Job And Family Services: Fill & Download for Free

Yep. Family court.24 years ago, when my daughter was 16 1/2 years old, I was laid off from my job. For 5 years I had been paying almost double the amount of child support ordered by the court. I went to my ex wife and explained I would have to go back to the amount of support ordered by the court. In the 15 years we had been divorced, I never missed a support payment.Furious, she refused to accept this and went to the county family court and convinced the family services folks to represent her in an attempt to increase the support back to the level I had been voluntarily paying.Come the summer day of the hearing, I showed up at court with a lawyer family friend who agreed to represent me no charge. We met with the family services people first, provided them with financial affidavits as well as proof that I was current on what I was ordered to pay. The ex wife didn't bother to show, as she and her husband were vacationing on Martha's Vineyard at the time. The family services employee was irked at her absence, to say the least. At the end of our pre-court conference, he stated that after this date they were done with her.Enter the court… the bailiff calls our case. The family services guy tells the judge my ex wife didn't bother to show, as she was on vacation, and they recommended no increase in support while I was unemployed. He also told the judge that I was current in support payments. The judge turns to me and tells me he was disgusted I was there, and if I ever missed so much as 1 payment, he would throw me in jail. Further, from that point on, I would be required to remit all payments to the court. So, current with support and threatened with jail. I would call that rude and biased.

Get out a piece of (preferably lined) paper, a pen, and using your Smart phone as a grammatical guide, carefully compose a letter stating your thoughts, feelings, and contempt for the teacher’s intrusion into your home life.Then carefully clean up your house, and wait patiently for the representatives from The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to arrive at your door.Teachers are, what they call “Mandated Reporters” which means that if they suspect (take a moment to let the word “suspect” sink in), harm is being done to a child, or the child’s living conditions are detrimental to their health, they are duty bound (MUST) report their concerns or they could lose their teaching credentials and job. Not could, will.So if you still somehow, in someway, believe closing the shades and telling the teacher to “pound sand” is a good idea. Think again.

Turning the TablesYes, as others have stated, you can invite the police into the common areas of your home.I once had a woman call the police on her boyfriend because they had been arguing, and she knew he had a warrant for failure to appear. We arrived, and she let us into her apartment. She told us in a nasty tone, “Do your job and lock him up.”It seems they had been arguing over another man who was a competing love interest but also used cocaine. I got a strong feeling that she wanted us to lock up her live-in boyfriend to get him out of the apartment so she could entertain and get high with her other male friend.That didn’t sit well with me, and I felt like she was using us. The warrant was over a year old, but she picked tonight to drop a dime on him. He had to go into the bedroom to retrieve his shoes. I followed him in, and he tearfully showed me he had a closet full of clothes, saying he had a job and was working to support her and a six-year-old child they had together who was sleeping in the next room.He further confided that she had a drug problem and had done this to him before when she wanted to get high with one of her drug addict friends. He didn’t want their child around that, and I couldn’t blame him.I then asked if he thought there were drugs in the apartment. Without hesitation, he walked over to the nightstand and yanked open the bottom drawer. Looking in the drawer—which was now in plain view—I could see a mirror with white powder on it and a metal tube I believed was being used to snort powdered cocaine.Now having probable cause, I checked farther in the drawer and located about an eighth ounce of cocaine. Other items in the nightstand included makeup curlers and a woman's hairbrush.I had another officer bring the woman to the bedroom. Seeing the drugs, which were now in my hand, she called him every foul name she knew. I explained that based on where we found the drugs, she was being placed under arrest and charged with possession of cocaine. She didn’t deny the drugs were hers. She focused her wrath on the boyfriend, who returned her earlier favor by dropping a dime on her.It was during a time when people went to jail for such crimes—but it presented somewhat of a dilemma. With both parents under arrest, the child would have to be turned over to family services.I telephoned the judge who had issued the failure to appear warrant and explained the situation. He agreed to keep the child at the apartment and assigned the man a new court date. The woman's charge was felony possession of cocaine.At the police station, I explained to her that the judge had vacated the boyfriend's warrant, but she was going to jail. I thought she’d explode!On the ride to the county jail, she was quiet, only breaking her silence once to say,“You guys are worthless; why did I bother calling you?”I knew why she called the police, but my only answer was a satisfying smile.Author of the 2020 book “One Cop’s Life” available on Amazon.