Denied! Failing Cordelia: Parental Love and Parental-State Theft in Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court: Book Three: Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder

By Simon Cambridge

Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder continues the author’s journey of exploring the heartbreak and loss of first adopting Cordelia with severe reactive attachment disorder (RAD) in Washington state and then of nearly losing her to the draconian and confused child welfare legal complex in Los Angeles.

In this third volume of his Denied! Failing Cordelia trilogy, Cambridge climbs the broken California judicial ladder from the California Court of Appeals (Second Appellate District) based in Los Angeles to the California Supreme Court. Cambridge concludes that in appeals relating to dependency cases, the ladder is broken for parents seeking to advocate for themselves and for the true best interests of their children. Policies relating to child welfare are flawed, Cambridge argues, because of the preemptive and prejudicial response to the issues raised during the detention of children.

As with his two earlier books, Cambridge explores issues connected with how best to parent his adopted daughter and advocate for her needs in the context of a dependency case. Cordelia’s reactive attachment disorder would surface throughout the judicial struggle as would the author’s own struggles with Asperger syndrome. Each would feed negatively into the overall trauma and drama of the author’s unrelenting quest to reunite his “forever family.” Cambridge believes that dependency proceedings are ill-equipped on many levels to elicit a proper understanding of RAD or of the therapeutic parenting needed to address it.

Cambridge believes that adoptive parents of children with special needs need to be understood by more sympathetic social workers and by therapists trained in attachment disorders. Cambridge’s persistent efforts to reunite his “forever family” would leave him increasingly isolated as he climbs the judicial ladder.

Based on his experiences, Cambridge explores areas for reform in Los Angeles dependency proceedings and evokes Shakespeare’s King Lear by arguing that social workers need to “see better” and that the Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court needs to encourage a broader understanding of the issues raised through more effective legal advocacy from assigned dependency lawyers. Cambridge argues that parents should be allowed to address the court directly.

Cambridge also relates how he and his daughter have found many positive and healthy ways to heal in the years since their dependency case ended. Much trauma could have been avoided if those around them had “seen better” and had recognized the value in their dramatic and loving adoption journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796037043

Simon Cambridge

Simon Cambridge used to live in England and has both a bachelor’s degree from the University of London as well as a master’s degree from Loughborough University. The author currently lives in the beautiful Seattle area and looks forward to continuing to help his long-suffering daughter, Cordelia, heal from her traumatic childhood and adolescence. When he is not reading, writing, and photographing beautiful places in Seattle and Washington State, readers should be able to find the author watching one of the many Seattle Shakespeare Company performances held throughout the year. If not there, you may be able to find him traveling to see his daughter on the long Amtrak Coast Starlight train between Seattle and Los Angeles. Above all, though, the author has a passion for Seattle Sounders FC games. As a member of the Emerald City Supporters (ECS), he can be seen throughout the year proudly and passionately wearing the rave green colors of the best MLS football team in America.

Book preview

WHAT REVIEWERS HAVE SAID ABOUT

CLIMBING THE BROKEN JUDICIAL LADDER

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This is a book that should not have had to be written. Under ideal circumstances, the controversies and impact of Simon Cambridge’s decisions and concern for his child should have resulted in a different outcome.

However, the purpose of this story is to document exactly how and why the juvenile court fails both parents and children, and in this Cambridge provides an exact, damning, thought-provoking consideration of the processes and methods which work against real justice.

Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder is far more than a memoir of fighting the court system. It’s a procedural guide to the give-and-take of legal methods that documents specific events and relationships between parents, social workers, and various court processes.

Acts of futility are charted, along with choices that could have made a positive difference to family-reunification prospects, creating a survey strong in its assessment of juvenile court proceeding pros, cons, and the impact on parents struggling with its rules and regulations.

It should also be noted that this is no light legal read, but holds over a thousand pages of detail. Parents struggling with court processes will find it both useful and weighty reading, containing many invaluable keys to better approaches to working through a system that can be as dysfunctional as any situation surrounding the child and his parents.

Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder serves its main purpose as an instructional memoir packed with lessons, observations, tips and traps, and insights for those working within and through such a system. Within the story of Cambridge’s foster child, who is adopted, then detained, lies a broader consideration of justice that should be on the reading lists of not just parents and potential adoptive parents, but anyone concerned about juvenile rights, justice, and legal systems.

Under another hand, this trilogy might have been condensed to a single book offering quicker reading—but that would be a shame. Its detailed complexity is exactly what sets it apart from others. Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder is a specific instructional that goes beyond personal outrage and parenting trauma to address many of the main failings of child protective courts and systems in this country.

No social, legal, or juvenile issues reader should be without this complex, well-detailed examination of child-detention policies, child abuse, and suggestions for the legal reform of California’s child welfare system.

——Diane Donovan, Editor and Senior

Reviewer, Donovan’s Literary Services and

Midwest Book Review

One of the toughest jobs and greatest privileges a person can have is being a parent. As Julianne Moore once said, Parenthood is a very, very intense experience. Yet what happens when a parent is forced to fight for the right to raise their child? That is the question asked in the third book in a series, author Simon Cambridge’s book Denied! Failing Cordelia: Parental Love and Parental-state Theft in Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court. Book Three: Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder.

This was an incredibly detailed and powerful read. The author does a marvelous job of outlining the work that goes into the painful process of these court proceedings, from the complex emotions that go through the stages of the cases to the difficulty of finding the right lawyer and the failings of those who came before, and even the scrutiny a parent will face even to the most minute of details when in the midst of a court battle. Allegations, inept representation and high running emotions fueled the case presented by the author, and speaks to many parents out there who have either experienced this themselves or any parent who has ever feared losing custody of their child.

The book does a magnificent job of both conveying the heartbreak and emotions fueling this case with the detailed analysis of each stage of the court proceedings and process, which gives others going through similar situations an opportunity to read and familiarize themselves with the potential trials they may face in their own cases.

This was a tragic, informative and relevant read that many will find valuable in their own lives. Exploring both the personal and emotional side of the court proceedings and the legal, complex nature of the court system overall and the mishandling of the court and various other institutions involved in the case, this book touches on a subject which is far too often ignored, and the author does a wonderful job of bringing it into the light for all to see. If you haven’t yet, be sure to grab your copy of Denied! Failing Cordelia: Parental Love and Parental-state Theft in Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court. Book Three: Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder by Simon Cambridge today!

