The Children Nobody Counts
My first case started on a hospital suicide ward with a four-year-old who had watched her seven year old sister raped and beaten for years.
Crime Costs America Trillions. Most of It Starts With a Child.
How much does crime cost us? More than you think. The most cited study puts it at $2.6 trillion a year. Other economists, counting fear, security systems, and stolen money, put it as high as $5.76 trillion. Only about a quarter of the $2.6 trillion is hospital bills, police, courts, and prisons. The rest is pain, grief, and lives cut short
What We Learned From 1212 (The Children’s Crusade)
What We Learned From 1212 (Nothing) My first visit to a four-year-old was in the suicide ward of a local hospital. Four. Not fourteen. She was in a locked unit because the adults responsible for her had done something to her that made a child that young want to stop existing. I was her Guardian…
Minnesota Is the Fifth Best State in the Nation for Children. Unless Your Child Is Black.
Minnesota ranks fifth in the nation for child well-being and near last for racial equity. Both are true. Here is what the numbers show across education, juvenile justice, child protection, and health care, and what actually works to change them.
The New KARA Website, and a Favor to Ask
The new KARA website is live at kidsatriskaction.com. Thirty years of reporting on abused and neglected children, the Deep Dive reports, the podcast, and the data, all in one place. Before we call it finished, we want your reaction (one sentence is fine)
Foster Care Statistics: The Real Life of a Foster Child
Half of foster youth have been sexually abused. A quarter attempt suicide. Sixty percent carry a chronic illness or developmental delay. These are not estimates from advocates, they are federal data and peer-reviewed research. Here is what the numbers say about life inside Child Protective Services, and what would change them.
Punishing Single Parents and At-Risk Children (Why?)
A draft federal rule would pay married stay-at-home parents about $9,000 a year per child, using money from the fund that helps low-income parents work. Eighty percent of the families using that fund now are single working parents. That rule is one item on a long list, and here is the whole list.
Child Death and Near Death Reporting: What a Year Looks Like, State by State Part II
William Evans was seven years old. He had a developmental disability. He was found dead at a duplex in Cincinnati. When Hamilton County officials were asked how a thing like that happens, one of them gave an answer that should stop you cold. Families who abuse children move often. They move to avoid relationships. They move to avoid connections. And a child nobody knows is a child nobody reports.
That is the whole failure in one sentence.
What Child Protective Services Does Not Track and Why Lawmakers Need to Know
Child Protective Services often measures reports, investigations, placements, reunifications, and case closures. But those numbers do not reveal whether children become safer, healthier, better educated, stably housed, or able to thrive as adults. KARA outlines the missing long-term outcomes lawmakers need to track and a privacy-protected framework for measuring whether public systems truly improve children’s lives.
What Life Is Actually Like for a Foster Child in America
Half of foster youth have been sexually abused. A quarter attempt suicide. In Kentucky, 304 children slept in state office buildings with no showers. But cash support cuts removals, kinship licensing is adding homes, and every extra year in care past 18 lowers homelessness and arrest. Here is the evidence on both sides, all of it sourced.
Punishment Does Not Heal Childhood Trauma, Trauma-Informed Care Does
Punishing children who have been harmed in toxic homes does not heal trauma, improve learning, or make communities safer. It often deepens the pain that leads to school failure, mental-health struggles, justice-system involvement, and generational child abuse. This post explains why the ACEs, Adverse Childhood Experiences, healing model offers a better path: trauma-informed schools, health care, child care, law enforcement, and public policy that help children build the skills and safety they need to heal and thrive.
The Child Placement Crisis: Why Kids Are Living in Hotels Instead of Homes
Child welfare systems across the country are facing a deepening placement crisis. As group homes, residential treatment centers, and detention beds have closed without real alternatives, older youth with high-intensity behavioral and developmental needs are being warehoused in hotels, emergency rooms, and psychiatric hospitals. KARA presents Judith Schagrin’s essential article on how we got here and why policymakers must rethink residential care, remedy the unintended consequences of the Family First Prevention Services Act, and build safe, humane options for children who cannot live at home.
What Psychiatrists Can Do: Restorative Practice in Children’s Mental Health
Psychiatrists can help abused and neglected children even when specialty care is scarce by using trauma-informed care, safer prescribing, community partnerships, and advocacy
How I Can Help: CASA Guardian Ad Litems (in their words)
CASA Guardian ad Litem volunteers stand beside abused and neglected children in court, offering time, continuity, and a purely child focused voice. Here, CASAs explain their role in their own words, and we outline how you can explore becoming a CASA volunteer yourself.
