Breaking The Cycle Of Abuse
For every dollar spent on Healthy Families, $4 to $7 in saved in intervention and health care costs, according to program statistics.
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month
Prevent Child Abuse MN holds its Healing Fields from April 29th to May 2nd at the Minnesota State Capitol. The theme of the field is “the Future of America depends on Healthy Children.
The Importance of DayCare, DC, LA,
As a guardian ad-Litem, I have seen plenty of cases where unsavory family members and other questionable practices become the only available answer to a family that cannot find daycare.
National Child Protection Training Center
Developed in 2004, the Child Advocacy Studies Minor started at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. The curriculum was designed to bring the goals of the National Child Protection Training Center to the field by providing students with real-world experience
What Have We Come To?
Money losing newspapers are hard pressed to assign reporters to these tragic stories. As a guardian ad-Litem, I had a case with 49 police calls to a home before the children were removed (& only because the seven year old attempted to kill the five year old in front of the officer). I believe that the seven year old had been prostituted.
The Volunteer Spirit
The CASA program I came through is a volunteer program that connects volunteers to abused and neglected children in their community. CASA provides a great learning experience as well as a terrific service to children unlucky enough to be born into tragic circumstances.
Abused & Neglected Children Around The Nation
Without reduced funding to manage the increased calls coming in from the community distress that results from the poverty and chaos from our declining economy, social service agencies are becoming unable to respond adequately to the calls they are receiving.
Education Is The Engine of Progress & Prosperity
No nation can achieve its potential for greatness without investing in its human capital. The extent to which children successfully negotiate the treacherous passage to adulthood depends on the earliest years of brain and emotional development. That explains why early childhood education is crucial to society.
Abandoning Abandoned Children
The list of inner city schools struggling to educate the children of those who could not get to (or for reasons of loyalty, love, or ethics) decided not to, escape to the suburbs where the schools still function is long.
My old high school, Edison, graduates less than 50% of its students, its sister school across town has graduated less than 30% of its students for five years.
International Women’s Day March 7
When I wrote the book Invisible Children in MN there were less than 900 cases of child rape reported in the state I live in (MN). If that were true, I personally knew of about 50 cases, and there were about five hundred guardian ad-Litems besides myself in the state. I know that there were many more cases of child rape in this state that year.
Abusing Children At Home & In School – The Life Of An Abused Child
The link between an abused child’s past tortured life and future troubled life is clear to most of us that have lived with or worked with these damaged children long enough. It causes me great pain to see my guardian ad-Litem kids handled like mad animals (tasered, confined, beat up by under-trained staff in under-resourced detention centers)
Ireland Implements guardian ad-Litem Program
A child’s right to be heard is the essence of the guardian ad-Litem program. Think about it. Voiceless, helpless children enduring unspeakable horrors, sometimes for many years with no one to turn to for help.
The World Health Organization defines Torture as extended exposure to violence and deprivation. That is how I see child abuse.
Acting Like A Responsible Adult Part II
In the 1950’s I remember the public outrage when TV and newspapers uncovered senior citizens eating dog food out of cans and living under bridges. It was a a warm hearted, hot blooded citizen outcry that supported more social security for the aged, more health care, and more safety. Because of that outcry, politicians saw to it that support at many levels was increased to seniors.
Acting Like A Responsible Adult
America’s aging population is retreating into retirement with its pensions and savings and leaving young families with failing schools, health systems, and communities.
Ruben Rosario on Victor Vieth’s Dream of Ending Child Abuse
As a guardian ad-Litem, I know that most child abuse cases are not reported. Recently an acquaintance admitted to witnessing the prostitution of a very young girl and not reporting it. He had remorse and felt endangered.
Books Not Yet Written
A Few years ago Judge Heidi Schellhas gave me a printout of the psychotropic medications the very young children in her child protection courtroom were proscribed. The impact of seven year olds on Prozac, Ritalin and other powerful medications is still with me.
Children’s Health Trends
Dr. Bruce Perry http://www.childtrauma.org/ctamaterials/default.asp gives credible argument that 25% of Americans will be special needs people in few generations if we do not act forcefully to mend our approach to the mental health needs of abused and neglected children.