——Anthony Avina, Pacific Book Review

"I strongly believe that my commitment has added

meaningful value to my daughter’s life."

When she accuses her adoptive father of sexual abuse, a thirteen-year-old girl referred to as Cordelia is removed from parental custody and placed in state care. Cordelia is no ordinary disgruntled teenager in rebellion. She experiences reactive attachment disorder (RAD) after severe mistreatment from her birth mother. It causes her to reveal inappropriately intimate details of the alleged abuse to anyone who will listen, including perfect strangers. Meanwhile, she vacillates between shunning and craving contact with her adoptive parents. Her adoptive mother does not share this desire, and for the second time in Cordelia’s life, a mother figure abandons her. The dysfunctional and overworked Department of Child and Family Services cannot adequately address her mental health problems and places credence in each of her ever-changing accounts of parental abuse. Only one person remains steadfast in his devotion to Cordelia’s best interest—the very father she accused.

Cambridge’s trilogy, of which this is the final installment, details the author’s quest as Cordelia’s adoptive father for the right to reunite with and care for the fragile girl he calls his forever daughter. The text includes both imaginary and delicately edited real court documents from the entire dependency court case.

The author is quick to explain that although he lives with Asperger’s syndrome, he is a fully competent adult, with fatherly feelings and concerns, who simply happens to have a disability. This is a refreshing perspective on disability in general. Throughout, he encourages parents in similar situations to stand up to the judicial system for themselves and the welfare of their children and offers suggestions, based on his own experience, of how to go about it. He offers hope for reconciliation with an account of his reunions with Cordelia and the current, full healing of their relationship.

——Heather Brooks, The US Review of Books

Denied! Failing Cordelia

Parental Love and Parental-State Theft in

Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court

Book Three

Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder

Simon Cambridge

Copyright © 2019 by Simon Cambridge.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2019942736

ISBN:                Hardcover              978-1-7960-3706-7

                          Softcover                978-1-7960-3705-0

                          eBook                     978-1-7960-3704-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 02/26/2020

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

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Acknowledgments

Disclaimer

Identities

Extracted Documents and Legal References

The Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS)

Place-Names

Dramatis Personae

How to Read Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder

Prologue: Looking Back at Book Two:

Pride and Legal Prejudice

I. The DCFS

II. Children’s Court

Commissioner No

Public Defenders

III. Esther

IV. Failure to Thrive

V. Paternal Pride

VI. Concluding Remarks

PART I   Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder—Marching to the California Courts of Appeal and California Supreme Court

Chapter 1     Introducing the Broken Judicial Ladder

Part I. Marching to the California Court of Appeal and California Supreme Court

Part II. Reforming the Los Angeles and California Child-Welfare Legal Complex

Part III. An Alternate History

Part IV. The Child-Welfare Legal Complex in the United States

Part V. Family Preservation, Family-Focused Therapy, and Family Reunification—Offered, Accepted, Completed, and Denied

Part VI. Healing Cordelia—the Green Shoots and Flowers of Recovery

Part VII. Appendices

Part VIII. Bibliographical Guide and Internet References

Chapter 2     California Courts of Appeal Dreaming

I. First Steps

II. Second Steps

III. In re Cordelia C.: An Alternative Published Opinion

A. Factual and Procedural Background

B. The Court Erred in Terminating Reunification Services and Issuing a Restraining Order

C. We Reverse and Remand the Matter to Permit Father a Real Opportunity to Reunify with Cordelia C.

IV. Concluding Remarks

Chapter 3     The California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District)

I. The Aftermath of the Winter of Our Discontent Hearings (February 2012)

Down but Not Out

II. Understanding Appeals and the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District, Division 7)

Mr. Salt and Mr. Pepper

Evidence Viewed Most Favorably in Support of the Trial Court’s Action

Procedural Logic and Subjective Awareness in Dependency Cases

And Then, There Was Cordelia … ?

Judicial Prejudice

Established Precedent

Upper-Court Politeness

Snails Move Faster

III. Concluding Remarks

Chapter 4     The Appellant’s Opening Brief (April 2012)

I. Appellant’s Opening Brief

Formatting

Facts and Procedural History

The Argument: Reunification Services Were Limited and Unreasonable

The Argument: The Court Erred in Issuing a Permanent Restraining Order

Conclusion

II. Appellant’s Opening Brief: Author’s Concluding Remarks

Chapter 5     The Respondent’s Brief (June 2012)

I. The Respondent’s Brief

Formatting

Introduction with the Combined Statement of the Case and Facts

The Argument: An Overview

The Argument: Terminating Family Reunification Services Was Legal and Prior Services Were Reasonable

The Argument: The Juvenile Court Properly Issued the Restraining Order

Conclusion

II. The Respondent’s Brief: Author’s Concluding Remarks

Chapter 6     The Appellant’s Reply Brief (June 2012)

I. Appellant’s Reply Brief

Formatting

The Argument: DCFS Failed to Provide Reasonable Reunification Services

The Argument: The Juvenile Court Erred in Issuing the Restraining Order

Conclusion

II. Concluding Remarks to Briefs

Chapter 7     Oral Arguments (September 2012)

I. Oral Arguments Hearing Day

II. Marching to the Opinion

Chapter 8     Introducing In re Cordelia C.

Chapter 9     California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District, Division 7), In re Cordelia C. (October 2012)

In re Cordelia C.: Facts and Procedural Background

I. Initial Investigation and Commencement of Dependency Proceedings

II. Interactions with [Simon C.]

III. Visitation

IV. [Cordelia C.] Begins Running from Placements

V. [Esther C.] Reappears, Conditions Decline, and [Cordelia W.] is Hospitalized

VI. [Cordelia] Stabilizes and Wants No Contact with [Simon C.]

VII. Reunification Services Are Terminated and a Restraining Order Issued

In re Cordelia C.: Discussion

I. Termination of Reunification Services

II. The Restraining Order

In re Cordelia C.: Disposition

Chapter 10   In re Cordelia C.—the Voices Not Heard

I. What Did the Justices Ignore?

Credibility of Witnesses, Parent Progress, Child Credibility

The Relationship between Social Worker and Parent and between Parent and the Court

The Best Interests of the Child and the Parental Interest

Poor Legal Representation

II. In re Cordelia C.: Author’s Concluding Remarks

Chapter 11   Still Scaling the Walls and Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder—More Appeals

I. The Aftermath: Mr. Salt Seasons His Path of Retreat

II. Building My Own Rungs to the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District): The Denied May 2012 and June 2012 Section 388 Combined Second Appeal

