What's Missing Here?

What's missing in this powerpoint on Michigan Children's Institute?

Why it's the Almighty Superintendent!

On slide 4 there is a tiny mention of the elusive Superintendent.  Other than that, his mighty powers are  a mystery.
Michigan Children's Institute Child Abuse and Neglect Conference October 2010

Into The Abyss

Throughout the years, as technology has grown and access to data has emerged as a bright moon to illuminate the dark and mysterious world of child welfare, the Michigan Children's Institute is slowly dumping all pieces of its existence into the abyss of the internet, being wiped clean from departmental organizational charts.

MCI is officially no longer on Michigan Department of Human Services Organizational Charts.  It disappeared.

I wonder if this is due to those irritating State Auditor General Reports, or those annoying federal decisions, or that nasty federal settlement agreement, or perhaps it was just me.

I wonder if it is finally going away.

Michigan Department of Human Services Organizational Chart 2010

Couple uses billboard to try to adopt a child

Call Bill. He has over 7,000 kids of his own he would love to get rid of.

Michigan Medicaid and Child Support Double Dipping

Michigan Medicaid and Child Support Double Dipping

For years, I have been battling with the father rights groups to understand that non-custodial parents are parents who have been determined by the court unfit to be granted the right to custody of the child.


Here we have a perfect example to show the child support issue advocates that child support is under the policy aegis of child welfare, being in this case, the Michigan Department of Human Services, and not the Friend of the Court.


The Friend of the Court collects, or rather enforces the orders of the court.  The court, judicates the bidding of Michigan child protection policies.

How does Michigan protect its children?  By double-dipping, of course!


Let's have some fun with the antics of the Supreme Court's ignorance of the foul administrative opertions in Michigan's child welfare.


First and foremost, the children were made wards of the court.  That is just a fancy name for foster care.  I do not have the details on the order, as it substantially affects the funding decisions of reimbursement, but, for conversational sake, let's say it is a Title IV-E placement with Targeted Case Management services.


Michigan has been known to order parents to pay for the time a child is in foster care.  This has led to many termination of parental rights decisions.  By this I mean a child may be placed in foster care for the parents failure to provide for the necessary needs of the child; they are poor.  It could be homelessness or it could be the inability to access proper medical care.  In any event, it is a catch-22.  Your child enters foster care because you are poor, yet you are ordered to pay for the length of stay.  If you do not pay for the time the child is in foster care, you fail to comply with the case plan and parent-agency agreement, generating documentation to support the call for TPR.


Ok, the State has been reimbursed under these two funding streams: (Title IV-E and Targeted Case Management).  Does the State send back this money to the feds if the parent pays for the foster care stay?


Hell no.  Wait, it gets better.


Then, as child support is ordered and to be intercepted, Title IV-D kicks in.  Now, you have foster care administrative payments kicking in to refer to Friend of the Court to collect money from a person whom the State has decided has no legal ties to the child.


Absolutely brilliant scheme of double-dipping.


Michigan has ordered many parents whose rights have been terminated to pay child support.  Even though the child is adopted out and the new adoptive parents or even foster parents who have the child in adoptive placement are receiving adoption assistance payments, child support operations are in full force.


Where does the child support money go once a child is adopted out from TPR?


Into the blackhole of Michigan's Medicaid fraud scheme.  Remember, it's all about maximizing revenue for the State.

Mich. Supreme Court: Loss of parental rights doesn't end support



The Michigan Supreme Court says a loss of parental rights doesn't automatically mean an end to child support.



In a rare unanimous opinion, the court says a father or mother can be ordered to support a child financially even if he or she has no other role. The justices ruled in a case from Oakland County in which Lawrence Beck's parental rights were terminated in 2009.

A judge still required Beck to support two children under the terms of a divorce from his wife.
The Supreme Court said Monday that Michigan law requires financial support unless a judge modifies or terminates the obligation.

Justice Alton Davis did not participate in the 6-0 decision because he reviewed the case when he was a member of the state appeals court.

Michigan Supreme Court Opinion On Child Support In Termination Of Parental Rights

HHS To Sue Michigan Adoption Program?

And why is Michigan "likely" to be sued by HHS OIG?

Because no one knows about Bill Johnson and Michigan Children's Institute...but now, they do :)

U.S. Administration for Children and Families position on Michigan Adoption Plan 2009

Welcome To The Michigan Foster Care Show!

Welcome to the Michigan Foster Care Show!


Why did this bill from 2007 pass so quickly in the final days of this legislature?  


Could it be the federal settlement agreement pending sanctions?


Could it be a desperate plea from administrators to elected officials to divert attention from the federal violations of law within the child welfare system in order to keep their jobs?


Or could it be concessions with the Michigan Children's Institute to keep the newly elected Governor Snyder in the dark of its omnipotence?  You see, it was the Superintendent who granted the decision to adopt, despite the evidence.


What, you thought only the court had the power to grant?  Oh no, my dear readers, the Superintendent possesses the powers of the court to "consent or withhold" the grant of adoption.  


So why does the Superintendent have so much authority in the judicial branch?  Because he is a civil servant of the executive branch!  See, in Michigan, one must prove his decisions were arbitrary and capricious, not that they were false or improper decisions, just whimsical.  


Bill Johnson has a divinity degree.  Therefore all his decisions are directly told to him from God and as such are not whimsical.  But the best part is the Superintendent not only is a vessel for the word of God, he is represents the State of Michigan without being appointed or elected, with no oath of office filed in the great repository of the state.


