My article was written from the perspective of a CASA volunteer working with very troubled children that were not adopted. They needed a consistent adult in their life and we must help provide that.

Some of my CASA children had been in over ten foster homes and treatment centers and would age out of foster care very alone and uncertain.

I failed to clarify that in yesterday’s article. This counterpoint helps to clarify the serious issues that must always be considered in our struggle to provide the very best services to abused and neglected children. Please submit your own ideas and comments to this discussion.

Michael,
I am emailing you this privately and will leave it to your discretion as to whether you want to post this on your site as a mode of discussion. I know you support CASA and they do a lot of good for some kids, but the program has developed major faults over time.

It was never intended that CASA become a substitute parent or become personally involved with the children at all. They are supposed to be objective, getting FACTS from everyone involved, making recommendations to the judge based up those facts. Their own rules caution them against becoming too personally involved causing loss of objectivity.

They are not supposed to take the child shopping, buy them gifts, or celebrate milestones. This is the role of the parental figure in the child’s life. What if the parent doesn’t step up? The CASA can recommend that the child be assigned a person who can serve that role. It is not the CASA responsibility to fill it.

The CASA guidelines describe this role as “passive observer, information gatherer.” Passive is not active. They may not actively do anything. Gathering information does not equal obtaining or performing services. Obtaining services is the duty of the caseworker.

The CASA may recommend to the judge that services be obtained, but is not allowed to perform them himself.

This is where CASA goes awry causing blurred boundaries with the other parties involved in the case, especially, the parents. CASA can overstep to the point that they push the parent out of the picture completely, and this is a grand travesty to the child.

Additionally, CASAs receive their 40 hours of training in neglect and abuse cases, yet they are also assigned to dependency cases. Sometimes, “no fault dependency” cases.

As a result of ASFA, when the federal government gave money to states for the purpose of increasing adoptions, large numbers of kids did get good homes. Thirteen years later, hoards of those kids are re-entering the system because they came to parents with severe mental and emotional scars as a result of infant and child trauma, neglect, and abuse.

States refuse to help in any way with the astronomical mental health fees, such as $150,000 per year for residential care. Health insurance, Medicaid, and adopt subsidies pay nothing towards this care, not $1. Adoptive families are being forced to relinquish children back to the states to access astronomically expensive mental health care.

It defaults to child protective services and Juvenile Court, neither of which understand mental health and trauma. These cases are being treated just like abuse and neglect, when they are really clinical matters. What training does CASA have for cases like these? ZERO. NONE. They treat parents like they are abusive too. They are taking over the parental role, which is the last thing a child with bonding and attachment issues needs.

These children need assistance staying close to the only parents they’ve ever known. They don’t need to be separated from them. They don’t need to suffer guilt from watching their parents be charged with neglect and having CASA and caseworkers run all over their parents.

This happened to us. The CASA on our case bribed our son with over $1000 in gifts. Books, clothes, electronic games, rollerblades, skateboard, bicycle, health club membership complete with personal trainer, and on, and on, and on. This worker’s supervisor ridiculed me in court while the judge and attorneys were in chambers because I dared bring it to their attention that they were breaking all their own rules.

My son was calling her twice weekly asking her to buy him things, which only served to feed his OCD, causing setbacks in his therapy. He spoke to her husband on the phone. On her final visit, she sat in front of him at the residential treatment facility and cried tears in front of him, because I was trying to get her dismissed. I was, and rightly so.

She gave legal advice. She told the school I needed a court order to get his school records which was not true. She tried to paint to everyone that we were bad parents. Then she lied repeatedly in an effort to cover up her own discrepancies. She wound herself up in such a web of lies the judge dismissed her.

The only issue with our family is that our son has PTSD and OCD due to pre-adoptive trauma and severe infant neglect that happened two years before he came to live in our home. The state baled on us for any and every kind of mental health funding.

Unfortunately, after she was gone, our son figured out the truth. He no longer trusts them and neither do we. Kids with PTSD do not trust adults and it has taken us many years to develop a level of trust with him.

That CASA magnified his trust issues even more. The new one has been less involved, but still insists on overstepping the parental role. He keeps advising us on what he thinks would be best. We are good parents. We’ve raised 3 other kids, all of whom are community servants and upstanding citizens, nursing, police work, military.

Just because parents can’t cure PTSD does not make them unfit. It does not mean they don’t want a relationship with their child. It does not give CASA or anyone else the right to take their place.

We have another parent in our state in the same situation. The states attorney is seeking to terminate her parental rights because he does not feel that a single mom can raise a child with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Shame on the states for giving children permanency and then taking it away after failing to provide the mental health services the child needs. Shame on CASA for taking advantage of children and parents in this unjust situation.

It is my opinion that CASA should not be assigned to these cases at all, and that the parents be allowed to speak for the child’s “best interests.” If the CASA organization truly wanted to help this population of children, they should boycott these types of cases all together, sending a clear message to the government that these cases do not belong in court at all. Parents are entitled to the same rights as those who have children with physical illnesses, CUSTODY AND TREATMENT. Preserve adoptions.

http://www.ldnews.com/news/ci_15513594

Getting more people involved in gathering and disseminating information about the issues of child abuse and what can and should be done to protect and serve vulnerable children has to be a good thing.

After many years as a volunteer guardian ad Litem it is clear to me that most folks don’t have a very good concept of the needs of abused and neglected children. It is also obvious that abused and neglected children are not being well served in our nation today.

Too many of them do not receive the help they need and are going lead dysfunctional lives. They hurt themselves and the community they live in.

Supporting positive change for the hardworking people that do the work to improve the lives of abused and neglected children and appreciating that results will always be a product of effort and an efficient application of resources is sound policy.

The focus must remain on improving the quality of services to children, and not politics and name calling.

This process can add accountability and provide a positive source of insight and overview of the complex system of children, courts, foster and adoptive parents, and service providers.

The downside is that if the panel is not well constructed and well managed, it can become a negative force of unsupportive, nonconstructive people that will not help build a more effective child protection system in your community. Be certain to bring only positive well meaning people that care about the needs of children on to your panel.

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Child-welfare panel forms

The citizen review group will evaluate the treatment of child-abuse cases in Lebanon and 12 other counties.
By JOHN LATIMER Staff Writer
Updated: 07/15/2010 10:46:48 AM EDT

A citizen review panel representing Lebanon and 12 other counties is organizing with a mission of evaluating and improving the services provided to victims of child abuse.
The South Central Region Citizen Review Panel already has a handful of members and is looking for volunteers to represent Lebanon County, said its chairman, Sheldon Schwarz. The term is for two years and requires a commitment to attend meetings scheduled every other month in Mechanicsburg, where the panel will discuss and evaluate the policies and procedures the counties’ have in place to treat child-abuse victims.

A background in a related profession is beneficial but not necessary, Schwarz said. The current panel of eight members represents a wide variety of experiences.

“This is open to any citizen interested in protecting the rights of neglected and maltreated children,” he said. “We are not looking for employees of the (child-welfare) system. We are looking for anyone who cares about children and is committed to do something about it.”

The review panel is the first of eight regional panels being established across the state in accordance with the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. In addition to Lebanon, the South Central Region Citizen Review Panel represents Adams, Bedford, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lancaster, Mifflin, Perry and York counties.

Gov. Edward Rendell authorized the formation of the review panels in 2006 to make the state eligible for federal grants and other funding to benefit child-abuse services. Guidance and financial support for the panels is provided through a grant to the Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program, which is administered by the University of Pittsburgh. The training program has offices in Mechanicsburg, where the South Central Region review team meets.

The review panel is overseen by a policy board appointed by the Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program, Schwarz said. However, it is an independent entity that does not answer to the Department of Public Welfare or any other state agency. At year’s end, a report containing recommendations for improvements to the child-welfare system is produced and provided to the state, he said.

At this point, the review panel’s focus and goals are still being formulated, Schwarz said. Panels already working in some states evaluate their local systems by reviewing child abuse on a case-by-case basis, but he favors taking a different approach.

“We are still very much on the ground floor,” he said. “We are charged with finding what can be done to improve the system and make it more responsive to abused and neglected children. … For me, I would personally like to look at the broader picture — at the overall legislation and regulations in place to see if they are working well at the county level.”

Those interested in applying for a position on the South Central Region Citizen Review Panel or have questions are asked to call the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act coordinator at 795-9048 or e-mail PACRP@PITT.EDU.

johnlatimer@ldnews.com; 272-5611, ext. 149

Just like investing in the stock market or tax increment financing, putting money into early childhood programs brings solid financial and social returns back into a community.

As a negative example, just look at states and nations that have not (failing schools, filled prisons, high crime, poverty, preteen pregnancies, & unsafe communities).

At every level, this state has benefited from a smart, educated workforce that created opportunities (out of genius and thin air) with lasting impact.

