there is only one Colin Powell. His TED talk contradicts most of what we think we know about him. It touches the critical issues facing at risk children in America today and is perhaps the most touching TED talk I have ever watched.
I have been part of government reorganizations. People have to redesign logos, develop new civil service positions, decide about fonts for the stationery…. It takes years. In the meantime, programs often tread water.
A better plan is to focus all that energy on improving outcomes. Counties should regularly measure and report how their children are doing regarding mental health, level of trauma, cognitive skills, and physical development.
Governor Brewer has eliminated the states Child Protective Services Department and replaced it with a new division. Is this the silver bullet that will provide some safety to the thousands of AZ children living in horrid circumstances that have been ignored for years now? (6000 cases ignored) (10,000 cases beyond the 60 day investigation limit)
Currently, 1000 caseworkers already have caseloads that are 77 percent above the standard. It does not appear that the general public is mostly unconcerned, and not many legislators seem to be pulling for more child friendly programs. For years now Arizona has largely ignored child protection. It will surprise me if this effort makes much difference.
Even if you know that African Americans are arrested at a greater rate than their white counterparts, it’s still a shock to see the scale of the disparity. To wit, according to a new study published in the Journal of Crime & Delinquency, nearly 50 percent of all black males have been arrested by the age of 23. Overall, 30 percent of black men, 26 percent of Latino men, and 22 percent of white men have been arrested by age 18, and those numbers jump—respectively—to 49 percent, 44 percent, and 38 percent after five years.
The 2014 state legislative session is almost here! It will start on Tuesday February 25th.
Safe Passage for Children is proposing a bill with two provisions. See a summary here.
The legislature plans to get all the bills through the committees and onto the floor of the House and Senate in 3 ½ weeks, so we need to be ready to communicate our support for the bill.
The key events for volunteers will be:
1. Training sessions to prep you for the session (see options below)
2. Visits with your state Representative and Senator.
3. Day on the Hill on Wednesday, March 5th.
he report points out that in 2010, California’s per-student spending was $3,500 below the national average. And between 1995 and 2014, per-student spending increased 19 percent, from $6,971 to $8,304, while spending per prisoner ballooned 82 percent, from $32,933 to $60,032.
Join Brenda Benning, MSW, LGSW, for Part II of the popular Beyond Consequences Training and Support developed by Heather T. Forbes, the founder of the Beyond Consequences model. This second session is for parents who have previously attended the full 10 session Beyond Consequences Training & Support series, because it builds on the skills and techniques taught from Part I. This special series explores Volume 2 of Heather Forbes’ book and offers parents a “love-based” approach to helping children with severe behavior and trauma/attachment histories. Part II presents new scenarios and behaviors seen in the home and encourages parent’s participation. The price of the training includes the book, Volume II, “Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control” by Heather T. Forbes. Books are available at the door to walk ins. Class is only open to adoptive, kinship, and foster parents.
Jane McGonigal’s TED talk takes an approach to life and trauma that is very different, uplifitng, and perhaps the most remarkable insights I have experienced on this topic in years. When game designer Jane McGonigal found herself bedridden and suicidal following a severe concussion, she had a fascinating idea for how to get better.…
http://www.voicesempowered.org/ This organization is drawing attention to gaps in the social services system and collaborating with other advocates to support and empower children and families. Anyone with experience with them is encouraged to comment.
JEFFERSONTOWN, Ky. – In Kentucky, a lot of children are being raised by extended family members: at 6 percent of all kids, it’s one of the highest kinship-care rates in the nation. A new report from Kentucky Youth Advocates outlines what the group says needs to be done to increase support for grandparents and others raising kids who cannot safely live with their parents.
According to Jeanne Miller-Jacobs, who with her husband is raising their three grandkids, more assistance is badly needed.
“The biggest hurdle that we’ve had is misinformation,” she said. When we first got the kids, the financial part of kinship care never came up.”
She said her grandchildren, ages five, three and one, came to live with them because their parents struggle with drug addiction.
Kinship care has doubled in Kentucky in the last decade, and earlier this year, the state stopped taking new applications for its Kinship Care Program, which provides caregivers $10 a day to help meet a child’s basic needs.
Class action lawsuits get results where legislators don’t (Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, D.C., New Jersey, Mississippi) Proving that it’s not who is your senator, but who is your attorney. Whatever it Takes.
From Oklahoma News on 6 12,27.13,
Oklahoma is one of 14 states sued by child advocacy group Children’s Rights. The federal class action lawsuit was filed back in 2008, claiming children in state custody were in danger, because the system wasn’t doing enough to protect them.
