Making Children Whole (with the help of the community)

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

Think what you might about the unborn, it seems only fair that a living breathing baby should have the right to basic health care (if only to continue breathing).

It is terrifically expensive to treat the chronic illness and behavioral problems that blossom out of children born into toxic and unhealthy circumstances where mom’s without parenting skills, or coping skills, eat poorly, drink excessively and often have serious mental health issues. Many of the moms I’ve known from child protection were the fourth or fifth generation of abused girls having their own families of abused children. Without help from the community, their children never break out of toxic birth home environments and never learn the skills they need to live a productive life.

Crisis nurseries and subsidized quality daycare make up for some of the problems these children live with in the home. Coping skills are not delivered by the stork but they can be gleaned from other care providers (if the community reaches out).

In my lengthy Protestant upbringing, I can only remember a Jesus that wanted to provide for the weakest and most vulnerable among us – especially children.

Why Teachers Quit Teaching

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Day Care and Education

When I first began teaching more than 25 years ago, hands-on exploration, investigation, joy and love of learning characterized the early childhood classroom. I’d describe our current period as a time of testing, data collection, competition and punishment. One would be hard put these days to find joy present in classrooms.

I think it started with No Child Left Behind years ago. Over the years I’ve seen this climate of data fascination seep into our schools and slowly change the ability for educators to teach creatively and respond to children’s social and emotional needs. But this was happening in the upper grades mostly. Then it came to kindergarten and PreK, beginning a number of years ago with a literacy initiative that would have had us spending the better part of each day teaching literacy skills through various prescribed techniques. ”What about math, science, creative expression and play?” we asked. The kindergarten teachers fought back and kept this push for an overload of literacy instruction at bay for a number of years.

Next came additional mandated assessments. Four and five year olds are screened regularly each year for glaring gaps in their development that would warrant a closer look and securing additional supports (such as O.T, P.T, and Speech Therapy) quickly. Teachers were already assessing each child three times a year to understand their individual literacy development and growth. A few years ago, we were instructed to add periodic math assessments after each unit of study in math. Then last year we were told to include an additional math assessment on all Kindergarten students (which takes teachers out of the classroom with individual child testing, and intrudes on classroom teaching time.)

Thank You Safe Passage For Children

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - MN Specific

As a long time CASA guardian ad-Litem who finds it impossible to believe that the depth and scope of child abuse in my community (both local and national) is largely unspoken until some poor child is found in a dumpster or has his brains bashed out against a wall by a caregiver, I am excited by the efforts to quantify these sad facts by Safe Passages For Children.

It is precisely because we don’t keep track, or if we do, don’t publish the mountain of unhappy things happening to our children. If these things were recorded, reported, and discussed, our institutions could function more effectively and children would be much safer and happier.

What follows is a major effort by Rich Gehrman and Safe Passages For Children to identify the tip of this iceberg (thank you Rich and company)

Please sign our petition for safe and healthy MN children (even if you are not from MN)

Petition to make health, education, and well being available to all MN children

KARA TV Interview Mike & Tiffini

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, KARA News and Events

KARA board members Tiffini Flynn Forsland & Mike Tikkanen were Interviewed on Catherine Hoaglund’s Metro Cable Network Channel 6, Catherine’s Crossing to bring attention to key issues facing abused and neglected children. Catherine asked powerful questions about the brutal truths faced by at risk children and what our community could do to help children in toxic homes develop the coping skills necessary for leading a normal life.

Thank You Ruben Rosario (for today’s powerful Pioneer Press article supporting our Invisible Children Petition)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - MN Specific

“In the spirit of a) enlightened self-interest and b) in order to form a more perfect union, we the people of Minnesota declare that all children have an equal right to preventative health care (the right to see a doctor before they are sick) including prenatal care and to quality early learning (pre-K) programs,” the petition states.

Beyond Capacity; Arizona’s Child Protection System (not the only state)

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

Child Protective Services oversight committee shows Arizona’s child welfare system experienced a greater caseload increase than all but one state in the 10 years ending in 2012, while most states saw decreases.

