If I Only Had a Brain
If the medical community, Children’s Defense Fund and former MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz are right, the vast majority of crime in America is the result of what happened to that person as a child.
America’s CHILDHOOD TRAUMA and ACES Impact
America’s CHILDHOOD TRAUMA and ACES Impact INVISIBLE CHILDREN
The Beatings Will Continue
The Beatings Will Continue
Yanelin Montalvo-Valdez (yesterday Star Tribune) personifies the pain and punishment heaped upon the 50 innocent children I advocated for as a CASA Guardian ad Litem volunteer
America’s Children In 100 Charts (draft preface)
America’s Children In 100 Charts
Child abuse is invisible. It is a core problem in every American community impacting all of us, our institutions, and every aspect of our quality of life every day.
Schools, Child Suicide, Nurses, & COVID
Repeated childhood trauma does cruel things to children. Things that never go away. Those things (behaviors/thoughts/self-harm/suicide) can be managed with help. Without help, depression, pain and sadness often become overwhelming.
KARA’s Invisible Children Traveling Community Conversations
This fall and winter, KARA is inviting universities, community centers, and businesses to engage our INVISIBLE CHILDREN COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS.
United Nations Youth Conference (2007 – what’s changed?)
Kids At Risk Action presented a workshop at the fourth annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations in New York
Child Protection/CPS: If Lawmakers Only Knew
Child Protection/CPS: If Lawmakers Only Knew (why they don’t – & why they should) Not many lawmakers come to the job understanding child abuse and what happens to children in CPS (Child Protective Services). Few legislators have experienced childhood trauma or the institution (CPS) that protects children from growing up in homes of life-threatening harm.
Parsing the Data (how child abuse impacts your community)
How Child Abuse Impacts Your Community
How Child Abuse Impacts Your Community
Without help, most badly traumatized/abused children become troubled youth leading lifetimes as dysfunctional adults.
Child Suicide – Quick Facts
Repeated childhood trauma does cruel things to children. Things that never go away. Those things (behaviors/thoughts/self-harm/suicide) can be managed with help. Without help, depression, pain and sadness often become overwhelming.
The Best Interest of Children
We all care about the best interests of children. “We all know that – despite what everyone wants – right now, there are too many children
suffering from abuse and neglect.
Education in 2024 – Educating At Risk Children (what tomorrow looks like)
This is a synopsis of Education Week’s last 12 months of reporting on conditions in American schools today with attention to educating abused and neglected children. It’s a deep dive into what it means to be a teacher in America today.
America’s CHILDHOOD TRAUMA and ACES Impact
California’s Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris has declared Adverse Childhood Experiences a public health problem and public school crisis in her state.
KARA Videos on Child Abuse
These short videos capture the realities of child abuse.
Share them widely and more of us will know how to do more for kids in painful places.
ACEs
A COVID WAVE? (the double whammy of 2 years of ACEs on children and community)
A COVID WAVE? (the double whammy of 2 years of ACEs on children and community)
No More Punishment Please
Finally removed from the home forever, but not healed. The invisible scars we carry remain.
Life with our painful childhood memories, triggered behaviors and habits in this world is terribly difficult to manage.
Healing from a broken past is difficult.
No more punishment please.
What’s It Like For Troubled Teens Where You Live?
What’s it like to be a CASA guardian ad Litem (child protection worker) unable to find safe housing and mental health services for the 14-year-old struggling foster boy in your caseload? This child’s self-harming and violent behaviors could change if there was help to manage behaviors triggered by childhood traumas. These children can go on…
“Authority” & Child Abuse (why teachers quit & children go to jail)
Growing up in a home beaten, raped or starved by the most important authority in your life, means that for you, authority is not to be respected – it is to be hated and feared. Real life stories about this here.
Uncooperative often violent response to authority figures is normal for traumatized children. It’s driven by repeated pain and terror visited upon a child that has been unable to escape repeated trauma and abuse.
Child Suicide – What’s Not Said
Repeated childhood trauma does cruel things to children. Things that never go away. Those things (behaviors/thoughts/self-harm/suicide) can be managed with help. Without help, depression, pain and sadness often become overwhelming.
