CPS involvement - now what?

[sillystring]

In June my SD disclosed some abuse allegations against a relative of her mother's, whom the mother lives with.  TN CPS would not interview the child at the time because she was not 3 yet, so it was determined to be unsubstantiated.  Mother did agree to keep the child away from this relative, claiming to move out for awhile, but we know she is back to living there again.

Mother retailiated by then filing a false abuse allegation, claiming my 2 1/2 yo dd was touching sd's privates.  Mother kept SD from us so we got an emergency hearing where the judge not only ordered her to resume back to 50/50 time share but also put it in the order that we were allowed to put SD into play therapy (CPS recommended it but Mother refused).  We live in different states, so we also got the judge to put into the co that child protective services in our state, GA, be allowed full jurisiction over the health and well-being of the child.

So in Sept, SD started going to therapy once every other week.

Last week, she disclosed the abuse to her therapist.  Part of what she disclosed was that her mother and grandmother know about the abuse but all they did was tell the relative to stop it.  This is the same thing she told us back in June.

GA CPS is taking this very seriously and has told us to not allow any contact between SD and her mother or her family.  When they called mother to inform her of this, she wouldn't listen to what they had to say and just kept trying to blame the whole thing on my DH, saying he was doing this because of an upcoming custody modification mediation.  They told her that this had nothing to do with DH, that it was from something that came up in counseling, and she just would not listen (you would think that her main concern would have been Is my child OK? but it wasn't).

The investigation starts today and I'm just confused as to what will happen now.  Has anyone been through this?  How long will it take? Do we need to hire a lawyer now or do we just trust CPS to take care of everything?

[Kitty C.]

The first thing I would be doing is asking CPS if they will be requesting an emergency hearing to back up their demand that the child not go back to the mother during the investigation.  Without that, you have nothing to back you up legally and would have to return the child.

[sillystring]

I will have DH ask them - I was under the impression that CPS will only file for an emergency hearing if THEY are taking custody.  The CPS worker did say that if the mother does not agree to let us keep sd then sd will be taken and put into foster care while they do their investigation.  She also made the comment that it would be a really good idea for us to go ahead and retain a lawyer and file for emergency custody ourselves.

She said there is NO WAY sd is going back to TN - she will go to foster care before they will allow that.

[Kitty C.]

I agree with their idea...because you need something to back you up in court in order to keep her from going back to the BM.  Filing for an ex parte hearing would be the immediate next step.

As stupid as the BM is, she would probably refuse to allow you guys to keep her just out of spite, which will only do her further damage......if she's that bent on revenge to the point that she's willing to have her own child go into foster care, rather than to actually be with family, then she's certifiably crazy.

Let us know what's going on........I have a feeling it's going to get worse before it gets better....

[snowrose]

Yes, you need get a court date to go for emergency custody.  Try to get CPS to set the court date up for you during their scheduled time before the court.  Failing that, drag CPS with you for an emergency hearing - and if they won't go with you then have CPS write you a letter stating what you've been told by the CPS agent: that DD is NOT to be allowed to go back to TN; that she is to stay under your care and control.

Most definitely get something in writing from CPS.  I've seen too many times where CPS will back out of something that gets sticky if you don't have what the agent has said in writing.

[sillystring]

Well, you were right, Kitty, GA decided it was TN's jurisdiction so their safety plan was voided and we had to give her back.  DH and the lawyer are going in front of the judge today to get ex parte custody and an emergency hearing.

Mother is in complete denial about the whole situation.  She was supposed to bring DSD to CPS last week to have her interviewed but her phone convienently was dead so the lady wasn't able to get ahold of her to set up a time.

We got DSD back on Sunday.  DH had mediation with the Mother yesterday and she refused everything he offered her (he wanted to drop the ex parte because he knows it will be hard on DSD, but he can't trust the mother to protect her so he doesn't want DSD going back to TN).  He told her that if she lets DSD stay in GA until our court hearing early January, he would still pay her full CS AND an additional $100/week for any week she came down to see DSD (her uncle lives here, so all she would be paying for was gas - she's in school M-TH but could come down every weekend).  He said she could see her as often as she would like to and even gave her Thanksgiving Weekend (originally hers) and Christmas Weekend (originally ours).  He also offered to drive DSD up there two weekends.

DH is really upset. He knows he has to protect his daughter but he knows she's not going to understand and this is going to hurt her. 

[Kitty C.]

Better a little temporary hurt now, then have long-term permanent hurt later, don't you think?

[reshawn]

I've gone through it and when abuse was disclosed to CPS by the child I was given a stay away order (that's not the exact name)... It had who the child should and should come into contact with, for how long and the CPS worker told me the action they were taking next....  (Two states involved, DC and MD) One state referred the case to the police department which did nothing, the other state referred it and the person was itnerviewed, charged, and had a trail...
So I would say ask as many questions as you need to, it shows your concern and it leaves you informed of everything.  I also called every other day just to check up, I wanted to make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing.

[sillystring]

Well, we were unable to get an emergency hearing since we already have a January court date and since we already previously had an emergency hearing in August (when the mother was keeping the child from us).  The judge said that if CPS feels the need to put a safety plan in place then they will, otherwise we have to just wait until our hearing to get it worked out.

The problem is that we have heard NOTHING from CPS.  As far as we know, they have not interviewed the child.  The therapist has called them multiple times and they tell her they are taking it seriously but we have seen no action from them.  It's really frustrating.  We had this same issue the last time DSD said something to us - CPS would not take it seriously because of the false allegations that her mother has made against us. 

This is so frustrating.  And now we just received a bunch of paperwork from the mother's lawyer claiming that DSD made the allegation against my dd BEFORE ever making an allegation against the mother's relative, and accusing us of coaching the child to say that she was hurt by her relative instead of my dd.  This is total BS, but we have documentation proving exactly when DSD made her allegations to us (police report and doctor's examination) and I know she doesn't have anything because her allegation didn't come up until 2 months later. 

I just can't believe she is going to try to drag her child through the mud in order to try to get custody, and now she is trying to drag my child through it as well.  What kind of mother does that?  A desperate one, I suppose....

[sillystring]

Reshawn - how did you get CPS to return your phone calls? DH has called a couple times but they won't call him back.