It has been stated by program management that CASA volunteer time spent with abused and neglected children is of no value. Ask that question of any child removed from the only home they have ever known now passing through the cold scarey institution of judges, courts, foster and group homes where you don’t know anyone and new adult faces come and go after short periods.
Plenty of data Stories and literature provide proof
Self-Destructive Habits & Institutions (Professionalism – Part 5)
Volunteers lack “professionalism” is a primary argument management is using to eliminate the community CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) volunteer guardian ad Litem program in Minnesota.
Arianna Hunziker 1.3 million dollar settlement. Blaming child protection workers solves nothing. It’s counter productive – people in these fields are asked to do more than they ever can do. It’s very hard work with too much sadness and failure.
MN Senior Judge Lyonel Norris has stated that, “…an all employee model can create an institutionalizing effect upon a child”. I would add “an even greater” institutionalizing effect upon a child”.
Eliminating the Volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) will hurt children, institutions, and our quality of life for years to come. Minnesota youth and young families are struggling. They need more, not less help.
There may be no single right answer
to the problems of Child Protection in Minnesota –
but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater
Star Tribune’s Investigative journalist Paul Walsh coverage of toddler Kamari Gholston’s death today shines a light on the importance of public understanding and support for Child Protective Services in our state.
Kamari’s death resembles Eric Dean’s case of 2014. Except Kamari…
Removing 100’s of Community Volunteers from Child Protection (why?) an accurate and troublesome picture of the conditions facing Minnesota’s at risk children today.
Child Protection or Child Endangerment? This article from Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota mirrors my experience as a CASA volunteer guardian ad litem. They are investigating 80 child murders by caregivers in MN since 2015.
The 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.
Discovering the CASA volunteer guardian ad-Litem program can make your community a happier and safer place for abused and neglected children.
Abolishing County Child Protection would eliminate the rights of children to the most basic human right of a safe home.
Eliminating CPS would spell doom for at risk children.
Mandated Reporters genuinely fear for their safety and reputation and regularly fail to report (or, “see”) horrific child abuse to avoid potential damage to themselves.
These recent articles reflect the stories of America’s at risk children and youth.
If we don’t know the issues, there doesn’t seem to be a problem.
If we don’t see a problem there is no need for a solution.
Their stories are real.
Find their story in your state.
over time, institutions cling to self-destructive habits and fight tooth and nail to keep them. Child protective services is not different
Success Stories & Failure (unassigned child abuse cases)
We all like a happy ending. Especially when kids are involved.
These recent Passionate Youth Worker
podcasts give a great insight into
why youth workers do what they do.
Great stories and powerful thoughts;
Learn about the CASA guardian ad-Litem program and how your can make life better for abused and neglected children – Today, there are 500 abused and neglected children in Ramsey & Hennepin County child protective services without a guardian ad-Litem. Being a State Ward child is painful. Being a voice for that child is rewarding and makes a difference in the life of that child.
All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children; learn more here;
CASA MINNESOTA
CASA NATIONAL
Andy Steiner’s social workers as backbone of the mental health workforce Minnpost article belies a much deeper truth about the depth and scope of mental health in our communities at this time.
Generational child abuse has been growing exponentially for years creating millions of traumatized children treated with Prozac like drugs with minimal or no effective mental health therapies to heal their traumas.
In 2014, America put 20,000 one and two-year old’s on Prozac like drugs and big pharma paid billions of dollars for illegally selling those drugs to pediatricians for use on very young children.
In America today, children have no federal rights except under the “doctrine of imminent harm” which allows the child to be taken from the family if the child’s life is endangered by the parent. For the most part, being responsible for killing your own child, unless it’s for religious reasons it is against the law.
At least 30 states still allow parents to withhold lifesaving medical care to their children for religious reasons and children do die because of it. This may sound hyperbolic, but if you did withhold lifesaving medical care in a state that did not allow it for religious reasons, you’d be charged with killing your child. Parents have all the rights and children have no voice except for the guardian ad litem that speaks for them.
