INVISIBLE CHILDREN

on April 16, 2011

. 0 Comments

Today’s Star Tribune article by Hennepin County District Judge Lucy Wieland reinforces a powerful message delivered by MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz a few years ago; “it is time to put away our rosy view of Minnesota as a land of opportunity and grapple with the ugly reality of racial disparity”.

I grew up in Nordeast Minneapolis in the 1950’s and a number of my friend’s fathers were firemen, postmen, policemen and city / state highway workers. There were no women or black men in these jobs back then. I will never forget the phoney qualifications testing that kept these jobs for white men only, nor the social policy changing *war that occurred to end this discrimination.

The unrest of the 60’s & the vicious attacks by policemen & dogs and firemen on nonviolent protesters (Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connors/Selma Alabama) was not that long ago—I’m not that old.

Many of my friend’s fathers were outspoken bigots afraid of being forced to share their good paying jobs with other people.

I had few liberal childhood friends in my neighborhood and I had no healthy understanding of racial issues until I was in college. I remember one black student in junior high school and none from my senior high school (and I was an inner city kid).

Today, too many of my friends and business associates talk the same talk (minus certain words) that I heard back then. Blaming people that have very little, never had much, and most likely will never have more than subsistence (no matter what they do), along with teachers and social workers as the root of our nation’s problems.

Blaming and hating people solved nothing in the 50’s and it is not working today (if it were, we could simply elect Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh to run the nation). Continue reading ‘What’s It Gonna Take? Judge Lucy Wieland Is Dead Right’

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David’s Question For Liberals & Conservatives

Published

on March 27, 2011

in David Strand, Politics and Funding and Public Policy

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The question. What do you think of people who allow children to be punished for the accident of their birth? I ask myself that question, and I do it while looking into a mirror. And I don’t like the answer I get. You see, I am a citizen of a country that punishes children who, through no fault of their own, are born into low-income families.

This is the punishment for their misfortune. American children of low income parents have the smallest chance of escaping poverty in growing to adulthood of all industrial nations. By failing to be able to read by their third grade, kids experience humiliation and only rarely manage to recover and catch up to their peers.

Studies show that children who can read by the 3rd grade are seldom ever involved with the criminal justice system. On the contrary, four of five incarcerated juvenile offenders read two years or more below grade and the majority are functionally illiterate.

This horrible truth puts a dagger through the heart of America’s most fundamental self-described exceptionalism. The belief that we are world champions of equal opportunity is false. It is a myth. It is a cruel reality to millions of our littlest citizens.

This crushed pillar of national pride is revealed in a half dozen studies of social mobility reported in recent years. They have come from researchers in Germany, Great Britain, Canada and more recently the Pew Charitable Trust and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). They are all slightly different, but all have the same conclusion. This sad fact is most recently revealed in Time magazine’s March 14 cover story “Yes, America Is In Decline”.

“Yet several studies, the most recent from the OECD last year, have found that the average American has a much lower chance of moving out of his parents income bracket than people do in places like Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Canada.”

So when conservatives blast liberals for supporting wealth re-distribution, they are ignoring the absence of fairness in how America’s wealth is distributed today. It isn’t fair at all. And liberals who argue that taxes on the rich are unfairly low, neglect the best argument of all. Income does not need to be equally distributed. What is needed are public policies that provide all kids a healthy start in life and a reasonably equal chance at prosperity. That is the equal opportunity environment that all other industrial nations seek and that they all support in varying degrees.

Ironically, the science of brain development that other societies use to convince taxpayers to support equal opportunity policies is a product of researchers here in American universities. We have some of the world’s best and they all show that healthy prenatal care and the first years of life are the most important for brain development. The only problem is our American policy makers have ignored this locally produced research.

And this is the high risk adventure America has embarked on. The single most important determinant or a nation’s success is the strength of its human capital. By squandering the lives of millions of children raised in low income families, America is creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Yes, America is in decline and it is our own fault.

Why is one of every four prison inmates in the world incarcerated here? Does it have anything to do with kids left without support in poor families, and then when they fall behind in school, and later drop out they conclude they never had a chance at the winning cards? Their mother didn’t get prenatal care, something all other modern countries apply universally. Their moms and dads didn’t get to stay home with them in their first year, like that available in all other countries, then they never could go to nursery schools and other pre-kindergarten places. And when they did get to the 3rd grade, they couldn’t read.

Conservatives and liberals, did you know that a woman experiencing childbirth has a greater chance of dying here than in 49 other countries. That includes all other industrial countries plus places like Cuba? Isn’t that something to be ashamed of? Equally shameful is the fact that we don’t know how to keep babies alive in the first year of life-our terrible infant mortality proves it.

Here is what other countries do routinely to ensure reproductive health and to guarantee that all children have a good chance to succeed.

* income of full-time employment provides families above poverty living standard.

* universal housing for all families with children.

* universal health care.

* paid maternity and parental leave for both parents with guarantee of return to the previous job.

* women’s guaranteed right to breastfeed at work.

* universal pre-school child care and development.

* guaranteed sick leave for illness and family care.

* minimum of 5 to 6 weeks of paid vacation.

* taxpayer paid college tuition for qualifying students.

* protection of children from predatory marketing by consumer product companies.

None of these programs exist in the United States. That is why it is accurate to describe our country as a mamouth incubator for prison inmates. And that is why the US is in 30th place in government tax revenue as % to GDP. We are easily the lowest taxed country of the developed world.

Yes conservatives and liberals, Americans should pay more taxes and the top 10% of us who have amassed nearly all the growth in wealth in the past three decades should pay the most. And the reason isn’t to “redistribute wealth”, it is to begin living up to our words we so often pay homage to, that all Americans have the right to the pursuit of happiness.

Those who have prospered the most have the most at stake to correct this injustice.

This isn’t even paper airplane science. It is common sense. You don’t let children play with guns or drive cars. And you don’t punish them for poverty they are born into through no fault of their own.

I don’t think much of people like me, and conservative and liberals and people in the middle, who punish kids for their misfortune of birth, which means America is not fair.

It’s time we stop it. If we don’t, the words of Pliny the elder will be our fate. “What we do to our children, they will do to society.”

Reprinted from
Strand tidings and view 3.22.11
By David Strand,

Aitkin Age Newspaper Aitkin, Minnesota
dlstrand@msn.com

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Joe Biden, Rape, Teachers & Social Workers; A Common Thread

Published

on March 19, 2011

. 0 Comments

Joe Biden’s recent rape/blame the victim comparison blaming poor people and the middle class for destroying the world economy points to a flawed attack on teachers and social workers as the root cause of school and child protection failure is more disturbing than most of us understand.

Politicians make political hay by blaming “civil servants” for a multitude of institutional failures that they themselves are responsible for. It is a poor understanding of underlying issues and lack of concern for the children and poor families that is killing us.

I’ve met hundreds of educators, social workers, and health workers as a volunteer guardian ad-Litem, and almost every single one of them did their work to the best of their abilities and to my knowledge, none of them were in it for the money.

How dumb must we be to accept that when a baby is found in a dumpster it’s the lowly social worker at fault? Or, when attacking the profound problems of education lay our failures at the feet of lazy & overpaid teachers? The work is getting harder every years as poverty, violence, and misery affect more and more children that have to be managed by fewer and fewer teachers, social workers, and health care dollars.

There is no question that poor governance is the root cause of the dramatic collapse in the quality of life indices America has suffered these past twenty years.

The U.S. has have fallen so far that we no longer compare ourselves to the 23 other industrialized nations with 200 year old democracies. These are our peers with the infrastructure and money to provide the highest levels of education, health, and safety within our nation. We should not compare ourselves to Pakistan, Mexico, or Afghanistan, but those nations we have always measured ourselves against.

America has the highest sexually transmitted disease rates, more preteen moms, crime, poverty and criminals than any other industrialized nation.

As a baby boomer that grew up in new schools with good health care and safe streets, it hurts me terribly to see the lack of support for at risk children, education, and healthcare that are necessary to make today’s youth capable of leading productive lives.

*Instead of investing and facilitating progressive programs, our courts and justice system have become our short sighted answer to everything.

This criminal justice policymaking has brought immense suffering to our cities, 13 million prison/jail releases and over 1 trillion dollars in insurance estimates of crime costs last year alone.

We are jailing eleven year olds as adults, denying health care to poor families and seriously troubled children, and trailing the industrialized world in almost all quality of life indices.

In Minnesota, we don’t have six billion dollars for infrastructure and support for social programs over the next two years, but we will pay our share of the Afgan and Iraq wars (sixty billion dollars will be paid by MN taxpayers over the next two years).

Support the people, programs, and policies that bring positive change to our nations youth and stop blaming the people doing the work for the problems of poor governance. Always Vote (it really matters).

Pass this onto people that need to know.

