If American institutions are to be defined today by what they actually create instead of what they were designed to create, then child protection services creates preteen mothers and adolescent felons, and juvenile justice creates mentally unstable adults (paraphrasing Kathleen Long Angels and Demons
My fear and disappointment come from the growing problems being experienced in many states just maintaining programs that are absolutely necessary for providing the most minimal protection for abused and neglected children.
The growing poverty and trouble that poverty breeds are causing great stress and terrible things to happen to children all over America right now.
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.
The weekly subject-oriented, solutions-driven program broadcasts online at www.blogtalkradio.com/CWLA-Radio, Wednesdays, 2:00-2:30 pm ET and feature indepth, timely discussions with leading child welfare experts, agents, and advocates; leadership and representatives from CWLA’s member agencies; and local and national political figures working to improve child welfare and give a voice to child welfare professionals, providers, and practitioners nationwide.
NCPCA sends its senior attorneys throughout the country and abroad to lecture and deliver presentations on all aspects of child abuse investigation and prosecution. The federal Children’s Justice Act supports multidisciplinary training on investigation and prosecution of child abuse. Contact APRI’s National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse for expert help in developing training programs or requesting a trainer.
Absent coordinated positive (1*) public policy for the care of children, America is now at the confluence of misaligned and mistaken public policies that are overwhelming its schools, mental health services, child protection services, juvenile justice services, and criminal justice systems. Failing schools, unsafe communities, and absurdly high rates of incarceration are just the tip of the iceberg.
If their are attorneys reading this blog that are interested in pursuing these kinds of cases, please contact KARA with an email.
The best hope for these babies would have been a more responsive community with more compassion, more daycare, more crisis nurseries, and more child protection services.
MN day care
It is a bigger step to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is true.
Support at risk children! Become a CASA volunteer or start a KARA group in your community.
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Join the public debate for children (they have no senator, lobby, or voice)
It is a bigger step to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is true.
Join the public debate for children (they have no senator, lobby, or voice)
Local CASA Volunteer’s Success Story
Contributed by: Fran G.
I was given my first case in February of this year a family of three children: A 13-year-old boy with mild autism, a 9-year-old girl, and a 4-year-old, all living with a Great Grandmother (74 years old).
The children have lived with their great grandmother for 4 years. There were so many questions that needed to be answered and I found that I had the time to find those answers. The lawyers, and social workers all cared for the family but lacked the time to get to know the family as well as I could.
I found, for example, that the 13-year-old boy had missed 54 days of school and had been late for his first hour class 34 times. There were several reasons, and all were easy to fix.
He needed an alarm clock, needed to stop spending the night at his favorite Aunt’s house, and needed to take responsibility. I told him he was not allowed to be late or miss school anymore. I was able to check daily via a computer how his grades were and his attendance, and so was he.
A sheriff’s deputy zapped three children with a stun gun at an Illinois emergency youth shelter, threatening to sodomize one of them before choking a fourth child and throwing her in a closet, according to a federal civil-rights lawsuit.
Even considering four decades of exhilarating professional life, my most powerful lesson followed retirement in 1996. This happened when I volunteered as a guardian ad-litem for Hennepin County from 1998 to 2000.
Guardians are court-appointed advocates assigned to help Juvenile Court judges decide the fate of children removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect. It is part of the Child Protection System in our state.
The hardest was to look into the eyes of these unlucky kids and realize that they had no chance for a normal life. I could only take that for two years. It was a “kick in the pants” that opened my eyes.
“If you measure the success of our institutions by what it is they actually create versus what they were designed to create”, (the following are my words) our Child Protection system creates mentally unhealthy youth, future felons, and pregnant teenagers.
Pressed by the demands of the “global war on terrorism”, theUnited States is violating an international protocol that forbids the recruitment of children under the age of 18 for military service, according to a new report released Tuesday by a major civil rights group that charged that recruitment practices target children as young as 11 years old.
The 46-page report, “Soldiers of Misfortune”, was prepared by theAmerican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for submission to the U.N. Committeeon the Rights of the Child.
“Defining our institutions by what they actually create instead of what they were designed to create”* would be the first step in making the changes necessary to fix our poorly understood and vastly under-resourced system.
A recent study indicates that up to 80% of children aging out of foster care are leading dysfunctional lives. A Minnesota judge has provided me the Prozac, Ritalin, and other psychotropic medication prescriptions taken by children in her courtroom (most of them under ten years old) and it points at one of the key issues thay might explain why so many youth leaving the foster care program find it hard to cope with life.
I’m now hated by one of the children I was best friends with as a guardian ad-Litem. She wants to be reconnected with her mother (which I agree with) and have her younger siblings moved back into her mother’s care (which I don’t agree with). This will be my fourth court battle with her mother…
From a legal perspective the most under-protected persons in America are sexually abused children.
One study indicated that 11% of judges and 51% of prosecuting attorneys admitted that they had deliberately confused the child (witness) during the proceedings.
What this means in practice, is that the nine-year old girl sitting on the stand in the courtroom is being bullied by intense and deliberately confusing cross-examination about her abuse.
Everyone at the sysmposium agreed that children are not mentally capable of undergoing adult type cross examination, but it is clear that this still happens in many cases.
Mom (Carol) was in court today with her daughter (Ann) even though mom’s parental rights were terminated seven years ago. The social workers and I thought that there might be a mutual benefit for mother and daughter to reattach (supervised visits with a therapist) after all these years because Ann was such a mess and…
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The First 12 are my thoughts, the next 6 are from Victor I Vieth, UNTO THE THIRD GENERATION: a call to end child abuse in the U.S. within 120 years, Journal of Agression, Maltreatment & Trauma
Pliny the elder, 2500 years ago, “what you do to your children, they will do to your society”
I do not wish to minimize the seriousness of post traumatic stress syndrome in solders.
I only wish to point out the seriousness of post traumatic stress syndrome in children.
At the very least, tell your legislator you are tired of full prisons, dangerous streets, and failing schools. Tell them that you support mental health services for children.
Children that have suffered severe or prolonged abuse need a counseling regimen that will be part of their life for a long time. Short term counseling for severely damaged children is just one more abandonment.