Project 2025 and Children: How Federal Cuts Are Dismantling Supports Kids Need to Survive and Thrive
Project 2025 and allied budget plans would slash or eliminate programs that children rely on for health care, nutrition, early childhood education, civil rights protections, and child welfare support. KARA summarizes CWLA and other advocates’ warnings, shows how child poverty and hunger are already rising, and urges you to share this information and call your lawmakers before more supports for kids disappear.
If Lawmakers Only Knew: Why CPS Needs De‑Identified Longitudinal Family Records
Most CPS reporting gives lawmakers only snapshots: how many kids are in care today, how many reports this year. KARA argues that counties must keep de identified, family level longitudinal records so legislators can see multi generational involvement, understand which interventions reduce repeat removals, and design policies that break cycles of trauma instead of just managing them case by case, year by year.
Update: Minnesota’s Supreme Court Council on Child Protection and Maltreatment Prevention
Minnesota’s new Supreme Court Council on Child Protection and Maltreatment Prevention is building a statewide blueprint to prevent child abuse and improve how the system works for families once they’re involved. Safe Passage helped launch this effort and is now tracking early reforms from Family Resource Centers to better training, legal representation, and foster youth supports and highlighting ways stakeholders can give input.
What Mandated Reporters Can Do: Turning Knowledge Into Protection, Action, and Healing
Mandated reporters: teachers, clinicians, social workers, childcare staff, clergy and others are often the only adults who see the hidden signs of child abuse and neglect. This article explains what mandated reporters can do: recognize red flags, act on reasonable suspicion, report and document clearly, push past institutional pressure, and stay emotionally supported while protecting children.
What School Boards Can Do: Trauma Informed Policies That Protect Students and Improve Schools
School boards decide whether schools become trauma informed, healing environments or systems that deepen harm. This chapter explains what boards can do: make trauma and child safety central to district strategy, fund early identification and support services, reshape policing and discipline around healing and equity, protect relationship-based learning, and demand transparent, equity focused metrics and community partnerships so vulnerable students are seen, supported, and able to succeed.
America’s Child Brides: Jerry Lee Lewis, Legal Loopholes, and the Rights We Deny Our Children
Jerry Lee Lewis marrying 13‑year‑old Myra Brown isn’t just a strange story from the past. Child marriage is still legal in most U.S. states, creating America child brides whose trauma and rights we pretend not to see.
Efficiency vs. Children’s Lives: How Ned & KARA Expose Failures in Child Protection
When child protection systems worship efficiency, children lose. Ned’s metaphor and KARA’s data reveal how underfunded CASAs and overloaded workers leave abused kids without a voice in court or in their own life.
Rana Plaza, Children, and Corporate Responsibility – KARA
This KARA article revisits the Rana Plaza factory collapse through the eyes of child workers and victims’ children, showing how weak corporate responsibility scars young lives long after the rubble is cleared.
KARA Conversations – Growing Childhood Trauma Awareness Where You Live
KARA Conversations brings experienced child advocacy speakers to your classroom, congregation, nonprofit or civic group for short, powerful Zoom sessions on child abuse, childhood trauma and how Child Protective Services really works. Choose a 30 minute overview with Q&A or a customized 60 minute event, and help the people where you live move from concern to concrete action for children.
Parental Drug Use Killing Children in Pennsylvania at High Rates (investigative report)
An investigative report from Pennsylvania’s TribLive found that nearly 30% of 845 child deaths and near-deaths from 2018–2022 were tied to parental drug use—often in families already known to Child Protective Services. Similar patterns are emerging in Minnesota, Allegheny County and other states. This KARA article shares real children’s stories, shows how CPS and child-fatality systems are failing to track the true scale of drug-related child deaths, and calls on adults everywhere to demand better data, oversight and protection.
Global Value Chains and the Power of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs)
Global value chains and fast‑fashion business models do not just “reflect” child labour in countries like Bangladesh – they help design it into the system. Research by Eshanee Singh, Michael Nielsen and the CLARISSA programme shows how multinational buyers, through relentless pressure for lower prices and faster production, push risks and costs down onto informal workshops and necessity‑driven family businesses, where employing children often becomes the only way to survive. Instead of treating child labour as a distant cultural problem, this work makes clear that it is a predictable outcome of corporate decisions in boardrooms and purchasing offices, and that real change will come only when citizens, consumers and investors demand supply chains that value children’s lives more than shareholders’ dividends.