*Terrific article on American prisons from Aljazeera

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He Would Wander The Streets With His Dog Looking For His Mother When He Was A Boy; Abandoned As An Infant – Executed at 37

Published

Continue reading ‘He Would Wander The Streets With His Dog Looking For His Mother When He Was A Boy; Abandoned As An Infant — Executed at 37′

on March 11, 2011

in Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health and Public Policy

. 5 Comments

If you have not worked with children in child protection systems, the above headline might seem extreme.

There is very little sympathy for felons in our nation and very few people stop to question why there is so much crime and so many criminals.

Not me.

I know that MN Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Blatz is accurate when she says that 90% of the youth in our juvenile justice systems have come through child protection services & that Minneapolis MN arrested 44% of its adult African American men in 2001 (no duplicate arrests).

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Abused & Neglected Children Impacting Schools, Courts & Communities; What Works — What doesn’t

Published

on March 5, 2011

dropout rates,
sexually transmitted disease rates,
murder & incarceration rates

. 0 Comments

It stinks to know that my community (family, friends, & business associates included) are committed to policies that guarantee America maintain the industrialized world’s highest;

Some states have quality of life indices for children that rival Afghanistan. Child poverty in Mississippi, uninsured children and births to preteen mothers in Texas, infant mortality and child death in Louisiana are comparable to conditions in third world nations. Continue reading ‘Abused & Neglected Children Impacting Schools, Courts & Communities; What Works — What doesn’t’

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Changing America’s Troubled Foster Care System

Published

on February 26, 2011

Continue reading ‘Changing America’s Troubled Foster Care System’

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Two friends have frightened me into writing this.

One, a bright fellow & past executive director of a nonprofit serving at risk youth, the other a successful businessman that has adopted many children over many years. Both have good hearts and great minds.

The political fellow tried to make a life in the nonprofit world as an executive. He quickly realized that his nonprofit (and he extrapolated that most of them) could not make rational, sustainable decisions to create outcomes consistent with their mission statements.

That’s the long way of saying that most non profits are badly run in his estimation.

He left his executive position (& the nonprofit world) after continued disagreements with the board of directors and I believe, the opinion that nonprofits could not sustainably meet the needs of abused and neglected children.

The other fellow, a long time businessman, explained that his experiences with adopted children and government agencies were bad, and therefore government should stay out of the lives of abused and neglected children.

These gentlemen believe that non profits can’t fix the problem, and our social service agencies can’t help either.

What’s left for abused and neglected children if this level of failure in the non profit and social service sector exist?

Should we let these children just sink to the bottom (as in Jonathon Swift’s MODEST PROPOSAL)?

This is what Minnesota’s last Governor, Tim Pawlenty said to Andy Dawkins & David Strand when asked his opinion; “children that are the victims of failed personal responsibility are not my problem, nor are they the problem of the State of Minnesota”

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The Scandal Of Medicating Very Young Children In Child Protection Systems

Published

Continue reading ‘The Scandal Of Medicating Very Young Children In Child Protection Systems’

on February 20, 2011

in Health and Mental Health, Kids At Risk Action (KARA) and Public Policy

. 1 Comment

Today’s Star Tribune article,

One Scandal After Another, brings attention to the unethical if not criminal behavior of pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and anyone promoting the psychotropic medication of very young children without adequate mental health services.

U of M bioethics professor Carl Elliott discusses drug company payments to doctors and the enormous amounts of money drug reps make by pushing profitable drugs and running outright scams on doctors to sell their product.

My own experience is based on many years as a volunteer guardian ad-Litem and first hand knowledge working with medicated five and ten year old children with real mental health needs but only receiving Prozac, Ritalin, or any of a multitude of psychotropic drugs.

There are few things more painful than watching abused and neglected children not receiving the personal attention of professionals that could help them deal with their mental health needs.

Almost all of the troubled children I worked with suffered extensive and long lasting damage because drugs were used to mask behavior and not useful, proven therapy.

A child protection judge shared with me the psychotropic medications taken by the children that passed through her child protection courtroom over a year’s time (unbelievable).

I personally have experienced suicidal ideation delivered to me by Topamax, a psychotropic medication given (no warnings were given) to me years ago to treat migraine headaches. I am a mature adult and was able to quit taking the drug. Children have no voice in what drugs they take. Children in child protection have no say at all in their own treatment.

Share this with people you think would like to help make life better for at risk children.

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The Crime Of Prosecuting 10 Year Olds As Adults

Published

on February 11, 2011

in Crime and Courts, Politics and Funding and Public Policy

. 1 Comment

MN is attempting to become the 4th state to prosecute very young children as adults.

The children that commit these crimes have almost all come out of horribly abusive homes. As a nation, we have avoided even a basic effort to ensure that American youth have at least a small chance to lead a normal life. The rest of the industrialized world has left us behind in this measurement.

The last MN governor (Tim Pawlenty) was quoted as saying that “children that are the victims of failed personal responsibility are not my problem, nor are they the problem of the state of MN”

After many years of working with abused and neglected children, I have witnessed the grim reality of MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz statement that “90% of the youth in the justice systems have come through child protection services”.

Not many Edina or Suburban MN youth end up in County Child Protection (their families have insurance, day care, and mental health programs for troubled youth).

The children in Child Protection are there under the federal “Imminent Harm Doctrine” and have been removed from their homes because their lives have been endangered by their birth parents.

As a volunteer guardian ad-Litem, I can testify to the trauma abused and neglected children live with every day. The World Health Organization defines torture as “extended exposure to violence and deprivation”. This is exactly what I have witnessed happening to the children in my case load in Hennepin County MN.

Hating the parents solves nothing. They were almost all abused themselves as children. Many of them are preteen moms with no parenting skills and their own dysfunctional lives.

It’s horrid enough to witness the abuse these children live with all of their young lives. To think that five and ten year old children have not been punished enough by living with sex abuse, neglect, and other unspeakable act, that we must try them as adults and make sure that they never have any chance of living a normal life is just awful.

There is not a religion in the world that sanctify’s discarding ten year olds.

Once these children enter a criminal adult system they are ruined forever. The rape and insanity of youth entering the criminal justice system is well documented.

It is extremely costly to our state to try and solve these problems with more prison building (it’s also immoral).

It is common that these children will spend 30 to 60 years as returning felons, wards of the state, and dysfunctional citizens unable to hold a job or avoid drug dependency. Consider also the many years of violence and perpetual criminal behavior our prison system fosters.

MN spent 500 million on prisons last year. New York and California spend $250,000 per year on each youth in their juvenile justice systems.

It would be far less costly to our communities to provide resources to young and troubled families to insure that young children receive what they need to lead a normal life.

Just a few years ago a federal mandate forbid the the execution of youth that had committed crimes as juveniles.

Representative Westrom’s bill to try 10 year olds as adults is a step backwards and completely destroys any chance that an already abused and neglected child will ever have the opportunity to lead a normal life.

I write the following while remembering the unspeakable things that happened to the children in my caseload.

While this is harsh, I see the motivation for Jonathon Swift’s Modest Proposal;the children he speaks of lead such miserable lives, that killing them early would reduce their suffering.

Abandoning children to a criminal justice system that rapes and destroys them may be worse than death.

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Autism, Child Protection, & Insurance; Texas could save 2Billion$ by treating autistic children

Published

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on February 6, 2011

in Health and Mental Health, Public Policy and The States

. 0 Comments

This well written article on the success of early aggressive treatment for autistic children AUTISM CURE CITY PAGES 1.26.11 makes the overarching logical, ethical, and financial argument about the wisdom of treating children early on with proven methods and saving 18 years of special ed, additional health care, and the very real costs of home, social, and school disruption and personal pain.

Blue Cross covers the IEIBT treatments (Intensive Early Intervention Behavior Therapy) but few other insurance companies do. Very few autistic children receive anywhere near the care required to lead a normal life. The new mental health mandates being required of insurance companies could make life much more livable for thousands of autistic children and their families (and save states billions of dollars).

A personal experience with autistic children was my role in unknowingly facilitating the adoption of an autistic child for a childless blue collar couple that lived in rural MN as the child’s guardian ad-Litem.

I discovered that the social workers on the case had known the baby showed significant signs of autism and that the workers said nothing to the adoptive parents.

I knew the workers to be overwhelmed with too many cases and too few answers for the children they served and don’t blame them personally.

I believe that under-training, lack of resources, and just too many abused and abandoned children to find homes for with too few adoptive families leads to this kind of occurrence in child protection systems.

I stayed in touch with the family for many years and watched them struggle with little help, no programs, and tremendous trouble as the baby became a big boy with terrible and often dangerous behaviors.

These beautiful kind people trying desperately to learn and deal with their adopted son’s extraordinary mental health issues with almost no resources or outside help found little support and a great deal of personal pain and strain on the family.

