Grandparent's Worst Nightmare

We get a hearing

2012-02-03T16:58:00.000-08:00

Senate Bill No. 262 is scheduled for a hearing next Tuesday 2-7-12. I emailed Rep. Lance Kinzer Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and ask him to schedue a hearing for HB2539 and he said he was too busy and would wait until it cleared the senate. I already see this doesn't have the same urgency as Right to Life.
I was on KWCH News Wed. night and was able to make a few points. Melissa Sheffler was the reporter who interviewed me. She is very good at what she does. She had a photographer with her named Casey and he does things with a camera I didn't know a camera would do. Thanks Melissa and Casey. I will testify on Tuesday and will write more after that.

New Bills

2012-01-30T03:38:00.000-08:00

The Senate Bill on Grandparents Rights has been moved to the Federal and State Affairs committee. We hope to get a hearing soon.
The House of Representives has introduced an identical Bill. That is HB 2539 and has been assigned to the House Judiciary committee. They have introduced several more Bills related to Grandparents rights. We can only hope they approach this with the same vigor they showed the Right to Life issue in the last session.
We attended Rick Pendland's hearing in Ark City last Thursday. He is scheduled for a preliminary hear Mar.7th. We plan to attend.

New Grandparents Law

2012-01-21T07:06:00.000-08:00

I haven't written anything for a long time because not much has happened.The oldest boy graduated from high school last May and is struggling trying to find his way. We help him all we can. The little boy is 12 now and in middle school making good grades but is living with his dad in a hell hole. We went to a lawyer to try to get custody and he said we didn't have a chance because Grandparents don't have rights. Things have come alive the last few months.
I think I told you I had been elected to the Silver Haired Legislature. Last May I was elected Speaker. Last Sept. SHL passed a Bill requesting the State Legislature pass a law giving Grandparents rights to their Grandchildren when they are taken from their parents.
Last Sept. the teacher that Youthville wanted to have custody of the boys before us was locked up in the Cowley County jail for child molestation and is awaiting trial. We try to attend anytime he is in court.
On January 11, 2012 Senator Oletha Faust - Goudeau, "Sometimes known as The Saint" introduced Senate Bill 262 in The Kansas State Senate giving Grandparents standing in court. That Bill has been assigned to the Senate Ways and Means Committee chaired By Senator Carolyn McGinn and we have great hopes it will be passed in this session.
I wil try to keep you updated as the Bill works it's way through the legislature. I will also let you know how the predator's trial proceeds.

The therapist again

2009-03-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

The boys and their mother had an appointment with their dads "therapist" this afternoon. Their mother didn't have a ride so we agreed to furnish transportation. On the way to pick her up we had a call from the oldest boy and he said his dad wanted to know if we could bring them home. I don't talk on the phone whem I'm driving so grandma answered the phone and told him we would be glad to take them home. When they got in their session the oldest boy said grandma and grandpa are taking us home. The "therapist" told their mother she would report her to Youthville and she would get in trouble for letting the boys have contact with their grandparents not ordered by the court. The oldest boy said, " Mom had nothing to do with it. Dad made me call grandma and grandpa and asked them to take us home". Her response was, " Well if dad says it's OK then there is no problem". This woman has taken a family that need help and destroyed what was left. As bad as I dislike dealing with lawyers it appears there is no way to avoid litigation. Someone is going to have to pay for counseling to fix the mess she has made and it might as well be her. We can only hope the judge can see what she is doing and stop it.

Another case plan meeting

2009-03-06T05:27:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday, March 4th, we attended another case plan meeting. They call it a conference but I have been to a conference or two and that isn't one. The faces keep changing. The court service officer wasn't there but our grandsons dad's "therapist" was there for the first time and both of those were disappointing. The court service officer has been the only person in those meeting who cares about the boys except us. We were in a different room than before and instead of a conferance table there was a lot of little tables with only room for 2 or 3 people at each table. The boys dad and his "therapist" sat at one table. I couldn't tell if they were holding hands or not. This is the same "therapist" we filed a complaint against with the Behavioral Sciences Board last year. This is the same "therapist" that the boys mother was ordered to see with the boys where she told the boys that if they left their dad's home again they would not be going back to live with grandma and grandpa. Now she is going to give a report to the court. Don't you know that will be unbiased.
The youngest boy came over and sat by me before the meeting and said he was tired. I asked him what time he went to bed last night and he said, "I don't care". He laid his head down on the table during most of the meeting. The oldest boy turned 16 last month and asked the case manager if he could attend the next court hearing and she said she would check.
The "therapist" said the boys needed to spend time with other family members. This person doesn't know anything about our family and when I said the boys would love to see the rest of our family but they live in Augusta and El Dorado and with the 6 hrs. we get them twice a month there isn't time. That came as a shock to them. These are the people who were supposed to look for family the boys could be placed with before they went to that "foster home" and they didn't even know about that group.
The case manager said Youthville would be withdrawing from the case the 17th of April. They have taken all of the taxpayers money allowed for one company. it will then shift to SRS. This can't be all bad.
On another matter we had asked the counselor that we saw with the boys in order to get to see them again if she would send us a copy of her report to the court. She asked the court if that was OK and 2 of the of the 6 lawyers involved objected so they said no. That cost us $750 and we can't even get a report.

