Subject: NY State Senate Committee on Children and Families

The following is a sample letter:

Dear Senator;
I am a citizen of the United States of America and a resident of New York State. I have the following concerns: the need for family court reform, the lack of accountability in Child Protective Services, and the disregard of our fourteenth amendment rights as parents to raise our children.

I can well imagine that you have many issues before you that keep you very busy. However, these issues are foremost to the families, parents and children of our great country. Families, both children and parents are suffering and need help. Please, do not delay. I would like to request a time when myself and others could meet with you and the other committee members of the Committee on Children and Families. You may reach me at the following address and number:....................Thank you for your time.

You can leave out the sentence on meeting and add others but I think it is important to get the message across that this is an urgent need!

The following list is self evident. I will be writing these people in order to get to speak before them. I invite others as many as possible to write to the following senators in order to join me in presenting the problems we have faced with CPS and the family court system. Please write to as many as possible. The more letters we get the better. They CAN ignore one of us but they CAN'T ignore all of us! So Please help, get others to write. Thank you.

My letter about the news, 'Failing the children', of the deaths of three children, two in foster care and all know to social services:

To:Senate Committee on Children and Families Members

Dear Senator Mary Lou Rath:

Hello, I am the Vice President of VOCAL NY(Victims Of Child Abuse Laws). We are a non profit organization composed of parents, children, and others who provide support, advocacy, lobbying efforts, and information to families who have been negatively impacted by the child abuse laws and are involved with the family court system. VOCAL stands for 'Victims of Child Abuse Laws'.

We wish to see children protected from all forms of abuse, including that which is being inflicted upon them as a result of poor judgment made by child protective agencies. We want to see due process accorded to all. We wish to see preservation of the family unit made a priority in the handling of suspected child abuse cases. Families afford a key source of emotional stability in a child's life. VOCAL NY recognizes a real problem in our current family court system and DSS Agencies. Constitutional rights are not afforded and in most cases they are trampled. Guilt is assumed until innocence can be proven. Our website is www.vocalinfo.org

With that said, I would like to point you to a recent article that was posted by the Buffalo News in Buffalo,NY: The article is entitled 'Failing the children' and reports the death of two children in foster care and one in parental care supervised by CPS. The article quotes the District Attorney saying, "The message is getting out that the monitoring we're doing here, maybe we can improve upon," said Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark. "When you have three in one year - one you can understand. Two is bad luck. Three - that's sending a message out."

The article goes on to say, "Details of the county's Child Protective Services investigations into the three cases are unknown because county officials have declined to comment on them, citing confidentiality laws......Deborah Merrifield, county social services commissioner Merrifield would not comment on the specifics of Child Protective Services investigations into cases involving the three dead children." Why are we not privy to the details. This outrages me even more. Does this department owe an explaination to the people or not? I want to know and others do as well.

One person from an Albany advocacy group was quoted as saying, "What we can all say is this is too many deaths in the system. This is not OK. Something's really wrong in Erie County," said Elie Ward, executive director of Statewide Youth Advocacy, which monitors coverage of child abuse and other issues. "I'm not understanding why the community is not up in arms. This is not normal."

I spoke with the grandmother of one of the little boys that was killed in foster care and her other grandson is in critical condition. Katheryn Parker was denied custody of her grandchildren by CPS and now one is dead and the other is fighting for his life.

Why aren't the American people outraged? Why are our legislatures doing nothing about the abuses of the system. We the people have given this agency money and power to seize children and still children die. In too many cases they remove children needlessly; 'When in doubt take the children out' is the phylosophy and still children die. Families are destroyed and children psychologically damaged because of this agency. Are we as a society really improving things for our children and families or are we just making this agency wealthy, powerful, and perpetuating jobs for people in a system that is doing more harm than good! Check the statistics. Do more kids die in foster care or at the hands of their parents?

NCCANS Statistics show that children are ten times more likely to be abused in foster care than at the hands of their natural parents. Yet, across the United States, we place more and more children in foster care every year. I for one am appalled at the District Attorney, Frank Clark's remark that 'in one year, one you can understand'. If it was your child, or grandchild, or sibling could you understand it? When children are removed and placed in foster care for 'the best interest of the child' are any deaths expected? If so, no child should ever be removed. The medical society's ethic of 'if you can not do any good, then do no harm' should apply here as well. It is not just Erie County. This is a nation wide problem.

Reform is needed and has been needed for many years. Repeal CAPTA, reform the family court system and make CPS workers accountable for their actions. Reinstate the U. S. Constitution in our courts and hold judges accountable to their oath of office. This system needs to be policed. Throwing more money and case workers at the problem, will that really do it or cause more chaos and perpetuate an already bad system? What is needed is stricter guidelines for defining abuse, less children in foster care, and more concentration and better efforts on the real abuse cases. Take abuse cases out of family courts. Child abuse is a crime and should be tried as such in a criminal court of law ensuring constitutional rights and protections to the accused and due process of law.

