Breaking The Cycle Of Abuse
For every dollar spent on Healthy Families, $4 to $7 in saved in intervention and health care costs, according to program statistics.
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month
Prevent Child Abuse MN holds its Healing Fields from April 29th to May 2nd at the Minnesota State Capitol. The theme of the field is “the Future of America depends on Healthy Children.
The Importance of DayCare, DC, LA,
As a guardian ad-Litem, I have seen plenty of cases where unsavory family members and other questionable practices become the only available answer to a family that cannot find daycare.
National Child Protection Training Center
Developed in 2004, the Child Advocacy Studies Minor started at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. The curriculum was designed to bring the goals of the National Child Protection Training Center to the field by providing students with real-world experience
What Have We Come To?
Money losing newspapers are hard pressed to assign reporters to these tragic stories. As a guardian ad-Litem, I had a case with 49 police calls to a home before the children were removed (& only because the seven year old attempted to kill the five year old in front of the officer). I believe that the seven year old had been prostituted.
The Volunteer Spirit
The CASA program I came through is a volunteer program that connects volunteers to abused and neglected children in their community. CASA provides a great learning experience as well as a terrific service to children unlucky enough to be born into tragic circumstances.
Abused & Neglected Children Around The Nation
Without reduced funding to manage the increased calls coming in from the community distress that results from the poverty and chaos from our declining economy, social service agencies are becoming unable to respond adequately to the calls they are receiving.
Education Is The Engine of Progress & Prosperity
No nation can achieve its potential for greatness without investing in its human capital. The extent to which children successfully negotiate the treacherous passage to adulthood depends on the earliest years of brain and emotional development. That explains why early childhood education is crucial to society.
Abandoning Abandoned Children
The list of inner city schools struggling to educate the children of those who could not get to (or for reasons of loyalty, love, or ethics) decided not to, escape to the suburbs where the schools still function is long.
My old high school, Edison, graduates less than 50% of its students, its sister school across town has graduated less than 30% of its students for five years.
International Women’s Day March 7
When I wrote the book Invisible Children in MN there were less than 900 cases of child rape reported in the state I live in (MN). If that were true, I personally knew of about 50 cases, and there were about five hundred guardian ad-Litems besides myself in the state. I know that there were many more cases of child rape in this state that year.
Abusing Children At Home & In School – The Life Of An Abused Child
The link between an abused child’s past tortured life and future troubled life is clear to most of us that have lived with or worked with these damaged children long enough. It causes me great pain to see my guardian ad-Litem kids handled like mad animals (tasered, confined, beat up by under-trained staff in under-resourced detention centers)
Ireland Implements guardian ad-Litem Program
A child’s right to be heard is the essence of the guardian ad-Litem program. Think about it. Voiceless, helpless children enduring unspeakable horrors, sometimes for many years with no one to turn to for help.
The World Health Organization defines Torture as extended exposure to violence and deprivation. That is how I see child abuse.
Acting Like A Responsible Adult Part II
In the 1950’s I remember the public outrage when TV and newspapers uncovered senior citizens eating dog food out of cans and living under bridges. It was a a warm hearted, hot blooded citizen outcry that supported more social security for the aged, more health care, and more safety. Because of that outcry, politicians saw to it that support at many levels was increased to seniors.