Original subtitles

Sandra, we'll start with you.

I mean, coming here, it just made my whole life changed around.

It made me realize that, you know, my kids come first.

I always come first, but this time I learned from that big mistake I made.

So now I'm here, my kids are back home with me, and I'm happy.

My name is Tiffany.

I'm 28.

I have three kids.

I ended up losing my kids because my 8-year-old picked up one of the younger

ones and dropped her.

on accident.

Hello, I'm Brandy. So I have three kids, and they got taken for failure to

protect.

So I'm Anna. Hi, everybody.

Our case is progressing.

And I was intimidated at the possibility that they would

misconstrue or use something that I would say in advocating for myself.

um against me so i dialed it way down and i'm just passionate you know i speak

with passion i speak my hands and all this and they would never understand

that and i did do some work on me you know trying to figure out well heck you

know they're telling me all these things about me and i'm like that's not me you

know but because i really care about my son i wanted to

Do a self inventory anyway, you know, I knew I hadn't done the things I was

accused of But something got us there. You know what? I found out I'm really

not perfect Shocking you know Down

right, but I'm no monster, you know

Today just so happens to be the second year

that our son's been gone.

He's 14.

He'll be 15 in May.

And we've been in the fight of our life.

This is a legal system that you're going into.

If you don't know the rules, you will be chewed up and spit out.

If I could say anything to a mother who's just got their children detained,

you're in a crisis.

Life feels like it's over. The most important thing is regaining custody of

your children.

Families only get a finite amount of time to reunify.

Childhood goes by very quickly. A week or a month to you or me could seem like

an eternity to a child.

The social workers, they're like cops. If you struggle, they're going to hit

you with their stick.

The only stick that social workers have is taking your kids.

Well, I talked to a guy today.

He's African-American and he's young, and he basically told the social worker

off. And guess what happened to him? His child was taken away.

I came into this field to help families, not destroy them.

The families are destroyed, sometimes never to come back the same.

But sometimes to come back not the same is a good thing.

And so for families like mine, it gave me an opportunity to put us together.

For some other families, they're destroyed.

This isn't someone stole your car, someone broke into your house, this is

someone took your child, your flesh and blood.

The difference between the criminal system and the child welfare system is

substantial You have more rights as a criminal than you do as a parent

I don't know. I got to find it. Good luck with that.

You guys watch your step now.

She said there were boxes stacked.

There she is over there.

Retta and I wrote a book, a children's book, that is about a

blended family.

Kind of our story, really.

I think she's right in here.

Yeah, so it's called Little Maggie Brown, The Tale of the Red Hoodie. The

story is about bullying to help the children to

kind of understand what it is that they are having to

endure being part of a blended family, especially an LGBT family.

Little Maggie Brown has four brothers and sisters.

Some are African American, just like her.

Her other siblings are Latin American.

She's the youngest, smartest, and tiniest of all.

The older children pick on her frequently.

They gave her the nickname Little Maggie Brown.

Our son, Najee, was very excited about the book.

We dedicated it to he and Keeler, our oldest son.

My name is Anna Neal Negrete.

I've done a lot of things in my life, and I've worn many hats.

I've been in the United States Air Force.

I've been in the United States Navy.

I was a court-appointed special advocate for children for the Juvenile Dependency

Court. I'm a gospel recording artist.

Walking through the park, I preach.

We typically associate blessing with this fictitional, painless

existence and things going as we think they should.

This Christmas tree has been up since November.

November because I told Emily I wasn't going to have a Christmas tree because

they weren't home.

And I told her that I was going to put it up and I was going to keep it up

until the girls came home.

And I had promised them that I will keep fighting and when there's no more fight

in me, I will still keep fighting until I have no more fight. And when I have no

more fight in me, I will keep fighting for them.

That's the only thing I have.

My name is Rosalia Pulido. I was born in Mexico.

I'm 34 years old. 34? 35 years old.

Selling flowers in the street is a struggle, but at least it brings you

income. You encounter crazy people out there, but you encounter people that are

very nice.

But each rose comes out a different way.

and it smells different.

It's like everybody, we're not the same.

That was given to Emily by the church in Lancaster.

She says that I'm always a fighter, that I never give up.

I never give up, and I told her, you never have to give up on anything you're

doing. I tell Emily, you're going to become someone.

Do you want some peanuts, huh? Do you want some peanuts?

Are you hungry?

I'll get you a big one.

Are those good?

You wouldn't believe the personality that a bird has.

A little sense of humor.

You know, it's just all wrapped up into a little package.

Mama!

Mama!

I'm not going to do it. You're going to leave me hanging, huh?

That one's Callie.

This one up here is Crystal.

And then we have Blue.

They're inside here because the hawks and the crows around here will actually

chase the cats around and eat them.

My name is Ernie Sohn. I'm originally from Long Island, New York, presently

live in California with my family.

Let's go. We'll get you some water. Come on.

This one was running down Palmdale Boulevard. Almost got hit crossing

twice. I heard the car screeching, and he had no tags or anything on him, so...

We brought him home, I put him in the paper, took a picture of him.

Nobody claimed him.

I was a contractor for over 30 years. Right now I'm disabled, got hurt on the

job. It all comes with a price, but you get to spend more time with your family.

And I thought that that would have been something positive in the end, you know?

Child Protection Hotline, this is Caroline Tanu. How can I help you? Child

Protection Hotline, this is Crystal. How can I help you?

Here we have what is called the Child Protection Hotline.

It is the number where the public, mandated reporters, police officers,

doctors, anyone can call to report child abuse or neglect.

October 14th.

July.

June. My girls were late getting back from the park.

My wife was getting nervous.

On a daily basis, we probably will be seeing about 700 to 1,000 calls.

On a yearly basis, we're probably going to be receiving over 220,000 calls.

At the present time, do you have any immediate safety concern, or is there

any other concern for child abuse or neglect?

We also have the responsibility to assess whether you need law enforcement

intervention. The cops came to my house.

She went to the police.

Three squad cars came around the corner.

Only a third of the calls that we get are going to result in a social worker

actually going out to the home.

This new emergency social worker, she comes to our house.

Do we have concerns that mom isn't able to protect the children as well?

So first they put me in the squad car and then my wife.

If she just would have came to me and tell me things, I would have understood.

We were let go by the detective.

I thought at that point maybe the nightmare over and finding out the hard

way it had just begun.

When our number pops up on people's phones, they typically don't answer.

No one wants to get a caller ID that says, you know, children and family

services. Unfortunately, it's not a positive stigma.

And within an hour or so.

My girls were taken because I said it was failed to protect

I

have

six kids

Starting with the oldest is 20.

