Connie Reguli shared this article from Politico. This shows that we are sitting in a dangerous precipice. On the other side of where we are is a nation where your children are removed from you at birth to be raised by the state. Please help us fight for our liberties. Join Family Forward Project on Facebook and follow me on YouTube.
When it comes to society’s interest in protecting children, the legal precedent is unambiguous: The rights of their parents come second. Parents do have the freedom to direct the health care and education of their children, but these rights are not unlimited. As the Supreme Court said in Prince v. Massachusetts, parents are not free “to make martyrs of their children” by putting them in harm’s way. Governments can and do limit parents’ discretion with the goal of protecting the health, safety and welfare of children. One example is child car seat requirements, which exist in all 50 states. Every state also has a law authorizing the government to intervene when parents abuse or neglect their children.
All 50 states also have the power to limit parental discretion to protect other children. For instance, schools and day care facilities are heavily regulated by local, state and federal laws to make sure that they are safe. Children who attend school are required to be immunized in all 50 states. These requirements have been upheld by numerous courts, including the Supreme Court. Schools also prohibit parents from sending children to school when they are sick, and a federal appeals court held that unimmunized children could be excluded from school during “an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease.” Given these legal precedents, it is clear that schools and day care facilities can require masks as a condition of attendance.
Loss of First Amendment Freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury. Though First Amendment rights are not absolute, they may be curtailed only by interests of vital importance, the burden of proving which rests on the government. Elrod v. Burns, 96 S.Ct. 2673; 427 U.S. 347, (1976).
The United States Supreme Court noted that a parent’s right to “the companionship, care, custody and management of his or her children” is an interest “far more precious” than any property right. May v. Anderson, 345 U.S. 528, 533; 73 S.Ct. 840, 843, (1952).
The Court (U.S. Supreme Court) stressed, “the parent-child relationship is an important interest that undeniably warrants deference and, absent a powerful countervailing interest, protection.” A parent’s interest in the companionship, care, custody and management of his or her children rises to a constitutionally secured right, given the centrality of family life as the focus for personal meaning and responsibility. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651; 92 S.Ct. 1208, (1972)
The U.S. Supreme Court implied that “a (once) married father who is separated or divorced from a mother and is no longer living with his child” could not constitutionally be treated differently from a currently married father living with his child. Quilloin v. Walcott, 98 S.Ct. 549; 434 U.S. 246, 255-56, (1978)
Law and court procedures that are “fair on their faces” but administered “with an evil eye or a heavy hand” was discriminatory and violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, (1886)
The Constitution also protects “the individual interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters.” Federal Courts (and State Courts), under Griswold can protect, under the “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” phrase of the Declaration of Independence, the right of a man to enjoy the mutual care, company, love and affection of his children, and this cannot be taken away from him without due process of law. There is a family right to privacy which the state cannot invade or it becomes actionable for civil rights damages. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, (1965)
Parent’s right to custody of child is a right encompassed within protection of this amendment which may not be interfered with under guise of protection public interest by legislative action which is arbitrary or without reasonable relation to some purpose within competency of state to effect. Reynold v. Baby Fold, Inc., 369 NE 2d 858; 68 Ill 2d 419, appeal dismissed 98 S.Ct. 1598, 435 U.S. 963, Il, (1977)
Parent’s rights have been recognized as being “essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free man.” Meyer v. Nebraska, 92 S.Ct. 1208, (1972)
Reality of private biases and possible injury they might inflict were impermissible considerations under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Palmore v. Sidoti, 104 S.Ct. 1879; 466 U.S. 429
Legislative classifications which distributes benefits and burdens on the basis of gender carry the inherent risk of reinforcing stereotypes about the proper place of women and their need for special protection; thus, even statutes purportedly designed to compensate for and ameliorate the effects of past discrimination against women must be carefully tailored… the state cannot be permitted to classify on the basis of sex. Orr v. Orr, 99 S.Ct. 1102; 4340 U.S. 268 (1979)
The United States Supreme Court held that the “old notion” that “generally it is the man’s primary responsibility to provide a home and its essentials” can no longer justify a statute that discriminates on the basis of sex. No longer is the female destined solely for the homes and the rearing of the family, and only the male for the marketplace and the world of ideas. Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U.S. 7, 10; 95 S.Ct. 1373, 1376 (1975)
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that severance in the parent-child relationship caused by the state occur only with rigorous protections for individual liberty interests at stake. Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F 2d 1205: U.S. Ct. App. 7th Cir. WI., (1984)
