“Promoting, Protecting and Preserving the Texas Family”

2205 Ave. I; Suite 121 Rosenberg, Texas 77471

Telephone:  281-344-8878; Fax:  281-633-8816

Website:  www.txcfr.org

 

NEWS RELEASE

TWO JUDGES RESIGN FROM TEXAS CASA FOLLOWING RULING BY TEXAS COMMISSION ON JUDICIAL CONDUCT

http://www.txcfr.org/em11-152-05.html

Texas Center for Family Rights (TCFR) applauds the decisions of two Houston area judges to resign from the board of Texas CASA following a decision of the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct related to a different judge.

Judge Eva Guzman of the  Fourteenth District Court of Appeals in Houston and Judge Olen Underwood, Presiding Judge of the Second Administrative Judicial Region informed TCFR of their decisions in the past week.

TCFR President Peter Johnston stated, “Both Judge Guzman and Judge Underwood , when informed of the Commission’s decision, acted in a highly professional way that reflected their concern to uphold the integrity of their positions.  They were two of three judges on the board who had the least direct contact with Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) in their courtroom, yet they understood the importance of upholding the independence of the judiciary.”

Johnston continued, “Unfortunately, though we heard from the Commission in June and sent letters on September 13, 2005 to each of the seven judges then on the board of CASA, only one other judge has communicated with us.  Judge Carl E. Lewis, County Court at Law #5 in Nueces County who suffered from a life threatening heart attack in mid-September responded in October explaining his health condition and promised to follow up by mid-November.”

In 2004 TCFR filed complaints with the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct on Judge John Specia, 225^th District Court in Bexar County , and Judge Robin Sage, 307^th District Court in Gregg County , including concerns about participation on the board of Texas CASA. 

In June of this year Texas Center for Family Rights received a response from the Commission with regard to Judge Sage.  It has yet to receive a final decision back from the Commission regarding Judge Specia.

The Commission made its position clear with regard to Judge Sage’s position with CASA:

“[T]he Commission is in agreement with you [TCFR] that judges who preside over cases in which CASA volunteers appear before them and testify should not serve on the Board of Directors of such organization since such service raises an appearance of impropriety and reasonably calls into question the judge’s ability to act impartially in such cases…[T]he Commission has cautioned the judge to avoid engaging in such activities in the future.”

No Response from Judge Specia, Judge Sage, Judge Shannon or Judge Stansbury

TCFR has received no response from Judge Specia, Judge Sage, Judge Cheryl Lee Shannon of the 305^th District Court in Dallas or Judge Thomas Stansbury, a retired judge formerly of the 328^th District Court in Fort Bend Count, but who is still eligible to hear CPS cases with CASAs testifying.

Johnston explained, “Each of the judges received a letter from us in September quoting the Commission’s position and identifying the following basic issues at stake :

• While the initial appearance of judges sitting on the board of Texas CASA may seem benign we cited previous ethics opinions confirming violations of the judicial canon

• We cited specific concerns related to funding of Texas CASA coming from the Department of Family and Protective Services

• We looked at such judges through the eyes of parents appearing in the courtroom for the first time.

He continued, “We explained that the complete complaints with appendices are available online at www.txcfr.org or, if they preferred, we would sent them a copy by mail.”  The complaints represented hundreds of hours of efforts pouring over prior ethical opinions and hundreds, if not thousands of pages of open records document related to CPS and CASA.

“Furthermore,” Johnston added, “I stated that in principle I am a supporter of CASA.  A truly independent voice on behalf of children could counter an abusive parent’s claims.  Similarly a truly independent voice on behalf of children could counter the unfounded allegations of CPS.”

No Response from CEO of Texas CASA, Megan Ferland 

TCFR has made efforts to communicate directly with Megan Ferland, Chief Executive Officer of Texas CASA.  In October of 2004,  TCFR informed her of the complaints and offered to meet personally to discuss the official complaints as well as public perception of CASA.

Ms. Ferland was also sent a letter on September 13, 2005 informing her of the Commission’s June decision regarding Judge Sage and requesting a confirmation from her that judges on the board had taken the appropriate step of resigning.

TCFR has received no direct response from Ms. Ferland.

Johnston explained, “I have spoken not only with parents who have been in court that sensed an unholy alliance of CPS and CASA but with former CASA workers and CPS workers who have corroborated that problem.  We would like for Texas CASA to address it openly.”