University of Chicago researcher and former federal child welfare commissioner Bryan Samuels’ review of state and federal data also found the response time in Arizona for child abuse and neglect complaints soared from 63 hours to nearly 250 hours between 2009 and 2012.

Samuels said the data he reviewed at the request of state officials working to overhaul the broken system showed Arizona’s child welfare system became overwhelmed as caseloads soared. That led to a large increase in the amount of time children were in the system before being reunified with their families or placed in permanent homes.

477 Child Deaths In FL (preserving families but costing lives)

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

When 8-week-old Kyla Joy Hall was hospitalized with a bleeding brain and fractures to both legs, both wrists and a foot, police could not determine which of her parents injured her. One thing was certain: Someone had inflicted life-threatening injuries on a newborn.

While Kyla healed in a medical foster home, child-welfare authorities moved to strip both parents of their rights to her. But when her mother bowed out of the picture — to become an actress — her father transformed, without explanation, from abuse suspect into fit parent. Josi Hall, Jacksonville firefighter, was awarded full custody despite the misgivings of his own mother.

Ten months later, Kyla’s father viciously attacked her. Her injuries included a “pulpified” liver, knuckle-sized bruises to her chest and, the decisive blow, a cleaved heart that sustained damage similar to “that of a kick from a horse,” an autopsy said.

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

Aces and Trauma, All Posts from Kids at Risk Action

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

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

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

Great Discussion On Privatized Foster Care In Georgia (Linked In)

Adoption, Foster and Kinship Care, All Posts from Kids at Risk Action

Fascinating debate occurring in Georgia that has life-altering impacts on children. Have you studied the research on privatization of foster care and/or other child welfare services? If so, please share what you’ve learned? Has your state had experience with partial or full privatization? Any lessons to share with Georgia and the rest of the country from that?

Daycare In America (more sad stories)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Day Care and Education

A South Carolina woman who allegedly operated an unlicensed daycare out of her home faces multiple charges after a child under her care died. But investigators say that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Pamela Clark Wood, 49, was arrested March 6. Police began investigating Wood last month after Greenville County Sheriff’s deputies received a call about anunresponsive 3-month-old baby girl, who later died.

Here’s Something Easy You Can Do To Improve The Lives Of At Risk Children

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, CASA, GAL and Child Protection

Children’s Issues in MN don’t get the coverage they need. You can help KARA change this. Click Here and fill out the form recommending children’s issues as the most important story right now. Think about it. You don’t read about these issues in the media unless a baby has died or some other horrid things has happened to a child.

Help KARA change this. Two minutes of your time will have an impact.
Buy our book or donate Sample 4 minute video of Mike’s awesome talk on child protection in America

Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/KidsAtRisk Share This Blog

It’s How You Frame The Issue

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

Albert Garcia’s first psychotic break was bizarre — he awoke from a night of drinking and meth use 10 years ago to hear angry voices coming from people on the other side of a living room mirror — but it gives him credibility as he counsels others with severe mental illness.

“I can see it. I can feel it,” said Garcia, 57. “I can actually feel the kind of fear they are going through.”

Garcia is the most unorthodox member of a project created to help Twin Cities teens struggling with severe mental illness. The idea is to bring a team of professionals such as psychiatric nurses and drug counselors to teens’ doorsteps, but also to connect them with “peer support” specialists such as Garcia who can relate to their struggles.

Single Mom Survival (most moving story on the web today)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, CASA, GAL and Child Protection

I had aspirations and potential when I was fresh out of high school in 1997. I graduated from a private school with a 3.97 GPA. I could have gone to practically any college I’d set my sights on, but I wanted to stay in my beloved hometown of Denver and was hell bent on going to school to learn, not to party, so I opted for Metropolitan State University in the heart of downtown. I got an apartment with my older brother, already had a part time job I’d worked at every summer throughout high school, and started college on a full ride, four year scholarship. I planned to double major in broadcasting and Spanish and work my way up the ranks of my favorite local TV station, from field reporter to news anchor.