III. Building My Own Rungs to the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District): The Denied October 2012 and November 2012 Section 388 Combined Third Appeal

IV. Building My Own Rungs to the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District): The Denied January 2013 Section 388 Fourth Appeal

V. Climbing the Judicial Ladder by Myself: The "Phoenix H. Brief"

VI. Climbing the Judicial Ladder by Myself: The Appellant’s Supplemental Brief

VII. Concluding Remarks

Chapter 12   The Highest Moldy Rung— the California Supreme Court (June and July 2013)

I. Understanding the California Supreme Court

II. Filing My Petition for Review (First Attempt)

III. Filing My Petition for Review (Second Attempt)

IV. Filing My Petition for Review (Third Attempt)

V. Concluding Remarks

Chapter 13   Author’s Petition for Review (June 2013)

Introduction

I. The Lack of Access to the Judicial Process and a Parental Interest Not at Variance with a Child’s Best Interests

II. The Poor Quality of Assigned Legal Counsel/Public Defenders

III. The Role of Mental Illness

IV. Judicial Bias

V. The Need for Reform

VI. Conclusion

VII. Petitioner Seeks Redress of Grievances

Certificate of Word Count

Chapter 14   Filing the Petition for Review and … Denied!

I. I Wrote, I Filed, I Waited …

II. To Deny Is Justice—to Write a Letter Is Futile

III. Concluding Remarks

PART II   Reforming the Los Angeles and California Child- Welfare Legal Complex

Chapter 15   Reforming the Los Angeles DCFS

I. Area of Concern One: The Need for Writing Fairer or More Humanizing DCFS Reports and the Information Pathway

Recommendations

II. Area of Concern Two: Ignoring Motivated Parents

Recommendations

III. Area of Concern Three: The Need for Consistent Social Workers

Recommendations

IV. Area of Concern Four: The Perspective of the Child and the Parental Interest

Recommendations

V. Area of Concern Five: The DCFS, Therapists, and Family Reunification

Recommendations

VI. Area of Concern Six: Communication, Communication, Communication!

Recommendations

The DCFS: A Discussion

Failing Cordelia

Adopting Cordelia

Failing Themselves: The Social Workers?

Failing Parents?

Failing Children?

The DCFS: Concluding Remarks

Chapter 16   Reforming the Children’s Law Center of Los Angeles

Introduction

I. Area of Concern One: Confrontation and Prejudice

Recommendations

II. Area of Concern Two: Communication! Communication! Communication!

Recommendations

Concluding Remarks

Chapter 17   Reforming the Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court

I. Area of Concern One: The Accessibility of the Juvenile Dependency Court

Recommendations

II. Area of Concern Two: Preponderance of Evidence Rules

Recommendations

III. Area of Concern Three: Respect and Favor in Room 101

Recommendations

IV. Area of Concern Four: The Public Defenders

Personality Clashes and Recommendations

Parent–Attorney Meetings and Recommendations

Public Defender Qualifications and Recommendations

Public Defenders, the Posthearing Review, and Recommendations

V. Area of Concern Five: The Private Attorneys

Recommendations

VI. Area of Concern Six: The Role of the Court Commissioner

Commissioner No’s Control of the Agenda

Prejudice and Legal Conflict

Elected Court Commissioners?

Recommendations

VII. Concluding Remarks

Chapter 18   Reforming the California Courts of Appeal and California Supreme Court

I. The California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District)

Area of Concern One: Denying Parents the Opportunity for Self-Advocacy

Area of Concern Two: Judicial Coherence and Consistency

Area of Concern Three: Public Defender Representation

II. The California Supreme Court

III. Concluding Remarks

PART III   An Alternate History

Chapter 19   What Would I Have Done If …

I. I Had Been Savannah or Worked for the DCFS and Adoption Authorities in Seattle

II. I Had Been Esther Choosing to Go to Los Angeles in December 2008

III. I Had Been the Responding Police Officer, the King County Polygraphist, or the King County Detective (Seattle, July 8, 2010)

IV. I Had Been with the DCFS in Seattle (July/August 2009)

V. I Had Been the Responding Emergency DCFS Social Worker in Los Angeles (June 18, 2010)

VI. I Had Been Commissioner No at the Initial Emergency Seventy-Two-Hour Detention Hearing (June 23, 2010)

VII. I Had Been Maureen or Marilyn from the Children’s Law Center (2010–2013)

VIII. I Had Been DCFS County Counsel, Mr. O’Reilly (2010–2013)

IX. I Had Been My First Public Defender, Jon Stein (2010)

X. I Had Been My Second Public Defender, Hermia (October 2010–November 2011)

XI. I Had Been One of My Private Attorneys (2011–2013)

XII. I Had Been Mordecai, Nicole, or Ms. Puddle (2010–2012)

I Had Been Savannah (April 2011)

XIII. I Had Been Commissioner No (2010–2013)

XIV. I Had Been Esther (2010–2013)

XV. I Had Been Me/Not Me

XVI. I Had Been Cordelia (2007–Present)

I Were Standing in Cordelia’s Shoes and Addressing the Court

XVII. Concluding Remarks

PART IV   The Child-Welfare Legal Complex in the United States

Chapter 20   The Best Interests of the Child

I. The Child-Welfare Legal Complex versus Parents and Families

II. The Child-Welfare Legal Complex and the Best Interests of the Child

The Best of the Best Interests of the Child

Dystopia or Reality

The Relative Survival of the Best Interests in Dependency Cases

Concluding Remarks

III. The Interferers/Rescuers: Social Workers

IV. The Interferers/Rescuers: Residential Treatment Facilities and Foster Homes

Residential Treatment Facilities

Foster Parents

Foster Parents as Neutral or Interfering Rescuers?

Foster Parents and Attachment to Foster Children

Achieving the Right Balance

Concluding Remarks

V. The Interferers/Rescuers: The Lawyers

Dependency Courts Need to Move Away From …

Parent–Child Reunification

VI. Rescuers/Abusers: The Adoptive Parents Enter the Child-Welfare Legal Complex

The Expectations

Concluding Remarks

VII. Concluding Remarks

PART V   Family Preservation, Family- Focused Therapy, and Family Reunification—Offered, Accepted, and Then Denied

Chapter 21   The Therapist’s Third Chair—Helping Cordelia

I. Cordelia’s Best Interests before We Had a Dependency Case

Early Childhood

Foster Care

Adoption: I Hate You—Don’t Leave Me!

