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Aug32015

On Handcuffing & Tasing 3rd Graders (and expelling preschoolers)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Day Care and Education

There is no shortage of disturbing stories about violent children & authorities using violent means to control them. Today, the U.S. expels more children from daycare than any other industrialized nation and the levels of violence in our schools is frightening and harmful to all of us.

There is nothing more disturbing than watching a video of an armed 200 pound police officer twisting the arms of a 50 pound special needs child into a painful behind the back steel handcuffed position as the boy cries uncontrollably in his classroom, unless it is reading about the St. Louis Sheriff’s deputy tasering an 11 year old boy and threatening to sodomize him (Sheriff Mulch “nothing out of the ordinary…, followed protocol)

These stories and recent horrific police shootings of juveniles are a signal of overwhelmed institutions unable to deliver the most basic protection and safety services to the communities that employ them. Don’t blame service providers -it is lawmakers and administrators defending archaic policies that just don’t work anymore. Neither police nor teachers are able to nor should they be required (with the training we give them) to handle the deep and troubling behaviors of very disturbed children). Traumatizing five and six year old children because they have behavioral problems is just awful and it makes things so much worse for the child (and our society).
This story out of Texas, demonstrates how the police might better deal with troubled youth with an approach that recognizes the significance of mental health issues impacting police/child interaction. We need to do a 180 on dealing with mental health issues. Now.

The sooner we the people recognize that this is all about mental health and that schools and police departments are not mental health service providers, the safer our schools and city streets will become.

All adults are the protectors of all children.

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Aug22015

CASA guardian ad-Litem News (find your state here) August 2015

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, CASA, GAL and Child Protection

A baby is born addicted to opiates, a young child wakes up to find their parent unresponsive with a needle in their arm, siblings sit in the back seat of a car parked on a country road as their parents are shooting up heroin. LaPorte County and Indiana are experiencing an epidemic. It is drug abuse. In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, epidemic is listed as affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community or region at the same time. Certainly we can describe the current rapid spread of opiate use an epidemic.
Last year, there were 17 deaths from heroin overdoses in LaPorte County and Indiana is increasing its needle-exchange program beyond Scott County. The Indiana Department of Child Services is reporting a record-breaking year for child abuse cases. It’s only June and in LaPorte County alone, 50 children have been placed out of their homes due to abuse or neglect.

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Jul262015

Child Death and Child Abuse Articles (for July 2015 – find your state/country here)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

KARA tracks child abuse and death articles from around the nation (and some international cases).  Most non death child abuse cases never make it into the media.  This page is KARA’s discovery of information through July 26 2015 and is only a fraction of this child welfare news around the nation.  For a look farther…

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Jul242015

Indiana Sued For Making Child Protection Almost Impossible

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

A few years ago, Vice Presidential candidate and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels eliminated funding across the board for Indiana families adopting special needs children (after 500 adoptions by families promised these dollars for transportation, healthcare & education of their adopted children, were completed).

Indiana then became the only state in the nation to place families adopting special needs children on a wait list rather than paying subsidies.

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Jul222015

All Talk & No Action – Do We Value Children or Just Talk About It?

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, CASA, GAL and Child Protection

How we value children shows up directly in the way we treat people helping us raise our children.

It hurts me to see political misunderstanding and an accepted practice of misleading people about something as important as this nation’s children. Reading the paper one would think that our problems lie at the feet of service providers (teachers, social workers and foster parents to name the main scapegoats).

At election time, politicians make political hay blaming teachers for failed schools (with public support).

Institutional failures are not the fault of people doing the hard daily work of foster care, teaching or social work.

These folks work within a system designed by policy makers and administrators (most of whom are very well paid – not a bad thing, but a thing to remember when looking for the responsible party).

Blaming worker bees in child protection is just as wrong as blaming law enforcement officers for allowing terrible crimes. Can law enforcement sue policy makers and counties for making their work impossible? – we may soon see).

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Jul162015

Dear Social Worker (a note from the Casey Foundation, KARA and Daniel)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, CASA, GAL and Child Protection

You have chosen one of the most challenging jobs on the planet. Saving children from toxic homes & helping them heal and develop the coping skills necessary to live a functioning life. How do you manage to deal effectively with so many families (and children) at one time?

We all live with the troubled institution that is Child Protection and the lack of awareness, concern and resources our community makes available to abused and neglected children.

Burnout in your profession is high, salaries low & as the Casey Foundation pointed out when Dee Wilson delivered his report to the Hennepin County Commissioners, not much trust for your co-workers or management. Dee Wilson painted a pretty negative picture of the working atmosphere for most social workers.

It hurts me that the 90 minute audio session has been removed from the Hennepin County Commissioners website. I listened to it once and it was gone. I did attend the session, but it’s hard to remember all that was said – and some very blunt truths were delivered to our commissioners.

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Jul132015

Make A Mess, the Pope’s Message to Young People – but help us clean it up (Paraguay speech)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Religion, Politics + the Law

Young 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.

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Jul122015

Child Abuse by Judge In Michigan (9 year old jailed for failing to speak with violent wife beating father)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

It hurts me to experience the depth of sadness and unfairness visited upon at risk children.

Pennsylvania sent 2 state judges to prison (for 40 years) for incarcerating innocent juveniles into privatized prisons for money (many millions of dollars in kick backs). Michigan sending children of hating & fighting parents to jail for not speaking with the most hated parent is just awful – there has to be a better way.

It’s awful enough to be forced into taking parental sides in a viscious divorce and custody battle – it is almost criminal to jail children (since June 24) for not allowing themselves to be forcibly reunited with a parent they hate.

In a Michigan court custody case last week, after harshly treating the mother Maya Tsimhoni and 2 older children, Liam Tsimhoni & Rowi Tsimhoni, Judge Lisa Gorcyca, of Oakland County Michigan, grilled and then berated 9 year old Natalie in the courtroom, sent her and her juvenile siblings to juvenile jail and forbid her from having contact with her mother.

Has our judicial system become so heartless that 6 and 9 year old children are forced to jail and suicide because of a toxic divorce case (in court since 2009)?

All adults are the protectors of all children.

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