This is Rob and Kathey Raskin of Las Vegas, and today we are bringing you another story of injustice in the foster care system, this time out of Oklahoma. Del City foster parent Melvalena Grant has been arrested on four counts each of child abuse and child neglect after being accused of beating and starving foster children who were in her care. According to court documents, the abuse of the four children was discovered during a doctor visit, when the pediatrician determined that two of the children had extreme low weight and height, with all four failing to thrive due to neglect and a lack of nutritional food. Two of the children are seven, one is four, and one is nine. The district attorney has not filed charges yet, but it is expected in the near future.

Unanswered Questions

The Del City woman, who has been a foster parent since 2013, is denying charges that she beat children with a wooden backscratcher until they bled and withheld food as punishment. Prior to becoming a foster parent, Ms. Grant passed all of her background checks, yet when police searched her home cocaine was found. Although DHS says they take allegations of abuse and neglect in foster homes seriously, we have to wonder how seriously, because these children did not become malnourished and underweight overnight. Grant has fostered a total of 23 children over the years, and this is the first time any accusations have been leveled against her. The children have since been removed from the home.

DHS has now opened an investigation into the allegations of abuse against the foster mother, it is, as we have to say far too often, too little, too late. The public is demanding to know how this level of abuse could have gone undetected if the allegations prove to be true. We, Rob and Kathey Raskin, would like to know the same.

Although it has been determined that the Nottinghamshire County Council was not negligent in choosing or supervising foster parents who abused a girl who was caught in the system 30 years ago, the Superme Court has determined that councils can be held legally liable for the abuse anyway. This is a huge victory for British foster children, and it’s an example that we, Kathleen and Robert Raskin of Las Vegas, hope the United States will follow.

Too Little, but Not Too Late

Natasha Armes of Nottingham, England was just a child when she was subjected to horrific physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her former foster parents. Ms. Armes was just seven years old when she was taken into the foster care system in 1985, a decision that was made by the Nottinghamshire County Council. Over the course of the next year, the girl was harshly and excessively disciplined by her former foster mother, and her former foster father molested her. While there is nothing that can undo the damage that was done by this abuse, after an eight-year court case, Ms. Armes now stands to at the very least gain some financial compensation that may help her to get the support she needs.

We are Kathleen and Robert Raskin, and we started our website StopDHR Corruption so we could share our story and bring abuses of the system to light. Are you interested in joining us? Tell us your story, and together we will fight the corruption that is placing children and families in harm’s way.

This is Robert and Kathleen Raskin of Las Vegas. While we are happy to report that the foster sisters who went missing from foster care in Kansas in late August have been located, we still have major concerns about the safety of the children in the custody of Kansas DCF. The three sisters, who went missing from a Tonganoxie foster home, range in age from 12 to 15. It was not discovered by authorities that they were missing until an earlier report came to light, which detailed the shocking number of children missing from the system in the state over the past year. Now that they have been located, it brings up many new questions about what the future holds for foster children who are at risk of running away.

How Can This Be Prevented?

While it is not yet fully known how the sisters escaped from the foster home, whether or not anyone picked them up, and how they ended up in Kansas City, Missouri, they were found in the company of Rigoberto “Rico” Rangel, a 48-year-old man who has since been detained and released by KCPD though they do have plans to charge him. What, specifically, he will be charged with is also unknown at this time. When the girls were found they were hiding in the basement of a home with Rangel, who said he did not know the girls were missing. Police were alerted by an anonymous tipster, and the girls were determined to be with the man—who has faced drug-related charges and a sexual battery charge in the past—willingly.

Authorities are how reporting that the three sisters are now safe, but we, Robert and Kathleen Raskin, disagree. The sisters are now back in the same foster care system they escaped from in the first place. They weren’t safe then, and until they improve the standard of care in the system the girls and others like them will remain unsafe.