Reactive Attachment Disorder

II. Cordelia’s Best Interests in the Context of a Dependency Case

The Limitation of My Educational Rights

Therapeutic Intervention

Cordelia Kidnapped to Oakland

Cordelia Remained in Los Angeles When …

A Three-Year Restraining Order

The Parenting Books

Concluding Remarks: Cordelia’s Best Interests as the Court Understood Them

III. The Third Chair: Therapeutic Intervention

The Losses and the Gains

IV. Concluding Remarks

Chapter 22   The Author’s DCFS- Assigned Case Plan

I. Individual Therapy

Introduction

Los Angeles Therapy (July 2010–March 2011)

Seattle Therapy Part I: Ms. M. and Ms. W. (March 2011–July 2011)

Seattle Therapy Part II: The Kinsey Report (July 2011–January 2012)

Seattle Therapy Part III: Ruth (January 2012–September 2014)

Seattle Therapy Part IV: Sally (September 2014–Present)

II. Parenting Classes

III. Parenting Books

Helicopter and Authoritative Parenting

IV. Concluding Remarks

Chapter 23   Parental Alienation and Estrangement

I. The Alienating Parent

II. The Targeted Parent

III. The Alienated Child and Parental Alienation Syndrome

IV. Parental Alienation, Parental Estrangement, and the Courts

V. Was Cordelia Estranged or Alienated?

Filing a Section 388 Petition on Parental Alienation

VI. Concluding Remarks

PART VI   Healing Cordelia—the Green Shoots and Flowers of Recovery

Chapter 24   Cordelia Today

I. Green Shoots: An Introduction

II. The Flowers of Recovery: Cordelia Reaches for Her Biological Family

Reunion

III. The Flowers of Recovery: Marriage, Divorce, Children

IV. The Flowers of Recovery: Narcotics Anonymous (NA)

V. The Flowers of Recovery: Oreo

VI. The Flowers of Recovery: This Is My Dad!

The Robbery and Regaining of Parenthood

VII. The Flowers of Recovery: Hot Rage Cools Down

VIII. Concluding Remarks

PART VII   Appendices

Appendix A   A Child-Welfare Bill of Rights for Dependency Proceedings

I. Parental Rights and Responsibilities in Dependency Proceedings

Rights

Responsibilities

II. Child Rights and Responsibilities in Dependency Proceedings

Rights

Responsibilities

III. Social Worker Rights and Responsibilities in Dependency Proceedings

Rights

Responsibilities

IV. Foster Parent Rights and Responsibilities in Dependency Proceedings

Rights

Responsibilities

V. Presiding Judicial Officer Rights and Responsibilities in Dependency Proceedings

Rights

Responsibilities

Appendix B   Legal Authorities Cited by Mr. Salt and Counsel for the DCFS in Author’s Main Appeal to the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District)

Appendix C   Author Response to Minor’s Counsel’s Request to Limit Author’s Educational Rights (Section 388 Hearing, October 2010)

Author Note on Appendix C

Appendix D   Author’s Marsden Letter to Commissioner No Requesting Attorney Change (June 2011)

Author Note on Appendix D

Appendix E   Author’s Summary to Commissioner No Following the Contested Twelve- and Eighteen- Month Status Review Hearing (First Winter of Our Discontent Hearing, January 2012)

Author Note on Appendix E

Appendix F   Author’s Declaration to Court in Advance of the Permanent Restraining Order (Second Winter of Our Discontent) Hearing, January 2012

Author Note on Appendix F

Appendix G   Author’s Summary of Just before Dawn by Jan Hindman

Appendix H   Interviewing Myself

I. The Preadoptive Years in Washington State

How prepared were you and Esther to become parents before you met Cordelia and later adopted her?

Did your parenting inexperience play into the mistakes you made during the first months of Cordelia being in your home?

Did the adoption process happen too fast for you, for Cordelia, or for both of you?

II. Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court

Would things have gone better for you and your family if Cordelia had been more truthful and consistent in wanting to come home once your case began?

Would things have gone better if your wife, Esther, had been supportive, more collaborative, and more interested in her daughter’s welfare and the DCFS’s supervisory incompetence?

Would things have gone better if you had just shut up and exhibited more self-control in court?

Would things have gone better if you had had better and more involved legal counsel?

Would things have gone better for you if Commissioner No had not been assigned to the case or if she had recused herself with a California Code of Civil Procedure 170.6 petition?

Would things have gone better if you had had better informed, less hasty, and more caring social workers—workers perhaps more like Savannah in Washington state?

Do you think that things would have gone better if the Children’s Law Center of Los Angeles had viewed you with less suspicion and more as someone who wanted to be engaged in the overall family healing process?

Would things have gone better in your dependency case if parents and children were not so quickly profiled as perpetrators and victims respectively? Can you explain how early definitions and labeling in dependency proceedings limit our understanding of child-welfare policies and thinking today?

Would things have gone better if the Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court had been more accessible and transparent?

Would things have gone better if you had been allowed to address the court directly?

Would things have gone better if you had taken the case to trial in August 2010?

Would things have gone better if Cordelia had expressed more normal child or adolescent responses to her daily challenges?

Would things have gone better if you had just recognized your daughter’s feelings and behaviors as part of being a detained child in dependency proceedings?

Should you have just walked away then?

Finally, do you wish that Esther’s parents or sister had done more to be involved in caring for Cordelia as a kinship option for the court to consider while she was a detained child?

III. The California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District) and California Supreme Court

In retrospect, was it worth your while bothering with both these upper courts, and did you have totally unrealistic expectations given what was still happening in Children’s Court?

IV. Cordelia Now

How optimistic are you now for Cordelia and for your own ability to help her?

Do you still feel anger toward the Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court and the Los Angeles DCFS?

