Ausia and Jarvis’ new baby girl, taken into Kentucky State custody at 1-hour old. Photo supplied by family.
UPDATE 7/19/16:
The family is hopeful that a happy ending is in sight, after Monday’s (7/18/16) hearing with Judge Lanphear.
Although their newborn daughter was not returned, Judge Lanphear allegedly told DCBS that “2 years has been too long for the children to be out of family care,” and that DCBS needs to be working towards family reunification and begin increasing visitation immediately, and to consider family placement while working toward reunification.
The family has only had one 2-hour visit a week for last 2 years. DCBS has reportedly agreed to more visits and is currently working on approving family members for kinship placement, and Ausia and Jarvis have agreed to “satisfy the Cabinet’s requirements of completing a case plan.”
Ausia and her newborn daughter at a DCBS visit 7-19-16. Her daughter was removed from her custody shortly after birth on 7-15-16 by DCBS social workers. Photo supplied by family.
The parents were able to visit with their newborn daughter during their regular visit on Monday 7/18/16 before heading to family court, and Jarvis was finally able to hold his new daughter for the first time. Ausia was also able to visit her newborn for another hour on Tuesday 7/19/16.
Ausia informed Health Impact News:
Auria was placed in temporary custody with the Cabinet.
I have prayed and prayed to God to help me understand. I still also believe that DCBS receives money from every case plan that is done, but at this point, if a case plan is all it takes for my children to be back home with me, then I will complete one. Especially the fact that my newborn needs to know that I am her mother and we need that bonding time.
While we are working on the case plan, the Cabinet has agreed to consider family placement. If my children are placed with a family member, I will be able to see my children anytime I want. I prayed so much for God to help me come out on top. Today, when I walked out of that court room, I finally felt like I had the power. I was in victory.
Having a good attorney is making all the difference, according to the family. They say they have asked for family placement for over 2 years but their requests were denied or ignored by DCBS every time, until now. The family has renewed hope that the abuse charges will be dismissed in criminal court next month now that they have the expert medical testimony showing that Zadyne was not abused, but rather, had chronic medical conditions. Once the criminal case is dropped, they hope that family court will follow suit, and that this nightmare will soon be over.
by Health Impact News/MedicalKidnap.com Staff
Ausia and Jarvis had their 1-hour old newborn breastfed baby removed by Kentucky Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) on Friday 7/15/16 from the Medical Center of Bowling Green. The family has been fighting for the return of their other 2 children which have been in foster care for over 2 years, based on what they believe are false Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) allegations. The parents claim they are innocent, and refuse to take parenting classes which they believe would be an admission of guilt.
Read the original story here:
Kentucky Family Falsely Accused of Child Abuse – Children Medically Kidnapped to Cover Corruption
Ausia explains,
I was able to breastfeed my child after she was born for 30 minutes & I was able to hold her for an hour after she was born. They took her to the on-call pediatrician and sent me to a postpartum room after delivery. I was on medications that had made me sleepy so I kept her in the nursery until I could get an hour of sleep to be able to be up with her. Jarvis came and called the nursery to bring her to our room, an hour passed and still my baby hadn’t been brought back. I called and asked for my child, 30 minutes passed and they still hadn’t brought my baby to me.
I paged the nurse and asked her to call the nursery. 20 minutes passed and 3 officers came in along with SSW and her 2 supervisors. The SSW, Kaitlyn, said there was an emergency removal order for my baby girl. I was devastated and honestly sick to my stomach.
Now the state is threatening to place the newborn in foster care, and telling the new mom she will not even get visits with her new baby girl. She has not been allowed to even pump breastmilk to be bottle-fed to her daughter. The complete prevention of bonding and immediate separation of the child from the parents leaves the family wondering if a quick adoption is the goal of DCBS for their newborn daughter.
