Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Nevada Pays for Lost 2 Year Old Foster Child

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on June 27, 2009
in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding, Public Policy and The States
. 3 Comments

With shrinking resources, each state and all counties need to remember the burden placed on county workers & what happens when that burden is excessive. As a long time Hennepin County volunteer guardian ad-Litem, I appreciate the work social workers do to help at risk children and understand the value cared for youth bring to our communities. I also know what happens to children that are not taken care of. This article from the Las Vegas News points out a small part of the cost of failure:

I-Team: Settlement Reached in Missing Girl Case

A settlement has been reached in the civil lawsuit surrounding the disappearance of a 2-year-old foster child. The natural parents of Everlyse Cabrera sued Clark County when their daughter went missing from her North Las Vegas foster home three years ago.

Not long ago, Everlyse’s mom said she wasn’t sure she’d ever settle. Marlena Olivas wanted a trial, she claimed, to expose Clark County’s failure to protect her little girl. But after intense negotiations, the parties reached a $500,000 deal with $250,000 earmarked for Everlyse, should she be found alive on or before her 25th birthday. If she is not, the money is returned to the county.

Some remaining funds will be distributed to her little brother Benjamin, who shared the foster home with Everlyse, and to her biological mom and dad. Benjamin stands to receive $35,000. Her parents get $22,000 each.

The settlement also provides for a scholarship fund in Everlyse’s name, a reward for information about her disappearance, and monies to continue the private investigative effort to find her.

The agreement releases Clark County from any future claims and its employees do not have to admit any wrongdoing. “The most important thing for my perspective is not necessarily a punishment for the county, but to take care of Everlyse. So my concern was not seeing that the county had to turn over the money and had to risk losing that money, but realistically that if Everlyse is found there’s going to be money to provide for her,” said Everlyse’s guardian ad litem Dara Goldsmith.

Before a judge can formally approve the settlement, it must be accepted by the Clark County Commission.

A second battle is brewing over a $200,000 payout from Clark County’s foster parent insurance carrier. Those funds are not part of the negotiated agreement.

Anyone with information about the case, no matter how small, is encouraged to share it with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST or James Conklin with ExFed Investigations at (702) 204-7654.

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Tennessee’s High Infant Death Rate

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on June 27, 2009
in Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Politics and Funding, Public Policy and The States
. 2 Comments

Tennessee’s High Infant Death Rate

Baby Death Public Health Crisis Thwarted by Poverty

By CRAIG LEAKE and DAVID APPLEBY
Aug. 22, 2008 ABC’s Health News Blog

There are places in America where the unthinkable is happening: Thousands of babies are dying.

The costs associated with saving a premature infant can be staggering.

Of the 23 richest countries, the United States has the highest rate of infant mortality, according to the CIA World Fact Book. And in Shelby County, Tenn., which encompasses Memphis, the state health department says a baby dies every 43 hours — a rate higher than that of any other major city. The babies most at risk come from impoverished parts of town with largely black populations.

This old Mississippi River town is now part of the “new South.” More than a million people live in Memphis’ city and suburbs. As in many other places, the city has been divided between those who can afford an upgraded lifestyle and those who remain in the older version of the city.

In the richer sections they’ve created their own parks, hospitals and schools — and, of course, churches.

Twice a year the Rev. Eli Morris, a minister at Hope Presbyterian, leads volunteers from his suburban congregation to a mission downtown, where they tour what can seem like a foreign country.

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Minnesota; Let Them Eat New Stadium

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on June 25, 2009
in Health and Mental Health, Politics and Funding, Public Policy and The States
. 0 Comments

Thank you MN Catholic Conference (from which this is taken)

my note;
12 years watching abused and abandoned children struggle to make their way through a poorly resourced county system as a Hennepin County guardian ad-Litem makes it tough to witness the Governor’s defunding of programs that have kept them from the most basic services and abject poverty.

