Curious Parents Child Care Resources

Dear Readers,

One would expect that the mission of the state social services organization would be to ensure the safety of children in the state.  However, state social services agencies can become harmful to children and families and cause damage that exceeds your worst nightmares.  The recipe for abuse is when that organization is endowed by the state with unbalanced power, when the employees and agents of that organization become unaccountable and begin to act out their own personal agendas using the authority and powers granted them by the state and when the courts refuse to grant the basic rights of due process. 

We are all familiar with the horror stories of children abused by the system once they are consigned to foster care - locked in closets or basements, sexual and physical abuse, malnourished by foster families interested only in their monthly check from the state - the stories are frequent headlines on the evening news.  What we don't hear much about and what is becoming a more frequent abuse is the use of foster care by social services organizations as a means of threatening or intimidating innocent families.  Accused parents desperate to keep their children out of the system are at the mercy of the social services agency.

Massachusetts is one state where the Department of Social Services has reportedly developed a pattern of behavior that has been abusive toward normal, innocent families.  It is possible for someone to make vague and unsubstantiated claims of abuse or neglect toward loving, caring parents at which point Social Services will immediately demand that the children be placed in foster care pending investigation by Social Services personnel.  In these cases, the charges are filed by Social Services, the children are seized by Social Services, the investigation is conducted by Social Services using Social Services personnel and a decision is rendered by Social Services - all while the evidence is gathered from the children while they are being held in custody and denied access to their parents or any legal representation.  A parent falsely accused in this system and faced with the confiscation of their children into foster care must feel as if they stepped back to Nazi Germany or into George Orwell's 1984 where the ordinary citizen has no rights and is completely at the mercy of a corrupt bureaucracy.

A judge in the presiding court is rarely disposed to act on behalf of the parents or justice because the charges are so heinous as to discourage them from granting due process for fear of being the next judge to appear in the headlines as a 'soft judge'.  Better to let the process run it's course and allow the blame to fall on Social Services if the parents are indeed innocent.  The problem is that the children are separated from their family and subject to a corrupt and abusive system in the meantime. 

And what about placing the children with other family members during the investigation period?  What about uncles, aunts, grandparents who are familiar to the children and can provide safe and loving care while the investigation into the charges runs it's course?  The Massachusetts Department of Social Services website claims that Foster Care is the option of last resort, however in many of these cases, they flatly deny any discussion or consideration of placing the children with other family members and mandate foster care.  Is this because they need the kids in their custody to fabricate or solidify the charges using suggestive or coercive interviewing techniques against the children?  Or is it just because it's a further expression of a bureaucrat's power lust - Social Services workers have reportedly laughed at parents who declare that they will fight for their rights or have declared to parents that "I'm going to be raising your children"

Child abuse is a serious problem in our society.  How do we protect our children from abuse while at the same time preventing overzealous or corrupt bureaucrats from damaging loving and healthy families?  The answer is simple - Make the Social Services agencies accountable to a court system that guarantees due process to the accused.  If guilt can be proved, then remove the children first to family members and only in the last resort to foster care where they will be safe, secure and loved.

For more information and details of specific cases and abuses by the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, visit the website: www.massoutrage.com.   If you'd like to voice your outrage or recommend that  changes be made to the system in Massachusetts, then write to Governor Deval L. Patrick, Office of the Governor, Massachusetts State House Room 360 Boston, MA 02133 or Department of Social Services Commissioner Angelo McClain, 24 Farnsworth Street, Boston, MA 02210