CommentsFOLLOW THE MONEY-Separation of families and the “snatching of children” is growing as a business because local governments have become accustomed to using taxpayer dollars that have been provided for children’s benefit to balance their ever-expanding budgets.
Tax dollars are being used to keep this gigantic system afloat, yet the victims, parents, grandparents, guardians and especially the children, are charged for the system’s services.
The Department of Children and Family Services operates by six principles:
- Improved Child Safety
- Decreased Timelines to Permanence
- Reduced Reliance on Out-of-Home Care
- Self-Sufficiency
- Increased Child and Family Well-Being
- Enhanced Organizational Excellence
What happens when a system that was designed to protect children fails? Case in point, family members of eight-year old Gabriel Fernandez continued to alert children services that he was being abused. These alerts continued to fall upon deaf ears and as a result, Gabriel tragically lost his life at the hands of his mother and her boyfriend.
Most recently, Yolanda Boykin, who, in the attempt to adopt her two-year old niece, modified her home to make it suitable for a little girl; she decided to work from home to give the child the love and attention she deserved. The Department of Children and Family services denied her request, stating to Ms. Boykin that the child had made a bond with the foster parent and they did not want to disrupt that. The child also has a bond with her biological aunt Ms. Boykin, who has maintained family contact with the child since she was informed of her being placed in foster care. The child was 13 months old at the time of placement. Now, she is set to be adopted by the foster parent and adoption is scheduled to close on August 8, 2018.
Like the Fernandez family, Yolanda has raised concerns regarding the safety of her niece, and this too has fallen upon deaf ears. Many caseworkers and social workers are great at what they are charged to do. They protect children, unite families and provide resources for supportive services when needed. This is not an easy job and many of them are overwhelmed with enormous caseloads. Their work is mentally and emotionally draining, and it comes with great responsibility.
On the flip side of this, there are caseworkers and social workers who are often guilty of fraud. They withhold and destroy evidence. They fabricate evidence and seek to terminate parental rights unnecessarily. However, when charges are made against these public servants, they are ignored. When the Department of Children and Family Services was asked to make a comment regarding the pending adoption of Yolanda Boykin’s niece, they declined.
Here is the real deal: the Adoption and the Safe Families Act, set in motion first in 1974 by Walter Mondale and later in 1997 by President Bill Clinton, offered cash “bonuses” to states for every child they adopted out of foster care. In order to receive the “adoption incentive bonuses” local child protective services need more children. They must have merchandise (children) that sells, and you must have plenty of them, so the buyer can choose. Some counties are known to give a $4,000to $6,000bonus for each child adopted out to strangers and an additional $2,000 for a “special needs” child. Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing; for every child DHR and CPS can get adopted, there is the bonus of $4,000or maybe $6,000.
According to Los Angeles Daily News, just last year it was revealed thatthe County Department of Children and Family Services failed to provide about $1.8 million in child support and other payments owed to foster kids after they reached adulthood and left the system, according to a new audit released. The department has also been sitting on $7.2 millionin funds that were supposed to have been spent on behalf of foster kids but were instead held in reserve.
These are your hard-earned tax dollars at work to the detriment of families. Poor families catch the brunt of it all because very often, they are targeted to lose their children as they do not have the where-with-all to hire lawyers and fight the system. In the case of Yolanda Boykin and possibly many others, the County Department of Children and Family Services appears to be no better than the Trump Administration at the border, as they to continue to separate families.
(Diedra M. Greenaway, MS/MBA, is a Los Angeles City Budget Advocate and BA Budget Chair for the Department of Economic and Workforce Development. Diedra is a CityWatch contributor.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
