Metrics That Matter (and NOT reported)
Costs of not knowing the reality of child abuse, trauma and child protection in Minnesota are high Children are dying at the hands of caregivers while in Child Protective Services
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Metrics That Matter (and those that don’t)
Metrics are the heart of the matter. Measuring the wrong things wastes money, makes failure likely and problems fester…
Tracking, recording and making available meaningful information shines a light on what’s working and failing – The opposite is continued darkness…
DetailsMichael Swanson, Jeff Weise, James Holmes, Virginia Tech; Tons of Avoidable Pain
I know parents who have lost children to murder and violent death. It ruins lives far beyond the coffin. Violent Death spouse and children images stay with us forever.
Still, no likes the conversation. Virginia Tech, Mental health, child rape, babies in dumpsters are forgotten quickly as they happen. Blame someone and move on.
DetailsMichigan: 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.
Mike Tikkanen Speaker
Learn the key issues facing abused and neglected children, what programs and policies work to improve their lives, and how you can be a better advocate for at risk children.
DetailsMike 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)
Mike’s Next Keynote Talk; Indiana Foster Care & Adoption
he Indiana Foster Care and Adoption Association (IFCAA) is a statewide non-profit membership organization that supports foster and adoptive families. IFCAA promotes awareness about the needs of children who have experienced trauma and the needs of the foster and adoptive parents who raise them.
DetailsMike’s Next Speaking Engagements
Periodically I speak in public and record those events in this space.
DetailsMilitary Suicides & Child Abuse; A Growing Problem
What do you think about the impact of suicide on the children of the over one thousand MN veterans that have committed suicide? If you know the children of a suicidal parent you know torture.
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Minneapolis 6 Year (Kendrea Johnson) Old Hangs Herself? (police left to ponder – I don’t) Star Tribune Today
Thank you Brandon Stahl (& David Chanen) at the Star Tribune for writing an article giving voice to the elephant in the room that is the dangerous and suicidal behavior of children in child protection. No one wants to hear it and no one wants to address this, but it is a very real problem of great consequence to our communities.
As painful as this conversation is, without it, dangerous and suicidal behaviors will continue to be an issue for abused and neglected children in need of protection (in & out of the system).
As a CASA guardian ad-Litem, I see this awful suicide as the tip of the iceberg that is the under-treatment (resources/response/coordination/services) provided to the poor young souls unlucky enough to be born into a dangerous and dysfunctional family.
Children traumatized severely enough to be removed from their birth home don’t have coping skills to mend themselves or manage the behavioral problems that follow from what has been done to them.
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