MerryCL - 08/25/00 00:51:01
My URL:http://www.oocities.org/Heartland/Stream/8100

Comments:
Hi there I am a Community Leader here in Heartland. I was so touched by the beginnings of your story. If I can help you in anyway in building your site please let me know.

- 08/14/00 05:05:10

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Looking back I suppose I was complete fool. I trusted the soft spoken, bearded man with my life. If he said a thing I believed him. I wish I hadn't. The only contact my family had was through him. That Christmas somebody told my mother where we lived. She went and had a "little talk" with the landlord. We were evicted the day before the 12th night. We didn't find out until after 5pm on a Friday, when we got home to find all our property out on the road. We had been with this social worker all that afternoon. So many little things like that that made no sense at the time. http://www.themestream.com/gspd_browse/browse/view_article.gsp? c_id=107139

- 08/14/00 05:03:05

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Beware not to enrage your neighbors, for if you do, Social Services may come looking for your children! It seems anyone these days can file a complaint with Social Services for the sole purpose of defaming you. Did you argue with your neighbor over his failure to clean up his yard? Then expect a knock on your door from the authorities. Did you tell your in-laws they couldn't take your kids somewhere? The Social Services will question whether you have the right to do so. On the whim of a disgruntled customer , your method of disciplining your children will be called into question. http://www.themestream.com/articles/130767.html -- _________

- 08/01/00 05:41:02
My URL:http://geo.to/webjourney/nathan.htm

Comments:
If I may I would like to give you a little history and see if you feel there is any way I can help. First of all I am a parent of three great children (ages 8,4 and 2) I work full time and have been married to my kids father very happily for 11 years. I grew up in Northeast Harbor, ME and live in the same neighborhood I grew up in surrounded by my family. I am the vice president of the Nursery School board where my son and daughter go and the Chairperson of the Deacons at the church I have attended since I was a child. I have chronic health problems that sometimes limit some of those activities but I am certainly not a person to sit back and let the world pass me by. Back in December I was hospitalized for a very serious and nearly fatal asthma attack. I ended up in the ICU for 4 nights and experienced a lot of anxiety and emotional problems due to the high doses of medications I was on, the stress of the asthma problem and the surroundings. During that week I actually have very little recollection of what happened just that I knew I was dying and didn't want to leave my family. On the 4th day I apparently made a statement (which I don't remember) about wanting to hurt my youngest daughter or actually hurting her. I don't' know where these thoughts came from and all though she was an unplanned pregnancy I love her the same as my other two children. To make a long story as brief as possible. The Dr. made the report to the DHS (Ellsworth, ME office) and thus began our nightmare. On December 21 my husband and I signed a voluntary agreement to place Haley with a guardian to prevent the Department from getting any type of custody of her until an assessment process could take place. My husband and I took a complete phychiactric evaulations. We allowed the Department to have any and all medical records for my three children and myself. We allowed the Department to perform blood and urine tests on all three children to check for any toxins in their systems. We also agreed to allow a US government personal to search on the contents on my hard drive of my computer to be sure I had not searched the internet for any information proving the theory of me being a danger to my daughter. My husband I have were advised to obtain separate lawyers which we did and therefore have invested several thousand dollars in legal fees. We have both missed a substantial amount of work due to this situation and still tried to maintain some normal lives for our two children at home and spend the allowable visits with our youngest child. The latest meeting with DHS proved that even with all the information they have gathered they are still not satisfied with Haley being 'safe' in our home (even if I agree not to be alone with her until they are satisfied). Therefore they have now requested that I see a Ph.D. level psychologist with some experience in this area. Until such a time that the Dr. and DHS feel comfortable allowing our daughter to return home, she continued to live with her guardian. I had been seeing a therapist (counselor) since May of 1999 to deal with many issues including my chronic illness but the DHS staff indicated that the current counselor was not a Ph.D. level and they wanted me to begin with a completely new Dr. of their chioce. I began in January with a new therapist at DHS request only to be told that after three months on seeing her they did not feel she was cooperating with them at a level they were satisfied with. I was ordered to switch again to a therapist appointed by DHS which I travel over an hour each way to attend sessions. In March of 2000 we desided that the only way to move forward with our case is to take responsibility for what the DHS has called jeopardy to Haley and try to reunify a family who has been torn apart for nearly 4 months. We now have a court order which allowed my daughter to returned home with her father, brother and sister. I agreed to move out in order to get our daughter returned home to her entire family. (grandparents etc.) The order, granted custody to my husband. I am now living with my parents across the street from my husband. The other two children alternate with my husband and I. The order further stated that I would be allowed to have supervised visitation with a third party present approved by DHS. I eagerly provided DHS with a list of nearly 19 individuals within our family, neighborhood and church who agreed to spend some time at my home so we could have some much needed family time. It took several weeks and much effort on my part but we now have several loving family members and friends who are helping us spend at much time together as possible. I feel very sorry and ashamed that this has happened to my family and will do and say nearly anything at this point to move forward in the process to allow my family to be together once again. I have continued to be able to work on a part time basis and thanks to my wonderful place of employment I still have a job to rely on. I am not sure how much longer I can continue to rely on other people to do my job and also to pay some of my bills as we try to put the pieces back together of our broken family situation. We are now anxiously waiting to have guidance of the next step and wonder if we will ever be a family of five again. We have been 'punished' by DHS for contacting our local legislator and trying to get some help and offer ideas for this systems designed to protect and reunify. We have been told that not being a typical DHS family that it is actually gratifying for DHS to work with such a well off family. I find destroying my family nothing more than a travesty. I hope somehow sharing my story will help me realize that I am not alone and that my family is not the only one who has been the subject of state agency gone wrong. I am anxious to share and help and get guidance where ever it is available. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. http://www.iGive.com/html/ssi.cf m?cid=5886&mid=242 Surf the Web for your favorite charity i care i shop igive Check out my sites: A Personal Journey http://geo.to/webjourney/nathan. htm