Practical Ways to Reform the Child Welfare System

In recent years it has become frighteningly common for homeschoolers to be wrongfully accused of abuse and neglect on hotlines to state child welfare departments. Individuals who do not like homeschoolers can simply make an anonymous phone call and fabricate abuse stories about their neighbors. Social workers then have a legal obligation to investigate. Some statistics show that up to 60 percent of children removed from their homes by social workers were taken away from their parents without probable cause of abuse. Approximately 30 percent of reports that are investigated include only one child found to be a victim of abuse or neglect. Fifty-eight percent of the reports are found unsubstantiated.¹ Under this system, which ignores due process of law, many innocent families are subjected to harassment.

Each state has different policies regarding social workers. However, social workers usually want to enter the family’s home and interrogate the children separately. To allow either exposes the family to great risk. Every week, Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) attorneys counsel member families and intervene to protect them from social worker “fishing expeditions.” Unfortunately, the child welfare system sometimes ends up abusing the very families it is supposed to help. To address this problem, HSLDA is working to reform state child welfare laws. We support legislation that would protect families by forcing social workers to abide by the same laws regular law enforcement officials must obey.

The five areas most in need of reform are:

1. Anonymous Tips: Child welfare laws should be amended to require all reporters of child abuse to give their names, addresses and phone numbers. This will curtail false reporting and end harassment stemming from anonymous tips.
2. False Reporting: Child welfare laws should be amended to make false reporting at least a class C misdemeanor.
3. Probable Cause/Warrant: Social workers must be held accountable to the same Fourth Amendment standards as the police. A warrant must be obtained before a social worker can enter the home without consent of the parents.
4. Access to Records: Many times homeschoolers who are investigated by social workers are denied access to the records of their investigation. Child welfare laws should be amended to allow victims of the system to inspect their records in order to seek recourse.
5. Prohibition of the Violation of Parent’s Constitutional Rights: The recognition of parental rights is important to create an even playing field during child welfare investigations.

As long as social workers continue to operate outside the bounds of the Constitution, the privacy and parental rights of all Americans will be jeopardized. These amendments to state laws will provide parents with significant protection from child abuse investigations.

Court Decisions Upholding Fourth Amendment Rights In the Face of Social Worker Investigations

HSLDA has defended many homeschool parents from unconstitutional investigations by social workers. Below are excerpts from significant appellate court cases which HSLDA won, clarifying the rights of parents when faced with an investigation by a social worker.

The Alabama Court of Appeals vindicated an innocent homeschool mom, the victim of an anonymous tip, by striking down a lower court order that allowed the social worker to enter the home. The court declared:

We suggest, however, that the power of the courts to permit invasions of the privacy protected by our federal and state constitutions, is not to be exercised except upon a showing of reasonable or probable cause to believe that a crime is being or about to be committed or a valid regulation is being or about to be violated ...

The “cause shown” [in this case] was unsworn hearsay and could, at best, present a mere suspicion. A mere suspicion is not sufficient to rise to reasonable or probable cause.

Although home schoolers have continued to fight back in the courts to protect themselves, statutory changes in state child welfare codes will be more effective in preventing abuse by the system before it happens.

This Fourth Amendment right case was originally filed February 24, 1995, by HSLDA on behalf of Robert and Shirley Calabretta in the Eastern District of California federal court. A Yolo County policeman and social worker had forced their way in the home over the objections of the mother. Based simply on an anonymous tip in which the tipster merely said she heard a cry in the night of “No, Daddy, no!” from the Calabretta home. After the coerced entry, interrogation of the children, and the strip search of a 3-year-old, no evidence of abuse was found and the officials ended the investigation.