His name is Ezekiel.

He has a son, so that means I'm grandma.

I have a 17-year-old. Her name is Natalie.

If I could change the world, I would have for her.

I remember when she was born.

It was one of the happiest moments when I found out she was a girl, because I

already had my son.

I was a child taking care of another child.

I was 15 when I had Ezekiel, and I was 18 when I had Natalie.

Natalie, she made a police report and reported that my daughter's father

was hugging her, kissing her neck.

She said that he wanted to put an apartment for her and everything.

There is no way because we barely had money to pay the rent here.

We don't live a lavish life.

The social worker came asking for Natalie, and I was like, she's not home.

She ran away. And the social worker asked to speak with Jasmine.

Jasmine said, my ex apparently, the

way she said it, that he kissed his... her cookie.

I remember this social worker told me to call their stepdad, tell him for him to

say the truth, and I will leave the girls home.

And I remember his exact words.

He said, I'm not going to say something that I didn't do.

And within an hour or so,

My girls were taken.

Were there signs there? Were there no signs?

Did I miss them? Did I catch them?

At this point, I honestly don't know.

And that makes me so mad because I thought about the possibilities it

happened. And I think about the possibilities that didn't happen, so...

I don't know what to believe.

And that's killing me on the inside.

It's raining.

Oh, it's raining?

No kidding.

How was school today?

Good. It was good?

Leave me alone.

Never. I'm just kidding, Oli.

I'm just playing. Don't take it so seriously.

It's like you guys never left.

Literally.

How is it where you live, your foster home?

It's fighting a lot.

Sit down.

You're going to fall.

See the lady right there on that side?

That's one of the social workers right there. She wasn't my social worker, but

she just monitored a few times at the office.

It's different being in a foster home than actually being in your own home.

I know. If you do something bad on social media, they'll be like, oh, but

this is not your home. You have to respect it because it's not your house.

Oh, then they start grashing like, Mom, is this the way that Mom showed you?

They always make Mom look bad.

They'll always make the parent look bad.

The system's stupid.

Have you heard anything about Natalie?

Natalie? Well, yeah, she texted me yesterday.

Did she do it?

It's weird how she didn't even come to our visit.

If you trace back to the history of how social work started, there were

thousands upon thousands of kids in New York during the 13 colonies when they

were first forming on the streets.

They were orphan kids or for whatever reason they were on the streets and some

do-gooders.

Took them off the streets and fed them, put them in nice clothes and sent them

on trains called orphan trains to the Midwest to work on farms.

Sounds good, but what they did is they also took poor children from their

families. And that's the beginning of foster care. And we're definitely not

proud of our history.

Historically, kids came into the system in poor houses. And that was like from

the beginning of time in America.

And then child abuse laws kind of came into being at the same time that cruelty

to animals laws came in. And those, in fact, were the first laws that were used

to protect kids.

Well, the child welfare system is designed to do two things in this

country. It's designed to protect children from abuse and neglect.

And it's designed to fairly adjudicate situations in which that may be

occurring.

The child welfare system is really that safety net so that once they enter our

system, then we're able to provide the supports and services with the hope of

strengthening the family to keep them together, or if a child is removed, to

be able to really have a goal on reunification.

The child welfare system at its core is designed to protect children who need

protection. And that's key is who need protection.

We are not in the business of making better families that are already

perfectly fine.

We are in the business of protecting children whose families are hurting them

or placing them at risk.

I got hot.

Hi, sweetie.

Yeah, see, she's going to be cool now.

She knows I'm coming.

Oh, you guys are so cute.

Sit, Kiki.

No. She's excited. Don't break your leg, please. Get her. Get her, Retta. She's

got it caught on her leg right there.

So this is my current project.

I'm kind of excited about it.

It's a two Z's lap blanket.

I am Retta Negrete Neal, and I am Najee's... They call me his

stepmom, but I never called myself his stepmom until recently when I was

reading the paperwork.

This is Najee.

Shortly before I met him.

Handsome guy, and that's Keeler. He's our oldest, my birth child.

I have two living children, one deceased.

My daughter, Yashica, was murdered in 2007.

She had a son, Najee, and I adopted him.

When I adopted him, he was six years old.

And he came to me with a lot of problems.

Najee, he really is a great kid.

He's very smart.

He loves football.

He loves golf.

Loves to cook.

There's a lot truly special about Jay. A lot.

He's got this way of looking at you when he wants something.

It's really charming. It really is. And his smile, his smile is like sunshine.

Yeah.

In June, Najee began to show kind of signs of his puberty

and the defiance had become very prominent. We could see it.

He ran off from the house.

a couple times one morning red and i finally got a chance to sleep in and

he dashes off again well this time he gets caught in the neighbor's yard when

the neighbor catches him now he's got this sad story that i supposedly beat

him up

Nadia made an accusation against Retta. He accused her of striking him.

This new emergency social worker, she comes to our house.

They take him from us.

We begin the...

juvenile court process, which has taken us into 18 months now.

We've been fighting to get our son back.

Social workers are charged with going into a home. They knock on a door. They

don't know what's behind there.

Somebody called into the hotline. Workers don't make it up. They don't

shake a tree and say, I'm going to get you and make up an allegation.

Someone in the public, usually a mandated reporter, calls the

hotline and says, I think this child is being abused or has been abused.

By law, the social worker in the county has to go out and investigate that.

They have something called an emergency response social worker.

And that worker is supposed to go out and do an investigation and to see if

there's a danger or risk to the child being in the parent's custody.

In some cases, social workers can remove a child without going to court.

And if they do remove the child without going to court, they ultimately have to

go to court to get the court stamp of approval.

The judge on the very first day gets all the facts.

the allegations and the results of the investigation and says, just for the

purposes of getting a case started, if everything in here is true, is it more

likely than not that this child was abused?

And if the answer is yes, then the child remains detained.

If the answer is no, the child gets released.

If it shows child abuse and neglect or families who are at risk of child abuse

and neglect, it could result in the opening of a court case in the

dependency courts in our system.

If a child is taken away and they're under the age of three, parents are

given six months in order to reunify and remediate whatever the safety issue was.

If the children were taken after they were the age of three, then parents get

up to 18 months.

After the six-month reviews are over, we go to termination of the parental

rights, the death penalty of a juvenile case.

If your rights are terminated, your children will eventually be adopted by

the foster parent or the relative, whoever has the children, and then the

case is over.

Wife and I have three children.

Connor's 14.

Hannah's going to turn 18, and Michaela's 16.

My name is Trish, and I'm the mother of Hannah, Michaela, and Connor.