PART VIII   Bibliographical Guide and Internet References

Bibliography

I. Adoption Resources

II. Asperger Syndrome (Asperger’s) Resources

III. Bipolar Disorder Resources

IV. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) Resources

V. Child Abuse Resources

VI. Child Attachment Resources

VII. Codependency Resources

VIII. CPS, DCFS, and Legal Resources

IX. Dads and Fatherhood Resources

X. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Resources

XI. Fictional Works

XII. Films

XIII. Foster Care Resources

XIV. General Information and Miscellaneous Resources

XV. Memoirs and Personal Stories

XVI. Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative Identity Disorder) Resources

XVII. Narcissism Resources

XVIII. Parental Alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) Resources

XIX. Parenting Resources

XX. Plays

XXI. Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) Resources

XXII. Sensory Integration Resources

XXIII. Sociopathy Resources

XXIV. Website and Internet Resources

Adoption Resources

California Courts/Legal

Child Abuse—False Claims Of

Child Health, Safety, and Welfare Statistics (Federal and Nonprofit)

Fathers and Shared Parenting

Los Angeles County Family Resources

Los Angeles Residential Treatment Group Homes for Children

Mental-Health Resources for Children and Adults

Parental Alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS)

Residential Treatment Facilities for Children (California, Montana, Washington state, and Wisconsin)

Washington State Family Resources

Wikipedia Resources

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LIST OF TABLES

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Table 1   Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, 2013–14 DCFS Biennial Report: Summary Statistics

Table 2   Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, 2013–14 DCFS Biennial Report—Emergency Response Services and In-Home and Out-of-Home Caseload, Foster Care Resources, Children in Out-of-Home Placement

Table 3   Child Welfare Information Gateway, Determining the Best Interests of the Child

Table 4   Child Welfare Information Gateway, Foster Care Statistics, 2016

Table 5   Child Welfare Information Gateway, Child Maltreatment 2016: Summary of Key Findings

I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it. But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of a well, it needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so will be likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures […] Let it not be imagined, however, that I consider myself competent to reform the errors and abuses of society, but only that I would fain contribute my humble quota towards so good an aim, and if I can gain the public ear at all, I would rather whisper a few wholesome truths therein than much soft nonsense.

—Anne Brontë, preface to the second edition,

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)

In claiming to be fighting for children, child advocates must be family advocates, too. Family advocates need to proudly proclaim that children’s best interests are one and the same as their families’ best interests, for there is no other way to protect children but to defend their families—and to fight for the right of families everywhere to raise their own children.

—Diane Redleaf,

They Took the Kids Last Night (2018)

Family reunification is the planned process of reconnecting children in out-of-home care with their families by means of a variety of services and supports to the children, their families, and their foster parents or other service providers. It aims to help each child and family to achieve and maintain, at any given time, their optimal level of reconnection—from full re-entry of the child into the family system to other forms of contact, such as visiting, that affirm the child’s membership in the family.

—Anthony N. Maluccio, Warsh Row, and

Barbara A. Prine, "Family Reunification: An

Overview" Together Again, Child Welfare

League of America, 1993; quoted in the Los

Angeles County DCFS "Family Reunification

Report" (October 28, 2004)

With love always to my forever daughter, Cordelia

*****

With love always to my long-suffering and beautiful mother

*****

With love to Nana, who was Cordelia’s truest and best foster mom

*****

With love to Cordelia’s best social worker, Savannah, for

believing so strongly in forever father and forever daughter

*****

With respect and understanding for our dependency investigator,

Nancy, who was the only social worker in Los Angeles able

to take on the advice given to King Lear to see better

*****

With respect for the efforts of the Ryther Center for

Children and Youth in working with children with

attachment trauma and special needs in Seattle

I love you, Papa, she said quietly, realizing how true it was, how true it had always been. Love had turned into loss and she’d pushed it away, but somehow, impossibly, a bit of that love had remained. A girl’s love for her father. Immutable. Unbearable but unbreakable.

—Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale (2015)

It is not biology that determines fatherhood. It is love.

—Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale (2015)

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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A FTER EVERYTHING HAS been written, a manuscript must be carefully prepared for publication. At all stages in this lengthy process, I have been grateful for the support of my publication coordinator, Monique, and her team of copy editors, cover designers, and interior formatters at Xlibris. I have known Monique for six years now, and I have always appreciated her friendship and support in bringing my trilogy to publication.

I would especially like to thank the diligent work of Astrid in helping to edit my manuscript and seeking to ensure that it is as free from errors as possible. Any remaining errors are my own.

I would like to extend my appreciation and goodwill to Nancy, who first investigated my daughter’s case in 2010. Unlike most of her colleagues in the child-welfare legal complex in Los Angeles, she was able to absorb the ignored advice given to King Lear to see better, and she has been supportive of my goals here and with respect to Cordelia.

Likewise, I shall always remain grateful to Savannah, who was my daughter’s first social worker in Washington state. Savannah has always believed in Cordelia and in my right to become her forever dad. She supported me in my efforts to remain in that role through all the turmoil and its aftermath in Los Angeles, and she continues to believe in me to this day.

My loving mother, as always, has believed in this project; but as Alzheimer’s disease leads her further into the heart of a darkness that our scientists have yet to fully explore and bring to light, she is only able to touch my books. She is no longer able to read them. She often asks me if my final book will have a happy ending, and I can assure both her and my readers that it does!

As always, I remain devoted to my inspirational daughter, Cordelia, who somehow finds a colorful way to survive each day. Through her, I have now met her vast family of vibrant and lively biological relatives. Love to all.

You don’t want me! she cried. You don’t want me because I’m not a boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really did want me. Oh, what shall I do? I’m going to burst into tears!

Burst into tears she did. Sitting down on a chair by the table, flinging her arms out upon it, and burying her face in them, she proceeded to cry stormily. Marilla and Matthew looked at each other deprecatingly across the stove. Neither of them knew what to say or do. Finally Marilla stepped lamely into the breach.

Well, well, there’s no need to cry so about it.

"Yes, there is need! The child raised her head quickly, revealing a tear-stained face and trembling lips. You would cry, too, if you were an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and found that they didn’t want you because you weren’t a boy. Oh, this is the most tragical thing that ever happened to me!"

Something like a reluctant smile, rather rusty from long disuse, mellowed Marilla’s grim expression.

Well, don’t cry any more. We’re not going to turn you out-of-doors to-night. You’ll have to stay here until we investigate this affair. What’s your name?

The child hesitated for a moment.

Will you please call me Cordelia? she said eagerly.

"Call you Cordelia? Is that your name?"

No-o-o, it’s not exactly my name, but I would love to be called Cordelia. It’s such a perfectly elegant name.

I don’t know what on earth you mean. If Cordelia isn’t your name, what is?

Anne Shirley, reluctantly faltered forth the owner of that name, but, oh, please do call me Cordelia. It can’t matter much to you what you call me if I’m only going to be here a little while, can it? And Anne is such an unromantic name.