Medical alley, which has had a huge impact on this state’s fiscal well being, launched giant successful med tech companies and would not have done nearly so well without the very smart people that came through this states many fine schools and school programs because they were important at the time and well funded.

Children in Minnesota have had a friend and champion in Art Rolnick, who well understands Pliny’s 2500 year old observation, “What we do to our children, they will do to our society”.

It is easy to see the relationship between healthy, adjusted children and productive citizens.

Healthy, adjusted children do well in school and go on to lead lives that contribute to the well being of our community (and of course, the opposite is just as true).

There is no return on investment from children that we abandon in our system and the cost of crime and incarceration is a triple negative that can cost our state for a lifetime (five hundred million dollars for prisons in MN this year does not include the medical costs, the cost of crime, fear, or blighted neighborhoods). The relationship between success in school and crime and preteen pregnancy is well established.

Art refers to medical costs driving state deficits. A growing body of evidence from the medical community proves that the chronic disease and medical costs of at risk children is another extreme cost to our communities (www.avahealth.org – this site is worth spending some time on)

I met Art Rolnick a few years ago when he graciously allowed me to use his work (as chapter five) in the writing of my book INVISIBLE CHILDREN.

It was my purpose to draw attention to the behavior problems and learning ability that I see in abused and neglected children that continue to negatively impact our schools and later on, the safety of our communities.

Art’s Federal Reserve Board research clearly demonstrates the high return on investment in children (8% to 16%)

There is even a higher return on investment for Invisible Children (three million children are reported to child protection services in this nation each year in this nation) to make them ready to learn and prepare them for a place in our community.

These are the children I continue to watch and hope for as budgets and services are cut and policy makers think they are saving money by not investing in programs that could change the lives of the weakest and most vulnerable among us.

On top of all this positive financial and socially important evidence, it is the right thing to do.

“Rolnick has been sounding the alarm about early ed since 2003… Little kids don’t vote…Early ed has a champion in Rolnick. Now it needs one in the Governors office”.

Lori Sturdevant: Art Rolnick’s six bullet points for state success

Rolnick: Minnesota should target spending on high-return services — like early education.

By LORI STURDEVANT, Star Tribune
Last update: July 3, 2010 – 5:53 PM

Art Rolnick’s economics wisdom would be worth hearing during an election-year summer, even if he weren’t about to end 25 years as senior vice president and director of research at the Minneapolis Fed.

But his visit to the Star Tribune last week was pegged to his pending move down river. Accordingly, news before wisdom: On July 30, Rolnick will leave his perch at the beautiful Federal Reserve Bank just north of the Falls of St. Anthony. Sometime in September, he’ll be ensconced just south of the falls as codirector of the Humphrey Institute’s Human Capital Research Collaborative, with an emphasis on early education.

That means that one of Minnesota’s best sources of research-based advice about how to keep this state prosperous won’t be gone long. But candidates for governor and the Legislature — and the voters who will evaluate them — would benefit now from a dose of Rolnick’s thinking. As is his wont, he cheerfully obliged:

•Education has been key to Minnesota’s success. “Sometime in the early 1950s, we started to pour money into education. Today, we’re one of the most educated states in the country. This is more than just a correlation. It’s causality. Human capital investment in education is what helps to create strong economies.

“The education premium — the increased lifetime earnings if you get a college degree rather than just a high school diploma — used to be 40 percent. It’s now 70, 80, some have it as high as 100 percent, and growing. The market is telling us something: As our economy has progressed, human capital is a critical ingredient to economic growth.”

•The Great Recession is confirming the value of Minnesota’s education spending. “Minnesota’s unemployment right now is 7 percent, well below the national average. I attribute that to having an active and highly educated workforce. Relative to the nation, we shine.

“Are taxes too high?” is the wrong question. “The question should be, are we providing high-quality public goods at the least cost? There are certain public goods which the market fails to produce enough of — education, clean air, safety. Any economy needs these public goods in order to progress.

“All taxes distort. We know taxes are a problem. Nevertheless, if you are getting a high public return, that’s an argument for tax-and-spend. … I have no trouble with a relatively high-tax state that produces really good public services. I would argue that Minnesota has been that for years, and we have one of the best economies in the world.”

•Capital is more mobile now — but the need for government services is also greater now. “Businesses don’t want to locate in areas with high crime and poor educational systems.”

•The next governor and Legislature need to rigorously prioritize spending. “We have to make sure that the high-return public investments are funded. What’s driving our deficits at the state level are medical costs.

“We’ve got to get more disciplined about controlling that. We’re going to have no choice.

“I wouldn’t say ‘Don’t raise taxes.’ But you can’t raise them too far above other states. I’ve supported expanding the sales tax to clothing in a progressive way. There are ways to reformulate the tax system to make it more efficient.”

•Minnesota has been missing the biggest public investment opportunity — early education. “We’re way under-investing in early education. There’s all kinds of research to say that if you provide a healthy environment for our children starting as early as prenatal, so that kids when they start kindergarten are healthy and cognitively ready and socially ready to learn, our children are much more likely to be successful in life. The return we’ve calculated for this is extraordinary. Yet we’ve hardly invested in it. … Other states are passing us by.”

• • •

Rolnick has been sounding an alarm about early ed since 2003. The results to date are more public awareness of the issue and an exciting pilot program involving 625 parents in St. Paul, sponsored by the privately funded Minnesota Early Learning Foundation.

And too little else.

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amy.rostronledoux@yahoo.com

This severely disabled child was turned away from the Lake City Medical Center after being alerted by social workers of his urgent need of medical care;he was sent home with a note (where he had just come from).

The story caught my eye because it similar to what happened to a child in my guardian ad-Litem caseload except that my young friend got immediate relief from a toxic environment when the care provider quickly determined that this condition must be investigated.

Starved, beaten, tied to a bed and sexually abused, my seven year old needed an advocate. The damage lasts for a lifetime. Nothing makes it disappear. Catching and treating horrific abuse early allows a greater chance at recovery.

The only voice a young child has when being terribly abused is a teacher, a social worker, a medical person or some other caring adult.

Children have no voice of their own. They can’t understand what is happening to them and they often don’t know it is wrong.

They only know that it is their own life and that it hurts.

That terribly abused children can be turned away from hospitals and sent directly back into an abusive home speaks volumes about our community.

Today 2/3 of child abuse calls are being screened out of child protection in Hennepin County. The national average is 1/3.

Yes, I agree that providing more services to people that are screened out is a positive approach (the argument for the greater number of screened out calls). My experience has been that the system is overwhelmed and underfunded, and this young boy may be out of the home, but what about others like him that go unreported or untreated?

How do you think the hospital in your community would handle such a case?

I know people that refuse to believe that the abuse being reported could possibly be occurring (especially the sexual abuse of very young children).

There are three million cases of child abuse reported in this nation each year (when we count them).

Let’s implement procedures to make sure that this sort of error is minimized. “What you do to your children, they will do to your society”. Pliny 2500 years ago

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Lake City ER sends starving disabled boy home with just a note

Lake City Medical Center cited for violations.

By PAUL WALSH and WARREN WOLFE, Star Tribune
Last update: June 17, 2010 – 8:16 PM

A severely disabled boy was wrongly sent home from a hospital emergency room in Lake City, Minn., without an assessment or treatment — but with a note saying he was well enough to return to school — after Wabasha County officials ordered the boy’s parents to seek treatment for his unexplained injuries and weakness.

The next day, officials say, local authorities sent an ambulance to the boy’s home and took him to a different hospital, where he was admitted for several days with what state investigators described as “severe malnutrition, starvation, bedsores and uncontrolled seizures.”

In a report made public Thursday, the Minnesota Department of Health cited Mayo Health System’s Lake City Medical Center for violating two federal rules on emergency room care. They concluded that a nurse at the hospital granted the father’s request that the boy not be examined but be sent home with a note.

Lake City Police Chief Lyle Schumann said Thursday his office is investigating whether the family should be charged with a crime.

Under federal rules, the hospital should have recorded the boy’s March 4 visit to the emergency room and conducted a medical assessment to determine whether he required emergency treatment — regardless of what the father wanted — said Stella French, who supervises the Health Department investigators.

The Health Department did not offer any identifying information about the boy, his family or any other individuals. County, hospital and police officials also declined to release the boy’s name, age or school.

How the story unfolded

According to the Health Department report:

School nurses examined the boy on March 1 and 2 after he was absent for a week. They saw several open lesions on his back and noted he could not walk or feed himself and lay on a school cot in the fetal position. They contacted the parents both days and urged that he see a doctor. After the boy missed school on March 3, the school notified county social service officials of the boy’s “urgent need for medical care.”

Social service and law enforcement officials told the family to take the boy to an emergency room as soon as possible. The father took the boy to Lake City Medical Center that evening. He told the nurse that he didn’t want his son examined by a doctor but wanted a note saying his son could return to school.

