Why does the ACLU support the CPS in child protective proceedings? Follow the money - and identity politics that drive the ACLU's' donations. Violating constitutional parental rights to have children placed with married homosexaul male couples.

“Child protective” proceedings – while very frequent (over 2 million child maltreatment complaints are lodged in the U.S. per year) – are not very well understood, even by professional lawyers practicing in such courts and by judges presiding over such proceedings.

No surprises there – law schools, possibly, deliberately, at the request of the state, for purposes of law enforcement and for purposes of getting more money in federal grants for adoptions out of foster care and for sustaining CPS in its current size, do not teach courses of how to protect parents in such proceedings, there are no textbooks on this subject, and this subject is not tested on any bar exams.

Therefore, neither judges, nor attorneys practicing in such proceedings, are specifically trained to understand and apply the complex, varied and often convoluted laws involved in such proceedings.

That means that when an attorney is assigned in such proceedings to an indigent party who does not have a right under the current law to choose the quality of assigned counsel, has no assurance from the attorney’s law license that the assigned counsel, to put it in plain language, has a clue as to what to do and how to defend his client in such proceedings, proceedings that care a dire risk of losing, forever, the client’s parental rights.

Moreover, many attorneys and most civil rights organizations would not touch such proceedings with a ten-foot pole – they are too “controversial” for them to consider being involved in, because, think about it, how can anyone DEFEND somebody who is even accused of mistreating a baby?

When I was practicing in such proceedings as an attorney, and practicing civil rights litigation in federal court, I often had clients coming to me and complaining that the ACLU refused to get involved whenever CPS was mentioned.

So, why the change of heart now?

Suddenly, the ACLU takes a very pronounced stand – and on the side of CPS, too, even though that is not openly mentioned – in child protective proceedings, and not once, but twice, and very publicly.

First, the ACLU took a very fiery stand against - of course - against President Trump and the South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, for:

1. Asking Trump to give South Carolina an exemption from the requirement not to discriminate in agencies handling child welfare (McMaster); and
2. For granting such an exemption (Trump) - 

where the case concerned an agency picking foster parents to - well, foster - children placed with them by South Carolina Social Services.  The agency accepted for the position of foster parents only parents who were Protestants (usually white non-Jewish people) and rejected everybody else.

The second fiery stand of ACLU happened when it defended the "rights" of LGBT candidates to (free) adoptions out of foster care.

The ACLU that usually 

• refuses to participate in defending the rights of BIOLOGICAL parents in pending child protective proceedings, while the court did not determine yet that biological parents did anything wrong and while CONSTITUTIONAL parental rights of biological parents are far from being terminated,
• started to ardently defend "equal rights" of foster parents.

The equal rights that the ACLU pushed were:

• in government employment - a good point; and
• in the right of FOSTER parents to ADOPT - which is, at the time when the case is still pending in court, means SIDING WITH CPS and PREJUDGING every child protective proceeding, once it is file and once the child is removed during such a proceeding in foster care, that the biological parent is wrong, his rights will be terminated, and the foster parents will happily become adoptive parents.  

On the cheap, by the way.

I have seen discussions on forums, in groups where the would-be adoptive parents participated, and where social services employees also participated - and the social worker openly advised the would-be adoptive parent, as a CHEAPEST way to adoption, to consider becoming a foster parent, explaining that the adoption will be free for them, instead of $25,000 to $50,000 price-tag for a private adoption, and, on top of that, there are large and various subsidies by the government paid to foster and then to adoptive parents.

But, but, but, but, but...

BUT.

Parental rights, as the US Supreme Court declared, are constitutional rights, they cannot be PRESUMED GONE once CPS yanks the child and puts him or her into foster care.

The law squarely puts the burden of proof in child protective proceedings on CPS, the Petitioner.

It is the Petitioner, the CPS who must PROVE that the parent did something wrong - even if the child is already taken away from the parent, as a precaution only, the CPS and the law says about such removals, but without automatic presumption of wrongdoing or termination of parental rights on removal of the child.

The law also requires, while the child is in foster care, that the CPS make efforts to "REUNIFY" the child with the child's biological parents.

Now, of course, the law should not create incentives, especially where major human rights are concerned, such as parental rights and the right of the child to be raised by his own biological father and mother and have contact with his extended biological family, which would run one against another.

Yet, that is exactly what was done when CPS

1/ still has a burden of proof that the parent did something wrong, still has, by law, a duty to make efforts to reunite children placed by CPS into foster care and the children's biological parents; and

2/ given money if it places children for adoption with strangers (non-family) out of foster care, but 

3/ not given money if CPS reunites children with the child's biological parents - or places them for adoption with family.

To me, it is obvious that lobbying by wealthy childless people who did not want to pay for private adoption were at work in creating such a law where the money outweighs parental constitutional rights - as it always does.

In fact, this same law could be written in such a way that the money would side with preserving constitutional rights, or at least keeping the child within the family - if CPS would be paid MORE, and MUCH, MUCH MORE for adoption with family members, than for adoption with strangers.

