LIving Whole

[tankgirl]

Do to my own experiences in my life, I will never trust or believe some one whose troubles, problems and all of the issues of life, are down to some one else. On and on she is perfect, everyone else is out to get her, brags about her brains, her suffering, her sacrifices, but almost nothing about the kids, how they are doing, how she worries for them, cares about them, no they are a prize she wants and she should have. I think there is so much more going on, and I don't think she comes out well in the real story.

[cascarones]

Yeah, I've never heard of placements where no contact with the parent is all the way down demanding grandparents to remove photos if their child. The only reason I can think that would even be brought up is if it was known to be traumatizing to one of the children, or something came out in therapy.

Those poor kids, all of them. I wonder if she truly understands how intense custody and legal battles can be really hard and damaging on the child, especially with the amount of repeated focus she has on how terrible her ex is. I'm not saying he's a decent guy or a good father, but I can't imagine she makes it easy for his kids to have a good relationship with him either, which may be why he wants physical custody of the children he sees as his.

Did she mention anywhere if she and her second husband are planning on more children?

[JermajestyDuggar]

4 minutes ago, cascarones said:

Yeah, I've never heard of placements where no contact with the parent is all the way down demanding grandparents to remove photos if their child. The only reason I can think that would even be brought up is if it was known to be traumatizing to one of the children, or something came out in therapy.

Those poor kids, all of them. I wonder if she truly understands how intense custody and legal battles can be really hard and damaging on the child, especially with the amount of repeated focus she has on how terrible her ex is. I'm not saying he's a decent guy or a good father, but I can't imagine she makes it easy for his kids to have a good relationship with him either, which may be why he wants physical custody of the children he sees as his.

Did she mention anywhere if she and her second husband are planning on more children?

I think her ex wants custody of their bio children. I don’t think he wants custody of the adopted children. I imagine he wants them adopted by another stable family and he’s working against her to get custody of them. At least that’s what I can gather. It’s hard when you only get one side and I’m sure that one side isn’t completely truthful. 

[formergothardite]

On 12/13/2018 at 4:14 PM, luv2laugh said:

I can’t remember this but did Meghan give the two adopted children away to her ex-husband’s relatives (who are the foster parents that brought the children to CPS)? 

She did. And from reading about her on other places that have been discussing her from the start, originally she wrote that she never planned on keeping the children. She wrote that she was keeping them just long enough to find a family to take them. 

Because of that, I don't think the following is the case. 

On 12/13/2018 at 4:14 PM, luv2laugh said:

. If so, maybe it’s possible that they duped Meghan, being in a vulnerable position and without financial support for them from her ex, into taking the children to “cover” for her ex so he would “win” by never having to pay child support for them?

She also had the chance to come get them from those relatives and refused to do so because she claimed she wanted to find out what sort of problems they were having before she agreed to take them again,  plus getting the two kids didn't work for her schedule. She abandoned these children. There is no question about it. She also signed over all her rights which is why the court system will not treat her as a relative. I'm shocked they are accommodating her as much as they are. This isn't a case of her being taken advantage of. This is her wanting the glory of "saving" two children but never having any intentions of actually having to care for them. 

On 12/13/2018 at 4:14 PM, luv2laugh said:

Maybe the ex told this couple to bring the children to CPS? Meghan says that before allowing them to have the children, they cut off all contact.

It seems like they realized they weren't equipped to care for the children. Meghan was then contacted and told she would need to get them by a certain time. Meghan refused to get them, the couple turned the children over to CPS and Meghan was marked as having abandoned her children because that is exactly what she did. She didn't seem to want them back till she found a new husband, but by then it was too late. 
 

We only have Meghan's word that her husband is a horrible monster who cheated for years on her. And she is one who lies to make herself the perpetual victim and absolve herself of all blame so I take everything she says about the ex-husband with a massive grain of salt.  

In no way Meghan is the victim here. The victims are the children caught up in this. I honestly don't think she needs the children back. 

 

5 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I imagine he wants them adopted by another stable family and he’s working against her to get custody of them.

Her writing is very over the top and hard to follow, but it sounds like he is trying to get full custody and that the GAL contacted him for information on Meghan and he provided information that make her look like she would be unfit to get custody of the adopted children. 

[DangerNoodle]

Pinterest is her lastest victimizer. Free market bitch. 

