Nationwide Protest Against Child Protective Services Planned For Next Month Posted 2007-07-14
Local Mother Planning To Attend
By David Reynolds
HARRISONBURG — When Candice Marie Raynor died suddenly after running away from a foster home in Richmond last fall, her mother Lynn, gave up one battle and began another.
Since May 2005, Lynn Raynor had struggled to regain custody of her 15-year-old daughter and to get her off the psychoactive medication that she says state doctors gave Candice.
The Harrisonburg-Rockingham Department of Social Services won’t say why they took Candice from her mother, citing confidentiality laws, but Raynor says the removal came after she lost housing.
On Sept. 30, Raynor’s hope of getting Candice back was lost forever when the former Thomas Harrison Middle School student’s body was found at a power substation in Richmond. She’d been electrocuted. The state medical examiner’s office has ruled her death an accident.
But Raynor says she hasn’t given up her fight against the agency she blames for destroying her family. Next month, she will take her grievances to Washington, D.C., at a rally next month on The Mall protesting child-protective service agencies across the nation.
According to rally organizers, the primary grievance is against federal funding of foster care, which they say provides an incentive to remove children from the home.
"I hope people will actually be able to get the government to stop and look at what’s going on," Raynor said. "If social services didn’t get the federal funding they wouldn’t have the money to take the kids."
Dick Randel and Gene Vaught, founders of Children in Peril, a support group for families in custody disputes with the local social services, also plan to attend.
"Parents are heard but not listened to," Randel said, citing the need for the rally. "We plan to notify everyone within our little group [about the rally] to get this done."
The Rally
DCRally 2007, scheduled for Aug. 18, is a nationwide protest against foster care’s funding process, which organizers say leads social service agencies to remove children from their parents unnecessarily.
Ronald Smith of Grand Rapids, Mich., founder of the nonprofit group Children Need Both Parents, organized the rally.
Smith says that federal funding, which supports children in the foster care system, has turned child protective services into a business.
"It’s more profitable to keep children in the system than to reunite them with their families," he said. "It doesn’t make sense to pay strangers when the same money that they’re using for foster care could be used to repair families."
Another concern, Smith says, is that many state agencies prescribe psychoactive medication to the children in their custody.
Earlier this year, Smith’s 20-year-old son Richmond died from liver cancer. Smith blames the death on Ritalin, a prescription drug prescribed to treat ADHD.
Smith, who had custody disputes with Richmond’s mother, says he hasn’t been allowed to see medical records pertaining to his son’s death.
Local Concerns
Randel and Raynor both say that Smith’s complaints about social service agencies are relevant in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.
Raynor says social services medicated Candice without her consent, and that she’d filed a federal lawsuit to stop the drugs before her daughter’s death. Raynor says that after Candice died, the lawsuit changed but is still pending in U.S. District Court in Harrisonburg.
Randel, who says he has worked with 75 families since forming Children in Peril in 2005, also has other concerns.
DSS sends children with serious drug or alcohol problems for treatment in Charlottesville, Richmond, or Roanoke, further separating them from their parents, he said.
Also, Randel says, removal hearings are held in closed courtrooms where parents have little say.
"For the parents, it’s always you’re guilty, and then you have to prove your innocence," Randel said. "We want the system to really fully explain the time and date and what the charges are… They don’t do that."
Some Common Ground
Don Driver, director of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Department of Social Services, said he wasn’t aware of DCRally, but that he’s interested in working with concerned parents.
The agency, he says, tries to strike a balance between protecting children and helping families solve problems.
Taking children from their parents is a last resort, Driver says, and after taking children, the agency works with parents so children can return home.
Driver would not answer questions about specific cases because that would violate privacy rules, he said.
But as for federal funding, he says the money is to serve children in state custody.
"Foster parents don’t get paid at a rate that is a money-making thing," Driver said. "They do it from their heart, but they still need to be funded for the cost."
He also said he would like more children to receive drug treatment in local programs, but services for seriously addicted children aren’t available in Harrisonburg.
Driver also said that social service agencies in Virginia are working toward improving relations with parents and solving problems without putting kids in foster homes.
This summer, the Harrisonburg-Rockingham agency is adding two new positions devoted to keeping families together.
"There’s a lot of common desires and directions," Driver said when told of the rally organizer’s concerns. "I would like to see us have a greater capacity to help families resolve problems."
For more information on the DCRally, scheduled for Aug. 18, log on to DCRally2007 Contact David Reynolds at 574-6278 or Email Bob |
