Health Impact News Editor Comments

ABC 15 Arizona interviewed a former CPS caseworker turned whistleblower regarding some of the alleged abuses in the Arizona foster care system. The caseworker reportedly quit her job after seeing the abuse of power within CPS last year.

Keeping her identity hidden, the former caseworker claims that many of her colleagues forged reports and were not truly investigating the welfare of children taken into state custody. She claims there was one instance in which a child died while in state custody, and the caseworker knew nothing about it.

The Arizona CPS Child Welfare Administrator appeared on camera with ABC 15 and when asked if there were cases that “slipped through the cracks” she replied:

From my perspective, I don’t see that.

However, a couple months after this aired on ABC 15, Governor Jan Brewer abolished CPS because there were reportedly 6,000 reports of child abuse or neglect were never investigated.

ABC 15 did an excellent investigative report showing court documents in which judges admitted that children were removed from their parents’ home simply because the caseworker “got ticked off” at the parents. The Arizona CPS whistleblower states in the interview that these are not isolated cases, but happen frequently.

ABC 15 then shows a statement by DES Director Clarence Carter stating that “there is not” any issue with CPS caseworkers bullying parents.

So how credible is the leadership of these government agencies overseeing the Arizona foster care system? Are we to believe there are no bad apples in the bunch at all, as they claim?

Watch the investigative report from ABC 15: