Being Sara » Child Protection

Werme Tricks – “Our mission is more important than your rights”

Sara — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:00:14 +0000

You might have noticed a theme to this blog if you have read any other posts. I spend a great deal of time attempting to shed some light onto the Division for Children Youth & Families, and its practices. As a part of this attempt, I have been systematically refuting much of the claims made by Attorney Werme and her husband. Eric Werme recently commented on a post and informed me that the Tricks of the Trade page that I often use for material is actually his page, not his wife’s. Mr. Werme is a software engineer. His site explains that most of the information he has learned, he has observed from “state house hearings, etc.” I guess I never realized how much time is spent at the State House discussing DCYF’s practices.

At any rate, the Wermes have some interesting advise for families regarding your rights. They are actually partially correct this time. Individuals do not have to allow DCYF into their home. We usually ask politely, and are generally there to discuss the information received that concerns children. However, parents do not have to let us into their homes, and some do refuse. In those cases, our efforts to discern a child’s safety are somewhat hindered. If children are in public school, RSA 169-C allows us to interview children in schcool without the express permission of a parent. Our general practice is to speak to parents before interviewing children at school. Some parents have a valid concern regarding having their children interviewed at school, and we try to respect that. However, even if a parent refuses to cooperate, our job to assess a child’s safety remains. We will do what limited research we can without a parent’s cooperation. We are allowed to interview children at school, and to speak with school staff regarding any concerns. For families who do not want to invite DCYF into their homes, we also ask if they would be willing to meet with us at our office to discuss the safety concerns for their children. I imagine that the Wermes would say that DCYF is trying to lure a parent into their lair, where they have the home field advantage. This is not the case however. The meetings are generally one-on-one, or two, if both parents attend the meeting. This is an opportunity for the parents to find out what the concerns are, and to discuss these concerns with a worker. Attorneys are welcome to be present at these meetings if a family so chooses.

While the Wermes would have you believe that this is a secret that we do not let families in on, we do in fact provide every family with two pamphlets. The first outlines the assessment process and how it works. The second details a family’s rights – starting with their right to deny DCYF access to their home. Since we provide this information to families, usually during the initial visit, this is clearly not something that we are trying to keep a secret. It is true that for most families, a knock on the door by DCYF is strange and scary. We do however, make every attempt to keep the family aware of the process, what can happen, and what their rights are. The Wermes want everyone to believe that DCYF is set up as an adversarial system. Our priority is to keep children safe. That process almost always starts with helping a family to help themselves.

Paula Werme, Eric Werme, DCYF, child protection, child safety, family rights, division for children, youth and families

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Whose Responsibility?!?

Sara — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 23:37:41 +0000

Warning: This post is mostly a rant with not much educational value. If you’ve read any of my other posts, or personally know me, then you are aware that I work for DCYF. I was recently speaking with a client who implied that it was my responsibilty to help her. Despite my repeated attempts to explain to this person that my responsibility was to look out for children, not their parents, this individual did not seem to understand. It got me thinking back on several of the families that I have been involved with in the past. I realized that for quite a few families, at least one of the parents implied that it was my responibility to make sure they were safely parenting their children. So, I would like to know when it became my responsibility to clean houses, make sure that children are supervised while their parents go out partying, or pass out high on whatever drug they could get their hands on. When did it become my responsibility to make sure parents have housing and food. Since when did the responsibility for these basic necessities shift from being a parental responsibility to being a governmental responsibility? Of course it is my job to assist families, and to make referrals to community resources, but if parents are unable to follow through with these resources, or are unable to find a place to live or food to eat or figure out how to clean their houses, then they are at fault – I am tired of being blamed for parent’s irresponsibility. We all have to live up to expectations in life, and if we are unable to meet basic expectations, such as keeping our children safe, then we have to face the consequences. Just once I would like someone to say to me “yeah, it was my fault, I made some mistakes and my kid wasn’t safe, I’m sorry.” Some parents realize this throughout the course of a an on-going case, but I don’t handle those cases, so I never hear those statements.

responsibility, child protection, child safety, parental responsibility, expectations, DCYF

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Werme Tricks – Picking On Neglectful Parents

Sara — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 16:46:24 +0000

Attorney Paula Werme warns parents to watch out for the “neglect charge” on her Tips and Tricks page. What the heck is she talking about? Well, in the State of New Hampshire, our Child Protection Statute, RSA 169-c, allows for two avenues, abuse or neglect. Abuse can be a little more black and white – there are four different types of abuse listed in the current law: Sexual abuse, Intentionally physically injured, Psychologically injured and Physically injured by other than accidental means. I think that sexual abuse and intentional physical abuse are fairly straight forward. psychologically injured is sometimes more difficult to prove, and physically injured by other than accidental means simply means that while you might not have intended to send your son to the hospital when you kicked him with a steel toed boot, he did end up with injuries.

