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Below are the most recent posts on cyfswatch.blogspot.com before they were pulled down by Google



Anonymous writes:

I have just viewed the interview on TV with Sue Bradford and her Bill to ban smacking.

She looked mentally ill and sounded delusional - her equating a rugby tackle with assault was an indication of just how unwell this woman really is.

Such a cognitive distortion is evidence of historical psychological trauma, most likely related to either sexual abuse or rape.

Sue sees no difference between a parent smacking their children, and the awful assaults that have been perpetuated on children that are now dead.

Since Sue cannot tell the difference, I would like the opportunity to drive my fist straight into her face as hard as I can, hopefully breaking her nose or jaw in the process. As she is lying on the ground, blood and mucous pouring profusely from her nose and mouth, I would then give her a light smack on her substantial arse, and ask her "Now Sue, is the difference a little more clearer to you?".

If ever someone needed a beating, it is this sociopathic witch.

She is projecting her own allergy to correction or any form of discipline onto the families of New Zealand, so that our kids can end up as sick as she is.

Bradford is a worthy candidate for NZ's first political assassination - I only wish I had the resources to do it.

Deane Jessep said...

Sorry about being a little off topic but I would like to apologise for the strong words my last post used... I was merely reacting to a combination of your reply to David Farrar and the "Stone a CYFS worker".

I really do applaud your work here, but need to be completely clear that we do not agree on what is an acceptable level of extremism. Keep up the good work, but please consider being more accommodating with the idea of moving towards a compromise.

20 February 2007 10:50


cyfswatch said...

Hi Deane,

We at CYFSWATCH don't condemn strong words - frankly, the debate on this site has been some of the most honest talk that Kiwis have had for a while. Regards your call to compromise: CYFSWATCH don't negotiate with terrorists, and any state sanctioned agency that does what CYFS does is practicing terrorism against the New Zealand family.

To stop us, the Government is either going to have to shut us down and put us in jail, or kill us. We are not open to any other options.

The assault by CYFS on the New Zealand family has gone on long enough - now, its either them, or us. That extreme enough for you?

CYFSWATCH.

20 February 2007 12:02

This may be a useful and informative link to make available to posters at cyfswatch -I have sent it on to Lawgate too. It lists all of our MPs, their portfolios, the questions they raise most often in the house, how they vote etc.

It's a highly useful tool for tracking who is doing what as our elected representatives:

http://theyworkforyou.co.nz

Anonymous writes:

1. If a parent goes to CYF among other agencies asking for help, who is responsible to ensure they are supported?

2. Is it lawful to prevent siblings from having meaningful contact with each other?

3. Is it lawful or ethical for one child to be blamed for the actions of another?

It is not logical to simply say you must not hit your children, or we will punish you, as Ms Bradford's law changes proposes will allow if they become Law.

We must stop punishing families and children for living in poverty, not having parenting skills having little or no community support.

In my own case I have battled with PTSD and depression, if we accept mental illness is not a moral issue but an illness , we must act with understanding and compassion.
I want you to protect my children but support me as well.

But I know from personal experience that there is little out there to do this.

There is no 24 hr a day support.

So if you have no family and friends cannot help, you are physically ill, you have several unexpected bills eg washing machine explodes and a high power bill, you are awaiting test results over the illness it might be serious, and you are dealing with an abusive violent young women who is taller bigger and angry, but only 12 you are exhausted and frightened and you snap you grab a knife lets say you want her to stop yelling leave you alone you don't realise you have wet your pants from fear.

You don't harm her but threaten to; she stops yelling at you abusing you, and the situation deescalates.

But she tells the police, and in your guilt and shame of not coping, you accept all responsibility; you are charged and your children taken away, What does that change?

You see the problem is sometimes we need help but it is jut not there.

Three years later you are branded a liar and so emotionally dangerous to your children you and your eldest child are allowed only minimal contact , by phone.

If you want to stop abuse make help available.

The money CYF spends on lawyers psychologists etc needs to be used to help families.


Anonymous writes:

Sunday 4th March will be Children's Day.

Lets make our plight more known.

Have a public protest picnic with our kids toys standing in for our missing children.

We must begin to be more vocal.

I was a parent who abused her children, but it seems I will never be given a chance to put things right.

Criminals have a parole board, but we have nothing.

Someone else commented on another post that with CYFS it seems to matter more whether they "like" you as to how you will be treated.

I can honestly say that in my own case I tried for some years to alert CYF among others as to the problems I had in managing one of my children in particular.

Instead CYF in their "wisdom" decided to deal with my mental health issues.

So I suggest in all our main centres parents get together with our missing kids toys flyers with this website address and perhaps a brief flyer with our individual stories on it .

(To the tune of teddys bears picnic):

Today's the day CYFs took away my children,
If you need any help today , your in for a big surprise,
If you need any help today here comes CYFS with all their lies,
For every child that ever their was may be lost to you forever because today's the day that CYF took away my children.

