The Importance and Complexity of CPS’s Work
CPS has one of the most crucial and challenging roles of any government department or agency. Its primary responsibility is to protect children from harm, a task that requires balancing legal obligations, ensuring the safety of children, and preventing the misuse of its services. Despite the scrutiny CPS faces, it receives little praise for the difficult work it does. Thank you CPS and all the good people who want to protect children from harm!
CPS is legally bound to investigate all reports of child maltreatment that meet the legal definition and raise significant concern. Its mandate requires CPS to protect children from all forms of abuse: physical, sexual, AND emotional and psychological. However, for various reasons, CPS consistently fails to assess for and protect children from emotional and psychological abuse.
The problem is multifaceted and centers around parents who are involved in or will be involved in a contested custody situation. Parents fighting over custody are motivated to lie about the other and often try to weaponize CPS to win custody in court. They falsely allege child abuse as a strategy to harm the other parent.
Undoubtedly it’s a difficult balance for CPS. CPS must ensure anyone who has a genuine concern of child abuse can report it and balance that with protecting parents and children from the emotional and psychological abuse of false allegations.
Addressing False Allegations
False allegations of child abuse have devastating emotional and psychological impacts on the targeted parent and children. CPS must treat the prevention of false allegations with the same urgency and importance as the investigation of genuine reports of abuse. CPS agreed to do a quick study of 100 assessments aimed to help us understand how frequently parents or manipulated proxies, mandatory reporters, make reports to CPS with the ill intent to harm the other parent.
Our goal for the project (reviewing 100 randomly selected assessments) was to determine how many were potentially related to a custody matter and, if they were, categorize the caller’s intent. Brittany’s report. Complicating that goal was that 90% of the calls were made by mandatory reporters. Since CPS doesn’t collect that data, Brittany Noble would try to pull those answers from the case narrative. That didn’t go as hoped.
Instead of determining how many of the calls were potentially related to a custody dispute, Brittany cited only five where custody was specifically mentioned in the original call. Of those, Brittany reported only three where custody was relevant to the call; two were not.
In trying to determine caller intent, Brittany only examined the ten made by parents (3) or third parties (7). She cited two parent calls and one anonymous caller as questionable or exaggerated reports. She did cite one mandatory reporter call in which the reporter relied on what a parent told them. She didn’t find any that she labeled as completely false or baseless.
Given the limits of the data not being collected, CPS’s refusal to label an allegation as false, and lack of focus on child emotional and psychological abuse, Brittany’s findings were not surprising. Instead, her report highlighted the problem and CPS’s reluctance to address it.
The Need for Change
It starts with a paradigm shift in CPS culture and mentality. Instead of believing that most calls are made in good faith to report a genuine child safety concern, CPS must realize that far too many parents in a contested custody situation are motivated to lie. It’s a fact and reality that CPS policies, practices, and mentality ignores.
CPS must protect children from emotional and psychological abuse with the same vigor and importance as protecting them from physical and sexual abuse. CPS must also acknowledge that false allegations are a form of child emotional and psychological abuse.
It’s not good enough to simply close an assessment or case as unsubstantiated and think no harm, no foul. CPS must adopt practices for simultaneously assessing the report itself while also accessing the potential motive of the non-accused parent. CPS must document and report on potential motives; good faith, unknown, ill intent.
The biggest risk for a child whose parents are separating or divorcing is being put in the middle of their custody battle and losing a safe and secure relationship they have with a parent. CPS is in a position to preempt and prevent child emotional and psychological abuse. The type of abuse that has the most significant immediate and long term impact on a child’s well-being.
CPS must assess all threats to a child’s well-being, including emotional and psychological threats coming from one parent trying to harm their child’s relationship with the other.
It all starts with changing CPS culture and mindsets.
Conclusion
CPS’s work is vital and complex, but there is room for improvement. By updating its policies and practices to assess the intent behind reports and prevent the misuse of its services, CPS can better protect children and families from the harm caused by false allegations.