Now that we have an understanding of abuse, lets move on to neglect. Our law states that a child has been neglected if one of three things happen: (1) they have been abandoned, (2) they are “without proper parental care or control… necessary for their physical, mental or emotional health, and when it is established that their health has suffered or is very likely to suffer serious impairment, and this deprivation is not due primarily to lack of financial means” or (3) their parent is “unable to discharge their responsibilities because of incarceration, hospitalization or other physical or mental incapacity”. So what does this mean? Well, it means if the child was abandoned, even for one night, then this law says the parent is at fault. If the child’s health “has suffered or is likely to suffer serious impairment”, then the parent is at fault. Finally, if the parent is in prison, hospitalized, or has some other incapacity, and have not made arrangements for their child, then they are at fault.

So, Attorney Werme warns parents to be aware of the “neglect charge”. For example, DCYF might receive a report stating that a father has sexually abused his 6 year old daughter. DCYF would first look to this girl’s mother to protect her from future abuse. We generally ask that the alleged victim not have contact with the alleged perpetrator until we are able to interview the child (usually the same day, or the following day). If our investigation turns up evidence that this allegation might be true, then we would ask this girl’s mother to continue protecting her daughter. If this mother refused to believe these allegations, if she chose to believe her husband or boyfriend over her daughter, then DCYF would be forced to take action against this mother. Why? Because this mother would have placed her daughter into a situation where she might be sexually abused again. Under New Hampshire State Law, this would cause the little girl to be “without proper parental care and control”.

Do we always file neglect charges against a parent who has not committed any abuse? Most definitely no. We follow the letter of the law – if our laws say that a parent has neglected their child, then we bring this information to Court and allow a Justice to make the decision. If a parent protects their child, (meaning they provide their child with “proper parental care and control”) then we do not file charges against that parent. However, if DCYF is able to prove that there is a potentially dangerous environment for a child, we trust that child’s parent(s) to protect him or her. If they choose not to protect their child, then the law is designed so that DCYF can step in and do the protecting.

child protection, neglect, DCYF, Paula Werme, child abuse, child neglect

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Werme Tricks – Pick On The Poor

Sara — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 15:36:22 +0000

Attorney Werme’s second claim on her Tricks of the Trade page is that DCYF “preys” on families with young children who are “struggling to keep up with the costs of raising a family on a small income”. Attorney Werme is half correct. DCYF does receive quite a few referrals to meet lower income families. There could be dozens reasons for this. I suspect that one of the biggest reasons DCYF receives more referrals for lower income families is because lower income families tend to receive assistance from more community resources. For example, an 18 year old mother of three, who is currently living with the youngest child’s father, could be receiving housing assistance, that might include a weekly home inspection, day care assistance, that might include a weekly home visit with the children, health care assistance, that might include a weekly visit from the Visiting Nurses Association, and maybe this young mother accepts assistance from a food pantry or church, and perhaps attends a play group put on by the local community once a week. This mother could have six or eight different professionals in and out of her home every week. This means that there are six to eight more professionals who are mandated by law, and by their jobs to report any of their concerns. Further, all of these professionals work closely with DCYF when they have families in common. They know that a large part of DCYF’s job is to refer families to resources, and sometimes ask the local County to assist a family in paying for a service. This is a sometimes unfortunate by-product of the system that we have created – families who need assistance recieve it, but in doing so, they open their lives to professionals who might have concerns about their children’s safety.

The other unfortunate part of the system is that lower income families tend to cycle. I mean that a mother who gets pregnant at 15, then again at 17, then again at 18, and maybe again at 19 tends to be more likely to produce children who will get pregnant at younger ages. This is a societal problem, nothing that DCYF has created, but something that DCYF does have to deal with on a regular basis. Upper income families tend to have fewer children in this predicament. I am not a sociologist, and I am not going to attempt to explain the reasoning behind this – I am simply speaking to my own professional observations. Younger families do sometimes have more challenges, learing how to grow up themselves while raising children – it doesn’t always work well.