These stories, articles and statistics tell the stories of childhood trauma and death in America over the past few months –
INVITE KARA’S INVISIBLE CHILDREN Program into your community.
Guardian ad litem program needs volunteers in Anderson area Anderson Independent Mail Trained volunteers in the Cass Elias McCarter Guardian ad Litem Program helped more than 10000 abused or neglected South Carolina children last year, and the numbers will probably be even higher this year, according to officials. …
Volunteer: Be the voice for a child that doesn’t have one! (Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area OPPORTUNITIES)
One hundred and seventy five Hennepin County children are without a guardian ad litem today – WE NEED VOLUNTEERS.
Do you know any? Send this to a friend and share it with your social media.
With the response to recent reporting of child abuse and child death in MN, a corresponding increase of child abuse cases are entering the system & means that volunteers are badly needed.
News and stories from around the U.S. from June and July 2019. Find your CASA news here;
current news about at risk children bringing transparency and attention to our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.
Annual teacher turnover is highest in Arizona (24%) and New Mexico (23%) Minnesota is 14th highest in teacher turnover.
After my workshop in New York at the United Nations Annual Youth Assembly, a line of ex social workers formed to tell me their stories of why they quit. Annual social worker turnover has been 20 to 40% for many years with individual agency rates as high as 65%.
Police officer turnover rates fall in the middle of teacher/social turnover rates (about 14%) but their suicide, divorce & substance abuse rates are significantly higher.
Being involved in child protection, you see people torture their children and it is traumatizing.
It’s gets worse if you witness the impact trauma and terror have on a child in your caseload and you watch school and peer failure and how a child’s life is destined to play out.
Unhealthy children become unhealthy adults.
Today’s Miguel Otarola’s Star Tribune attention on the additional 43 million dollars needed to fund these programs should be put into perspective.
One of my CASA guardian ad litem caseload children cost the State and County about 3 million dollars by the time he aged out of foster care – not including the teacher he beat up, student he stabbed and terrible things he did to the 29 foster families he lived with. He contracted AIDS as a teen and will always be a State Ward and high cost to the County. This child will likely end up being a 5 to 10 million dollar tax burden just because
There are currently 100’s of abused children in Minnesota’s child protection system without a voice (they need a guardian ad litem voice to be heard in court)
Speak for a child in child protection as a CASA guardian ad litem (children need to be heard)
It hurts me to know that I live in a state that pays the least of almost all states in training social workers and continues to underfund the federally mandated guardian ad litem program so severely that over six hundred children do not have a Court Appointed Special Advocate even today. A Court Appointed GAL is the only voice abused children have in court once they have been removed from their homes.
The list of underfunded programs for the most vulnerable citizens in our community is long and been growing (we have the money*).
Without the Star Tribune’s continued reporting on child abuse issues, trauma and abuse would still be non-issues as they were when 3-year-old Dennis Jergens was tortured to death in White Bear Lake in the 1960’s. His mother Lois Jergens went on to adopt four other children by moving out of the state.
On Wednesday I was part of a team invited to address judges, lawyers, professors and other officials from developing nations about child abuse, child trauma and specifically, the CASA guardian ad litem program that was of most of interest to them on their visit to Minneapolis. I have great hope that these smart, committed professionals succeeded on their extensive U.S. journey learning about the many moving parts of justice, child rights, courts, domestic violence, child protection systems, child advocacy, foster care/adoption and children’s mental health.
It was an honor to speak with these people and uplifting to know that the CASA guardian ad Litem program is identified all over the world as a powerful voice for children and that any nation can create this program to save vulnerable children.
It hurt me to see no mention of Minnesota’s hundreds of volunteer CASA guardians ad litem in Susan Miles’ Child Protection article in Friday’s Star Tribune.
I’m all for paying people for hard work and especially those working with troubled children and families.