“Based on their actions there is a legitimate question whether Texas CASA is more concerned with its image and fund raising than it is in its own independent decision making, the true best interests of children and in the independence of the judiciary?”

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ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION - Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI

Las Vegas Now reports (below) that Dr. Mark Collins, director of the Montevista Hospital and contracts with several residential treatment centers is ordering brain scans for foster children prior to their being prescribed highly toxic psychotropic drugs.

According to a legal complaint by Children's Attorneys Project, submitted on Sept. 5, to the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, foster children in Nevada are being overdiagnosed with bipolar disorder, on the basis of a dangerous brain scan.
Prior to the brain scan children are injected with radioactive material "to illuminate blood flow in their brain." 

http://www2.lasvegasnow.com/docs/spect_complaint.pdf

Medical cowboys in Nevada are evidently undeterred by the risk of radiation-induced cancer - when they order investigational brain scans for children in foster care. The use of these investigational scans to justify the prescribing of highly toxic drugs for children is an example of the misuse of experimental scientific tools. Their use as a diagnostic tool is bogus.

Even The American Psychiatric Association does not accept the use of brain imaging for the clinical diagnosis of children, in part, according to its literature, because of children's sensitivity to radiation and to risk of radiation-induced cancer.

Medicaid does not cover investigational procedures, like brain specs. However these claims slipped through to the tune of more than $33,000. The state has not yet decided whether to seek repayment and has issued a memo reiterating its policy.

Nevada does not have a psychiatric care provider for children, so the state contracts out with a Florida for-profit mental health provider.   The Children's Attorneys complaint includes case histories of young children who were bounced around from Montevista Hospital to Willow Springs Residential Treatment Center as well as other residential treatment agencies.

The complaint indicates "there appear to be conflicts of interest among service providers and hospitals..."  For example, in addition to his position as director of Montevista Hospital, Dr. Collins has contracts with for-profit residential treatment facilities to which Nevada foster children are being placed - so there is an obvious (to us) conflict of interest.

See: http://www2.lasvegasnow.com/docs/spect_complaint.pdf

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav,   veracare@ahrp.org,   212-595-8974

I-Team: Lawyers Question Medical Tests on Foster Kids

Nov 15, 2008

Colleen McCarty, Investigative Reporter

http://www.klas-tv.com/global/story.asp?s=9354731&ClientType=Printable

This is a story about an eight-year-old boy in foster care. A boy we've never met. He exists for us only as a name on a letter questioning his mental health treatment. But his lawyer Janice Wolf wants us to remember Nathaniel is real.

"Some of the things our kids have gone through, you and I could only imagine in our dreams, or nightmares."

Nathaniel described vivid nightmares according psychiatric records obtained by the I-Team. During his first of two hospitalizations at Montevista, Dr. Mark Collins ordered a procedure called a brain spect. It requires the injection of radioactive material to illuminate blood flow in the brain.

Read the legal complaint: http://www2.lasvegasnow.com/docs/spect_complaint.pdf

In a report to the family court, Collins writes the scan confirms Nathaniel has "severe bipolar disorder."

"I think my concern is that our foster kids are getting not just the best psychiatric care, but proper psychiatric care - that they're not being mistreated, or experimented on, or used as investigational tools," said Wolf.

The American Psychiatric Association does not accept the use of brain imaging for the clinical diagnosis of children, in part, according to its literature, because of children's sensitivity to radiation and to risk of radiation-induced cancer.

Read a statement from the county about the procedures: http://www2.lasvegasnow.com/docs/county_spect_statement.doc

Dr. Collins likens the exposure to a common CT scan, "To not look at a child's brain who's had multiple treatments and is not getting better, it would be like if you had a heart attack and I'm saying, 'you know what, you've had a heart attack before. We know you have a bad heart. I'm not going to do an electrocardiogram on you.'"

Collins argues the scans are a valuable tool to aid in the diagnosis of his sickest patients and insists not everybody gets a spec scan.

A recent Medicaid review by the Nevada State Department of Health and Human Services identified 96 Montevista patients who underwent brain imaging. The majority, according to the state, were kids in the juvenile justice or child welfare systems.

"I've been doing enough of them I see the utility in this. I see how important it is to take a look at these kid's brains. If I was not seeing the benefit, I would not continue to do it," said Dr. Collins.