[formergothardite]

So now Pinterest is personally attacking her.   I'm going to assume from their letter that she was pinning anti-vaccine and crazy medicine stuff. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

Omg she would move to a communist country. She is so fucking drama. Calm the fuck down already.

[Palimpsest]

On 12/13/2018 at 4:12 AM, truthseeker said:

An update: https://www.livingwhole.org/the-corruption-continues-inside-my-battle-with-child-protective-services/?fbclid=IwAR1Fav0HO3yXJcvQ03JsdpUaefs1o3QtGmaidioKMYQPBcO65oMLovmMDMs

I would pay good money to hear the other side's story on all this!

Well, I finally got to the end of that update and Megan has completely lost touch with reality.  It would be almost make me sad for her, except there are 5 children (3 bio and 2 adopted) held hostage in this mess.

I tried to scoot past most of the hyperbole to find facts.  Or something resembling facts.

So: 

• There are two custody battles going on.  One over the adopted children (with DFS) and one over the bio children (with ex-husband).
• Each custody case is so complex and combative that each set of children has a GAL assigned.
• The GALs responsibility is to act on behalf of the best interests of the children.
• The GALs are talking to each other.  And that is certainly legitimately within their job description.
• The GAL for the adopted children (GAL 1) actually talked to ex-husband to get his opinion of the situation.  The nerve!
• The ex-husband is siding with the GAL 1.
• GAL 1 is listening to ex-husband.
• He has video evidence of her interactions with bio children that don't look good.

And

• The adopted children have been moved to another foster home.

At the latest hearing:

• Her parents were rejected as a foster placement.  This may or may not have to do with a failed home study in 2013. 
• It may have to do with the fact that DFS want no contact whatsoever between the adopted children and Megan and the parents could not be trusted.  Neither could the back-up aunt and uncle.
• It is unusual to block a parent from the children completely unless they are perceived to be a danger to the children.
• Megan has had a court ordered mental health assessment but won't tell us the result.  I think the results of that assessment are crucial.
• She wanted to have GAL 1 removed from the case.  The judge refused.

Megan seems convinced that every single person who sees these children wants to adopt them.  The first relatives she abandoned them with, the first foster home, and now this latest foster home.  It seems to me that DFS is looking for a good permanent foster placement and that this new placement might indeed just be for respite.  If half she says about their special needs is true, the kids would be hard to place in foster care, let alone finding them a new adoptive home.   And the children can't be adopted by anyone until her parental rights are terminated. 

She still has an appeal pending over the termination of her parental rights over adopted children.  Ex-husband is now part of that appeal - but is going to testify against her and say she is an unfit mother.

Does all that sound right.

On 12/16/2018 at 1:00 PM, formergothardite said:

She did. And from reading about her on other places that have been discussing her from the start, originally she wrote that she never planned on keeping the children. She wrote that she was keeping them just long enough to find a family to take them. 

And that is child trafficking.  Plain and simple.

[formergothardite]

I misunderstood and thought she had signed over her rights when she gave guardianship to the relatives and then refused to come get them when she had the chance. So she still has some parental rights?

I do think she never planned to keep them. From her other post she seems to have expected that she would still get to do "fun" things with the kids but there would be another family to care for them daily. I think she had the idea that she would get to go to teacher conferences and doctor appointments pretending to be the mother and hopefully getting back pats for all her sacrifices along with getting to do holiday stuff. She seems put out when it didn't work out that way. 

She does not come off as a stable person equipped to deal with these children. She always seemed to view them as props for her "save the African children" fantasy. 

[Palimpsest]

18 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I misunderstood and thought she had signed over her rights when she gave guardianship to the relatives and then refused to come get them when she had the chance. So she still has some parental rights?

Goodness knows.  She's as clear as mud.  My guess is that the relatives only had a temporary guardianship (if that) because she promised to come back for the kids, otherwise they would have been the ones who abandoned the children.   I'm not sure what judge's decision she is appealing, but I am assuming it is one removing the adopted children permanently and terminating her parental rights. 

It is also not clear why she "needed" ex-husband as a party to the appeal.  Especially as he obviously wants her declared an unfit parent for all the children.

I shouldn't think the bio kids are getting good care from her either as she is spending so much time fighting for the adopted children, writing long and incoherent blog posts, and contacting politicians all over the place to scream about persecution.  And apparently stalking caseworkers on social media and claiming that they are talking about her online.  

