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DCF Commissioner Ken Schatz. Photo by Elizabeth Hewitt/VTDigger

The Vermont Department for Children and Families has been accused of unlawful family separation in a lawsuit filed in federal court.



The lawsuit, filed Monday, alleges the Department for Children and Families forcefully separated one of the plaintiffs, identified by the alias Miriam Lowell for privacy, from her three children based on false information and without conducting a thorough investigation into claims of substance use and child abuse.



On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled against a motion by DCF to dismiss the case, but declined to order a freeze on the ongoing DCF investigation into the plaintiffs. Both parties will be back in court in 60 days.



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In November 2018, the Vermont Parent Representation Center, a nonprofit that advocates for parents, published a report about how the state too often removes children from their families.



The 117-page document contains more than 80 recommendations, including that the state create a position to monitor the outcomes and costs of the child protective system, as well as a parent representation office to offer counseling and legal representation to parents who could lose custody of their children.



Currently, attorneys for both parents and children are provided through the Defender General’s Office, an arrangement that the report says leads to poor representation for parents.



Larry Crist, the executive director of the nonprofit, said in a statement that the state “appears unable to distinguish between families wherein children are being abused and neglected and families not doing so.”



“The result being that DCF treats most families as the enemy,” Crist added.



While court documents name Ken Schatz, commissioner of DCF, and seven other employees, most of the allegations are leveled against Christine Gadwah, a family services worker for the department.



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The other plaintiff in the case is Seth Healey — also a pseudonym to protect his privacy — who is in a romantic relationship with Lowell, but is not the father of the children involved in the case.



Healey and Lowell have a history of drug use; however their lawyers say it has been years since they last took narcotics.



Lawyers representing Lowell and Healey say that Gadwah took inappropriate steps — including contacting Lowell’s estranged husband to advocate he file for sole custody — to make sure Lowell would not be able to see her three children, after Lowell’s 16-year-old daughter told a counselor in 2018 she had seen her mother snort an unidentified pill, according to court filings.



Lawyers argue Gadwah did not follow DCF’s minimum procedural rights standards for child removal and instead simply told Lowell that she was taking the children away from her and threatened police involvement if Lowell did not comply.



A judge must order a child to be removed from a home, according to DCF officials.



Lowell’s lawyers say the story of the plaintiff snorting a pill is false and that Gadwah along with DCF has changed the story over time, later claiming the plaintiffs forced the daughter to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana before again changing the allegation.



Gadwah and DCF also accused Lowell and Healey of physically abusing one of the other children, according to court documents.



Lowell was separated from two of her children until June 2019, when the Vermont Family Court ordered they be returned to her after being apart for 305 days.



Lowell’s third child was returned to her at the end of July after being separated from his mother for 356 days.



While the lawsuit alleges that in the case of Lowell, Gadwah violated confidentiality agreements and fabricated evidence to take the plaintiff’s children, court documents also allude to this being a widespread practice in DCF.



In a statement, DCF said it disagrees with the allegations and facts as described in the complaint.



“DCF has appropriate procedures in place consistent with federal and Vermont state law that provides due process in the child abuse/neglect substantiation process,” the statement said.



The lawsuit alleges other examples of unlawful practices by DCF that have resulted in children being taken from their parents.



“There are at least several such cases currently in other district offices throughout the state of Vermont and, on information and belief, scores in the state of Vermont in recent years,” Lowell’s lawyers wrote in court documents.



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The Vermont Attorney General’s Office declined comment on the case Wednesday, but according to court documents, the lawyers for Lowell and Healey held a face-to-face meeting with Attorney General TJ Donovan in 2017 to discuss the allegations against DCF.



Donovan “indicated concern but in later meetings indicated that nothing can be done,” lawyers wrote in court filings.



On Feb. 26, the lawyers again reached out to Donovan, writing a letter to inform him that DCF was committing “violations of due process and other constitutional violations” and that DCF “is severing families, denying due process, and damaging or destroying the most foundational bonds that are at the core of the Constitutional rights protected by the United States and Vermont Constitutions.”



In an interview, Crist said he believes there will be a number of similar court cases against DCF in the coming months.



“Based on our work during the last nine years here in Vermont, there are a great number of Vermonters who have experienced similar actions as the person identified in this lawsuit,” he said.



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