Voice Of Women

Voice of Women is a coalition of Indian and non-Indian women who stand in solidarity, one voice, in our rightful place as generation keepers , for the rights of our children and families.  We strive for better understanding, open communication for more meaningful long term outcomes, deeper understanding of culture diversity in our communities, to provide moral support and build positive new relationships.

It is our intention to provide resources, support and information regarding the loss of our next generation to the "system".  This is a nation wide problem, that many deny is happening.  However, tens of thousands of children each year are being harvested by the "powers" that be, held in captivity away from their families, for financial incentives provided by the federal government under the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). 

There are a disproportionate number of indigenous and minority children being taken from their families in violation of  state and federal laws, treaty rights and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).

What we are finding as the rule, not the exception, is that the State Department of Child Protection Services files a claim against parents with the State's Attorney Office, who will be happy to serve parents with an Abandonment and Neglect summons.  You are then required to appear in a State Circuit Court, where the judge will advise you of your rights (none of which they abide by as a rule) and happily appoint you a State appointed Public Defender, who's case load is unbelievable.  All the while, your child is probably placed in a foster home or institution that is licensed and funded by the State. 

Are you getting a clearer picture of how things work?  This is nothing more than state funded kidnapping!  Our children are being harvested as a cash crop and being used for the economic development of governmental agencies and their contracted providers.

It is our goal to require an independent Ombudsman be made available in every state, that the DSS and CPS have to be accountable to.  To demand that Treaties and ICWA are complied with when applicable.  To shift financial incentives to keep children in their own homes and provide programs for prevention to those who are really at risk of being abused.  We also want the language in these laws to provide more clarity and definition, so that the court cannot use the broadest interpretation of the laws that dictate the fate of our families.  In the mean time, we provide support groups, updated information on laws, resources to help women and families that find themselves in the system and whatever practical help funds allow.

                                                                                                     - Gwen Caldwell

                                                                                                             Founder

                                                                                                     Voice of Women

FORMER SD LEGISLATOR TED KLAUDT ARRESTED FOR RAPE OF HIS FOSTER CHILDREN

READ INDICTMENT ON THE ARCHIVES PAGE.

BE WARNED THAT IT IS GRAPHIC AND VERY DISGUSTING!

More evidence is found on his computer of internet crimes against young girls!

Convicted and sentenced to 54 years for his crimes against his foster daughters! 

Important information on how to handle your case, represent yourself in court AND WIN! 

Invaluable information. Lawsuit Self-Help   Read more .......

                 Did you know that.....?!

More than 75% of care leavers have no academic qualifications of any kind !!!! 

                               Perpetrators of Maltreatment
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                                          LATEST ARTICLE

PAPER ORPHANS

The Adoption and Safe Families Act, (ASFA), was passed in 1997 by the US Congress.  The purpose of this Bill was to protect children from lingering in foster care.  In some cases children were literally being lost in foster care in some of America’s larger cities.  The idea was to find permanent placement for children within a designated time frame.  Attached to this movement of children would be financial incentives and bonuses to states for compliance with mandates.  Thus, the Child Abuse Industry in America was now, subsidized by the Federal Government. 

 One would hope that ASFA would make our children safer, at lower risk for neglect, abuse, and lower numbers of children in foster care.  This has not been the case! In my opinion the goals of ASFA have grossly failed! ASFA demands that the child welfare agency be responsible for ensuring the safety of children in out-of-home care. Yet, nationwide hundreds of children have died while in the care of  “professional parents”.

 The actual outcome of ASFA has been a higher number of children in foster care. There has been a massive increase in parental terminations, and adoptions of America’s children.  The issue that needs to be pointed out here, is that not only are the parent’s rights to have a relationship with their children terminated, all family members are terminated from having a relationship with these children.

 Who is really benefiting from ASFA? The professional parents (foster/adoptive parents), the contracted mental health care providers, the residential and treatment centers, the growing demand for more social workers being hired to handle the caseloads, etc.  According to statistics from the National Child Protection Reform each child that is in the system generates an estimated residual economic development figure of $250,000.00 or more per year!  This tells me that our children are being harvested as a subsidized cash crop. When the market numbers increase then dividends in the form of bonuses are paid to the states.

