The following are recent survey responses by CASAs answering the question “What community CASA volunteers bring to abused children and the Child Protection System they serve. Several spelling and grammatical changes have been made for clarity. We advocate for these children without paycheck and without allegiance to anyone or anything other than the child. We…
The complete report can be read HERE. This post emphasises the GAL program’s effort to eliminate the CASA community volunteer Guardian ad Litems. The author made notes and corrected several minor spelling errors (notes are in parenthesis and in bold).
Hennepin County participants: Jodi Wentland; Dan Rogan; Lori Whittier; Evangeline Filosi; Patricia Zagaros; Sherry Smith; Lisa Bayley; Kwesi Booker; Michelle Lefebvre; Lori Munsterman; Fintan Moore; Lauren Kewley; Madeline Johnson; Shanese Reed; Rachelle Loewenson Stratton; Meredith Martinez: Lolita Ulloa
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, …
Returning abused children into the care of criminally violent caregivers is a death sentence for many children. Speak for a child and share this information…
This is a book about childhood trauma, its impact on children and the impact traumatized youth are having on our communities and society. It is a guide to seeing and dealing with the most critical issues and causes of abuse, and solutions.
From Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota today; This Peabody Award Winning video documents the critical issues that lead to the gruesome murder of 6 year old Eli Hart and dangers facing all of Minnesota’s abused and neglected children.
Hundreds of children have died while known to Child Protective Services. Some have been tortured over time. Many more children have suffered years of trauma as the institution standards and practices of CPS have deteriorated.
There are no metrics or reporting made available about children’s suffering at the hands of their caregivers or the self-harm or suicide attempts of traumatized kids in the system.
Hundreds of MN children are being abandoned by their caregivers in MN hospitals. Many are children raised in toxic homes then shuttled off into State/County foster and group homes
I must address the article in the KARA newsletter today (last Friday) where the failure to protect these known victims is not laid at the feet of CPS.
There is a real lack of data and transparency in CPS which makes it hard to know outcomes short of child death.
72% of of the 88 child maltreatment deaths studied (complete study below) were known to CPS. We do know that there were many reports of life changing violence, neglect and abuse but few follow ups.
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.
Neighborhood House in St Paul is hosting
KARA’s INVISIBLE CHILDREN Necessary Conversations Exhibit
April 24-28 for April – Prevent Child Abuse Month.
Stop by the Wellstone Center Atrium and Check us out
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.
300 years ago, an Irish Minister wrote an explosive satire that was misinterpreted by many readers of his day (printed in its entirety below). In a gruesome and widely read logical argument, Swift offered a plan that would relieve the suffering of Irish families and their youngest children…
Back in the day, these writings were the modern equivalent of you tube or a precursor to Twitter and consumed voraciously by all who could read (or read them to others).
Public policy treated poor Irish more like animals than people and Irish children were doomed to lives of crime, prostitution, and abject poverty.
Was Swift’s underlying argument that death might be preferable to children doomed to disease, crime, prostitution, & the cruelties suffered by abandoned children of his time?
For every six-year old foster child’s successful suicide (Kendrea Johnson), there are hundreds of attempts and many hundreds of self-harming incidents in hospitals and Child Protective Services (CPS) – many if not most of these incidents are never reported.
For every child killed while in child protection (recent Safe Passage investigative study of child maltreatment deaths) there are hundreds of children starved, beaten, raped and otherwise abused that are never known outside the home
Aaliya Goodwin. This is one of the 88 stories of children dying at the hands of their caregivers reported in the recent Safe Passage For Children investigation of child death in Minnesota. The report suggests why this tragedy is happening in our state and how we can make life safer for at risk children (in…
Eli Hentges. This is one of the 88 stories of children dying at the hands of their caregivers reported in the recent Safe Passage For Children investigation of child death in Minnesota. The report suggests why this tragedy is happening in our state and how we can make life safer for at risk children (in the read more at the end of the article). Please share this with your contacts and State Representative.
This is one of the 88 stories of children dying at the hands of their caregivers reported in the recent Safe Passage For Children investigation of child death in Minnesota. The report suggests why this tragedy is happening in our state and how we can make life safer for at risk children (in the read more at the end of the article). Please share this with your contacts and State Representative.
