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.
DetailsWhile the article from the Child Welfare Monitor by Judith Schagrin
refers to Child Protection conditions in Maryland,
it is clear the crisis exists in every state.
DetailsAbout a third of kids in NY’s foster care identify as LGBTQ and nationally, about 24% do. 40% of homeless kids in NY City identify as LGBTQ and 42% of them had been in foster care.
This NY Times article focuses on how hard life is for them. Many of these youth and children are in foster care because their parents rejected them.
Many are homeless, depressed and leading dysfunctional lives.
Every year about 12,000 children aged 5-14 years old are admitted to psychiatric hospital units for suicidal behavior. This and all the information following are PRE COVID.
Young children who have attempted suicide are up to 6 times more likely to attempt suicide again in adolescence
DetailsHundreds of MN children are being abandoned by their caregivers in MN hospitals. Many are children raised in toxic homes then shuttled off into State/County foster and group homes
DetailsFree College for ALL MN Foster Youth
First in the Nation
A Really Big Deal
National Adoption Month
One out of 25 U.S. families have an adopted child. Half of the 135,000 adoptions are from the foster care system. There are over 100,000 eligible children waiting to be adopted.
From the Washington Post yesterday, most foster care children on antipsychoctic drugs get them for far too long and without medical justification. 2/3 of the nearly 700 claims studied raised high-risk “quality of care” issues. As a long time CASA volunteer guardian ad-Litem, many of my case kids were on multiple drugs simultaneously and many of them hated being forced to use them. Some kids threw the drugs away.
In Minneapolis, I would like to know (there should be more transparency) if six year old Kendrea Johnson’s suicide by hanging involved psychotropic medications. She was a very troubled foster child, in therapy and had talked about homicide and suicide. When Jeff Weise killed himself, his grandfather and 14 others he had talked about suicide and homicide and was taking Prozac.
7 year old foster child Gabriel Myers hung himself and left a note about how he hated Prozac. KARA’s video interviews include families, a City Councilman, and other professionals talking about antipsychotic medications, very young children and suicide. This subject needs our attention now. It is cruel punishment for a child suffering from the traumas of abuse and removal from a birth home to be dealt with.
There are 3 children’s hospitals in the metro area and NO children’s mental health hospitals and there are 800 to 1000 emergency psychiatric visits at HCMC every month (many of them children).
This conversation is overdue.
What we don’t know cannot be dealt with and will not be improved. Let’s stop the next awful six year old suicide.
DetailsKARA’s Last minute gifting ideas!
Is there a foster or adoptive family in your life that would appreciate a gift card or cash donation this holiday season? Be a Secret Santa if you choose.
If you have never donated to Kids At Risk Action, please consider
your donation to our 501c3 nonprofit today.
Our programs cost $. A monthly donation of any amount helps keep the wheels turning.
Thank you for your attention to the issues of abused and neglected children.
The KARA Team.
DetailsFor most of us in Child Protective Services, KARE 11 / Lauren Leamanczyk’s investigative reporting on the absence of facilities for troubled foster and adopted State Ward children is a recurring nightmare.
DetailsRepurposing Federal Foster Care dollars have become a “revenue stream” for counties because taking foster child money goes “unnoticed” (from the article). In a perfect world, a County person would raise hell about repurposing foster child dollars to adults (but they don’t because they could lose their job). There is little reporting of and no transparency in the Child Protection System.
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