Source: NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

Texas Child Protective Services has effectively admitted that 32 of the children torn from their families on the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado never needed to be thrown into foster care.

That’s not how they put it, of course. Rather, they say they dropped the cases because, according to news accounts, CPS found no evidence of underage marriages or the families “agreed to take appropriate actions to protect their children.”

This is a perfect illustration of why state laws generally say that one should not take a child first and ask questions later unless CPS has strong evidence of imminent danger – and why it is so tragic that such language routinely is ignored.

There never was any indication that if a child was not taken from the ranch today, she’d be married off tomorrow. And, it should be recalled, CPS took infants, toddlers, and other children nowhere near puberty. There was time to find out that these families were innocent without subjecting their children to the trauma of separation from everyone they know and love. There was time to find out these families were innocent and/or willing to “take appropriate steps…” without interning the children in their own private Guantanamo during the first days after the raid. There was time to find out that these families were innocent without inflicting emotional scars that may never heal.

“My little guy was just a baby,” the law guardian for a child believed to be among the 32 told the Deseret News. “There was no reason for them to be in the system.”

Unfortunately, this news was buried in stories that focused on the fact that CPS is trying to put eight FLDS children back into foster care. But those cases also illustrate how CPS got it wrong the first time. In these cases CPS took the refreshingly novel approach of doing the investigation first. In most cases, they zeroed in on specific instances where they allege mothers “allowed” underage marriages and declined to sign “safety plans.” The plans required the mothers to promise not to allow underage marriages and to limit children’s contact with men allegedly involved in such marriages.
… Full article at NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

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