SAIL Away

Painting by Leonid Afremov

Related to a domestic violence situation and an expectant mother – here is her story.

She recently fled from an abusive relationship. She and the two other children have been staying in a motel. She reached out to an adoption agency.

Adoption agencies are predatory – they have to create that sense of obligation, so women will feel obligated to carry through with the adoption plans. In this case, they said the would pay for the mom and her kids to stay in the motel from now through 6 week’s postpartum. Keep in mind here, mom has a decent job. She can afford rent at an actual residence. It’s help with deposits and first and last month’s rent she needs help with. She certainly can’t save for that while paying for a motel.

That is how I learned about Special Assessment Intervention and Liaison (SAIL). Someone mentioned it and believes it is federal. They help pay deposits and utilities when a woman is fleeing domestic violence. The program’s goals are Safety and Self-sufficiency for each domestic violence victim and her family. They seek to determine if participation in work activities and/or child support enforcement activities would put the client at increased risk of danger.

Some of the SAIL Project services include – developing a safety plan, assisting in obtaining safe housing, filing for protection orders, attending court proceedings with the client, providing referrals to individual and group counseling and/or support groups, identifying community resources and obtain other necessary services and/or goods. Beyond direct client work, they educate employers about domestic violence and its extended costs.

Examples of some of the expenses SAIL might cover – Repairs for damage done by the perpetrator to the home in which the client lives such as broken windows, doors, locks, etc. Repairs for damage to the victim’s car that was done by the perpetrator and are necessary to safely operate the car. Deposits for rent and utilities for the victim to move away from the violence. Certain transportation costs, such as commercial travel fare, gas, truck/van rental (not insurance).

blogger’s note – I don’t know if this SAIL program is available in every state in the US. My information above came from program information related to the state of LINK>Alabama.

13 Years !!!

It actually doesn’t come as a surprise to any of us who are well informed about foster care in these United States. Even so, it is still possible to surprise me never-the-less. NPR described today that LINK>Texas could face fines over dysfunctional foster care system. Texas has been in litigation over its foster care system for nearly 13 years. A federal court is now weighing whether to impose hefty fines over the system’s inability to make progress.

Not only Texas but America’s foster system is in crisis. Sadly, Texas’ network is among the most troubled. NPRs story includes details of self-harm by one foster care youth – “I always get judged for my arms.” NPR notes – The 18-year-old’s left arm is covered in scar tissue from hundreds of self-inflicted cuts.

She explains – “people didn’t want to keep me. Or I feel like people didn’t want anything to do with me because I look like I’m insane. But in all reality, we’re not insane. We just are looking for somebody to love us.” NPR notes – Since she was 14, she spent her time being shuttled between treatment centers and psychiatric hospitals, often changing doctors and medications each time, never finding stability. So now, more than a dozen placements and 230 different medications later, she says the state’s child welfare system is a lie.

Children without placement hotels exist because Texas doesn’t have enough places for children, the ones with high mental health needs. Federal court monitors call these placements dangerous, noting in its reports times when kids got assaulted, ran away or were sex trafficked. And for more than three years, what was supposed to be a temporary placement for kids has often lasted for weeks or months. The state says it has cut the numbers of children without placement in half, but it’s still more than 100 kids a month. It’s cost $250 million over three years.

Texas has been aggressively refusing and opposing reform. It is a big system with lots of problems, but the state’s leadership is just not willing to work cooperatively to get it fixed or to find solutions. Federal District Judge Janis Jack calls the bureaucracy that produced these ongoing failures horrible. One in four caseworkers leave within a year of being hired. One person asks – “if state leaders can spend billions erecting barriers on Texas’ southern border, why can’t they fix this?”

NPR notes – Texas is not the only state to deal with legal fights over foster care. Alabama, Mississippi and Kansas have all dealt with federal oversight. Many still are. One former foster care youth says Child Protective Services (in Texas) was so bad that she would have rather stayed with her abusive family.

Only Ever About Babies To Adopt

I thought this over a year ago, when the Dobbs decision was first leaked, before it was announced by the Supreme Court. Yesterday, I came across a widely diverse piece in the LINK>Politico Magazine Friday Read where “Thinkers from across the political spectrum reckon with the dramatic and unpredictable ways the country has already changed since the historic Supreme Court decision.” They titled their piece – ‘I Underestimated the Depth of Outrage’: A Year in Post-Roe America.

