Expelled from elementary school, pregnant in junior high and facing a criminal justice system before they are able to drive a car.
The cost to society in taxes, public health, education and safety is astronomical and the people policing, teaching and caring for these children are stuck in centuries old punishment models that guarantee failure, perpetual pain and broken communities.
DetailsTrauma doesn’t heal itself and America doesn’t provide much more than Prozac for tortured 12 year olds.
For an in depth and moving photo graphic look into incarcerated children in America’s Juveniles In Justice, check out Richard Ross
DetailsThere is no safety net for many of the poor neglected and abused children they care for. There is no child psychiatrist for a sexually abused seven-year old, or for the starved and tortured six-year old. Go to school. Get well. Take these pills. We just don’t have a budget for the services you need.
DetailsSafe Passage for Children really nails it in this short paragraph (below) about how legislators just don’t know what child friendly programs do or how they work. It’s also true that it’s been proven by very conservative people that investing in children is the most effective investment of tax dollars a society can make.
It hurts me that we routinely deny other people’s children daycare, mental health services, food, insurance, early & high quality education and the things children in most other developed nations get lots of. There appears to be little concern about the long term effects or the cost to our community (tax base, jails, school quality, public health and public safety) of allowing at risk youth to pass through childhood without the basic well-being attributes required to cope with life and lead a normal existence. All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children.
DetailsIt turns out that investing in children and young families provides the highest return on investment a government can make.
It’s apparent how terrible many government investments are and it’s easy to see how providing skills and basic needs for children and you families are superior investments to giving the homeless bus tickets to other states so they would be a burden elsewhere.
DetailsToday’s Miguel Otarola’s Star Tribune attention on the additional 43 million dollars needed to fund these programs should be put into perspective.
One of my CASA guardian ad litem caseload children cost the State and County about 3 million dollars by the time he aged out of foster care – not including the teacher he beat up, student he stabbed and terrible things he did to the 29 foster families he lived with. He contracted AIDS as a teen and will always be a State Ward and high cost to the County. This child will likely end up being a 5 to 10 million dollar tax burden just because
DetailsSeptember 25th 4 to 5pm – Chapel
Dayton Av Presbyterian Church
217 Mackubin Street Saint Paul, MN 55102
How childhood trauma evolves into chronic illness, dangerous lifestyle & early death and shadows children into adulthood impacting schools, public safety, public health and quality of life in the community.
What we need to know & need to do to interrupt abuse, heal children and fix our community
DetailsThis KARA post from 2005 suggests a significant improvement in graduation rates in Minneapolis schools. No Child Left Behind really did leave behind a great many children.
From our 2005 piece;
Roosevelt High school graduated 28% of its students last year—Minneapolis and other big city schools averaged graduation rates between 50% and 60% nationwide. 25% of graduating U.S. high school seniors are functionally illiterate.
Teachers and school administrators are accused of bad stewardship. That is like blaming the police for who sits in the back seat of a squad car. It’s not their fault.We are all in this together, or as Pliny the elder said 2500 years ago, “what we do to our children, they will do to our society”
DetailsWhat’s it like to be a first grade teacher frightened by an out of control little boy who kicks, punches or stabs classmates with pencils? Is the principal trauma informed? Are their teams of trauma informed teachers or sufficient mental health resources that can lessen the chances of expelling a seven or nine year old from the school?
DetailsWhat struck me hardest in today’s INVISIBLE CHILDREN presentation at a suburban elementary school was the dedication and desire my audience of 60 educators have for the children in their classrooms. Even the most difficult kids.
Martin Luther King Day was a train the trainer day for these teachers. Our discussion on trauma and dealing with traumatized children sparked keen conversation and shined a light on the depth and scope of the mental health issues students bring to school.
Did you know that 37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
This a particularly American problem and it is growing. Educators, like social workers, law enforcement, adoptive and foster parents, must grasp the new mental health reality if they are to succeed in their work with this population.
Most of my audience today “got it” when I talked about child abuse, foster homes, and what it takes to get into Child Protective Services and why abused and neglected children exhibit irrational and sometimes dangerous behaviors and need to be understood if learning is to occur.
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