A Modest Proposal & The Kansas State House (special thanks to Jonathan Swift & Gail Finney)

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

The juxtaposition of Jonathon Swifts “Modest Proposal” to sell the poor newborn babies of Ireland as food to solve the poverty and suffering of Irish parents has a parallel to the beating and bruising of children proposal being advanced by Kansas State Rep Gail Finney in several ways.
First and foremost, is the repugnant assumption that beating or eating children will make anyone’s lives better is insane. Murder is murder. We also know that beaten children will beat their own children (and others).

2500 years ago, Pliny told us “what we do to our children, they will do to society”. Look around you at the full prisons, troubled schools, and dangerous streets. It didn’t get this way because of the overemphasis on early childhood programs and support for poor young families.

In Swift’s defense, he was being satirical and ironic. Finney has no defense (she’s just mean and crazy – like Bachman). Parallel two is that 30 states have outright banned corporal punishment (proposed by Finney) and there are no states that allow the boiling, broiling, or baking of children (as proposed by Swift).
For readers among us, below are Swift’s full text and a more about Representative Finney’s bizarre work in Kansas.

Comment Thread On The Child Beating Bill In Kansas

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

Friends of KARA, below are the comments made on a network debating the Kansas state bill that would allow the beating of children by virtually any caregiver and the leaving of bruises. The good news is that most people hate it for its neanderthal approach to child rearing but there are a fair number of folks that just want the right to beat children.

My mom was born 9 years prior to women’s rights being passed in America. Before this, almost no amount of violence was illegal against a man’s wife. Not so different with children in America today. The passing of this law in Kansas will demonstrate just how tragically ill informed state legislators can be.

Children In The News – read about your state here (thank you child welfare.gov)

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

ID: Bill to protect children of faith healers in Idaho will not get a hearing
Associated Press – February 26, 2014
House leaders ruled out a hearing on a bill meant to curb the number of children who die because their parents choose faith healing and not medical assistance for religious reasons.
http://www.katu.com/news/local/Bill-to-protect-children-of-faith-healers-in-Idaho-will-not-get-a-hearing-247401091.html

GOP Is Right; We Are Spending Too Much (because we invest too little)

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

David Strand is a KARA board member, he has lived in Finland, worked on the making of public policies for children and written about how other advanced nations make public policy on children’s issues. He is a frequent contributor to KARA’s web pages. Look up his other articles under “select a category – David Strand” on the right hand side. David’s article today;

Edwin Green (recently deceased and not his real name) was an executive for 3M from the 1960’s into the 80’s. He once gave me a lecture on business philosophy, a lesson that resonates in today’s climate of political impasse. Edwin mentored me and asked why I was bothering to study for an MBA at night school. I replied my engineering education was quite narrow and studying business helped me understand working at 3M. Smiling broadly, Edwin told me he (also an engineer) hadn’t studied business but “he knew how to run a business.” Mostly, he said, all you have to know is when “to spend a nickel to make a dime”, his one-minute lecture.

Safe Passage For Children Of MN (unintended consequences of legislation)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - MN Specific

Guardrails Plus Guidelines

Legislation often has unintended consequences. For example a proposed Minnesota bill would eliminate smoking from foster homes. Makes sense for new licenses, but it could disrupt current placements where children are doing well.

Rather than addressing every situation with a law or regulation, consider ‘guardrails’ for ones that are clearly out of bounds, and guidelines for the rest.

A guardrail for example would be that an adult who has sexually perpetrated on children should never have access to kids. Guidelines would help determine if a father who had a felony 15 years ago gets consideration in a custody decision.

Guidelines require ongoing training, quality control, and accountability for outcomes. But they are more efficient than continually working around inflexible rules. Plus, they give skilled workers room to apply their expertise.

Another Screened Out Of Child Protection Baby Dies In MN

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

Freda Perdue, 33, was charged Friday in Ramsey County District Court with child neglect and child endangerment.

According to the criminal complaint:

Police were called last Saturday to the East Metro Place in White Bear Lake on a report of a male infant who was not breathing.

Police found Perdue crying next to the baby, who appeared to have blood around his nostrils. He was taken to St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood, where he was pronounced dead.

Perdue told police that the night before she had laid the baby on his back on a mattress where her three other sons and a neighbor boy were sleeping.

