By DAVID IGNELL
For readers following the tragic “AK Mom” story, I’m sad to report that George’s 16th birthday and third consecutive Easter away from home passed without Gov. Mike Dunleavy reuniting the family.
Dunleavy’s inaction means that AK Mom must next go through a long, drawn-out trial to get her children back. The trial starts this week, but Judge Kirsten Stohler has scheduled three weeks of trial days spread out over the next three calendar months. The trial won’t conclude until July.
The Office of Children’s Services will be represented by the Alaska Attorney General. AK Mom will be represented by a sole practitioner. The Guardian Ad Litem, the Knik Tribe, and lawyers representing the children through the Office of Public Advocacy will also participate.
No jury will be involved. It is up to Judge Stohler to determine if AK Mom’s children get to return home. The judge has not yet determined if the press will have access to the trial.
Has anything changed in the last 30 years?
Alaska legislators should be closely scrutinizing the actions of the Office of Children’s Services, Guardian Ad Litem, and Office of Public Advocacy during this trial. It’s a rare opportunity to gain valuable insight into the motivations of a dysfunctional foster care system that has challenged our Legislature for decades.
In 1990, a Family Law Review Task Force, chaired by Sen. Jack Coghill, held hearings in which 280 Alaska citizens submitted public or confidential testimony. The task force’s final report was particularly harsh on these State family service providers stating, “generally speaking, they are viewed as not accountable for their actions, more interested in protecting the agencies than in providing adequate services, nonresponsive, obstructionist and disingenuous.”
Why is the Alaska attorney general going after AK Mom with both barrels loaded?
I suspect one of the State’s objectives in the trial is to muscle out a win or favorable settlement, and leverage that outcome to discredit the federal class action suit filed against Office of Children’s Services last summer. AK Mom’s children represent 5 of the 13 children in that class action lawsuit, or 40% of the named children.
This indirect assault on the class action lawsuit could help the State avoid a formidable legal team with deep pockets in federal court. That team consists of 11 lawyers from three Alaska law firms and a national non-profit that advocates for children in dysfunctional foster care systems like Alaska’s.
The Attorney General must try to prove Office of Children’s Services is a better parent than AK Mom.
His attorneys will try to steer Judge Stohler’s attention away from the many appalling facts MRAK readers are by now familiar with – the children being split up from each other, 60 different placements including extended care in motel rooms by a transport company, multiple runaway attempts, bad grades, etc.
The State could have a tactical advantage in presenting their case first. If Stohler allows it, Office of Children’s Services officials will have days to nitpick mistakes they perceive AK Mom has made raising five children she adopted with fetal alcohol syndrome (FASD) over the last 17 years. Much of that evidence will likely be hearsay contained in notes authored by Office of Children’s Services employees, some with axes to grind against AK Mom.
Then the State will bring in experts and other witnesses who claim the kids are doing better with Office of Children’s Services. Most of these witnesses may receive economic benefit through the State. Money can persuade loyalty; Office of Children’s Services has a lot of cash and can also influence other government agencies.
The discernment of truth can often be assisted by focusing on what’s missing. In this case, who’s the State not calling as witnesses?
Will the Attorney General call the many church members, teachers, friends, and even complete strangers, who observed the family closely and feel AK Mom was very loving and responsible towards her children? Will he call the Office of Children’s Services social worker who understood FASD and was supportive of AK Mom, but who was removed from the case when Office of Children’s Services took the children?
Much ado about nothing
The truth in this case is simple. From the perspective of people who understand the effects of FASD on children, AK Mom’s family was doing remarkably well. Even people who don’t know much about FASD noticed big behavioral improvements after a new medical management provider utilized “Genomind” testing. The kids were loved and were happy. They were doing well in school. It was a compelling story of hope for FASD children.
David Ignell: OCS pre-empts a child’s family time for sex education, without parental consent
However, some of the Office of Children’s Services personnel and members of the established medical industrial complex wouldn’t even acknowledge that AK Mom is a registered nurse who understands FASD better than they do. They didn’t like it when AK Mom stood up to them and didn’t go along with their opinions. Their animosity towards AK Mom grew to the point where they decided to teach her a ruthless lesson at the expense of the health and safety of her five children.
Judge Stohler can save a ton of court time and State resources by cutting directly to the chase and focusing on the actions of the State and medical providers in the months leading up to the removal. By taking this approach, Stohler can more quickly return AK Mom’s children to the safety of their home. There is an established risk that something bad could happen to these kids between now and July.
SCAN’s history of reckless Munchausen claims
My original article about AK Mom outlined the role that Dr. Barbara Knox and the Alaska CARES facility played in taking the five children. The danger Knox presented to Alaskan families has been well documented and she is long gone, but Office of Children’s Services still dug in their heels.
David Ignell: Grand jury investigations into OCS continue to be hijacked
Knox had help from down south. The initial allegation of Munchausen, or medical abuse, came out of a group within Seattle Children’s Hospital known as Safe Child and Adolescent Network, or SCAN.