The state has spent millions fighting it. With the trial just two months away and a judge denying the state’s last two efforts to get the case thrown out, DHS is now considering settling the suit.
According to Children’s Right’s website, their lawsuits have led to $2 billion in additional funding for child welfare systems.
Friends of KARA, if you emailed us yesterday, it did not get to us as we changed web hosts and had a 12 hour problem with emails (all correspondence was lost). Please resend your notes today as all is working now (and you will find that the pages load much faster than ever before).
The United States is one of two nations that has not signed the International Rights Of the Child Treaty. The other is Somalia (and it doesn’t have a functioning government). It is KARA’s position that the primary reason we refuse to sign the treaty is that it includes a prohibition against recruiting child soldiers (and…
Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune article supports a position I’ve held for years. By ignoring or under-serving people with mental health problems we are manufacturing state wards, preteen moms, and felons and this is making our cities dangerous and unsafe.
Our current policies of dumping the mentally ill in detention, jail, and prison places a huge burden on educators & juvenile, criminal justice workers, and especially the families (often grandparents, and foster and adoptive parents) that live with them.
Not much teaching gets done in a classroom populated with disturbed youth on Prozac. Safety and behavior management becomes the teachers primary concern at the expense of educating all the other youth. Our nations miserable graduation and drop out rates, STD rates (we lead the world), and crime rates (we also lead the world) are all tied to how we ignore and under-serve people with mental health issues.
Forcing foster/adoptive parents and service providers (educators, social workers, juvenile & criminal justice workers) to be the front line in managing mental health issues of the children and youth in their charge is an overwhelming task that rarely ends well for the children and youth. These children need professional guidance to overcome the serious issues that have triggered dangerous behaviors and the explosive increase in psychotropic medicating of five and ten year old children in our society.
Z: Senate president rejects request for more CPS funding
Your West Valley – December 02, 2013
The president of the state Senate is blasting a request for more money for Child Protective Services, saying the agency may have wasted the funds restored to it in the last two years.
Tennessee Congressman Stephen Fincher (who receives 3.5 million in federal crop subsidies) told the New York Times that his bible states “he who is unwilling to work shall not eat”. Not my kind of religion.
Walmart pays its employees so little that they need food stamps and have been living without health care. So the government gets to support Walmart employees and add to Walmart profits.
New Jersey eliminated mental health workers in its schools a few years ago sending all misbehaving youth to jail. New Jersey school counselor Thomas Kersting told Fox News that denying lunch to low-income children whose parents had not filled out eligibility forms would be a “teaching moment” (ie, a great idea).
No diapers, no mental health services, no food stamps, and no lunch. What makes us so mean?
Still, the Williams verdict has renewed calls for adoption reform in Washington—which to date seems to be the only state studying adoptee abuse. There is also talk of a federal bill to enhance post-adoption services for families and require better data collection on failed adoptions, and some adoption agencies, including the country’s largest, Bethany Christian Services, have called for action against rehoming. And a new website, Betaseb, is attempting to provide a place for older Ethiopian adoptees to talk with each other privately and learn about their rights.
In a new Evangelii Gadium, Pope Francis has condemned doctrinaire capitalism, “deified markets,” trickle-down economics, and the finance industry. He decried the growing gap between the rich and the poor, tax evasion by the wealthy, and characterized ruthless free-market economics as a killer that was inherently sinful.
“I am interested only in helping those who are in thrall to an individualistic, indifferent and self-centered mentality to be freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking which is more humane, noble and fruitful, and which will bring dignity to their presence on this earth,” the pope wrote.
He also launched a broadside against former President Ronald Reagan’s signature economic theory, which continues to serve as conservative Republican dogma.
“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” Pope Francis wrote. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”
The pope lamented that people had “calmly accepted (the) dominion” of money over themselves and society, which he said was expressed in the recent financial crisis and the continuing promotion of consumer-based economies.
Clarence Carter the Director of AZ Department of Economic Security told the oversight committee that child protection was suffering from lack of funding and resources and has been only investigating the worst of the worst cases.
Skyrocketing case loads and very late (too late in many cases) review of unexamined reports of child abuse make it extremely hard to keep children safe in Arizona, a state that ranks 48th in child well being.
Tiffini and I enjoyed your groups all out participation in our Saturday KARA presentation immensely. More questions were asked than answered (always a good sign) and there was a powerful feeling that better answers were important to this group. We covered a great many of the thorniest questions facing at risk youth and our communities…
The root of the problem is that each and every (almost) abused and neglected child in the system has severe mental health issues and there are almost no useful alternative medical systems in place to address this – instead we use drugs.
