Can’t Make This Stuff Up
Why does the United States lead the world’s richest democracies in child abuse fatalities, with death rates three times higher than Canada’s and 11 times higher than Italy’s?
Mad At The Wrong People (throwing baby out with bathwater again)
NO, it is we the people that have voted to underfund our schools and social programs (and 35W bridge maintenance) that have created the painful failure we are living with today. The bridge fell in the river for the same reason our schools, jails, and child protection systems are struggling so mightily-we failed to maintain it.
Adoptees Have Answers New Website Launch
http://aha.mn is an exciting new program to promote connections among adopted individuals of all ages, ethnicities and adoption types while maximizing their lifelong welfare and self-fulfillment
AHA believes…
…being adopted has lifelong consequences for those who were adopted at any age
…adoptees benefit from connecting with other adoptees in a variety of ways
…adoptees are the experts on adoption
…non-adoptees benefit from the knowledge and life wisdom of adopted individuals.
Congratulations on making a great idea come to life.
America’s Children, Mental Health, & Society
Between 40 to 85 percent of kids in foster care have mental health problems.
http://www.orphantrainridersofminnesota.com/
Minnesota became the first state to host an official gathering of its orphan train riders and their families with an event that took place on July 1, 1961 with nine attendees. This event was organized by two women who discovered later in life that they had ridden the same orphan train to Minnesota as young children.
Invisible Children Audiobook & ebook Without Charge
Invisible Children (The American Cycle Of Abuse & Its Cost) ebook & audiobook
https://invisiblechildren.org/our-book/
An informative & compelling look at the shameful treatment of vulnerable children, how it impacts our communities, and what we can do about it.
Listen, Read. Pass it on (a great gift).
Organized For Children In Canada
An impressive video statement about the importance of attending to the needs of youth. Cheers for our neighbors to the north.
Kids For Cash, Privatizing Punishment, What Could Be More Wrong?
It is up to us as citizens to have the depth of understanding and concern with our community to see how what happened in Pennsylvania is happening by degrees to youth throughout our state and our nation (just without the commissions).
The Consequences of Media Concentrating On Negative Child Protection & Adoption
Some of us, preferably some of us educated in the study of the issues; social workers, health and mental health providers, and others close and sympathetic to abused and neglected children, needs to give these children a voice in their own lives other than a Media that has to sell itself with “if it bleeds it leads”.
Drugs Without Therapy Is Ineffective & Can Be Dangerous
Almost nothing is known about the rivers of psychotropic medications that are poured into the millions five, seven, and nine year old children that pass through child protection systems in America without sufficient mental health services.
Judge Heidi Schellhas shared with me the quantity of Prozac, *Ritalin, and other mind altering psychotropic medications poured into the very young children that passed through her court room each year. The amounts were staggering.
Educating America, Help Build KARA’s PSA Program For Abused & Neglected Children
In collaboration with award winning Salo of San Ramon CA, & the Academy on Violence and Abuse www.avahealth.org KARA is working to create and place public service ads that bring attention to child abuse on national TV.
The Impact of Trauma and Neglect on the Developing Child: Focus on Youth in the Juvenile Justice System
Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. ChildTrauma Academy When: Thursday, June 17th Registration: 8:30 a.m. Training: 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Mystic Mystice Lake Casino, Shakopee MN Cost: $40 Standard, $30 JJC Community Member, $30 Student Rate Scholarships available Targeted Audience: Policy makers, professionals and practitioners in education, the court system, law enforcement, corrections, human services,…
This Weeks Important At Risk Youth News
This is a compilation of recent news that reflects the conditions of youth and youth policy in the U.S. this past few weeks. Thank you Jamie Wilt and Century College for your hard work and good programs.
Safe Passage For Children
Those of us close to the issues know that abused and neglected children need attention and fair treatment. We also know that early attention and fair treatment equals positive early child development and strong capable citizens.
Deeper Questions About 7 Year Old Russian Boy
If child protection means anything, it should mean that a child already traumatized by a lifetime of abuse will not be subjected to another series of poorly made decisions by the adults in his life.
