Testing for Child Abuse
In order to determine which newborn children are "at-risk" and thus qualify for home visitations, observes The Parent Trainers, state-based "Healthy Family" groups must "gain access to medical records of women who are pregnant or have just given birth. [Which, until recently, required a court order or the parent's approval. -RT] To complete this phase, HFA programs employ 'Family Assessment Workers' (FAWs) who will screen and assess mothers to determine their risk status." In some cases, an FAW "is designated as a temporary, volunteer employee of the hospital (when she is on hospital grounds) to allow her access to medical records. In other cases, a member of the hospital staff may agree to do the initial record screen and then make referrals to the FAW. Or, the FAW may not have access to medical records, but may be allowed to enter hospital rooms and administer 'verbal screens' by asking postpartum mothers directly to answer the questions on the 15-point initial screen."
The questions in the initial screening deal with the mother's marital status and history, education, socio-economic status, family background, and the like. A "positive score on any two" of the items, notes a PCAA document, will result in a referral for an "in-person interview" involving the "Kempe Family Stress Checklist" (FSC) -- ten open-ended, invasive questions presented to both parents. The FSC is supposedly designed to determine a parent's propensity toward child abuse. On each question the parent receives a score from 0 (no risk) to 10 (highest risk). According to Hawaii's Healthy Start training manual (a model for state-level programs nation-wide), "a total score of 25 or above for either parent places a family in the high risk category, eligible for Healthy Start home visitor services." However, as The Parent Trainers points out, "a score of 25 is fairly standard. in other words, if either parent is classified as a 'moderate' risk on any five of the ten issues listed above, that parent would be considered a high risk and in need of home visitation services."
Among typical FSC questions can be found inquiries regarding "harsh punishment"; PCAA literature emphasizes that spanking is considered a form of abuse. Having been "suspected of abuse" is another risk factor for a parent, as is being "in the midst of multiple crises or stresses," having "unrealistic expectations of the child's behavior," or perceiving a child's behavior as "difficult or provocative." Clearly the FSC is designed to define most -- if not all -- parents as placing their children "at risk." This is to be expected, given that the objective of "Healthy Start" and its offspring is a universal system -- based on voluntary enrollment if possible, but employing coercion if necessary. [In other words, if they can't con you into it, they'll force you. -RT]
The FAWs charged with conducting "screenings" and arranging for home visitations are generally volunteers who may have had only a few days of training. No specialized academic background is required to become a FAW; a high school diploma or its equivalent is sufficient. (One PCAA survey found that one-quarter of all FAWs had no college training.) FAWs are encouraged to lure parents into visitation programs by offering bottles, breast pumps, or other helpful gifts to parents as a pretext for a post-hospital visit. "Comments made at a recent HFA national conference indicate 'creative outreach' [scamming -RT] may also include sending flowers to the reluctant mother on Mother's Day, or even sending flowers to the mother of the mother, if it appears she is the source of resistance," observes The Parent Trainers. "It may also include taking the reluctant mother out to the beauty parlor if this may gain her confidence and make her feel obligated to participate in the program." [Do anything to suck them in. -RT]
To illustrate the success of such tactics, an Arizona program reported that "90 percent of mothers offered the program accept HFA services." Furthermore, PCAA urges FAWs to make "persistent outreach efforts" for several months, if necessary, until reluctant families "have explicitly indicated that they do not want the service." Recalcitrant parents, according to PCAA, are "often at greatest risk and, therefore, are in greatest need of the service." [In other words, if you don't want our interference, we'll force it on you by "defining" you as being "the most at risk." -RT] Should Kempe's vision of compulsory home visitation to protect children be consummated, it stands to reason that rebellious parents would be the first to have their children taken from them -- as the case of Janet Adolf's family in Salt Lake City would seem to illustrate. [Absolutely. -RT]
Levels of Involvement
As is almost always the case with any grand, malevolent scheme, the Kempe-inspired home visitation campaign makes malicious use of the worthy motives of otherwise decent people. Diana Lightfoot, director of the Physician's Research Council and co-author of The Parent Trainers, explained to The New American: "There are three levels at which the home visitation scheme [Scheme: the right word. -RT] is working. At the first, most immediate level, we have the social workers or FAWs themselves, who usually have no agenda beyond doing what they consider to be the right thing - fighting child abuse [yeah, right. -RT], helping children get a good start, helping parents who may be overwhelmed. And of course, these are all very commendable motives."
At the second, intermediate level, continued Lightfoot, "we have the state departments of social services and other government officials who know some part of the larger picture and consciously deceive the public about what's going on, but they believe that their noble end justifies the unethical means they employ. [Nothing justifies the unethical means they employ. -RT]. For a lot of state officials, the chief motivation is money; there is a lot of taxpayer money being thrown at the states by the federal government for these programs. At the top level we have the ideologues -- the Hillary Clinton, Janet Reno, and Donna Shalala types -- who have an ideological commitment to create a certain type of society, and are willing to use the power of the government to re-structure the traditional family."
Dr. Sam Watson, Lightfoot's co-author, remarked to "The New American" that "Kempe, despite his reputation as a great humanitarian, praised totalitarian states and urged that we adopt a totalitarian child care policy. This is also very much the mindset of the current administration, and much of the institutionalized anti-child abuse and 'children's rights' movements. The model and demonstration programs that are springing up all over the country are the product of that same mindset as well. In some states, money from the state lottery is underwriting home visitation programs; in others it is money from the tobacco settlement. These sources of revenue have been a real windfall for advocates of home visitation."
"The seed of Kempe's vision has been planted, it has been watered with taxpayer money," Lightfoot stated. "Whether it will grow to fruition depends upon the American public. It is vitally important that we educate families and parents about the dangers of home visitation programs, and the totalitarian nature of the vision behind those programs."
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