Source;



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6297573.stm

Babies 'removed to meet targets'

By Brian Wheeler
Political reporter, BBC News


Babies are being removed from their parents so that councils can meet adoption targets, MPs have claimed.

The MPs fear a rise in the number of young children being taken into care in England and Wales is linked to pressure on councils to increase adoption rates.

Lib Dem MP John Hemming, who has tabled a Commons motion on the issue, said it was a "national scandal".

The government said the courts decided on care cases but there had to be evidence a child was being harmed.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said there were "no targets relating to the numbers of children coming into care".

But Mr Hemming argued that social services departments are under pressure to meet targets set by government on children in care being adopted.

The decision to bring a child into care must be made on the basis of their best interests

Department for Education:

In an Early Day Motion, with cross-party support from 12 MPs, he warns of "increasing numbers of babies being taken into care, not for the safety of the infant, but because they are easy to get adopted".

In 2000, ministers set a target of a 50% increase in the number of children in local authority being adopted by March 2006.

According to the latest available figures, the number of "looked after" children being adopted had gone up from 2,700 in 2000 to 3,700 in 2004, an increase of 37.7%.

The biggest rise was in the one to four-year-old age range.

'Scandal':

These figures would be "laudable" if it meant children were being rescued from a life in care, said Mr Hemming.

But he said he had evidence from people who had contacted him, prevented from publication by contempt of court laws, that children were being separated from parents without proper grounds.

And he called on the government to reveal "how many of the children that are adopted would otherwise have remained with their birth parents".

Mr Hemming pointed to figures showing an increase in the number of children aged under one being taken into care.

"A thousand kids a year are being taken off their birth parents just to satisfy targets. It is a national scandal," said the Lib Dem MP.

Transparency:

He said children were increasingly placed under "care orders" - where they remain with their birth parents but are kept under supervision by social workers - rather than with foster parents.

And this supervision meant some social workers were "gradually taking them away from the parents, step by step, and giving them to someone else," the Birmingham Yardley MP said.

He called for more transparency in the proceedings of Family Courts and an independent watchdog to scrutinise the work of social services departments.

In a statement, the Department for Education said: "The law is clear - children should live with their parents wherever possible and, when necessary, families should be given extra support to help keep them together.

"The decision to take a child into care is never an easy one, and it is a decision that is taken by the courts."

'Best interests':

The statement went on: "In every case where a child is taken into care on a care order, the courts will have considered the evidence and taken the view that the child has been significantly harmed, or would be if they were not taken into care.

"The final decision on adoption rests with the courts and before a court makes such an important decision it must be convinced on the basis of the evidence that this is the best way to meet the child's needs on a long-term basis.

"There are no government targets relating to the numbers of children coming into care. The decision to bring a child into care must be made on the basis of their best interests."

The British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) said it was "dangerous" to suggest children were being taken into care unnecessarily.

Chief executive David Holmes said: "Children come into care for many reasons including parental abuse and neglect. The rise in the numbers of young children coming into care may be explained by a variety of factors including a rise in parental substance misuse."

He pointed out that the decision to take a child into care was scrutinised by an independent children's guardian and the courts. Adoption is scrutinised by the guardian, the courts and an adoption panel.

Mr Holmes added: "If birth parents believe they have had their child taken into care unfairly, they should lodge a formal complaint with their local authority. I believe that this is rare. I certainly do not believe children are systematically being taken into care to meet adoption targets."

Adoption targets were brought in to prevent children in care from waiting months or even years before finding an adoptive family.


NZ Child Support Truth Blog

http://nzchildsupporttruth.blogspot.com

The Child Support Act 1991 causes untold misery for New Zealand parents and children.

Politicians and Officials continue to ignore the pleas of parents and children for reform.Parents have had enough and here is a space to remind those officials that they can no longer hide under a vale of secrecy.

Take the opportunity to tell the truth of your experience of the New Zealand's Child Support (Tax) System. Open up the festering sore of Child Support Secrecy to the light and air of the internet.

The Family Court is not like the normal Court where you are innocent until proven guilty, but it's on the balance of probability that something might or has happened.

I don't see how anyone can win against that type of system. With the anti smacking bill before Parliament CYF will get a lot more power and the general public don't see that.

I think MPs should be more concerned with the abuse CYF are doing then tying to criminalize good parents.

Father and Paternal Family bites the Dust.

When my brother finally left the family home he shared with his wife and 3 kids he came to stay with me.

His 2 youngest children came at weekends while his oldest daughter sided with her mother and refused to have anything to do with her father or paternal family. On occasions she would call to give her father instructions on behalf of her mother. She would snap his first name at me if I answered the phone - an approach I was expected to interpret as "can I speak to my Dad".

The younger sister and her brother came with plenty of bullets to fire on each visit, Mum didn't approve of anything I fed them etc. The oldest wrote to her father to tell him how glad she was that he was out of her life. It was a hateful letter littered with foul language and guilt tripping.

Some years later and having restored contact with his kids to an extent it became evident that their mother was not coping with the kids at all. She had enrolled in further education and was leaving her oldest to supervise the younger 2 from the age of 12.

