(00:01):
And at the very end of the meeting, they put another paper in front of me that said I needed to sign over the rights to my children, so my children would be considered wards of the state of Arizona. And if I didn't do that, they were just going to remove my children from me.
(00:24):
Welcome to Shout Your Cause with Sally Hendrick, a digital magazine where you can get found, get heard, and get inspired with content that challenges us to be globally minded. Our focus is on raising awareness around social justice issues, cultural differences, and to bring you the people dedicating their lives to tackling challenging topics as their way of giving back. Let us be your advocate to make your voices heard around the world.
(00:54):
Hey everybody. Today I've got Heather Carter here today. It's Carter, right?
(00:58):
Yes, ma'am.
(01:00):
Yes. And today we're gonna be talking about Heather's case with Child Protective Services in Arizona and what happened there and how Heather has risen up to the challenge of trying to help other families as well. But hey, how are you doing?
(01:19):
I am doing well, especially given the circumstances of what we've been through, um, doing great, hanging in there and recovering from what was done to my family.
(01:31):
Yeah. And I got a big lesson on what was done to your family when we met in Washington, DC a couple of months ago. And I wanted to get you to, uh, the chance to tell your story on the podcast. Would you wanna just go into kind of like the brief that you gave the legislators while we were there?
(01:51):
Yeah, definitely. So I think it's so important to share my story because what happened to me could happen to anyone. Um, so at the time I, me and my children lived in our home with my husband at the time, and he had a traumatic brain injury from a work accident. After his injury, his mental health just declined to an extremely unsafe state where I no fa no longer found him to be a safe individual, to be in the home with our children. Um, he had become violent towards myself and would have these violent, like verbal outbursts where he would threaten things and it just was not a safe environment for children. So I removed us from the home and I ended up contacting the Arizona Department of Child Safety because I was told they had supportive services for my family in need. We needed safe visitation centers, therapists, all of that.
(02:44):
So I contacted them and then two months after the first contact, I had like my first official meeting with them and we spent like three hours putting together a safety plan. It said I was not a harm to my children in any way, um, and that, that we all agreed I wasn't gonna supervise visitation. So we signed that safety plan and then at the very end of the meeting, they put another paper in front of me that said I needed to sign over the rights to my children, so my children would be considered wards of the state of Arizona. And if I didn't do that, they were just going to remove my children from me. So I, of course, , none of that was logical to me. There's no way I'm willingly going to just sign my children over as wards of the state. I mean, it's been two months since we left the situation.
(03:32):
They're in safety that's been established. I was able to react to the crummy situation that was placed as at our doorstep, and there was just no reason for that. So I refused to do so. I left the meeting and went to pick up my oldest daughter, and that's when I was told I was not allowed to pick her up from school because the Department of Child Safety had called her school and said they were going to remove my girls. So it's not that they had a warrant at the time, nothing like that. Um, but 20 minutes after I left the meeting is when the department went ahead and filed their first removal request stating I was an aggressor to domestic violence, that my children were not safe with me, that I was completely unaware to the horrible things I, or situations that I had previously placed my children in, which I was not unaware.
(04:25):
I wasn't just an unaware DV victim. I was trying to handle and juggle and make sure that we had a safe plan given the circumstances of my husband at the time, his brain injury. Um, so I didn't ask for that. I was aware that it was an issue and I reacted properly. Um, but that was the first removal. That was January of 2020. A week later we were in court. My girls were returned to me. Um, but I never got to question any witnesses. I never got to take the stand after the first witness was put up. The one and only witness used that is when the g a l, the guardian ad litem who represents the children in the courtroom, she asked the commissioner, commissioner Ireland to make a decision and she let her know, I think you have enough evidence that kids should obviously be with mom. Like you can make a decision. Well, that whole time the state is arguing that I'm not safe whatsoever. But the J Commissioner just comes to her own conclusion that, you know what kids should be home, but we'll keep the case open in just 24 hour safety monitor, all of these things. When I had never done anything to hurt my children, I had only reacted to a unfortunate circumstance and my children were never physically hurt during that process.
(05:49):
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(06:16):
That's so crazy. That's a lot. That's a lot to handle. I mean, you go and you're asking for help, and then the authorities or the people that are supposed to be helping, they supposed to know what to do, they turn against you and then just take your kids for really, it sounds like no reason at all. But they for some reason were able to document something to try to take them away.