My youngest son, Connor, he's diagnosed with Down syndrome and autism.

He's semi-verbal.

and he's not able to express his needs and his wants since michaela was 12

years old we've been dealing with some kind of odd behavior she'd say things

that aren't true she'd um just to bring focus on herself and it started off with

small things and it generally got bigger and bigger until this situation happened

she was diagnosed with oppositional defiance disorder just means she has

trouble listening to authority And so when she would lash out and be angry,

she would say, whatever.

And then, you know, I didn't care at the moment. Just say it because she's

stressed. Later, it would be the apologies. I'm sorry, Mommy. I didn't

mean that.

It felt like we had to watch Michaela 24-7. And I would have Hannah kind of

babysit her sister. And I feel like it took more of its toll than I realized.

And, you know, I reached out to Hannah.

Recently, I sent her a bunch of pictures and a card, and I apologized for what I

could. I can't apologize for things I didn't do, but I did apologize if I ever

made her feel that she wasn't important.

Michaela told her cheer coach that mom was hitting her with wood and that I was

touching her inappropriately.

When you go through stages of loss and grief, you have a whole realm of

emotions, from anger to betrayal to sadness.

Michaela, I've been trying to contact you for over two years.

I really don't understand why you're doing this.

Maybe one day.

My phone is always on. My door is always open.

Call me.

The rights of parents are absolutely, positively not being protected and they

are absolutely, positively not being fought for.

One of the main differences between the juvenile system and pretty much every

other system of law, including the criminal system, is the rampant use of

hearsay. If you're a parent and you're trying to prove your innocence, you

cannot use hearsay. But if you're a social worker and you're trying to prove

a parent is a bad parent or a negligent parent or has hurt a child, you can use

hearsay.

Whenever you allow hearsay into a legal proceeding, I think you bastardize the

proceeding. It's that simple. And it is used.

by the social workers like you cannot believe it's very difficult to

prosecute someone in criminal court because it's beyond a reasonable doubt

you know the constitution applies hearsay exclusion rules apply but in the

name of protecting children we use lesser standards

The burden of proof is lower than in criminal court, but it moves around even

within our system, depending on what hearing you're at, to remove a child

from the home as prima facie evidence, which is about the lowest burden of

proof that there is in the law. The idea being, this is the information you have.

If it's true, do we have a problem here, and do we need to protect this child?

There are policies set in place to help parents, but many times the social

workers don't let the parents know that these policies exist or they completely

deviate from the policy.

For example, parents have a right to receive copies of the court reports 10

days prior.

They get it the day of court and they'll be reading and they'll go, this is not

true, this is not true.

And even the most sane parents turn crazy.

I said to one dad, he expressed his anger and he had been taken out of court

several times. And he says, but I love my kids. My point to him was then love

your kids enough to shut your mouth in court, right? You're not presenting

yourself well.

Your children are taken from you. Your world is ripped out from under you.

And then you are judged on how you reacted when they ripped their children

from you.

Mother was uncooperative.

Hell yes, she was uncooperative. You took her child.

Let him give her a hug.

What kind of person are you?

Let go now. Let go now. Let go now. Let go now.

Let go now.

Let go.

Let go of the baby. Let go of the baby.

Relax. It's okay, Papo. It's okay.

It's okay. This is another child.

They're putting the blame on parents because in most cases they're scared.

Because what's going to happen is if I'm a judge or a social worker and I return

the children to the parents and something happens to the children.

A newborn baby boy mysteriously dies while in state custody.

There are questions about the death of a child who was in San Diego County foster

care. Ninety eight. That's how many children died in the past fiscal year

who had some interaction with the Department of Children and Family

Services. So social workers out of fear.

will remove more children rather than only remove those children that truly

need to be removed.

I'm Melinda Murphy, and I am currently a social work investigator with a law firm

that represents the parents.

What's akin to what the public defender does in criminal court.

So we're the attorneys for the parents who

come under the care and custody control of Children's Services.

What our law firm does is they will hire former social workers to consult with

them. I worked for Children's Services for about a decade, and I was employed

in the capacity of a social worker, a supervisor, a dependency investigator,

and that's a social worker who lets the court know if the allegations are...

can be supported or refuted. I thought I would be helping to strengthen families

and empowering them, but there exists a pervasive fear in

children's services offices where they don't want to be held responsible for

anything that might happen unfavorably to a child.

So even in those cases where children should go home, children's services will

recommend that they don't, and they pass the buck to the court. And it was

catastrophic for the families.

You know, when I first got to Children's Services, I gave much deference to my

coworkers and to the supervisors and everybody.

But then when I learned what was going on, it wasn't right. It was just

ethically not right.

And so I was in remission at the time, still in remission for my cancer. And I

thought, you know what, if anything happens to me, I want my children to

know I did the right thing.

i think self i just would have let it go and say okay i'm gonna quit this job and

i'm you know just leave no i said um i've got to do something about this and

i have to make it right or at least try to make it right and so i decided at

that time to write culture of fear just to let people know what's happening

To me, not writing it constituted a betrayal to the good social workers,

because there's really good social workers out there, and to the good

families who got completely screwed over by the system.

Right now, one of my cases, I'm working with Trish and her husband Ernst.

Allegations were brought forth by one of the daughters about the father was

sexually abusing her and the mother physically abusing her.

They have three kids, a special needs boy and two teenage girls.

So Children's Services took all the kids.

Each parent gets their own attorney and the children get their attorney.

Sometimes they each get their own attorney also, depending on the

situation.

And so we represent Ernst, the father, and...

Sometimes, actually ordinarily, I don't speak with the mother also in this type

of situation, but the attorney gave me permission a long time ago to, yes,

please help on the case.

So how are you guys pulling up?

It's not been easy. It's been difficult, really. Just take it day by day.

Some days I've heard it in others.

You keep wanting to wake up from the nightmare.

It's painful sometimes going out in the community and seeing, you know, being in

all the places. Everything reminds us of the kids because we were together all

the time doing everything.

They were very active.

We were never home. Everybody said, why do you even buy the house? You know, we

were always in the car, either L.A. They were in the acting business, so we were

auditioning and dance class, ballet, acting class.

You know, just very, very involved parents and wanting to support our

children and encouraging them that, you know what, if you have your dreams and

you follow them and you work really, really hard, anything is possible.

And then the bottom fell out.

October 14th?

Yeah, October 14th. October 14th.

My girls were late getting back from the park and my wife was getting nervous.

I go outside and I look down the street and I said, maybe they're hanging out

with someone that they shouldn't be hanging out with.

And I just want to see them getting out of the car and then see what their story

is, you know?

