Hi my name is Robin Elms and I have a 6 year old who CPS has in
foster care. I will tell my story to who ever will listen. You
maybe wondering how he ended up there. Well I put him there. I made
the call that had them come out and remove him from his school.
Why? Well I was in a domstic voliance situation and needed to get
out. I couldn't find a place to go even though I had been calling DV
places. There are a lot of other details but the short of it was I
was living with my sons dad who was a drug dealer and user. The
situaion had become vary dangerious. So I trusted the system to help
me.

At first they seemed helpful but it was not long when things
changed. I signed a volenteery placement agreement and told her as
soon as I found a safe place call her. The CPS worker told me that
she would bring Jarrod to me as long as I was away from his father
and in treatment. Well with in 24 hours I had a place and was signed
up for treatment but when I callled finally did get ahoold of the CPS
worker they told me now they wanted me to do in-patent treatment. So
I did. In 24 hrs I was in treatment. When I retuned home they would
not give my son back and told me I "needed time" to work on my
issues. Well 3 months later I got a knock on the door and was handed
papers that the state was taking legal custody of my child even
though I had been wanting him returned and had done everything that
they had asked.

It has now been 22 months and I have followed all court orders yet
they are trying to terminate my parental rights. I have never been
charged with abuse or naglect. I have never even laid a displiany
hand on my child. So why wont they let me have him. Well the foster
mother want to adopt him and they think it would be better to adopted
to someone then return him to me. They say bc I have had a histroy
of depression and drug use. The state does acknolage that I have
follow all court orders and have remained clean and sober. Also that
I have not had any major depression but feel if my son was retuned to
me that I was relapes and might have a depressive. They also say it
was unaccaptable that I stayed in an abusive situation for so long.
I have done over 200 UAs all have been clean. I have been evaulated
by shrinks and all have said I am capable to parenting and have been
in counseling for CD and seeing a therapist for the whole time who
give nothing but praise but still the state wont return my son.

I was given unsupervised visit in late July. I had 7 visits and then
they stoped them. We are to go to court for them in late Nov. I
have a public defeneder who has been working my case for 6 months.
Before that my case was resigned 4 times to diffent attornys. Some
just looking at my case just moments before going into court. My
second attorny told me to sign my right to a trial bc CPS said they
would return Jarrod. She told me we wanted to keep this out of court
if at all possible. I now belive she gave me vary bad advice and I
should of never done that. Almost every court hearing has been
contunted sometimes for months.

The state is saying they are going to file for termination but that
has not happened yet. I never knew something like this could happen
to people. I thought when I called for help that people would help
yet they have done nothing to help me. Everything I have done that
is court ordered I have paid for out of pocket. Even though I am
currently unemployed due to all the court ordered things I must do.

The reason that I think they are so biased against me is because I am
a lesbian. They wont say that bc they know that would be
discrimation.
Robin Elms