 The children who are being protected from their parents, (who are rarely if ever charged under any criminal abuse or neglect statue) are going to age out of the system without an adequate education, little or no social skills, little or no work experience, disenfranchised from their families and communities, on psychotropic drugs.  What future does that hold for them?  What are the residual costs to the taxpayers going to be?  Are we just grooming our youth for their eventual commitment to our prison systems? 

 All of the proceedings that take place (with the exception of the rare criminal abuse charges,) are done by Administrative proceedings under a veil of secrecy.  There is no jury, no evidence, only hearsay of the Case Worker, no witnesses or open trail, because of “the child’s confidentiality”. I don’t know of one case where the child(ren) were present in court to testify.  The parents are adjudicated and placed on the Nation Registry of Child Abusers.  They lose their family. They are told by everyone who hears their story, “They can’t do that!” But the fact remains it was done, is being done and will continue to be done until American families stand together to demand that their Constitutional right to parent their children is restored, and that the child protection system be reformed. However, they don’t do that for fear they will some how suffer further consequences from the State.  Or they believe the biggest lie…parents in America have all gone mad and only professional parents and social workers care about and are capable of loving these “poor” children!

 I am not suggesting, nor do I believe that there are not children who are being abused.  What I am saying is that thousands of children are being removed arbitrarily and without substantiated cause from their homes.  Some of these families only needed services that could’ve been provided with the children still in the home. I would like to note that according to national statistics children in foster care are at much higher risk of sexual and physical abuse then in the home of their parents.  Federal legislation provides a foundation for States by identifying a minimum set of acts or behaviors that define child abuse and neglect. The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) (42 U.S.C.A. §5106g), as amended by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003, defines child abuse and neglect as, at minimum:

• Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or
• An act or failure to act, which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.

 After huge class action lawsuits were brought against 32 states, 30 of them reformed their child protection policies with great success in focusing on family preservation and in-home family services that reduced the cost to taxpayers and made children safer.

I know that most of you are thinking to yourself, “These parents have abused their children and are in denial, blaming the system.”   According to the statistics filed with the Child Welfare League of America (www. cwla.org) prior to ASFA in 1998 there were 55 adoptions in South Dakota and no children waiting to be adopted, 5 years later there were 144 adoptions and a staggering 464 children waiting to be adopted.  The state last year received an adoption bonus of $56,000.00 for adoptions over their baseline number. Residential foster care in 2000 cost taxpayers in $4,498,452.00.  Two years later in 2002 that amount had increased to $17,212,505.00!  Folks, this is about the money, not about protecting children!  From 1996 to 2004 the federal budget increased in SD by 128.6% and the state budget by 53.0%!  Did all the parents in SD just start going nuts on their children over that six-year period?  I think not!  I believe money and economic development in the newly subsidized child abuse industry increased these numbers.

 South Dakota has a 9% total Native American population, according to the Governor’s Commission on the Indian Child Welfare Act.  Yet more than 65% of the children removed from the home are Native American.  I believe this number, is also motivated by funding and opportunity.  South Dakota has a statue that allows the Secretary of Social Services to collect funding from the Department of Interior for the cost of their care.  Thus, Indian children are worth double the money to the state.  Even though this has been denied by DSS at Appropriations and Government Operation and Audit Committee meetings, I find it hard to believe that they would go to the trouble of having legislation drafted for such an action and not utilize it. (Chapter 28 SDCL)

 In a recent Rapid City Journal article it stated that 81% of the children were taken for reasons of neglect.  What the Social Workers view as neglect is arbitrary.  Virtually anything can be used against parents to justify the interrogation of your children at schools by police officers, social workers and counselors to intimidate children, ask leading and open ended questions that are used to ultimately destroy the family.  These children then are removed from the school without the knowledge of the parents and placed in foster care.  Poverty and its effects are often confused with neglect.  Instead of the state, social and community organizations helping these parents overcome the financial struggles they suffer their children they are ripped from their lives.

  The Government does not exist for any other reason than to protect the interests of the individual.  The Government has no rights, only powers and duties. There is no provision for this non-governmental action in our Constitution.  In fact the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled at least fifteen times on the right of parents to raise own their children. 