(06:42):
So it was because they had messed up from the get-go. So when the case opened and everything in November of 2019, when I contacted them, I was given this investigator. Her name was Chloe Henry. And through the process, I would say three weeks after I removed us from the home is when he was back in therapy. He's on his medication, he's doing his part, realizing he knew he had a problem. So he's out of the home getting the services he needs. Christmas is coming up and stuff. He wants to see the girls. So I call the investigator Chloe and I was like, Hey, just curious. I'm really looking for supervised visitation centers. He's back in his treatment. He had an amazing, I would say even to this day, he has an amazing bond with our children, even though he's been out of the home so long, that's still their dad.
(07:30):
Um, and so I just let the investigator know that, hey, he's contacted me. I have records that he's in therapy, he's on medication and he wants to have a visit to you have safe visitation centers. And Chloe Henry told me, no, we don't offer things like that when that is a complete lie. Now knowing the system, yes, they do. That is a whole section is to offer supervised visitation for parents. Um, but she told me that wasn't something that they offered. And she also told me that her, the, she told me that the department's only concern is that he was not left alone with the children. Then the investigator contacted my brother and my parents and asked them questions like, if Heather was supervising visitation, do you feel that she would ever leave the girls alone? They all were like, no, like she's not crazy.
(08:20):
She realizes like, that wouldn't be safe, which I truly do to this day. I would've never done that. But after that conversation with her, she told me I was allowed to supervise the visitation. So in that two month span between the time of reporting and then going in for this TDM meeting, a team team decision making meeting, I had supervised visitation at the park. He went to the grocery store. I was pregnant at the time too. So he helped with the two little ones. As I'm pregnant, grocery shopping, we were never alone in a home. It was always a public atmosphere. And I was open with the department. However, once we got to that meeting and they had full knowledge of it, they told me, because this case has domestic violence within it, our policy is that you cannot supervise visits. I said, fine, I didn't wanna supervise them anyway, but I was told by the investigator that you guys didn't offer that.
(09:20):
And then at that point is like when the coverup started, all of a sudden and like the day after that first removal, Chloe Henry's supervisor called me, um, Veronica Butler, and she called and said, well, we don't know if you ever left him alone with the kids. We just had a mom who was given back her kids, and she killed all of them. And what are we supposed to do like that? That case she was talking about was a mom who was addicted to methamphetamine that had nothing to do with me. Um, so that is the little crumb that they used to try to say the first removal should have happened. Um, that's where the retaliation started, where they messed up and all of a sudden they had to throw it back on me that I was the one who was making faulty decisions somehow.
(10:09):
Wow. I didn't expect to hear that. You know, I heard, I heard your story in front of the legislators, which was definitely like your, uh, small bite version of this, but goodness gracious. Uh, how many times in all did your children get removed from you and and tell us what happened at the end? Right before
(10:31):
All together, during my case, there ended up being three removals in total. After the first removal, I followed my case plan, did all of the services. Um, and then about six months into the case, we had another incident where my girl's father had a verbal outburst. And so I had to call the police, make sure that, uh, order of protection was put in place that day. And even though I did all of that and responded properly, the department ended up filing for removal once again of all three girls, including my newborn. Um, and during that removal, they remove removed for 10 months, my attorney refused to file my evidence showing that I had done everything. They said I needed a psych evaluation. I completed that, but it took them from the time they stated I needed a psych evaluation was in June. That's when the third removal happened.
(11:27):
The second removal was only 24 hours, and it happened two weeks before the third removal. But the third removal that happened was the one that was the longest. Um, and because of that one, they said I needed a psych evaluation because they didn't feel I was mentally fit. So then they told me I had to drug test for 30 days. Even though drugs were not a part of my case, I would have to drug test for 30 days to be able able to accomplish this psyche bell. There was mishap after mishap with them scheduling the psyche evaluation. And even though they took the girls in July, it was, um, I didn't take the psyche bell until December 5th. So they just kept dragging everything out and through the process of dragging it out, I had them in my home doing services multiple times a week. Anytime that they wanted to just show up, they have full reign to walk through my whole home and living under that.
