Family Association is a Fundamental Human Right

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What you must do if seeking the assistance of a trained advocate - you may print a copy and save a copy of this page only to your computer only for use with a FRAI certified advocacy program.

1. You must be strong. We cannot teach anyone how to grow a backbone. Our philosophy is, if you want to blindly follow all of CPS orders/instructions and make a false admission of guilt, then you have no room to complain about they way they treat you or your children. After all, by your compliance, you have signed up for everything they dish out. There are consequences attached to all decisions. In our experience, an average of 50% of all parents who cooperate fully end up facing termination of parental rights hearings (63% in El Paso County, Colorado according to a William M. Mercer, Inc. report), and are understandably shocked by it. By then, it’s practically too late for us to be very helpful.
2. We expect you to stand up and fight, or put up and shut up. Harsh? Sure, but there are plenty of families out there who will not roll over and wet themselves at the sight of a CPS worker and we dedicate our efforts to helping them.
3. They will bully you. They will threaten you. They will hold your children hostage to their demands. YOU decide what the price of your soul (principles) is, nobody can do that for you. If CPS can buy your soul for the possibility of a degrading one-hour supervised visit a week with your children - no promises attached - we consider that pretty cheap. We can’t help people whose souls are for sale at any price. Our resources are too limited, so we focus on those who will be strong, whose actions will contribute to changing the face of child protection and will guarentee the fundamental right of family association forever.
4. You need to understand, they operate on the presumption that you are an unfit parent, and on bluff and intimidation. If you insist you are fit (innocent), they will say you are in denial. But if you demand a trial, they must bear the burden of proof in court - and often they can’t meet the burden of proof and that is why they need your admission. Many parents who do go to the adjudicatory trial also lose, even if the evidence in their favor is overwhelming - so don’t expect a fair trial. BUT a trial will guarantee you a chance and an appeal; an admission won’t.
5. If you stipulate (admit) and falsely admit guilt, they can and will set you up to fail the treatment plan - and you only have 12 months or less to complete it - FAILURE TO SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE A TREATMENT PLAN IS THE ONE OF THE SOLE GROUNDS REQUIRED UNDER LAW FOR THE TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS IN EVERY STATE. Who decides if you succeed or fail? Largely, in practice, the subjective assessment of the caseworker is the sole determining factor, even in the face of expert testimony to the contrary. This is why you cannot make a false admission of guilt. This is the mechanism used to terminate parental rights, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR CHILDREN ARE UNDER SIX YEARS OLD.
6. If you fight, if you insist in your innocence, they will retaliate. It’s not fair, it’s not legal, it’s not ethical, but that’s the way it is. It’s an ugly, abusive system peopled by control freaks, by some of the most damaged people in our society. We can’t change that, so we must work with it. We promise, your situation will get harder before it gets easier.
7. You may be denied access to your children as a result of your position and you will be tempted to roll over. BUT - if you persevere, by the time you are through, you will be able to tell your children that you did the right thing, that you fought for them, that you didn’t allow yourself to be bullied by a Gestapo agency, so that hopefully they won’t have their children placed in a similar situation when they become parents. AND you will have been taught to how preserve enough evidence to nail each and every person who participated in the violation of your family with lawsuits. (As we speak, there are even criminal Racketeering investigations and prosecutions occurring based solely on the evidence gathered by parents who consulted with us - now do you understand why they fear us?)
8. You must be willing to assume responsibility for the tasks you are able to perform. We can’t do it all for you, but we can tell you what needs to be done and why and how to use it to your advantage. Since you are the person who is involved in your case, you are the one person who has access to everything. That is why you must be responsible for information gathering and documentation. Your tasks will often include voluminous letter writing, insuring that every contact with any service provider is audio or video taped, viewing your CPS and court records, and providing AFAC with copies of relevant documentation to assist in your case. The results you obtain will depend heavily on your efforts. This will be the most important fight of your life, and we will be there to guide you and assist you, but, because of the confidential nature of these cases, and the secrecy involved, you will have to do much of the legwork. If you do your part, we will help you exploit it for the protection of your family.
9. We expect you to contact your advocate. They don’t have the time or resources to keep tabs on you personally. However, if you contact them, they will take all the time you need to help you resolve an issue and advise you on the next course of action. We will speak with your attorney - in fact we prefer to do that. We will conduct forensic analysis of evidence, and supply written reports based on the data we receive. We will offer access to other resources to help you in your defense.
10. We do not offer support services; we can direct you to those who do. Don’t expect us to be a shoulder to cry on, that is not our mission. We need the facts and the evidence, and we will help you use it to your advantage administratively, politically and in the courts.
11. AND you must not be a substance abuser. If you drink to excess, or if you are an alcoholic and drink at all, or use illegal drugs, we will not help you. This is a sure self-destruct mechanism, there is no effective defense against it.

We cannot offer advice in a vacuum. YOU MUST Collect the following documents in order to assist you with documenting child protection abuses against your family: If you do NOT provide us with these documents, don’t blame us if we can’t help you.