Instead of looking after her siblings, this daughter was taking off into town and doing the nightclub circuit. She was allowed to move her boyfriend in at age 13 - something her father discovered on a visit when the puppy ran into the room with a used condom in his mouth and confirmed when my niece proudly announced to me aged almost 15 that she had been living with her boyfriend under her mother's roof for nearly 2 years.

The second daughter was by then regularly running away from home. CYFS became involved when we realized that she had been missing for 2 weeks and her mother had not even called police.

At the family group conference I attended, the last of many but the first for me, I was left with the mother and her 2 daughters and a group of fellow members of the mother's religious cult. As soon as the CYFS social workers left the room (a strange and irresponsible practice if you ask me) they sooled into me like a pack of dogs. My oldest niece told me that she didn't even consider me part of her family - we used to have a great relationship, that had obviously been severely altered - the cult members demanded to know why my brother wasn't present, why was I there and so on. My brother had given up on these conferences and now I knew why.

This was the most blatant case of parental alienation yet it was never addressed. Worse was to come when the younger daughter was placed in CYFS care up at Kaikohe with a woman called Erima. We were given only a mobile number but the reception was so poor that even if you could maintain a connection the quality was so bad as to make conversation almost impossible. My brother would call but this caregiver would not get my niece to come to the phone. She gave ridiculous reasons, for example "She doesn't want to talk to you - she's trying to find herself".

When taken to task for failing to set appropriate boundaries for her behaviour and pulling her up for her abusive treatment of her father and paternal family members this care giver basically told us to get lost.

My niece could have stayed with me, and wanted to, but her mother preferred for her to go to Kaikohe saying "ooh good, she can stay with Erima for 2 years, get her 6th form certificate and then she's old enough to leave home!" After a couple of months in Kaikohe and several visits with her mother my niece refused to talk to me at all.

Instead of going to school she spent nearly 2 years with no schooling and is today making ends meet as a telemarketer, living with her boyfriend.

My brother seldom hears from his kids at all these days. The rest of the paternal family never hears from them. They have no respect for their father or his family, to the extent that when their paternal grandmother kissed them hello two of them spat in her mouth.

When my niece stayed with me for a week before CYFS in their wisdom decided she was better off in `care', the youth leader at her mother's bizarre church - Jason - called and asked her to come out at 10:30pm. I said she couldn't but he wouldn't accept that and tried to insist. Finally, once it was obvious that reason wasn't going to work I hung up on him, so he rang my home phone for 2 full hours before finally giving up as I hung up on him each time he called.

The following Sunday my niece called in distress from their church to say that she was being detained by the cult members and asking for rescue. She had to hide in the carpark until a safe ride arrived and she was brought back to me.

Her mother ran as much interference as she could, even refusing to bring my niece her glasses (without which she almost blind) or tooth brush. She had only the clothes she stood up in when she came to me. The phone didn't stop with messages for my niece to call one or other of these religious extremists throughout that week, and the texts came thick and fast on her mobile. This is a closed religious order where the kids are not allowed to associate with anyone outside the group. I was the enemy, the work of the devil, and they wanted my niece out of my home by fair means or foul.

The abuses and causes for concern were reported back to CYFS yet at no time was any action taken to deal with the mother's sabotage, her irresponsible conduct or the actions of her church members. My niece's caseworker did speak to Jason and told him his behaviour was "not alright", but that's as close as we came to a serious response in handling this vindictive mother and her bullying friends.

So to Erima, who thinks it's OK for kids to tell their father and his family to quote: f**k off, for kids to stay away from school, to supply 15 year olds with tobacco, and have a number of kids other people's kids living where there is next to no phone coverage - you'll be pleased to know that your interference in our family affairs has had the desired effect. Desired by a vindictive mother that is, society may hold other views of your suitability as a caregiver.

And to CYFS, what can I say.

Knee-bouncing dad sparks CYFS Investigation:

Has anybody heard anymore about the case below and any action, if any, was taken against CYFS for the extreme embarrassment (defamation) regarding letters sent to Albany schools alerting them to the fact that this family was (falsely) under investigation for sexually abusing their children?

Knee-bouncing dad sparks CYFS Investigation:

On Close-Up (TV ONE) Susan Wood introduced a story that would scare any parent, about a North Shore father accused of sexually abusing his daughter.

An anonymous caller to the CYFS 0800 number claimed that he had been seen bouncing his three-year-old daughter up and down on his knee while reading her a bedtime story.

Despite the fact the couple's son is also not school age yet, letters naming the children were immediately sent to Albany schools alerting them to the fact that the family was under investigation.

When a psychologist finally got around to interviewing the children, it took her only 15 minutes to decide the children were not at risk.

Chief Social Worker Marie Connolly defended the fact that the letters were sent even before the family was spoken to. When asked if CYFS would apologise to the family she replied:

"We take all investigations seriously. It's inevitably difficult for families when a social worker investigates a sexual abuse allegation, but nevertheless our concern is primarily with the safety of the child, and it would be irresponsible for us to not investigate these matters".