(12:28):
It's truly psychological torment. They would go to my daughter's school to visit with her and my oldest is coming home saying she doesn't wanna live this life anymore and she's scared that they're going to take her. And it was honestly psychological torment through the process and jumping through all of their hoops. I lost my job because I no longer could work 50 hour work weeks because I had all of these services and of course I'm gonna jump through all the hoops to get my children back. So financially I was hurting mentally I was hurting. Um, and that 10 months though, that I would say is the hardest time of my life, . Um, but that sounds
(13:10):
Like an egregious assault on your life, to be honest with you. To take your children for that long and for and to take them at all mm-hmm. , but to take them for 10 months, that's ridiculous.
(13:23):
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(13:49):
But tell us what turned around when you, what was that last thing in court that you were able to turn in evidence? How, how did you even know what to do?
(13:58):
So for the longest time in this case, had lasted nearly two years because I didn't know what to do. I ended up having to research everything that I could and then I eventually came across the most amazing, um, parent advocate and her name's Amy and I will forever be in debt to her because she gave me the ear to listen to me and the knowledge that I needed to walk along my side so I could eventually win my case on my own. It came to the point where after the girls were removed for 10 months, I finally got them back in my care with a Rule 59 hearing, which was for immediate return of children. However, the department refused to close my case at that time because they said I needed a family preservation or a family reunification team. So I get the girls back, that's April of 2021 and I wait until August for this family re reunification team.
(14:55):
So in August, I'm like, I have all of this evidence that I shouldn't even have this case in the first place that my court appointed attorneys have refused to file this whole time. So I called the judge's clerk, um, that was on my case, and I let her know I have all of this evidence and my attorney is refusing to submit it to the courts or to talk about these matters and it changes everything. In my case, I made sure that there wasn't any like true ex parte communication as far as real details about the evidence I had or anything like that because the judge's clerk would not be able to have a conversation as such. However, I kept it very broad. Um, she went through a couple steps of, have you tried X, Y, and Z? Once we came to the conclusion that, no, I've tried all of these things, she said, you know, you've tried everything at this point.
(15:48):
You can go ahead and file your own evidence. So I was like, okay, . And I didn't have another court hearing un for a month out. Um, and I was like, I have some time. This is great. And then I believe it's three or four days after that phone call, all of a sudden I get an email that I have this magical hearing in 48 hours. And so I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm not gonna have time to get my evidence submitted to the record. Like, are they doing this on purpose? What's going on? They just wanna dismiss the case now and have no record of them legally kidnapping my children by the funding of our government. And so I went ahead, I called up my parents, they took the girls for me overnight and I spent all night putting together every last piece of evidence I could in the most methodical way I was capable of.
(16:45):
And I ended up going and submitting all my evidence to the court 24 hours before that surprise hearing. Within the first 10 minutes of the surprise hearing, um, commissioner Nicholas Hoskins, it was, it was the first time he had ever been on my case. Within the first 10 minutes he said, Nope, we're dismissing this case. Um, and my case was officially dismissed giving me full custody of the girls. It was just over. And at that surprise hearing, all of the sudden the department changed their whole tune of, no, this mom is ready to go. She's doing great. All of this stuff. How were they not able to figure that out? Back in April, I hadn't received any services between April and that hearing. So what changed because just a week prior I had recordings of them telling me that I don't see what's wrong with me and I need to figure it out and that I wasn't safe for my children. So all of a sudden when they get caught and they're like, feed her to the fire, evidence is gonna come out. They wanted to dismiss my case, just get it over with. But I'm so happy I was able to get my evidence on the record before that happened.
(17:57):
I love that. I'm so glad that you had the wherewithal and the resources with your parents to get your evidence together as quickly as possible, cuz it to what it sounds like to me is that they were trying to throw this out there so fast thinking that you wouldn't be able to get anything done in time for this hearing.
(18:15):
Mm-hmm. , yes, that's exactly what I think occurred when you look at it. I mean, I don't wanna like look at my case as a big conspiracy theory or something like, I mean, you look into things, not saying that it doesn't exist, but like targeted people and all of that. But with my case, I think I just found really, really crummy people within the system and I ticked the wrong person off. But the thing is, so many of those bad apples exist that once I started speaking up about my case and walking through other families' cases, this is a copy and paste situation throughout the us These really bad apples are deeply ingrained within this system that are taking advantage of families. And it's like they have, they're very egotistical. I don't know what happens to the human psyche when you become a child welfare case worker, but something very negative happens. Um, and you can see it within all of them. Um, so that's, I would say within the vast majority of them, which is a very disheartening thing.
(19:15):
Sounds systemic because it obviously they go to their jobs every day and they have certain criteria that they have to meet and here they are doing that. And then that's really hurting people at the end of the day.
