WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP CREATE SURVIVORS?
First and Foremost, I believe that we have to reach out to those who will listen to us. We need to go out and create the change that we need to see in the State's System. Children should have rights to less trauma after they are removed from the only homes they have ever known. People don't stop and think that sometimes there are other fixes than simply removing the child from the "home" and then asking questions later. Maybe they need to investigate BEFORE they just remove a child. And when they say they are doing an investigation, they need to stop the "witch hunting" that has occurred too often. I have known of CPS Caseworkers trying to get information to use against a parent via very illegal activities, recruiting family members who might have ulterior motives to even hack email accounts and impersonate the parents in question. They will do anything to try and "make a case" against a parent. Why are they trying so hard to break a family up, separate a child from their mothers before a bond can even be established between them?
How about if C.P.S. would start with a new approach, see the best interest of the CHILD, not the Paychecks. If you have a personal history or "knowledge" of a parent, as a caseworker or investigator, you should automatically exclude yourself completely from the situation. C.P.S. has too much power, in my opinion. I know they say they are doing things for a child's best interest, but there is so much neglect on their oversights. In the Lubbock area alone, there have been cases where they have removed a child from one parent, and given them to another parent after a "background check", just for the young boy to have been found murdered by that "relative placement" months later. Then we hear a big "oops!" from the caseworker placing the child. You have to wonder, how terrible could it have been to remove a child from a questionable situation and just toss them into a death sentence?
I know, people like to speculate that this must have been a case of once in a while occurrence, but truthfully things like this happen more than is let on.
I find it awfully sad that if you were a child taken into the foster care system by CPS, they NEVER seem to "let it go" that you were a foster child. C.P.S. will haunt you as long as you try to have a life of your own as an adult, when you have children, they will send out letters seeking an investigation with your new little one. As though you must forever pay for the fact that you had been abused as a child.
I have seen time and again that C.P.S. is tossed into conversations between feuding friends, family, and extended - often frustrated family members who aren't happy with the smallest things you might choose to do as a parent. I am talking about things that we as parents should be able to decide for our children such as using cloth diapers instead of disposables, breastfeeding instead of formula. I have heard first hand of adoptive mothers being threatened to have their newly adopted children taken from them just because the birth mother was a foster child growing up, and in the midst of a new motherhood experience.
This harassment has to stop! We need to create a situation where children can be LESS TRAUMATIZED, and MORE APT TO SURVIVE! This world is hard enough as it is to live in, let alone the factors of being neglected or abused. Why would you keep kicking someone when they are down?! I truthfully believe children should be given a chance to grow in a family that wants them, and if the family they are born into needs services and assistance in being able to be adequate parents for their children, why not try to help them before the problems escalate to removal of the children?
I think back to the days that I was growing up as a very young child, and knowing that my mother didn't really seem to have it all together, but she had a support system for the first 6 years of my life. They stepped in when she just couldn't be the mom she needed to be. Times have changed, and I know that the standards have risen as far as what a "parent" is supposed to be. But that is when we should decide how to create a support system for those who don't know what to do, or maybe want help, but the stigma of asking for help has led them to the fear of CPS taking their children, and asking questions later.
We should look at the way they used to raise children, it does truly take a village of support sometimes, we can't be expected to all be perfect, but Children love us regardless what happens. The money we could save as a State if only we would think before we react to "investigation calls." If you are interested in being part of the solution to the State's issues in the care of children of the state, DO SOMETHING!
I really love the program at Nelson Center in Denton, Texas. They have a program called Child's Choice, which would benefit anyone to look at and maybe implement something similar in their own areas. (More on this program and the Nelson Center on an upcoming page.)
For those Children still in Foster Care, there needs to be so many more people in the communities who will reach out and try to show them how special they are, that they need not feel alone. God is Always with us, but as a child, we end up blaming ourselves for being secluded suddenly from our families, we even convince ourselves that God hates us sometimes. And some children never got to know that God even exists before they were taken out of their "family".
How about if C.P.S. would start with a new approach, see the best interest of the CHILD, not the Paychecks. If you have a personal history or "knowledge" of a parent, as a caseworker or investigator, you should automatically exclude yourself completely from the situation. C.P.S. has too much power, in my opinion. I know they say they are doing things for a child's best interest, but there is so much neglect on their oversights. In the Lubbock area alone, there have been cases where they have removed a child from one parent, and given them to another parent after a "background check", just for the young boy to have been found murdered by that "relative placement" months later. Then we hear a big "oops!" from the caseworker placing the child. You have to wonder, how terrible could it have been to remove a child from a questionable situation and just toss them into a death sentence?
I know, people like to speculate that this must have been a case of once in a while occurrence, but truthfully things like this happen more than is let on.
I find it awfully sad that if you were a child taken into the foster care system by CPS, they NEVER seem to "let it go" that you were a foster child. C.P.S. will haunt you as long as you try to have a life of your own as an adult, when you have children, they will send out letters seeking an investigation with your new little one. As though you must forever pay for the fact that you had been abused as a child.
I have seen time and again that C.P.S. is tossed into conversations between feuding friends, family, and extended - often frustrated family members who aren't happy with the smallest things you might choose to do as a parent. I am talking about things that we as parents should be able to decide for our children such as using cloth diapers instead of disposables, breastfeeding instead of formula. I have heard first hand of adoptive mothers being threatened to have their newly adopted children taken from them just because the birth mother was a foster child growing up, and in the midst of a new motherhood experience.
This harassment has to stop! We need to create a situation where children can be LESS TRAUMATIZED, and MORE APT TO SURVIVE! This world is hard enough as it is to live in, let alone the factors of being neglected or abused. Why would you keep kicking someone when they are down?! I truthfully believe children should be given a chance to grow in a family that wants them, and if the family they are born into needs services and assistance in being able to be adequate parents for their children, why not try to help them before the problems escalate to removal of the children?
I think back to the days that I was growing up as a very young child, and knowing that my mother didn't really seem to have it all together, but she had a support system for the first 6 years of my life. They stepped in when she just couldn't be the mom she needed to be. Times have changed, and I know that the standards have risen as far as what a "parent" is supposed to be. But that is when we should decide how to create a support system for those who don't know what to do, or maybe want help, but the stigma of asking for help has led them to the fear of CPS taking their children, and asking questions later.
We should look at the way they used to raise children, it does truly take a village of support sometimes, we can't be expected to all be perfect, but Children love us regardless what happens. The money we could save as a State if only we would think before we react to "investigation calls." If you are interested in being part of the solution to the State's issues in the care of children of the state, DO SOMETHING!
I really love the program at Nelson Center in Denton, Texas. They have a program called Child's Choice, which would benefit anyone to look at and maybe implement something similar in their own areas. (More on this program and the Nelson Center on an upcoming page.)
For those Children still in Foster Care, there needs to be so many more people in the communities who will reach out and try to show them how special they are, that they need not feel alone. God is Always with us, but as a child, we end up blaming ourselves for being secluded suddenly from our families, we even convince ourselves that God hates us sometimes. And some children never got to know that God even exists before they were taken out of their "family".
