CASA of Rock County’s Break The Cycle Luncheon
CASA of Rock County’s Break The Cycle Luncheon
CASA Minnesota Guardian ad Litem Opportunities
information from the CASAMN website about Guardian ad Litem volunteer opportunities, CASA CARES grants for Minnesota children, and updates on the program’s recent newsworthy events.
The Best Safe Passage For Children of MN Blogs
Below are KARA’s picks for the best blogs published recently by Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota.
U.S. Child Death and Self-Harm Reporting
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. KARA reports on the issues of invisible children These articles compiled by Former CASA Guardian Ad Litem Mike Tikkanen Signup For KARA’s FREE Friday Morning Updates All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children INVISIBLECHILDREN – KARA (KIDS AT RISK ACTION These articles and videos about child abuse,…
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.
DATA WORTH HAVING (for making informed decisions)
Is Child Protection Services (CPS) creating what it was designed to stop? KARA reports on the issues of invisible children This article submitted by Former CASA Guardian Ad Litem Mike Tikkanen Signup For KARA’s FREE Friday Morning Updates All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children INVISIBLECHILDREN – KARA (KIDS AT RISK ACTION This…
Child Abuse Prevention In America (videos & articles)
articles and videos about child abuse prevention and child protection
Keep Minnesota children safe in Child Protection
Today’s Safe Passage for Children of MN’s action request to keep children safe in Child Protection: A small effort with big dividends. Share this with your State Representative (find them here). On Monday, a group of us gathered at the Capitol to meet with key legislators about Minnesota’s child protection system. We shared the stories…
International Rights of the Child VS. Child Rights In America
Over 25 years ago the rest of the world (194 nations) decided that children have basic human rights and begin signing the International Rights of the Child Treaty. Under this document, children are to have the rights to education, safety and well being including not to be made soldiers, not to be enslaved). America is the only nation that has yet to ratify it.
America is the only nation that has not signed that agreement, largely because we still demand that southern states continue to militarize youth as young as eleven, through military schools.
Education in 2024 – Educating At Risk Children (what tomorrow looks like)
This is a synopsis of Education Week’s last 12 months of reporting on conditions in American schools today with attention to educating abused and neglected children. It’s a deep dive into what it means to be a teacher in America today.
Celebrating Minnesota’s CASA Guardian Ad Litem Progress
Celebrating Minnesota’s CASA Guardian Ad Litem Progress
KARA – CASA Ad Grant Initiative ($120,000 annually)
KARA’s Google Ad Grant Initiative for CASA’s
The U.S. has 950 CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) organizations consisting of community volunteers trained as County Guardian ad Litems advocating for abused and neglected children in Court within Child Protection Services.
Thank you to the Edina Federated Women’s Club!
Mike Tikkanen (Executive Director) and Damon Kocina (Treasurer) smile for the camera as Kids At Risk Action receives the $38,884.00 grant from Edina Federated Women’s Club President Linda Larson on March 14th. We are so impressed with their club’s efforts and commitment to improving the community. For more information about this amazing group, please visit…
200 Child Abuse Calls Each Day (76,000 calls / year)
Currently, there is little information is available about an abused child’s safety when CPS makes the decision to investigate. “Family Assessment shouldn’t be the default. It should be the “alternative response” it was intended to be.
America’s CHILDHOOD TRAUMA and ACES Impact
California’s Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris has declared Adverse Childhood Experiences a public health problem and public school crisis in her state.
KARA Videos on Child Abuse
These short videos capture the realities of child abuse.
Share them widely and more of us will know how to do more for kids in painful places.
