Minnesota Child Protection Stories, Statistics & COVID – May 2020
Kids At Risk Action writes and reports on child abuse issues
providing a passionate voice for Minnesota’s at risk children
All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children
Kids At Risk Action writes and reports on child abuse issues
providing a passionate voice for Minnesota’s at risk children
All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children
For many years Rich Gehrman and Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota have organized and delivered support for Minnesota’s abused and neglected children. All Minnesotan’s should be aware of this organization’s efforts to improve services, transparency & policy for the states at risk children.
Below are their most recent blog posts. Join them.
KARA Signature Video (4 minute) Public Service Announcement( 30 Second) 25 years ago, KARA board member David Strand went from CASA guardian ad litem volunteer to writing his PHD student thesis “NATION OUT OF STEP” comparing America to the rest of the Industrialized World in how we treat children. At the time, we ranked…
Across the board, America’s Southern States seem to maintain an anti tax mantra that devalues the well-being of other people’s children. This clear from the KIDS COUNT statistics over the years. This is their most recent data for 2020
It is not maltreatment, the word maltreatment does not describe traumatic violence to a child – to a child, the trauma of watching your mother being beaten or raped is very much the same as being beaten or raped – being left in a crib alone for days at a time with no touching, no food or love is also a trauma that lasts forever.
Kids At Risk Action writes and reports on child abuse issues
providing a passionate voice for at risk children
All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children
Ethan was 17 years old when I met him. Again, what I know of his story is limited, but the ugliest truths of it seemed to jump off the page and into my brain as I read his file to prepare for our interview. At his first foster care placement, he was sexually and physically abused by his foster father who had an alcohol problem. His foster mother was aware of the abuse going on, but because she was a victim of the domestic violence herself, was unable to stand up for the children in her home. Whether Ethan was removed from this placement (I refuse to refer to it as a “home” given the state of things) before or after this information came to light, is unbeknownst to me.
Kids At Risk Action writes and reports on child abuse issues & provides a passionate voice for at risk children All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children Support KARA’s Public Service Announcements KARA Signature Video (4 minute) Public Service Announcement( 30 Second) Struggling families in America have never had it easy. The stresses of…
28 states place children in the adult criminal justice system, 25% of pit youth are charged as adults, 30% of our youth are arrested by 23rd birthday
Teachers, social workers, law enforcement and foster/adoptive parents dealing with State Ward children are often the last chance that a child has to grow up to lead a normal life.
Imagine as a child, living in a home where every day there is forced sex or beatings by adults. Mom is a teen or preteen parent with a violent boyfriend, mental health issues and no parenting skills.
This is America’s generational child abuse problem.
Mom, and mom’s mom also came from abusive homes. It’s their normal.
In America today, children have no federal rights except under the “doctrine of imminent harm” which allows the child to be taken from the family if the child’s life is endangered by the parent. For the most part, being responsible for killing your own child, unless it’s for religious reasons it is against the law.
At least 30 states still allow parents to withhold lifesaving medical care to their children for religious reasons and children do die because of it. This may sound hyperbolic, but if you did withhold lifesaving medical care in a state that did not allow it for religious reasons, you’d be charged with killing your child. Parents have all the rights and children have no voice except for the guardian ad litem that speaks for them.
The COVID crisis is stretching all of our community resources. Every state is struggling to provide safe homes for foster children.
Fixing the problems this article brings to light will require an informed and involved community and government…
Click here to find out how to begin to make this happen where you live.
Dear Readers,
KARA regularly receives requests for help from families and children about child abuse issues.
We do not have staff and ask you to use our Links Button to find the services you need.
Contact your State Representatives and let them know your story and engage them in this conversation. Give them ideas for what needs to change.
Use articles from KARA to educate them and support your argument – you will find over 1200 articles at this site (they are searchable by category)
Because schools are closed, after-school activities are canceled and churches aren’t having youth groups and community activity with trusted adults outside the home have evaporated – the chances an abused child can find help to interrupt abuse in the home are dramatically reduced.
Add to that, families living with troubled children are finding the COVID environment much harder now.
More anxiety, substance abuse and family violence are happening because of lost jobs and the 24/7 close quarters of people locked into toxic homes because of the pandemic.
Every state is struggling with child protection, domestic violence and foster care. What’s it like to be a foster child or a foster parent in your state? The following articles are arranged by state. Check out your state here;
Today’s Safe Passage short post about the impact of poverty and racism on children hits the nail on the head. Decades and generations of children living without enough to eat, access to health and mental health care and all the stress that accompanies people in fear of homelessness and hunger.
Does you community accept young children being expelled from daycare and elementary school? The violence and trauma visited upon us at this time is a direct result of how America treats its children. Life would be way better for all of us if we cared more for other people’s children.
TThe absence of reports of violence against children in the media does not reflect the amount of trauma and suffering of children in toxic homes in our communities today.