The Governor’s line-item veto of GAMC and proposed unallotments ignore the human dignity of our poorest and most vulnerable neighbors, and will cause significant harm to those among us who we are called to place first. And, in turn, it will further weaken our state’s continual pursuit of the common good. Though the Governor’s plan includes several harmful unallotments, our greatest concerns are with the following seven proposed unallotments:

1. Elimination of Emergency Assistance: On November 1, 2009, two of Minnesota’s three Emergency Assistance programs will end: Emergency General Assistance (EGA) and Emergency Minnesota Supplemental Assistance (EMSA). These two critical safety-net programs provide needed assistance to Minnesotans who cannot fully support themselves, usually due to illness or disability, and who are facing an emergency that threatens their health or safety. Oftentimes related to imminent eviction, foreclosure or utility shut-off, ignored emergencies place our already struggling neighbors on the edge of homelessness….

2. Elimination of GAMC Coverage on March 1, 2010: Health insurance for “the poorest of the poor and the sickest of the sick” will end four months earlier than expected. When the Governor line-item vetoed GAMC on May 14, the program was slated to end on July 1, 2010. However, under the executive power of unallotment, GAMC will instead end on March 1, 2010…. the Minnesota Legislature will have less than four weeks, after reconvening on February 4, 2010 to address the elimination of health care coverage for our 30,000 neighbors who are living at or below 75 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines.

3. Cutting Children & Community Services Grants: Children & Community Services Grants provide crucial funding for counties to purchase or provide social services for seniors, adults, children and families struggling with abuse and neglect, living with a disability, mental illness or chronic health condition, or living in poverty. Additionally, these grants provide services for: pregnant adolescents, adolescent parents and their children; adults who are vulnerable and in need of protection; people over the age of 60 who need help living independently; and people with developmental disabilities. The Governor proposes cutting Children & Community Services Grants by 25 percent during FY 2010, and by 33 percent during FY 2011.

These grants fund a variety of critical services: adoption, case management, counseling, foster care for adults and children, protective services for adults and children, residential treatment, services for people with developmental, emotional or physical disabilities, substance abuse counseling, transportation, and public guardianship.

As Pliny said 2500 years ago; “what you do to your children, they will do to your society”, or as former MN Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz said just a few years ago, “90 % of the youth in juvenile justice have come through child protection”. Nationally, over 50% of youth in juvenile justice have diagnosable mental illness, and fully half of that population have multiple and severe diagnosis (this goes along way in explaining why America’s schools and streets are troubled).

Minnesota’s governor’s won’t maintain bridges or people, and he thinks it economically sound policy in the face of disaster and double digit prison growth. He believes in God and stadiums, yet I know of no religion in the world that abandons the weakest and most vulnerable among us. I’m not against stadiums, I’m simply more pro children).

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Continue reading ‘Minnesota; Let Them Eat New Stadium’

DCF: More Florida Parents Taking Their Money Troubles Out On Kids

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on June 23, 2009
in Invisible Children, Politics and Funding, Public Policy and The States
. 0 Comments

TAMPA, Fla. – The economy is being blamed for a rise in Florida child abuse, and with it a rise in bullying. The state Department of Children and Families says there’s also an increase in the severity of the cases, with 59 deaths so far this year being investigated as possible child abuse.

Paul D’Agostino, executive director of the Child Abuse Council, says tough times may trigger parents struggling with anger issues to abuse their children – and these abused children, in turn, often bully others.

“Children are being taught that ‘might makes right,’ that striking out is a way of handling your own anger, of handling your own frustration. Increased bullying is an example of that.”

He says the problem could increase over the summer months because funds for children’s summer camps have been cut, leaving families no time out from the stress. He says counselors work with parents to reduce stress, identify anger’s triggers and learn new ways to cope without hurting their children.

D’Agostino says more than 90 percent of abusive parents were abused as children, creating what he calls the “cycle of violence.” He says living in an abusive home deprives children of the nurturing they need, teaches them poor anger management skills, and hurts both their self-esteem and their schoolwork.

“Violence always has an impact on children. It’s very frightening for children when they do not feel safe in the very relationship in which they should be the safest, and that’s in their home and with their parents.”