19 hours ago, formergothardite said:

She does not come off as a stable person equipped to deal with these children. She always seemed to view them as props for her "save the African children" fantasy. 

She does not come off as a stable person at all.  In fact she comes off as increasingly paranoid.

 

 

[geeklove]

Ah, Megan. I remember when she attacked a Chron's patient for having an ostomy.

Her old blog was filled with pseudoscience and misinformation. If it was linked to her Pinterest that would explain the suspension. 

[Aine]

On 11/17/2018 at 5:09 AM, truthseeker said:

I can't find any FJ threads relating to this woman, but has anyone else fallen down this rabbit hole? ? I've been down there for hours - please send the ferrets!

She's not fundie as such, but claims to be Christian, and is certainly narcissistic/crazy enough to be on our radar.  Claims to be a lawyer/doctor/naturopath/yoga instructor/child genius/stay at home (single, divorced) mother to three bio and two adopted Congolese kids (although they seem to have been taken by CPS), recently remarried to a younger childless guy, raw food eating, workout addict, all around perfect person, etc etc etc.  Oh, and - naturally - she's an anti-vaxxer.  Worth starting a thread, folks?  She's certainly got the crazy.  

https://www.livingwhole.org/inside-my-battle-with-child-protective-services/

 

 

That was an interesting read. I imagine I'm about to go way down the rabbit hole with this woman. While I definitely see some evidence of grandiosity in her writing so far, I am from the outset going to say that I have zero trust in DFS/CPS in many states in the US and Australia. Many departments are staffed by employees of for-profit organizations that get bonuses from the state if an adoption takes place after children being placed with them and based on personal experience as someone who worked in substance use, doing in-home and family-based treatment and aid through an NGO, I've seen children who were not being neglected taken and I have seen the systems in multiple places and countries refuse any help or refuse to give any information to the parents trying to get their kids back and there are very few legal avenues for those families to take. Family court does not run like criminal court. There is no presumption of innocence, nor does the agency have to provide 'evidence' against the parents prior to the court dates. It makes it almost impossible to defend.

Please don't get me wrong- there are people in these agencies who do their job well and I don't doubt that the majority of children are taken with good reason. But I've seen some absolute travesties of justice first-hand and when that is coupled with the knowledge that there is a financial incentive for some workers contracted to adopt out the children rather than work for reunification and the high rates of burn-out among the workers with little support- I don't jump to the conclusion that people or families speaking up about DFS/CFS/FACS/Whatever-it-is-called-in-your-jurisdiction are automatically guilty and just out to "play the victim". After what I have seen and the complete lack of societal support for the people who are victims of this, I'm hesitant to jump to the conclusion that people fighting child services are "entitled" or "guilty" or "in denial".
 

I'm not saying the above relates to this case- she definitely shows some indication of "white-savior syndrome" (another soapbox of mine besides child protective services) and I'm going to go down the rabbit hole on this blog for sure. But everything she said in that blog post actually rings true for cases I've been involved in, where I was present in the homes before and after child removal and saw the smokescreens put up and how everything that happens seems unbelievable because you're not privy to any of the reasoning behind what happens once the kids are in state custody and you don't know what their arguments will be until you get into court. I have witnessed employees and guardian ad litems that had never even spoken to the biological family or spoken to professionals working with the family straight up lie and regurgitate the original report. 

Y'all know that I am someone that has spent time in foster care, and actually should have been removed far before the times I was, and I've had siblings adopted from foster care. I am absolutely in favor of the entire process when done right. But the system is very broken. And a lot of the blog post linked by the OP on this thread actually sounds extremely similar to cases I've been involved with professionally both before and after removal. That doesn't make the blogger crazy for other reasons or not a narcissist and stuff- I'll read more now and would actually be happy to see signs in those posts that there was good reason to not push for reunification by DFS. I say that because there are few (if any) miscarriages of justice that make me more furious and upset than child protection overstepping in their role, as it isn't tried in a court that is fair.

To be clear- I know I stumbled in here 6 pages in...I'm not saying she isn't bat-shit crazy just that I wanted to say the above before I become biased by reading her posts and y'all's that are likely going to convince me she is nuts. The anti-vax comment in that post about DFS did not sail by without attention from me and anti-vax is never a good sign, in my opinion. Because science. 

