New Christian Legal Society forming:

A chapter of the Christian Legal Society is forming in the Bluegrass area of Kentucky. For more information about this forming CLS chapter, contact Gregory A. Napier in Lexington, Kentucky. Integrating one’s walk of faith with their practice of law, so that they are one and the same, will make the pursuit of justice less elusive!

“Reasonable efforts” has real meaning

A recent decision of the Court of Appeals illustrates a an omission of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services that seems all too common. In the unpublished opinion, M.G.F. II v. CHFS, 2006-CA-002093-ME (March 21, 2008)(NOT to be published), the Court remanded an involuntary termination of parental rights case because the Cabinet failed to evidence reasonable efforts to reunite the non-removal parent, the father. I have often seen this phenomena when children are removed from one parent and the non-residential parent either lives far away, is uninvolved, or has some “issues”. The Cabinet focuses on reunification with the parent of removal instead of devoting those efforts towards both parents. I suspect this is not so much an intentional omission, but more of a systemic problem.

Such a circumstance of divided households is one case on the worker’s caseload even though there are two separate parental residences. If a worker only gets credit for one case, what incentive is there to provide services to two households. That is double the work for the credit of one family. With caseloads stretched beyond reason and the government unwilling to sufficiently fund child protective services, the pressure to focus only on the residence of removal is significant.

Further exacerbating the problem, unless it has been changed since my time, the computer system used by the Cabinet (TWISt: The Worker Information System) automatically makes the parent the child was removed from active as well as the children. A non-residential parent is not put into the referral screens because no allegation are made against them. TWISt captures data, including face to face contacts, with each active individual in the case. This information is used to generate reports to measure compliance with Federal regulations that tie payments of block grant monies to Kentucky. The reports are also used to measure an individual worker’s performance. TWISt has no idea if these face to face visits actually occur; it is an honor system that expects employees to input accurate data even if it is going to hurt their employment situation.

One way to prevent low numbers of contacts, but still be technically truthful, is to forget to add a parent who does not live in the home of removal as an active individual. This means there is no tracking of services to that person. Whether this occurred in MGF’s situation is unknown, but the point remains.

Now, the factual background provided in the MGF case do not show if the scenario I laid out above applies. All the case reveals is that the Cabinet did not put forth substantial evidence that they provided services to the father, MGF, to assist him in obtaining custody of his children. I make the inferential leap that if such evidence was able to be offered up, it would have been.

MGF is no father of the year by any stretch. He allowed a couple of years to pass with only four phone calls to his children. Even when they were moved to within 20 miles of him, he did not go visit them. Regardless, the Cabinet was under the duty to provide services to help him get up to speed as a father. No evidence of this duty being discharged was entered into the record and so the court remanded the case for further proceedings.

Off Topic: The silver lining of pharmaceuticals in water

George W. Bush goal of cutting $15 billion from Medicaid expenditures may be easier than he imaginied. Apparently medications are increasingly being found in our drinking water . These are apparently chemicals that pass unused through the humans taking the medications. Water companies are claiming the pharmaceuticals are in such low levels that there is no impact on humans. So, we just need to filter the water a little less and let that water build up the drugs to a clinical level. It’ll be good for what ails ya’. Not only will there be fewer prescriptions covered by Medicaid, we will be recyclying – everybody wins!

Improving Child Protection in Kentucky (Moment of Silence) postscript:

I followed up regarding my concerns, posted here, about Representative Stan Lee’s sweeping and innaccurate portrayal of ALL the family court judges in Fayette County being against ALL of HB 151. I have confirmed from a very knowledgeable and reliable source that ALL of the Fayette family court judges were, in actuality, in favor of HB 151 as it had been amended. This directly contradicts Mr. Lee’s assertion. I will not venture in to try and discern why his stated reason for voting against HB 151 was false except that, even if the best light, it was sloppy on his part.

Improving Child Protection in Kentucky Postscript (or – a moment of silence, please)

The title of this article from today’s Herald Leader was a bit too prophetic to be accidental: “Child protection revisions all but dead“. The impetus for this bill began back with the Office of Inspector General’s report many long months ago. Let’s parse through this article:

A bill that would have opened Kentucky’s child protection courts to the public on a limited basis was rejected Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee. And measures that would improve procedures in child protection courts and require ethics training for social workers have been procedurally buried.

Ethics training? Obviously too radical an idea.

Rep. Susan Westrom, D-Lexington, who sponsored a bill on training social workers, said that officials from the Cabinet, which oversees the system, want to kill it.

“They are trying to keep me from creating a system of checks and balances,” said Westrom.

Checks and balances placed on the government. . . hmmm – where have I heard that idea before?

But Rep. Robin Webb, an attorney, said she didn’t think the bill went far enough to protect information about children whose futures are being decided in the courts.

“The child’s interest is my No. 1 concern,” said Webb, D-Grayson. “I don’t want it in my county.”

I’m confused – does she not want the ethics in her county, the checks and balances . . . maybe she means that everyone else’s number one concern is promoting child abuse, hmmm. Nope, still confused.

And Rep. Brent Yonts said he was concerned that the legislation would allow people in the community to spread information they heard in hearings.

“How do you keep the town gossip from talking?,” said Yonts, D-Greenville.

Heaven forbid that the town gossip would wander into court and discover that the neighbor’s children were removed. The absence of the children wouldn’t have tipped him off. The police cars and social workers taking the kids to the cars wouldn’t have tipped him off. Oh, thank God we can now keep the removal of the children a secret so people won’t talk.

But Westrom said that legislation is in jeopardy because it calls for increasing the fees for court-appointed attorneys for children and parents for the first time since the 1980s. House Bill 151, drafted by the Cabinet’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Adoption, will be sent to the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee, which Westrom said could be “a graveyard for bills.”

That was a close one. If these parents started getting court appointed attorney’s that were compensated as well as those representing criminals in federal court, they might start challenging the Cabinet more. We woudn’t want them getting ideas of seeking legal protections now would we?!

Rep. Stan Lee, R-Lexington, said that Family Court Judges in Fayette County were against House Bill 151, so he voted against it.

I know this is untrue. Mr. Lee shouldn’t make such sweeping and inaccurate statements. There was a concern about the practicality of having attorney’s present and representing parents at the temporary removal hearing, but still have that hearing within the statutorily mandated timeframe. Mr. Lee, though, makes it sound like ALL the judges were against the ENTIRE bill and that is patently false. Besides, does Stan Lee ONLY represent the Family Court Judges or is he supposed to represent the community?

In regard to a third bill, Cabinet spokesperson Vikki Franklin said Wednesday that training curriculum for social workers is already sufficient. She said that a bill sponsored by Westrom would be costly and decrease the amount of time social workers could spend on services.

It never was sufficient before and from what I have seen and heard, it still is not sufficient.

However, Westrom says the additional training called for in her legislation is necessary and won’t cost the Cabinet money.

“The Cabinet would rather pay $425,000 to settle whistleblower lawsuits than train their social workers,” Westrom said, referring to a recent case in which former social workers said the Cabinet mishandled cases.

Did I mention that Susan Westrom has a Master’s degree in Social Work.

Meanwhile, Cabinet officials say they have made internal changes that address the problems involving improper removal of children.

And those measures are . . . ? Oh, that must be the information that must be kept behind closed doors to protect the children’s privacy.

Child Advocate David Richart said yesterday that the Cabinet’s resistance to change was the basic reason the reform legislation failed.

Resistant to change is such a harsh criticism. Let’s reframe that to being glad that the Cabinet is consistent and predictable.