D’Agostino says the problem could increase over the summer months because funds for children’s summer camps have been cut, leaving families no time out from stress. He says the recession has meant fewer counseling resources at a time when families need it the most. Still, he says, everyone can help by being supportive and encouraging of all children.

“You do not know what is going on in that child’s life, and sometimes you can be the person who offsets that child’s negative concept of themselves.”

D’Agostino says this can make a difference in a child’s life, a difference that breaks the cycle of violence.

The above is from Gina Presson, Public News Service in Boulder CO June 22, 2009.

MN day care

It is a bigger step to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is true.

..

Amy Sherman’s Blog for Florida’s At Risk Children

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on June 21, 2009
in Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding, Public Policy and The States
. 2 Comments

Gabriel MyersKids need care, not pills, ex-foster children tell panel

Gabriel Myers, 7, hung himself in the bathroom of his
Margate foster home in April

A state group looking at the suicide of a young foster child met Thursday to discuss ways to improve care and listened to adults who said they were overmedicated in the foster-care system.
Foster Child: “felt like I was an animal on a farm being tested’

BY AMY SHERMAN

Mez Pierre, 22, and Kimberly Foster, 25, both from Broward County, told the group that mental health drugs — already at the center of the investigation of Gabriel Myers’s tragic death — aren’t the answer for many foster youth. Children need caring adults who will look at the causes of their difficult behavior, they said — not simply write prescriptions in an attempt to control it.

Foster said doctors prescribed medication when she got upset about being removed from her home. She was ultimately placed in facilities with locked windows and restraints.

”They were trying to control the symptoms I had from being put into the system. . . . How I reacted was normal,” Foster said. “I was sad. I was taken away from my home. Because of that they felt medication was the right way to treat me.”

Florida Department of Children & Families (DCF) administrators and child advocates who formed a work group to study Gabriel’s death held their third meeting Thursday in Fort Lauderdale. Gabriel hanged himself in the bathroom of his Margate foster home in April.

He had been prescribed several psychiatric drugs during his nine months in foster care.

Workgroup members spent much of the day talking about issues such as how to improve communication between various professionals who care for foster kids. The leaders discussed various forms and documents collected for each child, and the potential roadblocks in gathering the data — sometimes as simple as a fax not going through.

Anne Wells, pharmacy director for the state Agency for Health Care Administration, questioned how some of these efforts will help children in foster care. .

”I don’t mean to criticize, but I have listened to improvements, and checked boxes, forms and paperwork. I’m sorry. I just don’t get it,” she said. “Where does all of this stuff head off the outcome that Gabriel had?”

Wells also questioned whether administrators were too quick to blame medication for Gabriel’s death, rather than talking about what led to his being medicated in the first place.

OVER-MEDICATED

But both Pierre and Foster told the group that they were over-medicated as foster children.

”To hear a story about a foster youth who lost his life, I take that very, very personally,” said Pierre, who choked back tears during his presentation. “I went through a lot of things that Gabriel went through and to see one loss is very painful.”

Gabriel ‘wasn’t being cared for. He was just told `you have problems,’ ” Pierre said.

Pierre added that he was first prescribed medications when he entered the foster-care system at age 5. He was given multiple pills and various diagnoses, including attention deficit/hyperactivity and bipolar disorders.

”When I was on medications, I always felt like a zombie,” he said. “I felt drowsy. I didn’t feel human. I felt like I was an animal on a farm being tested.”

Today, Pierre is doing what many told him he couldn’t do: living a successful life without medications. Pierre, who lives in Deerfield Beach, said he has a job, attends Broward College and hopes to become a lawyer.

”Consider the lives . . . even though it’s a difficult job,” he told the group. “That doesn’t mean to neglect your responsibility and to not work together.”

Foster said she took herself off the medications when she was 18 and pregnant. She now lives in Pompano Beach with her husband and son.

NEVER SUICIDAL

”I have never displayed any suicidal ideations, no mutilations, no disorientations,” Foster said. ‘We are lost if we send a message to youth, `if you cry you are depressed.’ We are so quick to put diagnoses on a child for a lot of times being a normal adolescent.”

