Why do children suffer.

[administrator]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br83o_JpIFw[/youtube]

[The chosen one]

O, my God. I can not believe in this situation.
These children were taken from their parents to live in such terrible circumstances, instead of living in great house or apartment with loving parents.
There have already been past 3 incredibly long years. And who is in charge of it? Who is responsible? I'm absolutely sure that all responsible persons have to be punished and dismissed. Such people have no right to work with children and to take decisions about their future.
Living in such terrible and even dangerous circumstances is very risky and absolutely senselessly. Children have to be return to their parents.
It seems to me that when social workers came first time there was a purpose to take the children and they were looking for problems. It was a defined purpose to take children. But for what? Having read all these stories about poor people that were taken when they were children i thought to myself, that maybe the whole industry exists. Industry for children taking. I can't even think about it, it scares me so much.I think that it's because the father of the family was paying to much attention to such situations and was asking to many questions.
I don't know how but we have to fight the system.
If you need any help don't hesitate to contact me I will do my best to assist in this situation.

[Daffodil333]

I agree with Mr. Pain and The chosen one that the whole situation is unacceptable and shouldn’t last anymore. It must be solved as soon as possible.
I would like to tell some words about deeds of the supervisor. I agree with Mr. Pain in the part that they look like insanity, but I want to add that it is not about Ulrich himself, it is the system and NY ACS has instructions and rules how to act. Let’s look at Children’s Services’ set of Core Commitments (info is taken from their official website http://www.nyc.gov/html/acs/html/about/mission.shtml):
1. Our overriding mission at Children’s Services (ACS) is the protection of the City’s children from abuse and neglect.
2. We believe we must carry out our work with the goal of ensuring that all of the children engaged in the New York City’s children’s services system have strong families that support them and protect them from harm.
3. Whenever it is safe, children’s birth and extended families should be strengthened and supported to provide a strong network of support for their children.
4. We at Children’s Services cannot protect children and strengthen families alone. A critical partner for strengthening families and protecting children is the network of community supports available to birth families, relative caregivers, foster families and adoptive families.
5. It is not enough for children involved in our system to be safe; they deserve attention to all of their needs – health, developmental, educational, etc.
6. The needs of children and families should drive the support and help they receive. These services need to be family-centered, flexible and mobile.
7. The special needs of very young children and teens and adolescents need particular attention from the system.
8. Child Care and Head Start are integral parts of the children’s services system in New York City and will be involved in preventive services, foster care and reunification services.
9. We will measure our success by the results we achieve for children, families and communities.

I would like to point out to the core commitment #5. It they have this statement in mission, I suppose they have detailed instructions based on this principal and I think this explains the actions of the Supervisor. He tries to follow the instructions only.

However I cannot understand him as a human being, it is really cruel to treat Pokrovski family this way.

[The Tank]

I agree with Mr. Pain and The chosen one that the whole situation is unacceptable and shouldn’t last anymore. It must be solved as soon as possible.
I would like to tell some words about deeds of the supervisor. I agree with Mr. Pain in the part that they look like insanity, but I want to add that it is not about Ulrich himself, it is the system and NY ACS has instructions and rules how to act. Let’s look at Children’s Services’ set of Core Commitments (info is taken from their official website http://www.nyc.gov/html/acs/html/about/mission.shtml):
1. Our overriding mission at Children’s Services (ACS) is the protection of the City’s children from abuse and neglect.
2. We believe we must carry out our work with the goal of ensuring that all of the children engaged in the New York City’s children’s services system have strong families that support them and protect them from harm.
3. Whenever it is safe, children’s birth and extended families should be strengthened and supported to provide a strong network of support for their children.
4. We at Children’s Services cannot protect children and strengthen families alone. A critical partner for strengthening families and protecting children is the network of community supports available to birth families, relative caregivers, foster families and adoptive families.
5. It is not enough for children involved in our system to be safe; they deserve attention to all of their needs – health, developmental, educational, etc.
6. The needs of children and families should drive the support and help they receive. These services need to be family-centered, flexible and mobile.
7. The special needs of very young children and teens and adolescents need particular attention from the system.
8. Child Care and Head Start are integral parts of the children’s services system in New York City and will be involved in preventive services, foster care and reunification services.
9. We will measure our success by the results we achieve for children, families and communities.

