Judges Call for Extensive Reforms

In a San Jose Mercury News article from the other day:

"Santa Clara County's two top juvenile court judges are calling for sweeping reforms of the dependency courts far beyond what a statewide commission is considering, contending the current child welfare system designed to protect children from abuse ' often does more harm than good.' "

"Judges Patrick Tondreau and Katherine Lucero wrote to a commission studying problems in the state's dependency courts to highlight their firsthand view that removing children from their homes following allegations of abuse and neglect 'is not the silver bullet we may have led ourselves to believe.' Tondreau is the county's presiding juvenile court judge; Lucero, the supervising dependency court judge."

I received two comments on the article, both saying basically that it was lip service, where's the beef? Understandable.

Anyways, as a side note, a month ago or so I was speaking to someone in the Dept of Family & Children Services about the flak they were getting due to the over representation of latinos in the system. One of the suggestions I gave was that they needed to wake up the community churches and leaders to do everything possible to address the issues that result in DFCS coming into their home and not just leave it to the County. That the parents have NO idea of what could happen once they enter the System. They need to be told that DFCS does NOT want their children but are required to take them by law under certain circumstances. (And then ANYTHING can happen.)

That suggestion seemed to be well received; apparently the main type of public relations they have been involved in is to become a Foster Parent, but no real enlightenment on just how serious it is as above and just what the ramifications could be. I don't know if DFCS is now actually meeting with the community to let them know however.

Shut Up or You'll Be 5150'd

5150 of course is code for involuntary commitment used to help protect people from harming themselves or others. Of course, it happens that 5150 is used for other nefarious purposes. I've received no shortage of complaints about how this law has been used to deprive people of their human and civil rights.

Why, I just got another complaint about a certain educational facility of higher learning that has its own police using the 5150 to shut someone up. And once in the psych facility this person couldn't get released (discharged) until he/she agreed to not pursue the investigation.

Cover up? Not here in San Jose! No!

I've received other complaints about attorneys who use the 5150 to set their wife up as a crazy person so when divorce court comes along, the wife is labelled a complete loon and gets no custody of the children, receives no community property and ends up also having to pay child support to the husband who makes all the money!

Not to mention a certain Deputy DA in the East Bay who used the 5150 law to get an elderly neighbor locked up for about a week because she complained about his security light being too bright at night.

Of course, once these people got in the hands of the Psycho Iatrists, they were forcefully drugged against their will and or put in restraints.

Patton State Hospital - Don't Go There

Follow the link below to a letter from the Dept of Justice to California Governor, Arnold Schwarnegger after an inspection of Patton State Hospital back in May 2006. Here are some excerpts, but read the full report:

"Patton fails to provide a reasonably safe environment for its patients."

"Patton also fails to keep patients reasonably safe fromself-harm. A substantial number of incidents reported at Patton involve self-harm. Of great concern is the high number of suicide attempts by hanging. In a recent one-month review of all reported suicide attempts, the vast majority of incidents involved attempts at suicide by hanging. Sadly, we understandthat shortly after our visit, a patient successfully committed suicide at Patton by hanging himself from his bedroom closet."

"Patton patients also are subject to adverse environmental conditions such as potential suicide hazards and the prevalence of illicit drugs. These problems are long-standing and serious.Yet, incident reports and other evidence make clear that the facility has not corrected them. Similarly, Patton fails to adequately address inappropriate sexual contact among individuals served at the facility, including sexual contact between staff and patients. This issue, too, is long-standing."

"Patton's psychiatric supports and services substantially depart from generally accepted professional standards of care and expose patients to a significant risk of harm and to actual harm. Generally, our investigation uncovered problems in three main areas of psychiatry: assessments and diagnoses, medication management, and treatment planning."

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/patton_hosp_findlet_5-2-06.pdf

Naughty & Nice People in Foster Care

Its been a while since I've doing any postings. I've been considering changing the tone of this blog but haven't decided what tone / angle to take. So, what the heck, here are a fed tidbits.

- I got to meet another Judge last week. Very nice lady and I found her to be genuine in her efforts to do a fair job despite the humongous workload she has with the cases. Actually, I think it is completely impossible with the hundreds of cases she is responsible for to do a good job. That she is keeping at it, is a credit to her.

- Received a report that a mother who had her child taken away by Child Protective Services about 7 months ago, while in the courthouse waiting room, the temporary caretaker (TC) of her child was in there as well. TC was urging the mom to give up the child to adoption and to quit fighting it in court. She even offered over $10,000 if the mom did so. Mom did not accept the offer. TC is in big trouble.

- Visited the office of County Counsel as well a couple of weeks ago. Went over a couple of cases and all went well.

