CPS (Career Preservation Society)

We all hope to one day get a career, not just a job. The difference between the two is that a job pays the bills, a career is something you believe in and enjoy doing (while you get paid to do it).

One of the factors of being employed (whether a job or a career) is being evaluated on what you do and how well you do it.

Such is the situation with CPS...they are accountable to a variety of forms of oversight - the government agencies directly responsible for the supervision of their branch (in NYS it is the county, then the state, and ultimately the federal government), the immediate supervisor, and the director of their branch.

But ultimately, their job, or career, or paycheck - however they view it - relies on one thing and one thing only: having enough cases to justify their positions, and those of their co-workers.

So they "found" cases based on the "quality" of the case in order to provide sufficient numbers to continue their employment.

However, many of the standards used have nothing to do with abuse or neglect, but are based solely on some very inappropriate reasoning.

The list below includes a number of reasons that CPS is taking children nationwide and funneling them into the foster care system. The ultimate goal is to help meet adoption quotas and secure funding, as well as to justify their jobs based on numbers of cases.

• "Medical neglect" based on the disagreement of a temporary health care provider (ER doctor, first time specialist, etc) or the caseworker with the diagnosis of the regular provider or the parents' wish for a second opinion or different - but medically accepatable - treatment.
• Ability of the parent to pay child support in excess of the foster care expenses.
• Animosity between family members which can be utilized to generate additional false allegations of neglect or abuse.
• "Adoptability" of the children - fitting the high-demand criteria (racial and ethnic appeal, lack of disabilities, lack of negatively impacting backgrounds).
• "Prior history" of the parents, including any history of having been in foster care, prior reports to CPS, or any other item which CPS deems makes them "high-risk".
• Inability of parent(s) to have the financial resources to implement a good defense.

Additionally, caseworkers will lie and manufacture allegations in the paperwork to support their wrongful seizure of children.

CPS no longer is an acronym for Child Protective Services, it has evolved to represent Career Preservation Society, a group of individuals whose sole purpose is to collect paychecks based on performing jobs in a manner that continues to support them collecting a paycheck.

Find a voice! Tell your story! Speak out against CPS! It is time to shut down the self-serving corruption!

Sunglasses at Night

I pity CPS workers.

Let me say it again. I pity CPS workers.

They have an incredibly warped worldview - especially as it pertains to parents and children, and the myriad interactions which occur within families in all their configurations.

Through these dark glasses that CPS workers wear, society is a very bleak place in which all step-parents abuse their step-children. The minute they learn that one of the parents appearing on their radar is a step-parent, CPS goes into full-out attack mode. The majority of CPS workers were spoon fed the Disney fantasy that demonizes step-parents in larger than life animation, and they freely apply that model as though it were the fount of reality. Given the modern day statistics of the number of children living in homes with a step-parent, if this were actually the case, CPS would be the world's largest employer - far outstripping the police and teaching as a profession. The reality is far different - CPS is now an agency whose turnover rate is extremely high and it struggles with job preservation, advancing unfounded cases and false allegations in order to secure funding and justify their continued existence.

(Anecdotal side bar 1 - there is a major exception to this "step-parent" rule that involves family members of CPS employees. A friend of Ruby's was constantly at our house, and frequently complained about her stepmother belittling her and her brother - calling them "stupid", "useless", "never amount to anything", and other derogatory phrases. She described how her stepmother threw her brother out of the house when he turned 16. Imagine our amazement when we discovered that this stepmonster was the sister of a CPS investigator actively involved with the Jon Massey case.)

Constantly inundated with examples of the worst of humanity, many CPS workers can't - or won't - see that this is not the norm, and that the majority of society does not treat others with callous disregard. Instead, when they encounter a person who has absolutely no criminal record, CPS "investigators" will relentlessly pursue the blameless in the misguided belief that lack of a record indicates that an individual is just devious and adept at avoiding being caught. The sheer stupidity of this belief is staggering - if all people without a criminal past were secretly guilty of something, we would be living in a state of sheer anarchy with the crime rate through the roof.

In the dark land of the Career Preservation Society, all inappropriate behavior by children can be directly attributed to neglect or abuse by parents and family members. Acting out is proof positive of allegations - the cart drives the horse. There is no room in the murky tunnels of their minds to acknowledge that all humans are different and respond in a broad variety of ways to the same situations, or respond to peer and societal pressure differently.

There is a name for this - CSAAS (Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome) - and it has been deemed "junk science" by the psychological community and was retracted by Roland Summit, the man who "invented" it in the first place. Under the original theory, AFTER a diagnosis that sexual abuse has actually occurred, a number of behaviors could emerge and be attributed to the abuse. However CPS has repeatedly claimed that the emergence of any of those listed behaviors can be used to prove that sexual abuse occurred. Again, the cart before the horse.