Right after I said that, three squad cars came around the corner, pulled up

in front of the house.

They asked me who I was and I told them and the police officer began to question

me. And he told me that he had my daughters and I said, are they okay?

And he says, yes, but there's been some allegations.

It's so frustrating when you're the parent and you feel like, yeah, the

judge, he doesn't know. And like you said, who is he going to believe, the

parents accused of these horrendous allegations or the social worker? Why

would she lie about it? And with your case, it seems like we have an expert, a

detective, who did a thorough report.

And Children's Services didn't try to get that. They didn't speak to the

detective. They just had...

Just a regular social worker interviewed the girls. Never even bothered all this

time to even subpoena that information.

Michaela, they're not truly taking into account what's going on with her mental

health. She was diagnosed because we were having some behavioral issues with

her.

with oppositional defiance, factitious disorder, and having borderline traits.

I feel like the department doesn't look. They just kind of close their eyes to

all of that and don't look at the evidence that is there. We had handed

them the psyche valve, and it was never put into the court.

The hardest thing of all is Connor, because he has Down syndrome and autism,

and he doesn't understand any of this.

When they took him from our home, he was 81 pounds.

And he's gone down to almost 63.

And it just seems like every time I go to hold my son on a visit, I'm holding

less and less.

And we're running out of time.

But it worries me with the girls because we do have the oldest teenager who kind

of now is comfortable with less roles and a boyfriend.

Her new life.

Right, and not wanting to deal with the situation and what's happened. It's

easier to kind of just push it under the rug.

Even when the court gets the correct information and hopefully makes the best

ruling, your daughters could still listen to your daughters. And they say

they don't want to come home, they won't make them.

Your girls might never come home because of this.

That just breaks my heart. Which is really sad.

It breaks my heart because it's so unfair.

Once Children's Services says, yes, you're abusive, they don't take it back.

What this past social worker seems to do is that she started with the conclusion,

what she wanted to believe.

Sex abuse is true, physical abuse is true.

And then she worked backwards.

So how can I prove that? Any bits of information she could use to twist or

spin the story to make that fit.

Social workers never want to do that.

You don't know the conclusion.

You have to follow the evidence.

What you want to do when you have sex abuse, you do not want just a regular

old social worker to interview the child because they're not specially trained. A

regular social worker might just...

cause a false positive because they might shake their head when the child's

talking or raise their eyebrow like you sure many social workers they get caught

up it's called confirmation bias and so you have to guard against that and how

you can guard against that is that you um take a look at the other side so i

would try to find evidence to support that he did sexually abuse his daughter

a big concerted effort to do that and i did and i couldn't find it

My name is Janet Nichols. I'm a children's social worker for Los Angeles

County Department of Children and Family Services.

I was a social worker in Pennsylvania for 10 years, and prior to that, I was a

foster parent for 10 years.

When I was a foster parent, I was able to treat the kids in my home as if they

were my own.

I allowed the parents to come to the home to visit.

I worked with the biological parents to get their kids back.

I don't see that anymore.

I think that children in the foster care system struggle for one, they have been

let down by the most important person who should have taken care of them and

loved them no matter what. The foster children that I have, how do you answer,

why does my mommy not love me enough to get off drugs?

I had a kid ask me that last night.

The hardest thing for me is moving children.

We teach them stranger danger.

And then I pick them up and I take them to a stranger's home. I don't get a bio

on these foster parents.

I'm taking you to a new home. Here you are. You're going to go into this house,

somebody who's a different color, a different religion, totally different

from your own family, different foods, different rules, and I'm going to leave

you here.

That breaks my heart every single time.

Some days better than others.

I think everybody is so busy.

Why are you in?

How's morale?

I don't want to be so blunt, so I'll just say because of all of the work that

we have to do, even though we were higher caseloads previously, we have a

lower caseload, but much more paper to do.

And there's deadlines for everything. They're still keeping us to that same

standard, but demanding that we do more.

And you can't keep that same standard if the work is overpowering and you're

overwhelmed.

You don't see many chit-chatters or, you know, let's sit and debrief or tell a

joke or, no, it's rushing from this job to this job, missing your lunch, eating

in your car, eating at your desk.

a couple of weeks ago, and there were four workers crying at their desks

because of the amount of work.

And you see that a lot. It's just too much.

It's never-ending. You can't ever say, whew, I got done today, everything that

needed to be done.

This is not the job.

I may have already filed it.

This is the court report file.

So all the court reports go in here.

If something new comes up, we give court a last-minute information.

But our court reports are pretty hefty.

That's one court report.

Our social worker, Janet Nichols, I feel is very corrupt.

She doesn't tell the truth.

She has a lot of power, so it's kind of scary.

We all make mistakes.

Lying on a court report?

To me, they should be fired.

We shouldn't lie on a court report. I mean, for what?

We're either lying to covering our own butts because we didn't do our job, or

we're lying to make the parent look bad.

The social worker puts blatant lies in these court reports.

Anna stated he's been caught.

watching porn and needs constant supervision.

He's sagging, not wearing a belt and affiliating with poor people. Are you

kidding me?

Affiliating with poor people?

Come on. We both have been poor people in our lives. I mean, I was unemployed

for two years talking poor.

And we keep everything.

If we don't have proof of it, it didn't happen.

Same for the parents.

People want social workers to tape interviews, videotape.

Everybody's got a phone now. That's really cheap to do now.

County agencies fight that tooth and nail.

Why? Because if it's not videotaped, I can pencil whip you.

It's what she doesn't say in some cases.

She elaborates a lot on the negative, but then when it comes to all the

positive we do, she really limits that.

If at all. If at all. Doesn't even put it in there in many, many cases.

The preferred route of deceiving anyone is omission.

And it's the same if you're a six-year-old stealing a Snickers bar

from the store or a 20-year-old trying to beat a ticket.

It's omitting facts.

Sean Allen McMillan.

I'm a civil rights lawyer.

I sue social workers and county and state governments that are involved in

the social services system.

Well, what people have taken to referring to as the right to lie case

was originally a case of a woman named Deanna Fogarty Hardwick, and she had two

young daughters at that time.

During that case in the juvenile matter, the social worker had lied about mother

alienating the children from the father.

And what's made the rounds in the media,

the county was making an argument that it was not clearly established in the

law that social workers couldn't lie.

And that seriously was their argument. We didn't know that we couldn't lie,

and therefore we should still get qualified immunity.

I understand broadly the principle that common sense tells us that lying is

wrong and lying to... Yeah, but it's more than common sense. We're not using

common sense. We're using the statutes. Are you telling me that a person in your

client's shoes couldn't understand you can't commit perjury in a court

proceeding in order to take somebody's children away?

