DHS to review why children removed from foster home

yes dhs makes many mistakes, politics. with 750,000 children in care and only 53,000 adopted last year, 25 % or more homeless after getting released from the system at 18, it is hard to realize that you are trying to drain the swamp when your up to your elbows in alligators. but the people that don't know how to protect these children, parents, make the first mistake. So, as a foster parent and adopting of 2 children and working on the third, I too have had questions about dhs bureucrastic decissions, but if you out there would open your hearts and homes we could at least protect the children. We need an investigation into the management of our children. Should we march on washington, yes, but I don't have babysitter right now. Call me when you to want take real action and stop lamblasting the system, failed as it is. Don't think that I am defending this, I am trying to do my part, are you. If you have constructive plans to change a defunct system, I will be there, but lipservice just creats antimosity and contempt.

Really, it surprises anyone that DHS again would  do something so dumb.  It's what they do best.  Don't  worry though , they will get together and cover each others butts.  The public needs to call DHS on the carpet.  They never do what's best for the kids. 

The kids are going to a good home.  Don't worry people.

I think the thing that disturbs me most, next to the obvious dis-service being done to these 2 kids and to the couple who want to adopt them, is the fact that DHS apparently is not required to answer for their decisions and/or actions to a judge in a court of law.    This is completely unacceptable; and if laws exist that allow this, they need to be changed.   NO government official, employee, or agency should EVER be in the position of not having to be held accountable.  

Certainly, there may be situations in which information or documents should not be made public...particularly when it involves minors...  However, NO agency should be able to withhold full information to the judge in a case being heard in court...   Contrary to what they might believe, DHS is NOT (or shouldn't be) above the law.      

I think this is something that the Oregon legislature needs to take a long, very hard look at..!

Reality check: People make mistakes, often for the best reasons and from the best motives.

 

Want a good example? Read the interview with BP's head of engineering in Florida Coast magazines in 2008: "WE don't ever want a major ois spill in the Gulf. That's why we use expensive, proven technology like the flow cap and the blowout preventer on all our wells." That certainly was a mistake.

 

So let's wait until the reasons are made public, instead of assuming evil intent or stupidity as most of the posters do. When they act, they always are viewed to have acted too quickly or without reason. Then, when something happens (think Jeanette Maples), the screams are for blood about why they didn't act.

 

Oregon had 8,000 children in foster care last time I saw a count in the paper. Notice that the bitching and moaning is always about 10-15 each year? That means that DHS does right by 99.82% of the children in its care.

 

Lastly, you get the quality of service you pay for. Want Child Protection on the cheap? Be prepared to accept the inevitable and glaring failures.

DHS only job is to serve the best interest of children from families who can't make those decisions. They have only one shot to do this correctly and when they screw up as they did in this case, someone or many people should lose their jobs. They should not have review boards to determine what went wrong within their agency. These children are emotionally fragile and moving them from a stable environment like Willie and Brenda provided them is terribly wrong. Heads should roll at the top and work its way down to who made the decision. I do feel race was a factor and that trumped the love these two foster parents provided.

 

After learning the facts that I have read, it sickens me that our governor has come out in support of this agency. It tells me his agenda is more important than doing the right thing.

People applying to work for DHS should be made to take some sort of an intelligence test. From what I have heard over the years there is not much to go around.

Give them back!!      You've made the first step - admitting you made a mistake - now correct the mistake by not making more mistakes.   Give them back!!! 

They were in a good family situation and were loved and cared for.  Make this right once and for all - give them back!

Just give them back to the foster parents who love them in the first place! And fire the person who instigated the move. 

Problem solved - and zero funds used to "investigate" why the kids were removed in the first place. 

DHS is dealing with people who are not in the normal mainstream of society. They have to make tough decisions based on what they perceive as facts in each and every case. They also have to make these tough calls staying within the strict bounds of the law. They have case overloads and are short staffed. Most of all the people they have to deal with want to have nothing to do with the DHS. Would you want that kind of job?

We all know how this investigation will end.... NO FAULT on DHS!!! They should look at ALL cases going on at DHS! Not just the one. Yes this case is TERRIBLE and so glad it is getting the media coverage, but there are alot of other cases in which DHS is totally wrong in their actions too! I think the $$$$ Mr. John K. is gonna throw at DHS should be used in a more constructive way and it be used to AUDIT the whole damn agency by REAL people who HAVE the knowledge and will maintain accountability!! AND are intelligent enough to see the cases that should NOT be going on!!!!!!!!!!!! AND END THEM!

 

One thing I am really confused about - WHY do the cases with DHS even go in front of a Judge, (which in turn causes the people who DHS is against to go broke with attorney fees, time off work and unfathomable STRESS to the families involved) when apparently the JUDGE HAS NO SAY WHAT-SO-EVER in the outcome of the case anyway?????????

I wonder if it isn't money.  When people adopt, the foster care government funding ends. It has been said that many people make jobs off a single poor person; certainly true about foster care.  What is also danged upsetting is this had to impact the kids on so many levels - school, friends, social lives. Maybe with a review, these children will have a shot at coming back and being adopted. 