We are Robert and Kathleen Raskin, and today we’d like to tell you about a terrible injustice that was committed against foster children right here in our home city of Las Vegas. Commissioner Lawrence Weekly’s annual back-to-school fair is an event the commissioner has been holding for sixteen years. This year the fair was rocked by scandal when the commissioner’s staff took it upon themselves to confiscate backpacks and school supplies that had been donated to Clark County, Nevada, foster children to hand out for publicity at their own event. Volunteers for the Peggy’s Attic organization and DFS workers were outraged by the turn of events, and rightfully so.

No Excuse

According to Commissioner Weekly, organizers were caught off-guard when school started early this year, meaning their back-to-school fair took place earlier than expected. Because the commissioner and his staff didn’t bother to do even the most basic preliminary research, they thought it was acceptable to raid the donations that had been specifically earmarked for foster children in order to save face due to their own failing.

Once again, foster kids are getting hurt by the greed and corruption of our officials. Is it really more acceptable to take donations directly out of the hands of foster children who have absolutely nothing than to purchase supplies out of the commissioner’s own pocket or to forego the backpacks at his own even this year. We, Robert and Kathleen Raskin, think not, and we are not alone here.

This is Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas, and today on our blog StopDHR Corruption we’d like to discuss the exorbitant cost of emergency placement foster care through DSHS in the State of Washington. Once again, child protective organizations are at it, thinking of new ways to profit from wrenching families apart. With hotel placements costing approximately $2,100 per night, over the past two years the State of Washington has spent $3.6M housing foster kids in hotels in just the last two years, which is much more expensive than the $600 per night that is needed to pay for “exceptional cost placement.” When you consider the fact that many of these children may not have needed to be removed from their homes in the first place, the amount of wastefulness in this situation is staggering.

A Better Alternative

We, Kathey and Rob Raskin, can think of much better ways this money could have been spent, and the first thing that comes to mind is spending it on resources to keep families together rather than paying foster parents who may just be in it for the money to warehouse these children, who are already so vulnerable. In just four homes in Washington in 2006, foster parents received $412K for these emergency placements. Many of the families whose children have been removed simply need more resources and help, but when you consider the greed and corruption of child protective agencies, it is not surprising that the state is electing to distribute the money to the system instead of to families in crisis.

Child protective services in Kansas has admitted that over 70 of the foster children who are entrusted in their care are currently missing, their whereabouts unaccounted for after they left their foster placements. One foster care contractor, KVC Kansas, is missing 38 children, and another, Saint Francis Community Services, is missing another 36. Some of these kids return to their biological families, but others will meet more terrible fates, often becoming the victims of human traffickers. We, Robert and Kathleen Raskin of Las Vegas, find this unacceptable, so please join us in our quest to have these organizations held accountable.

What Is Being Done?

One official with KVC Kansas claims that the number of children missing is only one percent, which is comparable to the national average, but this, too, is unacceptable. Children in the foster care system are more than twice as likely to run away as other kids, and these are often children who were wrenched away from their families through no fault of their own. They deserve more than this, especially when you consider the fact that top officials were not even aware these kids were missing. With no system of checks and balances in place and not nearly enough protections provided for these children’s rights, it is far too easy for kids to fall through the cracks. In the meantime, these organizations are working closely with the families of the missing children, foster care contractors, law enforcement agencies, and schools to try to locate these children before any harm comes to them.

Contact us, Robert and Kathleen Raskin, if you have a story you’d like to share with Stop DHR Corruption. Together we can bring an end to the injustices in these corrupt organizations.

We are Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas, and while we are saddened to bring you yet another tragedy involving a child who was failed by the system, this story also has a silver lining—a former CPS worker has resigned due to the case of the murder of Brook Stagles, and now she is devoting her time to raising awareness of the situation that caused a three-year-old child to slip through the cracks, resulting in her murder. Former Monroe County CPS worker Jessica Lucus used to love her job, but she has since resigned due to what she described as a “toxic work environment” that contributed to the girl’s death when workers failed to protect her.

