Much is said about child protective services, most of it negative. This is because we only seem to hear about the organization when it fails, when CPS fails to protect a child in danger or when it takes a child from a home when no abuse is present ruining the parents' reputations.
The O'Shells are just such a case. In 2008, their newborn was taken away from them after it was discovered she had several broken bones. The authorities suspected abuse and during a supervised visit when the little girl simply turned her head away from her parents, they felt their suspicions were vindicated.
A doctor, however, had other ideas. He suspected a rare genetic disorder and ordered tests. Unlike CPS, his suspicions turned out to be correct.
But the diagnosis did not come early enough for the O'Shells. The same day the doctor had his hunch, the little girl's parents died. Depressed and grieving he was being accused of beating his child, William O'Shell killed himself and his wife, Tiffany. A few months later baby Alyssa died of her disease. She was less than a year old.
Alyssa's grandparents are fighting for justice. No one believed the family when they said William was not abusive. Even his own attorney told him he would end up in prison and would loose everything that meant something to him -- his family, job and military status.
They aren't angry at child protective services but they believe a through investigation should have been conducted. It wasn't and a family is forever ruined by the accusations.
While we never hear about the cases when CPS did its job correctly, there are enough cases of when they do their job incorrectly make me think its employees need retrained. They need to be objective and remove children to foster care (or conversely keep them in their homes) based on concrete evidence not first impressions and personal feelings.
What do you think? Was CPS justified in the O'Shell case?
I read this too. Truly very sad. The saddest part about a child being in protective services is the fact 'thing's rather for their benefit or not, are performed on them and the parent is not informed before hand. If a parent hasn't lost full custody, and the child is taken on suspicion, why aren't they informed their child is being taken to the doctor? Even if they aren't given the doctor's location at least the parent would know what is happening to their child. Such a wasteful loss of life with no recourse.
ReplyDeleteThis story is absolutely terrible to hear. It saddens me that things like this happen, but I am not surprised. There are some cases I feel CPS should have done more and some cases they should have done less, but they do what they think is best at the time. If there were facts leading to the little girl's sickness, they should have done research before making their accusations. Love reading your blogs btw!
ReplyDeleteIt's horrible that this happened to that family, but I have to say that yes, CPS was justified.
ReplyDeleteIt was a *rare* disorder. CPS can't treat every case as a possible rare condition. If they did how many kids would remain in an abusive situation while doctors ran every test known to man?
I believe that CPS acted in (what they thought were) the best interests of the child. Unfortunately the husband is the one who ultimately destroyed the family by taking his wife's life and his own.
I would much rather a child be taken temporarily than chance that the child would be further hurt (or killed) while in the parent's custody.
What kind of training do you think could be done for a *rare* disorder? If it was a more common disease or another situation perhaps I would agree that CPS over reacted. In this situation though, I side with CPS.
My thoughts are with the family. No one should have to go through something like this.
"What kind of training do you think could be done for a *rare* disorder?"
DeleteAccording to the source article, the child's condition was visable with a physical examination. Medical tests were only used to confirm if she did indeed have the disease.
In addition, this is not the first time children have been falsely taken away that have ended up having medical conditions.
"They aren't angry at child protective services but they believe a through investigation should have been conducted. It wasn't and a family is forever ruined by the accusations."--bless them. If it were me, I do not know if I could be so forgiving. This is really sad and truly sounds like a nightmare. Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed your post, (although it was quite heartbreaking).
ReplyDeleteWow. Just wow. That is such a horrible tragedy. My heart goes out to the extended family. I hope they can find some justice by reforming how the area CPS operates. I wonder why they didn't even order the child to the hospital or doctor for testing first.. Since the parents knew they weren't abusing the girl, they would have been more than willing to take her.
ReplyDeleteI hope more awareness is brought to her condition too. Yes, CPS should have been more informed, but the rest of us should be too.