COMPELLING STATE INTEREST The following Supreme Court decisions were cited in a published opinion by Chief judge Norman K. Moon of Court of Appeals of Virginia June 3, 1997 in the case Williams and Williams v. Williams and Williams 24 Va. App. 778; 485 S.E. 2d 651 (June 3, 1997)
Even when blood relationships are strained, parents retain vital interest in preventing irretrievable destruction of their family life; if anything, persons faced with forced dissolution of their parental rights have more critical need for procedural protections than do those resisting state intervention into ongoing family affairs. The Supreme Court noted its “historical recognition that freedom of personal choice in matters of family life is a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Santosky v. Kramer, 102 S.Ct. 1388; 455 U.S. 745, (1982).
In applying the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, the United States Supreme Court has held that “[w]here certain fundamental rights are involved… regulation limiting these rights may be justified only by a ‘compelling state interest’ …and …legislative enactments must be narrowly drawn to express only the legitimate state interests at stake. State interference with a fundamental right must by justified by a “compelling state interest.” Roe v. Wade. 410 U.S. 113, 155 ; 93 S.Ct. 705; 35 L Ed 2d 147, (1973)
State’s power to legislate, adjudicate and administer all aspects of family law, including determinations of custodial and visitation rights, is subject to scrutiny by federal judiciary within reach of due process and/or equal protection clause of 14th Amendment… fourteenth Amendment applied to states through specific rights contained in the first eight amendments of the Constitution which declares fundamental personal rights… Fourteenth Amendment encompasses and applied to states those pre-existing fundamental rights recognized by the Ninth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment acknowledged the prior existence of fundamental rights with it: ” The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. “The United States Supreme Court in a long line of decisions, has recognized that matters involving marriage, procreation, and the parent-child relationship are among those fundamental “liberty” interests protected by the Constitution. Thus, the decision in Roe v. Wade, as recently described by the Supreme Court as founded on the “Constitutional underpinning of… a recognition that the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment includes not only the freedoms explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but also a freedom of personal choice in certain matters of marriage and family life.”
While this court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed [by the Fourteenth Amendment] … Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 (1923).
In addition to recognizing as a fundamental liberty interest the right of parents to raise their children, the Supreme Court has also established that the Constitution’s guarantee to fundamental privacy rights also embodies a fundamental right to parental autonomy in child rearing. The Court acknowledged a “private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.” Prince v. Massachusetts, 3210 U.S. 158, 166 (1944); Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431-U.S. 494 (1977)
The Supreme Court has clearly established that to constitute a compelling interest, state interference with a parent’s right to raise his or her child must be for the purpose of protecting the child’s health or welfare. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 230 (1972)
Father enjoys the right to associate with his children which is guaranteed by this amendment (First) as incorporated in Amendment 14, or which is embodied in the concept of “liberty” as that word is used in the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment and Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Mabra v. Schmidt, 356 F Supp 620: D.C., WI (1973)
SUPPORTING FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT DECISIONS The rights of parents to care, custody and nurture of their children is of such character that it cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions, and such right is a fundamental right protected by this amendment (First) and Amendments 5, 9, and 14. Doe v. Irwin , 440 F Supp 1247; U.S.D.C. of Michigan, (1985)
Parent’s interest in custody of her children is a liberty interest which has received considerable constitutional protection; a parent who is deprived of custody of his or her child, even though temporarily, suffers thereby grievous loss and such loss deserves extensive due process protection. In the Interest of Cooper, 621 P 2d 437: 5 Kansas App Div 2d 584, (1980)
A parent’s right to the preservation of his relationship with his child derives from the fact that the parent’s achievement of a rich and rewarding life is likely to depend significantly on his ability to participate in the rearing of his children. A child’s corresponding right to protection from interference in the relationship derives from the psychic importance to him of being raised by a loving, responsible, reliable adult. Franz v. U.S., 707 F 2d 582, 58-95-599; U.S. Ct. App. (1983)
The liberty interest of the family encompasses an interest in retaining custody of one’s children and, thus a state may not interfere with a parent’s custodial rights absent due process protections. Langton v. Maloney, 527 F Supp 538, D.C. Conn. (1981)
A parent’s right to the custody of his or parent’s right to the custody of his or her children is an element of “liberty” guaranteed by the 5th Amendment and the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Matter of Gentry, 369 NW 2d 889, MI App. Div. (1983)
The parent-child relationship is a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F 2d 1205, 1242-45; U.S. Ct. App 7th Cir. WI.
