Repurposing Federal Foster Care dollars have become a “revenue stream” for counties because taking foster child money goes “unnoticed” (from the article). In a perfect world, a County person would raise hell about repurposing foster child dollars to adults (but they don’t because they could lose their job). There is little reporting of and no transparency in the Child Protection System.
Charles Flanagan, head of the new Division of Child Safety and Family Services, said five were people working for him who were found to have been instrumental in crafting and implementing a policy that resulted in ignoring state laws which require all complaints be investigated.
Flanagan said the firing came after review of an extensive investigation conducted by the state Department of Public Safetyof exactly who was accountable for ignoring the law. He said these are the people most responsible.
efforts of a governor currying political favor at the cost of poor young lives.
Mitch Daniels needs to be identified for his personal policies ruining young lives; these policies are at the same time costing the state more money than useful and promising policies would.
By eliminating funds guaranteed to families adopting special needs children, he put the state in the precarious position of defending lawsuits and made the adopting of special needs children a giant problem in the years to come (who will adopt Indiana’s special needs children next year?)
These are recent Indiana child protection headlines for the State Of Indiana;
First, it is the same government money being spent, just that it goes to an entrepreneurial lowest bidder.
Second, New Jersey’s half way houses are managed the same way privatized day care, juvenile justice, prison systems, & schools are run (to make money for Chris Christy’s friends).
What else explains the lawsuits for understaffing, undertraining, dead children in daycare, and that U.S. daycare workers make less than food service workers (the lowest paid work in America).
This is what we think of children in our nation. Indiana is trying to pay less than $18/daily for foster care & the state redirected funds promised to parents that adopted abandoned special needs children (five hundred children) – after the adoptions took place). Thank you Mitch Daniels. What cruelty.
A different kind of shout out to Mitch Daniels (Indiana’s Governor) for Terminating the state adoption subsidies to 500 families that adopted special needs children based on the state’s promise of transportation & other specialized needs help these children lead more normal lives.
What a cruel & possibly illegal act.
I met with adoptive families in Indiana a few months ago & don’t understand why a class action lawsuit has not graced this state’s heartless & hypocritical legislature. Could they even be sued personally by the children & families that executed adoptions based on existing legal documents?
This was a direct promise from the state to lower & middle income families that have put their future on the line because they saw a great need abandoned children (wards of the state) were facing because of mental or physical health issues and parental neglect & abuse .
What a cruel & illegal act to break that promise.
Call Mitch Daniels 317-232-4567 & James Payne 317.234.139 & ask them if they can imagine what it’s like to be a 12 year old adopted child with disabilities knowing that you are a burden to your adopted family because the state redirected funds promised your new family for your education, transportation, & well being.
“We have children dying in our region and we are awarded with recognition of system improvement. Really?” he wrote. “The timing of this award is hard to accept given the recent tragic death of 10-year-old Tramelle Sturgis.
“How many more kids will die before we all take a deep look at what is going on with child welfare services in Indiana and reverse the draconian cuts in funding and see how those cuts are negatively affecting the safety net of child welfare?”
To appreciate the meanness of some states I point to (Mitch Daniels) Indiana’s stealing (redirecting) the funding promised to parents that adopted abandoned special needs children (after they had been adopted) & the fiscally irresponsible de-funding of subsidized daycare which forced the county to place children in foster homes because their father’s job did not pay enough to afford daycare.
It costs way more to place children in foster care than it would have to subsidize his daycare payments. Thank you Tim Pawlenty.
It cost Hennepin County millions of dollars to pay for the care of the four year old boy the court thought would be better off with his father even though dad had a court order to stay away from young boys because of what he did to them. My client is now is now 23, has AIDS, and has been in over 30 foster homes and he will be a ward of the state until he dies. He was been tied to a bed, starved, beaten, sexually abused and left alone for days at a time from 4 to 7 years of age. That never made the paper. Nor did the four year old girl who I visited in the suicide ward of Fairview hospital (her sister’s story was much worse).
It was clear after talking with adoptive and foster families at their annual conference that Indiana’s failure to protect it’s children is due to the politicizing of children’s issues and not the hard work being done by foster & adoptive parents, educators, & social workers that are trying to provide homes, education, and services.
We all know that healthy children become healthy adults & contributing members of our community & that unhealthy children become preteen mothers & juvenile felons that cost our cities and states a fortune over a lifetime.
Wake up Indiana politicians. Your citizens depend on you to understand basic humanity and economics.
Citizens, wake up your politicians (the children can’t do it without your help).
Children have no lobby, no voice, & can’t fight back when a MN Governor* states that “children that are victims of failed personal responsibility are not my problem, nor are they the problem of the State Of Minnesota”.
There’s nothing a five year old can say to the governor of Indiana about the elimination of the state’s newborn screening fund (paid for by birth fees collected from parents), or the retroactive termination of adoption subsidies to the five hundred families that adopted special need children based on the promise that they would have assistance for their special needs children.
I doubt that a nine year old could clearly explain the problem facing California foster children because 1,000 state-licensed facilities match sex offenders’ addresses;
he Indiana Foster Care and Adoption Association (IFCAA) is a statewide non-profit membership organization that supports foster and adoptive families. IFCAA promotes awareness about the needs of children who have experienced trauma and the needs of the foster and adoptive parents who raise them.