The way it is, the incentive exists for CPS to declare in court that it is trying hard to make efforts to reunite children in foster care with their biological parents, while in reality choosing to FOSTER the children people who want to ADOPT them - meaning, from day 1 of foster care the child is placed with people who are interested to terminate biological rights of parents - and to save money by avoiding private adoption fees and, instead, get lots and lots of government subsidies.

A very special category in the flock of would-be foster/adoptive parents are male same-sex married couples.  Yes, yes, yes, I am going to talk about it openly - because, 1. I want to, 2. I do not care what anybody will say about me for touching this explosive subject not the politically correct way, and 3. I am retired, do not seek employment, and do not seek any benefits from the government - meaning, nobody can fire me or deny me those benefits in retaliation for what I say here.

So.

What kind of incentive that would be contrary to the law that supports CONSTITUTIONAL parental rights of children in foster care during the pendency of child protective proceedings, while the CPS still did not prove any wrongdoing on behalf of biological parents - would this particular social group, LGBT candidates for adoptive parents, have?

Let's see.

When a same-sex FEMALE married couple wants a child, and they are fertile (let's assume for purposes of the argument), all they have to do is for one of the partners/spouses to have sexual intercourse with a fertile man, or to have a trip to a sperm bank for artificial insemination.  They will use their own wombs to carry the child to birth.

When a same sex MALE married couple wants a child, it is more complicated, since, biologically, they can both sire a child, but cannot carry it to birth.  Thus, to have a child, a male same sex couple must (1) hire a surrogate - which may cost a lot of money and may be illegal in some states, or (2) adopt - which, with a private adoption may also cost a lot of money.

And, here - tada! - comes the ACLU with a shout of discrimination against the LGBT foster parents.

The ACLU, once again, when arguing that LGBT candidates for adoption out of foster care are discriminated against, does not even mention that their position to support ANY parent who wants to adopt out of foster care may be siding with the CPS at the time when not only parental rights of biological parents, but there is no court decision indicating that biological parents did anything wrong.

Instead, the ACLU paints a one side grim/ one side rosy picture where hundreds of thousands of foster children are languishing in foster care in the hope of - no, not return of their Mommy and Daddy, or uncle, or aunt, or grandparents, or godparents, or any relative or neighbor - but to be given to strangers, forever.

Yet, the ACLU somehow modestly overlooks the fact that in child protective proceedings foster parents are not given a separate party status with rights to custody of a child, moreover, the legal custody is never placed with foster parents while they are taking care of the child.  The legal custody, throughout foster care, remains with CPS, and foster parents are, legally, not more than hired contractors for CPS.

Moreover, the ACLU modestly overlooks when pushing the so-called "rights" of foster parents, and especially the male same-sex parents who cannot get a child any other way biologically, that if a foster parent attempts to undermine the child-biological parent bond, trying to "wean" the child off of his love and affection to biological parents, trying to have foster children call them "Mom" and "Dad" instead of their own biological parents (as they often do, but usually refuse to admit that - in court), if brought up in court, it will be held as foster care parents' misconduct, misconduct of CPS and a reason why the child needs to be returned to the parents, or at least placed with another foster parent who would not try to sever the child's bond with the parent before the court finds any wrongdoing by that parent.

I wonder, how much did the wealthy same sex couples donate to the ACLU coffers so that the ACLU, an organization of lawyers, and an organization of supposedly civil rights lawyers, whose job is to know constitutional law, and to know it well, in order for the ACLU take sides in proceedings that they usually never touched, on the side of CPS (without publicly mentioning it), and on the side of a party committing misconduct in such proceedings, weaning children off their affection towards their biological parents before any wrongdoing by those parents is found the court.

Foster parents and adoptive parents may never be the same people.

There is too much incentive to place a child with a childless couple yearning to adopt for that couple to disregard any rules and constitutional law and, in the privacy of their home, to work to undermine the child's bond with his biological parents.

Too many times biological parents whose children are placed in foster care report that foster parents block their communication with children, do not let them enough phone communication, teach children to call foster parents Mom and Dad, teach children how good they will have it if the foster parents would adopt them, and buying favors of small children - who, when separated from their biological parents, often for years, are easy prey for such emotional bribes.

You cannot give people money (or/and an opportunity to save money) on one thing and expect them to do a diametrically opposite thing, no matter how right, proper or legal that opposite thing is.

You cannot give the CPS thousands of dollars per head of children adopted out of foster care to strangers and expect the CPS not to crave those thousands of dollars or try to get it, by any means.

You cannot give the adoptive parents an opportunity to save 25 to 50 thousands dollars on adoption alone, and then place a child in the care of such would-be adoptive parents hoping that they will behave and not try to bring that adoption about, by any means, including not means that are not legal or proper.

Time and again I had foster parents and CPS lie in court under oath when answering accusations of parents that foster parents are trying to wean children placed in foster care from their bond, love and affection with biological parents, in order to adopt them.

Perjury is a crime.

I did not see ONCE a foster parent prosecuted for it.

