WEST mILFORD Sandra Ramos is sick and tired of the politics and bureaucracy of DYFS. The founder and executive director of Strengthen our Sisters’ shelter recently had some strong words to say to the state’s division of youth and family services regarding the treatment and payment policies that are hurting shelter residents. Ramos, who is also a professor of domestic violence for William Paterson University and Ramapo College, said, “They tried to give us little crumbs about five years ago,” Ramos said. At that time the shelter was certified to take in young women. “When they first came, they were very angry and they came to trust us. We gave them support counseling, classes, helped them make their prom. A lot of them had no self worth. Then DYFS pulled them out. They put our number on the back of a match book or napkin ... and didn’t pay us for six months.” Since then DYFS has sent a number of women with their children to the shelter even though it wasn’t certified for children. Ramos does not get paid for the work she does with the shelter but said the money is needed to support the programs, pay the mortgage, and purchase gas and other operating expenses. She claims that two DYFS representatives contacted Ramos and met with her on April 20 to discuss the financial problems and they agreed to pay monies owed from as far back as July 2006 if Ramos would agree to a contract that allowed them to service mothers 18+ and their children for a stay of only 45 days. “I stated that SOS did not want to be a dumping ground, that we wanted to build a trust with these angry and damaged young women in order to help them break the cycles of violence and poverty that has so dominated their lives,” she wrote in a letter to the division. Strengthen Our Sisters has seven facilities with a car program, job training, anger management, parenting classes, and relaxation therapy among other services. Only two of the facilities are licensed as “official shelters” and the rest are transitional, however, Ramos is working on getting each house licensed. Ramos also claims that when she starts pressuring DYFS to pay what is owed, they take the families from the shelter, at times separating the mothers from their children. “For two and a half years, they were sending women and their babies, we only had a contract for adults, after six months they didn’t pay us,” she said. “We had to hire someone to get the money. I got on it and said we can’t function, we need the money, we have 45 women and children. They said you don’t have babies. One Friday morning I was teaching, they called me and said DYFS is coming to take the babies. These women were doing so good, I told them they can’t take the babies. I said they have to take the mothers, I was bluffing them. I didn’t think they would be so ruthless; they had no place to put them. They put them in other shelters like we were, some lost their babies. They didn’t give them any counseling.” Mary Helen Cervantes, a spokesperson for DYFS, confirmed that they removed families and said once the division found that they had placed mothers and their children in a facility that was only qualified for women age 17-21 with no children they had to follow protocol and remove these people. “We are never looking to disrupt the lives of young mothers and their children,” she said, “but there are certain circumstances that we have to follow for the placement of children. We don’t doubt for a second that she (Ramos) doesn’t want the best. The primary thing is trying to get on the same page with Ms. Ramos to know what we can do together.” She said they have been reviewing their records and are working on the payments where they have identified back monies owed. DYFS supports the women and children until other support measures are put into action such as payments from the board of social services and welfare. “We are definitely devoted to ensure that those DYFS families involved in Strengthen Our Sisters shelter are supported,” she said. Cervantes claims that no infants were removed from their mother’s care as a result of replacement from the shelter. She said there are certain regulations in place that call for the removal of children but was unable to discuss in detail the cases raised by Ramos. Cervantes said the division would continue to work with Ramos in order to rectify the problem and ensure that the proper families are placed at the shelter to benefit from their services.