Should a Mental Illness Mean You Lose Your Kid?

Pro Publica publishes the story of Mindi, who has never harmed her daughter and is capably raising a son, but authorities took her daughter under a concept sometimes called “predictive neglect.” According to a psychiatrist, Mindy suffered from “a mix of post-traumatic stress disorder — likely, a therapist later said, related to abuse — depression and possibly a kind of ‘mild delusional disorder,’” diagnoses which “do not interfere with her parenting . . .” Four years later, however, Mindi does not have her child back.

http://www.propublica.org/article/should-a-mental-illness-mean-you-lose-your-kid


“Predictive neglect.” I should send this story to www.policestateusa.com

Definitely not! Having a mental illness might mean its harder for you to raise your child but that doesnt mean you wont do a great job. Im sure poor people and physically disabled people and people whove never been around children before all find it hard to raise their kids but most of them still do a great job and its the same with the mentally ill. Theres no such thing as a perfect parent! There should be supports so if your finding it hard you can get help, thatd be much better than taking kids away from parents who love them.

“PREDICTIVE NEGLECT” CASES BASED ON PSYCHIATRIC ABUSE BY THE STATE

Look what the state does: Part 1: Foster children reveal painful memories of neglect, heavy duty drug treatments. http://abcnews.go.com/US/study-shows-foster-children-high-rates-prescription-psychiatric/story?id=15058380

I "predict" that if the state takes your child they will be sent for mental health screening then labelled and drugged. Why? Foster children receive psychiatric medications up to 13 times more often than non foster children. See link above.

Doctors are also prescribing foster children drugs at doses beyond what the Food and Drug Administration has approved, according to a new report by the federal Government Accountability Office.

“PREDICTIVE NEGLECT” CASES BASED ON PARENT'S MENTAL HEALTH

SUMMARY

By law, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) can remove children from their parents' custody and move to terminate parental rights if it believes the children have been neglected. Predictive neglect is a common-law doctrine that the state's child welfare system uses to determine whether neglect has occurred on the basis of conditions that are “injurious to the child's well-being.” Under this doctrine, the child has not been harmed; rather, there is an allegation that the child could be harmed in the future. DCF has regularly relied on the predictive neglect doctrine to both (1) remove children from their parents' custody and (2) terminate parental rights.

Read more: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2012/rpt/2012-R-0103.htm

...OK... wrote:There should be supports so if your finding it hard you can get help, thatd be much better than taking kids away from parents who love them.

I don't know what kind of support they do or don't have but it seems like they have a functional crystal ball or Ouija board or DSM V for making "predictions".

This is scary and hits close to home as I am thinking about having children in the future. NO ONE should ever lose a child for "Predictive Neglect" I am surprised that this is even legal.

That is ridiculous! I have a 16 year old and a 14 year old, hear voices, have anxiety, depression and no motivation. But my sons and husband are the only things that keep me going. I have raised to beautifully, intelligent, sons who make very good decisions in life, so far :0) Without them in my life I would probably be dead. There are good people with mental illnesses who live normal lives...it's the ones who do premeditative murder and saying they have a disorder who are giving us a bad name and scaring people from the mentally ill.

Amber35 wrote:That is ridiculous!

I know, the same people who say to people "your no good for your kid" do this:

A drugged foster kid tells his story http://youtu.be/N2rrFF_Ierk

They do that all the time where I am.

What's worse is that they take *fostercare alumni* ( ) who may or may not actually be mentally ill, but who had parents who are/were mentally ill, go back into said *alumni's* CAS records from decades ago for 'evidence', and take their kids as well.

I know. My mom had an organic illness. The CAS tried to foist label after label on to me. I refused to accept any of them. For the most part, their system tends to drive kids crazy. Then they try to call it a chemical glitch and say that the kid was born with it.

There are a few like me who come through the ordeal broke but sane, and more resilient for the experience. I ran, tho. I lived on the street to get away from those people. 3 different times. I fought them when they tried to take my son. They were never able to get a custody order. I pulled every legal loophole and would have gone so far as to kidnap him out of fostercare if that were the only way to save him. Luckily, they didn't force me to do that. They did call me a liar when I wrote their personality tests and scored normal, tho.

The abuse has to stop. Nobody should have to spend half a life proving they're sane just bc they had a parent with an organic illness (my mom had lupus, likely caused by environmental factors.) More kids die in our fostercare system every year than Canadian soldiers in the Afghanistan war.

Xena wrote:What's worse is that they take *fostercare alumni* ( ) who may or may not actually be mentally ill, but who had parents who are/were mentally ill, go back into said *alumni's* CAS records from decades ago for 'evidence', and take their kids as well.

This is terrible. I'm really sorry that you had to go through this experience, but I am glad that you were able to keep your son.

Something definitely needs to be done about this. THIS is where advocacy work should be headed.

Anyone else on here been through this ?