Arianna was wrapped in sheets, left alone in a closed room and slowly starved to death. Foster parents Sherrie and Bryce Dirk will go to prison for murdering Arianna. This solves nothing.
There is something terribly disturbing about a State sanctioned foster family starving a 3 year old State Ward child to death that needs to see the light of day.
Arianna must not have had a County social worker (today’s Star Tribune article …
DetailsIt really is front page news that children at this institution were allowed to bang their heads against walls until they had concussions, facial injuries and head trauma. These young troubled children had sex on the facility grounds, forced sex and …
DetailsWHAT IS A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS?
Polio, smallpox & measles were public health emergencies – policies & programs were created to end these crisis.
FIRST, A conversation.
A conversation about identifying and understanding the issues is a first step to discovering the policies & tools to interrupt generational child abuse and heal troubled children and families.
Once policy makers recognize the depth and scope of the problem, it becomes possible to divert resources and attention from policies and programs that don’t work to policies and programs that do work.
Until then, cities will suffer levels of violence, school failure, racial inequities and all the sadness and failure trauma survivors bring to the communities they live in.
Kids At Risk Action invites you to start the conversation in your community with KARA’s INVISIBLE CHILDREN Campus program.
DetailsAs of early 2016, Minnesota had 7,200 children on its waiting list for child care assistance.
There are 1.3 million children In Minnesota & 404,000 of them live below 200% of poverty
DetailsStories about the shortage of foster care providers, lack of training and resources and transparency within the system are not uncommon – remember, we only read about the very worst cases – the sadness in foster care goes much deeper.
On any given day in Minnesota, there are more than 10,500 kids in foster care.
DetailsKARA gathers news about Minnesota’s at risk children
to provide a snapshot of
how our state
values its children.
Only a fraction of serious child abuse makes the news.
All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children
Follow;
Safe Passage For Children MN (Join their legislative volunteer efforts and make child friendly legislation a reality)
CASAMN (become a guardian ad Litem and speak for abused children)
The Protect Our Children Act of 2008 was intended to curb photos and videos of child sexual assaults posted on the internet. The number of reported images increased from 100,000 in 2008 to 45 million last year.
DetailsWatching mom beaten or raped is terror. Homeless mothers and children are many times more likely to be assaulted and molested.
Children of addicted and alcoholic moms and dads are beaten and raped more often too.
Trauma is *torture. Watching mom being raped is torture.
DetailsGenerational child abuse in America today is a public health crisis costing cities, states and counties exponentially more money every year. Huge parts of County and State budgets are dedicated to the chaos child abuse creates.
Detailsdaho lawmakers are working on a bill to set a minimum marriage age after the House rejected a similar proposal from Democrats earlier this year (10.29.19) as there is no minimum age for marrying off your daughter in this American state (just like in Pakistan).
DetailsWith almost half the population of the U.S. (138M v 326M) Japan reported 33,308 cases of abuse reported in 2005 compared to about 3 million cases reported in the U.S.
DetailsChildren have no voice in the media, courts, homes or legislature.
Child rights in America today are the rights of women in 1917 (a personal possession – a slave or pet).
Only a fraction of parental violence and abuse against children is ever reported, a tiny percentage of that number is ever prosecuted and parents can legally withhold life saving medical care from their children in 37 states and some states put only token resources into child protective systems leaving children trapped in a lifetime of violence, trauma and abuse.
Please join KARA in sending your support to president Obama in asking Congress to sign on. Without this treaty, children in this nation have almost no rights outside of the Imminent Harm Doctrine that forbids parents from (almost) killing their children. After many years as a volunteer guardian ad-Litem, countless tragic stories of horrific abuse, backlogged courts and troubled child protection systems, these children need the basic rights outlined in this treaty. It is the right thing to do.
This had to have been one of the most detailed Childline referrals the county had ever seen, not to mention Sally had a wonderful, dedicated psychiatrist. As the time went by, the treatment team eagerly awaited the results of her abuse referral, as she had won over the hearts of all the hospital staff and we all wanted to see her safe and free from harm.
The referral came back as unfounded.
Due to her intellectual and neurodevelopmental disabilities, she was deemed in-credible.
Details1/3 of foster children have mental health issues serious enough to be forced onto psychotropic medications.
Of the 2 million youth arrested in America every year, 70% or them have mental health issues – half of them have severe, chronic and often multiple diagnosis.
That’s what teachers and schools face every day with one school nurse if they are lucky enough to have one.
DetailsAmerica is the only nation on earth that is not a party to the international rights of the child treaty of 1989.
Children have no voice in the media, courts, homes and they can’t vote for legislation to keep them safe from harm.
Child rights in America today are the rights of women in 1917 (a personal possession – a slave or pet).
Only a fraction of parental violence and abuse against children is ever reported, a tiny percentage of that number is ever prosecuted and parents can legally withhold life saving medical care from their children in 27 states with some states putting only token resources into child protective systems leaving children trapped in a lifetime of violence, trauma and abuse.
