Unfortunately, Summit County Children Services Agency is a familiar name to many parents around North Eastern Ohio.  Whether you call it the Children Service Board (CSB), Children Services or Child Protective Services (CPS), it all refers to the same child groups.  Those who have dealt with the organization's tactics have learned first hand what it means to be stripped of their parental rights, only to be told that it is legally binding and allowable, regardless of whether or not good cause truly existed.  Still, these actions and many more inevitably continue on a daily basis, all in the name of the children, or are they?  While this article could expand upon such issues, using volumes of space and never run out, Summit Dads hopes that all parents, mothers and fathers alike, will take notice of the tactics described within the following paragraphs of text.   They are not only to inform Summit County, Ohio unmarried fathers of problems they face at the hands of this agency, but make the world aware of the processes this group uses to take children from homes, ways to avoid the obvious traps they set for this purpose, and other aspects of these procedures to offer the best outcome for families everywhere. 

Children Services Agency

For over a century, the Child Protection Service (CPS) agencies have coveted our families through in-house investigations, long-term case plans and docketed information that is preserved within classified paperwork.  Although these organizations were formed to act in the best interest of a child, which resides within their respective districts, the everyday practices used to purportedly achieve this special goal have raised serious questions, concerning the real motives of these outfits and any legislator who allows such abusive practices to continue through either inaction or complacency.  What’s more, the treatment fathers receive by child agencies increase suspicion as to the impartiality of their work, as well as the actual motivations and reasons for existence in society.  Therefore, the main purposes of this piece is to discuss past and contemporary reasons behind child protection, present day tactics that are commonly used by Children Service agencies to purport sufficient levels of relevancy, how these policies affect fathers and children, and sensible courses of action to take when faced with the organizational methods listed herein.

History

Because of concerns surrounding abused and neglected children, official efforts to care for mistreated children began throughout the United States in the 1800s.  An extremely crude system formed that outwardly claimed to base itself upon the premise of rehabilitation through education.  In fact, the structure of this system resembled that of a military school and was very harsh for those determined to be in need of its services.  The students were generally selected due to behavioral problems in public or lack of supervision at home, which at the time made them prime targets for outside intervention.  The authorities essentially claimed that society had finally tolerated the issue of delinquency to its end and needed these steps to correct it completely.  However, in reality, it effectively served as a way to group the most undesirable and unwanted children into a place that was far from public view.  Once assimilated into this new program, these children had very poor chances of ever reunifying with their parents.

After many years of using this arrangement, for collecting and assembling children into custody, the methods of operations changed in the first half of the 1900s.  No longer, would a child be placed in a boarding school type setting for care; instead, the focus shifted to cottage style living, in the form of what is traditionally understood by most people as an orphanage system.  Eventually, foster parenting would become more popular than it ever had been before, since a greater number of the kids under state and county supervision were determined to be in need of long-term care.  Especially in Summit County, Ohio, this practice was prevalent prior to the 1980s, until a long time orphanage named Anderson Village closed in Springfield.  It appears that the cost of maintaining buildings for state purposes was a factor in making such a complete change in policy.  Today, such group home living is considered as an obsolete and outdated idea.

Throughout this entire process, the progression of legal hearings and generally acceptable practices in child service procedures inherently developed to favor the state, whereas simple claims, without clear and convincing evidence of any kind, could remove a child from their home and place them within county approved living spaces.  Since the days of orphanage styled living, this means foster care.  A social worker or their supervisor, whether at the intake or ongoing case level, could cast doubt upon the home life of a child and gain an emergency removal order.  It is at this point that the most obvious issues for a father and his child begin.

This article on the Summit County Children Service Board of Ohio will be finished soon.  Please stay tuned!