Child Protection in the Dark: How Our Blind Spots in CPS Are Costing Taxpayers, Children, and Communities
Child Protective Services is one of the least understood and least transparent systems we fund, even though childhood trauma drives enormous costs in education, health care, crime, and prisons. This KARA article argues that taxpayers, children, and communities are all paying for our blind spots around CPS, shows how negative narratives and politics are pushing the system into crisis, and calls on readers to demand real data and trauma-informed reform.
Arizona’s Hidden Child Trauma: KARA Deep Dive Into Child Abuse
Arizona rebuilt its child welfare agency in 2014 after 6,554 child abuse reports were marked “not investigated,” but new audits, deaths, and lawsuits show the same failure patterns emerging under a different name. This KARA deep dive consolidates Arizona’s own data, fatality reviews, and court records to expose how delays, documentation gaps, group home overreliance, and chronic turnover are still putting children at risk—and what that means for real reform.
Alaska’s Hidden Child Trauma: Beyond CPS Number
The Alaska Children’s Alliance warns that Alaska has “some of the highest rates of child abuse and neglect in the nation,” noting research that 38% of children born in Alaska will be reported to child welfare before age 10 and nearly 1 in 7 will face an allegation of sexual abuse before age 12
Invisible Hours: Child Labour in Bangladesh’s Toxic Informal Economy
Child labour in Bangladesh remains widespread, especially in the informal economy and leather industry, where children work extreme hours in toxic, hazardous conditions for less than US$2 a day. Drawing on a 2024 UNICEF report, a five year CLARISSA study, and a foundational ILO assessment of push and pull factors, this post explains why Bangladesh is a child labour hot spot and how poverty, poor health, and employer demand keep children trapped in dangerous work instead of school.
Excerpt
Child labour in Bangladesh has not disappeared—it has shifted into the informal economy, where children work long hours in toxic, unsafe conditions for very low pay. A 2024 UNICEF report shows that child labour rates remain significantly high, while a five year CLARISSA study reveals that 27% of workers in small leather enterprises are children handling chemicals, heavy loads, and dangerous machinery.
This post also revisits a key 1997 ILO assessment of push and pull factors that explains why poverty, poor health, disaster, and employer demand continue to drive children into hazardous work instead of school. Together, these findings show why Bangladesh remains a hot spot for child labour and why solutions must address both household poverty and the structure of informal labour markets.
Ending Meaningful Child Protection in America
A federal “bonfire of deregulation” and plans to erase “neglect” from child protection law are quietly dismantling Child Protective Services in America. Backed by the president and his base, these policies weaken legal protections, strip away thousands of pages of guidance, hide crucial government information, and slash funding—placing at‑risk children and families in even greater danger.
Join KARA’s Children’s Crusade: Making Life, Liberty, and Happiness Real for Abused and Neglected Children
KARA’s Children’s Freedom Crusade uses a Fourth of July freedom theme to demand real life, liberty, and happiness for abused and neglected children—and to build a national, child first movement that puts their safety and healing first.
Self-Destructive Habits of Institutions
Using KARA’s friend Ned’s “backwards car” analogy, this post explains how Child Protective Services is structured to protect its own bureaucracy rather than children. Conflicts of interest, secrecy, and missing metrics mean CPS often produces what it was designed to stop. The fix starts with transparency and informed legislators.
Best and Worst States for Very Young Children in CPS: New Data on Risk, Failures, and Hope
This article uses NCANDS data to identify the best and worst states for very young children in CPS, highlighting where infants and toddlers face the greatest risk of severe harm or death and how troubled, overwhelmed child protection systems are struggling with heavy caseloads and too few resources. It points lawmakers, advocates, and communities toward more transparent CPS reporting, stronger early childhood support, and data driven reforms that can actually protect kids and support families.
Child Abuse and Child Protection Stories & Statistics Arizona & Arkansas
Child Abuse and Child Protection Stories & Statistics Arizona & Arkansas
How One Letter Saved a Child (KARA Podcast)
Josh and Maya share a powerful story of a young boy on the brink of being locked up, not because he was dangerous, but because the system lacked transparency
When Is Child Abuse a Crime
Child abuse in the home is still too often treated as a private family issue instead of a crime. Drawing on years as a CASA guardian ad Litem, this post exposes how Child Protective Services keeps abuse hidden, why children have no standing in court, and what must change so kids are truly safe in their own homes.
