Minnesota’s Most Troubled Kids Have Nowhere to Go, and the Public Isn’t Being Told Why
Star Tribune Nowhere To Go For Most Troubled Youth, crime, preteen moms and juvenile injustice
Minnesota Is the Fifth Best State in the Nation for Children. Unless Your Child Is Black.
Minnesota ranks fifth in the nation for child well-being and near last for racial equity. Both are true. Here is what the numbers show across education, juvenile justice, child protection, and health care, and what actually works to change them.
The New KARA Website, and a Favor to Ask
The new KARA website is live at kidsatriskaction.com. Thirty years of reporting on abused and neglected children, the Deep Dive reports, the podcast, and the data, all in one place. Before we call it finished, we want your reaction (one sentence is fine)
Foster Care Statistics: The Real Life of a Foster Child
Half of foster youth have been sexually abused. A quarter attempt suicide. Sixty percent carry a chronic illness or developmental delay. These are not estimates from advocates, they are federal data and peer-reviewed research. Here is what the numbers say about life inside Child Protective Services, and what would change them.
Punishing Single Parents and At-Risk Children (Why?)
A draft federal rule would pay married stay-at-home parents about $9,000 a year per child, using money from the fund that helps low-income parents work. Eighty percent of the families using that fund now are single working parents. That rule is one item on a long list, and here is the whole list.
Police vs Social Worker (when the wrong one shows up)
A 14 year old boy who planned his death by cop. Tortured from four to seven. Twenty-nine foster placements. Police from the age of nine. He needed mental health services and got officers instead. Children traumatized by their caregivers fear and hate authority.
92% of Foster Care Kids Using Psychotropic Meds Get Them For Unacceptable Reasons
From the Washington Post yesterday, most foster care children on antipsychoctic drugs get them for far too long and without medical justification. 2/3 of the nearly 700 claims studied raised high-risk “quality of care” issues. As a long time CASA volunteer guardian ad-Litem, many of my case kids were on multiple drugs simultaneously and many of them hated being forced to use them. Some kids threw the drugs away.
In Minneapolis, I would like to know (there should be more transparency) if six year old Kendrea Johnson’s suicide by hanging involved psychotropic medications. She was a very troubled foster child, in therapy and had talked about homicide and suicide. When Jeff Weise killed himself, his grandfather and 14 others he had talked about suicide and homicide and was taking Prozac.
7 year old foster child Gabriel Myers hung himself and left a note about how he hated Prozac. KARA’s video interviews include families, a City Councilman, and other professionals talking about antipsychotic medications, very young children and suicide. This subject needs our attention now. It is cruel punishment for a child suffering from the traumas of abuse and removal from a birth home to be dealt with.
There are 3 children’s hospitals in the metro area and NO children’s mental health hospitals and there are 800 to 1000 emergency psychiatric visits at HCMC every month (many of them children).
This conversation is overdue.
What we don’t know cannot be dealt with and will not be improved. Let’s stop the next awful six year old suicide.
Minnesota’s Child Protection Crisis: Children Need Safety, Transparency, and Accountability
Minnesota’s child protection system must be judged by whether children are safe not by paperwork, promises, or closed cases. Learn about the need for transparency, data, accountability, and public action.
What Life Is Actually Like for a Foster Child in America
Half of foster youth have been sexually abused. A quarter attempt suicide. In Kentucky, 304 children slept in state office buildings with no showers. But cash support cuts removals, kinship licensing is adding homes, and every extra year in care past 18 lowers homelessness and arrest. Here is the evidence on both sides, all of it sourced.
Adoption & Foster Care In America – (their stories, your state)
Foster Care; Every state is struggling to make life safe for traumatized state ward children. Here are their stories from October & November 2017;
KS: Nowhere Else to Go: Why Kids Are Sleeping in Child Welfare Offices (Commentary)
Governing – October 11, 2017
Every month, there are kids in Kansas forced to sleep on cots or couches in a foster care contractor’s office because they don’t have anywhere else to stay that night.
All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children
What Happens if “Child Neglect” In Child Protective Services Is Removed or Diminished
National and federal data show that child neglect is the primary allegation in a clear majority of CPS cases, so removing neglect from CPS as an entry criterion would likely eliminate investigation for roughly 60–75% of the children who are currently investigated or substantiated, with some variation by state. About 7.8 million children / year are reported abused and neglected to CPS. Because child abuse is invisible, it is likely that at least that many children remain unseen and unreported. The Trump child welfare executive order leans heavily into language about “unnecessary removals” and “overreach”
Statistics, Books, Videos & Articles of, by & About Fostered and Adopted Children
National Adoption Month
One out of 25 U.S. families have an adopted child. Half of the 135,000 adoptions are from the foster care system. There are over 100,000 eligible children waiting to be adopted.
