Nadine Burke Harris, Surgeon General of California has declared childhood trauma
a public health epidemic and public schools crisis.
Kids At Risk Action invites you to start the conversation in your community with our INVISIBLE CHILDREN Campus program (provided free to colleges & museums).
DetailsHistorically, my community only allows the most extreme cases of extensive, repeated abuse and trauma into the system. Bruised, raped and bleeding was how one of my administrators termed it.
My family, friends and business associates hated me talking about child abuse. They would rather not know about this uncomfortable subject. To this day it’s true.
I began speaking to Rotaries and other business, religious and political groups about statistics and my experiences as a volunteer CASA guardian ad litem.
For the first few years, almost no one understood my talk.
DetailsNo states have enough qualified foster homes to care for the children that need a loving family.
This website gives the most insightful description of foster care in America that I have come upon.
There’s so much to know about foster care and adoption and we really should be much more aware, kind and generous to the dedicated families that step up to help heal our nation’s abused and neglected children.
DetailsFor decades it has been true that people engaged in the keeping of pets are perceived to be more valuable than foster families caring for State Ward children. Doggy day care is (and has been for a very long time) as or more expensive (on average $40/day) than child care (on average $30/day) should make us think a little harder about the hope we have for the future of at risk children.
DetailsFormer Minneapolis School Superintendent Peter Hutchinson’s classroom fix for remote learning COVID problems is a terrific and necessary solution that can be implemented economically and quickly. It’s a simple and will be popular in every community.
We should not wait – this is truly an expanding crisis for school children in many communities.
Here’s why; Pre-COVID, Minnesota schools have for years maintained an over the top student achievement gap with some of the lowest reading, math and history scores in the nation.
DetailsKids At Risk Action writes and reports on child abuse issues
These are just a sampling of the articles appearing in local media in our state the last few months
DetailsThe saddest letters KARA receives come from grandparents that have watched their grandchildren horridly abused and then kept out of the loop while a cold and efficient system moves the child into a home and cutting off all further contact for the grandparents.
Almost 8 million children in America live with grandparents and other relatives. Most of them receive little or not help from governmental agencies.
Not all counties and states appreciate that it is easier for a child to restart a painfully disrupted life with someone they are connected to and have memories of than waking up in a home they have never seen before with people they don’t know.
Grandparents often don’t know about the court proceedings that are about to forever alter their relationship with grandchildren as they may live in another city or have become estranged from their badly behaving children.
Even if grandparents know of court proceedings, it can be very hard for them to have standing in the court or navigate the system once they are in it.
The saddest letters KARA receives come from grandparents that have watched their grandchildren horridly abused and then kept out of the loop while a cold and efficient system moves the child into a home and cutting off all further contact for the grandparents.
Everyone needs a lawyer and lawyers are expensive. I know grandparents that have spent tens of thousands of dollars trying desperately to provide a safe and familiar home for their grandchild.
It doesn’t seem right that money should be a biggest part of an adoption equation for grandma and grandpa (or other relatives) to make their argument for custody.
Details40-day old Aiden Braden’s mother Kristina reported Aiden’s death on Facebook 38 days after social workers had responded to a child abuse hotline in Tollhouse California. Only after Aiden died did the County workers visit the home and remove Aiden’s twin brother.
Kristina Braden had already lost custody of her 3 oldest children because of her drug addiction and a long history of child neglect.
Blaming social workers for not physically intervening when they were in lockdown solves nothing.
DetailsThe nightmare of George Floyd’s murder and the burning, street violence and social upheaval continuing as this already too hot summer gets underway is raining down extra hard on children already suffering the traumas of toxic circumstances.
Closed schools locked abused children with their abusive caregivers.
This additional social violence creates more fear, pain and stress that leads to more drug & alcohol use & more domestic violence, more trauma and less escape from it.
DetailsFor many years Rich Gehrman and Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota have organized and delivered support for Minnesota’s abused and neglected children. All Minnesotan’s should be aware of this organization’s efforts to improve services, transparency & policy for the states at risk children.
Below are their most recent blog posts. Join them.
DetailsKARA Signature Video (4 minute) Public Service Announcement( 30 Second) 25 years ago, KARA board member David Strand went from CASA guardian ad litem volunteer to writing his PHD student thesis “NATION OUT OF STEP” comparing America to the rest of the Industrialized World in how we treat children. At the time, we ranked…
DetailsAcross the board, America’s Southern States seem to maintain an anti tax mantra that devalues the well-being of other people’s children. This clear from the KIDS COUNT statistics over the years. This is their most recent data for 2020
DetailsIt is not maltreatment, the word maltreatment does not describe traumatic violence to a child – to a child, the trauma of watching your mother being beaten or raped is very much the same as being beaten or raped – being left in a crib alone for days at a time with no touching, no food or love is also a trauma that lasts forever.
Kids At Risk Action writes and reports on child abuse issues
providing a passionate voice for at risk children
All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children
Ethan was 17 years old when I met him. Again, what I know of his story is limited, but the ugliest truths of it seemed to jump off the page and into my brain as I read his file to prepare for our interview. At his first foster care placement, he was sexually and physically abused by his foster father who had an alcohol problem. His foster mother was aware of the abuse going on, but because she was a victim of the domestic violence herself, was unable to stand up for the children in her home. Whether Ethan was removed from this placement (I refuse to refer to it as a “home” given the state of things) before or after this information came to light, is unbeknownst to me.
DetailsThis 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.
DetailsThe United Nation’s-Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned that being confined with abusive partners during the pandemic has led to a “horrifying global surge in domestic abuse”. This well organized domestic violence resource guide with hotlines and practical advice …
DetailsKids At Risk Action writes and reports on child abuse issues & provides a passionate voice for at risk children All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children Support KARA’s Public Service Announcements KARA Signature Video (4 minute) Public Service Announcement( 30 Second) Struggling families in America have never had it easy. The stresses of…
DetailsWisconsin and 28 other states automatically place children in the adult criminal justice system. Nationally, 25% of american youth are charged as adults and over 30% of America’s youth are arrested before their 23rd birthday.
DetailsTrauma doesn’t heal itself and America doesn’t provide much more than Prozac for tortured 12 year olds.
For an in depth and moving photo graphic look into incarcerated children in America’s Juveniles In Justice, check out Richard Ross
DetailsTeachers, social workers, law enforcement and foster/adoptive parents dealing with State Ward children are often the last chance that a child has to grow up to lead a normal life.
DetailsThe COVID crisis is stretching all of our community resources. Every state is struggling to provide safe homes for foster children.
Fixing the problems this article brings to light will require an informed and involved community and government…
Click here to find out how to begin to make this happen where you live.
DetailsA national foundation focused on child welfare is footing at least $75,000 of the bill to figure out the best way to conduct an independent clinic exam of children taking mind-altering drugs.
Better oversight of antidepressants, mood stabilizers and other psychotropic medications given to foster children is expected to reduce their usage — and their hefty price tag.
“You are going to save money, and you’re going to provide good medical care,” said Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur.
DetailsThe 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).
DetailsToday’s Safe Passage short post about the impact of poverty and racism on children hits the nail on the head. Decades and generations of children living without enough to eat, access to health and mental health care and all the stress that accompanies people in fear of homelessness and hunger.
Does you community accept young children being expelled from daycare and elementary school? The violence and trauma visited upon us at this time is a direct result of how America treats its children. Life would be way better for all of us if we cared more for other people’s children.
DetailsThis combination of a profit-hungry private prison and a bad law that allows too many teenagers to enter the adult justice system has created a public safety crisis in Mississippi.
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