Thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we have Bradley Pierce with us from Heritage Defense. If you have a family, if you have kids, you should sign up, go to their website, heritagedefense.com, put them on speed dial and they will help you navigate any CPS interactions that you might have. I hope you enjoy the discussion. So Jason, it looks like we're living in a world where more and more people think that the government owns your children.

And it can be real dangerous, particularly for families that don't live like everybody else and don't send their kids to the public school system. And I've just been super grateful for Bradley Pierce for many years who's been defending families against this kind of tyranny. Yeah, I'm a naturally trusting person and so my knee jerk has normally been, I'm not doing anything wrong, so I don't have anything to hide, so I have nothing to fear from this, but I have come to understand that's a really naive view. Bradley, do you encounter a lot of people like that, and why is that not the most prudent way to be thinking? Well, you know, I think we all kind of start from this assumption that, you know, that we don't have anything to hide, that, hey, you know, we're, we know that we're, we're, we're innocent.

We have, we're not committing any crimes, you know, we're not, we're trying to parent our children the best that we can. So we assume that other people will see that. And you know, it's kind of like the police say, you know, you have the right to remain silent. And he's the thing you say can and will be used against you. And that's a lot of times what happens in these CPS cases that, you know, a lot of times you get reasonable CPS workers and they see things for what they are and everything's fine.

But then sometimes you don't. And then even a lot of times when you do get the reasonable ones, they want to come in and interview your children and you know, come through your home and, and just very, very stressful. And, you know, that's, that's part of what we do. Just, you know, helping to reduce all of that. But yeah, there's a lot of people that kind of start with the mindset that, yeah, I have nothing to hide.

Why would I need any protection? So Bradley, what are, what are some of the current threats to parental rights right now in the moment that we're living in? Well, you know, there's been threats for a long time. I mean, just kind of the government thinks that they own your children. And you know, there's, we've had, you know, for a long time, even, you know, mandatory compulsory schooling laws, You have to send your children to school and for a long time homeschooling was considered, you know, is it legal or is it not?

And, you know, now thankfully today it's pretty, you know, everybody understands that no, that's of course, parents have the right to make that decision for their children. But today's there's some, you know, there's still CPS that people can be falsely reported and what a lot of people don't realize is that over 37% of children will be part of a CPS investigation by the time they turn 18, is what studies are showing. That's a, I would have guessed a number that's not even a 10th of that. Right. Yes, so according to the Federal Department of Public Health, even in one year in America, more than one out of every four children are part of a CPS investigation.

And so, I'm sorry, four out of every hundred in one year, so that you can see very quickly by the time they turn 18 how that that adds up to more than 37%. So yeah, it's a very big issue. And over 90% of those cases, though, 90% of those reports are ultimately unfounded. Over 83% of those reports that are investigated are deemed unfounded. So it's a whole lot of innocent families that are being falsely accused or overblown accusations or things like that, and there's a lot of reasons for that.

But then those families then have to endure these investigations, having strangers want to come in and talk to their children alone outside of the parents' presence. And that's a big problem. And even today, you know, one of the big issues, a growing issue is this whole idea of transgenderism and then children getting into that, other adults kind of leading them into that, and then parents who say no to that, no, you're not, we're not going to, you're my son, I'm not going to call you a girl, I'm not going to call you by a girl's name, because I'm a Christian, that would be lying. And we've even seen families who have had their children taken away for refusing to give into that transgender lie right now. Thankfully not with any of our members, but that we are seeing that trend.

Yeah, I've seen some of those news reports. They're terrifying. So what is Heritage Defense doing to try to deal with the problem? Well, so we're a membership organization, Christian homeschooling families join, and then they can call us anytime they have an issue, a social worker at their door, they can call us. But then even beyond that, we are trying to help to fight against, particularly that last one I mentioned about the parents who are standing up against transgender nonsense, insanity.

