Foster/kinship placement letting 15 yr old view porn

[OHGrandma]

We are legal guardians for our grandson. Short story, he was diagnosed ODD when we got him at 5.5, that was 9.5 years ago. I thought it was stress but we worked with the public school and counselors through school based on ODD. He was a good student, talented musician, involved in Scouts(almost Eagle last year), 4H, etc. But he didn't like being told what to do and it got worse as he hit puberty. He was abandoned by his mother at 19 months, beat by 2 stepmothers. He meets the criteria for RAD as well as ODD. He lies, a lot. He thought he could manipulate us into doing what he wanted by using CPS, it didn't happen his way.

That was some of the background. He had 4 placements in 4 months because he kept attempting suicide, or claimed to take pills, in each foster placement. The last placement is his maternal grandmother's sister & brother-in-law, maternal grandmother lived with them at the time. My question, is this just poor parenting or are they doing something illegal? I know they allow him to access porn through Twitter accounts he set up at their place. They also let him play 'shooter' games rated 17+ on his xbox on-line.

They've also punished him for contacting us and made it extremely difficult to allow him to visit his father, our son, for CPS's intentions of unifying our son and GS. Anything we can do about the porn and their interference with reunification attempts?

 

[Proserpina]

The porn, likely not. Poor parenting is just that...and today, some may view it as nothing worse than looking at Dad's Playboy collection 30 years ago.

The X-box will be viewed the same way.

If the reunification plan is between your son and your grandson, your son is really the person who needs to inform CPS of what's going on. But how are they interfering? Is it spelled out that he must be allowed to contact you as well as Dad?

 

[OHGrandma]

The reunification plan is confusing.

We had temporary custody awarded 9.5 years ago. Our son could get custody back when he permanently split up with the woman who physically abused our GS. CPS took GS from us based on GS's lies in Oct 2013. Our son finally left the woman and moved in with us in Dec 2013. A court hearing was finally held Mar 2013, where our lawyer advised us to admit GS was a dependant child(Big mistake on our part, since we have still never had a chance to tell the judge that GS was throwing a tantrum that started all this). Judge ordered temp custody to CPS and our son added to the caseplan.

CPS told our son he could go see his son(our GS) whenever he wanted at the foster/kinship placement. Fosters told him he could not set foot on their property. CPS took more than 3 months to get our son on the caseplan and then they insisted on supervised visits. Son lives with us, so reunification on caseplan also includes our son.

Despite repeated calls, CPS never tried to arrange for formal visitation until June. Fosters will not take him to visitation, so CPS has to coordinate visits with fosters as when it is convenient for them, hire a courier when convenient for them, and with our son. Fosters took GS out of state on vacations, so GS was unavailable the whole month of June and part of July. Caseworker failed to confirm visitation times with our son, so he missed 1 of the 3 visits they scheduled this summer. He has 2 more visits before GS starts school. Our son has a job, but it is 2nd shift. CPS has no plan for visits when GS starts school. CPS won't allow unsupervised visits for our son, even though GS's mother is allowed to see him any time she wants. She is the first woman who neglected and abused GS and walked out on the family when GS was 19 months. She had twins removed from her custody and adopted by her father and stepmother. Those twins were born 13 months after our GS, and were not our sons children. She has no interest in taking care of GS. Our son has issues with alcohol, but it never affected his kids(he has once with the most recent ex.)

I'd consider the porn on Twitter more than looking at Playboy, unless Playboy has changed in 40 years since I was a teen. The Twitter accounts he is following are full frontal, close up, crotch shots, and that's just the image used on the picture you see when you look at who you are following. It clearly states for 18+. In addition to the ODD/RAD symptoms, GS has developed other issues in foster care. Although this is a 'kinship' placement, these people did not know GS before he was placed there. As of 4 weeks ago, he had gained 40 pounds since March. It's likely the medicine he is on, but he's never been diagnosed with anything that would indicate he should be on these meds long term. When CPS took him, he was always bragging about his '6 pack'(he is a teen boy!), now he looks like he drank a 6 pack every day since March.

 

[sesmama]

Pro-
This is the grandma from the other board.

 

[OHGrandma]

Pro-
This is the grandma from the other board.

I am. I am trying to find a legal forum that will help clarify my issues before we see our lawyer again. I have a number of issues with the people involved in our GS's care in foster care.

