Posted on 05/08/2008 5:54:21 AM PDT by MizSterious
"It's the plan that has to address the permanency," said Mary Walker, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. "Whether or not children will be unified with their parents or whether or not they will remain in foster care."
Children and parents are being interviewed this week, and Texas Child Protective Services will make recommendations. A judge would ultimately sign off on the plans. Court hearings addressing the children's status in foster care are scheduled to begin May 19 in San Angelo, Texas.
"Some of our moms are working on plans of their own that they can propose to CPS," said Cynthia Martinez with the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid Society, which represents some of the FLDS mothers.
The April raid was prompted by a phone call from someone claiming to be a 16-year-old "Sarah," who was pregnant and in an abusive relationship. When Texas CPS and law enforcement responded to the YFZ Ranch, they claim they found evidence of other abuse, including teenage mothers. That prompted a judge to order the removal of all the children at the FLDS compound.
The children have since been placed in foster care facilities across Texas. In contrast to the massive hearing Judge Barbara Walther held that placed the children in state custody, individual hearings will determine what happens to the children now.
In a typical service plan, there are recommendations and requirements that may need to be completed before a parent is reunited with their child.
"If, for example, we have a parent who has some substance abuse issues, the plan may be that the parent go into rehab," Walker said. "If you've got issues with neglect, making sure the child is properly cared for, we'd look at parenting classes, homemaking classes. The plan has to address whatever changes are necessary to reduce the level of risk."
Walker said she did not know what the service plans would address or recommend with the FLDS children and their parents. Texas CPS workers have claimed that the polygamist sect has a culture that lends itself to abuse, with girls being raised to become child brides.
The Texas child welfare system gives authorities up to a year to work with a family. If necessary, a judge can grant an extension. With 464 children in state protective custody, authorities concede that this case is not typical.
CPS said it is working with the Texas Education Agency to deal with the educational needs of the FLDS children.
Educational assessments will be conducted on each child and sent to the school district where the children have been placed. Texas' educational authority will recommend the assessment be used on all FLDS children.
"It is anticipated that the children will continue their education on the campus of their foster placement," CPS said in a statement. "There are no plans at this time for the children to attend classes on any public school campus."
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has released new numbers on the children.
According to the May 2 census, there are 102 infants up to 2 years old. An estimated 99 children are ages 3 to 5; 131 children are 6 to 9 years old; 62 children are 10 to 13; and 42 are 14 to 17.
Texas authorities said there are 26 young women who the FLDS claim are adults, but the state believes are children. Two young men turned 18 while in foster care but have elected to stay with family members at a shelter, CPS said.
Some of the foster care facilities the FLDS children are staying in have racked up violations.
The Deseret News conducted an online check of the inspection records and reports for the facilities the judge ordered the children to stay in. They are publicly accessible on the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services' Web site.
"Foster children are being spanked with a belt as a form of discipline," said one 2007 report for the Presbyterian Children's Homes & Services in Waxahachie, Texas.
"Foster child was made to stand on one foot in a closed closet as a form of discipline," said another report on the facility.
For most of the facilities, most of the 2007 violations were for mundane issues such as record keeping. The Kidz Harbor Home in Liverpool, Texas, was written up in February for two residents having sex at the facility. The Cal Farley's Boys Ranch in Amarillo was written up in February for not reporting a child's critical injury in a timely enough manner. It was also written up that same month for having a staff member becoming aware of a child's bruises, but failing to report it.
"You must report and document suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation to child abuse hotline and the designated employee/administrator as soon as you become aware of it," the report said.
Online records show several facilities underwent a new round of assessments and inspections just before the FLDS children were placed in foster care.
I am notUnlike many here, I have a profile if you want to read it
The number went down
What was the number you are referring to that was higher?
As one of the hundreds of lawyers appointed to represent children evacuated from a polygamist sect's compound in Texas, Amy Johnston, a civil litigator, has spent the past few weeks absorbing the fundamentals of the state's family code.
But she's also sanitized her hands, changed what she wears and retrieved clothing for her new clients.
"I've been trying to work on legal work, but this has consumed my time," said Johnston, a partner at Johnston & Miller in Lubbock, Texas, and one of 350 lawyers representing women and children in the largest child abuse case in the state.
In early April, state officials, suspecting widespread child abuse, raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).
'A NIGHTMARE'
Most of the pro bono attorneys are serving as ad litems, having been appointed by the court to represent more than 400 children who lived at the ranch.
While the majority of the attorneys are family law practitioners, about one-third come from others fields, such as commercial litigation and personal injury law.
Attorneys have spent long evenings and weekends studying Texas' legal protections for children, researching the tenets of the FLDS faith and trading e-mails and calls to one another to locate the siblings of their clients.
"There are a lot of lawyers involved in this thing, from all over the state," said Norlynn Price, a partner in the Dallas office of Fulbright & Jaworski, who represents six children from the FLDS ranch. "And everyone is on the downside of a steep learning curve right now."
