The Woodlands | Magnolia CPS Lawyers

CPS is investigating you because someone reported you for suspected abuse or neglect of your children. Contrary to common belief, it’s extremely easy to find yourself in the midst of a CPS investigation now days. Little things can spur a CPS investigation. Drinking to often, spanking your child, statements taken out of context by your child, poor performance in school, school absences, bruises or scrapes on a child, family violence allegations, suspicion of current or even former drug use, leaving the child home alone, failure to supervise internet activity, and the list goes on and on. CPS investigators, much like detectives, are hired to find abuse and neglect with children. This, of course, was implemented with good intentions. No one wants kids being abused. However, in practice, CPS investigations often get out of control because the people hired are overzealous and suspicious of everything, to the extent that they process little things as being clear signs of abuse or neglect.  The worst thing you can do if you find yourself in this situation is to assume you can “talk your way out of this.” That rarely happens. If CPS comes knocking at your door, it’s not an accident or a mistake. Someone (a neighbor, counselor, doctor, teacher, friend, former spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or other family members) reported you. And, CPS does not have to tell you who made the report.  You can’t trust anyone in this situation. Don’t talk or reach out to anyone other than an experienced Montgomery County CPS Lawyer because all you are doing is making the problem worse. CPS will continue to seek you out and interfere in your life unless you put some distance between yourself and the investigator and that can only be done by hiring a Montgomery County CPS Lawyer to insist that all future contact with you go through your CPS attorney first.

Absolutely.  CPS is extremely powerful.  The most common reason children are removed is because the CPS investigator believes the children are in imminent danger.  This of course is completely up to the investigator to determine what is “danger.”  As previously stated, it can be almost anything but the most common are allegations of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, family violence, and neglectful supervision. Depending on the facts and circumstances surrounding the allegations, the investigator may determine that the children must be immediately removed for their protection.  If that happens, a court date must be set within 14 days of the removal and then a judge will determine if CPS will maintain temporary custody for a longer period of time (normally up to a year), but when things get to this point, you will be facing an underlying parental rights termination suit. If the CPS investigator believes the children are not in immediate danger, then they will normally require you to sign a “safety plan” which is a contract between you and CPS that states you will perform certain actions in order to prevent a removal.  However, the complaint many parents have is that CPS will continue to add more and more services on to the safety plan and remain in your life for a long period of time.  The other problem is in these instances CPS will also continue digging for information, requesting medical releases to find all medical and psychiatric treatment history information, and often discovery other facts or circumstances that can be interpreted as either evidence of abuse or neglect or high risk factors.  If you fail to satisfy CPS in a safety plan, they will then use that as evidence that the children must be removed for their safety.

As a general rule, if CPS or law enforcement ever wants to talk with you, get an attorney.  Many parents believe that they can explain things to CPS and they will understand.  That’s a big risk.  Even if you think there is absolutely nothing to the allegations, when you talk you give CPS more information that can be twisted around. For instance, assume Child Protective Services is investigating you because your child showed up at school with bruises and a teacher called in a report just to be on the safe side.  CPS shows up at your door and questions you about the bruises.  You have nothing to hide because you didn’t hurt the child, they must have fallen outside or something and got some bruises. Child Protective Services Investigators will even questions the child (which they often do without your knowledge when they show up unannounced at school) and they learn that the child just fell while playing outside with other kids.  But still the CPS investigator wants to just check out the environment and talk with you.  They show up, surprise you, and you start talking.  They ask how you normally discipline your child, and ask how you were disciplined in the past.  They learn that on occasion you use corporal punishment and that your parents even used a belt to discipline you.  They also decide to ask you about alcohol and drug use, as well as prescription drugs, just because, well, they always do this.  In this conversation, Child Protective Services learns you take medicine for anxiety and that you also drink (3 times a week, but they believe you are down playing it).  The CPS Investigator then asks to drug test you with a mouth swab, to see if you’ve done anything else for anxiety or recreation. In this scenario, there was absolutely no evidence of abuse, but because you started talking with CPS, the investigator learned a little more each time and used it as a reason to request more information, such as drug testing.  If you refuse to comply with any of their requests at this point or refuse to answer other questions they will assume there is something to hide or that it’s proof of wrong doing. Do yourself a favor,  if CPS comes to talk with you, politely, tell the investigator that you are happy to cooperate with any investigation but because you have always heard to consult an attorney, you are going to do that and you will have your Montgomery County CPS Lawyer in The Woodlands | Magnolia Texas contact them immediately.