Adoptees Have Answers…and lots of questions
Minnesota Adoption Resource Network (Marn) is launching an inspired program that should become a national model for dealing with foster and adoptive care. Ten adoptees from diverse ethnic backgrounds have combined their wisdom & energy to provide adoptee-to-adoptee training, connections and resources.
Mental Health, Drug & Alcohol Abuse Programs Don’t Cost They Save
Programs that help youth understand these issues and how to cope with them are one of the best investments that we can make in our youth and our community.
Not having programs is expensive. Just ask the people that lost family and friends in Red Lake, Columbine, & at Virginia Tech.
How To Improve A Child Protection System
Most communities experience uncoordinated providers delivering multiple services without adequately planning the most effective ways of delivery. Costs are high, results suffer.
I have yet to see effective tracking or outcomes based measurements in our child protection services.
RECOMMEND, www.socialsolutions.com
Breaking The Cycle Of Abuse
For every dollar spent on Healthy Families, $4 to $7 in saved in intervention and health care costs, according to program statistics.
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month
Prevent Child Abuse MN holds its Healing Fields from April 29th to May 2nd at the Minnesota State Capitol. The theme of the field is “the Future of America depends on Healthy Children.
The Importance of DayCare, DC, LA,
As a guardian ad-Litem, I have seen plenty of cases where unsavory family members and other questionable practices become the only available answer to a family that cannot find daycare.
National Child Protection Training Center
Developed in 2004, the Child Advocacy Studies Minor started at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. The curriculum was designed to bring the goals of the National Child Protection Training Center to the field by providing students with real-world experience
What Have We Come To?
Money losing newspapers are hard pressed to assign reporters to these tragic stories. As a guardian ad-Litem, I had a case with 49 police calls to a home before the children were removed (& only because the seven year old attempted to kill the five year old in front of the officer). I believe that the seven year old had been prostituted.
The Volunteer Spirit
The CASA program I came through is a volunteer program that connects volunteers to abused and neglected children in their community. CASA provides a great learning experience as well as a terrific service to children unlucky enough to be born into tragic circumstances.
Abused & Neglected Children Around The Nation
Without reduced funding to manage the increased calls coming in from the community distress that results from the poverty and chaos from our declining economy, social service agencies are becoming unable to respond adequately to the calls they are receiving.
Education Is The Engine of Progress & Prosperity
No nation can achieve its potential for greatness without investing in its human capital. The extent to which children successfully negotiate the treacherous passage to adulthood depends on the earliest years of brain and emotional development. That explains why early childhood education is crucial to society.
Abandoning Abandoned Children
The list of inner city schools struggling to educate the children of those who could not get to (or for reasons of loyalty, love, or ethics) decided not to, escape to the suburbs where the schools still function is long.
My old high school, Edison, graduates less than 50% of its students, its sister school across town has graduated less than 30% of its students for five years.
International Women’s Day March 7
When I wrote the book Invisible Children in MN there were less than 900 cases of child rape reported in the state I live in (MN). If that were true, I personally knew of about 50 cases, and there were about five hundred guardian ad-Litems besides myself in the state. I know that there were many more cases of child rape in this state that year.
Abusing Children At Home & In School – The Life Of An Abused Child
The link between an abused child’s past tortured life and future troubled life is clear to most of us that have lived with or worked with these damaged children long enough. It causes me great pain to see my guardian ad-Litem kids handled like mad animals (tasered, confined, beat up by under-trained staff in under-resourced detention centers)
Ireland Implements guardian ad-Litem Program
A child’s right to be heard is the essence of the guardian ad-Litem program. Think about it. Voiceless, helpless children enduring unspeakable horrors, sometimes for many years with no one to turn to for help.
The World Health Organization defines Torture as extended exposure to violence and deprivation. That is how I see child abuse.
