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This account of six families whose children were wrongly seized by child protection services vividly illustrates the constitutional balancing act where medicine, family interests, and child safety can clash.They Took the Kids Last Night shows a rarely exposed side of America's contemporary struggle to address child abuse, telling the stories of loving families who were almost destroyed by false allegations-readily accepted by caseworkers, doctors, the media, and, too often, the courts.
Each of the six wrongly accused families profiled in this book faced an epic and life-changing battle when child protection caseworkers came to their homes to take their kids. In each case, a child had an injury whose cause was unknown; it could have been due to an accident, a medical condition, or abuse. Each family ultimately exonerated itself and restored its family life, but still bears scars from the experience that will never disappear. The book tells why and how the child protection system failed these families. It also examines the larger flaws in our country's child protection safety net that is supposed to sort out the innocent from the guilty in order to protect children.
List of contents
Preface
Introduction
ONE Today the
Brady Bunch Kids Could Be Taken Too
TWO A "Multidisciplinary Pediatric Consortium" Means Doctors Help Police and Caseworkers to Take the Kids
THREE The Investigation Begins in Earnest with "Hurry Up and Wait"
FOUR It's Fine to Take the Kids, Unless the State Is Lying
FIVE A Night to Remember
SIX Planning for a Court Date to Keep the Kids
SEVEN "Without Prejudice" Means You Lose the Kids for Now
EIGHT Bringing on the Witnesses
NINE The State's Star Witness and Someone the Investigation Missed
TEN The Baby's at Risk If Breastfed in Private
ELEVEN Attacking the Doctor Who Knows Something About Fractures
TWELVE To the Finish Line
THIRTEEN Attempts at Recourse and the End of the Investigation
FOURTEEN Partial Answers and Partial Remedies
FIFTEEN A "Constellation of Injuries" Does Not Equal Child Abuse
SIXTEENWe Believe the Children, Except When They Say the Baby
Wasn't Abused
SEVENTEEN A Statistical Likelihood Doesn't Make Parents Guilty
Epilogue: What Needs to Be Done
Notes
Index
About the author
Diane L. Redleaf has been a leading family defense attorney and policy advocate for over three decades. Since she graduated from Stanford Law School in 1979, she has led dozens of successful class action suits, appeals and policy reform initiatives on behalf of families.
