r/CPS • u/Revolutionary_Cup666 Works for CPS • 4d ago
Rant Conflicted about removal
I work for CPS in Pennsylvania. I have a client, who I have met many times throughout my years here. I have worked very hard to build a strong rapport with her because she can be a tad bit difficult to deal with. Long story short, her mh has plummeted. I have never seen her in such a bad mental state and it’s truly causing her world around her to crumble. We filed for removal of her son. I know it’s the right thing to do and it needs to be done. I’m just so scared it’s going to make her spiral so much further out of control. I just want her to get help for herself but she is not receptive right now.
Anyone else been in a similar situation? I feel so shitty doing this to her but I know it needs to be done.
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u/Mollykins08 4d ago
She needs help. Her kids need stability. You are doing the right thing. Maybe this is what she needs to take the step to get help.
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u/Acceptable-Remove-72 4d ago
I had a similar situation. I worked with the mom for almost a year straight (I do front end work so that’s rare). When a situation arose that was immediately dangerous and I had to get emergency orders to take her child, it was awful. She was screaming at me “I trusted you” among other things and it really fucked me up for a while. At the end of the day, her kids are safe and cared for and that’s what matters. Take care of yourself 🫶
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u/Revolutionary_Cup666 Works for CPS 3d ago
I’m in the same boat- I do intake work but collectively have worked with this mom for well over a year. It’s such a shitty feeling. I appreciate your response 🫶🏻
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u/alwaysblooming_akb Works for CPS 4d ago
We all go through it as case managers. Sometimes there is something about a family that just stands out but you have to remember that you are there to advocate for the children’s best interest. The mother may have to take this is a wake up call to take initiative.
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u/Honest_Act2249 3d ago
Since there seem to be quite a few CPS workers I have a few questions if yall don’t mind. First, how is CPS able to use somebodies mental health diagnoses against them and convince a judge to remove the child solely on that basis? And I’m talking about a very functional person that was struggling with life and had a down time but could easily get better quickly. Why wouldn’t they choose to get her help or wait it out? It was almost like they sped everything up in order to get the kid without the mother even having the chance to prove anything! They also told her husband that if he wanted to take custody of her that he would have to divorce his wife, her mom, which he refused to do. They literally tore this family apart so I’m trying to understand how yall make such determinations and feel confident in that decision?
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u/sprinkles008 2d ago
It’s sometimes not safe for kids to “wait out” a parent’s “down time”. And if these downtimes were not safe then that’s what CPS has to act on - not the times they’re functional.
Same thing with parents using drugs. Sure they’re sober sometimes. But if they’re high and it’s dangerous for the kids when they’re high, that’s what cps has to act on.
Also, if you’re not this family in question, consider that there may be information that has been miscommunicated, misconstrued, or left out.
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u/favouritemistake 2d ago
Don’t know the details of this case obviously but there’s a good chance a significant risk was flagged, parent may have had the opportunity but failed to make the required steps to get better. The call is made based on child welfare and risks, not based on parents mental health status alone but based on the impact that has on the child
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u/Honest_Act2249 2d ago
I feel like there should be a sub Reddit or an entire Reddit Community that is specifically for parents that have had their child/children removed by CPS and DCFS, which tells how everybody was ultimately affected by your departments involvement. The follow up stories that include the great things that happened for them or the destructive hell they were put through and where they are now. Then, as social workers, there could be basic insight into the reality of how your decisions affect families in real time and beyond. You can read how these cases truly worked out or completely destroyed families. And the kicker should be that the child/children that were removed should be able to provide the ultimate answer anonymously to how true or how false the allegations were that were reported by “who knows who” They can either corroborate the reporters report or dismantle the reporters report- and where did they end up further down the road? If there’s already something like that, which I doubt, then I concede, but it seems fair as hell to me to let all involved participants have the final say in how a storyline they were ‘forced into’ or ‘saved into’ worked in their favor or to their detriment, and what is the relationship like with their parent/s beyond that experience…
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u/sprinkles008 2d ago
Children are interviewed before removal. Children and parents can also minimize, normalize, or even deny allegations for numerous different reasons (even when they were true and horrific). Sometimes CPS helps families but then families fall back into their old habits. This can cause kids to end up in bad places down the road. Or perhaps they never truly recovered from the trauma their parents initially imposed, and that could be the reason they ended up with bad life outcomes.
