Child Protective Services Arizona

CASA receives part of $2M grant to create permanency for children

Court Appointed Special Advocates in Angelina County received a portion of a $2 million federal grant to create permanency for children in the foster care system.

The Diligent Recruitment Project seeks to place more foster care children in adoptive families, especially with biological relatives, through a partnership with the Texas Department of Family Protective Services, Child Protective Services, Child Trends and CASA.

The $2 million grant covers Angelina, Nacogdoches, Gregg, Tarrant and Collin counties, and during the next five years of the grant, the agencies hope to reach 900 children in Texas. The program targets children who have been in the foster care system for 13 months or more.

“It speaks well of the support you have here in Angelina County,” said Judy Bowman, a regional director for CPS. “We can put money here and have the folks in place to make this happen. We have to keep children safe, but in keeping them safe, sometimes we have to break those family connections. It’s also part of our jobs to reconnect those children and their families.”

At a stakeholder’s meeting Wednesday, CASA of the Pines volunteers and board members, as well as CPS employees and others, gathered to learn more about what the program entails.

Vicki Magee, Senior Program Services Specialist with Texas CASA, said the program will involve volunteers conducting diligent searches for family recruitment by collaborating efforts with adoption agencies, DFPS, CPS, the courts and CASA.

Searches for family members will be more intensive and recruitment for more adoptive families will ramp up.

“We want this to be a transformative process,” Magee said. “States such as California and Arizona have similar programs, but they are not taking the next step, which is adoption. That is our ultimate goal.”

There are approximately 70 Angelina County children currently in the foster care system, according to Melissa Castillo, Intensive Adoption Coordinator for CPS. The program initially will focus on 13 of those children.

“Our greatest need is more foster care and adoptive homes,” Castillo said. “We need families to take sibling groups, some with three to five siblings. We need families to take teenagers and children with special needs, both medically and behavioral. This is a community-wide call to action. We need everyone to spread the word. Kids need permanency. They need family and parents. They deserve that. We want to give them the opportunity to learn about their family and give them those connections.

Ame Deal: An Arizona Tragedy : Arizona Criminal Law & Sex Crimes Post

Some news stories are bizarre, some are horrifying, some are mind boggling, and yet others, are all of those things. Why would a family torture one of their own? Why would they torment a small child, especially when that child is their own flesh and blood? When parents harm their own children, it can sometime be explained as the consequence of mental illness. After all, if the last 150 years of the study of evolution has taught us anything, it is that people protect their genetic legacy, and any deviation from that is abnormal.

But how does one explain when four adults renounce that simple maxim, and according to news stories, torture and kill their 10 year old relative? As reported William Hermann of the Arizona Republic :

Even more disturbing, if true, is the failure of child protective services, both here in Arizona and Utah, to do its job.  That some people do things, that may with good cause be considered evil, is predictable, certain, and preventable.  That, of course, is why we have civil servants whose sole responsibility is make some members of our society more civilized than they would care to be.  But it now appears that our government failed young Ame, and that is a tragedy.

Arizona has a felony child abuse statute, which I have seen prosecutors charge drunk drivers with their children in the car.  The rational of the charge is that if you have "care or custody" of a child and you put that child at risk by driving drunk, that is felony child abuse.  

It might be a good idea to extend that logic in matters such as this one.  By that, I do not mean charging these four defendants with child abuse, as I am sure the charges they are facing now are sufficient.  What I mean is, if an Arizona social services employee was deficient in his or her job performance by not removing young Ame from her home, charging that social services employee with felony child abuse.  

I am all in favor of strong and dedicated public sector, and I am a firm believer if you take a job in which your sole responsibility is to protect the public, particularly our vulnerable children, you must face the law when something goes wrong.  Just to be clear, I don't know what Child Protective Services (CPS) did or knew, but if someone at CPS did not do their job properly, then that person should be facing more punishment than just losing his job.   

This child's death haunts me.I get claustrophobia when my seat belt sticks and holds me to the seat for a few seconds.This little girl was squeezed into a small space for hours with no air.Can't turn,can't stretch, can't take a breath.I've looked after kids who werent mine--all they wanted was a hug--to hang out--to play--a freezie or some other treat once in a while.What comfort or pleasure did this little girl have in her life.I've read that the other kids in that house would work at getting her into trouble.The neighbours knew.What kind of animals have we become ? I saw a documentary where a mother Cape Buffalo stood by her dead calf driving off the lions until she tired out.The calf had been killed many hours earlier.A Cape buffalo is a brute but had more protective instincts then any of the people in that house.People have posted on other sites "rest in peace Ame" That doesnt speak to the terror and suffering of that little girl.Next time you bite into a popsicle please remember Ame and have a bite for her.I hope there is a heaven so that a tormented soul like Ame might have some comfort.They moved to Arizon because the Utah child protective services were asking the family questions.

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