The World Health Organization defines torture as “Extended exposure to violence and deprivation”. Every child I worked with as a CASA guardian ad-Litem (about 50) experienced extended exposure to violence and deprivation.
Only the worst of the worst cases make it into the system. When I started in 1996, 2/3’s of the reports were investigated. Today because of budget cuts, 1/3 are being investigated.
Half the kids in my case load had been sexually abused. That is a trauma that no five or ten year old gets over without professional help. When they come of age, they get into trouble because they can’t cope. They did not learn how to read, play well with others, or learn to sit quietly in a room – they have been traumatized.
From the annals of Rikers Island comes a document titled, “Three Adolescents With Mental Illness in Punitive Segregation in Rikers Island.” Punitive segregation means solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. Schoolwork, if it comes, is passed through a slot in the cell door. Toothpaste is available once a day.
Friends, this practical approach of the Children’s Survival Network to dealing with child abuse and the misunderstood and underfunded agencies that treat it impresses me greatly.
Watch this brief video & pass it on to your friends;
Children’s Survival Network, Inc.
Thank you Hayley Foster for showing me the Children’s Survival Network.
This scientific approach to child neglect is a strong argument for early childhood programs like crisis nurseries and subsidized daycare. The costs of not providing these things far outweighs the front end investment is children.
http://www.cmhnetwork.org/news/science-of-neglect
The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University has published a new 6-minute video,InBrief: The Science of Neglect (2013), which explains how significant neglect can harm to a young child’s development, including cognitive delays, impairments in executive functioning, and disruptions of the body’s stress response. It also looks at why effective interventions are likely to pay significant dividends in better long-term outcomes in learning, health, and parenting of the next generation. The video provides an overview of The Science of Neglect: The Persistent Absence of Responsive Care Disrupts the Developing Brain (2012), a working paper by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. A two-page summary is also available.
Thank you for donating to the Kids At Risk Action, KARA nonprofit. You are wonderful!
It’s easy to ignore our fundraising banners, and I’m really glad you didn’t. This is how KARA pays its bills — people like you giving us money, so we can keep the site freely available for everyone around the world.
People tell me they donate to KARA because they find it useful, and they trust it because even though it’s not perfect, they know it’s written for them. KARA isn’t meant to advance somebody’s agenda or push a particular ideology, or to persuade you to believe something that’s not true. We aim to tell the truth, and we can do that because of you. The fact that you fund the site keeps us independent and able to deliver what you need and want from KARA. Exactly as it should be.
It’s Always Been Hard For Some Children
These photos demonstrate how impossible life has been for children at other times and in other places (please send KARA samples of your own)
From the Tyne & Wear ARchives & Museums
He identifies the financial and physical disaster happening daily to children, schools, and neighborhoods because of poor public policy and the dysfunction created by well-meaning people and institutions.
His conversations clarify how American institutions are creating exactly what they were designed to stop and how we can make things better
Help us continue the good work of CASA by enjoying an evening at our annual fundraiser.
Where; St Mary’s Orthodox Church 3450 Irving AV South Minneapolis 55408
Huge array of silent auction items, good food, and wine tasting.
A Great Evening For A Great Cause
Click here for Invite & RSVP card
Visit the CASAMN website
In one poor school district in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, students take classes in a bus garage, using plastic sheeting to keep the diesel fumes at bay. In another, there is no more money to tutor young immigrants struggling to read. And just south of Denver, a district where one in four kindergartners is homeless has cut 10 staff positions and is bracing for another cull.
From the book, How Children Succeed, Paul Tough, I learned that 68% of wealthy high school graduates with at least one parent that had graduated from college went on to achieve their own BA degree, while students in the lowest economic quartile without college graduate parents achieve a BA degree at less than 10%. Gotta admit that is a big spread.
From the Consortium on Chicago Schools Research, one in thirty African American Boys that graduate from Chicago schools will go on to achieve 4 year college degree before they are 25.
What if everyone agreed to get behind some of the same best practices for children? It would improve chances of state funding, be easier to track outcomes, and create economies of scale.
This may be possible. Safe Passage research indicates common interest in some of the same programs across child welfare, early childhood development, and children’s mental health. These approaches have a solid track record and strong research base, including Triple P (Positive Parenting Program), Parent Child Interaction Therapy, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
For a special evening to celebrate and help continue the good work of CASA Minnesota….
