How the Department of Human Service can ruin you for life

WinterSkye — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 03:46:53 GMT

Today, my sister told her therapist that my nephew is being abused in our home. Then she told us the therapist will be calling DHS. We have been through hell due to my sister and her lies and allegations. She is mentally ill, she has been making allegations about EVERYONE, espeically men since early teens then recanted, then did it again. Yet, everyone believes her. Two children are removed from us and now are being adopted in Utah because of her lies. Another child, with severe developmental delays is at risk now due to her. If they take him, he may kill himself. he is extremely dependant on his grandmother. I hate this, I feel powerless, makes me feel that the organization we are creating to fight the horrible destruction of families worthless. Its tiring, its not right, we get ran through the mud, children suffer. Why does this happen? Why are the good families destroyed? Its sad. I am so angry.

Tired of Fighting a lostin battle

WinterSkye — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 22:27:05 GMT

Ever try to help people all the time? Even if it wears you out? I been doing that, trying to help Adrianna. This child didnt deserve to be punished and murdered in Mexico because DHS was stupid. Everytime I try to get help, people just talk about the mother. She was a drug addict, how her relapsing after DHS stole her child was a cop out, how she gave up her rights. Those of us who are advocates for children and family realize that DHS will lie to you, harrass and threaten to you to sign over your rights. She was under duress. She was clean 2.5 years before the child was removed from her care. Taken because she had no medical insurance and didnt know how to get them. Instead of getting the medical this state pays for, she was removed instead. This was unfair, cruel and heartless. Now, everyone focuses on the mother's past drug addiction, and on the fact she gave up rights. That doesnt mean she should have no rights to the remains of this child. Termination of rights or not, she trusted DHS would do what was right, they didnt. But no one talks about the child's right. What if it was their child, sent to mexico, after warnings that the family there were abusive. AFter hearing the grandmother nearly escaped them with her life in 1996. Then the child is brutally beaten and left to suffer for 3 days. DHS did not do a safetly check, they were warned abuse was happening, Mexico news paper criticize DHS for being so negligant. She is buried in a city cemetary. She is alone, even if she is just what is left of her body. No one will come visit her grave. No one will be able to. Is this fair to Adrianna? Why do so many think that its ok.... I dont understand how humans have become so cold, and heartless. I dont get it.

