Can A Family Attorney Get Kids Back From CPS? – Part I

When Child Protective Services (CPS) takes your children away from you, it’s always because there’s a suspicion of abuse or neglect. No matter how unlikely the facts, CPS is obligated to investigate every complaint they receive about abuse or neglect, and if they have any reason to believe it would be better for the children, they are obligated to remove those kids from your care while they investigate. That in no way means you have ‘lost’ your children permanently — yet.

The Adjudicative Stage
The first stage of every CPS investigation is the stage during which they look for evidence of abuse or neglect, and establish that the abuse/neglect was something the responding parent was responsible for. During this stage, they will act very much like police officers, interrogating you and others in your home, questioning neighbors and acquaintances, and even collecting evidence from your home.

During this stage, if you intend to be proven “innocent,” you should immediately talk to a family attorney in detail. Give them all of the information you have about your family situation, home life, income — don’t hold back, because anything CPS discovers that you don’t tell your lawyer about can become the thing that turns the case against you. Ask them what you can do to show CPS that you are a good parent, and do exactly what they say.

Make no mistake — CPS is the police, and they’re also the prosecution and the temporary caretaker of your children during this whole process. While we never advocate being disobedient or disrespectful to anyone, it is important that you insist on your rights while being unfailingly polite and actively nice (Offer them a soda and some cookies while they’re waiting on your porch for the warrant to get there!). These include:

• Not letting the CPS into your home or any other place unless they have a signed, valid warrant (or court order) on hand. Again, be polite about it — just insist that you have the warrant in hand before they come inside. You have a 4th amendment right against search and seizure, and only a warrant or court order allows a CPS agent (or anyone else!) into your home. Once they have a warrant, demand time to call your lawyer and ask him what to do — and then actually call a lawyer.
• Not talking to the CPS at all other than to ask questions. You are not obligated to say anything to the CPS, and quite often, they have absolutely no evidence of anything except what you say to them. So say nothing. Tell them, if you have to, that your attorney ordered you not to talk. (That’s why you called a lawyer just now!)
• Speaking of asking questions, get an exact detailing of what you are accused of doing. That means dates, times, and the specific acts you allegedly performed (or didn’t perform).  You can’t collect evidence if you don’t know what accusation you’re fighting, and the CPS is obligated under Federal law to give you the details of your accusation.
• Not allowing CPS to talk to your children at all unless and until your family attorney is present. Even if they ignore you and do it anyway, that fact can be of critical importance later.
• Recording — even in secret — absolutely everything said in your presence by any CPS agent, caseworker, or representative thereof. The more of this you can do, the better off you’ll be should you end up in court. Evidence is vital!

If CPS finds evidence of abuse or neglect — and they are all but guaranteed to do so if they make it inside your home, because literally every family on Earth has something inside their homes that can be interpreted as ‘evidence’ — you’ll move on to the second stage of a CPS investigation. We’ll talk about that in the next post.