Dear Reader, As the year comes to a close, we want to thank you for following our Saturday INVISIBLE CHILDREN updates. Your readership is helping KARA spread awareness of child abuse and trauma, and the work that needs to be done to save and heal at-risk children. KARA relies on the generosity of our…
This is the longest and most powerful and articulate suicide note I’ve ever read and it has great meaning to me for its power to relate these two incomprehensible sorrows (abuse & suicide).
shining a light on child advocacy,
Peter Hutchinson’s recent Star Tribune article points to how the current MN budget surplus could fully fund programs that would make children healthier, better educated and (ALL OF US) safer.
https://invisiblechildren.org/2013/07/04/mandated-reporting-or-basic-responsibility-its-absence-is-killing-wisconsin-pennsylvania-children/ Facebook Replacing Mandated Reporters for Child Abuse? Don’t Blame The Mandated Reporter (why child abuse reporting is sporadic) Fear and Firing of Mandated Reporters of Child Abuse Being A Mandated Reporter (and what it means) Reporting Maltreatment Of Children; How Minnesota Does It (State Statute – 626.556) Tolerating Child Death in Minnesota (thank you…
Children, Institutions, and Politics
COVIDs Impact on CPS, CASA volunteers, & Guardian ad Litem Staff
Child Protective Services (CPS) can’t keep children safe (or alive) in opposition to State and Federal law.
The public knows almost nothing about the depth and scope of child abuse in their community
What topic needs more attention on KARA’s website?
Email you answer to [email protected] with SURVEY in the subject line.
The Beatings Will Continue
Yanelin Montalvo-Valdez (yesterday Star Tribune) personifies the pain and punishment heaped upon the 50 innocent children I advocated for as a CASA Guardian ad Litem volunteer
KARA compiles child abuse and neglect stories and data about
abused and neglected children
America’s Children In 100 Charts
Child abuse is invisible. It is a core problem in every American community impacting all of us, our institutions, and every aspect of our quality of life every day.
To be fair, what does an overwhelmed institution do when caseloads double and budgets are cut in half? Rural counties will always be underfunded, understaffed and unable to provide the level of service larger urban areas can with their larger budgets giving them more options.
Repeated childhood trauma does cruel things to children. Things that never go away. Those things (behaviors/thoughts/self-harm/suicide) can be managed with help. Without help, depression, pain and sadness often become overwhelming.
Let’s imagine a government that controls (1) automobile safety standards, (2) the state inspection for compliance with automobile safety standards (3) the automobile repair industry, all within the same department, and all done in official secrecy so as to protect the privacy of would-be drivers.
And let’s also suppose that the people who drive automobiles are, 98% of them, poor and very young people, who have no effective political voice.
This fall and winter, KARA is inviting universities, community centers, and businesses to engage our INVISIBLE CHILDREN COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS.
FOSTER CARE REALITIES
Children are fostered only if they have been removed from homes where egregious harm has happened to them and a judge thinks their lives are in imminent danger.
The Star Tribune’s investigative report titled “IN HARM’S WAY” provides a rare glimpse into the world of Child Protective Services. This report illuminates the disheartening fact that children often do not have a right to safety.
Minnesota has ended criminalizing fetal alcohol birth mothers with the hopes of better results by recommending treatment instead of mandatory programs and prosecution for failure.
Child Protection/CPS: If Lawmakers Only Knew (why they don’t – & why they should) Not many lawmakers come to the job understanding child abuse and what happens to children in CPS (Child Protective Services). Few legislators have experienced childhood trauma or the institution (CPS) that protects children from growing up in homes of life-threatening harm.
Who Will Speak For The Children?
Child Protection work is hard. Community CASA volunteers (Court Appointed Special Advocate) speak for abused and neglected children in County Child Protection.
Volunteer CASA Guardians ad Litem spend their days with abused and neglected children that have been raped, neglected, beaten, and tortured by other means.
KARA Presentation Janesville CASA (heart of the matter)
Child Protection work is hard. Community CASA volunteers (Court Appointed Special Advocate) speak for abused and neglected children in County Child Protection.
Volunteer CASA Guardians ad Litem spend their days with abused and neglected children that have been raped, neglected, beaten, and tortured by other means.
How Child Abuse Impacts Your Community
How Child Abuse Impacts Your Community
Without help, most badly traumatized/abused children become troubled youth leading lifetimes as dysfunctional adults.
Repeated childhood trauma does cruel things to children. Things that never go away. Those things (behaviors/thoughts/self-harm/suicide) can be managed with help. Without help, depression, pain and sadness often become overwhelming.
Minnesota Child Protection News May 2024 Share these articles with media contacts,
lawmakers and other changemakers. Change won’t come without you.