Mother Denied Further Breastfeeding, Father Never Got a Chance to Hold His Baby
Ausia only got to breastfeed her baby for 30 minutes. Jarvis never got to even hold his daughter, because he was allowing his wife those first few precious moments to bond, and he planned to hold his daughter when he returned later that morning. They only got a few precious photos of their baby girl, never imagining that once she left the room that morning, she was not coming back.
Ausia bonding with her newborn baby girl before KY DCBS took her into custody. She only got to hold her for 1 hour. Photo submitted by family.
There is no reason that this mother should be denied the ability to breastfeed her baby or at least pump breastmilk for her. Both requests were emphatically denied by the DCBS social worker, as told by Ausia:
I somehow managed to ask the SSW through my hysterical cries if I could still be with my baby and continue to breastfeed her while in the hospital. She flat out told me no.
Kaitlyn proceeded to tell me that she had an emergency removal order signed from Judge Catherine Holderfield. I cried hysterically. I asked her could I see my child at least while we were still in the hospital because I was breastfeeding her. She told me no and nothing else.
She got up and left along with her supervisors and officers. She never did show me the order that the judge signed for the removal of Auria. Jarvis said Kaitlyn had a guilty expression on her face and couldn’t even look at me while I cried for my child. Kaitlyn feels guilty for taking a newborn away from its mother because she knows what she did was evil and cruel.
Over the weekend, I was not able to see my child. I was not able to feed my child the nutrients that she needs from my breast milk. Jarvis has not even held his newborn baby girl. He has not been able to take any pictures with her because they took her from us just that quick.
Punishment for Not Taking “Parenting Classes”
DCBS says they had an Emergency Order to remove the newborn based on the fact that the other 2 children are in foster care and that the parents did not complete their parenting classes.
Ausia and Jarvis maintain that they refused to take parenting classes “offered” by DCBS because they still have not gone to trial and they have been denied “due process” and say that being ordered to take parenting classes for a crime (child abuse) they did not commit is likened to being “guilty until proven innocent.” Their case has still not gone to trial, and they have only had pre-trial hearings up to this point.
Also, they believe that the children were illegally and wrongfully placed into foster care. Originally, the children were placed into kinship care with their paternal great-grandmother Gracie Evans by family court Judge Catherine Holderfield, when Ausia and Jarvis were accused of “abusive head trauma” by Nashville Vanderbilt’s “child abuse specialist” when they took their son Zadyne to the hospital for meningitis in 2014. At their first pre-trial hearing, the family brought in a 2nd medical opinion, believing it would prove their innocence and explain Zadyne’s medical conditions. But instead of having their children returned home as they had hoped, the new family court Judge Downey became outraged that the family had gotten a 2nd opinion and immediately ordered that the children be removed from the great-grandmother’s custody and placed into foster care for “tampering with evidence.”
The family was stunned and says that there was no reason for the children to have been removed from kinship care and placed into foster care, especially since the original order did not prohibit Gracie from taking the children to see a doctor. For DCBS to now use the reasoning that because the first 2 children are in foster care, that the new baby should also be in foster care, makes no sense to this already traumatized family.
Expert Medical Testimony Concludes Zadyne Was Not Abused
After the original story published on MedicalKidnap.com in May 2016, the family was able to obtain expert medical testimony which they feel will exonerate them and prove that Zadyne suffered from a medical condition that caused increased intra-cranial pressure and retinal hemorrhages and hematomas, and that these were chronic, not acute, indicating that this was not abuse.
Since the publishing of the first story, Ausia has been researching vaccines and was considering not vaccinating her new child, after seeing the correlations between Zadyne’s illness and hospital visits and his routine vaccines. Now her right to make medical decisions for her newborn, and any of her children, is being threatened by DCBS. (For discussions on how vaccine damages can cause these types of medical injuries, see the original story.)
Childhood Friend Reads Story, Urges Attorney Father to Assist Evans Family
A high-school friend of Ausia’s read the original story and showed it to her father, who is a lawyer, and implored him to help Ausia and Jarvis. With a new criminal attorney and the expert medical opinion, the family had high hopes that their criminal case would be dismissed at the next hearing, and with it, the family court case would be dismissed as well.
