Always Be Professional When Meeting with DHS

Video Transcribed: You got the lawyer, and now you’re meeting with DHS. What can you expect when you have that first meeting? My name is Brian L. Jackson. I am an Oklahoma father’s rights attorney here with dads.law, where fathers are not disposable. We’re doing a series on navigating DHS investigations.

So, the last we left off, you had been contacted by DHS, and you got the lawyer. So, now you’re planning on… now you have your scheduled meeting with DHS. What can you expect? Well, some things that DHS tends to like to do, depending on the nature of the allegations, may want to look at your house and ensure it’s an appropriate environment. They may have questions for you about the specific allegation and want to hear your side of the story.

They may want a list of other witnesses, or collaterals as they like to call them, who might also have information. And generally speaking, and obviously, you want to confer with your attorney about what specifically you should share, but generally, it’s in your best interest to cooperate with DHS as far as your children go because non-cooperation becomes a factor. In other words, if you’re not cooperating, that can be used as grounds to take more severe actions, such as removal.

Sometimes social workers are very nice. Sometimes they can be more adversarial. It depends. One trend I have seen in recent years… I’ve had a couple of cases where I’ve seen this: DHS may show up with the cops and try to question you with the cops and have a cop question you.

Now, if there’s a cop present if your attorney doesn’t object to that, you should. Talk to DHS to the extent that you need to protect your rights to your kids, but if there’s a cop present, you do not talk to the police, and they do not get to be present while you talk to DHS.

And if that’s a problem, that’s where you need to have your attorney step up and really raise hell because the last thing you want to do is be in a situation where the social worker and the cop can play good cop, bad cop with you and try to get you to jamb yourself up criminally.

There are situations where DHS workers will try to do that to you. You should try to take notes or have your attorney take notes about what’s discussed at the meeting, and specific details are important.

The reason is sometimes stuff gets reported wrong, or there’s a discrepancy between what was said and what ends up being brought up to the DA’s office or the courts. So, it’s important to know exactly what you said, what they said, and what was represented.

We also know that just because the social worker says that they’re not thinking of removal, they don’t think you did anything wrong, don’t assume that means you’re off the hook or that the allegation can’t be substantiated. Ultimately, that social worker is part of a broader team that makes decisions about your case, so it’s not just their call.

Also, they may or may not be 100% with you, depending on what’s going on and what they’re trying to get done. So, for those reasons, just because they say they’re not interested in trying to jamb you up doesn’t mean they’re uninterested in trying to jamb you up, so you should be aware of that. This is an adversarial situation that, if you weren’t the one that called them, deal with accordingly. And that’s why you want a lawyer. You definitely, definitely want a lawyer.

If you have questions about that or if you have to deal with DHS, you need a good lawyer. If you have questions about any of that, if you ever need a Tulsa child support attorney or a Men’s Child Custody Lawyer in Tulsa Ok, you can find one at Dads.Law.