I would like to point out to the core commitment #5. It they have this statement in mission, I suppose they have detailed instructions based on this principal and I think this explains the actions of the Supervisor. He tries to follow the instructions only.

However I cannot understand him as a human being, it is really cruel to treat Pokrovski family this way.

Instructions and mission of the organization are only the words, but these are people who execute them and people sometimes consider themselves as gods and I think that is a problem. All principals of the mission are really good, honest and they are done for a splendid motives, however people interpret them as they wish and as a result we have such a terrible case as with the Pokrovcki children.
It was not a piece of paper that took children away or has been holding them away from parents for 4 years, it’s people!
So I think we should not blame any written or oral purposes and goals of the organization but human’s nature only. That’s what I think!

[Do_it_yourself]

I am sure that all that happened only because of the religious deeds of the father. All that threats and hints by the phone say about it. Everything boils down to the Pokrov religious movement. It is awful that I say it, but children are just weapons against their own parents. Someone uses them to pressure on the father. These people who do it just don’t have hearts and I guess children as well. Otherwise they would have never used children for trying to manipulate the father.
I am really sorry for these people and I wish they would stop doing it. I hope one day they will wake up and want to change this entire horrible situation. I also wish parents stayed calm and honest. I do hope they will bring their children back home and one day the family will remember about this episode in their lives only with smile and as unfortunate circumstances.
I also hope that Nikolai will never stop his religious activity as people need Pokrov religious movement. I say it as some of my friends and I have found ourselves in this movement. We need it for our minds and souls. I think we are not the only ones who think so. There are a lot of people involved in the movement and now none can prevent it from growing and expanding.
Thank you Nikolai and behave in the same manner!

[Old man]

I've read thoroughly all the posts. And I can say that it is very strange situation. From the very beginning to the end.
From the beginning we can see that these children were taken illegally. The woman from social body illegally broke into the house and it was the fist thing that had to be appealed. Than we can see all these strange reasons for children taking, starting from the uncleaned carpet, toys etc. Especially the most funny thing as for me is the the demand for visiting of special maternity courses for mother of 3 children. Yes, she has absolutely nothing to do, except of visiting these courses. It's ridiculous no more. I can't see any reasonable reason for such decision. Than after children have been taken 4 years have already past and children are still in the foster family, Although, it was a court decision to return children home. So what are the reason for all this shit? Or religious movements of Mikhail Pokrovskiy, or that these people are not native Americans but just simple immigrants or someone liked their children too much . There are panty of variants. This is very important to know (real reason why did children are taken) but the main thing is that all these people are suffering. Father sometimes feels depression and I can understand him, but I can't even imagine feelings of pour mother who children were taken. This is the biggest grief for a mother to loose her children.
Than I have to say about the place where children live now. It is very sad to see all these photos. The premises are not suitable for children. Why children have to be under the risk if getting hurt instead of living with their family in safe apartment. There are no answers.
My own opinion is that there are many cases when necessary to protect a child from his or her parents. This is not necessarily the case that an alcoholic or a drug addict parents. No. In real life, I've seen a few cases where intervention of social workers was absolutely necessary. The first one I've seen case of child abuse. The mother beat the child, did not feed as punishment for two days (or longer - to arrange a starvation diet), exhibited on the street or in a porch almost naked child. A child who has already grown for now, noways is trying not to see her mother at all. The second case is the girl wasn't let go the school. Because it was a sin for her parents. All parents were decent and respectful of society. In such cases I think interrupting of social was is necessary. But what we can see in Pokroskit family is not the same case.
Therefore, I am absolutely sure that it was deliberate taking of children from the family.

[The chosen one]

Old man, I agree with you that there are a lot of cases when help of social workers are extremely necessary.
I don't live in the USA, I live in Poland and a know a few cases when interrupting of these services was absolute necessity.
For example, my neighbours which were alcoholics, and their children were starving and they were begging on the streets for a food.
So the worth is that great and needed idea is absolutely spoiled. End not only these children are suffering, but also children that really need help won’t get it.

