STORYLINE Child Protective Services (CPS)

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There have been many articles in the Sacramento Bee recently about the fact that CPS is losing all of their funding, the State of CA is not giving them money, and terrifying people by telling them children will be in more danger because there won't be enough people to ensure child safety. However, after researching statistics, it became clear to me that Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Child Protective Services (CPS) are crying wolf just so they have another excuse for their incompetency.  CPS is in desperate need of a "way out". They are blaming their failures on a lack of money because of recent funding cuts instead of taking responsibility and being accountable for the failures, incompentantcies, and issues relating to cover-ups. These issues of unaccountabililty, failures at every level of CPS, incompetancies, secrecy, and cover-ups are well documented through several investigations into Sacramento CPS. 
The Child Welfare League of America provided the following numbers for the most recent studies:
California received $1,795,256,381 (nearly 1.8 BILLION) in federal funds divided into the following categories:
70.8% was from Title IV-E Foster Care and Adoption Assistance 
13.9% was from TANF (a.k.a. WELFARE-food stamps, cash aid) 
9.9% was from the Social Services Block Grant 
4.2% was from Title IV-B CWS Promoting Safe & Stable Families 
1.8% was from Medicaid 
1% was from other federal services
That means that the State of CA received $1,271,041,517 (nearly 1.3 BILLION) in federal dollars from Title IV-E Foster Care and Adoption assistance.  To fully understand the problematic issues with this, you would need to understand how States qualify for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance funds.  A bill was passed in 1997, which provides this money to the Department of Social Services in the amount of $4000- $6000 for each child they get adopted out. But wait...there’s more.  In the book WARNING! The Truth about CPS, Don Lyons explains that it’s “just a starting figure in a complex mathematical formula in which each bonus is multiplied by the percentage that the state has managed to exceed its baseline adoption number. The states must maintain this increase in each successive year. [Like compound interest.]”. Basically it means that each year the state has to exceed the number of adoptions from the previous year in order to receive these funds. What? 
When I first began to understand how it worked, I had to sit back and let it settle with me.  I had such a hopeless feeling and the only thing flashing in my mind was the old quote "Money is the root of all evil.".  Well yes, of course it is.  Then I realized our government is not immune to greed, especially during tough economic times when funding for programs is dramatically cut.  Another quote came to mind soon after that.  "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".  I have no doubt that this bill was passed with good intentions.  The need to get children adopted into permanent families is very important for a child instead of rotating them from numerous foster homes, group homes, etc.  For children that were removed from their homes because legitimate allegations, finding them a permanent home and family is an amazing thing.  However, in my opinion, nobody really looked at the huge holes in this bill. The simple fact that they need to exceed their baseline adoptions for the fiscal year, creates a child mill in which more and more children must enter the system each year in order to increase the number of adoptions out of foster care.
The bill that was passed includes a technical support assistance section "to assist State and local communities to reach their targets for increased numbers of adoptions”. It goes on to say the support is for “the development of best practice guidelines for expending the termination of parental rights…the development of special units and expertise in moving children toward adoption as a permanent goal; [and] models to encourage the fast tracking of children who have not attained one year of age into pre-adoptive placements without waiting for termination of parental rights.” By implementing these policies they are putting a bounty on the heads of American children…your children! CPS and DHHS are denying parents rights and setting parents up for failure before they walk out of your home with your child in hand. Without knowledge of their rights, parents have no chance to protect themselves and their children until it’s too late.
The Nation Center for Policy Analysis says it best: “The way the federal government reimburses States [actually] rewards a growth in the size of the program instead of the effective care of children.”
I often hear people upset about “lazy parents” that don’t take care of their kids and live off the “system” with taxpayers’ dollars. However, it is clear by the funding figures I provide above, that only 13% of funding is from TANF (aka Welfare). It is also amazing that 70.8% is for foster care and adoption assistance, but only 4.2% is to promote safe and stable families. Perhaps if our government promoted family preservation instead of family destruction, it would make crime rates go down, decrease inmate population, decrease the homeless population, decrease unemployment rates, and decrease the amount of welfare recipients. This in turn would probably decrease the amount of children that are abused and/or neglected.

