When the state takes a child, it claims the power to protect. Across the country, documented cases show what happens when that promise collapses, removals triggered by low-severity claims, warnings ignored in placements, children harmed, missing, or dead, and accountability arriving late, if it arrives at all.

A child welfare case can be decided by what gets typed into a file. This “When Case Notes Lie” installment uses documented court findings to show how falsified reports and distorted records can fuel removals and rip families apart.

Across much of the country, child welfare agencies have used foster children’s Social Security benefits to reimburse government expenses, leaving many youth to age out with nothing. Federal pressure is rising to end the practice. The unanswered question is whether restitution will follow.

Paris Golec says her daughters Abigaile and Natascha were taken from her in May 2017, and that what followed was not protection, it was procedure used as a weapon, across state lines, across courts, and behind closed records. After reading her entire blog, I wrote this to put her account where more people will actually see it, and to expose the systemic failures that allow a mother to report a crisis while the system re-labels it as “civil” and lets time do the damage.

West Virginia’s child welfare system is spending millions to ship foster kids out of state while investigations fail at home, oversight breaks down, and children end up in crisis placements. This report lays out the documented pattern.

Connecticut’s child welfare agency is under fire after two babies died and another nearly overdosed while under its watch. Investigations reveal ignored warning signs, skipped safety checks, and no accountability. Families trusted DCF, but instead children were buried.