What is Child Abuse??

In this and other questions in our current project, Did You Know Series, we need to let the readers know that your Foster Families Examiner is not an attorney. Therefore, can only offer you advice based on twelve years of experience in dealing in the Foster Care System, acting as an advocate for thousands of foster parents.

Define Child Abuse??
Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4
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Part 1 - Three Forms of Child Abuse

Recently we started a point of discussion on the nfpcar.org group, in which we asked this question; Define “child abuse”? To a majority of our members it meant the same as we defined in this partial exert from the Arizona Revised Statutes; (not an exact quote just enough to give you the idea).

Definition; a person presently under the age of eighteen (18) is the subject of physical, sexual or emotional abuse, neglect, abandonment or exploitation which a parent, guardian or custodian has inflicted, may inflict, permitted another person to inflict or had reason to know another person may inflict AND contains sufficient information to locate the child.

1). Physical abuse and non-accidental injury are terms used interchangeably. The term "physical abuse" implies that the child victim is physically injured by the actions, whether or not intentional, of the caretaker.
2). "Neglect" or "neglected" means the inability or unwillingness of a parent, guardian or custodian of a child to provide that child with supervision, food, clothing, shelter or medical care if that inability or unwillingness causes substantial risk of harm to the child's health or welfare, except if the inability of a parent, guardian or custodian to provide services to meet the needs of a child with a disability.
3. Sexual abuse; National Center for Child Abuse and Child Neglect defined sexual abuse as the involvement of dependent, developmentally immature children and adolescents in sexual activities that they do not fully comprehend.

The three basic forms of “child abuse”, the ones that Child Protective Services uses most of the time, "failure to protect" is often used to describe most allegations under the definition of physical, however one of these terms will always apply to most incidents that occur in the home while in the caretakers supervision. All of these terms are very hard to prove but there are sometimes ambiguous statements used in allegations, not only for foster parents who would be the caretakers in the Foster Care System, but also in the case of biological parents. What we are attempting to do in this article is define the phrase “Child Abuse”.

Why ? There is an epidemic spreading across this country that is of great concern to this examiner. Thousands of families are experiencing the systematic elimination of their parental rights, including biological parents; remember;,the children in the Foster Care System came from biological homes.

Original Link: http://www.examiner.com/x-46864-Foster-Families-Examiner~y2010m6d23-Foster-Parents-Did-you-know-Defining-Child-Abuse-1-of-4

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Part 2 - Stretching the Definition of "Child Abuse"

In part 1 we were discussing the definition of “Child Abuse” now let us continue; We had told you in another article we were asked to assist biological parents along with foster parents.

You see, a couple of years ago we were approached by an assistant to a Assembly woman in California asking if our organization assisted biological parents too, what we do for foster parents only on behalf of biological parents.

Our response was; We assist, as advocates, (nfpcar.org) anyone who needs help in learning the basics, legal phrases that they need to understand, and how to put their “pro se” cases together. If they are fortunate enough to have the financial assets they already have an attorney, however we are discovering that CPS seems to target the poor, undereducated, or those who otherwise do not have the financial wherewithal to defend themselves against the storm called CPS.

In assisting these biological parents we realized something, as in the statement in the first part of this series; Not all biological parents lost their children for valid reasons!

Quoting a very wise man, Gregory Hession an attorney out of Mass. Who coined the phrase; “Elastic term” in referring to child abuse, he said something like; “Child abuse has become an elastic term, that CPS can stretch to cover just about anything a parent can do these days”. www.massoutrage.com/ma/

What did he mean by that; here are few examples taken from our files, Allegations of “Child Abuse” that we have seen filed; These cases dealing with foster parents but idiotic allegations apply to biological parents too.
• 1. A foster mother; charge “neglect” and “failure to protect” when her Foster son fell asleep in his high chair.
• 2. A teacher who became a foster parent to help a student, charge; “failure to protect”, “neglect” because a teenager walked a half mile to school with her friends on a rural road. She walked to school because this foster parent to teach the girl a lesson in responsibility took her bicycle helmet.
• 3. A foster parent refused to allow a 13 year old go out with her 19 year old boyfriend after curfew on a school night. Charge inappropriate touching, violating this child’s space. The foster child called this one in to the hotline

Original Link: http://www.examiner.com/x-46864-Foster-Families-Examiner~y2010m6d23-Foster-Parents-Did-you-know-Define-child-abuse-part-2-of-4

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Part 3 - Cases of Alleged "Child Abuse"???