ACEs
New Linked In Group For Volunteer CASAs & All Guardian ad Litem (interactive)
KARA’s New Linked In Group Guardian ad Litems Exchanging Learning & Ideas is gathering and sharing information from the 950 CASAs (Court Appointed Special Advocates) in the U.S. and similar child advocacy models around the world. Please share this with your child advocacy friends wherever they may be: Search for: Guardian ad Litems sharing conditions,…
Don’t Leave It To the Professionals (thank you Naomi Schaefer Riley)
Minnesota’s struggle to keep a strong CASA volunteer force advocating for abused and neglected children in the state has captured the interest of Naomi Schaefer Riley, author of NO WAY TREAT A CHILD and writer with City Journal (a national publication). Read her complete article here. Excerpt from Naomi’s article: “One major problem with child…
Leadership and Child Protection
What should leadership look like in Child Protective Services? What should leadership look like in Child Protective Services? The CASA guardian ad Litem volunteer program motto is “For the Child”. The heart and soul of the CASA program is to give voice to the child in the institution of Child Protective Services (CPS). Being removed…
Professionalism In Child Protection
Professionalism In Child Protection “professionalize” the Guardian ad Litem role vs leveraging a both paid staff and trained volunteers
A COVID WAVE? (the double whammy of 2 years of ACEs on children and community)
A COVID WAVE? (the double whammy of 2 years of ACEs on children and community)
America’s Crazy World of Child Protection (find your state here)
America’s Crazy World of Child Protection (find your state here)
Lies We Tell Ourselves About Child Sex Abuse
Lies We Tell Ourselves About Child Sex Abuse: the incidence of sexual abuse in child protection cases has been increasing over the years. The reported percentages for sexual abuse were 17.9% in 2014, 20.9% in 2015, 23.7% in 2016, 24.9% in 2017, and 26.4% in 2018
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.
No More Punishment Please
Finally removed from the home forever, but not healed. The invisible scars we carry remain.
Life with our painful childhood memories, triggered behaviors and habits in this world is terribly difficult to manage.
Healing from a broken past is difficult.
No more punishment please.
Mike Tikkanen’s Public Comments to the Guardian ad Litem Cost Effectiveness Analysis Report
Mike Tikkanen’s Public Comments on the Guardian ad Litem Cost Effectiveness Analysis
for the Minnesota Guardian ad Litem Board Dated September 15, 2023
This report (the actual final report is posted below)
EGREGIOUS INCIDENT REPORTS (Child Death in Wisconsin)
Kudos to Wisconsin for having the courage to track and post reports of child death and life threatening harm done to their youngest citizens.
This Wisconsin State Website provides a real time snapshot of life threatening incidents and child death in Wisconsin.
Minnesota Children Killed By Caregivers While Known to CPS (& how to stop it)
2023 Investigative Report on MN Children Killed
by Caregivers While in Child Protective Services
HUGE NEWS: Former Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz Appointed to MN Guardian ad Litem Board
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.
What’s It Like For Troubled Teens Where You Live?
What’s it like to be a CASA guardian ad Litem (child protection worker) unable to find safe housing and mental health services for the 14-year-old struggling foster boy in your caseload? This child’s self-harming and violent behaviors could change if there was help to manage behaviors triggered by childhood traumas. These children can go on…
CPS Intake Notes (what it’s like from the inside)
Intake notes from County CPS
These are a tiny sample of County intake notes
social workers and guardians ad Litem are assigned each week;
International Rights of the Child Treaty (& why jails are full)
Over 25 years ago the rest of the world (194 nations) decided that children have basic human rights and begin signing the International Rights of the Child Treaty. Under this document, children are to have the rights to education, safety and well being including not to be made soldiers, not to be enslaved).
America is the only nation that has not signed that agreement, largely because we still demand that southern states continue to militarize youth as young as eleven, through military schools.
A Courageous Vote! Thank You Minnesota Guardian ad Litem Board For Saving CASA Volunteer Program
Thank you, Former MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz, for your comments and questions at this board meeting. Your words enlightened board members of the need for an open and objective investigation into the CASA volunteer program in the effort to provide safety and stability to Minnesota’s abused and neglected children.
When Is Child Abuse a Crime
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.
Saving Minnesota’s Vulnerable Children
Understanding why children die violent death a the hands of their parents while in Child Protective Services (CPS) can save them (share this): Lawmakers address issues that people demand action on. Actions that will get them re-elected. This is all about invisible children (kids at risk that don’t have a voice at the State House).…
Were Governor Walz State Board Members Misled About Volunteers (and what it could mean)?
