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Washington DC (Map, News) - Child welfare bureaucrats have allowed the deadlines to lapse in nearly 900 abuse and neglect cases, potentially leaving the children vulnerable to mistreatment and threatening to drag the city into court receivership, The Examiner has learned.
Under a consent decree stemming from a class action suit over the collapse of its child protection agencies, the District promised to resolve abuse and neglect complaints within 30 days.
It has never met the deadline. But since the badly decomposed bodies of four girls were found in a squatter's row house in Southeast earlier this year, the already hobbled Child and Family Services Agency has been flooded with complaints.
The backlog of past-due cases has more than doubled in the last month, records obtained by The Examiner show. It is at its highest point since July, 2004, when there were nearly 700 overdue investigations, records show.
City lawyers are due back in federal court April 1 to explain the District's reform efforts. If the court is unsatisfied with their explanation, D.C. could lose control of yet another critical agency.
Officials have been rattled by the discovery that welfare bureaucrats ignored signs that Banita Jacks, a homeless woman, was a threat to her kids. Jacks is now charged with killing her girls.
Since Jacks was arrested, calls to the city's abuse and neglect hotline have gone up by more than 400 percent, according to city records. There are now more than 1,600 open investigations, counting those filed in the last 30 days.
After the scandal broke, Mayor Adrian Fenty promised to fix the child welfare system. He summarily fired six officials whom he accused of mishandling the Jacks case. But some are worried that the mayor and the city are only reacting to events, not trying to shape them.
"We've been asking the mayor and the council to focus on services that will prevent children from having to be put in foster care," said Judith Sandalow, executive director of The Children's Law Center, an advocacy group. "We have an ongoing concern about the influx of calls."
D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles could not be reached for comment Friday. Mindy Goode, spokeswoman for CFSA, did not respond to requests for comment.
Got a tip on the child welfare system? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or send him an e-mail, bmyers@dcexaminer.com.
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3:29 AM MST on Thu., Apr. 3, 2008 re: "Lawyer testifies that DC's child welfare agency in crisis"
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4:25 PM MST on Tue., Mar. 25, 2008
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4:08 PM MST on Tue., Mar. 25, 2008
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4:08 PM MST on Tue., Mar. 25, 2008
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Examiner Reader said:
My daughter went for a review hearing and wrote a letter to the Judge, which he refused to let her read. She wanted him to know she has jumped through her so-called hoop's. She has been a sobriety maintenance program, which she was not ordered to do. She used to have a few beer's on the weekend but never did do drug's, until she was pushed over the edge when her children were taken fraudulently. Her Tpr hearing is coming up in May and she had recently filed a Permanency appeal, because her Lawyer wouldn't do it. She was told it's too late for the appeal. The arrogant Judge told her it's too late. Her right's will be terminated. Is this another trick by DCYF and our judicial system? Termination positively? She was told six month's into her case by the Judge, too bad her kid's were taken illegally,it's too late. Her medical record's which proved her innocence, had disappeared from one of Nashua NH's hospital's and reappeared six month's later. The hospital that report's
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Examiner Reader said:
In N.H. there are Ombudsmen. It doesn't matter. They alway's side with DCYF.You are never innocent until proven guilty. You are guilty even when innocence is proven. DCYF need's ro be abolished and started over. They are accountable to no-one. Even Police and government official's are held accountable for their dirty deed's, but not DCYF. The Judges go right along with them. Parent's lose all hope and are pushed over the edge. It's time to push DCYF over the edge. Let them see how it feel's. Take away government incentive money and then see how many family's are torn apart needlessly. If they can't help a family and keep them together, give them nothing. If they work with the family and keep them together, then give incentive money. As it stand's right now, children are removed immediately under false allegation's and children who are truly being abused are being left in their homes suffering. The only people DCYF are helping, is themselves. They are overpowering the Ameri
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Examiner Reader said:
The governmental agency, Child Protection Services is allowed to walk as a god, no oversight, not held accountable. The federal government hands billions of dollars to states as re-imbursements, incentives, programs, and grants. This is done without any evidence of use of the funds. Many families are torn apart in order for the state to gain huge profits from the feds. No evidence is needed, nor is a probable cause for a court order to remove a child from a safe home. CPS can simply make a false allegation, and the judge sits like a statue to rubber stamp the blatant lies of CPS workers. American soldiers are dying in vain, as we have the largest terrorist group called Child Protection Services, that destroys more lives, than those terrorists on the outside. Who protects the children and families in the US? Children have a price tag on their head, and the feds just keep on sending money without proof of the need of the child' removal or adoption. CPS is un-constitutional.
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Examiner Reader said:
The rights of citizens are stomped on when CPS states, "Sign this paper or you will never see your child again". Or when a doctor forces un-necessary, very expensive, and very harmful medications, to an infant, with the aide of CPS placing the infant under state care without a court order, just because the mother wants to request her own, well know and trusted Pediatrician, to take over the health care needs of her infant. Many can testify to this bulling tactic.
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Examiner Reader said:
At least some states in the US and in other countries, there is an Ombudsman for parents to seek help from. In Indiana, we live under corrupt court systems, law enforcement, and very corrupt Child Protection Services, as the goal is not to protect, but gain many children into the system, in order to, gain federal grants, programs, and incentive bonuses, and then the adoption re-imbursements. Children die under state care, but no one is prosecuted and the deaths usually are never reported. DCS does not want anyone to know the truth. This is why they want to keep their actions against families as secret. Parents have the right to know what they are accused of and judges are responsible to make sure there is evidence for a probable cause before children are removed from their homes.
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Examiner Reader said:
House bill 148 failed to pass the House in Indiana, because Indiana does not care about the lives of children, nor is the family unit of concern. We know the crimes of DCS. We know that Mitch Daniels campaigned to have an open door policy regarding DCS, but he failed to build that door.
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