Excerpt. Read more at source: Law.com.
The women were acutely aware that some moms would implicate their husbands in underage activities so they tried to hide the parenting. The kids were claiming different things that the parents. This came out in a previous thread.
Also birth certificates are not always used in polygamous sects.
ONE 18 year old boy.
“I am notUnlike many here”
Blind to the obvious?
Ping to the daily thread.
So you’re saying everyone but the fLDS are lying about the mothers refusing to assist in identifying their children? Every social worker and law enforcement person who has been interviewed (and testified under oath in court) has stated that the women (and some of the children) were lying about which children were theirs, their names, everything.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall at that meeting.
Taking wives AND children away from husbands is a punishment. Warren Jeffs did plenty of that when he was in control.
Great Job! - Thank you!
I am notUnlike many here, I have a profile if you want to read it
Which means nothing. It's like using wikipedia to prove your point.
Your defense of this group is inexcusable. There is nothing that this group has done that is evil enough that you are willing to condemn it; and there's nothing that the government has done that you're willing to admit was right. And yet you never post any sources to support your stand. To you, all the weight of evidence from all the people who have had experience with this group is nothing more than a smear campaign (your own words http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2012017/posts?page=23#23). So is everybody who is saying anything bad about this group lying so we shouldn't trust them?
So tell me then.... Why should we believe YOU, one anonymous internet poster, over all the others who tell about them, who at least have the decency to use their real names? What makes YOU more credible that all those other people out there who are relating similar experiences? How do you know they're lying? What are your sources to prove that all this is fabricated to make the cult look bad?
SAN ANGELO, Texas -- I was elected mayor of San Angelo, a nice West Texas town of 90,000, in 2003, the same year a bunch of polygamists bought a ranch in Eldorado, about 45 miles south of here on Route 277.
Let me just say, I had no idea those two events would collide as they did this month, when my town had to use a historic fort to house hundreds of women and children after a raid at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) compound.
Citizen response to the situation was initially one of great sympathy. However, that public feeling is now starting to turn into anger.
Initially many saw the women -- and, in particular, the children -- as helpless victims. However, with the passage of time and the nonstop news coverage, public opinion has taken a decidedly different course; that is, great outrage and anger at YFZ males.
The YFZ women are now viewed by many as willing participants who lie to protect their distorted way of life. One prominent San Angelo citizen pretty much summed up current thinking on the YFZ bunch when he said, "No matter which way you cut it, it's nothing more than a quasi-religious harem for a few select old men."
His take on the situation is starting to become the prevalent public opinion about the YFZ group. Many constituents are calling for an aggressive overhaul of current laws and regulations to make it more difficult for YFZ-type groups to operate in Texas or to even contemplate a move to Texas.
While we San Angeloans have an independent frontier "live and let live" attitude, we have zero tolerance about the abuse of children. In many ways, the YFZ clan has done the "outside" world a great service by helping us recall a basic American tenet -- that no religion or group has the right to deny any American the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. I'm sure I speak for the majority of my fellow San Angeloans.
As DNA testing of the sect's members continues to figure out who is related to whom, most of the children are being scattered across the state in 16 foster facilities. Officials hope to keep mothers under 18 with their children and also to keep sibling groups together. Remember, some of the families may have dozens of siblings, and this is one of the largest custody cases in American history.
(J.W. Lown, 31, is the mayor of San Angelo, Texas.)
Excerpts. Read the rest at source: Scripps News.
How nice of these fellows to offer these poor misunderstood, picked on, victimized, child abusers the services of Utah and AZ.
Justice, safety and services?
WTH?
The mayor’s editorial is riveting. He knows a heck of a lot more than he’s saying here. And he’s expressing the disgust of a community that has learned a lot more about these FLDS people than they knew before also.
They’ve gotten a peek behind the curtain, and it ain’t pretty.
I agree. It’s worth the click to read the whole thing. There are tidbits in the piece I hadn’t known about. I found the town’s opinion change fascinating. It sort of mirrored my own—at first, I had STRONG reservations about the raid, but the more I learned, the more I supported the TX Rangers in this. Meanwhile, of course, UT and AZ are trying to figure out ways to HELP the polygamists. Must be a lot of campaign money changing hands.
(raising hand) (jumping up and down in seat) I know! I know!
The answer: not ONE single, solitary reason. None. Zilch. Zero.
SALT LAKE CITY -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says a federal prosecutor has been assigned to look for ways to help tackle the problems associated with polygamy in Southwestern states.
In a letter sent Monday to Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, Reid says the justice department can strengthen efforts to combat crime within polygamous groups.
The Nevada Democrat says he's also asked top state and federal law enforcement officers in his state to get involved.
Weeks ago, Reid blasted Utah and Arizona for failing to investigate crimes in polygamous communities.
Source: KRIS-TV.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.