Wolf however questions the benefit and again points to Nathaniel. A court-ordered psychiatric evaluation of the eight-year-old challenged Collins' diagnosis and noted, "Spect scanning is not yet an accepted diagnostic method. Although it is interesting, it is not yet reliable."

Read a statement from Nevada Medicaid: http://www2.lasvegasnow.com/docs/memo%20spect.pdf

"We are hoping that at least by raising the concern and raising the issue that others will look also, that people responsible for our kids will take a look at what it is and hopefully support us," said Wolf.

And support kids like Nathaniel whose stories come to life from the pages of a foster care case file.

Only a caseworker stands between a child and a controversial procedure. Collins insists he receives no payment related to the scans. He insists brain imaging will soon be accepted by the psychiatric community. There is certainly evidence he may be right but for now, it remains investigational.

Medicaid does not cover investigational procedures, like brain specs. However these claims slipped through to the tune of more than $33,000. The state has not yet decided whether to seek repayment and has issued a memo reiterating its policy.

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Use of Antipsychotics in Children Criticized - Yet Said Little they Could Do, Medical Societies Must Educate Doctors   November 18, 2008 GARDINER HARRIS, New York Times  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/health/policy/19fda.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin   F.D.A. said the agency could do little to fix the problem. Instead, he said, medical specialty societies must do a better job educating doctors about the drugs’ side effects.     WASHINGTON — Powerful antipsychotic medicines are being used far too cavalierly in children, and federal drug regulators must do more to warn doctors of their substantial risks, a panel of federal drug experts said Tuesday.      More than 389,000 children and teenagers were treated last year with Risperdal, one of five popular medicines known as atypical antipsychotics. Of those patients, 240,000 were 12 or younger, according to data presented to the committee. In many cases, the drug was prescribed to treat attention deficit disorders.   But Risperdal is not approved for attention deficit problems, and its risks — which include substantial weight gain, metabolic disorders and muscular tics that can be permanent — are too profound to justify its use in treating such disorders, panel members said.   “This committee is frustrated,” said Dr. Leon Dure, a pediatric neurologist from the University of Alabama School of Medicine who was on the panel. “And we need to find a way to accommodate this concern of ours.”   The meeting on Tuesday was scheduled to be a routine review of the pediatric safety of Risperdal and Zyprexa, popular antipsychotic medicines made, respectively, by Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly & Company.   Food and Drug Administration officials proposed that the committee endorse the agency’s routine monitoring of the safety of the medicines in children and support its previous efforts to highlight the drugs’ risks.   But committee members unanimously rejected the agency’s proposals, saying that far more needed to be done to discourage the medicines’ growing use in children, particularly to treat conditions for which the medicines have not been approved.   “The data show there is a substantial amount of prescribing for attention deficit disorder, and I wonder if we have given enough weight to the adverse-event profile of the drug in light of this,” Dr. Daniel Notterman, a senior health policy analyst at Princeton University and a panel member, said when speaking about Risperdal.   Drug agency officials responded that they had already placed strongly worded warnings on the drugs’ labels. “I’m a little puzzled about the statement that the label is inadequate,” said Dr. Thomas Laughren, director of the agency’s division of psychiatry products. “I’m anxious to hear what more we can do in the labeling.” Kara Russell, a spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson, said, “Adverse drug reactions associated with Risperdal use in approved indications are accurately reflected in the label.”   But panelists said the current warnings were not enough.   While panel members spoke at length about Risperdal, they said their concerns applied to the other medicines in its class, including Zyprexa, Seroquel, Abilify and Geodon.   The committee’s concerns are part of a growing chorus of complaints about the increasing use of antipsychotic medicines in children and teenagers. Prescription rates for the drugs have increased more than fivefold for children in the past decade and a half, and doctors now use the drugs to settle outbursts and aggression in children with a wide variety of diagnoses, even though children are especially susceptible to their side effects.   A consortium of state Medicaid directors is evaluating the use of the drugs in children on state Medicaid rolls to ensure that they are being properly prescribed.   The growing use of the medicines has been driven partly by the sudden popularity of the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder. The leading advocate for the bipolar diagnosis is Dr. Joseph Biederman, a child psychiatrist at Harvard University whose work is under a cloud after a Congressional investigation revealed that he had failed to report to his university at least $1.4 million in outside income from the makers of antipsychotic medicines.   In the past year, Risperdal prescriptions to patients 17 and younger increased 10 percent, while prescriptions among adults declined 5 percent. Most of the pediatric prescriptions were written by psychiatrists. From 1993 through the first three months of 2008, 1,207 children given Risperdal suffered serious problems, including 31 who died. Among the deaths was a 9-year-old with attention deficit problems who suffered a fatal stroke 12 days after starting therapy with Risperdal. At least 11 of the deaths were children whose treatment with Risperdal was unapproved by the F.D.A. Once the agency approves a medicine for a particular condition, doctors are free to prescribe it for other problems.   Panel members said they had for years been concerned about the effects of Risperdal and similar medicines, but F.D.A. officials said no studies had been done to test the drugs’ long-term safety.   Dr. Dure said he was concerned that doctors often failed to recognize the movement disorders, including tardive dyskinesia and dystonia, that can result from using these medicines. “I have a bias that extra-pyramidal side effects are being under-recognized with these agents,” Dr. Dure said.   Dr. Laughren of the F.D.A. said the agency could do little to fix the problem. Instead, he said, medical specialty societies must do a better job educating doctors about the drugs’ side effects.

