>>>>I've witnessed a similar situation myself. When I used to live in PA, a next door neighbor of ours had a daughter that would call the Child Protection Services any time they would try to disipline (or raise their voices to) her or her sister. The daughter and her sister eventually paid the price for those calls though. When her father passed away, the agency sent her and her sister to foster care because of the repeated calls and deemed their mother "unfit". The grandparents tried (unsuccessfully) to try to gain custody, but that was not an option due to their "record" of calls.
>>>
>>>
>>>Without in any way minimizing the problem here, there exists an (equal, less than, greater than, but certainly observable) number of cases where the child complained to some authority figure, nothing happened, and suddenly the child was injured/hospitalized/dead when the abuse suddenly escalated.
>>>
>>>Unfortunately, both sides have a strong case and there is no universally applicable solution.
>>
>>Absolutely there are cases where it really is essential that the child(ren) be removed from an actual dangerous situation. The above was not. The older sister just loved to wield "her power" over her parents. The grandparents spent nearly $25K (or so I was told) on legal fees and could barely even get their day in court, they were just stonewalled at every turn by CPS. And they were by no means in a position to be spending that kind of money.
>
>This whole situation sounds very odd. Usually these types of organizations are very happy for close relatives to take the children. A cheap and easy solution that has the least impact on the children.

Odd as it sounds, that's the way it was. CPS in PA was overburdened with cases, so all they saw was the repeated phone calls and didn't bother to investigate deeper. Believe me, those kids would have been better off with the grandparents as first choice, the mother as second, and wards of the state, last.

State angencies don't like to be taken to court and their incompetence paraded before a judge, they might get their budget cut. Hence the stonewalling in court.