[Aine]

Serious concerns about all this woman's "medical knowledge".  I just read her "fevers" post and yeah, a low-grade fever is the body's natural way to kill invading bacteria but I'm doing a clinical placement at an Intellectual Disability facility right now and a disturbing amount of our clients became ID following extreme fevers (107+), usually due to measles or Scarlett Fever. Just leaving a fever to keep climbing without knowing the cause is dangerous.
 

[Aine]

On 11/17/2018 at 4:57 PM, truthseeker said:

This forum have several threads (all several years old) discussing her - this this page is the one where she appears as a sock to defend 'Megan', and gets caught out.  It's about half way down, and she's the username korrin09.

http://pandce.proboards.com/thread/314007/megan-heimers-lies-falsifications-inaccuracies?page=4

Oh wow. I wrote my first impressions above because I didn't want my views on the initial linked blog post to be confounded by everything else. I get that that is confusing for others, especially those who have been following this thread since the beginning, but that is generally what I try to do in general with most things. But this link made me go 'wtf' a heap of times (as have other posts I've read so far). I know my initial post seems confusing if you've been following this for over a month now but please take it for what it was- an initial reaction to the initial linked post and not a judgement of her blog on the whole.

[Aine]

On 11/19/2018 at 4:20 AM, Joyleaf said:

I'm feeling a bit BEC - ish today, so if you're not in the mood for that, you might want to skip this post. This will be very long and BEC

That "Inside My Battle with Child Protective Services" blog post is a mess.

- she writes "I also started a non-profit in Congo that focused on poverty alleviation and orphan care. We drilled wells, fed and clothed orphans, built schools, and provided medical supplies and food to orphanages."
That non-profit was just funneling money it received as donations to people and organizations in Congo. It's a transfer of other people's money. I'm not saying that the money wasn't put to good use by the recipients but it's not as if Megan or her organization did more than handing over money and posing for pictures from what I can see.

- About her husband:
"he stated that he had unilaterally decided he would not allow our adopted children to come home (as they were projected to be released)." and "He just suddenly “couldn’t love kids who weren’t his blood,”".
This matches with what @SuperNova has written earlier that maybe it hadn't been the plan in the beginning that these kids were going to live with Megan and her husband but that she planned to pass them on to another family once they had arrived in the US.
And now suddenly when the husband realizes that these kids would on paper be his and he would be responsible, he didn't want to do this. Or, looking for a divorce, he didn't want to risk having two more kids he would have to pay support for.

- about reunification: "When the facility my adopted children were living in was closing down (because the children living in it were coming home), I hired a private investigator to find out everything I could about their family and contacted their birth mom to see if reunification with her was possible. I am a huge advocate of reunification"
So when it finally looked like the kids were coming to the US, that was the moment she decided to look into reunification. Isn't that something she should have done before if she is such a big advocate of reunification?

- timeline:
"The adoptions of my son and daughter were finalized on December 2, 2013 but what was supposed to be a six month process turned into an almost three-year nightmare" + time when crisis with her husband escalated "I didn’t see September of 2015 coming." "He did not want me, the baby I was carrying" + "When my bio baby was six weeks old, I picked up my son from the airport. Three weeks later my daughter arrived." "I had five kids ages 4, 4, 2, 2, and six weeks old"
How does this add up? Was the two year old daughter form Congo close to turning 3 when she arrived? When did they arrive? It must have been at some point after September 2015. Did she manage to finalize the daughter's adoption when she was just a few days old?

- "When these babies were lying on a cold floor in an orphanage starving to death, before they even became my children, I gave them MY milk" Is she trying to say that these kids were actually starving and that she breastfed both of them while she was in Congo?
"I shipped them the best possible formula so that my son wouldn’t have to drink tea in a bottle. I paid extra to a nanny so that my son would not be left on a cold floor crying, but would be comforted and cared for."
This only mentions the son, maybe the daughter wasn't in the picture at that time? Maybe hadn't been born yet?

- "I learned their tribal language so that I could communicate with them." Eh, which language was that? And why did she only start when the kids were in the US?

