Today I’m posting a couple of informational messages from outside Dom Bastardette that might be of interest to readers.
Bastardette
This is the first, coutresy of Pam Hasagawa at Adoption News Service.
Good morning. I wanted to give you a heads-up on a story that we’ll be running this Sunday (Dec. 17) on 60 MINUTES that I thought you might be interested in. It’s about a (relatively) new program being tried to track down and reconnect the families of children stranded in the child welfare system. It’s a really interesting piece, and we’re hoping to spread the word around beforehand to people who might have a particular interest in the subject matter. It would therefore be wonderful if you would consider sending something out to your listserve and/or putting something on your website.
The piece will be broadcast on CBS stations on at 7:00 ET/PT on Sun., Dec. 17.
Further details and other information to be posted on our website
which you’re welcome to link to from yours. (And if your own site has relevant
information on this topic that might be useful to our viewers, please let me know. I’d be happy to send it along to our web folk for possible inclusion on our site.)
You’ll find a short write-up about the piece below. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Many thanks,
Robin Sanders
CBS News 60 Minutes
phone: 212-975-7598
email: [email protected]
LOST AND FOUND
They’ve been called some of the loneliest people on earth, the tens of thousands of children who were taken away from their parents due to neglect or abuse but were never adopted by new families. Stranded in the child welfare system, they move from foster homes to group homes. Now, several cities across the country are trying something new. It¹s calle Family Finding, and the goal is to track down the families these children were taken away from the in the first place to see if they can go home again. So does it work?
Leslie Stahl takes a looks on 60 MINUTES this Sunday,
Dec. 17,
7PM ET/PT on CBS.
This is a wonderful concept. Child Protective Services removes the children from families. Then, a genius comes up with the brilliance of a “return policy” that will finally solve the problem of children lingering in the system.
I have a much more cost effective proposal…just don’t take the children in the first place!
Ive heard of Family Reunification but this is brilliant. The Department of Human services CPS wreckers (workers) remove our children and use them to collect funding from the federal gov’t and then when they no longer have room in the warehouses (Foster Homes) then “Eurieka” let’s give the kids back to their original family.
How about Famly Preservation and don’t take the kids from the family and fix the issues in the original family first.
What was really ridiculous was that DCF in Florida a few years ago were supposedly unable to track down families for foster children.
Two investigative reporters tracked down loads of willing and caring family members within a few hours.
This is from a child welfare system which has gone through at least 3 heads in the past 5 years, and whose budget for the construction of a DCF database has ballooned over 75M dollars.
Yeah….Child Welfare is truly an efficient, humane, and needed service.
Maybe in one case out of 3.
How about famly preservation and don’t take kids from the family and fix the problems in the original family first?
Well, its pretty hard to fix a family where dad’s in jail for 10 years and mom won’t give up her meth habit isn’t it?
I agree with ‘anonymous’…and know that there is a real need for a program such as this. CPS is horribly over zealous in their practice of removing children, due in part to huge monitary incentives available in the form of federal grant monies for removing children from their parents…..while there are no incentives (monitary or otherwise) to leave them with their families. Couple this with the fact that Child Protective Services (called by different names in the various states) has nearly total immunity from prosecution for their mistakes and they answer to no one but themselves, we have a recipe for disaster. Anyone can make an anonymous phone call alleging abuse to the child abuse hotline…including those with alterior motives, such as an angry x-spouse or a neighbor who has a grudge. And sadly, many have learned that CPS is the prefect tool for revenge. CPS is used for this every day and all accross the country. Falsley accused parents are then left to defend themselves in a court without the benefit of due process (afforded to murderers), and fighting against the state who can only gain from terminating their parental rights.
The notion that CPS agencies can just be trusted to “do the right thing”, and so should be allowed to operate by answering to nothing more than their good consience is absurd. Sadly, there are bad people among us, and we need accountability and laws to govern such things. Not everyone has a good conscience. We find the bad ones in every walk of life…which is why we need to remove at least some of the immunity this agency enjoys and hold them accountable when they are found to be corrupt and abusive.
Anonymous II