Absolutely bloody amazing!!!

I also read this somewhere, regarding who to contact if needed.

You need assitance, so who do you contact?

If you need help drafting your affidavits and applications or would like me to teach you how to succeed with mediation or in the Family Court then please feel free to email me.
E-mail
andywotton@paradise.net.nz

Postal
Fathers of New Zealand
17 Nottingham Place,
Browns Bay,
Auckland
Phone
+64 9 479 5016
Fax
+64 9 479 5016
FNZ

Signed,

Author of ......CYFS Hall of Shame # 88 - # 93: Losalia Lilo, Jonathon Pouli-Lefale, Lipi Lafaiki, Turu Iele-Tiumalu, Sharon Thom, and Nora Liutai


Mom and Dad Too Homophobic, Scottish Nurses Told

Family First Lobby

Use of `Mom' and `Dad' Too "Homophobic", Scottish Nurses Told

LifeSiteNews.com 16 Feb 07

Nurses and other health care professionals should avoid using the terms `mom' and `dad' to refer to family relationships since the terms could be offensive to homosexual couples with children, a new directive published by Scotland's National Health Service recommends. Issued in conjunction with the country's leading homosexual activist organization Stonewall Scotland, the publication is entitled Fair For All - The Wider Challenge: Good LGBT Practice in the NHS. Americans for Truth reported Feb.11 on the publication's release.

The booklet calls for a "zero-tolerance policy to discriminatory language" among Scotland's health care system. Included in discriminatory language is the use of terms that assume a traditional family structure of mother, father and children, according to the NHS directive. "Individual circumstances lead to varied family structures and parenting arrangements. It is important to be aware of this. When talking to children, consider using `parents`, `carers' or `guardians' rather than `mother' or `father`.

Along the same lines, the directive points out, use of the terms `husband', `wife' and `marriage' is not acceptable since such terms exclude lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Instead, health care workers should use the terms `partners' and `next of kin'. Since `next of kin' is often understood to mean nearest blood relative, however, the booklet recommends that it may be preferable to use `partner, close friend or close relative' to avoid confusion.

Other recommendations include ensuring the health care environment is visually reassuring to LGBT people, with posters and magazines on LGBT issues on display. "Posters with positive images of same-sex couples, alongside similar material depicting opposite-sex couples, should be displayed in all areas e.g. waiting areas, hospital wards."


In answer to the request from Sunday Star-Times from handsonequalparent:



"Why does New Zealand have such a high rate of single-parent households?"

Star-Times,

New Zealand has such a high rate of Single-Parent and NON Parented Households because many generations of heinous Family Law and Social Policy have driven us there.

NZ has legislated to invite Lawyers and Judges and their hirelings to tear **Whole-NATURAL-Biological-FAMILIES** apart under the guise of what's best for Children when really it's the **Empire of Injustice** and its hirelings that gain

Because this has been happening for generations many have forgotten the value of FAMILY and continue the cycle

NZ has built an **Empire of Bureaucrats** with the power to damage the Family thru CYFS - WINZ - FC so they do to retain there jobs

I believe 100's of MP's that have caused these legislation's and Social Policies have much to answer for. The latest Labour lead series of legislation - Social Policy - Commissions - Working for Families causing an Underclass - Human Rights and ombudsman have added to the 300,000 some say 400,000 Kids that have deliberately been separated from their own Dad and many of those from Mum as well by heinous Family Law and Social Policy.

HandsOnEqualParent Policies voted into the foundations of NZ Family Law and Social Policy and all who damage our Families be Prosecuted would see the **Empire of Injustice** collapse overnight and give us real **Whole-NATURAL-Biological-FAMILIES** within a few generations

Onward - Jim Bailey

Founder - www.HandsOnEqualParent.org.nz

Supporter **NZ-FATHERS-Coalition** -/- CYFWATCH -/- MENZ

There is much on this website I disagree with, however having worked alongside of Ray Smith many years ago, I want to add my voice to concerns about him having anything to do with kids and their families.

He is a nasty person, has an explosive temper and is happy to abuse anyone to get what he wants (which by the way is all about him).

I had two female workmates who were harassed by him over long periods of time - both left their jobs as a result of his treatment of them.

Surely this is not the kind of person NZ'ers want involved in sorting things out for our kids.

Someone has to get the government or whoever it is has let him into this job do something about it.

CYFSWATCH Replies:

Just so we have got this straight: NZ has a sexual deviant with a penchant for pain and hurting children as the Minister of the Ministry of Social Development (that oversees CYFS), and a highly irrational narcissistic corporate sexual predator as the General Manager of CYFS. Is it just us, or does anyone else see a problem here?


By David Green, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:25am GMT 18/02/2007

Family breakdown is back. Last week's Unicef report on the wellbeing of children ranked the UK bottom of a league table of 21 countries.

