How to get your child back from social services

How to Get Your Children Back from CPS in California

By Her Lawyer on June 8th, 2021

What You Need to Know About Getting a Child Back from CPS in California

The Child Protective Services (CPS) acts as an essential system to keep children in safe home conditions and to intervene when a child is at risk. There are several helpful tips for parents who would like to get their children back from CPS. Here’s how to get your children back from CPS in California.

What Exactly is Child Protective Services (CPS)?

Child Protective Services not only provides services to abused and neglected children, but aims to keep the child in their own home when it is safe. These types of services may include intervening in a home crisis, applying family support services, and gathering facts about the case at hand to clarify the problems. Furthermore, there are several categories of children and families that CPS are available to. California law defines child abuse as any situation involving a child who is:

Physically injured by means other than an accident,
Abused or sexually exploited,
Treated with unjustifiable punishment and cruelty, and/or
Neglected by a parent or caretaker who fails to provide necessary means of survival such as adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, or medical care

If a community member suspects abuse or feels that a report has been filed in error, they should speak with the appropriate agency to investigate the situation. One useful resource is the County Children’s Protective Services 24-hour emergency response phone.

Related: When to Call Child Protective Services in California

Why a Child May Be Removed From Their Parent’s Care

As outlined above, there are several reasons why a child may be removed from their parent’s custody. Under Welfare and Institutions Code Section 300, a child may be removed from their home if a child has 1) suffered or if they are at risk of suffering physical harm by their guardian, 2) a parent has failed to provide a child with survival necessities, or 3) a parent has failed to protect the child from substantial risk or harm.

Related: What CPS Can and Cannot Do in California

Tips to Consider if a Child Has Been Removed From A Parent’s Care

In order to get a child back from CPS, it may serve an individual well to adhere to the following tips:

1. Remain calm

It may be very emotional and confusing to have a child placed into protective custody by CPS. A parent will understandably have a better chance of receiving custody of their child back if they remain calm and steer clear of arguing with investigators or officials.

2. Provide necessary information to the investigator regarding friends or family that can temporarily take your child

It may be best to give the investigator names of trusted individuals who can take care of your child until the investigation is complete. It is also important to note that the person you identify must be able to pass a background check by investigators.

3. Be sure to get a proper statement as to why your child is being taken out of your care

This is a required explanation by an investigator, and addressing their concerns may aid in getting your child back faster. There is also the opportunity to ask for more details on their specific concerns and what guidance they have on ways to get your child back.

4. Speak with a lawyer

It is incredibly important to receive solid legal advice about CPS cases to aid in receiving your child back. An attorney specialized in this type of service will be a useful source of information on how to have your child returned to you, and to help address the concerns of the CPS investigator.

FAQs about How to Get Your Children Back from CPS in California

If I report abuse or neglect, do I need to identify myself?

Most people who report abuse or neglect choose to remain anonymous, though it may be helpful to leave your contact information for officials to reach out with further details. However, certain professionals (such as child care workers and doctors) are identified as “mandated reporters” and are legally required to report suspected abuse encountered on the job.

Related: Child Protective Services (CPS) Laws in California

If my child is removed from my home, is it permanent? Can I get my child back?

If a child has been removed from your home based on reports of abuse or neglect, you must work with your local juvenile court to resolve any issues before your child can be returned. Permanent removal is only applicable when parents fail to complete court-ordered programs that attempt to make their home environment safe for their children.

What are some other resources I can utilize to find out more about child abuse prevention and services?

There is a multitude of services available to find out more information. Such sources include Child Welfare Information Gateway, Child Welfare League of America, and the American Humane Association. It may also be helpful to speak with an experienced attorney for more specific questions or concerns.

Contact Us

If you have any more questions about how to get your children back from CPS in California, contact us. Get your free consultation with one of our experienced Child Custody Attorneys today!

How to Get Your Kids Back From CPS

So, CPS has removed your children from your home: is there any chance that you can get them back? The short answer to that question is “yes. ” To start with, CPS is only authorized by law (Chapter 262 of the Texas Family Code) to remove children from their home when facts exist that would “satisfy a person of ordinary prudence and caution to believe that there is an immediate danger to the physical health or safety of the child, or the child has been a victim of neglect or sexual abuse, and that continuation in the home would be contrary to the child's welfare.

