I am a grandma in preston county wva, CPS /GAL/Court system are inhumane and cruel. Can you imagine a child instantly alienated from a mother,father,or grandparents, Entire family, you cannot imagine till it happens to you based on the unethical practices of these entities.they should NEVER say,,,, in the childs best interest, we need help.

I am a grandma in preston county wva, CPS /GAL/Court system are inhumane and cruel. Can you imagine a child instantly alienated from a mother,father,or grandparents, Entire family, you cannot imagine till it happens to you based on the unethical practices of these entities.they should NEVER say,,,, in the childs best interest, we need help.

Please say yes to passing this bill. My family is victims. We have also involved the ombudsman center for children to help my family.

As a Father that has had to fight the CPS/DSS system and win pro-se. Virginia has a systemic problem within CPS. I was not informed my children had been taken by by CPS from their mother. I was a working Paramedic in Grayson County when CPS took my children. Me being a well respected Paramedic in the community had to take on the whole system of Judges, Attorneys, and DSS workers. it wasn't until I learned the law, and represented myself pro-se, i was finally able to beat the system . but not before the damage to my daughters had already been done by "court ordered blue haired counselors". CPS in Virginia is harming kids for profit. I can prove it to anyone that wants to listen.

I truly believe this bill being passed would shed some light on the darkness that's taking place. It's needed tremendously. My Honest opinion, there needs to be even more added to this bill, the more accountability and oversite of an agency the better. It's time for the state agencies and the judicial system actually do what's right for these babies and at all cost have safeguards and committees like this in place to stop the corruption and horrible monstrosities, that have been taken place. The real pandemic in America isn't covid 19, it's legal child trafficking done by our court systems cloaked as for the best interest of the child. When all its doing it ruining those babies lives. The goal has been and should always be reunification, anymore it seems the corruption has turned it into a money racket. I support this bill in hopes that we the people realize what's wrong within our judical systems and write these wrongs before it's to late.

Please Pass HB1168 it will help so many families in the Commonwealth

I absolutely support this bill.i have spoken to ombudsman many times,and there is not much they can do to help you.but that would change with this bill

please pass along

The Ombudsman needs more authority. Social Services, jdr judges g .a.l., and those court appointed lawyers need to understand 9 times out of 10 they are causing more harm to the child and the families when removing a child from loving Parents . And ultimately is a form of domestic abuse . Their is no ch ecks and balances . It mentions funds for f oater parents but what about the parent rights and child's right t that was violated from the beginning they do have rights to be left alone .

Please pass this.

Yes I agree passing HB1168

Please say yes to signing this bill!! My husband and I have fallen victims to the corruption of CPS as well.

Yes I agree passing HB1168

Vote no on bill 1168. Keep kids informing private.

Please pass this

My grandson was illegally adopted out based on fraudulently things that were not true. Also the opposition attorney was my daughter sis in law by marriage. My daughter got railroaded from the beginning. No investigation was done . The system failed her and her son . Social services job was not done properly!

Approve it!

My son was illegally adopted out based on fraud. My sister in law was the attorney for the opposite party . No investigation was done . No lie detector was given. Fraud and lies . They accused me of something i did not do. The grandmother had custody got pinned on me . I want my son and love my son . My case needs to be reopened

Needs to be passed

Needs to be passed

Yes please pass the bill because cps should be held Accountable for their False actions and everyone There is a second chance as a mother or father

Hello. I just met Mary Love that has made federal complaints against the exact same providers I have here in Fairfax county va. My name is Catherine Litchfield and I have one child in fostercare with Bethany reeves. I also have five children under protective custody with pps Elizabeth Allstat. These providers knowingly and willing sent me to Dr. Corbet that was under active investigation for fraud diagnosing patients. Dr Corbett is still practicing! I was referred for a second psyche eval. They know something going on, but also may very well be part of it. Many of my families right have been violated. I advocate for change and a system that operates with integrity. Fostercare is holding me back from my child u til setvices are complete with the remaining five children. Pps says they can’t force kids to do services. If you don’t know me my children summer Burrus and Connor burruss had an amber alert issued on Jan 28,2024. The system say I’m abusive but is not accountable for who they place your children with. There are physical and sexual abuse allegations with my sons foster parents. The commonwealth wants to criminally charge my 13 year old daughter for taking her four year old brother away from the sexual abuse that my son connor spoke of. The supervisor was actively texting supervision lies o me at this particular visit and ignoring connors truth. That’s when my daughter took him and ran. But for my daughter and connor to get away shows you that the supervisor at the visit is was negligient performing her duties that day and was more concerned with how to keep us entangled into the system to keep profiting of the funding that is provided for my large family. This isn’t about reunification or the family or natural parents abusing their kids. Families are being tortured and tormented for the agenda of a broken system and monetary gain! The hypocrisy!

