Wichita ? Comments made by the head of the state’s child welfare agency earlier this year are fueling accusations that reports used to remove children from homes have included false information.

During a March 18 meeting in Topeka with family advocacy group Citizens for Change, Don Jordan, secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, was recorded telling the members that Sedgwick County prosecutors have “bullied” social workers into including information they don’t agree with in their affidavits.

Those affidavits are presented to judges who, based on the information, determine whether children are returned to their families or kept in protective custody.

Sedgwick County prosecutors deny pressuring social workers and three Sedgwick County judges who oversaw the cases said they haven’t seen evidence of wrongful acts.

But the comments have provided critics of the state’s child welfare system ammunition for their claims that the affidavits are of questionable validity.

“I was so floored at what he said, that this man acknowledged … he was aware of what was going on,” said Marlene Jones, 69, of Wichita, who attended the meeting and whose family has had custody battles with the state. “I believe that SRS is a necessity. They just have to get it right.”

The affidavits are usually three or four pages long and are based on social workers’ interviews with parents, teachers, relatives and the children themselves.

The social workers detail the results of their child abuse and neglect investigations, which prosecutors can use in their petitions to argue that a child remain in temporary custody.

“But in Sedgwick County oftentimes we end up writing things because it’s what our social workers get bullied by the District Attorney’s Office into writing,” Jordan was recorded as saying to Citizens for Change in March. “So they really have no belief in what it says.”

Later in the meeting, he added: “I am working on our staff that we do our assessments properly and we do not get bullied into writing things we don’t believe. But then the reality comes down to, you send a 25-year-old social worker into a room with a 15-year county ADA (assistant district attorney) who is willing to yell at them, cuss at them, scream at them and threaten them, you know.”

Jordan has confirmed making the comments but said he shouldn’t have used the word “bullied.”

“I don’t think they intend to bully our staff,” he told The Wichita Eagle in Sunday’s editions. “It was a poor choice of words … I don’t believe anybody’s asked to perjure themselves or lie.”

He also said social workers should be independent of prosecutors.

“I think they (the affidavits) should reflect, without intervention of the DA’s office, the professional judgment of the social worker,” he said.

Vickie Burris, president of the group that Jordan made the comments to, said his answers should make people question the validity of the affidavits and allow families to challenge court decisions based on those affidavits.

“The courts are only going to be as good as the information they receive,” Burris said.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston called Jordan’s comments at the meeting “outrageous.”

“That was just so disappointing to have something like that said by an agency head,” Foulston said. “You can’t un-ring the bell. He’s left the impression with citizens and individuals in the community that the District Attorney’s Office is doing something that we shouldn’t be doing.”