Werme Tricks – Pick On The Poor
September 8, 2005
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.
DCYF is more apt to get cooperation out of someone who is low income or “down on their luck” because they promise these families things they could not necessarily get or afford on their own.
How else could DCYF get a parent to go into their
office willingly for an interview. Does one honestly think that a wealthy or rich parent would be making a trip to DCYF? I personally would send Paula Werme, Esquire in my place instead.
Many of these poor people include those that are mentally ill and stabilized by medication. It seems that DCYF feels that they have the right to pick on you if you cannot defend yourself.
I have a situation in that the dad has custody or well did of his 2 children. because of half truths on the mothers part he was not only thrown in jail for the night and a large bail but now he has lost his children. They have put the cart before the horse and there is alot more where this came from. I just do not feel comfortable stating so on the computer. He has had his children for 1 1/2 years now as she gave them up to him and the court stated he had physical sole custody. Now that is not the case and he has definitely been tried and convicted before he has had a chance to tell anyone about anything. His children are gone and he feels he has no rights and what rights he had have been violated in some way. We can not retain an attorney as it is at least 2-3 thousand dollar retainer! we have though contacted the Franklin Pierce College of Law hoping we can get a class of to be lawyers to take our case. Do you have any other suggestions?
I also looked into resources and all of them on fathers rights are just men voicing their horrible tragedys with the system. There seems to be no advocates you can get advice from of numbers you can call for help! However there is alot of info on women issues on this. thank you
You say that your Child Protection agency
doesn’t pick on the poor?
Do you have some official statistics to back
up your presentation?
AFCARS or NCANDS will show what your state
is reporting to the FEDS for their grant money.
But wait! ABUSE on the national stats doesn’t
mean actual abuse, it just means “risk of abuse”.
Look at the national stats definition of the
categories. Most of the kids counted as
abused were NOT abused, but “at risk of”.
Similar garbage is done with the “neglect” category.
And the agencies screw up BOTH ways.
They overlook obviously dangerous situations AND
they remove THOUSANDS of kids over trivia.
But, then, you’d KNOW THAT since you work
at your state’s agency, right?
Have you read your state Child Protection
caseworker manual? How thick is it?
Is your states two feet thick in printed form?
Who wrote the “risk assessment” form
you use in investigations there?
Do you make the “idiot sheet” scorecard
available to the public?
Let the PUBLIC see those idiotic items
you check off as “risk factors” to decide
if a family is “at risk” which means FUNDING
for your agency.
How many points does it take to decide
somebody is guilty?
How many places on the form are there
for OVERRIDES?
Look at that list of “risk factors”
and tell me your agency doesn’t pick
on the poor.
Greg Hanson
Cedar Rapids Iowa
Greegor@hotmail.com
Not to mention that the removal of a child from his/her family releases lots of federal funds…
This allows DCYF to engage companies and individuals and agencies to be sole providers for DCYF “services.” I am shocked and sickened that I was called “most uncooperative” for not signing forms stating that I would receive a service very different from that proposed. When I questioned a bill of $1500 for less than 10hours of “supervised visits,” I was told that the agency had to bill that way or the state would not pay…..hmmmmm…sounds like fraud to me…
I’m baaaack. You mention services that the “poor” people can take advantage of and that perhaps DCS refers them to. In what world? It does state in the Policies and Procedures here in Tennessee that DCS is “supposed” to do this, but they don’t! They are supposed to offer services in the home to help teach mom how to clean house or if she has had parenting classes and still has problems with behavior, someone can come into her home and help with these. The biggest one is that DCS IS SUPPOSED TO DO ALLL THEY CAN TO KEEP A CHILD FROM BEING PLACED INTO FOSTER CARE! This includes finding family members, kin, or even a neighbor who has been an integral part of a child’s life to have custody, instead of putting them in foster care. This did not happen in our case. Our case was in Morristown and maybe they do it different, maybe it makes a difference in personnel and their frame of reference and how they [erceive their clients. It is an area of great poverty, so they should be accustomed to it unless they feel these people should try harder or get out of poverty somehow.
But, to show some of the inconsistencies, my sister was just given custody of her EX-HUSBAND’S GRANDSON, because they called the grandfather, the mother, the grandmother and nobody would take him. His father has had full custody of him for 8 years and is now a drug addict. I thought this only happened in an ideal world. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s wonderful to know there is or are some DCS offices that try to adhere to their own rules, this move was done right and it will be in this child’s best interest for my sister to raise him. I only regret we weren’t given this opportunity and that we will probably always suffer in some way because of the ill treatment we received.
We took our daughter out of the system for the sole purpose of “breaking the mold”, or so we thought. We were upper-middle class and wanted to make a difference in her life, give her opportunities she would not have otherwise had. She was into everything, took voice lesons, played the flute, etc., etc., a wonderful daughter growing up and she was registered to attend college in the Fall after high school graduation, but the condition of Bi-Polar reared it’s ugly head, she got married at 19, in 10 months gave birth to my first grandson, and the rest is history. This would disprove the theory that some continue to live in poverty because they choose to do so. Some suffer from inherited mental illness that goes on and on generation after generation. My daughter is exactly like her birth mom, with one exception, me and my husband. We have been a safety net, cheerleader, supporter. But, we are finished and she is on her own now at age 32 and she can either make it or break it, but not because she “wants” to, but because se has a mental illness and we have done all we know to do to help her deal with and hopefully learn to overcome the part of not wanting to take her meds because of the consequences, her children will be gone. I was the oldest of 7 and we were poor. We never lived on SSI or food stamps, but I didn’t want to be poor myself when I grew up, so I broke my own mold, most all 7 of us has in our own way. None of us have children. lol That’s not the reason, I don’t think. I have sometimes wondered if adopting was the right thing to do, knowing now of all the trauma and stress of the last 7 or so years. Except for the grandchildren I would say no, I wouldn’t do it again. Now, maybe we can break the mold with them? I pray so.
THE MORE I READ ABOUT WHAT YOU OBJECT TO WITH WERME THE MORE I SEE THAT WERME HAS FOUND THE TRUTH, LIKE THE REST OF US. THANK GOD FOR ATTORNEY WERME AND ALL THOSE LIKE HER WHO AREN’T AFRAID TO FIGHT THE SYSTEM. SARA DO RESEARCH LIKE WE ALL HAVE AND YOU WILL KNOW WHO IS TRUTHFUL AND WHO ISN’T.