Dear Child Protection Reform;

My wife and I have two children - a 4 year-old girl, Heather, and a 3 1/3 year-old boy, Zachary.

In October, 1997 we found my son in his crib screaming early one morning with his arm stuck. We freed him, and he seemed to be okay. Nevertheless, the next day, we took him to the doctor.  The doctor did not feel anything was wrong, but decided to do an X-Ray to make sure.  Zachary had a slight fracture in the elbow.  

Of course, the hospital brought the CPS and the police into it. The police looked into it, came to our home and concluded we did not abuse our child.   However  CPS doesn't believe in truth, so they decided to take it to court.   The police suggested we take a polygraph to prove our innocence.  We did so and passed it.  Apparently, CPS does not believe in lie detector tests.  The police could not believe what they were hearing from CPS.  CPS went to court and we were given court appointed attorneys. 

Our attorneys told us that we should send our kids to stay with my mother, so they wouldn't try to take them and put them in a foster home.  We did this.  A month later the state told us that they would allow the case to be dropped and our kids to return home if we took a psychological exam. We did this.  The psychologist reported there was nothing wrong with us except that our kids had been taken away for no reason.  (Remember, this is a psychologist that the CPS retains).

CPS put us off longer, saying they would let us have our children back if we put my daughter through a full body x-ray.  What choice did we have?    They did the X-Ray, and found nothing.  At this point they told us that they would allow my daughter return home and my son would shortly follow if we signed over wardship!  They had kidnapped our kids! 

We got our daughter back in January 1998.  A few months passed and we still had not had my son return home. Then our child's attorney changed, and between that and the state, they changed their minds and decided to wait longer.  They told us that we would have to have my son move to a foster care down close to us, for them to watch us interact with him before returning him. We moved him into foster care next to us with the a very nice couple. He was the chief of police, and his wife had done foster care for the past 13 years. We interacted well with them, and they started to invite us over to their house for visits because they believed in our innocence. 

CPS changed its mind again and decided not to return him.  However, they had talked to the Attorney General for Oregon, and he told them they did not have enough evidence to terminate.  However, they sent a letter to the judge stating that they would fail in termination, however they did not feel comfortable with returning our son home.  So, they brought a plan to keep our son in permanent foster care.  At this point we had the foster parents come in and several state workers testify in our behalf, stating that our son should return home.

At this point the CPS decided to move him to a relatve of mine in Hawaii, who had earlier offered to help out.  CPS has since decided to permanently leave him in care with my uncle. 

This case is going through an appeal of the ability to keep him in foster care without terminating, but of course that is moving extremely slowly. We love our son and daughter, and this is killing us and our family.  We are starting to lose hope.  We know our civil rights have been stomped on, but we don't know that there is really anything we can do.  If you can provide any help what-so-ever please let us know. We want this hell to end.

On another note this is not nearly as important we also have had a run in with the SED who collects money for the foster care. Apparently they have their own way of adding, because our son currently receives $300.00 a month yet we pay out $483.00 a month, we are not rich and still have a daughter to support!  

Thank you for any help you can give us.

Sincerely,

Andy & Katy Dodge