More Volunteers Needed For Children In Court System
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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More Daycare & Crisis Nurseries = Fewer Tortured & Murdered Babies
A 25-year-old man admitted in court Monday in northwestern Minnesota to inflicting deadly head and neck injuries on the 22-month-old daughter of his girlfriend.
Raul Perez, of Ada, pleaded guilty in Norman County District Court to second-degree murder in the death of Ariel Reyes last August.
Perez lived with the girl and her mother.
A doctor at Sanford Medical Center in Fargo noted many injuries to Ariel, including bruises to her jaw, forehead, thigh, shoulder and the base of her spine. Also diagnosed were numerous severe brain injuries and bleeding at the back wall of an eye.
DetailsMore Cheating Fallout From the NCLB Tragedy (DC Schools This Time)
Teachers that lived through the Bush era No Child Left Behind fiasco understand the impossibility of making students succeed and schools look good with inadequate resources and classrooms bulging with kids that can’t read, Prozac, and violence.
The “Texas education Miracle” that lead the NCLB’S deconstruction of America’s schools proved to be as wrong and dysfunctional as the erasures on thousands of test questions executed by hundreds (if not thousands) of teachers in Georgia and now DC (and there may well be other states as yet undiscovered).
If you study the DC memos being made public you will see just how hard it is to identify and pursue this kind of criminal activity (if it weren’t for excellent journalists at the Atlanta Journal, none of this would have been discovered).
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More Attention To Children’s Issues (the only way to make their lives better)
Sare the information discovered by Star Tribune writer Brandon Stahl in this article (and his future writings on the topic) with your social media and friends. The more people understand the core issues, the greater the chance that legislators will respond to an educated populace and make the lives of abused and neglected children a little better.
Minnesota now screens out more child abuse cases than 47 other states (this is a terrible fact if you are an abused child).
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More Americans Killed By Toddlers With Guns Than Terrorists
Toddlers with guns have murdered 5 people with guns in America this year, terrorists 3. Would we be safer if the NSA were spying on children, or just keeping an eye on pistol packing families?
Here’s a list of this years toddler murder spree from the Jewish Daily Forward;
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More Actions You Can Take for At Risk Children (this is the week) From Think Small MN
Now is the time to participate! Next week, April 11-15, is the Week of the Young Child. The goal of this week is to educate legislators about the importance of high quality early learning programs in their communities, and to encourage them to properly fund early learning initiatives.
But we need your help to get this important message across! Below are ideas, projects, meetings and resources. Your participation will make a difference in the lives of children across Minnesota.
1) Set up a meeting with your legislator(s). Whether you are a child care provider, parent, or early childhood advocate, your perspective and story are important, and legislators want to hear from you. Set up a meeting with your legislator any time during the week of April 11-15 to share your experience.
Here’sa form to help set up the meeting
There are some tips about how to prepare for the meetinghere.
If you want to encourage support for a specific bill,here’s a resource for proposed legislation related to early care and education.
2) Advocate for early learning by mail. Complete a simple activity on your own or with staff or children. Send it in to your legislators to remind them to let our children shine. You can find the materials for the activity here. To find your legislator’s mailing address at the Capitol, go to this website and enter your address.
More About Four & Seven Year Old Suicides, Prozac & A Veterans Day Message
I’ve come to know many children in child protection taking psychotropic medications. The data on children in child protection on these drugs is also overwhelming (and a well kept secret). Four and seven year olds behaving in extremely dangerous ways and trying to kill themselves should be extremely rare in any civil society.
I did not find it rare among the children in my caseload in child protection.
America is way behind other advanced societies in dealing with mental health issues and it is killing poor vulnerable children and way too many veterans.
Goodbye Tom, you were a great friend and I will miss you.
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Monday May 4th KARA Talk Roseville Rotary Noon
Join me for the next Kids At Risk Action Roseville Rotary presentation at the Roseville Radisson Hotel and learn what you can do to make your community a safer place for children and a better place to live for everyone.
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MN Suicide – Child Suicide – What We Don’t Know
20,000 American infants and 2 year olds were proscribed psychotropic medications in 2014 and billions in fines were levied against pharmaceutical companies for illegally selling these drugs to pediatricians for use on children (to no apparent affect).
Every year, 1/3 of foster kids in the U.S. use psychotropic medications & 2/3 of youth in the juvenile justice system have diagnosable mental health problems (half that number have multiple, serious and chronic conditions – and tons of psychotropic medications).
The lack of data and transparency about mental health services being provided to troubled children, juveniles & adults in schools, jails, prisons & child protection means that legislators and the public to avoid the hard conversations that could determine the steps required to address these problems.
When 6 year old foster child Kendrea Johnson suicided by hanging in Brooklyn Park 2 years ago, the Medical Examiner and Deputy Police Chief dithered over the cause of death and finally remarked that 6 year olds very rarely committed suicide. While it is true that six year olds have a very hard time succeeding at suicide, it is not true that state ward children don’t try.
MN Public TV / KARA Partnership (bringing attention to the issues of abused & neglected children)
MN Public TV is partnering with KARA for a once in a lifetime opportunity to improve the lives of abused and neglected children. To do this we need your help.
KIDS AT RISK ACTION (501(c)3 non-profit, is partnering with Minnesota Public Television (TPT) to tell the INVISIBLE CHILDREN’s story through compelling interviews with children and adults within the world of child protection. KARA needs your support and asks for your gift to help make this project happen.
Larger donors will be featured on the program, invited to the pre-screening party at TPT (St. Paul), and receive priority consideration for all new projects as they develop. This project will be a big part of our ongoing efforts at KARA.
Donate Button or Contact me directly to help KARA complete this project mike@invisiblechildren.org
Program purpose; Create awareness of the critical issues impacting at risk children & identifying how to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect.
Program themes; Mental health and coping skills, and the basic rights of children to safety, healthcare, and education.
Program production; Experts and personal stories of children and adults within the child protection system.
Program look and sound; Serious and inspiring
Target audience; General public with attention to legislators, and everyone touched by our child protection system