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CPS Abuse Stories > Georgia - Hall County
Georgia - Hall County
We have been given permission from Kelly Goodroe to post this story on the website.

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Are you a: Person with CPS case

When was your case finalized? Between two and three years ago

How long was your case open? Less than one year

County and State where case is/was located: Hall County, Georgia

Give a brief description of your case, including the current status and/or outcome: This is an explanation of exactly what they did to us. They have a terrible reputation around here. This is in Georgia.

August 2003: When our daughter started Kindergarten at Gainesville Elementary, we informed them that there was a family history of ADHD, and we wanted them to keep a lookout for this in our daughter. At that time she had not been formally diagnosed with it, but we had our suspicions. At that time, she was under the age limit for a formal diagnosis, which is 6 years. I was working at a landscaping company, doing dirty work, but going home on a daily basis.

October 2003: Had a conference with our daughter’s teacher, Tracy Lee, who informed us that our daughter was “playing with herself” in class. The teacher’s body language and tone of voice suggested she was uncomfortable talking about the subject. We had a talk at home with our daughter about stopping this behavior. Received our daughter’s first report card, and it seemed OK. At the first of the month, I took a job as an over-the-road truck driver, being gone 2 weeks at a time, only coming home about every other weekend.

November 2003: Teacher told us she would call DFACS if our daughter did not stop “playing with herself”. The teacher also implied she thought our daughter was being sexually abused. We took her to the doctor on Nov. 28, and, after an exam, the doctor told us she was fine, and that behavior was perfectly normal for girls her age and all we should do was tell her to stop that behavior. We relayed these findings to the teacher via letter, and heard no more that month.

December 2003: My wife became pregnant with out son. Due to some early problems with the pregnancy, she was ordered “light duty” for 2 weeks, no lifting and such. At this point, she needed help with things such as bathing our daughter and helping out. We found out 2 months ago that this is when the counselor started pulling our daughter out of class almost every day to question her about her home life.

January 2004: Received a call from school counselor about our daughter “playing with herself”. We told her what the doctor had told us, that it was considered normal. Received second report card and it looked OK. Our daughter started not wanting to go to school. At this point we did not know what was going on with the counselor.

February 2004: Received a letter stating her teacher was under a mentorship program and was supposed to take the Praxis exam over the summer. In other words, this teacher did not have her teaching credentials.

March 2004: Received our daughter’s third report card. It did not have the grades for the second nine weeks, and our signatures for the first and second quarters were missing. We did not have a record of the first 2 quarters to compare this “replacement” report card, so we assumed the original had been misplaced and a new one started. On the 25th, we got a call from Hall County Sheriff’s Office. The school had called DFACS and reported suspected abuse. I was out of town, so my wife went to the school, told the cops she was pregnant, and they seemed to ignore that. She asked my friend’s wife (now ex-wife) to come along as a precautionary measure. The cops asked to interview our daughter, and my wife said not without a lawyer present. At that point, the cop, Matt Gaudio, along with the DFACS worker told us they were going to interview our daughter one way or the other. This is when our daughter’s constitutional right to presence of counsel was violated. The cop went ahead and interviewed our daughter at the shool. After the interview, DFACS essentially forced their “safety plan” on us, threatening to take our daughter from us if we didn’t abide by their plan. We called our lawyer and he said we really had no choice on the matter, to go ahead and sign the plan, and that he would handle our case. My wife later talked to our daughter about the interview, and found out the cop had asked her leading questions to gain her trust and to mislead her, and the school counselor was present during questioning. We found out a couple months ago that the counselor was taking our daughter out of class (as already stated) the purpose being to “coach” her into answering the questions to her liking. (We found out from a pediatrician later that if you ask a child a question several times that they will change their answer. They child may be telling the truth the first few times, but if you keep asking, they get the idea that you don’t want to hear the truth, even if you tell them to tell the truth, so they will make up an answer thy think you want to hear. After they give this wrong answer, if you build on it, the child will fabricate a whole story to go with it.) The following day (March 26), The DFACS investigator, Angela Parm, came out to our home essentially asking if my wife coached out daughter. She also told us she had been abused as a child, and that leads me to believe she may have a predisposition toward fathers. All we did was to ask our daughter what questions she had been asked, we didn’t ask for what answers she gave the cops. My wife also told Angela Parm “I will not lie to my child.” Our daughter asked my wife about the safety plan, and she was told that I couldn’t come home while she was there until the investigation was complete. In other words, I couldn’t see my daughter. Needless to say, our daughter was very upset, as were the both of us. We also found out the counselor and principal pulled her from class that day and questioned her again. At that point, we became suspicious about the school and what was going on there. The cops also called my friend and told them to bring their son to a forensic interview along with my wife and our daughter. I was due for home time that weekend, so we had to send our daughter to my friend’s house, and we had to spend the weekend in a local motel (we lived next door to one another and the safety plan dictated I not be there.) We had to make arrangements for my friend to take my daughter somewhere so I could go home to do laundry, take care of other home-time related matters and such. This is the start of DFACS causing us to lose money and our home. On March 29, the Forensic Interview and exam took place. Afterward, the cop said it appeared our daughter had been coached. The exam came up normal. On the 30th, DFACS said my friend’s son needed counseling for some issues not relating to the case, and his wife agreed to in order to keep DFACS off their back.

