Child Rights, Religion & the United Nations Rights of the Child Treaty
America is the only nation on earth that is not a party to the international rights of the child treaty of 1989.
Domestic Violence Around the World
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD WINTER 2021 The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that we are seeing a horrifying global surge in domestic violence all over the world and is urging leaders to include protective measures in their pandemic plans. The depth and scope of violence against children was a terrible problem before the…
Grace’s Story (Thank you ChildrensRights.org)
Grace, a Black 15-year old who was sent to a juvenile detention center for failure to submit schoolwork.
In an email to Grace’s caseworker, her teacher stated that Grace was “not out of alignment with most of my other students.”
Tens of thousands of children have struggled to adjust to the online learning environment the coronavirus created. ProPublica cites 15,000 high schoolers in Los Angeles alone failing to log in or complete schoolwork. Yet, a judge presiding for Oakland County Family Court Division, ruled in May that not completing schoolwork violated Grace’s probation.
It’s impossible to determine the frequency of cases like Grace’s, but one thing is clear. Children’s health and safety must be prioritized. We will continue urging states to stop admissions and to release kids from juvenile facilities. No child should be in juvenile detention for missing homework.
Financial Literacy – The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Discover KARA’s FREE Financial Literacy Program Here
Free and Discounted Resources for Youth (+ Holiday Gifting)
Foster Child Sites That Give & Need Help
Children Living & Dying As Martyrs to a Parents Religion
Many American newborns remain untested and untreated for very treatable metabolic disorders, hearing, sight & blood lead level s. 48 States allow religious exemptions from vaccination.
Some states allow religion to keep children from TB testing in school. 43 states give some kind of criminal or civil immunity to parents injuring their children by withholding medical care on religious grounds.
Six states let parents keep teachers from teaching their children about disease in school.
Over the years KARA has reported on children dying because their parents withheld medical treatment because the church told them to do so.
Some religions allow child neglect and abuse & some states allow a religious defense against charges of murdering their child – and “some can’t be charged with murder at all” (Slate).
2 years ago, Kansas State Rep Gail Finney vowed to pass a bill that allowed caregivers to leave bruises and cause bleeding. Arkansas State Rep Charles Fuqua promoted the death penalty for rebellious children (based on religious grounds).
As a volunteer County guardian ad-Litem, it has been awful to observe sexually abused two and four year old children and children suffering from violent physical abuse and neglect live through that abuse & try to overcome the terror and traumas inflicted upon them to make for themselves a normal life. Not many do.
KARA believes the U.S. should ratify the International Rights of the Child Treaty (we are the only nation not to have done so).
There are many cults in America that need to be exposed for the terrible way they treat children. Here’s one reported on by the Daily Beast this morning (send KARA your examples & forward this to your state rep).
Here’s a breakdown from Children’s Healthcare that shows a breakdown of states and their religious exemptions.
I tried to kill myself in the third grade
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association have declared a national emergency in children’s mental health, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
IT’S NOT A CRIME TO ABUSE YOUR CHILD
Religious exemptions = It’s Not A Crime to Abuse Your Child + NY banned child marriage today (7.23.21) but you can still withhold life saving medical care for religious reasons….
Child Abuse Stories, Statistics & Politics In America Today
Kids At Risk Action gathers stories and statistics
about child abuse and child welfare
State By State + International)
Women’s Rights & Children’s Rights
100 years ago, women were property (legally) and a husband could do just about anything to his wife. Murder was still murder, but anything else was treated by law enforcement much like animal abuse was in the day (not a big deal for the courts to be concerned with).
20 years ago I became a volunteer *CASA guardian ad Litem (voice for the child) in County child protection and saw first hand what it’s like for an American citizen to have no voice in the home, no voice in the courts and no voice in the media.
Over 25 years ago the rest of the world (194 nations) decided that children have basic human rights and begin signing the International Rights of the Child Treaty. Under this document, children are to have the rights to education, safety and well being including not to be made soldiers and not to be enslaved).
Human Rights and the Psychotropic Medicating of Children
Human Rights and the Psychotropic Medicating of Children is common in foster care and juvenile justice in the U.S. Self-harm and suicidal ideation play a roll in the early death and physical harm these children suffer.
Foster Care, Adoption & the Catholic Church
Foster Care, Adoption & the Catholic Church; It is crushing to see the the Supreme Court and the Catholic Church fighting tooth and nail to forbid gay couples from adopting State Ward children.
Covid Related Youth Mental Health Crisis
national emergency of child and adolescent mental health crisis triggered by isolation, uncertainty and grief during COVID.