If Deborah Merrifield is not commenting on the specifics of Child Protective Services investigations into these deaths, why? The public is entitled to know! We demand to know! It is about time we know!

I have had several conversations with Bettina Marlow in Senator Saland's office as a point of contact with the Senate's Committee on Children and Families. Bettina Marlow has written me the following: "As far as constitutional issues, I think we've had this conversation before... I suggest you are taking much too literally certain legal concepts. Family Court is not a criminal court and has its own due process requirements which have been found constitutional. So, when convicting the court system with a broad sweep, you have to know what the due processes are and then determine whether you were availed of them. I don't wish to write about this - it's too time consuming, but suffice to say when a judge must decide whether or not to remove a child from a home, the judge has to consider the risks involved and sometimes it is less risky to remove a child to be on the safe side. None the less, the parent and the child have certain rights."

My response to this is the same response I have to the tragedy of deaths in the CPS and family court system in the Buffalo News article: Concerning the due process afforded; both you and Senator Saland have said this before, 'due process is in there', but no one has enumerated the due process requirements or pointed us in the direction of where we can find the due process afforded to us under the constitution in a family court of law. I hate to bother you for more information but this one is key to our rights as citizens. You said, "sometimes it is less risky to remove a child to be on the safe side." But doesn't it constitute child abuse to take a child out of a loving home needlessly? 'When in doubt take them out' philosophy can put a child at risk when the statistics show that chldren are ten times more likely to be abused while in foster care than in their own homes. Mathew Keen has lost both his children in foster care, both died while in foster care. This is just one case I know of personally and there are others I have read about. When trying to do the best for children and families isn't this important to consider? Shouldn't you, as a parent reserve the right to decide what is best for your children unless you are proven unfit in a court of law? Then and only then can your right to parent be taken away from you by the court who then defaults to decide what is best for the child. The supreme court did state this in one of it's land mark decisions. Is not this the basis of our democratic republic or is what we have today the basis for another form of government?

We fight child abuse in all it's forms. We need your help. We need to work together. We would like a meeting to address these issues. Thank you for your time and we will be awaiting your reply..

Sincerely,

Mary Jo Marceau-Hawthorne, Vice President VOCAL NY

cc
Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health & Human Services
Claude Allen, Deputy Secretary of Health & Human Services
Alex Azar, General Counsel of Health & Human Services
Frank Clark, Erie County District Attorney
Deborah Merrifield, Erie County Commissioner of Social Services
Members of N.Y. State Committee on Children and Families

From Lynne Nayman, President of VOCAL NY

"...taking too literally legal concepts -- implies that Family Court is not a constitutional court -- but then saying that due process of Family Court has been found constitutional is a contradiction."

"Our family court art is a hybrid of criminal and civil law, neither wholly one nor the other.  Individual cases in family courts have been upheld or thrown out on constitutional issues. These would be cases taken before a federal court, because a federal court basically only hears issues of federal and  constitutional import. The entire issue of Family Court procedure has not been examined in terms of compliance with constitutional issues."

 "Further, .....not addressed are the practice of administrative systems, like CPS (or DEC, Workers' Comp, or any host or state and federal systems), which are basically self-policing. They administer and enforce their own regulations, and are NOT constitutional. They are an entire fourth branch of government. As we all know, CPS can do a host of damage without ever bringing you into a court room." 

Write your letters NOW!

Frank Clark, Erie County District Attorney
25 Delaware Ave
Buffalo, NY, 14202

Deborah A. Merrifield, Erie County Commissioner of Social Services
Edward A. Rath County Building
Buffalo, NY 14202

Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human Services
200 Independance Ave. SW
Washington DC, 20201

The Senate Committee on Children and Families:
Chairperson: Rath, Mary Lou
Senatorial District Genesee and part of Erie
District: 5500 Main Street, Suite 260, Williamsville,
NY 14221-6737 Phone: 716-633-0331
Albany: 817 Legislative Office Building
Phone:518-455-3161
Internet E-Mail: rath@senate.state.ny.us
To the attention Carol Cybulski. 

Balboni, Michael A.L.
Senatorial District 07th,R-C-I
Counties: Part of Nassau County
District: 166 East Jericho Turnpike, Suite 9, Mineola, NY 11501
Phone:516-873-0736
Albany: 803 Legislative Office Building
Phone:518-455-2471
Internet E-Mail: balboni@senate.state.ny.us

Montgomery, Velmanette
Senatorial District 18th,D
Counties: Part of Kings
District: 70 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Phone 718-643-6140
Albany: 306 Legislative Office Building
Phone: 518-455-3451
Internet E-Mail: montgome@senate.state.ny.us