(Anecdotal side bar 2 - One of the CPS caseworkers approached me in court to ask for assistance regarding her teenage daughter. Apparently her daughter was sneaking around, changing clothes at school to more revealing and/or inappropriate outfits, and using makeup despite her mother's prohibition. Ironic isn't it? The very acting out behaviors that CPS - and this caseworker - claimed were "proof positive" of the abuse allegations against Jon Massey were being exhibited by this girl. But rather than being attributed to abuse, because it involves a CPS worker, the actions were considered simply the 'normal' behaviors of a teenage girl. Even worse, the CPS worker turned to one of their alleged perpetrators for assistance.

Anecdotal side bar 3 - A CPS investigator himself - as well as his younger brother - both exhibited some of the same "everything but the kitchen sink" behaviors described in CSAAS - as well as exhibited by Ruby - sneaking out of the house, underage drinking, and yet the behaviors weren't considered "out of the ordinary" or proof of any form of abuse.)

As a result of this obsession with believing the worst possible scenario, CPS workers are unwilling or unable to give credibility to any evidence presented to them, unless it has been discovered by themselves. This could be attributed to their awareness of the frequency that they themselves present false information and lie, and therefore any documentation of wrongdoing received from outside sources would be considered founded in untruths also...they only "trust" their own lies. As a result of this twisted reality, CPS workers have often zealously advocated that children be placed with sociopaths or convicted abusers rather than with the parents who have protected them and kept them safe. This is even more true when those parents have engaged in a fight with CPS, against all odds, to present the truth.

(Anecdotal side bar 4 - Although we were able to document the extent to which my youngest daughter's father would go to get his own way, CPS deliberately ignored disturbing reports he made to them as well as their own agency's records, testimony by a psychologist hired by the court, and documentation of his lying in court, and instead insisted that he was an upstanding and appropriate parent.

Anecdotal side bar 5 - An even more distressing case is that of Kendall Lebow, whose mother has been fighting to regain custody of her daughter, who was place with a convicted sexual offender. When the mother began seeing signs of sexual abuse on visitations, CPS insisted that her visitation be cut off, rather than investigating - and potentially finding their own liability for a child being abused. You can view her story at savekendall.com)

Immersed in a job where everything is focused on the darkest human behaviors, the whole world becomes a moonless night. But CPS workers deliberately go one step further and put on their sunglasses, so that they wander through life thinking the worst of everyone and seeing evil in every situation - a belief system entirely of their own making.

I pity CPS workers.

CPS Caseworker

A big part of the problem in this case was the CPS caseworker who was directly in charge of the investigation.

Apparently, even though he had been employed by CPS for 6 years at the time of the false allegations, there was a supervisor who accompanied him. Somehow, that sounds like there were already problems with his performance - otherwise why would an experienced employee need one-on-one supervision.

At any rate, we quickly learned that he was unable to correctly process even simple information. When he was taking notes from my interview with him, he did not get my family information correct (apparently my sister lives in France - the two of them really live in the US - and my mother - who actually had died almost 40 years before - was 75 and living 20 miles away). He couldn't even get my last name or my phone number correct, even though I gave both to him MULTIPLE times. Yet later, he blamed me for giving "incorrect" information.

So, for this job performance the guy makes this kind of money?

It gets better from there - although Ruby had not been diagnosed with ADHD, her pediatrician put her on Vyvanse to treat her symptoms. For those of you who don't know, most ADHD meds are amphetamines. At the time of the allegations, we had been trying to take Ruby off the meds because she was engaging in other drug-seeking behavior (from both her pediatrician - sleeping pills,  and her friends - alcohol, marijuana), was having escalating medical issues (from her Vyvanse combined with Tramadol that she was stealing and using), and because we learned that Ruby had been giving and/or selling her Vyvanse to others.

When I tried to explain the issues to the CPS caseworker, he didn't even realize that ADHD meds were amphetamines. Instead, he additionally charged me with medical neglect for insisting that Ruby be taken off the Vyvanse. (We were able to clear this up later at a permanency hearing when we disclosed that Ruby had NO diagnosis for ADHD and that we were within our rights to take her off medication for a condition that she wasn't diagnosed with. CPS didn't even bother to get a diagnosis for over a year - but kept her on the meds anyways.) I have an audio recording of that entire conersation with the CPS caseworker to back up my statements.

