Home County Bannock Guest Columnist ID Rep. Lucas Cayler – Child Protective Services: are they...

Guest Columnist ID Rep. Lucas Cayler – Child Protective Services: are they helping or harming?

January 3, 2026

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January 1, 2026

Child Protective Services: are they helping or harming?

A Parents Worst Nightmare?

Imagine for a moment you take your child to see a medical professional and you suddenly find yourself being escorted out of the building by the police after Child Protective Services (CPS) had been called to open an investigation on perceived neglect or abuse of your child. Despite being a parent who deeply loves and cares for your child, you now find yourself immersed in a legal nightmare of epic proportions. You scramble to find a family law attorney who will take your case, because battling family and CPS courts is not a task easily taken on by the average citizen. You subsequently spend tens of thousands of dollars and months or years of your life trying to prove your innocence and bring your child back where they rightfully belong.

Can you imagine that feeling of absolute powerlessness overcoming you?

It is easy to think — especially in a “red” state such as Idaho — “That’s awful but would never happen to me. I’m a good parent and I take very good care of my child.” Hopefully you would be right but no one thinks it will happen to them. But what if you found yourself on the wrong side of the multi-million dollar CPS cash cow because of your parenting decisions? What would you do?

Living Through Hell – Real Events of Wrongful Separation in Idaho

(All names, court cases and events cited are used with permission or are publicly available information unless otherwise noted.)

Kristine’s Story

I have a dear friend, her name is Kristine McCreery, who found herself in this very situation several years ago after she took her then-16 year old son to the hospital to seek medical care because he was desperately ill. And before she realized what was happening, CPS was called on her and the report was made that she was neglecting her son’s care as he lost weight due to a severe case of Influenza A, of which was documented in his medical records by his gastroenterologist specialist. Her son was forcibly taken from her custody, she was charged with criminal neglect, and the next year and a half of her life turned into a legal and emotional nightmare. She went through multiple attorneys before she found one who would give her the appropriate legal assistance she desperately needed, and spent over $40,000 in legal fees, wreaking havoc on her finances. Eventually, the criminal charges were dismissed upon appeal, and she got her son back, but their life would never be the same after that. The damage was done — all because of perceived neglect in which she was presumed guilty and had to prove herself innocent.

(I was given permission to annotate Kristine’s criminal case number CR14-19-11336 and her civil rights lawsuit CV01-21-00739)

This is a gross inversion of constitutionally protected due process.

The Tragic Tale of Baby Cyrus

If we rewind the clock a bit, back to 2022, most will remember the story about Levi and Marissa Anderson, and how they lost custody of their 10 month old son “Baby Cyrus”. The Anderson parents had taken Baby Cyrus to several doctors to seek medical care for him, as he had been unable to keep solid food down and Marissa was attempting to wean him off of breast milk. Hospital staff made the determination that Cyrus was underweight, and when a follow up appointment to do a weight check for Cyrus was canceled because the mother was feeling ill, the hospital called CPS and filed a neglect report, despite the fact that Marissa had called to reschedule the appointment. Allegedly, the hospital never bothered to call her back about the appointment and called CPS instead.1

Fortunately for the Anderson’s, custody of Cyrus was quickly restored, and the judge dismissed the CPS case, but there are a host of parents here in Idaho who haven’t been as fortunate.

Rebecca’s case

In this mother’s tragic story, (I’ll call her Rebecca to respect her privacy), her young daughter apparently had a “knot” as the doctors described it, at the top of her spine. Rebecca was instructed by her daughter’s specialist not to put her daughter through surgery just yet, it was not immediately needed, and there was a 50/50 chance she would not be able to walk again. However even after St. Luke’s hospital in Boise spoke with their daughter’s specialist, in which they didn’t agree and St. Luke’s alleged the child needed immediate surgery, the State stepped in, removed the daughter under “imminent harm and danger” – and the surgery was performed, but apparently not for an additional 5 months. Per law enforcement, that does not signify imminent harm or danger. They are currently working through the reunification process.

The Bunting’s story

Tom and Marnie Bunting have a high-functioning autistic teen daughter. This young woman held down a job, possessed a driver’s license, her own car, and enjoyed activities like riding horses. What happened next turned the Bunting’s world upside down.

The teen was struggling with her math classes. And despite the fact that the Buntings had informed all of her school teachers that she was autistic, her math teacher decided to make a call to CPS.

Instead of doing an investigation and offering the family resources, the girl was removed from her parents custody and placed into State care where she became a mental patient, occasionally being forced to wear padded clothing in a padded room, secured to a restraining chair.

All this family needed was resources, like Applied Behavior Therapy, and despite having found those resources on their own, the State continued to deny the reunification of the girl with her parents. After two years in State custody, the girl aged out of the system and was reunified with her mother and father.

I have been partnering with a local non-profit advocacy group called Parents Objective With Essential Rights (POWER), (founded by Kristine McCreery, my friend referenced above), and have been privy to some recent CPS cases and unfortunately, I would consider many of them to be wrongful separation cases based on the evidence presented or lack thereof. While these are not stories you will hear on the nightly news, I remain astounded and deeply disturbed at the sheer numbers of cases that come in on a weekly basis.

Background and History

In 1974, the Child Abuse Protection and Treatment Act (CAPTA) was brought by Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale before the U.S. Senate, and this act became Public Law 93-247. It established a framework to provide federal funding to states for prevention, assessment, identification, investigation, prosecution, and treatment activities related to child abuse and neglect.

