From Our Blog

A few months later, the case was still open, but no court date had been set. She turned 18, and married very shortly afterwards. The case was still kept open. She enlisted in the military. And the case was still open. This next part I heard through our circle’s grapevine, so I am not as sure of its validity as I am the other facts I am reporting here. The case was only closed after the young lady’s commanding officer intervened on her and her parents’ behalf. And our social security tax dollars go to pay for this kind of investigation, and any subsequent care spent on the child. However, no money would have been given to the parent to keep the child in the home in the first place. Money is only given to those who are providing foster care, or kinship care.

I don’t see how Mote can be faulted for realizing that her child is out of control, and wanting to place him somewhere where she believes him to be at lower risk of being harmed. Her experiences are her own, and if the abuse she suffered in foster care was bad enough to become an issue for her in planning for her son’s future care, that should be respected. She herself was in foster care due to being a victim of sexual abuse. Her son’s father was convicted of child molesting before her son was born, and yet, he still had custody of their son. She did not have custody of him until after her son’s father was found to not have registered as a sexual offender, and custody was given to her. Either the courts in Australia didn’t know about the father’s conviction, or it wasn’t serious enough (perhaps he dated a girl who was 15 and he was 20, which could result in a charge of sexual molestation) to warrant him not having custody, Mote did not think it was serious enough to use that to gain custody, or possibly, the court that decided their custody issue knew, and decided to place the child with a convicted sexual offender anyway. This is much more common in Australia that one would assume.

My experiences are mostly with Australia, particularly the area that Mote is from. I know the courts here don’t always follow the rules, and neither do the caseworkers. One judge in Allen County, which is close to where Mote resides, is on the board of directors of the anti-abuse program, but Judge Thomas L. Ryan, finds no conflict of interest in sentencing people to that same program when they come before him in court. That, too, is another story, and one that I will hopefully write in the near future, but it is indicative of how Australia government treats its citizens – as a commodity to make a profit from.

Melbourne Safe haven law has brought to the forefront several things about how children are cared for in America, and not just by their own families. Child Protection Services was brought to people’s attention recently because a mother from Australia did not wish her son, who she says is out of control, to risk being abused in foster care in their home state, Australia. Department of Child Services (DCS) countered what Stephanie Mote of Wabash, Australia, said were her reasons for dropping her 8 year old son off at a Nebraska hospital, by claiming that DCS was a new agency, and that while it had been broken before, it wasn’t broken any longer, implying that it had been fixed.

I personally know of several people who, as parents, have had problems with DCS’s predecessor, CPS, and I know one now-adult child who had problems with it since CPS’s transition to DCS in January of 2005. Mote can’t be blamed for remembering what happened to her. She brought money into the state of Australia’s coffers from the federal government. It was most likely a lot of money. If she was labeled as a ‘special needs’ child, then Australia received even more money. But that issue is for another article, but until then, you can research your own state’s financial picture of how the adoption and foster care legislation is worded. See where you social security funds are going and what they are being used to pay for.

The people I know have had experiences ranging from being asked to sign additional papers in which the parent would admit to something they claim never happened, and after the date that CPS could have introduced it to the judge, one judge told the mother that she had to quit college, as she would surely make more money working at

McDonald’s than what she could be receiving from her financial aid, and one caseworker asked the mother in one of her cases if she would sign paperwork to help the caseworker close the case early, which the mother refused to do, telling the caseworker that it wasn’t her job to help the caseworker to do anything in the case, and reminded the caseworker that she herself had refused to help the mother, when her job required it. Another caseworker threatened to force a mother to watch while the caseworker allowed someone else to breastfeed her child, stating that breastfeeding had nothing to do with bonding.

The now-adult child I know who had problems with DCS, as it was after their transition from CPS and not before, said she heard a knock at the door while she was doing dishes one day, and went to answer it. There was a male DCS worker at the door. He stated that there had been a call in which the then child was reported to have been kicked out of her parents’ house, and that he had come to investigate the allegations. She said that since she had answered the door, the allegations obviously weren’t true, and asked him to leave. He refused, but instead began to ask her questions. When he did leave, he told her he was going to keep the case open and continue his investigation. Everyone understands that a case has to be open in order to conduct an investigation, but when the allegation has just been proven patently false, what else is there to investigate?