2025 – A Happier New Year For At Risk Children
2025 – A Happier New Year For At Risk Children
The Ghost of Christmas Past (the value of healthy children)
In 2003, MN Federal Reserve Board Director Art Rolnick & Economist Rob Grunewald completed a study demonstrating that early childhood programs returned the best financial investment a government could make to build healthy children and productive citizens
Child Abuse Articles December 2024
child abuse around the nation and internationally.
Suicide, Child Abuse and Christmas
Many foster youth and abused and neglected children in toxic homes suffer especially during the holidays. There is no joy in being removed from your birth home or to continue living in a birth home with broken parents and the behaviors that come with abusive caregivers.
About 25% of the children and young adults in California foster care have attempted suicide. 41% of LGBTQ kids seriously thought of killing themselves last year.
Thank You & Happy Holidays
Dear Reader, As the year comes to a close, we want to thank you for following our Saturday INVISIBLE CHILDREN updates. Your readership is helping KARA spread awareness of child abuse and trauma, and the work that needs to be done to save and heal at-risk children. KARA relies on the generosity of our…
Fixing CPS – A Meaningful Conversation (35 Minute Podcast)
Fixing CPS with greater transparency in Child Protective Services. This conversation is about the many things impacting the safety and wellbeing of abused and neglected children. The lack of transparency being discussed in West Virginia CPS applies to every state: A Meaningful Conversation (35 Minute Podcast). Discussed in this podcast: Kinship care partners, mentors, volunteers,…
Management Not Fit For Purpose
a unique perspective of what happened to Minnesota’s CASA Guardian ad Litem program over the last 4 years.
Child Abuse Sad Stories (4 days in November)
37% of children overall and 44% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America
by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
7.8 million children a year are reported to child protection services.
Thank You Cyndy Etler (don’t lock them up)
shining a light on child advocacy,
Fosters, Grandparents & Thanksgiving Hunger
This Thanksgiving, over 13 million American children are living with their grandparents (four times what this it was in 1970).
It is estimated that for every child in foster care with relatives, there are 20 living outside of care with relatives (usually grandparents).
Budget Surplus Fund For Children (how to make a Christmas Miracle)
Peter Hutchinson’s recent Star Tribune article points to how the current MN budget surplus could fully fund programs that would make children healthier, better educated and (ALL OF US) safer.
Why Children Need Mandated Reporters
https://invisiblechildren.org/2013/07/04/mandated-reporting-or-basic-responsibility-its-absence-is-killing-wisconsin-pennsylvania-children/ Facebook Replacing Mandated Reporters for Child Abuse? Don’t Blame The Mandated Reporter (why child abuse reporting is sporadic) Fear and Firing of Mandated Reporters of Child Abuse Being A Mandated Reporter (and what it means) Reporting Maltreatment Of Children; How Minnesota Does It (State Statute – 626.556) Tolerating Child Death in Minnesota (thank you…
Realities of Mandated Reporting (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.
Abolishing CPS Kills Children & Ruins Fosters
Abolishing CPS Kills Children & Ruins Fosters
COVIDs Impact on CPS, CASA volunteers, & Guardian ad Litem Staff
COVIDs Impact on CPS, CASA volunteers, & Guardian ad Litem Staff
Making CPS Work For Everyone (parental/religious rights) part 2
Child Protective Services (CPS) can’t keep children safe (or alive) in opposition to State and Federal law.
Leadership and Child Protection
For success happen for children requires people able to work within a rigid system but willing to test the boundaries of what your office can achieve for the children in this highly regulated and bureaucratic system.
Making CPS Work For Everyone part 1
Any conversation about Child Protective Services needs to include a deep dive into racial disparities, religious and parental rights, and common misconceptions about CPS and child abuse.
Making Informed Decisions
The public knows almost nothing about the depth and scope of child abuse in their community
If I Only Had a Brain
If the medical community, Children’s Defense Fund and former MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz are right, the vast majority of crime in America is the result of what happened to that person as a child.
A CPS Reality Check (good for admin – bad for children)
CPS reality check in the current political battle for community CASA guardian ad Litems in MN. To put it bluntly, what’s good for the administrators often may be bad for the children.
America’s CHILDHOOD TRAUMA and ACES Impact
America’s CHILDHOOD TRAUMA and ACES Impact INVISIBLE CHILDREN
Child Abuse Investigations & Reforms
WHEN YOU Share KARA’s reporting with FRIENDS, INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK and most of all, your State Representative (find them here) change will come a little bit faster. When enough of us become informed and speak up for abused and neglected children, we will improve their lives and our communities! Please support KARA’s work with a small monthly donation: CLICK…
Child Protection In America Today
There is a fire smoldering on the topic of child protection in America today
Expecting Different Results From Prison for Kids
Expecting Different Results From Prison for Kids
Minnesota’s new Supreme Court Council on Child Protection and Abuse Prevention
Minnesota’s new Supreme Court Council on Child Protection and Abuse Prevention
One Question KARA Survey
What topic needs more attention on KARA’s website?
