The inability to read almost ensures a child’s failure in school and in life. School failure, feelings of worthlessness, depression and self-hate lead to giving up and the terrible choices left to children that have no hope.
DetailsReligious exemptions = It’s Not A Crime to Abuse Your Child + NY banned child marriage today (7.23.21) but you can still withhold life saving medical care for religious reasons….
DetailsThese recent articles reflect the stories of America’s at risk children and youth.
If we don’t know the issues, there doesn’t seem to be a problem.
If we don’t see a problem there is no need for a solution.
Their stories are real.
Find their story in your state.
DetailsACE research shows a strong historical pattern of criminality in families of child delinquents. Using Cohen’s estimates, we calculate the multi-generational “multiplier effect” to be between $3.4 and $11.5 million. In these families, criminality is likely to grow exponentially.
DetailsKARA advocates for the people, policies and programs that improve the lives of abused and neglected children. This article contributed by KARA board member Mike Tikkanen KARA Signature Video (4 minute) COVID is Hammering Children’s Mental Health The crisis in children’s mental health Post COVID is beginning to (NYTimes) appear in our communities. (this…
DetailsGrowing up gay is a trauma to start with. Being anxious and feeling alone and different is at the heart of the abuse suffered by both. The traumas of growing up gay and growing up abused are similar.
DetailsYouth are two to three time more likely to confess to crimes they did not commit than adults.
Police interrogations using fabricated statements are most likely why. Kids are more intimidated by law enforcement than adults and they break down faster.
There’s just no upside in sending youth to jail. Incarcerating them for crimes they did not commit is a sign of a dysfunctional system. A system that creates what it was designed to stop.
DetailsMany American newborns remain untested and untreated for very treatable metabolic disorders, hearing, sight & blood lead level s. 48 States allow religious exemptions from vaccination.
Some states allow religion to keep children from TB testing in school. 43 states give some kind of criminal or civil immunity to parents injuring their children by withholding medical care on religious grounds.
Six states let parents keep teachers from teaching their children about disease in school.
Over the years KARA has reported on children dying because their parents withheld medical treatment because the church told them to do so.
Some religions allow child neglect and abuse & some states allow a religious defense against charges of murdering their child – and “some can’t be charged with murder at all” (Slate).
2 years ago, Kansas State Rep Gail Finney vowed to pass a bill that allowed caregivers to leave bruises and cause bleeding. Arkansas State Rep Charles Fuqua promoted the death penalty for rebellious children (based on religious grounds).
As a volunteer County guardian ad-Litem, it has been awful to observe sexually abused two and four year old children and children suffering from violent physical abuse and neglect live through that abuse & try to overcome the terror and traumas inflicted upon them to make for themselves a normal life. Not many do.
KARA believes the U.S. should ratify the International Rights of the Child Treaty (we are the only nation not to have done so).
There are many cults in America that need to be exposed for the terrible way they treat children. Here’s one reported on by the Daily Beast this morning (send KARA your examples & forward this to your state rep).
Here’s a breakdown from Children’s Healthcare that shows a breakdown of states and their religious exemptions.
DetailsAmerica has long failed to understand and address the underlying issues that drive behaviors of traumatized children. Many end up suspended, expelled or in juvenile justice. Teen and preteen pregnancies are significantly more common among them than with their peers also.
DetailsWhat the jury and others may not have known before the life sentence is that by the age of 14 Miller attempted suicide four times. The first time he tried to kill himself was at the age of six.
Due to experiencing abuse by his stepfather and his mother being a drug addict and alcoholic. The victim was actually his mother’s drug dealer at the time.
Detailsn 2020, he child and teen gun death rate in the U.S. was more than 3 times higher than that in Turkey, the country with the next highest rate; 11 times higher than in Israel; 19 times higher than in Switzerland and 85 times higher than in the United Kingdom
Detailshis CASEY Foundation survey shows the population of Black youth in juvenile detention on Feb. 1, 2021, reached a COVID pandemic high, while that of white youth was the second lowest recorded in more than a year.
DetailsYouth who ‘aged out’ of foster care urged to return
New funding will provide $964 or more per month to eligible youth
Suicide is now the 2nd leading cause of death among 10 to 24 year olds. Over 1 million children under 6 are prescribed psychiatric drugs in America today.
DetailsAmerica’s militarized police force has become a front line mental health responder in communities suffering from the traumas of job loss, poverty, pandemic anxiety and sickness.
This is likely to result in more George Floyd type killings, more racial outrage and the violence that comes with it.
DetailsWhat is the equation for a healthy human being or a healthy community? If there is an equation, the wrath of COVID is becoming a huge negative central to the calculation.
DetailsIdaho 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.
DetailsWhere does your state rank in protecting children & what can you do to make improvements. These statistics tell the stories of our best and worst states around the nation
DetailsSuccess Stories & Failure (unassigned child abuse cases)
We all like a happy ending. Especially when kids are involved.
DetailsArizona just lost seven million dollars in legal fees fighting a lawsuit demanding better care for foster children. The good news is the State lost.
DetailsChildren living through the lockdown have more trauma and abuse. They will need help healing and to learn new skills to succeed in school & in the community – become a voice for children
DetailsToday’s Star Tribune article by Erin Golden should put the shivers into all of us for several reasons.
DetailsNicholas Christof’s article in the NYTimes today points a finger at “pro-family” people “preserving” child poverty in America.
Lest you believe this a stretch, America stands out as the country with the highest child poverty rate and one of the lowest levels of social expenditure. This has been true for many years.
This means food insecurity for five year olds, and the statistical probability that homeless ten year olds are three times more likely to be sexually abused than other children.
There is a heartlessness behind the politics of separating immigrant babies from their mother (over 5000) and not returning those children to their birth parents (over 1000 still are separated today).
We the people now have public policies that have led to the sad reality that;
37% of children are reported to child protection agencies in this nation by their 18th birthday.
almost one third of American children will have a criminal record by their 23rd birthay
80% of youth aging out of foster care lead dysfunctional lives