On a prescription pad, the nurse wrote that the boy was “vitally stable and there is no emergent/urgent need that needs our attention.”

When Wabasha County social service officials discovered the next day that the boy had not been treated, they went to the house, were given the nurse’s note by the father and immediately called an ambulance.

An administrative nurse at Lake City told the Health Department she reviewed the case with the emergency room nurse and counseled him about his performance.

Protocols not followed

In a statement Thursday afternoon, the hospital said “the child’s condition did not appear to be serious when he was first seen in our emergency department.”

However, it acknowledged “our policies and protocols, designed to protect patients, were not fully followed.”

The hospital also noted that “we identified and implemented several improvements to our processes as a result of this situation to ensure that an incident like this does not happen again.”

The nurse cited in the Health Department report is still employed at the hospital in acute care, said hospital spokeswoman Asia Christensen. She declined to say whether the nurse was disciplined in any way. No appeal of the state’s findings is planned, Christensen said.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482

25% of U.S. high school grads are functionally illiterate upon graduation, our drop out rates are the worst in the industrialized world.

America is sending juveniles into adult prisons at alarming rates. By privatizing service providers, overwhelming government service agencies, & not providing resources we are abandoning children at an institutional level.

Many third world nations treat prenatal care more seriously than we do. There are no industrial nations that suffer the sexually transmitted disease rates or early pregnancy rates that America does.

Talking to the people at The Academy on Violence and Abuse http://www.avahealth.org/ very important things have become clear to me;

1. Child abuse impact children for life. Chronic illness and early death are significant within the population of abused and neglected children as they age.

2. Dr Bruce Perry’s research indicates that 25% of all American’s will be classified as “special needs” within a generation if the mental health aspects are not addressed in a direct and meaningful way.

As a long time guardian ad-Litem, I have seen the evidence of the Academy’s research at a very personal level. I have lost friends and now know why.

Mental health becomes all important when you work with the population of abused children and understand the concept of violence, sex abuse, and trauma as it applies to two and three year olds (and what it will mean to them for the rest of their lives).

Children become citizens. Healthy citizens lead normal productive lives and are a benefit to society.

Children born into unhealthy homes and poor resources, are abandoned, abused, or ignored, end up in juvenile justice, criminal justice, pregnant without the ability to parent (just like their parent) lead painful lives and are a problem for society.

There is NO percentage is the communal abandonment of our children (it is sinking our nation).

What you do to your children, they will do to your society (Pliny – 2500 years ago)

Let’s all agree to support child friendly programs and legislation (even if it costs money and takes effort).

It is painful to know that children who come from trauma and abuse, are now finding fewer services, more burdened staff, less resources, and inevitably, less chance of finding help in many communities.

Seema points out that a Hawaii program that had serviced 4000 families now services 100, South Carolina now has caseload ratios as high as 60 to 1 in some regions & that nearly half of the abused children murdered in Texas have been investigated by Child Protective Services.

I did know most of the financial problems facing the people and programs created to help abused and neglected children. I also know that eliminating those programs will not save communities any money*.

I did not know that children raised in families with incomes under $15,000 are 22 times more likely to to be abused and I am well aware of the dismal standing of certain states when it comes to how they treat children.

*The articles underlined herein give several perspectives on the near sightedness that has unfortunately captured otherwise clear thinking policymakers for many years now. Until a longer view is adopted, America’s prisons will remain full, its schools troubled, and its streets unsafe.

Seema Jilani’s Article;

By SEEMA JILANI, McClatchy Newspapers
Last update: May 28, 2010 – 6:09 PM
We doctors are a cynical bunch. The novelty of the white coat expires after a short time treating drug addicts, combative schizophrenics and patients whose idea of “how-do-you-do” is threatening a lawsuit. This is to say nothing of conducting pelvic exams, bosses with God complexes and extracting a baseball bat that got stuck up someone’s backside when he “fell on it.”
Few things shock us, but cruelty to children is one of them.

Behind closed doors, we even pontificate on the need for strict contraception laws. “Birth control should be sprayed into the air,” we muse. “If people want children, they should pass drug tests and home evaluations.” Another of our suggestions is that the government should lace fast food with trace amounts of contraceptives, so that people who eat it occasionally are unaffected, but those who exist on it are sterilized.

Bitter? Maybe. Harsh? Absolutely.

The inconceivable becomes plausible, however, after you see a 9-month-old boy test positive for mommy’s crystal meth and shaken baby syndrome render a 6-month-old girl blind, or after treating the burns on a young girl who was dipped in boiling oil and the cigarette burns on her sister’s back in the shape of a marijuana leaf. When a 13-year-old boy dies from heat stroke because he was chained to a tree overnight, “Proposition McSterilization” starts to make sense.

Three million reported cases of child abuse and neglect result in 2,000 deaths in the United States annually, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Since 2001, 30,000 American children have been killed in their own homes, taken their own lives or been murdered in their own neighborhoods, according to Every Child Matters, a child advocacy group.

Why does the United States lead the world’s richest democracies in child abuse fatalities, with death rates three times higher than Canada’s and 11 times higher than Italy’s?

Now the nation’s and the states’ financial crises are leading to budget cuts to child services in more than 40 states. In Hawaii, Every Child Matters reports, funding for a child abuse reduction program was slashed so much that two years after serving 4,000 families, it can afford to serve only 100. In South Carolina, five state-run homes for children were closed. Child Protective Services is severely understaffed, with caseload ratios as high as 60 to one in some regions.

Nearly half of all the Texas children who are killed by abuse belonged to families that had been investigated by Child Protective Services. In order to keep families united, CPS attempts to place children with safe family members. While its motives are admirable, CPS should put a higher priority on protecting children from monsters than it does on keeping families together.

The single best predictor of child abuse is poverty. Children raised in families with annual incomes of less than $15,000 are 22 times more likely to be abused. One in five American children, more than 14 million, live in poverty.

Budget cuts are taking a toll in California, too. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed discarding the state’s welfare-to-work program, effectively eliminating aid for roughly a million children.

If the most prosperous country in the world can afford to fight two wars, battle terrorism in far-off lands and bail out Wall Street, why can’t it offer its most vulnerable and voiceless citizens anything but bureaucratic red tape?

Seema Jilani is a Houston physician who specializes in pediatrics. A version of this commentary was published in the British newspaper the Guardian. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

In most cases, it is would be a minimal cost (especially compared to the cost of not supporting them), but in any event, if there is a person deserving of some cost, it would be a child removed from a birth home for the trauma they have suffered.

This weeks Star Tribune article by Eric Roper http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/92467749.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c::D3aDhUMEaPc:E7_ec7PaP3iUiacyKUnciatkEP7DhUr puts a child’s words to the experience of living in multiple homes and ten different schools and trying to lead a normal life. Not many of us could do that successfully.

My own experience as a guardian reminds me of the many county children that did very poorly in school because of the traumas they had suffered and the behavioral problems they brought with them to school, and to their foster and adoptive homes (and into the communities they lived in).

“You’re in a new home,. You don’t know these people”. “you feel like a burden”.

The powerful point of the article is that the system is broken and children are suffering.

Minnesota’s Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz has stated that “the difference between that poor child & a felon is about eight years” and “about 90% of the youth in the juvenile justice system have passed through the child protection system”.

The data supports her.

We could provide more as a community to make the paths easier for abused and neglected children with programs and support from the community.

Or, we can go on producing preteen moms and juvenile felons with tightfisted & hard hearted public policies toward youth.

The choice is ours.

An Eagan student told of being homeless and living in a shelter, and urged senators to help foster children avoid having to move from school to school.

By ERIC ROPER, Star Tribune
Last update: April 29, 2010 – 7:51 PM

‘You feel like a burden’ Foster child advocates education reform in D.C.
WASHINGTON – Kayla VanDyke has had to leave a lot behind over the past 14 years as a foster child.

The 18-year-old living in Eagan has cycled through a multitude of homes, schools and counselors throughout her life, after being sent into foster care because of her mother’s drug use.

“I have been homeless. I have experienced living in a shelter. And I have been separated from my siblings along the way,” she told a U.S. Senate panel examining education reform Thursday. “But I am pleased to tell you that … I will be graduating [from high school] in four weeks with a 3.7 GPA.”

Senators and others in the room broke into applause at an achievement gained despite VanDyke’s having attended 10 different schools and missing out on fourth grade entirely. She has been accepted to Hamline University for this fall.

‘You’re kind of awesome’

“As one of my daughters would say, you’re kind of awesome,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate’s chief education committee, which is gearing up for the re-authorization of the No Child Left Behind educational testing law.

Sitting in a row of witnesses nearly 20 years her senior, VanDyke recounted how she was uprooted almost yearly as a child, shuttled from one foster family to the next. This was often accompanied by a change in schools, even when her old one was within driving distance.