Wine Tasting & Silent Auction
Friday, November 15, 2013
6 – 9:30 PM
Lake Calhoun Event Center
St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church
3450 Irving Avenue South
Because we don’t like to talk about it, there is little understanding of the core problems that are driving the terrible statistics of public safety, crime, school performance, and public health (diabetes, obesity, psychotropic medication).
At risk children & their stories are being overwritten by the loud public noise of war, economic distress, and the extremely high volume of mean spirited political rhetoric of today’s media. Kids are really suffering today.
For years, the data reflecting children’s abuse, poverty, sexually transmitted diseases, public safety, health and mental health, child protection, and juvenile justice indicate a significant trend in the wrong direction.
The correlation between juvenile justice and criminal justice has long been established (almost all felons came through the juvenile justice system).
The correlation between child protection services and juvenile justice is less well known, but equally significant.
In the words of MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz, “The difference between that poor child and a felon is about eight years” and, “90% of the youth in Juvenile Justice have come through Child Protection Services”.
A giant change in mental health public policy will soon be felt by all of us from the effects of the Affordable Health Care Act.
We hope it is all positive, but we know better and must be vigilant to avoid painful mistakes.
In KARA’s pursuit of better answers and a more public discourse on the topic, we invite your insights, experiences, and articles to clear the air. Thank you Consulthardesty.com for this correspondence. KARA might take a different view, but Hardesty’s commentary applies directly to the mental health conversation;
The City of Portland, Oregon, has been found by the DOJ to be using police to violate the constitutional rights of those perceived to be in mental health crisis. This blog post explores a new force that may begin targeting this vulnerable population. The public does not yet know the power about to accrue to care providers, as mandatory insurance provides an incentive to fill hospitals.
America owns the market of mistreating people with mental health problems. Whether Tasering 12 year olds or shooting disturbed people, we just don’t care enough to make health services available to stop the carnage.
16 year old Jeff Weise’s father committed suicide a few years before Jeff started writing about his homicidal and suicidal thoughts and listening to his mother’s wishes that he had never been born.
A few months later he shot dead his grandfather and 14 other people before killing himself. Talk about warning signs.
The year after the carnage, Red Lake found 3 million dollars to fund a mental health facility for the community.
Michael Swanson’s mom (an educated and very capable person) worked for years to find mental health services for her tragically disturbed boy before he drove to an adjacent state and murder 2 convenience store clerks for shits and giggles.
My friend Patti adopted 4 children from a county that assured her they came from fairly normal backgrounds. If being sexually abused at very young ages is normal, then the county did not lie.
20 years later, the mental health issues this family still endures make me hate our institutional habits of obfuscating and lying.
When it is your family or friend that is visited by violence or other forms of insanity the sensation is unbelievably painful. Until then, let’s just not care about affordable health care.
Follow these pages to keep up with the most current stories about the people policies & programs working with and reporting on abused and neglected children;
Connect to the most recent media stories
Connect to CASAs (around the nation)
Connect to the states (stories of at risk children in your state)
Children Are Not Burgers (send this to your friends)
4 minute Video on being an abused child in America
Richard Ross photographs juvenile in justice (remarkable)
Two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare.BegintoRead.com
Urging young people to read more when there is little available to read makes as much sense as urging starving people to eat, when no food is available. Krashen, 2007
In middle-income neighborhoods the ratio of books per child is 13 to 1, in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is 1 age-appropriate book for every 300 children. Neuman, Susan B. and David K. Dickinson, ed. Handbook of Early Literacy Research, Volume 2. New York, NY: 2006, p. 31.
80% of preschool and after-school programs serving low-income populations have no age-appropriate books for their children
This is KARA’s June presentation to the DFL Education Foundation; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMUM6XzYMdw
It sparked a lively discussion.
Share your comments and pass it on.
Here is the video of KARA’s September 11th presentation at Century College; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXrmhp8dEIA&feature=youtu.be
Share your comments with KARA & Pass it on.
Yesterday, the Pope came out against the Catholic Church’s unfriendly & unproductive public policy of repeatedly attacking the poor, the gay, and women’s rights.
By association, the Republican Party is being incriminated by the Holy Father’s words also for its own similar negative focus.
While it may appear to be muddy water at the moment, it is logical that as LBJ lost the Southern Democrats with his very unpopular civil rights push of the sixties – ruining the Democrats chances of a presidency for many years to come – the Republican Party could very well come out of this current fanatical attack on healthcare and the poor losing not the South or even the nation, but the World.