Of course not, Your Honor. Of course not.

Isn't the case over then? The case is over.

It became known as the right to lie case because she appears to be arguing there

that we have a right to lie.

Justices, when they wrote the opinion, if you read the opinion, they have this

really funny line in there. It's something like, even a social worker

with an IQ, the room temperature in Alaska would know you

can't lie.

So yeah, that's an important case, but it didn't establish new law.

What it really did was say, look, you can't lie. Everybody knows you can't

lie. Stop lying.

Kids are not safe in child protective services, and they won't give them back

to their loving families because they're making money.

Speakers, if you see me coming up, tapping my watch, please wrap it up,

please, and thank you. We have a schedule to adhere to. Thank you.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Robert Powell.

I've been an attorney for a little over 27 years.

While many of you here have your own ideas about what drives the utter

insanity of the juvenile dependency system, in my humble opinion, it all

boils down to power and the fact that human beings, by and large, cannot wield

power in a fair and judicious way.

The goal today is to stop CPS, raise awareness, and to get our children back.

I trust the vast majority of you understand this problem is not confined

to California.

And in fact, tomorrow, a similar rally is being held in Alabama.

When I meet other parents in the same situation, it really makes me feel that

I'm not alone.

because during this you can feel really isolated.

Many times poor people who cannot navigate the labyrinth of social

programs and all the paperwork lose their children to foster care agencies

and foster placements who immediately get enough money that if you gave it to

the parents, they could feed and clothe and house their children.

These systems are crooked, and they're corrupted, and they don't give us a

voice. They just make choices for us.

You know how underneath your sink is where the slime and the mold and the

cockroaches hang out? Well, that's what happens in this system.

There is no light on the system, and it knows it.

People don't know their rights. They don't know the law. So therefore,

they're going to do what CPS says because they're so fearful of them. God

bless you all, and the best of luck with your struggles.

Just not whenever.

So I'm Latoya Conway-Hampton, and Two Lifestyles is a women empowerment

program. We provide supportive services to families that's affected by the

Department of Children and Family Services, and they come through our

agency by way of domestic violence, sexual assault.

The main purpose... of our sexual abuse class is to bring a sense of awareness

to the mothers who their children have been sexually assaulted.

Majority of the women that I work with, their kids have been assaulted.

And as sad as it sounds, majority of the women don't believe that it happened.

And so the end goal of this class is to make them more aware of the signs, the

symptoms of sexual assault.

As a child, my mother had child welfare called on her.

And we made it through, right? I remember Mama decorating the house and

getting it all hooked up for the social workers to come. I smelled pine saw.

But it was a lot of stuff going on in my home.

Blessed at home in the care with my mother in the bed for six years.

And being a victim of domestic violence, having a gentleman who

tried to kill me several times.

All of those things played a part of who I am and my story.

Rosa, I think that because she couldn't believe it at first, she never moved or

put closure to that relationship.

It was just once this is over, things will look different. And I think that

she's at a place now where she's beginning to understand that this could

possibly happen. And that's a journey to take because everything you believe,

everything you stand for is ripped from under you.

Come on in.

Hi.

Now, I know you've gotten overnight.

Have you ever gotten overnight yet? Not yet. I have unmonitored right now. How

is the unmonitored visits going with the kids?

Good, because they're more extended to Friday's half a day. So how is the

reconnection with your daughters considering all of this that happened?

Well, me and my 15-year-old, our bond is getting bigger, stronger.

The little ones, as soon as they turn, they literally, mom, and they'll go

running towards me.

And then for Jasmine, it's harder for her because I only see her just for a

little bit. One thing that came to my mind was when you go from a place of I'm

not sure it happened, I don't believe it happened, and move into the place that

this really happened, where would you say you are right now?

I'm literally in the middle. I believe one of them 1,000%, and the other one

has lied so much to get her way. Two girls in the same house. This is what

happened. This happened to me, and she said this happened to her. And yet and

still, because she lying, getting in so much trouble, you believe this kid

because she's perceived to be the good kid, but yet and still, this other kid

that had behavior problems, it didn't happen to her.

How fair is that, Mom?

It's not fair at all.

And I know it. Even now, at 49, my mother is still riding the fence.

Like, I missed it. I don't know how I could have missed it. Well, you missed

it. If your child is assaulted by a family member, and you believe that he's

a good, responsible, loving person to your child, so the normal process is

denial.

My ex, Martin, he did get raped in Mexico.

And I found out that later on in our relationship.

That's why we were so open, because me coming from a place that I was raped

when I was young, I was nine years old.

And for a guy, for a man to say that and to literally open up and say, yes, it

happened to me.

If you go through something so traumatic, you won't do something like

this.

We so believe the people that we leave our children with.

Because they're family. Maybe because we've never seen it, we don't know what

to look for, it's an oversight.

Whatever the case may be in the home, there's a lot of unhealthy people. But

what I've learned through the 20 years doing this work, hurt people hurt

people. And when people begin to touch and do things inappropriate, the

likelihood is that someone did it to them. And without help and support, that

behavior will continue to replicate itself.

What needs to make sense for you in your life at this point is how can you work

toward reunifying your family again?

Because I know you love them, and you're not the person that I met weeks ago. I

wasn't taking care of myself whatsoever.

You've seen me before. I was just a mess.

It's a lot of water under the bridge.

Too much.

Not too much, because you know the steps to get over that running river. You have

to have a different set of rules in your house on how you parent your children.

Stop using...

pet names for private parts.

It's not a Mr. Wiggle, it's not a weenie, it's a penis, it's a vagina.

Because it's so easy for a younger child to get somebody to say, let me touch

your cookie, or let me give a piece of your cookie, and they don't understand

what a cookie really is.

If you was to give me three sentences that start with, now I know, I want you

to complete them.

Now I know that I'm...

That warrior that my daughter keeps telling me every single time.

Now I know that I could stand strong against anything and anybody.

That's right, baby.

And now I know I could be that mother they're expecting for me to be.

I'm not going to say 100%.

But I could say a thousand percent.

That's hard.

My name is Natalie

Avitia Pulido and I live in Palmdale.

I started seeing red flags.

When Martin he started staring more often He touched

me inappropriately and he kissed me Which I didn't I didn't like

it Especially knowing the fact that hey, this is my little sister's dad.