• If your advocate doesn’t have one - A copy of the State Plan under Title IV E and IV B . The State department of Social Services has these documents. They are available under state and federal Freedom of Information Acts, but making your request via those routes is too time-consuming, and you don’t have very much time. We recommend that you contact your STATE Senator or Representative and ask him (or his staff member) to obtain these documents for you. Ask him not to identify who has made this request through him out of fear of retaliation. Assure him that CPS WILL retaliate against you if they know you’ve requested these documents. These documents detail out the services the state promises to provide to families for child protection. Make sure you are getting everything the state has promised the Federal Government it will provide.
• A copy of the CPS Policies and Procedures Manual. Make this request in the same manner as the previous one. This will outline exactly what CPS was supposed to do when they opened your case. You can be sure they didn’t even follow their own guidelines. You can use this against them in court.
• Look up your state’s statutes governing child protection. Read and study the laws (including case law in the annotations) and use their failure to conform to the laws against them in court.
• Get a copy of the book Making Reasonable Efforts: A Permanent Home for Every Child. Get two copies, one to keep and one for your lawyer. This book is written by the Youth Law Center. Reasonable efforts is a key component to a dependency case. With this book you can challenge CPS’s declaration that they made reasonable efforts by making them prove their declaration, and attack their Federal funding in the process for their failure to make reasonable efforts. This book can be used as an authority to support your motion contesting that Reasonable Efforts were made.

Send us your CPs case file and your court case file on CD, with the documents scanned in PDF format:

• Buy Profane Justice. It will tell you what to do to protect yourself in the meantime. The second edition is now available and has been expanded to 608 pages and updated for 2001. This book will answer most of your questions, so read it (or at least buy it so we can refer you to the relevant section)  before you call us
• Tell us your story in the form of a TIMELINE See sample.  Please, print or type, using proper grammer, puncutation and paragraphs (our director has a degenerative neurological disorder which makes reading difficult.) We have volumes of paperwork to read and cannot waste time puzzling out handwriting or run-on sentences and paragraphs. We insist it be submitted  in the form of a TIMELINE - a non-emotional factual chronological list of dates and corresponding events. Please DO NOT try to convince us with emotional appeals - we only want dates and facts, as briefly as possible. Narrative accounts will be filed and ignored.
• Send us the original petition, and the treatment plan(s) as well as any reports and evaluations that have been filed in your case. Also sent the minute orders (register of actions) from the court file and any findings of fact and conclusions of law. We must have this information or you will not receive our assistance. YOU MUST put your documents in chronological order - we will not organize it for you. Sending instructions.
• You will have to go through all reports to the court from CPS agencies and notate all lies and misrepresentations. Do not write directly on the documents, you may attach comments with sticky notes or on a separate piece of paper which refer to the document, date and page # so we can find it. If possible, include this documentation with your story.
• Set up an appointment for us to speak with you and your attorney. Once we have received the documents listed above, we would like to take an hour or so to consult with your attorney over the phone. We want you there, too. It has been our experience that attorneys who do not wish to have you present when they speak with us have no intention of providing vigorous representation for their clients. If this is your situation, let us know and we will teach you how to file a grievance against your lawyer.
• Don’t speak with case workers, police, etc. Don’t give them anything to twist into lies against you. Tape record all conversations with CPS agents, your lawyer, police, GALs, CASAs, your children during calls and visits, etc. WE CANNOT OVEREMPHASIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS!!! RECORD EVERYTHING!!! It may be the only thing that protects you. Label all tapes and use them to follow up EVERY contact with any service provider, caseworker, or your children with a letter detailing the factual occurrences. Send the original letter to the person you had contact with and a copy to your lawyer and to us - details on how to do this are in Profane Justice.
• Do not sign anything without knowing what all the ramifications are - and don’t count on your lawyer or anyone else to give you full disclosure. If you are ordered by the court to sign, we can advise you of all the options you have and the associated ramifications.

Please do NOT expect us to respond to ‘emergency’ requests that are not true emergencies. You know your court schedule, etc. so plan ahead. We require adequate preparation time. You know the saying, “Failure to plan properly on your part does NOT constitute an emergency on my part.” You will be left hanging if you have not planned in advance.

How much does it cost?

Nothing except expenses.

This is a ministry. *Do not allow the word “ministry” to alarm you. AFAC is a Christian organization, however AFAC makes no demands on the faith of any client. We offer our services to people of all faiths, races, socioeconomic and political backgrounds - after all, all families are at risk regardless race, creed, politics, or class. Our sole purpose is the protection of the family. We ask you to encourage your family, friends, coworkers, churches to support this ministry with tithes and donations. If we do not get these donations, we cannot assist innocent parents. We are a private charity, and donations are not tax deductible. References are available upon reasonable request.

Currently - due to lack of funding, we are extremely limited in what services we can offer beyond educational.

How do I start?

We recommend that you buy the book Profane Justice: A Comprehensive Guide to Asserting Your Parental Rights. All proceeds go directly to the ministry as well and this is the most valuable resource for parents before and after their children are taken. If you call asking questions that are answered in the book, we will ask you to purchase the book. The most efficient use of our time does not include explaining what’s already published in this 608 page manual. If you think the book is too expensive, just compare it to one hour with an attorney who won’t know half of what’s in the book.

Be advised, we can speak with your representatives, lawyers, caseworkers, the media or anyone else to assist in your case if you desire.

Q. If you could do only ONE thing to protect your family, what would that be?
A. Amend Your State Constitution with the FAMILY RIGHTS AMENDMENT