I'm doing okay, could be better though.  My hubby is typing in the rest 
because I can't talk about it.
  Valery has a court ordered gag order on her (highly unconstitutional)
  because she spoke to the County Board of Supervisors about the illegal
  methods that Children's Protective Services (CPS) uses to take children
  from their parents.  She also spoke to a reporter and gave him court
  documents to review about our case (with my permission I might add). The 
  reporter printed just a small amount of what CPS had written in a report 
  to the court.  CPS then retaliated by writing another report to the court 
  saying that because of these actions, Valery was endangering the children 
  so we shouldn't have Michelle returned home for another 6 months.  
  
  Michelle has been gone for almost 7 months based on false accusations of
  sexual intercourse between my daughter and two of our sons. The criminal 
  court tried to prosecute my sons for the "crimes" but failed. My sons 
  were not guilty but they faced 8 years in the California Youth Authority 
  (a prison for teens and young adults) if they had been convicted anyway.  
  Medical exams that were done on my daughter (without our permission) 
  proved that no intercourse EVER took place. There was some inappropriate 
  touching between one of the boys and my daughter last May (consentual by 
  both parties), but it was no more than looking and touching.  The boy was 
  15 at the time and my daughter was nine, and they BOTH knew better. 
  
  We did not take this situation lightly.  We took care of the situation in 
  a reasonable and non-violent manner (meaning we didn't hit anyone) after 
  doing 3 days of research to find the best course of action. Valery talked 
  to many counselors anonymously in order to find the best way of handling 
  this situation.  Valery also talked to her cousin, who is a psychologist 
  specializing in child sexual abuse and he is one of the leading experts in 
  the country.  He happens to work at John Hopkins Medical Center. Everyone 
  told us that CPS would take our children away from us if they found out 
  what happened, and we were told that if we took the kids to counseling, 
  the counselors would report it to CPS.  We even called CPS anonymously 
  and asked them what they would do if they knew of a situation like this, 
  and they said the same thing.  They also said they would arrest me and 
  my wife for felony child endangerment and gross negligence.  
  
  CPS found out about the situation 6 months AFTER the fact, and that was 
  when they took our daughter.  We have been fighting to get her back ever 
  since.  We go back to court on June 23rd to fight CPS AGAIN and to try 
  to get our daughter returned home.  CPS is saying that we can not keep 
  her safe in our home, but the social worker told us that we have all the 
  proper safeguards in place and that there is nothing more we can do to 
  ensure her safety in our home.  This is the SAME social worker that is 
  recommending that our daughter not come home to live with us.  
  
  We are filing a civil law suit this week (before we go to court) for the 
  violations of our Constitutional rights.  I don't know how much good it
  will do but we will try and hopefully it will help other families too if 
  we win. Everyone who knows us is in shock over how we are being treated.  
  
  Val was a counselor for Parents Anonymous about 10 years ago, she helped 
  people learn how to raise children without beating them.  She even taught 
  parenting classes to inmates. CPS used that against her saying that only 
  people who abuse their children go to Parents Anonymous. It feels like 
  there is no way to win, but we must, our daughter's future depends on it.  
  
  Please wish us well on the 23rd.  We can use all the prayers and good 
  thoughts we can get.  Thank you!
  
  Oh yeah, plus the fact that my wife homeschooled our twins for almost two 
  years means that we must have even more "dirty laundry" to hide - according 
  to CPS, that is.  
  
  Sorry this is so long.  I don't know what all Val has told you about 
  this before but I am tired of being quiet and trying to work with a 
  system that doesn't give a damn about my family but screams for more
  money with cries like "SAVE THE CHILDREN."
     
  ----Don----
Well that's what's going on in our neck of the woods.  We want to present 
a clear picture of what is REALLY going on around here.  It is not a picnic 
by any means. There are so many other things I would like to say, but can't.
  Well I can. I don't have a gag order YET!  We can't talk to Michelle about 
  the future - CPS says it's good for her to not think about coming home.  
  We can't talk to her about the past because she might get too homesick or 
  it might bother her.  We can only talk about the foster home and our home.  
  
  When we visit her for one hour a week we can't play with her, we have to 
  sit at a table in McDonald's and eat lunch and visit. We can't go outside 
  with her, we can't tickle her, we can't tease her, we can't even act like 
  parents with her.  Her brothers and sister weren't even allowed to see her 
  until a month or so ago and the grandparents have to talk to the social 
  worker before he will let them talk to Michelle.  He says he has to give 
  them the rules.  
  
  This old bag sits there listening to everything we say at our visits and 
  if we say anything she doesn't like she makes a bad report about us to 
  CPS.  CPS pays her for this, and she has said that in her opinion, the 
  social worker is God!
  
  We are finally allowed to talk to her three times a week (it was twice a 
  week until about a week ago).  The phone calls are on a speaker phone at 
  my daughter's end and the foster mother listens to every word we say. The 
  foster mother also tells my daughter what to say, and sometimes stops the 
  conversations between me and my daughter so she can ask me questions which 
  are none of her business.  
  
  We are court ordered to HELP our daughter through this situation but CPS 
  will not let us talk to her about the situation, so we are in violation of 
  the court order and there is nothing we can do about it. If we follow the 
  court order, CPS will cancel our visits until they think we have learned 
  our lesson, and the foster parents will be too busy to let us have phone 
  calls.  We know, it's already happened before.
  
  There is no sense in telling this to the Judge because CPS will just lie 
  again in court (we have a transcript that proves they did it before) and 
  the Judge will beleive them anyway because they are the "professionals" 
  and we're the "bad parents".
  
  ----Don----
Well, I think Don about said it all.   Wish us luck!  BTW, we can PROVE
everything we've said!  Everything has been documented from day one.
Val
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