Confessions of a CPS Caseworker: We Remove Kids to Protect Ourselves

Caseworkers often claim they are “damned if we do and we’re damned if we don’t.” But when it comes to taking away children, caseworkers are only damned if they don’t. It’s one of the reasons so many children are needlessly consigned to the chaos of foster care. Now, a leader of a union representing caseworkers has admitted as much. It happened last June when a committee of the Philadelphia City Council examined problems at the Department of Human Services, the agency that runs child welfare in the city. Among the issues: the fact that Philadelphia takes away children at one of the highest rates of any big city. Vanessa Fields, vice president of District Council 47 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, cut right through all that b.s. With commendable candor, she declared: "Workers are afraid that they're going to be disciplined if anything goes wrong on a case. So their thing is, Well, I'm just going to take the kid out of the home and put them in care. That way, I don't have to worry about being written up or disciplined because I left the children in the home and something happened to them. … You place that kid outside of that home, because you do not want to be in a situation where you left a child in a home and something happened to them." As interesting as what Fields said is what she did not say. She expressed no fear of discipline for taking away too many children. Nor should she. In 40 years of following child welfare I have never seen a caseworker fired, demoted, suspended or even slapped on the wrist for that. On the rare occasion when a family harmed this way brings a civil suit, caseworkers have “qualified immunity.” In layman’s terms that means they’re immune from damages unless they do something incredibly malicious or incredibly stupid. In one case, a worker actually claimed what amounted to a constitutional right to lie. Fortunately, that claim failed, but the worker in question wasn’t fired. She was promoted.

New Vaccine Documentary with All-Star Lineup to Address Greatest Health Topic of our Lifetime

Health Impact News reports on a variety of health topics that impact your health and that the mainstream media seldom reports. Of these topics, no topic comes close to the level of traffic and readership interest that the vaccine topic does, when it comes to vaccine efficacy and safety. We have an entire website dedicated to this topic: VaccineImpact.com. Producer Ty Bollinger, the man behind The Truth About Cancer documentaries that have changed so many lives, has now brought together over 60 speakers representing the top authorities on vaccines in a brand new documentary to begin airing on April 12, 2017. It can be viewed online by the public for FREE! I have worked together with Ty Bollinger to help bring you this all-star lineup of medical doctors and other experts who will present the truth about vaccines in what will be the most comprehensive treatment of the subject the world has probably ever seen!

Terminally Ill Father Finds Cure in Cannabis Oil but Now on Death Bed After Complying with CPS to Get Children Back

For nearly three years, Michael Brooks of Northwestern Tennessee has been fighting for his children and for his life. Faced with terminal Hepatitis C, he finally found a treatment that saved his life and brought him into remission. However, Child Protective Services of Tennessee is using the very thing that brought him from the brink of death - cannabis oil - as grounds to take his children and place them into foster care. He has been forced to choose between staying in Tennessee and accelerate towards his death or leaving to continue treatment in Colorado and risk being accused of abandoning his children.

Did Tennessee Father Convicted of Shaken Baby Syndrome Get a Fair Trial?

In 2014, Health Impact News brought you a story about a Jonesborough, Tennessee, couple Joe and Charlotte Whitaker, who were accused of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS). The local police charged the couple following a 911 call from Joe Whitaker on August 15, 2013, when their son, Jaden, became unresponsive. Jaden was diagnosed with the controversial Shaken Baby Syndrome by a “child abuse specialist," Dr. Mary Palmer of the University of Knoxville Medical Center. In an update to this tragedy, the formerly happy family of five has lost everything. The couple lost their son to the state in 2014, and recently Charlotte lost her husband, home, and job. Joe Whitaker is now in jail for a crime his family says he did not commit.

Ohio Parents Disagree with School Over ADHD Diagnosis – Lose 7 Year Old Son to CPS

His parents say that he is just a normal, imaginative little boy; his school says that he needs mental health help. After Christian Maple was called to pick up his 7 year old son Camden from school following an incident, Christian and his wife Katie had a long talk with their son to find out what exactly was going on. As parents, they know their son better than anyone, and they addressed the situation at home. They thought the matter was settled. It should have been over. But it wasn't. It got much worse. The next morning, staff at Bowman Primary School in Lebanon, Ohio, demanded to know the content of the Maples' conversation with their son. Christian did not believe that was their business to know the details, and he and Katie chose to reject the primary school's opinion that they needed to have Camden evaluated and treated by psychologists. The school reported the Maples to Child Protective Services. Eight police officers later surrounded the family's house and took 7 year old Camden away from his home and his family. Instead of the state respecting the Maples' fundamental right to parent their child and make medical decisions for him, CPS has seized custody of Camden and accused his parents of neglecting his mental health. The Maples are still reeling in shock, and are now fighting to get him back home.

