KEEPING CHILDREN SAFE IN THEIR HOME
If I had committed the crimes parents perpetrated upon their own children in my CASA guardian ad Litem cases, I would be writing this from jail. Because caregivers delivered the beatings, rapes and other traumas, the abuse was not a criminal matter and children were often returned to their parents for more of the same.
Over my CASA volunteer Guardian ad Litem years, no adult was ever charged for terrible violence against children as young as three years old. One of the perpetrators remained in the home and continued to abuse very young children over the 12 years I was on the case (with 7 children).
100 years ago, beatings, rape and violence against a wife (or children) were private and not addressed or penalized by the courts. Authorities did not intervene in family matters and wives and children were considered chattel (like furniture) by the courts.. That only changed when women attained the right to vote and had standing in court. This is the problem American children are facing today. Because children have no standing in court, their lives are at the mercy of Child Protective Services (CPS) and mandated reporters that are failing them in large numbers.
Today, intensely secretive CPS neither tracks or shares meaningful information about children (data/not names) in the system. We only read and know about the children that die (and not all of them or any of the near-death experiences these children suffer).
No one outside of the court and family know anything about the near-death experiences of the children in my caseload (or the self-harm, suicide attempts or other important metrics).
Because we the people know so little about these life-threatening conditions, we do not see the need for solutions, so children continue to be abused.
This Investigative Report of children killed by their parents while in Child Protective Services (today) could be confused with something written 100 years ago.
None of the awful things done to the children in this report were made public. No one knows how many children in my caseload had tried suicide or self-harmed. Each family had long histories of violence and neglect to their children. Child Protective Services could have (should have) done more to keep these children alive.
None of this is to diminish the efforts of social/health workers, educators or others working hard to make life better for at risk children. They are doing what they can with the training and resources available. It’s grinding work with too few of the right resources and too many bad outcomes.
SOLUTIONS:
Much of our problem stems from the lack of tracking and reporting important child safety and outcome metrics. Without that kind of reporting, there is little awareness of the depth and scope of the problem and therefore no need for solutions.
There are things we can do and things we must stop to interrupt this cascade of failures that are impacting growing numbers of generationally abusive families (short podcast).
These are some of the forces impacting Child Protective Services today
Parental rights battling for more power over children who already have no civil rights,
Racial disparities,
overuse of Family Assessment meaning
fewer investigations of the abuse that has occurred
better tracking, and reporting
of child outcome metrics in CPS
and the over-institutionalizing
of children in the system
(dehumanizing trends)
First, we need to save more children from crimes
committed upon them in the homes they are raised in.
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!
Support KARA’s work with a small monthly donation:
INVISIBLECHILDREN – KARA (KIDS AT RISK ACTION
“What we do to our children, they will do to our society”
(Pliny the Elder, 2000 years ago)
KIDS AT RISK ACTION / KARA / INVISIBLE CHILDREN
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