June 26-July 3: CA&N News Articles and Resources  

Some recent media articles and resources relating to child abuse and neglect. If you have items that you think would be helpful to include in this occasional post, please forward them to me at the email in my signature block.
These stories were chosen because of their perceived relevance to the child welfare community.  MiPSAC is not responsible for the views expressed in any of these articles, nor does it take a position for or against the positions expressed in the articles.  They are presented merely to provide a sampling of what the media and other professionals are saying about child welfare.

Charlie Enright, JD, MSW
4907 Foster Rd.
Midland, MI  48642
(989) 600-9696
[email protected]
Secretary,
Michigan Professional Society on Abuse of Children, MiPSAC
This and previous posts can be found at: http://www.mipsac.org/category/can-articles

RECENT MEDIA ARTICLES

US: Minnesota Parents Find a New World When Adopting from Overseas

July 2, Star Tribune: Minnesotans, who have led the way in foreign adoptions, now find fewer and older children. With foreign adoptions crashing to their lowest levels in 15 years, the 123-year-old Children’s Home Society and Family Services merged management and staff with Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota on Sunday. It’s a sign of how dramatically foreign adoptions have changed in Minnesota, forcing agencies to regroup and parents to accept that older children and longer waits for them are the new norm. People need to consider a toddler and up and there are more sibling groups and kids with identified needs. Link to Article
Comment by C. Enright: I suppose they could try adopting a child from the United States.

 

MS: State Not Responding Well to Child Abuse, Neglect

June 29, Jackson Free Press: A new report shows that the Mississippi Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS) has yet to deliver on court-mandated reforms to improve the lives of abused and neglected children in state care. These reforms were spurred by Children’s Rights when the national advocacy organization filed a class action suit against the state in 2004. According to the progress report, released today by an independent federal court-appointed monitor, chronic understaffing and an inadequate data management system continue to hamper efforts to ensure the basic safety of foster children. Link to Article ; Link to Children’s Rights Report

NY: Revisionist History in Abuse Cases

June 29, New York Times: Institutional history — who gets to define it, promote it, exploit it, obscure it, distort it — sits at the heart of child sexual abuse charges like those currently unfolding at two of the city’s private schools: Horace Mann, in the Bronx, and Poly Prep, in Brooklyn. And so, too, in a broader sense, does the matter of cultural history itself. A consistent theme in the defensive narrative in these cases — which involve stories of abuse that surface decades after it happened — is that the world then bore little resemblance to the one we occupy now, boundaries were unclearly delineated, and a certain kind of ignorance reigned. Link to Article

Idaho’s Child Welfare System Ranked No. 1 In The Nation by Free-Market Group

June 29, Idaho Statesman: Idaho’s state-run child welfare system was ranked No. 1 in the nation Friday by the Foundation for Government Accountability, an organization that “believes personal liberty and private enterprise are key to our economic future” and aims to “develop and promote free market public policies that achieve limited, constitutional government and a robust economy,” according to its website. The study judged all 50 states and the District of Columbia on 11 outcomes and 41 data measures, including:

• How quickly they reacted to abuse allegations

• Whether they made sure abused children were put in safe, permanent homes quickly

• Whether foster care settings were supportive, safe, home-like and stable

• Their work to reduce abuse and neglect

New Hampshire, North Carolina, Florida and New Jersey rounded out the top five highest-ranked states. Link to Article

Link to Foundation for Government Accountability Report

 

Carnel Chamberlain News Links: 1,000-Plus Articles Follow Search for Missing 4-Year-Old Later Found Dead

June 30, Saginaw News: The search for a missing 4-year-old was documented in news reports locally and across the county. Media publications began reporting on the search for Carnel Chamberlain shortly after he was reported missing authorities on Thursday, June 21. Coverage grew as national media picked up the story and the search became a criminal investigation. The sad news that Carnel was confirmed dead by his family and charges of abuse in a separate incident against Jaimee Chamberlain’s ex-boyfriend, Anthony Bennett, are being picked up by newspapers, blogs, TV stations and other media outlets across the country. Link to Article