Our case with DHS

WinterSkye — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 19:25:22 GMT

I am writing out a shorter verison of our story. Eventually I will have this online again with the logs of how things are going. However, this is part of a letter I am writing to go with a media packet I am creating. ----------------- To whom it may concern: I am writing to tell you our story of destruction of our family by the State of Oregon Department of Human Services. It’s a hard battle to get anyone to hear us, to help expose a problem and to let others know what is happening to the children of our community. I hope that you take this story into consideration for investigation and maybe a part of your show. My mother, Valerie Barbeau, is currently trying to retain guardianship of two children. These are her grandchildren, Serenity (Age 5) and Ezra (Age 3). She currently has guardianship of their oldest sibling Austin (Age 11). She retained custody of Austin when he was 5 years old and has lived with her all his life. Serenity and Ezra both also lived with Valerie from birth till August 2003. My sister, Rosalie Smith, is mentally ill. This has been documented, and she has been in and out of treatment for many years. She is currently 29 years old and unable to parent the children. She is unable to handle the stress of the children needs above her own. In August of 2003, my sister became frustrated and upset with her daughter Serenity. Out of the frustration she had struck her on the head, this was not the first incident of abuse. I had witnessed her shake her daughter very hard, and she screamed very loudly often. My sister, out of concern, took Serenity to her doctor to be examined. Dr. Miller did not see any damage to Serenity in any way and found she was fine. Social workers Cheryl Ramos and another worker arrived a few days later to check on the children. I was the only one home at the time and allowed them to come in. Cheryl said the children seemed to be unharmed and not showing any serious trauma. They decided that the children should remain in the home of Valerie, partially because at times my sister would come remove Ezra to find a place to stay in a “family” shelter. Rosalie had often taken the children for a week or two at a time for shelter or welfare purposes. Social services then contacted my mother about keeping the children on a permanent basis with her. They stated she would need to obtain a Kinship Foster License and they would help her with guardianship of the children like the oldest child. A foster license certifier, Nicole, came to process the application by interviewing Valerie and her husband Edward and inspect the home. My mother was very honest about everything, including a citation for battery and removal of myself as a child by social services. The battery incident was no longer on record and Valerie was not aware of this. She wanted to be honest and forthcoming in case something did appear on records. Valerie lived in an apartment complex that had a child about the age of 11 who had tried to catch the complex and cars on fire. He would come to her house and bang on the door with clubs or bats. Once, she opened the door and pushed the child slightly to redirect him to the stairs to his home and asked him to stop. She didn't hit the child, nor did she shove him. The child’s mother then filed assault charges, but Valerie was only given a citation and 90 days probation. Valerie was never arrested, nor was she placed in jail. My removal by social services was for abandonment. No abandonment occurred, it was a complete misunderstanding. After 4 years, and Valerie moving to San Diego County, the case was overturned as ridiculous. My mother had taken me to a friend’s home on July 4th, I was to stay overnight. The mother of the friend told me I could not stay and I had to go home. When I got home, my mom had already left for the evening to go watch fireworks with my sister and brother. Her car broke down on the way back and she didn't return home until about 2am. By this time earlier in the day, I had gone to another friends home to wait for my mom. When I woke up, I was surrounded by a social worker and police. My mother was charged by social services with abandonment and I stayed with my grandparents and aunt for 4 years. When she left the Bay Area for San Diego County, they returned me to her care. Once the interview with the certifier was completed, she left my mothers home to turn in the application. Around 9am the next morning, Nicole called and stated she hoped that the children could remain in the home. They seemed happy and in the right place for their well being. Around 10-11am, Valerie received a call stating she was being denied the Kinship Foster License based on the battery charge, my being removed from her care and allegations made by Rosalie that she was sexually abused by Edward. The sexual abuse came from a social worker during Austin’s hearing for guardianship. This was found as a false allegation and dismissed during that hearing, 4 years earlier. We had a family meeting with Heather Kitto and Armond Fredricks who were both supervisors at the Hillsboro Office for DHS. They stated they were removing the children but leaving Austin in place with Valerie. They forced us to sign a safety plan that stated Austin would never be left alone with Edward due to the allegations of my sister (again, allegations were false and occasionally recanted). They felt the two younger children were in danger of abuse if remaining in the home. We agreed to allow Fran, a friend of the family at the time, to care for Serenity and Ezra would be placed in a foster home. This was a big mistake on all of our part. Fran did more damage than good. More on this situation later. Heather Kitto and Cheryl Ramos came to pick up Ezra. Valerie was outside wheeling Ezra around in his wagon, Serenity was inside the house with Fran keeping her away from the scene. The children’s uncle and myself said goodbye to Ezra as he was picked up by Valerie. She placed him into a car seat and talked with the workers for a short time about how large of a baby he was. Reports state that Valerie was not outside, she refused to come out. Sent myself out to the workers, with a tote of his clothes and a note. This was completely false. Visitations for the grandparents were once a month, the moved to twice a month for an hour at the DHS office. Eventually, they were moved to at home supervised, then to unsupervised visits. In December 2003, an allegation came that Serenity was “touched” by her older brother Austin. Serenity was referred to the CARES NW program (www.caresnw.org) for an evaluation of sexual abuse. This evaluation determined that Serenity was never abused by her brother. July 2004, this allegation came again. Abuse supposedly occurred during an unsupervised visit at the grandparents home. DHS worker, Mandy Davis spoke with Valerie on the phone and SCREAMED at the top of her lungs that she was not being supervised and protected from Austin. We asked that she be referred to the CARES program. We heard many stories over the next couple of weeks about why she was not referred. Fran told me that they didn't want to traumatize her again with another evaluation and that she was “preparing” Serenity for the visit at CARES. Mandy, stated that she had not referred Serenity because CARES had stated she could not be brought back again if its been less than a year and that they refused to see Serenity. CARES told my mother over the phone that information wasn’t true, and that they would welcome Serenity to be evaluated yet again. After another week went by, Mandy and her supervisor Tom Vlahos told us they refuse