It arrived as London's teenage shootings revealed just how bad things can get when parents do not provide the combination of unqualified love and moral boundaries that young people need.

Today's Sunday Telegraph's poll found that more than a third of Britons recognise that family breakdown explains our ranking in the Unicef report.

What do we need to do to rebuild the family? The family is not yet dead in Britain. While we have amongst the highest number of lone parent families in Unicef's league table, 78 per cent of children here are raised by couples. The majority of young people expect to marry. And lone parents don't like lone parenthood: the majority eventually marry or re-marry.

The problem is less with the British people than with our government. Our tax system no longer recognises marriage. Other countries use the tax system to incentivise families. In France, for instance, couples can divide their income between themselves and their children.

An adult counts as one unit and a child as half, so that a married couple with two children would be able to divide their income between three units. Each "unit" has a personal tax allowance and so less tax is paid, leaving couples with enough money to juggle their time between child care and work as they believe best.

We could go a step further and encourage cross-generational family solidarity by allowing income to be assigned to any relative living at the same address. A couple who took responsibility for caring for their elderly parents, for example, could assign part of their income to them and pay less tax.

Scrapping inheritance tax would further encourage support across the generations. Families could build up assets - property, durable goods, shares, cash - with the intention of handing them on, thus rebuilding the extended family on a solid economic base.

Strong families are the best form of social insurance. If there is a political ideology behind family breakdown, it is the idea that the government can solve social problems by passing laws. Families allow the state to be confined to the important but limited tasks for which it is suited. Marriage can be seen as a kind of insurance policy: one which has the additional benefit that it does not impose costs on others.

Despite the defeatist rhetoric of those who say "nothing can be done" to arrest family breakdown, a tried and tested solution is available. Workfare reduced welfare dependency in the US from 14 million to four million people between 1994 and 2006. Unmarried and separated parents were treated as a unit. If they chose to live under separate roofs that was up to them.

The government treated them as a self-supporting unit of mother, father and child. The father was expected to support himself and the child, and the mother to support herself. Absent parents were not allowed easily to escape their responsibility. Child support had to be paid and failure could lead to prison. A government can't make men into good fathers, of course - but it can make them pay child support.

Holland came top of the Unicef league, not only because it has less family breakdown, but also because its education system is more competitive. In some places, a group of 50 parents has the constitutional right to set up an independent school.

About 70 per cent of Dutch children now attend independent schools. The average school size is small: an average elementary school has only 160 pupils. The Dutch are not great churchgoers, but a majority of parents send their children to church schools that offer clear moral guidance. It may be why their crime rate is 25 per cent lower than ours.

We can fix the broken family in Britain. But without a better approach to taxes and benefits, and a less monopolistic education system, progress in repairing our social fabric will be painfully slow.

David Green is Director of Civitas


Parents Against Negative Intervention by CYFS
PANIC
PO Box 7071 Palmerston North

Director: Phone 06 357 7402 or 021 969 008
Email: jktonson@xtra. co.nz
Website: www.panic.org. nz

JANUARY 2007 NEWSLETTER

Breakthrough website causes impact:

The cyfswatch website with its exposure by name of social workers and lawyers is a welcome breath of fresh air. The debate in the media over this website is bringing, much more than ever before, a prominent exposure of the damage CYFS is causing to children and families. So far some 83 stories targeting particular social workers and the Department in general have been posted on the blog - which can be found at: www.cyfswatch. blogspot.com These stories graphically support the belief of PANIC that many families have been unnecessarily torn apart and that both children and parents suffer terribly from familial dislocation and amputation.

The vowed attempts by CYFS to bring down cyfswatch are evidence that this organisation is not willing to face up to the truth and greater scrutiny brought by this website. A more public campaign is warranted as the Department and its social workers are generally not accountable for the wrong decisions they make. While the Family Court is a place of appeal, social workers are mostly not held accountable and action to right wrongs needs to be taken much sooner than the Court process affords. Also the contention by the Social Workers Registration Board that its "robust complaints process" provides a means of ensuring greater accountability has yet to be substantiated as to date there have been no sanctions against social workers.

The website has been criticised for being very negative and intimidating. However the victims of CYFS oppressive behaviour are telling it like it is which is just what is needed. Further the exposure of social workers by name will put pressure on them to admit their faults and change their ways if that was possible! Certainly some comments on social workers are inappropriate and some language is crude but overall the posted stories are a tragic expression of CYFS perpetrated injustice.

The summary of CYFS's abuse of power at the head of the website is well put:

The power to seize children without requiring evidence (that is, documented evidence as opposed to hearsay and unsubstantiated allegations) .

The power to prevent parents' access to their children without sufficient grounds. (Often used to punish parents for their efforts to obtain accountability and fair play from social workers)

The protection of the Ministry of Social development to act negligently without impunity.

