From my personal experience, so no actual links, just friends and family in the industry, classes and what I learned while adopting our kids...CPS in Washington's goal is ALWAYS to reunify the family up until the very last second when a judge says that can't happen. Even when the individual worker knows in their hearts that isn't a good thing, shouldn't happen, will never happen, its their job. Guardian Ad Litems are advocates for the children, they get to tell a judge how they really feel. CPS case workers do not. The goal of reunifying the family includes short term intervention, parenting classes, additional resources (helping the families get home repairs done, food assistance, etc). When it is a non-physical emergency call, they do call ahead and set up a scheduled time to come see the home. As ridiculous as this sounds to all of us, they want the parents to have time to clean up and make things look presentable. They can also use this later to report something like "it did not appear that they had made any attempt to clean or repair whatever..." When a child or children is taken away, even if the parents voluntarily give up parental rights, its still about a two year process (I'm sure there are exceptions) before that child can be legally free for adoption. The state doesn't want the parent to ever be able to come back and say they were pressured or rushed or didn't understand what was happening. It has been a few years since our adoption was final. I still have dinner almost once a month with our CPS case worker because she and I have become such good friends. I would not have her job for all the money in the world. They are expected to work miracles, bound by conflicting laws that make it almost impossible to do their job. Parents dislike them, kids are afraid of them and the public doesn't understand why they don't do what we all think should be done immediately. Its a very broken system.
I have no idea what specifically went on in this case, just wanted to explain a little about the actual goal of CPS and why families are sometimes told of upcoming visits, etc.
Alex Rozier ‏