Both Pierre and Foster are active in a group called Florida Youth Shine which, among other things, testifies in Tallahassee about foster-care issues.

A Miami Herald article that showed Gabriel had been on several drugs, including anti-depressants associated with a higher risk of suicide, prompted DCF to investigate the prescribing of mental health drugs to children.

DCF Secretary George Sheldon formed the work group as part of the wide-ranging investigation.

The group Thursday discussed a recent state review of more than 100 foster children age 5 or younger receiving psychiatric drugs. The study revealed that child welfare administrators are ignoring rules designed to protect the children.

In the majority of cases, for example, there was no documentation to show that case managers coordinated with the prescribing practitioner to obtain a psychiatric evaluation.

Broward County’s top child-welfare judge, Circuit Judge John A. Frusciante, read a statement that he recently wrote to ChildNet, Broward’s private foster care agency, in response to child advocates in recent hearings who had no knowledge about the existence of ”black box warnings” on medications. He called for more education of case workers.

”It is deeply disturbing that child advocates have no knowledge of the FDA’s highest warnings for possibly life-threatening adverse effects of medications,” he wrote.

Comments can be made here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/1104243.html
(short registration required)

You can see a CBS News video of the foster kids here:
http://gabrielmyers.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/dcf-panel-reviews-mental-health-policies/

Bookmark this page http://gabrielmyers.wordpress.com/ for up to date media coverage on this issue.

Postscript… I too have had 4 year old and 7 year old suicides as a Hennepin County guardian ad-Litem and a judge that has shared with me the pages of documented Prozac, Ritalin, and other Psychotropics given to very young children. This conversation needs to take place at a higher level (where something can be done about it).

Thank you Psych_News@psychsearch.net for this information.

MN day care

It is a bigger step to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is true.

No More Child Advocacy In Much of Illinois

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on June 14, 2009
in Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding, Public Policy and The States
. 4 Comments
Children Abandoned in Illinois;
Carmi, Ill. -

Children’s advocacy centers across Illinois received bad news Thursday, said Sheryl Woodham, executive director of The Guardian Center, based

http://www.carmitimes.com/news/x986610407/State-officials-choose-to-cut-children

A fax indicated that, on July 1, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services would execute a plan to no longer honor or renew contracts with children’s advocacy centers.

Difficult choices must be made to create a fiscally responsible budget for Illinois, Woodham said. “However, this severe loss of funding is resulting in a blatant disservice to the children of Illinois.”

Here is the balance of her statement:

“Children’s advocacy centers of Illinois exist for the sole purpose of protecting our abused children. With 38 offices serving 85 of the 102 counties of Illinois, CACs reached out to help over 11,220 children last year alone.

“CACs provide a multidisciplinary approach and services to sexually abused children and their families. Annual funding for these necessary services comes PRIMARILY from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. This tremendous loss of funding will force our local children advocacy centers to eliminate services, staff and may result in CACs closing their doors.

“Where will these children now go? What safe haven will be available to help children who have experienced the raw pain and hurt of child abuse?

“What a terrible decision for the state to make. These cuts were made under the auspice of saving money for the state. These cuts will COST the state, not save! Children’s advocacy centers save their communities money every day!

“A CAC provides a SAVINGS of over $1,000 per case compared to non-CAC investigations. Last year alone, CACs saved the State of Illinois over $11 million. In less than 20 days, all this will change due to this tremendous cut. The State of Illinois is choosing to cut a service that clearly SAVES state money.

“CACs exist to offer guidance, support and relief to children and their families. The State of Illinois needs to understand the seriousness of this miscalculated budget choice. Children need security and support. The drastic cuts by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services will prohibit the CACs from assisting in the protection and support of our children. This is not an acceptable answer. The State of Illinois must find a way to protect our children.

“CACs save taxpayers money, decrease trauma for child victims by providing a child-friendly environment and ensure that the child receives comprehensives services to begin the healing process

“1 out of 3. 1 out of 6. These statistics represent how many girls and boys will be sexually abused or assaulted by the age of 18. 1 out of every 3 girls. Think of neighbors, sisters, cousins and daughters. 1 out of every six boys. Think of friends, brothers, nephews and sons. Who will protect them?