Tayvion Davis, Hennepin County
The Safe Passage Report on Child Maltreatment Deaths is a remarkable report – not in a good way. It demonstrates how common it is for Minnesota children to die from abuse in the home even after they have become known to CPS. This report is still only the the tip of the horrors facing abused children as;
DHS did not cooperate with the investigator,
Four counties did not respond,
Child deaths reported were only those that had court filings or had been reported in the media
This is one of the 88 stories of children dying at the hands of their caregivers reported in the recent Safe Passage For Children investigation of child death in Minnesota. The report suggests why this tragedy is happening in our state and how we can make life safer for at risk children (in the read more at the end of the article). Please share this with your contacts and State Representative. Sophia O’Neill, Hennepin County
If you read this blog, you know how hard it is for Minnesota’s abused and neglected children to find the help they need to thrive. If you have not read the investigative report of child fatalities known to CPS by Safe Passages for Children of MN, please read it here. Pages 22+ tells the sad…
This is one of the 88 stories of children dying at the hands of their caregivers reported in the recent Safe Passage For Children investigation of child death in Minnesota. The report suggests why this tragedy is happening in our state and how we can make life safer for at risk children (in the read more at the end of the article). Lylah Koob, Goodhue County
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.
Are children property of their parents even if those parents
are violent, addicted, severely mentally ill or dangerously criminal?
Do teen and preteen mothers own their babies?
Is this child’s child doomed prior to birth?
88 Minnesota Children died at the hands of their caregivers recently
a cruel but accurate point. Our community has a passion for safeguarding adult rights of guns and abortion.
Safe Passage for Children investigation of child death in Minnesota
There is more to child abuse than bruises, rape and starvation.
27 states allow withholding life saving medical treatment from children if you tell people your religion forbids it . Criminal and civil immunity means it is not murder when the child dies.
A few years ago, Kansas State Rep Gail Finney vowed to pass a bill that allowed caregivers to leave bruises and cause bleeding. Arkansas State Rep Charles Fuqua promoted the death penalty for rebellious children (based on religious grounds).
CONTACT: Rich Gehrman, Executive Director, Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota (651) 303-3209; gehrm001@umn.edu Report documents multiple systemic failures in cases Of Minnesota children killed due to maltreatment 8 YEAR OLD AUTUMN HALLOW’S MURDER (KSTP video) Minnesota Child Fatalities from Maltreatment 2014 – 2022 Executive Summary From the report; This study of children who died in…
Most lawmakers know what a big percentage of their budgets is going to social programs like child welfare and child protection.
Not as many understand how tax dollars they appropriate are working to solve the problems they are meant to solve.
Minnesota’s Child Protective Services (CPS) received 85,000 child abuse calls in 2019 (about 1/3 of the calls were investigated).
Report documents system failures in cases of Minnesota Children Killed due to Maltreatment short (KSTP video)
Recent Star Tribune articles about juvenile justice and explosive growth of crime in our community miss the heart of the matter. We keep putting fires out that could have been prevented. The car jackings, transit crimes and other juvenile violence making life miserable for so many of us didn’t begin when these children became juveniles. It started with traumas suffered in the home mostly caused by parents that suffered the same violence and abuse as children.
This conversation about the study of MN child fatalities is eye opening and terribly sad. Ignoring brutality being done to children allows it to continue and to fester. Let’s all commit to caring for other people’s children. It will be a better place to live for all of us if we do.
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.
“I’m not for killing kids and stuff” (officer Omar Bellow). For eight seconds officers fired 66 rounds from Glock service weapons towards the children. You can read the NY Times article details here. There is nothing easy about being in law enforcement in America today (or teaching, or social work, health services or child care). The numbers of seriously troubled youth are off the charts and so many children have serious often violent behavior problems.
37% of children overall and 44% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
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…
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 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…
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.
For decades foster families have found most states unwilling to cover the costs of caring for the poor kids placed in care because of abuse and neglect.
In about half the States, kennelling/dog boarding pays more dollars than fostering a child. Dogs don’t need diapers or the near constant attention a troubled youth from Child Protective services does.
People food is also more expensive than dog food. Dogs don’t need shoes or shirts or money for “things” that children need and do.
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.
Recent Child Welfare Articles & Statistics Summer 2022
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.
Are children property of their parents even if those parentsre violent, addicted, severely mentally ill or dangerously criminal?
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…
Child Welfare Articles and Statistics For Week of 6.10.2022
This NY Times article about Baptist Sex-abuse survivors shines a light on the commonality of child sex abuse in America. For a very long time, Tennessee allowed ten year olds to wed (almost always to older men).
To date this study documents parents who got this virtual free pass despite refusing medical treatment for children injured in a car crash, enabling sexual abuse of an infant, and a criminal conviction for malicious punishment of a child…,
CHILD ABUSE & SELF-HARM – “Up to 79% of individuals who self injure report physical and/or sexual abuse during his or her childhood”
Child Abuse and Child Protection Stories & Statistics Arizona & Arkansas
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.