NBC 2 News is reporting a new “partnership” between the Erie County Department of Social Services and New York public schools that would place a Child Protective Services (CPS) employee in the Erie County local suburban schools several days per week.
The media unsurprisingly reports this as a way to give school staff faster access to child welfare “expertise” and also “streamlining and expediting” the CPS investigation process. That is, the news is being spun to get parents – who are now seemingly potential criminals up for investigation – to accept this new, intrusive development while your child remains a ward of the State for eight hours a day, five days a week.
This partnership is unnecessary and detrimental to children and parents. Teachers already can and do report suspicions of child abuse which are dealt with swiftly by CPS with the aid of law enforcement. By installing CPS workers in school offices, it is inviting a steady stream of on-the-spot inspections without a parent’s knowledge. This is a removal of due process when an accusation of abuse is arbitrarily leveled at a parent.
Buffalo Public Schools may already have a similar partnership, and 22 school districts in Erie County have signed on with Social Services.
People who object to this move are aware of the corrupt, past actions of CPS often taking children from good homes and placing them with people who should not be anywhere near children. Both CPS workers are foster parents are paid by the State for this action while parents who are found later to have done nothing detrimental are helpless and barely represented. Worse yet, children become lost in the cracks, and often wind up abused and unnecessarily drugged.
People often ask – what do we do, there are children being abused by parents. This is true, and those parents need to be held accountable by their peers, but the government is currently doing more tragic harm to such children who will later be exploited in the criminal justice system, possibly filling cells and coffers for the private-corporate prison industry. Given that the prison and CPS/foster sectors are subsidized by you, the parents, you have every right to demand an overhaul. At the very least, demands to leave CPS out of schools until their act is cleaned up. A demand to stop incentivising the removal of children from stable homes. Demands for third party, unbiased investigations that inspect CPS practices, truly represent the child and opt for less traumatic solutions such as allowing a child in question to remain with siblings and stay with a beloved and reputable family member. These are just a few ways to address legitimate problems without running over innocent people and revoking their rights for profit.
But, as the news report said: this is just “streamlining.” They just don’t tell you what process is being streamlined, but rather call the often unnecessary removal of kids from their homes “child welfare.” Even though I know good-hearted social workers and foster parents who live to serve children and families – the checkered past actions of the system at large should warrant change – not the ability to have more power. It should be a privilege to help children, but the unaddressed, systemic abuse of them should signal that these new changes have nothing to do with “the children.” No matter what – parents have rights and the utmost responsibility to their children – are we just going to wave goodbye to them all?
H/T: Don’t Comply
Heather Callaghan is a natural health blogger and food freedom activist. You can see her work at NaturalBlaze.com and ActivistPost.com. Like at Facebook.
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OMG, George Carlin was right, we don’t have rulers we have Owners.
Perfectly said!
this is F*ck$d up in every way manageable.
it is illegal as H3ll and an attack on the family.
If people do not start getting their children out of these
indoctrination prisons now,
than all I can say is I freaking told you so.
CPS is not only in service for children…. the family is served by CPS social workers as well, helping families obtain housing, health care, educational services. When a child requires special ed….. a social worker is always part of the team that decides the I.E.P. to assure the child is not being shuffled down the road, but ACTUALLY receives an individualized educational plan from financially strapped schools. The social worker on campus mediates institutional abuse by always acting in the best interest of the child…..not in the schools interest who want to drug, vaccinate, bully, and brainwash your child.
Only a bureaucratic busybody could call this “thinking creatively”…what Mr. GQ CPS man reps is the OPPOSITE of ‘creativity’…
Sounds a tad personal. Operating in the complex field of human behaviors CPS workers get grief for the widespread effects of poverty and illiteracy. Neither of which they created or have any control over. They also operate in a ridiculously litigious system of supposed checks and balances that wants to micro-manage every detail to absurdity. CPS is often the only resort to the worst forms of child abuse and neglect which are rampant due to the disastrous effects of drugs and alcohol in our culture. Child protection is certainly a flawed system at best, and proven wrongs should not be tolerated. But collectively their daily work environment is terribly stressful for a multitude of reasons, leading to burnout and excessive turnover, leading to less qualified people doing very difficult jobs and more mistakes. CPS workers spend the vast majority of their available time and system resources providing services to intact families struggling to remain so. The CPS system does not “profit” from removing children that is an absurd old allegation that floats to the surface every time CPS comes up in a negative light. Each county and state share the costs along with the feds for almost all services provided including placement. In California where I practiced, the county share specifically of placement costs have grown exponentially over the last 20 years, hardly an inducement to removing children I assure you. As to the school program it should be a local school board issue as to policy decisions and how to make them accountable for the decisions they make. At this point I will admit my own bias. I worked in this area for a very long time, which was the equivalent of licking your index finger and sticking it in a light socket ten to twelve hours a day, also including countless nights and weekends donated trying to deal with massive computer input and paper work burdens that ate up your time. Don’t even get me started on lawyers, judges and “activists” that had nothing better to do then break your chops ad nauseum.
In my experience in California, acting professionally, the majority of children entering the system from the public where prescribed drugs recommended by the school they attended. The same children were not receiving medical oversight, rather drugs were dispensed by physicians like candy; adding another layer of neglect and victimization on top of traumatic abuse occurring in the home.
Another group that are over medicated in my opinion, are children who’s level of care has been reduced resulting in the transition from a high level of care like a group home to a low level…. a foster home. In my experience medications interfered with a successful transition from high to low level care by disabling the child’s ability to adapt to the requirements of adjusting to a new family, school, peer group. The drug companies trumped the social workers, winning the argument that a comatose child is a happy child; rather than understanding the ability of social workers to work with the natural child through natural therapies to ensure the child’s best chances of experiencing success and reaching normal development.
And I suppose you know because you are a social worker? You have done actual research on CPS?
Ms. Goodman doesn’t have a clue what she is talking about. Apparently Ms. Goodman is disgruntled over personal interaction with an agency that made her feel incompetent…. and unfortunately for her, her incompetence has been proven again…..right here.
This country is so screwed..