Meeting addresses child protection

WASILLA -- The Office of Children's Services was under the microscope Wednesday night at the first town hall meeting of the independent Citizens Review Panel.

An emotional crowd turned out at the Wasilla High School Theater to give public testimony and voice concerns about Alaska's child protection services in the first of four town hall meetings the CRP will hold across the state as part of the Children's Justice Act Task Force.

Conceived in the wake of the Kelley abuse case that broke in September, the purpose of the meetings is to gather information on how Alaska's child protection system is working and how it can be improved.

After brief informational presentations by OCS, Alaska State Troopers and the Children's Place Child Advocacy Center, Susan Heuer, chair of the CRP, opened the meeting for public testimony after reminding the crowd that they were there to hear only general recommendations.

"We will not be hearing about any specific cases and we will not be hearing about the Kelley case," Heuer said. "This meeting is for general comments so we can make recommendations to the OCS."

But once testimony got underway, many people made personal and impassioned remarks, referring to their own experiences with OCS and state troopers.

Mixed in with highly emotional and personal stories were concerns about the accountability of OCS workers, the criteria for OCS intervention, lack of state funding and the need for greater community involvement.

The first person to give public testimony was a biological aunt of the Kelley children, Evonne Beavers, who attended with other biological relatives of the children.

"It seems like [OCS] workers are stressed out and overworked," Beavers said. A concern that surfaced several times throughout the evening was the placement process for foster children and the frequency with which they are moved from home to home. James Cohlman testified that he lived in 13 foster homes since the age of 3 and went to 13 different schools. Moving a child too much, he said, is tantamount to institutional abuse.

"If a child is moved more than twice, it should stop," Cohlman said. "How are we going to deal with the fact that children bond? I would have rather been in an orphanage than moved around like that."

Some accusations against OCS were more direct. Bob Weigle claimed OCS destroyed his life and his family through lies and cover-ups. He called for an independent investigation of OCS, and his comments were met with applause from the crowd.

"The OCS has left me devastated. My heart is broken and my children's lives have been destroyed," Weigle said. "The OCS disconnected my children from every good thing in their lives and whenever they're investigated, they lie and cover their tracks."

Impassioned comments came from both ends of the spectrum, with some people saying that OCS is too concerned about parents' rights and should take more decisive action on behalf of children.

One woman who voiced this opinion was Eva Kowalski, who said through a breaking voice, that OCS should have no minimum requirement for intervention.

"When I asked OCS for help, they said that if the child looks healthy, there's nothing they can do," Kowalski said. "There are a lot of things that can happen to a 3-year-old that he can't tell anyone about."

Rhonda Buchanan, another aunt of the Kelley children, said the state should give family members priority when looking for a foster home.

Buchanan should know, she was a foster parent for her niece for three years before the child was adopted by the Kelleys.

"I could've given those kids a loving home," Buchanan said through tears. "But I was talked out of it by OCS."

The Kelley children's biological relatives had just come from a visit with the children before Wednesday night's meeting and said they are all healthy and happy and doing well.

After the meeting, another aunt, Renee Carroll, echoed Buchanan's remarks and added that her experience with child protection services has convinced her that case workers need to be trained not to get personally involved in specific cases.

"We've dealt with a lot of social workers, and the level of professionalism needs to be increased," Carroll said. "We're outraged at how the Kelley case was handled, those kids should have had some ties to their natural families, but we were cut off, we had no way of knowing what was going on and the OCS told us that [the Kelleys] didn't have to give us access to the children, that it was their right as parents."

And they think there is still more that needs to be said. Responsibility also lies with the community, Buchanan said. If there are going to be changes, the community has to implement those changes by speaking out against abuse and against policies of child protection services, she said.

"I've been waiting for this meeting," Carroll said. "A lot of people are upset and there's a lot more to be said about the damage done from wrenching families apart."