ISP is Not a Checklist
Video Transcribed: COVID-19 has shut down all of your classes, all of your counseling, all of your, appointments you were supposed to do in your deprive case. But DHS still wants you to complete your plan, or they’re going to terminate your parental rights. What do you do?
Hello, my name is Ryan Cannonie, I’m a CPS Lawyer with the CPS Investigation Defense Law office. I recently transitioned from prosecution to defense work, and I was, past several months, one thing I noticed was that when we would have court hearings, we had DHS coming in and saying, “Hey, this person hasn’t done XYZ and we are ready to terminate parental rights.”
Then the person would say, “Well, I couldn’t because they’re shut down. They’re not letting me do this.” Sometimes DHS would cop to it and be like, “Yeah. Okay, well, we’ll give you more time.” But a lot of times they were still pretty adamant about wanting to terminate parental rights because the case has been going on for so long.
Now, what do you do if you find yourself in this situation? Well, first off, you should’ve got an attorney before this. But at this point, if you still need an attorney, please give us a call. We can try to help you.
One thing that an attorney can advise you on is trying to find alternative ways to complete your ISP. One thing most people don’t realize is an Individualized Service Plan is not a checklist. That’s the way the court makes it out. That’s why DHS will usually tell you it’s not. But in all practicality, there are checkboxes, and when you do what they want you to, they check it off, so is confusing on there.
But your ISP is not a checklist. It’s to show conditions and behaviors have changed. So you don’t necessarily have to complete the ISP if you can show conditions and change of behaviors. And this is something that an attorney can help you with to give you alternative means to talk to DHS to figure out what they’ll accept, and if they won’t, to ask them why and make them prove what you did is not sufficient for them. Because it’s not their word at the end of the day, it’s the judges, and if we can show that you have changed your conditions, then what can DHS say?
So if you find yourself in this situation, you need an attorney that knows what they’re doing. An attorney that can guide you through this process, can help you figure out what you can do. If all the counselors are shut down, where do you go now? Give us a call. We can have a consultation, maybe navigate you through your case. We can look into your Oklahoma CPS Investigation.