It’s not just the 18 years of unsupported struggle, but the aging family and the hard choices that face them with a child that can’t function independently as an adult in the community as they themselves become unable to manage dangerous behaviors from an unpredictable adult.

To accept that the nation I live in doesn’t support mandating cost effective programs to save children and families from the devastating impact of autism causes me to wonder about what we have become as a people.

Are we that confused that even when we know the economics favor doing the right and ethical thing, that we allow ourselves to be lead by short term thinking or corporate interests to do the wrong thing?

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Child Abuse, Child Mortality, Hating vs. Caring

Published

on January 30, 2011

Continue reading ‘Child Abuse, Child Mortality, Hating vs. Caring’

. 0 Comments

Milwaukee had 499 infant deaths between 2005 and 2008. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blogs surrounding the most recent tragedy are a torrent of blaming and hating with almost no attention to the wellbeing of children.

The absence of concern for children or ideas for making life safer for Milwaukee’s at risk babies is disturbing.

In the case above, the mother apparently did not smoke, drink heavily, or use drugs. The medical examiners report said the mother’s apartment was clean and well equipped with baby supplies.

The public reaction when a baby dies or is found in a dumpster should be one of sadness and a desire to see that children are safer in their community. Something like, “what can we do to see that this does not happen again?”

As a long time guardian ad-Litem, I have come to know troubled parents and realize that the issues impacting them and their children are often addressable through education, health, and mental health services.

Even in these hard economic times our communities and this nation have the ability to reach out to young families and troubled children to provide education and basic services to provide a safe environment.

We make this choice each time we vote; Day care, early childhood programs, health & mental health services, make for safer and happier families, children, schools, and communities.

Blaming and hating creates only more pain and solves nothing. Be constructive…, do something to help those children that need help.

Vote for child friendly initiatives and the people and programs that support them.

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I am 16 and in the foster care system…Turning 18 is the scariest thing that is going to happen to me

Published

on January 22, 2011

in Public Policy and The States

. 12 Comments

“I am 16 and in the foster care system in Washington. I have been through 17 different placements in 4 years. Turning 18 is the scariest thing that is going to happen to me.

Also my Social Worker is trying so hard to get me out of the system before i turn 18 so i dont get aged out. i really have hated the system.

But dont blame the social workers, they are doing as much as they can they have 27-30 cases per person and that isnt per kid thats as a whole. thats alot of kids. if you want to blame anyone blame the Federal System, they did it to us.”

This note arrived this morning in my inbox.

As a guardian ad-Litem, I witnessed unfair treatment of children already in pain from exceedingly damaging home lives. One child had almost thirty foster homes before he aged out of the system (he has AIDs now).

Other than the federal “Imminent Harm Doctrine”, there are no protections at the federal level for children in America.

As I have traveled the states, I see how some states have almost no safety net for abused and neglected children.

America, please wake up and show some kindness to the weakest and most vulnerable among us. We will all be the better for it.

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Children and Government

Published

on January 16, 2011

Support KARA buy our book or donate

. 1 Comment

“what we do to our children, they will do to our society” (Pliny, 2500 years ago).

David Strand, a fellow guardian ad-Litem, had an audience with Tim Pawlenty a few years ago and made an appeal for the soon to be governor’s support for abandoned/abused children. Tim Pawlenty told David (and Andy Dawkins) “children that are the victims of failed personal responsibility are not my problem, nor are they the problem of the state of MN”.

At least economically, this is a false statement. Youth that do not graduate from high school are much more likely to lead dysfunctional lives and end up preteen moms and adolescent felons. Also, 80% of youth aging out of foster homes are leading dysfunctional lives.

MN spent 500 Million dollars on prisons last year, and our recidivism is as bad as the rest of the nation (about 66%). About 60% of the youth in juvenile justice have mental health diagnosis, and fully half of that number have multiple and serious diagnosis.

The state pays for children that don’t become contributing members of society in many ways. Today at the Pilgrim House Church the state economist Tom Stimson explained the need for trained workers in the coming years and how it will be negatively impacted by the falling graduation rates.

20 years ago 92% of youth graduated in MN. Today, 46% of minority youth graduate.

As a guardian ad-Litem I am saddened by the lack of resources for the youngest and most vulnerable among us. And in my experience, most abused and neglected children go onto lead dysfunctional lives.

Not valuing children is costly to the state, a terrible display of misplaced values within our community, and it hurts all citizens by lowering the quality of life in MN. Vote for people that support Minnesota children.

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Continue reading ‘Children and Government’

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Child Sex Abuse & The Most Powerful Suicide Note Ever

Published

Continue reading ‘Child Sex Abuse & The Most Powerful Suicide Note Ever’

on January 8, 2011

in Health and Mental Health and Invisible Children

. 11 Comments

Two of my friends have killed themselves this year and I want badly to know how to help others deal with suicidal thoughts and depression with more than psychotropic medications.

When I wrote INVISIBLE CHILDREN in 2005, a 70 year old friend asked me out to lunch. After the meal he explained how he told no one of his abuse at the hands of a priest when he was a twelve year old boy and how finally at 45, after 2 failed marriages and several failed business partnerships, he sought out a therapist.

He was still seeing that therapist 25 years later.

Of the children I’ve worked with as a guardian ad-Litem, a high percentage of them have been sexually abused. I have seen the horror of child sex abuse and how 10 or 25 years later, a troubled being still fighting the darkness every day.

Child sex abuse may be the most under-reported crime in America. It could also be the most under-treated horror in America. As a guardian ad-Litem, my first visit to a hospital suicide ward to visit a four year old girl that had been horribly abused was never made public, or when I worked with the seven year old that had been prostituted, or any of the family members that practiced child sex abuse.

There are successful sex abuse recovery programs, but our local governments and state agencies don’t support them in a large scale, and the under-reporting of abuse means most children do not receive the help they need. As these children age, the damage from abuse does not disappear – it is often magnified and becomes a serious behavioral problem.

The medical people at http://www.avahealth.org/ are working to make the discovery and treatment of child abuse a normal part of medical examinations (support them). This would be a big first step in identifying the scope and scale of the problem and making treatment available to those that need it.

This is the longest and most powerful and articulate suicide note I’ve ever read and it has great meaning to me for its power to relate these two incomprehensible sorrows (abuse & suicide).

I could not read Bill Zeller’s last letter without feeling the terror, physical and mental impediments, and daily reminders of his childhood nightmares, adult confusion and suicide.

From the Huffington Post;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/07/bill-zeller-dead-princeto_n_805689.html

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America’s Children, Mental Health, Addiction, Medication

Published

on January 2, 2011

. 0 Comments

As a long time resident/student of my community (almost 60 years), volunteer guardian ad-Litem (14 years), and voracious reader of newspapers (about 50 years), I have observed again and again how important the basics are to children.

Children born into violent dysfunctional homes don’t get the basics and this affects them forever.

Most often mom was abused and suffers from serious mental health issues that will soon become the child’s problem. The sex abuse I’ve witnessed among the fifty children I’ve worked with as a CASA volunteer is frightening to speak (and much to common and underreported).

Children traumatized by violence and neglect have serious developmental disabilities that don’t go away with age. 80% of youth aging out of foster care are leading dysfunctional lives.

Adding to the 3 million children reported to child protection in America each year, are the 3.5 million children on stimulant and anti-psychotic medications. Recent studies indicate that almost half of U.S. youth have mental health issues. About 2/3s of the youth in juvenile justice are diagnosed with mental health problems; half of them have multiple, serious diagnosis.

The following article/interview from Democracy Now, Amy Goodman & Dr. and author Gabor Mate explains in detail what happens to children born into unfortunate circumstances and how we need to wake up and support families and institutions to positively change the child unfriendly environment we are creating in America.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149325

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Continue reading ‘America’s Children, Mental Health, Addiction, Medication’

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Adoptees Have Answers Online Forum

Published

on December 29, 2010

in Links To Helpful Orgs

. 0 Comments

A great online forum for adoptees to share experiences and perspectives run by truly committed people and worth investigating;

http://discussions.aha.mn/

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For Profit Youth Prisons

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on December 28, 2010

in Crime and Courts, Public Policy and The States

. 0 Comments

A few years ago, one of my guardian ad-Litem cases walked about thirty miles on a ten degree night when he was put outside at a juvenile detention center. That he did not die or suffer permanent physical damage was a miracle.

Last year, a Pennsylvania judge was incarcerated for sending youth to prison for profit (he behaved as a commissioned salesman – selling innocent youth into jail).

The following article brings to light the commonality of for profit youth prisons and I think the abundance of meanness and poor management that combine to further damage the lives of America’s youth.