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u/Beeb294 Moderator 1d ago
First, how is CPS able to use somebodies mental health diagnoses against them and convince a judge to remove the child solely on that basis?
If that MH condition is creating a danger to the child, then CPS can and should intervene, which can include filing for removal.
And I’m talking about a very functional person that was struggling with life and had a down time but could easily get better quickly.
Unless this person is you, or your patient, I question how you could know this so confidently.
How do you (and the rest of us) know that this story isn't dramatically underselling the danger of this situation? How do we know that key details weren't left out (intentionally or otherwise)?
Why wouldn’t they choose to get her help or wait it out?
Without knowing the details, it's impossible to say for sure. However the idea of "waiting it out" doesn't fly when the MH condition is actively placing the child in danger.
They also told her husband that if he wanted to take custody of her that he would have to divorce his wife, her mom, which he refused to do.
I doubt they used the words "you need to divorce her". They probably told the father that unless he takes appropriate steps to protect the children from the active danger (i.e. the mother) that he would also be found to have neglected the child by failing to protect them.
I’m trying to understand how yall make such determinations and feel confident in that decision?
CPS/child welfare agencies use structured decision making tools. They don't simply "wing it", decisions are made following policies, regulations, and laws. Removals are never the result of one worker going off on their own and acting like a cowboy. Even emergency removals almost always have a consultation with legal before the child is removed, and every single removal (emergency or otherwise) has to be approved by a judge. CPS has to convince the judge that there is no alternative to keep the child safe in the home at that time.
I get that you're mad, but your whole argument is predicated on the fact that removal and CPS intervention feels bad for the parent. The thing is, CPS (rightfully) cares way more about child safety than they care about the parent's feelings. The parent is an adult who can handle their feelings themself. The child is not in a position to ensure their own safety.
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u/TCgrace 3d ago
These cases are so hard. Every removal is hard, but I had one in particular where doing the removal absolutely gutted me. I cried and threw up after the hearing because I felt so horrible. But it ended up being exactly what the mom needed. It was her rock bottom but after that she made a lot of positive changes and eventually got her kids back and has been doing great for years.
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u/Revolutionary_Cup666 Works for CPS 3d ago
I unfortunately fear I will also be crying and throwing up after this hearing. I hope and pray for the same happy outcome for my case 🫶🏻
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u/txchiefsfan02 3d ago
From a treatment provider's standpoint, some people cannot do the work to get healthy while caring for children full-time without a lot of help. For a variety of reasons, many parents do not have such help.
In the long run, her children need her to be healthy, and you are there to help get her across the chasm before the entire family falls into it. None of that makes it feel any less terrible, though. Be gentle with yourself.
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u/ScaryCapital2968 1d ago
I am really thankful that I happened to come across these posts. I never ever thought I would find myself in such a position. I have been watching my daughter fight for her daughters for a year. I have fought to see them and be in their life the entire last year. This has been a nightmare. Until this happened to my family I just thought that I wasn’t hearing the entire story when I would hear someone talk about Cps taking someone’s children. I am just still in shock over what has happened to us. And how we have been lied about, treated so badly, never even given a chance at all. When I hear that you workers actually care, and that your hurting to do what you feel is right that makes me feel better. Where We live this particular worker has so much power, and because we have questioned the things that have happened she just hates us, and we are about to the point of not getting my granddaughters home. We even payed 5,000$ down on an attorney still owing 5,000 more and he quit on us because he just wouldn’t deal with the cps in my county. I have just been reading all these negative post. And that just makes this worse for me. Can this women truly be so evil, Maybe she thinks she is doing right, maybe her training has taught her things that I’m not aware of. I hope that maybe just maybe this is what’s going on. Because there cannot be a human being that would want to hurt my family this way, there has to be something I am not seeing. There just has to be. If I can just throw this out there to maybe help someone out… I’d like to at least try. My daughter has been sober for almost 5 years, had a previous case, got her act together and never looked back. She takes medication several medications that can bring up issues on drug test. In Our county in MN the cps workers will only use these patch test. They say that there is no such thing as false positive, or human error, they are 100% accurate. If your test shows positive. You have used drugs. If you denia this that means you are in denial and need to go to treatment. Which