Ethan’s Story

Adoption, Foster and Kinship Care, All Posts from Kids at Risk Action

Ethan was 17 years old when I met him. Again, what I know of his story is limited, but the ugliest truths of it seemed to jump off the page and into my brain as I read his file to prepare for our interview. At his first foster care placement, he was sexually and physically abused by his foster father who had an alcohol problem. His foster mother was aware of the abuse going on, but because she was a victim of the domestic violence herself, was unable to stand up for the children in her home. Whether Ethan was removed from this placement (I refuse to refer to it as a “home” given the state of things) before or after this information came to light, is unbeknownst to me.

Critical Perspectives On Child Abuse (updated regularly – send KARA your insights)

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Adverse Childhood Experiences ACES NEWS Top notch reporting on research and news about abuse politics, programs and stories locally, nationally and internationally. Current and focused trauma informed news.

Richard Ross has devoted ten years of his life to documenting America’s hidden gulag of 71,000 teenagers in lockdown and solitary confinement. His photographs are eloquent and deeply upsetting.

ACE Study Preview – The most compelling video about child abuse ever. The medical communities elegant effort to reduce 30 years of research into 3 minutes. Powerful.

All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children

FOSTER SHOCK This Frontline quality video documentary uncovers unspeakable failures in Florida’s Privatized Group Homes. THE PASSWORD IS ” foster ” or download the video

Does Your State Have Safe Passage For Children (is there a voice for the safety and well being in your state for at risk children?)

Do Your State Ward Children Have a Voice In the System That Rules Their Lives? (National CASA Here)

Dear Elementary School Teacher (I’m sorry for being such a problem)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Day Care and Education

I may look like the other 4th graders in your classroom, but I am not. I’m very different. My birth family’s repeated traumatic sex assaults and beatings have had a powerful and lasting impact on my body and mind. I don’t love or trust anyone and don’t feel loved or trusted at all.

The reptilian, fear activated part of my brain, the amygdala, is much larger than other children’s. This interferes with my ability to sit still in a classroom and I’m unable to concentrate on the things you are talking about. My mind is always filled with fearful thoughts and anxiety about the next bad thing that’s about to happen. It couldn’t be otherwise. The Prozac I’m forced to take (about a third of all foster children are medicated by psychotropics) makes me stupid and slow and I hate that. Some seven year olds know what the suicidal ideation on the side of the Prozac box actually means (fully formed thoughts of self harm and suicide delivered in waking moments).

I don’t have the coping skills to handle small personal things in the classroom like other children. Certain words and behaviors by others trigger a violent learned fear response in me that other kids don’t seem to have. I can be violent and did not learn social interaction at home, My reactions to minor things do not come from the executive function of my brain. I can’t control myself, things just happen.

Please understand that foster children are not foster children because a parent tired of caring for them or someone hit a child once or twice. At least I’ve not seen that among the foster kids I know. I’ve come to know many foster children through the County system as I’ve moved from foster home to foster home. It is the “Imminent Harm Doctrine”, that let’s a judge remove a child from a birth home. Literally, a child’s life must be in danger before the court will take a child away from birth parents. It really is almost as traumatic to be removed from the home as it is to stay and suffer the abuse. No matter how bad the abuse is, the fear of waking up in a strange place, with no one you have ever seen before is extremely frightening to a seven year old.

I became a state ward because my mother, who had been horribly abused as a child herself, had very violent boyfriends who thought sex with children was acceptable behavior. One of the boyfriends kicked me so hard I went into convulsions & needed an ambulance ride to the hospital (I was seven). The medical staff saw the awful bruises and placed me in child protection.

Let Me Show You The Money

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One of my guardian ad Litem boys Alan – not his real name, was tied to a bed, left alone for days at a time (from 4 to 7 years of age – four whole years), sexually abused, starved and beaten so badly that he was covered head to foot in bruises on both sides of his body when I first met him.

This boy’s new adoptive caregiver had a court order in place from another state forbidding him contact with young boys because of what he did to them – but this was not found out at the time and custody of this poor four year old boy was granted to this violent sex offender.

Alan was taken from a perfectly fine foster home to be starved, raped and beaten for four years – until his caregiver first brought him to school when he was seven years old and turned into child protection.

Alan already cost the County/State over 3 million dollars by the time he aged out of foster care. This number does not include the teacher he beat up, a school mate he stabbed, or any of the terrible things he did to the 29 foster and adoptive families that tried so hard to save him or the violence he did to people and things in his daily life.

He also had AIDs and was on one of the most expensive medications I had ever encountered (about $40,000 / year for the pills alone).

Alan has always been a state ward and most likely will always be a state ward. We became friends over a 12 year period and I understood why he did what he did, why he hated authority (you get that way when you are horribly abused by a parent or caregiver) and how the rest of his life was most likely going to play out after he aged out of foster care.

80% of youth aging out of foster care lead dysfunctional lives.

Blaming Alan for violent outbursts and hurting people is like blaming the 35W Bridge for killing and injuring all those men, women and children when it fell in the river a few years ago.

Federal and State engineers said at the time that it was when, not if this bridge would fail for lack of maintenance. The bridge was in the bottom three percent of all bridges in America when it collapsed and it was no surprise to those that know bridges.

