Most lawmakers know what a big percentage of their budgets is going to social programs like child welfare and child protection.
Not as many understand how tax dollars they appropriate are working to solve the problems they are meant to solve.
DetailsNational 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.
Minnesota’s Child Protective Services (CPS) received 85,000 child abuse calls in 2019 (about 1/3 of the calls were investigated).
DetailsReport documents system failures in cases of Minnesota Children Killed due to Maltreatment short (KSTP video)
DetailsThis Annie E. Casey Foundation survey of Black youth in February 2021 demonstrates a rising trend of Black youth incarceration Post COVID.
Black youth in juvenile detention on Feb. 1, 2021, reached a pandemic high, while that of white youth was the second lowest recorded in more than a year.
DetailsGrace, a Black 15-year old who was sent to a juvenile detention center for failure to submit schoolwork.
In an email to Grace’s caseworker, her teacher stated that Grace was “not out of alignment with most of my other students.”
Tens of thousands of children have struggled to adjust to the online learning environment the coronavirus created. ProPublica cites 15,000 high schoolers in Los Angeles alone failing to log in or complete schoolwork. Yet, a judge presiding for Oakland County Family Court Division, ruled in May that not completing schoolwork violated Grace’s probation.
It’s impossible to determine the frequency of cases like Grace’s, but one thing is clear. Children’s health and safety must be prioritized. We will continue urging states to stop admissions and to release kids from juvenile facilities. No child should be in juvenile detention for missing homework.
DetailsRecent Star Tribune articles about juvenile justice and explosive growth of crime in our community miss the heart of the matter. We keep putting fires out that could have been prevented. The car jackings, transit crimes and other juvenile violence making life miserable for so many of us didn’t begin when these children became juveniles. It started with traumas suffered in the home mostly caused by parents that suffered the same violence and abuse as children.
DetailsTeachers, social workers, law enforcement and foster/adoptive parents dealing with State Ward children are often the last chance that a child has to grow up to lead a normal life.
DetailsAs part of KARA’s TPT documentary project I interviewed Minneapolis City Councilman / Mayoral candidate Don Samuels recently. He described his experiences as a volunteer CASA guardian ad-Litem, North Side resident, and city councilman that were relevant to child well-being and child protection.
DetailsThis conversation about the study of MN child fatalities is eye opening and terribly sad. Ignoring brutality being done to children allows it to continue and to fester. Let’s all commit to caring for other people’s children. It will be a better place to live for all of us if we do.
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