Email you answer to info@invisiblechildren.org with SURVEY in the subject line.
Child Abuse Data and Better Decision Making
Child Abuse Data and Better Decision Making
KARA – CASA Google Ad Grant Initiative ($120,000 annually)
KARA’s
Google Ad Grants
fully funded Initiative for
CASA’s & Service Providers
To At-Risk Children
Human Services – Beyond Crisis
Human Services – Beyond Crisis: core social service issues making even a safe life impossible for more and more people
Child Welfare News Fall 2024 (compiled articles)
KARA compiles child abuse and neglect stories and data about
abused and neglected children
International Rights of the Child VS. Child Rights In America
It is important to note that the U.S. is the only nation in the world to not have ratified the United Nation’s RIGHTS OF THE CHILD TREATY of the 1980s.
America’s Children In 100 Charts (draft preface)
America’s Children In 100 Charts
Child abuse is invisible. It is a core problem in every American community impacting all of us, our institutions, and every aspect of our quality of life every day.
Overwhelmed Institutions & Public Policy
To be fair, what does an overwhelmed institution do when caseloads double and budgets are cut in half? Rural counties will always be underfunded, understaffed and unable to provide the level of service larger urban areas can with their larger budgets giving them more options.
Thank You Ann Ahlstrom (MN Guardian Ad Litem Board Chair)
From Ann Ahlstrom (bold emphasis from KARA)
August 19, 2024
Greetings Minnesota Volunteer Guardians ad Litem:
Schools, Child Suicide, Nurses, & COVID
Repeated childhood trauma does cruel things to children. Things that never go away. Those things (behaviors/thoughts/self-harm/suicide) can be managed with help. Without help, depression, pain and sadness often become overwhelming.
Self-Destructive Habits of Institutions
Let’s imagine a government that controls (1) automobile safety standards, (2) the state inspection for compliance with automobile safety standards (3) the automobile repair industry, all within the same department, and all done in official secrecy so as to protect the privacy of would-be drivers.
And let’s also suppose that the people who drive automobiles are, 98% of them, poor and very young people, who have no effective political voice.
What Teachers Are Facing Today and Tomorrow
Teachers feel undervalued and overwhelmed.
Turnover his high and a number of states are using
unqualified people to fill positions.
KARA’s Invisible Children Traveling Community Conversations
This fall and winter, KARA is inviting universities, community centers, and businesses to engage our INVISIBLE CHILDREN COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS.
FOSTER CARE REALITIES (the problem and solutions)
FOSTER CARE REALITIES
Children are fostered only if they have been removed from homes where egregious harm has happened to them and a judge thinks their lives are in imminent danger.
Fear and Firing of Mandated Reporters of Child Abuse
Fear and Firing of Mandated Reporters of Child Abuse – A lawsuit and threatened firing of a 40-year veteran nurse and mandated reporter in California is ruining my week. This will bring fear to nurses and other mandated reporters of child abuse everywhere.
Thank You Highland Banks
For over twenty years
Highland Banks and their employees
have supported KARA
and other child advocate organizations in Minnesota.
Fetal Alcohol Births (and a very big policy change)
Minnesota has ended criminalizing fetal alcohol birth mothers with the hopes of better results by recommending treatment instead of mandatory programs and prosecution for failure.
What To Do For At Risk Children (a list of important things)
What To Do For At Risk Children (a list of important things) From easy and quick to hard and long, a list (in progress – your suggestions welcome)
If you are concerned about at-risk children where you live, Check it Out!
United Nations Youth Conference (2007 – what’s changed?)
Kids At Risk Action presented a workshop at the fourth annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations in New York
Child Protection/CPS: If Lawmakers Only Knew
Child Protection/CPS: If Lawmakers Only Knew (why they don’t – & why they should) Not many lawmakers come to the job understanding child abuse and what happens to children in CPS (Child Protective Services). Few legislators have experienced childhood trauma or the institution (CPS) that protects children from growing up in homes of life-threatening harm.
Who Will Speak For Abused & Neglected Children? video
Who Will Speak For The Children?
Child Protection work is hard. Community CASA volunteers (Court Appointed Special Advocate) speak for abused and neglected children in County Child Protection.
Volunteer CASA Guardians ad Litem spend their days with abused and neglected children that have been raped, neglected, beaten, and tortured by other means.
Child Protection Intake Notes (through the eyes of a child)
Intake notes from County CPS
These are a tiny sample of County intake notes
social workers and guardians ad Litem are assigned each week;
Explaining Juvenile Justice and Lifetime Sentencing In a Moral Society
Explaining Juvenile Justice and Lifetime Sentencing In a Moral Society
Recent Child Suicide and Self-Harm Articles Around the Nation
What parents should do after a child’s suicide attempt? Answering caregivers’ frequently …