Snakes In Guatemala vs Guns In America

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

Last weekend, after 20 years of handling snakes, Jamie Coots received his final bite. A rattler got him in the back of the hand. It happened as Coots, a Pentecostal minister, was leading the Saturday night service at his church in Kentucky. Two hours later, he was dead.

The same thing happened two years earlier in West Virginia. Mack Wolford, another serpent-handling preacher, succumbed to a rattler’s venom.

After scores of deaths from messing with snakes, you’d think people would give it up. But they haven’t.

Three months ago, a 15-year-old boy died in Ohio. A local TV station said it happened when he brought a snake and “passed it to a 16-year-old friend.” A similar tragedy occurred the same day in California, when a homeowner “was showing his friend a snake.” “It’s a shock that something like this could happen,” said a neighbor. “I had no idea there was ever a snake in the home.”

On Dec. 1, a young man died in Florida after friends brought a snake to his apartment. “They passed it around,” according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, and the snake delivered the fatal wound when the man’s girlfriend picked it up. “It was a stupid accident,” said the dead man’s grandfather. “It never should have happened.” On Dec. 20, a 3-year-old boy died in Arizona after discovering his parents’ snake. A local TV station reported that “the parents told investigators the snake was inadvertently misplaced for a short time. That’s when the child found it.”

70 Child Abuse Deaths In California’s Child Protection System

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

When paramedics arrived, eight-year old Gabriel Fernandez was not conscious. His skull was cracked. Three ribs were broken. Bruises and burns covered his body. Two teeth were knocked out of his mouth. X-rays would later show that the third-grader had BB pellets embedded in his lung and groin. Gabriel’s mother, Pearl Fernandez, 29, and her boyfriend Isauro Aguirre, 32, told the paramedics that Gabriel’s injuries were self-induced. Later Aguirre said that he delivered ten or so blows to Gabriel’s stomach for lying and “being dirty.”

Before Gabriel’s death, his mother was the target of six investigations of child abuse. One of Gabriel’s teachers reported the boy coming to school battered. One of Gabriel’s therapists reported that Gabriel said that he was forced to perform oral sex on a family member. Gabriel told a teacher he’d been beat with a belt buckle until he bled and his mother shot him with a BB gun. Gabriel wrote a suicide note, found by his teacher.

According to documents obtained by the LA Times and a recent wrongful death lawsuit filed by Gabriel’s grandparents, Gabriel was never interviewed privately by a social worker about his abuse. Fernandez and Aguirre have been charged with first degree murder of a child. The two have yet to enter their pleas. Two months after Gabriel’s death, four DCFS employees related to his case were fired.

Faith Healing & Another Child Death In Philadelphia

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

8 month old Brandon Schaible died of treatable pneumonia because his parents don’t believe in medicine.

This is not as rare as one would hope. In Idaho, 144 children have died in the Followers of Christ Church due to lack of medical care. Religious shield laws are everywhere (does your state have them?

Idaho makes it legal to deny children medical care (including to death). In Oregon 15-month-old Ava Worthington. 16-year-old Neil Beagley. 8-month-old Alayna May Wyland. 9-hour-old David Hickman died that way. Below are articles related to child death due to religious practice and the legal underpinnings (further down) that make withholding medical treatments from children legal.

Hitting Children & Leaving Bruises On Kansas Children Could Be The Law Next Session

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

State Rep Gail Finney says whacking children is about restoring parental rights (along with the rights of teachers and other caregivers) and not child abuse. I guess that depends on how you define abuse. Imagine letting other people whack your child and leaving bruises.

Kansas already allows whacking children without leaving marks, but that just doesn’t pass Gail’s smell test. She wants to see red.

Gail has vowed to continue bringing it up if it doesn’t make it this year. Kansas ranks 36th among the states in child death & 29th in juvenile incarceration according to Geography Matters, Child Well-Being among the states.

Another Failed State (no protection from child rape and no foster parents in Montana)

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

Kids with chaotic family situations, with behavior and mental health issues, as young as you can imagine, end up needing emergency housing. The need for foster families trained to help these kids is ever present.

Youth Dynamics is a non-profit organization operating across Montana. Katie Gerten works out of the Kalispell office licensing people to be foster parents. She said in the past six months she’s has about 20 children referred to her office to be placed in foster care that she had to turn down. She said it’s hard to find people up for becoming foster parents.