You know why?  Because, by law, the criminal prosecutor acts together with CPS in such investigations and proceedings - and, likely, shares the benefits from federal grants received from the bounty of putting children up for adoption for federal money.

There is no reason for the DA to shoot himself in the foot and charge the foster parent for perjury - even if that same foster parent openly discusses online, on social media, that all he dreams about is how the adopt the child in his foster care, and that he already taught the child to call him Dad - contrary to what he said to the court, under oath.

What can we do?

We the People are not helpless in this, even when, in our darkest hour, it appears this way.

We can insist with our representatives in our legislative bodies to change laws that provide such perverted incentives.

To PAY MORE - if the incentive is even needed - to adoption by FAMILY members, or, better, for SHARED CUSTODY arrangements when the biological parent is not severed the child's life.

Or, to take the money incentives away from child protective proceedings completely.

Because now it resembles - too much so - child trafficking to the highest bidder.

And, people should finally realize that, until and unless a biological parents rights are terminated, there cannot be any "rights" of foster parents, especially not any "rights" beating those of biological parents, and of the child to reunite with them.

Not for money.

Not for political correctness.

Not to appease anybody's claims - of religious discrimination, or anti-LGBT discrimination.

Rights of biological parents and their children for family integrity, for the bond with the biological parents are constitutional rights.

Foster parents' rights are not even recognized by law.

Let's keep it this way.

Meanwhile, the ACLU is suing also in Michigan pushing, again, the "rights" of foster parents, of course - not biological parents.

Remember - siding with "rights" of foster parents is siding, against the law with CPS's rights to prepare a child for adoption before the state has proven that the biological parents have done ANYTHING wrong.

This is America.

It should not be this way.

We the People must be able to change it.

Is psychology a science or a political and financial tool of influence?

There was a piece today on "conversion therapies" of homosexuals in South Carolina - something that was prohibited by the government in New York.

Psychology - that is used extensively and often, as the only "evidence" in CPS proceedings - appears to be not a science, but a tool. 

Not such a long time ago, when families desired to get rid of a woman suffering from a postnatal depression, or who were doing what people did not understand and preferred to label as "witchcraft", or lock up heiresses to use their fortune, they were sent to "Bedlam", insane asylums, because criticizing men were deemed as a sign of insanity. 

Psychology is now used as a sword, and the word of psychologist is uncritically accepted in awarding custody of children and in separating families, where psychologists (paid by CPS) "find", predictably, for CPS and in favor of separation of children from families. 

Of course, when that same separation of children from families can be used to bash Trump, then psychologists change course and say that separation of children from adults who claim to be their parents when illegally crossing the U.S. border will bring irreparable harm to children. 

There is also the recent scandal with the American Psychological Association pronouncing pedophilia as a "sexual orientation".

After public protests the APA changed its "scientific" pronouncement to a "mental health disorder" - creating even  worse problem.

I have the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5), where pedophilia is deemed such a disorder.

Yet, every person convicted of sex crimes against children is then presumed sick and subjected to "sex offender treatment", a large industry in the United States - and that includes "treating" children who engaged in experimenting as "sex offenders". 

Which creates a problem - because if a person is sick, he might not be criminally responsible for his actions.  And, if he is criminally responsible, he is not sick.  

So, psychologists, while playing a crucial role in convictions for sex crimes and making "treating" sex offenders (while agreeing that pedophilia "is not curable") into a huge multi-million dollar industry - do not really know whether it is a sexual orientation, a disease, or just a deliberate criminal proclivity.

As to changing the label on pedophilia from sexual orientation to a mental health disorder, the American Psychological Association shot itself in the foot, practically confirming that clinical psychology has nothing to do with science.

Have you ever seen demonstration against a manual how to diagnose, let's say, a heart attack?  Cancer?  Infections? Diabetes?

And approaches to diagnosing medical conditions changed by doctors because of public protests?

And here comes the latest point of public protests - the so-called "gay conversion therapy". 

It has long been pointed out that homosexuality has been rendered a sin, a crime, a disease, then not a crime, and after that - "voted" to be not a disease based on political influences and not on evidence.

The change came quickly and dramatically.

Before 2003 homosexuality was a crime.

After 2003, Lawrence v Texas decided by the U.S. Supreme Court - it was no longer a crime.

Then, gay marriage was allowed in some states.

In 2011 psychologists "decided" that now it is embarrassing to call homosexuality a mental heath disorder and removed that from the DSM.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a precedent, "made law" (that court is not allowed by the U.S. Constitution to make law, but it still did) allowing gay marriage in the entire United States.

Now the type of therapy offering "conversion" of homosexuals is forbidden in many states.  

Once again.  A type of therapy is forbidden by law as harmful to people, which was before that not deemed harmful and even beneficial - on the basis of claims of those same psychologists.

First, psychologists claimed, after religious ministers who claimed that homosexuality is a mortal sin, that homosexuality is a mental health disorder and needs treatment. 

Then in some states (like South Carolina) it still remained a disorder, with gay conversion therapy available, and in New York such a therapy is forbidden by the government. 

