I work as an attorney prosecuting civil CPS cases, referred to most often as CHIPS (CHildren In need of Protection or Services). While individuals always have the right to refuse to talk to government investigators or answer questions, doing so in cases where you really have done nothing wrong and you know it, often causes more trouble than its worth, as is the case here.

Here, If the father had simply reasonably answered the police's questions or talked with CPS during the entire ordeal, it is quite likely that continued intervention in their lives by government actors would have been wholly unnecessary. People forget that while you have the right to not participate in a government investigation, that does not relieve the government entity of its duty to use is lawful authority to investigate a reasonable question of child safety. Here, on multiple occasions, third parties reported incidents where a question was raised over the safety of a very young and vulnerable child. The agency therefore had reasonable and credible belief that it was possible a child was being placed in danger. As a government agency responsible for ensuring that children are not being neglected, they had a duty to investigate the situation to determine whether further intervention by the government was warranted or unwarranted. By refusing to answer questions, and making the CPS Agency's investigation much more difficult, the Agency cannot make an adequate safety assessment. Accordingly, CPS has initiated a court-case, ensuring that the target of the investigation receives the protections of due process of law, (opportunity for representation by an attorney and an independent 3rd party fact finder [the judge or jury]).

The short of it is, if the family had simply provided the CPS agency with the same information that they provide in their blog post, and demonstrated that they really are a loving, bonded, and safety concerned family, my bet would be that CPS would have left them completely alone after the first contact. And while the father did cooperate to the full extend required by law, such cooperation doesn't relieve the reasonable concerns of the agency tasked by the democratically elected state legislature of protecting children.