Child Protective Services Makes A Traumatic Mistake

A 5 Year Old Wrongfully Removed From School. Oops.

 

Let me give my own view of the news story video above – however, I highly recommend that you watch the actual news story before forming an opinion. Child Protective Service (CPS) arrives at a school in Minnesota to remove a 5 year old boy from his kindergarten classroom. That’s fine.

In my opinion CPS exists to research allegations where they believe children are in danger. With a researched and educated motive they can step into a school and remove a child in order to get them into a safe environment when their home may not be safe. I’m NOT dissolving into your hate or love for CPS. I’m merely concentrating on their job and in an ideal world it is a great service to keep children safe.

The Issue Here

The problem in this situation is that the school and CPS removed the wrong 5 year old boy with the name Avante from the school. The boy had no choice but to get in the car with strangers and asked questions about his home life. It appears that he told the adults the truth but they believed he was lying.

I can only imagine that this little boy was scared, upset, confused and…  he in all honesty probably wanted his mommy.

The Problem Discovered

The mistake made by the school and CPS isn’t discovered until they go to pick up an older boy. This older child believes he is getting into the car with his younger brother. The older child knew that CPS had been investigating his family. However, the shock comes when the older boy doesn’t see his younger brother and asks about the identity of the other boy.

The 5 year old boy, Avante, will get back to his classroom 45 minutes later.

The Aftermath – Trauma?

The mother of Avante doesn’t find out about this whole situation until she comes to school to pick up her child – Wait, why wasn’t the mother notified IMMEDIATELY?!

She reports on the news story by Fox News 9 that her son has many questions about the other child and is confused about the situation still.

As a parent, I can only imagine the amount of paranoia that must be going through this mother’s mind. I don’t believe that I could send my child back to the same school the next day. When I send my child to school, I have the unspoken trust with the school administration that they have my back. I believe that we are working together as a team and I want my child to feel safe with them. However, when part of the team allows my child to be taken by CPS for no reason, my trust is lost.
What if the older boy had remained silent? Would the younger boy ended up in the foster care system?

I can guess that little Avante may have fears of being taken from school again. If I were him, my trust that my teacher will keep me safe would be broken. I may also not know whether to completely trust law enforcement as I would see CPS as police officers. I might have a constant fear away form my mom – Can people take me away from my parents again?

We ALL Make Mistakes – Resolution is KEY

While this whole situation concerns me, I have to remind myself that we are all human and not one of us is above making mistakes. However, I believe it is the events after the mistake is made that are the key. Apologies. Resolutions.

It’s what we teach our kids. If you accidentally wrong someone you need to apologize. Then attempt to make it up to them.

From the news story it appears as though the school has taken ownership of this mistake and is doing it’s best to re-educate and train it’s staff. They appear to want to stop this event from ever happening again.

CPS, however, appears to not even own that the event transpired. I understand that they seem to be obeying privacy laws. They want to protect the family whom is being investigated and whose children are being taken. I get it. In this situation I would not want my family’s business reported on the news because of another event.

However, I believe that there is more of a middle ground here. The story has already been put in the public eye. We already know that a child named Avante is involved. I would hope that CPS would at least have the decency to admit a mistake was made and like the school state that they would look into the training of their staff and revisit their policies. Instead, the news story says that CPS gave Fox News their policy and procedures when questioned about the event – the only problem is that the mistake was made WITH the current rules in place.

What Should Happen Now?

We want to hear from you. What should the school do in light of this situation? What about CPS? What was handled correctly? Incorrectly?

Written by
Co-founder and President of Transfiguring Adoption. Darren is a graduate of Illinois State University where he studied fine art. He offers foster and adoptive parents over a decade of experience in parenting foster and adoptive children, as well as his introductory to counseling training. Darren is the author of the "A Guide to Magical Creatures Around Your Home," book series. [email protected] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/darrenfink Book series: www.magicalcreaturs.com

What do you think?

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4 Comments

  1. We’ve had a HORRIBLE year long traumatic experience with CPS and our three adopted kids with Reactive Attachment Disorder. I have no faith in the system. http://teamorphans.com/blog/2016/01/12/forgiving-the-10000-lie/

    • CPS steals kid who don’t want to be stolen. What did you expect?

  2. Rebecca, at the current state of our culture I believe that the whole general populous would do good to have a general understanding of trauma caused behaviors. Our program is currently at the very beginning stages of talking with certain professionals about creating a curriculum or training to help educate educators on the affects trauma can have on students’ learning.

    Please – continue to look through our website and spread the word about our program. One of our sub-goals is to help educate the public on issues that foster/adoptive parents face. We always listen to feedback and suggestions that are E-mailed to us. Every subscription to our newsletter and social media also helps us to get tips, advice and more out to parents. Plus, more professionals tend to find us to offer more help.

  3. Our culture could be trauma informed, sure, but it is absolutely 100% critical that child wet workers understand the effects that their actions have on kids and their biological families.
    It’s obvious that the procedures followed by these people are not beneficial to reducing incidents of child abuse. Removing a child from their home and parent(s) can, and often does, cause irreperable damage to children and parents alike.
    Workers who are not properly trained cannot perform the tasks associated with the protection of children. Nobody in this department is adequately educated. They can’t handle their case loads because they take too many kids unnecessarily, and the kids are kept in foster care way too long without proof of abuse or negligence on the part of the parent.
    As a whole, CPS/CWS in the U.S. has been horribly mismanaged for years, does not promote social cohesion, and displays flagrant disregard for parents and children alike.
    They need to be shut down until they can adopt a program that works.

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