Oh, and let's not forget that in the times of slavery in the U.S. psychiatrists claimed that slaves running from their masters are sick because the idea for a slave to consider that he deserves freedom and may want to run away from his owner is an expression of a mental health disorder. 

That "disease" was "discovered" in 1851 and given a name - "drapetomania".

6 years after this "discovery" the U.S. Supreme Court, judges who were themselves (or their families) slave-owners, refused to cancel slavery by a court precedent, the way they cancelled criminality of homosexuality - and plunged the supposedly "democratic" country into a bloody civil war over slavery.

By the way, in Russia which was at that time a monarchy, and also had slavery, slavery was abolished by a King's (Czar's) decree, earlier than in the U.S. - and no war ensued.

Of course, later, when Russia was captured by the Bolsheviks, in the USSR psychology and psychiatry was extensively used to "treat" dissidents into a vegetative state. 

Soviet psychiatrists invented the term "sluggish schizophrenia" to pin it upon anybody who disagreed with the government. 

So, how can we claim that psychology is a science if it sets as diseases personal opinions disagreeing with the status quo, or is used to justify silencing and punishment of slaves, women, dissidents, parents, heterosexuals, and pronounce certain behavior, opinions or thought processes as a disease, not disease or a crime under public pressure or based on political or financial influences?

And how can it be legal that people are convicted of crimes, their children are taken away, and now the U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether a person can be put to death - on the testimony of psychologists?

EDNY has established the same precedent as I've established for my clients in NDNY in March of 2015 - no warrantless searches based on child abuse/neglect investigations

In March of 2015 I have established for my three clients in federal court a precedent, where the court refused to give "qualified immunity" to social services for warrantless searches of a residence and a car.

On June 11, 2018 the same decision was made by the federal court in the Eastern District of New York in the case called Thompson v Clark - police officers were denied qualified immunity for a warrantless search of a residence and for beating up of a resident when the police came to a residence on a false child abuse report and broke down the door - since the resident refused to open the door without a search warrant.

So, in at least 2 federal districts out of 4 in the State of New York the police and social services may not search residences without a court order/search warrant.

I cover a lot of ground as to warrantless searches by social services and police and other criminal attributes of social services investigations in my published book "The Oxygen Mask Rule", the first book of its kind dedicated to defense of parents in child abuse and neglect proceedings in New York, and the first book in a planned series.

Published a book on defense of parents in child abuse and neglect proceedings in New York Family Court

I have finally published today the first of the books I have been working on for a long time - the beginning of the series "Defense of parents in child neglect and abuse proceedings in Family Court in New York".

Here is the cover of the book, it is available right now in both the Kindle (electronic) format, and in a paper format on Amazon.com.

As far as I know, there are no other books available on the issue of trial advocacy on behalf of parents in child neglect and abuse cases at all, and in such cases in New York Family Courts in particular.

This subject is not taught in law schools and is not tested on bar examinations, so there is no guarantee for the parent, if the parent either hires an attorney or has an attorney assigned to him in court, that the attorney actually knows this area of law - because attorneys usually learn this law by either self-teaching or being mentored by other attorneys.

This first book of the planned series is dedicated to the subject that causes the most number of fatal mistakes made by parents at the very beginning of CPS investigation, before any court case is filed and before any attorney gets into the picture - the mistake of believing the CPS that the case is "civil" in nature, that no criminal investigation is done at the same time as the CPS investigation in every single case.

Believing CPS (and police who often comes with CPS to the parent's home), parents talk to CPS, open their homes for their searches, and sign any number of papers driven by fear that otherwise the parent will lose his child.

The book provides an overview of statutes showing that proceedings in Family Court may be constitutionally characterized as criminal in nature; and, even if courts resist that characterization, provides techniques of proving to the Family Court, in the event the parent is called to testify against himself, which CPS often do, that the parent is entitled to the 5th Amendment protection, not to testify and not to be subject to contempt of court for refusing to testify.

The book has an extensive case study, with an analysis of constitutionality of court decisions, as well as with an analysis of mistakes that have caused the drastic consequences for the parent.

While the electronic format of the book does not allow a lot of latitude in providing lists of authorities, the table of authorities is included in the paper version of the book.

Buyers of the paper version of the book are allowed to get the electronic version of the book at a deep discount.

While the electronic version may be convenient to take with you on our phone or tablet without showing what you are reading, a paper book can be conveniently used by parents, law students and attorneys working in this area of law because of the listing of all legal authorities.

Statutes in this area of law are written in a deliberately confusing, convoluted way, and attorneys with large caseloads often do not have time to do the kind of research that was presented in this book.

The book contains a section explaining how to transform texts of New York statutes into a readable format to make them more understandable.  Examples of such transformations, and what such a transformation does to improve understanding of such statutes is provided.

