by Terri LaPoint

Health Impact News

The theoretical function of Child Protective Services is to “protect” children from harm, removing them from their homes when they are being hurt. A deep-seated value of Western culture is that we need to protect children from abuse, and the public has overwhelmingly supported the use of tax dollars going to help the children who are being abused.

But what happens when the very agency charged with protecting children is, in reality, leading to or ignoring the physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and even deaths of the children in their care? Is anyone held accountable?

Where do their victims turn when social workers assigned to protect them turn a deaf ear and a blind eye?

Hundreds of parents who have spoken with Health Impact News about their child or children being taken from them have asked how they can lose their child though they have done nothing wrong, while at the same time the social workers routinely ignore the abuse of their children in foster care.

On December 7, 2017, Massachusetts State Auditor Suzanne Bump released an appalling audit of her state’s Child Protective Services, the Department of Children and Families (DCF). (See text of audit here.)

The audit, which covered 2014 and 2015, found that there were many instances where children in state care, whether in foster homes or group homes or other facilities under DCF care, were abused physically or sexually, but DCF failed to report the incidents to the proper authorities.

In the week following the release of the audit, many news outlets, both mainstream and alternative, have carried the story, and the ensuing political battle between Bump’s office and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker.

Conservative Review journalist Rob Eno references Michelle Malkin Investigates‘ coverage of the Medical Kidnapping of Justina Pelletier and compares it to the audit:

This new report raises serious questions on the motivations and ability of government agencies in general to protect children. Instead of kidnapping children for disagreements over medical treatment, these government child welfare agencies should focus on their core mission.

DCF – Sexual Abuse By Fosters Happening but “Not Serious”

The Ad Council tells us, “You don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent,” in their campaign to entice more people to become foster parents. The audit report in Massachusetts reveals that this statement is sometimes taken to the extreme with regards to even the most flawed of foster parents, while children can be removed from their parents for sometimes the slightest of imperfections by the real parents.

Some of the grounds that have been used by Child Protective Services to take children include disagreeing with a doctor, refusing vaccines, having dirty dishes in the sink or laundry on the floor in the laundry room, having a child that was “too short,” getting the electricity turned off for a day, getting a 2nd medical opinion, parents having a verbal disagreement with each other, being a foster child themselves, or having a homebirth. The lists of allegations are often filled with made-up stories or minor incidents twisted into something much more serious than they were.

Yet, when it comes to children who are abused by the fosters that are paid by taxpayers to care for the children who are being “protected” from their “dangerous” parents, that abuse isn’t considered worthy to report.

DCF officials told Auditor Suzanne Bump that they don’t see sexual abuse as a serious enough problem that they need to report it. According to Western Mass News,

The problem: “Sexual abuse to children is not considered to be a critical incident because DCF, in their own words, did not consider sexual abuse to cause serious bodily harm or extreme physical pain. I can’t comprehend that response,” Bump added. Bump’s office found 118 incidents of sexual abuse of a child in DCF care that were not reported to the office of the child advocate. She said that reporting these incidents hinders the protection of children.

Sexual Abuse and Trafficking in Foster Care is Common Today – Children Suffer far Worse in Foster Care Than in Their “Troubled” Homes

Tragically, this has been the experience of far too many families. In my research for the Medical Kidnap division of Health Impact News over the past 3 years, I have personally spoken with hundreds of families, including many of the older children and teens who were either returned home or aged out of the system.

In only one of the stories that I have covered were the children sexually abused or molested in their own homes, before Child Protective Services got involved under the guise of “protecting” them. In that case, the family reported the rape to police, but police didn’t do anything about it until social services kidnapped the resulting baby from the young mother in the hospital and the story went viral. The family was not responsible for the rape. (Story here.)

However, I estimate that about 75% of the older children and teens that have contacted us were molested or sexually assaulted in foster care, and many of the younger children have been abused as well.

Most of these incidents were reported by the children to the social workers, yet in almost none of the cases did it go beyond that.

Law enforcement was not notified. No reports were filed.

In most cases, the children remained in that dangerous setting even after they reported the abuse. Many times, it was not until much later that the parents learned of the abuse.

The true abusers in the foster homes and group homes got away with it.

Most of the time, we have not reported the sexual abuse. The families prefer to keep it out of the media, understandably. However, among the cases we are familiar with:

An elementary-aged little girl was raped by the “Christian” foster father. When she reported it to the social workers, she was moved to another foster home. It was never reported to authorities. The foster family continued to be foster parents for many years within the same county where social workers were aware of the rape, and they continued to be involved in children’s ministry at their church.

A teenage boy was raped by a man in the neighborhood. There were tattoos and identifying features that would have helped police identify his rapist, had the social worker simply bothered to inform the police. She didn’t. And he remained in that foster home.

A teenager was sexually trafficked by those who were caring for her. It was never reported. Her mother suspected something, but her daughter wouldn’t talk about it. Her fears were confirmed a couple of years later when she finally got some documents in which social services checked the box – “Human Trafficking” on a form listing what the child had been involved in.

