I went through something similar. My mother had oral cancer and my step dad was an abusive drunk. I was a senior in high school. My older sister had moved in recently because she had separated from her husband who was also a violent maniac. One day my stepdad decided to choke my little brother so my mom called the cops and I helped her give her statement and he was removed. About two weeks later my sister and I get home from grocery shopping and there is a social worker saying we've been reported by two people for elderly abuse for "shooting my mom up with morphine" which made no sense b/c her morphine were in pills. The social worker said that he could arrest us right then. My mom told them that it was our stepdad and my sisters ex harassing us (they had become buddy buddy since they were both up shit creek) The guy was so hardpressed to believe the shithead who was already charged with abusing my brother that my mom had to get irrate with him and make him leave because he kept questioning her state of mind like nothing she could say gets us off the hook. My sister and I decided it would be a good idea to get a family worker involved so we could get custody after she died but instead the state worker thought " it's best to get the father back in the household despite him being on probation from the assault charge and it was best for my sis and I to go back to our father who lived out of state so we werent "carrying the burden" and to leave the five younger stepsiblings to fend for themselves. Eventually my stepdad was allowed to come back and the harassment never stopped so we moved back with our dad. It's been over five years and each sibling moved in with a different friend in town while my stepdad lived off of their welfare and foodstamps while drinking two pints a day. My youngest sister is still living with a friend but wants to live with one of us but she can't because our stepdad is still living off welfare in her name even though she doesn't live with him. We think if she tried to leave the state, that he would pull some kidnapping shit so she is trying to graduate while living with her friends parents who rule her life. The worst thing is that all the people around that shitty little town who are allowed to help get to act like we just abandoned our family when we were forced to leave. It's now my opinion that social services do what they deem is the worst for people and always take the side of the wrong. There wasn't even a question of the abuse and neglect since he was already convicted, it was just the wrong thing to do. It's crazy how people act like vultures to others who are in hardship. Everyone either attacked us during our mothers illness or helped us with a caviaght of