Most child abuse cases in state courts meet the World Health Organization’s definition of torture “Extended exposure to violence and deprivation”.
DetailsHow many teachers signed up to pack a weapon when they entered the profession? Turnover in education is already a huge problem. Packing a gun is what police and soldiers do. Shooting someone takes real and extensive training.
Arming teachers, the commonality of school lock downs and active shooter student training and placing the army or police force inside of our schools are extreme measures being taken that instill fear in students and make teaching more like combat than education. Wiki list of school shootings in America.
Federal Funding, Zero Tolerance and Inadequate Alternatives mean that more states are policing schools with armed officers. Before the 1970’s police were almost absent from elementary and junior high schools.
Today in American schools
Killing your parents is against the law in every state. No matter what they have done to you or for how long.
Killing your children is legal in 27 states. Religious exemptions make it legal to withhold lifesaving medical care for your child.
American children have no rights. Children are property in America.
Detailsat the time, argued that subsidized daycare was unnecessary (like bus service and bridge maintenance—his words) and he diverted all the money allocated to subsidized daycare for poor families and children into a “general fund.”
The waiting list for low-cost daycare climbed from 34 to over 7,000 families. People quit applying.
My state was saving money at the expense of 1- and 2-year-olds. Drunk uncles and boyfriends became daycare providers overnight, and terrible things happen to children when that occurs…
“What we do to our children, they will do to society” (Pliny the Elder 2000 years ago)
Louisiana (the World’s Prison Capitol), Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma & several other states have incarceration rates 20 times that of incarceration rates in most other industrialized nations. The best prisons in the world release good neighbors back into the community American prisons release hardened criminals with mental health problems and an 80% change of recidivism within five years.
Federal Prisons are 131% of design capacity – 2015 18 states are over capacity. 800% increase in women in prison since 1980.
These statistics and research calculate crime in America today and its cost…
DetailsMontana is not the only state to shut down a licensed child care facility for abused of abused children. Every state has the problem. The Great Falls Tribune news in Montana today of “egregarious, chronic and persistent child abuse and neglect by this licensed child care facility is just the tip of the iceberg. Anyone from Montana reading this should contact their State Representative and complain that the DHS hearings should NOT be kept confidential and closed to the public. You paid for this facility to do terrible things to these children and you need to know what has been done if you don’t want it repeated. This is a core problem with child protection systems everywhere; no transparency or accountability until someone dies or the violence to children becomes horrific and unhideable. KARA believes that once the community becomes aware of the depth and scope of the problems tortured children are forced to live with, more care and resources will become available. Until then, these stories will be the norm.
Minnesota recently closed two facilities and thereporting here gives a snapshot
DetailsDJ Tice Star Tribune article recently made crime very real by describing his wife’s rape, his own assault and home burglary along with the awful Barry Latzer assumption that 80% of Americans could become victims of a violent crime in their lifetime.
No obfuscation here.
Crime hurts when it happens to you or someone you love.
What best should be done about crime and punishment is our national conundrum.
Damn the data, “hanging’s too good for em’ and “lock em up” our national chant for fifty years bringing us such data as;
DetailsWhere other advanced nations create safety nets for struggling families, we build giant jail and prison systems that have been filled to capacity for decades along with incongruous realities like;
DetailsDropping napalm on children and families in Vietnam (PBS video) was an unforgivable evil. Thousands of small children died by napalm.
Burned alive is the most painful death anyone can suffer. Survivors live with scars and trauma that never end.
Today, my government takes helpless babies & children from parents and places them in the custody of money driven defense contractors who warehouse them in cages at vacant shopping centers by the thousands.
The American Psychological Association condemns this act as needlessly cruel threatening “the mental and physical health of both the children and their caregivers”.
*Torturing immigrant children for political reasons is a vile act and it needs to be called out. *The World Health Organization defines torture as “extended exposure to violence and deprivation”.
DetailsAt that time, the institution spent the weeks trying to convert him to their religion instead of helping him. The month long visit was painful and not helpful.
The State of Minnesota forcibly closed the privatized group home at St Cloud for repeated violations including head banging that caused concussions & sex in front of staff. 2 St Paul boys group homes have been closed recently and there has long been a shortage of qualified foster homes in outstate Minnesota (as it is all around the nation).
This video demonstrates how terrible privatized group homes can become (Florida forces 48% of their state wards onto Prozac like drugs and now lives with eleven year old’s prostituting themselves out of their foster group homes).
Detailsin many states, single Parents pay over 50% of their income for infant center care and married parents with 2 children pay over 100% of their household income for center based care (or they would if they could make it work). Minnesotans pay over 15 thousand dollars for infant care (when public college tuition is 11 thousand dollars.
For a nation claiming to value children – one could argue it’s for the dollars they bring in and not their future role as citizens. Drunk uncle/boyfriend daycare is an awful thing the media…
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