No bond is more precious and non should be more zealously protected by the law as the bond between parent and child. Carson v. Elrod, 411 F Supp 645, 649; DC E.D. VA (1976)
The rights of parents to parent-child relationships are recognized and upheld. Fantony v. Fantony, 122 A 2d 593, (1956); Brennan v. Brennan, 454 A 2d 901, (1982)
Aug 25 2021 Tenn Gov Bill Lee signed exec order 86 which provides for activation of Tenn reservist and retention of active duty for a contingency operation.
(13) The term “contingency operation” means a military operation that— (A) is designated by the Secretary of Defense as an operation in which members of the armed forces are or may become involved in military actions, operations, or hostilities against an enemy of the United States or against an opposing military force; or (B) results in the call or order to, or retention on, active duty of members of the uniformed services under section 688 , 12301(a) , 12302 , 12304 , 12304a , 12305 , or 12406 of this title , chapter 13 of this title , section 3713 of title 14 , or any other provision of law during a war or during a national emergency declared by the President or Congress.
Gov Lee has signed five orders in 30 days. Including order 83 which allowed for construction of temporary quarantine and isolation facilities and allowed unlicensed persons including students and the National Guard to serve in a medical capacity.
Also in Florida. Desantis signed the “no vaccine passport” which includes this:
SB 2006 recently got signed into law by DeSantis.
(the one that prohibits COVID passports)
Parts to note are:
“the State Health Officer may use any means necessary to vaccinate or treat the individual”
and:
“Any order of the State Health Officer given to effectuate (= bring about) this paragraph is shall be immediately enforceable by a law enforcement officer”
1107 b. If the individual poses a danger to the public health,
1108 the State Health Officer may subject the individual to isolation
1109 or quarantine. If there is no practical method to isolate or
1110 quarantine the individual, the State Health Officer may use any
1111 means necessary to vaccinate or treat the individual.
1112 c. Any order of the State Health Officer given to
1113 effectuate this paragraph is shall be immediately enforceable by
Also know that at least seven Tenn counties shut down school until after Labor Day. Coffee. Washington. Meigs. Cheatham. Bledsoe. Warren. Wilson. Several City schools are closed.
Active duty military has been given until sept 15 to get vaxxed or get out. Many soldiers are ready to give up their career. (I have a client in the military sharing this with me. He also says that most mid level officers are Democrats and will do whatever the democrats say. The enlisted men are patriots and are mostly conservative but they are being silenced.)
And on Aug 14. Arizona Senator Wendy Rogers released the memorandum that says state can decertify their election results.