The book contains constitutional analysis on important issues relevant to the topic of the book, criminal aspects of "civil" child neglect and abuse proceedings in New York Family Courts, including but not limited to:

• analysis of what makes a court proceeding civil or criminal in nature, from a constitutional standpoint;
• analysis of several contempt and contempt-like statute that may be used against parents by Family Courts in order to put parents in jail for "non-compliance" with various court orders, a detailed analysis, based on mandatory precedents, of constitutionality of such statutes, and of constitutionality of Family Court practices in application of such statutes;
• verification what makes a contempt proceeding civil or criminal in nature, what is the difference in mandatory constitutional procedure, and how Family Courts often confuse or misuse criminal-in-nature contempt statutes under the guise of civil proceedings;
• constitutional issues involved in forced "evaluations";
• constitutional issues involved in forced drug-and-alcohol testing;
• constitutional issues involved in court orders giving social services a blanket authority to "supervise" parents and to order them to undergo any "evaluations" and tests at all, and procedures required by the Family Court Act and by the U.S. Constitution to be followed by courts to issue such orders;
• constitutional issues involved in branding parents "sex offenders" where they were never convicted (and often were never even charged) for a sex offense, the New York State policy of such branding that comes with a requirement to separate the so-branded parent from his children;
• constitutional issues of punishing parents for inability to pay for evaluations, or for asserting their true legal status as a non-sex offender;
• constitutional issues of punishing parents for any type of "noncompliance" by separating them from their children, or by threats of such separations;
• constitutional issues involved in forced speech of parents during the "civil" Family Court child abuse or neglect proceedings - in court-ordered evaluations and in forced testimony of parents, when they are called to testify against themselves at trial;
• constitutional issues involved in presence of criminal prosecutors in Family Court proceedings and of their access to record of such proceedings and of the central state child maltreatment register;
• constitutional issues and procedures related to three types of searches in Family Court - of the parent's home, body and mind.

I hope that the book will be helpful, as a textbook and a reference in this sensitive and difficult area of law.

Children who are truly sexually abused by parents need to be interviewed properly - to be able to establish their right to protect themselves in court

Just read an article describing how Family Courts supposedly place children sexually abused by fathers into the hands of sexually abusing fathers, not believing the children.

The key phrase in the article is in the first three words of its headline:

Children's advocates may be those who actually cause this problem - a real problem, I know of several such cases myself where parents asserted that a child made disclosures of sexual child abuse by a relative, and the child nevertheless was placed by the court with that same relative, while the child's own statements, including audio-recorded statements were not believed.

Why do courts do that?  Are they that heartless?

And why it is the children's advocates who may be causing the problem, paving a road to the child's very real hell with their good intentions?

By repeatedly interviewing the child with leading questions and without videotaping their interviews, so that courts, as a result, do not know whether the child's testimony is

• the result of coercion and manipulation of "advocates" and/or of the other parent who may have a grudge against the parent the child is accusing through testimony, or
• whether it truly happened.

Try to watch with an open mind, this video about experiments of forensic psychologists showing how easy it is to implant false memories of abuse into children - and about cases where implanting those false memories did lead to criminal convictions, wrongful convictions, overturned convictions.

If parents, and "child advocates" really want to protect the children - they will not mess up the interviewing process and will INSIST that forensic interviewing techniques are followed:

• that the number of interviews of the child is reduced to a minimum;
• that all such interviews are handled by trained forensic (not clinical) psychologists knowing how not to lead the child on; and
• that all such interviews must absolutely be videotaped.

Many police precincts have interviewing rooms with hidden videocameras, so that the person interviewed does not see the actual video camera - that is necessary to put the child at ease, while preserving the evidence properly.

Not doing it, putting the child through numerous, numerous interviews - by the mother, by the "advocates" instead of neutral professional forensic experts, does a disservice to the accused, if they are accused wrongfully.

But, if sexual abuse truly happened, and it DOES happen, the disservice is TO THE CHILD - because doing repeated non-videotaped interviews with the child allows the court to presume that suggestive techniques and leading questions were used, and that what the child says in his testimony may be the result of a long-term manipulation by "advocates", rather than what truly happens.

If you care about your child, if you believe that the child was really sexually abused, INSIST that forensic interviewing techniques are observed.

Otherwise, your child may lose his right to establish in court that sexual abuse ever happened - and even be placed further with the sexual abuser, to be abused more, while his credibility is destroyed, for now and for the future.

On the difference between "clinical", "forensic", "experimental" and "evidence-based" in child protective proceedings

It is important for parents facing child neglect and abuse proceedings to understand some of the "expert" jargon used in such proceedings in order to take their children away.

A lot of times, social services employ "hired guns", experts who are sometimes called this:

By the way, I heartily recommend this book to parents facing child protective proceedings in court where an expert psychologist or psychiatrist (or "counsellor", or any other "mental health worker", including a "clinical social worker") is supposed to testify - it is now available on Kindle, for just $7.99 (I have no connection to the author, do not know her, never met her and am not advertising for her).  It is money well spent.

The problem with "expert" psychologists is that they are usually clinicians testifying as forensic experts, and are thus generating a stream of income for themselves.

How that is done?

Example.