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May 17, 2010 | 3:09 PM
Bravo!!! CPS has been engaging in for profit ventures at th eexpense of California's children for too long. Keep spreading the word!
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May 21, 2010 | 2:13 PM
Thank God, CPS is so greedy for profit that it overloads the system with so many unwarranted cases, that it can't possibly give proper attention to the true and severe cases, which fall through the cracks. CPS is has gone unchecked for so long that , it is totally out of control.
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edited on  May 23, 2010 | 12:58 AM
I am thankful to you for bringing this topic out into the open. I am not suprised by the allocated
amounts received by the State of California of the 4,000. to 6,000. and may be more. I believe
this could be, in the same amounts, contributed to the Family Preservation you have written in your article. We a a surviving family of the California viewpoint and programs, when I say surviving
I mean, we our family of 2 Adults with Disabilities and 1 Child were given only 689, per month
Cash Aid and denied alternative training to assist us to self sufficiency when we were disabled at
our Long years of Customary Self Employment in the Labor Force, working for many of these Social Service, State Workers, Attorney at Law and many other Professionals hired us, to save a buck. Yet now they treat us with the stereotypical shun of below poverty program assistance.
Would be nice to have 1/3 the money they receive for robbing children from their parents. I say
SHAME to the State of California and all whom have really forgotten the Children.
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April 18, 2012 | 5:55 PM
Read about how San Diego attorney Shawn McMillan sued Orange county social services on behalf of parent Ms. Deanna Hardwick for 10 million dollars and won. Orange county social services appeals' were denied all the way to the US Supreme Court.
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May 25, 2010 | 3:51 PM
It seems that the Sacramento Bee is either not reporting all of the info and are bias or they are not doing enough research. A sad predicament when kids lives are in limbo. Kudos to sharing this info.
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June 23, 2010 | 4:57 PM
ARMENIAC and JUSTICE: I'd like to talk with you or correspond via e-mail. Please send your e-mail addresses or phone numbers to eopton@comcast.net. Thanks.
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November 19, 2011 | 3:19 PM
Somebody Please help me. I have been dragged through hell and back with the system. I am clean and sober and I work for the State of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as an Office Technician. I am trying to research CA Law and I have been told by several advocacy groups including Parent Advocates of Sacramento that the law was breeched in my case but my appointed legal council was unprepared and even though MY CHILDREN WERE NEVER TECHNICALLY REMOVED FROM ME and I did services voluntarily; I went into my first and only in-patient program in February of 2011 and placed them temporarily with their paternal grandmother and then based on their FATHER'S RELAPSE and her and him saying they felt my children were better off adopted out, they terminated my rights and fast tracked my children to adoption. I am fighting with all the life I have in me. I love my children so much and would do anything for them. I have been back to work since May of 2011 and despite all my clean tests, involvement in the community, employment and ability to care for my children, letters from my employers, etc. they still moved forward and the judge was abrasive in his addressing me in court and made several clearly prejudiced statements about his opinion about addiction/alcoholism and rehabilitation and identified events incorrectly, meshed details of my case completely together to where the sequence of events was depicted completely inaccurately... the social worker who was in charge of the recommendation identified a language barrier and said that she could not understand or communicate with me because she speaks english as a second language... and I was told that she had no legal requirement to speak with me at all but she conversed extesively with my children's father and his mother... Please, if someone can help me I can pay I just want to make sure that you are for real because I have been nearly scammed several times seeking help and I don't come from a rich family but I have a good job and can make payments. My phone number is (916) 271-9382 and my work number is (916) 323-1349. My name is Joangeling Anastasia O'Connor.
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April 18, 2012 | 5:58 PM
Please read about how San Diego attorney Shawn McMillan sued Orange county social services on behalf of parent, Ms. Deanna Hardwick for ten million dollars and won. Orange county social services' appeals were denied all the way to the US Supreme court. Everyone victimized by CPS needs to file a federal civil suit against them, have it reviewed by the judge, and the US courts will deliver the summons to the cps agency via US Marshall service. It is time to "hammer cps" as Shawn McMillan said.
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