In the USA, we have witnessed a 40-year social experiment in child protection initiated in 1974 by the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). This experiment has failed. The project of casting layers of legislation on the American public in the name of the “best interest of the child” and promoted with the belief that every family needs government oversight, has backfired.
It is hard to imagine in a first-world country like the United States, that government officials can walk into your child’s school, have them removed from their classroom, interviewed in private, taken from school, and placed in the home of a stranger; all without your knowledge. And for what reason? Maybe they feel you don’t feed your child enough, maybe your child missed a few days from school, maybe someone just lied and said you were a drug dealer, and your child could not give the right answers to exonerate you.
It is hard to imagine in a first-world country that a newborn baby could be stripped from his mother’s arms in a hospital because the mother had one positive test for opiates during pregnancy, even though there was no showing of drugs in the mother or the child at birth, and there is no other evidence of child abuse or neglect.
It is hard to imagine in a first-world country that a child could be forced by law to stay incarcerated in a hospital with a rare and untreated disease and separated from her entire family simply because her parents wanted to take her for a second medical opinion.
It is hard to imagine in a first-world country that these drastic and intrusive measures can be taken by the state on anonymous reports that might be from spiteful neighbours, hostile ex-spouses or other ill-intended persons.
Parents shudder when facing child protection agencies because at every stage of the case they know that the same agency is gathering evidence against them. The same social worker who comes to their home to inspect for safety reasons is likely to be the person who gets on the stand and testifies that the laundry was not done and the home was cluttered, preventing the return of their children.
This is the state of the child protection system in the United States.
Brentwood Attorney who battles DCS set to challenge Juvenile Court Judge
Brentwood Attorney Connie Reguli announces that she will challenge Williamson County Juvenile Judge Guffee for her judicial seat in the 2022 election. Reguli has been the leading voice for reform of the Department of Children’s Services and for judicial reform in Tennessee since 2010. Reguli is an attorney with twenty-seven years of practice serving families across the State of Tennessee primarily focused on challenging the overreach of the Department of Children’s Services.
In 2018, Reguli directly challenged the ex parte actions of DCS worker Deandra Miller, DCS attorney Tracy Hetzel, and Smith County Judge Michael Collins when Collins entered a secret order against her client after Reguli have made multiple attempts to telephone DCS employees to assist them in their investigation of her client. Reguli immediately called Miller, her supervisor, the DCS office, and law enforcement to acknowledge that she would meet and assist them. Reguli says that DCS has a policy in place to meet in advance of their secret rush to court. Instead of calling back, Miller traveled to another county and got a secret order to remove this child and put her in a stranger’s home. At the end of the case, DCS dismissed their petition but not without much chaos. The 12 year-old was shuffled to six homes and exposed to neglect. Reguli and her client were arrested. Circuit Court Judge Joseph A. Woodruff changed the language of the custodial interference law to allow the prosecution of her client to proceed. Reguli says, “It is well settled in this state that judges cannot change the law, that is left to the legislature.” This matter is on appeal.
Reguli says Department of Children’s Services employees and county attorney Lisa Carson employees her social media which routinely calls out the incompetencies in the system. Reguli says, “Tennessee child welfare is archaic compared to other states who implement a more sophisticated system of services to families to keep children in their homes; all because of money, private contractors, federal incentives, and incompetence.”
Reguli has also fought for civil rights of children and families against DCS. Reguli obtained a federal order finding that the Fourth Amendment would apply to social workers and another order that says that solitary confinement of juveniles is excessive punishment. As simple as this sounds, this takes years of dedication and persistence to get the courts to acknowledge these basic rights.
Reguli sued Williamson County and its juvenile court employees in 2014 when her client was wrongfully held in the Williamson County detention center and then assaulted by a staff member. “The rights of children have been sorely assaulted by the poor operation of detention centers which are really jails for kids.” Reguli opined.
Reguli has participated in over forty state court litigation appeals, setting the standard on complex legal questions.
Reguli’s family were the founders of the historic New Orleans Manor restaurant in Nashville in 1978 which remained a bulwark of seafood cuisine in Middle Tennessee until 2010. The restaurant is documented in the Pictorial History of Nashville.
Reguli is a mother of three children she adopted from Russia and now a proud grandmother of their children. “Raising children yourself is an important attribute for a judge making decisions for other families,” Reguli says. She has worked for families in thirty-five counties in Tennessee and served families in Maryland, South Carolina, and Kentucky.