Youthville - The Secret Society

2009-02-20T10:41:00.000-08:00

I had asked by way of our state representive for the records that the Behavorial Sciences Board had received from Youthville and the so called family therapist that they used to dismiss our complaint. I had a call this morning from the special investigator and he said he couldn't give them to me because the are Youthville's private records. That dog won't hunt. The only reason for Youthville's existence is to do work for the state. The state is the tax payers and except for the moneyYouthville can beg from private companies all their income comes from the tax payers. Therefore, all of Youthvile's records are owned by the citizens of Kansas. Why would a church organization want to keep the records of how they have treated our grandchildren a secret?

New day in court

2009-01-30T06:30:00.000-08:00

I have been remiss in my updates but I am writing a book about this whole sordid afair and after sitting at this computer for 3 or 4 hrs. I don't want anymore that day.
Since my last entry we had the boys over to our house twice unsupervised and neither one got hurt. Isn't that amazing. The first visit was the day after Christhmas for 8 hrs. We were supposed to get them for an overnighter but their dad didn't want them to so that didn't happen. Again the abuser prevails. The next visit was Jan. 11 for 6 hrs.
We went back to court yesterday. We had a whole new team of players. The previous judge was moved to civil court, the previous case manager was fired for mishandling the boys case and our lawyer was elected to the bench. It looks like 2 of the 3 were an improvement.
The new case manager was the same song second verse. She recomended giving the boys dad full custody of them. That bunch at Youthville hasn't learned a thing. We were a little concerned about our attorney. He had been appointed by the court to replace our old one without consulting us. He appears to be an improvement over the previous 3. I'm trying to think of a good way to describe the judge so I don't take a chance on having to recant later. Our experience with the previous judge made us have serious doubts about the juvenile justice system. My guess is that's why he is in civil court now.
I don't know what the new judge's name is but for now he appears to be a big step up. We still haven't been allowed to talk to him but he did listen to out lawyer. That's a change. The boys dad didn't want us to see the boys at all. I'm going to try to quote the judge word for word. He said, " It looks like the grandparents are the only ones staying on schedule. They are the ones that stepped up when no one else wanted them". That just amazed us. That was the first time anyone had mentioned we had a part in this. He gave the boys dad the option of us having the boys 1 weekend a month or 2 Sundays. He thought he would have time to think it over but the judge said he had to decide right then. He decided on 2 Sundays a month. The boys are wanting overnighters but maybe that will come later.
One final thing. When we were going to the therapist with the boys the little one commented that he made snowflakes with paper and sissors in school. The therapist asked him if he wanted to make some there? He said yes and she got him paper, sissors and colors. While we were talking he was cutting on a piece of paper. He cut holes all over the paper. When he finished he said I'm going to let grandma take it home with her and color it. She put it in her purse and the first thing she did when we got home was color it and hang it on the door of the china cabinet. The china cabinet is all glass except the back and frame. About a month later we had company over and as they were leaving grandma said look, there's a cross on the wall. We all looked where she was pointing and sure enough there was a light in the shape of a cross about a foot from the china cabinet. It wasn't anything to get excited about. When the light over the sink was on it reflected at an angle through the paper with all the snowflakes and cast an image of a cross on the wall. That was simple right, wrong. The holes in the paper were not in the shape of a cross. The light had selected only the holes needed to make a cross. You Methodist at Youthvile need to pay attention. Gods trying to tell you something.

We get to see the boys

2008-12-19T07:02:00.000-08:00

After spending 2 hrs. with the boys father at the therapist on 12-3 we finally got to see the boys with the therapist present on 12-9. It had been 5 months and 9 days since we had talked to them in person. The therapist is court appointed but she seems to be ok. We have been there before and the jury is still out on that. We saw them again at her office on 12-16 for about 40 min. after she had talked to the boys one at a time and then with us and the boys father together. The boys want to come to our house for overnight but their father objects so the will come to spend 8 hrs. with us on 12-26. After that they will start spending more time with us. I asked if we could go to the little boys school music program at school the next day and the boys father said no. I will add more after Christmas.