This is my mom's fiance like no I Froze and yeah, I told

him I I want to go home. I feel uncomfortable

if you don't stop i'm going to tell my mom not that i ever wanted to because i

saw how happy she was she deserved to be happy and i felt like you know i'll go

through whatever i have to go through to make sure that she's happy it happened

multiple times the last time and when i finally decided i had enough and i had

to tell my mom he told me that from the moment he first laid eyes on me that he

was in love that he couldn't stop thinking about me jasmine came to

me because she wanted to talk to me and she started telling me well when you

guys are gone and you guys go to the store and you leave me here at home by

myself with martin he comes in my room and he

comes and he tells me to take off my my pants he'll come and tell me to take off

my underwear

to take off my shirt and he'll kiss me on my neck and then he'll put his tongue

down there i'm like what do you mean down there mama and she's like yeah

right here in my private part i was like are you serious

at that point i was like you know what i can't

do this somebody's got to do something and it's gonna have to be me but as long

as i know that nothing else was going to happen to my sisters was worth it.

Mom, I don't hate you.

I don't dislike you.

I do miss you a lot.

I wish things would have gone differently, not just to you, but to

Emily, to Ezekiel, to Jasmine, to Esmond, to Fedaria.

I'm sorry if, you know, I took away whatever chance at

happiness you had.

A hummingbird.

They say if you see them, they're good luck.

I don't feel like she failed to protect us. I feel like she failed to separate

being a wife and a mom.

Because being a mom, you put your kids first.

I had a child that I detained on my caseload in Pennsylvania, and I met him

as an adult.

He told me exactly what I was wearing and what car I drove him off in. It's as

if a child victim of rape can tell you what the weather was like, what the

rapist was wearing.

He told me exactly what car I was driving, what I was wearing the day I

took him away from his parents.

Yeah, it's very traumatic.

I'm Drew Bogdanoff. I'm a clinical psychologist, and I'm a trauma

specialist. And I've been working in specifically the trauma field for about

18 years.

And the truth is that trauma begets trauma, so if somebody's had a traumatic

event, there's going to be something later.

So we work specifically to re-regulate the nervous system from the inside out.

When you see people who are so broken and so lost, and you help them find

their way home and back into their lives, that's grace.

The loss of a child, whether it's to anything, I think any parent would say

is the worst thing that could happen.

But to actually have your child taken away when you have done nothing wrong,

and you all of a sudden have to prove your innocence, it's

against nature.

Those losses are profound. They're unfathomable. It's essentially no

different than if your child had died.

But they're in the care of other people that you can't control, and you've lost

one of the most precious things in your life.

The question is, can the trauma be effectively addressed while they remain

in the home and we're giving the parents an opportunity to rehabilitate? Or does

that trauma need to be addressed elsewhere in an imperfect situation

where the child is safe?

This is where the system has actually created more trauma and has actually not

only created trauma for the child, but created trauma for the family system.

and continues to create that trauma.

But think about it. There is no other system in the law that I'm familiar with

where potentially the victim of a crime is asked to forgive and

move back in with and live with the person who committed that crime.

When you think about how unusual the entire situation is, you realize how

difficult the situation is.

and how there's a level of trauma that invades everything.

Anna reached out to me because they were actually mandated to get therapy. That

was part of the requirement.

So the goal when they come into a session is to help support their self

-regulation, help them regain their agency.

help them put some perspective on what's happened so that they don't actually see

themselves as the perpetrators that these other people are projecting onto

them.

So when you really go inside and you feel into this for you, for both

of you. What do you guys make of this?

There's no sense in it.

Especially in light of your profession, right? This attack on you.

and your credibility your competency it flies in the face of 30 years of your

work when i was in my training as a social worker we were taught the power

of the pen they have pencil whipped us pretty good i started

out in my legal career in juvenile court but

my god until

I felt what it felt like to be the accused.

I didn't have the whole picture, Doc.

You guys are in shock, you're in trauma, and you're still in it. Even though the

resolution, theoretically, has been there.

When we heard from the judge, he found the accusations to be untrue.

Not unsubstantiated, but untrue.

That was validation.

After we were exonerated, this supervisor had been

telling me that they have to find something, Doc.

You know, they have to find something.

No, they don't. What's there to find, you know? And then when we met with her,

the supervisor, she said...

They just couldn't prove it.

It doesn't say on this order that it was not proven.

It says untrue. I immediately

knew that, okay, well, this ain't over.

Even after resolution, people are exonerated and the children are still

separated from the home. Where is the end to this?

His mothers were found, okay, let's say, not guilty.

However, the kid says, every petition you filed was true.

It just wasn't proven in court. I don't know why.

I'm not going back to that.

The system is completely malfunctioning. I mean, and it's self-perpetuating.

Because lawyers get paid to run cases and caseworkers get paid to do what

they're doing. And even so, we don't have sufficient resources.

The funding for the system comes from a variety of sources.

There's county funding, there's state funding, and there's federal funding.

And federal funding plays a significant role in the system.

There's a state funding stream and a federal funding stream, and they more or

less parallel each other virtually identically in relation to the findings

and the things that need to happen in a case in order to qualify for the state

and the federal funding.

And truthfully, the funding system has always been kind of upside down. The

Title IV-E funding, for the most part, is premised on...

placing children into foster care.

So there is less funding provided for the prevention of children entering

foster care.

The financial aspects of this entire system is that when you take children

away, you get paid more. We don't want children who aren't going to be

reunified with their families languishing in the system. That does

happen, and it happens too often.

So there are financial incentives that are provided to agencies to get children

adopted when they're not going to be reunified.

I don't think that the legislation was set up intentionally to incentivize the

agencies to grow their child population.

but I think the net effect of the way that the system is set up. So you have

to go out and at least take as many kids as you did last year just to maintain

your budget.

Rosa, do you want to start and share?

First of all, I started Overdates with my girls.

It's... It's hard.

I started a new job.

It's hell.

It's a lot of sun.

And every time I'm picking a carrot out, it's like, I'm doing it for you, and I'm

doing it for you, and that's how I progress my work.

Do you want to share with some of the group how you got here?

What got me here was my daughter's father for sexual abuse.

They ended up taking the girls for fail to protect.

The perpetrator, did he go sentenced to prison? He got sentenced to, I want to

say, 19 years.

You lose your family, you lose your house, you lose your husband that you

didn't even know what was going on. You lose your kids, and in less than a year,

I lost everything.

I feel so guilty because I'm their mom. I'm supposed to protect them.

But when I didn't know what was going on, it's like...

protect them from what that I didn't even know myself.

It's shameful at times.

You're not alone.

This is a group that you can share, and you're not going to be judged. You're

not going to be shamed.

Trish, I know you're new to the group. You want to share how you're feeling

today?

It's hard to, like, relax because I feel, like, anxious about everything.

