What to do if there is an "indicated" child maltreatment report in the past?

May 16, 2009

10 or so years ago when our kids were in early teens they used to fight quite a lot. Once when my DH was breaking up a fight, our son was in his face screaming and threatening him and my husband slapped his face. Son came right back at him and he slapped him again. Then our son went to his grandma's house and called his bio Dad in GA who called the police up here. There was an investigation and he was indicated but not charged with anything or taken to court. We had to put son on PINS, had him in drug counseling with Catholic Charities, he was taken from us because he admitted in court he refused to follow rules, go to school, stop sneaking out of the house at night...etc. He was in a residential program for a year and was returned to us. Now he is 24and doing very well. Now we are 50 and 53, have custody of our 7 yr old granddaughter, and are wanting to adopt 1 or 2 children. We started the MAPP classes 4 years ago but then got grandchild and put it on hold to care for her. She is much better, on Risperdal, and going to mental health appointments. Her mother, our daughter, is bi-polar schizophrenic. We started classes again and when we had our first home visit, the worker stated everything is at a halt because of the indicated report. She felt bad because we have been to 4 classes, participated, done our homework, done our profile, etc. She liked the house and the room we had gotten ready. She said something about appealing. She said we definitely could not foster, but I was wanting to adopt anyway, DH was the one interested in fostering too. We live in NY state. Does anyone have any advice for us? How do we appeal? What should we say? All this because of a slap in the face??? I am heartbroken. BTW, I was not indicated, I wasn't even there, being in the ER with my grandmother. Any help will be appreciated!!! I am going to make phone calls Monday but it would be a lot easier if I knew the right places to call, etc. Thanks. :thanks:

carlismycoolcat

June 9, 2009

I am wondering the same thing. But I do not know what "indicated" means. I had someone report me to dfcs/cps. I know it was false allegations,ok one of them could have been true which was my oldest that had asked "when dinner would be ready" My husband admitted he had told someone at work that when he got home from work dinner was not made "yet" and my oldest was asking when dinner was ready,but he left out the part that we always ate at that time,and he was always the one who made dinner. He is the cook. And if he wasn't home in time I would have made dinner.

The other allegation was that a threat was made to children. That same week, I had an argument with my childs teacher because he had brought home a action/behavior plan for something he did. It was very minor (marking on another students paper with a ink pen)and he had never been in trouble before. That night i asked him why and he said that boy was always calling him names and picking on him and he was just fed up and got so angry he took the pen and quickly made a little mark on the paper .

I wrote a long letter to the school on the back of the paper stating how unfair it was for this teacher to treat my son differently, (she had been treating him different because she thought he had a learning problem he did not have *he was evaluated and she was wrong* ) ,anyway on the paper I wrote down how angry I was that the teacher did nothing all those time my son got picked on and if the school kept allowing this kind of behavior (bullying) more kids like my son(those picked on) would continue to do the school shootings,and how would they like it if he retaliated much more seriously by shooting the kids at his school,or even harming another child..that the problem was the bullys needed to be stopped while they are young and not waiting until they are high school age. Bash me all you want ,I know I shouldn't have written it out of anger,I felt he was being mistreated. Anyway, I tried reasoning with the teacher the next morning. When she wouldn't listen to anything I had to say and kept arguing I started crying. I never cry in front of people very often so to try and justify it,I told her I was not taking my zoloft medication . (didn't think she would take me as a crazy nut)

How did i get on this medication? I actually went online yrs ago, when my middle son was a baby and looked up different medications because I have always been very shy and thought I could have social anxiety and read that zoloft is prescribed for social anxiety and post tramatic stress. So I went to a regular dr and told him that I would like to try it out ,because when I get around other people I get nervous and a lot of times found it hard to concentrate so I thought I might have Social anxiety. I also wasn't sure if it was just Adult ADD because I had read a lot about that too. And how ADD can affect your life in so many ways. But when I tried the add medicine it made me very emotional and anxious ,So he put me on the zoloft to try out , and I did better on that, even though it made my ability to cocentrate much worse ,it actauly made me kinda sleepy and I confused that with it working which I only realized this about a month ago this was not the right medicine for me.

Anyway, I only really took it on a as need basis ,like if I was going out of town or around a lot of people,etc.. and if i did not take it, It wouldn't hurt me in any way. So anyway, I think this teacher thought oh no this parent is not taking a medication she should be on. And in addition to the letter I wrote ,the school might have reported me .

So anyway , when the social worker came, she asked if i was "on any medications" I did tell her what but tried to explain it was by my own choice and I just ran out of my last prescription, but no longer needed it. I wasn't even taking it . I would get a higher dose at a time,so I could break them in half and take them when I felt I needed,and they would last a really long time.

Either she didn't believe me ..I don't know.

But emediately it was a question about my mental health ,and so because my mental health was in question, the kids were considered "at high risk" and we were told to take them to their grandparents (voluntarily) to avoid foster care, and the police getting involved, within 24hours. My husband couldn't get off the next day,so they let us have one more day with them. (so much for high risk,right ?)

I was not allowed to be with them unsupervised. I had to take parenting classes (passed/aced with flying colors) and a mental health evaluation(passed/aced again with flying colors too) . but the Dr put as a requirement to "continue taking the medication" and to take parenting classes, The clerk at the drs office told me to my face he puts those two things in his reports for evaluations for dfcs , mainly for liability reasons,then he could no longer see me or my son. He was actually my sons dr who I trusted because he is who we used to get him evaluated for that learning disability that same teacher thought he had,and it was found that he did NOT have what she thought.

So I had to take this medicine I never really "needed" because it was required by dfcs.

**Oh and guess what, I finally found a medication last month that works for me,it is for ADD and it is just a different kind,and a lower dose :) **

Any way, after I did everything they said which took 5months because the parenting class took a while and was booked before I could start it., on the last paperwork we got when we could officially have the kids back, It said "risk has been lowered" and their "case" was considered "closed" .

I was extremely upset not only by the unjust way everything happend because I did nothing wrong,but make a mistake and say the wrong things to my childs teacher (IF she is the one who called) and my husband regrets talking bad about me to other people and making things look different than how they really look.

So anyway I was also upset because of what it put our kids and family through. But also another reason. I had always dreamed of being a foster parent . Now I am labeled as a bad parent to those workers and the system . I expressed a lot of hate towards them and I still hate them for what they did but I am working on trying not to hate them . It's going to take a lot or praying and asking for strength to forgive those who inflicted tihs on us and our kids.

I do not think I will want to have anything to do with dfacs/cps , but still wonder if in the future , (out of curiosity) does this incident make me permanently in eligle to become a foster parent ? Because in their eyes,(or files or whatever) I might be labeled as a child abuser,when I'm not. But they don't know I am innocent. I never got the chance to prove it or prove them wrong,which is why they took away the kids in the first place.

Im tired of people telling me,well they must have taken them for a reason.. it doesn't matter because the reason was false . Its over and done with and I just want to know if they ban people from being a foster parent after these kinds of things happen(kids taken away by ) .

I get treated like a criminal when I tell people about what happend. I have been talked down to very mean and nasty by people who claim to be social workers themselves (on other forums and got attacked by a social worker on facebook for posting something on my profile) . So yeah,social workers obviously hate parents like me,whether or not i am innocent or guilty of anything,they seem to have it set in their minds that I "had" to have done something. My home is so loving and these kids always have their needs met. I have worked a lot on the child care fiend and even want to have my own family daycare. BUt I am too scared to apply to be licensed for fear they'd hold the dfacs incident against me IF they even look into my background that deeply.