 The state of South Dakota has statues that forbid the State, it’s officers or agent to violate the Constitution or US Supreme Court rulings. See SDCL 1-1A-1 and 1-1A-2.  In Lehr vs. Robertson, 463 US 248,) The linkage between parental duty and parental right was stressed again in Prince v. Massachusetts ... The Court declared it a cardinal principle “that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.” In these cases, the Court has found that the relationship of love and duty in a recognized family unit is an interest in liberty entitled to Constitutional protection ... “State intervention to terminate such a relationship ... must be accomplished by procedures meeting the requisites of the Due Process Clause” Santosky v. Kramer .

 America’s children are not safer.  Families are not being honored as the most primary social structure of our culture.  The very foundation of a child’s normal development is being disassembled by states.  The States create the problem, than they are the solution.  The States create orphans, than they are the adoption agency. 

* THIS ARTICLE WILL BE FEATURED IN THE JAN/FEB 2007 ISSUE OF WELL NATIONS MAGAZINE

www.wellnations.com

By Vicky Wicks, Journal Staff Writer

RAPID CITY — A legislative committee hearing became contentious Monday in Rapid City when the discussion turned to race relations between the Department of Social Services, or DSS, and its clientele. Witnesses testified that their discontent with the agency revolves around policies that fail to consider American Indian culture. The hearings to examine policies and procedures of the DSS Division of Child Protection, scheduled to continue this morning, are being held before the South Dakota Legislature's Government Operations and Audit Committee of the South Dakota Legislature.

"Oftentimes, poverty is being confused with neglect," said Gwen Caldwell, a Cherokee woman. She said that parents found to be neglectful are ordered by the court to take measures to improve their home situation but are hindered by poverty. For instance, parents might be ordered to find a job, get counseling or submit to urinalysis, but the parents don't have job training or transportation to get to appointments. "It's impossible to comply with the family case plan," Caldwell said.

The committee members seemed to be acquainted with the Cherokee woman as well as subsequent witnesses, an American Indian woman from Martin, Hazel Bonner of Rapid City and the attorney accompanying them, Daniel Sheehan of San Rafael, Calif. In a presentation that was often heated, the women attempted to outline complaints of Indian people against DSS for removal of children from homes and placement in foster care or residential facilities. Committee members frequently interrupted witnesses to demand specifics rather than generalities. But when a witness tried to offer information about a specific case, committee members would stop the discussion unless there was a signed release of confidentiality from concerned parties allowing DSS workers to discuss the case.

Sheehan attempted several times to summarize the women's arguments or ask questions of DSS workers, but committee chairman Rep. Ted Klaudt, R-Walker, pounded the gavel on the table if Sheehan became argumentative. More than once, committee members threatened to have Sheehan removed. Caldwell said that Indian children are targeted for removal from homes because of a family's lifestyle. At times, poverty necessitates that four or five families occupy a two- or three-bedroom home, but that fact that can be "horrifying" to non-Indians, she said. Sen. John Koskan, R-Wood, said that the witness was outlining a situation without a resolution: setting lower standards for Indian families would be racist, but setting the same standards for Indians is unfair.

Caldwell said that the tribes should be handling cases involving Indian children and that Indian families should provide foster care as required under the federal Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. Sen. Jerry Apa, R-Lead, asked Caldwell if she was aware that DSS has unsuccessfully tried to recruit Indian foster families. She replied that the criteria for licensing were too strict. Putting Indian children into non-Indian foster homes "dissects them from their language" and from their extended families as well as their immediate families, Caldwell said. The American Indian culture is not a religion, Caldwell said, but "it's who we are, how we pray." "If you don't have those things, it is genocide," she said.

Sheehan said that federal legislation to facilitate permanent adoption of children in foster care has made Indian children vulnerable to being taken out of the home for a variety of reasons. Sheehan referred to a $14.5 million fund through U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families. South Dakota is getting $56,000 for increasing the number of children adopted from state- supervised foster care, according to a September Associated Press story. DSS has been "inspired by the ability to obtain federal funds," he said, and "following a bureaucratic imperative" is sending "a burgeoning number" of Indian children to be "warehoused" in residential facilities. Sheehan compared the situation to the boarding schools where Indian children were sent in earlier years to assimilate them into white culture.

