In December of 2019, the Minnesota Department Human Services reported that 16,488 children were in Foster Care. https://edocs.dhs.state.mn.us/lfserver/Public/DHS-5408Ka-ENG. We believe a large number of these children were removed from their families, and traumatized, based upon unconstitutional statues and unacceptable judicial practices by the counties and their agencies.

For decades, Minnesota along with other States has been unnecessarily separating families and traumatizing American children based purely on allegations with no supporting evidence. Minnesota is the number one state in the nation in American Indian child removals and has significant racial disparities. 

Compared to white children, based on child population estimates:

- American Indian children were 18.2 times more likely to experience care.

- Children identified as two or more races were 5.1 times more likely to experience care. (59.7 percent identified at least one race as African-American/Black and 56.2 percent identified at least one race as American Indian.)

- African-American children were over 2.9 times more likely to experience care.

As last reported in August 2019, 437,238 children nationally were removed from their families and placed in foster homes according to the federal government Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/afcarsreport26.pdf   

This traumatization of US children has reached epidemic proportions. According to a 10-year study by the American Public Health Association, an alarming estimate that 37.4% of all children experience a child protective services investigation by age 18 years. That results in 27.7 million children investigated based upon the current U.S. population census of approximately 75 million children under age 18 https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303545 or 49 million parents being investigated according to the latest 2019 U.S. Census Bureau findings. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2019/demo/families/cps-2019.html  

What’s even more alarming is that a staggering 84% of all child removals are not related to any physical harm to the child whatsoever as reported to the US Congress in the AFCARS report above. Furthermore, 61% of the placements were considered neglect, which is based purely on social worker discretion, which basically translates to the freedom to do whatever the caseworker wants. What they see as “neglect” is often just what poverty looks like. Instead of getting help to parent, the parents get their children taken. Please see the annual U.S. Department of Health & Human Services report. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm2018.pdf

In June of 2018, the Children's Defense League and 540 organizations from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico which have well-recognized expertise in the fields of child welfare, juvenile justice and child health, development and safety, reported that the separation of children from their parents will have significant and long-lasting consequences for the safety, health, development, and well-being of children. https://www.childrensdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/child-welfare-juvenile.pdf

TAKING CHILDREN AWAY FROM THEIR FAMILIES IS TRAUMATIZING, A FORM OF SYSTEMIC VIOLENCE, AND IT’S BECOMING NORMALIZED!

WE NEED TO SAVE THE CHILDREN NOW!!

Federal payments – our tax dollars – go to states to support the entire foster care and group home system. Payments begin the moment a child is taken with bonuses for “special needs” such as medication, then more bonuses to state agencies for termination of parental rights or adoption of children even if parents are still fighting for custody in Family Court. The most recent estimates are that foster care in America is a $1,000+ billion per year industry. See annual expenditures; https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/research-data-technology/statistics-research

Also see; https://www.cwla.org/child-trends-survey-shows-state-child-welfare-spending-consistent-with-past/ and https://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/CWFSReportSFY2016_ChildTrends_December2018.pdf

Our goal is the preservation of the family through federal legal channels and the power of the people. We seek to stop the systemic government abuse in the national child protection services, foster care and adoption system, and the current secret closed-door child protection court system and instead establish independent privatized oversight with direct authority and accountability.

If the current system were truly honest about helping children, it would have nothing to hide. Caseworkers would be rejoicing and sharing their honest deeds with everyone. They would want the country to know what they were doing really was good and in the best interest of the children. Instead, the government hides behind closed doors, conducting their court proceedings in secret / private hearings across America so that the citizens of this great nation are unaware that Social Services and the Court System are permanently scaring children emotionally by terminating a parent rights to their child forever without a jury trial, in a closed court proceeding, before a single Judge.

Defendants in criminal courts have more rights than parents in Family Court. Children – even nursing newborns — are taken without evidence, warrants, or the ability of parents to face and challenge the accuser in court. Just think about this, a thief will get a jury trial for stealing something as small as pack of chewing gum, but a parent will not get a jury trial when the State takes away their child forever.

Federal TITLE IV-E un-reimbursable Social Security funded payments to States begin when the child is taken into state custody. States can demand child support from parents even while they fight to regain custody. Medicare provides funds for medicating taken children, including with psychotropic drugs.

 In the last 20-years, approximately $580 billion of our federal tax dollars have gone to funding government agencies that unethically, illegally and unnecessarily separate hundreds of thousands of children and families every year often without any evidence of abuse or true neglect. For decades the government has shown they are unwilling or incapable of correcting a failed child protection and foster care system; therefore, the current systems need to be abolished and replace immediately.

Furthermore, the government puts the children into a horrible, antiquated, and utterly broken foster care system that promotes disparity and further traumatizes the children. This has been thoroughly documented in numerous independent reports over the course of the last 30 years. Nearly one third of the children in foster care reported being abused by a foster parent or another adult in a foster home. That study didn’t even include cases of foster children abusing each other. What's even worse, statistics suggest bleak futures for children who grow up in foster care, therefore as a society, we are failing our countries children. It’s time to keep all families together and put children and families first.