Medically Kidnapped Senior Citizen’s Health Deteriorating in Missouri, Wife of 44 Years Forbidden to Help

It is going on four years since Charley Taylor has been held against his will in a nursing home under the control of a conservator. This is despite having two doctors say that he is competent. It has been a month since his wife Helen has been banned from the nursing home, and the couple is heartbroken. Since that day, Charley’s health has significantly declined, according to his wife Helen. Helen said that her husband has been “throwing up non-stop” since she was ordered off the premises indefinitely, or risk being arrested. She said: "He’s as weak as a kitten, I can’t hardly even understand him. When he talks to me, I’ve got to ask over and over what he said, because he’s so weak."

California Bill SB18 Wants Authority to Enter Homes to Ensure Parents Comply with State Mandates for Child Care

As we have continued to see increased cases of medical kidnapping and aggressive overreach of the medical system and the marriage of scientific opinion to laws in the United States, parents in California may be seeing a trend first hand that is going to be played out in the rest of the nation. Especially since 134 vaccine mandates have been introduced in this legislative session, indicating the trend for political mandates of your child’s standard of care is nowhere near slowing down. Many have speculated that SB18 is a part of Agenda 21 and Healthy People 2020 -- U.N. and U.S.-based initiatives, respectively, that are designed to corral populations into the inner cities and enforce a standard of care across the board that will implement controls that enable governments to manage portions of the population based on their standards and not the choices of the individual.

Is Alabama DHR “Offer” to Young Mother Blackmail? Give Up Your Daughter and We Will Not Take Your Other Children

Her court-appointed attorney called it "an offer." Haly Boothe calls it "blackmail." She was devastated by the choice that met her when she went to Shelby County Family Court in Alabama. Her family has been fighting to get 10 month old baby Avyonna back from state custody ever since the Department of Human Resources (DHR) social workers came to the hospital 3 days after her baby was born and took the newborn baby girl from her mother's breast. At the time, they told her that the reason that they were taking the baby was because the state already had her other 2 children, children that were born to her when she herself was in foster care. She and her grandparents have maintained that the real reason the first 2 children were kept by the state was because she was a foster child when she had them. The choice that was presented to Haly on Friday lends credence to that assertion. "So let me get this straight, DHR said my only option is to let Avyonna get adopted and they will drop all of the child support and ANY FUTURE children I have DHR will not take?"

Florida Foster Parents Charged with Hundreds of Sex Crimes Against Children in Alabama

A Florida couple is accused of hundreds of sex crimes involving 11 young children in Alabama, authorities said. The charges leveled against Daniel W. Spurgeon and Jenise R. Spurgeon stem from allegations of abuse sustained by their foster and adopted children when they lived in Alabama years ago, Florence police said. The allegations have been under investigation since Florida authorities contacted Florence police last July about crimes that occurred in Cape Coral. The Florida investigation led police to believe children in Alabama also may have been abused, said Florence police Sgt. Brad Holmes. Daniel Spurgeon is charged with 115 counts of first-degree sex abuse, 122 counts of child abuse, four counts of first-degree sodomy, four counts of sexual torture, three counts of domestic violence by strangulation or suffocation, six counts of first-degree rape, 115 counts of enticing a child for immoral purposes, six counts of incest and 11 counts of first-degree human trafficking. Jenise Spurgeon is charged with 100 counts of child abuse, one count of domestic violence by strangulation of suffocation, 11 counts of first-degree human trafficking, 100 counts of endangering the welfare of a child and 100 counts of enticing a child for immoral purposes.

Alabama Mom Laments How DHR Stole 2 Years of Daughter’s Life Over Cell Phone Dispute

It's been over two years since our daughter was taken and never returned by Dekalb county DHR worker Ellen Morrow. She was 15 years old at the time. She is now 18 years old. My daughter was an honor roll student and softball player in the 10th grade. We dreamed and worked hard towards getting a college scholarship so she could attend Auburn University because she always said that is what she wanted to do when she graduated. She was a good girl. She has never been in trouble. She had not started dating yet. She was a normal child and DHR destroyed her and our dreams for her future over a cell phone dispute. The reason that my family was torn apart, according to DHR, was that there was possible risk of neglect in the future if they did not remove her, evidenced by an argument that allegedly occurred the evening before. That is what it takes to destroy lives and families in Alabama. DHR did not have my permission to use my family, to violate my God given or my Constitutional rights, nor my family's. Now I pray that God will use me to help prevent others from going through this abuse at the hands of our own government and this group of unqualified people which it pays to abduct, and traffick human beings. I pray for the Lord to protect us all and put an end to this madness and corruption.