If you think this was a horrible life experience the Amers lived through, there are tens of thousands of other families in the state who have experienced the same thing, if not worse.


Keep in mind, the language of the new law, "fit".  The relatives still have to go through screening, in which the state still has stricter standards than with reunification efforts.


All in all, including the monetary incentive, it is better than nothing.  It's a start.

Relatives get power in foster care bill

Mark Hicks / The Detroit News

Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed into law Tuesday a bill requiring the state to give special consideration to relatives when placing children in Michigan's foster care system.

"This is a victory," said Rehab Amer of Dearborn, who had three children taken away and raised in foster care. "No child can go through what we went through."

Rehab Amer and her husband, Ahmed, had pushed for the bill, known as the Amer Act.

The Amers lost custody of their children when Rehab was accused of killing her 2-year-old son, Samier, in 1985. She was acquitted a year later.

Nearly 20 years after the boy's death, Wayne Circuit Court ordered the cause of death be changed to accidental on the death certificate. Medical experts said Samier had a rare brittle bone disease.

Meanwhile, the children were adopted, their names were changed, and they were raised in a Christian home in Clarkston. The Amers are Muslim.

Michigan Foster Care Relative Placement 2010

Michigan still will not reinstate parental rights.

Protecting Michigan's Children Without Addressing The Institute

Protecting kids: Child welfare efforts lag in Michigan

Left with a broken foster care system, Gov.-elect Snyder needs to fix it fast

Here's a priority Gov.-elect Rick Snyder likely didn't expect to be on the top of the stack when he takes over Jan. 1: The state's child welfare system is still failing, according to a federal monitor, and the new governor won't have a whole lot of time to fix it. Snyder's best approach would be to quickly build a working relationship with the monitor and the state judges and lawyers charged with protecting kids.

A Federal Court lawsuit by a New York-based child welfare watchdog organization, citing alarming deaths of children in Michigan's foster care system, resulted in a consent agreement with the Department of Human Services, which oversees foster care and adoption. The state agreed to fix what's wrong with the system.

It hasn't, and now Snyder must. The monitor recently issued a report saying the state is falling behind in meeting the consent decree's goals. The report cited overburdened child welfare caseworkers, too few foster homes and children remaining in foster care too long while they await adoption.

At one point, Children's Rights said it would seek a contempt order for the DHS, but Federal Judge Nancy Edmunds, who appointed the monitor, said she had received assurances from Snyder that he will deal with the issue promptly, and the contempt motion was shelved for now.

Attorneys in the case agreed to meet with DHS next month after Snyder takes office to work out plans to get the state back on track. The monitor said that while staffers in public and private child welfare agencies are working hard, "their best efforts are often undone by poor planning and a lack of coordination."

Of course, the state needs to do all it can to continue to repair the child welfare and foster care programs. One way it could do this is seeking more input from judges and lawyers who hear child welfare cases. That might be part of improving coordination.

For example, one provision of the 2008 consent decree is that grandparents, aunts and uncles who might care for children removed from their parents would have to receive a state license before they can serve as foster parents for their own relatives. Some local judges, who weren't named in the suit and weren't involved, privately noted that this might discourage the relatives from assuming the burdens of caring for the children, especially since they aren't paid.

The state Supreme Court, the Michigan Probate Court Judges Association, the Family Law Committee of the State Bar and others have been conducting numerous study groups on how to improve the handling of child welfare cases. They might have some useful advice for the DHS officials and the federal monitor on how to achieve the goals of the consent decree in a more cost-efficient and effective way.

No one involved in the system would argue that it can't be improved. The Snyder administration would do well to cast a wider net for help in making that happen.

THIS IS MY COMMENT:


Dismantle Michigan Children's Institute

Discussion and study groups only address one side of the issue and that is with delivery of service within the confines of the current structure of the child welfare system.

I will state, with the authority as an original source, that the ability of the State to come into compliance with the federal court agreement is tantamount to federal compliance in its administration.

The same individuals who are facilitating these discussions and studies are the ones who lack the knowledge to even admit that there is rampant fraud, waste and abuse in Michigan Child welfare.

Billions in Medicaid fraud, much in child welfare, is swept under the rug by these so-called groups who advocate for continuing the status quo of operations.

The New York group is pressing the court to rule on violations of the settlement agreement, not making improvements for children in foster care.

Not once has this New York group made the slightest of reference to one of the most powerful and pathetically operated foster care agencies within Department of Human Service, and that is Michigan Children's Institute and its all-powerful, omnipotent Superintendent Bill Johnson, a multi-billion dollar cover-up operation of all the horrors that goes on with children who are wards of the state.

Governor-elect Snyder needs to examine the powers of the Superintendent, as Bill Johnson will continue to wield more power than the Governor.

For decades, these interest groups have done nothing more that benefit at the expense of children and the taxpayers of Michigan.

The time has come to remove these pathetic administrators and directors who make pretty public statements that make the people feel all warm and fuzzy, whitewashing the festering hell-hole of a decrepit child welfare system philosophy.

Poverty is not child abuse and should not be considered as grounds for removal and placement in foster care, but it is in Michigan.

Contractually debar, revoke licenses, sanction, penalize with re-training, or even make them go to training, prosecute and recover. Do something to end this culture of fraud, waste and abuse in child welfare, otherwise the state will continue to pay enormous amounts in attorney fees at the expense of the freedom of children.

Start here: 

• Dismantle Michigan Children's Institute;
• Do not re-appoint Janet Olszewski, Verlie Ruffin or Ishmeal Ahmed;
• Then terminate the upper echelon on DHS, including the entire Wayne County operations.