- "If you think that any mother spends thousands of dollars to adopt, endures years of emotional anguish, and is forced to get her children out of a third world country in a manner that takes a sacrifice of everything she has because she wants to give up her children, you need a reality check."
Seeing as the whole non-profit thing and helping orphans and stuff was so much part of her life and important for her ego and as it also was her husband's and her parent's money being used while she had all the adventure and prestige, yes, I can imagine that the original plan was to give them to a different family.
I could even imagine that she used the adoption as a threat towards her husband when he wanted to separate - he separates, she would bring the kids home AND keep them instead of giving them to another family so he would have to pay. That would make his reaction far more understandable.
And when she was in over her head with the kids she decided to give them away after all because they were too much work and trouble.

- new family doesn't want the kids anymore:
"I received a text at 6 a.m. to come get my kids by 6pm that night." + "I had no insurance, child support for them, no way to get them to their schools, no therapy services, no help, no car seats, no knowledge of what had happened, a horrible attorney that I couldn’t even afford and wasn’t returning my calls, no way to pick them up, and I was dealing with a woman who was threatening to “play dirty” with me."
And this is where the whole "I love them just as my bio-children" narrative falls apart even more.
If she truly loved them as if they were her children she would have moved heaven and earth to pick them up and solve all these problems (minus the car seats) later.

- Guardian at litem:
"She interrogated me for more than two hours, accused me of abandoning my kids even though I had been trying to get them back, they were under a legal guardianship with another family, and I wasn’t the one who dropped them off at DFS."
Oh FFS, Megan! You handed them off to another family (even the boy who had apparently not caused you any trouble at all) and didn't pick them up when that family didn't want them anymore.
I would also call that abandoning them and would consider that they might be better off with a different family.

- about herself:
"I have a law degree (one of many degrees), am an outstanding member in my community, am involved in foreign missions, and have a substantial amount of evidence to support my position."
Seriously, you consider yourself an "outstanding" member of your community? Based on what? That you had your parents sell their belongings so that you could "adopt"? Or because you transferred other people's money to organizations in Congo? Or because you gave your kids away and didn't pick them up? I see nothing outstanding. And I haven't even voiced my opinion on those foreign missions.

- about the family that has her kids now and wants to keep them:
"This wasn’t just any family. This was a family who had adopted from Congo during the same time I did. I advocated for the release of their son right along with my own. I helped them with their adoption paperwork and vaccination exemptions. I donated to their adoption and their son’s orphanage. We went to the same church and they were my parent’s former small group leaders."
Or to say it in other words: This is a family who knows you and your parents. This a family who has experience with kids form Congo. And they don't want those kids to go back to you. Food for thought.

- "I am now re-married to an amazing Christian man (an engineer)" + "I am rebuilding my life."
Looks like she found somebody who can finance her dream of doing stuff for orphans and so now she wants them back I guess getting them back would be better for her image.

- "Not a day passes where I don’t regret sending my son, who did not have the issues my daughter had with her."  = I now wish I had a least kept the child that didn't give me any trouble.
So she didn't even have a reason to give him away. She just did.
(Disclaimer: You generally shouldn't give your kids away even if they cause you trouble. I recognize that there might be extreme circumstances in which a separation of parents and kids might be beneficial for the kids, but generally no.)

- "My kids should be participating in counseling with me, should be re-integrating into their family (not a foster family), and should be experiencing holidays, memories, and permanency in the home they were always meant to be in."
If that's what you think you shouldn't have given them away!

- "No parent should ever have to fear the removal of their children because they parent differently"
They weren't removed, you gave them away!

- "Adopting out another person’s child is NOT okay, "
You were in the process of adopting them out to another family!

This woman makes me angry.

And it's very clear to see that she left stuff out of her blog post to suit her narrative. Especially dates are missing which would make all of this clearer.

Your breakdown of this makes sense to me. I know that a bias I have, due to my experiences personally and professionally, has to do with child protective services and I do stand by that in many ways. Families can be convinced into short-term voluntary placements and not get the kids back, there is no transparency in many of the processes for families seeking reunification but I agree with your breakdown of that post. I have also had cases where I've begged for removal of the children and its happened and been the best possible outcome.

I missed some of the holes in her story until reading other blog posts and other pages about her. 

 

[Aine]

On 12/13/2018 at 2:41 PM, luv2laugh said:

I doubt CPS would give the kids back to a woman who gave them up to another family... Does she not understand how that looks to CPS? She gave them up to another family... 

The kids have now been through multiple homes and CPS is probably prioritizing stability in search of a permanent and final home, IMO.