Since then, all 50 states have passed and adopted a Child Protection Act bill to receive the federal funding.

Funding – Both State and Federal

This congressional report shows that state child welfare agencies across the US spent $34.3B in FY2022. It is a mix of Title IV-E which funds foster care and permanency assistance for children who meet federal eligibility rules and Title IV-B which funds child and family services.

Upon a closer examination of Idaho’s Health and Welfare funding in fiscal year 2026 appropriated by Senate Bill 1108 and Senate Bill 1208, the Legislature approved:

$61.7M to fund the Youth Safety and Permanency program
$74.6M to fund the foster care program.

If you take the $74.6M — which is funding for trustee and benefit payments to foster homes — and divide it by 1,195 — the current number of children in foster care as of November 18, 2025 — the data suggests that approximately $62,400 is being spent per child per year. This is approximately two-thirds of the median income for an entire Idaho house in 2025.

Statistical Data

According to estimates, approximately 3.2% of children in the U.S. receive a CPS investigation each year.2 In Idaho, stats for 2024 (FY2025) show that over 24,000 cases were referred to CPS, and approximately 15,000 of them were investigated. Idaho Department of Health & Welfare (IDHW) claims if a child is removed from their home, they have a roughly 60% child/parent reunification success rate. Sixty percent does not seem very successful to me.

Additionally, according to IDHW, they are working on an initiative to double the amount of foster homes in the state between 2024 and 2026.3 This may seem altruistic, but it begs the question: is this for the betterment of children or is it allowing more children to be removed from their homes and feeding the child removal cash cow; considering how much federal money can be obtained for child welfare programs?

It is difficult to say but it smells fishy to me.

An additional problem we are being faced with in Idaho is, after removal, multiple studies show that abuse runs rampant in the foster care system. One deeply disturbing study shows roughly 40% of kids report some kind of abuse while in foster care.4

Another study from Johns Hopkins University of a select group of foster care children in Maryland revealed that foster care children are four times more likely to experience childhood sexual abuse than their peers not in the foster care system. It was also found that children in group homes are 28 times more likely to be sexually abused.5

Horrific.

The Legal Precedent (or the lack thereof)

In the United States, we operate under a legal precedent of due process in which a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But when it comes to family and CPS courts, that presumption does not appear to apply.

A call is made by a mandatory reporter at a medical office or hospital to CPS, and without having to provide evidence, a child can be taken away for seemingly common issues such as a runny nose, diaper rash, or as described in the situations above, being a few pounds underweight.

I do not want my readers to misunderstand me. There are legitimate and substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect and lawfully, we should demand those children are removed from their parents to a safe environment; and the parents punished accordingly. But there are also many cases where there is no legitimate abuse or neglect and absolutely zero evidence of any wrongdoing; yet the parent or parents are still forced to undergo the process of proving their innocence and are completely at the mercy of the legal system.

The Solution

Give power back to the parents, restore due process and hold government and mandatory reporters accountable for their action. Idaho Code Title 16 needs statutory reform and to keep it simple, here is the 30,000 foot view of legislation I am sponsoring this session:

Social Worker Reform – as social workers are the ground soldiers for CPS and the first person a parent will likely have contact with when a call is made about a child, one of my bills strengthens accountability and professional standards for social workers in Idaho by establishing new training requirements, conduct rules, and penalties. It also adds provisions regarding abandonment investigations and expands protections for parents and guardians during child protection cases.
Notably, this bill will require a mental health screening for new CPS job applicants. It will also require that all social workers receive initial hire and yearly certification training on working with autistic and introverted children. Why is this important? As we are becoming increasingly aware, autism rates are on the rise in the U.S., and statistically, 1 in 20 children are diagnosed with autism. Many CPS cases are initiated over children diagnosed with autism, mistaking the condition for abuse, and interestingly enough, states which have incorporated this training requirement for CPS workers have a reported decrease in the numbers of kids being wrongfully removed from their home and placed into foster care.
CPS Registry reform – This bill adds a new section to Idaho Code to establish due process protections and procedures for individuals listed in the Idaho Child Protection Central Registry. Current registry procedures may infringe on constitutional due process rights under the 5th and 14th Amendments. Being listed can severely affect a person’s employment, reputation, and livelihood — especially for those in poverty. This bill seeks to safeguard individuals’ liberty and property interests through procedural reforms.
Medical Neglect – This bill revises Idaho’s definitions and legal framework surrounding medical neglect of both children and vulnerable adults. It clarifies what constitutes medical neglect and establishes legal protections against false accusations.
Medical Kidnapping – This bill creates a new section of Idaho Code defining and prohibiting “medical kidnapping.” It establishes the rights of parents and guardians in making medical decisions for their children or vulnerable adults, and imposes penalties for government or medical personnel who unlawfully remove individuals from parental custody under the guise of medical care. It also amends Idaho’s kidnapping statute to include “medical kidnapping” within its definition.

Conclusion

Though heavily funded, common complaints heard from Child Protective Services workers revolve around lack of staffing, funding, and foster parents and homes.

I propose we take logical, appropriate action and put a decisive end to the needless removal of children living in safe homes with loving parents, and devote our CPS resources — however limited they may be — to helping the children who are being abused or neglected and require intervention from the state.

At the end of the day, it cannot be disputed that a child’s best chances of success, stability, and happiness will be achieved if they are raised by loving parents in a safe home. No one will care for more or love a child better than their parents will.