The legislators work hard to set a list of best interest factors in child custody cases and yet it really boils down to this list prepared by an erased mom. 👇
The Erased Mother
She was…
The one who bathed the babies. The one who dressed the babies. The one who combed their hair. The one who fed them. The one who read to them. The one who taught them how to brush their teeth. The one who sounded out words. The one who taught them how to point. The one who taught them how to play. The one who comforted them when they were sick. The one who called to make doctor appointments. The one who talked to the doctor. The one who scheduled therapy appointments The one who followed OT direction. The one who followed PT direction. The one who followed SLP direction. The one who rocked the baby to sleep gently. The one who woke up most nights to check on her sleeping baby. The one who gave medicine when her baby needed it. The one who bottlefed or breastfed. The one who bought diapers, wipes, clothes. The one who asked for Community Resources. The one who participated in them for her baby. The one who found solutions when her three year old was diagnosed with Autism. The one who asks important questions because she cares. The one who thinks of a plan to get her children home while everyone is figuring out how to load their pockets off of a families separation. The one who cares about her children’s education. The one who cares about her children’s mental health The one who cares about her children’s emotional health. The one who cares about her children’s vision. The one who cares about her children’s dental care. The one who cares about her teen entering puberty. The one who cares about her teen-ager going to prom. The one who cares about her teen-ager growing up to be an honest person. The one who teaches her teen-ager life skills. The one who helps her teen-ager get ready for the workforce. The one who helps her teen-ager get into the best colleges. The one who cares about her teenager graduating high school.
Rarely does a father do this. If he does, it’s without the mother of his children but with a female mother figure for the child or teen.
This is what CYFD, ACB, DHHS, DCFS, DFACS, CPS, does yearly to Families.
Share it if you too have been erased from your child or teen’s life and have to relive the trauma to prove all you did to get them back hoping they see your efforts and see this intentionally broken system for what it is. Destruction of Children and Families.
Tennessee touts being number one in fiscal responsibility and super conservative with a super majority in our legislature. However, Tennessee is a super fail in child wellbeing.
The Children’s Bureau published a reports on many factors that affect child wellbeing on a daily basis, education, child removals, kids in foster care, and many more. A report is published called Child Maltreatment.
Tennessee ranks 39 out of the fifty states. 39. That is nothing to be proud of.
Tennessee DCS and Commissioner Jennifer Nichols stand in the way of improving child wellbeing in Tennessee. This is the most incompetent agency in the state of Tennessee and they are destroying children and families.
Sixteen indicators measuring four domains economic wellbeing, education, health, and family and community context are used by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in each year’s Data Book to assess child well-being. The annual KIDS COUNT data and rankings represent the most recent information available but do not capture the impact of the past year:
● ECONOMIC WELLBEING: In 2019, one in five children lived in households with an income below the poverty line. Though higher than the national average, this percentage has decreased by 23% over the past decade.
● EDUCATION: In 2019, 60% of young children were not in school. This percentage has remained consistent in Tennessee, fluctuating little throughout the last decade.
● AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE: In 2019[1] , 80,000 Tennessee children did not have health insurance. Many of these children may be eligible for TennCare or CHIP. The year prior there were 55,000 uninsured children in Tennessee were eligible for coverage through one of these programs.
● FAMILY AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT: In 2019, Tennessee experienced one of the highest teen birthrates in the nation. Tennessee’s teen birth rate is 34% higher than the national average.
Survey data from the last year add to the story of Tennessee children and families in this moment:
● During the pandemic, in 2020, 23% of adults in Tennessee with children in the household had little to no confidence in their ability to pay their next mortgage or rent payment. However, by March 2021, this figure had fallen to 13%, suggesting the beginnings of a recovery. Although confidence is increasing, Black or African American Tennesseans reporting a lack of confidence in 2021.
● Tennessee has seen great improvement in children’s access to internet and digital devices for schooling. In 2020, more than one in five children did not have access. By 2021 that number has been reduced to 13%.
● Despite improving indicators, nearly in adults in Tennessee with children in the household reported feeling down depressed or helpless in 2021 a number remain unchanged since 2020.
