Category: Child Welfare System
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CPS Cleared in 4-Year-Old Kharisma Richardson’s Death
4-year-old Kharisma Richardson died earlier this year as a result of actions taken by her mother, Daveeta Walker. In addition to severe burns and blisters, the child had also sustained blunt force trauma to the chest, and multiple bruises. The young Kalamazoo mother was convicted of torturing and abusing her young daughter to death, and…
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Is ‘Courtnapping’ Children Financially Incentivised in Michigan?
We have known for years that the Child Welfare System here in the US, and particularly in Michigan, needs a major overhaul. Children are removed from their homes without just cause, and parents are accused of abuse based on allegations made by the state. Sadly, this is nothing new. But according to a recent article…
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Foster Care: What Are The Long Term Effects?
When kids are taken from their homes by CPS workers, they are viewed as having been ‘rescued’ and will now be placed with a ‘loving family’ that will care for them. Sometimes it really does happen this way. But few people stop to think what really happens to those kids. They are all presumed to…
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Woman Arrested in Florida After Kidnapping Her Two Daughters
It seems strange to think that a person could be charged with kidnapping when the children they are accused of taking were their own. After all, how could it be kidnapping when you took your own kids? Aren’t they your kids, that you can go anywhere with? The answer is no, because when the court…
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Foster Parent Charged For Sexually Assaulting a Minor
61-year-old Jackie Lee Pittman, a licensed foster parent and Macomb County Adoption Board member, is accused of raping a teenaged girl. Although there are no foster children currently living with Pittman since his wife passed away from cancer four months ago, the allegations are said to stem from an incident that took place in July…
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Victory for the Family Defense Center in Three Civil Rights Cases
The Family Defense Center is a non-profit organization that focuses on advocating for justice for families whose children have been removed by overzealous child welfare systems. According to their website, a great many parents around the U.S. “lose custody of their children to state foster care systems primarily because they are poor or because they…
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Predictive Analytics in Child Welfare – Helping Hand, or Racial Bias? 2
Having looked at the concern that several people have expressed regarding the way in which predictive analytics may be violating civil rights when used improperly in the criminal justice system, we’re now moving on to talk about how predictive analytics would affect the fairness of child welfare. In July of 2015, the County of Los…
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Predictive Analytics in Child Welfare – Helping Hand, or Racial Bias? 1
In 2014, then-Attorney General to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Eric Holder, expressed open concern about the use of predictive analytics in the criminal justice system. For those of you who haven’t encountered this term before, predictive analytics refers to an advanced form of analytics, which is used to make predictions about unknown future events. Predictive…
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Pilot Program To Keep Michigan Families Together Is Working
If there is one thing we are adamant about, it is the fact that parents should be entitled to raise their children as they see fit, not as the government decides they should. This sentiment has been echoed by parents all over the nation, especially those who have battled CPS to maintain their parental rights.…
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The Story of Ryker James-LaRoy McEvers
On a Facebook page entitled fight.cps.false.allegations, Jennafer McEvers shares her and her daughter’s heartbreaking story of their battle with CPS, and their fight to keep Jennafer’s tiny preemie grandson, Ryker James-LaRoy McEvers. Ryker was born 14 weeks early via cesarean section to Danielle McEvers. At birth, he weighed a single pound. But before being…