Unromantic fiddlesticks! said the unsympathetic Marilla. Anne is a real good plain sensible name. You’ve no need to be ashamed of it.

Oh, I’m not ashamed of it, explained Anne, only I like Cordelia better. I’ve always imagined that my name was Cordelia—at least, I always have of late years.

—Lucy Maud Montgomery,

Anne of Green Gables

This girl will have to be sent back to the asylum.

Yes, I suppose so, said Matthew reluctantly.

"You suppose so! Don’t you know it?"

Well now, she’s a real nice little thing, Marilla. It’s kind of a pity to send her back when she’s so set on staying here.

Matthew Cuthbert, you don’t mean to say you think we ought to keep her!

Marilla’s astonishment could not have been greater if Matthew had expressed a predilection for standing on his head.

Well, now, no, I suppose not—not exactly, stammered Matthew, uncomfortably driven into a corner for his precise meaning. I suppose—we could hardly be expected to keep her.

I should say not. What good would she be to us?

We might be some good to her, said Matthew suddenly and unexpectedly.

—Lucy Maud Montgomery,

Anne of Green Gables

Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.

—Trevor Noah,

Born a Crime (2016)

I never wanted to write this book.

—Alec Baldwin with Mark Tabb,

A Promise to Ourselves (2008)

But she has more at stake than you do, Micah says gently. Her reputation. Her career. Her life. This is the first trial that really matters to you, Kennedy. But it’s the only one that matters to Ruth.

"What if the best thing for Ruth isn’t winning this case? Micah replies. What if the reason this is so important to her isn’t because of what she’s going to say … but rather the fact that she is finally being given the chance to say it?"

—Jodi Picoult,

Small Great Things (2016)

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DISCLAIMER

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A S I STATED very clearly in my two earlier books in this trilogy, I am not a trained or licensed lawyer, psychologist, family therapist, or social worker. However, I will be continuing to offer what I believe to be valuable insight into how various lawyers, psychologists, therapists, and social workers impacted my daughter’s story for better or worse. Experience has been a cruel and enlightening tutor in this regard. I also have a responsibility to inform my readers as to how the work of each protagonist affected my understanding of the wider child-welfare legal complex in the United States.

While it should be more than obvious that we do not need any special legal or therapeutic training to act as motivated parents inside or outside courtrooms, I have chosen to take the view that my daughter, Cordelia, has always needed me as her interpreter and advocate. At times, it will seem in the pages ahead as if I am offering the equivalent of a professional clinical tale, to borrow a phrase used by Debbie Nathan in her work Sybil Exposed. We will be seeing later how Dr. Daniel Hughes offers something similar with his fictional child, Katie, in Building the Bonds of Attachment. Clinical tales in the sphere of child development and special needs are used by psychologists and others to outline their therapeutic and instructional findings following their depiction of scenarios that could be easily imagined by their readers to be both true and real.

Across the sunlit peaks and gloomy valleys of my trilogy, I hope that I will have interpreted Cordelia’s story and most of my own decisions as a parent in such a way that both will be understandable within the overall context of the narrative. In Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder, the final work in my trilogy, I trust that my efforts to provide a positive and loving presence in my daughter’s life will be more than apparent to most readers. Writing my trilogy has been a labor of love for my daughter and a labor of urgency to help others in a similar predicament to my own. Parents and others interested in reforming how dependency proceedings and social work are conducted in Los Angeles should find much to inspire them in the pages ahead.

Identities

In the pages ahead, I have continued to obscure the real identities of the people I interacted with. As always, my daughter, Cordelia, is the one whom I have most wanted to shield from any public scrutiny. Others involved in her story, I have rendered hard to trace either by using ridiculous names (Commissioner No, Javert, and Mr. Salt spring to mind) or by the simple changing of first names to other ordinary ones. If the chief protagonists of this story ever decide to read my trilogy, I am sure that each will be able to recognize himself or herself for better or worse. A few—Savannah and Nancy among them—have even understood and liked how I have portrayed their work. Although I believe that I have been fair to everyone, I do recognize that each person whom I have criticized or presented in an unflattering way will doubtless have an alternative view of the challenges that each faced when dealing with Cordelia or myself. Neither of us was easy to understand, and we both had outsize expectations or hopes that others were either reluctant or unable to fulfill. In Cordelia’s case, some were overly eager to endorse or exploit them.

Extracted Documents and Legal References

I have included many direct extracts from legal briefing papers to the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District). These will include the Appellant’s Opening Brief, the Respondent’s Brief, and the Appellant’s Reply Brief. I have extracted the entirety of the unpublished In re Cordelia C. opinion that dominated the last months of our dependency case and my own Petition for Review to the California Supreme Court. In the case of the briefing papers submitted to the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District), I have added extensive explanatory footnotes to all the reports excerpted and emphasis to certain key lines of note. These will provide both commentary and helpful analysis of the issues raised. I was almost bombed with criticism through our dependency proceedings and then in the one report written by the DCFS (the Respondent’s Brief) as a response to my (or rather, Mr. Salt’s) arguments on appeal. The upper court justices continued to bomb me with their own hatred and judgment when they released In re Cordelia C. as an unpublished opinion. I have retained this venom and hatred in the extracted portions of the Respondent’s Brief and Cordelia C. I almost feel as if I were libeling myself by doing so, but with the pain, there is also instruction. I hope my readers will be able to see this and put their trust in me as the narrator of my daughter’s story. My real faults and mistakes as a parent were certainly embellished, exaggerated, and magnified to stratospheric proportions to reach the conclusions outlined in the case of the DCFS and the response of the upper court.

Readers should also be aware that I have not changed any word choices or grammatical decisions in any of the extracted reports written by others involved in my daughter’s story. Beyond correcting some simple grammatical mistakes, I have likewise not changed the words or structure of any documents that I wrote to either the Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court or to the California Supreme Court. As a result, I have retained quirky capitalizations of certain words and incorrect grammar or sentence structure on occasion. What will be lost in terms of grammatical and other consistency across all the documents extracted is remedied by a sense of conveying faithfulness to the beliefs and arguments of the original writer. In fairness, compelling arguments were made on all sides in Cordelia’s story, but the balance was often all wrong in terms of who ended up as being the most credible.

At the end of the day, whether department is written with a capital D or a lowercase d seems to depend more on the inconsistent and lazy whims of the writer than on any desire to be rigidly faithful to any legal precedent or to the current guidelines of the seventeenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. We need to credit the fact that these are busy professionals and that Cordelia’s case was but one of sadly many to cross the threshold of Los Angeles courtrooms.

