Protect Foster & Adoptive Families From Harassment and Unlawful Interference

A Cost of Caring Petition for Michigan Child & Family Safety Reform

When the state removes a child from an unsafe situation and places that child with a foster or adoptive family, that family is asked to protect a child who may already have experienced abuse, neglect, instability, separation, grief, or other trauma.

But what happens when other adults continue interfering with that child, contacting them secretly, helping them disappear, violating established boundaries, harassing the household, manipulating children, or using the child-welfare system itself against the family?

Who protects the family that was asked to protect the child?

That question is the reason for this petition.

Foster and adoptive families should not be expected to endure years of harassment, interference, repeated police calls, court proceedings, protection orders, investigations, and fear while potentially criminal conduct disappears without meaningful explanation.

This petition asks Michigan lawmakers to create stronger protections and accountability when foster and adoptive families report serious interference with children who have already experienced trauma.

We Are Asking Michigan to Require:

1. Mandatory Police Documentation

When law enforcement is called regarding serious interference with a foster or adoptive placement, a formal incident record should be created.

This should include reports involving possible:

• stalking;
• threats;
• assault;
• prohibited contact;
• unauthorized transportation or concealment of a minor;
• intentional facilitation of a runaway;
• violation of a court order;
• repeated harassment;
• or other potentially criminal interference.

Families should not be left wondering whether the call was ever documented.

 

2. Mandatory Review of Potentially Criminal Conduct

When the facts reported to law enforcement could reasonably constitute a crime, the matter should be reviewed appropriately and, when warranted, forwarded to the prosecuting authority.

A responding officer should not be able to dismiss serious allegations merely as a private family disagreement without documenting why.

The fact that the people involved may be biologically related to the child should not make potentially criminal conduct less serious.

 

3. A Written Outcome When Authorities Take No Action

Families should have the right to know, to the extent legally permitted:

• whether a police report was created;
• whether an investigation occurred;
• whether the matter was referred to a prosecutor;
• whether additional evidence was needed;
• whether the case was declined or closed;
• and the reason no further action was taken.

A family should not spend years asking:

“Did anyone ever actually look into this?”

 

4. Independent Review When Serious Reports Go Nowhere

There should be an independent review process when a foster or adoptive family reasonably believes that:

• police failed to document serious conduct;
• evidence was never reviewed;
• repeated incidents were treated separately instead of as a pattern;
• a matter was never forwarded for charging consideration;
• or a family received no meaningful explanation after asking for help.

Independent review should not automatically force criminal charges.

It should make sure that the evidence was actually considered and that required investigative steps occurred.

 

5. Serious Consequences for Knowingly False CPS Reports

Good-faith reports of suspected child abuse or neglect must always remain protected.

But knowingly fabricating abuse or neglect allegations in order to harass, retaliate against, manipulate, or destabilize a foster or adoptive family is different.

When credible evidence shows that someone knew an allegation was false, that evidence should be referred for appropriate investigation.

This should include situations in which someone knowingly:

• pays another person;
• pressures another person;
• directs another person;
• or otherwise causes another person

to make a knowingly false child-abuse or neglect allegation.

An unsubstantiated report is not automatically a false report.

But intentionally weaponizing the child-protection system should have consequences.

 

6. Mandatory Action When Schools Discover Serious Interference

Schools should have a clear legal responsibility when they discover serious unauthorized contact or removal involving a child whose contact is legally restricted.

When school personnel know or reasonably believe that someone has:

• removed or attempted to remove a child without authorization;
• helped a child avoid lawful transportation or caregivers;
• intentionally bypassed legally enforceable contact restrictions;
• used other students or adults to facilitate prohibited contact;
• or participated in conduct that may be criminal,

the school should be required to document the incident and contact law enforcement when appropriate.

The lawful caregiver and child-welfare agency should also be notified when applicable.

7. A Secure Statewide Child-Welfare Verification System

When law enforcement, child-welfare professionals, courts, or other specifically authorized professionals are responding to a child-safety situation, they should be able to quickly verify who legally has authority over the child and what restrictions are currently in place.

Michigan should create or strengthen a secure statewide child-welfare verification system that allows authorized professionals, when necessary for child safety, to verify:

who currently has legal custody or guardianship of the child;
whether the child is currently in foster care, guardianship, or has been adopted;
whether parental rights have been terminated and, where legally appropriate, whose rights were terminated;
whether there are active court orders, PPOs, no-contact provisions, custody restrictions, or other legally enforceable limitations involving the child;
and the responsible child-welfare agency, caseworker, or emergency contact when applicable.
This should not be a public registry.

Information concerning children, foster families, adoptive families, biological families, terminated parental rights, and court restrictions should remain confidential and protected.

Access should be:

limited to specifically authorized users;
based on legitimate child-safety or official duties;
role-based;
logged and auditable;
protected from unauthorized searches or disclosure;
and subject to strict privacy and confidentiality requirements.
The purpose is not to label families.

The purpose is to make sure that when a child is missing, transported without authorization, involved in prohibited contact, or caught in a dispute over who has legal authority, the professionals responding do not have to rely solely on conflicting statements from the adults involved.

They should be able to determine the legal facts quickly.

A foster parent, adoptive parent, guardian, biological parent whose rights remain intact, law-enforcement officer, school official, or child-welfare professional should not have to spend hours — or days — trying to prove who legally has authority over a child during an active safety situation.

When a child’s safety may depend on knowing who has legal authority, the answer should be available to the authorized professionals who need it.

Why This Matters

Children enter foster care because something serious has already happened in their lives.

Many are already carrying trauma.

When outside adults create additional chaos through secret communications, disappearances, threats, manipulation, harassment, or other interference, the damage does not affect only one child.

It affects:

• siblings;
• other foster children;
• biological children;
• adoptive siblings;
• caregivers;
• marriages;
• schools;
• extended family;
• and the stability of the entire placement.

These families should not be left to navigate that danger alone.

Removing a child from an unsafe environment is only the beginning.

The system must also protect the stability and safety of the home entrusted with that child.

What This Petition Is Not

This petition is not asking that every family disagreement become a criminal case.

It is not asking that biological families lose the right to appropriate relationships with their children.

It is not asking that prosecutors be forced to file charges unsupported by evidence.

And it is not asking that people be punished for making honest child-safety reports.

It is asking for something much simpler:

Take serious reports seriously.

Document them.

Review the evidence.

Explain the outcome.

Provide independent review when the system fails to act.

And when credible evidence shows that someone intentionally used harassment, unlawful interference, or knowingly false allegations against a family caring for traumatized children, ensure that the conduct does not simply disappear without accountability.

Our Belief

Foster and adoptive families step into difficult situations because children need someone willing to stand in the gap.

They should not then be abandoned when the very people they are trying to protect children from continue bringing chaos, fear, interference, or trauma into their lives.

Children deserve safety.

Families protecting them deserve safety too.

Who protects the families who have been asked to protect the children?

Michigan should have an answer.

Please sign and share this petition if you believe foster and adoptive families deserve meaningful protection, accountability, and access to justice when serious interference occurs.

The Cost of Caring

We carried the cost so others don’t have to.