Reguli had been a political voice for change since 2010. She has spoken in front of legislative bodies, prepared proposed litigation, and built a social media following of over sixteen thousand. Her organization Family Forward Project has held educational events in Montana, Washington, Arizona, Connecticut, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, and Washington D.C.
In 2017, DSS in Missouri was sued for on behalf of 13,000 foster children for being over-exposed to psychotropic medication. Jennifer Tidball was the acting director at the time of the allegations. The lawsuit filed by St. Louis University Legal Clinic said that children has a constitutional right to be free from harm while in state’s care. The action alleged that 30 percent of the children in state care are prescribed psychotropic meds, anti-depressants, mood stabilizers. All eyes were on Mo. DSS for a short period of time.
On October 4, 2021, it was reported 978 children went missing from Mo. DSS foster care. A hearing was set with Mo lawmakers for later that week. A report was released by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General. The state does not have policies to identify foster children who may be at risk of running away. The investigation showed that one in three children did not receive any required health and safety checks. A federal report from 2014 requires states receiving federal taxpayer foster care money requires the states to have protocol for locating any missing children and make missing child reports within 24 hours. Notably, the investigators found the case management system creates challenges trying to provide oversight because the system does not differentiate between children who are missing from placement and those who may be in an unauthorized, but known placement.
On October 25, 2021, the
On November 2, 2021, a state government building in the capital city burned down in the wee hours night before. This building housed the information technology services for DSS, that would be presumably all records related to children in custody and foster care.
Mo. DSS has had eight state directors in seven years.
This article by Channel Five appears to rely on a whistleblower case worker at DCS who claims that the case loads are overwhelming. With workers having over 80 cases.
However it is not about caseload, it is about incompetence.
Commissioner Nichols has admitted that under her watch children are in foster care longer and that a case is delayed for six months when there is turn over. The truth is that DCS wants to keep kids in care for 15 months to maximize the Title IV federal tax dollars that go into their budget. They want to adopt out kids to get that extra bonus check under Adoption and Safe Families Act. And parents are fighting harder against DCS. They tell lies I’m affidavits. They fail to make proper assessments. And they refuse to send kids home timely.
Channel Five Ben Hall writes:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Caseworkers at the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services have so many cases that some are failing to meet monthly with children – as required by DCS policy.
A whistleblower provided data to NewsChannel 5 Investigates which shows a trend one lawmaker calls terrifying.
The documents show shockingly high caseloads for caseworkers in Davidson County’s Child Protective Services division which investigates allegations of abuse and neglect.
They also reveal a trend in which many caseworkers are not meeting monthly with children or not entering data about those meetings into the system.
DCS called the data a snapshot in time and said it is part of an internal management tool designed to help supervisors prioritize their tasks.
Screenshots from a DCS database in September showed some caseworkers in Davidson County with more than 80 cases.
Each case can include more than one child.
Earlier this week, we found two caseworkers with 98 cases.
That is nearly five times higher than the average monthly caseload allowed by state law.
State Representative Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), has voiced concern about high caseloads in the past.
“If you give somebody an impossible amount of work, no one can complete it,” Johnson said.
But even she was surprised by the internal graphs we showed her.
The graphs track required monthly meetings with potential victims of abuse and neglect in Davidson County called face-to-face contacts.
A face-to-face contact could include a Zoom meeting because of COVID-19.
In June, 34% of open cases were marked as “Not Found” — meaning no caseworker visited or information about that visit was not entered into the system.
In July, 41% of open cases were listed as “Not Found.”
And in August it rose to 46.9% — nearly half of all open cases.
DCS said the reports show a “single point in time” and the numbers can change as workers enter more data.
Meetings should be entered within 30 days.
“Those face-to-face contacts, that’s how they find out how the kids are doing. Are they OK? Are things going well?” Johnson said.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Johnson, “What do you think when you see those numbers?”
“This terrifies me,” Johnson said.
The tragic case of 2-year-old Zephania Green shows why regular visits are critical.
As we first reported in 2019, DCS placed Zephania inside a home outside Davidson County despite warnings the home was not safe.
Four months later Zephania died.
Investigators took pictures of the deplorable conditions inside the home where she died.
They showed dirty dishes piled high in the kitchen, unusable bathrooms and bedrooms, and drug paraphernalia.
His caregiver said she fell asleep with Zephania in a recliner, when she woke up, the 2-year-old was blue and unresponsive.