1. Caseworkers never call back. The caseworker who took him finally called us back after she took him, talked to me over the phone and said if she'd known all that, she wouldn't have taken him! They took him while he was challenging our authority, not uncommon for a teen boy who had been diagnosed with ODD in Kindergarten. (I had forgotten the school psychologist named it, I just concentrated on things to deal with the behaviors and worked with counselors at school). Anyway, the intake caseworker didn't tell me she had already submitted her report and wouldn't be putting my information on it.

2. CPS claimed we weren't taking his mental health needs seriously enough. We had a licensed counselor through the school, she didn't see his behavior as suicidal. Melodramatic? Yes. Manipulative? Yes. Self-harm? Yes, but only as an expression of those first two items.

3. When CPS got involved, I sent him to emergency room because he ramped up the melodramatic, manipulative behavior to the fullest, then sent him to an in-patient facility for 4 days and they said he was good to come home. I had a psychologist lined up with an appointment made for 2 weeks later. I was going to ask him for a referral to a psychiatrist that he could work with.

4. GS never exhibited typical depressed behaviors. I specifically chose a psychologist to counsel him, and be able to refine the diagnosis. He was in a larger practice and we could get family counseling there, too.

5. CPS got him to the first psychologist app't, then cancelled with no other counselor selected.

6. CPS has used my insurance sporadically, using Medicaid when they should have used my insurance & doctors.

7. CPS took 4.5 months to get GS a psych eval, which did not say he had major depression but possibly PTSD and anxiety and now an eating disorder. After 4 placements in that time, I agree with that. But CPS wouldn't allow me to talk to the psychologist so he had no clue about the early diagnosis of ODD, or the neglect and abuse during the first 5 years of life, or his failure to bond with his mother, or his bonding with me being disrupted by stepmother #2.

8. CPS did not act on the recommendations of the psych eval until I questioned if he had been to a psychiatrist for an evaluation of his meds, as recommended by the psych eval. It took them 4 months after the psych eval to get him to a doctor, that was about 2 weeks ago. We just got his medical records and it looks like it was just a med check -- not an evaluation. Psychiatrist was not given the results of the psych eval, nor was I allowed to tell her his history.

9. Our lawyer had to request all records that CPS was supposed to supply us, by law. Medical records are spotty, with vaccinations he received not recorded. When they took him, his vax's were up to day according to Ohio law to enter public school, but they gave him more they said were required. Anyway, it's not in the documentation as to what, when or where he got them. Hospitalizations are not documented. Prescriptions were changed, with no apparent reason. Benedryl was used to help him sleep, but the meds he was on made him groggy. Incident reports are missing. Incidents that were verbally blamed on me as the cause are documented as having a different cause that upset him.

10. A doctor recommended residential treatment in Dec, I had a treatment center researched, on my insurance, at one of the finest hospitals in OH for adolescent mental health. There is a signed recommendation, and CPS refused to send him. Instead they sent him to a group home where he was the only kid without a probation officer. Counseling was once a week. We were allowed no interaction with his counselor. The place was 75 miles away from home. The doctor that recommended residential treatment also recommended family counseling.

11. He never went to school from Nov 25 through Jan 10. Educational records are missing from Oct 24 2013 through Feb 23, 2014, and the one after Feb 23 is incomplete. He dropped from an A/B student in advanced classes in our care to C/D/F, and dropped classes. Attendance went from missing 2-5 days a year to ????

12. He never saw a doctor from sometime early Feb until July 14, despite the fact that I spoke to a doctor in the hospital in January and advised him of the family risk of Type II Diabetes. One of his meds increases those odds, too. The doctor ordered his blood to be tested monthly. He got a blood test in July but the results were not included with the medical records. That appointment revealed a 40 pound weight gain from Feb to July.

 

[army judge]

It will always serve your interests best if you have retained an attorney to discuss any concerns with YOUR lawyer.

If your lawyer is very busy, write a letter.
Send the letter to your lawyer asking for a written response or a meeting where he or she can discuss your issues with you.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.

 

[disagreeable]

In all fairness, a simple yahoo or Google of "naked woman" or something similar along with the selection of video or images would provide even the most illiterate of internet users a profound education for free.

 

[OHGrandma]

It will always serve your interests best if you have retained an attorney to discuss any concerns with YOUR lawyer.

If your lawyer is very busy, write a letter.
Send the letter to your lawyer asking for a written response or a meeting where he or she can discuss your issues with you.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.

OK, that is a good point. I have a copy of the records she received today. We're going through them independently and I'm documenting the records that I know are missing. I don't know what is missing that was never reported to me, I knew of some I heard about days or weeks later. She said we'd get together as soon as she gets through them.
The records remind me of someone who 'doctor shops' in an attempt to keep any one doctor from being fully informed about a patient's problems.