It matters a lot.

vote yes in support of this bill

Yes! Please help keep families together and stop children from being traumatized by unnecessary separation from their parents.

Yes change it

Please pass this bill thank you

YES We the People have a Right to be heard! For it is our Right

This is something that needs to be pass to help out previous and future parents against DSS and child services to help battle corruption among the government

Yes please... pass this

I agree with this petition it is unlawful to hold people accountable for there past

I serport the hb11168 act.

This bill is long overdue. Please pass it.

I support HB1168 giving the OCO better oversight to our local departments. This is something that I find to be very important.

I am submitting this on behalf of Ms Brittany Whitworth of budsman cordoza in order to change the bill for kids returning home

I am writing to support HB1168. I am the father of children who were the point of an investigation by the OCO, and without our family even having all of the evidence the Ombudsman's office found policies that were not followed that resulted in the breaking of our constitutional rights. Even having this report and other various reports from the Commonwealth of Virginia our children are still not home. It has now been 2 years and nothing has been done, and even worse the criminal acts committed by the city and state actors involving this case have gone unpunished. The passing of HB1168 can help ensure that true justice for families is being sought in the State of Virginia and show that qualified immunity does not mean that you can break state and federal policies and in a lot of cases state and federal laws to destroy families across the Commonwealth. We absolutely need a system that protects children in the most vulnerable state, but we also need accountability for those who have taken the oath to protect these children. Ripping families apart is not in the best interest of children. In our case during the illegal kidnapping by state actors of our children, you can hear on police-worn body cameras how well loved and taken care of our children were as they were being taken from our home. Is not these systems here in place for children who are actually abused and neglected and not the ones who are so well loved? It seems highly unlikely that children who are being discussed as so well loved and cared for are at such imminent risk of danger that removal would occur. Still, when this is found to be the case, there is nowhere to turn for help. The OCO does a good job of pointing out what is not being followed, but the departments realize he does not have the authority to make them or anyone else fix the problems found. This bill would help reinstate that there are policies, laws, and federal guidelines in place for a reason and that to protect the integrity of not only families but the Commonwealth of Virginia they must be followed. There must be a way to restore justice to families like mine and the hundreds if not thousands of others who are also facing these injustices in our state. It was discovered when the news aired parts of our story locally that the department has an outdated reported system, and that there has never been a system to track Kinship Care or Alternative Living Arrangements, or as we parents who have experienced call it, shadow foster care or blackmail arrangements. The parents of the Commonwealth need a path to justice and to restore their sacred family bonds that have been broken with no regard for people. Pass HB1168 and help show that Virginia will not tolerate unintentionally or intentionally destroying families by using the process of lawless and policyless tactics. We have spent over 2 years without our children, even after proving we have not neglected or abused our children. 2 years and no help, 2 years and no end in sight, 2 years and we have no idea when or if ever we will get to see them again. A quick "custody exchange" at the hands of CPS to the malicious caller has cost us moments in time with our children we will never get back. Our Son is now 10. Our daughter was 21 months old and will be 4 years old next month. She spent 21 months with us every day of her life, to nothing. Because we were given no rights to our children Please say yes to HB1168

This house bill needs to be passed and made effective immediately. The corruption within the child welfare system being brought to light but nothing being done to correct it just continues to allow the wrong doers to be as such. Accountability without penalty nor correction in this affair will only make the government and the people a laughing stock even further to those departments. As it is now the government is seen as leaders of the human trafficking ring by not correcting the kidnappers labeled cps/dss. Is there no one courageous enough to be the shining light our kids need? Or are the decision makers just pawns in a sick game?

We need this passed on behalf of all families in virginia. Not one parent dealing with Cps and foster care get ANY DUE PROCESS. The last time I read the constitution of the United States it CLEARLY says this is a fundamental Right. So if this bill passes we will now have a way to hold people accountable for their actions and as they want parents to be accountable if we ACTIONALLY GET SOME accountable and DUE PROCESS UNDER THE LAW OF THE LAND then the change we all need just might happen.