We filed a brief with the US Supreme Court last year in a case out of Indiana where a 16-year-old was removed from his parents. And even though CPS ultimately determined the parents hadn't committed any abuse, they hadn't been neglectful, nevertheless the court would not give their son back to them because the family had said, we're Christians, we're not going to call him by a girl's name, we're not going to call him a she. And so the court said, we're not giving you your son back. And so that ended up going up to the US Supreme Court, which ultimately denied hearing it. They said, no, we're not going to hear this case.

But in that we had submitted a brief there urging the court to hear the case because this is a growing issue around the country, But at least for now, the court has said, no, we're not going to hear that case. But hopefully at some point soon they will. And hopefully, you know, correct a lot of this. But apparently what are, what are some of the common causes, that trip a visit from CPS? So the the top three sources of reports to CPS, first of all, is school personnel and law enforcement.

That's number They're kind of tied for number one. And then the next one is the medical community. So hospitals, doctors, nurses, they report a lot of families. And everybody I just described in every state is considered a mandatory reporter. That is, the government has laws that require them to make reports to Child Protective Services if they have any suspicion of child abuse and neglect.

And what ends up happening with that, although of course, you know, if you see something, right, that calls for the jurisdiction of the civil government, because harm is being committed that invokes that jurisdiction, then absolutely we should be reporting, absolutely we should be bringing them in to, you know, wield the sword, so to speak, figuratively speaking here, to deal with these situations. But like I said, most of the reports that come in, over 90%, are unfounded. And so a lot of these mandatory reporters are reporting to cover themselves and to protect themselves because that's what the law, that's the perverse incentive that the law has created that if you don't report you can go to jail, you can lose your license to practice whatever it is you're doing, you can even be, you know, civilly liable for damages If it turns out there is some abuse going on there, you could be liable for that abuse. And then also, if you do report, there's total immunity. No one can come back after you if you do report.

So there's every reason to just report almost everything and that's what we're seeing and that's that's leading to a lot of the problems that we're seeing as well. So how does Heritage Defense come in and help parents deal with this kind of thing? Yeah, so we're a nonprofit legal advocacy organization. So families become members of Heritage Defense. And then, hopefully they never have an issue, but a lot of people do.

And so if a social worker shows up at your door, your parental rights are challenged, then you can call Heritage Defense as a member 24-7 and be connected with an attorney who can then deal with the social worker right there at the door. Or we even have families calling us, hey, I'm at the hospital and they're acting really weird. Or I'm at the hospital, I'm having a disagreement with the hospital and they're threatening to call CPS or things like that. So that's just some of the ways that what we do, where family can call us. And then what we do is we then represent the family.

You know, we see a lot of these cases and so we know how to advise families and, you know, like, all right, here's how to navigate this situation to hopefully keep it from turning into a CPS case. And then also, okay, if it is a CPS case, you do have a source working at your door, we then help deal with that right there at the door. And then we pay for a local attorney in your state there to then represent you and fight for your rights. And what we're trying to do is help the CPS worker make sure they do their investigation, they rule out the abuse or neglect, but do so in a way that minimizes the intrusion and the stress to your family and protects your rights. And so hopefully keeping them out of your home, keeping them from interviewing your children unless necessary.

And If there are interviews, making sure that there's an attorney there, that they're just not going on some huge fishing expedition, or talking to your children about who knows what. Just making sure that there are protections there for your family, protecting your rights. That's what we do. Hey, I've heard lots of stories of people in hospitals, people at the doorstep who've called you guys. What a blessing.

You all offer the best counsel and really bring a sense of calm, sobriety, actual, you know, legal perspicuity and things like that. It's really been thrilling for me to hear stories from people who've called you guys. It's really such a wonderful thing. Praise God. Praise God.

It's a blessing to get to help serve the... It's really why we started here, to serve the body of Christ, and this is a way that we can use the giftings and tools that God's given us. So I think from the outside looking in, which doesn't really apply to this audience, but outside of this audience, this could sound like conservative Christian paranoia. And it is not that. You might be familiar with the book, Bad Therapy.

The author is no Christian. She's actually Jewish. She's a trained practicing lawyer. She took her son in for headaches, and the doctor wanted to excuse her so he could run her son through a number of questions without her being present. And she said, no, we're not doing that, and I'd like to know the questions that you intend to ask.