Here is a mental paradigm for you. This is the method taught to attorneys on how to approach legal issues. IRAC Issue Rule Application Conclusion. We discussed it in our Family Forward Project meeting yesterday. We found this article for you to review. If you want to write a complaint or help you atty prepare your case you can learn this too. Issue – what is the problem that needs to be solved Rule – what laws, policies, regulations, public policy, or principles apply to this problem. Application – what are the facts of your case that would apply to these rules. Conclusion – how would those facts apply and what should happen.
Shared – from our great Family Forward Project advocates.
Connie Reguli and Jennifer Winn
HAVE A 3 MINUTE, 5 MINUTE, 15 MINUTE SPEECH READY. MAKE YOUR WORDS COUNT. Someone messaged me asking about organizing Louisiana to approach legislation. Okay. Great! She said she had already talked to lawmakers, etc. Wonderful! Building relationships is important. Raising awareness and educating lawmakers and others about how the bills affect us is what we do. But when I ask questions about what she is talking to the lawmakers about and which lawmakers she feels like are open to working with us, I got nothing, “Thank you for your time”. ….. So idk what to think about that but messages come through all day and all night all of the time. I am not a mind reader and I do not know one. And this is why it is important to have a statement ready that gets attention. “I am talking with legislators”. That is a good attention grabber, but what legislators did you talk to about what? I have no idea who you are or what you are talking about unless you tell me. I know thousands of stories but not everyone’s. And this brings me to an important point that Connie and my grandfather taught me long ago. HAVE A 3 MINUTE, 5 MINUTE, 15 MINUTE SPEECH READY. MAKE YOUR WORDS COUNT — with Ae Devyn Holubar and 2 others.
Vivianna Graham, a mother, a teacher, and the wife of firefighter:
This has to stop, this is the same accusing dr for us and I’m so saddened for this family. Watching the video is heartbreaking and gives me chills as it’s a trigger of what happened to us and I can’t imagine it happening twice. 😞 They have no right to take this baby and using the police to do their dirty work is how they intimidate people.
Sally Smith is the devil in my eyes and this is pure revenge for this family speaking out.
Critics of that decision have pointed out that Sally Smith, the pediatrician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, who examined Amen’Ra, has been investigated in the past for being too quick to diagnose child abuse. https://stories.usatodaynetwork.com/torn-apart/sally-smith/
Sally Smith, like almost all Child Abuse Pediatricians, are PAID by CP$ with contract. Significant conflict of interest. It is called medical child kidnapping. Bill Crouch, Secretary of Health and Human Resources of West Virginia: “The federal government has always paid us ONLY IF we pull children from their homes.”
Molly McGrath Tierney, former Director for the Baltimore City Department of Social Services: “’Foster Care Industry’ – an industry where children become a commodity that profits doctors, lawyers, judges, social workers, advocates, and other organizations, an industry that can only exist by taking other people’s children, an industry that damages the very children it purports to be helping.”
In May 2020 POTUS 45 made a statement in a press conference update on c0^1D that the ingestion of a disinfectant may work as a treatment and cure.
He was quickly scoffed by MSM as claiming that people should drink bleach.
What we did not know was that third world 🌎 countries (a likely racist term these days) like Ecuador 🇪🇨 had commenced treating with chorine dioxide with great success. (Also known as MMS-Miracle Mineral Solution)
This awesome video on will show you the history and research 🔬 on this miracle healing ❤️🩹 substance that has been hidden from us.
Andreas Kalcker’s website is here. For protocols on the correct use of chlorine dioxide. ClO2.
Here is the beginners protocol from the website, verbatim:
AS AMATEUR OR BEGINNER
The first dose is 3 ml CDS (or three activated drops (in a 1: 1 ratio if there is no CDS) adding 200 ml of water, before sleeping, on the first day of treatment.
On the second day another 3ml CDS (or three activated drops) are taken by adding 200 ml of water, one hour after breakfast and another three activated drops by adding 200 ml of water, before sleeping.
