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that improve the lives of abused and neglected children.
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58 miles was the distance between foster child Sixto Cancel’s family members that “would have taken her in” and the unhappy and often unsafe non-kinship group and foster homes she endured for so many years as a State Ward child.
Sixto’s heart rending story in the NYTimes is common to millions, of abused and neglected children that have passed through America’s County Child Protection systems.
As a CASA volunteer guardian ad Litem and researcher for KARA, I struggle to see both sides of this story.
Group homes and foster families are never going away. It’s wrong to cast them all as bad or inadequate safe havens for foster children.
That’s not this article.
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.
58 miles separated Sixto from her aunt who was already a foster mother.
As a nation, we talk big about caring for children.
Let’s put our money and policies into solving the crisis that is foster care and group home placement in our communities.
What’s it like to be a foster child in your community?
Become active in wanting to know – and talk about it.
Follow this story others here.
This article contributed by KARA board member Mike Tikkanen
#fostercare #SixtoCancel #kinshipplacement #kinshipcare #childabuse