Volunteer guardians come from the heart of the community, they do their work solely of concern for abused children & take fewer cases than paid guardians.
Fewer cases means they can be more involved with the child and family. Paid guardians need to handle 25 sometime 30 cases – most volunteer CASA guardians only take a few.
State Ward children have commented many times to me that I was different because I was the only person from the County not being paid to be with them. This meant something to them.
CASAMN needs items (donations) for CASA Cares May 31st Fundraiser
CASA Cares provides grants to children in foster care
We care about state ward children and want them to have the things that other children have.
Help us make that happen.
Art Rolnick’s Star Tribune article Sunday struck a powerful chord about how corporate welfare has been trumping the welfare of children.
FIND YOUR CASA here – CASA’s around the U.S. If you are not listed, send me your info and we will include it.
Find out what the other 975 CASA’s from around the nation are up to.
Last year, more than 76,000 CASA and guardian ad litem volunteers helped more than 251,000 abused and neglected children find safe, permanent homes, according to casaforchildren.org. Volunteers are everyday citizens who have undergone screening and training with their local advocate program.
Volunteer to be a CASA guardian ad Litem,
Help KARA maintain this page; info@invisiblechildren.org (do you know an active or retired GAL that might have time to gather guardian ad-Litem news?)
All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children
FIND YOUR CASA here – CASA’s around the U.S. If you are not listed, send me your info and we will include it.
Find out what the other 975 CASA’s from around the nation are up to.
Last year, more than 76,000 CASA and guardian ad litem volunteers helped more than 251,000 abused and neglected children find safe, permanent homes, according to casaforchildren.org. Volunteers are everyday citizens who have undergone screening and training with their local advocate program.
Volunteer to be a CASA guardian ad Litem,
Help KARA maintain this page; info@invisiblechildren.org (do you know an active or retired GAL that might have time to gather guardian ad-Litem news?)
All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children
FIND YOUR CASA here – CASA’s around the U.S. If you are not listed, send me your info and we will include it.
More than 251,000 abused and neglected children find safe, permanent homes, according to casaforchildren.org. Volunteers are everyday citizens who have undergone screening and training with their local advocate program.
Volunteer to help KARA maintain this page; info@invisiblechildren.org (do you know an active or retired GAL that might have time to gather guardian ad-Litem news?)
All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children
Guardian ad Litem Presentation for Prospective Volunteers
Today’s Star Tribune reporting on the civil rights lawsuit for abused children (by reporter Chris Serres) validates my belief that child rape and other crimes against children are the most ignored and cruelest reality in our community. We hate the conversation so we avoid it and children suffer continued awful traumas because of us. I…
As a longtime volunteer, CASA guardian ad litem and writer/reporter on child abuse I know how voiceless children are. Think about it, they don’t even know that what is happening to them is wrong.
I also know how common child sexual abuse is and how sex abuse traumas destroy childhoods and lasts forever. It is the most tragic and under-reported crime in America.
Yesterday I sat through a terrific class on self-defense developed for children about escaping from sexual predators.
The instructor presented powerful information that will save pain and violence for kids in the class before and even after they enter adulthood.
About half of all women experience sexual violence in their life and about one fifth of men.
As a CASA guardian ad litem I helped to remove fifty children from toxic homes where half of them had been sexually abused.
One two-year-old, several four-year old’s and the rest under ten – and most of them suffered daily for years before child protection became involved. I have witnessed again and again the long term effects of child sex abuse traumas.
I was crushed at the end of the presentation when the instructor flat out stated that she very deliberately allowed no opportunity for a child in her class to describe sexual violence already experienced because “I am a mandated reporter and you know what that means”.
How few opportunities a child has to tell someone and how likely the abuse is going to continue until they do tell someone that can help them.
What’s a five-year old to do?
Let’s not put ourselves out or get some of this on us is a big part of the problem.
