Thanks to so many who continue to ask about my grandson.
Jordan is now 13 months old and has been in foster care for a year. He
appears healthy, although no x-rays have been taken since he left the hospital so
there may have been further minor fractures that have not been diagnosed. My
husband and I are permitted to attend some visitation sessions, but since
they are scheduled during our working hours we rarely see the baby.
We finally received word last week from the DA's office that my son and his
wife will "probably" not be prosecuted. They do not believe that there is
enough evidence to convict.
We have been in court five times so far with another review hearing
scheduled in July. Our families are appealing both the original abuse finding and
CYF's refusal to grant us custody as grandparents. We have been told this
process can take up to a year. If the abuse finding is not overturned, the
parents will be listed on the state's child abuse registry for 23 years and will
be
unable to work with children in any capacity, including teaching Sunday
School, Bible school, or working with church youth groups.
The parents have now been told that CYF does intend to reunite the family,
although this may take up to another year since no one has explained how the
fractures occurred. The judge completely discounted the medical specialists
who did offer plausible scenarios that supported the parents' innocence. It's
a Catch 22 since the baby's parents did not abuse him and are unable to give
the "confession" the authorities would like. Visitation sessions, which
have been twice a week for an hour for the past year, have now been increased to
two hours twice a week with plans to begin short, partially unsupervised
visits in the home, each followed by a "debriefing" session.
The parents continue to attend weekly domestic abuse classes, parent support
groups, parenting classes, and individual and couple counseling, all as
ordered by the court to prove their fitness as parents and to convince the
authorities that they want him back badly enough to spend countless hours and
thousands of dollars to prove it.
My heart goes out to the hundreds of families that are in similar situations
throughout this country and others. At least we now have hope that Jordan
will be returned to his parents, hopefully before his second birthday. Then
we can focus on trying to determine what really happened to him, since CYF has
done no further investigation into possible medical causes for the broken
bones.
I'll let you know when Jordan goes home, and thanks again for your caring
support.
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