While Attorney Werme would like you to believe that we “prey” on young, lower income families, she is incorrect. First of all, DCYF has no control over who might call in a concern. Second of all, Attorney Werme does not work for DCYF, and cannot know all of the families that we have contact with. In my time with DCYF, I have met families from every income bracket. I have spent time in apartments that are partially paid for with assistance from the State, and I have spent time in multi-million dollar homes. I have interviewed children in public schools, and in private schools. I have talked to kids who cry because they believe that their mommy doesn’t love them, and to kids who cry because their daddy made them clean their room for the week that the maid had off. Just because we see lower income families does not mean that we ignore upper income families. We may have fewer opportunities to really know what goes on in their homes sometimes, but it does not mean that we do not strive to make sure children are safe, whatever their income bracket.

Paula Werme, Werme, low income, DCYF, division for children youth & families, child protection,

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Werme Tricks – Secret Proceedings

Sara — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 15:05:59 +0000

Attorney Werme claims that “case proceedings are secret”. She is correct, they are. In fact, any information about a family involved with DCYF is confidential. If you were to call me up and ask about the Jones family, I would be required to tell you that I cannot confirm or deny involvement with any family. I will listen to your concerns, and probably suggest that you call Central Intake if you would like to report your concerns. We do this to protect a family’s privacy. Most families find it embarassing to be involved with DCYF. So, we do not release any of that information to the general public. We will not even discuss their cases with family members, unless given permission (usually in writing) by the family. The secrecy surrounding DCYF’s involvement with a family is not designed to keep families less informed in case of future involvement with DCYF, as Attorney Werme would have you think. I am happy to discuss practice or policy with anyone – right down to the “first contact” as Attorney Werme calls it, to Court proceedings. I can discuss these issues in generalities, but I cannot give case specifics to anyone. In fact, anyone with questions such as these is welcome to call their local DCYF office and ask a social worker. Each office generally has someone known as a “Cover Worker” in the office from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday. This worker is available to answer questions over the phone or in person, whether they are actually involved with DCYF, or if they simply have questions. You can find the phone numbers for the local offices here

Paula Werme, Werme, secret proceedings, DCYF, Division for Children, Youth & Families, DCYF Court, child protection

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Poor Faith Reports

Sara — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 14:02:35 +0000

In the State of New Hampshire, we have a law that says that every citizen of the state is required to report any concerns they have for a child’s safety in good faith. That is the rule in its entirety. It seems pretty simple, and works fairly well. When a person does have concerns, they call 1-800-894-5533 and report those concerns. The system is designed to “catch” as many reports as possible by allowing callers to remain anonymous or request that their name not be release to the family. Most families that I work with find this to be hugely frustrating, as they almost always want to know who reported them. I usually explain to them that if they were worried about their neighbor’s kid, they might not want the neighbor to know they had called, for fear of retailiation. We at DCYF don’t want to miss any reports because people are afraid to call us, so we make it easy for reporters. In my opinion, we make it too easy.

child protection, poor faith, DCYF, central intake, reporting child abuse

How is it too easy? Well, say for example that I’m irritated with you, my neighbor, because you leave your bassett hound outside all night long, howling at the moon. I sleep terribly for a week, and nothing I do seems to fix it. I’ve tried speaking with you, but you simply pacify me, and then let your dog out the next night. I’ve tried calling the police, but the same thing happens, you bring the dog in for the night, but then let him out again the next night. Finally, I’m so frustrated, that I decide to get back at you some other way. Instead of throwing rocks at your house, or dumping garbage on your lawn, I decide to call DCYF and report that I’ve seen you hit your kid, or that your kid told my kid that her Daddy liked to play a secret game in bed. I could let my imagination run wild. If I didn’t leave my name, then there would be no way for DCYF to find out who had called.

The general policy in cases of sexual abuse where an alleged abuser has access to a child is to ask the alleged abuser to leave the home until we have had time to interview the child and either verify or disprove the information we received. This means that sometimes parents, spouses or significant others are asked to leave their home for 1-2 days, based simply on information received in a report. As a DCYF worker, I am trained to value the potential safety of a child over the slight discomfort of an adult who may have to sleep on a relative’s couch for an evening. We generally respond to these kinds of referrals immediately, and try to collect information quickly, so that if the allegation is bogus, then the family can get on with their lives as quickly as possible.

