| Press-Enterprise, The (Riverside, CA) March 25, 1996 Section: A SECTION Edition: ALL ZONES Page: A04 `Gray area' left family in limbo; They were told their son would go to his grandmother's. But that did not happen. PERRIS Karen Wood says she briefly left her two young children in her living room to wash her hands before making breakfast. Fifteen seconds later she heard Kristen, 2 1/2, cry in pain, Wood says. The girl had a broken leg. Before the day was over, she would be suspected of child abuse and, as a precaution, her 3 1/2-year-old son, Kurtis, would be placed in a shelter home for five nights. Wood initially was told by the social worker the boy would go to his grandmother's home. That didn't happen because Child Protective Services no longer had a way to quickly determine if the grandmother had ever been accused of child abuse. The day before, CPS discovered it had lost an important source of information in screening relatives because the state Department of Justice stopped providing information from a child-abuse registry, said Paul Rout, assistant director of the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services. The department temporarily was caught in a "gray area," Rout says. Child-welfare agencies statewide routinely had used the registry in large part because adults who abuse children often were abused as children, meaning grandparents might be child abusers. At the Woods' hearing on Feb. 2, the judge became aware the department was doing things differently, says D. Stephen Monson, the Woods' attorney. Judge James Warren, presiding judge of the Riverside County Juvenile Court who heard the case, is prohibited from discussing specific cases. But he says that when he found out about the change he quickly contacted Dennis Boyle, director of the county's Department of Public Social Services, and expressed concern. Warren said the department immediately went back to its prior practice of placing children with relatives - even without the registry information. Rout says the agency had already gone back to its prior practice. The Woods believe they let down their son. Still, they are frustrated because they don't know what they could have done to prevent what happened. They say Child Protective Services didn't err on the side of protecting children when they took the boy away. Instead, they say, the department tore apart their family when the boy spent five days in a stranger's home without knowing why and without contact from his parents. He remains fearful he will be abandoned, they say. "You're powerless," says Karen Wood, 36. "Your hands are tied." Karen Wood and her husband, Raymond "Kelly" Wood, 34, live in a double-wide mobile home on 16 acres in the Gavilan Hills, between Perris and Riverside. He is a plumbing contractor and she cares for the children and works part time in their home office. The injury to Kristen occurred the morning of Jan. 11. Wood took Kristen to Riverside Community Hospital's emergency room, with Kurtis in tow. The treating doctor, Kenneth L. Nickson, reported the injury to social services as "possible abuse" because it was a spiral fracture, according to paperwork the Woods have from the Department of Public Social Services. One difficulty in the case is that the children are too young to adequately explain what happened, noted the social worker. A spiral fracture is suspicious because the injury results from a powerful twisting action often delivered by another person, says Dr. Tim Mackey, a pediatrician at Riverside Community Hospital. A detective with the sheriff's department visited the house and concluded the allegation of child abuse was unfounded, says Sgt. Gene Van Hofwegen. The sheriff's report indicates the child might have gotten up on the sofa, got her foot stuck between cushions and fell, says Van Hofwegen. The social worker reported the family has no prior history with the county's Child Protective Services. But she noted that two months before the injury Kristen went to the emergency room for a bruised and swollen lip. The mother says the girl fell from a child's table. And early this month, says Karen Wood, Kurtis fell down steps and bumped his head. She said she consulted with a doctor over the phone but that she did not take her son to the emergency room because she feared further involvement with Child Protective Services. On the day of the injury, Kristen was admitted to the hospital and later that day Diane Brown, the social worker, took Kurtis to a shelter home. Karen Wood says she was not allowed to first talk to her son and that the only information Brown provided was that the boy would be placed in the Riverside area. Kurtis had no idea what was happening, says his mother. The boy, born three months' premature, had never spent a night away from mom, dad or grandparents. "It has been a very emotional strain on myself, my husband, my son," says the mother. "I feel I was treated as a criminal." In addition, the Woods paid an attorney $1,000 to get their children back. Five days after the injury, the children were placed in the custody of the grandmother, who lives a half-mile from the family home. Kristen was released from the hospital Jan. 19 and the children were returned to their parents Feb. 2. The parents say Kurtis now clings more to them. When he and his cousins recently were left with a baby sitter, the boy asked his mom and dad if they were sure they were coming back.
"He does not want to leave my side," says Raymond Wood. "He will not leave my wife's side." |