Family Court denies access between Jayden and his mother:

The papers revealed today that there had been a custody and access battle between Jayden's parents for several years as his mother sought to deny access by the father and the conflict culminated in the kidnapping of Jayden by maternal grandfather Dick Headley. The Family Court has punished Jayden's mother by denying access to him. In the long run is this in Jayden's best interests? Jayden has a right to good access to his mother as well as his father so to deny access for the long-term would be wrong! It would be ironic if the Court denied Jayden access to his mother in similar fashion that his mother continually denied access to his father.

Update on s.59 legislation in Parliament:


The proposed new section 59 specifically prohibits only one motivation for the use of reasonable force with children: correction. In contrast, the old Section 59 allowed only one motivation for the use of reasonable force: correction. According to Family Integrity, "Bradford has come clean at last - she wants to prohibit parents from correcting their own children," perhaps in the misguided belief that reasonable discipline is a form of abuse.

The proposed new bill allows reasonable force to be used in four areas:

) preventing harm to the child;
) preventing the child from engaging in criminal behaviour;
) preventing the child from engaging in offensive or disruptive behaviour; and
) performing normal daily tasks incidental to good care and parenting.

As Family Integrity says the proposed bill is hopelessly contradictory and introduces a large number of words and concepts without defining them.

Timetable: it appears that the first time parliament will address this Bill and conduct the second reading (the main one for debate) will be on Wednesday 20 February or possible into March.

Urgent need: for us all to be writing/visiting/ phoning our MPs to tell them we are totally opposed to the repeal or amendment of Section 59. Ask them to leave Section 59 just as it is and to simply dump Bradford's bill as it will be very damaging to families.

Key statistics drawn from a posting on PANIC'S forum (From NZPA/The Press):

About 500 children in foster care have been shunted between families more than eight times during their average two years in care.

Of the 5095 foster children in June last year, 10 per cent had experienced "serious instability of placement while in care.

Only 15 per cent of children entering care still remained under CYF care five years later, while 45 percent had returned to their parents, 15 per cent to wider family and 11 percent had moved to independence.

30 per cent of children investigated by CYF were 'confirmed" as being abused or neglected within the following two years.

A third of the children in care had been in care for three or more years and the average time from entering care to getting a permanent home was 18 months.

The number of CYF notifications had roughly tripled over the five years from July 2001, from 2000 a month, to June 2006 - 6000 a month.

48 percent of the increase of notifications was from police responding to incidents of family violence where children were present. 23 per cent of all notifications of the 2005 total were police violence reports. Health and education sector notifications made up 10.3 per cent and 9.8 per cent.

Positive recommendations by CYF Minister Ruth Dyson include CYF putting more money into supporting families to prevent children being taken into care.

The Government also wants a comprehensive assessment of the health, education and psychological conditions of all children and young people entering care (more money for those on the gravy train!).

Need for support workers and members:

PANIC needs more support workers, especially in Auckland, where we are rather thin on the ground. However our ability to help parents seeking support and information will be enhanced with more support workers around the country. If you are interested in becoming a support worker, please email me and I will send you an application form, details of responsibilities and support information.

If you are not a member we encourage you to become one and feel more involved in and supported by the organisation. A membership form is on the website.

John Tonson National Director

I would like to offer my support to Cyfswatch to those courageous people who set it up and the brave souls who have 'named and shamed'.

I no longer have any dealings with Cyfs and it is years too late for me however despite there being absolutely no support for me when they destroyed my life and my family, I still hope that those who are still fighting them will be vindicated.

Cyfs are totally corrupt, dysfunctional and immoral and hellbent on destroying loving families and good peoples' lives.

Their social workers do not have any compassion at all and are hard vindictive callous creatures who are not accountable to anyone and the results of their havoc are self-evident with many of their products filling prisons and costing the country millions in unnecessary nonsensical Family Group conferences and lawyers and judges fees etc.

Parents have no rights once involved with Cyfs and are abused and defiled. It is time the people woke up to what is going on in this country. It is a modern day witch hunt on families.

This week there is to be screened a documentary regarding a previous programme that involved Child Youth and NOT Family!!!! Apparently when the original programme went to air, the TV channel cut out parts of the story and this portrayed the Department in a bad light. At this point in time I am unsure what channel it will be screened on, it maybe on "Sunday" tonight, or 60 minutes Monday on 2, or Close up @ 7 on Channel 1

TIMARU:

My relatives moved to Timaru and Jenny Payne took their case.

So far she has been incompetent, irresponsible ,a pathological liar, and negligent in her work with this case.

The children were uplifted 2 weeks after their aunt had died and were given no time to grieve and only now is something getting done about counseling when their aunt died in August 2006.

For example a 11 year old girl running away and spending the night in the gardens where anyone could have got a hold of her. Parents were not told and police had no record of her missing from the family home.

Another example the 11y/o female and 9y/o boy run away from family home in Waimate and make it to Makiki on state highway 1 the boy in bare feet.

The girl dressed in a miniskirt and tight fitting top. Then they were picked up by a stranger and dropped in Timaru at the parents home.

Yet again parents not informed, they only knew because daughters shoes were in the lounge.

