Legal Question in Family Law in Florida
I live in Florida and my husband, who I am no longer with, bit my child. Children's Services got involved, and he is not allowed to see the children for an undetermined amount of time.
For 6 weeks, I tried reaching my case worker at Children's Services with no luck. I left messages when I could, but most of the time I was told her voicemail was full. I even tried sending her text messages when I had a question.
After 6 weeks, I find out that a new case worker went to my sons' schools and spoke to them without my knowledge. At first I thought there was nothing I could do about this, because I had heard that they were allowed to do this. But now one of my coworkers tells me that because my youngest child is only 3 years old, they weren't allowed to do that.(?) The only reason I found out she was there at all was because the preschool called me and alerted me that she was there, and I asked them to please have her call me when she was done. Otherwise, I may still not have had any contact with them at all. Then she asked me why it was he wouldn't talk to her, and I told he he's only 3, and he doesn't know you!! She strongly implied that he didn't want to talk to her because he was hiding something. I again explained that he is VERY young, and is just getting used to being away from me at all, and that he doesn't know her at all, but she kept insisting that maybe there was more going on. (By the way, they never asked me where my youngest goes to school because they told me they were going to speak to the kids at home if they ever needed to-she told me that she went to my older son's school first, and he told her where to go. I never gave them this information-she got the name of the preschool from my older child.)
The other thing that happened is that she told me she needed me to sign a form giving my permission to have OUR conversations over the phone instead of in person. I explained I was a receptionist and that I couldn't leave the desk at the moment, but that she could come later in the day or the next day. She promised she would be in and out of my job in under 30 seconds. She arrived a few minutes later, and in front of all my coworkers and clients asked me extremely personal questions and discussed the abuse that had taken place. When I began to cry because I was so angry, she told me she thought I needed some counseling. I told her that I was crying because I was very angry with her for upsetting me at work (I was cashing people out, answering the phone, making appointments for clients, greeting customers, etc while all this was going on!) and she finally left after almost 15 minutes, AND she never asked me to sign the form that she said was the entire purpose of her coming. She took notes during the entire conversation, and of course, when she left, everyone at my job, including clients, all wanted to know who she was and what we were talking about. And some clients overheard every word! It was extremely embarrassing!
Do you have any idea what my rights and my childrens' rights were in this situation? Do I need to get a lawyer myself? I'm very frustrated because 6 weeks ago when this first started, they were on MY side, and told me they were going to help me, and then avoided all contact with me for 6 weeks. NOW they are treating me as if I'm the abuser, when I am in fact the victim. This happened Thursday morning, early, and I have been trying in vain to reach someone to ask some questions, and they are once again not returning my calls or answering the phone.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Stop listening to coworkers and start listening to a lawyer. Go get a lawyer now because you are under investigation. They were never on your side, they were always on your child's side. Here's their question: who would marry someone who is so psycho that he would bite his own child? You are a suspect, and they don't care how embarrased you are or how much you cry; they care about whether your child is safe. They probably aren't going to answer your questions because they probably think you are a bad parent for being married to a psycho.
Your lawyer's job will be to convince them that the father's behavior is aberrant or recently changed, and therefore it's new to you.