With this new development, the attorney has agreed to also represent the family in family court on Monday. Ausia writes:
He said that what has happened is just terrible and he is not going to allow them to take my newborn from me without a fight. They had no reason to take her from me. Their only reason to take her is because my other two children are in foster care and we have not completed a case plan for my other two children. We do not have a case plan for my newborn child. The case plan for my other two children has NOTHING to do with Auria.
Ausia and Jarvis’ new baby girl, taken into Kentucky State custody at 1-hour old. Photo supplied by family.
Kentucky Doesn’t Consider Kinship Care a Priority
On Saturday 7/16/16, Cassandra Watts, Jarvis’ aunt, attended the “Take Back Kentucky” meeting in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, because Glenna Bevin’s Chief of Staff, Sarah Durand, would be speaking on CPS Reform, and Cassandra wanted to share her family’s CPS story.
Cassandra explained how children should not be in foster care when a child has family members who are willing and wanting to step in and help their own kin and take them in, and how her own mother was denied the right to kinship care because she sought a 2nd medical opinion to prove her grandson’s innocence.
Allegedly, Durand openly admitted that Kentucky does not consider kinship care a priority, and that is one thing they are working on changing. While the 2013 moratorium on funding kinship care in Kentucky adversely affects many elderly family members on fixed incomes from being able to take on the financial burden of caring for grandchildren, families like Cassandra’s who never asked for financial assistance are also being denied the right to care for their own family members. This just isn’t right.
Threatened With Adoption for Being Non-Compliant
Cassandra firmly believes that there are financial incentives for all CPS’ partnered service providers (such as therapists, counselors, doctors, etc.) when families are coerced into “case plans and services” once their children are placed into foster care, and that there is no financial benefit to these same providers or to the state coffers when kinship care is chosen over foster care. Often parents are threatened with forced adoption of their children and are told they are non-compliant if they do not participate in the CPS case plan and services. Ausia and Jarvis have been “threatened” by social workers that their children will be adopted if they do not comply with services and do the parenting classes. Cassandra explains:
‘Since the passage of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (P.L. 96-272) in 1980, Federal law requires the development of a written case plan for any child receiving foster care maintenance payments under title IV-E (42 U.S.C. 671(16)).1’ (Source.)
The question is should Ausia and Jarvis be forced to participate in a case plan when their two children should have never been in foster care in the first place? The Cabinet has to get Ausia and Jarvis to do this plan to satisfy Federal requirements. That explains why during the annual Permanency Hearing filed on March 23, 2016, the Cabinet threatened to place the children up for adoption because they had not completed a case plan. That also explains why they refuse to allow Ausia to bond with the newborn while in the hospital. They are using harsh retaliation to force Ausia and Jarvis to do a case plan if they want to ever see their newborn.
The Cabinet did not pressure Ausia and Jarvis to sign a case plan while the two children were in the care of their great grandmother, Gracie Evans. The great grandmother did not apply to receive these funds from the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act. Therefore, a case plan was not necessary as there was no funds being spent to care for these children.
When the children were placed in foster care on May 12, 2014, four days later, on May 16, 2014, the Cabinet had Ausia and Jarvis at their office to trick them into signing a case plan.
Had the children stayed in the care of Gracie, and as long as Gracie was not receiving any of these funds, there would be no issue regarding a case plan. They removed the kids from Gracie against the family’s wills and placed them in Foster Care. Gracie did not put the children in harm way for them to be removed. Gracie did not violate any orders of the Judge. This removal was solely to prevent the family from finding out the truth of Zadyne’s illness. When the family started investigating and getting second opinions, they felt that removal was the only way to protect a cover-up. And now they want the parents to pay for this cover-up by attending the classes and doing a case plan.
The children did not have to go into foster care. They owe the federal government a successful case plan to continue their funding and they will do anything necessary to get that case plan completed at the expense of the children and family. It is not about making sure families stay together. It is about meeting the requirements of the federal government to continue receiving the federal grant dollars.
