CPS admits errors after court hearing

CPS admits errors after court hearing
November 21, 2010 - By NICHOLAS L. DEAN, OBSERVER Mayville Bureau

MAYVILLE, New York - The credibility of the Chautauqua County Department of Social Services has been damaged.

Letters admitting to errors were written by Child Protective Services staff last month, apologizing for events which took place in Family Court in September.

As a closed court, Family Court records are not public. However, after obtaining two of the letters written by CPS staff, the OBSERVER sought and received confirmation of the incident's details.

Calls to Family Court Judge Judith Claire resulted in a call from a spokesperson at the state's Unified Court System in New York City, who confirmed the incident.

In short, CPS workers appeared before Judge Claire in September seeking to have a child removed from the mother's custody. Based on their testimony, the judge signed a removal order for the child. The CPS workers then returned to court the next day to inform the judge that the child had not actually been born yet.

"As the supervisor of the team, I failed in my duties and responsibilities as a supervisor and mistakes were made on an investigation that led to inaccurate testimony in Family Court," wrote the department's Xcel Team Supervisor in her letter to co-workers.

The letter continues on to inform co-workers that their work may be impacted as a result of the situation, "because our credibility is now in question with the judge due to my mistakes during this time."

"Actions that I and my team took and our lack of critical thinking resulted in a series of events leading up to that date, including miscommunication, errors, and lack of judgment," the caseworker wrote in the Oct. 29 letter. "Ultimately, my failure to follow proper policy and procedure resulted in misinformation being testified to in court. Although this was not the intention, it carried with it significant consequences, legal and otherwise."  You just HAVE to read the whole story HERE
 
Absolutely normal CPS operation.  Except they got caught big time.