Although the various briefing papers, status review reports, and other legal documents that ended up being prepared in Cordelia’s case would be adorned with irritating typos and grammatical errors, a desire for a more faithful adherence to the current Chicago Manual of Style was never really central to my frustration with the Los Angeles DCFS. We need to recognize that the DCFS’s penchant for unprofessional spelling and other stylistic errors will be less important to most parents than the outcome of their social worker’s recommendations to the court.

Any changes and other omissions in extracted passages are indicated using my assigned names for participants in square brackets or by the means of the 2-em dash. Both are standard ways of redacting recognizable personal information in works of this nature or removing extraneous information.

Please note that there appears to be little consistency across extracted material as to the capitalization of various named sections of the California Welfare and Institutions Code (WIC). I have decided to be consistent in my own references to named sections of the WIC and have capitalized Section as in Section 388 or Section 366.21. Please be aware that other writers and myself involved in this story have also used the standard section abbreviation of § as in § 388 to express their references to particular sections of the WIC and other legal areas of the California code book for commissioners, judges, and lawyers.

Elsewhere, I have consistently applied capitalization in my references to my one Petition for Review to the California Supreme Court. In general, I have decided to capitalize names of legal briefs if they have established formal titles. The Appellant’s Opening Brief would be one example. I have not done so, however, when referring to the various supplemental briefs that I filed with the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District) as they are not official titles for statements submitted by parents in support of their appeals. A supplemental brief covers anything filed with the upper court from a short statement or letter to a comprehensive brief. As I dispatched long and fully argued rebuttals of the DCFS’s arguments in support of my own filings to the Second Appellate District, I decided to lowercase all my references to supplemental briefs since each submission lacked a formal legal title.

Overall, though, please be aware that stylistic references to the types or names of legal briefs are applied very inconsistently and that they are more subject to the individual quirks of the writer referencing them. As this inconsistency does not detract from the overall purpose of each document, I think we can refrain from too much quibbling here and leave this concern to each writer as a stylistic choice.

The Los Angeles Department of Children

and Family Services (DCFS)

I had a fractious relationship with the DCFS throughout the handling of my daughter’s dependency case in Los Angeles. It will have been more than obvious to readers of my two previous books that I do not feel that the permanent separating of families should be considered among the best of possible outcomes to dependency proceedings. The outcry regarding children separated from their parents at the border under the current Trump administration makes it clear that the public is not totally convinced that the breaking up of families makes for good policy, let alone good optics. My trilogy adds to this outrage by suggesting that the separating of birth or adoptive families is not the best of options in child-welfare policies anywhere in the United States and not just at the border.¹ Unless presenting circumstances are terrible and irremediable—and my daughter’s presenting circumstances did not come close to either—other options short of breaking up families and terminating parental rights should be pursued.

In general, agencies such as the DCFS are only as powerful as our society and laws let them be and as our parenting mistakes render their work necessary. Some of us will only interact with such agencies in our capacity as readers of newspaper articles and social media accounts. These seemingly thrive by documenting and capturing horrific tales of abused children, mistaken oversight by social workers, and the anguish of angry parents. Others of us will interact on an almost daily basis as we groan under the weight of parenting difficult children against a backdrop of financial or mental-health problems. As parents we can end up interacting with the DCFS when we least want to and are at our most vulnerable. A further subset of us will then have the misfortune to interact with even more difficult social workers following the outcome of petitions carried with haste to the nearest dependency court.

Most of the social workers that I encountered in Los Angeles never encouraged acceptance but rather fostered belligerence toward their interpretation of my daughter’s presenting case. I was to witness a process whereby the social workers and then those in dependency court felt that the solution to Cordelia’s case could be found by weakening her family structure to the point where moving her constantly throughout a range of group homes and residential treatment facilities was deemed preferable to offering targeted family preservation services.

The DCFS achieved many of its goals through an initial process of blank-slating Cordelia and me. This allowed them to impose their own interpretative history on us. An entire vocabulary and prejudicial way of seeing was built around the unhealthy context of victim and perpetrator.

Despite the mayhem that ensued, I still believe that the DCFS should always have the authority to ask reasonable questions of parents regarding their parenting choices and decisions. Although there is a legitimate parental liberty interest in raising children, such liberty should have boundaries, and agencies such as the DCFS should be reasonably allowed to define where these are in any parent-child relationship as well as the nature of any alleged transgressions. The key word is reasonable here.

Nevertheless, for all my understanding of the work that social workers do, it will be clear that I do not trust the DCFS to always get things right for both children and their parents. Most parents will understandably want to contain a perceived parenting mistake and resent the motivation of others to exploit it. When you carry suitcases of concerns to a social worker who only has a small briefcase of predetermined solutions, it sets up an anxious interface for dealing with the ongoing problems that will inevitably arise in interactions with the DCFS both before and during dependency proceedings.

It is not an insult to suggest that every day I felt branded and judged by either the DCFS, the court, or by both. Nor am I exaggerating when I say that empowering Cordelia to manage and lead her own case was extreme and counterproductive. To make sense of all this, I need to be aware that between my visceral hatred of what the Los Angeles DCFS did to Cordelia and myself and my love for how Savannah in the Seattle DCFS first allowed me to adopt my daughter lies a smorgasbord of valuable insights as to how their roles are invariably shaped by institutionalized prejudices and reasonable expectations. To render my daughter’s story accessible for my readers, we will need to understand and explore the dichotomy in these feelings. I feel that I am both paying tribute to the work of the DCFS and acknowledging the feelings of parents and their children when I suggest that most of the feelings stirred up on all sides by child-welfare policies and dependency cases are valid.

Place-Names

Finally, I must address the question of place-names for residential treatment facilities, courts, hospitals, and schools that my daughter attended or was placed in.

As will be apparent to those who have followed this story, those who have experienced or who are currently interacting with the very public Children’s Court in Los Angeles will be more than aware of a range of emotions when dealing with the premier dependency and adoption court in Los Angeles County. These emotions will range from feelings of love when fulfilling the forever-family dream of adoption to scorn and revulsion at any termination of parental rights or the ending of reunification services. Somewhere in the middle will be a degree of relief at any successful reunification with a detained child. Such differing emotions will be inevitable when dealing with any court that both succeeds and fails in what it does and when one’s subjective judgments will depend in large part on the outcome of the proceedings.