to place Serenity in the program for an evaluation. CARES then called Mandy, who stated that Serenity was not making any allegations, and haven’t at any time so she could not refer her. DHS workers and attorney states this report is false. Fran at one time, spoke to Valerie about keeping the children away from their mother and would create something using Austin to be sure of this. This is where the allegations started. Fran also told Mandy Davis that I was sexually abused in my mothers home when I was a child, and that I told her this. DHS has multiple times stated they were going to return the children, all the way up to the day before a hearing. When the hearing came to be, there was always some roadblock created by DHS. Valerie had to get an independent homestudy done, DHS refused to pay for this at any time. She was able to get the Boys and Girls Aid Society, Delaney Demay, to take on the homestudy. This homestudy took nearly 8 months to complete and was completely tainted with lies from DHS. Delaney told my mother multiple times that DHS has no proof of abuse by Austin. Then would tell us we need to believe Serenity. We never were told by Serenity of any abuse during the now again office visitations. Nothing ever came up. Delaney took all the information by DHS, and formed an unbiased homestudy, after over $800 bucks paid by Valerie, and favored DHS. Delaney, took the words of the DHS workers, and never investigated any reports, information or evaluations. She never received full reports needed to make an unbiased decision on facts. Delaney is now a Supervisor for CASA (www.casahelpskids.org). CASA is also in favor of DHS and believes the report from CARES is also false information. In August of 2004, I requested to be considered a resource for the children. DHS had a foster care certifier come out and process my application. Tawnya completed her application and inspection of the home. I was turned down to be allowed to adopt the children. Reasons were of many things, $1500 a month income was not enough, I didn't believe that Serenity was abused and that Ezra had global delays, I didn't tell them about my being abused sexually when I was a child living with my mother (I was never abused), and that I would have to work and not be home with the children who needed 24/7 care. The fact that I lived in 3 places in 6 years was a problem to DHS as well. Serenity started to show signs that something was wrong. She told Valerie that she couldn’t call her grandma anymore and that she wasn’t allowed to love her or Austin anymore. We did not push Serenity into where she felt that from. Her whole demeanor slowly declined, she was becoming less playful, less talkative and did not want to be hugged. This continued for months, up to two years now this August 2005. Every time we move towards getting the children home, DHS throws up another roadblock, lie or scheme. Allegations continued by DHS, stating that they are constantly told by Serenity more and more information alleging abuse. They stated she talks about it all the time. We had yet to hear it from her. Ezra moved to a new foster home not long after placed in the beginning. The foster mother was told by the original worker; Leona Flowers that she would guarantee the mother would be allowed to adopt the child and told her horrific lies about our family. Ezra moved and he shut down, his vocabulary, his demeanor and his mental emotional health declined. He did slowly pick up for a short time. He is now in this adoptive home and has completely shut down again. He isn’t talking, playing or being very active. A week after the Judge and Attorney for Valerie received the report with the information that Serenity made no allegations, we received a letter stating we would have our last, and a goodbye visit with Serenity on March 31. Valerie staged a protest in place of the visitation. DHS states Valerie never attempted to contact them again regarding visitations with the children. Serenity and Ezra have not been allowed to see their family and vice versa since March 2005. There are no valid reasons to keep these children from their family whom they have told often they wanted to go home with. August 2005 the Judge, Kirsten Thompson, dropped the guardianship case completely. It was dismissed and thrown out, she then told DHS to complete the adoption plan. We are seeking a replacement attorney at this time. DHS has everyone in their court, CASA, children’s attorney, Boys and Girls Aid Society. We continue to fight for these children, our rights, their rights and the best interest of the children is their being home with us. My mother has spent $40,000 for an attorney to this point. We still do not have the children, DHS is getting away with telling false allegations. Armond Fredrick stated that a child can be removed over an allegation at any time for any reason, they do not have to prove anything or investigate. We have heard strange comments from CASA supervisors and Social Workers in lobbies of the court house. They have done everything they can to keep the meetings with the Judge in chambers before any of us get there for the hearing of the day. DHS continues to lie to us and the courts, telling the judge they are going to do one thing but then tell us they aren’t doing that. Assistant Attorney General, children’s attorney, social worker and someone else were sitting in the lobby bragging about how they got rid of the fathers, there are two. They said, what about the mother. Her rights will be terminated in October 2005. She said don’t worry about that. They asked about the grandmother, her exact words said, we are going to burn her at the stake. They then realized she was sitting nearby and they got up and scattered off. We have been trying to get legislatures involved to investigate, they always state they cant help us. We tried to get the governors advocate, she said she couldn’t help us. NO ONE will help. Please help us spread the word of what is going on, this is happening across the country. They are taking our children, and adopting them out to strangers. Punishing the children, the family, and everyone around over false allegations. They are ignoring the truly ignored children, because they are not as easy to place and are not the “cute and adoptable”. This phrase is used often in court. This needs to be made aware of to the public. DHS tries its hardest to keep others unaware. They threaten families if they speak out, join advocacy groups or try to find help. Public Defenders do not adequately represent the clients, or refuse to help them if they do not plead guilty to any charges DHS brings up. Legislatures and Governor’s Office refuses to help. --------- I would love any comments on how this is written. I am not an editor, or a writer.

Insulin Bottles

WinterSkye — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 17:17:36 GMT

I am looking for empty insulin bottles. Time to recycle them instead of throwing them out. I spend nearly 100 bucks on mine, I am not going to just throw them away! I have found many craft uses for these bottles. I posted on google once and about 8 people freaked out on me about how I am going to store drugs in them :P This is not the case. If anyone would like to recycle their bottles and send them to me, I would be much appreciated. You can mail them, I could pick them up if I am in the Portland or any other town you are in. I live in Hillsboro Oregon. OR you can drop them off when you are near in town. Email me, heather@winterskye.com.

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How the Department of Human Service can ruin you for life

Tired of Fighting a lostin battle

Our case with DHS

Insulin Bottles