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Originally Posted by East Coast Okie
I have a lot of questions regarding this post. If these records are available, why hasn't this been dealt with, already? Who taped these sessions? If someone is being charged with a crime and the child's testimony is being used to convict, why isn't the defense counsel getting this information?
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For this reason, among others, the criminal charges were dropped. The case is in a "reunification stage" now where the child is going through supervised visitation with her father and hopefully getting to unsupervised in the near future.
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Originally Posted by East Coast Okie
Normally, you'd have to show the caseworker acted outside of his/her position to go after them, directly. If it is a judgment call, I'd be surprised if that case could be made. If the caseworker is acting maliciously, that would be different. Why is the case worker doing this?
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Simply put, the caseworker is crazy. Some bad things happened to her as a child and she became a social worker to "right the wrongs" in the world. She truly believes the father is a bad person and ultimately wants to terminate the fathers rights. To do that she needs to put him on a treatment plan that the father can not complete, and prove that there is no bond between the father and the child.
The only record of contact between the father and child right now is in the caseworker's visitation reports.. and they read pretty bad. If you read them you would think there is no love between the father and the child.
If the child tells people that she wants to see her father on a weekend, the caseworker will be unavailable to do the visit and someone else will have to supervise. If that happens that person may write a visitation report that shows love between the parent and child, and that would prevent her from terminating the parents rights later. This is why the caseworker scolded the child in the bathroom and made her change her mind about wanting to see her father on Saturday.
Make sense?
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Originally Posted by East Coast Okie
In my line of work, it is very difficult to get kids to testify against their parents or abusers. Doesn't matter if the parent or abuser was horrible, the kids don't want to testify. It's very frustrating for the workers to know that a child is not being treated well. Frequently, the child tells them all about it - but when it comes times to prove the case, the child changes the story. From a practical standpoint, it places the case worker in a difficult position. He/she is convinced the child is in a bad situation and has a duty to protect that child. At the same time, the only evidence is the child's testimony so if the child won't talk, the child gets left in a bad situation. I can see a case worker getting frustrated with a child who says one thing in private but refuses to testify to make the case. I can also see them being heavy handed - not defending it, but I can see it happening and understand why it would happen.
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In the case of a bitterly contested custody case, where many people have motivation to manipulate the child, I hope you would be objective and consider that the allegation may not be true, and not go all ends justify the means when you can't tell for a fact what even happened.
The father might have abused the child, he might not have, there is no way to really tell based off the evidence.
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Originally Posted by East Coast Okie
If a child is attacked by a stranger, that is one thing. They still don't want to testify because it is embarassing and scary. If a child is harmed by a family member (either through abuse or neglect), they not only are scared, they stand to lose their family. I am amazed at how many grandparents torment their grandkids to get them to change their testimony KNOWING that the child is telling the truth. In their hearts, the grandparents are convinced that the matter can be handled "in family" so they make a deal with the devil to coerce the child to change their story. Their intentions are good but the results are nearly always ghastly.
The only motivation I can see for a caseworker to try to get a child to testify a certain way would be if they actually believe that is the truth and because they are worried that the child will be in harm's way if they don't testify. Of course, the case worker could be dead wrong. The child could have lied to the caseworker, originally. I personally don't recall ever seeing a caseworker making up something out of whole cloth although I have seen them put a certain spin on facts that could have been interpreted differently. There are usually different versions of a story and rarely does anyone have a perfect right version - perception problems, memory problems, etc., result in witnesses seeing the same event in vastly different ways. An angry parent, a scared child, a disgusted socialworker and a concerned therapist may see the same thing and come away from it with a different take. Probably none of them have the perfect version.
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Which is why the caseworker needs to act in an ethical manner and allow due process to play out. When you go to college they teach you why the ends do not justify the means. No one judges you on your intentions because they don't matter in the real world. Consider this: She didn't do any investigation, she tainted only piece of evidence, and if the father really had abused the child no one will be able to do anything about it because she messed the case up that badly. No one will ever know what happened, because of the caseworkers "good intentions".
For all we know it could be the mothers significant other that was abusing the child the whole time, we will never know because no one looked in to it.
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Originally Posted by East Coast Okie
Anyway you look at it, the child is screwed. The only kids who get much out of testifying are those that are angry at their abuser and feel empowered to look them in the eye and put them away.
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No one is going to prison, the father and child are going to be reunited but the custody dispute itself has been going on over 2000 days and has quite awhile to go.