ALL ADULTS ARE THE PROTECTORS OF ALL CHILDREN
FIND YOUR CASA here – CASA’s around the U.S. If you are not listed, send me your info and we will include it. Thank you Sai Yang and Century College for your research and writing on this page.
These CASA guardian ad-Litem articles have been gathered from around the nation.
Find out what the other 975 CASA’s from around the nation are up to.
Last year, more than 76,000 CASA and guardian ad litem volunteers helped more than 251,000 abused and neglected children find safe, permanent homes, according to casaforchildren.org. Volunteers are everyday citizens who have undergone screening and training with their local advocate program.
FIND YOUR CASA here – CASA’s around the U.S. If you are not listed, send me your info and we will include it. Thank you Sai Yang and Century College for your research and writing on this page.
These CASA guardian ad-Litem articles have been gathered from around the nation.
Find out what the other 975 CASA’s from around the nation are up to.
Last year, more than 76,000 CASA and guardian ad litem volunteers helped more than 251,000 abused and neglected children find safe, permanent homes, according to casaforchildren.org. Volunteers are everyday citizens who have undergone screening and training with their local advocate program.
Volunteer to help KARA maintain this page; info@invisiblechildren.org (do you know an active or retired GAL that might have time to gather guardian ad-Litem news?)
All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children
FIND YOUR CASA here – This page tells the stories of CASA’s around the U.S. If you are not listed, send me your info and we will include it. Thank you Sai Yang and Century College for your research and writing on this page. These CASA guardian ad-Litem articles have been gathered from around…
Jan. 17 trial date set in Sullivan County homicide
Terre Haute Tribune Star
Tribune-Star/Lisa TriggDefendant Joshua Travis Hall is led from the Sullivan Superior courtroom by Sheriff Clark Cottom following a hearing Monday …
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Attorney Janie Lindamood leaves mark on community, children, legal profession
Johnson City Press (subscription)
She represented children in delinquency cases and was often appointed as a child’s guardian ad litem, which in Tennessee is a licensed attorney …
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Family Court: abused children need more advocates
The News Journal
The CASA is appointed as the child’s guardian ad litem, which involves being party to any court agreement or court plan for the child and is …
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Judge notes ‘disturbing evidence’ in wards of court application
Irish Times
The alleged sexual abuse and brutal treatment of two children, both aged under 10, was “the most disturbing evidence I have read in 20 years on the …
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Mark Proctor passed away this past week and Minnesota lost one of its most committed and effective advocates for children in the child protection and foster care system. I know of no one more dedicated to making life better for abused and neglected children. Mark brought depth, wit and a deep working knowledge of the child protection system to our CASAMN board meetings. He was a truly positive force and a joy to work with.
Mark supported guardians ad litem as a former director of the Court Appointed Special Advocates, or CASA program in South Dakota, and as a member of the CASA Board of Directors here. He got the first legislation ever proposed by Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota introduced in the state Legislature in 2010.
He was always present when any advocacy for children needed to be done.
Mark will be greatly missed not only by his colleagues but by the children of Minnesota, many of whom did not know him but still benefited from his work.
Here is the information about his memorial services this coming Saturday, September 17th:
Mark Proctor passed away in Mendota, MN September 6, 2016.
An “Irish Wake” Celebration of Life will occur at 1:00 PM on Saturday, September 17, 2016 at the Mendota VFW in Mendota, MN. Buffet lunch will be beforehand from 10:45 AM-12:30 PM; please let me know if you plan to attend the lunch and how many people to prepare for by emailing drkaylazp@yahoo.com.
Memorials can be given to the Mark Proctor Scholarship at Black Hills State University (http://www.bhsu.edu/)or to Safe Passage for Children of MN (http://safepassagemn.com/donate/).
Thank you for your support at this time.