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Foley downplays sexually explicit 'IM-ing'

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 11/17/2008

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=323166

 

 

A conservative attorney and activist says homosexual former Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley is trying to justify the sexually explicit computer messages he sent to teenage boys on Capitol Hill.

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Child (or agency) Protection?
By Rich Rigney
November 17, 2008

Photo © Reed Hoffmann

“You guys do more damage to kids than the parents!” 

The above observation uttered by a loving parent is echoed by many.  Most Child Protective Services Supervisors and caseworkers would consider it malicious slander. 

As a Child Protective Services caseworker of eight years, however, I know it to be true.

I’m not alone. 

Consider the following irony lamented by Duke Law Professor, Doriane Lambelet Coleman (2006): 

“…in the name of saving children from the harm that their parents and guardians are thought to pose, states ultimately cause more harm to many children than they ever help.” 

Few in the field argue that Child Protective Services (“CPS”) nationally has myriad problems that are well documented in the form of media, research, congressional sub-committees and expert reports. Documentation supporting this fact is ubiquitous and readily available on-line.

However, the most grievous problem is that those who can most benefit from this knowledge, those who might use it pragmatically to improve the lives of children and families - the caseworkers and supervisors of CPS - appear either ignorant of or indifferent to the damage that removal of children perpetuates. 

That is: the most profound problem with “Child Welfare” is that it is not about the welfare of the child. 

Rather, it is about the welfare of the agency itself. 

The internal paranoia that a “Cover-Your-Agency” (CYA) mentality creates has become so pervasive that most caseworkers and supervisors are determined not to make any decision that might jeopardize their career… and the children are afterthoughts. 

The agency hierarchy itself reinforces this CYA mentality due to its' understandable desire to remain off the front page of newspapers.

This “defensive social work” is helpful in preventing bureaucrat heads from rolling. 

"...it has become undeniable that despite many saintly foster parents, the government makes a poor parent. The research shows unequivocally that CPS should be loathe to remove kids from their homes because, in most cases, there is nowhere better to put them."

The tragic wake of this status quo, however, is strewn with the lives of children and parents.

Estimates I’ve come across in my research reckon that between one-third and two-thirds of those children currently in foster care nationally should be living with their parents. 

Furthermore, it has become undeniable that despite many saintly foster parents, the government makes a poor parent. The research shows unequivocally that CPS should be loathe to remove kids from their homes because, in most cases, there is nowhere better to put them. 

As a result, the state is stuck between a rock and a hard place: remove children from marginal parents, causing well documented, irrevocable emotional damage (not to mention the physical and sexual abuse that occurs more frequently in foster care), or leave these children with parents who, arguably, should never have had kids in the first place— the “lesser of two evils” if you will. 

Enter the “Safety Model.”

The state of Oregon has become one of the last ten percent of our nation’s states to adopt a “Safety Model” guide to protecting our children, created by Wayne Holder, the man Oregon CPS has called the “foremost expert in child protection in the nation.” (I encourage anyone interested to visit his website at www.actionchildprot ection.org to understand Mr. Holder’s credentials and the Safety Model as a whole.)

“What do I have to do to get my kids back?”

