Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Family Abuse in Ohio

Ohio CPS Destroys Family of 5 – Parents Acquitted of Any Wrong Doing, Posted on May 18, 2015 Written by healthimpactnews.com
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Liv­ing in a small Ohio town, Chris and Kathy But­ner felt their lives were com­plete. They hadn’t had an easy road, but always tried to do their best for their fam­ily of 5 chil­dren, from their old­est son hav­ing asthma to their 10 year old, who was diag­nosed with ADHD and seizures. If that wasn’t dif­fi­cult enough, their 7 year old daugh­ter had seizures as a baby. In 2007, after var­i­ous tests, doc­tors gave her a blood trans­fu­sion and inserted a feed­ing tube. Their youngest daugh­ter had a cyst on her head.
Accord­ing to the But­ners, all of the chil­dren were being fol­lowed by their doc­tors. Never did they ques­tion the doc­tors’ rec­om­men­da­tions, and they always com­plied with what was asked, which would explain why the But­ners report that they were later cleared of any med­ical neglect that they were accused of by Child Pro­tec­tion Ser­vices (CPS).
Trou­bled Teenager Enters Coun­sel­ing, and CPS Enters Their Lives
In 2011 their old­est son had become a teenager. He was hav­ing prob­lems with one of his grand­par­ents. He was get­ting depressed and angry and felt upset due to this bro­ken relationship.
While fam­ily dis­putes often hap­pen, it was clear to Chris and Kathy But­ner that their son needed help and they wanted to get him treat­ment. Once fam­ily coun­sel­ing was started and their son was being treated, they were led to believe that CPS was being con­tacted in order to find a closer loca­tion to their home for coun­sel­ing. They were dri­ving an hour for the appoint­ments, so they believed them. Because they never had any issues with CPS, they didn’t doubt their judgement.
Social Worker Demands the Chil­dren Go to Pub­lic School
In March 2012 they were assigned a social worker that would visit the home 1 to 2 times a week. The But­ner fam­ily lis­tened to their requests. In fact, they went as far as try­ing to enroll their home­schooled chil­dren in pub­lic school, because the social worker insisted that they do so, even though the chil­dren were happy with their online schooling.
It was a shock to Kathy when her and her old­est son entered the pub­lic school to enroll and were told they had been reported, and that it was “too late.” Kathy did not under­stand this because she had done as she was directed, and took them out of online school­ing to start pub­lic school. As her old­est son cried and pleaded with the school offi­cials, they were told to leave the school property.
CPS Takes Kids, Tells Them They Are Going On Vacation
Bewil­dered, Kathy went home and phoned their social worker. She never got a call back, so she called again, but noth­ing. A few short days later, April 4th, 2012, there was a knock at their door. CPS stood at their door with 2 police offi­cers, and they were told their chil­dren were being taken away.
Kathy and Chris asked for an expla­na­tion, because they had been told repeat­edly that every­thing was fine.  As they said their good­byes to their chil­dren, Kathy heard the CPS work­ers tell the chil­dren they were going on vaca­tion and not to worry.
While shocked this could hap­pen, the But­ners started the fight of their life. They tried to get to the bot­tom of why their chil­dren were being taken. They had vis­i­ta­tion once a week and often it was an hour.  If they were for­tu­nate, it was a lit­tle more, but many times it was less. Accord­ing to Kathy, they were try­ing to get a grip on how this could be happening.
“Don’t Ask Ques­tions – Just Comply”
They were often told that, in order to visit with their chil­dren, they would need to bring shoes or new clothes and school sup­plies. They again com­plied what they were told, because they real­ized if they didn’t, there would be no visitation.
Their chil­dren would try on their new shoes or check out their gifts dur­ing those trea­sured short vis­its, but it was never long before the tears would start to flow. Kathy remem­bers her chil­dren beg­ging them,
Don’t stop fight­ing for us!
They gave their chil­dren their word, and kept reas­sur­ing them that they would be back home.
As weekly vis­its con­tin­ued, they were told by the social worker not to ask ques­tions, and that reuni­fi­ca­tion was the goal. If any­one showed any emo­tion, the vis­its were cut short and the chil­dren were quickly taken out of the visit and told it was time to go back to their fos­ter home. Once again the But­ner fam­ily thought that if they lis­tened to their social worker and fol­lowed their instruc­tions, they would one day be a fam­ily again.
Chil­dren Told They Are Going to Be Adopted
As their chil­dren con­tin­ued to beg to come home at their weekly vis­i­ta­tion meet­ings, it became clearer to Kathy and Chris that either their chil­dren were get­ting con­fused, or that Kathy and her hus­band were being lied to by CPS. The chil­dren were telling them that they were being adopted. Con­fused and think­ing “how can this be,” they once again asked their social worker. Again they were reminded not to ask questions.
As the chil­dren grew more anx­ious every visit, so did their par­ents fear. As the time passed, they con­tin­ued to fight and tell their chil­dren they would not give up.
