@Murrmurr
I've posted that the system isn't 100% perfect.
This from your post #38 about Paxton
Quote
"Now he's 4, and he's in his 3rd foster home. It's a really good one, and I'm happy for him, but the poor little man is asking CPS to let him visit me...they have never listened to him. He told them "My mom is mean to me" when he was only 2 1/2, and nothing happened. Well, his preschool teacher called his mother and told her what Paxton said. Guess how that worked out for him?"
At 2 1/2
"My mom is mean to me" What does that mean? Unless CPS is there 24/7 watching exactly what "mean" might be how can the system be faulted? He was in pre school, verbal by Paxton prompted a call to the mother. The teacher called the mother not CPS. Isn't that reasonable for verbal?
My questions
1.What alerted CPS to cause him to be placed in foster care.
2. Why different homes in a reasonably short period of time.
3. Why the ongoing placements?
I don't expect answers since you wouldn't be privy to the reasons, it's just a way to ask you if you think CPS was acting in Paxtons best interest.
Continuing with the content in your post at age 4.
"Now he's 4, and he's in his 3rd foster home. It's a really good one, and I'm happy for him,
It took time doesn't that sound like the system is working?
(Check my comment #45 for some details, too)
Frankly, I don't know how the CPS system
can work. Their decisions are mostly based on who they think is probably not lying. The only cases where it's all cut and dried are when someone reports a kid in a cage or a kid that's obviously malnourished, etc.
Paxton, and a year later, his twin siblings, were taken by CPS when their mother tested positive for meth and THC in the labor room. So, she didn't even spend a day with him (nor them) before he went to a receiving home. He'd been there for 3 weeks when his grandmother, my mother's next-door neighbor for 4 decades, told me all about this and I offered to foster him. I'd just gotten a "Resource Family" license a few months earlier.
The mother, Tara, was ordered to go to rehab, NA meetings, and counseling. CPS pays for all that. While CPS looked for a facility with an available bed, Tara was allowed to come here and visit Paxton under my supervision. His dad came, too. The visits were regular the first few weeks, then some were missed, and then they became real sporadic. I had to turn them away early one morning because they'd obviously been on a meth binge all night. They weren't even supposed to be there til 2pm.
Anyway, then Tara got pregnant with the twins and went into hiding until they were born, and then she finally entered in-patient rehab, so Paxton and I didn't see her for about a year. He was 5 months old when she entered rehab, and, because she didn't progress well, he was 13 months old when she finally graduated and was granted visitation.
Tara was moved to "transitional housing" and failed 3 drug tests. When Paxton was 20 months old, CPS started talking to me about adoption. Meanwhile, Tara had been granted weekends with her kids at her TH apartment, under staff supervision. At the TH facility, she won badges for attending NA meetings and doing certain chores and generally being a good person, and when Paxton was 28 months old, court granted her custody of all 3 kids. She'd told her CPS-funded attorney that she only wanted the twins, but, naturally, the attorney told her to never say that again.
So, she got all 3 kids and their dad moved them in with him, into a house his dad owned. The grandma tells me they drink and fight and Paxton is scared, so I tell Tara I'll take him off her hands; bring him over on weekends. And she did. Some weekends were 5 days long, none were less than 3. That's when I started seeing a change in his attitude and injuries on him, and he told me his mom was mean to him.
8 months later, CPS took the kids again, but not because of the changes and injuries I reported, it was because the father called 911. He and Tara had a bad physical fight, and it was over her abuse of Paxton. Cops came, they called CPS, the CPS worker tests Tara for drugs, and it's positive. The worker took the kids because of the drug test. The abuse was forgotten about. Because it's so hard to prove? idk. This all happened in another county, so the kids were placed in a foster home there. Fortunately, it was a good one. About 2 months later, I was granted a weekend visit with Paxton, which the foster mom said was very beneficial, so they became routine...every other weekend.
A whole year later, Tara completes rehab again, and the court gave her kids back to her. By that time, CPS was talking to the foster mom about adoption, and she and her husband had decided to do that; they loved the kids. They liked me a lot, too. I was "Uncle Frank" to Paxton, the twins, and the foster parents own 2 kids.
7 months later, Paxton's preschool teacher started reporting suspicious bruises and scratches on him. Then the kids' grandma's home security caught Tara abusing Paxton. The kids were taken a 3rd time. Because me and Michelle were still in our 1-br apartment, the kids were placed with the couple who fostered the twins right after they were born and til they were 18 months.
Tara's hearing is scheduled for soon, but I don't know when. CPS wants her charged with abuse of a minor and exposing minors to abuse of a minor.