[Sam]

Hello! This story is an example of a life situation in which somebody can be involved in. Of course, it can be different and it can have another aspects, but the principles of such situations are very often the same. Here I mean the principal of lawbreaking which happens often in our society. We know that our democratic values which are highly promoted by the most developed countries in the world give us an assurance in our human rights, like the right to live, the right to be protected from physical and psychological damages, the right of choosing the government and many others. So when we look on such paper as Universal Declaration of Human Rights or European Convention of Human Rights, we think that we are really protected and our rights will not be infringed. It is very harmful when we when we realize it is not so perfect in the real problem, when a real situation appears. Reality shows us that the stipulations from official documents don’t work always, in all situations and in the way we want them to work. Reality shows us that we should act to defend our rights, but not only to wait when somebody will do it for us.
So let’s start analyzing the concrete case we have here and let’s find some solutions. So the main aspect of our problem is discrimination. As I said in official documents discrimination is out of law and it is forbidden. Nobody has the right to discriminate somebody by racial, national, sexual, economic, religious, ethical or other aspects. It would be a perfect world, if the things were as they should be after legal documents. But, as I said, it isn’t so ideal in our life especially when a conflict appears. Here we have a kind of religious and national discrimination, so we deal here with double discrimination. Religious discrimination in general is a very powerful one. As evidence for my words we can see the wars in Arabic world between sunits and shiits (two branches of Muslim religious), as the same time we see the conflicts of Israel with Arabic countries which are also religious divergences. Even in democratic states religious discrimination continue to exist, but it is very often hidden or is expressed indirect. We also can se here a kind of national discrimination, because we know that the father of these children is a migrant. Migrants are often discriminated, especially when they do something special, unknown for general society, as we see here – a new religious movement. Most of the countries think in such a way: if the migrant is useful for their society, they call him citizen, but if he does something that is strange, they call him migrant and start to limit his rights and possibilities in the county he came. I don’t say that it occurs always in this way. For example Germany, France are very loyal to migrant and sometimes it doesn’t depend from state, but from people.
Another aspect of our case is the rights of parents and the right of children. When we speak about parental rights, we should be very attentive. From the first side it seems that naturally, everybody has the right to educate children and to be a parent, but it is not always appropriate. There are person who are cruel or have mental illness and such persons should be deprives of some rights, Of course that in our case the situation is different from it, Here the parent were deprived from their parental rights because of such things as unclean carpet and toys which are badly organized. I think that such reasons are not enough for depriving parent from their right to educate children. I don’t think that in ACS buildings, where the children are living now (as we know from the story) the carpets are cleaner than it was in children apartment and I also have doubts that in that buildings, where a lot of children live, the toys are always in the toy boxes and nobody makes a mess with them.
Now I want to speak about defending the children right and the importance of this process. Firstly it should be mentioned that children are those persons who can’t defend their rights by themselves. They simply don’t know about them. That’s why it is the role of the parents to do this important activity everywhere children have such a need.
In the conclusion of my analysis I would like to give some solutions to the problem we deal with and firstly I think it is necessary to involve a layer to find fair answers. At the same time it will be very good for parents to participate in every detail of this case, because nobody but them knows the real situation and have the real motivation in solving this conflict. Of course, children are also motivated, but in fact they can’t to many things for changing something.

[Old man]

The chosen one, thanks that you have agreed with my point of view.
As for me the situation is so obvious that everyone would agree that it is not the case when children had to be taken.
Moreover, as I see from comments of others forums members everyone thinks so because case is so obvious.
I hope that social workers will change their mind and will start working for good of society. Or at least these ones will be fired and new ones with correct understanding of how to behave with families will be hired. Maybe Pokrivskiy's case will help with it

[LoLa]

It is so queer and unclear situation. I support the positions of The_chosen_one that it is the system problem. I heard about some cases in the USA about children illegally taken away but I thought that such cases are easy to determine and as a result easy to correct the situation immediately. However in the case of the Pokrovski, it has been lasting for 4 years and it seems to me that it is not only the problem of the system.
If think widely, the position of Do_it_yourself looks not so wild as I thought in the beginning. First it seemed to me madness to explain the situation with the religious context. But now after reading and re-reading all posts not one time, I guess this is the only one essential reason for taking children away.
All other reasons like human or system mistakes can be easily rejected as they cannot last so long. In case of human mistake, it would have been observed and changed by other officers of the ACS. In case of the system mistake, the court would have defined it and made body in charge to correct the situation. But as we know nothing of these has happened.
So there is only one reason to take away and keep children far from the parents and this is religious aspect. I don’t only understand why it is possible in the USA where religious freedom is one of the right enshrined in the constitution. How is it possible in the country which shouts about democracy and freedom all the time???