They've accused you of what?

accused me of physical abuse of my daughter, of her arms, and

failure to protect because I should have known about the alleged sexual abuse.

So your kids are not living with you, any of them? No. All three of them are

in foster care?

Yes. So my son with special needs has been in four different homes, and he's

only semi-verbal.

So he's the true victim in all of this.

I was in your situation.

I have to let them go.

Protect Connor, right? That's the name of Connor? Yeah. Because Connor's got

special needs.

Connor's, you know, he's being bounced around or whatever. And that was one of

my fears with my daughter.

I'm 48 years old.

I got seven kids and one died when I was in prison.

It is going to come out of this bag.

You just have to find it. On top of it, we've had a really difficult social

worker. When my daughter, who said the things she said, started to recant.

Some things the social worker started to dig and look for other things when this

line goes on There's not like somebody watching you understand that there's not

somebody keeping a list You're keeping a list. You need to have a binder. You

need to document everything you do parents ask me all the time So what's

the consequence?

Nothing there is no constant not held accountable

We're going to trial because we did not take their plea bargain. I'm not saying

that I've been abusive when I haven't been abusive. I'm not going to do that.

In this country, unfortunately, parents' rights can be severed by a judge, no

jury, no witnesses.

It's not a criminal proceeding. It's going to be your word against the

worker's word if you even get to speak.

I've always believed that there are no color lines.

in child abuse.

Yet, if you see a Caucasian family or an Asian family in the juvenile dependency

courts in Los Angeles County, that's a rare thing.

And when I go to other counties where there is not a large African-American

community, I see a lot of brown folks in the courtroom, or I see Caucasians who

are poor.

You know, when I first started with Children's Services, I'd go to the court

and I'd walk up and down the halls of the parents waiting.

And I thought naively, well, I guess white upper middle class people don't

get their kids. You know, they don't abuse their kids. But we know from the

research and statistics they do.

The discrimination plays out because if you're black, you're more likely to get

a child abuse case. Just like if you're black, you're more likely to end up

arrested or in jail.

The treatment was different from me than it was other people who had the same

situations. And then I was thinking, my first thought went was, are these people

prejudiced? Why do the people that don't look like me have better treatment than

I have?

When I'm dealing with a black or a brown family, their cases go on longer, and I

think their treatment is more excessive.

And the treatment was different for my children. They all was on medication.

They all was in special ed. I mean, it was really, really rough.

We are given a population that comes through our door. It's who gets called

in. So does the disproportionality start before it comes into our system or does

it come after?

They hire the younger generation to come in.

And if a person is fresh out of college, no children, no history, no nothing,

come in and tell me how to raise my nine kids, it's unacceptable.

Not too long ago, I was at Cal State Long Beach.

and I was listening to some of the students that are going to become social

workers. And I could just tell from their questions or statements that they

have no idea what they're getting involved with.

And then they come with their biases.

They can come to a house, a house is decent, but it don't look like the house

that they was raised in, and it's considered nasty.

The house was destroyed.

Then we're going to detain.

Let me go call him.

Also, go over there.

Princess had her puppies.

You want one?

One's sick inside, though. The worker was complaining about all this stuff

right here.

It's like, where are you going to put all this stuff in storage?

I have no storage.

We pay $700 here.

with utilities included let me connect the only light that

we have because it doesn't have electricity so

as you can see the messy room right now my son's gonna sleep here in the room i

have to buy an adapter for the ac for this which i don't even have the money

for that and then i'll down going back that way

This couch right here turns into a sofa bed.

So two girls could sleep there and I have a blow-up mattress and I have those

pull-up cribs that one of the girls could sleep in there.

At least we have running water, heat, food.

Social worker approved the small living space that we have because that's all I

could afford. I cannot afford an apartment or anything but at least even

though it's small she approved it.

should prove for the girls to have overnights, which is even better than

Christmas.

I think that oftentimes there's a misunderstanding by the community, by

mandated reporters, by child welfare social workers, the difference between

abuse and neglect and poverty.

Overall, The ability of the system to differentiate between poverty and

neglect is very low.

The plea bargain basically said that if I sign it, Connor would come home

immediately. And in the plea bargain, what it was saying was that there is a

conflict that exists between the child and the mother that causes the child to

act the way that she does.

And that's the furthest from the truth.

And being that I'm not citing the document, what they're doing now is

they're trying to flip the whole thing upside down and say, my home is no

longer a safe haven.

for Conner to come home to in retaliation for not giving them that

signature that more or less covers their butt. Through this whole process, Conner

has been the victim.

He's been the innocent party. He just wants to go home. That's what I see.

Some days he used to wake up just crying.

But that's something DCFS doesn't see.

It is clear that you truly care.

You are Connor's fourth placement in one year to a little boy that has no voice,

can't tell the way that he feels.

How does Trish feel about the contract?

My wife and I are on real shaky ground when it comes to the signing of this

plea.

Every part of me says not to do it, and my wife, understandably, she's had

enough.

I'm just getting tired of it. I got one time to get this right, and I'm hoping

that I'm making the right decision.

Today we're hoping that this is the last day of our trial.

Hoping at the end of the day we're able to take our son home with us.

This judge, since the very beginning, he had stated that he spent a week reading

the entire file.

And by the way that he was cross-examining my daughter in his

chambers, it was very apparent that he did indeed read every page.

So I think I'm going to get a fair shake by this judge.

Say a prayer for me.

In trial, Michaela wound up turning around and saying that it did happen,

the allegations did happen.

We just had a court hearing, and Children's Services said to the parents,

if you agree to, it's called this language, the petition stuff, that it's

not true, but if you agree to this, then you can have your son back.

And so that was the big quandary. I mean, do you admit something you didn't

do, or...

You just say, no, let's go ahead. We're going to fight this.

And so they're fighting it.

Went into court. It looked like the judge was considering dropping the two

most serious charges because we wouldn't go with a plea bargain. And a plea

bargain would have actually given our son back.

immediately and then work on getting our daughters back, all the charges wound up

sticking.

The judge had questioned the DI that was on the stand at that point and he was

trying to get the DI to answer the question as to what type of

investigation she did with this case and Bottom line, she had to admit that she

didn't do it. And the judge asked her, why didn't you investigate this case?

And the D.I. said, because we always believed the child, Your Honor.

Me and Ernst have a lot of issues going on. I mean, nobody has a perfect

relationship, but since this happened, there's been a big rift.

I do have resentment.

In the beginning, he was saying absolutely not, and there was no

discussion.

This happened with several different issues. There was just no discussion.

And I feel like in a marriage, you discuss, like, even if he had some valid

points and concerns, you still need to discuss that.

