When the system to protect children itself abuses families

Sarah Perkins and Joshua Sabey know how lucky they are, though you would never use the word “lucky” given what they’ve been through.

Their infant Cal’s fever and a trip to the emergency room last July touched off a horrific chain of events. A scan showed the baby had had a fractured rib. Perkins told them she had no idea how it happened, but hospital workers suspected abuse. That led to days of questioning, home visits, and investigation, which showed that abuse was highly unlikely.

But then, without warning, social workers and Waltham police showed up at the family’s home in the middle of a Friday night and, minus a warrant, threatened to force entry if they didn’t give up their kids. They took baby Cal and terrified, wailing Clarence, 3, away in a cruiser.

It took a month for the parents to get conditional custody of their children back (after 15 hours, they were placed with their grandmother), and another three months for the Department of Children and Families to close the case against them.

The family left Massachusetts a week later. The temporary move to Idaho they’d planned is now permanent.

“If you have gone through a really traumatic event in a place, you don’t want to go back.” Perkins said in an interview.

On Tuesday, they filed a federal lawsuit against the police and social workers responsible for the July raid that upended their lives, in the hopes of forcing the state to think more carefully before taking kids from other parents.

“This was a tragic event that is multiplied half a million times every year in this country,” Sabey said, citing national numbers. And unlike his, most of the families torn apart in this way lack the resources to fight back. Perkins and Sabey are white, well-educated, middle class. They have supportive families, good connections, and the money and time to comply with all DCF required of them. They had no criminal history, no record of substance abuse, no hint that they were anything but wonderful parents.

It didn’t prevent them from being treated like suspects, questioned relentlessly, their every word and facial expression scrutinized. They spent endless hours and $60,000 in legal fees trying to get their children back. And a year after the boys were taken, much trauma remains. Clarence woke up screaming every night after returning home, and still has night terrors. Perkins and Sabey worry constantly that somebody will suspect them of abuse again.

DCF takes thousands of kids from their family homes each year. Each one of those removals is traumatic, even when it is the right thing to do. Every one of the 3,964 kids removed last year felt terror, confusion, longing – wounds that a mountain of research shows stay with them for years. Because their families -- disproportionately poor, Hispanic, and Black -- lack resources and connections, their stories come to light only rarely. Tragedies like the murders of Jeremiah Oliver and Harmony Montgomery compound their powerlessness, convincing the rest of us it’s better to err on the side of caution.

“We had the assumptions that a lot of people do,” Sabey said. “That these are well-intentioned people, abuse is a problem, and kids need to be protected.”

But now he and Perkins can see the balance is tragically off. A slew of studies has shown that kids living even with deeply imperfect family generally fare better than they do in foster care. DCF has declined to comment on this case, but its leaders are clearly of the same mind: In the past few years, it has tried to keep more kids with their families. And it must be said that just about every social worker is dedicated, and trying to do what is right.

But given what we know now, it is clear that Cal and Clarence should never have been taken from their parents this way, or at all. It’s also clear that this family isn’t alone. Since their story appeared in the Washington Post last year, Perkins and Sabey have heard from scores of desperate parents who say their children have been unjustly removed by the state.

They hope their case will lead to more eyes on each child removal, and more support for parents fighting to keep their families together.

We can’t get it right every time. But surely we can do better than this.