I Could Never Do What You’re Doing (thank you Laurel Ferris & Women’s Press)
This short article by Laurel Ferris in Women’s Press clearly articulates what CASA Guardians do and why children need them.
From the article;
MN Children, Institutional Regression and Brain Surgery
When we say it’s not brain surgery it’s because a task is easy – it doesn’t demand much training or experience. There are times the phrase is meaningful and times it is painfully inappropriate. This article in the Star Tribune explains that corrections officers, human services technicians and staff in state veterans homes will not…
Child Murder by Caregiver While In CPS
The American Medical community has joined forces to declare a national emergency in children’s mental health, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Today’s declaration is an urgent call to policymakers at all levels of government — we must treat this mental health crisis like the emergency it is,” said AAP President Lee Savio Beers, MD, …
Hospital Mental health services closing across America May 12 – June 16 2023
Social media, political and community outrage
and COVID Lockdown stress are overwhelming mental health caregivers and institutions in every community – Child suicide/self-harm are rising dramatically Speak out, Share this widely
Why Things Get Worse
During the lockdown, abused children were literally trapped at home with their abusers. This multiplied the stress on Child Protection Services as an institution and on the social workers doing their best in an impossible situation.
73% Increase in Suicide Attempts by Suicide 10-12 Year-Olds
COVID’s impact on children’s mental health will be felt for a very long time. Especially vulnerable are children suffering from extended exposure to violence and deprivation that lived in toxic homes without access to help during the pandemic lockdowns – Read the MedPage article here…
What’s It Like For Troubled Teens in Minnesota?
What’s it like to be a CASA guardian ad Litem (child protection worker) unable to find safe housing and mental health services for the 14-year-old struggling foster boy in your caseload? His self-harming and violent behaviors could change if he had help to manage childhood traumas. He could go on to lead a productive life.…
Child Suicides, Self Harm & Statistics
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association have joined forces to declare a national emergency in children’s mental health, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Today’s declaration is an urgent call to policymakers at all levels of government — we must treat this mental health crisis like the emergency it is,” said AAP President Lee Savio Beers, MD, in a statement.
Police vs Social Worker (when the wrong one shows up)
People suffering from untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed in interactions with law enforcement. Recently in Utah, a 13-year-old boy with autism was shot several times by police after his mother dialed 911 to request help as her son was experiencing a mental breakdown.
Alito’s Story
Repeated self-harm and hospital trips for healing were his normal behavior when he was depressed. He would cut himself and stuff objects into the wound – a paper clip, staple or anything he could find. This poor boy was a product of rape and incest.
His mother was raped by her father when she was 13. She abandoned her son to State Care at birth. Acanto never experienced love or the warmth of a family. Alito shared with me that the only love or tenderness he ever felt was nurses caring for his wounds.
People That Know Child Abuse
We know that the punishment model does not facilitate healing or learning – It is responsible for most failed grade level reading, math and history scores. It is a primary reason for underperforming schools.
Juveniles In Justice
LA & New Jersey ending prison and jails for juveniles and Colorado’s super successful juvenile restorative justice
Today’s Tip of The Tip of Children’s Mental Health Iceberg
“Mental Health Crisis + Emergency Rooms” is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a strong piece demonstrating the huge increase in chemical restraints and ER mental health visits by children, but it misses the heart of the story.
Investing In Children Not Jails
We the people are serious about continued investment in our punishment model.
Expelling kids from daycare and elementary school is common. Charging youth in adult courts is too. The nation’s Supreme Court recently reinstated lifelong (no chance for release) sentencing for crimes committed by juveniles.
Instead of investing in healing broken children we invest our tax dollars into courts that punish kids from traumatizing violent and toxic homes. Are we bad at math or pro growing crime, criminals and broken communities.
The Cost of Punishing vs Healing
Out of the blue murderous psychosis in normal people is rare.
It’s not likely that this boy led a normal life prior to this violence.
200,000 Youth Tried As Adults Each Year; Temple University
As former Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz so aptly stated, “the difference between that poor child and a felon is about eight years”
Vote for mental health services and child friendly programs for at risk children and call your state legislators and tell them to do the same.