Foster Care vs Dog Care (Reimbursements)
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.
Child Welfare Articles and Statistics For Week of 6.10.2022
Child Welfare Articles and Statistics For Week of 6.10.2022
Human Rights and the Psychotropic Medicating of Children
Human Rights and the Psychotropic Medicating of Children is common in foster care and juvenile justice in the U.S. Self-harm and suicidal ideation play a roll in the early death and physical harm these children suffer.
National Adoption Month (statistics, books, videos & articles of, by & about foster and adoptive children)
National Adoption Month
One out of 25 U.S. families have an adopted child. Half of the 135,000 adoptions are from the foster care system. There are over 100,000 eligible children waiting to be adopted.
Foster Care Day Rates vs Dog Care Day Rates (it just doesn’t seem right)
Doggy day care is at least as costly (on average $50/day) than child care (on average $45/day) should make us think a little harder about how we value children in America. Kinship care subsidies in some states are below $10/day.
What’s it like to be a grandparent caring for a very troubled teenage grandchild living on social security?
Aged Out Foster Youth Urged To Return (new federal benefits)
Youth who ‘aged out’ of foster care urged to return
New funding will provide $964 or more per month to eligible youth
Holiday Best Wishes To Everyone & the Best Foster Child Blogs
Be very careful what you believe to be true. There are many good people, the challenge is to find them.
Lawsuits and the Death of Two Year Old Arianna Hunziker
Arianna was wrapped in sheets, left alone in a closed room and slowly starved to death. Foster parents Sherrie and Bryce Dirk will go to prison for murdering Arianna. This solves nothing.
There is something terribly disturbing about a State sanctioned foster family starving a 3 year old State Ward child to death that needs to see the light of day.
Arianna must not have had a County social worker (today’s Star Tribune article …
MN Foster Care During COVID
Fewer children are entering the foster care system during the pandemic.
This is not because there is less child abuse and trauma.
Families are more stressed than before COVID.
Drug and alcohol use, domestic violence and child abuse are up because of this.
The following information is gathered from local MN news sources over the last 60 days.
COVID and Foster Care
The COVID crisis is stretching all of our community resources. Every state is struggling to provide safe homes for foster children.
Fixing the problems this article brings to light will require an informed and involved community and government…
Click here to find out how to begin to make this happen where you live.
The Pandemic Impacting Child Abuse and Foster Care (state by state)
Because schools are closed, after-school activities are canceled and churches aren’t having youth groups and community activity with trusted adults outside the home have evaporated – the chances an abused child can find help to interrupt abuse in the home are dramatically reduced.
Add to that, families living with troubled children are finding the COVID environment much harder now.
More anxiety, substance abuse and family violence are happening because of lost jobs and the 24/7 close quarters of people locked into toxic homes because of the pandemic.
Every state is struggling with child protection, domestic violence and foster care. What’s it like to be a foster child or a foster parent in your state? The following articles are arranged by state. Check out your state here;
Foster Care News 2019
The first article in this series is a CASEY Foundation Q&A
about recruiting American Indian Foster Parents in Oklahoma
and fixing the State’s struggling child welfare system.
All states are struggling to find safe homes for State Ward children
This conversation is important to all communities everywhere
A Critical Look At Foster Care
There are a lot of injuries, a lot of abuse. The most significant thing is the psychological death of so many of these kids. Kids are being destroyed every day, destroyed by a government-funded system set out to help them.
Guardian ad-Litem Blogs & News
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. …
Recent Stories, Statistics & Articles About Adoption & Foster Care
After a 9 day trial, foster mom Melissa Sondrol was convicted of of assaulting her infant state ward child, breaking multiple bones and withholding medical information from providers. The court was not allowed to hear her prior histories of abuse. This infant has suffered for years in MN and will live a life very different from other children due to the traumas visited upon him as a foster child – and the things that happened to him prior to entering child protection.
Stories about the shortage of foster care providers, lack of training and resources and transparency within the system are not uncommon – remember, we only read about the very worst cases – the sadness in foster care goes much deeper.