A clinical psychologist is testifying in a child neglect or abuse case.

She testifies about the child's behaviors, which she calls "symptoms" of some "syndromes" and thus diagnoses the child with "conditions" and authoritatively tells the court that the "conditions" are the result of the parent's neglect or abuse.

Most often, the psychologist (psychiatrist, counsellor, clinical social worker etc.) does not testify whether the causative leap she has made from seeing behaviors to qualifying them as "symptoms" of "syndromes" or "conditions" has been proven by science in experiments.

After all, experiments on children are risky business, there is a multitude of requirements in the U.S. to experimentation involving children, so it is easier for social services not to hire a true forensic expert - the expert dealing with experimentation - because he or she might be honest and refuse to give social services what they want, testify to the legal standard of admissibility of expert evidence, in New York that means that the expert must be persuaded to the degree of "scientific certainty" that the child's demonstrated behaviors are proof that the child has a condition, and that the condition was caused by the parent.

When, instead of a forensic expert who would be honest as to the underlying science of the "conditions", "symptoms" and "syndromes" and might just as well say that he or she cannot testify to the required degree of "scientific certainty" what those behaviors demonstrated by the child mean in connection with a child protective case, or whether such behaviors are connected with a child protective case at all, social services offer the testimony of a clinician, and especially of a treating clinician of the child, many principles of expert testimony are violated.

First, a treating clinician is not a neutral expert, so the principle of neutrality is not there.

Second, the treating clinician most often is in the business of treating people, and not in the business of experimentation and science.

The big difference between the two is that the pay of a forensic expert does not depend on the outcome of the experiment, and the pay of a clinician significantly differs based on the outcome of treatment.

Note that practically all mental health treating "professionals" always tell their clients that their is no "cure", but the "condition" may be "controlled" with ongoing "counselling" or "therapy" - which creates a stream of income for the "treating" mental health "professional".

So, when the treating clinician testifies in court, she has a purpose in mind - to secure for herself a stream of income as a result of the court's decision.

And she does that.

Usually, courts listen to mental health experts nearly practically as to gods, unless their neutrality and underlying lack of science is challenged on cross-examination.  That rarely happens, since usually only poor parents are targeted with child protective proceedings, and in those cases, such parents are represented by assigned counsel who usually do not put up much of a fight so that not to irk the judge and to get assigned again in the future (which secures their own stream of income, at $75 an hour, including travel time and time waiting in the courthouse).

Yet, just how many people get wrongfully convicted in criminal court through the use of junk science has recently been divulged in a huge report by federal authorities.

The report, among other things, points out that, despite the numerous experts testifying in courts all over the country, there is just one - ONE - university in this entire country teaching a PhD level course in forensic science - in the Houston, TX.

So, people who claim under oath that they can testify "to the degree of scientific certainty", usually were not trained as scientists, were most likely not trained in, specifically, forensic science, were not trained in the way of collecting evidence from vulnerable and impressionable populations in such a way as not to lead the children and not to taint their responses by the way questions are asked or by the way tests are chosen, offered to the children and interpreted.

They were only trained in how to treat people, and, for purposes of treatment, as a matter of "ethical duty" of a mental health professional, they are taught to "assume as true" anything that the child tells them.

Moreover, clinicians are also mandatory reporters of child neglect and abuse in all states of this country, and are trained to spot and make reports on mere unproven and unverified suspicion of child neglect and abuse, which in itself breeds the culture of thought that verification is unnecessary of whether there is a causal connection between the "symptoms", the suspected "conditions" that the "symptoms", according to a clinician, mean, and the parent.

On the witness stand, knowledge that the testimony can bring in the future an unlimited source of income through court-mandated "counseling" or other "mental health services" to be provided to the child, the parent, or both, plus lack of training and knowledge of how to actually conduct forensic interviews and interpret their results, plus the mentality of a mandatory reporter reporting on unverified suspicions of child neglect or abuse breed a class of "junk science experts" - with degrees and treating licenses, of course - whose testimony will mean nothing from the point of view of science, but may nevertheless heavily influence the case.

Once in a while courts refuse to adhere to junk science and reverse adjudications or convictions based on the most egregiously incompetent or fraudulent expert testimony.

That happened in New Jersey in the case of a young kindergarten teacher Kelly Michaels who was convicted and sent to prison for 49 years (5 of them she actually spent in prison before her conviction was reversed on appeal) based on bogus charges hyped up by a psychologist whose brainwashing of parents as to how to "collect symptoms" led to irreversibly tainted questioning of 3 to 5 year-olds:

"In the 1987 trial of Margaret Kelly Michaels, the New Jersey prosecutors had employed Eileen Treacy, a much-traveled New York abuse expert who had at her command a list of some thirty-two behavioral indicators of child abuse.
...
Prosecution expert Eileen Treacy explained. A child’s emphatic denial that anything had happened was in fact proof that the child had been victimized, she informed the jury. Citing the theory of the child abuse accommodation syndrome, she described its various phases. If children gave a succession of “no” answers when asked if they had been abused, that was, Treacy explained, “proof of the suppression stage.”

