Fox 9 News - FPF Reunites Mother Amanda with Son!
Family Preservation Foundation wins inaugural legal battle!
Judge sides with Minnesota mom Amanda Weber after months-long battle with Child Protection Services (CPS). The founder of the organization Dwight Mitchell is pleased with the Judges ruling, but the fight against CPS is far from over.
In fact, it’s just the beginning for the Family Preservation Foundation after a four-month battle that founder Dwight Mitchell says never should have happened. Now, he’s fighting for change, hoping it starts with the case of Amanda Weber.
Weber was thrilled the day she got her baby back, but she missed a lot in four months.
“I look at the foster mom and say, ‘he’s walking now?’ She’s like ‘yeah,’ and it was so devastating…it was devastating because I don’t even know when his first steps were,” Weber said.
Weber said it was pure hell, with at least six hearings in front of a judge. Again and again, Weber was told, "no, you are not a fit parent due to medical neglect."
“Two pieces of information from two hospitals - Children’s Hospital and St. Cloud Medical Center - that said her son was OK, yet still she filed the petition to remove him from the family home,” Dwight Mitchell said.
“I wasn’t innocent until proven guilty, I was guilty until proven innocent,” Weber said.
“Amanda submitted document after document from the doctors – no, he didn’t have a severe case of apnea, his apnea was under control. He didn’t need any medication; there was nothing wrong with him, he just had a cold. So this started a chain reaction and when we proved to social services that there was nothing wrong with the child, they still wouldn’t relent,”
Mitchell said. Mitchell calls this “legal kidnapping.” It happened to him, it happened to Amanda Weber, and Mitchell says it happens all the time.
“It’s not unique to Amanda. In fact, it’s the norm. I have another mother who is going through the same situation right now,” he said.
“I’m not against CPS, I’m against CPS in its current form and its laws. The current system is antiquated; it needs to be abolished.
The disparity in the system needs to be eliminated,” Mitchell said.
“I’m frustrated, I’m angry and I’m on a mission to help bring about change,” Weber said.