Recent Foster Stories & Statistics
These recent stories, statistics & videos represent the state of foster care in America today and what it is like for a child to be a Ward of the State in your State;
INVISIBLE CHILDREN Book II – America’s Public Health Crisis (why we should care)
We are all in this together.
Pliny the Elder stated 2000 years ago, “what we do to our children they will do to society”.
Let’s do better.
The Heart of the Matter Chapter One
What You Don’t See;
If it’s not seen, it’s not spoken of.
If it’s not spoken of it’s not an issue.
If it’s not an issue there’s not a problem.
If it’s not a problem it needs no solution.
Generational child abuse is a problem festering in America for decades. It is having a profound impact on taxes, public schools, public health and public safety.
Teachers As First Responders
What’s it like to be a first grade teacher frightened by an out of control little boy who kicks, punches or stabs classmates with pencils? Is the principal trauma informed? Are their teams of trauma informed teachers or sufficient mental health resources that can lessen the chances of expelling a seven or nine year old from the school?
Child Welfare by State (statistics & news April 2018 (5 – foster child)
American states are struggling to find answers for ending adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and saving at risk children by reversing the explosive growth of child abuse and neglect. Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
Child Welfare by State (statistics & news April 2018 (1)
KARA (Kids At Risk Action) tracks current news about at risk children bringing transparency and attention to our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. KARA’s reporting is only sampling of what should be reported – the great majority of child trauma & abuse is never known.
American states are struggling to find answers for ending adverse childhood experiences and saving at risk children by reversing the explosive growth of child abuse and neglect. Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
Sad Stories Part VII Feb 13-28 (child protection – find your state here)
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18.
(American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
Sad Stories Feb 2018 Part VI (foster care stories and statistics)
KARA (Kids At Risk Action) tracks current news about at risk children bringing transparency and attention to our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. KARA’s reporting is only sampling of what should be reported – the great majority of child trauma & abuse is never known.
American states are struggling to find answers for ending adverse childhood experiences and saving at risk children by reversing the explosive growth of child abuse and neglect. Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues.
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18.
(American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
Sad Stories Feb 2018 Part V (child abuse and mental health)
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18.
(American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
Compilation of information and writing on this page is the hard work of KARA volunteers David Vang, Mike Toronto, Jamar Weston, Adolf Nchanj, Josh Jedlicka and Blaz Zlate, Callie Benscoter, (student volunteers at Century College) Katie Frake, Boston College, Julie O,
KARA’s INVISIBLE CHILDREN Campus Exhibit
All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children
Sad Stories Feb 2018 Part I (child abuse – child death stories & statistics)
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18.
(American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
ALL ADULTS ARE THE PROTECTORS OF ALL CHILDREN
January Sad Stories 2018 Part I (find your state here)
American states are struggling to find answers for ending adverse childhood experiences and saving at risk children by reversing the explosive growth of child abuse and neglect. Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
MN At Risk Children’s News July – September 2017 (V)
Brandon Stahl Reporting
KARA gathers news about Minnesota’s abused children to provide a snapshot of Child Protection and how our state values its children.
Only a fraction of serious child abuse stories, statistics and facts we should be aware of.
All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children
Follow;
Safe Passage For Children MN (Join their legislative volunteer efforts and make child friendly legislation a reality)
MN At Risk Children’s News July – September 2017 (III)
KARA gathers news about Minnesota’s abused children to provide a snapshot of Child Protection and how our state values its children.
Only a fraction of serious child abuse stories, statistics and facts we should be aware of.
All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children
December 2017 Sad Stories Part I (child abuse stories & articles from your state)
Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
ALL ADULTS ARE THE PROTECTORS OF ALL CHILDREN
December 2017 Sad Stories Part II (child abuse stories & articles from your state)
KARA (Kids At Risk Action) tracks current news about at risk children bringing transparency and attention to our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. This is only a sampling of what should be reported. Most child trauma & abuse never gets reported. American states are struggling to find answers for ending adverse childhood experiences and saving at risk children by reversing the explosive growth of child abuse and neglect. Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
November Sad Stories Part I (find child abuse stories in your state here)
American states are struggling to find answers for saving at risk children and reversing the explosive growth of child abuse and neglect. Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
ALL ADULTS ARE THE PROTECTORS OF ALL CHILDREN
Sad Stories October 2017 Part II
American states are struggling to find answers for saving at risk children and reversing the explosive growth of child abuse and neglect. Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
ALL ADULTS ARE THE PROTECTORS OF ALL CHILDREN
Foster Mom Charged With Breaking Bones of 7-Week Old Foster Boy (thank you Brandon Stahl & Star Tribune)
Abused and neglected State Ward children have already suffered enough when they enter foster care.