Reading the Class Action lawsuit that this report is based on is moving, and deserves to be made known to a larger public audience. That this nation supports the intensity of abuse to youth that it does explains the crime rates, prison rates (13 million prison and jail releases last year) and failing schools.

Federal Lawsuit Seeks to End Years of Physical, Sexual Abuse of Teenage Inmates

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Child Abuse Death; Every Child Matters

Published

on December 20, 2010

. 0 Comments

Yesterday I wrote about how the data appears to minimize child abuse in America. Today, the ” National Media Blackout” article by EVERY CHILD MATTERS, digs deeper into the numbers and why U.S. children suffer three to eleven times the death rate of the 24 other industrialized nations. From the article;

Other causes of death receive far more media attention that child maltreatment deaths;The most current figures show the following annual numbers for much more widely publicized causes of death:

• U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan: 479.
• H1N1 pediatric fatalities: 281.
• Food borne illnesses: 74.
• Toyota accelerator malfunction: 34.
• Coal mining accidents: 33.
• Total of above: 901.

In my own experience, when a baby drowned in a bath tub after 14 police calls to the home, the reporters that called me were very surprised to find out that I had experienced 49 police calls to a home before a child was removed (and only then because the seven year old tried to kill the five year old in front of the police officers).

Newspapers no longer have the financial luxury of assigning reporters to areas of news that don’t generate big readership.

Child abuse is a painful subject and much under reported. I encourage everyone to read the following article and make some effort to positively impact the lives of abused and neglected children. Continue reading ‘Child Abuse Death; Every Child Matters’

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New Federal Report; Drop In Child Abuse? I Don’t Believe It

Published

on December 19, 2010

Continue reading ‘New Federal Report; Drop In Child Abuse? I Don’t Believe It’

. 1 Comment

The latest federal report on child abuse shows a decline for the third straight year.

From my perspective the decline reflects a change in policy and refusal of child protection agencies to accept cases (MN now rejects 2/3 of all reports of child abuse).

The equation works like this; if fewer cases are investigated, that must mean there are fewer cases of child abuse, which leads to less funding and fewer resources for terrified and traumatized children.

This report flies in the face of what we read in the newspaper and data that relates to abused and neglected children.

More children died last year at the hands of their parents and teen suicides had the highest rate increase in 15 years.

This is the same logic that has hidden child sex abuse from the public eye. When I wrote the book INVISIBLE CHILDREN in 2005, there were 895 cases of child sex abuse reported in the state of MN.

At that time I counted fifty children that I knew had been sexually abused. There were about five hundred guardians at that time. It is my experience that child sex abuse is the most underreported crime in America.

Again, the equation works like this; if a problem is not reported, it gets no attention and is not perceived by the public to be an issue that needs to be addressed.

Until our communities begin to solve the terrible problem of generational child abuse, our schools will continue to fail, our jails and prisons will remain full, and we will continue to lead the world in the number of very young women with sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy.

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Holiday Best Wishes To Everyone & a Great Foster Child Blog

Published

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

on December 12, 2010

in Invisible Children

. 0 Comments

It is really hard to be in a troubled home or the child protection system around the holidays.

The world feels unfriendly and uncaring at a time when others are joyful. It seems so unfair.

It may help to know that you are not alone & that people do care.

Part of the problem is that once we start believing people don’t care, we can behave in a manner that makes it harder for them to care.

Be very careful what you believe to be true.

There are many good people, the challenge is to believe in good people and find them.

Another big factor is that we are all more stressed this year, because of the added poverty from the recession and how this multiplies the problems of families, workers, and friends.

It is difficult to be thoughtful and kind when sadness and trouble are at our own door (but it is important to try).

My recommended blog of the day is written by a former foster child & I think it the best I have ever read (do send me other great foster blogs);
http://looneytunes09.wordpress.com/”>

Support KARA buy our book , send the ebook free to a friend, or donate

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amy.rostronledoux@yahoo.com

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How To Behave In A Failing System

Published

on December 7, 2010

in Invisible Children

. 1 Comment

As a volunteer guardian ad-Litem, I have spoken with too many frustrated social workers, CASA workers, educators, birth, foster, and adoptive parents that have experienced gaping holes in our child protection systems.

Overburdened workers are managing large numbers of very troubled children with minimal resources, educators coping with seriously damaged youth in classrooms without adequate training or skills, and parents that need crisis nurseries, available daycare, and mental health services for their troubled children are often left without any help.

These are the folks that have a hard time finding the time to call a state representative, congress person, or governor to explain that these Invisible Children will soon be visibly troubled youth that will blossom into dysfunctional adults if we continue to avoid the obvious holes in our institutions.

They need our help.

For years now I have tried through the CASA guardian ad-Litem program, speaking, and writing to bring information to a larger audience hoping that every mind enlightened would benefit an at risk child somewhere.

Feel free to download (FOR FREE) and email my ebook INVISIBILE CHILDREN to people in your network.

Share your ideas in the comment section for helping to identify and address the most glaring problems facing abused and neglected children.

Support KARA buy our book or donate

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amy.rostronledoux@yahoo.com

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America By Heart

Published

on November 25, 2010

Save money by incarcerating children and longer sentencing?

. 0 Comments

I’m pleased that Sarah Palin chose a title that would stress heartfulness & compassion.

I’m looking forward to reading her constructive ideas for helping America’s weakest and most vulnerable citizens.

So far, Sarah has not shown support or many workable ideas for the millions of children that are reported as abused children each year, nor for the educators, social & health workers, grandparents, foster, & adoptive parents that struggle every day to help these children lead normal lives.

As a long time guardian ad-Litem, I’ve come to appreciate people that vote for affordable day care, crisis nurseries, early childhood programs, and I have come to understand the economic practicality of doing so.

It causes me great pain to watch as politicians put their own short term gains in front of sound public policy year after year.

Don’t support day care? I was ordered to take children away from a decent father because he could not afford it. The county would save no money by taking his four children and putting them in foster homes. Who voted for this?

On the issues of child protection and juvenile justice our nation has reached a pinnacle of wrong headed policies and near sighted politicians willing to sacrifice very useful people and programs for their own professional gain.

Don’t support crisis nurseries? The impact sex abuse, violence, or drug abuse is the trauma that lives on forever in a child. Crisis nurseries work and they save big money when children avoid the terrors of a violent home.

These are the children that can’t cope with life or school. These are the children we can help while they are young (and it is a fiscal bargain). 80% of youth aging out of foster care are leading dysfunctional lives.

New York and California spend about $250,000 per year per child in their juvenile justice systems. 25% of America’s juvenile criminals are charged as adults and those that enter the system spend most of their lives in and out of prison.

Instead of lobbying for more and better programs to interrupt the cycle of abuse and violence, selfish politicians throw rocks at the people doing the hard work and make the false argument that less support for schools and children and more jails will solve our problems.

America has 5% of the world population & 25% of the world’s prison population. 13 million prison and jail releases last year in America.

Blaming teachers for failing schools is not much different than blaming social workers when a baby is found in a dumpster, or the officer for the crimes committed in the neighborhood (but it gets politicians elected because we are gullible voters).

We are to blame for electing politicians that mistakenly think that they can have safe streets by building more and bigger prisons, better schools by not providing resources to schools or troubled youth while teachers struggle to deal with the growing problems of mental health, violence, and poverty in their classrooms.

The Prozac, Ritalin, and other psychotropic medications being used by very young children has grown exponentially and complicates the lives of all those working or living with them.

Education is complicated by problems that did not exist thirty years ago. Social work has changed and our institutions need change and our support.

We have programs that mend troubled children and the ability to help kids make it through school with the right help.

I’m sure that if Sarah missed it in this book, she’ll give us some constructive ideas in the next.

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75% Of Inmates Are Illiterate (19% are completely illiterate) Ruben Rosario

Published

on November 18, 2010

in Crime and Courts and Health and Mental Health

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Ruben Rosario’s article on the connection between criminal behavior and literacy is stunning in it’s simplicity.

Ruben’s statistics;

85 percent of all juveniles who come into contact with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate. So are 60 percent of all prison inmates.

Inmates have a 16 percent chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help, as opposed to 70 percent for those who receive no help. This equates, according to the study, to taxpayer costs of $25,000 per year per inmate and nearly double that amount for juvenile offenders (California & New York spend over $200,000 per year on juveniles in their juvenile justice systems).

Other related information;

Over 50% of the youth in the juvenile justice system suffer from diagnosable mental illness & fully half that number have serious multiple diagnosis. Today’s

Michael Swanson’s Star Tribune headlines drive home the sad and murderous points that 13 year youth with serious criminal records need intervention and therapy not jail time. The Missouri miracle (juvenile justice transformation) makes this argument well.

Over 25% of American juveniles in the justice system are tried as adults,

Almost all youth in the juvenile justice system have passed through child protection services (MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz).