Those of us in CPS have all heard it. It is inevitably the first question our clients have and it is echoed frequently until the kids are returned. 

The Safety Model forces Child Welfare to quantify their answer to this question.

In my experience, most families don’t care how long CPS monitors (or micromanages) their family as long as their kids can live with them in the process. Mr. Holder would probably cite this as THE driving force behind the creation of the Safety Model.

In quantifying their answer to parents’ most pressing question, CPS must delineate for all parties and the court, the necessary “behaviors, conditions or circumstances” in the home required to “manage”- not eliminate- the safety threats that necessitated the removal of the children. 

The agency’s answers must be “specific” (i.e. quantifiable) . They must be “well articulated.” They must be “least intrusive.” They must be “well defined.” They must provide a “benchmark” (i.e. they must be measurable). They represent the “official record and expectation” for parent-child reunification. 

The parents themselves need not change at all prior to the children being returned to the home. 

" The Safety Model provides a useful tool that, if used correctly, can save many children from the fate of CPS being their only perpetrator."

The Safety Model, in addition to its dictates that CPS be as “least intrusive” as possible in intervening to control threats to child safety, requires that these threats be “observable and specific,” “out of control,” “imminent” and expected to cause “severe” harm to a “vulnerable” child.

No doubt for many of you this is a hard pill to swallow. These are unreasonably low standards for our most precious resource. 

You, like me, think children deserve more. 

The fact remains, it is irresponsible at best and abusive at worst to remove and/or withhold a child from his or her home upon the speculation that a “threat” of danger exists, when we know from the research that removal and placement of children in foster care is always detrimental.

I’m not talking here about severe neglect or physical/sexual abuse. 

In five years with Oregon CPS (I worked for three in California previously) I have had only one case with such abuse (and the research puts this type of abuse at about 15 percent combined). 

The Safety Model is merely a tool, an attempt to minimize the trauma to children inflicted by their own government. There is no tool or legislation that will ever completely expunge child maltreatment or child deaths so long as the only requirement for parenthood is a capacity for coitus.

I believe that if the state institutes a model, a tool envisioned by the “foremost expert in child protection in the nation,” the state should actually use it. 

That is, if CPS is making the rules, they should follow them. 

Currently CPS (at least in Oregon ) is not, or not consistently.

The sad yet necessary truth is that it is not the job of Child Protective Services to pick the best available situation for kids and place them there permanently. 

That would literally be kidnapping. 

Rather, it is the job of CPS to work with marginal parents and make them “safe” or capable of providing a “minimum standard of adequate care.” It is CPS’s job to make parents “safe,” not “good.” Again, it is also our job to be “least intrusive” in our intervention.

In America we must accept freedom’s costs with its benefits. As Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said, “There is nothing new in the realization that the Fourth Amendment [illegal search and seizure] protections come with a price.” This is true of many other “protections,” such as the right to procreate and parent.

Unfortunately, Child Welfare is not held accountable for the unattributable damage to children caused by removal from their families to foster care. 

However, it is well-documented damage. 

Shouldn’t we, like doctors, use our professional judgment to “first, do no harm,” rather than using it to forecast the future?

It is the children who pay the ultimate price for this unqualified prophesying.

The Safety Model provides a useful tool that, if used correctly, can save many children from the fate of CPS being their only perpetrator. 

Rich Rigney
Child Protective Services
Coos Bay , Ore

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Texas: CPS Caseworker Guilty of Child Abuse Posted: 15 Nov 2008 02:11 AM CST A Nacogdoches, Texas CPS caseworker, Alvita Johnson, 50, was arrested in 2006 for abusing three foster children in her care. Charges against her included injury to a child and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The children involved were ages 10, 12, and 15 at the time. Recently she was found guilty of two counts of injury to a child and three counts of aggravated assault. Here’s the sentence: 145TH DISTRICT COURT The following people received probated sentences: Alvita Johnson, injury to a child, six year in deferred probation, $5,000; injury to a child, six year in deferred probation, $5,000; aggravated assault, six year in deferred probation, $5,000; aggravated assault, six year in deferred probation, $5,000; aggravated assault, six year in deferred probation, $5,000. Sources: Former CPS employee arrested for alleged abuse by Kyle Peveto, published in the Daily Sentinel on November 22, 2006. 11/01 On the record, published on Friday, October 31, 2008 also in the Daily Sentinel, a Nacogdoches, Texas newspaper