Case Plan Meeting

2008-10-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

We had a case plan meeting this afternoon. It was about the same old thing with different players. The only one of the old crew was the guy who visits the boys. The CSO (court officer)was there for the first time. The boys were not allowed to attend. Court orders you know. I would have thought there was enough people there to protect them from us. Now we wait for the therapist.

Appeal Denied

2008-10-14T15:17:00.000-07:00

On July 29th I sent a "report of alleged violation" to the Behavioral Sicences Board with a mound of evidence of wrong doing by the case manager and the family therapist. Today I called the Special Investigator to ask about the status of the investigation. I got a call back from one of the underlings who said it was turned over to the review committee yesterday and they dismissed it. Now we must find a new route, and we will.

old blog

2008-10-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

To read the first part of the blog click on "old blog" at the bottom of the page.

We see the therapist

2008-10-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

We went to see the court appointed therapist this morning. Things may be looking up. She seems to be down to earth and has common sense, a quality that seems to be in short supply in that profession. One thing we had in common is none of us knew why we were there. She is going to check with the court and see if they know and get back with us.

Youthville Confession

2008-10-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

We visted with our state representative last Friday about our problems getting to see the boys. We got a call yesterday from an upper level manager at Youthville. He said he had a call from the state representative and he wanted to hear our side of how we were treated. Before I could start he told me the case manager had been fired and during the conversation he indicated the foster parents in Lyons are no longer foster parents. He said he had talked to several people that we had dealing with at Youthville and they had nothing but good things to say about us. He said the case manager shouldn't have made the recomendation that we have supervised visits. He was sorry we had to go through all this but there is nothing they can do about it now. I suggested they go back to court and tell the judge what he had told me and he said "Oh no,we couldn't do that". So us and the boys go on paying for the state and there contractors mistakes. One good thing came out of the conversation. When I told Ruby the case manager had been fired she giggled and did a little dance. I was afraid she would break something.

We have an appointment

2008-09-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

I am running behind on my entries. We finally have an appointment with a therapist. We get to see her on October 7, 2008. That is only 9 weeks since the court ordered it. Not bad for the court system. We haven't seen the boys since July 1 when we took them to buy fireworks and Youthville had a fit about that. We are hearing stories from friends that have seen them a few times and we are real concerned. There was an article in the Wichita Eagle this morning about so many children being killed by parents and care givers. Somebody at SRS needs to take their head out of their butt and look at what their contractors are doing.

We get a counselor - maybe

2008-09-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

We got an email from our attorney last friday and he said the court has appointed a counselor to see us. I called her friday and the answering service said they are closed on friday. I called again on monday and the lady who answered the phone said they don't see court assigned cases but she would have the counselor call us. Now we wait again.

We get therapy

2008-08-08T05:59:00.000-07:00

We went to juvenile court yesterday to see if the judge would let us see the boys without supervision like Youthville wanted. Youthville was supposed to set up our visits and mediation but as usual they didn't do what the tax payers are paying them for. since we aren't getting along with the boys dad-and that is true-the judge ordered us to have therapudic visits with the boys and group therapy with their dad.
Maybe this is a good thing. We hope when we get with a 3rd party we can find out what has made him so angry with us.

Back to court we go

2008-07-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

Last night we received an email from the Youthville wannabe case manager. Following is a brief outline of that email.

She basically said since we went over her head to see the boys, all of our visits will now be supervised. The only reason we went to court was because SRS was supposed to set up our visits but they turned it over to the boys dad who refursed to let us see them at all. These little boys lived with us for the best 10 months of ther lives and now Youthville is spending tax money not for the good of the kids but to show us how tough they are.

This morning we told our lawyer to go ahead and file in juvenile court.

We go to court

2008-07-16T17:15:00.000-07:00

After paying a very good lawyer $1500 we went to court yesterday. We get to have the boys over from 12:00 to 6:00 the 3rd Saturday of every month. Hey that's better than we had after waiting for Youthville to do the job the tax payers are paying them for. I don't think we are getting our moneys worth. We have plans to start a new group to run them out of town. Stand by for future announcements.