Once these very troubled children become old enough to impact their surroundings they do so in a most troubling manner. That’s why our jails are full and our schools are troubled.
From the study; “In other words, by one mechanism or another, more than 200,000 individuals under the age of 18 are prosecuted in criminal court each year. There are three trends in the data worth noting…
Juvenile Injustice In MN (thank you KARE 11)
For most of us in Child Protective Services, KARE 11 / Lauren Leamanczyk’s investigative reporting on the absence of facilities for troubled foster and adopted State Ward children is a recurring nightmare.
Tackling ACEs & Building Resilience (thank you ACEs Too High news)
This article from the ACEs Too High website provides an everyday guide with must know information for folks working with traumatized children and youth. With too many children not being afforded an escape to the safety of a classroom because of the Covid19 virus, there will be a growing danger as substantially more badly abused children fill our classrooms in the fall (or winter or spring) of next year.
Isabella’s Story
When I met her, I saw a beautiful, quiet and curious little girl. I was Isabella’s (not her real name) first teacher and wish to remain anonymous.
After 7 full years of abuse and neglect she entered my special ed classroom in Arizona…
Childhood Trauma + Historical Trauma = Generational Trauma
Terrible trauma (like generations of slavery) and the behaviors and conflicts it creates need to be identified and discussed if they are to be fixed. Do we want higher graduation rates and lower crime and recidivism rates for our at risk youth and families?
Charlamagne Tha God has Launched a Mental Wealth Alliance Foundation to establish fundamental and far-reaching generational support for Black Mental Health.
Share this widely.
Short Powerful Videos on Child Abuse Issues (20-30 seconds)
These short videos capture the realities of child abuse.
Share them widely and more of us will know how to do more for kids in painful places.
ACEs
TRAUMA EMPOWERMENT (what I’ve learned)
Trauma empowerment comes from identifying and understanding what has happened. As a CASA guardian ad litem, I’ve come to know many abused children. I was the second person John ever told of the things that were done to him when he was a boy – he died last year at 80. John lived for 30…
How Trauma Becomes Culture
Trauma, Children, Family, Community
Trauma, Children & Overwhelmed ER’s in Minneapolis
Fairview Masonic Children’s hospital has been overwhelmed with 145 emergency pediatric psych cases since September. A makeshift shelter in an ambulance garage is all that’s available at Fairview Masonic to protect children suffering from the traumas of child abuse and homelessness.
Childhood Trauma – Making Children Crazy
This powerful ACEs Too High article contains tons of statistics and information related to the depth and scope of child abuse in America. What has struck me most is…
Growing Up Foster
Growing Up Foster, ‘The foster care system is broken’
There are an estimated 12,000 foster children in Minnesota, more than 8,000 of whom live in foster homes,
When Hope Dies (child self harm & suicide part 2)
Adolescents who had more than one suicide attempt prior to their initial hospitalization were 102% more likely to be re-hospitalized within 5 years for a suicide attempt than adolescents who had no prior attempts2.
BY ANY MEASURE
COVID is punishing AT RISK CHILDREN at a rate and severity never seen before. How can we help them? Tracking and reporting issues of violence, trauma, neglect and abuse of children is not transparent or robust – it never has been. Few people are aware of the terrific impact trauma has on children and how…
It Can’t Happen Here (Sally’s Story)
This had to have been one of the most detailed Childline referrals the county had ever seen, not to mention Sally had a wonderful, dedicated psychiatrist. As the time went by, the treatment team eagerly awaited the results of her abuse referral, as she had won over the hearts of all the hospital staff and we all wanted to see her safe and free from harm.
The referral came back as unfounded.
Due to her intellectual and neurodevelopmental disabilities, she was deemed in-credible.
ACE Study, Crime & Ramsey County (reprinted from 2006)
ACE research shows a strong historical pattern of criminality in families of child delinquents. Using Cohen’s estimates, we calculate the multi-generational “multiplier effect” to be between $3.4 and $11.5 million. In these families, criminality is likely to grow exponentially.
Pilgrims, Punishment and ACEs (why we have what we have)
America’s pilgrims brought with them a punishment model that remains the heart of our civic and group think today.