”

If CPS makes that removal, and you disagree with their decision to do so, then you have the right to have a hearing in court (called an “Adversary Hearing”), no later than fourteen (14) days after that removal of your children occurred. And, during that proceeding, you or your lawyer has the right to cross-examine the witnesses called to testify by CPS, testify yourself, and present your own witnesses and other evidence to a Judge. At the end of that hearing, you will get your kids back unless CPS can convince the court that your children were in danger when the removal occurred; and, that they should not be immediately returned to your home. For a more detailed discussion of these topics, see “When can Texas CPS remove a child from your home?”

If you find yourself in the position of having your kids removed by CPS, then I truly hope the court finds that your kids should be returned to you after the hearing discussed above takes place. But, all is not lost even if your kids are not returned at that time. The court can Order their return at any time during the case.

When do courts Order that children who were removed from their home by CPS be returned to their parents? They do so when the parents of those children have demonstrated that they are able and willing to provide their children with a safe home. That means different things in different cases. For some parents, it means their staying clean and sober so that they can properly attend to their children. For others, it means eliminating the threat of domestic violence by attending and meaningfully participating in appropriate counseling. For some folks, it means becoming able to provide their children with the basic necessities of life, such as food, water, safe shelter, clothing, and so on. In each case where the initial removal is upheld by the court (as discussed above), the court will Order specific things that the parents will need to do in order to have their children returned to them.

Those things that parents must do are spelled-out clearly, but they are not usually easy for parents to do, since it involves their making one or more serious changes in how they live their lives. But, since the reward for doing those things is having their children returned to them, what reasonable parent would not try his or her hardest to do them?

Do you wonder what you should do if CPS is investigating you? Check-out this article for tips and suggestions.

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Returning to birth parents: difficulties and risks

“The child will not be taken from the resource family”

the Internet. Usually, when restricting or depriving parental rights, we still talk about families where there are problems, and long-standing ones, and the family is not able to solve them on their own, but it’s not easy to help her.

— Yes, there are families where they want their children back and are ready to accept help, but this is rare. If the family is resourceful, they won’t take the child away from them,” says the coordinator of the project “Socialization of pupils” of the fund “Volunteers to help orphans” Elena Ilyenko . - The family needs help, and guardianship comes and says: correct yourself, and we will return the child. They cannot correct themselves, they need guidance and support. You need to help, and be able to do it, - says Elena Ilyenko.

The family (or one parent who would like to return the child) should not be made dependent on helping specialists (“on crutches”), but taught to live and cope with the upbringing and provision of the child on their own. Hiring countless "tutors" and "curators" is not an option.

“Families deprived of parental rights are people who have not matured, are weak, have not coped,” says a psychologist-consultant of the Change One Life Foundation and foster mother of four teenagers Irina Garbuzenko . - They can come to court to restore the rights to the child, burst into tears in court, and then carry some kind of certificate for a year and then disappear from the radar altogether. They begin to recover, apply - and then often there is a rollback again. It turns out that if they are given back parental rights, then they give the child to the child.

Like children, they complain, including to the child himself. “I am a poor orphan,” they say, even though they are in their 40s. A family in a crisis does not wait for help: they somehow believe that everything is fine with them, and everyone around is to blame, including the state. They don't accept help in the way we want to help. The crisis family did not suddenly and accidentally come to its crisis, most often it is the result of the life of many generations, and everyone shifts the blame on each other. They are sure that they love the child, they say: I will give a kidney for him. But they can't take you to school.

Helping specialists are needed

Ideally, helping specialists should start working not when the situation is already running and the child needs to be removed, but when the first signals of trouble are received, but it is still possible to somehow help the family. When all the neighbors know that in the apartment number such and such is a brothel and children's cries are regularly heard from there, the removal of a child is already a measure of his protection, and not an impact on the family.

“In our country, at first they expect that the family will get really bad, there will be a threat to the life and health of the child, they will remove him, then they will try to return him to this crisis family, despite the fact that the family is already demotivated and hostile to specialists,” Elena is sure Ilyenko.

Elena does not think that it is necessary to “share powers” between helping and “punitive” services, that is, services that have the right to remove a child from the family, in order to increase trust in the former.

— Guardianship and family services specialists should be maximally focused on preserving the family and helping her, but they must also understand when a child’s life and health are in danger, and when it is necessary to help parents, and when to save children from them. But if they are removed, then ideally not to an orphanage, but to a foster family, and if a child is placed in an orphanage, he should not lose touch with his family, lose his circle of friends, - says Elena Ilyenko.