Prob­lems with Fos­ter Care
At the very first visit, the chil­dren told them that their fos­ter fam­ily had burned their Bibles that they brought from home. Their old­est son was taken off his asthma med­ica­tion and had allegedly col­lapsed on the foot­ball field, while one of their daugh­ters came to one of their vis­its with a black eye.  The other chil­dren said she was hit with a 2 x 4.
Kathy’s worst fears were com­ing true. Being a mother of 5, she had never wanted her chil­dren to endure what she had gone through at their age. She had been in fos­ter care and was abused and had a hard child­hood. She had vowed never to let that hap­pen to her chil­dren. Never in her worst night­mare would she think that this could be pos­si­ble, stating:
“CPS didn’t help then and they are not help­ing now.”
Her old­est son was not encour­aged to con­tinue his coun­sel­ing and was allegedly told by CPS that it was not needed any­more. Despite this, within days fol­low­ing Chris and Kathy’s final visit with their chil­dren on June 27, 2013, they got a call to come to the hos­pi­tal, where Chris Jr. had been taken after CPS dis­cov­ered that he was cutting.
The dis­turb­ing behav­ior had never hap­pened while he was in his par­ents’ care. Kathy reports that the social worker told her that he would prob­a­bly kill him­self before he turned 18. His par­ents want to know why, when the state was so con­cerned for him before he was taken from his par­ents, would the coun­sel­ing not be con­tin­ued for his best interest?
Still Ask­ing “Why?”
The But­ners state that the court said there were no abuse find­ings, and no med­ical neglect. Kathy was orig­i­nally accused of Mun­chausen by Proxy, but she was later cleared of that allegation.
So, what grounds did CPS have to take all 5 chil­dren out of their home and never give them back? Chris and Kathy still ask them­selves that ques­tion daily as they cry for their loss. In fact, the But­ners later learned that allegedly the first fos­ter home wanted to adopt their 3 youngest chil­dren from the very begin­ning, a goal which they have accom­plished. That leads Kathy and Chris to ask the ques­tion that many par­ents would in their shoes: was it set up?
Even though they lost their rights to their chil­dren in June of 2013, they still have not received their court tran­scripts. They were told by their sec­ond social worker if they would turn their rights over to their chil­dren, they would get the tran­scripts. After they refused, they were told that CPS could take them with­out their sig­na­ture.  They con­tin­ued to fight, and as their funds got small, so did the hope in their hearts that their chil­dren would ever come home.
Chil­dren Adopted, But Par­ents Will Never Give Up
The 3 youngest were adopted last year by the first fos­ter home, while the older two chil­dren went to a few dif­fer­ent fos­ters before being adopted. Chris and Kathy have been told there is noth­ing that can be done for them now that they have been adopted, and that they should just move on.
They ask, “How? Could you just move on?”
Kathy still hears her old­est son say­ing, “I thought you made me a promise?” Those words don’t go away for Kathy and her hus­band. There is no clo­sure for them. Not a day goes by in that home that was once filled with their children’s laugh­ter where the silence con­tin­ues to take over their minds. Their chil­dren have now been led to believe that they have stopped fight­ing. They want their chil­dren to know they have not stopped fight­ing, and they will not give up.
Kathy reports that they talked to many lawyers who believe there were no grounds for this to hap­pen. She states that they came to the same con­clu­sion as Kathy and Chris did, that their chil­dren were never given a chance to be brought back to their home, espe­cially when they lis­tened to their social work­ers and fol­lowed through on the demands that were asked of them.
Kathy rewinds these hor­rific events in her mind. She can’t help but to cry when she remem­bers her chil­dren ask­ing, “Why didn’t you want to see us last week?” From the very begin­ning, she says her chil­dren were being told lies by their fos­ter fam­i­lies. They are left won­der­ing how that can be allowed, while they are hold­ing on to mem­o­ries and their last bit of hope.
Not a birth­day goes by where they do not wish they were cel­e­brat­ing the occa­sion with their chil­dren. Hol­i­days with their chil­dren are a dis­tant mem­ory as they won­der about their lives now. They know this con­tin­ues to be the drive that they need to con­tinue to fight and believe that they will see their chil­dren again at home where they belong.
How You Can Help
After hav­ing no suc­cess with a court-appointed lawyer, Chris and Kathy still hope to have a lawyer help them with their case. They hope to be able to get the court tran­scripts. This is a parent’s worst night­mare. With all this fam­ily has endured, they still need answers.
Sup­port­ers who would like to help this fam­ily believe that jus­tice can be served may encour­age the fam­ily and fol­low their story on their new Face­book page, called CPS Bring Our 5 Stolen But­ner Chil­dren Home.
Child Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices in Ohio is admin­is­tered under the County Depart­ment of Job and Fam­ily Ser­vices. The Tus­carawas County JFS may be con­tacted at (330) 339‑7791, and they may be reached here.
Sup­port­ers are asked to call the office of Ohio Gov­er­nor John Kasich at (614) 466‑3555. He may be con­tacted here.
Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Al Lan­dis rep­re­sents Tus­carawas county, and he may be reached at (614) 466‑8035 or con­tacted here.
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