A Sad Way of Righting Wrongs
If their are attorneys reading this blog that are interested in pursuing these kinds of cases, please contact KARA with an email.
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An Uplifting Day
there needs to be a Mothers Against Drunk Drivers type grassroots movement to turn around the cradle to prison pipeline that continues to fill our communities with troubled youth and the problems that stem from growing up without the basic building blocks of life.
DetailsAnother Concerned Grandmother
In my morning email was a sad plea for help from a grandmother with granddaughters taken from her home where they were in school and well cared for.
DetailsSummer Is No Vacation For Abused Kids
Thousands of names ahead of them on a list for subsidized day care that won’t provide help for years to come, means that any available family member, friend, or neighbor is considered a better option than leaving a three, five, or seven year old unattended (or is it?)
Leaving your child with that drunken or meth using uncle or aunt, the friend with the mental health issues, the dangerous or abusive teenager. Children need and deserve better choices.
DetailsSetting the Wrong Kind of Record
The best hope for these babies would have been a more responsive community with more compassion, more daycare, more crisis nurseries, and more child protection services.
DetailsHow You Frame the Issue
Few people argue openly with me when I frame the health care issue around not caring for babies and very young children (there is not a religion on the planet that allows it)
Most people can be brought to understand the cost to society of having children abandoned to gangs, drugs, and poverty.
DetailsMake No Small Plans for Minnesota Children
We can look for inspiration to successes around the country and the world. One model of success is the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York. The Minneapolis Foundation recently sponsored a visit here by Geoffrey Canada, the Zone’s leader. Their goal is to have all the children who grow up in the 100-block zone graduate from college. Harlem Children’s Zone offers a Baby College for new parents, universal education for 4-year-olds, good public schools, chemical dependency and health counseling, and housing stability programs. All children there are wrapped in a variety of support systems designed to help them and their families succeed.
DetailsAARP and CASA
MN day care
It is a bigger step to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is true.
Support at risk children! Become a CASA volunteer or start a KARA group in your community.
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Join the public debate for children (they have no senator, lobby, or voice)
DetailsCOURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATES (CASA)
It is a bigger step to convince people that healthy children become healthy citizens, but it is true.
Join the public debate for children (they have no senator, lobby, or voice)
DetailsFEATURED GUARDIAN AD LITEM PROGRAM WASHTENAW COUNTY
Local CASA Volunteer’s Success Story
Contributed by: Fran G.
I was given my first case in February of this year a family of three children: A 13-year-old boy with mild autism, a 9-year-old girl, and a 4-year-old, all living with a Great Grandmother (74 years old).
The children have lived with their great grandmother for 4 years. There were so many questions that needed to be answered and I found that I had the time to find those answers. The lawyers, and social workers all cared for the family but lacked the time to get to know the family as well as I could.
I found, for example, that the 13-year-old boy had missed 54 days of school and had been late for his first hour class 34 times. There were several reasons, and all were easy to fix.
He needed an alarm clock, needed to stop spending the night at his favorite Aunt’s house, and needed to take responsibility. I told him he was not allowed to be late or miss school anymore. I was able to check daily via a computer how his grades were and his attendance, and so was he.
Details18 Month Old Dies After a Dozen Calls To Child Abuse Hotline
A 6-year-old boy whose battered body was found on the floor of a South Los Angeles home was the subject of roughly a dozen calls to Los Angeles County’s child abuse hotline alleging abuse or neglect, a county official briefed on the case told The Times on Friday.
DetailsAbandoned, Abandoned Again Then Tasered – What’s Next For At Risk Youth?
A sheriff’s deputy zapped three children with a stun gun at an Illinois emergency youth shelter, threatening to sodomize one of them before choking a fourth child and throwing her in a closet, according to a federal civil-rights lawsuit.
DetailsToddler found submerged in St. Paul bathtub dies
Our Child Protection System
Brutal Truths and Best Practices Forum at Century College
Join our focused and energetic conversation ab
out children in need of protection and the people, programs, and policies that impact them. Have your views and questions heard.
Details14 police calls to foster home led up to near-death
On the 49th call to the home, police removed the children into protective custody (only because the 7 year old was observed trying to kill the 5 year old). As I became involved in the case, the sex abuse of the older girl became apparent. The police were aware of the prostitution taking place on the premises, and it was very likely that the older child had been prostituted.
DetailsNevada Pays for Lost 2 Year Old Foster Child
A settlement has been reached in the civil lawsuit surrounding the disappearance of a 2-year-old foster child. The natural parents of Everlyse Cabrera sued Clark County when their daughter went missing from her North Las Vegas foster home three years ago.
DetailsTennessee’s High Infant Death Rate
Of the 23 richest countries, the United States has the highest rate of infant mortality, according to the CIA World Fact Book. And in Shelby County, Tenn., which encompasses Memphis, the state health department says a baby dies every 43 hours — a rate higher than that of any other major city. The babies most at risk come from impoverished parts of town with largely black populations.
DetailsMinnesota; Let Them Eat New Stadium
The economics of abandoning the weakest and most vulnerable among us simply do not work. Making productive citizens by helping children achieve does work.
DetailsDCF: More Florida Parents Taking Their Money Troubles Out On Kids
Florida child abuse, and with it a rise in bullying. The state Department of Children and Families says there’s also an increase in the severity of the cases, with 59 deaths so far this year being investigated as possible child abuse.
DetailsAmy Sherman’s Blog for Florida’s At Risk Children
Postscript… I too have had 4 year old and 7 year old suicides as a Hennepin County guardian ad-Litem and a judge that has shared with me the pages of documented Prozac, Ritalin, and other Psychotropics given to very young children. This conversation needs to take place at a higher level (where something can be done about it).
DetailsNo More Child Advocacy In Much of Illinois
“Where will these children now go? What safe haven will be available to help children who have experienced the raw pain and hurt of child abuse?
DetailsCalifornia’s Growing Child Protection Problem
Meanwhile, county officials recently acknowledged that at least 32 children in L.A. County died from abuse or neglect in 2008. That set off another round of questions about what was needed to make kids safer.
DetailsStudy: Early Therapy Can Save Teens From Depression
“It’s awfully hard to change your thinking habits if a parent is depressed and everything is so chaotic around you,” observes Clarke. Future studies, says Garber, will look at whether treating the parent for depression makes a difference…
DetailsTip Of The Iceberg
Those who molest family members get lighter sentences than outsiders, data show.
DetailsMinnesota Reading Corps
Minnesota Reading Corps is a statewide initiative to help every Minnesota child become a successful reader by the end of 3rd grade.
Details