|
The trailer in Eldora is cramped with all things teenagers need to live: sports equipment, CD player, wide screen TV, boom box radio.
The cluttered home houses two teenage girls, 17 and 16, their 13-year-old brother and their mom, who asked that her name be changed in this story because her family is still involved with the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS).
“Grace’s” first husband disappeared when her daughters were toddlers. He never came back. Grace divorced him.
A couple of years later she met “Jack.” They fell in love, married and Jack became the girls’ Daddy.
A year or so later, little Jack was born.
According to Grace, everything was pretty normal for the next 12 years. Jack was a good husband, a loving father and a good provider.
“We even bought our own place, with a house we worked on constantly,” she said, referring to the house they lived in before moving into the trailer they’re in now.
One night, when the girls were 15 and 13, a single impulsive mistake ended that normalcy.
“Lizzy,” then 15, gave a slumber party to celebrate the end of the school year.
There were about seven of her teen -age girl friends over to spend the night and they were engaging in the usual hi-jinx and silliness that marks such events.
At one point about 2 in the morning, they became rather loud and Grace asked Jack to go tell them to be quiet “so the rest of the house could get some sleep.”
He got up and went to Lizzy’s room told the girls to “simmer down” and came back to bed.
Grace noticed that he was quite agitated and could not settle down. “He wasn’t going back to sleep so I kept saying to him, ‘Did something happen?’ or ‘Did somebody get hurt? Are the girls behaving?’ finally he told me what was wrong,” Grace recounted.
Jack said he felt "ashamed" because he was having "lustful thoughts seeing the teenage girls in their nighties," according to Grace.
“But nothing happened. He just told them to be quiet and then he came back to bed,” she said.
Something did happen in Grace’s mind however. “I’m going through the change of life and I don’t always feel good about myself, I started having weird thoughts,” she confessed.
Thoughts such as, she was no longer attractive; Jack didn’t love her anymore; he was going to leave her and so on, she told the newspaper. According to Grace, about two weeks later, during a regular doctor’s visit she was talking to the “nurse” (the woman was not really a nurse but worked in the doctor’s office as an assistant) and mentioned the incident to her by way of asking for advice.
The “nurse” asked Grace if Jack had ever molested the girls. “When she asked me that question, it was the first time that I felt a chill of fear shoot up my spine,” Grace said adding, “I knew then I shouldn’t have said nothing. I just knew she was going to call somebody.”
Her worst fears were realized when a week later a DYFS worker showed up at her door.
“She said she wanted to talk to me about an allegation of ‘sexual abuse’,” Grace recounted. After denying that any sexual abuse occurred, she proceeded to tell the agent exactly what had transpired. “It was just like I told you. Now would you go make a thing out of that?” she asked rhetorically.
In fact, according to Grace, the worker told her she didn’t think there was anything to it and thanked her and then left.
“I thought that was the end of it until she came back three days later with another worker and told me they had been to my children’s schools and that they wouldn’t be coming home because DYFS had taken them to a “safe place”, said Grace. They also told her that while at the schools they had spoken to the children.
She then told the paper that she became physically ill and had to run to the bathroom. “I was crying so much I think they thought I was going to have a heart attack,” Lizzy’s mother stammered.
They told her she had to sign some papers, “just a formality” and that they needed to speak to Jack and Lizzy’s friends “just to make sure.” What she was signing was an “informed consent” to turn her children over to the custody of DYFS. “I didn’t read what I was signing, they already had my kids,” Grace recalled.
And they kept her kids until both she and Jack accepted all of the services offered: psychological testing, counseling, anger management, parenting classes and more. “We did everything they asked of us and they still wouldn’t send little Jack home,” she said. But they did send the teenage girls home with instructions that if the girls had any complaints to call DYFS immediately. “Don’t you think that undermined my authority big time,” the unhappy mother related.
Finally little Jack was allowed to come home but only after big Jack moved out. “They told me I could have all my kids back if my husband was out of the house. So I had to get my kids didn’t I?”
The children continued to receive services from DYFS including Lizzy who according to her mother became “unmanageable.”
“Once Jack was out of the house Lizzy went wild, hanging with a rotten bunch. She ended up getting pregnant,” said her mom.
When asked what happened to the baby, Grace told the paper that Lizzy had an abortion.
“She just went ahead and here’s the best part DYFS got it for her,” said the still angry mother.
When asked to explain, Grace said she did not know the particulars, but that when Lizzy found out she was pregnant she went to the counselor she had through DYFS and that the counselor either got her the money directly or arranged to have it paid for and made arrangements to have it done.
“When I called the DYFS supervisor, I was told it was “none of my business. It’s your daughter’s body’. I couldn’t believe it. Strangers knew more about my daughter than I did,” said Grace.
Jack took a job as an over the road driver and moved out of state. He paid child support but they lost their property anyway and Grace went on public assistance.
“Tell people not to tell anybody anything that goes on in their home. You don’t know who will take it the wrong way and sic DYFS on you. Just talk to yourself,” she added.
The law in New Jersey requires that anyone who knows about a child being abused is required to report it to the authorities. In 1998, New Jerseyans called DYFS in large numbers - 79,518 referrals to be exact and another 5,436 inquiries were handled as information and referral responses.
According to DYFS’ statistics “the rate was lowest in Morris County and highest in Cape May County,” which is one of the smaller counties in the state. Most of those in the county involved emotional abuse or “lack of supervision” which comes under the neglect category according to the DYFS report
If anonymous callers are discounted, it is “school personnel, police and health professionals (who) made the majority of abuse/neglect referrals.”
