In a juvenile courtroom, the judge reprimanded the caseworkers, the attorneys, and CASA for responding to a no-fault dependency case as an abuse case, “There is nobody bad here!”
There were no criminals. There was no crime.
Then why were we sitting in the accused chairs?

As an infant, Daniel entered the foster care system as a result of severe neglect, which manifested in violence and aggression later in his childhood.
Desperate to get their adoptive son, Daniel, into a residential treatment center and keep their other children safe, the state of Illinois left Jim and Toni Hoy with two options. If they brought their son home from the psychiatric hospital for the 11th time in 2 years, the Department of Children and Family Services threatened to charge them with child endangerment for failure to protect their other children.

Daniel re-entered the foster care system for no other reason than he was mentally ill.[more...]