US: Researchers See Decline in Child Sexual Abuse Rate

June 28, New York Times: In a single day last week, juries deliberating 200 miles apart in Pennsylvania delivered guilty verdicts against Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant football coach at Penn State, for sexually molesting boys, and against Msgr. William J. Lynn, a clergy secretary, for shielding predatory priests. In New York, accusations of sexual abuse at Horace Mann, an exclusive preparatory school in the Bronx, recently spurred two law enforcement agencies to open hot lines and an 88-year-old former teacher at the school to admit to having had sexual interactions with students decades ago. But if the convictions of Mr. Sandusky and Monsignor Lynn represent a success story, the furor surrounding them tends to obscure what may be an even more significant achievement: The rates of child sexual abuse in the United States, have been decreasing steadily over the last two decades by several critical measures. Overall cases of child sexual abuse fell more than 60 percent from 1992 to 2010, according to David Finkelhor, a leading expert on sexual abuse who, with a colleague, Lisa Jones, has tracked the trend. The evidence for this decline comes from a variety of indicators, including national surveys of child abuse and crime victimization, crime statistics compiled by the F.B.I., analyses of data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect and annual surveys of grade school students in Minnesota, all pointing in the same direction. Link to Article

MI: Saginaw DHS Supervisor Charged With Embezzlement for Using DHS Prepaid Card

June 28, Saginaw News: A supervisor at the Saginaw County Department of Human Services will stand trial on six felony charges that she embezzled from the state by purchasing groceries and other items with prepaid Walmart gift cards. Yolanda Y. Jones, who lives in Saginaw Township and is on unpaid leave from the department, is charged with four counts of embezzlement by a public official of more than $50 and two counts of retaining a financial transaction device without consent in 2009. Jones supervised 10 employees at the department’s Saginaw County building. Jones had oversight of the county’s Children Action Network program. Link to Article

 

US: Open vs. Closed: IAC Adoption Expert Kathleen Silber Responds to the Today Show

June 27, San Francisco Chronicle: In a recent segment of the Today Show, one audience member asked the panel whether open or closed adoption was a better choice. It was the group’s opinion that closed adoption was better. Silber, a social worker who has advocated for change within the adoption sector since the early 1980’s, says the unanimous decision probably stems from lack of knowledge, and the fears about open adoption being a “Pandora’s box,” as Snyderman said, are misguided. Link to Article

MI: Dana Jacobson, Formerly Of ESPN and U-M, Reveals Childhood Abuse

June 26, Detroit Free Press: “Like the young men who bravely took the stand in the Sandusky trial, I was molested as a child. That’s still not easy for me to say, let alone write and share publicly, but if we’ve learned anything from the Sandusky scandal, it’s that the time for silence is over. As I heard one Sandusky victim put it, it’s time to ‘find my voice.’ Link to Article

AK: Devastating Impact of Domestic Abuse Revealed in Database Tracking Alaska Natives

Jun 26, Alaska Dispatch: A heart-wrenching number of Alaska Native children witness domestic or sexual violence, and many are victims themselves, troubling facts that mean the cycle of abuse is poised to continue, experts say. That’s one possible takeaway from a newly published database called Healthy Native Families: Preventing Violence At All Ages. It’s a warehouse of information harvested from recent reports that drills down on the problem among Alaska Natives statewide. Link to Article

FL: Four Florida Men Arrested for Sexually Preying on Children in Foster Care

June 26, Bradenton Herald: Police and prosecutors arrested four alleged pimps Monday morning as part of an ongoing investigation into a ring of human traffickers who preyed on abused and neglected children in foster care. Using a teenage foster child as a recruiter, police say, the four men plied underage girls with cash, affection and gifts. Ultimately, the girls became prostitutes who earned the ring about $100 for every man with whom they had sex. The girls, in turn, were paid $30 or $40 of that original $100. Link to Article

Feds Rescue Six Children From Prostitution in Metro Detroit

June 26, The Detroit News: Federal agents rescued six children who were forced to work as prostitutes across Metro Detroit, the FBI said Monday. The five girls and one boy, ages 13-17, were rescued as part of a three-day nationwide crackdown on child prostitution in 57 cities that ended Saturday. In Operation Cross Country, 79 children were rescued. Locally, investigators arrested 22 customers and five pimps and recovered more than $53,000 in cash and assets, FBI spokesman Simon Shaykhet said. The children were found mostly at Metro Detroit hotels and were advertised on adult websites. Link to Article

RESOURCES WITH ONGOING VALUE

Physical Punishment and Mental Disorders: Results from a Nationally Representative US Sample

July 2, Journal of Pediatrics: CONCLUSIONS: Harsh physical punishment in the absence of child maltreatment is associated with mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance abuse/dependence, and personality disorders in a general population sample. These findings inform the ongoing debate around the use of physical punishment and provide evidence that harsh physical punishment independent of child maltreatment is related to mental disorders. Link to Journal Article

 

LINKS FROM CHILD INFORMATION GATEWAY WEB SITE

 