- My visit to Social Services also went well. I broached the subject of a biological mother whose child was being foster cared by two gay woman. The mother was not very happy about it. I was told by Social Services that the Social Worker (SoWo) is supposed to consult with the parents on their preferences first. In this case, the SoWo did not do that at all and just did it. This SoWo had also come up on another case as being, well, incompetent. Turns out that SoWo no longer works for the county. I asked if he, Craig (because thats his name), was fired or quit before he was fired. I was told that question can't be answered. So, I said I hope he was fired before he quit. I think Craig is devoting all his time to preaching now.

- In the last few weeks I've received a couple of reports regarding Stanford's psychiatric services for forced medication, altering or missing medical records, things like that. I wonder what is happening there?

- Got yet another report from a Grandmother regarding a Commissioner in the judicial system who does not let parents speak in the courtroom and uses the Sheriffs to intimidate them if they try to speak up.

- And of course there is this Attorney who works for the District Attorneys Office, Mary, that is so scared of everything that she ends up accusing others of being dangerous to her so uses the Sheriffs to protect her, intimidate others and completely exagerrates people's actions in her court appearances as being destructive, etc. From what I have seen, a white kitty cat two blocks away would probably scare the bejezzus out of her. I really can't believe she is being allowed to work for the county. She interprets all the facts through her Fear. THAT scares me. You can just stand in front of the courthouse watching everyone go by and I bet you could spot who I am talking about.

- There's more and hopefully I'll keep up with it from now on.

Adventures in Haircuts Part II

Part I was written in late January. Just today I received a comment on that posting. It was a bit angry but being a proponent of free speech I allowed it to be added. So check it out and the comment.

http://www.siliconvalleyhumanrights.com/2008/01/adventures-in-haircuts.html

As a boring update, the place I go to get haircuts is under new ownership again. When I went there for my tri-annual haircut, I told the lady to just cut off a little bit. Apparently, this was understood to mean, just LEAVE a little bit. I got seriously buzz sawed. I couldn't stop her since I couldn't see what was happening without my glasses. Fortunately, everyone liked the end result except for one person (me).

I was not propositioned for a 'fun' massage though like my earlier visits but, coincidentally, a few weeks ago I actually ran into the girl who had been trying to sell me the two way massage as part of a haircut package deal. She was shopping at a nearby Safeway with a young child in tow. What a world we live in.

Take Them In, Make Them Worse

I am convinced that our "Behavioral Health Units" are not actually helping people get any better. I have visited three different BHUs - Los Gatos, Fremont and Santa Cruz to talk to patients requesting help, and these are not happy places. Even the Nurses and Techs that work there look like the patients. If it wasn't for the uniforms or which side of the desk they were on, I wouldn't be able to tell. I did not see ONE happy face in there. You ARE supposed to get better.

I've received reports of patients being discharged in the middle of the night and ending up in front of a stranger's doorstep. Someone obviously made up an address or something.

I bring this up as over the last two days there were two incidents:

Saturday at dinner time, I was leaving my house and saw a woman walking down the street, talking to herself. She wasn't talking into a headset or phone so it was clear she was talking to herself. She was pretty disheveled as well. I waited until she walked by before I drove off and as she passed me by, I could hear her swearing to herself and she then spat on me! A huge spray of spit. Just kept on walking. Considering the work that I do, I found this somewhat tragically ironic.

Sunday morning at Long's Drugstore, there was another lady in the store. She was swearing to herself and bitching about how psychiatric drugs are poison and not to take them. She wasn't talking on the phone either. Her appearance was poor and ragged.

My conclusion is that these two ladies had the unfortunate luck of needing help, got themselves into the hands of Psychiatrists who simply drugged them up and let them loose again, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were given shock therapy either. Made them worse.

Foster Care & Same Sex Marriage - The Battle Lines are Starting to Be Drawn

- First of all, from my posting on the Foster Care Study Report, a comment was posted requesting who, what, where on it. Sponsored by the California Mental Health Planning Council with an assist by the Children And Youth Subcommittee. It mentions in the report that a consultant had been hired to analyze and such the data that was gathered but I have not run into who that consultant is. And here is the link to that report which I should have provided initially but I was too lazy.

http://www.dmh.cahwnet.gov/Mental_Health_Planning_Council/docs/FinalReportFosterCareStudy101507.pdf

- A couple of excerpts from the San Jose Mercury News from when the Courts approved Same Sex Marriage:

"Nichole and Jeanine Soterwood of Santa Clara share the same last name, are domestic partners and have completed a civil union ceremony in Vermont... "

...

"And with the family in flux as they adopt a daughter, she feels a little gun shy about planning a wedding, even though she's begun to think about it. "I don't think we'll do it anytime soon," she said." (italics and bold mine)

What if I told you the that the 'daughter' they are talking about should actually be reunified with the family or relative placement? And What if I told you that the family and relatives are actually very concerned about their child being temporarily raised by a same-sex couple? And what if I told you that the Soterwoods are teaching the daughter to call them, "Mommy", and "Mama", which is not being very much appreciated by the family?

Mind you, I said, "What if..."

Stay tuned for when there are no more, "what ifs".