Visit safepassagemn.org
Safe Passage is a Minnesota nonprofit corporation created to protect and improve the well being of children in child protection, foster care, and public adoption programs.
We recruit and train citizen volunteers to be advocates of effective practices in these programs with elected officials.
We hold public officials accountable for improving the lives of abused and neglected children in measurable ways.
Think what you might about the unborn, it seems only fair that a living breathing baby should have the right to basic health care (if only to continue breathing).
It is terrifically expensive to treat the chronic illness and behavioral problems that blossom out of children born into toxic and unhealthy circumstances where mom’s without parenting skills, or coping skills, eat poorly, drink excessively and often have serious mental health issues. Many of the moms I’ve known from child protection were the fourth or fifth generation of abused girls having their own families of abused children. Without help from the community, their children never break out of toxic birth home environments and never learn the skills they need to live a productive life.
Crisis nurseries and subsidized quality daycare make up for some of the problems these children live with in the home. Coping skills are not delivered by the stork but they can be gleaned from other care providers (if the community reaches out).
In my lengthy Protestant upbringing, I can only remember a Jesus that wanted to provide for the weakest and most vulnerable among us – especially children.
DetailsThe CASA volunteer guardian ad litem program provides a voice for a frightened child in the child protection system. Children removed from their homes become Wards of the State. Through the eyes of a child being in child protection is like being a cog in the wheel of a big machine. Delivered from one provider to another, many foster children them have multiple foster homes because of unaddressed (under-addressed) mental health and behavior problems.
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.
DetailsThe 35 W bridge failure will end up costing about one billion dollars (below) and if our policy makers would wake up, they will see that it was about five hundred times more expensive than the requested bridge maintenance that would have kept the bridge in “pristine condition”**
DetailsChildren need adoptive families now.
Of the 814 children under state guardianship, 335 need permanent, loving, adoptive families IMMEDIATELY Right now, children are waiting in foster homes, group homes, emergency shelters and residential treatment facilities for someone to adopt them.
We can look for inspiration to successes around the country and the world. One model of success is the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York. The Minneapolis Foundation recently sponsored a visit here by Geoffrey Canada, the Zone’s leader. Their goal is to have all the children who grow up in the 100-block zone graduate from college. Harlem Children’s Zone offers a Baby College for new parents, universal education for 4-year-olds, good public schools, chemical dependency and health counseling, and housing stability programs. All children there are wrapped in a variety of support systems designed to help them and their families succeed.
DetailsYoung people unite, get involved in changing the rights of the poor and our assault on the planet was Pope Francis message to thousands of South America’s young people yesterday. Bring your hope and strength and demand change.
Friends, let’s take the Pope’s message to all of our leaders (religious and political) and push for helping young families and improvements in child protection and juvenile justice in America. The more people involved, the faster change can happen.
All adults are the protectors of all children. All religions are the protectors of all children.
DetailsTeachers, social workers, justice workers, and parents today are forced to collude with big pharma to medicate children who would no more be able to handle suicidal ideation than they could handle rape. If you know someone using psychotropics, ask them if they have had the experience of suicidal ideation.
There is nothing like it. There is no good excuse for ignoring mental health on a national scale (especially where five year old’s are concerned).
DetailsNO, it is we the people that have voted to underfund our schools and social programs (and 35W bridge maintenance) that have created the painful failure we are living with today. The bridge fell in the river for the same reason our schools, jails, and child protection systems are struggling so mightily-we failed to maintain it.
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