Why We Hate Lawsuits (Eric Dean’s grandmother sues county & social workers for his death)
Recent KARE11 reporting brings full circle the events, sadness as MN Supreme Court ruling
allows Child Protective Services to be held responsible for Eric Dean’s death.
Helping Homeless Kids In Minnesota
COVID has overwhelmed much of our safety net for youth and finding shelter space is harder now.
Do you know a homeless or at risk youth in Minneapolis, ST Paul or Anoka ?(share this on your social media)
Tell them about the YMCA’s Communities Host Program where they can find safe, friendly and free shelter for up to a year at a time.
HOW TO HELP OR GET HELP
• To sign up to be a host home or for more details about the program, call the YMCA at 612-208-7381.
• Homeless youth age 24 and under can receive services such as meals and housing referrals at the Link’s drop-in center at Grace Lutheran Church, 7800 West County Road 42 in Apple Valley from 2-5 p.m. Monday-Friday.
National Adoption Month (statistics, books, videos & articles of, by & about foster and adoptive children)
National Adoption Month
One out of 25 U.S. families have an adopted child. Half of the 135,000 adoptions are from the foster care system. There are over 100,000 eligible children waiting to be adopted.
Parental Rights & Child Wellbeing
Is it Child Safety and Wellbeing or Parental Rights?
Have we lost sight of the purpose of Child Protective Services in our political wars to keep the rights of the person that can scream the loudest?
Medicating Foster Children – 1/2 of group home children use them
Does medicating Foster Children without therapy cause more problems than it solves?
Free and Discounted Resources for Foster Youth
Foster Child Sites That Give & Need Help
Child Protection Activists
Abolishing County Child Protection would eliminate the rights of children to the most basic human right of a safe home.
Eliminating CPS would spell doom for at risk children.
Arresting Sobbing Eight Year Old Children In Tennessee
At Rutherford County’s Hobgood elementary school,
An 8 year old, two 9 year old’s and an 11 year old walk into a principal’s office…
And are arrested and handcuffed (“out of habit” said officer Jeff Carroll).
October Is Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Watching your mother being beat up or raped is the same trauma as being beaten or raped to a five or nine year old. Untreated trauma lasts forever and it changes a person forever.
The United Nation’s-Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned that being confined with abusive partners during the pandemic has led to a “horrifying global surge in domestic abuse”. This well organized domestic violence reporting and resource guide with hotlines and practical advice …
Minnesota Child Abuse + Child Protection (fall 2021)
These articles about child abuse and child protection
have been gathered in Minnesota over the last 60 days
Foster Care Day Rates vs Dog Care Day Rates (it just doesn’t seem right)
Doggy day care is at least as costly (on average $50/day) than child care (on average $45/day) should make us think a little harder about how we value children in America. Kinship care subsidies in some states are below $10/day.
What’s it like to be a grandparent caring for a very troubled teenage grandchild living on social security?
It Can’t Happen Here (Sally’s Story)
This had to have been one of the most detailed Childline referrals the county had ever seen, not to mention Sally had a wonderful, dedicated psychiatrist. As the time went by, the treatment team eagerly awaited the results of her abuse referral, as she had won over the hearts of all the hospital staff and we all wanted to see her safe and free from harm.
The referral came back as unfounded.
Due to her intellectual and neurodevelopmental disabilities, she was deemed in-credible.
The School Safety Net
COVID restrictions have locked many more students into toxic homes and made it much harder for teachers to have the relationships necessary to have meaningful conversations and provide help to end the abuse.For many children being able to attend school physically is their only reprieve from an abusive home life and only chance to confide in an adult that can provide a path to safety.
KARA Is Unable to Respond To Requests For Child Protection Issues
Friends of KARA,
PLEASE
Use the Kids At Risk Action
resource library
to find help for child protection and wellbeing issues.
58 Miles
What is central in this discussion is the gravitational pull that abandoned children feel to connect with family and the importance of kinship care in this in the equation for each child placement.
Mental Health Help
Medicine is changing – and it needs to.
Read about KARA’s pilot Portages program to provide 100 youth
with a powerful new mental health resource (share this widely)
CDC Charts Mental Health & Child Suicide Pre COVID
COVID is Hammering Children’s Mental Health
These charts show steadily rising trends over the ten year period before COVID. The data pointing to youth planning suicide in the past year is very serious (2019).