On the third day, the two previous doses are taken, after breakfast and before sleeping, adding another dose one hour after eating.
Then you continue with the same three doses, one hour after breakfast, lunch and before sleeping, the necessary time of the treatment, until you feel recovered. This protocol is suitable for long-term application and also serves as maintenance.
This article was in the Nashville Tennesean on August 5 2021. When I tried to share it FB deleted it automatically. So the only way to preserve it is to share it here.
I want to say that after 20 years of watching this incompetent bloated ineffective super-fail agency, I am not surprised that this finally made its way to the news. Every year DCS comes in and asks for another 50 million in tax payer dollars 💵 saying their workers need more money. However, no one in the Tenn General Assembly has the nerve to ask DCS for a report on the activities and productivity of the workers.
Every time I am in court in a DCS case there are six people on the DCS payroll there. Every family meeting is six to ten employees. They are the most incompetent and ineffective bureaucrats in Tennessee.
Read this 👇👇👇👇
Many employees at the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services feel overworked, emotionally drained and siloed in communications, according to results from a March survey evaluating the morale among agency workers.
The survey was conducted among 14 regions, documents show. A total of 1,990 employees completed the survey, representing 60% of the department’s entire staff, according to the survey results released Thursday by Democratic lawmakers.Employees were asked to reflect on their stress level, emotional exhaustion, workplace safety and other areas of assessment.https://8e78b5ef2f29999bcaa26eaef56e9a52.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Among hundreds of detailed comments, many complained about an overflowing caseload coupled with underappreciation from the agency’s top leadership.
“The executive team of DCS is cultivating a toxic culture that’s driving away talents,” Campbell said.
In grainy still photos cropped from video obtained by the Tennessee Lookout, children in state custody sleep on the floor of a state office building. One teen sleeps on the bare floor while another lies on an air mattress with no blanket. The children were in the custody of the Department of Children’s Services
A teenage girl in a pink hoodie and jeans slept restlessly in a downtown Nashville office, with no pillow, sheet, blanket, mattress or pad separating her from the carpeted floor.
Another teen slept directly on the floor, too, huddled under a single blanket. A few feet away, two elementary-school-age kids slept head to toe on a single twin mattress. Three other teens were also asleep in the room, where piles of kids’ clothing, a crib, and toys lined the walls along with trash and at least one bunched up dirty diaper.
A total of seven kids in the custody of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services were forced to spend the night in office space at the Davy Crockett Tower in downtown Nashville on July 16 — a Friday night — in an instance captured on video and obtained by the Tennessee Lookout.
Children are typically taken into custody to ensure their safety and well-being after DCS investigates allegations of abuse or neglect. Kids come into custody experiencing trauma from abuse, trauma from being taken from familiar surroundings and often a sense of powerlessness and fear over their future.
Taking kids to sleep with strangers in an office without providing essential comforts represents a failure by the state agency to live up to its most basic duties, according to a longtime DCS caseworker, who requested anonymity out of fear drawing attention to the department’s treatment of children result in firing.
“Being unable to find a placement was an ongoing problem before the pandemic,” the caseworker said. “It’s gotten much worse. The number of kids sleeping in offices has never been this bad.”
Click play and then fullscreen to view larger video.
The caseworker said that DCS has failed to provide enough back-up for kids taken into custody — foster parents, or temporary and more appropriate spaces, — as the pandemic impacted the ongoing willingness of foster parents to take in children. When kids have to stay in offices, caseworkers have to stay with them, too, finding their own child care arrangements and adding to the burden of an already stressful job, the caseworker said.
Jennifer Donnals, a spokeswoman for the department, said Friday that it was “not a violation of policy for children to stay in DCS offices during the nighttime hours until an appropriate placement is found.” In these instances, “dedicated staff provide a safe environment until an appropriate placement is found,” she said.
