I have recently become involved in various causes, all of which are geared toward fighting CPS or Child Protective Services. This is a cause which I fully believe in. Now, I would like to take the time to tell a story. This is my personal experience with CPS.
Let's start with the back story. My daughter got in trouble in school for tearing up a book. When she came home with a note from the teacher, we had a talk with her. We explained the importance of school and getting an education, and the importance of not vandalizing school property. We thought that we had gotten through to her. Until she came home with another note the following day. This time she was talking back to her teacher, being rude, and kicking a child in the cafeteria. So, she got a spanking from her dad. He spanked her with his hand on her butt, which is not illegal in the state of California.
On January 16, 2009, my world fell apart. The Bakersfield Police Department came to my home, arrested my husband, and kidnapped my two sons. Officer Tackett left instructions with my daughter's school to not release her to us. He then proceeded to call his personal friend, Miriam O'Campa, an agent of CPS, to remove my children as a normal Emergency Response Social Worker would not have removed them. In a matter of less than an hour, the government had stolen my whole family. I was crushed. I was heartbroken. I was devastated.
Approximately a week later, we were given a court hearing on the allegations and a decision would be made as to whether or not the children would be permitted to return home. The decision was made that they would not. We were given a case plan, bus tickets, and weekly visitation with our children. The court worker, Linda Lopez, informed us that after 6 months my husband and I would have to break-up, and if we did not meet all of their requirements in that time frame, our parental rights would be terminated, and our children would be placed up for adoption.
We started visiting with our children, taking our classes, doing everything that we were required to do. On our 3rd visit with the children, it became apparent that there was a problem with their placement. We walked into the visit room and saw our then 2-year old son with two black eyes, kick marks up and down his side and spine, and he had a large purple bruise from his butt cheek to his knee. His sister, then 6-years old, told us that in the foster home that they were placed in (which was the home of a Kern County Sheriff who worked in the pedophile department), my sons were being thrown across the room and their faces were stomped on. This was the third occasion on which CPS had documented abuse within the foster home. On this particular day, I had reached my limit with CPS and their failure to protect my children. I demanded that the police be called, and my children be removed from this home immediately. We ended up being at that particular visit for 2 1/2 hours past the scheduled end. When the foster mother's supervisor arrived to collect the children and return them to the home, she was shown the bruises on our son. Her comment was, "I am not going to investigate every bump and bruise." I found this quite surprising, since that is what CPS was doing to us! The police and the social worker that was supervising that visit decided to remove my children from that home, and perform a welfare check on the children of the foster mother.
Our sons have now been moved to another foster home. Our daughter has been moved back into Jamison Center, waiting for a new foster home placement. After a week or so, they were all placed with a woman named Maria. Maria seemed like a really nice lady, a good placement for the children that we were comfortable with. The children remained in her care for 6 months. Maria refused to teach our 13 month old son English. His first language was Spanish. His father could not even communicate with him due to the language barrier, which was extremely frustrating for both of them.
Toward the end of the 6 month period that the children spent in this placement, our daughter, who was not 7 years old, complained to our social worker, Ruth Tafoya, that every time she told Maria that she wanted to talk to the social worker or her lawyer to be removed from the current placement, she was being slapped in the face. We were also informed by our daughter that Maria was allowing her nephews, age 9 and 10, to beat her up. There was even an incident where she was trying to tell us something about the nephews being in her room and "doing something to her," although Ms. Tafoya always entered the room and intimidated her into shutting up. I was astonished when Ms. Tafoya practically refused to remove the children from an abusive foster home. I felt like this woman had a free pass to do whatever she wanted to do to these poor children, just because she was a licensed foster parent. I had to yell at Ms. Tafoya and say some not so nice words to her in order to get my children back to safety. I even had to call Ms. Tafoya's supervisor. I just could not believe that the children were taken out of my care for a simple spanking, but this woman could slap my child in the face and not get into any trouble at all. Aren't foster parents supposed to be better than the allegedly abusive parents? Maria never did face any legal consequences for her actions. To this day she is still a licensed foster care parent.
The children were removed from yet another foster care placement. Unfortunately, at this point they were split up. We moved about 100 miles away, but still in the same county, so the children were placed in the same town. Our daughter ended up with a set of wonderful foster parents. Her foster father was a Police Officer in that particular town. Our sons were placed with a couple that we did not care for. Within 2 days of being in their new placement, our older son was calling this woman, "Mom." I was absolutely infuriated, but my husband did not understand, until a few weeks later our son called the foster father, "Dad." At that point, he lost it.
Around this time, we were given a new worker, Veronica Ruiz-Cox. That woman was a God send. She was awesome. Words can not express the gratitude that my husband and I both have for her. She was the first and only social worker who actually seemed interested in helping us get our kids back in the home, rather than trying to adopt them out to some rich, barren couple. The first sign that things were starting to look up was when she told me, "Your children are coming home. It's just a matter of when. I am just here to babysit and push the paperwork through." At that point, I knew that everything was going to be just fine.
Eventually the boys were moved out of that home, and into anew home in yet another town, not too far from where we were residing at the time. The foster mother was an elderly lady. She was really good to them, which was a huge relief after everything that they had gone through. The boys called her, "Grandma," which was agreeable by everyone involved.
Next, we had a court hearing to see if the kids could come home yet, how much progress we had made in our case plan, and to hear testimony from the social worker. When we arrived, our daughter informed us that they were going to try to terminate our parental rights and place the boys up for adoption, according to her lawyer. During the hearing, their lawyer voted against terminating our rights because her client (our daughter) did not agree with that. I thought that was very selfless of our daughter, considering just the week before she told me that she wanted me to "get rid of the boys." When the worker, Ms. Tafoya, was testifying, she perjured herself multiple times and made some things up. I could not believe that a social worker would sink that low and lie to the court. In the end, our parental rights remained intact, but with a warning: 6 more months to complete everything, or lose all of the children to adoption. My classes for "failure to protect" (which is a 6 months class) were modified to Anger Management (a 10 week class). I was informed by my attorney, that I might have to kick my husband out of the home so that I could regain custody of the children, and that he would be allowed to return in 6 months, when his classes were through. So, we left court with a little more hope, but we also knew that the judge would not delay the termination of our rights anymore. It was time to get serious.
We immediately got serious about getting into our classes. Within 1 week we were enrolled, and were spending 7 hours a day on a bus going to a town that was 100 miles away (in each direction), just so that we could get our babies back. We were working our butts off. My husband took that rickety bus trip with a herniated disc, walking on crutches. Nobody can ever say that he did not give it his all.
The kids were doing well in their placements, my class was over, and my husband's only had a few weeks left when we went to court on May 14, 2010. The children were already on overnight visits, which is where they would get to come over and spend the night with us. That happens to be a sign to the court that the family is ready to be reunited. On this day, the court hearing was relatively short. Judge Warmerdam ordered that the children be returned to the home immediately. This was by far the best day of our lives. We had beat the crooked system. During this whole ordeal, I had lost hope, and I had begun to disassociate myself from the children, becoming very hard (emotionally). But it was all over now.