Childhood Trauma & Psychosis (another study; University of Liverpool)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Mental Health + Over Medication

REVIEW FINDS THAT CHILDHOOD TRAUMA CAN LEAD TO PSYCHOSIS

An international team of researchers, led by a University of Liverpool psychologist, has published a review of recent research and concluded that there is strong support for the hypothesis that early trauma in childhood (including abuse and neglect) can effect brain development in ways that increase the probability of developing psychosis later in life.

Anomalies in the brains of people diagnosed with mental health problems such as ‘schizophrenia’ have traditionally been used to support the notion that such problems are biologically based brain disorders that have little to do with life events.

For The Record – Minneapolis Arrests 44% Of Its Black Adult Male Population (2001 was not that long ago)

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

The central question posed by this report
is, “How can young African American men
and Hennepin County help each other
succeed?” For years, there have been
many mechanisms in place to benefit 18
to 30-year-old African American men; yet
the outcomes for many of these men
continue to be poor. For example:
• Forty-four percent are arrested
each year.
• They are 27 times more likely to go to
jail than young white men.
• Twenty-eight percent of these young
men enrolled in the Minneapolis Public
Schools graduate from high school in
four years.
• They are twice as likely to die
as young white men ages 18 to 30. read the whole report here;

Drilling For Mass Murder & Arming Teachers Institutionalizes Fear and Insanity In Our Schools (please stop)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Day Care and Education

All across America, schools are practicing lock downs and pretend mass shootings, arming teachers, bringing firearms and terror into school to traumatize ten year old children and make educators hate and fear their work.

Kansas is requiring its teachers to carry firearms, some states are using fake blood and real automatic weapons fire in their practice drills.

How many teachers signed up expecting to be issued a pistol on the first day of school?

Is this what you want your children to live with? I’ve had a gun pointed at me, it is traumatizing and practicing this on children should be a criminal act.

It is also a false premise that you can turn art teachers into capable crime stoppers.

Police and military personnel receive extensive and very real training to reach a point where they can function effectively under combat conditions. Most people are fooling themselves to expect much out of a few hours of weapons training when the real thing happens. God I hate the NRA.

Kansas is requiring its teachers to carry firearms, some states are using fake blood and real automatic weapons fire in their practice drills.

How many teachers signed up expecting to be issued a pistol on the first day of school?

Is this what you want your children to learn and live with? I’ve had a gun pointed at me, it is traumatizing and practicing this on children should be a criminal act.

It is also a false premise that art teachers become capable crime stoppers with a few hours of weapons practice. Believe me, it takes a special kind of person to draw down and accurately fire a weapon in a life death situation.

Police and military personnel receive extensive and very real training to reach a point where they can function effectively under combat conditions. Most people are fooling themselves to expect much out of a few hours of weapons training when the real thing happens. The NRA sells guns not textbooks (remember that).

Abused and Neglected Children’s News (thank you Child Welfare In The News)

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

MA: Patrick To Address Controversy Surrounding Child Welfare Agency
Associated Press – January 27, 2014
The failure of the Department of Children and Families to keep track of a missing 5-year-old boy whose family had been under its supervision is inexcusable but has given the state an opportunity to re-examine the agency and make changes, Gov. Deval Patrick said Monday. Also: Gov. Patrick: DCF review to be completed by the spring: http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/24554144/2014/01/27/gov-patrick-to-discuss-dcf-probe#ixzz2rh7CVuAs
http://www.wbur.org/2014/01/27/patrick-speak-dcf-controversy

Euthanizing Children (the right to die)

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

Brussels — Belgium faced fresh protests Wednesday as its parliament debated whether to extend a ground-breaking euthanasia law to terminally-ill children, making it only the second nation to allow minors the right to die.

“To see a sick child die is revolting, it is not just,” said Socialist parliamentarian Karine Lalieux as MP crossed swords on the ethically tough question that will be put to the vote on Thursday.

“But euthanasia doesn’t consist in killing a person but in freeing them from suffering,” she said. “Every child, every family must be allowed the choice to deliver a child from pain.”

