Child abuse: when family courts get it wrong

Kim Kay is an 18-year military vet who left the service with a medical discharge for PTSD. She had grown up in an abusive family and was sexually harassed in the military. It took a couple of years to establish a service-related disability and get financial and medical benefits. During that time, her 12-year-old son developed depression and made a suicide attempt. Without health insurance, she went to social services in Stark County, ND, where she was promised that if she relinquished custody her son would be admitted to a children's psychiatric hospital unit in Bismarck, the state capital. Instead, he went to a group home in another town. Months went by, and he did not even get a therapist. She asked for a lawyer and asked for her son back. Instead, the county moved him to a therapeutic foster home--but still no therapy. When the battle continued, the county decided he should go to Arizona to live with the father he had not seen for 9 years--he and Kim were divorced. The father passed a home study--which somehow left out the information (which it had) about DUI convictions and his second wife having recently left him, alleging abuse of her children. The boy went to his father's home. The caseworker told Kim she was never getting her son back.  Kim kept fighting. Ultimately, the court ruled that the county had to reunify the boy with his mother. Kim told him the news on the phone. She had not seen him for 6 months by then. A few days later, his father steered his vehicle into the path of another car, killing that driver, and his own son. The father walked away from the accident. The crash was still under investigation 3 weeks later, since witnesses said it appeared deliberate. Then the father was found dead of a drug overdose, an apparent suicide.

Kim told her story to a legislative committee a year ago. She was barely able to finish her testimony. The committee was stunned into silence. But months later, when it was time to make a decision about recommending legislation, they'd managed to forget what they'd heard. Now, even later, they are saying they have more important things to think about this session.  

I hope that the two laws will require a complete investigation by the investigators and CPS. Too often they use the "we are doing what is in the best interests of the children" logic and that statement is as far from the truth as possible. The best interests of the children should be a complete, thorough and rapid (no more than 1-2 weeks times frame) investigation.