National CPS News Archive

Weymouth man finds family on Facebook

by Miriam Phillips

A man who was given up for adoption as a toddler has been reunited with his long-lost family on Facebook.

Richard Marks, of Abbotsbury Road, Weymouth, last saw his mum Carol when he was a three-year-old boy named John Robert Horridge shortly before he was adopted by a family in Manchester.

Dorset Echo

June 3, 2009

'I've not seen my mother since I was three. I do not know anything about her, but I would like to ...'

by Cahal Milmo

After being 'kidnapped' as a child, Gavin Paros found his family after leaving this note on a website.

Some 25 years earlier, Gavin had said goodbye to his mother, Avril Grube, for what both believed would be a weekend trip to Blackpool with his father, Joseph Paros. The mother and son did not see each other again. Instead of returning the boy to Liverpool, Joseph "kidnapped" his son to his native Hungary and severed all links with his estranged wife.

The Independent (UK)

May 30, 2009

Report: Many foster kids being medicated in Florida

by Brandon Larrabee

Almost 2,700 foster children are on psychiatric medicines, including hundreds in N.E. Florida, even though the Department of Children and Families has no authority to give drugs to more than 16% of those children.

The report follows an ongoing review by DCF after the assumed suicide this year of 7-year-old Gabriel Myers in Fort Lauderdale. Gabriel was taking psychiatric, or psychotropic, medications. But DCF later found that those caring for the boy hadn't obtained the parental consent or court order required by state law.

The Florida Times-Union

May 29, 2009

State survey: Almost 1 Florida foster child in 6 being given drugs without necessary approval

by Jon Burstein

DCF Secretary George Sheldon acknowledged there was "no rational basis" for 433 foster children in Florida being administered the psychotropic drugs without the required permission.

The study is more fallout from last month's suicide of 7-year-old Gabriel Myers. The boy hanged himself April 16 with a shower hose in the bathroom of his Margate foster home. At the time of his death, he had been prescribed two psychotropic drugs--Symbyax and Vyvanse--that had not been approved by either his parents or a judge.

South Florida Sun Sentinel

May 28, 2009

Baby dies in care

by Neal Keeling

AN investigation has been launched after the death of a baby placed in the care of a local council.

The one-year-old boy is believed to have died from natural causes - and there are not thought to be any suspicious circumstances. The youngster had been placed with foster parents in Salford.

Manchester Evening News (UK)

May 27, 2009

Shamed by child abuse, Ireland to reform services

by Andras Gergely

Ireland will reform its social services for children in line with the recommendations of a report cataloguing decades of abuse by priests published last week, Prime Minister Brian Cowen said on Tuesday.

Cowen apologized to victims for the state's failure to intervene in what the report described as endemic sexual abuse and severe beatings in schools for much of the 20th century and he urged religious orders to pay additional compensation.

News Daily

May 27, 2009

CPS worker charged with forgery

by Rob Young

A Sutter County Child Protective Services employee has been charged with forging a court record and a judge's signature, the Appeal-Democrat has learned.

Sarah J. Powell, 35, will be arraigned June 1 in Sutter County Superior Court, said Assistant District Attorney Fred Schroeder. Powell was not arrested but was sent a letter ordering her to appear in court, Schroeder said.

Appeal-Democrat

May 23, 2009

CHP shooting victim's kids awarded $30,000 each

by Bob Egelko

A federal jury has concluded that a California Highway Patrol officer had no justification for fatally shooting a woman who led patrol cars on a 40-mile high-speed chase that ended on a dead-end street in San Francisco three years ago.

But the same jury awarded only $30,000 each in damages to the woman's two teenage children, who had been in foster care for the previous six years while their mother was in and out of jail on drug and theft charges. Damage awards for the wrongful death of a parent typically run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars...

San Francisco Chronicle

May 20, 2009

Council fostering service criticised over death of heroin-addict's baby

by Paul Stokes

Chelsey Essex was 12 weeks old and her injuries were inflicted a month before she died in Jan. 2007. She was in the care of foster parents at that time, an official report concluded that the fractures were "as a result of forceful squeezing by an adult".

Chelsey was also found to have had problems with her palate and severe nappy rash. Police carried out an investigation into her death, but no charges were brought. The foster parents, identified only as Mr and Mrs A, had two children of their own and already had two other foster children.

Telegraph (UK)

May 15, 2009

Decision on Brown County boy's chemo now rests with judge

by Jeremy Olson

A judge is expected to rule Friday whether a 13-year-old can refuse chemotherapy treatments that doctors believe he needs to stay alive.

Attorneys for Daniel and his parents - Anthony and Colleen Hauser, of Sleepy Eye, Minn. - argued that the teen should be able to choose alternatives to toxic chemotherapy for the treatment of his cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma. Daniel's attorney, Philip Elbert, de-emphasized one of the points in the case that has drawn national public attention: Daniel's refusal of chemotherapy on the grounds that it violates his family's spiritual beliefs.

Pioneer Press

May 12, 2009

Judge: Child protection case headed to trial

by Kurt Nesbitt

A judge decided Friday morning that the issues being raised by attorneys in a child protection case, stemming from a family's decision not to put their 13 year-old son through a second round of chemotherapy, are issues for trial.

Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg decided the trial of the child protection case involving Daniel Hauser, 13, of Sleepy Eye, will begin next Friday morning. The case comes out of a petition filed in early April by Brown County Family Services, alleging Hauser's parents were medically neglecting him because he was not going to chemotherapy but receiving alternative treatments for his nodular sclerosing Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

New Ulm Journal

May 2, 2009

Child Protective Services & the Business of 'Legalized Kidnapping'

by Adeeba Folami

The suffering endured by Africans who were kidnapped from their native land and brought to America as slaves is sometimes referred to as the Black holocaust, which some say ended years ago but.

That is not the case according to parents who have had their children taken from them by the Denver Department of Human Service (DDHS) or the Adams County Social Service Department (ACSSD). Jo Nash-Conner's son Quentin, 10, currently resides at Mount St. Vincents Children's Home (MSVCH), a facility which proclaims to provide programs and services to "help children with a wide range of emotional and behavioral problems."

OpEdNews

May 1, 2009

H1N1 influenza update from Grayson County Department of Health

by Grayson County media department

As of May 1, 2009 at 11:00 AM, there have been 28 laboratory confirmed human cases of H1N1 flu in Texas.

A total of 141 cases have been confirmed in the U.S., including the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

North Texas eNews

May 1, 2009