Beaten Child Verdict $166M In NJ The Largest Ever

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

Despite findings of abuse, New Jersey Child protection returned four year old Jadiel Velesques to his violent family where he was beaten so badly he cannot walk or talk, is blind, and will need the care of nurses & doctors around the clock. DYFS said that reducing casework workload and strengthening training and supervision of caseworkers has happened already. This is the largest verdict against a child protective services agency in U.S. history. It hurts me to think that the caseloads could have been reduced and the training and supervision could have been strengthened before Jadiel was beaten. Just like we could have built the mental health facility the year before Jeff Weise murdered his grandfather, 14 others, and then killed himself.

Support Safe Passage For Children (abuse continues when it is not investigated)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - MN Specific

Safe Passage For Children is promoting legislation that will require counties to keep data on abuse reports which will identify when children are repeatedly reported as abused. As a long time CASA guardian-ad-Litem, I can recall plenty of instances where children were re-reported again and again before anyone looked into it. In one case, 49 police calls to the home in which a seven year old was prostituted (over four years). The definition of malfeasance and torture of a child.

Send this Link to your State Representative and anyone else you think might support Rich Gehrman and his Safe Passage for MN children.

In Whose Best Interest (MN courts returned this child to an abusive father 6 times)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Reporting and News - MN Specific

The number of Minnesota foster children removed from their homes after being reunited with their parents, known as the “re-entry rate,” has increased in recent years and is now nearly three times the federal standard. Thomas Stone is trying to find stability after more than a decade of turmoil in Minnesota’s child foster care system. He was returned to his abusive father a half-dozen times.

INVISIBLE CHILDREN Book Accepted Into Public Library Today

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, KARA News and Events

INVISIBLE CHILDREN will now be on the shelves of the public library. You can search for it online or click on this book link to reserve it. It has been some years in coming, and I like to think this is a sign that the conversation around abused and neglected children is finally getting the attention it deserves. Forward this to people that might want to know.

A Glimmer Of Hope (push for preschool)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Day Care and Education

Preschool is having its moment, as a favored cause for politicians and interest groups who ordinarily have trouble agreeing on the time of day. President Obama devoted part of his State of the Union address to it, while the deeply red states of Oklahoma and Georgia are being hailed as national models of preschool access and quality, with other states and cities also forging ahead on their own.

With a growing body of research pointing to the importance of early child development and its effect on later academic and social progress, enrollment in state-funded preschool has more than doubled since 2002, to about 30 percent of all 4-year-olds nationwide. In just the past year, Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana and the city of San Antonio have enacted new or expanded programs, while in dozens of other places, mayors, governors and legislators are making a serious push for preschool.

Inside AZ Child Protection Politics

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

Does Legislature have the will to fix CPS this time?

At long last – or again, that is — we have an answer to why Ariana and Tyler Payne had to die, and Jacob Gibson and Schala Vera and 20-month-old Liana Sandoval, whose battered body was found wired to a rock at the bottom of a canal in 2001, one day after Child Protective Services found no evidence of abuse.

At long last – or again, that is – we know why Annie Carimbocas had to die, and Haley Gray and Vanessa Martinez and 3-year-old Angelene Plummer, who was beaten, burned, raped and murdered in 2005 after CPS declared eight times that she was safe.

At long last – or again that is – we know why Janie Buelna left us in 2011, her body scarred, her teeth broken, her leg ravaged by an untreated burn when a simple phone call by CPS might have saved her.

And 22-month-old Za’Naya Flores, who starved to death in 2012 while a CPS caseworker wrote monthly reports on her progress.

At long last – or again that is – we know what the heck is going on in Child Protective Services. And we know how to fix it.

The question is: will we?

On Friday, Gov. Jan Brewer’s Independent Child Advocate Response Examination team – a task force of troubleshooters tapped in December after the agency’s latest epic fail — released its report on what is wrong with Arizona’s most beleaguered agency.

KARA planning a course for Continuing Legal Ed; For the attorneys, how many of you would consider attending?