Hopefully you already have an experience CPS Lawyer helping you.  If you can’t afford an attorney, the court will appoint an attorney to represent you, but you must show that your income is below the poverty level.  This of course is problematic for a variety of reasons but the biggest concern is the quality of legal representation you receive from a court appointed CPS lawyer.  It’s true that a court appointed attorney is better than no CPS defense attorney representing you at all, but it’s certainly not ideal.  You get what you pay for in life, and this is also true in the legal system.  If you have the ability or have family or friends willing to help you, hire a good CPS lawyer to represent you and enhance your chances of success. When CPS removes your children, you will have a court hearing in front of a District Judge within 14 days from the date of removal. This is known as the “14 day hearing.”  At this hearing, evidence will be presented, testimony given, and it will resemble a short trial.  If the judge believes the child’s present circumstances are a danger, the judge will grant the removal and CPS will be named as a sole managing conservator of the children until the case is resolved.  If CPS wins the hearing, you will be caught up in the system for a long slow legal process that must be resolved in approximately 1 year.  At this hearing, the judge will also set a trial date for your case and this is a trial that will determine if your parental rights will be terminated.  If you lose the hearing, CPS will ask the judge to order you to perform a long list of court ordered services in order for CPS to track your progress (or lack thereof) and depending upon how well you do while the case is pending, you will either get your children back or you will go to a final trial. A good practice is to find nearby relatives that are willing to step in and take possession of your children while the case is pending.  CPS will have extreme power over who can take possession of the children, but they always prefer to put them with relatives that don’t have any “risk factors” that disqualify them.  If you don’t have any relatives that will qualify, your children will be placed in foster care for the pendency of the case.

When CPS removes your children there will be an underlying lawsuit filed by the district attorneys office that seeks to terminate your parental rights.  As previously stated, if you fail to win the 14 day hearing, you will be in a long legal process that must be resolved in a year.  Sometimes, CPS has no desire to resolve the case whether you perform all of your court ordered services or not, this of course depends upon the underlying allegations.  The termination of parental rights is the equivalent to the “death penalty” in a civil/family lawsuit.  Once your rights are terminated you can’t get them back and you will no longer have the ability to be in your child’s life unless you are lucky enough to have a relative that takes placement and allows you to visit from time to time. Do not risk taking a CPS case to trial in Montgomery, Harris, Waller, Grimes, Walker, or Fort Bend County without an experienced CPS Defense Litigator.  Our experienced Montgomery County CPS Lawyers are based out of The Woodlands | Magnolia, TX and offer payment plans to allow parents to afford the best legal representation while making payments.

Family violence allegations are some of the most common and unsuspecting reasons that CPS will get involved in your life.  The violence doesn’t need to involve the children for such a case to open.  What tends to happen is that parents get into an argument and one parent either pushes, slaps, or grabs the other parent who ends up calling the police to end the altercation.  When the police arrive, the parent that called them just thinks the police will scare the other parent and the whole event is over.  This is not reality.  When the police learn what happened, they will normally arrest one of the parties for a “class A Misdemeanor” assault but this of course can easily rise to the level of a felony depending upon how much talking is done.  A common reason for the charges to rise is that the complaining parent often says ” I told him I was going to call the cops and he tried to take my phone away.”  This raises things to an “interference with an emergency call” charge.  Either way, when the police learn you have kids, they often make a CPS report as well, regardless of whether the kids were home and if they saw anything. When CPS gets involved they start asking the same questions and prying into your life and as you already know, the problems only get bigger the longer they are involved.  In many instances, CPS will demand that you kick the other parent out of the house and seek a “protective order” against them and if you don’t they will assume you won’t do what’s necessary to protect your kids and therefore you are a danger to them.  Clearly, things are even worse if there was real violence going on and especially if there has been previous police involvement for domestic disturbances.

CASA stands for “Court Appointed Special Advocates.”  These people are often volunteers that are appointed to speak on the best interest of the child in court.  They don’t have a lot of influence in your case, but its always good to not have CASA complaining too much about you.  This is another example of something that is good in theory but in practice it gets distorted because of the people involved.  CASA volunteers tend to be also over zealous about things and take little problems and view them as high risk factors and cause for concern.  If you loose the 14 day hearing, a CASA volunteer will be appointed in the case as well, so be prepared to be very nice to them, but never consider them a friend or someone to confide in.  Also, don’t stress out if the CASA volunteer constantly gives you a bad report.

When CPS removes your children, an attorney is appointed to represent your children and make legal decisions on their behalf.  This person normally does lots of CPS cases all the time and have an extensive relationship with CPS case workers, CASA, and the District Attorney representing CPS.  Don’t expect the Attorney Ad Litem to like you or to push for reunification with your children.  All too often, they tend to side with CPS and do everything they can to make you look like a bad parent.  It’s also a good practice to not talk with the Ad Litem in hopes of making them like you or explaining your side of the story.