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time the child is interviewed, parents, school teachers, friends, family, and a determination is made by the investigator whether or not abuse/neglect occurred.
If it is determined that it did occur or that the child is at risk of it occurring, the parents are placed into "services" they must complete over (usually) an 18 month period of time. Services include counseling, drug treatment, parenting classes, etc., and if they complete those services. Parents must prove to the court that they have met certain requirements of a family service plan' before they get their children back if the children are removed from their care and placed into a foster home.

Part of that plan includes several court dates, PPT Staffings (meetings with CPS to determine the status of the case), visits with the child (if the child is removed from the home), and classes, therapy sessions, drug test screenings, rehab, and other services. Sometimes the parent is required to find better housing, a better job, remove a spouse or partner from the home if that spouse/partner is found to be a danger to the child. It is even common to have CPS tell you to get divorced if you want your children back, or break up with your lover. They have parents jumping through hoops, and sometimes even that is not enough.

It sounds like a good system (on paper), but upon deeper examination you realize how many
children are placed into the foster homes when the allegations are not substantiated. Sometimes this is because the children were removed early on just in case'. When that happens, the trauma to the child and family is indescribable.

The involvement of CPS in the household is extraordinarily stressful, often devastating. Parents lose jobs, socially they are scrutinized by those they associate with, reputations are ruined, family bonds are often severed, and lives torn apart. Nervous breakdowns and even suicide has been known to be the result of these cases.

In cases where the child did not need to be removed, but was, OR when the unthinkable happens and that child is then abused in the foster care system that he wasn't even supposed to be in to begin with - the results can be absolutely devastating.
So with stakes so high, in order to keep from destroying children's' lives, the CPS workers should be held accountable at the very least, wouldn't you think? Accountability in CPS is a joke.

There are laws that make the workers not liable in many cases, that protect them against being held accountable in the court

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