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What are the 5 Questions DCF Will Ask You For Each Stage of the Investigation?

The DCF Investigation is a multi-step process that allows social workers to perform fact-finding missions – just like the police. They can come anytime, night or day, weekend or holiday, to create their report on the current allegations you are facing.

What they place into their report is what they uncover from these meetings. They may include some, all, or none of what you say! It is entirely up to the investigator! What you must understand

Why? Otherwise, they will threaten you with removal of your children. You’re caught between a rock and a hard place –

Violate Your Constitutional Parental Rights   – or –   Lose Your Children to DCF Foster Care!

When facing DCF, you must navigate carefully between these two outcomes. However, they are not your only options. You ALWAYS have the ability to get your case closed; getting DCF out of your life for good without losing your children to Foster Care. You must plan ahead, have vision, and seek wisdom when fighting DCF.

The best way to prepare is to familiarize yourself with the questions that DCF will ask you during your DCF investigation. If you give DCF the right information, they may unsupport your allegations at the close of the investigation. Otherwise, if you LIE or SAY NOTHING, you may be putting yourself and your family in harm’s way. DCF is very powerful, and asks many many difficult questions. Familiarize yourself with the strategy on how to give DCF the right answers the right way without the stress of a DCF involvement.

These are the most frequent and challenging questions that your DCF investigator will ask you. Before answering these questions, discover the following considerations when answering, and why you’ll always think twice before responding to them.

Questions The Investigator Will Ask You DURING THE HOME VISIT

Questions They Ask YOU!

  1. “Do you, or have you ever had any problems with drugs or alcohol?”
  2. “Do you have any issues with your anger?”
  3. “Have you ever been accused of or convicted of a crime?”
  4. “Are all your children fully up to date medically?
  5. “Do you consent to signing releases of information to speak to collaterals?”

Questions They Ask YOUR CHILDREN!

  1. “Have you ever been inappropriately touched by your parents, caregiver, or by any adult?”
  2. “Have you ever seen your parents, caregiver, or any adult hit another adult near you?”
  3. “Do you ever feel unsafe around your parents, caregiver, or any other adult?”
  4. “Do your parents or caregivers ever leave you alone at home, leave you without anyone watching you?”
  5. “Do you feel safer when you are not around your parents?”

How Parents Answered Questions that Almost Ruined Any Chance of Case Closure

I recently had a case where Mom and Dad came in to see me. DCF was investigating them for allegations of child neglect, stemming from an incident where the police had responded to a possible Domestic Violence call at their home and their 3 young children were present. Mom and Dad had plans for an evening with friends at a local restaurant, and Mom asked Dad to be the designated driver.

Mom was having a wonderful time with her friends. That all changed when she went over to the other side of the bar and saw that Dad had a beer in front of him. She was furious at him! He was supposed to be the designated driver, which means you don’t drink anything! They went out in the parking lot and she let him have it. She was really upset with him.

She says, “I came out just to relax with the girls. You know, I asked you to be the designated driver. As a designated driver, you don’t drink anything. You stay sober, so no one can say you were drinking. Because if we get stopped on the way home or something happens, you want to be able to tell the police, ‘I haven’t been drinking.”

Dad saw it another way. He didn’t believe he did not hold up his end of the deal. So what happened next was Dad was shouting at Mom for being upset with his choices. They had a verbal disagreement in the parking lot outside. Mom told the Dad that he was in the wrong, that he did act irresponsibly, and that he was not listening.

Because of the disagreement outside the restaurant, Mom and Dad were driven home by one of her girlfriends. When they got home, they went inside to check on the children. No less than 5 minutes later, up walked the police!

When the police went into the home and saw the home, there was a shattered bowl on the floor and a broken TV remote on the floor. They believed that the parents were fighting inside! The police insisted that they wanted to see and speak to the children to interview them about what happened. So the parents got the children up. The children, sleepy-eyed, each told the officers that nothing of the sort had occurred. That there was no domestic incident that occurred that night.

A 51A was still filed two days later, alleging that the domestic violence incident DID OCCUR. DCF received the police report, and what was written was shocking. One of the children was asked if they ever see Mom and Dad fighting with each other. The child, awoken from slumber and unable to understand the question, said yes to the police. This was included in the police report. The police report was sent to DCF by a mandated reporter at the police station, and screened in for Child Neglect.

Mom and Dad were very scared, knowing DCF wanted to come and speak to them and their children. They told me that their plan was to say NOTHING to DCF! Why? They were unsure of what was to be asked, and how DCF was going to ask it. They had no idea what would happen when DCF would come. DCF showed up to the home and began asking questions of Mom, Dad, and of each of their children. Each of the parents and the children were brought into a room, one by one, and asked a set of questions about the story. Each was interrogated for less than a minute. None of the children answered DCF’s questions, and were afraid that by saying anything they would get into trouble. DCF completed the visit. They left the home, and immediately started their report.

15 days later, the report was supported and a letter with the allegations of neglect due to domestic violence were sent to the home. Mom and Dad were shocked and outraged. They had told their children to never tell DCF anything, that there was any fighting between Mom and Dad. What could have been said to support the allegation? Well, DCF took their silence for non-compliance! DCF then took the lack of response, and started filling in the information that THEY wanted to include in order to support allegations of neglect due to domestic violence.

Mom and Dad came to see me. I told them their first mistake was not complying with the Department and making themselves look uncooperative. We needed to change that, quick. We contacted DCF, set up a time to speak to both parents and the children, and we worked with the department in the spirit of cooperation, getting the evidence, all the documentation, and showing them that these parents had had a disagreement. It wasn’t a fight. There was no domestic violence.

The children told DCF point blank that the parents do not hit each other, do not get into fights. DCF asked about the broken remote that was on the floor that kicked off this whole mess. This family had a very, very, very large dog. You could put a saddle on this dog, it was so big. The dog knocked the bowl and the clicker off the side table, according to the children. The children didn’t hear it fall as they were asleep – no one could put it back on the table before the police had arrived.

DCF thought that the bowl and remote had been knocked over during a scuffle or something with the parents gave that information to DCF. The children very simply put a kibosh on that, told DCF when they told the truth, that that’s not what happened. The dog knocked it over, and it’s not uncommon for the dog to be a little bit clumsy in the house because of the dog’s size, just a very, very large dog. The DCF social worker looked at the parents, looked at the whole situation, did their due diligence, contacted the collaterals. When all was said and all was done, they unsupported the allegations for neglect.

All the kids were doing well in school. All the kids were well-behaved, well-groomed, no concerns at school, no concerns with the pediatrician, and there were no concerns about the house. All the evidence pointed to this. There was nothing that had to be made up or mistruths or half-truths or no truths. The truth was told.

When all was said and all was done, it was broken down and easy for DCF social workers to reach the right decision, which was to unsupport the allegation. DCF wants to reach the right decision. Help them reach that decision.

Now, the moral of the story in this case is the following. Make sure you get all your witnesses to speak, including your children. That’s why it’s so important to make sure your children get to say what they need to say without being afraid, without being bullied by DCF, or being spoken to when separated by DCF. Have your children tell the truth, tell their story. You as the parents, you can’t all of a sudden clam up and say, “I’m not going to talk to you,” because then you don’t tell your story. You have to get your story out! You have to tell the truth and support it as best you can with witnesses as well as evidentiary documentation. It’s huge.

Make sure you get your story told. Make sure your story gets told the right way with the right evidence by telling the truth so that everybody can go home happy. The only way you can know how to answer the truth is by understanding the questions ahead of time, so that you will not fail when DCF comes to your home.

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