“You’re in a new home. You don’t know these people. They already made accommodations for you,” said VanDyke, explaining why she did not feel comfortable asking for transportation to her old school. “You feel like a burden.”

Adding to her other struggles, the frequent transfers resulted in a disjointed education for Van Dyke.

“Schools do not teach the same thing at the same time,” she said. “And when you change schools, you may be relearning what you already learned. You may have completely skipped a section of your education.

VanDyke advocated for changes to give more guidance and resources to foster youths who want to stay in their current schools.

“I personally was very moved” by her testimony, said Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who invited Van Dyke to speak at the hearing. “She’s just a stellar young lady.”

Franken introduced a bill last November addressing some of VanDyke’s concerns, hoping it can be meshed with the new education bill. His proposal would encourage state education agencies to work closely with child welfare services to keep foster children in their current schools where possible. It would allocate money for transportion or other means for keeping students in their school.

‘The foster care system is broken’

There are an estimated 12,000 foster children in Minnesota, more than 8,000 of whom live in foster homes, said the Minnesota Department of Human Services. The remaining 4,000 are scattered among group homes and shelters. About half of the state’s foster childen live in the Twin Cities metro area.

A Human Services spokeswoman declined to comment on Franken’s bill.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland expressed frustration with the frequent communication gap between the foster care system and education agencies.

“The foster care system is broken in this country, and I think we’ve got to really put that out on the table,” Mikulski said. “We have watch lists to track terrorists, but we don’t have a tracking system to see where our own children are in their schools when they are uprooted.”

Eric Roper • 202-408-2723

Kids At Risk Action needs your support for its successful launch of televised public service announcements building awareness to the issues surrounding child abuse.

Contact KARA with your questions and support. Please contact us with your questions, referrals, and donations.

The KARA team.

ps… pass this on to those you think might appreciate the opportunity;

I would like reader comments on the style and substance of this article and appreciate receiving information from you about youth programs, policy, and data.

Budget cuts could put Family Drug Court in jeopardy

Posted: Mar 17, 2010 2:56 PM CDT
Updated: Mar 18, 2010 9:20 PM CDT

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HONOLULU (Hawaii News Now) – As lawmakers go over the state budget, judiciary officials are watching closely. Employees are worried more cuts could put its 11 treatment courts in jeopardy.

The courts go beyond the criminal system to help people suffering from mental illness, abuse or addiction. Here’s a look at one court that helps not just patients, but their children as well.
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=12157057

Selected Recent Publications and Data Briefs

This subsection provides links to selected publications and briefs that include data relating to youth violence and related topics released or published within the past 12 months.

Children’s Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey. (PDF 884 KB)
Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U. S. Department of Justice.
Crime in the United States. 2008.
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice.
Electronic Media and Youth Violence: A CDC Issue Brief for Researches. (PDF 11.1 MB)
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 2007.
Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2009. (PDF 2.1 MB)
Source: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. Available at:
Juvenile Arrests 2008. (PDF 760 KB)
Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.http://www.safeyouth.org/scripts/statistics/statistics_data.asp

2010 Florida CSC State Policy Program
Early Childhood System of Care: A Proven Investment Strategy

During these tough economic times, states are discovering what early childhood experts have known for decades – policies that promote healthy development throughout a child’s early years create a foundation for later school achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, and successful parenting.

States that support and invest in early childhood systems of care are seeing first-hand the positive outcomes in their communities. Juvenile crime rates drop. Gang violence is diminished. Child abuse and neglect is reduced. Children and their families are healthier and more self-sufficient. Students perform better in school.

Children are prepared to succeed. Early childhood systems also contribute to global economic outcomes, including a bigger and more qualified workforce, healthier communities, and a thriving consumer market. http://www.thechildrenstrust.org/fcsc-state-policy-program

Chicago;CBS2 investigation suggests Steinmetz and BEST high schools may be counting ghost students to inflate budgets.

Florida;NAPLES — Katalina Legros counts her blessing that she was able to take her newborn home when she left Gulf Coast Hospital after giving birth seven weeks ago.

The 39-year-old Naples resident knows the heartache all too well that mother and baby don’t always go home at the same time.

She’s got the Healthy Start Coalition of Southwest Florida to thank that both she and her baby, Mariah Legros, are healthy and her delivery went without a hitch.http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2010/apr/09/state-budget-cuts-could-threaten-lee-collier-healt/

Indiana;Indiana budget cuts target special needs kids
The Associated Press
Sunday, April 4, 2010 | 12:21 a.m.

Cash-strapped Indiana wants to scale back services for special-needs children placed in foster care.

The state would cut payments for hundreds of children with medical or emotional problems by moving them into cheaper care for children without special needs.

The move is part of a plan to cut $56 million from spending on the 10,000 children in state care. It follows a planned 10 percent cut in payments to foster parents. Many parents who receive up to $100 a day to care for special-needs children would be paid less than $25.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/apr/04/indiana-budget-cuts-target-special-needs-kids/

North Carolina Gang Violence Prevention;

http://seventeenb.org/pdfs/Stokes_09_10Community_Based_Youth_Gang_Violence_Prevention_Program_Agreement__GANG_ASSESSMENT.pdf

Dept of Justice Youth Gang Prevention and Intervention Program
http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/grants/solicitations/FY2010/YouthGangPrevention.pdf

Virginia, Governor’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act grant programs are intended to supplement the SADFSCA funds that flow directly from the Virginia Department of Education to every local school division for youth substance abuse, gang involvement and violence prevention programming.

For this award cycle, grants will be awarded to programs which emphasize prevention of gang involvement, realizing that early initiation of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use is a risk factor for youth gang involvement. In addition, community needs assessments regarding youth substance abuse, gang activity and violence may seek GOSAP SADFSCA funds. Projects in the following four categories will be funded:

http://www.gosap.virginia.gov/SDFSCA/announcement2010-2011.htm

National news;POVERTY DURING EARLY CHILDHOOD MAY LAST A LIFETIME
Children raised in poverty in their first five years are more likely to feel its effects well into adulthood.

By Jessica Marshall | Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:29 PM ET

According to the researchers, the earlier poverty intervention efforts begin within a child’s lifetime, the better the chances of that child overcoming the effects of poverty when he or she becomes an adult.
Getty Images
THE GIST:

Poverty during early childhood is correlated with lower adult income.
Childhood poverty causes lasting effects on the brain and on the way DNA is expressed.

Because early childhood is so important, researchers advise policies to address these problems should focus on the youngest children.

http://news.discovery.com/human/poverty-children-income-adults.html

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Become part of KARA’s email network by sending a request to join to;

amy.rostronledoux@yahoo.com

In Red Lake and other communities that have suffered such mayhem, much money has been spent after a tragedy to put in place services that should stop the next Virginia Tech, Red Lake, Columbine.

Mental health is the cornerstone of a healthy life. We all have our ups and downs. Some of us start lower than others and sink lower than others. Throw in alcohol or drugs (proscribed or not) & bad things begin to happen.

Programs that help youth understand these issues and how to cope with them are one of the best investments that we can make in our youth and our community.

Not having programs is expensive. Just ask the people that lost family and friends in Red Lake, Columbine, & at Virginia Tech.

The following articles are an expansion on the topic of money and teen substance abuse (thanks Jamie);

A new report finds that more kids say they are using alcohol and other drugs, but many parents are unable or unwilling to deal with the issue — a bad combination when declining support for prevention and cultural apathy about the issue leave parents as the last and sometimes only line of defense against adolescent drug use.
http://www.jointogether.org/news/features/2010/new-survey-again-raises-alarm.html

Cuts of substance will hurt teen drug, alcohol programs
BY PHILIP FEROLITO
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2010/03/01/cuts-of-substance-will-hurt-teen-drug-alcohol-programs

Latest Youth Substance Abuse Research Encourages Parents to Take Action Early

Mar 16, 2010 by Kim Manlove | Categories Addiction, Alcohol, Ecstasy, Teenagers, intervene
The recent release of the Partnership/MetLife Foundation Attitude Tracking Study (PATS) of teen drug use, and parent and teen attitudes toward substance use, shows both encouraging and alarming trends. The data point to notable increases in teen use of alcohol, marijuana and Ecstasy, marking an end to a decade of long declines in drug and alcohol use among young people. This coupled with the decline in “perceptions of harm,” among both teens and parents is a strong indication that American society may be in for a perfect storm of increased adolescent drug and alcohol abuse not experienced in the United States since the 1990s.