April 2004: My friend’s wife told us our daughter said something about me that wasn’t true. Our daughter denied saying any such thing. We had suspected his wife (now ex-wife) of being a bit of a flake. We believe she told DFACS some lies about us in order to gain their trust and keep DFACS from bothering them. On the 26th, my mother went to our daughter’s school to observe the class. On her arrival to the classroom, my daughter wasn’t there, but one of her classmates told my mother she had gotten in trouble. The teacher didn’t say anything, but sent someone to get our daughter. On her arrival to the classroom, she seemed very upset with teary eyes. When asked what was wrong, she said “I don’t know”. The rest of the day went fine, but my mother learned that the whole class didn’t get snacks when there was misbehavior in the classroom. In my opinion, you don’t withhold food as a form of punishment. My mother also observed the class was very disorganized, disruptive and chaotic, with lack of discipline and control. She also noticed the teacher seemed to have difficulty maintaining her composure, and had a tendency to lose her temper. This lack of control on the teacher’s part equates to lack of control in the classroom. We also received a letter from DFACS stating they had “substantiated neglect or abuse”. We requested a panel review to dispute these findings.

May 2004: On the 4th, our daughter told us the teacher jerked her out of a chair because she would not push her chair in while her head was on the table and took her to another room for time-out. On the 5th, our daughter went to a psychologist for counseling for the stress and to try to diagnose the ADHD. There were no signs of abuse at that point. On the 6th, my wife went to observe the class. She noticed the same things my mother did, and also saw during Kindergarten graduation rehearsal that the children were sitting in a group in the middle of the gym, and all the teachers went into a “huddle” for about 15-20 minutes and left only 1 person to watch all those kids. The teacher seemed to be very apprehensive when we told her we were going to tell our doctor everything that was going on. Our intent with this was to get a proper diagnosis of our daughter’s ADHD. At this point they were asked about the report card discrepancy, and after a brief whisper (teacher to counselor), we got no answer. To me, that raises a BIG red flag that something is seriously WRONG. I could accept and innocent explanation that the first one was lost or something, but we got NO explanation AT ALL. We later got copies of both report cards, and the grades for the 2nd and 3rd quarters did not match. That leads us to believe that possibly the report card was falsified. We still have both copies for anyone who needs proof. On the 12th, our daughter went back the psych, and confirmed there were no signs of abuse, but was “quite distracted, hyperactive, and impulsive”. She did request from DFACS an adequate explanation on the nature of the case. On the 20th, the panel review was supposed to find out if the investigation had been done correctly. The investigator, Angela Parm, lied during the hearing about when she came out to our home, claiming it “about a week or so” after March 25, when in fact it was the next day. It came out that she only talked to one person who had ever been in our home, my friend’s wife, and did not even attempt to contact our doctor. She lied about not having contact info for him when in fact he was easily found in the phone book. If she had wanted to talk to the doctor and couldn’t find his number she could have asked us to provide it, but she did not. We had available to DFACS all the info and paperwork for everything we had done up to that point, but they weren’t interested in seeing it. It seems to me if the investigator is doing their job, they would be happy to take all that information to help in their case. DFACS never did tell us or anyone on exactly what the nature of the “supposed” neglect or abuse was, not even the doctors or the psych. I realize they have some secrecy rules, but those are designed to protect the people who call in complaints. If they want to correct the problem, then they should be willing to at least disclose the nature of the problem. The result of the panel hearing was (not surprisingly) that DFACS was in the right. The DFACS attorney told ours that DFACS would do this as they “rubber stamp” almost all their cases. Later on that same day (the 20th), my wife picked up our daughter from school her bottom lip had been injured. We did not get anything from the school about this, but our daughter did say that the teacher opened the door and hit her bottom lip.

