This is a compilation of recent news that reflects the conditions of youth and youth policy in the U.S. this past few weeks. Thank you Jamie Wilt and Century College for your hard work and good programs.
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Those of us close to the issues know that abused and neglected children need attention and fair treatment. We also know that early attention and fair treatment equals positive early child development and strong capable citizens.
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If child protection means anything, it should mean that a child already traumatized by a lifetime of abuse will not be subjected to another series of poorly made decisions by the adults in his life.
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Minnesota Adoption Resource Network (Marn) is launching an inspired program that should become a national model for dealing with foster and adoptive care. Ten adoptees from diverse ethnic backgrounds have combined their wisdom & energy to provide adoptee-to-adoptee training, connections and resources.
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Programs that help youth understand these issues and how to cope with them are one of the best investments that we can make in our youth and our community.
Not having programs is expensive. Just ask the people that lost family and friends in Red Lake, Columbine, & at Virginia Tech.
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Most communities experience uncoordinated providers delivering multiple services without adequately planning the most effective ways of delivery. Costs are high, results suffer.
I have yet to see effective tracking or outcomes based measurements in our child protection services.
RECOMMEND, www.socialsolutions.com
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For every dollar spent on Healthy Families, $4 to $7 in saved in intervention and health care costs, according to program statistics.
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Prevent Child Abuse MN holds its Healing Fields from April 29th to May 2nd at the Minnesota State Capitol. The theme of the field is “the Future of America depends on Healthy Children.
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As a guardian ad-Litem, I have seen plenty of cases where unsavory family members and other questionable practices become the only available answer to a family that cannot find daycare.
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Developed in 2004, the Child Advocacy Studies Minor started at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. The curriculum was designed to bring the goals of the National Child Protection Training Center to the field by providing students with real-world experience
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Money losing newspapers are hard pressed to assign reporters to these tragic stories. As a guardian ad-Litem, I had a case with 49 police calls to a home before the children were removed (& only because the seven year old attempted to kill the five year old in front of the officer). I believe that the seven year old had been prostituted.
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The CASA program I came through is a volunteer program that connects volunteers to abused and neglected children in their community. CASA provides a great learning experience as well as a terrific service to children unlucky enough to be born into tragic circumstances.
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Without reduced funding to manage the increased calls coming in from the community distress that results from the poverty and chaos from our declining economy, social service agencies are becoming unable to respond adequately to the calls they are receiving.
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No nation can achieve its potential for greatness without investing in its human capital. The extent to which children successfully negotiate the treacherous passage to adulthood depends on the earliest years of brain and emotional development. That explains why early childhood education is crucial to society.
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The list of inner city schools struggling to educate the children of those who could not get to (or for reasons of loyalty, love, or ethics) decided not to, escape to the suburbs where the schools still function is long.
My old high school, Edison, graduates less than 50% of its students, its sister school across town has graduated less than 30% of its students for five years.
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When I wrote the book Invisible Children in MN there were less than 900 cases of child rape reported in the state I live in (MN). If that were true, I personally knew of about 50 cases, and there were about five hundred guardian ad-Litems besides myself in the state. I know that there were many more cases of child rape in this state that year.
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The link between an abused child’s past tortured life and future troubled life is clear to most of us that have lived with or worked with these damaged children long enough. It causes me great pain to see my guardian ad-Litem kids handled like mad animals (tasered, confined, beat up by under-trained staff in under-resourced detention centers)
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A child’s right to be heard is the essence of the guardian ad-Litem program. Think about it. Voiceless, helpless children enduring unspeakable horrors, sometimes for many years with no one to turn to for help.
The World Health Organization defines Torture as extended exposure to violence and deprivation. That is how I see child abuse.
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In the 1950’s I remember the public outrage when TV and newspapers uncovered senior citizens eating dog food out of cans and living under bridges. It was a a warm hearted, hot blooded citizen outcry that supported more social security for the aged, more health care, and more safety. Because of that outcry, politicians saw to it that support at many levels was increased to seniors.
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America’s aging population is retreating into retirement with its pensions and savings and leaving young families with failing schools, health systems, and communities.
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As a guardian ad-Litem, I know that most child abuse cases are not reported. Recently an acquaintance admitted to witnessing the prostitution of a very young girl and not reporting it. He had remorse and felt endangered.
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A Few years ago Judge Heidi Schellhas gave me a printout of the psychotropic medications the very young children in her child protection courtroom were proscribed. The impact of seven year olds on Prozac, Ritalin and other powerful medications is still with me.
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Dr. Bruce Perry http://www.childtrauma.org/ctamaterials/default.asp gives credible argument that 25% of Americans will be special needs people in few generations if we do not act forcefully to mend our approach to the mental health needs of abused and neglected children.
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KARA is seeking a 21st Century Modest Proposal. If you are a writer and given to challenges, please read Swift’s “Proposal” below, and write your own as you see it applying to American children & include it as a comment, or send it to Info@invisiblechildren.org
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“It’s unfortunate, because this day care is used by working families, for the most part single-parent families and they’re low income,” he said, adding, “If this place is shut down, it would really be a shame.”