Acting Like A Responsible Adult Part II
In the 1950’s I remember the public outrage when TV and newspapers uncovered senior citizens eating dog food out of cans and living under bridges. It was a a warm hearted, hot blooded citizen outcry that supported more social security for the aged, more health care, and more safety. Because of that outcry, politicians saw to it that support at many levels was increased to seniors.
Acting Like A Responsible Adult
America’s aging population is retreating into retirement with its pensions and savings and leaving young families with failing schools, health systems, and communities.
Ruben Rosario on Victor Vieth’s Dream of Ending Child Abuse
As a guardian ad-Litem, I know that most child abuse cases are not reported. Recently an acquaintance admitted to witnessing the prostitution of a very young girl and not reporting it. He had remorse and felt endangered.
Books Not Yet Written
A Few years ago Judge Heidi Schellhas gave me a printout of the psychotropic medications the very young children in her child protection courtroom were proscribed. The impact of seven year olds on Prozac, Ritalin and other powerful medications is still with me.
Children’s Health Trends
Dr. Bruce Perry http://www.childtrauma.org/ctamaterials/default.asp gives credible argument that 25% of Americans will be special needs people in few generations if we do not act forcefully to mend our approach to the mental health needs of abused and neglected children.
A Modest Proposal, or If Children Could Riot
KARA is seeking a 21st Century Modest Proposal. If you are a writer and given to challenges, please read Swift’s “Proposal” below, and write your own as you see it applying to American children & include it as a comment, or send it to Info@invisiblechildren.org
Day Care In America, NY v MN
“It’s unfortunate, because this day care is used by working families, for the most part single-parent families and they’re low income,” he said, adding, “If this place is shut down, it would really be a shame.”
Someplace Where We Can Be A Family
The “burden of eviction is Heavier on Black Women, Research in Milwaukee Shows” reads the New York Times today, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19evict.html
Civil Justice, Mental Health, Children, Education, & Politics
Last night I attended the Patrick Henry High School community Forum on the impact that children’s mental health has on the entire education and juvenile justice systems held by Representatives Mindy Greiling and the Civil Justice Committee Chair Joe Mullery.
Health & Human Services In Minnesota (Largest Share of Budget Cuts)
Federal Reserve board directors Art Rolnick and Rob Grunewold have well researched and established the effectiveness of early childhood programs.
Kansas Losing Health Care For 40,000 Children
Almost all developed nations have affordable health care. Why are we unable to provide health care even for America’s children?
Blaming Social Workers When Children Die
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
CASA Comments On This May Not Be The Case
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.
The Impact Of Tampering With Georgia’s Student’s Test Results
a href=”http://www.startribune.com/nation/84190787.html?elr=KArks:DCiUMEaPc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr”>Georgia’s hiding of hard truths is a terrifying trend in our nation. Here’s why;
Juvenile Injustice – Mental Health
2 Important truths; most of the youth in the juvenile justice system have come through child protection services, & a large percentage of these youth suffer from mental health issues.
More Volunteers Needed For Children In Court System
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.
Keeping At-Risk Students In High School
Today, many states are increasing their percentage of spending on juvenile justice and criminal justice while maintaining or reducing spending on education. New York and California have been spending about $250,000 per year per juvenile in their juvenile justice systems. MN has reached the half a billion dollar mark for maintaining its prison system this year after five years of double digit growth.
ChildHelp.org
Children are suffering from a hidden epidemic of child abuse and neglect. Over 3 million reports of child abuse are made every year in the United States; however, those reports can include multiple children. In 2007, approximately 5.8 million children were involved in an estimated 3.2 million child abuse reports and allegations.
A Million Haitian Orphans
Without basic human dignity for all of us, the ruined lives and violence spawned by unhealthy, unhappy people impact all of us in some way, & for those in proximity to children that have suffered from its absence in many ways.
California’s Child Protection Problems Grow
Overall, the department’s reform efforts also have been stymied by a 9% reduction in its $1.7-billion budget this year. That’s not likely to improve any time soon: Ploehn has been ordered to plan an additional 9% cut for next year.