Our lives were no longer our own.

The first thing that happens in our state when the finding is 'Services Required', is your name is placed on a register of 'child abusers'. For ten years. Boom, just like that. No weighing of evidence. No day in court. Ten years. This list could be compared to a sex offender registry. So all my years of driving for field trips, volunteering in the schools, reading thousands of hours to my children, cuddles, kisses, nights spent up all night with sick children in the bathroom and on and on...? Rendered irrelevant. My name is now on a list with people who have beaten their children, had them removed because they were on Meth, alcoholics or have domestic violence situations in their homes. One of the reasons cited in giving this finding was that I had 'not followed previous recommendations to seek out counseling' and the fact that there were 'so many previous allegations'!! Hmmm...if it's a recommendation, why would I be punished for not following it...?

Immediately we were thrown into individual counseling sessions. Seven of us all having to schedule time with therapists. I was ordered to quit my job. Or...I could work at my $4.35/hr job as a server if I paid someone else to come babysit my two youngest for me! Of course I had to quit. We were already unable to pay full rent, feed ourselves till the end of the month and buy desperately needed clothes. But hey...it's only money!

We were assigned a social worker to come into our home on a weekly basis, (or occasionally I would visit her in her office) to monitor our 'progress' and the situation. The standard amount of time CPS leaves a case open is a year. After eight months our social worker had come to see that there was no abuse (no, she wouldn't put it in writing, that could open CPS up to to legal ramification!) and that we had no need of Child Protection involvement. She prepared to close our case. Is there now an option to have your name removed from the child abuser registry? Oh no...it stays on there. Appeals process? Nope. Set in stone.

Timeline:

Fall of 2006 - finding of 'Services Required'
January 2007 - Social Service case begins. Older children are now forced into visitation with Jeff to 'improve their relationship and combat my alienation'. The fact that Jeff has made NO attempt at visiting them or even speaking to them on the phone for nearly two years is deemed my fault and again, irrelevant.
July 2007 - the weekend of July 4th another allegation is made. This time against one of my older boys. He is accused of being sexually inappropriate and/or touching my youngest (four yrs. old). The matter is investigated by yet a third county as Jeff is also alleging that our county is now biased in my favor. The social workers interviewing my four year old determine that 'he has been coached' to say what he says. Jeff is reprimanded in writing and informed that this situation had better not arise again. Yet no investigation is begun to address the clear psychological abuse perpetrated against my four year old by his father telling him to lie!
August 2007 - 'Family Meeting' with social workers and parents present where Jeff is informed that our case will be closing and that the 'best thing he can do for his children if he cares about them, is to stop filing allegations and changes of custody.' (At this point, a year and a half post-divorce he has filed two already. Both denied by a judge before ever entering a courtroom.) Jeff rants and raves, storms out and goes directly to his new attorney's office where he files his third change of custody petition which I receive two days later.
October 2007 - Case closes. Change of custody still pending...
December 2007 - Judge dismisses petition. A week later Jeff stops his visitation with the older children. Neither visitation nor phone contact resumes until after the end of 2008 when we receive yet another finding of 'Services Required'.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...