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.
Texas & Alaska Politics Trash Children Openly
Texas governor Rick Perry refuses federal funding for education…“I have 100,000 kids in Houston who don’t read at grade level”
Child Well Being Network (a model)
Every state needs a Child Wellbeing Network, every person needs to understand that healthy children become healthy citizens & healthy citizens build healthy communities that are safe and pleasant to live in.
Financial and Family Stress Linked to Child Maltreatment in Rural Areas
This in depth report from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire makes it painfully clear that poverty and mental health issues are often at the heart of child abuse.
Growing Up In America
One of my guardian ad-Litem youth walked home for many hours on a below zero Minnesota night without a coat because of the abuse he received at a juvenile detention center. He had had enough troubles for a lifetime before this happened.
Prevent Child Abuse Wyoming to Close
After losing a $95,000 grant (about half its budget) Prevent Child Abuse Wyoming announced it will be shutting down.
Minnesota Matters Radio Show Link
950 am Minnesota Matters radio show
Join Our Network & Online Discussion
Become part of KARA’s email network by sending a request to join to; [email protected]
150,000 Children Tried As Adults Each Year
“The difference between that poor child and felon is about eight years”, & “90% of the youth in juvenile justice have passed through child protection systems” MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz
New York, Meet Missouri
National experts on juvenile crime urge states to invest in this type of counseling and rehabilitation, instead of confinement and punishment, as a way to stem adult crime and incarcerations. But for the last 20 years, most states have gone in the opposite direction, said Liz Ryan, director of the Campaign for Youth Justice.
America’s Families (From Grief Speaks)
75% of children/adolescents in chemical dependency hospitals are from single-parent families. (Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA)
1 out of 5 children have a learning, emotional, or behavioral problem due to the family system changing. (National Center for Health Statistics)
More than one half of all youths incarcerated for criminal acts lived in one-parent families when they were children. (Children’s Defense Fund)
Nine million American children face risk factors that may hinder their ability to become healthy and productive adults. One in seven children deal with at least four of the risk factors, which include growing up in a single-parent household…The survey also indicated that children confronting several risk factors are more likely to experience problems with concentration, communication, and health. (1999 Kids Count Survey – Annie E. Casey Foundation)
Addressing PTSD In At Risk Children
“People need to realise it is the memory that is fearful and not the current reality.”
Cut Off A Nose to Spite A Child’s Face
But officials from the archdiocese said they feared the law might require them to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples. As a result, they said, the archdiocese would have to abandon its contracts with the city if the law passed.
Another State Abandons Children & A Most Effective Program
Abandoning programs that work well will not save states money. This example of bad politics will lead to higher costs and mores suffering as Arkansas creates more people unable to cope, more crisis, and a larger future dysfunctional populace;
Arkansas 211 Shut Down
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Arkansas 211 telephone program that linked callers to social service programs throughout the state is being shut down due to lack of funding this week. The services offered by the program would steer callers to local organizations and services for every day needs in time of crisis including:
* Basic Human Needs Resource: food banks, clothing closets, shelters, rent assistance, utility assistance.
Unmaking At Risk Children
Absent coordinated positive (1*) public policy for the care of children, America is now at the confluence of misaligned and mistaken public policies that are overwhelming its schools, mental health services, child protection services, juvenile justice services, and criminal justice systems. Failing schools, unsafe communities, and absurdly high rates of incarceration are just the tip of the iceberg.
What We Do To Our Children They Will Do To Our Society
Do you know your state representative? If you don’t, find out today and call her/him with the important message that you know short term savings DO NOT APPLY to children.
Ruben Rosario: Rising Toll of Child Abuse Deaths Reaquires Attention & Action
This years death toll of murdered, hanged, and otherwise suicidal very young children is a powerful indicator that we as a community are failing the weakest and most vulnerable among us.
A Sad Way of Righting Wrongs
If their are attorneys reading this blog that are interested in pursuing these kinds of cases, please contact KARA with an email.
Epidemic
MN Child protection services are failing to protect the weakest and most vulnerable among us. It is epidemic. Other states have even bigger problems.
An Uplifting Day
there needs to be a Mothers Against Drunk Drivers type grassroots movement to turn around the cradle to prison pipeline that continues to fill our communities with troubled youth and the problems that stem from growing up without the basic building blocks of life.
Another Concerned Grandmother
In my morning email was a sad plea for help from a grandmother with granddaughters taken from her home where they were in school and well cared for.
Summer Is No Vacation For Abused Kids
Thousands of names ahead of them on a list for subsidized day care that won’t provide help for years to come, means that any available family member, friend, or neighbor is considered a better option than leaving a three, five, or seven year old unattended (or is it?)
Leaving your child with that drunken or meth using uncle or aunt, the friend with the mental health issues, the dangerous or abusive teenager. Children need and deserve better choices.
Setting the Wrong Kind of Record
The best hope for these babies would have been a more responsive community with more compassion, more daycare, more crisis nurseries, and more child protection services.
How You Frame the Issue
Few people argue openly with me when I frame the health care issue around not caring for babies and very young children (there is not a religion on the planet that allows it)
Most people can be brought to understand the cost to society of having children abandoned to gangs, drugs, and poverty.
Make No Small Plans for Minnesota Children
We can look for inspiration to successes around the country and the world. One model of success is the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York. The Minneapolis Foundation recently sponsored a visit here by Geoffrey Canada, the Zone’s leader. Their goal is to have all the children who grow up in the 100-block zone graduate from college. Harlem Children’s Zone offers a Baby College for new parents, universal education for 4-year-olds, good public schools, chemical dependency and health counseling, and housing stability programs. All children there are wrapped in a variety of support systems designed to help them and their families succeed.
AARP and CASA
MN day care
It is a bigger step to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is true.
Support at risk children! Become a CASA volunteer or start a KARA group in your community.
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Join the public debate for children (they have no senator, lobby, or voice)
COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATES (CASA)
It is a bigger step to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is true.
Join the public debate for children (they have no senator, lobby, or voice)
FEATURED GUARDIAN AD LITEM PROGRAM WASHTENAW COUNTY
Local CASA Volunteer’s Success Story
Contributed by: Fran G.
I was given my first case in February of this year a family of three children: A 13-year-old boy with mild autism, a 9-year-old girl, and a 4-year-old, all living with a Great Grandmother (74 years old).
The children have lived with their great grandmother for 4 years. There were so many questions that needed to be answered and I found that I had the time to find those answers. The lawyers, and social workers all cared for the family but lacked the time to get to know the family as well as I could.
I found, for example, that the 13-year-old boy had missed 54 days of school and had been late for his first hour class 34 times. There were several reasons, and all were easy to fix.
He needed an alarm clock, needed to stop spending the night at his favorite Aunt’s house, and needed to take responsibility. I told him he was not allowed to be late or miss school anymore. I was able to check daily via a computer how his grades were and his attendance, and so was he.