Over 70% of the serious and violent crime committed by juveniles in Ramsey County in the year of the ACE study, was perpetrated by youth from less than 4% of the families in the county.

We know who these children are and we have programs that work to make their lives more successful.

Minnesota spent half a billion dollars on its prison system last year. The money would be far better spent on early childhood programs allowing at risk youth a better chance at leading a normal life.
Continue reading ’75% Of Inmates Are Illiterate (19% are completely illiterate) Ruben Rosario’

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More About Four & Seven Year Old Suicides, Prozac & A Veterans Day Message

Published

on November 11, 2010

. 0 Comments

A dear long term friend (from high school) committed suicide a few weeks ago.

He was a veteran who found it very hard to kill when he was in Vietnam. His letters to me from his military tour were tortured and distressed. He never wanted to hurt anyone.

He needed help but never got it. Mental health help was not a military option offered to vets post Vietnam.

My friend’s family had no idea that he would kill himself – he was such a happy and gentle man. The pain and suffering has spread to the family now and it will last forever.

My primary experience with suicide comes from the children I’ve worked with in child protection as a guardian ad-Litem and the Topamax that was proscribed to me for terrible migraine headaches.

I had become very familiar with the language on the packaging of psychotropic medications concerning depression and suicidal thoughts but was absolutely dumbstruck when I experienced depression and full blown suicidal ideation after 12 months of Topamax.

It is impossible to convey to you what that last sentence means in a manner that will impact you as it impacted me. Words will never do justice to thoughts of suicide.

I’m a mature adult that has studied and written about this terrible thing and it was absolutely overwhelming at the time. I found help and stopped the drug and got better.

I’ve come to know many children in child protection taking psychotropic medications. The data on children in child protection on these drugs is also overwhelming (and a well kept secret). Four and seven year olds behaving in extremely dangerous ways and trying to kill themselves should be extremely rare in any civil society.

I did not find it rare among the children in my caseload in child protection.

America is way behind other advanced societies in dealing with mental health issues and it is killing poor vulnerable children and way too many veterans.

Goodbye Tom, you were dear & wonderful person and a great friend; I will miss you.

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

amy.rostronledoux@yahoo.com

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Files Released On Foster Teen Who Committed Suicide

Published

on November 6, 2010

http://www.kitv.com/news/25640321/detail.html

. 2 Comments

As a guardian ad-Litem, one of my first hospital visits was to a four year old in a suicide ward.

Judge Heidi Schellhas shared with me the Prozac, Ritalin, and other psychotropic medications being taken by 6, 7, and 8 year old children in her Child Protection courtroom (mostly with sporadic or non existent mental health therapies).

Other children I cared for tried to kill themselves through extremely dangerous behaviors. I’ve written about the seven children in one school district that took their own lives and the seven year old foster child who hung himself and left a note.

Misha Zubarev’s video on aging out of foster care had a great impact on me; http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2009/12/10/aging-out-of-foster-care/

Most of us would agree that caring for vulnerable children is a worthwhile endeavor.

What can we do to make suicide less of an option for abused and neglected children?

Continue reading ‘Files Released On Foster Teen Who Committed Suicide’

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The Heart Of Child Protection Services

Published

Continue reading ‘The Heart Of Child Protection Services’

on October 30, 2010

in Kids At Risk Action (KARA)

. 3 Comments

The following study from the University of Pennsylvania points a very negative picture of Child Protective Services in that state. http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/DomesticViolence/22557

As budgets shrink, more states and counties have fewer resources to save abused and neglected children from the immediate dangers they face in their homes and the future problems that come along with the abuse (preteen pregnancy, adolescent felons, dropouts, chronic illness & mental illness).

It hurts me greatly to acknowledge that a big part of our nation does not see the need to support at risk children.

The authors suggestion that child abuse should be treated as a crime only adds to the violence and ignores the pain and dysfunction these families have been living through. To send the police into private homes to solve child abuse problems has to be the harshest and most ungrounded suggestion that I’ve heard on the subject. The trauma these children suffer even with trained and caring social workers is beyond description; uniformed police officers taking children out of homes would be extremely hurtful to children.

Our nation already has more people incarcerated per capita than any other nation. Thirteen million prison and jail releases in the U.S. last year. 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prison population.

In my experience as a guardian ad-Litem, almost always the abuser had been the abused growing up. Jails have not solved this nations problems so far and perhaps are a large contributor to what is hurting us.

Many would argue that America’s huge investment in prisons and jails (and privatization) have created a stigmatized and almost hopeless population of folks who know they are not going to achieve a quality of life like they see all around them no matter what they do.

Decent paying work with a criminal record is almost impossible to find, felons can’t vote in many states, and they are hard pressed to climb out of poverty, let alone raise a family and lead a productive life.

There is no doubt that America’s challenge of saving abused and neglected children far exceeds the training, resources, or public support this nation has been willing to give to the people doing the work. We are now blaming teachers for failing schools. How long will it be before we blame the police for the criminals?

The system needs help at many levels and there usually are not simple answers to complex social problems.

One thing is certain; these children need and deserve our help and it will pay us big dividends as a community to provide it. “What we do to our children, they will do to society” Pliny, 2500 years ago

Support KARA’s effort to stop punishing children; sponsor a conversation in your community (invite me to speak at your conference) / Buy our book or donate

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After Traumatic Event, Early Intervention Reduces Odds of PTSD in Children by 73 Percent

Published

on October 23, 2010

in Health and Mental Health

. 0 Comments

My experience in the CASA guardian ad-Litem program was impacted by the harsh realities that become part of an abused child’s life after experiencing the trauma of extended exposure to violence and deprivation. Their lives are damaged in a manner that makes it hard to make friends, learn in school, or lead a productive life.

Most of the articles written (like this one http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2010/09/child-ptsd-early-intervention/ ) would lead one to believe that these traumas are isolated incidents in the life of an at risk child.

This was not what I saw. Instead, children generally spend years in dangerous environments and are only rarely removed from the harshest circumstances and then into an underfunded and overworked system of foster/group homes that provide a minimum degree of the services desperately needed by the child.

This study shows us what needs to be done. The good news is that we know what to do to save abused and neglected (traumatized) children.

The bad news is that only rarely, do these children receive help in a timely manner. It has been my experience, that only after they act out and get into trouble, do we really pay attention to them.

We can do better.

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Support KARA buy our book or donate

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

amy.rostronledoux@yahoo.com
Continue reading ‘After Traumatic Event, Early Intervention Reduces Odds of PTSD in Children by 73 Percent’

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A Great Rally for Children In MN (Thanks Amy)

Published

on October 19, 2010

in Invisible Children and KARA Events

. 0 Comments

On Sunday October 10, 2010, 5 wonderful KARA volunteers joined roughly 1000 others at the State Capitol for a March and Rally for Children and Youth. Dubbed 10-10-10, the first of its kind event organized by the young leaders of the Children’s Defense Fund and dozens of local, partnering organizations, was a whopping success!

Attendees were able to fill their bags with worthwhile literature, bumper stickers and activities and fill their minds with the wisdom and insight of speakers such as Garrison Keillor, Peg Chamberlain and Marion Wright Edelman. Following the rally, those in attendance were asked to fill out commitment cards stating that they will do their part to assure that ALL Minnesota children are given a fair start in life by informing law makers and holding them accountable for the decisions they make on behalf of children.

The event was conceptualized by a gentleman from North Minneapolis. Four years ago, Darrel Young brought his brother to the Twin Cities from Chicago. Intending to give him a better life than what he could find in Chicago, Darrel quickly became dismayed when his brother was slain just 4 doors down from his home on the streets of North Minneapolis. His 17 year old brother was walking home to his brother’s house when he was shot and killed. The next day in the paper, the headline merely read “Number 37″ because Darrel’s brother was the 37th homicide in Minneapolis in 2006.

As a result of this event, Darrel pledged to honor his brother by being a stronger influence in the lives of young people. He began working with the youth leaders of YALT, Youth Advocacy Leadership Training, at the Children’s Defense Fund and the vision of the 10-10-10 Rally and March came into fruition. The youth created, planned, organized and led the March and Rally every step of the way; they will even continue the momentum by speaking at congregations and working with the 2011 legislature to pass into law issues that are of importance in the lives of children and youth.

Visitors to the KARA booth were able to watch a video slideshow produced by KARA, sign up to be on our email list and wear a bracelet displaying a fact about children that they were challenged to share with three other people before going to bed that night. The shocking facts stated on the six different bracelets included:

* Foster children are twice as likely as war veterans to develop PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder);
* 25% of U.S. youth in the Juvenile Justice System are tried as adults;
* 50-75% of U.S. youth in the Juvenile Justice System have a diagnosable mental illness;
* 25% of high school graduates in the United States are illiterate;
* Most states are growing prison spending much faster than higher education spending;
* firearms deaths of children in the U.S. are more than 10 times higher than all the other industrialized nations combined.

