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Fake Reunification

May 8, 2014 permalink

Massachusetts DCF has announced a plan to reunite Justina Pelletier with her family. Journalist Michael Graham says it is a fake. How does he know it's fake? The press release for the plan arrived in his inbox before word got to the parents.

For readers who don't believe child protectors use fake reunification stories, in December 2012 fixcas posted an announcment by father Derek Hoare along with a press report from the Abbotsford News. Both reported the news that Ayn Van Dyk would be soon retunited with her parents. She is still in foster care today.

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Graham: Justina ‘reunion’ a political ploy

Press told well before state tells parents

“Why can’t Justina just come home?”

Of course that’s the question Lou and Linda Pelletier are asking about the daughter taken from them more than a year ago. As a parent, isn’t it the question you’d ask?

That’s not the question the Patrick administration wants people asking in the Justina Pelletier case. They want you asking why Justina’s parents won’t just accept Health and Human Services Secretary John Polanowicz’s family reunification plan. The Patrick administration doesn’t want you asking parenting or medical questions. They’re handling Justina like a political issue.

How do I know? Because I saw Justina’s “reunion” plan before her family did.

Monday at 12:15 p.m., my email “pinged” with a message from Alec Loftus of Health and Human Services. Attached was a letter laying out the state’s reunification plan — sent to the media before it was given to the family.

And not just “the media” — but me — Michael Graham — the guy whose emails and phone calls the Patrick HHS has refused to return for weeks. Suddenly I’m getting my first-ever email from Polanowicz’s office, “pre-selling” me the deal before Lou and Linda Pelletier even see it?

This isn’t protecting children. It’s politics.

Massachusetts and the Patrick administration have gotten a national black eye from this story. Bay State voters may give their undying support to Democrat pols no matter what they do, but most of America isn’t as blindly partisan. The scenario of a sick girl snatched from her parents during a weekend hospital stay and kept for more than a year is shocking beyond the Massachusetts border.

Then there’s the bizarro reunification deal itself.

The state’s plan is to (finally) get Justina out of Massachusetts and back to her home state of Connecticut. OK, good start. But instead of going home with mom and dad, the Department of Children and Families insists on keeping custody of Justina while she’s forced to stay in the psych ward of the JRI Susan Wayne Center.

So one state is going to oversee the custody and health care of the citizen of another state in a medical facility … in her home state?

Even if the Massachusetts DCF didn’t have a terrifying track record of lost and dead children in its care, this would be a formula for disaster.

Why not just release Justina to her parents, then send her file to Connecticut’s DCF and let their investigators decide if the Pelletiers are a danger to their daughter? Isn’t that the simple and easy solution for both Justina and Massachusetts?

Polanowicz continues to insist DCF doesn’t have that option. But as attorney Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel points out, “DCF regulations explicitly state that DCF ‘does have the option to close cases by administrative decision without court action’ even if their custody is based on a court order.”

I think the problem is what politicians call “optics.” Simply letting Justina go home validates the view that the Patrick administration was wrong to seize her in the first place.

Remember the original excuse was DCF’s accusation of “medical abuse” against the Pelletiers. That “abuse” consisted of following treatment prescribed by doctors at Tufts Medical Center. Now, Polanowicz’s own plan calls for the Pelletiers to “follow through with the Tufts Medical Center plan.”

Wait — isn’t that why the state took Justina in the first place?

I asked Lou Pelletier yesterday why not take the deal to, if nothing else, get Justina out of corrupt Massachusetts.

“Because this is a bait-and-switch,” he told me. “They want an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ scenario where Justina’s being treated just as badly, but without all the public pressure they’re getting now.”

Unfortunately, it appears Massachusetts will move her anyway. Lou and Linda Pelletier have no power. They’re the least important people in Deval Patrick’s political system:

Parents.

Source: Boston Herald

Note: On May 11, Mother's Day, DCF refused to let Justina visit her mother.

Addendem: On May 12 Justina was moved to a facility in Connecticut, but remains in legal custody of the state of Massachusetts.

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Justina Pelletier Moved To Connecticut Facility

Susan Wayne Center For Exellence
Susan Wayne Center For Exellence Facility where Justina Pelletier was transferred Monday

Justina Pelletier, the West Hartford teen at the center of an interstate custody dispute, has been moved to a Connecticut treatment facility on Monday.

She had been at the Wayside Youth and Family Support Network Facility In Framingham, Mass. and was moved to JRI Susan Wayne Center For Excellence In Thompson, which is in the northeast corner of the state.

The 15 year old remains in the custody of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families as she’s been the past 15 months.

She was taken from her parents after they disagreed with a sudden diagnosis issued at a new hospital.

Justina’s parents met with the Wayne center’s director Monday — the parents want her home immediately.

Source: WTIC FOX Connecticut

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