“Stand up and protect our children today. We must speak for those in our lives with the softest voices and greatest needs.”

Postscript;

As each state battles with its own deficit, legislators must decide whether to complete the new ballpark, or fund child protection.

My argument for child protection of course, is that healthy children make healthy adults and good citizens;  or as Pliny stated 2500 years ago, “what you do to your children, they will do to your society”

Support at risk children, start a KARA group in your community.

MN day care

It is a bigger step to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is true.

California’s Growing Child Protection Problem

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on June 14, 2009
in Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Politics and Funding, Public Policy and The States
. 0 Comments

I lived in Alhambra CA where the following article outlines the deaths of fourteen children under county supervision.  Remember, it’s not that social workers don’t care… it is about public resources, and public policies that allow the weakest and most vulnerable to fall through the cracks.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-childabuse14-2009jun14,0,7157276.story

As L.A. County spun its wheels, children died

Sarah Chavez was returned to the home of her great-aunt and great-uncle in Alhambra despite having shown signs of abuse. She later died, primarily from a severed lower intestine, caused by a blow to her abdomen, the coroner found. She had just turned 2. The uncle was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter and child abuse. The aunt pleaded no contest to being an accessory.
Agencies have long failed to share information that could save lives. Repeatedly, ghastly cases shock officials, who call for action, which eventually fizzles. An effective database remains elusive.
By Garrett Therolf
June 14, 2009
» Discuss Article (182 Comments)

By the time he was rescued last year, the 5-year-old South Los Angeles boy was so malnourished his kidneys were failing. His hands were so badly burned he could barely open them.

Child welfare officials traced his history, trying to make sense of what had happened. According to documents obtained by The Times, they learned that eight separate agencies in Los Angeles County had pieces of information on the household:

One had evidence that the mother and her girlfriend were abused and neglected as children. Others knew both had committed violent crimes. Still others were aware that both women had been ordered into mental health treatment and that the sickly boy had missed appointments with county doctors.

Over the years, these agencies had come into contact with the boy or his caregivers 108 times — yet no one had pieced together how much danger the child was in. Indeed, county social workers had closed a 2005 child abuse investigation because the evidence was “inconclusive.” They might never have stepped in but for a concerned stranger who delivered the child into their hands.

It was a lesson in how poor communication had put a child’s life at risk — but it was hardly the first. For at least 18 years, Los Angeles County has repeatedly received urgent and sometimes gruesome reminders that its agencies don’t share vital information about potentially abused or neglected children, according to a Times investigation.

There have been numerous calls for reform — but little action. In the passing years, an unknown number of children have been harmed or killed.

At least a dozen reports have landed on county leaders’ desks since the early 1990s saying agencies that work with troubled families must improve their ability to talk to each other. County supervisors have freely admitted that the system is broken, and even have voted several times to establish computer systems to open communication channels.

Solutions have been doomed by bureaucratic infighting, turf wars, privacy concerns and limited political attention spans. When horrific deaths or abuse drop out of the news, the board and department heads often focus elsewhere, leading to long stretches of inaction — until another case gives them a terrible jolt.

“I couldn’t believe it,” former Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke said last year, upon learning of the 5-year-old’s ordeal. “Our system has to be just tighter. . . . This is a time when we really have to be vigilant.”

She joined her four colleagues in once again ordering county workers to draft a plan to improve information sharing. The plan has yet to materialize.

Meanwhile, county officials recently acknowledged that at least 32 children in L.A. County died from abuse or neglect in 2008. That set off another round of questions about what was needed to make kids safer.

“If we had a computer system that allowed us to the see the domestic violence, medical or mental health history in some of these families, some of these children might have been saved,” said Trish Ploehn, director of the county Department of Children and Family Services.

To those who have followed the issue over the years, these words are sadly familiar.

Postscript;   “Children that are the victims of failed personal responsibility are not my problem, nor are they the problem of the state of MN”

Initially stated by MN Governor Jesse Ventura,  four years later, repeated to David Strand and Andy Dawkins by MN Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Support at risk children, start a KARA group in your community.