I'm not saying this relates to Megan's case because I'm completely convinced that it does NOT but I do take issue with people summarizing all parents who place their kids in the custody of another family that is agreed by all to be temporary as being 'bad' parents. Like I said, I don't think that it relates to this case but I think it can be the most loving thing that a parent does while they get themselves back together and it does pain me to see how CPS views that action when it is short-term and combined with the parent taking steps to get treatment or create a better home environment for the kid.

For these kiddos, I agree that stability is most important and no one prioritized that for them, especially Megan, in their short life. Screw her and her priorities- if they are safe and with people who love them and care for them, then that's where they should be (even though they were taken from their country past the time when kids could be legally taken from the DRC and they really do belong with their biological mother who should have been provided with the support needed to raise them by an NGO).

[Palimpsest]

11 hours ago, Aine said:

I do take issue with people summarizing all parents who place their kids in the custody of another family that is agreed by all to be temporary as being 'bad' parents. Like I said, I don't think that it relates to this case but I think it can be the most loving thing that a parent does while they get themselves back together and it does pain me to see how CPS views that action when it is short-term and combined with the parent taking steps to get treatment or create a better home environment for the kid.

And I need to point out that CPS doesn't always automatically view that action as bad or abandonment.   As you say, temporary arrangements with family like this are often the best and most loving thing a parent can do for their children as they get themselves back on their feet.  Many of these temporary arrangements work out well and CPS never even needs to be involved.

In Megan's case it seems to have been the relatives who were originally caring for the children who involved CPS in the first place.  I am assuming they had very good reason.

I agree CPS has many problems.  It is grossly under-funded everywhere, the work is incredibly hard and stressful, caseworkers (even good ones) are vilified by angry families (and often in the press if cases go bad), it is almost impossible to find properly qualified caseworkers because they are all underpaid, and caseloads are overwhelming.  In this state it is not unusual to have a caseload of 60 families in CPS.  Families not individual children.   So mistakes are definitely made.  There are many very dedicated and ethical people working for CPS though, as you acknowledge.

My hope in this situation is that the Guardians ad Litem are doing their jobs and that the judge(s) are on the ball.  This sounds like a sad situation for everyone concerned.

 

[SusanAtTheLastBattle]

21 hours ago, Aine said:

I am from the outset going to say that I have zero trust in DFS/CPS in many states in the US and Australia. Many departments are staffed by employees of for-profit organizations that get bonuses from the state if an adoption takes place after children being placed with them

21 hours ago, Aine said:

I've seen some absolute travesties of justice first-hand and when that is coupled with the knowledge that there is a financial incentive for some workers contracted to adopt out the children rather than work for reunification

Do you have any sources on DFS sharing staff with for-profit agencies who get state payments for adoption? I know DFS can be misrun in other ways, and is almost always underfunded, but that's new to me.

[Briefly]

I have a good friend in San Antonio, he son works for DFS or CPS, I'm not sure exactly what the agency is called there.  But he is one of the caseworkers and he has a huge number of families on his caseload.  He said that it is so much harder than anyone realizes and that the are all way beyond overworked. They keep at it, but the burnout rate is very high.  He said that it is not unusual to find foster families that are just in it for the money and more than once he has had to cut locks off of refrigerators in those homes and then go back and make frequent inspections.  But there are just as many who are foster parents because they genuinely care for the children.  The department is underfunded and they are overworked.

[seattlechic]

"despite being a well-known writer"... bitch, no. Stop stop stop. You are a mommy-fucking-blogger. Not a well-known writer. 

[formergothardite]

She isn't even a super well known mommy blogger! She does think highly of herself, though. 

[Aine]

7 hours ago, SusanAtTheLastBattle said:

Do you have any sources on DFS sharing staff with for-profit agencies who get state payments for adoption? I know DFS can be misrun in other ways, and is almost always underfunded, but that's new to me.