In part 2 were giving you examples of allegations filed upon some of the foster parents from our files. Let us continue with that;

4. A foster parent had a fourteen year old placed in her home, he molested her six year old daughter. Charge; failure to protect, neglect of her own biological daughter.
5. Sixty two year old senior citizen wanted to help a child, became a foster parent her first placement burned her home down. Insurance company refused to pay the claim. She knowingly brought this boy who was a known fire starter, into her home. (See article called Empty Nester’s Vulnerable)

Now just in case anyone is thinking that this only happens to foster parents let us take a look at a few more cases;

1. Biological mother was evicted from her apartment, on the street after loosing her job. She has a special needs Child who is wheel chair bound, CPS removed the child charged her with “neglect and failure to provide”.
2. Biological father has not seen his little girl in sixteen years. He lost custody of this child when the mother accused him of sexually molesting her. Divorcing couples often use the hotline as a method of revenge, getting one up in their custody battle. There are many fathers in prison now because of this problem.
3. I have case that has been brought to my attention of a Mother who has been accused of “neglect and failure to provide” her crime; she fed her children fast food three times in one week.
4. A mother removed the cell phone privileges from her teenager due to the outrageous billing she received as a result of “texting”. Her daughter called the hotline and charged her mother with “child abuse”.

So now you see why “Child Abuse” needs a clear and final definition.

Questions for you to think about; You have seen the allegations filed above, do any of these fit the description used in the Arizona definitions of the three basic child abuses described in part 1?

Is feeding children fast food child abuse, and have you ever done this? We all have extremely busy weeks.

Have you removed a bicycle helmet as a disciplinary measure to an irresponsible teen?

Have you ever placed a child in “time out”?

Have you not allowed your fourteen-year-old teenage daughter to date a nineteen year old

go to part 4

Original Link: http://www.examiner.com/x-46864-Foster-Families-Examiner~y2010m6d23-Foster-Parents-Did-you-know-Define-child-abuse-part-3-of-4

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Part 4 - Is Taking a Cell Phone from a Teenager "Child Abuse"???

In part 3 we were asking you a few questions about the abuses that we have seen filed;

Have you ever removed cell phone privileges from your irresponsible teen?

Are these good parenting skills or “Child Abuse”? Did any of these charges fit the description of Arizona’s neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect statutes? Read these statutes again! Your conclusion?

The mother who lost her job, and found herself evicted from her apartment. Is this bad parenting or bad luck?

Another point to ponder; funds are alloted to DFS (Department of Family Services) to assist families into another apartment, with food stamps, sustaining families until they obtain work.

1. Where there is no help offered to biological parents using the funds funded for this pupose, if they are in fact not being used for this purpose, why not?
2. Who is accountable for the re-directing of funds for another purpose other than what they are budgeted for?
3. Why did CPS remove this child instead of assisting the family stay united?

We the people want to know. Politicians where are you? Children removed from one foster home to another all across America….parents falsely accused, children ripped from their parent’s arms.

The Mondale Act and CAPTA started this nightmare and the creation of the monster called CPS, at the same time Mr. Mondale warned that this could become exactly what is has in fact become. It is not in the "best interests of the children" any longer, it is about about the children but money. Using idiotic charges like those above top have access to children from biological parents then moving children from one foster home to another has become a billion dollar business a business that “we the people” need to put a stop to

What is “child abuse”? Let us define it! However, how do we do that? There are as many scenarios and situations as there are grains of sand on the beach.

We all want to protect our children from real child abuse, we are not saying that we should stop doing all we can do towards accomplishing this objective. However, we do ask that this term “Child Abuse” not be stretched to cover all of our parental rights, guaranteed by the “Constitution of the United States of America”, as well as “The Declaration of Independence” being bypassed by this entity, it is time for our courts to bring this outrageous behavior under control.

If you agree tell others about this article, send them the link, subscribe to this examiner Slavery was abolished, or was it?

Original Link: http://www.examiner.com/x-46864-Foster-Families-Examiner~y2010m6d23-Fosterbiological-Parents-Did-you-know-Define-child-abuse-part-3-of-4

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