Case Study #1: Ann

pstrongAn outline of a familiy's struggle with Child Protective Services/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 pEditors' Note: i Our basic belief is that, as journalists in pursuit of "the story," we must give something back to the poeple who are involved in "the story." Through this method of "extreme advocacy," we believe we are practicing collectivism rather than individualism in our journalizing./i/p p Generally speaking, when breaking these cases down to the students, Court Watch facilitators explained that out of the several ways the journalists could intervene/ advocate- the most logical way was to advocate in some way for the case participants and to provide them with resources that they could m out of the crises they were in at the time./p pNeighbor's dog kills cat- neighbor denies this and angrily, to retaliate, calls Child Protective Services (CPS) regarding a 14 year old Severely Emotionally Disturbed (SED) girl, saying girl is abused (claims that girl sleeps on unlocked porched for 2 days and 2 nights) (girl had run away from unlocked porch anytime she felt like it.)/p p*CPS makes allegation of the charge and combined with other allegations like girl doesn't get presents (photographs of girl getting presents doesn't matter to CPS regarding allegations)/p p* Case goes to trial/p p* Parents get public defender/p p* Girl first placed in psychiatric hospital. They are anti-parent/ i.e. psychiatric M.D. makes psychiatric diagnosis of parentt without ever seeing parent/p p* Parent loses custody/p p* CPS worker makes more allegations/ CPS child workers practice medicine without a license/ make psychiatric diagnoses/ not qualified/p p* CPS puts girl in foster homes and group homes all over state- girl runs away/p p* Finally girl refuses all foster care and becomes street runaway/p p* Juvenile Dependency Court CPS claim ther's nothing they can do/p p* JD Court extremely biased against parent (thru entire case and in all custody cases)/p p* Public Defender not experienced int hese types of cases- court and CPS resent her for defending parent/p p* CPS abusive and divisive of family- attempt to turn child against family/p p* CPS worker threatens parent's professional stnading and job and criticizes public defender for representing parent (as a way to shut them up)/p p* Courts take jurisdiction over teen but unable to stop her from being runaway/p p* Court wants two psychiatric evaluations in order to reunify parent with teen/p p* Parent refuses two psychiatric evaluations on political grounds/p p* Public Defender appeals case/p p* Public Defender loses appeal because case law and J.D. court and appeal court are biased agianst the parent in custody cases/p p* Court Watch begins/p p* Many, many complaint letters sent to court, CPS, the city attorney by parent/p p* City attorney taken off case/p p* CPS worker taken off case/p p* Ombudsperson brought in/p p* Client asked to see report by Ombudsperson/p p* Parent never allowed to see report/p p* Therapy recommended and provided- child refused to recieve therapy services/p p* Child goes to relatives in another state against recommendations of parent, psychiatrist and social worker/p p* Placement failure- child returns to California/p p***Court Watch Responds*** /ppWe are citing some case law and welfare codes from Case #1. These need to be read in full by advocates for parents wanting to reunify with their children./p pThe Juvenile Dependency Court and Child Protective Services, in San Francisco and in other places we have ivestigated, are closed systems- the editors of POOR Magazine have had first hand experience with San Francisco systems and are glad to discuss them with anyone who hasquestions./p p In San Francisco Juvenile Dependency Cout, child welfare workers are called social workers to give them added status as expert witnesses./p pAlso in San Francisco, psychological evaluations are required for parents wanting to reunify, and the psychiatrists are paid by Child Protective services. It is always possible for anyone to get an expert witness if they are willing to pay./p p"Heresay" evidence from psychiatrists is admitted as evidence to prevent the parent from reunifying as well./p pFurther, child welfare wrokers essentially "practice medicine without a license" in that they can make psychiatric diagnoses that are used as evidence in trials./p pIn sum, psychiatry is now being used in the Juvenile Dependency Court and Child Protective Services to remove children from their parents, and case law supports these diagnoses. In totalitarian societies, people are sent to camps and to death based on the recommendations of psychiatrists. Fro some parents, not being able to reunify with their children is like death./p pCPS has gone way beyond their usefulness for extreme abuse reporting adn need to be reigned in- they have complete and absolute power, and the system has to increase its power in order to feed itself (ie pay the wages for all the people it employs)br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p