NC Fathers Rights

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  1. This is messed up! I’ve raised a child since she was born! And department of social services is trying to take my other child away from me permanently. I have a big PROBLEM with that WHEN IT COMES TO MY CHILDREN! Why should us as parents give up our parental rights? We deserve to take care of our children properly. We know as parents what to do for all aspects of every situation. We are not heinous or ridiculous. We just have feelings too. We are as parents are allowed to express them. There is no law saying we can’t express how we feel. Only immediate danger, or a real crimes happens is what the laws are there for. I’m not in no immediate danger, not now, nor years before, nor neither for the future. I’m in good hands and in good shape. But something has to be done with department of protective services in the Social Services department in Carteret County. Also all over the world! Because their taking children, and newborns away from parents. My beliefs about that is that’s considered kidnapping in my books.

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    Comment by TS | March 18, 2013 | Reply

    • TS,
      Thank you for commenting on our article regarding the Carteret County Department of Social Services in North Carolina, and specifically about Child Protective Services. While we are primarily a non-custodial parents and family organization which usually takes the brunt of Social Services problems, we do recognize that they many times get things wrong. Pursuant to their own mission, reunification with natural parents is the number one goal. However, the problem with NC Social Services agencies is that they get federal and state money that they need in order to drive services and programs, and to justify their jobs. In short, if they aren’t taking kids, they can’t use statistics to tell their bosses in Raleigh that they need more money. If they don’t get more money, employment becomes an issue. It’s unfortunate that they have setup a system that is like this, but they actually need bad, dangerous, and problematic parents to exists so that money continues to flow from state coffers. Though, we suspect many times they MAKE bad and dangerous parents out of easily fixed problems.

      I have edited out your real name to prevent any retaliation on you as this site is a heavy traffic site that no doubt Carteret County Social Services staff is watching.

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      Comment by stompkinsnc | March 18, 2013 | Reply

  2. I know of two past cases within Carteret County Social Services where child protective services refused to act on a letter from a local physician asking that they remove a child from a mother due to medical neglect, but kept a case open for 90 days on a custodial father after a child got sunburned and put him through all kinds of grief. Mind you, we are not talking about blistering sunburn, just a normal sunburn that all kids get. It is very clear there is a pro-mother mindset at this agency.

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    Comment by Carmen | May 12, 2013 | Reply

    • Carmen, perhaps the medical neglect case was unfounded and there was no reason for CPS to get/stay involved!

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      Comment by Sheila | May 12, 2013 | Reply

      • Sheila, oh no, in this case the pediatrician got all records from the pharmacy showing where the mother was not picking up medications OR taking the child for follow up visits after hospitalization. I think this is more DSS not WANTING to make a case on the mother. Luckily, the father in that matter got an ex-parte and did what social services refused to do.

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        Comment by Carmen | May 12, 2013

  3. I find it amazing when fathers get into trouble with abuse and neglect social services is VERY quick to sever all ties with dad forever, but when mothers get into trouble with abuse and neglect this agency is very quick to provide services and reunify.

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    Comment by Craig Willis | May 12, 2013 | Reply

    • Craig, your statement is well taken. You have to remember child support enforcement is under the Carteret DSS system and they are mindful of the Title IV-D money they get from collecting more and more child support. This can only happen when fathers are pushed to the outer margins of their kids lives so that they pay greater support. Of course, the more dads that have CPS investigations over their heads, the more visitation they lose and of course support payments go up along with federal money. Child Support is not a program for children, it is a program to make sure mothers and children make it at the fathers expense.

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      Comment by stompkinsnc | May 12, 2013 | Reply

  4. Lets be honest, the Carteret county department of social services exists because of broken families and non-custodial fathers paying greater amounts of child support which means greater Title IV-D funds. If there were not broken families, these child protective service workers and other would not have jobs. It is not a far rock throw from this and this agency needing to create broken families in order to have job security and funding to work.

    My son, who is a non-custodial father has had 5 almost back to back anonymous child protective services complaints called on him. He is also currently in a custody battle. You can surely guess who stands to gain from these anonymous complaints. Each time, the one to respond is Byron Honore who I have found to be one that was trained well. This may sound like I am saying he is a good person, but I am not. In saying that he was trained well, it means that Mr. Honore was trained to tow the departments “we need broken families and child abusers, so we can get funding, and you can continue to feed your families” policies and procedures. If you are a father in Carteret county who deals with vicious anonymous complaints and you have to deal with Byron Honore, then I suggest that you promise to comply with their meeting and such ONLY after you hire an attorney. Never meet alone, always have a recording device, and hold his feet to the ground.