Child Sex Abuse & The Most Powerful Suicide Note Ever (Bill Zeller from 2011)
This is the longest and most powerful and articulate suicide note I’ve ever read and it has great meaning to me for its power to relate these two incomprehensible sorrows (abuse & suicide).
Our Creeping Mental Health Crisis (& statistics)
Suicide is now the 2nd leading cause of death among 10 to 24 year olds. Over 1 million children under 6 are prescribed psychiatric drugs in America today.
KARA Financial Literacy Program
Kids At Risk Action is excited to launch our financial literacy groups and grant program in Minnesota! The financial literacy peer group program is a resource to learn, discuss, get help and answers to personal questions. It’s a resource for better answers and personal tools for avoiding money mistakes and growing financial wellbeing. KARA’s facilitated…
Recent Child Self-Harm & Suicide (state reporting summer 2021)
Recent Child Self-Harm & Suicide (state reporting summer 2021)
Minnesota Child Protection (thank you Safe Passage for Children)
Safe Passage for Children has followed up on the task force convened after the colossal failure of child protective services responsible for the death of Eric Dean and found that some of it’s recommendations were being ignored. This is a powerful piece
Domestic Violence Report August 2021
For abused children, there have been no classrooms to escape to and many mandated reporters have been unable to visit children to hear their stories and see their bruises.
This must feel like a war to children living in toxic homes.
Domestic Violence Resource Guide (National & International – share this widely)
The United Nation’s-Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned that being confined with abusive partners during the pandemic has led to a “horrifying global surge in domestic abuse”. This well organized domestic violence resource guide with hotlines and practical advice …
Don’t Blame The Mandated Reporter (why child abuse reporting is sporadic)
Mandated Reporters genuinely fear for their safety and reputation and regularly fail to report (or, “see”) horrific child abuse to avoid potential damage to themselves.
MN Child Protection Reality Check (thank you Safe Passages for Children)
Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota has delivered hard news on what appear to be terrible practices guiding child protection in our community.
Supporting Parents of Disabled Children (guest post)
Disabled children are 3 to 10 times more likely to be abused than children without disabilities.
THE COST OF PUNISHING DAMAGED CHILDREN
Of all the things not working in America today, our punishment model is running smoothly.
It’s creating exactly what some of us must want; crime, violence, teen and preteen moms, extraordinary social and financial costs and a reputation for punishing the most vulnerable and damaged among us.
A Lethal Absence of Hope
The inability to read almost ensures a child’s failure in school and in life. School failure, feelings of worthlessness, depression and self-hate lead to giving up and the terrible choices left to children that have no hope.
Child Welfare Information (find your state here)
These recent articles reflect the stories of America’s at risk children and youth.
If we don’t know the issues, there doesn’t seem to be a problem.
If we don’t see a problem there is no need for a solution.
Their stories are real.
Find their story in your state.
ACE Study, Crime & Ramsey County (reprinted from 2006)
ACE research shows a strong historical pattern of criminality in families of child delinquents. Using Cohen’s estimates, we calculate the multi-generational “multiplier effect” to be between $3.4 and $11.5 million. In these families, criminality is likely to grow exponentially.
Self Destructive Habits & Institutions (CASA guardian ad litem program in MN Today)
over time, institutions cling to self-destructive habits and fight tooth and nail to keep them. Child protective services is not different
Pounding On At Risk Children
Growing up gay is a trauma to start with. Being anxious and feeling alone and different is at the heart of the abuse suffered by both. The traumas of growing up gay and growing up abused are similar.
Free Bikes For Kids Needs Help (to give away bikes)
KARA advocates for the people, policies and programs that improve the lives of abused and neglected children. KARA Signature Video (4 minute) For years FREE BIKES FOR KIDS MN has given away tons of bikes each summer. This year they have put out a call for volunteers to help them make it happen. CLICK here…
For Profit Youth Prisons & False Imprisonment
Youth are two to three time more likely to confess to crimes they did not commit than adults.
Police interrogations using fabricated statements are most likely why. Kids are more intimidated by law enforcement than adults and they break down faster.
There’s just no upside in sending youth to jail. Incarcerating them for crimes they did not commit is a sign of a dysfunctional system. A system that creates what it was designed to stop.
Trauma & Child Self-Harm
Today, the chronic high stress of the COVID lockdown is growing anxiety, depression and behavioral problems everywhere, but especially in the homes of at risk children.
COVID Complicates the Mental Health of Traumatized Children
The severity of the mental health issues hammering traumatized children suffering from the abuse, neglect and traumas of an entire year of COVID lockdown without respite will become apparent to all of us soon.