“In practice, we don't have specialists to help, social workers who would work with families in crisis,” says Irina Garbuzenko. - This is a very burnout specialty, and people who start working on an impulse (for example, want to help a particular child reconnect with his birth mother) burn out instantly. It is easier to deal with the kids in the shelter separately than with their family, because there is hope that the children will grow up and everything will be fine with them. You can ask a family in crisis what kind of help they themselves would like to receive, and through this understand what you can do for them.

Standard for family restoration

Experts say that now guardianship and guardianship authorities have an unspoken standard: at least 30% of children who have ended up in an orphanage must be placed in a foster family or returned to their birth families. At the same time, foster families must draw up a fairly voluminous package of documents, demonstrate housing conditions and a stable income - the requirements for the birth family before returning the child are softer.

— Each orphanage has a whole service that works with families. There are young girls who are psychologists, usually not yet mothers themselves. They get confused about children, they don't remember who's name, they work with documents, not with children and families. But there are no “children at all” and percent of the family structure, there are specific Pavliks and Lerochkas, Mishenkas and Olenkas. No two stories are the same, just like fingerprints are the same. This family escort service should not be at the orphanage, but at centers like the “House for Mom” of the Orthodox help service “Mercy” or “Warm Home” at the Volunteers to Help Orphans Foundation,” Irina Garbuzenko believes.

Parents have no strength, the child has a guilt complex

— I don't know of a single case when weak infantile adults, some time after the removal of children, suddenly grew up, became strong, courageous and resourceful, and took the children home. In my practice, none of the seized children from the orphanage returned to the family,” says Irina Garbuzenko. “Their relatives are alive, sometimes they call the children, they often say nasty things to them, but not to pick them up ... Mom can call the child every six months for five or six years and tell what ups and downs she has in her life. And the child believes that she does not just call, but one day she will take him home. And when the mother says that she got married, the child will also be delighted: he will think that now he will definitely take it. And when mom says that she has another child, our orphanage will be delighted. Only she won't take it.

It happens that a mother reproaches a child for years spent in an orphanage, “warm and full, with everything ready,” when it was hard for her. Standard reproach: "If you had not been born, dad would not have left us." Such constructions cripple the child's psyche, deprive him of the feeling that he has the right to exist in this world.

A mother who has shown no intention of taking her child away from the orphanage may begin to reproach him for betrayal if he agrees to go to a foster family.

It is easier for a weak mother when a child is in an orphanage: there is no need to earn money for him, he is fed and clothed. She can sincerely believe that "he is better there." After all, if she takes the child away, she will not be paid any allowances for him, they will leave her to "flounder" as she knows, but she does not know how to do this, so she will not even provide food similar to the orphanage.

Quite often, parents in crisis not only lack the energy to take care of their children — children find themselves in the role of “elders”, from the age of five they wash their mother’s things, then they try to organize food themselves, and then they begin to manage their parents – in communication, for example, with government agencies .

— If parents are weak, especially if they themselves are graduates of an orphanage, for them every woman in the house is a monster they are afraid of. “They called me from custody - horror!” Why horror - they themselves do not know. I need a certificate from the housing office, my mother went for a certificate, she was told: you will not have time before July 1 - she turned around and left. And why until July 1, and not until August 16? - describes unsocialized parents Irina Garbuzenko.

Teaching social skills to an adult is not an easy task, even for a specialist, and should not be left to a child. It is the mastery of these skills that parents must prove to the guardianship authorities and the court before the restoration of parental rights, if they were deprived of them. In practice, such families will need support even after a positive court decision.

Collect all the healthy forces of the family

Psychologist Irina Garbuzenko believes that in the case when a mother, for example, has not coped with the provision and upbringing of a child, it is not enough for specialists to work only with this “weak” mother. All healthy forces of the family, all relatives, as well as close people not from among relatives should be gathered: neighbors, family friends, parents of the child's classmates.

— For example, the mother died and the question arose of who would raise the remaining child. They will tell us: they lived together with their grandmother, and she will arrange custody. The whole family will gather abroad, they will discuss that a grandmother should be a grandmother, bake pancakes and feel sorry, and not bear full responsibility for a teenager. Especially now the grandmother is experiencing grief: her daughter has just died. If the daughter was deprived of parental rights, the grandmother is also in grief: she raised a weak, failed daughter. It is necessary that all uncles and aunts, second cousins, and so on, a generation capable of coping with difficulties, come together and take up the matter of education, and leave grandmother as grandmother.

How can you live in peace if your nephew is in an orphanage?

In Russia, a person can safely say that his nephew or other younger relative lives in an orphanage.