June 2016 Sad Stories (part 1)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

MN: Washington County: Child protection changes increase caseload
South Washington County Bulletin – May 27, 2016
State funding will allow Washington County to hire three more child protection workers, but officials say there is no additional funding to process those cases through the legal system.
http://www.swcbulletin.com/news/government/4039730-washington-county-child-protection-changes-increase-caseload

NV: A different approach to foster care
Nevada Daily Mail – June 01, 2016
Keech provided an overview of the process, including the strengths and weaknesses of the child welfare system. “In general, child welfare case managers are amazing and wonderful people,” said Keech, “but within the first weeks of starting their work, they see more evil and suffering than any should see in a lifetime.”
http://www.nevadadailymail.com/story/2309720.html

OK: Sen. James Lankford says Oklahoma needs more foster families (Includes video)
KTUL – May 31, 2016
“When foster children go back home with their parent, forever family or wherever that may lead, that growth and that change continues on and they have a little bit of us to carry with them as well,” Lyndsey said.
http://ktul.com/news/local/sen-james-lankford-says-oklahoma-needs-more-foster-families

PA: Advocates say PA’s child abuse hotline has had major problems since 2010, so why did the state wait so long to investigate? (Opinion)
New Pittsburgh Courier – May 31, 2016
The report released May 24 states that the agency identified “an alarming rate of calls to ChildLine [were] not answered by [Department of Human Services] caseworkers in 2015, along with inadequate staffing for the hotline and a severe lack of monitoring of hotline calls.” Report: http://www.paauditor.gov/Media/Default/Reports/ChildLine%20Interim%20Report-%20Final%205-23-16.pdf
http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2016/05/31/advocates-say-pas-child-abuse-hotline-has-had-major-problems-since-2010-so-why-did-the-state-wait-so-long-to-investigate/

US: Many Children Not Getting Enough Food During Summer Months (Incudes audio)

Rapid City man charged with child abuse for beating 1-year-old child
Rapid City Journal
A Rapid City man accused of beating a 1-year-old girl pleaded not guilty Monday to aggravated child abuse. Robert R. Arguello, 39, faces up to 15 …

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Couple accused of beating their children returning to lower court for upgraded charges
MLive.com
Jackson County Assistant Prosecutor Katie Branigan asked the court to change both of Tina Harbert’s two counts of second-degree child abuse to …

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Man charged for allegedly beating child with stick
Sioux City Journal
STORM LAKE | A Storm Lake man is charged with child endangerment causing bodily harm after he beat a 12-year-old girl with a stick, police said.

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Trial dates set for women charged after boy’s fatal beating
WXIX
Trial dates were set Monday for three women charged after police say a 5-year-old boy was beaten to death earlier this year. The women all pleaded …

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Judge allows man’s statement in Hancock child-abuse case
Herald-Mail Media
Aaron Jacob Vanmeter, 22, of Hancock is charged with first-degree child abuse resulting in serious physical injury, second-degree child abuse and …

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Prosecutors to File Additional Charges in Child Abuse Case
Tristatehomepage.com
The Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office plans to formally file additional charges against three people accused of having a role on what police …

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Breaking the cycle of child abuse
Seacoastonline.com
PORTSMOUTH – When Deb Cram started writing about her own childhood abuse four years ago, she didn’t know where her words would lead.

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Gwinnett couple accused of stripping, tying up, beating child
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Arrest warrants allege the abuse took place June 1 at their home on Buford’s … The warrant issued for Moss also accuses her of tying the child up and …

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NEW: Jury now deliberating in Larkins child abuse trial
Wyoming Tribune
They are accused of beating their children with belts, a wooden backscratcher and their hands, intentionally causing them mental injury and abusing a …

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Man charged in connection with sexual assault, beating of Mineral City boy
Canton Repository
MINERAL CITY Along state Route 800 is a playground where most children in this small village go to play. There’s a basketball court, some picnic …

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Pennsylvania Child Protection News December 2015

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

Two Bills Aim To Improve Lives Of PA’s Foster Children
90.5 WESA – December 28, 2015
Act 75 of 2015 and House Bill 1603 came about a result of the 2014 federal Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act, which mandated that every state had until Jan. 1, 2016 to pass laws that would help foster youth.
http://wesa.fm/post/two-bills-aim-improve-lives-pas-foster-children This page contributed by Krista Neuner

Child Death and Child Abuse Articles (for September 2015 – find your state/country here)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Child Abuse and Deaths

Every month KARA publishes articles that go unnoticed outside of the community they occur. These stories are gathered from different sources all around the nation and some international stories. Please share this page with people in your networks, especially reporters, educators, social workers and law enforcement. Spread the word; when more people know about how troubled our child protection systems are, we will do more to make life better for abused and neglected children.

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All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children

CHILD WELFARE NEWS STATE BY STATE (for August)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

NBC 4 – August 28, 2013
Records obtained by NBC4 show 63 children died in Los Angeles County as a result of abuse and neglect since January 2012, including some with a lengthy history of allegations leading up to the death.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Documents-Detail-Child-Abuse-Deaths-in-Los-Angeles-County-221587601.html

CA: LA County facing fines for operating unlicensed foster care shelter, missing deadlines
Southern California Public Radio – August 28, 2013
Her job was to sort out who was biologically related to whom, and find the kids a place to stay – all within a window of 23 hours and 59 minutes. It’s the deadline at which, legally, the kids would need to be in a place that’s certified to care for them, like a foster home or shelter. Too often in the past eight months, L.A. County has missed this deadline, according to state regulators. And as soon as Wednesday, California’s Department of Social Services said the county could be subject to fines of $200 a day for operating an “unlicensed emergency shelter.” As of Wednesday morning, state officials had not taken action. Also: DCFS warned to place kids in foster care sooner: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=9223065&rss=rss-kabc-article-9223065
http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/08/28/38906/county-to-weigh-options-for-avoiding-state-fines-f/