What CPS Is Actually Looking For When They Knock on Your Door

When Child Protective Services shows up during a high-conflict divorce or custody battle, the fear can be overwhelming. You might be terrified of losing your children, furious at your ex for weaponizing the system, and completely in the dark about what happens next.

In this episode, Lisa sits down with Sara Vandenberg, a trauma psychotherapist and former CPS caseworker in Texas, for one of the most practical, fear-reducing conversations we've ever had about what CPS investigations actually look like from the inside.

Here's what Sara wants you to know before anything else: about 6-7 million children are investigated by CPS each year in the United States. Only about 5% are ever removed from the home. CPS is not a custody agency, and they cannot take your children and give them to your ex. That's not how the system works.

Sara pulls back the curtain on the risk-versus-danger framework that CPS workers use when they walk into your home. Risk is the deer crossing sign on the road at night. Danger is the deer standing in the middle of the road. CPS is concerned with danger, not with judging you as a parent.

She also shares something critical that surprises most parents: CPS is not looking to see if you are a good or bad parent. They are looking to see if your child is safe. Understanding this distinction can completely change how you approach a CPS investigation and how the investigator perceives you.

🎯 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

- Why CPS cannot and will not award custody to your ex, no matter what they tell you
- The exact statistics that should calm your immediate panic (and why removal is far rarer than you think)
- What CPS workers are actually looking for when they enter your home
- The surprising reason documenting your CHILD's behavior matters more than documenting your ex's
- How your emotional reaction in the first minutes of a CPS visit can shape the entire investigation
- What to do if your child may be exposed to drugs - and the hair follicle testing fact that'll shock you
- How to prepare your child for a caseworker interview without it looking like coaching
- What an "unfounded" finding means and how to use it strategically in court
- The most powerful thing you can tell the caseworker if you have a trusted family member who could help
- How repeated unfounded CPS calls by your ex can actually damage THEIR credibility

📚 About Sara Vandenberg:

Sara Vandenberg is a trauma professional, psychotherapist, and the founder of Tonalli Counseling Services. She specializes in familial sexual abuse, incest, and complex betrayal trauma. Before her career as a therapist, Sara worked as a CPS caseworker in Texas, giving her a rare dual perspective on child welfare that few practitioners can offer. Her upcoming book, "Choosing to Love Again: Overcoming the Kind of Betrayal That Nobody Talks About," addresses healing from familial sexual abuse and other profound betrayals.

Find Sara at: tonalliservices.com

💬 Are You Facing a CPS Investigation or False Allegations?

Lisa and Chris at Been There Got Out work with targeted parents every day who are dealing with CPS weaponization, false allegations, and the overwhelming fear that comes with it. If you'd like to talk through your specific situation, we offer a free 30-minute discovery call.

👉 Book your free call: beentheregotout.com

Have you ever looked back at your relationship with your ex and wondered: how did I get here? Why did I choose someone who would eventually turn the courts, the kids, maybe even your own family against you? Why did this feel so normal... at first?

The answer might be encoded in your DNA.

In this conversation, Lisa sits down with Dr. Sylvia Kalachinsky — a PhD family therapist with 21 years of clinical experience, a faculty career that took her from Mount Sinai Medical Center to working with migrant families in the California fields, and a newly released book called “Lonely AF.” She is also someone who grew up with a narcissistic father and learned, in adulthood, to trace her own relational patterns back to their roots.

Together, they unpack intergenerational trauma — not as a heavy clinical term, but as the lived experience of patterns passed down through families across at least three generations. Patterns encoded not just in behavior but, according to the science of epigenetics, in your actual DNA.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

- Why we are often unconsciously attracted to partners who mirror how we felt emotionally with our primary caregivers, even if that feeling was painful
- The science behind “your nervous system will reject what’s unfamiliar, even if it feels good,” and why a healthy relationship can feel suspiciously boring at first
- Big T vs. little t trauma - why your pain counts even if it “didn’t seem that bad”
- How to do a genogram to identify the patterns your own family has been running for generations
- The BODY Skill: a 90-second grounding technique you can use silently in mediation, at a deposition, or while waiting for a call from your lawyer
- Why your healing is the single most powerful gift you can give your children and how modeling emotional regulation stops the cycle of transmission

Lisa also shares her own story about how, after 20 years in a high-conflict marriage, a loving, stable relationship initially felt “too boring.” Her nervous system had been conditioned to chaos. The moment you hear Dr. Sylvia’s response to that story might be the thing you share with a friend today.

Whether you’re in the middle of a custody battle, co-parenting with someone you can’t trust, or already on the other side and trying to make sure the cycle ends with you — this conversation is going to give you something you’ve been looking for.

Dr. Sylvia’s new book “Lonely AF: A Therapist’s No-B.S. Guide to Feeling Less Alone” is available now.

Find Dr. Sylvia at: Instagram @doctorsylviak | drsylviak.com | The Doctor Sylvia K Show podcast

Your child cried at your house about how much they hate going to their other parent's home. Then you found out they had a great time. Or they came home from your ex's house perfectly happy, when you expected them to be upset. Or they told you one thing — and told your ex something completely different.

It can feel like a betrayal. Or proof that something is wrong at the other house. Or maybe it makes you doubt your own perception of what's happening.

Here's what's actually going on — and it's less alarming than you might think.

Dr. Jill Leibowitz is a clinical psychologist and play therapist in New York City who works with children and families navigating high-conflict divorce and co-parenting situations. In her third conversation with Lisa and Been There Got Out, Dr. Jill unpacks one of the most confusing and emotionally loaded experiences in shared custody: why children behave so differently depending on which parent they're with — and what it means for you as the parent trying to protect them.

This conversation also addresses what happens when parents respond to the "two-faced" experience in ways that escalate conflict — even when they mean well. From reporting back what the kids said, to demanding consistency in rules, to getting pulled into a group text where the kids are being used to pressure a decision, Dr. Jill walks through the specific behaviors that keep the conflict burning and the concrete steps parents can take instead.

In this conversation:

- Why kids bring different emotional parts of themselves to each parent — and why that's developmentally normal
- What it means when your child complains about the other parent's home (and what it doesn't mean)
- The "code switching" concept: how kids adapt to different homes the same way they adapt to different classrooms
- Why demanding the same bedtime, diet, and screen time rules in both homes creates more conflict than it solves
- The group text trap: what your ex is doing and the precise way to step out of it
- Why children who seem to want decision-making power are often overwhelmed by it — and what to do instead
- How to be the parent your child brings their full self to, not just the brave parts or the scared parts

If you've been confused, hurt, or worried by your child's behavior between homes, this is the conversation that will finally make sense of it.

CONNECT WITH DR. JILL LEIBOWITZ:

Website: https://realtkseveryday.com
Instagram: @realtkseveryday
Facebook: Real Talks Everyday

#KidsBehavior #CoParentingHelp #HighConflictCustody #ChildTherapist #DivorceKids #ParentingAfterDivorce #CoParenting #ParallelParenting #NarcissisticEx #FamilyLaw