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    Comment by Allie | October 17, 2013 | Reply

    • Allie, my son has had dealing with Byron Honore as well and in my opinion used strong arm tactics to make him comply with things. He even told the mother of the child to not allow my son to see his son until the investigation was done. I later learned that if there is a court order social services can not do that. When questioned about it, he said it was only a recommendation. He is a liar. If anyone has any dealing with Carteret county child protective services hire a lawyer and these blow hards change their tune.

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      Comment by RS | October 23, 2013 | Reply

      • I am a mother who has watched her son experience sexism at the hands of Byron Honore as well. During our case he told my son that children and people making anonymous allegations never lie because of the stigma associated with the nature of the allegations. I’m guessing that is anyone ever makes an allegation against him, especially during a custody battle that he will likely change his mind. Yes Byron, in custody battles any possible stigma goes out the window in their attempt to win custody. And of course, we have to look at his job security in making these claims. I agree with the comment above that if child protective services in Carteret County comes to your door explain to them that you will be happy to cooperate with them VIA your attorney and then shut the door in their face. RS, social services told the mother in our case to deny visitation as well then used the “oh it was just a recommendation” and we took her to court on the grounds that social services can’t tell a parent to deny visitation if there is an order. The Judge agreed that social services, if they want that to happen, must bring a case before the courts. The mother in our case was found in contempt and had to pay our attorney fees. She, I’m assuming is not pleased with them either.

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        Comment by Karen | October 27, 2013

  5. What most people do not realize is that the Carteret County Department of Social Services Child protection services is literally overloaded with cases, no doubt many of them manufactured allegations of abuse to give someone a better chance in the family courts or for an agenda since everything can be done anonymously. Why not take that shot when you can remain anonymous?

    Then as CPS workers get inundated with these calls, they have just enough time in their day to just become services oriented “Go here and complete this, take this class, do this” instead of actually being able to take a real look at cases.

    All these people are doing is sending people to services and following a script not looking at the real problem, the exploding divorce rate, and a need for both parents to excoriate each other to find favor in the family courts or to be vindictive.

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    Comment by Daniel | August 4, 2015 | Reply

  6. I know two Christian women who work at CPS who in the past month decided to take a child from a father and not let him see his child simply based on a allegation and can’t see that the “agency” they work for has moved from reunification to one of complete overload and making big time mistakes with their caseloads that are affecting kid’s lives. So much for family values and following GODs word as a Christian when you work for social services.

    No families are actually being helped in Carteret County, yea there may be some bills payed and food handed out but it’s not substantial enough to get the person independent and actually fix the problem. Carteret County DSS and especially CPS is literally so overloaded that many times you won’t even be able to hear from a worker for a week. The anonymous reporting system has failed, people have found a way to abuse it, but the lawyers love it because they can bill for it.

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    Comment by Carol | August 4, 2015 | Reply

  7. I have a complaint against the Carteret County Department of Social Services and Child Protective Services that involves abuse, now this is not happening to me but it is happening to a friend and it’s just straight up child abuse.

    Everyone knows that in a divorce or family altercation all it takes is for one personal to involve the police, use some magic words, and without any evidence or witnesses that person is going to jail at least for the night, prevented from returning to the house, and likely lose a job. Which is going to then put that person (likely a man) in the social services system. All of this just based on an allegation.

    DSS and CPS are going to get involved and ask the man to do some services which could take up to 6 months IF the CPS worker is on the ball but they can’t be because the department is being filled up with these types of cases where no worker can expect to know everything about a case. I can assure you in my opinion the ball is being dropped several times a day because of overloaded cases.

    But you know what, that isn’t an excuse because this family and the children involved didn’t cause it. What is going to end up happening is that a parent and child are going to have no contact at all with each other for 6-12 months, again all based on an allegation which I dare say is emotional abuse. And nobody at CPS or the administration, or the family courts care as long as the lawyers are getting paid.