They had no-where to put the 11y/o girl so they put her in a bed and breakfast with no supervision. Next day both were reward with $20 for running away (from cyps to go to McDonald's).

9y/o boy in the family was strangled by another that was charged for the assault on him and yet they put him back with the girl who did it??

Also he has run away 17 times from different family homes. Also transported to Kingsly with a pregnant cell mate.

How many times must the children run away before something happens and the children are seriously hurt killed or even raped before cyps do something about it and return them home where they belong home as that is where they run to.

My belief is that as a tax payer and paying her wages she should be sacked before the inevitable happens to one or more of the children.

She is so incompetent at her job she could not organise a root in a Chinese brothel on half price day.

Twowheelcowboy writes:

Im getting really tired of repeating this. There are already 3 "independent" complaints authorities with powers to investigate CYFS, the Ombudsman, the Human Rights Commission, and the Children's Commissioner.

Ever wonder why no - one knows that?

So they start a 4th one.

Oh goody.

Government is far more dedicated to protecting itself than it is to protecting kids.


Please let as many as possible know:

PROTEST outside the Auckland High Court this Monday, 19 February,
9:30am - 11:30am.

In support of one of New Zealand's very few truly worthy lawyers - Rob Moodie (formerly known as Miss Alice) - who has just been found guilty of Contempt of Court, suspended from practise and fined $5,000, basically, for publishing the truth. (Echoes of the Family Court... The TRUTH shall NOT be published.)

He published the "Butcher Report" which detailed the Army's part in the collapse of the Berryman's Bridge, evidence that was ruled "inadmissible" in their defence case.

In protest at what Moodie considered a cover up by the Old Boys Network, he later changed his name to Miss Alice (a la "Alice in Wonderland") and attended court in a pretty woman's dress - his protest at what he (and many of us) regard as a seriously corrupt system.

Because he's on the same page as so many of us, we want to support him with this protest. Please come if you can, even if only for a few minutes.

This protest has the support of several groups and promises to be a worthwhile spectacle.

Who knows, someone might even get themselves arrested!

Be there!

Jim's Day in our Sexist Courts:

It was CYFS Day at the Manukau Court (Thursday 15-2-07).

Every single case, about twenty in all, were cases around CYFS intervention.

On this day children are consigned or confirmed as wards of the Court and under the control of the CEO of CYFS. All cases are held in secret.

Children as young as two years who have been accessed by the father in a bruised up condition while in the care of their custodial parent (usually the mother) will be recommended in these sessions to be wards of the Court.

Their father, even if he is a capable care giver, will not become part of the equation.

Instead a psychologist will produce a profile of the child that consigns it to CYFS.

PSYCHOLOGISTS, LAWYERS and COUNSELS FOR THE CHILDREN GET BIG MONEY FOR THESE JACK UPS.

And CYFS budget for next year goes UP & UP & UP.

Social workers who came from England to work for CYFS couldn't believe their eyes and RETURNED TO ENGLAND.


What were the child welfare agencies in the USA thinking?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070215/ap_on_re_us/caged_children

Couple gets 2 years in 'caged kids' case

By THOMAS J. SHEERAN, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 46 minutes ago

NORWALK, Ohio - A couple who forced some of their 11 adopted, special-needs children to sleep in wire-and-wood cages were sentenced to two years in prison Thursday, after the parents insisted they were only trying to keep the kids safe.

Two of the children, however, said in statements read in court that they were treated harshly while they lived with Sharen and Michael Gravelle. One wrote that they should be imprisoned "for as long as my siblings had to be in cages."

Sharen Gravelle told the court the children were never confined as punishment but rather to protect them, including a child who wanted to jump out a second-floor window.

"Would you prefer that we let them jump? Either way, we'd be here. The difference is they're still alive," she said in a tearful, 26-minute statement.

Gravelle blamed social services officials for not helping her and her husband, Michael, control the destructive behavior of some of the youngsters.

The children, who suffered from problems such as fetal alcohol syndrome and a disorder that involves eating nonfood items, ranged in age from 1 to 14 when authorities removed them in September 2005 from the Gravelles' home in Wakeman, about 60 miles west of Cleveland. They were placed in foster care in fall 2005 and the couple lost custody last March.

Sharen Gravelle kept her head down taking notes while the judge read the sentences. Michael Gravelle sat back in his chair, holding his face in his left hand.

Each could have received up to five years in prison for each of the four felonies they were convicted of in December. They also were convicted of seven misdemeanors.

Michael Gravelle, his face red and his voice rising, told the judge he and his wife "felt we were being led by the Lord" when they decided to bring the first child into their home.

He said problems began when they took in a group of siblings with an array of behavior and emotional problems.

"What do you do with these kids?" Michael Gravelle asked. "I prayed constantly for the answer."

He said the enclosures resulted from the suggestions of a social workers, who recommended strict rules to improve the children's behavior.

"I'm begging you," Michael Gravelle told the judge. "I do not deserve jail."

The two children whose statements were read in court, a girl and a boy, were in the courtroom Thursday. The boy wrote that he was "thankful that part of my life is behind me."

