It is things like this that keep me from having children...

Those poor people...

*facepalm*

That is so sad! I wonder how the kids feel about this? You've got to wonder if the 9-year-old is aware that this is going on. It's got to be in the media.

That is SO unfair, for all concerned. At the very least, they should be granted visitation. I know the younger kids might not remember them, but the oldest one surely does. As an adoptive parent myself, I would have hated if our child was taken 'back', but in this case they would have deserved her.

Come hell or high water, I WOULD have my children back. I would give a fight from hell....and if I still didn't get my children back. I'd pay to have them kidnapped, and we'd move to another country. Horrible it sounds, maybe, but I WOULD have my kids back with me.

Power corrupts...absolute power corrupts absolutely. DFS has been given too much power. That's how.

Although I know that DFS is necessary, I don't condone their practices a lot of the time. I have known parents who have been strong armed and threatened when they had done nothing wrong. I even knew a woman that went to jail because she was baby-sitting a child that the father had dropped on it's head the night before...it didn't wake up...until the baby-sitter called 911. Who should have gone to jail???? The baby-sitter of course...why???? She has 4 kids with 4 fathers, oh and the baby's grand-daddy is a judge. (can you tell I think the system stinks!)

That being said, someone called DFS on my sister-in-law and she got a wonderful case worker that set her and her husband up on some of the gov. aid that we have been trying to encourage for years. So it's not all bad.

The system set in place to protect children from their parents is both riddled with checks and balances, and overrun with bureaucracy. This is due to the amorphous and all too complicated nature of family abuse cases, many of which must be determined by weighing the value of heavy circumstantial evidence and hearsay (for example, if a parent says another parent is abusing a child and vice versa). Sadly, this method is not kind to the innocent, and leaves many families searching a system into which a child is much too often lost.

Honestly I think the children and youth system is bogus, they take money from people who have it and ignore the children that are being abused cause the parents are usually on welfare or have a piss poor paying job. I've seen too much in my area and it's just not right at all.

Because for the protection of the children involved, adoption is final.

It is a difficult one, but either you have a woolly liberal approach of treating each case on it's merits and then spend the rest of eternity arguing the toss over whether or not it's fair to deny/allow Case A in relation to why Case B was allowed/denied or you have an absolute which says that once adoption, which in and of itself is not a quick or lightly taken process, has taken place it is an absolute.

There comes a time when the parents' interests are superseded by those of the children, and this is where it happens.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but unless you're going to have the state monitor every aspect of your life you have no choice but accept that there will be exceptions and people who fall through the cracks.

The court system is based on the premise that you are innocent until proven guilty. In these sad cases it seems just the opposite. You are guilty and will be robbed of your (and your childs) rights until you spend copious amounts of money to prove that you are innocent. I will agree that if the possibility of abuse is evident then the children should be protected, but you had better be DAMN sure those that are accused are in fact guilty.

DCFS simply put is there to protect the child, your rights as parents or an individual do not exist as they do normally. Innocent till proven guilty is not their mandate, you must prove your innocence and are treated like a scumbag during the whole process.

I know someone who is going through this right now. Even though the local police department found NO evidence to support any claims his ex-wife made and there has never been any other complaints the DCFS is continuing on with their prosecution, all based on the word of one and I do mean one, DCFS worker. There is no evidence anywhere, there is proof that the ex-wife is not stable, even telling this same DCFS person totally out of this world stories that would have any normal person calling the guys in the long white coats to take her away. Nothing points to the charges that were made, it would be like walking up to a person on the street and arresting them for a murder that happened before they were born.

A second court date is being set now, a second date how insane. Why? Because the judge said at the first on that he found no evidence proving that he was innocent nor could he find any proving he was guilty of the charges.

How do you fight such stupidity? Protect the children, of course, ruin a mans life based on...nothing...it is insanity.

In my pediactrics lecture I am told that whether there is a suspicion of abuse or not we are to err in caution of the child because they have no vote regarding child abuse. There is to be no investigation by us, only report that child presents with the following findings: physically or mentally and let the actual investigators do their jobs. Not reporting could cost us our license. Its scary to think that doing best for children has so many consequences because incompetent people down the line continue to make important decisions.