One piece written by Robin Marty, author of The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America, reads – “. . . the Christian conservative activists and politicians behind our total abortion ban abandoned their pretext that this was ever about anything other than making babies for their families to raise.” It occurs to me that with dwindling numbers of people going to brick and mortar churches, taking the babies of “heathens” (woman who did not remain chaste and conceive in marriage) and indoctrinating them in the faith is one way to increase their numbers.

She notes “. . . we have not seen one single public policy introduced that would help a person avoid pregnancy — no subsidizing of affordable, accessible contraception, no expansion of Medicaid for pregnancy prevention or earlier prenatal care, no additional funding for hospitals, clinics or other medical centers that are feeling the burden of additional pregnant patients needing services.”

“Instead, we saw a Legislature that created more subsidies for adoption and fostering — despite the fact that the foster care system is already underwater. The Legislature couldn’t even muster enough support among themselves to pass tax breaks for the predominantly Christian crisis pregnancy centers that are allegedly supporting mothers during pregnancy. We passed death certificates for stillbirths and “baby boxes” for abandoning newborns (now up to 45 days post-birth instead of just three). We saw an attorney general who argued that pregnant people could be jailed for taking abortion pills — who was then forced to walk back his words. We saw a lawmaker try to codify that same threat into law before his colleagues killed his bill in committee.”

She asks – What (do) the conservatives really want out of an “abortion-free” nation ? It is a place where people are forced into pregnancy, where their personal health and liberty has no relevance, and where the ideal outcome is a live infant by whatever costs. After all, they have plenty of “good” Christian families to raise them.

blogger’s note – I wonder what the real outcome will be ? – more single, unwed, mothers are choosing to keep and parent their own babies. There will be more children raised in poverty and more stressed out mothers trying their best to provide for their families. Maybe the “extra” number of babies they actually get out of this will be less than they thought there would be.

Another one, Abby M. McCloskey (who is a Republican) admits – “I have been disappointed that the rollback of abortion rights in red states — like mine, Texas — hasn’t been met with more robust financial support and protection for mothers and children. I understand that more government support is a turnoff for conservatives, especially in our fiscal environment. But in this case, I believe it’s the wrong place to draw a red line. As someone who values life and believes in the importance of strong families, it is a logical extension of the pro-life argument to protect and value life at all of its stages.”

She notes – One basic way to improve support for families is to provide a baseline level of wage support and job protection if a parent chooses to take time off of work to care for their baby, (which we know is associated with better outcomes for both parents and kids). Lack of job protection and financial insecurity are the leading reasons why (more parents don’t take time off from work following the birth or adoption of their child); few low-wage or hourly employees have paid family leave options from their employers.

She adds that she will be looking with great interest at what GOP presidential candidates propose this next cycle to support families, especially for the women impacted by the end of Roe.

blogger’s note – Of course, if people who can afford to pay for adoptions end up with the “extra” babies, the actual genetic, biological parents won’t need to the government to help them fund the raising of their own children. There are many more points of view in the Politico article at the link above.

Making Adoption Easier

It has been a long standing Conservative project to make adoptions easier – hence an article from 2015 in The Federalist titled LINK>We Need To Make Adoption Easier. All Sides notes that this publication LINK>displays media bias in ways that strongly align with conservative, traditional, or right-wing thought and/or policy agendas. A “Right” bias is the most conservative rating on the political spectrum. As to the photo above, Slate did a reveal that LINK>The Real Story Behind the “We Will Adopt Your Baby” Couple Is So Much Worse Than the Meme.

The effort continues as written about by an adoptee blogger, Tony Corsentino, that I follow in his latest LINK>In the Woods. Several states are actively aiming to “streamline” the process of relinquishing and adopting a child. One is Indiana who is poised to pass a bill to “streamline” abandonment and adoption of newborn infants, which would omit any oversight and regulatory safeguards to prevent anonymous trafficking of those infants, through the state’s so-called “newborn safety devices,” commonly known as “baby boxes.”