Rabinowitz, Dorothy. No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times (Wall Street Journal Book) (pp. 11, 14). Free Press. Kindle Edition.

So, if a child says "no, I was not abused", in answer to successive questioning by social workers, police and "experts", that actually means "yes, I was abused", according to a bogus "syndrome" invented by a "much-traveled" "expert" Eileen Treacy - who now, as far as I know, moved to live in Delaware County, New York and even eagerly supported the election of the local family court judge Gary Rosa, so I am wondering whether she is deriving benefits from her support by being appointed as a court-appointed "expert witness" in Delaware County, too.

In fact, the truly forensic, experimental psychologists have long pointed out at such a factor as young children's suggestibility, that a young child, obviously as the nature's adaptation mechanism allowing the young to survive, keenly picks up what adults who have power over him want from him - and delivers.

See a book on that here:

And see the footage where a TRUE forensic expert testifies about how false memories of nonexistent injuries are implanted into children by repeated leading and suggestive questioning.

"Civil" child abuse and neglect proceedings go hand-in-hand with parallel criminal investigations and prosecutions.

It is important to understand the difference between a "clinical" expert and a "forensic" expert.

By the way, social workers nowadays are camouflaging their result-oriented prosecutions with the pretense of neutrality.

Social workers even established a "National Organization of Forensic Social Work" - which is supposedly a neutral scientific organization, that is what "forensic" must stand for - forensic science, neutral science.

But, in their usual way, this "forensic" organization shot themselves in the foot right on their webpage by, at the same time, on the same page, proclaiming that they are a "forensic" organization meant to "advance the field of forensic social work", and that "social work is not, nor should it be a neutral profession".

There goes the neutrality of "forensic social work".

Of course, theoretically, a prosecutor or investigator must be neutral as a matter of due process, but that is theory, in real life we cannot expect a party in litigation, such as a social worker who is prosecuting the case or testifying as a witness for the prosecution, to be impartial.  They will get fired if they are impartial, and would not bring, through their testimony, approval of the ever growing budgets and grants for their departments and "services".

And here is another point about the "neutrality" of social work - an excerpt from social workers' "code of ethics":

So, the code of ethics of social workers actually requires them to be advocates, and "to protect the vulnerable" (the most vulnerable, of course, being their own budgets).

An advocate and a forensic expert are incompatible concepts.

Even if such "experts" would be testifying about "evidence-based" "methods", "models" or "test batteries", as described aplenty, for example, in the 2015-2019 Plan of services by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, you know that the "evidence" that such "models" are based on may be contrived or fabricated.

So, whenever you see a social worker, a treating physician, or a clinical mental health provider testifying - that is NOT a neutral expert, and their "evidence-based" testimony is NOT the equivalent of testimony of a neutral expert explaining science to the fact-finder, it is the testimony of an advocate which should be vigorously challenged and excluded from court proceedings as improper influences on the judge.

Will President Trump's administration remove the perverse financial incentives for removal of children from families

For nearly 2 decades so far, I have been doing research about child neglect and abuse proceedings in the State of New York, and in the United States.

Many people may not know, but the atrocities of social services who:

1. fabricate child neglect cases;
2. remove children from homes based on those fabrications, using intimidation or coerced consent by parents who are told, falsely, that it will "look better for the judge" if they voluntarily allow the removal;
3. if children under 1 year old are involved, put termination of parental rights and adoption out of foster care on a fast track;
4. intimidate parents of all foster children, after the removal, that because of the removal, even without adjudication of child abuse or neglect, social services will put out the children for adoption within 15 months or putting them into foster care - so that frantic parents would agree to anything at all, including a settlement against their interests in Family Court, with attached intrusive "services" from social services - in order to keep the children

all of that has only ONE reason - federal money.

There are federal laws that require - by unconstitutionally

"commandeering" states on issues of exclusive state control under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (health and safety of their residents) - that the States "must" put children in foster care up for adoption within 15 months of removal from home -

even if the court did not say at that time that parents did anything wrong, that the States "must" create certain investigative "teams" involving courts, social services and criminal investigators, and thus practically requiring that child protective cases MUST be fixed in an ex parte manner behind closed doors.

See a petition about federal government commandeering the regulatory power of the states currently litigated in the U.S. Supreme Court, where the U.S. Supreme Court currently asked the U.S. Attorney General's input on the subject

- and I hope that the new U.S. Attorney General, following President Trump's de-regulation policy and policy of conservation of federal funds where expenditures of federal money are not required by law, will take the side of New Jersey, that New Jersey has a right to decide which laws it has or does not have regarding the health and safety of their residents.

To see a very approximate picture of what federal money does in the situation of "child protective" cases that rip children out of their families for money, readers can review the "annual implementation plan" for 2015-2017, of New York State Office of Children and Family Services, NYS OCFS, and just skim the number of "trainers", "trainers of trainers", "consortiums", "councils", "associations" and other non-profit corporations feeding off of this federal money - grants provided by the federal government to fund the industry that helps rip children out of families, marinate, neglect and abuse them in foster care and then put them up for adoption within 15 months (applications are done 3 months earlier), without regard whether the court decided whether parents did something wrong or not.

