Store
There is no force which can compel my speech.
So let Zeus hurl his blazing bolts,
And with the white wings of the snow,
With thunder and with earthquake,
Confound the reeling world,
None of this will bend my will.
Hesiod, “Theogeny”
by Michelle D. Chan, Parents Against CPS/Court Corruption (PACC)
Parenting under the jurisdiction of Child Protective Services (CPS) can be likened to living under the rule of the Greek gods. The agency and juvenile dependency courts have a god-like power over the lives and fates of impacted parents, an absolute power that has gone unchecked for too long. Parents’ trauma is often compounded by the perceived injustice and senselessness of the system.
This is the system with the lowest burden of proof requirements out of all the court systems in the nation. In the juvenile dependency system, parents are guilty until proven innocent. Children are often removed and placed in state care before parents have had the chance to defend themselves in court, before parents have consulted with an attorney, before parents can come to terms with the fact that their lives may never be the same.
Especially urgent is the need to halt unnecessary termination of parental rights (TPR) of CPS-impacted parents. Due to flawed provisions in the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), families are often shuffled through the system so quickly that it has become routine for state agencies and courts to violate constitutional rights.
I was facing TPR in my own case – which was riddled with gross and criminal misconduct – when I made the resolve in the winter of 2016-2017 to build this social justice movement fighting for family rights. It is arguable that our movement was the first of its kind, ever.
Termination of parental rights
A termination of parental rights finding forever severs children from their parents. For countless parents, it is the end of the line after an extended period of profound suffering. And, if the child is securely attached to the severed parent, TPR marks the beginning of a lifetime of intense hurt in which the child will forever feel as if a part of themselves is missing.
For those of you that have never endured such pain and loss, try to imagine what it feels like to lose an arm or a leg. It is a common phenomenon in amputees to be plagued with “phantom pain.” The pain is real and feels as if it is occurring in the missing body part. The limb is gone but the mind doesn’t know and cannot accept that the limb is gone. If the amputee’s mind cannot accept the loss of limb, then certainly a child’s heart and soul cannot accept the loss of a beloved parent, in whose womb they were sowed and from which they sprung, or whose embrace they have known since birth.
Moreover, TPRs in California are inherently unfair to system-involved parents. Parents facing TPR often struggle with complex issues that act as stressors and impede their ability to engage in services and/or make progress on the issues that led to the child welfare intervention. Parents struggling with co-existing issues such as homelessness, poverty, substance abuse, mental health or incarceration are at high risk of TPR. This is due to the demanding requirements placed on them and the restrictive timelines parents have to reunify.
In California, courts can move to TPR in six months if the dependent child is under three years of age and 12 months for older children. The reunification process often feels insurmountable to system-involved parents.
Parents against CPS/court corruption
I am a low-income, disabled CPS-impacted survivor of domestic violence and childhood rape. The story of PACC begins with my story in San Francisco in 2016. At the time, my son was being held hostage by the corrupt judge, attorneys and social workers on my case. My son loves me more than anything in the world, and yet no one would listen to him; no one would help. He was invisible, just as all too many other children trapped in the system are.
The judge and attorney on my case had tricked me into the appointment of a guardian ad litem (GAL). In child protection proceedings, a GAL is typically an attorney appointed to represent children. However, a GAL can also be appointed to legally incompetent adults who do not understand the nature of the proceedings. In my case though, the GAL appointment was used as an improper means to silence dissent.
In the blink of an eye, I lost my right to speak for myself. I may as well have been imprisoned. I had committed no crimes and in fact was a victim myself of domestic violence when my CPS case was opened.
In the myth of Prometheus, Zeus wished to destroy mankind. But the compassionate Prometheus, wishing to preserve the race of men, stole fire from heaven and gifted it to mankind along with blind hope. As punishment for this act of defiance, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to eternal punishment, chained to a rock while an eagle pecked away at his liver each and every day.
In the following real life interpretation of the myth of Prometheus, the almighty judge’s order placing me on guardianship for demanding that parents’ rights be upheld can be viewed as Zeus chaining Prometheus to a rock for gifting mankind fire and blind hope.
But I retained my freedom of spirit and insight, just as Prometheus did. And just as Prometheus found a way to break free from his chains, so did I. Through my insight, I recognized in the people a mighty power derived from their shared experiences of lived oppression.
I recruited a handful of my peers – what brave souls they were – who possessed Prometheus’s gifts of fire and blind hope. Our small but dedicated group awakened in others just like ourselves the will to fight, the loyalty to fight together and the altruism to fight for others who did not have the strength to fight.
Individually, we were nobodies with nothing. But together, we were an empowered and sublime force with the ability to emancipate ourselves from our oppressors. We did not have tools at our disposal. We did not have money. We did not have reputation or credibility or social connections.
But we had fire in the form of passion and heart, hope, independence and creativity.
Through the power of raised awareness, I led our fledgling movement of poverty-stricken mere mortals as we prevailed over the gods. After we had protested for months and published a monthly column in the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and Judge Nancy L. Davis, like the Greek gods, had grown abusive with the absolute power she held over the fates of children and families, I was released from the terms of her guardianship. My son came home, two teenage girls came home, and the original members of the group had improved outcomes.
I urge everyone facing unlawful and unjust TPRs, in which you weren’t given a fair chance to reunify, to fight like hell. Once your parental rights are terminated, the only recourse is the appellate courts. Unfortunately, in California many of the court-appointed attorneys are failing to get exculpatory evidence on record. This taints the appeals process because no new evidence can be introduced once parents’ cases are closed in the trial courts.
Nothing about us without us
PACC continues to fight on behalf of parents. In particular, we are concerned with attorney and judge misconduct and unlawful removals and unlawful TPRs in California. We, the impacted and invisible families, demand to be seen, heard, respected, and to be substantively involved with any and all policies made that impact us. Nothing about us without us
We invite all impacted families, allies and supporters to join our uprising to bring accountability, transparency and oversight to this flawed system.
Michelle D. Chan is founder and director of California Families Rise (CFR) and Parents Against CPS/Court Corruption (PACC). To find out more about our work, to join our family rights uprising or to share your story, visit www.ParentsAgainstCPSCorruption.com or www.CaliforniaFamiliesRise.com.
