I am sure that everyone is aware what is going on in West Texas with the "commune." Our pastor's wife brought up an interesting point last week at lunch. She asked if we were bothered that they (the government, police, etc.) could just go in there and start removing everyone. I have been thinking about that statement ever since she made it. Yes, I know that a girl made an allegation of physical and sexual abuse. Yes, I believe that the allegations are true and that the children there need to be removed to be protected. What they are doing there is wrong. BUT it does bother me that the government can sweep into this place and remove everyone. What if someone made allegations against Eric and I? Well, wait, we have had those made. What if that person decided to actually call the police? Everyone who knows us knows they would not be true. (For the record the person who made the claims know they are not true also. She has a history of making these so-called claims as a threat just because you tick her off.)But the police do not know us. CPS does not know us. What if they swooped in here and just took our kids from us and then tried to "straighten things out?" What kind of damage would be done to our kids during that time? Because we home school, I am sure that the red flags would already come up. I was watching Dr. Phil earlier (between commercials of my new favorite sitcom, "Reba!") and they had the superintendent from the school district of this commune. He made the statement that the state of TX has laws that basically protect home schoolers so he, as an educator, cannot do any type of investigating to see if anyone is being physically, emotionally, or sexually abused. I, for one, am very thankful for those laws. I like the fact that I can home school my children without fear of someone being able to "control" us. By control, I mean my curriculum, our activities, etc. I like being able to teach my children Bible during school. I like that I can choose curriculum that suits their learning style best. Yet I believe there need to be laws to protect children also. Where is the line? What can we do to protect our freedom to educate our children at home yet protect the children whose parents use it as a cover up for other things?
I believe that many people abuse the system these days. CPS is covered up with allegations and have to spend hours, days, even years trying to figure out which ones are true and not true. People who make false accusations should be made to pay for that somehow. You should not be able to made so called allegations just because you are angry at someone. Children and the accused suffer for many years because of that. Tax money is wasted and some poor innocent soul that is really being abused is being overlooked. Not by fault of CPS, but because some selfish individual is abusing their "rights" all because they have a problem.
I will step off my soap box now, but I would love to know your thoughts on this.
Kids
3 comments:
Amen Amiee. I feel the same way about it. I was in a child psychology class a few years ago, and my professor was the only psychologist for the East Texas CPS department. He said that it is an incredibly abused program. I remember him saying that it is exactly like you said. They're so busy investigating the false accusations, that the real ones sometimes get put by the wayside.
I agree that the system is abused, but I see day in and day out the hours of work that investigators, caseworkers, supervisors, and all the collateral people pour into the lives of East Texans. No system is perfect, and every CPS investigator will have their share of false reports they have to sort through, but I don't think we can fault the system, nor do we need to necessarily change it.
I've spent extensive time this week dealing with several CPS cases; in fact, I just left a hearing that was carried over from yesterday. We are not sure if there is abuse in the home. Our gut feeling is that the story that was told to explain the horiffic marking is probably true. But I, as an advocate for children, absolutely have to err on the side of protecting these kids from abuse until we have some conclusion to the investigation.
The San Angelo compound is the same way. The police received what they believed to be a legitimate tip and they were obligated by law to investigate. If they were brought in to investigate abuse "A" but while there found abuse "B", they still can remove to protect the kids - even if it turns out the tip for A was fraudulently made.
I don't see, in my experience, home schoolers being singled out. In fact, I've never represented a home schooled child. Oftentimes the school calls in a report, so I think out-of-the-home schooled kids are far more frequently reported.
Just my $.02 ;-)
Well, being since I have dealt with CPS personally I have mixed emotions about them. IF it weren't for our child advocate, things would have turned out for the worse. We had been working with one CPS worker (very nice) but when we had our court date, she was out on surgery leave so she had a replacement. The replacement CPS worker hadn't even looked at our file until the day of court. She also acted as though she was for the accused and not for the victim. I do think people abuse the system and so therefore CPS has a chip on there shoulder. They think everyone is out to abuse the system, when there are those that really truly need there help. I for one am very glad that these children were removed from this commune and feel that the government had every right to rescue them. I don't think this would even be the case in an everyday situation. For example a homeschool. Sorry to write a novel....just that this is a very sensative area with me. ;)
Post a Comment