There is a growing visceral reaction across this nation and I would suggest the planet (at least anywhere people can read and think) against this mean and unfriendly tail wagging what used to be a rather friendly non-biting dog.
These are the most powerful videos from the Academy on Violence and Abuse www.avahealth.org They go a long way in explaining our nations consistently low graduation rates, terrifically high murder rates, prison populations, chronic illnesses and leading the world in sexually transmitted diseases.
All of these videos are powerful and worth your time.
Zero Kids Waiting is the monthly eNewsletter of Minnesota Adoption Resource Network, a 33-year old organization that creates and supports lifelong nurturing families for children needing permanency.
As an email subscriber to Zero Kids Waiting, you will receive a monthly update about what our organization and others are doing to promote adoption of Minnesota children and teens.
To opt out of receiving Zero Kids Waiting and other announcements from Minnesota Adoption Resource Network including MN ADOPT training emails for parents and professionals, please click SafeUnsubscribe at the bottom of this newsletter.
Your email is solely used for the distribution of MARN newsletters, trainings and other news and will not be shared or broadcast.
To learn more about Minnesota’s waiting children and our goal to reach Zero Kids Waiting visit State Adoption Exchange
Sexual abuse is likely the most horrific crime a young child can endure.
Almost 10% of children today are exposed to sexual abuse; from rape, incest, pornography, touching, fondling or sodomy.
According to the Childhelp organization, the most common ages that child sexual abuse acts are committed are ages 7 to 13.
Within child protection systems, these percentages are much higher and the children’s ages are lower when the abuse begins.
As a CASA guardian ad-Litem in Hennepin County, about half of the fifty children in my caseload were sexually abused. After almost 20 years as a County volunteer in child protection, I think it is the most under-reported crime in our nation.
Six million children are reported to child protection agencies in the U.S. each year. About 10% of them receive services. The other 90% are left to fend for themselves.
East coast schools are experiencing the mass incarceration and expulsion of student populations.
Using police instead of counselors has lead to a giant leap in overcrowded courts, incarcerated youth, & privatized juvenile justice facilities.
New Jersey eliminated all mental health services from schools and uses the justice system to deal with adolescent problems.
New York students with disabilities are 4 times more likely to be suspended than the non-disabled (New York Times/Molly Knefel) with 69,000 expulsions and 2,500 arrests last year, mostly for infractions that would have dealt with by counselors in years past.
Pennsylvania recently sent 2 judges to prison for 40 years for receiving kickbacks for sending thousands of mostly innocent youth into the privatized youth prison system.
The data is clear that children of color and poverty are grossly over-represented in this newly criminalized society that is sweeping the nation.
In a nation that pays day care workers less than food service workers (the least paid profession in the nation) and has refused to adequately fund crisis nurseries, or subsidized day care, we should not be surprised that our youth are unprepared to learn in school and a source of non-criminal behaviors that trouble school officials.
A value proposition is the amount you are willing to pay for a certain level of quality.
Take McDonalds for instance. The value proposition is to pay a low price for acceptable quality. If you get it, that’s a good value. (Except for the French fries, which are a great value!)
The current value proposition in child welfare is similar. We pay staff modest amounts and they meet basic requirements such as investigating reports in 24 hours and getting kids to court every three months.
If that’s all we want, it’s a good value.
But it’s the wrong value proposition.
We want high quality outcomes for children and will have to pay a realistic price to get them. That will cost more, but the results will be worth it.
This weeks KARA presentation for Century College Luncheon Speaker Series prompted good questions and brought a solid discussion to the critical issues facing at risk children.
We are all seeking better and happier endings.
It will take some participation by all of us to shift the culture to where it respects and cares for America’s children, for that to happen.
Criminalizing mental health,…, denied treatment,…Michael Schuler stabbed himself in both eyes after spending 40 days in jail”) identifies the iceberg tip that is the crisis of this nation’s failure to deal with mental health issues. “Hundreds of inmates with dangerous psychiatric problems languish in county jails” is repeated in hundreds of county jails and hundreds of prison facilities throughout America.
Friends of CASA Minnesota & MN Children, CASA Minnesota is hosting its second annual fundraiser, “Corks for CASA” (a wine tasting and silent auction). Mark your calendars for Friday, November 15th and look for upcoming emails detailing the event & registration information.
Come hear Mike Speak about how our communities are providing child protection to vulnerable children and the results we are all living with.
1130 to 1pm, Century College, East Campus Lincoln Mall, Complimentary Lunch
You must RSVP to Cindy Haak, 651-779-3219