The following links are introductions to the history of the soon to be two decades long case on the horrors of Michigan Child Welfare System in the Michigan Eastern District Court, Nancy Edmunds, presiding.
https://beverlytran.blogspot.com/search?q=children%27s+rights
https://beverlytran.blogspot.com/search?q=nancy+edmunds
https://beverlytran.blogspot.com/search?q=stephanie+jezowski
https://beverlytran.blogspot.com/search?q=sacwis
https://beverlytran.blogspot.com/search?q=OCO
https://beverlytran.blogspot.com/search?q=MCI
Dear Governor Whitmer, Attorney General Nessel, and other members of the Legislature,
I am reaching out to you all today with the hope that discussions can finally take place about some very serious issues within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. As someone that has been working with families for a number of years that are involved with CPS and by means of my own investigating, I must make you all aware of the situation.
I have sent this document to the court and parties involved in the Dwayne B. lawsuit filed by Children's Rights and intend to follow up with Federal agencies as well. I would have provided far more, but current state laws do not allow me to do so and without legal permission, I can only relay what I know and have come across.
While the last year we have heard horror stories about how immigrant kids are being ripped from their families and the permanent damage that it does to them, the same thing is happening right in our own backyards and it is not getting any attention. Why is that? I can think of several reasons with the primary one being the fallacy that MDHHS propagates that they only get involved and remove kids when it is truly necessary. That gets compounded by the fact that investigations get derailed by their privacy claims yet you all can have people sign waivers to help get families food stamps, Medicaid and work out Disability issues. How is health information any less sensitive? And why in the last year, have two separate entities with one being the Auditor General had to sue to get information that they are allowed to have?
As you will see in my Notice, the reason seems to be that the Department has far too much to hide and that Child Welfare is in worse shape than anyone has been allowed to know. We are talking at least half a dozen deaths because of their failures that I have been able to find, and there are likely far more. That doesn't include the two adult deaths that happened in two murder suicides that took the lives of 4 children. There are other considerable failures that also need to be addressed.
It was my goal to summarize as best as possible and to show how there are consistent issues that no one seems to be properly addressing and that includes the Judicial Branch and Departments such as MDHHS, the State Court Administrator's Office, Office of Children's Ombudsman and other safety measures that have allegedly been put in place. However, having years of information stored up and not being able to refer to documents I had to describe what is going on and it ended up being considerably longer than planned. You will want to set aside some time to read and consider what is contained within it because so many things depend on legislators calling MDHHS to the table to get control back and proper oversight of their operations put in place.
I will not sugar coat what is happening and some of what you read will be hard to stomach and even to believe, part of that is because MDHHS has become a master of propaganda and hiding the reality of what is going on. Most of you will never have had an encounter with CPS; count yourself very lucky and accept that you really don't have an understanding of what it is like to deal with them. I would have to make an educated guess that even fewer have sat through court proceedings in a CPS case and it is time that you do so. Ask questions, expect to get very few answers. When you get answers, ask to see the data itself that merits the response you get; don't be surprised if you are told you cannot see it because, apparently, just numbers are considered violating privacy.
I, personally, expect to see some kind of retaliation in response to all of this. To what degree is unknown. Someone may look in the system and see children living with us and make a random call to CPS when there are no children in our home. Anything could happen and I expect it to come mainly from Arenac County because I have called them out specifically in my notice. Why? Because they are not following laws or policies, are changing court documents after they are filed, not properly placing complaints into the system, they have tried to have a family "swatted" based on so-called evidence they likely obtained from a wiretap or electronic surveillance that they had no reason to be doing They have placed children in non-licensed foster homes that no one knows how they got there, they predetermine cases with the judge as it would appear, the list goes on. They will also work overtime to discredit me and anyone else that speaks out about the county but I have my proofs in order. The problem is that I cannot legally share them with any of you. We need a law immediately that allows families to share documents with legislators without penalty so that you all can see what is going on. The only things that can currently be shared are things like newspaper articles and other publicly available information.
The time to protect your most vulnerable constituents is now. It can only be done through action and that requires listening and investigation by you and your staffs. Ask yourselves, why has the state been in this lawsuit for more than 10 years with little forward progress and now a $230,000,000 computer program has to be scrapped and a new one implemented? If the computer system is so bad, how can anything coming from it be trusted? Why are workers not telling parents who have concerns of abuse and neglect in foster homes to report it to central intake? Far too many questions and not enough acceptable answers. A word of caution: I have heard reports of legislators being bribed or threatened in various ways when they attempt to take on MDHHS so be prepared to report any and all of it to the proper authorities. Record conversations that you have with their staff or anyone that reaches out to you on their behalf. Do so without disclosing you are doing so because that is one of the few ways you will have to protect yourself. This is not legal advice, but it is advice given to me by an attorney when we were dealing with CPS.
It must also be made known that by not providing appropriate or adequate services and by lying on petitions while claiming Federal funds, MDHHS could very well be committing massive and widespread fraud for CPATA, ASFA and Social Security funds in addition to Medicaid funds. In addition, the Health Department is illegally trying to find ways around the FERPA laws when it comes to vaccine waivers. As such, the state is wide open to Federal lawsuits to recover funds as well as being placed in Federal Receivership if these matters are not immediately addressed and a Federal Investigation is done.
I am happy to answer any questions you have to the best of my ability and if I do not immediately have the answer, I will do my best to get answers for you. If you all can get legislation passed to allow parents to share case documents with you, I can get you more than enough parents to share their cases with you so that you can see firsthand what is truly going on in Child Welfare. I am also willing to do what I can to be a part of the solution moving forward, I don't want to be just another person complaining.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Jezowski
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