This storm is fed by a growing climate of parental denial, which sees teens agreeing that “being high feels good” and parents of teens who have drug and alcohol problems either waiting to act or taking no action at all to address the problem…….
http://decoder.drugfree.org/2010/03/16/latest-youth-substance-abuse-research-encourages-parents-to-take-action-early/

Reclaiming lives;

http://blog.reclaimingfutures.org/?q=adolescent-substance-abuse-treatment-SAMHSA-CASPAR

Plain talk on gang intervention;
http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/schools/safe-and-drug-free-schools/gang-resistance-intervention-program

Many good real world articles;

http://www.addiction-intervention.com/

A new national survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration report finds that 12-year-olds are using inhalants more than marijuana, hallucinogens, and cocaine combined.;

http://www.addiction-intervention.com/addiction/inhalant-abuse-increasing-among-12-year-olds/

The Growing Problem of Prescription Drug Abuse;

http://www.addiction-intervention.com/addiction/prescriptiondrugabuse/prescription-drug-abuse-still-a-growing-problem/

Trends of Alcohols and Drugs Abuse 1997 to 2007;

http://www.addiction-intervention.com/addiction/addiction-research/comparing-trends-for-co-abuse-of-alcohol-and-drugs-from-1997-to-2007/

Breaking addiction; feeling the pinch
http://www.coshoctontribune.com/article/20100321/NEWS01/3210304/Drug-addiction-on-the-rise-funding-for-treatment-declining

Safety first: Parents, Teens and Drugs;http://drugpolicy.org/safetyfirst/

Drug policy state by state; http://drugpolicy.org/statebystate/

Drugs, Police & the Law; http://drugpolicy.org/law/
Affected Communities; http://drugpolicy.org/communities/

Reducing Harm; http://drugpolicy.org/reducingharm/

Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/KidsAtRisk

amy.rostronledoux@yahoo.com

I have found social workers to be hard working and caring people, & frustrated like the rest of us in our troubled communities.

In business, outcomes are measured and process is controlled by results desired.

Once the process has been understood, measured, and adjusted, outcomes improve, and the resulting efficiencies save money and improve lives.

There are existing models for measuring social service outcomes, my favorite is; http://www.socialsolutions.com

Why our nation does not demand this software for its social service providers is a mystery to me.

The following article shows that the U.S. is not alone in its child protection troubles;

http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1375:lga-warns-that-laming-recommendation-on-referrals-could-qoverloadq-social-work-teams&catid=54:childrens-services-articles&q=&Itemid=22

LGA warns that Laming recommendation on referrals could “overload” social work teams
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Implementing some of the key recommendations in Lord Laming’s report on child protection is likely to overload already stretched social work teams and risks weakening the safety net that keeps children safe, the Local Government Association claimed this week.
The LGA identified as particularly problematic Lord Laming’s recommendation that every referral from another professional be followed up by a formal process known as initial assessment.
It said that on average, only 13% of the time taken to complete an initial assessment is spent with the child or family while 87% is spent on paperwork and process.
The LGA commissioned researchers at Loughborough University to examine the impact of Lord Laming’s report, The protection of children in England: a progress report.
The research team claimed that if the recommendation in relation to referrals and initial assessments was fully implemented:
The average increase in initial assessments across the country would be 91%
Around 2,000 extra social workers would be needed, and
The additional cost would be in the region of £75m a year.
The LGA called for social workers to instead be given more power to process referrals in the way which will best help the child, using their own discretion. The requirement to always do a formal initial assessment should be scrapped, it said.
Other measures the LGA would like to see include having all professionals record information in the same way, increasing the part played by other bodies such as the police and health services, and reducing the 300+ pages of guidance to a target of 100 pages.
The association also said interim funding of £116m was needed to help councils plug the gap created by social work reforms.
Cllr Shireen Ritchie, chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, said: “Money is an ugly topic to raise when the issue is the safety and wellbeing of children, but it would be irresponsible to pretend social work teams can make major changes to how they operate without there being implications for their workload and resources.
“Children who are at risk, and families which are struggling, will benefit more from additional time with experienced social workers that they will from an increase in the number of forms filled in about them. It is time to show more trust in our social workers to do the right thing for children.”

Footnote,

Most communities experience uncoordinated providers delivering multiple services without adequately planning the most effective ways of delivery. Costs are high, results suffer.

I have yet to see effective tracking or outcomes based measurements in our child protection services.

RECOMMEND, www.socialsolutions.com

every chance you get.

That has been my experience working as a guardian ad-litem also. Abused and neglected children grow up to have families of more abused and neglected children.

Once the cycle is broken, children grow up to be normal productive citizens and happy families. Until the cycle is broken, children go on to lead dysfunctional lives and spend years in and out of institutions, failing in school, personal development, and their communities.

This Danville-Pittsylvania program has been helping at-risk children avoid abuse by providing parental guidance and connecting families to other resources; Danville news http://www2.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/danville_news/article/executive_director_budget_cuts_would_affect_at-risk_children/18842/

Executive director: Budget cuts would affect at-risk children
By TARA BOZICK
Published: March 10, 2010
Updated: March 10, 2010

Local children may not get the developmental support they need if state legislators cut funding to Healthy Families Virginia.

The local Healthy Families program, operated by Danville-Pittsylvania Community Services, serves 60 families in Danville and Pittsylvania County every year.

Fewer local families and children would be served if funding gets cut, said Executive Director Jim Bebeau of DPCS.

The program helps at-risk children avoid abuse and neglect by providing parental guidance and connecting families to other resources like counseling, said Johanna Schuchert, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Virginia, the state organization that coordinates Healthy Families Virginia.

“That level of support would be gone,” said Lisa Briggs, local Healthy Families coordinator. “Sometimes these people don’t have anybody else.”

The program already received a 10 percent cut from $5.4 million to $4.9 million in the state’s introduced budget. Gov. Bob McDonnell recommended eliminating all state funding for the program.

Legislators continue to debate how to make up for more than a $4 billion state revenue shortfall for the next two-year budget.

So far, both the House and Senate would continue the 10 percent cut for both years. The Senate Finance Committee would cut another $2 million the second year — a 41 percent cut. The House Appropriations Committee would additionally cut $1.37 million (28 percent) the first year and $1.76 million (36 percent) the second year.

Healthy Families Virginia supports the Senate version because it gives the program a year to find additional funding, see what federal health-care reform brings and gives the economy time to turn around, Schuchert said.

Healthy Families guides first-time parents from pregnancy to when the child reaches age 5. Family support workers make home visits to provide information and also to connect parents with needed resources, Briggs said.

The program ensures children receive medical care and screens them for developmental problems, so they get connected to an intervention program early on. For instance, family support workers detect whether children need speech therapy so the child isn’t at a disadvantage upon entering school.

Often, many parents in the program statewide come from abused homes or have other problems like mental illness or substance abuse, Schuchert explained. The program breaks the cycle of abuse.

Fifty percent of mothers in the program last year reported they were abused as children, Schuchert said. Less than 1 percent of the 5,000 families served statewide reported children experiencing abuse last year.

The program prevents at-risk children from developing behaviors that result in use of more resources later on, like incarceration or counseling for disorders or abuse, Schuchert said.
“At times like this, it’s very difficult for our legislators to understand the value of prevention when the squeaky wheel is driving their budget process,” Schuchert said. “We encourage them to set aside as much as possible to support the prevention end of the continuum.”

For every dollar spent on Healthy Families, $4 to $7 in saved in intervention and health care costs, according to program statistics.

Healthy Families also helps parents set goals like finishing their education and getting jobs. Many of the parents helped locally are single moms, Briggs said.

Most of the local program’s funding comes from the state with 39 percent coming from the Virginia Department of Social Services and 18 percent coming through the local social services department with funding from the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program.

The local United Way provides 7 percent of funding and the rest is picked up by Danville-Pittsylvania Community Services.

DPCS still waits to see how budget cuts could affect Community Services, which must have its budget in place to start the next fiscal year in July, Bebeau said. The local agency already absorbed $600,000 in general fund cuts in the past two years.

Now, legislators are talking about additional cuts in general funds and cuts to Medicaid reimbursement, which serves as another major funding stream for Community Services.

The agency instituted a hiring freeze and uses flexibility in staffing in anticipation of cuts, Bebeau said.
“It could be a particularly difficult year,” he said. “All services across Virginia will receive cuts in funding. The depth and breadth of them are what we don’t know.”

Money losing newspapers are hard pressed to assign reporters to these tragic stories. As a guardian ad-Litem, I had a case with 49 police calls to a home before the children were removed (& only because the seven year old attempted to kill the five year old in front of the officer). I believe that the seven year old had been prostituted.

How can our community stand by without demanding change as three and five year old children are tortured and murdered and our overworked and underfunded social workers and institutions provide no safe place for abused youth to hide?

What follows are the sad stories of the Maryland girls, and several other tragedies that I have followed recently.

Md. woman is convicted of killing, freezing adopted girls
Renee Bowman could get life sentence without parole
February 23, 2010|By Dan Morse | The Washington Post

A Maryland woman described by prosecutors as a torturer and maimer of her adopted girls was convicted Monday of killing two of them and stuffing their bodies into a freezer, and inflicting more than 80 injuries on the third.