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The “burden of eviction is Heavier on Black Women, Research in Milwaukee Shows” reads the New York Times today, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19evict.html
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Last night I attended the Patrick Henry High School community Forum on the impact that children’s mental health has on the entire education and juvenile justice systems held by Representatives Mindy Greiling and the Civil Justice Committee Chair Joe Mullery.
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Federal Reserve board directors Art Rolnick and Rob Grunewold have well researched and established the effectiveness of early childhood programs.
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Almost all developed nations have affordable health care. Why are we unable to provide health care even for America’s children?
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If American institutions are to be defined today by what they actually create instead of what they were designed to create, then child protection services creates preteen mothers and adolescent felons, and juvenile justice creates mentally unstable adults (paraphrasing Kathleen Long Angels and Demons
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My fear and disappointment come from the growing problems being experienced in many states just maintaining programs that are absolutely necessary for providing the most minimal protection for abused and neglected children.
The growing poverty and trouble that poverty breeds are causing great stress and terrible things to happen to children all over America right now.
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a href=”http://www.startribune.com/nation/84190787.html?elr=KArks:DCiUMEaPc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr”>Georgia’s hiding of hard truths is a terrifying trend in our nation. Here’s why;
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2 Important truths; most of the youth in the juvenile justice system have come through child protection services, & a large percentage of these youth suffer from mental health issues.
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Children need and deserve a voice in the system that rules their lives. Their only chance of having that voice is if there is a guardian ad-Litem speaking for them in child protection.
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Today, many states are increasing their percentage of spending on juvenile justice and criminal justice while maintaining or reducing spending on education. New York and California have been spending about $250,000 per year per juvenile in their juvenile justice systems. MN has reached the half a billion dollar mark for maintaining its prison system this year after five years of double digit growth.
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Children are suffering from a hidden epidemic of child abuse and neglect. Over 3 million reports of child abuse are made every year in the United States; however, those reports can include multiple children. In 2007, approximately 5.8 million children were involved in an estimated 3.2 million child abuse reports and allegations.
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Without basic human dignity for all of us, the ruined lives and violence spawned by unhealthy, unhappy people impact all of us in some way, & for those in proximity to children that have suffered from its absence in many ways.
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Overall, the department’s reform efforts also have been stymied by a 9% reduction in its $1.7-billion budget this year. That’s not likely to improve any time soon: Ploehn has been ordered to plan an additional 9% cut for next year.
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After an apparently preventable death of a 12 year old girl in Australia, public outrage over lack of standards for child care prompted legislation at a federal level that has now come to pass.
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A new federal study will soon be getting rave reviews and making us feel like the nation has made great progress in ending child abuse.
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The weekly subject-oriented, solutions-driven program broadcasts online at www.blogtalkradio.com/CWLA-Radio, Wednesdays, 2:00-2:30 pm ET and feature indepth, timely discussions with leading child welfare experts, agents, and advocates; leadership and representatives from CWLA’s member agencies; and local and national political figures working to improve child welfare and give a voice to child welfare professionals, providers, and practitioners nationwide.
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To not support children that are unable to read or function well in the classroom is to insure continued failing schools and more and bigger prisons.
America is already the largest criminal nation in the world in per capita and in gross prison numbers – and that is expensive in financial and quality of life measurements.
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As a long time guardian ad-Litem, it always appeared that sex abuse was minimized or under-reported in the child abuse cases I worked on. Uncomfortable to to talk about and often difficult to prove.
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As part of a campaign to stop child abuse and neglect deaths, The Every Child Matters Education Fund and its partners—the National Association of Social Workers, the National Children’s Alliance, and the National District Attorneys Association—are running ads that urge Congress to address the fatalities that claim the lives of innocent children every day. Specifically, the ads ask Congress to hold hearings and provide emergency funds to stop state cuts in child protective services.
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Be A Voice Feel The Magic Gala benefiting Voices For Children Foundation-the fundraising arm of the 11th Judicial Circuit Guardian Ad Litem Program-is set for Saturday, February 13 at the Mandarin Oriental, Miami.
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This organization Childabuse.com goes a long way in measuring the attitudes and understanding this nation has towards child abuse and why public policy has lagged so far behind the reality. The more we know, the better our policies and programs;
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The division has been under a consent decree since 2005. The agreement stems from a 2002 class action lawsuit in which Children’s Rights claimed that Georgia’s child protection agencies were overburdened and mismanaged. The group alleged that children languished for months in dangerous shelters, and others lived in dirty and overcrowded conditions.
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The author, Nancy Folbre points out that , full-time, year-round child care for young children costs more than public university tuition in 44 states.
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This Connect For Kids website has terrific coverage of children’s issues. Here are a few of their current stories; http://www.connectforkids.org/newsletters/update http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/10/community_schools.html
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“What we do to our children, they will do to our society” Pliny the Elder 2500 years ago.
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