He links to an article posted just in the last week at the Adoptee Rights Law Center titled LINK>Indiana’s Secret Adoption Pipeline. He asserts that SB345 will facilitate corrupt off-the-books adoptions with direct baby box referrals from fire station to adoption agency to “pre-approved” adoptive parents to final adoption, all completed in the span of a single month and all without any state oversight. Tony also links to Marley Greiner’s site LINK>Stop Baby Boxes Now.

Indiana is not alone in these efforts – enter now Alabama and Tennessee seeking to “streamline adoption. They suggest that they are only “trying to get kids into a permanent home as fast as possible.” The principal change is to speed the timeline for termination of parental rights. Reading about foster care and the goal of reunification of children who have been removed from their parents informs me that rarely do such parents actually get the support and time they need to meet the requirements of the state.

Tony shares an excerpt from Ann Fessler’s – The Girls Who Went Away. She notes that losing her son to adoption had a profound effect on her. She goes further to say “a few years after I was married I became pregnant and had an abortion. It was not a wonderful experience, but every time I hear stories or articles or essays about the recurring trauma of abortion, I want to say, ‘You don’t have a clue.’ I’ve experienced both and I’d have an abortion any day of the week before I would ever have another adoption—or lose a kid in the woods, which is basically what it is. You know your child is out there somewhere, you just don’t know where.”

He goes on to say – Given adoption’s unpopularity and the resulting mismatch between the domestic demand for infants and the domestic supply, it is no surprise that proposed measures to “streamline” adoption by making it faster and easier to terminate parental rights amount to an even deeper undermining of vulnerable pregnant people’s agency. We do not ameliorate the injustice of banning abortion by “streamlining” relinquishment and adoption. We compound that injustice. Both for those who seek abortions, and for their offspring.

Tony ends his essay with this – For adopted people to make progress in defending our rights, we need first to be heard. It’s a big forest.

Justice For Foster Care Abuse

A former foster care youth writes – I thinking about taking legal action against the state of Nevada for putting me and my 3 siblings through 8+ years of abusive foster homes? My brother repeatedly told our case workers about abuse over and over and they said no one wanted us, so we would have to “suck it up”. I want justice. We were abused, severely in some cases and the worst that happened was a slap on the wrist and MAYBE a foster license taken away. Why no jail time? I would think that most of what happened must be written in our case files somewhere. I know it’s a long shot and probably “way too dramatic” but I’m angry and so are my siblings, our lives were completely turned upside down and we will carry unnecessary trauma with us our entire lives. There has to be something we can do??

Turns out this isn’t as rare as you might think. Oh I knew many are abused. I read a book last April titled Foster Girl, a memoir by Georgette Todd in which she shares her own experiences of being in foster care.

So in the responses to the plea above came stories about other cases and some not-legal advice from a lawyer.

Just last December 2020 in the state of Texas, Corpus Christi-based federal District Judge Janis Graham Jack found the state of Texas in contempt of court for continuing to fail to comply with court orders put in place to protect children in state custody from abuse. The ruling was the latest in a nearly 10-year-old class action lawsuit over allegations of abuse, neglect and systemic failures in Texas’ child welfare system.

The not-legal advice – I’m a lawyer but don’t know anything about this area of law (which is complex bc govt officials may have some degree of immunity from prosecution, I don’t know). I would begin by (1) googling to see if and how others have brought these suits, (2) law firms in your area who have successfully sued the state for damages, and (3) legal aid providers or maybe the ACLU to see if they can refer you to any lawyers who might be willing to take it on contingency. I’d also move quickly – some kinds of suits can only be brought for a certain number of years (but again, I know nothing about this area of law so please do not take this as legal advice!).

Another woman chimed in – I would look up recent cases brought up against the state/Dept of Human Services… Look up the law firms used… Call them or submit an online inquiry. In Oregon, you have 6 months from a qualifying event to file tort (notice that you intend to file a lawsuit) … But a qualifying event could be as minor as “remembering” a new thing. Usually these types of suits are a contingency, so you don’t pay the law firm unless there is money awarded (except if you lose you usually have pay actual costs of things like filing fees and paper copies, etc), if you win/settle the law firm takes a pre-agreed upon percentage. Law firms don’t usually take on these cases unless they are pretty sure they can win…*good luck* I hope you can hold them accountable!!!

