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Mar12014

A Modest Proposal & The Kansas State House (special thanks to Jonathan Swift & Gail Finney)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

The juxtaposition of Jonathon Swifts “Modest Proposal” to sell the poor newborn babies of Ireland as food to solve the poverty and suffering of Irish parents has a parallel to the beating and bruising of children proposal being advanced by Kansas State Rep Gail Finney in several ways.
First and foremost, is the repugnant assumption that beating or eating children will make anyone’s lives better is insane. Murder is murder. We also know that beaten children will beat their own children (and others).

2500 years ago, Pliny told us “what we do to our children, they will do to society”. Look around you at the full prisons, troubled schools, and dangerous streets. It didn’t get this way because of the overemphasis on early childhood programs and support for poor young families.

In Swift’s defense, he was being satirical and ironic. Finney has no defense (she’s just mean and crazy – like Bachman). Parallel two is that 30 states have outright banned corporal punishment (proposed by Finney) and there are no states that allow the boiling, broiling, or baking of children (as proposed by Swift).
For readers among us, below are Swift’s full text and a more about Representative Finney’s bizarre work in Kansas.

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Feb272014

Comment Thread On The Child Beating Bill In Kansas

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

Friends of KARA, below are the comments made on a network debating the Kansas state bill that would allow the beating of children by virtually any caregiver and the leaving of bruises. The good news is that most people hate it for its neanderthal approach to child rearing but there are a fair number of folks that just want the right to beat children.

My mom was born 9 years prior to women’s rights being passed in America. Before this, almost no amount of violence was illegal against a man’s wife. Not so different with children in America today. The passing of this law in Kansas will demonstrate just how tragically ill informed state legislators can be.

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Feb272014

Children In The News – read about your state here (thank you child welfare.gov)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

ID: Bill to protect children of faith healers in Idaho will not get a hearing
Associated Press – February 26, 2014
House leaders ruled out a hearing on a bill meant to curb the number of children who die because their parents choose faith healing and not medical assistance for religious reasons.
http://www.katu.com/news/local/Bill-to-protect-children-of-faith-healers-in-Idaho-will-not-get-a-hearing-247401091.html

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Feb242014

GOP Is Right; We Are Spending Too Much (because we invest too little)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

David Strand is a KARA board member, he has lived in Finland, worked on the making of public policies for children and written about how other advanced nations make public policy on children’s issues. He is a frequent contributor to KARA’s web pages. Look up his other articles under “select a category – David Strand” on the right hand side. David’s article today;

Edwin Green (recently deceased and not his real name) was an executive for 3M from the 1960’s into the 80’s. He once gave me a lecture on business philosophy, a lesson that resonates in today’s climate of political impasse. Edwin mentored me and asked why I was bothering to study for an MBA at night school. I replied my engineering education was quite narrow and studying business helped me understand working at 3M. Smiling broadly, Edwin told me he (also an engineer) hadn’t studied business but “he knew how to run a business.” Mostly, he said, all you have to know is when “to spend a nickel to make a dime”, his one-minute lecture.

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Feb232014

Safe Passage For Children Of MN (unintended consequences of legislation)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - MN Specific

Guardrails Plus Guidelines

Legislation often has unintended consequences. For example a proposed Minnesota bill would eliminate smoking from foster homes. Makes sense for new licenses, but it could disrupt current placements where children are doing well.

Rather than addressing every situation with a law or regulation, consider ‘guardrails’ for ones that are clearly out of bounds, and guidelines for the rest.

A guardrail for example would be that an adult who has sexually perpetrated on children should never have access to kids. Guidelines would help determine if a father who had a felony 15 years ago gets consideration in a custody decision.

Guidelines require ongoing training, quality control, and accountability for outcomes. But they are more efficient than continually working around inflexible rules. Plus, they give skilled workers room to apply their expertise.

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Feb222014

Paranoid Golden Valley Residents Drive Children’s Mental Health Services Out Of Town

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

Golden Valley residents reached a pinnacle of fear and loathing this week when they showed up at a Council meeting with pitchforks and torches to kill the possibility of developing a center for children with mental health issues (weekday hours only).  The few hysterical GV residents  huffing and puffing and misrepresenting the issues (equating youth…

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Feb222014

Another Screened Out Of Child Protection Baby Dies In MN

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Child Abuse and Deaths

Freda Perdue, 33, was charged Friday in Ramsey County District Court with child neglect and child endangerment.

According to the criminal complaint:

Police were called last Saturday to the East Metro Place in White Bear Lake on a report of a male infant who was not breathing.

Police found Perdue crying next to the baby, who appeared to have blood around his nostrils. He was taken to St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood, where he was pronounced dead.

Perdue told police that the night before she had laid the baby on his back on a mattress where her three other sons and a neighbor boy were sleeping.

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Feb212014

Snakes In Guatemala vs Guns In America

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - International

Last weekend, after 20 years of handling snakes, Jamie Coots received his final bite. A rattler got him in the back of the hand. It happened as Coots, a Pentecostal minister, was leading the Saturday night service at his church in Kentucky. Two hours later, he was dead.

The same thing happened two years earlier in West Virginia. Mack Wolford, another serpent-handling preacher, succumbed to a rattler’s venom.

After scores of deaths from messing with snakes, you’d think people would give it up. But they haven’t.

Three months ago, a 15-year-old boy died in Ohio. A local TV station said it happened when he brought a snake and “passed it to a 16-year-old friend.” A similar tragedy occurred the same day in California, when a homeowner “was showing his friend a snake.” “It’s a shock that something like this could happen,” said a neighbor. “I had no idea there was ever a snake in the home.”

On Dec. 1, a young man died in Florida after friends brought a snake to his apartment. “They passed it around,” according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, and the snake delivered the fatal wound when the man’s girlfriend picked it up. “It was a stupid accident,” said the dead man’s grandfather. “It never should have happened.” On Dec. 20, a 3-year-old boy died in Arizona after discovering his parents’ snake. A local TV station reported that “the parents told investigators the snake was inadvertently misplaced for a short time. That’s when the child found it.”

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Feb202014

70 Child Abuse Deaths In California’s Child Protection System

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

When paramedics arrived, eight-year old Gabriel Fernandez was not conscious. His skull was cracked. Three ribs were broken. Bruises and burns covered his body. Two teeth were knocked out of his mouth. X-rays would later show that the third-grader had BB pellets embedded in his lung and groin. Gabriel’s mother, Pearl Fernandez, 29, and her boyfriend Isauro Aguirre, 32, told the paramedics that Gabriel’s injuries were self-induced. Later Aguirre said that he delivered ten or so blows to Gabriel’s stomach for lying and “being dirty.”

Before Gabriel’s death, his mother was the target of six investigations of child abuse. One of Gabriel’s teachers reported the boy coming to school battered. One of Gabriel’s therapists reported that Gabriel said that he was forced to perform oral sex on a family member. Gabriel told a teacher he’d been beat with a belt buckle until he bled and his mother shot him with a BB gun. Gabriel wrote a suicide note, found by his teacher.

According to documents obtained by the LA Times and a recent wrongful death lawsuit filed by Gabriel’s grandparents, Gabriel was never interviewed privately by a social worker about his abuse. Fernandez and Aguirre have been charged with first degree murder of a child. The two have yet to enter their pleas. Two months after Gabriel’s death, four DCFS employees related to his case were fired.

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