The laws of confidentiality for those seeking help vary according to the profession involved. The newspaper spoke to representatives of the various organizations and professions and this is what was learned.
Cape Counseling Services has clients sign a release form that states, “ Family Preservation Services is offered to you through a contract Cape Counseling Services has with the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) Under the terms of the contract. we will receive information from DYFS and release to them initial treatment goals and a summary letter upon termination of our counseling with your family. Occasionally auditors may review our records to evaluate program effectiveness.” It does not specify who these auditors are or which DYFS personnel are privy to your private information. It also states that, “ The receipt of information that suggests child abuse or neglect has occurred. Cape Counseling Services is legally obligated to report any such information to DYFS.”
This is on the ‘least confidentiality’ end of the privacy spectrum. At the other end (the most) are the policies of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Scientology.
According to Msgr. Joseph Pokusa of the Chancery of the Diocese of Camden, if a person comes to a priest for confession during which he may receive counseling, anything that is said during that exchange is absolutely confidential and will not be told to anyone else, no matter what it is. “The priest is bound to keep anything confidential that is said or revealed in confession without exception and that means without exception,” said Pokusa.
Bruce Thompson, a spokesman for the Church of Scientology located on Race St. in Philadelphia, told the paper that his Church’s policy was the same as that of the Catholic Church with regard to the matter of confidentiality. “Any time a person comes in to get help for himself or herself, our goal is to try to get that person to take responsibility for himself and his actions. Whatever is said during those sessions with our clergy and that person is absolutely held in confidence,” Thompson emphasized.
The positions of other denominations fell somewhere in between.
Rev. Peter Brecht, a Unitarian minister, said the matter of confidentiality would very much depend on the “good to be achieved versus the evil to be avoided.” He also said he would abide by any state statutes mandating the reporting of child abuse but that he believed the “issue of neglect is very subjective and would not feel comfortable making a report about neglect unless the kid were starving to death and wearing rags.” He added that in his opinion “the emotional abuse and neglect thing are a slippery slope and can be used by people who don’t have the best motives.”
The pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Wildwood, Rev. Alfred S. Petrill, also said that the question of confidentiality was not one of absolute confidentiality or not. He told the paper that he would examine the “totality of circumstances involved in each individual case.” If he thought that there would be a greater good to be achieved by not keeping the conversation confidential he would report to the appropriate authority as required by the law. “These are not easy decisions,” he added, “and each is an individual set of circumstances.”
Rev. Bob Stahler, the pastor of Great Commission Baptist Church in Cape May Court House, told the paper that the policy of confidentiality as it pertains to members of the Church are clear. “If it is within the Church then we deal with the issue, whatever it is, within the Christian Community of our Church,” he said. If however, a stinger and presumably not a church member, walked in off the street and the pastor thought he was a danger to himself or others by what was revealed then the pastor would “seize the moment and contact the authorities for the good of the person and others. “I would consider the good of the individual and the requirements of the law,” said Stahler, adding
“Confidentiality is maintained within the Church community.”
The Seashore Church of the Nazarene located in Lower Township told the paper through the Pastor Sam Mountain that Church policy dictates, “If there’s endangerment of someone’s life then we go to the authorities.” But the pastor, who is also Chaplin for the Lower Township Police Department, said that in 20 years he has never had to breech confidentiality. “My job is to help people make the right decision,” said Mountain.
Jane Moll is the Director of CARA and wanted to be very clear on this point. “We will see anybody who comes here, without exception,” she emphasized.
“We don’t require any piece of paper from anybody who comes here. We’ll see you if you walk in the door, including the self-identified. Our job is totally to provide support, and our services are free,” she stressed.
She stated that the records of anyone who comes in on their own are “strictly confidential” but that is not the story if the person is referred by the Court or the Division of Youth and Family Services. “When its Court ordered we’re seen as a service and what we are required to do is work up an assessment (of the person) to aid the Court,” she said. In that case there would be no absolute confidentiality. Personnel of the Court and DYFS would get to see those findings.
“We want people to want to be here and we talk in a non-threatening way and atmosphere. You can’t counsel someone who doesn’t want counseling,” she ended by saying.
Robert Sandman, an attorney with offices in both Cape May and Atlantic Counties, told the newspaper that, “The attorney/client privilege belongs to the client. It is the lawyer who cannot waive it, not the client.” He said that the law wanted to make sure that there was a free and honest exchange between the client and his representative. You don’t want to have a chilling effect.” He said that the confidentiality rules were set forth both in the NJ Rules of Evidence, NJSA 2A: 84a, as well as in case law as reported in the New Jersey Law Journal, In Re Kozlof.
“Whatever the client tells you, you are bound not to disclose it with one exception,” said the successful Sandman. If someone were to tell their lawyer that they were planning to commit a future crime, then the attorney would be required to report it to the authorities.
“But nothing that has already taken place including those incidents of a child abuse or domestic violence nature,” he said, adding, “You can tell your lawyer anything you’ve done pretty much with complete confidence,” said Sandman.
This might be welcome news to the caller who identified herself as Laurie and left this message on the tape after recounting her own experience with DYFS, “So how are you suppose to get help without getting yourself in trouble with the law? I know it sounds awful but at this moment (she said DYFS took her kids) I ain’t even proud of bein’ American. This ain’t the way America should be,” she said before hanging up.
There are people, who can help anyone who needs guidance but it is necessary to make sure the person you seek guidance from is one who can keep it confidential legally.
The paper placed several telephone calls to the DYFS spokesmen to ask for their position and verify certain facts but the calls were not returned as of press time.
|