(19:26):
Exactly. Because there were services available to Family First Act had already been signed into place. My case was the first removal was in 2020. If my family wasn't poor, we wouldn't have been run through Title four E funding. That is what brought all of this. I had over six family placements available for my children, including my parents, my aunt and uncle who were Arizona foster parents and adopted my two cousins out of the system. My sister, who's a second grade teacher, all of these individuals with no criminal history, no drug use history, nothing were overlooked at that third removal. And my girls were placed in three separate foster homes and the department fought tooth and nail through those hearings in front of the judge that the only safe place for my children was in three separate homes with the full knowledge that those other placements existed. They said they were all counted out because nobody understood the, the concern of the department. And of
(20:29):
Course they didn't understand the concern of the department because there was no concern to be, ha okay, that makes me sick.
(20:36):
No. And what's even worse about it is like I, on my social media on TikTok and everything, I'll show the reports, like the report that was written about like a case update, new case plan by my caseworker compared to the report that is written by my therapist who has been contracted with the department for 20 years offering services. She's certified as can be, um, has gone through all the schooling. And her report was this mother has never exhibited any behavior that shows she's unfit for her children. And you look at the safety planner, the case plan, and it's like mother is not aware of all her interpersonal relationship issues that put her children in danger. Um, it's just so drastically different. You have these little caseworkers who are not certified pretty much at all compared to these highly certified professional therapists who are completely dismissed. None of it makes sense.
(21:33):
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(22:04):
Let's back up a little bit and let's talk a little bit more about what's going on with legislation in Arizona. Is Arizona one of the states that has not adopted the Family First Act yet,
(22:18):
Though they have pushed out and have not implemented the Family First Act in Arizona? I just read the proposal that was released this month of how the department is going to be implementing the Family First act. We will see how it goes. Um, one of the craziest things that I've found is when reading through their reports and all of that, the way they highlight information and they'll put like a big number here of what they're lacking and then try to use it on a second page of a big number here of how good they're doing to impact the other number, if that makes sense. And then you see what their actual, what they've done. Like I guess I should lay out a better example. So they'll put in there that we have all these resources for kinship placements. We have this program has reached 639 kinship placements. I was like, Hmm, you guys stated that you had over 5,000 kinship placements in the system though, right up here. So they're not supporting the masses. They think supporting a very small portion is like a good thing and it's not. And that's how, I guess, yeah. Sorry, this is so hard to explain like without the report in front of me to show the different
(23:31):
Aspects. Yeah, but I get it. I get it. You're what about what is this thing you're wanting to implement though with three to five years of sponsorship? And there's something where this is not welfare. Go into what you, you were trying to tell me earlier about that.
(23:47):
Perfect. So with the Family First act, there are so many things that can be implemented in Arizona to benefit families through that. However, there's further work that needs to be done. One of the biggest issues that I see is we definitely don't want to create a welfare state. What we currently have, I view as a welfare state, we have low income families with multiple children who are not supported through their child welfare intervention experience and are ultimately parental rights are terminated and then all of a sudden the state has three children they have to pay for until their minimum 18 years old. There's so many programs where they're now sending them to college and pay through things until they're 21 and different extensions like that. But that's a welfare state for me is we're stealing kids and then the government's financially responsible. If we were able to hyper-focus those funds into the family in need in the first place and do a family sponsorship program, say three to five years, and have different aspects that the parents have to upkeep, whether it's staying up on their schooling or something that is pushing them towards being an active part of the workforce to be able to maintain the family sponsorship.
(25:01):
Um, so they can move past their low income status and we can support them and give them the therapy services and assist with rent and a full welfare program for three to five years rather than grounding up children of low income, vulnerable families and then individually paying for each of those children every year until they turn 21.
(25:24):
Yeah. It doesn't make sense. You think you would think that helping the family that's standing in front of you is going to do be so much better than trying to create a system full of children?
(25:41):
Exactly.
(25:41):
Put push through these cogwheels of this system.
(25:44):
Traumatized children at that too. I mean, the best place, even when there is maltreatment in a home, it has been statistically proven that children who have CPS p involvement or families who have CPS involvement, if you look at the cases where CPS removed the children compared to the cases where they left them at home in the mistreatment that they were enduring, the children who were left in the known mistreatment turned out better in adulthood than all of the children removed to the state system. And those were cases that were similar cases. Just the difference was those removed and those left home. Um, Dr. Charles Nelson from Harvard Medical School, he's a professor of pediatrics, completed a study that showed immense amounts, uh, immense amount of cortisol is released in children's brain when they're taken away from their biological caregiver, which leads to permanent brain damage. And this is something that is consistently seen these high, high levels of cortisol in foster children to the point the conclusion was made.
