It’s like a rug being pulled from beneath small feet. When parents are sent to prison – such as in the case of Mary Ellen Hos, the Quilcene mother of six children who is serving a two-year prison term in Gig Harbor – the lives of their children are altered as well.
It can be a difficult transition for children, no matter how good or bad the parents were.
The key is to limit the amount of strain on the children and the family, said Loraine Dover, Child Protective Services investigator based in Port Townsend.
“Our goal is reunification – to preserve the family,” Dover said.
Authorities would release no specifics in the Hos case, but would speak about how the system generally works.
When one parent is taken into custody and another is not readily available for the children left behind, Child Protective Services, an arm of the state Department of Social and Health Services, takes over.
“We start looking for appropriate relatives,” Dover said.
This often happens when children are at the scene of an arrest, such as in the Dec. 23 methamphetamine arrest of Hos, 34, in her Quilcene home.
Three of her six children were present during the arrest.
Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office officials immediately contacted CPS.
Hos was sentenced on Feb. 9 to two years in jail.
A judge also has the authority to place children in CPS custody.
CPS does not simply come to people’s homes after hearing allegations and take children away, said Dover.
She said CPS has the priority of locating the other parent that is not in jail to take the children.
If that mother or father can’t be found or is unsuitable to care for the children, aunts, uncles, and grandparents are contacted to take care of the children while the primary parent is incarcerated.