“What she did was absolutely horrendous,” said Laurence Foley, foreman of the jury that deliberated for about 90 minutes inside a Montgomery County courthouse. “There was an overwhelming amount of evidence.”

The case stunned the region and cast a spotlight on the District of Columbia’s child welfare agency, which had allowed Renee Bowman, 44, to adopt the three girls. She collected $152,000 for raising the children, according to trial testimony, with many payments arriving after she had killed the two girls and put their bodies in the freezer.

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2009/10/27/ruben-rosario-rising-toll-of-child-abuse-deaths-reaquires-attention-action/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/02/14/blaming-social-workers-when-children-die/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2005/03/28/week-after-redlake/


http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2009/06/21/amy-shermans-blog-for-floridas-at-risk-children/

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/crime-scene/calvert/mother-convicted-in-freezer-de.html

Listen to our book online; http://www.invisiblechildren.org/our-book/

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Support KARA buy our book or donate

Mr Pawlenty has already slashed programs for healthcare and daycare for the poor and focused his his attention on building prisons and increasing incarceration to control the effects of poverty in Minnesota. The state has reached half a billion in prison expense for the last fiscal year and five years of double digit prison population growth.

Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz has stated that the “difference between that poor child, and a felon, is about eight years”.

Minneapolis arrested 44% of its adult Black Men in 2001 under the supervision of the Governor’s appointed Public Safety Director Rich Stanek, who was forced to resign after the racial slurs he commonly used were printed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

“Children that are victims of failed personal responsibility are not my problem, nor are they the problem of the state of Minnesota” was Tim Pawlenty’s statement to Andy Dawkins and David Strand when they asked if he would support programs for abused and neglected children.

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It’s not just the meanness of the politics that are so hard to bear, but the lack of foresight and refusal to grapple with the critical underlying problems of the people making public policy.

These are generational issues that continue until the cycle is broken. The economics of short sighted politics don’t make sense.

Federal Reserve board directors Art Rolnick and Rob Grunewold have well researched and established the effectiveness of early childhood programs.

Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz states, “ninety percent of the youth in our juvenile justice system have come through child protection”. Identified and treated early, young children can be given the skills to succeed in school and our community.

Ignored because of our anti tax paralysis, the serious issues faced by children in child protection are not dealt with until behaviors become uncontrollable and someone gets hurt (it is exponentially more costly to institutionalize people over their lifetimes than it is to give them the skills to lead normal lives).

Three million children per year are reported to child protection agencies, 90% of the children in juvenile justice have come through C.P., and almost all felons have come through J.J. The cost of extensive institutionalization, the crimes they commit, their impact on our schools, city streets, and quality of life are profound.

Early childhood programs with more training and resources for child protection workers would save us billions in prisons, schools, courts, insurance, and pain as at risk children become functional adults instead of felons and preteen moms.

Home values within our inner cities are often half (or less) than they would be in a safe suburb. The insurance estimates of crime alone in the U.S. are between one and one point six trillion dollars annually.
It is costing us a fortune to ignore the maintenance of our bridges, courts, schools, and children.

It is time to counter the short sighted and inaccurate assumptions of the anti tax people. Our quality of life has suffered terribly wrecking our bridges and ruining our children.

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Kansas budget cuts and layoffs have created a backlog that appears to be growing dramatically.

Budget cuts hurting state child health program

By Marshanna Hester http://www.ktka.com/news/2010/feb/01/budget-cuts-hurting-state-child-health-program/

Almost all developed nations have affordable health care. Why are we unable to provide health care even for America’s children?

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2010
Budget cuts hurting state child health program

By Marshanna Hester
Forty thousand Kansas children depend on a state program for health insurance, but the state program is failing to do its job because of budget cuts.

Now some parents are worried how their children are going to get the care they need.

“I just couldn’t believe the state would cut a program for Kansas kids,” says Harold Stultz, a dad with children on Healthwave.

Like thousands of Kansas parents, Harold Stultz, who’s self-employed depends on state program Healthwave to provide health insurance for his children, including 12-year-old Keenan.

So when Keenan hurt his knee wrestling, Stultz assumed he had insurance. He was wrong.

“They said they had everything they need, but due to the economy and cutbacks they couldn’t process the applications.” says Stultz.

“I figured if it happened to me it happened to a lot of other people,” says Carmetti Klein a mom with children on Healthwave.

She’s right. Klein, just like Shultz, assumed her children were covered. She sent in her application on time, but learned it wasn’t processed.

“I got on the phone and told them I needed this processed,” says Klein.

The state’s not denying there are problems, so why are there delays? A spokesperson says he could: “verify that the delay in processing applications is due to a shortage of resources and manpower. We understand that many parents are frustrated at the delays in processing applications. This has been a problem since the recession really hit in Kansas in late 2008 and early 2009.”

It’s only getting worse because of the economy. The need is growing and applications are up dramatically.

Until his application is processed, Stultz will have to find money to treat his son’s knee. So far, that’s about $6,000.

‘It just upsets me that there are more people in my situation,” says Stultz.

Kansas provides low-cost health insurance to children who meet the following criteria: they must be under the age of 19, not covered by Medicaid, have a family income below 200 percent of the federal poverty level and who are not eligible for state employee health insurance.

The state says it is taking proactive steps to speed up processing, but it’s just now putting those into effect and it’s going to take time.

A specific number of pending applications is unavailable, but it is said to be a sizeable amount.

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Study released indicates sharp drop in child abuse in the U.S.
Child abuse drops sharply in U.S.
Study: Incidents declined by 26 percent from 1993 to 2006

NEW YORK – A massive new federal study documents an unprecedented and dramatic decrease in incidents of serious child abuse, especially sexual abuse. Experts hailed the findings as proof that crackdowns and public awareness campaigns had made headway. An estimated 553,000 children suffered physical, sexual or emotional abuse in 2005-06, down 26 percent from the estimated 743,200 abuse victims in 1993, the study found.

Full Article: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=9730224

It is interesting how this study compares to the ones by the Center for Disease Control on “The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study” and the National Survey on Drug Use’s Report (Dec. 17th ,2009) in the article titled , “Violent Behaviors Among Adolecent Females”. What implications will this new federal study have in regards to child welfare policy?
Posted 11 days ago | Reply Privately
Comments (7)

michael tikkanen
Founder at KARA Kids At Risk Action

I would not celebrate too quickly.

From where I stand today, the reported decrease in incidents of serious child abuse is not real in child protection services around the country.

It is a reflection of the number of cases not being accepted as a result of reduced programs and reduced funding due to the financial chaos in our economy

Where this is becoming evident is in the increase in juvenile justice and criminal justice cases.

We will soon be building more prisons (there were 13 million prison and jail releases in the U.S. last year). America now has 25% of the world’s prison population and only 5% of the world’s population. We charge 150,000 youth in adult courts each year.

These are just a few recent articles on lost programs in various states;

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2009/11/12/another-state-abandons-children-most-effective-program/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/01/02/prevent-child-abuse-wyoming-to-close/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/01/19/michigan-16-confirmed-increase-in-child-abuse-neglect-cases/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/01/27/georgia-child-protection-too-many-children-too-few-resources/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2009/10/27/ruben-rosario-rising-toll-of-child-abuse-deaths-reaquires-attention-action/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2009/09/20/978/

And an article on why it pays to keep programs for at risk youth;

http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=56880
Posted 10 days ago | Delete comment

WW
Therapist
Michael, I’m sure you would agree with Linda Spears of the Child Welfare League of America’s statement, “There’s much more public awareness and public intolerance around child abuse now,” especially since “It was a hidden concern before – people were afraid to talk about it if it was in their family.” I honestly think the article and study helps the general public have a better understanding when looking at the complexities of child abuse.

michael tikkanen
Founder at KARA Kids At Risk Action
See all michael’s activity »
Yes, I do agree that there is much more public awareness and public intolerance of child abuse and that is a good thing.

My fear and disappointment come from the growing problems being experienced in many states just maintaining programs that are absolutely necessary for providing the most minimal protection for abused and neglected children.

The growing poverty and trouble that poverty breeds are causing great stress and terrible things to happen to children all over America right now.

All summer long I reported on the bad news surrounding abused and neglected children for KARA, Kids At Risk Action.

It frightens me to think that people “in the know” will get behind this good news about reduced child abuse as if it were a valid current measurement of the conditions faced by abused and neglected children in our communities at this time.

It is just not true.