— If you have a nephew in an orphanage, this means that not only your sister or brother failed, but you also did not come to the rescue, did not get involved in the situation. Yes, his mother did not cope - and it is already pointless to drag her alone through the authorities, you need to connect everyone, including you, - psychologist Irina Garbuzenko is sure. - After all, our orphanage is like a prison, and the child has not committed any crime.

In order to create conditions for the restoration of blood families, in order to motivate parents to restore parental rights, it is necessary to make boarding schools open to relatives of children and other adults significant to them.

— Are our orphans so contagious that they can't meet people without a medical book? We let our own children into the metro and the bus without asking the passengers for a medical book,” Irina Garbuzenko is indignant. - If a girl ran away from an orphanage for three days, they drag her to gynecologists and take a bunch of tests. Your body does not belong to you, anyone can examine you. Aunt can’t take the child to visit - you need to collect certificates, and the child is “removed from food”, then back “put on food” . ..

In practice, a mother deprived of parental rights is most often not allowed into an orphanage. By law, she should not be allowed in unless contact with her threatens the health of the child.

— If she were allowed in every day, she would be attached to him and motivated to restore her rights. In the meantime, she argues like this: “They still won’t let me go to him - I’ll go and drink with grief.”

The staff of the orphanage has its own logic: after a visit from relatives, a child “goes wild”: after all, they came from the street, it’s a breath of freedom, and it doesn’t matter that their house is poor and dirty, but there you can go to the refrigerator, even if it’s almost empty, not on schedule, go out to breathe on the balcony whenever you want. Children say so: “they came to me from the will”, and after the meetings they themselves become uncontrollable.

It is easier for caregivers to have a child sit quietly and not make a fuss. He doesn’t study - and okay, he doesn’t clean up after himself - the cleaner cleans up, but quietly. With us, if you end up in an orphanage, you are like a convict in prison. This is fatal, you can’t just go out for a walk, you can’t communicate with relatives, call anyone you want. I saw how the seized girl was taken to the hospital, and she was banging her head against the wall: “call your aunt, she will pick me up,” but it wasn’t even a psychologist who accompanied her to the hospital, but just a driver.

What is needed to return the child

If the mother or father “changed their mind” and want to take the child away from the orphanage, but they have already been deprived of parental rights, art. 72 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation allows them to restore their rights in court. You can apply for this only in person and not earlier than six months after the deprivation of parental rights (it is believed that it is impossible to normalize the situation in the family sooner). Adoption of a child whose parents have been deprived of parental rights is also permitted six months after the court order. The defendant may be the other parent (if the rights were deprived of only one), the guardian (custodian), foster parents or a child care institution. Cases on the restoration of parental rights are considered with the obligatory participation of the guardianship and guardianship authority, as well as the prosecutor.

Birth parents can be reinstated in parental rights in cases where they have changed their behavior, lifestyle and / or attitude towards raising a child - for example, got a job; paid off the child support debt; deregistered in a psycho- or drug dispensary (have been treated and achieved stable remission). Restoration of parental rights in relation to a child of 10 years and older is possible only with his consent. The court has the right, taking into account the opinion of the child, to refuse to satisfy the claim of the parents for the restoration of parental rights, if it is contrary to the interests of the child. Also, restoration of parental rights is not allowed if the child is adopted and the adoption is not canceled. When a child turns 18, the restoration of parental rights is no longer possible.

The list of documents that must be submitted to the court on the websites of the Centers for Assistance to Family Organization, for example, the Minusinsky Center for Social Assistance to Families and Children, is as follows:

Certificate of payment of alimony.
Certificate of visits to the child after deprivation of parental rights from state residential institutions.
Certificate of criminal record.
Characteristics from the place of work (indicating the position and period of work).
Characteristics from the district commissioner.
Characteristics of acquaintances about changes in lifestyle and behavior.
Certificate from the narcological and neuropsychiatric dispensaries, from the district doctor.
Statement of income (for the last 6 months).
Documents confirming the ownership of residential premises.

In this case, the list can be extended. The guardianship authorities believe that the more and more reliable the information provided to the court, the more chances the parent has to restore parental rights. Helpers often find it easier to challenge the need for some kind of "additional" certificate than to provide one. Specialists of the Minusinsky Center for Social Assistance to Families and Children write that most often they first help collect documents, and then act as representatives of the plaintiff in court in order to help the blood parents achieve a positive decision on the restoration of their rights.

In 2013, Pavel Astakhov stated: “In our country, there has been a tendency for an annual increase in the number of parents whose parental rights have been restored. As for the last three years, it increased by 45.4 percent. In addition, the number of parents with respect to whom the restriction of parental rights has been lifted has doubled.”