Sen. Bill Napoli, R-Rapid City, who is not on the committee, sat through the hearings as an observer and came forward to testify. He said that he saw a lot of animosity and told the committee members, "I hope your goal here is not to prove somebody is lying and somebody isn't." He said witnesses came forward to ask for help — "People are pouring their hearts out" — and that the committee should help them to find balance, Napoli said. Napoli said that in the late 1990s, Gov. Bill Janklow pushed for more aggressive protection of children but that perhaps the state has become too aggressive.

A suggestion that an ombudsman or liaison should be in place to assist parents is a good idea, Napoli said. At today's hearings, held at Quality Inn, 1902 North La Crosse St., the committee will hear more public testimony from 8:15 a.m. until noon. Contact Vicky Wicks at 394-8318 or vicky.wicks@rapidcityjournal.com

Forum, 10-8-05: Child welfare system abuses Indian children By Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, a non-profit organization dedicated to trying to make the child protection system better serve America's most vulnerable children.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A story in the Rapid City Journal this week describes a legislative hearing at which Native Americans tried to make the case that their children were being taken from them needlessly and thrown into foster care, only to be whipsawed by hostile legislators who first demanded specifics, then cut witnesses off when they tried to provide them ("DSS hearing turns into racial debate," Oct. 4).

Such treatment of human beings in anguish over the plight of their children is inexcusable under any circumstances. But what makes it even worse is this: The Indians are right. A child is more likely to be torn from his or her parents in South Dakota than all but three other states. The rate of removal is two and a half times the national average and more than quadruple the rate in states that have become national models for keeping children safe. The latest all-purpose excuse for tearing apart families - methamphetamine - doesn't wash. South Dakota has been tearing apart families at this obscene rate since at least 1985 - long before it could be blamed on meth. And other states and localities with serious meth problems take away far fewer children than South Dakota.

Contrary to the common stereotype, most parents who lose their children to foster care are neither brutally abusive nor hopelessly addicted. Far more common are cases in which a family's poverty has been confused with child "neglect" - exactly as Gwen Caldwell, a Cherokee, said at the hearing. But lawmakers at the hearing seem to have no problem with destroying a family just because it's poor.

When Caldwell complained that Indian children are taken because they sometimes live in badly-overcrowded housing, one legislator suggested there is no solution, because it would be wrong to lower "standards" for Indian families. But no child of any race should ever be torn from everyone loving and familiar because the family can't afford better housing. The solution is to provide housing assistance. Not only is that more humane than tearing apart a family, it also costs less than foster care.

Some would undoubtedly point to South Dakota's incredibly high rate of removal and say it's keeping children safe. Sure, they'll say, parents may suffer when their children are removed, but we have to err on the side of the child. In fact, there probably is no phrase in the English language that has done more harm to children than "err on the side of the child."

When a child is needlessly thrown into foster care, the emotional trauma can cripple him for life. One recent study of foster care "alumni" found they had twice the rate of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder of Gulf War veterans and only 20 percent could be said to be "doing well." How can throwing children into a system which churns out walking wounded four times out of five be "erring on the side of the child?" All that harm occurs even when the foster home is a good one. The majority are. But the rate of abuse in foster care is far higher than generally realized and far higher than in the general population.

That same alumni study found that one-third of foster children said they'd been abused by a foster parent or another adult in a foster home. (The study didn't even ask about one of the most common forms of abuse in foster care: foster children abusing each other.) Switching to orphanages won't help - the record of institutions is even worse. If a child is taken from a safe home only to be beaten, raped or killed in foster care, how is that "erring on the side of the child"?

But even that isn't the worst of it. Everyone knows how badly caseworkers are overwhelmed. They leave some children in dangerous homes, even as more children are taken from homes that are safe, or could be made safe with the right kinds of services. The more that workers are overwhelmed with children who don't need to be in foster care, the less time they have to find children in real danger. So more such children are overlooked. How is that "erring on the side of the child"?

That's why the only child welfare systems that are truly making children safer are places like Illinois and Alabama, which are doing more, not less, to keep families together. In both states, independent court-appointed monitors have found significant improvements in child safety. Yet Alabama takes children at about one-fourth the rate of South Dakota, and Illinois takes them at about one-sixth the South Dakota rate.

If South Dakota lawmakers really want to protect children, they should find out why other states are succeeding while they fail. They could start by letting the victims of these failed policies speak, uninterrupted.