Clay County mom fights back against the justice system to regain custody of children
The nightmare started for Melinda Andre in May 2020. A domestic violence incident with the father of the youngest of Andre’s three children led to the removal of the kids from her home in October of the same year. Andre’s fight to reunite with her children was just beginning.
Clay County Circuit Court Judge Kathryn Elizabeth Davis ordered Andre not to have contact with her boyfriend, undergo random testing for illegal drugs, and obtain a mental health screening among other stipulations to reunify with her children. Those are pretty standard requirements in child protection cases.
Andre has pretty much satisfied them all, according to legal documents she provided. She has maintained steady employment, has a stable home and reliable transportation, and continues to stack up negative drug tests.
Still, Andre fears juvenile officers in Clay County are taking the next steps moving toward recommending that Davis terminate her parental rights. Who in their right mind separates a young infant not even 2 years old from his or her mother when there is absolutely no evidence of harm?
A permanency hearing is scheduled for Nov. 4, but Andre decided to take matters into her own hands. Without help from an attorney, she filed a petition in Clay County Circuit Court asking for an emergency hearing to argue why she deserves legal sole custody of her three children. She wants her kids back immediately. It’s a legal maneuver that may not work in her favor. But Andre was left with little choice. She is separated from two of her children and was told by a caseworker that they have no magic reason why a child is returned home, according to the petition she filed.
“Why not just give them back?” Andre, of Kansas City, said. “I’ve done everything they’ve asked me to do.”
Missouri juvenile officers at odds with caseworkers
Andre is baffled by the decision to proceed with a permanency hearing and how it was made. Although her 16-year-old daughter remains in state custody with two younger brothers, the teen is back home on a trial basis. Two boys, 10 and 1, remain in foster homes. Each case is handled based on the needs of the children and the family, an official with the Clay County Juvenile Office told me. All children are treated as individuals, with their own set of specific needs. Some children might be ready to go back home before others. There is no absolute procedure when it comes to achieving reunification.
But shouldn’t there be uniformity in these decisions? Splitting families is not ideal and goes against recommendations of child protection advocates everywhere. If Andre’s oldest is fit to return to home, even temporarily while the case proceeds through court, the younger kids should be as well.
If one is safe, they should all be safe.
“Isn’t that basically kidnapping?” Andre said. “To keep a mother from her children, with one’s location being kept a secret from me and telling me they have no reasons why they are doing so? Absurd. It’s just unbelievable. The system is not designed to help families.”
Missouri is one of just a few states that employ juvenile officers, who are often at odds with caseworkers from the Missouri Department of Social Services Children’s Division.
By state statute, a juvenile officer has the power to remove children facing abuse or neglect from a home. The law doesn’t afford case workers with the Children’s Division the same authority.
Case workers act as the police and conduct home visits to determine if a parent is fit to be reunified with their child. A juvenile officer is akin to a prosecutor, holding immense power in these cases. The setup is unusual if not unconstitutional, a law review article published in 2013 argued.
One deputy juvenile officer assigned to Andre’s case told her that it will be a long time before she sees her children again.
The law is supposed to be impartial, objective and fact-based. In the family division of Clay County Circuit Court, a fair shake is hard to come by for parents like Andre faced with the threat of losing the right to raise their children.