I have obviously protected the names of those who work within the Children’s Court, and in deference to the advice of my publishers, I am no longer using the court’s official name in this final volume in my trilogy. If I often present my abused parenting section of the court as the equivalent of the debris field of a significant air or shipping disaster in need of fine combing by the NTSB and others to determine the cause, I will be making sure that my readers are also aware that most families that come before the commissioners in Monterey Park are reunified successfully. The recidivism rate of parents is also extremely low within six months of any reunification with their children. For the 60 percent of families who reunify, this is cause for celebration. Cordelia’s story, however, would not be part of that 60 percent. However, as we shall see later, it would also not rest easily or permanently among the remaining 40 percent of divided families.

Similarly, regarding Cordelia’s schools, residential treatment facilities, and hospitalizations, it is perfectly valid to point out that while each one was more than capable of performing admirable work, the DCFS-facility staff’s conspiracy of silence regarding that work was still highly traumatizing and humiliating for this parent. In my third book and on the publishing advice of Xlibris, I have decided to obscure the names of most of the hospitals, residential treatment group homes, and schools that my daughter attended in Los Angeles and Seattle. I trust that it will be clear to my readers when I have done this by using quotation marks around the fictitious portion of the name. I have not changed the names of Birmingham Community Charter High School, Star View Adolescent Center, or my daughter’s seventh-grade school of Chief Kanim Middle School as they played defining, controversial, or happy roles in her story and my own. I have, however, muddled my daughter’s erratic journey between and outside these public placements.

Regardless, parents should not feel the need to jump to any conclusion that their children would be necessarily mistreated in terms of their medical care, education, or therapeutic recovery if placed in any of them. While I personally believe that Cordelia did not thrive anywhere in Los Angeles while she was in the care of the DCFS, I recognize that detained children can safely recover and even thrive across the full range of facilities assigned to look after them. As my daughter often reminds me, she continues to feel a degree of responsibility for how she herself made many of the poor choices that ended up affecting how I would then view her various placements. Much as I feel that her sense of responsibility is somewhat exaggerated and of little comfort to me as a parent, I acknowledge its existence for better or worse.

I will be reiterating and clarifying many of these feelings in the pages ahead.

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

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It is remarkable how events and truths can be reshaped, like wax that’s sat too long in the sun. There is no such thing as a fact. There is only how you saw the fact, in a given moment. How you reported the fact. How your brain processed that fact. There is no extrication of the storyteller from the story.

—Jodi Picoult, Small Great Things (2016)

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HOW TO READ CLIMBING THE

BROKEN JUDICIAL LADDER

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W RITING ANY WORK of nonfiction for the public requires motivation, an awareness of the potential interest market, and the ability to research a wide range of relevant book, internet-based, and other resources.

Writing any kind of memoir requires a certain amount of dedication to one’s inner vulnerability, not a little to self-indulgence, and the wherewithal to see some higher purpose to the writing. Some memoirists have deployed their imagination to recreate scenes that cannot be recalled completely but perhaps only in fragments. There must be also be a story that is worth the telling.

Writing an instructional memoir—or the personal adaptation of a clinical tale that can be cautionary, heartwarming, and instructive by turns—requires both a deep well of personal experience and an urgent desire to instruct in such a way as to create a narrative that will be both meaningful to the writer and accessible and worthwhile to others. These others will include those looking for possible empathy from the writer for the story lines of their own lives and those who may have a more anxious wish to see what others are saying about their professional conduct and understanding.

In my Denied! Failing Cordelia trilogy, I have written the story of my daughter’s life as a foster child, as an adopted child (and now adult adoptee), and—for better and mostly worse—as a detained child. This has required a willingness on my part to see into and beyond the good and bad of the experience, a willingness to want to survive with some level of dignity still intact, and the dedication to write about the journey undertaken alongside the lessons to be learned at each stage. I wanted to develop a narrative that would be centered on empathy and understanding for my daughter and her experiences, an understanding of my own goals, and some sympathy for the motivations of others who tried to interpret my daughter’s feelings and define her best interests.

The result means that I have been able to offer to the public a trilogy that I trust will come to mean more than just being able to see a challenging time through the eyes of a distraught father. Although it would have been easier to write a story complete with reconstructed or imagined conversations, I believe that such an endeavor would not have left my readers with any broader sense of the lessons and wisdom that I personally needed to learn and which they could also benefit from. Both writer and reader would have arrived at nothing higher than a rocky plateau of a shared misery. Strange bedfellows indeed!

This is more than simply a story of personal outrage, unaddressed grievances, and the lasting legacies of personal and parenting trauma. It is also more than an academic and disinterested account of how children are detained from their parents by social workers in Los Angeles and end up in front of commissioners in the Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court. I have read many types of works surrounding child welfare in America. Some have offered a dispassionate legal analysis of the flaws in child abuse and child-detention policies while others have offered heartfelt memoirs of having survived abusive childhoods. Neither could be said to be speaking to the other but rather at the other. I have wanted to combine these two approaches by opening some of the rational analysis of the one to the overwhelming heartache of the other. We need to broaden our understanding so that we end up empathizing with both social workers and parents at the heart of the problem of deciding when or even if to intervene in parenting decisions made in complex circumstances across the United States. This will not be achieved by sleight of hand or by some trick but rather by the steady approach of understanding the likely motivations of everyone involved in child welfare and in the management of traumatic dependency cases.

In the pages ahead, it will be very important to read the epigraphs and the footnotes as both connect with their respective chapters and with the mood of the unfolding story. Although I would welcome readers tackling the entire book, it is possible to only read select chapters of interest and be able to get a sense of the whole. Unlike a course of antibiotics, the lessons here do not need to be consumed in their entirety to be effective. Having said that, I might feel tempted to suggest that once started, the course should not then be stopped at the first moment of relief. In all truth, readers should not feel any overwhelming need to read the chapters presented here in successive fashion or at a set time each day!

I have tried to make the narrative accessible to readers by deploying a comprehensive and navigable table of contents, extensive textual subheadings, and a rich index of important access terms and phrases used throughout the narrative. I do have a master’s degree in information and library science and so have deployed important skills to enhance the value of the index. I have often been annoyed with writers who fail to include useful indexes to their work and hope to have addressed this frustration here.

*****

In my prologue, I will be looking back at Pride and Legal Prejudice and summarizing the key issues raised in that book. Readers already familiar with