To be removed from a birth home by a judge means that the child’s life has been in imminent danger of serious harm. Most of the children I’ve worked with as a volunteer CASA guardian ad Litem have stories that still make me shudder (some) from twenty years ago.
Brandon Stahl’s article in today’s Star Tribune is one of those stories.
June 2017 Sad Stories Part II
KARA tracks current news about at child abuse and child protection bringing awareness and transparency to the issues of our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.
These pages are only a tiny percentage of what happens to children that should be reported – the great majority of child trauma, abuse & tragedy are never reported.
June Sad Stories 2017 Part I
KARA tracks current news about at risk children bringing transparency and attention to our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. Please note that what you see here is only a sampling of what should be reported – the great majority of child trauma & abuse never gets reported.
American states are struggling to find answers for saving at risk children and reversing the explosive growth of child abuse and neglect. Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues
37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)
12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines
ALL ADULTS ARE THE PROTECTORS OF ALL CHILDREN
Compilation of information and writing on this page is the hard work of David Vang, Mike Toronto, Jamar Weston, Adolf Nchanj and Blaz Zlate, Callie Benscoter, (student volunteers at Century College) Katie Frake, Boston College, Julie O, and KARA.
Please donate now and support these pages &
1) KARA’s FREE Traveling College/University/Museum Exhibits
Children Paying For Daycare
When I began as a volunteer CASA guardian ad Litem, there were 34 Minnesota families on a waiting list for subsidized daycare. Today there are over 7000. Our prior Governor shifted those dollars into the general fund claiming that subsidized daycare had no value. Why even apply? Your child will be in high school by the time a space opens up.
Today’s Star Tribune hits on two of the most common realities in communities without adequate childcare;
Infants murdered by babysitting drunk boyfriends because working mom could not find affordable daycare (institutional daycare in MN is $14,000 a year). People earning minimum wages don’t take home that much annually. The number of children beaten, raped and murdered by drunk uncles hard to believe (read it here).
The commonality of women forced to leave the workforce because they cannot afford decent daycare hurts poor families, the economy and is a terrific injustice to women everywhere.
Child Abuse – Numbers & Why They Matter (thank you Chris Serres & Star Tribune)
MN has recently forcibly closed foster group homes in St Cloud and Buhl and housed state ward children in hospital rooms because there was no place else to put them.
How would it make you feel as a traumatized six year old to live in a hospital room because our community just does not have the money or concern to find you a home?
Not normal, not loved or of any value at all.
Think about becoming a volunteer CASA guardian ad Litem (or making a donation to a fund that gives foster children things that the state does not provide – make them more like your children
Wanting To Know (caring enough to know)
Does Minnesota (your state here) want to know how its thousands of foster children are doing in school? Is there information available for people that care and want to see abused and neglected children at least get a chance to graduate from high school and lead a normal life?
The lack of transparency surrounding child abuse, child protection, foster care, drugging of very young children (Prozac, Ritalin, Zoloft…) indicates that while we talk big about valuing children in our community, we don’t care enough to want to know what their needs are.
If we knew that 80% of youth aging out of foster care were leading dysfunctional lives (last study of ten years ago), that 48% of state ward children are being forced to take psychotropic medications (true in Florida today) or that 4 MN counties screened out 90% of child abuse calls (true at the time of 4 year old Eric Dean’s murder by his step mother), then some concerned citizen, politician or administrator somewhere might be outraged enough to lobby for change.
Until information by our institutions becomes public, the problem simply does not exist and no one appears to care enough to see these awful things change.
Cudos to Minnesota for turning the child endangerment model into a genuine child protection model. It’s a great first step.
February 2017 Sad Stories (part III)
Dyers sentenced to 15 years for felony child abuse
The Coloradoan
Two Fort Collins parents convicted of neglecting their daughter’s seizure condition and allowing her to all but waste away were sentenced Thursday to …
Fort Collins couple Doug and Leah Dyer sentenced to 15 years in child abuse case – Loveland Reporter-Herald
Full Coverage
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BLOGS
MILO: ‘I Was A Victim Of Child Abuse’
Conservative Read
“I am a gay man, and a child abuse victim.” wrote MILO in a Facebook post shortly after his press conference, “Between the ages of 13 and 16, two …
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