“The reality is that children frequently come in to care late in the evening, and it can take several hours to find them appropriate placements in foster homes or treatment facilities, especially when working with sibling groups or teenagers. . . We have accommodations in our offices to help provide comfort to children in these temporary situations, including blankets, cots and air mattresses, food, toys and other supplies.”
Jennifer Donnals, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, said it is “not a violation of policy for children to stay in DCS offices during the nighttime hours until an appropriate placement is found,” but did not address how frequently kids taken into custody are sleeping in state offices.
In her response, Donnals did not address other questions, including how frequently kids taken into custody are sleeping in state offices.
A space for children in Nashville awaiting placements in foster care closed for renovation in July, Donnals said. The Davidson County DCS Resource Linkage Office reopened Sunday, aided by donations from the Byard Family Legacy Fund, a charity founded by Tennessee Titans player Kevin Byard.
During renovations, “children were brought to the Davy Crockett office space more often,” Donnals said.
The department did not answer questions about whether DCS chief Jennifer Nichols and other agency leaders were aware that kids are sleeping in state office buildings.
And Donnals did not address the circumstances of the girl in the pink hoodie seen on video sleeping directly on the floor, who lacked the comfort items she described, including a blanket, cot, or air mattress, visible in screen shots shared with the department last week.
There are roughly 9,000 kids in state custody at any given time who need a foster family, a spot in a residential treatment facility or placement with family or friends of family.
The agency, like its counterparts in other states, has often had a bumpy history of providing adequate care to kids on its watch. In 2,000, the state entered what would become 17 years of court-ordered oversight of its treatment of kids coming into custody due to “systemic failure to protect Tennessee’s most vulnerable children and to provide them with legally required services.”
The lawsuit was prompted by kids being placed in unsuitable spaces after being taken into custody. Court oversight ended in 2017.
I wish I had known to DOCUMENT AND RECORD EVERYTHING when i had to deal with government agencies. I thought I could trust the people that worked for the state and I was really naive. Now I know, and though documenting and recording any involvement with government agents is a must, I am going to share a few helpful hints for parents who have to deal with the Department of Health and Human Services DIVISION of Families and Children Child Protection Services workers.
Your House:
Make sure your house and yard are safe for children.
This means locking knives, guns, and poisonous cleaning supplies and other chemicals where children cannot get to them.
Vaccinate your animals. You may need to build a fence to keep large animals away from small children.
Get ready for “the white glove test”. This means making sure that your house is safe and clean. Clean ceiling fans, the top of the refrigerator, behind the toilet, and any other place that you can think of that you may have forgot the last time you cleaned.
Do not forget to pay your utilities. The person that inspects your home will make sure that you have cold and hot running water and electricity.
Prove that you can financially care for your children. Keep, clothes, hygienic items, and food. Be ready to prove income to support your children consistently.
Laws pertaining to discipline vary across the states. Be familiar with the laws in your state. Take parenting classes if you need to. There is no shame in learning to be a better parent.
Let the worker know how much you care for your children and that you can emotionally care for your children.
Transportation:
Think about how important transportation is to you and your children.
If you own a vehicle, make sure it is clean and maintained.
Make sure the insurance is up to date.
If you do not own a vehicle, think about other ways that you can safely get your children to a doctor or school and other events. Are there buses, taxis, or other rideshares in your area that can safely transport you and your children?
If there is an emergency, do you know what number to call for an ambulance or the police?
Preparing for the Court:
Make a home office space somewhere in your home where you can safely keep important documents.
Get folders, a file cabinet, or boxes to store all of your paperwork in your safe office space.
Invest in a scanner/printer and other office supplies so you can stay organized and keep your originals in order. Scan these into GOOGLE DRIVE or another online source so that if you file complaints, they are easy to forward to the complaint investigator.
\Mark your calenders. Calenders are a good way to keep up with important dates and times.
Keep a Journal of important events with details of times, dates, places, people, phone numbers, addresses, offices, anything related to your case that may be important. (Sometimes we don’t think it is important but it really is so keep track of EVERYTHING.)