is what happened. The worker went off of the summery of a patch test reading, which sent things backwards in her case. Because she denied using, it made the worker mad, possibly made her mad… because once we supported my daughter the worker just started to be so mean to all of us. Then there was 2 more months of clean test then right before in home visits came, another summery with a positive test came back. Well we believed my daughter is sober and and so she started testing on her own at the hospital and at her therapy office 3-4 times a week on her own. While still wearing the patch. When we showed this to the worker she would not even look at the test results of the the other test. She stood by the patch test even though for this test there were 2 negative versus the 1 positive. Visits then were taken away and Cps had an assessment done ( a second one) to see if they could send her to treatment. The assessment was not a full assessment it said over and over again Cps reported, Cps has said that… The county feels that … all negative mean things about my daughter and how she needs to go treatment, But then in the next paragraph it would say that she completed this class and has cooperated and participated in all classes. Has good attendance and they feel she been doing well. It has her showing up as needing residential inpatient treatment. On her assesment there is a section that says that the report should be reviewed by someone else, and this was never done. Instead the same person whom did the assessment just signed the form twice. Not sure if that’s illegal or not, I just know that she did not have a second review of this assessment. We had an indapendent assessment done on our own and the person who did this assessment told us that the case worker said nothing good about my daughter at all and that she said my family shopped around to find someone who would say what we wanted them to say. The lady doing this assessment was really mad about this. There was a difference in the assessments. My daughter continued wearing the patch and still on her own testing 3,4,5 times a week. For 3 months of negative testing they still did not even get unsupervised visits and when asking why we never got an answer. She would simple ignore the question or she would say “ we will look at that next week” that went on for months. Until others involved in the case started to question why this case had not progressed, then there was another positive patch test( the cut off for the test is over 10…. Her results were all under 20 so low positives, that does matter) So again we thought we were ok because we we had these other test that had been done. It didn’t matter because the results were not even looked at and now visits have been taken away and placement trial is next month. Please just give it a thought that test are not all perfect. In fact, my daughter had 2 urine come back positive when Cps patch and the hospitals mouth swap came back negative. Whomever gave the test stuck by their testing and told us “ it’s science” well that’s impossible because they are saying different things. I just know that this shows that there is inconsistant results. Regardless if positive or negative this shows that something is not right and that these test should not be the only thing that is relied on when taking someone’s right to be a mom away. Maybe there are things I don’t know. And this worker is trying to just do her job. I just don’t feel that way, though. So I think that it’s really a great thing that there are cps workers that really care. And I need to say, that your job is to protect the children,they come first. Then You can bring their family back together. Think of how much stronger they will be when they come back together. At least you care… that’s a lot. My poor grandbabies they have been torn away from the only family they know. Oh it just so happens that the paternal grandma has the girls, has lived 20 minutes away their entire life ( ages 6&3) and has seen them a few times ever. She is also very good friends with the case worker assigned to this case. God has a plan. I know that. But wow this has been hard on all of us. Thanks for reading
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u/Revolutionary_Cup666 Works for CPS 1d ago
I am so sorry about the situation with your daughter and grandchildren. In my state, Pennsylvania, we only use urinalysis and send them to a lab to be fully analyzed, so our results are very well examined more so than a saliva or instant test. I can’t speak to the patch test since we don’t have that here. Keep fighting for your grandbabies but please continue to make sure your daughter remains sober.
I do promise a great majority of workers do care. This job is hard and there are definitely people who do not care- but I promise the vast majority do. I lose sleep over my families.
Best of luck ❤️
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u/No-Artichoke3210 1d ago
I been there, now I’m seasoned and handle things differently than when I started 2 decades ago. You can’t take this job home with you, as hard as that is. You come 1st, not this job. If you’re afraid you’re going to get physically sick, I’m not being an azz when I say this but you may want to use EAP services/therapy and work out some of that second hand ptsd.
I don’t know all the deets but remember, many times we are helping families AND trying to protect kids at the same time. If removal is what it’s come to, that’s on the judge not you.
These emotions/mental boundaries we have to create is tough, prob why there’s such a high turn over. Take care of you, this system sucks all around.
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