COVID Burnout; Health Care, Teachers, Law enforcement, Social workers & what we could do

Our communities are only as safe and healthy as the institutions that create the environment we live in.

A brief search of front line workers in education, health care, law enforcement or social work shows a growing exodus by retirement, medical leave or just walking away as COVID is making the work they do an even more extreme sacrifice than it was pre pandemic.

For those of us that live with, know or love a person engaged in keeping our children educated or the rest of us safe and healthy,we know the stresses facing these people and the fear and danger of bringing a secondary trauma or risk of COVID home at the end of the shift.

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COVID Child Abuse Update for July – August 2020

Almost every school building in the country is closed
Fewer than half of students are participating in online learning in some schools,
The reporting of child abuse is dropping by as much as 70% since schools shut their doors.
Between March and April almost 90% of children entering Children’s Hospital in Washington DC had to be hospitalized because of injuries suggesting child abuse (compared to 50% in the same period prior year).
A majority of Americans are not reporting parental child abuse (only 19% say they are “very Likely” to report and only 36% would report if it were a stranger doing the same thing.
It’s time the rest of us gave voice to invisible children.

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COVID IMPACT ON AT RISK YOUTH

Introduction This report was submitted by Business Analytics Student Michelle Kocins at Cambrian College Support KARA efforts reporting on child abuse & trauma during COVID here. To download this study as a pdf, click here. Analysis of Child Abuse in the U.S and Emerging Trends due to COVID-19 Michelle Kocins KARA at Invisible Children Business…

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Criminalizing Elementary School Children

When 14-year-old Ryan Turk cut ahead of the lunch line to grab a milk, he didn’t expect to get in trouble. He certainly didn’t plan to end up in handcuffs. But Turk, a black student at Graham Park Middle School, was arrested for disorderly conduct and petty larceny for procuring the 65-cent carton. The state of Virginia is actually prosecuting the case, which went to trial in November.

Changing the rules of the game requires federal, state, and local reforms. With little evidence that police in schools make students safer and plenty that they facilitate harm to students’ liberty and well-being, the Department of Justice should end the cops program’s SRO grants to districts. Taxpayers should not be on the hook for billions that promote unjust school conditions and put kids at greater risk of future involvement with the criminal justice system. And students should feel like they can talk to school officials when they have problems without forfeiting their constitutional rights and winding up in the back of police cars.

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