Make a couple of copies of your documents. Only share copies of your documents and evidence. Do not give your original documents away. I keep my originals in a separate file cabinet so that I do not get them mixed up with the copies and give the wrong one or too many away. Make sure you keep your original documents safe and don’t give them away. I keep one file cabinet for the originals and another file cabinet for the copies that I can easily grab to share with lawyers, legislators, or court clerks.
Create a “Timeline of Events” for your case. This is a good way to take what is on your calender and in your journal, along with your other documents that are stacked up in your file cabinets and make it all make sense. On a page or two highlight events; courtdates, meetings, important phone calls, visitations, shared parenting meetings, community family team meetings, child planning conferences, mediation meetings, or notifications. Things that happen that are key to what is going on in your case. Keep all of the evidence of these events in your file cabinet or box in case you need them and just highlight in a few words or sentences what that big stack of paperwork is all about and in what order it all happened.
Save and make copies of text messages and emails.
Get copies of case files, court transcripts, and even previous court documents that may exist (child support, child custody, etc). These can be obtained from the court clerk . (There is usually a fee to obtain files.)
Obtain any new case files that may be filed in between court dates. Sometimes these are filed right before court so you need to get files before and after each court date.
Identification; driver’s license or other state id.
Photos you can copy that are dated and show evidence of things in a clear fashion; like if your child comes to visitation with a huge bruise on his arm, take a picture close up of the bruise and further away so the bruise can be identified as belonging to him. You will need at least three copies of each photo if you intend on submitting it to the court.
Recorded phone calls need to be transcripted by a court-approved transcriptionist if you want to introduce them as evidence.
Your Local District Court Rules. Every district court (or collection of counties court) has their own rules to abide by which you will need to abide by. It is also helpful because most of the rules have outlines of education and requirements of attorneys to be able to practice as a court-appointed attorney in that county.
Previous client-attorney files of past attorneys, whether court-appointed or private. You can usually email them and request that they give it to you.
Prepare for what you will say in court.
Advocate:
Prepare a three minute, five minute, fifteen minute, and thirty minute speech. We never know how much time we will be given to speak so it is important to think ahead and make words count.
Learn to advocate for yourself and your children. Talk to lawyers and social workers to find out what they expect and require from you.
Hire a lawyer. I interview lawyers before I pay them. I want to know that they do not have any conflicts and that they are on my side and understand that I expect them to fight with me for my family. You will hear that there are lawyers out there that just take your money and do nothing for you and that can be very true and very sad. There are also lawyers out there that will fight for you and your family. Make sure that the lawyer you hire is up to date with current laws and policies that may affect your outcomes. One such policy is the Family First Preventative Services Act of 2018. This act allows states to be paid for kinship placements though not all states have implemented this law yet, it is still law. There may be new laws in your state that legislators have passed that lawyers may not know about. Recently Arkansas passed laws that require fathers and other family members to be represented in child custody and child protection cases.
Ask your lawyer to record hearings.
Hire your own court reporter. Court reporters can record and document proceedings for you.
If they require you to talk to their doctor, psychologist or to take a drug test from one of the courts testers, do that, and also hire your own doctor or psychologist that can make evaluations and testify in court. You can also go to various places for drug tests. Go to the one you are court ordered to go to, and if the result is a false positive, go straight to the next reputable tester and test again. 25% to 50% of those tests give false positives. Sometimes an over the counter medication or prescription can also make a drug test look dirty.
Make use of notaries and certified mail to document evidence and communications. It may be necessary to sign power of attorney over to a grandparent or other family member. Notaries can sometimes be cheaper than lawyers for this.
Keep your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites clean. Judges, employers and other people with authority look social media posts.
Find Case Laws and Learn what is happening. Judges, lawyers, and child protection workers do this every day. You are just plugged into their routine so learn what the process is and how to communicate with them. Some federal acts that may be relevant to your case include; the UCCJEA, VAWA, Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, Indian Child Welfare Act, and Family First Act.
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