As a citizen of New Hampshire, and not a DCYF worker, the way that this reporting law is written makes me nervous. If just any anonymous person can make a completely bogus report, which results in someone looking closely at my life and the way I would parent children makes me pretty uncomfortable. We are told that the legislature is “working” on something to speak to reports that are not made in good faith. In the mean time, resources are wasted on reports that are made as retaliation instead of an honest report of concern. We find parents who are angry about their custody arrangements do this more often that we would like. Unfortunately, a parent could call in six reports in five months, and we would have to investigate each and every allegation. Once a referral is sent to a district office for investigation, there is no backing down – we have to follow through with our investigation, no matter how valid or invalid the report may be.

I say that with a House of Representatives that has 424 members (the largest ratio of representatives to citizens in the world), they ought to be able to find some time to come up with a solution to this problem. I’m not saying that there is a simple, clear cut solution, but there has to be a way that the collective elected leaders of this State can come up with a way to find a balance between reporter’s desire for privacy, and a family’s right to privacy.

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Victims of Custody Battles

Sara — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 14:52:44 +0000

As we all know, divorce seems to have become an epidemic in this country. Like many people, I assumed that the divorce rate was hovering around 50% of all the married couples in the United States. A few quick google searches turned up some more accurate data, though it is much more convoluted. DivorceReform.org lists the divorce rate, last calculated in May of 2005 at being 0.38% divorces per capita per year. 38% is much different than 50%. But, I wondered how accurate their numbers were.

ReligiousTolerance.org reports that 11% of the adult population is currently divorced. The go on to say that 25% of adults have had at least one divorce during their lifetime. This group got their information from the Barna Research Group, among others. The Barna Group interviewed 3,854 adults from the 48 contiguous states. Their sampling error is within 2 percentage points (which is pretty good). If we can trust Barna’s numbers, then the divorce rate is looking much less like an epidemic than the media would like us to think.

Divorce Magazine lists statistics on everything from the number of unmarried couples living together to the state with the lowest divorce rate in 1997 (Massachusetts).

I think Divorce Magazine’s most interesting statistic says that as of 1997, there were 1 million children in new divorces each year. Now, this is the reason for my current frustration. Whether or not these statistics are accurate, I don’t think anyone can know unless they interview every single adult in the United States. However, I can tell you from personal experience that as a child protection worker, I generally receive at least three referrals each month that are essentially custody battles. These referrals mean that I am required to investigate allegations made regarding a child’s safety. My investigations generally include meeting all of the family members, and talking to other individuals or agencies who might be able to shed some light on the situation. If you extrapollate that out, I see approximately 36 families each year who are fighting over their children. I am only one of five workes in my office, so if each of them has a similar caseload, then together we see approximately 180 families every year. Our office is one of 12 in the state, and we are not the largest. I think that the divorce statistics fail to take into account the number of couples who are never married and split up, or the number of couples who are never together, but for one reason or another, one of the parents suddenly decides to take an interest in a child they have never met.

More often than not, these unsampled couples or non-couples (parents who were never together) are the ones I see. Generally, one parent, or family member calls the Central Intake Office, where all reports for child safety are called in. In the state of New Hampshire, every citizen is labeled a “mandated reporter”. This means that anyone with any concerns for a child’s safety is required to call 1-800-894-5533 and report their concerns. So, angry families often attempt to use the Division for Children Youth and Families (a.k.a. DCYF) as a tool to get back at their estranged significant other. DCYF is not allowed to get involved in custody matters. This means that as long as a child is safe, we cannot say where the child should be. This job is generally reserved for a Guardian Ad Litem – a trained professional, often an attorney, who is supposed to advise the Court on the child’s best interests. However, if you are a parent fighting for custody of your kid, and you know that you’ve got a hearing coming up next week, calling DCYF to say that your former significant other is somehow harming your kid means that when you go into Court next week, you can report that DCYF is investigating the other side, which in your mind, makes you think that this will somehow make the other side look less credible and you look more credible. Sadly, this sometimes works. There are instances when the information provided turns out to be true. However, most often, this just means that yet another over-burdened social worker has to attend yet another series of Court hearings, and submit reports to yet another Court.