The "plan" also describes the 3-level system of "cooperation" (ex parte communications) between the courts and social services in child protective cases, but both the court system, and the NYS OCFS refused to answer Freedom of Information requests about lists of members of such "teams", claiming that, while describing in meticulous detail, but for names, the system of the 3-tier "cooperation" between the courts and one party in litigation (which is NOT reflected in the Family Court Act governing such proceedings), the courts and NYS OCFS do not know who is participating in those teams.  Right.

"Co-incindentally", the New York State Office of Family and Children Services operates not only as an agency removing children from parents, but also as a "federal agency" passing through federal grants for distribution within the State of New York and financing that removal. 

Of course, federal grants do not cover the entire operation of social services, and all the crowd of "providers" who want a piece of the pie, to capitalize on splitting families.

For that reason, cases are fabricated and parents are coerced to accept unnecessary "services" - like mental health and alcohol and drug evaluations, pee-in-a-cup random "drug tests", even if drugs are not involved in allegations in the CPS case, visitation of children in foster care "supervised" by "parent aides" contracted by social services, but with parents having to sign approval of those contracts - in order for social services to get funds not only out of federal grants, but also out of County taxpayers, to inflate the County budget.

Recently, a series of scandals regarding such inflation of County budget erupted in Delaware County, New York, where high-ranking County officials started to resign one after another, where New York State Comptroller's office found that the County allowed its Department of Social Services to use County-assigned vehicles as their own and where the County, for years, put out multi-million public contracts to their pet non-profits, family and friends of County public officials without bidding.

My own follow-up FOIL requests with Delaware County, NY, revealed the following:

1) that the County does not have contracts that were bid out at all, at least they told me they don't know what I am talking about when I asked to provide copies of contracts that were handed out without public bidding for several years back;

2) that the County's monthly cell phone bill covers 321 pages - which means that, in a poor County of hardly 40,000 people, where there are more deer than people in the County, the County workers use not only taxpayer-owned cars as their own, but also the cell phones;

3) that the County Treasurer Beverly Shields and her subordinates are thieves (we knew that before, but the County officially confirmed it by answering the FOIL request they way they did), because, when the County tried to stone-wall my FOIL request about the cell phone bill, and when I asked the County to provide an inventory of its printing and scanning equipment, also by a separate FOIL request, the County stonewalled both FOIL requests by now claiming that the county DOES NOT HAVE AN INVENTORY of equipment it is buying with taxpayer money, while collecting taxes from County homeowners at the threat of foreclosure on their homes and casting them out of their homes.

The County blocked my inquiry into the inventory of equipment it is buying and selling (possibly, to relatives, at prices for scrap - as they did with perfectly good cars, which the NYS Comptroller caught) - but, I turned the case over to the New York State Comptroller, and now, reportedly, the FBI is investigating the use of funds in Delaware County and its Social Services department for pet non-profits of DSS officials.

Of course, the "courageous" local press only started to write about it after the FBI was full-speed on it, and only to the extent of writing about the already-shuttered pet non-profit, but not even trying to write about the wooly mammoth in the room - the Delaware Opportunities, Inc., employing hundreds of employees (it recently stonewalled my FOIL request for the list of employees that could reveal a lot of interesting connections).  Well, if the FBI is doing a good faith investigation, it has to cover Delaware Opportunities, too, so we will see what will happen.

I wrote about Delaware Opportunities, Inc., about its conflicts of interests, and about its role in improper removal of children into foster care, and adoption out of foster care.

Yet, all this sea of corruption can be stopped if the Trump administration blocks federal funds for foster care and child protective cases - as being entirely the concern of the states under the 10th Amendment.

That it will happen is very likely, since the Trump administration already announced that it is considering to cut federal grants handed out under the unconstitutional commandeering Violence against Women Act (currently $480,000,000 a year). 

While The Violence Against Women Act, its criminal part, was already struck as unconstitutional, it continues to exist as a basis of handing out money for "programs", "counselors", psychologists and the like.

Do I support violence against women?  Of course, not.

Do I support help to victims of such violence? Yes, I do.

But, it is a state court and state healthcare issue, not a federal grant issue.

Same as, child protective cases must be handled by state courts, under the state law and regulations, without in-pouring of a flood of federal money that "demands" that children be taken out of families and put up for adoption, in exchange for money given to Social Services Departments in federal grants, and that the states "must" make laws expediting adoption out of foster care, especially of the most sought-after children, newborns to 1 year olds, who do not remember their biological parents yet.

As soon as this flood of federal money stops, CPS will no longer have the incentive to do what they are doing now -  including ripping newborn babies off the breasts of their breast-feeding mothers, to prevent bonding between child and mother and to start the 15-month toll for purposes of adoption out of foster care as soon as possible.

I wonder whether that will happen - and I hope it will.  Soon.