“Kids Are Slowly Being Neglected To Death” – Hennepin County Judge Jane Ranum (Thank You from the children in my caseload)

This article initially published here in 2009 is critically important in the current Child Neglect conversation happening at a Federal level.

“Kids Are Slowly Being Neglected To Death” –

Hennepin County Judge Jane Ranum

(Thank You from the children in my caseload)

Today’s antigovernment sentiment, actions and rhetoric (1 minute video) are harming abused and neglected children.

From the article in 2009:

Thank You former MN Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Blatz for joining the task force and your years of speaking out about the serious failures within our child protection system. Thank You Pioneer Press reporter Ruben Rosario and Star Tribune reporter Brandon Stahl for your investigative reporting on the slow, tortured death of Eric Dean after 14 ignored reports of abuse to CPS. From the fifty children in my CASA guardian ad-Litem caseload, Thank You.

Thank You Governor Mark Dayton for using the long overdue “colossal failure” language to describe an overburdened, misunderstood, and under-supported child protection system and creating the investigative task force to make it work better for children.

You have given voice to the tragic failure of child protection services after multiple reports of child abuse to state agencies. Without Child Protective Services, abused and neglected services have no voice; Not in the homes they are raised in, the courts, the media or the state legislature. Abused and neglected children are invisible.

We the public find child abuse uncomfortable and until a baby is found in a dumpster and then we wring our hands about how awful this is how it happens.

That the parent was a fourth generation abused preteen drug addicted mother with no parenting skills and a violent boyfriend is never known or addressed. None of the fifty children I lobbied as a CASA Guardian ad Litem to remove from their toxic homes ever made the newspaper. Not the baby with the bottom half of her body burned off, the boy who was tied to a bed, beaten, starved, and sexually abused for four years, or the ten other very young children who were also sexually abused – 2,3, 4, years old. Most of these children remained in their homes suffering their abuse for years.

Many of these very young children were given psychotropic medications instead of useful mental health services and they never did receive the help they needed to recover from the violence that had been done to them as children. Most of my guardian ad-Litem kids did not go on to lead productive lives.

In 2009, only seven percent of reported MN child abuse cases were investigated.  It is likely even a smaller percentage today as Family Services are being offered significantly more often than in 2009 (this issue is discussed at the end of this 6-minute video).

Historically, only the very worst of the very worst cases ever make it into child protective services.

 

 

#ChildProtection

#ChildWelfare

#ProtectChildren

#StopChildAbuse

#ChildNeglect

#KidsAtRisk

#SystemicNeglect

#InvisibleChildren

#Minnesota

#MNLeg

#EricDean

#CASA

#GuardianAdLitem

#TraumaInformed

#ChildAdvocacy

#SpeakUpForChildren

 

 

 

KARA / KIDS AT RISK ACTION / INVISIBLE CHILDREN