We need to speak honestly for these children.

www.invisiblechildren.org
Posted 9 days ago | Delete comment

SH
CASA Advocate at Volunteer
I graduated as a CASA Advocate in November of 2009. As of yet I do not have a case, neither do seven other graduates. We were told there are no new cases since November of last year. I agree this is excellent, hopefully it is because of Children not be abused.
Posted 4 days ago | Reply Privately

michael tikkanen
Founder at KARA Kids At Risk Action
See all michael’s activity »
Let me clarify why I have made this statement Sandra;

When money is tight, programs are cut and cases are not accepted. If there are fewer cases accepted, CASA graduates will have less to do.

Most funding for abused and neglected children’s programs comes from federal, state, and county governments.

Even as we speak, budgets are shrinking and every community is searching to move money to where the need is greatest.

With the chaos in the economy, nonprofits have lost substantial portions of their endowments, which has forced them to cut back on their charitable giving for programs that help at risk youth..

Abused and neglected children suffered from underfunded programs before the economic chaos. Even without this report, their conditions would not be improving.

Below are just a few of the recently closed programs for abused and neglected children that I have written about;

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/02/06/californias-child-protection-problems-grow/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/01/27/georgia-child-protection-too-many-children-too-few-resources/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/01/19/michigan-16-confirmed-increase-in-child-abuse-neglect-cases/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/01/02/prevent-child-abuse-wyoming-to-close/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2009/11/12/another-state-abandons-children-most-effective-program/

Perhaps you are in a county that really is not experiencing child abuse.

I do hope that is true.

Best wishes,

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Posted 3 days ago | Delete comment
LL

Thank you for all of those links, Michael, and for all the work you do. I haven’t been a CASA long enough to note any trends, but we are certainly overloaded with tragic cases.
Posted 2 days ago | Reply Privately

KM
Program Manager

Thank you Michael for providing us with this sobering news. By balancing this study with the reality that significant programs are being cut, you are helping others understand the full complexity of child abuse – especially the impact of our recent economic hard times. With more programs getting cut it makes total sense that there are fewer resources to help prevent and treat child abuse; and consequently, why we need your caution about the findings of this study. You are a continual, courageous force against those who so easily want to sweep child abuse under the carpet, and I greatly appreciate that you have hard facts to stem that reaction. Thank you so much!

The bad news; As a nation, we know that high school dropouts have a far greater chance of preteen pregnancy, years of costly incarceration and leading dysfunctional lives that they pass on to their children.

Today, many states are increasing their percentage of spending on juvenile justice and criminal justice while maintaining or reducing spending on education. New York and California have been spending about $250,000 per year per juvenile in their juvenile justice systems. MN has reached the half a billion dollar mark for maintaining its prison system this year after five years of double digit growth.

The potential for finding new money for progressive new programs (no matter how successful) in this climate is slim.

What can we do?

Does any one here have a story of a successful approach within their own community?

Please share.

Read NY Times article;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/education/08school.html

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For Students at Risk, Early College Proves a Draw
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: February 7, 2010
Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times

Precious Holt, in class at SandHoke, resisted joining the program at first. “Now I’m excited,” she said, “because I’m a year ahead.”

When the bus arrives, she checks in with a guidance counselor and heads off to a day of college classes, blending with older classmates until 4 p.m., when she and the other seniors from SandHoke Early College High School gather for the ride home.

There is a payoff for the long bus rides: The 48 SandHoke seniors are in a fast-track program that allows them to earn their high-school diploma and up to two years of college credit in five years — completely free.

Until recently, most programs like this were aimed at affluent, overachieving students — a way to keep them challenged and give them a head start on college work. But the goal is quite different at SandHoke, which enrolls only students whose parents do not have college degrees.

Here, and at North Carolina’s other 70 early-college schools, the goal is to keep at-risk students in school by eliminating the divide between high school and college.

“We don’t want the kids who will do well if you drop them in Timbuktu,” said Lakisha Rice, the principal. “We want the ones who need our kind of small setting.”

Results have been impressive. Not all students at North Carolina’s early-college high schools earn two full years of college credit before they graduate — but few drop out.

“Last year, half our early-college high schools had zero dropouts, and that’s just unprecedented for North Carolina, where only 62 percent of our high school students graduate after four years,” said Tony Habit, president of the North Carolina New Schools Project, the nonprofit group spearheading the state’s high school reform.

In addition, North Carolina’s early-college high school students are getting slightly better grades in their college courses than their older classmates.

While North Carolina leads the way in early-college high schools, the model is spreading in California, New York, Texas and elsewhere, where such schools are seen as a promising approach to reducing the high school dropout rate and increasing the share of degree holders — two major goals of the Obama administration.

More than 200 of the schools are part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Early College High School Initiative, and dozens of others, scattered throughout the nation, have sprung up as projects of individual school districts.

“As a nation, we just can’t afford to have students spending four years or more getting through high school, when we all know senior year is a waste,” said Hilary Pennington of the Gates Foundation, “then having this swirl between high school and college, when a lot more students get lost, then a two-year degree that takes three or four years, if the student ever completes it at all.”

Most of the early college high schools are on college campuses, but some stand alone. Some are four years, some five. Most serve a low-income student body that is largely black or Latino. But all are small, and all offer free college credits as part of the high school program.

“In 27 years as a college president, this is just about the most exciting thing I’ve been involved in,” said John R. Dempsey, the president of Sandhills. “We picked these kids out of eighth grade, kids who were academically representative at a school with very low performance. We didn’t cherry-pick them. Their performance has been so startling that you see what high expectations can do.”

Initially, the prospect of two years of college at no cost was less appealing to Ms. Holt than to her mother, Simone Dean, an Army mechanic at nearby Fort Bragg.

“I didn’t want to do it, because my middle school friends weren’t applying,” Ms. Holt said. “I cried, but my mother made me do it.

“The first year, I didn’t like it, because my friends at the regular high school were having pep rallies and actual fun, while I had all this homework. But when I look back at my middle school friends, I see how many of them got pregnant or do drugs or dropped out. And now I’m excited, because I’m a year ahead.”

he nation’s early-college high schools are still new, it is too soon to say whether strapped states will be impressed enough to justify the extra costs of college tuition, college textbooks and academic support,

Related

A recent report from Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit group that is coordinating the Gates initiative, found that in 2008, the early-college schools that had been open for more than four years had a high school graduation rate of 92 percent — and 4 out of 10 graduates had earned at least a year of college credit.

With a careful sequence of courses, including ninth-grade algebra, and attention to skills like note-taking, the early-college high schools accelerate students so that they arrive in college needing less of the remedial work that stalls so many low-income and first-generation students. “When we put kids on a college campus, we see them change totally, because they’re integrated with college students, and they don’t want to look immature,” said Michael Webb, associate vice president of Jobs for the Future.

The first early-college high schools — Bard College at Simon’s Rock, a residential private liberal-arts college in Great Barrington, Mass., and Bard High School Early College, a public school in New York City — were selective schools intended to cure the boredom that afflicts many talented high school students.

“The philosophy behind the school was that the last two years of high school are not engaging, and we would set up something that would make them intellectually exciting.” said Ray Peterson, the principal of Bard High School Early College.

But at the City University of New York’s early-college schools, the emphasis is less on preventing the senior slump than on aligning high school with college.

“Our students are actually planning for college-level coursework from their first day in the school,” said Cass Conrad, executive director for school support and development at CUNY, which has a dozen early-college high schools. “And their teachers plan backwards from college, to make sure they’ll know what they need to be successful in college-level classes.”

In the pine woods of North Carolina, SandHoke students start in a small Hoke County school down the road from a turkey-processing plant, and begin traveling to the Sandhills campus, nestled among the golf courses of Moore County, only as seniors. Their first college class, in 10th grade, is a user-friendly communications course taught by Cathleen Kruska, a high-energy teacher who had them discussing job interviews, learning which kinds of questions are legally permissible and doing mock interviews.

Ms. Kruska teaches the same course to college students at Sandhills, and said the only difference was that the high school students were needier.

These days, aspirations run high. Ms. Holt, for example, is aiming for medical school. She was disappointed last semester to get three B’s and two A’s.

“That’s not what I was hoping for,” she said, “and I’m going to work harder this semester.”

Her high standards have affected the whole family.

“My 13-year-old is going to apply to SandHoke for next year,” Ms. Dean said. “And I’m actually learning from Precious. When I’m done with the military, I want to get my degree.”

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African American and American Indian children are disproportionately represented in the system as well as in their probability of leading dysfunctional lives as they age out of foster care.

These recent news posts will bring you up to date on the difficulties being faced by the people of California (and other states) in dealing with the policies and politics of abused and neglected children

A few more observations from California’s Blue Ribbon Commission;

Fewer than 150 full & part time judicial officers preside over the entire dependency court system (many thousands of children are being reported each year).

Full-time juvenile dependency court judges carry an average caseload of 1,000 cases.

Children and parents sometimes do not meet their attorneys until moments before their hearings (reports are often incomplete, it’s hard to get all the facts straight in a few moments).

The median time for a hearing is 10 to 15 minutes (this often determines the fate of a family for many years to come).