SCAN’s former Medical Director is Kenneth Feldman, a doctor of considerable controversy in the Pacific Northwest. Feldman was involved in SCAN’s Munchausen claims against AK Mom and later recommended that all five children have no contact with her. OCS then used these allegations to try avoiding important federal law known as the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Carol Smith, a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, wrote a pair of articles in 2002 about multiple cases where Feldman was involved in breaking up families with unsubstantiated claims of medical abuse. One mother who lost a child to a bad diagnosis by Feldman called it “medical stalking.”
Seattle P-I: Persecuted parents or protected children?
According to Smith, Dr. Michael Weinraub testified that Feldman was reckless in his medical consultation, that he had a preconceived opinion of abuse, and that he based his recommendation on limited records.
Seattle P-I: Suspicions cost one family the child they wanted to adopt
Dr. Gil Kliman, a San Francisco psychiatrist who testified against Feldman in several lawsuits was quoted in a Smith article as saying, “It looks to me like there is a big epidemic of Munchausen surrounding Dr. Feldman.”
The rate of Feldman’s allegations so alarmed Kliman that he filed a complaint with Washington authorities citing the “error rate Dr. Feldman has in making this diagnosis, and the frequency with which the children have other causes for their conditions”.
Insisting on in-person medical visits for autistic kids with FASD triggers medical abuse claims
SCAN claims it got involved because of complaints from Seattle Children’s Hospital staff that AK Mom was insisting on in-person visits instead of Zoom calls for her two autistic boys during the Covid outbreak.
What has this world come to when a mother’s insistence on in-person medical visits triggers concern of abuse by a hospital? Especially for autistic boys with FASD and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, who don’t do well on Zoom calls.
The Alaska Governor’s Council on Disabilities publishes a pamphlet entitled “9 Core Messages: What Everyone Should Know About Prenatal Alcohol Exposure”. Regarding attention and focus, it lists the following challenges about FASD children: “Easily distracted, memory challenges, difficulty staying attentive or engaged.”
Making Seattle Children’s Hospital’s behavior even more egregious is that just a few months earlier, an Alaska medical provider had responded to the family’s behavior on a Zoom call to claim AK Mom was mentally injuring and physically abusing each of her children. These 10 allegations were later found to be not substantiated by the Office of Children’s Services social worker who fortuitously understood FASD.
Can anybody blame AK Mom for insisting on in-person visits from that time forward?
I urge every participant in the trial, doctors and psychiatrists included, to read up on FASD immediately. One study found that only 34% of pediatricians feel prepared to manage and coordinate the treatment of FASD. Another study found that 82% of psychologists reported being unprepared to manage people with FASD.
After the staff complaints, SCAN says they reviewed Seattle Children’s Hospital medical records that led to their Munchausen claims. However, there’s plenty of evidence in those records that didn’t support this allegation.
For instance, a 2019 letter from a Seattle Children’s Hospital psychiatrist ended with, “I hope you will join me in supporting this remarkable family guided by [AK Mom] single handedly raising these remarkable boys to reach their full development potential.”
But what makes SCAN’s action most absurd is their admission they didn’t review all the medical records involved. It’s very disturbing that SCAN doctors not only recommended an Alaska family be broken up based on limited information, but then lobbied to prevent AK Mom from having any contact with her children.
Was the Munchausen allegation a ruse intended to avoid the Indian Child Welfare Act?
The Indian Child Welfare Act lists several requirements that the Office of Children’s Services must satisfy before removing an Alaska Native child from their home. One is satisfying a court that active efforts have been made to provide remediation services and rehabilitative programs designed to prevent the breakup of the family.
It appears to be a slam dunk case that the Office of Children’s Services broke this federal law. If the Office of Children’s Services was concerned about Munchausen, they had a duty to engage remediation services and rehabilitative programs for the family before breaking them up.
Office of Children’s Services clearly didn’t do this.
The Indian Child Welfare Ac also requires that no placement can be ordered in the absence of a determination, by clear and convincing evidence, that staying in the home will result in serious emotional or physical damage to the child. The original judge in AK Mom’s case, Kari Kristiansen, appears to have violated this duty.
For example, consider Karen, who was three months shy of her 13th birthday. Karen didn’t have autism, so she wasn’t being seen by Seattle Children’s Hospital doctors. On the night of her removal by Office of Children’s Services, Karen thought she’d be able to stay with her mother because she wasn’t on any medications. What clear and convincing evidence did Kristiansen find that Karen would sustain serious emotional or physical damage remaining with AK Mom?
Office of Children’s Services and its army of lawyers have bullied AK Mom for two long years. Hopefully, Judge Stohler will begin the trial focusing on SCAN’s troubling conduct and the Office of Children’s Services’ avoidance of Indian Child Welfare Act. She can return the children to the safety of their home this week.
David Ignell was born and raised in Juneau, where he currently resides. He holds a law degree from University of San Diego and formerly practiced as a licensed attorney in California. He has experience as a volunteer analyst for the California Innocence Project, and is currently a forensic journalist and author of a recent book on the Alaska Grand Jury.
David Ignell: George is still at peril due to Office of Children’s Services
David Ignell: Grand jury investigations into OCS continue to be hijacked