A Modest Proposal, or If Children Could Riot
KARA is seeking a 21st Century Modest Proposal. If you are a writer and given to challenges, please read Swift’s “Proposal” below, and write your own as you see it applying to American children & include it as a comment, or send it to [email protected]
Day Care In America, NY v MN
“It’s unfortunate, because this day care is used by working families, for the most part single-parent families and they’re low income,” he said, adding, “If this place is shut down, it would really be a shame.”
Someplace Where We Can Be A Family
The “burden of eviction is Heavier on Black Women, Research in Milwaukee Shows” reads the New York Times today, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19evict.html
Civil Justice, Mental Health, Children, Education, & Politics
Last night I attended the Patrick Henry High School community Forum on the impact that children’s mental health has on the entire education and juvenile justice systems held by Representatives Mindy Greiling and the Civil Justice Committee Chair Joe Mullery.
Health & Human Services In Minnesota (Largest Share of Budget Cuts)
Federal Reserve board directors Art Rolnick and Rob Grunewold have well researched and established the effectiveness of early childhood programs.
Kansas Losing Health Care For 40,000 Children
Almost all developed nations have affordable health care. Why are we unable to provide health care even for America’s children?
Blaming Social Workers When Children Die
If American institutions are to be defined today by what they actually create instead of what they were designed to create, then child protection services creates preteen mothers and adolescent felons, and juvenile justice creates mentally unstable adults (paraphrasing Kathleen Long Angels and Demons
CASA Comments On This May Not Be The Case
My fear and disappointment come from the growing problems being experienced in many states just maintaining programs that are absolutely necessary for providing the most minimal protection for abused and neglected children.
The growing poverty and trouble that poverty breeds are causing great stress and terrible things to happen to children all over America right now.
The Impact Of Tampering With Georgia’s Student’s Test Results
a href=”http://www.startribune.com/nation/84190787.html?elr=KArks:DCiUMEaPc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr”>Georgia’s hiding of hard truths is a terrifying trend in our nation. Here’s why;
Juvenile Injustice – Mental Health
2 Important truths; most of the youth in the juvenile justice system have come through child protection services, & a large percentage of these youth suffer from mental health issues.
More Volunteers Needed For Children In Court System
Children need and deserve a voice in the system that rules their lives. Their only chance of having that voice is if there is a guardian ad-Litem speaking for them in child protection.
Keeping At-Risk Students In High School
Today, many states are increasing their percentage of spending on juvenile justice and criminal justice while maintaining or reducing spending on education. New York and California have been spending about $250,000 per year per juvenile in their juvenile justice systems. MN has reached the half a billion dollar mark for maintaining its prison system this year after five years of double digit growth.
ChildHelp.org
Children are suffering from a hidden epidemic of child abuse and neglect. Over 3 million reports of child abuse are made every year in the United States; however, those reports can include multiple children. In 2007, approximately 5.8 million children were involved in an estimated 3.2 million child abuse reports and allegations.
A Million Haitian Orphans
Without basic human dignity for all of us, the ruined lives and violence spawned by unhealthy, unhappy people impact all of us in some way, & for those in proximity to children that have suffered from its absence in many ways.
California’s Child Protection Problems Grow
Overall, the department’s reform efforts also have been stymied by a 9% reduction in its $1.7-billion budget this year. That’s not likely to improve any time soon: Ploehn has been ordered to plan an additional 9% cut for next year.
Australia Begins National Child Care Standards
After an apparently preventable death of a 12 year old girl in Australia, public outrage over lack of standards for child care prompted legislation at a federal level that has now come to pass.
This May Not Be The Case
A new federal study will soon be getting rave reviews and making us feel like the nation has made great progress in ending child abuse.
Be A Part of Reforming America’s Child Protection System
The weekly subject-oriented, solutions-driven program broadcasts online at www.blogtalkradio.com/CWLA-Radio, Wednesdays, 2:00-2:30 pm ET and feature indepth, timely discussions with leading child welfare experts, agents, and advocates; leadership and representatives from CWLA’s member agencies; and local and national political figures working to improve child welfare and give a voice to child welfare professionals, providers, and practitioners nationwide.
