After years of turmoil caused by GAL management’s efforts to end the Court Appointed Special Advocate volunteer program, Minnesota’s former Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz has been appointed to the GAL board.
Chief Justice Blatz attended the recent GAL board meeting where the vote was being taken to end the CASA program. She made observations and asked questions that prompted enough board member no votes to stop the elimination process.
Thank you GAL board members that took her questions and observations seriously to vote no – forbidding the dissolution of a program that has saved thousands of MN children from the trauma of ongoing child abuse.
It will take time to continue the investigation into how best to coordinate the work of volunteers and staff to better serve as abused or neglected children and youth make their way children as they move through Child Protective Services. But we know now that the information will be accurate and the results reliable.
More to come as this story unfolds.
Is CPS creating what it was designed to stop?
There are many forces at play on Child Protective Services today
The punishment model still rules in courts, schools and public policy
better tracking and reporting
of child outcomes in CPS
and the over-institutionalizing
of children in our institutions
(dehumanizing trends)
First, we need to save abused children from
more trauma, more punishment and the lifetime of crime
that comes from early incarceration.
KARA reports on the issues of invisible children
This article submitted by Former CASA Guardian Ad Litem Mike Tikkanen