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Shirley M. Berens In all my years of experience working with the system, I never found that the citizens review panel was ever successful in settling any grievances; the reason being is that the panel is supposed to be made up of independent people that have no connection with the courts or human services, but I find this is not the case. Many who are on the board are retired social workers or people connected with the court system in some way. In my case I found I had more luck working through the foster care review board. I think the citizens review panel is a good idea but is not policed enough to be effective. To much of the buddy system working against honest grandparents with huge issues that need to be addressed concerning the welfare of their grandchildren. I never tried using the grievance process in my case, because at the time I did not know a citizens review panel existed, so I learned how to work through the system on my own. I was never told I had the option of going to the panel to file a grievance, a material fact that was kept hidden from me. Chaffee County was very selective on the kind of information they supplied to me. I lived in Denver and Chaffee County was two hours away this made it difficult for me to work on my case and keep track of what human services were doing concerning my grandchildren. Many grandparents find themselves facing many problems trying to deal with issues in their grandchildren’s case. They don’t understand the system or know who to talk with until they are recommended to the Grandparents Resource Center, then they get the help they need. I have always believed there should be an independent commission or a branch added to the Commission on Aging addressing problems grandparents face when trying to get custody of their grandchildren placed in foster care. I was appointed to the Commission on Aging from 1999 – 2002 and made that recommendation to the Commission but nothing ever happened. I am going to try to purse this again now that I find nothing has changed since the early 2000’s so that grandparents can have a louder voice at the capital. I find it is going to take something much larger then a county citizen’s review panel to correct the system and help grandparents who have grievances. The commission I am recommending should be made up of people who are independent from human service and court system that would look into the matters concerning grandparents and their issues over their getting custody of their grandchildren. And yes, grandparents should be on this commission so that someone can understand the issues presented to them. The people on this commission should not benefit from the system in anyway and be totally independent from the human services system. I found the system so big and make so many mistakes that these mistakes are getting buried in tons of paperwork and no one is ever accountable for what happens to children; hiding behind state immunity laws has to stop. State Immunity is a double edge sword keeping honest people honest and helping those people who have much to hide from becoming accountable for their actions. Because of this, many children and families are getting hurt and many children killed. The system withholds many rights from the children and their families for lack of competency and no one ever looks into how these matters. Children lose their lives, their freedom of speech, and even sometimes even their freedom of religion. This must be stopped.
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