Cutting Early Childhood Programs Is Expensive and Ruins Lives
To not support children that are unable to read or function well in the classroom is to insure continued failing schools and more and bigger prisons.
America is already the largest criminal nation in the world in per capita and in gross prison numbers – and that is expensive in financial and quality of life measurements.
20% of Western Australia Child Abuse is Sex Abuse
As a long time guardian ad-Litem, it always appeared that sex abuse was minimized or under-reported in the child abuse cases I worked on. Uncomfortable to to talk about and often difficult to prove.
Bringing Attention to Child Abuse Deaths
As part of a campaign to stop child abuse and neglect deaths, The Every Child Matters Education Fund and its partners—the National Association of Social Workers, the National Children’s Alliance, and the National District Attorneys Association—are running ads that urge Congress to address the fatalities that claim the lives of innocent children every day. Specifically, the ads ask Congress to hold hearings and provide emergency funds to stop state cuts in child protective services.
Voices For Children Foundation Announces Their 2010 Be A Voice Feel the Magic Gala with Special Cirque Du Soleil Performers
Be A Voice Feel The Magic Gala benefiting Voices For Children Foundation-the fundraising arm of the 11th Judicial Circuit Guardian Ad Litem Program-is set for Saturday, February 13 at the Mandarin Oriental, Miami.
How Americans Respond To Child Abuse
This organization Childabuse.com goes a long way in measuring the attitudes and understanding this nation has towards child abuse and why public policy has lagged so far behind the reality. The more we know, the better our policies and programs;
Georgia Child Protection: Too Many Children Too Few Resources
The division has been under a consent decree since 2005. The agreement stems from a 2002 class action lawsuit in which Children’s Rights claimed that Georgia’s child protection agencies were overburdened and mismanaged. The group alleged that children languished for months in dangerous shelters, and others lived in dirty and overcrowded conditions.
Spending On Children
The author, Nancy Folbre points out that , full-time, year-round child care for young children costs more than public university tuition in 44 states.
Connect for Kids Child Advocacy 360
This Connect For Kids website has terrific coverage of children’s issues. Here are a few of their current stories; http://www.connectforkids.org/newsletters/update http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/10/community_schools.html
Friends of Texas vs Friends of Children
“What we do to our children, they will do to our society” Pliny the Elder 2500 years ago.
Crimes Against Children Study New Hampshire University:
CONCLUSIONS: The scope and diversity of child exposure to victimization is not well recognized. Clinicians and researchers need to inquire about a larger spectrum of victimization types to identify multiply victimized children and tailor prevention and interventions to the full range of threats that children face.
A Program Worth Repeating
Every state releases youth from foster care that are troubled and without the skills or resources to cope in the community. Few states think through the consequences of the importance of youth melding into the community to become healthy and productive citizens. Here’s one great example
The Evidence Is In
The years of hard research this organization has done to quantify the impact of abuse on children as they become adults is as incontrovertible as it is moving.
National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse
NCPCA sends its senior attorneys throughout the country and abroad to lecture and deliver presentations on all aspects of child abuse investigation and prosecution. The federal Children’s Justice Act supports multidisciplinary training on investigation and prosecution of child abuse. Contact APRI’s National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse for expert help in developing training programs or requesting a trainer.
Texas Blog Sequel
This study by Harvard identifies the depth of the educational crisis in Texas;
CONFRONTING THE GRADUATION RATE CRISIS IN TEXAS. Daniel Losen, Gary Orfield, and Robert Balfanz. Executive Summary. Misleading and inaccurate reporting of …www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/dropouts/texas_10-17-06.pdf –
Michigan: 16% Confirmed Increase in Child Abuse & Neglect Cases
The Detroit agency, which provides shelter for homeless and at-risk teens, lost state funding last year, which amounted to 6 percent of its budget. As a result, the nonprofit group only accepts homeless women.
“It’s a terrible thing to have to say to someone … call us when you’re homeless,” Good said.
In Macomb County, the rate of low birth-weight babies worsened, to 8.3 percent, from 6.8 percent in 2000.