attempted tobr / contact the families' attorney, and made numerous calls to his officebr / offering our assistance, but as of yet we have not heard from him./p pAs soon as we hear any news regarding this case and/or others likebr / it, Poor Magazine will include that timely information in the CourtWatchbr / column./p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p
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