Too Late for One Child

The child’s father, Michael Stagles, has since plead guilty for his role in the death, and he has been sentenced to federal prison. His girlfriend, Erica Bell, who was not the toddler’s mother, was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the child’s beating death. The child’s mother and the mother’s family tried and failed to gain custody of the child prior to her death as a result of blows she received to her abdomen, and in the two weeks preceding the death the Monroe County Department of Human Services’ Child Protective Services unit has received two reports of abuse perpetrated against the toddler.

Lucus was not able to save poor little Brook Stagles from the monsters who abused and killed her, but we, Kathey and Rob Raskin, hope that Ms. Lucus’s actions will help save other children in the future.

This is Rob and Kathey Raskin of Las Vegas, and today we have good news for foster children in the state of Arizona, where a judge has granted class-action status to a lawsuit that, if successful, will improve conditions. This federal lawsuit against the foster care system was originally filed over two years ago, and the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System is also named. The point of the suit is to ensure the children in the system will have their needs met, because unfortunately the way things are now, being in the system is putting these children at greater harm than if they were still with their parents. As we know all too well, this is often the case across the country.

Details of the Case
This case was changed to a class-action suit because it was the only way the specific children involved in the case will not need to be identified by name. The reason this was necessary is because of the original ten kids involved in the case, most have been adopted, but the verdict in the case could still protect the rest of the kids who are caught in the corrupt system. According to Arizona’s latest reports, the state had approximately 17,000 children in foster care as of March 31 of this year. All of these children, as well as children who enter into the system in the future, will be affected by this case, and they are being represented by the Phoenix law firm Perkins Coie and two non-profit child advocacy groups.

The trial is expected to begin in the spring of 2018, and we, Rob and Kathey Raskin, hope these kids get justice.

We are Kathleen and Robert Raskin of Las Vegas, and we are here again today to continue to expose corruption within the CPS and DHR systems. This week’s news comes from Oklahoma, where agents of the state performed on-site monitoring on over 20 group homes, but this did not involve making sure the homes complied with state or federal requirements, an oversight that is substantial when you consider that these requirements directly affect the safety and health of the children who are in their charge.

Serious Violations Were Found
Once you consider the violations that were found within these group homes, it is clear that the safety of the children was not a priority. In the various group homes that were inspected, a number of troubling issues were found, from mold to rotted food to windows with broken glass. Some other issues that were identified in the report are peeling paint, holes in walls, exposed wiring, expired fire extinguishers, and emergency exits that were blocked by furniture and garbage. Even the vehicles that are used to transport children in the foster care group home systems are unsafe, and the issues found within them included broken lights and mirrors, broken seat belts that were merely tied to the doors, missing gas caps, and trashed interiors.

Officials from OKDHS claim their staff is well-trained and does not need further training to maintain standards, but we, Kathleen and Robert Raskin, strongly disagree. These children have been removed from their families through no fault of their own, and they deserve better than this.

We are Robert and Kathleen Raskin of Las Vegas, and today we bring you yet another tragic story about a child who was failed by the system. On September 26 a 22-year-old Winnipeg man was arrested and caused with criminal negligence after he brought a 10-month-old baby boy to the hospital with a serious head injury. The child died later that day, raising questions about what happened and how anyone who would kill a child could have been allowed to become a foster parent.

Many Unanswered Questions
Officers were called to the hospital after medical professionals noted that the baby’s injuries were suspicious, as is hospital protocol. It is unknown at this time whether or not the child and the foster father were related, because the man’s identity is being protected in order to protect the identity of the child. Another unanswered question is whether or not it is acceptable for someone this young and inexperienced to act as a foster parent in the first place.

Manitoba’s Child and Family Services Act requires foster parents to be at least age 18, but someone so young may not yet have the maturity to deal with the pressures of foster parenting. All foster parents must undergo a criminal background investigation, but unfortunately for this child and many others, if this is the first time the foster parent is charged with harming a child, there will be no prior record. The next child might have been protected due to the record this young foster father will most likely have now, but for this ten-month-old boy, sadly, it is too late.

Has your family been harmed by child protective service agencies? Let us, Robert and Kathleen Raskin, know in the comments.