Federal lawsuits, such as the one we filed in Minnesota could be filed in the remaining states to stop the practices listed above once and for all. We plan to pursue this litigation as far as necessary, even to the U.S. Supreme Court, to stop all of these unconstitutional practices by State and County agencies.  While children need protecting from truly abusive situations that cause them harm, the current system does NOT require this showing of harm to the child before removal from the family home. Because children’s civil rights are being violated daily, the CPS practices need to be fixed immediately!

In December of 2019, the Minnesota Department Human Services reported that 16,488 children were in Foster Care. https://edocs.dhs.state.mn.us/lfserver/Public/DHS-5408Ka-ENG. We believe a large number of these children were removed from their families, and traumatized, based upon unconstitutional statues and unacceptable judicial practices by the counties and their agencies.

After winning our inaugural trial case against Minnesota CPS in a 3-day trial on September 11, 2018, we are raising money to hire staff attorneys to grow our Minnesota legal aid program. We seek to rescue these traumatized children and reunite them with their families wherever possible and to provide legal aid services to low-income families who we feel are being targeted by Child Protection Services. We have rescued 16 children so far. Click here to see the Fox News 9 TV Broadcast

Your contribution will make an impact, whether you donate $25 or $500. Every little bit helps.

Family Preservation Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization. Our parent association with over 12,00 members, is working to change what has been happening with some of the most vulnerable members of our society, children, to ensure they and their families receive constitutional protected advocacy and fair legal representation. We will work to get these children and their parents reunified with free legal service if they qualify, and to get them the PTSD psychological care they will need after these horrific experiences. Currently the government doesn’t provide for post child return psychological care. The mission of Family Preservation Foundation is an expensive undertaking from a legal services perspective.

FPF has also filed the first of many federal civil rights lawsuits in Minnesota that will challenge the constitutionality of their Social Services system. [Case Number: 18-CV-01091] Erick Kaardal, a graduate of Harvard College, has participated and won cases before the US Supreme Court and is chief counsel to the Association for their multi-state federal litigation strategy.

For decades, Minnesota along with other States has been unnecessarily separating families and traumatizing American children based purely on allegations with no supporting evidence. Minnesota is the number one state in the nation in American Indian child removals and has significant racial disparities.

Compared to white children, based on child population estimates:

- American Indian children were 17.6 times more likely to experience care.

- Children identified as two or more races were 4.8 times more likely to experience care. (59.2 percent identified at least one race as African-American/Black and 56.0 percent identified at least one race as American Indian.)

- African-American children were over 3.1 times more likely to experience care.

[Please look at our CPS Statistic page menu link for all of the detailed facts.]

TAKEN CHILDREN AWAY IS A FORM OF SYSTEMIC VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN, AND IT’S BECOMING NORMALIZED!

Defendants in criminal courts have more rights than parents in Family Court. Children – even nursing newborns — are taken without evidence, warrants, or the ability of parents to face and challenge the accuser in court. Just think about this, a thief will get a jury trial for stealing something as small as pack of chewing gum, but a parent will not get a jury trial when the State takes away their child forever.

Do you really want to live in a country where the government can traumatize children by separating them from their families forever just for being poor? How about, not vaccinating, home schooling, getting a second medical opinion, parental discipline, allowing children to play in the backyard with friends, riding a bicycle in front of your house alone or falling out of bed while sleeping and injuring themselves?

Do you really want to live in a country where the government is not required to show any evidence of physical or mental harm to your child before traumatizing them forever by forcefully removing them from your home and placing them in a shelter, group home or foster care?

Do you really want to live in a country where social workers can fabricate negative evidence and hide positive evidence in their investigation and presentation to the court to affect the removal of your child from the family home?

Do you really want to live in a country where Social Services and the entire judicial process has no periodic or annual case review process, no independent oversight, no “checks or balances”, and no one insists on accountability?

Do you really want to live in a country where the government has a closed court system and operates in total secrecy so that they can protect bad judges, bad lawyers, and bad institutions that serve those courts, such as child protection services, which allows them to hide their traumatization and abuses to children and to cover up their misdeeds?

Do you really want to live in a country where if you even question the legality and constitutionality of the traumatization of your child, the Judge issues a “Gag Order” on the parents and puts them jail for speaking out against the corrupt practices of the system?

Do you really want to live in a country where the entire Social Services system, the Judges, Guardians Ad Litem, County Attorneys, Public Defenders and the County paid Psychologist, Doctors, Testers, Evaluators, and other government witnesses are exempt from any wrong doing by governmentally created immunity in State and Federal courts, so your case challenging any wrongdoing will never be heard or considered, thereby depriving you from seeking any legal redress from the traumatization of your child by State officials? 

WELL THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING EVERY DAY TO CHILDREN IN AMERICA!

Furthermore, parents must stand by helplessly and watch their children be traumatized and abused by the very same system that is chartered to protect them or risk being jailed while attempting to protect their families.

THE GOVERNMENT HAS DONE A HORRIBLE JOB AT PROTECTING AND RAISING OUR AMERICAN CHILDREN!