The COVID lockdown has almost ended domestic violence abuse reporting in the media and for children, there are no classrooms to escape to. Social workers can’t get into the homes to talk to or look at children to hear their stories and see their bruises.
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned that we are seeing a horrifying global surge in domestic violence
all over the world and is urging leaders to include protective measures in their pandemic plans.
The depth and scope of violence against children was a terrible problem before the pandemic.
Child abuse during COVID is growing exponentially – overwhelming our schools, justice systems and communities.
California’s Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris has declared Adverse Childhood Experiences a public health problem and public school crisis in her state.
Posts & Video From ACEs Connection (+trauma informed resources for Covid19 quarantine)
The United Nations Secretary General warned that we are seeing a horrifying global surge in domestic violence
all over the world and is urging leaders to include protective measures in their pandemic plans.
For a teenager at home with your laptop and 7th grade course work with too many people making too much noise or drunk uncle William downstairs screaming at the TV set?
If your mom and dad are fighting and the atmosphere is toxic?
or your uncle is hurting you?
Can safety be found?
Can I call for help?
What if you are a single working parent or two parents working and no child care and no money and spending long days and troubling nights wondering about safety, food, the next day, next week and what’s next.
speaking on critical issues impacting abused and neglected children for many years.
Shelter In Place locks abused children in toxic homes
With no escape to the safety of a classroom
Domestic violence is rising and law enforcement & social workers are having a hard time keeping up.
CLICK HERE FOR RESOURCES & STRATEGIES FOR PREVENTING CHILD ABUSE DURING COVID19
Shelter In Place locks abused children in toxic homes
With no escape to the safety of a classroom
Domestic violence is rising and law enforcement & social workers are having a hard time keeping up.
CLICK HERE FOR RESOURCES & STRATEGIES FOR PREVENTING CHILD ABUSE DURING COVID19
Shelter In Place locks abused children in toxic homes
With no escape to the safety of a classroom
Domestic violence is rising and law enforcement & social workers
are having a hard time keeping up.
CLICK HERE FOR RESOURCES & STRATEGIES FOR PREVENTING CHILD ABUSE DURING COVID19
Do parents have a constitutional right to care for their children without interference from the courts or community? Because the U.S. has never ratified the United Nation’s Rights of the Child Treaty (the only nation in the world not to do so), American children have no voice in their homes, the courts, the media or the legislature.
Today, the Covid19 pandemic is keeping social workers from in person visits and there is no classroom for a child to escape to with a personal connection to a caring adult. This Article from Safe Passage for Children of MN should frighten us all.
Shelter In Place locks abused children in toxic homes
With no escape to the safety of a classroom
Domestic violence is rising and law enforcement & social workers
are having a hard time keeping up.
CLICK HERE FOR RESOURCES & STRATEGIES FOR PREVENTING CHILD ABUSE DURING COVID19
This important article from Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota addresses the issues and guidelines for keeping children and workers safe.
Covid19 risks, strategy and resources are now a daily concern for many of us.
Share it widely.
What’s it like for stressed out families living with the profound and immediate changes that keep our children out of school, parents out of work and the pervasive fear of the Covid19 virus?
Social distancing, stay at home orders and fear are driving up 911 calls and police departments are having a hard time responding adequately. In France, the government is paying for hotel rooms for victims of domestic violence and providing pop-up counseling centres due to the soaring numbers of abuse calls…
Tips for parents on social distancing, staycation planning for parents and families for safety and happy connections during the hard times of extended periods of living in close quarters.
The first article in this series is a CASEY Foundation Q&A
about recruiting American Indian Foster Parents in Oklahoma
and fixing the State’s struggling child welfare system.
All states are struggling to find safe homes for State Ward children
This conversation is important to all communities everywhere
There are a lot of injuries, a lot of abuse. The most significant thing is the psychological death of so many of these kids. Kids are being destroyed every day, destroyed by a government-funded system set out to help them.
KARA gathers news about Minnesota’s abused children to provide a snapshot of
Child Protection and how our state
values its children.
Only a fraction of serious child abuse makes the news.
All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children
What does it take for a child to find refuge in Louisiana? Will the state execute the boy (he is being tried as an adult & Texas has ignored a federal ban on executing the mentally incompetent).
Be It Resolved That;
Minnesota has conducted the ACEs Survey and confirmed the results of the original ACEs survey.
Nadine Burke Harris, Surgeon General of California has declared childhood trauma a public health epidemic and public schools crisis.
Minnesota should proclaim itself to be a Trauma Informed Care State and action its largest agencies to determine what this means for their areas of responsibility.
Nine other states have done so, multiple MN communities are working towards becoming trauma informed communities
Our state should appoint an ACEs Czar to pull together these diverse activities.
What would you say to the 12 year old boy who told you how he plans to suicide by cop? Or to the mother of the young girl you speak for in court that told her child “I wish you’d never been born”?
Words don’t come easy.