No charges were filed, but DCS’s own investigation revealed the caseworker who put Zephania in the home never visited – during the four months he was there.
She told DCS it was too far to drive.
That caseworker was later fired.
State Senator Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville), said as caseloads get higher, the children are in more danger.
“It’s always been bad. It’s always been a problem, but through this pandemic, it has gotten much, much worse,” Campbell said.
She was alarmed by the number of children not being seen in the Davidson County Child Protective Services reports.
“What happens is the children suffer and we see here where the children are not even getting seen,” Campbell said.
“We need to overhaul this system. We need to take a hard look at why it’s not working,” Campbell said.
Senator Campbell sent a letter to Gov. Bill Lee last month which stated the situation at DCS is “deteriorating.”
She cited an employee survey that blasted current DCS leadership as one reason workers are leaving.
In response to questions from NewsChannel 5 Investigates, DCS sent a statement saying it “is experiencing staff turnover and challenges with hiring.”
DCS stated “we are aggressively taking steps to retain our current staff” including a recent pay raise of more than 4% for case managers.
In Davidson and surrounding counties, DCS said it has contracted with a private provider to help with caseloads.
Lawmakers say the high caseloads and lack of regular visits show the urgent need for reforms at DCS.
Here is more of DCS’s initial statement:
“The reports you have are from Safe Measures, a management tool that pulls data from TFACTS, the department’s case management system. Safe Measures is a dashboard to help case managers and their supervisors prioritize their daily and weekly tasks. The Safe Measure reports show a single point in time. It is not a full report of the number of face-to-face visits made by case managers as captures both documentation already entered and data yet to be entered. Case managers can see what work has been done, and what work remains to be done so that they may plan accordingly. The Safe Measures report changes every day as new data is entered by case managers.”
For example, the month of August 2021 (last month) shows 46.9% of kids were “Not Found”
In the Safe Measures report, this means the data was not found – meaning not yet entered – in the system, not that the visit had not occurred, or the child was not found.
“Like many other organizations across the country, including both public and private child welfare agencies, DCS is experiencing staff turnover and challenges with hiring. We are aggressively taking steps to retain our current staff. As you know, On July 1, case managers who have been with the department for more than one year received a 4.25% salary increase. This was on top of salary increase for all state employees. To help reduce caseloads in Davidson and the surrounding counites, we have also added contracted case managers from a private provider. We are also exploring further strategies to retain and recruit staff including flexible work hours/shifts, the ability to work remotely, recruitment opportunities with universities and colleges, and employing retirees to assist on a temporary contractual basis.”
Late Wednesday, the department provided information about visits to a separate groups of kids – who are in state custody – and said caseworker meetings with that group are meeting or exceeding federal goals.
DCS provides information about face-to-face meetings with all children in state custody to the federal government – the Children’s Bureau.
DCS also released a new statement on Wednesday:
The Children’s Bureau set a specific goal for the department to make at least one face-to-face visit per month with 95% of children in state custody. It also set a goal of conducting 50% of those visits in the child’s placement (at the foster home or residential treatment facility). The Davidson region exceeds both goals and fell just short of the goal for overall face-to-face visits in February 2021.
The Children’s Bureau does NOT require face-to-face visits for children who are NOT in state custody receiving services. DCS does, however, provide services to children who are NOT in state custody and their families. The data you see in the screenshots you have from the Safe Measures tool show, at that moment in time, the number of face-to-face visits with children who are NOT in state custody and their families who are receiving services from the department. Again, the department is not required to conduct or track visits with non-custodial youth; we use the Safe Measures tool to help our non-custodial case managers manage their work.
2021 Oct 18. Last week Propublica released a detailed narrative in the sad and outrageous events that occurred in Murfreesboro Tennessee related to the detention of juveniles. Here are the key contacts and details. The link to the article is below.
Judge Donna Scott Davenport
RUTHERFORD COUNTY, TENNESSEE IN REVIEW: Juvenile Delinquency Racket
Profiled by AE Holubar & Lauren Loiacono for Connie Reguli 10/17/21
JUVENILE COURT CASE RATES IN TENNESSEE (2014)
State average: 5%
Rutherford County: 48%
2016: Rutherford County jailed 986 children for a total of 7,932 days
RUTHERFORD COUNTY CONTACTS
Mayor: Bill Ketron
Senator: Jeff Yarbro
Reps: John Clemmons, Gloria Johnson, Heidi Campbell
Radical Tennessee - Radically Accountable and Radically Free 