The return of a child to a rehabilitated birth family is called a priority today. For example, from the beginning of 2015 to the beginning of July in the Tomsk region, 11 children were returned to their birth families to their parents who restored their rights (and 95 children are placed in foster families). Since the beginning of the year, four parents in the Kaliningrad region have been restored in parental rights, and a court decision on restriction of parental rights has been canceled for three more.

During the first 9 months of 2014, 46,192 children were placed in foster families in Russia, and 8,168 children were returned to their birth families. The percentage of those returned to birth families, according to statistics, is slowly growing: from 2008 to 2012, the share of children returned to birth families in the total number of children placed in families during the year was at the level of about 10%.

True, one of the problems with our system of helping children from crisis families is accountability. It is not transparent, and statistics are presented this way and that way, depending on the purpose of publication. For example, in 1999, the number of children repeatedly removed from families by guardianship and guardianship authorities and the police was half of the number returned to their birth families in a year. No more recent data on repeated removals of children from the birth family could be found in open sources.

How to return a child if the guardianship authorities took him to an orphanage?

When I was at work on a rotational basis, my wife’s guardianship authorities took away her 3-year-old daughter, because my wife was at home in a state of intoxication alone with her child and gas burners were turned on (temperature outside during the day (+3-6) The authorities considered this a threat The next day, the wife went to pick up the child, but they didn’t give her back, they said only after the commission. certificate from a narcologist. I found out about all this only a week ago, the neighbors said that my wife was afraid and lied that her daughter was in the camp. I took time off from work and returned home. We went to the guardianship authorities and wrote to the emergency room. I wrote a statement that I want to pick up my daughter, a certificate the wife provided from the narcologist and again we need to wait for a commission. The commissions from the guardianship and juvenile affairs have already been at our house, they checked the conditions. The child has everything at home. And today, when I visited my daughter, the social worker said I don’t know if they will give it back or not, the wife does not work and the daughter is children. the garden does not run. Can this be the basis for not returning the daughter? In the family, the monthly income is above average, the wife has no reason to work and there is no work, and we don’t want a daughter in

Give kindergarten, children often get sick there. We have no restrictions on our rights, and is such a question not considered? This is the only case when the attention of the guardianship authorities was attracted. Tell me what to do if they don’t give up their daughter this time, and in general how long this can go on.

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September 19, 2017, 00:03 , Gennady, Mikun

orphanage 3how to return a childchildren's homechildren's home guardianship

Vladimir Badasyuk

Kalingradist,

When I was at work on a rotational basis, my wife’s guardianship authorities took away her 3-year-old daughter, because my wife was at home in a state of intoxication alone with her child and gas burners were turned on (the temperature outside during the day (+3-6) The authorities considered this threat to the life of the child and identified the daughter in the emergency room. The next day, the wife went for the child, but she was not given back, they said only after the commission. In general, the commission took place a month later, someone was on vacation there, but the daughter was not given to the commission either I need a certificate from a narcologist. I found out about all this only a week ago, the neighbors said that my wife was afraid and lied that her daughter was in the camp. I took time off from work and returned home. We went to the guardianship authorities and wrote to the emergency room. I wrote a statement that I want to pick up my daughter, wife provided a certificate from a narcologist and again we need to wait for a commission. Commissions from the guardianship and juvenile affairs have already been at our place, checked the conditions. The child has everything at home. And today, when I visited my daughter, the social worker said I don’t know if they will give it back or not , the wife does not work and the daughter is children. the garden does not run. Can this be the basis for not returning the daughter? In the family, the monthly income is above average, the wife has no reason to work and there is no work, and we don’t want to send our daughter to kindergarten, the children often get sick there. We have no restrictions on our rights, and is such a question not considered? This is the only case when the attention of the guardianship authorities was attracted.

Gennady

Good afternoon! It's hard to say, of course. Since the guardianship authorities do not just take children away ... First of all, ask the guardianship for copies of acts and resolutions that the child is taken away from the family - this is so that you can familiarize yourself with the situation. Next, wait for the reaction and response to your application for the return of the child. I guess everything will be fine. The main thing is that the situation does not repeat itself.

Tell me what to do if they don't give up their daughter this time, and in general how long this can go on.

Gennady

If a negative answer is received, then the issue will have to be resolved in court - to challenge the decision to refuse to return the child to the family. Sincerely...

September 19, 2017, 07:24