CPS Failures In This Case Are Incomprehensible. 'Mom convicted of murder in adopted teen daughter's starvation death'

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This post highlights everything that is wrong with Child Protection Services. I have not seen this story on Steemit and it is SUCH an important one that I am sharing it. I spotted this story, shown very briefly, last week in the news. This story demonstrates the worst case I have ever come across, and happened due to the failing of the CPS at every stage of the process of child removal, adoptive parent screening, and follow up checks. I had better warn you that some of the images below are quite disturbing, and very sadly the child in this case has died as a result of the most terrible circumstances. The most shocking part of this story was the response from CPS after the event, and brings home to me very clearly the need for radical change of the CPS system and beyond.

The key points of this story are listed below so that you can see the extent of what we are dealing with here:

• Natalie Finn 16 (whilst in adoptive care), died in October from a heart attack brought on by enforced starvation by the adoptive mother.
• The girl was found languishing on the linoleum floor in a soiled adult diaper
• The house in West Des Moines, Iowa, was overrun with cats and covered in waste
• The pair are alleged to have taken out life insurance policies worth $35,000 and intentionally starved the children to death
• Authorities visited in August 2016, just tow months before Natalie's death, and said the teen was starving herself and nothing was done to remove the children.
• There was no furniture in their bedroom or in the bedrooms of her other adopted siblings (who were reported to have been kidnapped!) and the house was overrun by cats and kittens whose feces were scattered everywhere.
• The fired health worker told colleagues she believed there may have been cause for concern but nothing was done.

Natalie Finn, 16

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Natalie was successfully adopted into a new family that were clearly not mentally fit and no doubt very dysfunctional. This first fail by CPS is one that begs the question as to whether ANY due diligence was done at all? What are the CPS workers who visit and meet these families and children thinking? Who ARE these people and what qualifications do they have to hold this VERY important position? I wonder if anyone knows whether CPS staff are require to wear a camera for their visits so that people can look back on cases and find the truth out. If they do not do this, then I think it would be a very good idea to somehow get this brought up as a necessary requirement for all CPS staff. This is normal practice for many professions these days, and is the only way to ever really know the extent of negligence when these situations arise or before!

Two months before Natalie's death she was visited by CPS to check on her condition. During that visit it was obvious beyond any doubt that there were SERIOUS problems with both Natalie and her living standards. The description of the home sounds like something out of a horror movie, with no furniture and the rancid smell of animal urine and very unhealthy living conditions.

"Finn shared the empty room, without furniture or beds, with two of her siblings and scores of dogs and cats that had the run of the home, West Des Moines police Detective Chris Morgan wrote in an affidavit. It smelled of human and animal waste, with blankets “heavily soaked” in what authorities believed to be urine, according to Morgan. 'Many animals roamed freely, including well over a dozen kittens and cats,” Morgan wrote in the document obtained by the Des Moines Register. “There were numerous kennels with dogs scattered inside the residence.'

Natalie Finn, 16, starved to death in a dirty diaper on the squalid floor of her adoptive parents' home in October 2017

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HOW can anyone possible see any of this and not be able to do anything. The excuse that there wasn't sufficient evidence to do anything sounds like utter nonsense to me. The 'official' story does mention that whilst social worker and police obtained a court order and finally entered the home in August 2016, Nicole was prepared and instructed the teens to shower and clean up. Let me ask you HOW well can you clean up a house in that condition, and HOW can you hide the fact that a child is starving to death, and HOW can you hide the fact that there are no beds or furniture?!

There has been a prosecution against the 'mother' and one CPS worker has been fired, and that is it. There has been no further action taken, and there is none on the cards because apparently the CPS don't think that there is a problem. This highlights to me the most shocking part of this case, the response from CPS in IOWA:

"Wendy Rickman, administrator of adult children and family services for the Iowa Department of Human Services, defended the agency’s response, “I would tell you as the child welfare director, as a child welfare administrator, that our system is functional,” Rickman said. “It is beyond functional.”

As I start to see these stories unfold it is becoming apparent that there are VERY serious problems that are not being recognised. That is the first step to finding solutions, and so by highlighting these cases we can, as time goes on, show the extent of the problem until it is undeniable. I pray this happens as quickly as possible because every story is one too much, and the extent of sufferings that are happening are incomprehensible.

I also wonder what part the media plays in this. If they chose to, they could highlight these stories far more than they do, but they choose not to. What pressure is there on Media to subdue these stories? What does go on under the surface? These answers we may never know, but what is clear is that ANY action is going to have to happen from the grass roots. And here were are!

SOURCES:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5035445/Parents-charged-starving-daughter-taken-insurance.html
https://nypost.com/2017/03/16/starved-teen-was-found-in-diaper-inside-waste-infested-house-cops/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/12/14/mom-convicted-murder-teen-daughters-starvation-death/954204001/