New Child Fatalities Database (thank you Safe Passage for Children of MN)
WI Child Abuse Reporting April 1- May 9 2024
MN Child Abuse Reporting April 1 – May 9 2024 | INVISIBLE CHILDREN
We all care about the best interests of children. “We all know that – despite what everyone wants – right now, there are too many children
suffering from abuse and neglect.
CASA of Rock County’s Break The Cycle Luncheon
Is Child Protection Services (CPS) creating what it was designed to stop? KARA reports on the issues of invisible children This article submitted by Former CASA Guardian Ad Litem Mike Tikkanen Signup For KARA’s FREE Friday Morning Updates All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children INVISIBLECHILDREN – KARA (KIDS AT RISK ACTION This…
Today’s Safe Passage for Children of MN’s action request to keep children safe in Child Protection: A small effort with big dividends. Share this with your State Representative (find them here). On Monday, a group of us gathered at the Capitol to meet with key legislators about Minnesota’s child protection system. We shared the stories…
America’s Crazy World of Child Protection (find your state here)
Finally removed from the home forever, but not healed. The invisible scars we carry remain.
Life with our painful childhood memories, triggered behaviors and habits in this world is terribly difficult to manage.
Healing from a broken past is difficult.
No more punishment please.
2023 Investigative Report on MN Children Killed
by Caregivers While in Child Protective Services
There is a political battle being waged over the elimination of qualified community volunteers in Child Protective Services. There are too many pieces of this puzzle to include in this article, but one piece must be addressed to determine if wrongdoing has happened in the drive to eliminate the Court Appointed Special Advocate volunteers. KARA has sent two requests to Governor Walz Guardian ad Litem State Board members over the past few months requesting a conversation about their role in making this critical decision.
Repeated childhood trauma does cruel things to children. Things that never go away. Those things (behaviors/thoughts/self-harm/suicide) can be managed with help. Without help, depression, pain and sadness often become overwhelming.
Dear Reader, This year, KARA provided over $10,000 in Financial Literacy enrichment grants to program participants, executed three college and community center INVISIBLE CHILDREN CAMPUS CONVERSATIONS, 23 business and community presentations, and almost finished KARA’s new book AMERICA’S CHILDREN IN 100 CHARTS in 2024. As the year comes to a close, we want to…
CASA MN Newsletter (Guardian ad Litem News & Updates)
Dear Reader,Allowing the State board to eliminate 10,000 future volunteers (over the next 40 years) at a time when we are reporting on children murdered by their parents may be an unfixable mistake costing even more children their lives.
Rebuttals to the State MAD report from several top child advocates here;
A Storm Is Brewing (4m) Will CASA GAL program end because of misinformation?
Let’s Go KARA (3m) Supporting Child Friendly Initiatives
Don Shelby on Child Protection (30 seconds)
When we say it’s not brain surgery it’s because a task is easy – it doesn’t demand much training or experience. There are times the phrase is meaningful and times it is painfully inappropriate. This article in the Star Tribune explains that corrections officers, human services technicians and staff in state veterans homes will not…
Chair Parkin and MN GAL Board members:
Considering all the challenges facing the Minnesota Guardian ad Litem program, it is devastating to our state’s most vulnerable children that so much effort has been misdirected here.
While the article from the Child Welfare Monitor by Judith Schagrin
refers to Child Protection conditions in Maryland,
it is clear the crisis exists in every state.
2020, he child and teen gun death rate in the U.S. was more than 3 times higher than that in Turkey, the country with the next highest rate; 11 times higher than in Israel; 19 times higher than in Switzerland and 85 times higher than in the United Kingdom
SAYING GOODBYE TO 1000’S OF VOLUNTEER CHILD ADVOCATES & Community Involvement & Trust In One More Community Institution. Since 1981, thousands of community volunteers have spent thousands of hours working to better the lives of Minnesota’s at-risk children. End this program, they will disappear and no more will follow.
This will result in weakened community awareness, less community involvement and an incalculable loss of…
SAYING GOODBYE TO 1000’S OF VOLUNTEER CHILD ADVOCATES & Community Involvement & Trust In One More Community Institution. Since 1981, thousands of community volunteers have spent thousands of hours working to better the lives of Minnesota’s at-risk children. End this program, they will disappear and no more will follow.
This will result in weakened community awareness, less community involvement and an incalculable loss of…
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, …
How did you come to terms with your identity?
Being queer and the sexuality part wasn’t as hard for me. I always knew I liked women. The journey was then finding out who else I liked and what I didn’t like. I feel like when you first join the community, you’re not always presented with how many identities there are. I feel like a lot of people tend to come in uneducated, and I think that’s definitively how I came in. I come from a very homophobic town, so we didn’t have that many people that were out. I didn’t know much. I started identifying as queer because I’m still not sure. My gender identity took a lot longer…