Both my parents were abused as children. Child abuse is epigenetic – like hair and eye color. My childhood went away when the abuse started. I lived in a constant state of fight or flight, freeze, or fawn and when there was no escape the only thing left was to FAIL. A child trapped in inescapable child abuse trauma fails all the time.
Child Fatality & Egregious Incident Reporting: A U.S. Overview America’s approach to exposing and understanding the gravest harms done to children—fatalities, near-deaths, torture, and catastrophic agency failures—reveals a nation deeply divided by geography, law, and political will. The result is a patchwork of minimal transparency. Some states shine a light on information that has been…
free and discounted resources for foster and adopted children and families
how media coverage of child welfare too often focuses only on tragedy — fueling blame, misunderstanding, and reduced public support for the very systems meant to protect vulnerable children.
how foster youth are systematically failed within America’s education system. They expose how constant school changes, untreated trauma, and misdiagnoses isolate these children, often pushing them into special education, overmedication, or even the juvenile justice system
Today, Kids At Risk Action has two fully funded direct support programs for nonprofits to grow awareness and find support in their community. Share this with your nonprofit friends. In partnership with the nonprofit Seeds of Success, we’re offering two, high-impact programs designed to help your nonprofit organization increase donations, find volunteers, increase your capacity to raise critical awareness about child abuse in your community, and boost your chances at new grant opportunities:
Medicaid and SNAP cuts will disproportionately harm poor people and communities of color across the United States, with devastating statistical impacts:
Medicaid Coverage Losses: Over 13 million Black and more than 19 million Hispanic individuals rely on Medicaid for health coverage, with nearly 30% of Black and Hispanic populations dependent on it,
Nationally, cuts will deepen inequality, entrench generational poverty, and erode the foundation for future economic growth. This is not budget tightening—it is a deliberate dismantling of the infrastructure that keeps children safe and families stable. We will be a sicker, poorer, less educated, and less productive America, with the highest price paid by its most vulnerable children and the communities already struggling to survive.
The combined cuts to child friendly programs will impact some states more than other. This article presents a snapshot of what different states will be experiencing. Send KARA information concerning what’s happening in your state (send to info@invisiblechildren.org with CUTS in the subject line).
California:
Between DOGE cuts to child friendly programs and policies and the big beautiful bill, the cuts and service reductions described below will impact millions of children and families nationwide. In the foster care system alone, over 343,000 children are currently in care across the United States, with the largest numbers…
the harsh realities faced by LGBTQ+ youth in the foster care system — a population far too often isolated, unsupported, and at devastating risk of homelessness, suicide, and trauma. They share staggering statistics, heartbreaking stories, and expose how
Many reading this post may not be in the job you are doing this time next year. DOGE and other Federal policy changes have determined that the work being done for at-risk children and families is either wasteful or like DEI the wrong approach to public policy. Attorney General Pam Bondi recently stated that significantly less than 20% of funding cuts will be reversed
ROI Early Learning programs returns include reduced crime for at-risk children. The evidence is robust across decades of research, program evaluations, and cost-benefit analyses.
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
Market-based scholarship programs like Minnesota’s Early Learning Scholarships (MELS) prove these returns are scalable. MELS provides vouchers to low-income parents, empowering them to choose high-quality programs. Result: an 18% inflation-adjusted public ROI—higher than the S&P 500’s historical average111210. The keys to replicating this success are: Targeting at-risk children: Returns exceed $17 per dollar in high-poverty neighborhoods7. Parent empowerment:…
the harsh realities facing foster youth aging out of the system and the failures of Extended Foster Care (EFC) programs
The extraordinary ROI of early childhood programs stems from neurobiological and economic synergy. During ages 0–5, the brain forms 1 million neural connections per second, creating foundational skills that dictate lifelong learning, health, and behavior56. Programs like Child-Parent Centers leverage this plasticity: at-risk children receiving enriched preschool and parent mentoring achieved $10.83 in societal benefits per dollar spent by age…