William Tower is the President of American Family Rights Association. He has served on the Governor's Committee to overhaul foster care in California and currently sits as a Commissioner for the Citizens Commission for Human Rights. Last year he was invited by, and spoke before the United States Congressional Committee of the Ways and Means Committee on Heath and Humans Services on the issues of the Adoptions and Safe Families Act.
Mr. Tower speaks from his personal experiences and observations and is here before you as a man who can tell you first hand how damaging the well-intentioned think tank social programs are to American families and the children they purport to help.
If the Nation had deliberately designed a system that would frustrate the professionals who staff it, anger the public who finance it and abandon the children who depend on it, it could not have done a better job than the present child welfare system we have today.
With this said, I want to take a moment and say what a great right this is we have to be able to stand here today and voice our opinion and put forth our grievances’ of the system.
More over I want to thank all the Military service members, present and past, and a grateful Thank you to the service members that have given their all, in order that we have these rights. This is what separates the United States from all others.
There is no greater responsibility or reward than the blessing of children, no greater privilege than the blessing of Parenthood. The Highest court in the United States agrees with this and has repeatedly taken the Stand of this; and I quote;
The U.S. Supreme Court has said parents’ interest in the care, custody, and control of their children “is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.” In a series of opinions, the U.S. Supreme Court “has frequently emphasized the importance of the family. The rights to conceive and to raise one’s children have been deemed ‘essential,’ ‘basic civil rights of man ’and’ rights far more precious … than property rights.’”
The present system we have today violates these rights and separates children from parents through a list of laws that seemingly contradict these rights. Children are taken from “caring and loving parents” every day at an approximate rate of 3000 children a day. The state claims it is to protect children. We say it is to justify the money needed to fund the employees and their payrolls.
(Someone once asked me if I knew how much money it would take to fund the system.
And my reply was it will be proportionate to the employees payroll and expenses of the Department of Human Services.)
Under the funding statutes of Title 4-E there are required inspections that must occur every few years to see if the States are (and I quote) “in substantial compliance” with the requirements of the Federal funding streams.
In all the inspections that have been done to date, and these are done to ensure Congress that the states are in Substantial compliance with the requirements of CAPTA/ASFA and title 4-E funding acts, the states have failed in all of these areas as noted in the recent Pew commission reports.
According to the recent reports from the Pew Commission, most of the states are “substantially not in compliance with the requirements.”
The states have a history of failing and with out any consequences to the states including a loss of Federal funding. The olde cry comes up all the time “that all they need is more money to meet these requirements.” I am here to explain that this is simply not true.
(I was once told that a boat was nothing but a hole in the water that you keep throwing money into.)
Well We have thrown money into this very “boat” for years and it has only gotten worse. I believe that it is time to pull this boat out of the water for a major overhaul.
We always get a promise that the system will improve however, we never see it happened. We have only created a larger problem with all of this money.
The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families... How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or responsibility if, from their earliest Infancy, they are separated from their parents? Broken homes lead to broken families. This leads to broken societies. And the Department of Human Services has been hard at work destroying as many families as possible all in the name of “best Interests of the Child”.
All the studies have shown, that Children who grow up with their parents do far better—emotionally, educationally, physically, every way we can measure—than children who do not. This conclusion holds true even when differences of race, class and income are taken into account.
The simple truth is that a biological parent is irreplaceable in shaping the competence and character of their children...
[The absence of a parent] from family life is surely the most socially consequential family trend of our era.” And this needs to stop.
Currently, only one in three children—and only one in five inner-city children—are in a home with a mother and father. Nearly 25 million children live absent or apart from one of their biological parents. This is mostly due in part to poverty issues. Not the abuse and neglect issues, and Neglect is most often confused with poverty by the State employees.
I would suggest to the United States Senate and Congress that we need to make changes. And make them fast before any more families fall victim to the system presently in place.
Let’s talk a moment about what a parent hailed into court is going to encounter when they arrive. If the parent isn’t being charged criminally, then they are going to find out there is something called a preponderance standard. That means the court doesn’t need “hard” or clear and convincing evidence. Anybody in this audience ever been to a court for a child protective matter? To this day do you understand what happened? You got accused and that was good enough a reason to keep your children.
Your Federal Representatives will tell you that it is not a FEDERAL ISSUE. However it is. Because this is where the funding for these programs comes from and there needs to be a citizen oversight committee/commission appointed and not another government employee filled committee. This committee should be comprised of people that have experience with the present system and not be government employees. This committee should not become a full time position for anyone. There should be limits on how long people can be on this commission and it must be from a pool of parents that have been involved with the system. This is from what I see would be the only way to get the proper information put on the record.
In the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) bonuses were approved for adopting children out of the foster care system, this was done to move the children languishing in the system out to adoption and make room for more children to come in to it. (another cash cow for the states) however I see the incentive given for adoption of these children but I see no incentive to get these children home.
I say that if there was a bonus given for family reunification that was greater than that given for adoption; we would see more family reunification. |