Another issue that arose was that the CPS caseworker disclosed in testimony at a hearing that he had spoken with the Police Department for "over two hours" prior to interviewing Ruby, and that he actually had a copy of her police report in his possession when he interviewed her. So somehow, correct me if I am wrong, it sounds as though the CPS caseworker was actively working with the police to make sure that they got a case locked down against Jon Massey and that Ruby kept her story straight.

This same CPS caseworker also has documented that once Ruby was in foster care, he did a home visit and once again asked her about the dates and events around the alleged abuse. Her response, as entered in his notes, was that she said "everything is the same as what I put in my police statement". He even testified to this fact at a hearing.

These were the dates and events that changed a year later when the judge and DA realized that Jon's medical records, rental history, and other factors had destroyed their original case.

Apparently, according to Mr. Caseworker, the reason he knew that Ruby had been abused is because her behaviors (underage drinking and illegal drug use, sneaking around, phone swapping, inappropriate relationships) were all "symptoms of abuse". So Mr. Caseworker, care to tell me who abused you that you were not only drinking underage (from the date on this picture you were only 17 in a state with a drinking age of 21)?

and still drinking underage two years later - while on a sports scholarship and under contract?

Care to disclose who it was that sexually abused you (and your younger brother)? Because by your standards the abuse happened and caused the behaviors. Or did your mother know about you and your brother's behavior and allow the behavior? Because anyone else would be charged with endangering the welfare of a child by YOUR employer!

Or rather is it just that CPS training materials teach you that any "acting out" behavior can and should be used to diagnose abuse in order to strengthen cases - especially ones that may be based on false allegations.

This is just a partial portrait of the CPS Caseworker (we don't even need to mention that his niece was one of Ruby's best friends, or that I had a run in with his brother-in-law over their mistreatment of a family pet).

With employees like this, no wonder we are in a state and national budget crisis!

Lies CPS Will Tell You

In no particular order, here are some of the lies, half-truths, and myths of "working with CPS":

1. If you sign the service plan, CPS won't take your kids away. Status? MYTH/LIE - CPS will use your signature as acknowledgement of your guilt, and then even as you work through the service plan (which utilizes people who are paid directly by CPS and know where their pay is coming from), "issues" will keep cropping up that prove you are an unfit parent. Best case scenario? They will string you along for years before finally leaving your family traumatized but "intact" or "reunited".
2. If you don't let us in the house, we will take your kids away. Status? LIE - They cannot enter your house without a warrant, and a warrant takes probable cause. However if you live in a small community CPS works hand in glove with the local authorities and probably can get a warrant based on their lies. If you don't let them in, they will use it against you in court. If you do let them in, they will manufacture lies about your home/living environment and what they allegedly found. It's a no win.
3. If you sign over your kids to us, we won't seize custody. Status: LIE - If they don't prove their case, you can sue them for emotional distress. Once they hit this point, they are going to move heaven and earth to prove you an unfit and/or abusive parent. Part of this means that they need to have custody of your children to use parental alienation techniques.
4. Nobody should be talking to your children about the case. Status: LIE/MYTH/HALF-TRUTH - The only person who isn't allowed to talk to your children about the case is you. The caseworker and the foster parents will talk to your kids endlessly about the case, use parental alienation techniques, and taint your children's memories. Any family members who are cooperating with CPS are also allowed to continue to talk to the kids about the case in a way that is detrimental to you.
5. If you do everything we tell you, you will get your children back. Status: HALF-TRUTH - If you do everything in the service plan, AND have an attorney watching out for your interests, AND do everything that they add on to your service plan, AND you end up with a reasonably good set of foster parents or kinship care that doesn't use parental alienation, AND your children aren't easily adoptable, THEN you will get your children back. I've probably forgotten some of the hoops they make you jump through, but you get the idea.
6. You are the child's parent and still have input and feedback. Status: HALF-TRUTH/LIE - You are only allowed to make decisions or to get reports if you cooperate. Otherwise, the foster parents and the case worker get to make all decisions for your child regarding religion, education, medical care, etc. We even have an email from the DSS attorney to the case worker stating that "unless they let you in the house, don't give them any reports". So they ignored my input regarding my daughter's medical conditions, educational needs, etc. for a year and a half.

This list is a "to be continued" - feel free to leave a comment that adds a new category or expands on one already listed. I will do revisions as we go.

If you were to ask me our particular favorite? The CPS investigator called me on the phone and told me that if I voluntarily signed my children over to him and if I testified against Jon, they wouldn't file charges against me. Last time I checked, that was known as "suborning perjury" and a criminal offense.

Please be sure to visit the article about Jon's trial! CLICK HERE