Yes. I have plenty. Please understand that I understand the need for child protective services more than most, having been both a foster child and a foster carer. I was removed for good reasons. I was also removed far too late but that's not even my issue. I have also worked very closely with social workers in the system for years and I know they are up against horrendous workloads, they're underpaid, and it's such a tough job. One of the hardest and most thankless out there. All of that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot wrong with the system and I think contracting out is making it worse and not better and is likely costing a lot of governments more to pay out the contracts. This is a country by country and state by state thing within these countries but it is happening in places and having serious consequences.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/fostering-profits#.cdVyY3Qgp

https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/06/does-privatized-foster-care-put-kids-at-risk/562604/

https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/65016/1/OSLJ_V60N4_1295.pdf

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-15/four-corners-concerns-raised-over-housing-children-canberra/8027742

https://www.theherald.com.au/story/5116060/pressure-mounts-on-foster-care-provider-investigation/

This is a start. My laptop is in the shop at the moment (cat knocked my water on it a month ago and I haven't been able to afford to get it out) but I keep a folder on this in my Mendeley Desktop. I may be able to access it via the cloud but I'm being anti-social right now and hiding from my friends who came over for Christmas Eve and aren't taking the hint to leave  But there has been quite a lot of whistleblowing on it in both the US and Australia and it sucks because most of the people on the front lines of companies that get the contracts are good people who aren't profiting themselves and it often takes a bit of time and people willing to break their employment contract and breach confidentiality for it to come out. 

I know this is off topic to crazy Megan because I am totally on board that she is not a "victim" of CPS gone mad...but it seems like she's almost co-opting the stories of many people who were vulnerable and do have real stories of having no path to reunification- even when they asked for help in order to protect their own children (from an abusive partner etc)- and so there will be people like me that have watched this play out in the worst ways having a knee-jerk reaction of "this almost sounds reasonable". I've seen some ugly things play out a bunch of times and I'm not in the thick of it anymore. Unfortunately for those who really are victimized by the system (kids and parents and families), most people roll their eyes at the parent who had their child taken and assume they're making shit up after the fact and I think a big factor in that is no one wanting to think that the government could just walk in and take your kids for no reason because that is truly terrifying. Coming from an Aboriginal Australian background, that shit has been happening in my family for generations so it isn't too difficult for me to believe. 

I'll get some better links and stories by tomorrow once my friends leave. I think Reuters or the AP did a very good investigative piece based on a few states in the US, including Kentucky, which is meant to be one of the least well-run CPS divisions and a lot of their operations are contracted out? There are academics looking at it too so I'll get all those in the next few hours.

[luv2laugh]

Does anyone else feel like Meghan's anti-vaccination crusade/obsession has turned into an anti-CPS crusade?

[Soulhuntress]

15 hours ago, luv2laugh said:

Does anyone else feel like Meghan's anti-vaccination crusade/obsession has turned into an anti-CPS crusade?

And her crazy self makes any discussion of issues with foster care, ethnic groups who have legitimate issues with foster care/adoption outside their people group (and tremendous abuses)  impossible.  Because her woo invalidates very necessary conversations.  Which hurts the most vulnerable populations.  That being said, I have mixed feelings on drug addicted parents and child custody.  Very mixed.  

[Aine]

On 12/25/2018 at 2:21 PM, Soulhuntress said:

And her crazy self makes any discussion of issues with foster care, ethnic groups who have legitimate issues with foster care/adoption outside their people group (and tremendous abuses)  impossible.  Because her woo invalidates very necessary conversations.  Which hurts the most vulnerable populations.

I want to share a story that I just read (like finished it 10 minutes ago) and it made me think of this thread and your comment @Soulhuntress. Maybe this should have its own thread because it's a little off topic except I don't want to start a thread on railing on CPS (and whatever they are called in each state in each country) because it is so incredibly complex and I definitely don't have a "one size fits all" opinion and I think my opinion is fairly balanced and nuanced on it. I made the mistake of commenting after reading page 1 when there were 6 pages and I'll never do that again! I did come to Free Jinger after reading the article linked below though because it reminded me of comments/discussion on this thread naively started by me not reading forward far enough and NOT of this Megan's situation. 

I think this article does a good job of highlighting the complexities of child protection systems, including the issues of contracting out and the effect of good/thorough workers vs not as committed, the limits that all workers have on their access to information when a child goes through multiple agencies in the same area, problems with relaying information to kinship carers and the issue of some substandard foster carers, and paints pictures of both successes and failures of the system. I'm not sure that the successes are because the system is working so much as there are excellent people that work in the system as well as excellent people who sign up to be foster carers and adoptees for the best of reasons and know their limits and are prepared for all it takes. A "lucky dip" of what you get as a kid really isn't good enough in my opinion.

https://magazine.atavist.com/the-end-of-forever-adoption-failure-florida