Thank you Florida legislators for recognizing the needs and value of abused and abandoned children.
Please keep up the good work. You are a shining example to the nation.
DetailsToday’s 3 Billion Dollar fine of GlaxoSmithKline for hiding information, bribing doctors, & promoting unapproved (and dangerous) drugs to children, included criminal as well as civil settlements.
Hennepin County Judge Heidi Schellhas shared a list she kept of psychotropically medicated children that passed through her courtroom in child protective services over a one year period. The list was staggering (some as young as 5).
DetailsTexas GOP 2012 platform seeks elimination of mandatory pre-school & kindergarten & no more teaching of “higher order thinking skills” as these things challenge “student’s fixed beliefs” and “parental authority”.
Should deliberately make your children stupid in the 21st century in America be a crime?
DetailsSome states still charge 11 year old children as adults in this nation (25% of youth are charged as adults in America).
MN Supreme Courts former Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz is remembered for her statements about how abused and neglected children correlate to crime & prison.
“The difference between that poor child and a felon is about 8 years” &
“90% of the youth in juvenile justice have passed through child protection” are 2 powerful Justice Blatz statements that should cause us to reflect on how we treat the youngest and most vulnerable among us.
DetailsFirst, it is the same government money being spent, just that it goes to an entrepreneurial lowest bidder.
Second, New Jersey’s half way houses are managed the same way privatized day care, juvenile justice, prison systems, & schools are run (to make money for Chris Christy’s friends).
What else explains the lawsuits for understaffing, undertraining, dead children in daycare, and that U.S. daycare workers make less than food service workers (the lowest paid work in America).
This is what we think of children in our nation. Indiana is trying to pay less than $18/daily for foster care & the state redirected funds promised to parents that adopted abandoned special needs children (five hundred children) – after the adoptions took place). Thank you Mitch Daniels. What cruelty.
DetailsThere are currently around 30 job openings, and the department loses an average of nearly 30% of its work force each year, which is higher than the national average for similar offices.
DetailsJust like Arizona & Pennsylvania, Mississippi has found big money in abusing youth & privatizing juvenile detention centers. A federal judge calls what goes on in Mississippi’s youth prisons, a “cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts”.
U.S. Justice Department investigators found Mississippi’s privatized centers denying basic health care, employing gang members as guards, and sexual misconduct between staff and inmates worse than anywhere else in the nation.
The GEO group knows how to squeeze the biggest return on investment and keep the staff happy – don’t spend money on healthcare and let your employees sexually abuse the inmates (Mississippi Youth).
Pennsylvania private companies found it so lucrative that they could pay commissions to judges for every youth sentenced – thereby guaranteeing capacity crowds and big money to the investors.
DetailsLast week KARA board members Sam Ashkar, Bob Olson, & I attended the Child Well-Being meeting to learn current information on the status of abused and neglected children in MN. The data came from the Citizens review panel, Office of the Legislative Auditor, and a powerful report from Safe Passage For Children.
Information is important in how one frames and speaks of a problem. Being grounded in facts is always superior to what one hears from the talking heads (and blogs).
Statistics are evidence of the success or failure of important process and programs.
Last Year there were 58,163 reports of child abuse 2/3’s of them were screened out (were not investigated).
DetailsNot talking to others about our personal lives and problems can make a person feel alone and helpless. As a society, we don’t like mental health conversations, as individuals we often avoid “too personal” comments. This is a stain on our community. We are complex beings that need others to help us cope during the hard times.
I have written about the suicidal behavior of the children in my child protection cases over the years & just when I think I understand this thing, it becomes evident that I don’t.
Ron is my fourth suicide this year, of which two of them were much loved friends. I will miss you Ron.
Be kind to the people around you. It is impossible to know what they are living through.
DetailsIf you can read this, and you are a poor child in Louisiana, beg your mother or father to take you to Arizona, Colorado, Utah, or almost any other state. Your chances of reading at a third grade level, graduating from high school, not going to prison or becoming a preteen mom will be exponentially improved. Please pass this on.
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