Hello
Mr. Henderson, Great idea of course, like so many on AFRA. Just wanted to
drop you a note though on the power that "Citizen Review Boards" in
Colorado have.
I am referencing the paragraph on the to-do list page;
"These boards HAVE the power to review cases to see if the state agency
is complying with state laws and regulations, but I am not aware of any that are
doing so. "
Anyway, in Colorado even though the state plan requires that a Citizen's Review
Board be empanled in each county, they seldom are. In fact until myself
and another AFRA member began filing formal grievances in Weld County, there was
no board appointed. This was due to the fact that ALL grievances were being
roadblocked by the county administrative liason. When the citizens review board
was finally empanled it was stacked with county employees, to include the county
administrative liasion.
But even with a board empaneled and reviewing a case, in
Colorado; the only power the Citizen's Review Board has is to make
"recommendations"
which CPS promply ignores.
The reason for the roadblocking is that as long as a complaint doesn't actually
make it to the Citizens' Review Board, it is not documented as a complaint
against the county CPS. It is discarded and never heard of again.
That's the reason for counties saying to the media, "See, we have had zero
complaints against CPS on record." It is technically true, there are
no records of any complaints, they have all been roadblocked prior to going to
the non-existant "citizen's review board".