Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Epidemic

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on September 20, 2009
in Guardian ad-Litem, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding and Public Policy
. 1 Comment

MN Child protection services are failing to protect the weakest and most vulnerable among us. It is epidemic. Other states have even bigger problems.

This morning’s news http://www.startribune.com/local/59883387.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU (Star Tribune 9.19.09 Mom charged in death of the murdered 15 month-month old baby girl) brings home the need for a robust social service agency and a more compassionate community.

It hurts me to see that my neighbors no longer react to the next murdered baby in their city.

Minneapolis/St. Paul Metro is approaching twenty murdered and brutalized very young children & babies for the year.

A major newspaper really needs to put a reporter on this, as I suspect that next year, due to cuts in funding, social service agencies will report a decline in reports of child abuse (and then we could refer them to the data and ask them to start investigating more of the calls that they should be following up on).

Just a month ago I wrote about my conversation with reporters from the Star Tribune about the 14 calls to child protection before the baby drowned in the bathtub.

These reporters were surprised that a baby could be left in dangerous circumstances after 14 social service calls to the home.

As a guardian ad-Litem, I worked on a case with 45 police and social service calls to a home where the children lived with drugs, gunfire, and prostitution & were only removed on the 45th call because the seven-year-old tried to kill the five-year-old in front of the officers.

There was evidence that the seven-year-old had been prostituted (she had certainly been sexually abused).

The impact on a child of extended exposure to violence, drug use, and sex abuse is lifelong and traumatic. The cost to society is compromised schools, failing communities, and monstrously high crime and criminal justice costs.

“What you do to your children, they will do to your society” Pliny, 2500 years ago.

Abused and neglected children have no voice.

If you and I don’t speak up for them who will?

Postscript 1; We must accept that it is because we have not fully supported child protection services that they do not have the resources to respond to the soaring numbers of serious cases, and babies are being murdered. Blaming social workers for dead babies is like blaming teachers for failing schools, doctors for a troubled health care system, or the police for crime ridden cities. Pogo said it best, “We have met the enemy, and it is us”.

Postscript 2; Blaming and hating terribly damaged parents is a reptilian response to the problem but it solves nothing. Many of these people have severe and chronic mental health issues and have grown up in homes as crazy and dysfunctional as the one they are now giving to their own children. As a guardian ad-litem removing children from birth homes I have empathy for the sadness that these people must live with every day of their lives.

Postscript 3; It is public policy that social workers are trained to not speak of their work publicly. It insures that the public will not know of the conditions that led to the seven-year-old foster child hanging himself, the two-year-old “disappeared” foster child in Nevada, or any of the other tragic conditions that result in the sorrowful tales that finally do make it into the newspaper.

Anonymity is important, but the thought that the problems of abused and neglected children do not deserve to be spoken of, is adding to the impossibility of finding support for them while they are still young enough to receive the guidance and resources that can help them to lead normal lives.

This is one more example of the great need for KARA’s grassroots effort to raise awareness to the needs of America’s at risk children.

Until that happens, children, schools, families and communities, will contintue to suffer.

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

Support at risk children! Become a CASA volunteer or start a KARA group in your community.

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An Uplifting Day

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on September 16, 2009
in Health and Mental Health, Kids At Risk Action (KARA) and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

Today board member Bob Olson and I interviewed a very bright and internationally well travelled student from a progressive local college. She is hoping to make a difference in the lives of America’s at risk youth.

We agreed that there needs to be a Mothers Against Drunk Drivers type grassroots movement to turn around the cradle to prison pipeline that continues to fill our communities with troubled youth and the problems that stem from growing up without the basic building blocks of life.

Our plan is to work together to gather information about how the other industrialized nations treat very young children and families and make comparisons that will help us better understand what sensible programs could make more kids finish school and go on to lead more productive lives.

Most of America’s public policies have been based on saving money in the short term.  Many of those policies have cost exponentially more money than if we had taken the long term view and made better choices.

As an example, U.S. high school graduation rates are dismal and the 25% illiteracy rate upon graduation rate is unheard of in other industrialized nations.  Blaming teachers for this result of bad public policy is like blaming doctors and nurses for the hospital population.

It is public policy (not teachers) that allows children to pass out of the third grade without reading skills.

Children that begin school without the tools to learn will not graduate, or if they do manage to make it through the process, it will be with minimal skills.

I still point at the money Minnesota did not save by failing to maintain the 35w bridge when it fell in the river two years ago.

The request for maintainance money  was denied repeatedly and when it collapsed its impact on the lives of the 113 dead and injured people and their families was far in excess of the almost one billion dollars in total costs of the bridge failure and reconstruction.

Likewise, taking care of children when they are young and able to change and grow is a easier and less expensive than working with mentally unstable youth in juvenile justice (over fifty percent of youth in juvenile justice have diagnosible mental health problems, about half of that population have multiple, serious mental health diagnosis).

Minnesota Governor Pawlenty’s plan insures that poor children and their families will be far less able to receive the basic building blocks of life.  

These children will fail more often in school and not thrive as citizens when they enter society.

At Pliny the Elder said 2500 years ago, “what you do to your children, they will do to your society”

Watch your prisons grow.

It is an effort to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is worth doing.

Support at risk children! Become a CASA volunteer or start a KARA group in your community.

Have something to add? Attach a comment to this blog post or Contact Us to tell us your point of view or story.

If you think someone might appreciate this information, click the ShareThis button below

Buy our book or listen to it (for free)

Join the public debate for children (they have no senator, lobby, or voice)

Another Concerned Grandmother

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen
on September 12, 2009
in Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding, Public Policy and The States
. 1 Comment

In my morning email was  a sad plea for help from a  grandmother with granddaughters taken from her home where they were in school and well cared for.

These two young girls are now living with non family, in another state, not attending school, and living in less than ideal conditions.

The children have demonstrated hunger when grandma visits.  Grandma’s state social service agency simply told her that she had no legal authority to care for the children and sent the girls to another state (like MN does with its homeless people).

If the county allowed grandma to keep the children until mom returns  (if possible), there would be continuity, education, and the building blocks of healthy child development for these two girls.

The disruption in this case  is total.  In my experience as a guardian ad-Litem, these types of decisions are motivated by lack of funding at a state and county level.  The county saves money by moving the children away.

In the end, it costs the other state more money both in foster care and the long term costs to society of youth failing in society.  A recent study determined that 80% of youth aging out of foster care were leading dysfunctional lives.  Many of my guardian ad-Litem cases showed this to be true.

America’s only national policy for children is the “Imminent Harm Doctrine”.

If you have read this blog or the national news this summer you know that this policy did not save hundreds of very young children from death this summer.

This grandmother has an uphill battle finding help for her grandchildren to insure that they are enrolled and attending school, being fed, and that they are not being abused or neglected.

This is one more example of the great need for KARA’s grassroots effort to raise awareness to the needs of America’s at risk children.

Until that happens, children, schools, families and communities, will contintue to suffer.

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