Attendees were also given a copy of Mike Tikkanens’s book, Invisible Children with a KARA bookmark that read:

Each day in America:

– 4000 children are arrested

-30 children die of gunshot wounds

– 4 children are killed by their parents

- 15,000 children are beaten, molested, neglected or watch their mother being beaten or raped

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

Support KARA buy our book or donate

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

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Across Ages, Youth Substance Abuse & Programs That Work

Published

on October 17, 2010

in Occasional Authors

. 1 Comment

This article was submitted by KARA’s Century College volunteer Dave Mast.

Substance Abuse Prevention for Teens

The impact of substance abuse on children and teenagers, as discussed in KARA’s recent article 254 Children, 220,000 Crimes, 12 Months, is very detrimental to their futures and to society in general.

Identifying programs that have shown success in the prevention and reduction of teenage substance abuse is crucial to keeping America’s youth happy, healthy, and productive.

Some programs exist that are taught at schools to students and involve education about the use and abuse of drugs, consequences of drug abuse, and ways to avoid getting involved with drugs. Perhaps the best known example of this type of program is Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE).

Other programs include more in-depth approaches to drug prevention, through the use of one-on-one mentoring, community service, and competency programs.

A Philadelphia based program called Across Ages was founded in 1991, and has been replicated in many other states in the past twenty years.

Four basic program components prevent, reduce or delay substance abuse by children and teenagers.

* a mentoring program; pairing an adult over 55 years of age with each youth between ages 9 and 13. The mentor spends at least two hours per week with the child doing recreational activities, providing tutoring, counseling, and assistance with community service (Across Ages, 2010).

* each youth spends one to two hours every week performing community service.

* social competence training; 26 weekly lessons that teach cognitive and behavioral approaches to dealing with problems and decisions. In particular, these skills are applied to the prevention of substance abuse and high-risk sexual behavior.

* involvement in family activities; Across Ages hosts monthly events that engage the youth, their families, and their mentors to strengthen the relationships between the children and the adults in their lives (Across Ages, 2010).
Continue reading ‘Across Ages, Youth Substance Abuse & Programs That Work’

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We’re Number 1, & that’s not good…

Published

on October 15, 2010

The good news is that we have the treatment protocol to save these children.

. 1 Comment

The following article by Bishop Gene Robinson draws attention to youth suicide & particularly that seven students in one Minnesota school district have taken their own lives, including three teens.

GLBT issues underly most of the suicide the Bishop writes about. The idea that life can be made so unbearable for children so young is incomprehensible unless you have been near someone living the nightmare.

A gay 14 year old boy in my guardian ad-Litem caseload was physically restrained for the better part of his five week stay in a Christian group home that had promised to deal objectively with his sexual orientation. There was nothing rational about the treatment he received at this group home.

He was suicidal when he was seven & put on Ritalin with minimal mental health therapy. He has HIV AIDS today at 20.

As a result of the terrible treatment he received from his family & the lack of organized resources available to him through the child protection system, his entire life has seems to have been dangerous behaviors & a death wish.

I’ve followed the terrible stories of very young children committing suicide and experienced several first hand suicide attempts as a guardian ad-Litem.

Let’s support those programs (yes, with our tax dollars – and no, there is not a religion in the world that abandons children) Continue reading ‘We’re Number 1, & that’s not good…’

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Raised By The Courts, A Judge’s Insight Into Juvenile Justice

Published

Continue reading ‘Raised By The Courts, A Judge’s Insight Into Juvenile Justice’

on October 12, 2010

in Crime and Courts, Politics and Funding and Public Policy

. 0 Comments

Of the fifty children I worked with over twelve years as a guardian ad-Litem, several of them came to view the court as their parent. It was another trauma for the child when the County changed judges on a child after twenty or thirty courtroom visits with the same judge. The child had come to trust that this judge, who was trying to protect their best interests.

Judge Heidi Shellhas shared her genuine concern with me about the psychotropic medications proscribed to large numbers of very young children that passed through her courtroom. I was often moved by the heartfelt attempts a judge would make to see that these hearings would be personal and meaningful to an abandoned/abused child. It is not an easy task.

How impossible the job of judge must be, removing a child from her mother, or denying visitation rights to a father and knowing the system has such limited resources and is so unable to adequately serve the poor vulnerable children that come before them. Month after month, year after year, seeing these children grow up in your courtroom.

This book, RAISED BY THE COURTS: What happens when a judge has to be the parent?, brings home the feelings and heartfelt observations of a judge that has spent years working with abused and neglected children in Florida’s juvenile justice system.

This quote from the book hurts, but it needs to be circulated; “I remember bringing my Norwegian cousin to my Florida court. She runs her own child welfare agency outside of Oslo. When she saw kids ages 10, 11 and 12 in handcuffs, leg restraints and jumpsuits, she scowled and asked, “Does Amnesty International know about this?”

Judge Irene Sullivan’s observations are very painful & very accurate, and I wish everyone could know what she knows. We would treat children better, our schools would work, and our communities would be safer and happier places to live.

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254 Children, 220,000 Crimes, 12 Months

Published

on October 4, 2010

in Occasional Authors and Public Policy

. 1 Comment

KARA’s Century College Volunteer Dave Mast has written another in depth article. This one uncovers an unhealthy trend in American communities.

To approach the crisis constructively, we need to recognize what needs to happen to decrease drug use by younger and younger children. I would point out that the Missouri model for treating youthful offenders had a dramatic positive impact on juvenile recidivism when it was implemented, and that many states are spending over $200,000 per year per juvenile on punishment oriented models with consistently high failure rates.

As former MN Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz stated about children in child protection, “The difference between that poor child and a felon is about eight years”.

Drug Use by Juvenile Offenders
By Dave Mast
10/3/2010

The fact that substance abuse and other crimes are often related is certainly not a secret.

This can be seen every day in the newspaper, in magazines, and on the television news. The same can be said of substance abuse and juvenile delinquency. When children and adolescents get involved with drugs, they often find themselves on pathways to more serious offenses.

What many people do not know is the tremendous extent to which this problem has grown in recent years. Nor are many people aware of the costs that result from juvenile substance abuse.

Drug use and sale in American schools has been the highlight of much research performed on this topic. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University conducts a survey each year aimed at discovering trends in teenage drug use. The survey this year has identified a drastic increase in the percentage of children attending middle schools considered “drug-infested,” meaning that drugs are kept, used, or sold on school property. This year’s survey showed that 32 percent of middle school students were attending drug infested schools, compared to 23 percent in 2009.

The data related to high schools is also rather disturbing. The CASA survey from 2006 showed that 51 percent of high schools were drug-infested, and this figure has risen to 66 percent this year (Feuerberg, 2010).

With drugs being readily available to teens of all ages, the results of juvenile substance abuse are just as noticeable. A 2002 report produced by the National Institute of Justice’s Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program showed that almost 60 percent of male juvenile arrestees and 30 percent of female juvenile arrestees tested positive for marijuana use (Siegel & Welsh, 2006, p. 384).

A study conducted in Miami looked more specifically at the number of crimes committed by juveniles who abused crack cocaine. The 254 children interviewed by the researchers reported committing a combined total of more than 220,000 crimes in the 12 months prior to the study (Siegel & Welsh, 2006, p. 385). Continue reading ’254 Children, 220,000 Crimes, 12 Months’

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Rally To Restore Sanity

Published

on October 3, 2010

in Events and KARA Events

. 0 Comments

Several otherwise sane friends and family (OSFF) have firm beliefs that government does a poor job of helping people and therefore we should not have or support programs for the poor or disenfranchised.

When I talk to OSFF about the helplessness of children in terribly abusive homes, and the need for social workers and resources to mend traumatized children, they repeat meaningless phrases from political heads that indicate they have little or no understanding of the children I speak of or their issues.

It’s almost like they don’t want to know. Several of my OSFF have fetal alcohol babies & drug or alcohol problems and could have benefited from more prenatal care or government (any) program to help them deliver healthy babies.

What is most disturbing to me, is the fierceness of OSFF arguments against helping the weakest and most vulnerable among us. They have been convinced by the insane political rhetoric being poured into their heads from radio and TV, that their neighbors children, grandparents, single mothers, and any other persons in need)
will not benefit, and should not receive help from government programs.

MN governor Tim Pawlenty said to Andy Dawkins and David Strand several years ago that “Children that are the victims of failed personal responsibility are not my problem or the problem of the state of MN”.

That a major political party would make this a keystone of its platform indicates a gross misunderstanding of the most basic issues facing abused and neglected children. This shows a lack of compassion as well as a misunderstanding of the economics of failing to help children while they are young enough to make a difference in their behaviors and development.

