They took all my babies away from me…

by Dee Gray/Courtwatch

"They took all of my babies of away from me – and then they only gave two of them back even though I did everything they asked" the voice on the other end of the phone was breathless. The voice on the other end of the phone was a mother trying to care for her children. The voice on the other end of the phone was fighting Child Protective Services system to get justice.

"My name is Latrice Persons, I have five children that were taken away by CPS and I’d like you to publish my story." POOR Magazine’s COURTWATCH project received an urgent phone call from Latrice several weeks ago. Sadly hers is only one of many cases that we have been contacted about since Dee Gray launched COURTWATCH,an advocacy project aimed at providing media access for scores of parents across the country who struggle with the often unjust System that is CPS and its’ embedded partners the Juvenile Dependency Court

After a series of phone calls to POOR and the Bayview Dee met with Latrice for an interview. Latrice explained to Dee that after the birth of one of her kids Latrice tested positive for cocaine.After being honest with her counselor at the time about her drug use she was placed into an inpatient drug trwatment program. The first program was very lax with no structure but eventually she was placed in the highly structured and very supportive program at Walden House

" I liked the structure, how strict they was on parents not wanting to stop using drugs who are not ready…One day I just sat in front of a group of people and just cried out my heart. I wasn’t looking for anyone to pat me on my back or feel sorry for me, I was crying out for help. It was there. You can always open up to them. They got a women’s group, relapse prevention, anger management"

After Latrices’ successful completion at Walden House Latrice went to court and the judge directed her to attain housing large enough for her and her children which she did; a four bedroom house in the Bayview district. When she returned to court with proof of her new housing, the judge decided that was still not enough, she needed to get in a program which she did as well as therapy and started a new job. Meanwhile she continued to get tested for drugs, testing "clean" every time for what was now over two years and once again that was still not enough in the eyes of the system.

"I think that they wanted me to just to fail. Because once I completed it ( the program) they were telling me I still wasn’t going to get my kids back and from what I have heard from other mothers in my situation, they’re not going to give your children back whether you complete the program or not"

PNN/Bayview readers who have followed some of our other COURTWATCH reports will recognize Latrices’ assertions as frightfully true. The process to get your children back once they have been referred is not based on a clear path of justice but rather on an arbitrary decision of the judge (commissioner), social worker and City Attorney, not to mention the fact that the original referral of the children has a monetary incentive for the Department (CPS) as the referral triggers up to $12, 500 going to the county, which in POOR’s mind is another example of a capitalist based system that supports the separation, not restoration of families

Latrice went on to explain that in February the court finally granted her custody of her two older children who are 16 and 14 but the three younger children 3, 7 and 12 are still in the system because the court claimed she didn’t comply with therapy and wouldn’t take medication from a psychiatrist,

" I feel I don’t need medication, it doesn’t make sense to get off one drug and go on another as far as the therapy, I went to therapy inside Walden house but and I didn’t really think they would make therapy a big issue now, I thought they was more focused on my drug abuse, you know, my clean testing"

Latrice explained that she has a strong support system in her community from her mom, her neighbors and her older daughter and that separating her family has caused more trauma for her younger children who cry all the time and now wonder if they did something bad and why they can’t come home.