Should Ausia and Jarvis have to do this case plan when their children should have never been put in foster care? The family did no wrong. Gracie Evans, the temporary caregiver did no wrong.
The Government Does Not Trust Families
Cassandra reported that Durand expressed how Kentucky is trying to keep children in their homes and out of foster care, but also said that Kentucky needs more foster care families and better trained social workers. When Cassandra questioned Durand about why children are removed based on allegations without any real investigation into the allegation’s truthfulness, she says that Durand expressed that it is very expensive to train social workers to investigate properly due to the high turnover rate.
Cassandra also reported that Durand allegedly stated in the meeting that they have requested information from DCBS regarding caseloads and adoption numbers, but so far the “organization built on a foundation of transparency in action and with accountability for results,” as DCBS touts on its website, has not complied with releasing all of this information to Durand’s office.
Can an agency like CPS be reformed and should it be? Many families whose children are now in foster care may wonder how serious can Glenna Bevin’s office be about reforming CPS and keeping children in their homes when she just launched a new adoption site, to make the whole process of becoming a foster or adoptive parent even easier! (Source.)
To Cassandra and some other families present, CPS does not need reforming, it needs to be dismantled. To Cassandra, the actions of DCBS show her that the government does not trust families.
Retaliation for Helping Family
Cassandra believes that because she’s been helping her nephew and his wife fight DCBS, she is receiving retaliation, but this won’t deter her from continuing to fight for her family. She says:
Because I spoke up for my family, the city [of Bowling Green] has sent a letter on every property I own every month stating that I am in violation of something every month and threatening me with fines such as:
‘Your tenant is working on his car in the yard, and if he doesn’t stop, you will be fined $200.00’
‘There is a can in the yard, and if it is not removed, you will be fined $200.00’
‘Your property needs a new roof, and you cannot sell it or rent it until you replace the roof.’
Family Needs Community Support and Prayer Now More Than Ever
The Evans family is a strong family and their faith is inspiring. They are beaten but not destroyed. The family needs the community’s support and prayers, as they head to court on Monday 7/18/16 to plead to keep custody of their newborn, or at least for her to be placed in kinship care and for Ausia and Jarvis to have supervised visitation so Ausia can breastfeed.
Precious bonding time has already been lost, and the family is praying that Judge Catherine Holderfield will see that it is in the best interest of the baby to be with her parents and family and return her home tomorrow. Judge Holderfield can be contacted here:
1001 Center St.
Bowling Green, KY 42101-2192
Phone: 270-746-7144 or Phone: 270-746-7190 or Fax: 270-746-7147
Image of Judge Holderfield from LinkedIn.
Ausia concludes:
We have court July 18th for a custody hearing at the Warren County Justice Center. The address is 1001 Center St Bowling Green KY 42101. We pray and pray that the judge will see that me and my newborn needs to be together at this time. Please pray for our family. Thank you everyone.
Unless someone has been in my shoes, nobody can ever truly understand how it feels to have your child ripped from your life for a second time. It brought back so many memories on the day that the officers and former social worker, Edin, came to my grandmother’s house and took Amira and Zadyne from me.
I just pray that on Monday, Judge Holderfield will have some sympathy and mercy for me. I pray that she can connect to me as a mother and understand that a mother and her newborn NEEDS to be together at this time. This is the time for us to bond and for my child to know who I am. She will not be able to know who I am if she is being kept from me for no reason at all. I pray that when I walk out of that courtroom tomorrow, I will be walking out in victory and with my newborn in my custody.
This has made me want to fight even harder for the return of my children. Just when I think that I am fighting as hard as I can, God shows me that I can fight a little harder.
I am going to stay positive and keep going. DCBS wants to break me in any way that they can. They will not break me. They will not come out on top. I am claiming it.
The family has a Facebook page here: Shaken Baby Syndrome escape for Oxygen Poisoning. Image from Facebook.
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