There is a political battle being waged over the elimination of qualified community volunteers in Child Protective Services. There are too many pieces of this puzzle to include in this article, but one piece must be addressed to determine if wrongdoing has happened in the drive to eliminate the Court Appointed Special Advocate volunteers. KARA has sent two requests to Governor Walz Guardian ad Litem State Board members over the past few months requesting a conversation about their role in making this critical decision.
Child Suicide – What’s Not Said
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.
Parental Drug Use Killing Children in Pennsylvania at High Rates (investigative report)
KARA follows investigative reporting on child death and near death by caregivers while the children are known to CPS (Child Protective Services). Please send us links to the reports in your state and we will make them available to a larger audience.Parental Drug Use Killing Children in Pennsylvania at High Rates (investigative report)
Highlights on Family Assessment and Child Death from Star Tribune Child Abuse Reporting Part I
These highlights on Family Assessment and Child Death from recent Star Tribune Child Abuse reporting (1, 2, 3) are the tip of the iceberg. Read to the end to get KARA’s historical perspective of how Child Protective Services (CPS) has evolved over the years and its current iteration.
Thank You & Happy Holidays
Dear Reader, This year, KARA provided over $10,000 in Financial Literacy enrichment grants to program participants, executed three college and community center INVISIBLE CHILDREN CAMPUS CONVERSATIONS, 23 business and community presentations, and almost finished KARA’s new book AMERICA’S CHILDREN IN 100 CHARTS in 2024. As the year comes to a close, we want to…
CASA MN Newsletter (Guardian ad Litem News & Updates)
CASA MN Newsletter (Guardian ad Litem News & Updates)
American Crime Costs & Statistics
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.
LEARN THE COSTS OF CRIME IN AMERICA TODAY
The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration of
any nation on earth with:
I Could Never Do What You’re Doing (thank you Laurel Ferris & Women’s Press)
This short article by Laurel Ferris in Women’s Press clearly articulates what CASA Guardians do and why children need them.
From the article;
Have Governor Walz State Board members been mislead?
Dear Reader,Allowing the State board to eliminate 10,000 future volunteers (over the next 40 years) at a time when we are reporting on children murdered by their parents may be an unfixable mistake costing even more children their lives.
Rebuttals to the State MAD report from several top child advocates here;
Child Death, Employee Burnout & Guardian ad Litem Volunteers
The tortured death of 4 year old Eric Dean in 2013 prompted the first in depth reporting on parental child murder I can remember. CASAMN gave the reporter (Brandon Stahl) an award and had him speak at our annual conference.
At that time, several children in my caseload had been almost murdered by their caregivers.
A number of my caseload kids (4,5, and 6 year old children) had suffered years of unspeakable sexual abuse and other violence. Their stories never made the paper.
Why Community Volunteers Are Needed in CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES
Eliminating the volunteer nature also changes the role of Guardian ad litem. Being an “outsider” provides a perspective others don’t have. It allows one to challenge the status quo and identify new opportunities. We can speak out. Eliminating volunteers, to my mind, will mean that everyone in the courtroom has a vested interest in a system that pays them to be there.”
KARA Videos of the Week
A Storm Is Brewing (4m) Will CASA GAL program end because of misinformation?
Let’s Go KARA (3m) Supporting Child Friendly Initiatives
Don Shelby on Child Protection (30 seconds)
Child Endangerment (IN HARM’S WAY)
It hurts me to hear KARA writings referred to as hyperbolic. Decades of Child Protection work and KARA research consistently prove to me that Minnesota children are dying in big numbers and thousands are suffering repeated unspeakable harms while in the system.
This one year investigative
Star Tribune report (new series)
IN HARM’S WAY
(please read the first 200 words)
makes the case that parental rights
to harm, torture, kill their children
outway the child’s rights to safety.
MN Children, Institutional Regression and Brain Surgery
When we say it’s not brain surgery it’s because a task is easy – it doesn’t demand much training or experience. There are times the phrase is meaningful and times it is painfully inappropriate. This article in the Star Tribune explains that corrections officers, human services technicians and staff in state veterans homes will not…
CASA MN Rebuttal To MAD Guardian ad Litem Report
Chair Parkin and MN GAL Board members:
Considering all the challenges facing the Minnesota Guardian ad Litem program, it is devastating to our state’s most vulnerable children that so much effort has been misdirected here.