Judges are often assigned to juvenile court for short rotations, instead of the recommended three years. (my comment; judges do not always have a good understanding of what they are getting into in juvenile court and it can take some time to adjust to this kind of law practice.

Short term assignments to the juvenile court pretty much insures that about the time the judge begins to understand the complexities of the issues faced by these families and community trying to serve them, the judge moves on – no one is served by this)

Families are often involved with more than one system, yet courts and other agencies do not easily share data or information that may be critical to the families’ circumstances.

In my own case as a guardian ad-Litem, I have seen the results of a seven year old terribly abused boy given back to the custody of his terribly abusive father even though the father had a court order (from an adjoining state) keeping him away from young boys. Yes, it has completely destroyed the boy. He is mentally unhealthy and has HIV AIDS today.

My note; every state is facing problems like this. Few states appreciate the value of investing in systems that will save the children they are serving.

California has about 48 initial child abuse reports per 1,000 children according to the kidsdata.org

Article on LA County childcare approach to children in foster care;
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-foster-care5-2010feb05,0,201241.stor

The Department of Children and Family Services will suspend its effort to reduce the number of children in foster care in the wake of the deaths of several children formerly in its care.

By Garrett Therolf
February 5, 2010

Los Angeles County has suspended a long-standing effort to reduce the number of children in foster homes because keeping more of the children with their birth families could be unsafe, the county’s top child-welfare official said.

FOR THE RECORD:

Foster care: The headline for an article in Friday’s Section A about foster care in Los Angeles County incorrectly said county child welfare officials planned to “end” an emphasis on family over foster care. As the story reported, Department of Children and Family Services Director Trish Ploehn told a reporter last week that such reunifications would not happen as frequently as in the past until new reforms were in place to ensure safety. The county still plans to reunite or preserve families whenever possible. —

The decision marks a turnaround for the Department of Children and Family Services, which for many years has sought to cut the foster care rolls, in part by trying to mend troubled families. The department’s leaders have cited the decline in foster children — from a high of 52,000 in 1997 to a low of 19,900 last year — as one of their proudest achievements.

“I do want these numbers to start going down again but only when I can assure everyone that the work we are doing results in safety for that child who is going home,” said Trish Ploehn, the department’s director.

“I don’t know how much more we can go down in the numbers, though,” she said. “We are a very large county, and it’s possible that we are already at the level where we are supposed to be.”

The decision is the most significant of several reforms made by the department after a series of high-profile child deaths last year, some of which involved the department putting too much faith in its ability to rehabilitate families. In 2009, The Times reported that reunifications led to some children’s further injuries and even deaths. Isabel Garcia, for instance, starved to death two months after child-welfare officials deemed that she, her five siblings and their parents were all doing well.

Toddler Angel Montiel and his siblings were reunited with their parents after the couple enrolled in parenting classes, drug testing and other “family preservation” services.

He subsequently was beaten to death. An autopsy found dozens of injuries, some fresh and some healed, including broken bones and burns. Originally charged with murder, his mother pleaded no contest to manslaughter and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

“These cases had a very deep effect on the department,” Ploehn said.

Under the department’s policies, social workers had been encouraged to keep children in their original homes by helping parents deal with problems believed to underlie abuse, including addiction, anger, unemployment and mental illness.

At the same time, the county increased the number of child-parent reunions, reduced the time such reunifications take and — for children who couldn’t go home — doubled the number of adoptions.

In 2007, the department wagered that it could drive the numbers down further. It entered an experimental federal program that pays the county a limited sum for foster care services. If it exceeded that amount, the county had to pay the difference. If it spent less, the county could use the savings to reduce child abuse and neglect as it saw fit.

The policy pivot by Ploehn is likely to be controversial. Foster care has many critics who say children often are dispatched to one place after another without any sense of permanence or normal family life, and end up homeless and unemployed in adulthood.

A group called DCFS Give Us Back Our Children often demonstrates outside Edelman Children’s Court in Monterey Park, saying that too many children are removed from families unnecessarily.

One member, Sabreen Shabazz, 56, of Los Angeles, cares for her 11-month-old granddaughter, who was removed from her daughter’s custody.

Shabazz worries that her granddaughter might be unnecessarily sent to foster care because the family lives on only $845 a month and sometimes struggles to pay for apartment repairs ordered by the department.

“DCFS has a family preservation unit and they need to focus on that work more, not less,” said Janet Mitchell, a friend who attends the group’s monthly meetings. “Look at Sabreen: She’s a loving grandmother who just needs help. They live in poverty, but the child is happy because she is loved.”

In 2009, at least 17 children died of abuse or neglect even though child-welfare officials were well aware of their troubled family histories. Fourteen youngsters suffered such deaths in 2008.

Among the other reforms under way:

* Three hundred workers are being redeployed to the child abuse investigations unit at a cost of $37.5 million, reducing the average investigator’s caseload from 25 to 18.

* An improved computer system is being developed to provide child-abuse investigators with more information from other county agencies — mental health, for example, or law enforcement — about troubled families.

* An additional layer of review is being added to child-abuse investigations before they can be declared “unfounded.”

* Dozens of workers are being disciplined for their poor handling of cases that ended in death.

By some key measures, however, the county is falling behind schedule on reform efforts, especially the computer system.

That project is overseen by County Chief Executive William T Fujioka because it requires coordination with many county departments.

The need for such a system has been repeated in more than a dozen reports over almost two decades. Each concluded that county agencies were not exchanging vital information that could prevent death and injury to abused children. None inspired significant change.

Once again, the deadline for many of the improvements — such as adding data from county hospitals and local police departments — has passed without action. Work on longer-term goals has barely begun.

Overall, the department’s reform efforts also have been stymied by a 9% reduction in its $1.7-billion budget this year. That’s not likely to improve any time soon: Ploehn has been ordered to plan an additional 9% cut for next year.

garrett.therolf@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Department of Family Services For The Record on DCF’s article;
http://mayorsampressrelease.blogspot.com/2010/02/update-la-times-issues-for-record-on.html

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To not support children that are unable to read or function well in the classroom is to insure continued failing schools and more and bigger prisons.

America is already the largest criminal nation in the world in per capita and in gross prison numbers – and that is expensive in financial and quality of life measurements.

The following This PEW issue brief goes on to explain in detail why we should continue early childhood programs in tough economic times.

Use this information to help your local programs keep their funding in these hard times. Cutting Early Childhood Programs Worsens Fiscal Problems http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=56880

Contact: Rolanda B. Rascoe, 202.540.6413Washington, DC – 01/19/2010 – States can save money and stimulate their economies, in the short and long run, by protecting funding for effective pre-kindergarten and home visiting programs, according to a new issue brief by the Partnership for America’s Economic Success. “The Costs of Disinvestment”

http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Partnership_for_Americas_Economic_Success/Cost_of_Disinvestment_brief_final.pdf?n=1454

provides evidence for why states cannot afford to cut early childhood programs whose demonstrated economic and societal benefits reduce taxpayer costs now and generate more revenue in the future. Rigorous science and hard data show that these investments are fundamental to achieving a globally competitive workforce and fiscal sustainability for states and the nation.

“Reducing budgets for proven early childhood policies means health, education and social services costs will rise,” said Sara Watson, the Partnership’s director and senior officer at the Pew Center on The States. “The fiscally wise choice is to maintain quality home visiting and pre-k investments. These policies are steps toward short-term savings for states and produce high rates of return on each public dollar by stimulating consumer and business spending.”

The brief highlights how public funding for evidence-based home visiting and early learning benefits taxpayers as soon as a year after children and families have received services. Voluntary home visiting programs serving pregnant women can help decrease by half the incidence of low-birthweight births, each of which adds between $28,000 and $40,000 in costs. Pre-k programs can quickly reduce the number of children with developmental delays or held back in the early grades. A study of New Jersey’s Abbott Preschool Program found 30 percent less grade retention in first grade among children who attended one year and up to 50 percent less for those who attended at both ages 3 and 4; each child held back costs the state $16,000 per year.

The brief also provides evidence that early childhood programs act as an economic stimulus. Because child care and pre-k professionals tend to spend much of their earnings locally, their jobs cause wage dollars to move multiple times through their communities. Facilities maintenance and supplies for early childhood programs are heavily local, spurring spending when and where it is most needed. Also, parents whose children are in reliable, quality care are able to work more productively and rely less on public assistance, while parents out of work can better search for jobs and participate in training programs. Such public investments can help attract new business by signaling the state’s commitment to workforce development.

The Partnership for America’s Economic Success is a national coalition of business executives, economists, funders and civic leaders mobilizing business to improve tomorrow’s economy through smart policy investments in young children today. It is managed by the Pew Center on the States and funded by Robert Dugger, the George Gund Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Ohio Children’s Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts and Scholastic, Inc.