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Support at risk children, start a KARA group in your community.

Have something to add? Tell us your point of view or story…

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Study: Early Therapy Can Save Teens From Depression

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on June 5, 2009
in Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA) and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

Read whole article:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1902500,00.html?imw=Y

Time June 04, 2009

By Claudian Wallis

Depression is one of the dark demons of adolescence. Up to 1 in 12 American teenagers is affected, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and three times as many will experience depression at some point by age 18. Studies show that at least 20% of teenagers with clinical depression will go on to develop chronic cases that will haunt them throughout adulthood. That is, if they reach adulthood. Suicide is a significant risk for depressed adolescents and the third leading cause of deaths among U.S. teenagers….The researchers will also examine what can be done for the adolescents whose parents are in the grips of depression: this subset, which was 45% of the participants, did not benefit significantly from the cognitive behavioral program.

“It’s awfully hard to change your thinking habits if a parent is depressed and everything is so chaotic around you,” observes Clarke. Future studies, says Garber, will look at whether treating the parent for depression makes a difference…

Because it focuses on prevention, the JAMA study “really moves the field forward,” says child psychologist Anne Marie Albano, who directs the Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Columbia University Medical Center.

Albano says that recent surveys showing rising rates of mental illness in college students have sounded the alarm about the need to intervene earlier to prevent the cascade of social, academic, economic and emotional woes that befall teens who slip into depression. “This study is telling us that if you get kids early in the cycle of depression when they have symptoms and are on the path, you can give them skills that manage those symptoms.”

Personal note; As a long time guardian ad-Litem, I am sensitive to the cascading problems children in dysfunctional homes must live with.

It is obvious to me that children of really troubled parents cannot escape the problems of their parents.  It is a benefit to all of us to have healthy children in our communities.

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Tip Of The Iceberg

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on June 4, 2009
in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

\

Star Tribune June 3, 2009

Justice is unequal in sex abuse

Those who molest family members get lighter sentences than outsiders, data show.

By PAM LOUWAGIE and GLENN HOWATT, Star Tribune staff writers

Last update: June 3, 2009 – 10:35 AM

 

A young woman in Hennepin County accuses her father of sexually abusing her since she was 12 and impregnating her at age 18.

A 13-year-old Ramsey County girl tells a school counselor that her father had been touching her while her mother was in the hospital.

A 15-year-old Anoka County boy reports to police that his stepfather, convicted of a sex offense years earlier, committed sex acts with him, once in exchange for help with a video game.

In each case, Minnesota sentencing guidelines called for a seven-year or 12-year prison sentence. Instead, each defendant pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year or less in jail and a long probation.

Such lighter sentences are given more often to defendants abusing children in their own families or households than to those who abuse outside their families, a Star Tribune analysis of nearly 1,500 child sex abuse cases shows.

From 2001 to 2007, 33 percent of family or household child sex abuse defendants facing prison time ended up with probation, compared with 26 percent of those abusing outside their families. In the most serious cases where victims were between 13 and 15 years old, the difference was even greater: 37 percent versus 24 percent.

That sentencing disparity troubles some legislators and advocates for victims.

“It’s really unfortunate because … girls and boys who have experienced incest are somehow valued less than girls and boys who have experienced abuse at the hands of neighbors and coaches and teachers and other people,” said Elizabeth Saewyc, a nursing professor in Canada who studies abuse victims in research with Children’s Hospital of St. Paul.

Even family members who initially agreed to lighter sentences for abusers — to protect children from having to testify or to keep a family wage earner working — sometimes come to feel probation sentences aren’t enough as they watch the effect of abuse on the child victim play out for years.

Addendum,

Below are articles from other authors and some  that I have written on this topic over the past few years.

 

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2006/02/19/another-day-in-family-court/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2006/04/02/the-longest-day/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2006/06/04/wellness-and-child-abuse/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2008/09/28/ptsd-study-of-abused-children/

 

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2005/06/15/sigrid-bachmann/

 

 

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