A teenager was gang raped by the foster’s nephew and several of his friends. When the social worker found out, she simply transferred the girl to another facility. The crime was never reported.

Parents discovered their little boys (really young) who had been returned home performing oral sex on each other. The behavior had to have been learned in foster care. No abuse in foster care had been reported to any authorities.

The audit by the Massachusetts state auditor uncovered many similar stories. In addition, Bump’s office found many other kinds of abuse that DCF failed to report. According to CBS 4 in Boston:

The Department of Children and Families did not know about 260 serious injuries to kids under the agency’s care, including gunshot wounds, burns, broken bones and head contusions.

This is consistent with our findings at Health Impact News, where numerous parents have sent photos documenting injuries to their children that happened in foster care.

These injuries far exceed any that the children ever sustained in their own homes before being removed from their families “in the best interest of the child.”

See:

Evidence of Abuse in Foster Care Ignored, or Worse

Usually, when the real parents point out the injuries to social workers, their concerns are brushed aside or swept under the rug. The children are silenced, told by social workers not to say anything to their parents. It is extremely rare that anything is done about the abuse.

In one of the most extreme cases, when a biological mother recognized signs that her daughter was being abused and molested in foster care, social workers brought her concerns to the judge, accusing the mother of making it up and “sabotaging” the placement of her child. That was actually used as grounds to terminate her parental rights.

However, the mother was right. The foster “father” currently sits in prison for being part of a pedophile pornography ring. He was using the children for sex trafficking. See:

When the children come home, they often tell their parents horror stories – abuse from which their loving family was rendered powerless to protect them. Most former foster children have nightmares and night terrors after they come home, and they often have fears they didn’t have before. Some have PTSD.

As we have reported many times, children in foster care are at least 6 times more likely to be abused, molested, raped, or killed in foster care than they are in their own homes, even if their own homes were troubled. See:

Foster Children Funneled into Sex Trafficking

There is evidence that Child Protective Services funnels some foster children into the child sex trafficking trade. According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, over 1000 registered sex offenders were on the list of state-approved foster care providers and facilities, in Los Angeles County alone.

Many sources cite that at least half of sex trafficking victims come from foster care, and some cite figures that are as high as 90%.

See:

Massachusetts Governor Refuses to Acknowledge Problem or Enforce Accountability – Adds More Money to DCF Budget Instead

Since the auditor’s scathing report was released, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has pushed back. Mass Live reports the governor’s response that the audit was “irresponsible” and that it went back to a time period before he took office.

According to WBZ 4 in Boston, he has addressed the well-publicized short-comings of DCF by throwing another $100 million at the problem, hiring almost 400 new social workers, and changing some policies.

A massive influx of more money and social workers will never fix the problems of Child Protective Services. All that does is ensure that MORE children will be funneled into the terribly-broken system.

Auditor Suzanne Bump responded to the governor’s defense by pointing out that no one has been held accountable for the failures of the system. Even if the cases involved in the audit happened before the governor took office, his administration has not dealt with those who should have been held accountable.

“Those kids were victimized and nobody paid a price,” Bump told WBZ’s Ryan Kath. “That’s not serving children well. It’s not serving the agency well. And it’s not serving the public well.”

Governor Baker is no newcomer to the problems with DCF. He has a long involvement with the agency dating back more than 25 years. He was appointed in 1991 as Undersecretary of Health and Human Services, of which DCF is a part. In 1992, he was promoted to the head of the agency.

Abusers in Foster Care Going Unpunished – Change Desperately Needed to Protect Children

Suzanne Bump’s audit has revealed what parents involved in the system already know – that children in the system are being hurt in foster care and nothing is being done about it.

Those who fail to address the abuse of children in state care must be held accountable, and the abusers, who are committing crimes against children, must face consequences.

A simple way of protecting many of these children would be to simply not place them into the system in the first place. The approach of taking children “just in case” and sorting it out later during long, drawn out battles in family and juvenile court must end.

Many, more than half and possibly as many as 3/4 of the children placed into state care, are suffering abuse at the hands of the very system charged with protecting them.

All of them suffer from the trauma of being separated from their families.

Children are better off without this kind of “protection.” Those children who are truly abused at home often are the very ones left in their homes, due to not being “adoptable.” Child abuse is a crime, and must be treated as such.

Child “Protection” System is Really Child ADOPTION System

The public believes it is the “Child Protective System,” designed to protect abused children.

What most do not realize is that it has become the “Child ADOPTION System,” with the ultimate goal of maximizing federal funds. Therefore, the children who are truly in need of protection are not protected, because they are seen by those in the system as damaged goods who are unadoptable.

See:

The commodity that CPS trades in is children, and they want children who are adoptable, in other words, those who come from good, loving homes, because that’s where the funding is.

In that kind of system, it does not behoove them to address physical and sexual abuse that occurs within that system.

How to Reach Governor Charlie Baker:

The main office number for Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is 617 725 4005. He may be contacted here. He is also on Twitter.