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CHILD CLIENTS WE HAVE HELPED Toby's Story "Toby" was born two months prematurely. After several months in hospital, he was sent home. Nineteen days later, this baby boy was back in hospital with two subdural hematomas, six broken ribs, and a fractured tibia. Toby's injuries were devastating, and he suffered permanent damage. A head injury disintegrated one-third to one-half of Toby's brain. He may be permanently blind and may never be able to walk or talk. Doctors at Denver's Children's Hospital said Toby's chances of survival were slim. In an interview with the parents, Toby's father admitted shaking the baby and throwing him. After a psychological evaluation of Toby's mother, the psychologist concluded that she was untreatable and unable to protect Toby from harm. Toby needed a whole month of hospital care to begin to recover from the many medical complications caused by his head injuries. When he was discharged from the hospital, the baby was placed with a dedicated foster family. Amazingly, Social Services opted for a treatment plan that eventually would return Toby to his dangerous, unfit parents. The Children's Law Center successfully fought all attempts to enforce this unworkable plan. In record time, our staff attorneys persuaded the court to terminate the parental rights of Toby's parents and helped his foster parents to adopt the child. LaTasha's Story Bronchial asthma had reduced young "LaTasha's" lung capacity to 18% of normal. Frequent asthma attacks caused her to spend a total of ten months in hospital. Her mother insisted that the attacks were merely attempts to "get attention" and refused to get rid of her ten cats and four dogs. LaTasha's mother also failed to visit the girl in hospital and instead, took a nineteen-year-old surrogate son to Disneyland during this period. LaTasha decided she wanted to live with an aunt. Her mother refused. She wanted LaTasha to be placed either in a locked shelter or sent back to her own destructive home. Both alternatives would have caused LaTasha irreparable harm. An attorney at the Children's Law Center brought three doctors, a nurse, a psychiatrist, a counselor and a school official to court and convinced the judge to respect this bright adolescent's wishes and let her live with her aunt. Tee Jay's Story "Tee Jay" is a little boy who was involved with Social Services for two years and in foster care for over a year. Tee Jay was freed for adoption after his mother died of alcoholism, and his father voluntarily gave up his parental rights. Friends of Tee Jay's foster family, the "Smiths," got to know this endearing little child and soon decided they wanted to adopt him. Tee Jay's attorney at the Children's Law Center knew this family was an excellent option for Tee Jay, not only because he felt comfortable around them, but because they understood his special emotional and developmental needs. Then, biological family members, who had never met Tee Jay and never come forward when he first needed a foster home, asked to be considered as a potential adoptive family. This family knew what Tee Jay had endured and knew that he would need intensive developmental and emotional rehabilitation because of his severe abuse and neglect. Unfortunately, the family lived in a rural area, miles away from the treatment services critical for Tee Jay. Still, because of its biological ties to the child, Social Services focused solely on this family as a candidate for adopting Tee Jay, and rejected any consideration of the Smiths. Social Services ignored the emotional ties the boy had developed with this family and the fact that they lived near treatment providers that could help Tee Jay to heal. Tee Jay's lawyer at the Children's Law Center fought Social Service's plan and, through the court, forced consideration of the Smiths as an adoptive family for Tee Jay. Eventually, the biological family decided they could not care for Tee Jay, but even after they retracted their offer, Social Services delayed the adoption process for the Smiths. The Children's Law Center sought and obtained a court order requiring Social Services to expedite the process so that Tee Jay could be placed in his adoptive home more quickly. Tee Jay celebrated his birthday in his new home and his adoption was finalized two months later. Miguel's Story "Miguel" was a three-year-old who spent the first seven months of his life in hospital because he was born prematurely and weighed just two-and-a-half pounds. A major stroke meant he had to be fed through a tube. He failed to grow or thrive like a normal child, and his mother, who had three other young children, was too overwhelmed to care for him. Social Services placed him in a temporary foster home with foster parents who had the experience and dedication to nurture Miguel and who eventually taught him to take food orally. Since he was in a temporary foster home, Social Services decided to move Miguel. The new foster parents would have been strangers to this special needs child, who had already built up a loving relationship of trust and predictability with his current foster family. His doctor testified that Miguel would permanently regress if moved. Social Services argued, incorrectly, that the move was mandated by policy. With hard work and the help of several expert witnesses, attorneys at the Children's Law Center succeeded in convincing the court to keep Miguel with his current foster family. Rebecca's Story One wintry Wednesday, the Children's Law Center found out that a judge in a distant Colorado county had ordered unsupervised weekend visits between "Rebecca", a two-year-old girl, and her father. Staff attorneys were worried because there were serious allegations that the father sexually abused the little girl. Rebecca was traumatized each time she was forced to see her father. The Children's Law Center made several telephone calls to the judge on Friday and asked to be appointed as law guardians for Rebecca and given a chance to investigate the allegations against Rebecca's father. No law guardian had yet been appointed and there had been no investigation of the sexual abuse allegations. Unfortunately, the judge was out of town at a judicial conference. Fortunately, the conference was in Denver, the home base of the Children's Law Center. Friday afternoon, two staff attorneys from the Children's Law Center went to the judicial conference, waited several hours until the judge was available, and persuaded him to appoint the Center as Rebecca's law guardians. The judge give the Center the tough task of filing a court report on the child's situation by the following Wednesday. Over the next few days, a team of Children's Law Center staff attorneys did an intensive 70-hour investigation. They interviewed over 20 people, searched through reams of documents, looked at hours of videotape, made countless phone calls. On Wednesday, after midnight, Rebecca's law guardians filed a 48-page court report that expressed grave concern over the sexual abuse allegations. They recommended that unsupervised visits between the father and his two-year-old daughter be suspended immediately, because of the possible risk to Rebecca. By Friday, the Children's Law Center got word that the judge had reviewed its report but had opted to let visits between little Rebecca and her father go ahead! This alarming news prompted immediate action. For the rest of the day, Center staff made phone calls urging the judge to reconsider his decision and urging the local Social Services department to stop these potentially harmful visits. The phone calls did not work. Rebecca's father was going to be allowed unfettered access to Rebecca. Unhappy with this poor decision, the Children's Law Center went to the media. On Friday evening, the Denver Post agreed to run the story. On Monday, a reporter for the Denver Post began her investigation by calling the judge at his home and at court. This strategy worked. That afternoon, the Children's Law Center got an order from the court that suspended visits between Rebecca and her father. When the Children's Law Center asked that the father submit to a psychological evaluation, he refused, and withdrew his request for visits with his daughter. For the first time in her life, little Rebecca stopped screaming and hiding in fear of forced contact with her father. |
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