In November, I sent an email to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS) asking for action to initiate a Judicial Review of the Compromised Settlement (Settlement) filed June 21, 2005 in the civil case between Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF) and the Rutherford County Department of Social Services (RCDSS). I also asked for the replacement of Director John Carroll. Later that day, I received a call from Michael Becketts, the Assistant Secretary of the NC DHHS. He acknowledged my email and asked for a face to face meeting to discuss my concerns. The meeting took place this past Monday. Julie Cronin, the Assistant General Counsel for the NC DHHS was also present for the meeting.

We began with a short recap of why we were meeting which included Mr. Beckett’s voicing his concern for what I thought was going on in Rutherford County –specifically as it related to the RC DSS. After a short summary of my involvement with WOFF including my time inside and since leaving in July of 2008, I explained my perspective of the civil action which resulted in the Settlement. My remarks included the mistakes made by RC DSS workers stemming from what I believed was a lack of training on dealing with members of a closed religious subculture. I suggested some resources for training in the area of interviewing children from closed subcultures and both seemed receptive to the information. Continue reading NC DHHS not bound by Compromised Settlement from June 2005 →