Misguided beliefs are a dangerous thing. We have burned witches, imprisoned perfectly harmless Japanese families (WWII), tortured war prisoners, and inflicted unnecessary suffering on thousands in the name of belief.

Sometimes, I can convince the OSFF to listen long enough, or to read my book & come to understand the absolutely necessary existence of community services for abused and neglected children. But this is the hard, painful, and slow way of changing the political climate in this nation.

Here’s my suggestion to be more effective in this endeavor;

Start or attend a rally to help children & restore sanity and we will help bring compassion and reason to America’s politics that will benefit us all. Continue reading ‘Rally To Restore Sanity’

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Spread the word!

Published

on September 29, 2010

in Events and KARA Events

. 0 Comments

Historic 10-10-10 March and Rally for Children and Youth

10,000 Marchers Put Forward 10 Children and Youth Issues for the Election Agenda

ST. PAUL, MN- Youth Advocate Leaders of Children’s Defense Fund (CDF)–Minnesota, along with partner organizations, will join thousands of Minnesota marchers at the Minnesota Capitol on October 10, 2010 to raise awareness among political candidates of 10 key issues that affect the lives of Minnesota’s children and youth. Organized by local youth leaders and dozens of community organizations, the rally will strengthen a commitment to issues that affect children and youth in the upcoming election and future policy decisions.

Speakers will include:

· Marian Wright Edelman, president and founder of Children’s Defense Fund

· Garrison Keillor, Minnesota author and A Prairie Home Companion radio host

· All major gubernatorial candidates have been invited

· St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman

· Faith leaders, youth performers and children

WHAT: 10-10-10 March and Rally for Children and Youth

WHEN: October 10, 2010, 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.

WHERE: Minnesota State Capitol

WHO: The Young Advocate Leadership Training (YALT) participants of CDF–Minnesota, Every Child Matters, Minnesota Children’s Platform and other partnering organizations as listed below

The 10 Key Issues and Participating Organizations:

Child Welfare: Prevent Child Abuse Minnesota

Children in Immigrant Families: Project for Pride in Living

Early Childhood Education: Child Care WORKS!

Juvenile Justice: Second Chance Coalition; Council on Crime and Justice

Healthy Development: TakeAction Minnesota; Hunger Solutions; MOAPPP

Out-of-School Time: Youth Community Connections

Poverty: Affirmative Options Coalition; Minnesota Without Poverty

K-12 Education: Parents United for Public Schools

Youth Violence and Safe Communities: Peace Foundation; Youthrive

Healthy, Stable Housing: Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless

For more information www.cdf-mn.org

MEDIA CONTACTS

Jim Koppel, CDF–Minnesota Director Nicole Hernandez, Program Associate

651-855-1171, wk 651-855-1174, wk

651-338-4099, cell 612-207-6095, cell

koppel@cdf-mn.org hernandez@cdf-mn.org

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Cancellation of a Successful Education Program

Published

on September 26, 2010

in Crime and Courts, Occasional Authors and Politics and Funding

. 0 Comments

Every so often KARA publishes volunteer student research. This piece from Dave Mast at Century College makes powerful points. Please add your own experiences on this topic in our comment section.

Much research exists that identifies failed education systems as a source of juvenile delinquency. More research shows that juvenile delinquency leads to criminal activity when a troubled youth reaches adulthood.

The need for strong education programs should be a primary concern for state and local governments. In addition to improving students’ chances for success in college and their subsequent careers, effective education programs can help keep juveniles from engaging in delinquent activities. This, in turn reduces costs to taxpayers for funding court proceedings and, if necessary, housing juvenile offenders.

Due to the importance of education and the widespread benefits of a successful program, one might question why some programs that have shown wonderful results are being cancelled in the interest of saving money. One such program, implemented by the New York City Council and rallied for by the Coalition for Educational Justice, was very successful in improving the test scores at some of New York City’s worst middle schools. The program, which focused $5 million of its budget on 51 middle schools in northern Manhattan, helped to improve test scores at 40 of them early in its implementation (Melago, 2008).

The extra funding at these middle schools was used to purchase new computers, increase the length of some school days, and improve social service staffs. One of the middle schools, located in Harlem, received a mere $38,000 and was able to use the funding to purchase 20 computers, extend the school day three days a week, add Saturday academies, and add arts programs for students. At this school, the Renaissance Leadership Academy, the passing rate for state English exams rose from 12% in 2007 to 54% in 2009. Meanwhile, the passing rate for state Math exams went from 14% to 80% over the same period (Kolodner, 2010).

So why would the city cancel such a wonderful program? There is just not enough money to keep such a program going. Unfortunately, city officials who handle the budgeting of educational programs are either unable to identify the potential for cash savings by educating middle school students rather than trying and housing juvenile delinquents, or they have been unable to gather enough support to make education a priority in the city’s budget. Continue reading ‘Cancellation of a Successful Education Program’

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How Can We Raise The Profile Of Children’s Issues?

Published

on September 22, 2010

. 3 Comments

Few politicians speak to the children’s issues. Fewer still understand or advocate for programs that would help the 3 million children reported to child protection services each year.

Children have no voice, no lobby, and no vote to impact the policies that impact their lives.

It is up to those of us that know the issues and understand the needs, to advocate for those who cannot.

If we don’t speak up for them, who will?

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Abuse That Lasts Forever, Erin’s Law

Published

Continue reading ‘Abuse That Lasts Forever, Erin’s Law’

on September 18, 2010

in Guardian ad-Litem

. 3 Comments

The following well written article returned me to the terrified glare a seven year old girl maintained for the half hour drive from court to the foster home when I was a new guardian ad-Litem.

Since then, I have witnessed very young children (as young as four) try to kill themselves and seen others exhibit terrifying behaviors (starting fires, stabbing, etc) that I know to be a direct result of the abuse they have suffered.

A few of these children I have been in contact with for over ten years and I know that not a day goes by without them reliving the unspeakable acts that have made them who they are.

The good news is our medical people have developed treatments that can help children overcome trauma.

The great sadness is that sex abuse is grossly under-reported and the services available to terribly abused children are very limited.

We don’t want to talk about it & therefore not much is said about it, which means not much will be done about it (because it’s obviously a very rare thing – or more would be said about it).

Much more needs to be written and spoken of on this topic as much like the sex abuse hidden in the Catholic church for so many years, very few communities have made an effort to understand or bring attention to the size, scope, and impact of this issue (to the everlasting detriment of children).

Please do comment on this article.

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Children’s Rally 10-10-10 Give Voice To Children’s Issues

Published

Continue reading ‘Children’s Rally 10-10-10 Give Voice To Children’s Issues’

on September 18, 2010

in Events, Politics and Funding and Public Policy

. 1 Comment

With aggressive politics everywhere, it is easy not to hear law makers address the underlying children’s issues that are expressly responsible for the quality of life in our communities.

Not all states give voice to our weakest and most vulnerable citizens. This rally is a big step for children and it deserves to be copied and repeated.

Lobbying from well funded groups insure that their voices will be heard and that voters provide money and legislation for business and outspoken citizens on their issues.

Children, especially abused and neglected children, have no voice. For too many years our communities have been unable to build enough support to launch at risk children successfully into adulthood. 80% of youth aging out of foster care lead dysfunctional lives. Three million children a year are reported to child protection in this nation, almost a million a year end up in foster care.

A five year old child can’t call a legislator and ask for day care so he doesn’t have to spend part of the day alone or with a drug using or dysfunctional adult because mom can’t afford day care.

The six year old will not call child protection because of the drugs or terrible things done to her by a family member (she can’t read and doesn’t know how wrong these things are).

Ignoring the needs of the weakest and most vulnerable among us has had terrible consequences (read the newspaper – watch TV).

Our lack of understanding for the programs, resources, and basic concern for children has filled our prisons, troubled our communities, and made our schools struggle with educating children who are not prepared to learn.

We owe it to ourselves to understand the economics and underlying realities that face children in our society today. There are no easy answers, but not knowing the issues or the obvious results of ignoring at risk children guarantees that troubled children will continue to struggle with becoming contributing members of our communities.

It is hard to deny help to children that you know. Vote For Children’s Issues

Come to this rally. If you live in another state, Copy the intention of this rally and organize one at your state capital.

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Response to Star Tribune Article

Published

on September 12, 2010

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/102698419.html

. 0 Comments

Yes to constructive solutions; more resources for troubled families and help for abused and neglected children.

No to destructive and inflammatory criticisms of people trying hard to make life livable for terribly abused and neglected children within an overwhelmed social services system and not enough resources to do the job. It’s almost impossible work and there is little support for the worker or the child these days.

Nothing has been said about the actual violence done to these children that has occurred to place them in a county system.

Twelve years watching abused and neglected children traumatized by abuse and neglect has changed my view on this topic.
Please keep the goal of saving children the priority.