This bill needs to be on a fast track for implementation as there is a severe oversight crisis that exists in the Child Welfare System of our State. Workforce in this state are extremely deficient with understanding of federal laws and guidelines, best practices, trauma informed practices, and unconscious bias/cultural competency. Currently there is a training academy for social workers that is being created but to see the benefit of this investment will take quite a bit of time. It is very difficult to maintain our workforce and recruit new talent for our severe workforce issues if we don’t make it a point to have accountability and oversight. No one with a license will choose to work in Virginia. It must be understood that due to our State not having Child welfare data systems that were in compliance with federal guidelines since 1996, there were bad actors that took advantage and actually purposely put families through these systems for a pecuniary benefit. Whole entire cases were offline to federal monitoring and children & families were taken advantage of, ultimately being exploited through our systems. Countless other situations of child abuse occurring as a result of internal factors such as abuse at the hands of government employees including law enforcement, vendors and foster parents were also offline to federal monitoring. I was in a meeting last year where Eric Reynolds, the Children’s Ombudsman testified to the State Board of Social Services that children were being put into the foster care system as a means to qualify fraudulently for mental health services. The parent was merely trying to get services for their child and was never told they did not have to put their child in foster care as the locality withheld that information from the parent. The parents involved in this situation are left fighting the locality in court proceedings to get their child out of the system. This can go on for years with no end in sight. There must also be a means to have a check and balance to the information obtained from the Ombudsman office. Maybe adding to this bill language that for accountability purposes these investigations (or when the Ombudsman chooses not to investigate) and subsequent findings are also reported to the general assembly. In my family’s case the Ombudsman’s Office chose not to investigate and I had to seek out justice though the federal government. I had no option to override his decision as the perpetrators were County employees and vendors.

Comments Document

It is of the utmost importance that HB1168 passes and grants these authorities to the Office of the Children's Ombudsman(OCO). Currently, the Ombudsman only has the power to look into the law-breaking and policy violations that are occurring at an extreme rate, resulting in massive violations of families' civil and constitutional rights. In Dec of 2021, The Hampton Department of Social Services(HDSS) Illegally removed our children. I was lucky to be one of the families the OCO accepted a complaint from in Jan of 2022. By July of 2022, I had a report, showing that the HDSS did not try to prevent the removal of our children, did not offer our family any services or path to have our children returned to us and never even opened a case correctly as they were supposed to. After this time and fighting over a year to get the Police Worn Cameras that proved the truth we eventually overturned the HDSS findings in a state-level hearing. The OCO proved that the department did not follow local or federal policy, which ultimately showed the violations of our Civil/Constitutional rights, the State agreed that we never neglected our children, yet our children are still not home. We are told they do not have the authority or jurisdiction to make a difference in bringing our children home. There is no accountability to this system, and the oversight currently has no authority to fix the issues they find. Leaving no relief for families who have proven that what was reported or done by these state actors was false. Passing HB1168 would help this situation and help protect not only the families from unfair practices and overreach and protect the Commonwealth from eventual further sought relief from violations of protected civil rights/liberties. My Children have been gone 773 days as I write this. When anyone sees the findings of the OCO, or the appeal results from State Level DSS, the question I am always asked is "Then why are the children not home." The passing of this bill would help solve this issue and restore families like mine throughout the commonwealth. In these 773 days I have only been "allowed" to physically see, hold, and hug my children I had never been away from twice. We have created an office of pretend oversight. And that is not speaking negatively to the OCO. I fully support his work and the level of speaking out I have seen from this office about the issues being found. Virginia needs to give this office the power they deserve to benefit the Commonwealth as a whole. HB1168 does that. My family has proved repeatedly throughout the state the unjust actions that occurred, yet have found no help, relief, or way to make our family whole again. Child removal warranted or not is a traumatic experience, I truly feel the passing of this bill, while not preventing the trauma, will help begin the healing processes for families all across Virginia that need relief at the hands of a system with no actual checks and balances. I truly hope you will see the dire need for HB1168 to pass. Thank you. I have submitted a copy of the Ombudsman report. I would have loved to submit the State Findings from the Office Of Fair Hearings but the file is too large. Thank you again for your time and please say yes to HB1168

I would like to support this bill because it would allow the office of the ombudsman to reverse wrongful decisions made by social services and return wrongfully removed children to their families. It would also help with release of the reports to the courts if the courts have been involved and wrongdoing was found to be committed. Also allowing him to petition for the courts to relook at already closed cases, it would greatly help the families who have been affected in the commonwealth and to work towards helping keep families together.