And they were really questions about suicide, and her comment, I heard her interviewed, her comment was, like, my son's not thinking about suicide. Are you introducing him thinking about suicide? And it's sent her on a journey in looking into what kind of government and proxies are doing, and completely without any sort of probable cause, which used to be sort of foundational to our systems but no longer is. Right. Yeah, I mean that's you've raised a couple issues there.

First of all, this isn't just a conservative conspiracy theory. In fact, a lot of the people out there who are calling for restraining and reforming and some people even calling for abolishing CPS, are people on the complete opposite end of the political spectrum. This is really an issue that impacts a lot of people, particularly people who can't afford an attorney, people with lower income. And so this is not just some conservative issue. In fact, a lot of the most vocal people calling for reforms for CPS are people that we wouldn't really agree with on a whole lot of other political things, but we do agree here that it's gotten out of control and needs to be a lot of, you know, needs to be restrained there.

And then the second thing you talk about, yeah, interviews or, you know, doctors wanting to talk to children about things. We get families call us all the time, you know, and we advise them. And I do talks about this as well. Telling people, Hey, once your child gets 11, 12, 13 years old, then look out. You know, when you go to the doctor, cause a lot of times these days they'll say, all right, mom, you know, step out of the room.

I've got a few questions for your child or actually now one of the ways they're doing it I talked to somebody the other day this happened they come in they say They hand your child an iPad and they say hey here answer these questions on these iPads and nobody's gonna see your answers not even your mom or your dad who's sitting right there. And the questions that they're asking either, you know, orally there or on this iPad are questions about, like you're talking about, suicide, depression, how do you view yourself, are there guns in the home, sex, you know, and drugs, alcohol, abuse, things like that. We're talking about 11, 12, 13-year-olds being exposed to things, especially for homeschool families being exposed to things like, wait, what? What's going on here? Again, we're not even talking about CPS cases, but these are things that you know where people are treating children and and just trying to bypass parents and There's a lot of that going on.

I came here needing a basic antibiotic and this is what I'm dealing with? Please. Exactly. Right. Yeah, that's right.

So other than having heritage defense on speed dial, what can parents do sort of proactively to protect themselves? Yeah, well, that's a big question. You know, we have, I do a talk about tips for parents, things that you can do, you know, to help avoid situations, you know, kind of just depends, you know, obviously the most important is take good care of your children. Be careful. Make sure that your children aren't getting out of the home.

A lot of times we'll have cases with two-year-olds, three-year-olds, or special needs children getting out of the home, getting out unattended. If someone sees them, doesn't know who they belong to, and now they call the police, who then call CPS, now you have a case. So having some things in place, door chimes and things like that, I could go on and on. I have a whole list of tips for families, but just try to be vigilant. Just because we live in a society where most of our neighbors are very nice people, but nevertheless, We live in a society where most of our neighbors are very nice people, but nevertheless, we live in a society where people are very quick to just call the police and just kind of put the problem off on them.

And then they involve CPS and then you have issues. And so, you know, just try to have a good relationship with your neighbors. If you have any kind of unique circumstance, like a special needs child or something, make sure your neighbors, you know, know that and meet them and understand that situation. And just kind of, I guess, be aware of the world that we live in and how quick people are to report things that aren't really child abuse and just try to be on guard against that without just being totally paralyzed by paranoia. Now, okay.

CPS shows up at your door. What's the protocol? Yeah. So we've, you know, be nice, obviously, and, and do answer the door. And, you know, generally speaking, There are exceptions, but generally speaking, answering the door is the best thing to do.

Because otherwise they could go start talking to your neighbors, now everybody knows you're under investigation, or they could go get a court order and show back up your house with a police officer, and now they have a court order to come in. So if you say no, you can be arrested. So generally it's best to go ahead and answer the door. And they say, I'm CPS, there's an allegation of child abuse or neglect. And if you're a member of heritage defense, you just say, don't answer any questions, don't ask any questions, just say, excuse me one moment while I get my attorney on the phone and step back in your house and call us 24 seven and then we help you from there.