Kayla Zirpel-Proctor and Family/Friends of Mark Proctor
FIND YOUR CASA here – This page tells the stories of CASA’s around the U.S. If you are not listed, send me your info and we will include it. Thank you KARA volunteers for your research and writing on this page. All Adults Are the Protectors Of All Children Join the Conversation at Linked In &…
FIND YOUR CASA here – This page tells the stories of CASA’s around the U.S. If you are not listed, send me your info and we will include it. Thank you Sai Yang and Century College for your research and writing on this page.
These CASA guardian ad-Litem articles have been gathered from around the nation.
This is where you can find out what the other 975 CASA’s from around the nation are up to.
Volunteer to help KARA maintain this page; info@invisiblechildren.org (do you know an active or retired GAL that might have time to gather guardian ad-Litem news?)
All Adults Are the Protectors Of All Children
Join the Conversation at Linked In & receive weekly updates from around the nation
CASA Child Advocates
Montgomery County Newspaper
WHY: CASA Child Advocates of Montgomery County held its first in-office corporate training for volunteers last month at the new Exxon Mobil …
CASA breakfast serves up a ‘Ray of Hope’ – Bonner County Daily Bee
CASA of Denton County to hold information session – Star Local Media
Look into becoming a CASA volunteer – Victoria Advocate
Full Coverage
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CASA training begins in June
Choteau Acantha
Training will be begin in June for Front Range CASA volunteers to serve as court-appointed special advocates for abused and neglected children.
Golden Crescent CASA needs volunteers – Victoria Advocate
Local Scottsdale resident advocates for foster children – Scottsdale Independent
Full Coverage
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Area CASA swears in 4 new advocates
Corpus Christi Caller-Times
Judge Patrick Flanigan swears in the second class of court-appointed special advocates, or CASAs, for CASA of Bee, Live Oak and McMullen counties …
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New CASA advocate
White Mountain Independent
Presiding Judge Michael Latham congratulates Michele Sexton after swearing her in as a court appointed special sdvocate (CASA) for Apache County …
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Pay it Forward recognizes Jeanne Linn of CASA
KTVZ
The biggest CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocates) fundraiser of the year took place Thursday evening at Broken Top Golf Club CASA works with …
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CASA program a great way to help local foster children
Ontario Argus Observer
Court Appointed Special Advocates get to know children in foster care. They spend time with the kids, observe their interactions with their families, and …
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Dining For A Cause – CASA Of Ocean County
Micromedia Publications
casa1 OCEAN COUNTY – CASA of Ocean County will celebrate their 10 year anniversary advocating for Ocean County children in foster care on …
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CASA of Terrebonne: More than 100 kids need a volunteer
Daily Comet
One-hundred and eleven foster care children are currently in need of a volunteer to advocate for them in the local courts system, according to CASA of …
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Members learn about CASA
The Hillsdale Daily News
HILLSDALE — The Hillsdale Intermediate School District administration building, located on West Bacon Street, was the scene for the most recent …
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County court adds six advocates for kids
Daily Astorian
The Clatsop Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program recently announced six new volunteers have joined in serving abused and neglected …
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WEB
Become an Alameda County Court Appointed Special Advocate
Idealist.org
Are you interested in being a powerful voice in a child’s life? Come to an Informational Session to learn if being a CASA Volunteer is right for you.
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Here is how civilized, non-superstitious nations fight problems afflicting their children. The citizens of these enlightened societies use government resources. Their governments are actually controlled by them. Doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers and counselors are employees of the public, via government. They don’t have for-profit hospitals, for-profit schools or for-profit prisons.
They also emphasize prevention instead of cure. Consequently, they spend far less than we do for health care, education, and corrective justice. That’s why their health care and education systems are far less expensive while producing better outcomes. It’s more bang for the buck, what Americans are supposed to prefer.
These CASA guardian ad-Litem articles have been gathered from around the nation for the month of March.
If you are an aspiring journalist and would like to help Kids At Risk Action increase the quality and quantity of CASA guardian ad-Litem news, send us a request for more info (info@invisiblechildren.org)
All Adults Are the Protectors Of All Children
Guardian ad Litem Presentation for Prospect Volunteers