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, KARA News and Events

We appreciate any feedback we can get to create the most accurate and up to date coursework for those of you who want to better understand this complicated and evolving area of law. Are there parts of the child protection topic that would be most important to you? Tell us. We will be bringing a new perspective to a much under-served subject. Please forward this to your lawyer friends.

email me directly; info@invisiblechildren.org

Growing Up In An Abusive Home (the ACE study) Dr Felitti

Aces and Trauma, All Posts from Kids at Risk Action

We need Congressional Oversight Hearings to review the enormous waste of federal funds that are often used to help dangerous abusers gain custody. We agree the hearings should consider the fraud, corruption and ignorance that waste large sums of money and bankrupt so many litigants. Most important we need oversight about the failure of the courts to protect our most important asset—OUR CHILDREN
We hope everybody will join together in seeking Congressional Oversight Hearings. Sign the Petition and tell your friends about it. Let’s give our children a chance for a safe and healthy life.

The Race To Incarcerate Women (this does not bode well for children)

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

Why a Prison Birth Project?
Since 1977, the female prison population has increased by 872% (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008). Over 85% of the women in prison were the primary caregivers to their children before incarceration, and approximately 25% of women in prison have either given birth at some point during the year prior to or are pregnant at the time of their arrest (U.S. Department of Justice).These women have little access to services or rehabilitation related to birth preparation and parenting while in prison.
Labor, delivery, and birth rarely involves family, friends, or support, and most often consists of the woman being searched, shackled, and taken to a hospital under the watch of guards. Their babies are taken away from them soon afterwards. Some mothers will not see their children again then until their release; some may never see them again. These women experience shame, powerlessness, and fear during labor, and are left exposed and likely to suffer to post‐partum depression, life‐long parent‐child attachment issues, and an overwhelming insecurity in their ability to be a successful parent.

Child Abuse In Your State (recent news from across the nation – thank you Child Welfare in the News)

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

IN: Can parents sue DCS? Yes, divided justices rule
Indiana Lawyer – January 01, 2014
A sharply divided Indiana Supreme Court decision that a family may sue the state’s child protection agency for negligence is sure to resonate within the Department of Child Services, attorneys familiar with the case said. “The whole purpose of this appeal was to try to hold the Department of Child Services accountable for its failure to abide by statutory requirements,” said Adam Sedia of Rubino Ruman Crosmer & Polen LLC of Dyer, who successfully argued the case decided in a 3-2 opinion Nov. 26.
http://www.theindianalawyer.com/can-parents-sue-dcs-yes-divided-justices-rule/PARAMS/article/33138

Send A Message For Early Learning In MN (only 9% of MN kids get early learning scholarships today)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Day Care and Education

Even though the legislative session doesn’t start for another month, the MinneMinds campaign continues to work to ensure more kids have access to high quality early learning. Bills have already begun to be filed and one of the first bills to be introduced calls for more resources for early learning scholarships.

Florida, The Land Of Oranges & Prosecuting 14 Year Olds As Adults (sentenced to 70 years – for robbery)

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

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In decisions widely hailed as milestones, the United States Supreme Court in 2010 and 2012 acted to curtail the use of mandatory life sentences for juveniles, accepting the argument that children, even those who are convicted of murder, are less culpable than adults and usually deserve a chance at redemption.
But most states have taken half measures, at best, to carry out the rulings, which could affect more than 2,000 current inmates and countless more in years to come, according to many youth advocates and legal experts.

“States are going through the motions of compliance,” said Cara H. Drinan, an associate professor of law at the Catholic University of America, “but in an anemic or hyper-technical way that flouts the spirit of the decisions.”

Lawsuits now before Florida’s highest court are among many across the country that demand more robust changes in juvenile justice. One of the Florida suits accuses the state of skirting the ban on life without parole in nonhomicide cases by meting out sentences so staggering that they amount to the same thing.

Executing Nine Year Olds (the best TED talk ever – or why I like lawyers)

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

photo compliments of Richard Ross David R Dow (voluntarily) represents the poor on death row – no one else cares. Two people a month are executed in Texas. Lawyer Dow points out that it is children in need of protection that have no way of avoiding the juvenile justice system that end up in the criminal justice system. The very worst cases end up on death row. How can we intervene? This is not rocket science. Points of intervention