Child after Youthville Foster care

2008-06-22T12:03:00.000-07:00

This child had red curly hair that coverd his ears. His loving foster mother had it all cut off and sent him to the pool without sun screen. She then held him down and broke the blisters with a needle and poured peroxide on it. This picture was taken the day after he came to us. When he came to us his ears were bleeding and the Youthville worker blamed it on the child.

Family Consultation Service

2008-06-21T07:21:00.000-07:00

This is an organization owned by Youthville which is owned by the United Methodist Church and stocked with Therapists of questionable ability. Most children in Youthville custody have been ordered to have counseling. Since most are on Medicaid they are sent to Family Consulation Service. The bill is paid by the tax payers. Beats the collection plate. Since our grandkids have been going there I have started to question the value of counseling.

The boys are taken

2008-06-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

On May 4, 2007 , the same night as the Greensburg tornado, our 2 youngest grand children were picked up by the Wichita police because they were being abused by their father, and taken to the children's home. The week before the oldest one had asked us if they could come live us with so we just assumed SRS would recommend they come to us. That was our first mistake. You must never think SRS will do anything. We were notified the next Monday that a hearing would be held on Wednesday and we were to come. We fixed up their room and Grandma prepared their favorite food because we just knew they would come home with us. Mistake#2. We talked to them about a min. and they took them away. After the hearing-that's a pretty loose term in juvenile court-they informed us the boys had been assigned to Youthville and sent to a "foster home in Lyons". We would be allowed a 1 hr. supervised visit once a month.
That was the first time we had heard of Youthville and it was the worst day of our lives. After Kansas House Member Delia Garcia called Youthville a couple of times and they didn't respond we retained an Attorney. After writing him a rather large check he was able to get the boys back with us on July 19, 2007.

The little boy has red curly hair and his foster mother didn't like it. A few days before they came to us she took him to the barber shop and had it all cut off then sent him to the swimming pool. Before his hair was cut his ears were shaded by his hair. When he came back his ears were blistered. She held him down and broke the blisters with a needle and poured proxide on them. When he came to us his ears were still bleeding. They went swimming many days and never used sun screen. She said they didn't need it. Another little boy was in the same foster home that had beaten another boy with a baseball bat. The foster parents fixed one meal for the kids and another for themselves. A favorite for the kids was spaghetti with catsup for sauce. The little one loves catsup and he loved it. The older one went with dessert which was jello. They slept on the second floor of an old 2 story frame house with no fire escape. Youthville called that a better place for them to live than with Grandma and Grandpa who had always been there for them.

After the boys came to live with us we started to find out a little about how the juvenile justice system works. As one attorney said " it doesn't". A short time after they went into foster care they had a case plan meeting. That is held at Youthville and they set up a plan. During the meeting grandparents should be seen and not heard. The plan is to return them to the person that abused them within 1 year. There are a number of rules but all but one can be broken. The one they must never beak is to never-never let the judge talk to the grandparents. They are noted for telling the truth and the truth creates problems with the plan. The plan called for the boys to receive counseling. Youthville kept saying "the boys will be going home soon but the counselor said no. After a while it became aparent a change would need to be made to meet the dead line. To do this they sent them to family counseling against court order. The family counselor was the same one who had been counseling their father. The little boy cried all through the first 2 sessions and then slept through the rest but time was running out. The year was running out.

On April 10, 2008 they had another hearing. We had our attorney there and we were there but we were given no chance to have input. That could delay the plan-the truth factor-you know.
The judge said the boys go home to their father today. We were given 8 hours to get them packed and get them home.

I could bore you with details but the point I am trying to make is our children in foster care are sometimes being abused as much as they were at home. Our granddaughter interviewed for a job at Youthville when she graduated from WSU and they offered her less money than she was making as a receptionist at a real estate office. There in lies the main problem. The pay is so low the people they hire are not the best. When they hold meetings they aren't smart enough to conduct a meeting so they are arrogant and try to intimidate anyone who ask the wrong question. The wrong questions being one that might hold up the plan.Yesterday we were at the final meeting and everytime we said anthing the case manager would say"are you threating me"even if we weren't talking to her. A half hour into the meeting we were ordered to leave.

If you have a child taken by SRS the only hope you have is to retain the best attorney you can find before the first hearing. You say you can't afford it. That is what they plan on.

The court must stop sending these cases to Youthville. The court system must be revamped so families have input instead of Youthville telling the judge what to do and he rubber stamps it
One more thing. The real name for Youthville is United Methodist Youthville. We know a lot of good people who are Methodist and I would hope you would take more of an interest in what you have created.

Test

2008-06-14T12:47:00.001-07:00

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