In fact, a lot of times just turn the speaker phone on and we talk to them on your behalf. And so if you're not a member of heritage defense, then I would advise calling an attorney as quickly as you can. If you can, just get the social workers business guard and say, my attorney will be right back in contact with you as soon as possible. But then get that attorney as soon as you can and get them to contact CPS very, very quickly because things can escalate in these cases extremely quickly. So hospital, is there any different protocol that you recommend when you've got a hospital situation?

Yeah, you know, hospital's a little different. You know, when family calls us and they're at the hospital and you know, either the hospital has some kind of, maybe the hospital has some wrong assumption about, you know, where a child's injuries came from, there's some suspicion there, or maybe there's a disagreement with the hospital, the hospital wants to do one thing and the family either doesn't want to do it or they want to do something different. Those kind of situations, it's not just like being in your home where you can just say, no, I'm calling my attorney. You're not in your house, you're in a hospital, you know, your child is, you know, not in the custody of the hospital, but could very, very easily be in the custody of the hospital. And so it's not a place to really be stomping your foot and standing on your rights quite so loudly, you know, because of how quickly it can turn and how you are not in a very good negotiating position, if you will.

And so we do recommend, you know, just being polite. Again, don't let anybody do anything to harm your children, hospital or otherwise. We're not suggesting that you just go along with everything. But there's a way to be diplomatic. There's a way to appeal.

And so we have a lot of families that call us from hospitals and we help them walk through that and help de-escalate those, keep them from turning into CPS cases a lot of the time. Or even if not, at least set the family up for success. So long ago, you all started Heritage Defense. I remember when you started it. So why did you start it?

Well, we were attorneys. Don Hart's the president here at Heritage Defense. I'm the vice president. He had been practicing for a while before me and he had handled some CPS cases. And then when I started practicing with him, we handled different CPS cases of great homeschooling families.

We saw that a lot of times these families, if an attorney was able to get involved very quickly, could get them resolved and taken care of. But a lot of times families, homeschool families are naturally DIY, do-it-yourselfers, and normally pretty frugal. So we don't want to just go out hiring attorneys, you know, willy-nilly. And so a lot of families try to do it themselves and they would still end up contacting us and saying, Hey, and now I need your help because now it's getting out of control." And those cases were much, much more difficult. So we really saw there's a tremendous need for families to get quick legal counsel, quick legal representation to help keep these cases from getting out of control.

And then, you know, we just have a desire to bless the homeschool community. It's been a blessing to us. I'm a homeschool graduate myself. I'm a homeschool dad now, father of 11 that we homeschool. And, you know, we just wanted to be a blessing to that community and a blessing to the body of Christ.

And most importantly, we want families to be able to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord without this chill, without something chilling that, this fear that the government's going to come in and jump all over them if they do that. We want them to know that, you know, somebody's got their back. Somebody's standing with them. They're not going to be alone. There's people who are ready to fight for them, and we can't give any guarantees, obviously, but by the grace of God, we've seen tremendous success with the families that we've represented.

And, you know, even before starting Heritage Fins, that's why we started it, and we've seen that with our members well so that's really what why we do what we do. I'm so delighted with what you're doing it's it's a huge blessing a huge help and so you know go to heritagedefense.com and sign up sign up right now You don't want to be scratching around for a phone number when somebody's at your door. You want to have already signed up. So Bradley, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate you working with us on this.

Also, you know, you guys have published lots of case studies, videos and things like that, and those are really, really good. Go to the Heritage Defense site and check those out. They're very helpful case studies for all this type of thing. Can I add one more thing on that? And that is just something else I think would be helpful for people.

And you don't even have to be a member of Heritage Defense for this. On our website, we have our law and policy vault. So if you want to know what the law in your state is on more than a couple of dozen issues that relate to parental rights, you can go to our website and access that totally free. You don't even have to be a member. And so I encourage people to check that out.

Oh, that's really good. I've, I've, I've gone there. Yeah, that's it. That's a tremendous resource. Bradley, thanks so much for your time.

We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. It's good to be with you. Amen. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast and we hope you can Join us next time.

Thanks for watching!