Welcome to Child Protective Services, where folks with sociology degrees, sometimes poor cognitivie abilities, and questionable work ethics who want to be on a mission to save the world are given powers that would make the local police chief blush.

I hated to write that. Snarky it was. Of course most of the cases these folks work are really sad -- I have family that work there.

But it's a blunt instrument, and politicians have decided that anything to do with kids gets "special" treatment. I know of about a dozen good people who have had run-ins with these guys. None of them were guilty of anything bad, yet all of them went through hell. (this list includes me) I also know (from my family members who work there) of really bad people who keep their kids through atrocity after atrocity. Very sad.

EDIT: Just guessing, but it's almost like the closer to upper-middle class you are, the more likely you are to be a victim of CPS-gone-wild. The really poor crackheads don't give a shit, so CPS charges them and shuffles them through the system. Nobody has resources for these kids, so they go back to mom and/or dad. The really rich have a platoon of lawyers descend on CPS (and they have political connections). It's the poor schmucks who have the energy and wherewithal to screw around with CPS (probably in a useless attempt to save their reputation) that get dragged through the dirt.