He said of his new foster parents, "Because of them I don't have to steal food. I can use the bathroom whenever I want. Never again will I have to sleep in a box."

The girl's statement said Sharen Gravelle treated the children more harshly than her husband did.

"Mom, you walked around like you were God, then whenever you did go places you were Mother Teresa taking in the poor black kids that no one wanted," she said.

The girl said the Gravelles "are grown adults who know the difference between right and wrong. So I ask that they get as much time in jail for as long as my siblings had to be in cages."

The Gravelles have said they will appeal their convictions. The judge allowed them to remain free on bond pending the appeal.

The couple has said they needed to keep some of the children in enclosed beds with alarms to protect them from their own dangerous behavior and stop them from wandering at night.

Prosecutors said the Gravelles were cruel. Witnesses, including the sheriff and some of the children, said the cages were urine-stained and lacked pillows or mattresses, but a social worker and others who testified for the defense said they never witnessed abuse and that the children's behavior improved because of the bright blue and red cages.

One Gravelle child testified he was forced to live in a bathroom for 81 days, sleeping in a bathtub because of a bed-wetting problem. The Gravelles' attorneys said the boy exaggerated the length of his bathroom stay, and an expert for the defense testified that the technique helped the boy.

kiwi1960)

The Options

Ignore Benjamin Easton
Remove, threaten or discredit Benjamin Easton
Charge Benjamin Easton
Contract Benjamin Easton

Option:

(1.1) Ignore Benjamin Easton: I am used to this. Hopefully, I have done enough to encourage those who work power to recognise this is a difficult option with more as unpredictable damage on end to operating power.

(1.2) the option is dependent on societal and civil existence embracing initiatives and energy less discovery for a nation's future in limiting deception.

(1.3) the option alienates faith isolating political ignorance, corruption and such abuse.

(2.1) Remove, threaten or discredit Benjamin Easton: There is nothing more I need do against these obtuse and archaic demands.

(3.1) Charge Benjamin Easton: Choose charge or forum. I will use no lawyer in defence: Amicus Curiae for court of law.

(4.1) Contract Benjamin Easton: This is my option of preference. Primary goals: Consistent definition of The Crown - Consistent definition in relationship with Tangata Whenua - Reconstitution of the country. Experience and expertise: Rules designer. Contract and conditions to be negotiated.


Source: Radio Live and TV 3:


Critic sceptical of moves to fix problems at CYF

Fri-16-Feb-2007

A critic of Child Youth and Family is sceptical of moves to appoint an independent complaints authority for the department.

Yesterday, the minister responsible, Ruth Dyson, said she was considering creating an authority, after a number of high-profile controversial cases involving CYF.

Bruce Simpson has detailed his dealings with the department on his blog, in which he is highly critical of its treatment of his daughter.

He says CYF's problems run deeper than any complaints authority can fix.


By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor
Last Updated: 2:27am GMT 14/02/2007

Labour's tax and benefits system makes it more lucrative for single mothers to stay on state handouts than return to work, according to research from the world's chief economic and social authority.

In a major blow to Gordon Brown's reputation, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development indicated that Britain has the Western world's biggest benefits trap.

The Paris-based institution said lone mothers in the UK trying to get off state handouts and return to employment could lose money because of the extra taxes, the loss of benefits, and the huge cost of childcare.

The revelation will undermine the Chancellor, since much of the blame for the problem has been placed with his tax credits system.

Jean-Philippe Cotis, chief economist at the OECD, warned that this was a serious threat to the economy and society.

"Quite simply, it's not really rewarding to re-enter the workforce if you are either a lone parent or a second earner," he said. "We are basically forbidding a lot of women from going back into work."

The OECD found that, of all the world's major economies, Britain has the worst benefits trap for women. A single mother moving back into work would have to forfeit 101.3 per cent of the extra cash she earned because of the extra tax, childcare costs, and relinquished benefits payouts.

The calculations show that the situation is almost as severe for mothers whose husbands are working.

They face losing out on 89.5 per cent of their extra earnings, meaning that if they received a pay rise of œ5,000 from getting back into work, they would only see œ525 of the extra cash.

The OECD said that, of all its 30 member countries, the only one with a worse record in this area was Ireland.

George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said: "Ten years ago Gordon Brown came into office promising to make work pay. Here is the proof that, a decade on, his whole approach has failed and we need a new alternative."

The OECD warned that the high number of people on incapacity benefit in the UK was still a concern - particularly among men in their prime working years.

Stuart Adam, a benefits expert from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: "Since 1997, the Government's tax and benefits reforms have acted to weaken work incentives on average. The single biggest thing driving this are the tax credits reforms."

CYFSWATCH replies:

Memo to Prime Minister Helen Clark, and Finance Minister Michael Cullen:

Dear Puppeteer and Puppet,

Re: Working for Families Package (y' know, the "tax credit" thingie):

Retreat with dignity.

Regards,

CYFSWATCHcyfswatch