How Foster Care and Group Homes Fail America’s Most Troubled Children
Foster care and group homes are supposed to protect our most troubled children, but for many they become another source of trauma. Youth in care face unstable placements, high rates of mental illness, overrepresentation in group homes, and far greater odds of homelessness, exploitation, and incarceration when they age out.
“Safety” at Home, Rape in Secret: The Long Shadow of Caregiver Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse of a child is rarely a single “incident” or the act of a stranger in the dark; for many children, it is years of rape by the caregivers who are supposed to protect them. Most child sex abuse occurs in the home. This CASA Guardian ad Litem has experience two four-year-olds coming into…
America’s Child Abuse Emergency: 546,000 Victims, 2,000 Deaths, and a System That Chooses This
Child abuse in the United States is not rare or random — it is the predictable outcome of policy choices. In 2023, about 546,000 children were confirmed victims of abuse or neglect and an estimated 2,000 were killed, roughly five children every day. Most are hurt by their own parents, often after prior contact with Child Protective Services. These numbers vary wildly by state, proving that our systems can choose to protect children — or not.
Alex Miller’s Leadership Is Rebuilding Minnesota’s CASA Program
Minnesota’s Guardian ad Litem and CASA program has been under real strain—lost volunteers, rising caseloads, and stressed systems have put vulnerable children at risk. Alex Miller’s Minnesota CASA leadership as Chief Information Officer and Interim Program Administrator is helping move the program from crisis toward recovery. By modernizing technology, strengthening data security, and working transparently with the State Guardian ad Litem Board, he has helped stabilize turnover and rebuild trust. The result is a system that is slowly regaining its footing and putting more trained, supported advocates in the lives of abused and neglected children.
All About Adverse Childhood Experiences: Trauma, Testing, And Resilience (podcast)
Kids at Risk Action, hosts Alex and Jordan explore the profound impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and how childhood trauma can affect individuals throughout their lives, much like PTSD in veterans.
Part 4 of 5: Why Early Childhood Investment Outperforms Remedial Spending
Compared to other government expenditures, early childhood programs are uniquely cost-effective. K–12 education spends ~$15,000/student annually with diminishing returns; prison systems cost $40,000/inmate yearly with high recidivism. Meanwhile, early childhood interventions like Head Start save $4.8B–$16.1B per
Northeastern University Study on the Child Welfare Crisis With Projections
Official child welfare numbers may capture only part of the crisis. This analysis explains how poverty, Family Assessment practices, underreporting, misreporting, and weak transparency can hide the true scale of harm to children—and why future projections must account for what the system fails to record.
Very Young Children, Suicide, and Abuse: What We, CPS, and Lawmakers Must Do
Very young children are showing up in emergency rooms after suicide attempts and self‑harm, often with histories of abuse, neglect, and other trauma. When CPS and lawmakers lack transparent, child‑outcome data and trauma‑focused resources, these children slip through the cracks until it is too late.
In Custody, In Crisis (podcast episode #1)
dive into the “ground truth” of the foster care system — exposing the often-unseen hardships children face even after being placed in protective care. Through heartbreaking stories like Alex’s and alarming statistics on abuse
KARA’s Plea For Children (a call to action)
There is no shortage of well-meaning volunteers and workers dedicated to improving the lives of the children they are serving as teachers, Guardians ad Litem, social & healthcare workers, law enforcement and adoptive/foster parents.
How Child Abuse and Trauma Sabotage Education, Public Health, and Public Safety
Child abuse redefines the way a child thinks and sees the world. Abused children have severely limited learning and coping skills. An abused child’s mental development has been arrested by an anxiety and fear that supercede the learning of other personal and social skills. Without personal and social skills, and a lessening of the anxieties and fears, Abused children fail at school, don’t make friends, and keep a terribly low self image.
Extended Foster Care: Problems and Solutions (podcast #2 in foster care series)
the harsh realities facing foster youth aging out of the system and the failures of Extended Foster Care (EFC) programs
Deep Dive Into Northeastern University Child Welfare Crisis Research
This deep dive expands on KARA’s child welfare crisis post by walking through five Northeastern University capstone projects. Together, they use national data, infant mortality models, county level forecasting, and poverty analysis to show where children are most at risk—and how KARA AND YOU can use this research to drive policy change.
Foster Care Mental Health Needs, Costs, and Facts for Minnesota & The Nation
There is an underappreciated reality that Child Protective Services is the only safe haven for children living with rape, violence and neglect as they are too young to defend themselves.