My one dispute with this article would be the statistic that 223 children in the child protection system suffered from sexual abuse. In 2005 when I wrote the book INVISIBLE CHILDREN there were 897 cases of child sex abuse in MN. At that time I was an active guardian ad-Litem and knew of fifty cases of child sex abuse. It was terrifically under-reported then, it is even more so now. The children that suffer these abuses need more help than they are receiving.

Our schools would function better and our communities would be safer and happier if we put more resources into struggling families and abused and neglected children.

These articles might make my points more clearly;

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/03/20/burn-injuries-make-up-10-of-all-child-abuse-cases/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/06/11/how-can-we-better-serve-abused-and-neglected-children/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2010/02/28/a-very-critical-look-at-foster-care/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2008/08/21/brutal-truths-and-best-practices-forum/

Continue reading ‘Response to Star Tribune Article’

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Quality Of Life

Published

Wow. One in ten American children are living with their grandparents.

on September 12, 2010

in Invisible Children

. 2 Comments

Here are a few grandparent stories from my CASA cases a few years ago;

Grandma told me that “when that child is 18, I will be 88 years old”. She had adopted four tragically abused grandchildren, the youngest was a Quadriplegic.

My heart was heavy with just how much physical and mental energy raising these very troubled children were going to be for this dedicated grandmother. What strength it took this dear sweet person to make this giant commitment.

Another example of extreme courage by a grandparent came a few years later when after 49 police calls to a home, the two girls were finally removed from their violent drug using home because the 7 year old tried to kill the 5 year old in front of the police officer.

I believe that the 7 year old had been prostituted.

Grandma stepped in and adopted her grandchildren accepting all the difficulties that go along with raising terrifically abused children.

There is little that comes easier for a sixty or seventy year old person when it comes to raising children.

The physical and mental demands made on grandparents by their younger charges are tremendous.

From the bottom of my heart, Thank You.

From the rest of us, let’s see to it that they and the children they care for, get adequate help from our communities to make their tasks a little easier and more successful.

Happy Grandparents Day in advance.

Send us stories and information about how your community supports grandparents in these circumstances.

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

Support KARA buy our book or donate

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

amy.rostronledoux@yahoo.com

Continue reading ‘Quality Of Life’

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Back To School & In Support of Education

Published

on September 5, 2010

in education

. 0 Comments

No nation will maintain leading status in the world without a workable educational system. No educational system will succeed in meeting even essential goals if a great number of students do not have the basic skills to learn when they begin their schooling.

We must not expect normal graduation or competency rates from a population of children that have lived in very troubled homes without community help.

A seven year old girl in my caseload knew just a few words, been sexually abused (kicked so hard by her abuser that she went into convulsions) when she started first grade. She was representative of many of the fifty children I worked with as a guardian ad-Litem.

Over many years I watched as educators tried diligently to help her succeed, but her underlying lack of skills and mental health issues made it impossible for her to learn or lead a normal life. She was a handful for all who came in contact with her.

She and our schools and community would have been much better served if this child had first been soundly supported from a mental health perspective rather than demanding that teachers manage her outbursts and sometimes terrifying behaviors (and expect her to play well with others).

This child’s traumatic and fearful entry into an unprepared and under-resourced public school system is the tip of the iceberg.

The Prozac, Ritalin, and other psychotropic medications being prescribed to very young children is terrifically overused in many child protection systems. Judge Heidi Schellhas shared with me the pages and pages of five, seven, and nine year old children that passed through her courtroom that were heavily medicated on antipsychotic drugs. We read about it often, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/business/02kids.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1283685929-4vV95VANamU0xapU45ORhg

The disruption from one child with the type of problems I have witnessed is multiplied by the growing number of at risk children in this nation as poverty and disappearing support systems create more troubled families and more child abuse.

When the calls are taken, three million children are reported to child protection in the U.S. each year.

Minnesota is now screening out 2/3′s of the calls coming into child protection under the assumption that making services available will gain better results than bringing children into the court system. Providing services to families is the best answer, but removing children from violence, sexual abuse, and drugs is critical if we expect that child to sit in a classroom and do math, or write a comprehensible sentence.

All children deserve to have the skills necessary for achieving success in school and in the larger community.

Dealing with the deficits at risk children bring into the classroom would make schools successful, our communities safe and healthy, empty the prisons, & lower the rates of early pregnancy & sexually transmitted diseases.

Each one of us can do something positive in support of educating children. Support a bill, tax, or program that enhances a child’s chance to grow. Volunteer as a reader, mentor, or anything that fits your comfort zone (so you will stick at it).

It will take all of us to support those that are doing the work to mend our very troubled schools and communities.

“What we do to our children, they will do to our society” (Pliny the Elder, 2400 years ago) Continue reading ‘Back To School & In Support of Education’

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Really Good Child Advocacy Links

Published

http://www.minnesotamedicine.com/CurrentIssue/tabid/3020/Default.aspx

on August 31, 2010

in Public Policy

. 3 Comments

Today’s post are my best sources for information about U.S. children.

The Arizona article should cause us all to respond.

It identifies a nightmarish trend as America allows the murder of it’s very young children without safeguards. I was called by newspaper reporters repeatedly last summer when an 18 month old baby drowned after 14 visits by child protection. The reporters were surprised to hear of my own case where 49 police calls were reported to a home where the 7 year old girl was finally removed from the home only because she tried to kill her younger sister in the presence of the police (the seven year old had most likely been prostituted in the home).

Blaming overworked and under-resourced child protection workers is not the answer. These stories are becoming more common and more frightening across the U.S. Caring for children beats outrage. Nothing is solved if child protection doesn’t have the support or resources to act.

Arizona appears to be reaching a crisis politically with its divisive attitudes towards poor people and immigrants. No one wins when children lose. Society will pay the price when these children become unable to transition into adulthood.

I welcome national and international information that you send me for future reference.

In the hopes of building a better advocacy network for children everywhere;

Academy Against Violence and Abuse, www.avahealth.org

http://www.kidsdata.org/blog/?p=1202

At kidsdata.org, we aim to give you the data you need to tell the stories you need to tell, whether those stories are about policies that need to change, programs that need support, or issues that need attention. New research commissioned by Child Advocacy 360 sheds light on the kinds of stories that move people to action on behalf of children and youth.

Child Welfare in the News

Subscribe to this service by sending an email to; cwn@childwelfare.gov

HI: Backlogs reported in Department of Human Services

The Associated Press State & Local Wire August 31, 2010

State workers have told legislators that backlogs of welfare, food stamp and medical applications need to be solved.

http://thegardenisland.com/news/state-and-regional/article_551042e1-74df-5932-b704-82298f437db8.html

Continue reading ‘Really Good Child Advocacy Links’

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Attitude Adjustment; Children Count

Published

Continue reading ‘Attitude Adjustment; Children Count’

on August 26, 2010

in Public Policy

. 5 Comments

As a volunteer child protection worker, I pay attention to the negative attitude a growing number of our adult population are promoting toward issues impacting children.

When I listen to the political discussions that affect at risk children with neighbors, family, and friends, I often hear them blame the poor habits or behaviors of one of their own acquaintances as an example of why trying to help is wasteful. It’s as if people feel an accomplishment in blaming a child’s parents instead of offering constructive suggestion that might improve a child’s life.

A close relative explained to me how a nine year old child was fully capable of correcting and dealing with the drunken and dysfunctional behavior of an abusive parent (and therefore should not need community help). A neighbor speaks of someone with mental health issues as if that person should just “make better decisions”.

It is hard to argue with people that make ungrounded (completely false) statements and don’t care about the children they speak of or otherwise clearly misunderstand the issues.

My close relative had her own fetal alcohol baby and should have been the first to know that community involvement in prenatal care would have a positive impact on the 600,000 fetal alcohol babies born in the U.S. each year. America has the highest preteen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world & one in four U.S. teens has a sexually transmitted disease, the highest in the industrialized world – we’re number one.

Support KARA’s effort to stop punishing children; sponsor a conversation in your community (invite me to speak at your conference) / Buy our book or donate

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International Symposium on Human Nature and Early Experience at Notre Dame

Published

on August 18, 2010

in education and Events

. 0 Comments

The University of Notre Dame’s Department of Psychology and Center for Children and Families invites you to a multidisciplinary symposium entitled “Human Nature and Early Experience: Addressing the ‘Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness’” October 10-12, 2010. This symposium brings together an international audience interested in innovative approaches to human development, children, families, parenting, and human evolution. Speakers will present their research on the relationship between caregiving practices and outcomes.

See the schedule and speaker list below. Continue reading ‘International Symposium on Human Nature and Early Experience at Notre Dame’

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Amy Klobuchar’s Adoptive Families Act

Published