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When the bough breaks: Working against a family's reunion
Monday, December 13, 1999 By Barbara White Stack, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Mary Beth Downey and her boyfriend Billy Ikard couldn't stop fighting. In the end, it was always Downey who got hurt.
In February, when Downey was pregnant with their third child, Beaver County Children and Youth Services decided their 2-year-old and 3-year-old children, and Downey's 6-year-old from a previous relationship, needed protection. It placed them in foster care, even though both Ikard and Downey insist that Ikard had never hurt the children.
The agency gave Downey, who was 23, a family service plan, which is a list of tasks a parent must accomplish before getting children back from foster care. It's supposed to be a cooperative venture, in which the parent fulfills requirements with the help of the child welfare agency.
Downey immediately achieved some of the goals CYS set for her. She moved to a women's shelter and got a Protection From Abuse order against the 20-year-old Ikard, which prohibited him from coming near her. The plan also required her to take classes on domestic violence and parenting, and she began doing that. In addition, she completed an evaluation that showed she had no drug or alcohol problems.
Downey said she got no help from CYS in reaching these goals. In fact, she felt CYS was working against her.
CYS officials told her lawyer that when her baby was born, the child could be cared for by Downey's mother, but then, the day Downey was leaving the hospital, Downey's caseworker scheduled a hearing and tried to put the baby in foster care. The hearing officer allowed Downey's mother to take the baby anyway.
In another instance, CYS and Beaver County Juvenile Court failed to notify Downey or her lawyer of an important hearing. At one point, her caseworker even tried to persuade an attorney whom friends had hired for Downey to drop her as a client.
The attorney, Albert A. Torrence of Beaver, said the caseworker spent about a half hour trying to persuade him that the baby should not be cared for by Downey's mother and that he should stop representing Downey. If Torrence had dropped Downey, her case probably would have reverted to Joseph Spratt, an attorney the court had appointed to represent her, but who she said often had not returned her phone calls.
Downey's experience is one described frequently by Beaver County parents, foster parents and lawyers.
They say CYS has lost sight of its mission to reunite parents and children. That goal is embodied in federal and state legislation. In all but the most extreme cases, the laws say that child welfare agencies have a duty to try to rehabilitate the birth family so that the children can return home safely.
When an agency doesn't help parents, it may seem as though it is focused on keeping their children from them. That is because when parents fail to achieve the goals the agency sets for them for reunification, then the agency may use those shortcomings as reasons why their parental rights should be ended.
Witold Walczak, director of the Greater Pittsburgh chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, tried to help two women in their dealings with CYS after he got Beaver County Judge Robert C. Reed to reverse their terminations.
After that experience, he concluded that "Beaver County is abysmal in helping parents get their children back. They schedule visits once every two weeks," which is the legal minimum, "and just sign them up for parenting classes and drug and alcohol evaluation and that's it. Parents are destined to fail, especially when their caseworker is antagonistic."
In one of his cases, he arranged for CYS to take the child for visits to the halfway house where the mother was living. The visits were going well. But when the mother, Youlanda Polite, got a job in Pittsburgh that required her to work every weekday, CYS asked a judge to end the visits rather than make arrangements for them to occur on weekends.
Downey was luckier than many mothers involved with CYS. She had two families and a church helping her. They were Betsy and Dr. John Lee of Beaver, who hired Torrence to represent her, and Cindy and Gary Laney of Chippewa, who helped her get a driver's license and a job and helped her pay for rent and car repairs. Their church, Chippewa United Presbyterian Church, also helped with rent and furnishings.
With that assistance, Downey completed all the goals CYS set for her -- except for staying away from Ikard. Although she got custody of her baby at one point, CYS then placed the infant girl in foster care after Downey's caseworker caught Ikard in her apartment.
A few weeks later, CYS argued in court that the baby should remain in foster care with her siblings because the children were bonded to each other. Downey, however, persuaded the judge to place the baby with the Laneys, because they had served as caretakers for the child for much of her life, including a time when both Downey and the baby lived with the Laneys.
Although CYS contended in court the children shouldn't be separated, just days after the judge placed the baby with the Laneys, CYS separated the two older siblings, placing the boy in a different foster home.
It has now been 10 months since Mary Beth Downey first lost her children. Despite the help of friends and church members, it is unclear whether she will get them back.
Ikard is now in jail on charges that he beat her up and broke her finger on Oct. 19.
Because he's locked up and Downey has completed all the goals on her family service plan, she has contended that CYS should return at least one of her children to her.
But the agency recommended to a hearing officer that she be limited for now to two-hour supervised visits with her children in her home several days a week.
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