Here is another case moving through the courts in Alabama during 2020. Alabama officials failed to protect multiple children who were abused and neglected for years while in foster care. Foster children who lived with Daniel and Jenise Spurgeon (both have been arrested and are serving time) were sexually, physically, verbally, mentally and emotionally abused, according to the four lawsuits. While the children were starved, isolated, tortured and assaulted, the lawsuits allege, the Alabama Department of Human Resources ignored signs of abuse and neglect. The lawsuits say “numerous” complaints about abuse and neglect were made to DHR by the children and others. The complaints included violations of DHR’s standards for foster homes and ban on corporal punishment, plus reports that the children weren’t properly bathed or were forced to bathe with other children.

There is an organization that does a lot of this kind of justice work. It is called A Better Childhood. They cover the states of West Virginia, Indiana, Oregon, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey and Washington DC. A Better Childhood fights for children who are abused, neglected, and irreversibly damaged while dependent on child welfare systems. Their work challenges existing structures to improve the lives of children, whether they are in state custody or reliant on the state for protection. Using the power of the courts, they develop new legal theories and apply and expand existing law to reform the various states’ foster care and other child welfare systems. Then, we monitor the states’ responses to hold them accountable.

Instances of abuse for children in foster care is estimated to be as high as one out of every three children. For some more startling statistics, you can read – Abuse in Foster Care Is a Social Justice Fail.

The ENTIRE justification for the state taking children from their families is to protect the child from abuse. If the child then is put into another abusive situation or worse yet, a series of abusive situations, then the entire premise of the state’s effort to protect children has failed. The agency has failed in it’s jo, and their justification for taking children from their families is a nightmare.

Women Behind Bars

Women’s incarceration has increased 800 percent over the past thirty years. The incarceration rate for black woman is double that of white women. Woman are more likely than men to be imprisoned for drug-related offenses. 62% of women in state prisons have minor children, many of whom are forced into foster care or left with relatives who scarcely have the financial resources to care for them.

The separation of families is now widely understood as a human rights crisis also at the Mexican border, yet comparatively little attention has been paid to the destruction of black families in the era of mass incarceration. One in four women in the United States has a loved one behind bars, and the figure is nearly one in two for black women. When men are locked up, the women who love them are sentenced too. They suffer from social isolation, depression, grief, shame, costly legal fees, far-away prison visits (often with children in tow) and the staggering challenges of helping children overcome the trauma of parental incarceration. When loved ones are released from their cages, it is often women who are faced with the daunting task of supporting them as they struggle and often fail in a system rigged against them.

~ from The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

According to The Sentencing Project, my state of Missouri had the 3rd highest rate of female imprisonment in the United States in 2017. Thirty-eight percent of youth incarcerated for status offenses (such as truancy and curfew violations) are girls. More than half of youth incarcerated for running away are girls.

Case in Point

Dorothy Gaines’s life changed when Alabama state police raided her home for drugs. Police found no evidence of Gaines having possessed or sold drugs, yet federal prosecutors charged Gaines with drug conspiracy. Gaines was a former nurse and devoted mother living in Mobile, Alabama. A self-described “PTA mom,” she always brought snacks to the football field where her son played on the team and her daughter was a cheerleader.

She did not know that her then-boyfriend was dealing drugs. Though the state dropped all charges, federal prosecutors charged Gaines with drug conspiracy eight months later – charges that she disputes to this day. She refused to plead guilty or provide testimony against other defendants, and so, was convicted and sentenced to serve 19 years and 7 months.

She says, “My son jumped in the judge’s lap at sentencing and asked not to take away his mother.” Leaving her children, Natasha, 19, Chara, 11, and Philip, 9, parentless, Gaines was accompanied by marshals to federal prison – her first time on an airplane.

Dorothy explains, “I was always a mother that never, ever went anywhere without my children. I missed taking my children to the park, going to their school, while I was in prison. They wrote me and told me those were the days that they missed, too. Phillip and Chara’s father died when they were two and three. That’s why my children were so distraught: because all that was taken away.”

Thankfully, in December 2000, Gaines received a commutation from President Bill Clinton. Gaines’s advocacy work includes using her own resources to help youth see their incarcerated parents. “My going to prison has not been in vain,” said Gaines. “I will fight until everything has been changed.”