It's just tough. I mean, I'm not trying to make him the bad guy, but I didn't

always feel listened to as his wife, and that kind of happened again with this

whole case.

Our society, our culture here in America is based upon the family.

And who's more important in the family than the children to carry on the family

traditions, the family business, the family name.

And just as parents, we're naturally protective of our children.

I think society is a whole lot more judgmental on parenting styles if it

differs from their parenting style.

And you see... you know, like in the grocery store, you know, or shopping

around. There's judgment.

You know, I would never let my kid do that. I wouldn't let him talk to me like

that. Oh, if they did this, I would do that. But at the end of the day, you go

home, and then you watch that same person parent their kid.

You'll have nine other people saying the same thing about them. I don't know that

that's right, but I think it's true.

The very first statute in this area of law specifically says...

We're not here to prescribe a particular way of parenting. You should not be

unnecessarily intruding into the affairs of the family.

But they do it all the time, and it's a lot of judgment stuff.

So yeah, parenting and the view of society about it plays into it, and it

doesn't play into it well.

Doug. Doug.

Trace.

There it goes.

All the way back.

Let me see what you got.

Here we go. One, two, three.

Oh, right in the chest.

Trish, they're asking us to call them, so you need to be here.

She's not coming.

She's logging on to where she was.

Here we go. Inside.

Yeah, after Trish isn't coming?

So, you get to come home today. Yeah.

Hey!

You don't understand.

Ready, Cece?

35 years that I've been married we've had children early on and you know,

that's what you try to focus on When you take the kids out of the equation and

it's no longer

technically a family, it was dismantled.

Any kind of issues that you may have as a couple will certainly come up during

these times. I mean, these are times of stress.

I went down and I filed for the divorce.

It's filed now, but I just haven't served her yet.

No, she doesn't know anything about it.

I think that...

Not taking the plea deal had a lot to do with where I am now with the

relationship with my wife. You know, she felt very strongly into taking the plea

deal. She just wanted me to sign in the paper saying that, you know, we were

guilty of something that we didn't do. And I just couldn't do it. Even them

holding him out in front of me, I couldn't say that something happened

that didn't happen.

This is never over. You know, maybe it's over for them, but my family is ruined.

It's dismantled. Never have a chance of reconciliation with the girls.

I'll leave that open.

Now that Connor is home, I really don't know what there is to do differently.

I got to take care of him. I got to put him first.

I got to make sure that I can meet his needs.

Hey, Trish, we're back.

I don't know how to feel.

I'm still in shock over it.

But I just keep losing where I am.

My mind. I can't even believe that we got him back. It's all hitting me.

Get in the middle here.

Have a seat, baby.

Just have a seat. It's all right. He's right there with you.

Okay? You got it?

Jay, you sit in the center. Pull the chair back.

Slide in there.

I'm Najee.

I'm 14.

I like to play basketball, football, main sports.

Not... very much other sports, just those two.

I like arts and crafts.

Normally, we watch movies at night.

So today, my brother got married, Deontay.

It was cool. It was fun, interesting.

I'm excited for him, him and Jocelyn.

And then, as you saw, I was holding the baby, Jalen.

They named him after me. Well, my nickname is Jay or JJ.

I prefer Jay, but my full name is Najee.

The latest on the case is that the social worker is recommending Najee

be returned home.

A lot has happened with Najee's conduct, behavior, and what have you.

Social worker is now saying, you're such great parents.

You know, you've done so good, you know. It's time for him to come home.

My parents are cool. I feel like I can consider my parents the best parents.

You know, they have a lot of, I feel like they have a lot of kindness.

You know, even though things could be bad, they always try to make it the best

out of everything, no matter what's going on.

You know.

Yeah.

We're on a roll for a while there.

Then all of a sudden, my God, it's like he gets to go play these games and what

have you. And because we insist on education first, he gets mad.

And he blows up.

And next thing we know, what? He doesn't want to come back. I don't want to go

back. I don't want to visit.

We were just laughing and smiling at the wedding.

And, you know, we were great parents at the wedding. And then all of a sudden,

we're not.

This is not about our feelings, you know? We really want

Najee.

Please continue to hold.

I feel raped, and I've been raped, so I know what it feels like.

This ain't good.

It's not good.

I just don't have anything else to give this.

I have nothing more to give it.

Nothing.

It just blows my mind how much...

sleepy, sleeping white people think they know about what's best for a little

black boy.

They don't get it. They don't care to get it. Just one more time, one more kid

in the system.

One more.

ATM machine, you know, get paid. Yes, I'm angry.

I'm angry for Najee's sake.

These cases, they're David versus Goliath.

You can't beat the machine.

Okay, that's it.

That's all I got.

That's all I got.

The last place I lived in the trailer, the owners had, I guess, problems of

their own.

And they wanted to mix their problems with mine.

And they said, you need to get out.

We were homeless for eight days.

And then I found this place.

Thank God, like, eight days later, I found the room.

And the social worker came and saw the place.

By Thursday evening, she approved the house. She, you know, did the

walkthrough. Within 24 hours, it was approved.

You nasty.

You smell.

It's more a reality check on every parent to be more cautious with their

kids. More involved.

These social workers told me early this morning that the recommendation is for

them to come home.

But if, you know, they always have that if. If the judge says no, what if the

judge, what if this, what if that?

It's not night yet.

You want to go night-night too?

No?

It was a toll on the whole entire family. My son went through depression

on his side. I know Emily did.

The toddlers are scared that I'm going to be removed or I'm going to be taken

or they're not going to see me. They're traumatized.

You're doing all these things that you're supposed to for your kids, but at

the end of the day, it's whatever the judge says.

They're going to say, yes, the girls can go home, no, the girls can't go home.

I'm going to do my hair a little.

Just kind of scared, nervous.

You wait all day for them to give you two minutes, not even two minutes of

their time.

I feel like I'm never gonna come home.

I feel like I'm never gonna come home.

Listen, listen.

You're gonna come home, okay?

It was hard at first, but she didn't leave my side. She's still there. She's

still pushing harder.

She's stronger. She doesn't let anything affect her anymore.

Before, she would just cry and cry. Now she just gets up. She does what she

needs to do now.

I did talk to Natalie.

She thinks that I hate her, and I'm like, I don't hate you, and I hope we

have a relationship.

And I told her, you're more than welcome to join us in whatever activities we

have.

It's it's a beginning

But

I

know I keep saying this over and over and I don't want it to come across right

they go children services is horrible horrible because

There are situations where the children definitely need to be taken from the

parents.

It's just that the bad just way outnumbers the good to the point where

it's completely ineffective.