Britney Spears: Do we really know how she lost her children?

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I've seen a lot of posts about Britney and her recent loss of her children to Kevin Federline. Love her or hate her, she is in a predicament of her own making. One post I saw today bothered me because there seems to be a lack of understanding about how child protective services really works. As a former Child Protective Services (CPS) Social Worker, I also believe a little education may be in order. In the 1990's, President Clinton signed into law the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. This federal law dictated how the states should handle their individual CPS cases. The federal law mandated that each child found to have been abused or to be at risk for abuse had 12 months to establish permanency and then provided what those permanency options could be. The law also mandated how abuse cases were to be investigated and how the cases should proceed. Because I worked in Florida, I will use Florida's laws as examples, however, individual states have their own statutes available online and can be accessed by anyone with internet access. Florida's statute for children is Chapter 39 of the Florida Statutes. Chapter 39 reads that any abuse call shall be investigated within 2 - 24 hours dependent upon the level of risk at the time of the report. If the child is found to be at-risk or if abuse allegations show a resonable certainty that the child will continue to be at risk for abuse, abandonment or neglect if left in the home, the child is removed from the home and placed in a shelter. A shelter hearing is held within another 24 hours to determine if there is PROBABLE CAUSE to keep said child in shelter. The PROBABLE CAUSE is determined by a judge at that hearing. At this time, the judge will order visitation or no visitation based on the allegation so the case. An arraignment hearing is set at which time the parents or caregivers will enter a plea. The adjudication hearing is "THE TRIAL" of the case. It is heard by a judge. There are no jury hearings in these cases as these proceedings are civil hearings and not criminal proceedings. If the parents are found to be responsible for the abuse of their child(ren), the children are adjudicated dependent and the work begins of getting those children back into the home. As for who takes custody of the children after removal of the home, the first person to be considered is the other parent if there is one available. Second to be considered are grandparents or other relatives. If none are available, then non-relatives are considered. If none of those are available then children are placed into shelters and foster homes. I am not a judge, so I cannot determine if there was probable cause to remove the children from Britney Spears. However, if certain court orders were violated or her children were put a risk (what is known as threatened harm) then the judge was correct in removing the children. If Kevin Federline is proving to be the better parent, then isn't that what's in the best interest of the child? Remember, CPS is responsible for the child's safety and well-being, not what will keep the parents from breaking down on national television. I would also like to comment that, like other celebrities, Britney has not been immune to being tried and convicted in the media. Sensationalist television plays on the emotions of its viewers, therefore leading to some of the posts I've seen today. I have no opinion one way or the other as I do not know the facts of the case. But having a little extra knowledge of these types of cases, it may be easier to see that Britney is not being punished for losing her children, but is, in fact, being given an opportunity to make some better choices in her life; choice that I hope she will take advantage of and not stick her head in the ground and ignoring her own problems. I also have no doubt that I will be flooded with posts from angry people who claim that I, myself, am actually the enemy of these poor parents and not someone who can provide help and assistance to put families back together. Removing children from their homes was the absolute WORST part of my job. When that happened, I would drive around for hours replaying the whole thing over and over in my head to see if I still came to the same conclusion that removal was the best option. I can honestly say that of all my cases, I don't think I would have done things any differently that I did at the time. I certainly hope to hear what others have to say about this, and I look forward to reading your posts and responding to them.