A new organization, CHILD — Community Helping Individuals Living in Distress, looks to review St. Lawrence County Department of Social Services cases and data in light of ethical concerns and allegations of abuses of power related to adoption, foster care and social services.

  • Allegations stem from a case involving Ms. Courtney Fantone and her mother Claudia of Potsdam. Ms. Fantone’s mother – a seasoned foster parent who has fostered over 50 children since 2012 – took placement of the sibling group involved in this case in 2016. Ms. Fantone, herself, became a foster parent in 2019 to help her mother care for those children. They were planning, as a family, to adopt them when the children became eligible. Clearly, neither of the Fantone women are strangers to the foster care system.
  • Allegations include: alleged misconduct, mismanagement and ethical impropriety at the Department of Social Services, particularly within Child Protective Services and the foster care program. Further allegations include: forged signatures by caseworkers; prioritization of DSS employees as foster parents (which, while not illegal, may be unethical), aforementioned DSS employees, who are known to be fostering children, are collecting stipends that are disproportionately higher than what many foster parents (who do not work for DSS) receive, removals by caseworkers without legal consultation or court orders, strategically timed removal orders that prohibit families from being able to obtain legal representation after business hours or on weekends, retaliation by DSS employees against foster families, and DSS employees providing medical and mental health advice which is outside the scope of their qualifications and responsibilities.
  • Fantone and Plattsburgh attorney Michael J. Phillips established the Limited Liability Company CHILD — Community Helping Individuals Living in Distress — to review DSS cases and data through the department’s own documentation and court records. The organization aims to help people dealing with issues related to adoption, foster care and social services.
  • Fantone had 5 foster children – all biological siblings – removed from her care on 3/9/20. In the fifteen months since the removal, the children have been separated from one another and placed in different foster homes. Additionally, they have been moved many times. Ms. Fantone believes that the children’s removal was an act of retaliation because she stood up to social services in court and tried to get the children the medical and mental health services they needed.
  • There are several cases pending involving St. Lawrence County DSS. Most are foster parents seeking to appeal decisions based on calls made to the Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment, or SCR. (see the Coalition’s position on Anonymous Reporting here.)
  • Among the concerns raised by CHILD are: children being taken from capable relatives who are seeking custody of their family members only to lose them to DSS employees seeking to foster them, retaliation against biological grandparents fostering their grandchildren.
  • As of this writing, 12 letters have been submitted to St. Lawrence County legislators. The writers claim county DSS workers lie, bully, deceive and remove children out of good foster homes – and sometimes profit from it.

If you have a similar story to share about St. Lawrence County DSS please contact CHILD by emailing childhelp.jefferson@gmail.com OR  childhelp.director@gmail.com 

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