Due to having to take all this time off of work, given that the assignment I was on, my work was planned 7-10 days in advance, so taking one day off of work screws up 2 weeks worth of work. In addition, when I came home, I had to make other lodging arrangements, at significant expense to us, including gas for all the extra mileage I had to drive. This is why I lost so much income, and as a result, we ended up losing our home. All this stress created problems during the pregnancy. My wife ended up having to quit her job over this matter. She could have kept working if the stress level had been “normal”. We learned DFACS, according to their own rules, isn’t supposed to do anything in their cases which creates a hardship for the families. The way I see it, they violated their own rules.

June 2004: Our daughter had another psych appointment. A request was sent to DFACS for information about the case. The DFACS investigator and caseworker visited on the 4th because a complaint had been filed. They said the report was filed on May 15. They did not tell us who filed the report, but we learned it was my friend’s wife. They wanted to talk to both of us twice a month, take parenting classes, and have our daughter continue counseling. They made an appointment for June 14 to meet with us. June 14 came and went, after having gone through a great deal of cost and effort to arrange time off for the meeting, they were a no-show. They called later that day after I had gone back to work, with some sort of lame “We didn’t show up because….” message.

July 2004: Finished up parenting classes, our son was born on the 29th. We were way behind on our rent, so we were forced to move out. We ended up having to move to my in-laws. We moved to White County.

August 2004: Our case was transferred to White County DFACS.

September 2004: On the 13th, I was injured on the job in a major truck crash in Milton, FL (about 10 miles east of Pensacola). I had a shattered right femur (upper half of leg) and had a titanium rod inserted. I was unable to walk for about 2 weeks. After that I needed crutches. I was in the hospital during the landfall of Hurricane Ivan. I was released the following Friday (the 17th). Our new caseworker visited us, and told us she had formerly worked in Hall County DFACS, and had quit there because the place was terrible. She also said the case had been open much longer than it should have. She told us this “off-the record”, and since she was the first DFACS worker who actually seemed to be sensible, I will keep her name out of this.

October 2004: DFACS closed the case. We were told by our caseworker that this should never have gone this far, and that in her opinion, the whole thing was ridiculous. She said she bound to handle it based on Hall County’s findings, but wished she could overturn the case. She did the next best thing by closing it. We moved into a place of our own again and got back on our feet financially. I was still unable to walk, but was going to physical therapy 3 times a week.

January 2005: Returned to work. My previous company discharged me, blaming me for my wreck. The court dismissed the case when I went to trial. Found a new job easily enough. My friend finalized his divorce.

February 2005: Our daughter made the statement “This counselor is much more nicer than the one at my old school.” When asked why she said “she does not pull me out of class, but the other counselor did pull me out of class a whole lot”

April 2005: My friend gets a visit from Hall County DFACS on the 14th. They got a call on the 11th and were concerned about him leaving his son in our care. I believe his ex-wife was behind this. Hall County DFACS also told him our case was not closed and gave him the same treatment we have in months past. They have threatened to take his son if he doesn’t do their bidding.

I feel that, due to the incompetence of a teacher and the negligence of Hall County DFACS, we were victimized by having to endure their extensive investigation process. This should take no more than 30 days to complete, not the 5 months they took. Everyone we have talked to said this whole mess is ridiculous, and that no case should have ever been dragged out this long. I feel they should be responsible for all the hardship (including financial) they have put us through, especially when their own rules say they shouldn’t put us through this. We told them that it messes up 2 weeks worth of load planning and I lose out on good work when I have to take unscheduled time off of work.

Please give a list of your main criticisms.: Reform is needed. So that my family and other are not hurt/abuse by DFS.

What should be done to reform CPS? The DFCS workers need more education and training. They should be force to follow all court orders. They (DFCS and anyone who makes reports to DFCS)should be held accountable!!!!
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