So what did the boys' mother do that caused her to be kicked out of the only home she and her sons had? She missed a workfare appointment.
Amazing, isn't it? Two social workers and four guards whisk two little boys from their destitute and bewildered mother and hustle them off to foster care because she missed an appointment. If every person who missed an appointment lost custody of their children, America wouldn't have enough foster homes to go around. Middle class people can miss an appointment. Welfare mothers cannot. If they do they can lose their children, as Eve Essenger found out.
Critics such as Richard Wexler of the Virginia-based National Coalition for Child Protection Reform said that oftentimes Child Protective Services remove children from their families for “neglect” when too often the “neglect” is really poverty. “First of all,” Wexler explained, “state 'neglect' statutes are breathtakingly broad, and typically define neglect as lack of adequate food, clothing, shelter or supervision. There is virtually no poor family in America who could not be accused and have their children taken away because of the breadth of these laws. Indeed, the single biggest problem in the child welfare system today is the confusion of poverty with neglect.”
Others agree with Wexler. Teresa Cunio was a social worker with the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services for six years in the 1990s. When Cunio was asked if in fact some social workers confuse poverty with neglect, she replied,” Absolutely! The department tracks the average household income of families where children have been removed. I would be willing to bet that about 80 percent or more are below the poverty level.”
Groups such as Wexler’s say that instead of spending vast sums on foster care, the money would be better spent keeping families together, especially since tough Welfare Reform measures are being implemented across the county. Oftentimes families are in a no-win situation because of these measures. Under Welfare Reform, a woman must take a job in order to “earn” her benefits. Too often these women do not make enough money to afford child care. If they don't show up for work, they lose their benefits. If they lose their benefits, they can't pay for housing. If they don't have housing, they lose their kids. If a mother decides to leave her children alone at home because she doesn't have child care and someone reports her, she will lose her children for lack of supervision.
Wexler says that instead of throwing money at foster care and thus encouraging social workers to remove children from their homes, children would be better served if the states spent more money on Family Preservation programs, which provide struggling families with intensive services. Wexler says that Family Preservation programs are currently out of vogue with Child Protective officials because financial incentives are motivating them to continue removing children from their homes.
Wexler favors Family Preservation programs such as the Washington-based “Homebuilders.” Charlotte Booth, Homebuilders' executive director, said that social workers often remove children from their homes out of fear that if they leave a child behind, they will be blamed if the child later dies or is seriously injured. Booth's program sends trained therapists to homes where the children are at an immediate risk of being removed by Child Protective Services, and works with the family to get the problems resolved.
Impoverished women are not the only ones who can lose their children to Child Protective Services. Home schooling families are frequently subjected to interrogation by social workers after being turned in by neighbors who view home schooling as a strange method of educating children. According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, a legal group that has sued social workers for invading the homes of home schooling families, many such families are contacted by social workers throughout the country. In most cases, social workers demand to enter the family’s home to conduct a search, oblivious to the fact that the 4th Amendment prohibits government officials from entering a private home without a search warrant.
Jill Floyd, a social worker with the Yolo County (California) Social Services Department, found out last year that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal agrees with the Home School Legal Defense Association's position that social workers, along with police officers, must have a search warrant to enter a family's home, absent an emergency. In a stinging rebuke to the social worker and police officer who coerced entry into Robert and Shirley Calabretta's home in 1994, the 9th Circuit held that they both had violated the Calabretta's civil rights when they literally broke into the home. What were the allegations that caused Floyd and the police officer to feel that the Calabretta children were in terrible danger? A neighbor had called into the hot line and reported that she had heard a child say “No, Daddy, no.” On this alone, Floyd and an armed police officer descended on the Calabretta home to interrogate Mrs. Calabretta and her children. To add insult to injury, the social worker then had three year-old Natalie strip searched.
The Calabretta case is an important victory for parents. It reinforces the 4th Amendment guarantee that Americans are to be safe and secure in their own homes in the face of repeated assaults by U.S. government officials. Notice to Child Protective Services workers and police officers: the 4th Amendment still applies, even when an anonymous voice whispers “child abuse” into a toll-free hot line.