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    Comment by Christy | August 5, 2015 | Reply

  8. I grew up with David Atkinson (Director) and I can tell you that while he is a good man, he is about making sure that federal and state money comes in to the Department, and folks the only way that federal money comes in specifically is via family conflict and many of the things CPS investigates. When you think about it, the Department’s entire staff is dependent on violence, homelessness, abuse and neglect, and poverty.

    What David does not realize is that while we are friends, I loathe his Department because I do not think that the agency is there to actually fix things or reunify kids with parents. DSS has learned a very valuable tools from the lawyers and that is to inflame situations and kick the can down the road for a few years, do as little work as possible and bill for massive federal money.

    I’ve been through a divorce where I saw that the lawyers were egging us along and doing everything they could to make matters worse so we stayed bitter and angry at each other and then when they money ran out poof it was settled.

    I just have a bad feeling that Carteret County and CPS is going that route these days and I guess why people are coming to this website in drives making complaints.

    Folks if the department is involved in your lives and they have restrictions on you, all of them could be fixed in 30 days, but the influx of people abusing the system is causing a backlog of work therefore you should not expect to see your kids for well over a year.

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    Comment by HP | August 6, 2015 | Reply

  9. Director David Atkinson, Child protective services staff and managers, and ancillary staff,
    From someone with a PhD in psychology who has seen first hand thousands of cases that resulted in people coming to me for services either court ordered or on their own, I can tell you that the game is up. Your clever public mission statement put on a plaque in the main office and brochures talking about reunification and supporting families is a crock.

    The Carteret County Department of Social Services and child protective services is no longer concerned with reunification as they are making cases and spreading them out over years because they know that as long as they are involved they are getting both federal and state monies.

    Job security and justification and manufacturing money from the breakdown of families is your game. David Atkinson knows that when his CPS staff enters a home to investigate it is likely both parties are are at fault and the one who os the loudest or strongest is usually the one removed from the home and prevented from seeing her/his kids for up to a year while sending them to do a list of services by providers who have an interest in the department.

    David Atkinson knows that a child not seeing a parent for up to a year based on a simple anonymous investigation where the police refused to arrest or the DA prosecute is in itself domestic violence on the parent by DSS and emotional abuse on the child by Carteret County DSS.

    David Atkinson knows full well that in NC anyone needing another person to be behind the curve in child custody litigation will typically make anonymous complaints over and over until they hit pay dirt and that the magistrate hands out arrest warrants and restraining orders on simple allegations with no evidence or witnesses which bankrupts that parent who then loses access forever to a child because they can’t afford an attorney while the other parent still has access to a marital assets and can afford an attorney. David, you are aware that parents who go to jail over allegations lose jobs and reputation just over an allegation, and your agency inflames that. You know of parents who haven’t been allowed by your department to see their kids for over a year even when their allegations are proven not guilty if there is an open criminal case or another parent seeks a quick ex parte of the allegation and then controls the other parent.

    It’s pay dirt for social services, and it’s pay dirt for lawyers who bill through the process. And, it’s the destruction of families while every bit of the disgusting stress rolls right down on the children. In essence what you are doing is protecting from physical abuse while creating emotional abuse as your drag it out for a year and count your federal money. And, I suspect if I were a private investigator allowed to look at the financials of the department, we would find some very close ties to adoption agencies in the state who are salivating to get their hands on children to adopt out for which they make money.

    To see Carteret County child protective services and David Atkinson get themselves all worked up over physical abuse, neglect, and dependency and turning their back on their own created emotional abuse or allowing the other party with an agenda in family court to use their control as emotional abuse and not let a child see his/her other parent through investigations is abuse.

    If you are reading this as a parent who is under investigation and you have heard that reunification by a parent and child is their first mission, it’s a lie. Reunification of children and parents has gone to the side in favor of money gained from forced adoptions and and letting cases slide for years while counting the federal dollars needed for those that are making living on Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8 housing, and the host of other state and federal benefits a career and going through money at the department like a broken water pipe which requires the department to need more CPS investigations that I think they inflame to get involve when they could easily be fixed.

    Filed under Carteret County Department of Social Services complaints.

