You have just been accused of abusing or neglecting your child. You have no idea where this accusation came from. Your first impulse is to cooperate with the caseworker After all, you have nothing to hide.
And so. . .the nightmare begins. . .

This site attempts to strike a reasonable balance between the “seize-the-child-and-ask-questions-later-guilty-until-proven-innocent” knee-jerk State reaction to less than perfect homes and the rabid, abusive, paranoid ranting of certain aggrieved parents who lash out indiscriminately in unreasoned anger, abusively shouting down all critical commentary or opposition.

Some of the more vocal unreasoned critics are seeking public vindication for their actual child abuse and are piggybacking their complaints onto the legitimate family rights grassroots movement. Some are even pretending to leadership they are not qualified to assume. It is inevitable that those legitimately accused of child abuse or neglect would jump on the family rights bandwagon to whip up the masses to their cause, seeking to win the vindication in the court of public opinion that they could not win in our judicial system. Others are truly falsely accused and suffer egregious indignities and abuses by state agencies, justifying their righteous outrage.

In between these two extremes are the majority of parents who are subjected to the not-so-tender mercies of overworked child welfare agencies. These are varying degrees of less-than-perfect parents who are doing the best they can with the tools they have. Their parenting practices may or may not conform to the statutory definitions of child abuse, but since that determination is so subjective, they are universally perceived as being abusive or neglectful.

Many times, a temporary family crisis becomes the vehicle through which agency intervention exacerbates a relatively minor problem into destruction of the family. Other times, the parents actually go to the agency for help, and are rewarded for their attempts to be better parents by losing their children forever. Some parents were abusive--once--but are treated as if they were chronic abusers who refuse to improve themselves rather than the imperfect parent who made one mistake. Parents are even punished for the absurd mistake failing to predict that someone else would abuse their child and preventing that unpredictable abuse.

Anything can trigger the coercive nightmare of guilty until proven innocent; a car accident, bedwetting, poverty, homelessness, having too many children, a rebellious or lying teen, a runaway, a food allergy, a legitimate medical condition, an acrimonious divorce, an argument, dietary practices, religious practices, being the victim of domestic violence or simply a spanking. Irrationally, what one family does may be considered abuse, while their neighbor who does the same thing is not considered abusive. With the absurdly high standards of parenting perfection demanded by state agencies and courts as a condition of keeping your children, it is quite simple to make a case against any parent,

Bottom line, most parents who are branded as abusers, aren't really abusive. They were just imperfect. It could be any one of us.

Hopefully, we can provide these imperfect parents with a few good tools to assist them during this crisis.

American Family Advocacy Center takes an objective look at the practices and outcomes of child welfare practitioners and of accused parents. Unlike any other participants--be they professionals or parents--we offer reasonable, cost effective, proven solutions to many of the problems faced by professionals and families alike. It has been our experience that reasonable people can make these cases work without sacrificing anyone's dignity, self-determination or the welfare of the children.