Sometimes the more over zealous families will involve police departments as well. These parents will bring their children to any department that will listen to them. Often, this happens on a weekend, when DCYF is unable to assist (DCYF workers are only allowed to work Monday-Friday. On weekends there is an phone assistance availble to police departments, but it can only be used when they need to place children in an emergency situation). In these cases, Officers interview, and sometimes examine kids bodies. I don’t know about you, but when I was four, I didn’t think a fun day with Daddy included a trip to the local police station where they would strip me down and examine me for bruises. After this happens, the Police Department is required to pass this information on to DCYF, who then has to conduct their own investigation, which often includes interviewing the child (again) and sometimes examining them for bruises (again).

The title of this rant is Victims of Custody Battles. We all know that kids are victims in more ways than one. While it is never their fault that their parents could not get along, they are usually the ones left with the most emotional scars. The unlucky kids get dragged through a DCYF investigation, and the really unlucky kids get dragged through two, three, sometimes six times. However, the kids are not the only victims. Police Departments get sucked into this quagmire on a regular basis as well. Depending on the department, and the amount of staff, this is a burden that can be difficult to bear. As for me, well, I’m already an overburdened state employee. I’ve currently got 32 kids on my caseload, and it’s been a slow two months (summer time means fewer schools calling in reports). Every time some parent or family member makes an accusation that is either blown completely out of proportion, or simply a complete fantasy, I am required to investigate. This means I have to set aside time to interview the child or children, and the parents (and parents in custody battles have a great deal to say), as well as police departments, if they were involved, Guardian Ad Litems (GAL’s), therapists, pediatricians, and anyone else who might be able to tell me how the kids are doing with each parent. Then I have to document all of this information, make referrals to the family, and often prepare a report for whatever Court is hearing the custody matters. If I’m really unlucky, I’ll have to attend the Court hearing as well. I would estimate that this takes approximately 10 hours to complete an entire investigation – that is, if I can actually speak with the people I’m trying to reach on the first try, which rarely happens. My frustration is that there are children on my caseload who desperately need my attention – who really are abused or neglected, whose families really do need my help. However, my attention is diverted from those families when I have to spend days working with a family whose biggest problem is that they don’t like each other anymore. These kids need help too, but not from me. What they need is for their parents to get over themselves. They need their parents to stop thinking about their own insecurities and hurt feelings, and remember that there is someone more important in their lives – their kids.

So, how do we solve this problem? I don’t think we can. People are always going to split up. Kids are always going to be casualties of this. However, I think we can do something to slow the emotional scarring. First of all, parents are generally required to attend a Child Impact Seminar when they are going through a custody case in Court. This means they have to pay $50, and attend a two part seminar. The seminar talks about the effects of a divorce on kids, and tries to stress that kids should not be present for adult conversations, etc. Most of it is common sense material that we usually forget to think about. Many parents fail to complete this, but there is very little ramification for them if they do not, depending on the Judge. I think that the legislature needs to give the Courts more power to influence parents to comply with Court Orders. I would like to see parents held in contempt, and spend a few hours in a jail cell, and have to pay a significant fine for every Order they fail to comply with. I would also like to see parents have to spend more than a few hours hearing about how their divorce is going to impact their kids. I would like to see the kids spend some time with a therapist – an evaluation of sorts, to make sure that they are handling the split ok. It would also provide the kids an outlet for them to tell their parents how they feel about what is going on, without their parents dismissing them. Finally, I would like to see some sort of restrictions or filters on what gets through to DCYF. I am happy to investigate any child’s safety, but I get frustrated when the allegations turn out to have not even a single shred of truth to them. I would like to see the Courts employ their own assessment worker to investigate these claims. They have GAL’s who speak to a child’s best interest, but their function is not quite the same as assessing a child’s safety. Perhaps if each Court paid for one assessment worker, whose function was solely to assess families in custody cases, then the rest of the over burdened workers could focus their time on families who actually need their attention. Divorced families cut a wide swath of hate and discontent and this is spilling over, and not just affecting the family, but affecting local agencies (police departments and DCYF) as well as innocent bystanders, families who actually need assistance from the police and DCYF. This is certainly a sad and frustrating state of affairs that could be eased by a few adjustments by our legislature.

divorce, DCYF, child protection, child vitcims,

Being Sara » Child Protection

Werme Tricks – “Our mission is more important than your rights”

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