"When I sought help, county took my child"

 My daughter has been taken out of my family and out of my custody by the government. She and my family have suffered much and I believe it was needless. I made the mistake of asking the Wayne County Department of Social Services to help me keep my defiant daughter, who was 13 at the time, safe. I wanted her in the Person in Need of Supervision (PINS) program. The result was that she has been taken out of my family by the government because, as the judge put it, I did nothing to repair my relationship with my child.

For over a year I have struggled to get the county out of my daughter's life.  The Social Services lawyer said, "There is no question in our minds that you love your daughter, but now we are going to decide what is best for her."  The county worker told my daughter that I don't know how to raise a teenager.  My daughter suffers from a severe behavioral problem and has a paternal family history of depression. She feels she has been abused and neglected because she wasn't allowed to do the things other teens in her circle of friends were allowed to do. 

I feel that my civil rights have been violated, including parents' fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children. I was never at any time deemed an unfit parent. There are no legally founded allegations against me. I was never found guilty of any crime, and yet I have been stripped of my constitutional rights because my angry thirteen year old and her friends complained to a case worker for social services. This case worker felt the complaint was credible and now my name appears on a list in Albany of parents who abuse and neglect their children. All because I was trying to control my child who was running with kids who were stealing cars and selling drugs.

I have been told by lawyers that Family Court is the one place the constitution doesn't apply. Imagine that! A renowned psychologist who evaluated my daughter has since strongly recommended that my daughter be placed back in my custody and not in foster care. The Social Services department has gone against this recommendation, misled the judge in the case to discredit me and placed my daughter in foster care regardless.

The real victim is my now 16-year-old daughter, who has been misguided and has been allowed to grow up at a critical time in her life without parents. She has been allowed by the social workers to grow up in a way that no good parent would have allowed.  My relationship with my daughter has been discouraged and sabotaged by the Department of Social Services. I was denied family counseling to preserve and reintegrate my daughter back into her family. 

New York State has just passed legislation that states that a parent can enroll a child into the PINS program through the age of 18. What parents don't understand is that this amounts to no more than giving up your rights as parents. The system does not have to work with the parent. The parent in many areas may not have any input.  When the child is placed, he or she is placed with the commissioner of social services. The government now parents your child. What is wrong with this system is that the parent should not be pushed out. The system should work with the parent. Government cannot raise our kids. This is not the answer. The state machine is making big tax dollars on the kids placed into this system. I am sure there are many more cases like mine all across the country. All the power rests in the hands of the Commissioner of Social Services of your particular county. If you have been a victim of this system please let me know. I am taking names for a petition to send to Albany to help stop this abuse of our families.

Mary Jo Marceau-Hawthorne
362 Quaker Road
Macedon, NY 14502