(26:50):
Permanent brain damage occurs at every single removal. It doesn't matter if it's a newborn, it doesn't matter at all. Especially with infants though, they go through nine months of bonding with their mother, not just a human body, their mother, her heartbeat, everything. And when you rip her, when you rip a child apart from their mother, their body starts having trauma responses to that. They can't find their comfort. They are out of what they know to make them comfortable. So just the impacts on these children and what is to come because of traumatizing these children and not taking care of these problems within the American family unit they were born into.
(27:34):
Yeah, exactly.
(27:37):
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(28:03):
Well, speaking of all of that, what's the update on your family with your girls? What's going on?
(28:09):
Yeah, so my case was officially dismissed, um, August of 2021. So it's been a little bit over a year now that we've had the department out of our lives. We are adjusting but still hurting. Um, things are getting better. We've taken therapy extremely seriously. My oldest daughter was able to graduate from therapy and I was always a part of her therapy. So I still have all of those tools that I'm able to use in her struggles that came after. Um, the department sh my oldest is very, very scared of them taking her. She's very scared of them taking her friends, anyone. She feels it happened to me, it could happen to anyone. Um, so it, it terrifies her. Um, but I'm able to walk through it with her because I understand, I understand her terror. I was terrorized by them as well. Um, for myself, I've had to endure E M D R therapy.
(29:08):
Um, I'm still in the middle of E M D R. I have severe P T S D. It's a horrible experience. I mean, it's something that has impacted me with my ability to work in this movement, my ability to maintain a job. I am disabled at this point. Um, it changed everything within me. I went from seven years in property management and making something of myself and being able to provide for my girls to not being able to get out of bed some mornings to being late to everything because my P T S D, I just don't have the ability to have track of time like my normal brain was capable of doing. So, so many deep changes within myself and these trauma responses that come up, um, that I'm overcoming through E M D R, but it's not a battle I should have ever had to face
(30:04):
Or pay forth for that matter. Seems like the state really, really pulled a number over on you. So what is your hope for the future? Because, you know, we went to Washington and uh, we got to sit in front of a lot of different people to hear the, your message, to hear Rachel's message, to hear Amy's, you know, Marines. Everybody that talked Connie was so kind to allow me to come be part of that group. So what's, what's your hope?
(30:34):
My hope is what keeps me going, . So as sad and torn as I am about what my family endured, I'm so grateful that God gave me the opportunity to see this evil firsthand and change me in the way that it has and opened my eyes. I would've never believed it if I didn't live it. And so now it's about taking all that hurt and the anger and sadness and letting it fuel change. So right now it's just hyper focusing on creating a solution. I can educate all day, I can screen from the mountaintops what they did to me, but the big thing is presenting a fix to the problem. Um, so it's again, just hyper-focusing on that meeting with legislators, um, sharing my story. And the ultimate goal is to have a new program put in place where we can directly assist families rather than having to deal with the messed up system that we currently have, which funnels all the funds through these services and service providers and departments. And it never lets those funds reach the actual families in need. So my hope is to make that change ultimately. But until then, it's just to stand tall with my head held high and bring attention to what so many American families are going through.
(32:00):
Thank you. Thank you so much for talking with me today and sharing your personal story and your emotions around that. It's, it's really heart. I it's really heartfelt. I, um, was very much was happy to be in Washington with you and was so glad that that worked out the way that it did. So thank you so much for everything that you're doing for this cause.
(32:25):
Yes. And thank you so much for your support. It's so empowering to have people who have never directly been through it, like having them, your children completely ripped from you. But having those people actually stand up and start questioning things and start not taking just for face value, the system telling you it's in a child's best interest and for believing us because for so long, especially like through my case, is they tell you that you're missing something, something's wrong with you and it seems like no one would ever believe you. So I appreciate you. Thank you so much Sally.
(33:03):
Thank you for listening today. My name is Sally Hendrick. Be sure to visit our website for show notes and more information on how you can inspire others. If you would like to contribute content to our magazine, please apply on our website at shoutyourcause.com.