It's most likely an ego thing with DHS..."I said no, I mean no, and nothing you can say or prove will change my mind".  Reminds me of the Deputy from Newport that wanted to adopt the foster child whose parents were druggies and in prison.  DHS demanded they send him to Mexico, even though he was legally a US citizen, grandma finally came up from Mexico and sided with the Deputy...DHS still refused until a judge ruled that it HAD to permit the adoption.  I think the same thing happened here...DHS says no, doesn't matter whether the kids will be better off or not....BUT...have a child severly abused and they go ahead and leave them in the abusive home.  There needs to be a rule...in a cases like the Deputy, and ultimately, most likely this one, the worker and his upper 2 supervisors should be fired.  They are all aware of what is going on, so they are just as guilty as the worker.  Even more especially in the case of overlooked abuse!

We ALL know what went wrong. 

 

Baloney boats on the confidentiality spiel, DHS public union deflectors. 

 

From all around Portland and the State of Oregon we get it. Inept public workers callously enjoined to do the wrong thing. This wrongful action got passed all up and down the public office food chain - and no one - not one person cared - about the children. Except for these caring appropriately acting foster parents. 

 

Ironic and sad. It just keeps going on and on and on - kids being harmed. Because  - insert blaphemous DHS deflecton here - confidentiality laws keep them for doing what is right - firing those responsible for all of this. Firing case workers who make catastrophic inconceivable "mistakes" just like this

 

DHS sort of admits to making a mistake? Who care. Heads need to roll, DHS - get that straight. Your agency cruelly harmed and traumatized two vulnerable children - now right that wrong - put the children back with these foster parents - and fire any and all PUBLIC EMPLOYEES who participated in any of this. 

"There better be a really good reason why these kids can't be adopted by the first foster parents "

 

This couple is Blah and the kids aren't. Not a reason, DHS doesn't need reasons.

I see DHS as a poorly managed department. Case workers can just do anyting that comes to mind, and never have to justify that. I agree with the writer before, you should just tear down the department and start over. Restraining orders do not have to be truthful and they still will be upheld by the courts. I know someone that has one against them, and there was never any violence, he could not and would not kidnap the child and run with him. Yet he is treated as if he were a 10 time felon and nothing he says or does is believed. He has no conviction or arrests for any type of violence.

If we had 420 term abortion, foster care system would have a smaller load

DHS will NEVER admit to making a mistake..they take one side and go balls out to get the other side persecuted..yes they persecute innocent people all the time..with them you are GUILTY until proven innocent and with them it doesn't matter if innocent or not they twist everything their way.  they don't let the innocent prove their case..they've decided you are guilty and no matter how many witnesses for the innocent, they don't listen..they are corrupt and we all know it..this case proves it doesn't it?  they are now moving those poor children again after taking them from a home where they are loved...government agencies are ridiculous

DHS seems to have a track record of yanking kids from good homes, leaving kids in crappy homes, and basically doing a cruddy job of pretty much anything and everything. 

DHS will do an internal review?  Yea, like that will make a difference.  They need a complete overhaul.  They need to be held accountable because right now they're about as useless as t*ts on a boar.  I know because I had to experience it first hand with my grandchildren.

 

I was so tempted to get an attorney until I found out it would be a waste of my money because DHS just makes up the rules as they go along and they get away with it and no one does a damn thing about it.

This is so cruel to the children. Their own  parents betraid them and the legal system is treating them worst than  abused dogs. Sick!

un-friggin-believable!!!

Hasn't this or similar stories become common.  The DHS screws up, kids and families suffer, and yet another investigation into what went wrong.   Nothing changes.   How about shutting down the operation and starting over.  This outfit has too much power and not enough accountability.  

"On Friday the kids will be moved to yet another foster home in Eugene. It's their second move since being pulled from their Portland foster home in October."   (from the story)

 

Oh, so now, while they're doing their "investigation", they're going to shuffle these kids to yet ANOTHER foster home..!   

And they wonder why some of these foster kids grow up with MESSED up minds..!

Let me get this straight.

 

The kids lived with these foster parents, who want to adopt them, for 2 and half years. Then DHS decides that is not acceptable and moves the kids to another foster care home. Now the kids are moving yet again to another foster care home. The governor backs the decision of DHS as does the director. The judge is berating DHS for screwing up the process, the biological parents are berating DHS and want the adoption to go forward and the psychologists want the adoption to go forward and said that moving the kids around will screw them up.

 

Only DHS is against it.

 

Did I miss anything.

 

There better be a really good reason why these kids can't be adopted by the first foster parents like they are criminals in which case I would expect them to be arrested. But that hasn't happened which leads me to believe that they are good honest people who love these kids and want to raise them.

 

I am thinking that DHS deliberately wants to screw these kids up so that they will be part of the entitlement society and totally dependent on government.

 

What a worthless organization.