This survey of 12,000 LGBTQ youth identifies the extreme stress, anxiety, rejection and overwhelming feeling of danger these children grow up with.
These videos are disturbing but accurate. Not knowing cannot help the state ward children of Florida (the password is “foster”). What we know, we can change. What we don’t know, gets worse until we do know.
Florida To Completely Privatize Juvenile Correctional Facilities. In an effort to reduce costs, Florida’s state-run residential programs for juveniles will soon be completely privatized. … About 95 percent of Florida’s youth residential facilities for underaged offenders are now privately run.
Watching mom beaten or raped is terror. Homeless mothers and children are many times more likely to be assaulted and molested.
Children of addicted and alcoholic moms and dads are beaten and raped more often too.
Trauma is *torture. Watching mom being raped is torture.
MN reported 28 child deaths from caregivers known to child protective services in 2016 (p64).
17 children were killed by abuse in the past 18 months.
Less than half the deaths of at risk children suffer are reported as such.
Join KARA at Tuesday’s Think Again & Brooklyn Park Human Rights Forum (January 21, 6pm)
Congo – Apple, Good, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla sued over allged child labour in Congo.
CTV News.
A class action lawsuit has been filed, on behalf of anonymous plaintiffs, who are described as guardians of children that have been killed or maimed in tunnel or wall collapses in cobalt mines. Cobalt is one of the main parts of lithium ion batteries, batteries which are used in rechargeable electronic gadgets. Young children are often used in the mining of cobalt for their cheap and unregulated labour. It is claimed that the named companies are knowingly benefitting and aiding and abetting the use of child labour to mine cobalt.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/apple-google-microsoft-dell-tesla-sued-over-alleged-child-labour-in-congo-1.4733644
Thank you Star Tribune and Brandon Stahl for your in depth reporting on the awful state of child protection in Pope County MN.
Today, Safe Passage for Minnesota children is reporting that Pope County will face no legal penalty for its role in the slow tortured death of 4 year old Eric Dean. Safe Passage states that “if this case doesn’t rise to the level of malfeasance, no case ever will.”
Follow KARA’s reporting on child abuse & well-being in your state here; stories, statistics and articles about the things most important to at risk children
Get the crash course on child abuse in America
& Advocate for At Risk Children
Until January 15th,
KARA is offering;
The INVISIBLE CHILDREN book
(hardcover, pdf, CD, online or e-book)
plus either the Give Kids A Voice
Ladies Tee Shirt, or Boy/Mens T shirt
or the
3 Ply Mask, or an Activity Mask,
For a $10/month online donation to support KARA’s mental health initiative for youth.
These stories, articles and statistics tell the stories of childhood trauma and death in America over the past few months –
INVITE KARA’S INVISIBLE CHILDREN Program into your community.
Let’s stamp out homelessness for 2 year old children. .
Let’s change the sad fact that children in many third world nations stand a better change of being vaccinated against preventable deadly diseases than U.S. kids…
Make a resolution to support reading programs and mental health programs that teach children how to cope with their surroundings and insure that they can read by the third grade. This will have a great and positive impact on graduation rates, crime rates, and the overall safety and happiness of our communities.
Le’t’s resolve to promote good public health programs and reduce the prevalence of sexually transmitted disease among our youth (we lead the world in this realm).
Overall, we need to recognize the value of children in our society. As Pliny said 2500 years ago, “What we do to our children, they will do to society”.
Read David Strands Early Childhood Education Manifesto below, it is a first rate strategy for saving the next generation in America;
This year Minnesota children were safer and received more services due in large part to the loyal donors and passionate volunteers of Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota.
Safer Children
13,600 more children annually are getting help from county child protection agencies due to changes our passionate volunteers helped make in state law.
More Resources
Counties and the state increased their budgets for child protection and foster care by over $200 million since 2015. In addition, counties added nearly 500 caseworkers – a 60% increase.
Guardian ad litem program needs volunteers in Anderson area Anderson Independent Mail Trained volunteers in the Cass Elias McCarter Guardian ad Litem Program helped more than 10000 abused or neglected South Carolina children last year, and the numbers will probably be even higher this year, according to officials. …
Addressing Generational Child Abuse As A Public Health Issue (14 minute video) & how to heal damaged children to make our communities happy and safe again
Take a moment and share your response to KARA’s short video overview of child abuse & child protection in America as an online comment to this post or by email; info@invisiblechildren.org.
Decades of CASA guardian ad Litem work for the County have made clear the screaming need State Ward children have for loving families and the lack we have of them. Especially older State Wards. This article is about LGBT adoptions and critical issues facing foster children and the families seeking to adopt them.
It really is front page news that children at this institution were allowed to bang their heads against walls until they had concussions, facial injuries and head trauma. These young troubled children had sex on the facility grounds, forced sex and …
As of early 2016, Minnesota had 7,200 children on its waiting list for child care assistance.
There are 1.3 million children In Minnesota & 404,000 of them live below 200% of poverty