Each had a different story to tell, a claim of maltreatment by a government agency designed to help Maine families.

“Our American families are in trouble,” said one woman, a member of the National Association of State VOCAL Organizations, a group of area residents who claim to have suffered from the bureaucracy of the Department of Human Services. More than half of the members have never been accused, however.

Many of those at a recent meeting, held in the dusty and historic confines of the old Queen City Grange Hall, warned of a society in which there is a growing danger of a state with the power to take children from parents, with little recourse for the adult. Persons accused of abuse, they said, never fully clear their name.

Debbie Wardwell, whose story of her young son, Jimmy, has been told repeatedly in the local media, recalled how after the DHS removed Jimmy from their home after allegations of abuse, she did not know his whereabouts for nearly two weeks.

Also, Wardwell said Jimmy was told that one grandparent was dead and another was suffering from cancer and that her parental rights were terminated two years ago. She was never charged, she said.

“I am innocent,” she said. “I did not abuse my son.”

Paul, who did not want his last name published, told of the few rights he had in trying to improve the life of his daughter, who for a while was living in a run-down home in Orrington that had “every code violation there could be.”

After he failed to pay the ordered amount of back child support, or rearage, the state garnished funds in the checking account of Paul and his wife — who was not the mother of the child — and at one point garnisheed $500 from the child’s savings account. Some of the money was later returned, however.

“Once you’re in the system, God help you, you’ll never get out,” said Paul, who now has custody of his daughter.

A phone call by the Bangor Daily News to a DHS official was not returned.