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May312015

Virginia Abandons Abused Children To Death (200 unanswered calls never reported)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - US Based

Minnesota is not the only state to fail abused children to death (8 children since Eric dean last year).

Virginia child protective services has just been discovered to have ignored, then hidden (and erased) over 200 telephone reports of child abuse. “The episode, which went undisclosed to the public until the News Leader’s report this month” has prompted the Bureau of Criminal Investigation to “consider investigating” whether laws have been broken. At least in our state, our Governor called out the failure and formed a task force which has discovered critical areas of need and made practical recommendations to make child protection more effective.

Arizona did about the same thing with six thousand ignored child protection cases a few years ago. If you read the Sad Stories page on this site, you will get a better picture of which states value children and those that don’t. It is striking.

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Jan292016

Violence Against Children & Policing

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Juvenile + Criminal Justice

This morning’s Safe Passage For Children about how police have put battered children back in the home because they like to keep families together reminds me of a man who kicked a 7 year old girl so hard she went into convulsions and went into the hospital Emergency Room with her injury. The police in that case sought safety for her and her siblings and involved Child Protection right away.
That girl had been sexually abused for four years (from 4 to 7), my first visit to her younger year sister was at the suicide ward of the hospital & the 2 other children had problems so severe that they could not be together in foster care because of the things that happened when they were together.

The man who did these things to the children remained in the home for many years, and was never charged or made to answer for any of his crimes. More than ten years later he was still sexually abusing children in the same home and he had never been mentioned in the justice system.

Children have no rights in the homes they live in, no access to safety other than our community efforts to keep children safe and no way to influence policy makers to improve the existing system. The Safe Passage Article above includes a snapshot of how the rest of the industrialized world keeps children safe and is well worth reading.

All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children

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Apr272020

Violence Against Children & Covid19 – (it’s own pandemic) part IV

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, COVID 19 and its Impacts

speaking on critical issues impacting abused and neglected children for many years.
Shelter In Place locks abused children in toxic homes
With no escape to the safety of a classroom
Domestic violence is rising and law enforcement & social workers are having a hard time keeping up.
CLICK HERE FOR RESOURCES & STRATEGIES FOR PREVENTING CHILD ABUSE DURING COVID19

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Mar182014

Violence Against Children – A family Tradition (TEDx, Robbyn Peters Bennett)

Aces and Trauma, All Posts from Kids at Risk Action

Violence, a family tradition: Robbyn Peters Bennett at TEDx Bellingham This short (13 min) TEDx video clearly articulates what is wrong with hitting babies & children (and legislators in Kansas lobbying for the right to leave bruises on children). Passed down generation after generation, sticks, paddles, and open hand hitting all leave mental health marks that result in compensating behaviors, poor brain development, and the next generation of parents beating their children. If you know someone that hits their child, or lives in Kansas, send this link to them.

6 million children are reported to child protection services in the U.S. each year Only a fraction of these children receive the help they need to lead productive lives.

(invite me to speak at your conference) / Buy our book or donate Sample 4 minute video of Mike’s awesome talk on child protection in America

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Oct122018

Valuing Other People’s Children

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Child Abuse and Deaths

The U.S. rates badly among industrialized nations in how we treat and value children. America is the only nation in the world to not sign the International Rights of the Child Treaty.
Today’s post by Safe Passage for Children of MN shows how badly our state compares to the rest of the nation in protecting at risk children.
“What we do to our children they will do to society”.
This statement is as true today as it was 2000 years ago when Pliny the Elder made it.
All Adults Are the Protector of All Children

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Sep22016

Using Bibles In Defense of Child Abuse (not the Jesus I knew)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Religion, Politics + the Law

Indiana Governor and Vice Presidential Candidate Mike Pence’s Religious Freedom signature law RFRA allows beating 7 year old’s with a coat hanger leaving bruises and bleeding severe enough to cause the child’s doctor to have mom arrested.

It will be a very sad thing an Indiana Court uses Pence’s law to rule that bibles can be used to torture and traumatize children.

A few years ago I spoke to adoptive parents in Indiana where the prior Governor, Mitch Daniels redirected the funding promised to families adopting special needs children (after the adoptions were completed) to his appointees in social services who could cut the most from social services programs.

Mitch was also running for Vice President at the time. My conversations with those families were really sad (really, really sad).

For the second time in just 3 election cycles, Indiana Governor’s have shown children just how little they matter to the State.

Tiny stepping stones to higher political office; kids can’t vote and only make the media under the most tragic of circumstances. A clear win for Indiana Governor’s (and a few other states too).

If there is a silver lining in Indiana Governor’s political abuse of children, it is that Indiana’s helpless kids are the only youth voice in America’s most important political battle (there is no other meaningful child friendly discourse in our presidential election).

Know anyone in Indiana? Share this with them and suggest that using children as political stepping stones should be a crime.

All Adults are the Protectors of All Children

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