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    Comment by DM | August 15, 2015 | Reply

    • I think anytime Child Protective Services take a child from either parent, or puts the child in foster care, or leaves the child with one parent then there should be supervised visits that are very frequent during the process of the investigation so that children don’t think that their parents have abandoned them when it’s actually either the other parent capitalizing on their false allegations and DSS preventing any contact PRIOR to any criminal wrongdoing or DSS petition. Do you know that people in prison see their children more than a parent who is simply under investigation and not yet been convicted or been found of any wrongdoing by the agency and with DSS’s caseload sometimes it can take a year to resolve a matter.

      If you keep a child away from a parent that long just because there is an allegation, you are probably one of the worst kind of child abusers there is on this planet and we are looking at you DSS for that problem. Look at the research on the detriment of emotional abuse versus physical abuse, it is almost equal and parental alienation is child abuse. And, it appears from the comments on this article that David Atkinson and child protective social workers AND SUPERVISORS simply do not care.

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      Comment by Carol | August 16, 2015 | Reply

  10. A week ago I would have read this article and dismissed it as propaganda. Tonight, many of the things I am reading in this article are very much a reality. It seems Carteret County DSS has deviated from their mission statement to help families and parents and then reunification with natural parents. I am privy to a case where an allegation was made anonymously to DSS (at the start of a custody battle go figure) and based JUST on that allegation DSS jumps in the case and removes the parent from the child’s life and his home not caring if he went homeless. Fast forward a year, and the man still has not been allowed to see his child despite following all recommendations of CPS.

    After the case in Vermont just this week where a woman killed her entire family after a Judge just summarily removed her from her kid’s lives like it hurts nobody, I am surprised we are not seeing more of these types of incidents as DSS entities seemingly are getting more focused on taking control of children, or getting involved in custody battles and picking sides. I am seeing way to much aggressiveness and control for an agency that has the words “social services” in the name where it used to be interjecting itself in to unhealthy family dynamics and getting parents help so they can get back to raising their children to taking kids and lollygagging around for a year while taking in the federal money they get to be involved. It sounds a lot like sitting on their hands dragging cases out doing little work while raking in the federal money for those that have decided to make Medicaid and Section 8 their careers. Now if social workers want to point to their case loads, then someone better rethinking anonymous reports that was probably conceived for good reasons then people found a way to pervert it and use DSS as an agenda tool for custody battles and other situations where one parents wants control (and the plethora of services that come with that control) and the other parent out of a child’s life. Meanwhile, it’s very obvious our kids are getting more sicker, and maybe it’s time to start looking that DSS and the courts who make a lot of money off of broken families.

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    Comment by Angela | August 26, 2015 | Reply

    • Great comment, few people know that anyone can be arrested, jailed, removed from their homes and kids simply because someone calls 911 to make an allegation or go to a magistrate who only hears one side. Then once Carteret County DSS is involved, it will be a good year before they finally decide what to do at which point they have severely screwed up a child up. They are very good at dealing with physical abuse and neglect while perpetuating emotional abuse and neglect. We too think that David Atkinson and his team of social workers are doing job justification and looking for more federal money by staying in cases way too long, then you have social workers with nothing but a 4 year degree in some type of human services field making serious decisions and god knows we can assume many are around their own agenda or ideologies (ie. I just don’t think fathers should have custody). Filed under Carteret County Department of Social services (DSS) complaints Child Protective Services (CPS)

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      Comment by stompkinsnc | August 26, 2015 | Reply

  11. I know of a case that is active right now where an alleged victim is using her victim status to keep a child away from a father who has yet to be found guilty of anything and is following all of DSS’s recommendations. What he did is in no way reason to remove a child from a parent, yet the victim is perpetuating and using it so that he can never see the child anymore even if he gets the therapy DSS orders. I can guarantee you in this case they will move to terminate his rights because he is a father, and the child is young enough to adopt out (which makes DSS money) and all hell will break loose.

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    Comment by DL | August 26, 2015 | Reply

  12. I have been in jail twice because of other people Carteret county dss is good for these annomouse phone calls this is the third time they are in my life be cause of these phone calls if they don’t like what they see then they have a case that should be against the LAW cause if some one gets mad then all they have to do is make a phone call they show up and then every thing you say is held againt you

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    Comment by tasha sumrell | September 24, 2017 | Reply

  13. this county Carteret county is so corrupt so is the court system will explain more to be continued

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    Comment by tasha sumrell | September 24, 2017 | Reply


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