Well-Being Outcomes Measures

June 15, 2012, United States Children’s Bureau: These are ratings of the various child assessment scales one may use to assess the status of children, whether at home or in care. List of Measures for 6-12 and 13-18 year olds;  List of Measures for 0-2 and 3-5 year olds

 

Respite for Caregivers of Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance

June 2012: ARCH Fact Sheet Number 34: This fact sheet provides an overview of the population of children and youth with serious emotional disturbance, and discusses considerations that families, respite providers, and program administrators should take into account in relation to accessing or providing respite to families of these children.  Link to pdf Fact Sheet

 

A Developmental Approach to Child Welfare Services for Infants, Toddlers, and Their Families
A Self-Assessment Tool for States and Counties Administering Child Welfare Services

May 2012, ZERO TO THREE: The September 2011 passage of the Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act, which instituted a new requirement for states to describe in their child welfare state plans how they promote permanency for and address the developmental needs of young children in their care, offers an opportunity for states to be more intentional in their efforts to meet the unique needs of infants, toddlers, and their families. This self-assessment tool stems from the collective vision of leading child welfare and early childhood development organizations on the important steps that can and should be taken in policies, programs, and practices to address the needs of vulnerable infants and toddlers known to the child welfare system contained in A Call to Action on Behalf of Maltreated Infants and Toddlers (www.zerotothree.org/acalltoaction). This tool is designed to help states and counties both prepare to meet these new federal requirements and conduct ongoing assessment and quality improvement efforts. It will help states and counties to:

•  Assess how well their child welfare policies and practices address the developmental needs of infants, toddlers, and their families.

•  Identify where and how policies and practices can be improved.

•  Engage partners in taking constructive action.

Link to Tool

Housing Assistance for Youth Who Have Aged Out of Foster Care: The Role of the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program.

May 2012, Urban Institute: Each year the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program provides $140 million for independent living services to assist youth as they age out of foster care and enter adulthood. Under this formula grant program, states are provided allocations and allowed to use up to 30 percent of program funds for room and board for youth ages 18 to 21 who have left care. This report focuses primarily on how states spend their Chafee funding to provide housing support for youth and concentrates on the states that, according to the plans they filed with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), indicated they would spend the maximum 30 percent on room and board. Includes information on the program in Michigan. Link to html Report; Link to pdf Report

Finding Children Forever Homes: LGBT Foster and Adoptive Families

June 2012: Finding Children Forever Homes: LGBT Foster and Adoptive Families highlights the compelling need to find adoptive families for waiting children, provides an overview of the barriers faced by LGBT families wishing to foster and adopt, and includes targeted recommendations designed to ensure that LGBT families can help fill the need for loving, stable foster and adoptive homes for children. Link to Report

May 29-June 4: CA&N Media Articles and Resources 

Some recent media articles and resources relating to child abuse and neglect. If you have items that you think would be helpful to include in this occasional post, please forward them to me at the email in my signature block.
These stories were chosen because of their perceived relevance to the child welfare community.  MiPSAC is not responsible for the views expressed in any of these articles, nor does it take a position for or against the positions expressed in the articles.  They are presented merely to provide a sampling of what the media is saying about child welfare.

Charlie Enright, JD, MSW
4907 Foster Rd.
Midland, MI  48642
(989) 600-9696
[email protected]
Secretary,
Michigan Professional Society on Abuse of Children, MiPSAC
This and previous posts can be found at: http://www.mipsac.org/category/can-articles

RECENT MEDIA ARTICLES

MI: Death of 7-Year-Old Detroit Boy Officially Ruled a Suicide

June 5, Detroit Free Press: The Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office has officially ruled the death of a 7-year-old Detroit boy found hanging in a bedroom last month a suicide. The boy had been depressed about being bullied by other children and about his parents’ recent separation, the boy’s mother told police, according to police reports. Link to Article

MI: Two Children Burned With Scalding Water; Doctors Say Recovery Could Take Months

Jun 1, Jackson Citizen Patriot: A long recovery process awaits two children recovering from severe burns at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor. Doctors on Thursday night told Blackman-Leoni Township public safety officers the two children, a 1-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy, will require skin grafts and months of healing, said Deputy Director Jon Johnston. The children remain in critical condition but are stable. Officers believe a 24-year-old live-in boyfriend of the children’s mother burned their legs and lower portion of their bodies with scalding water. At 6:30 p.m., officers responded to a rescue call involving two children with severe hot-water burns. The children went to Allegiance Health and were then flown to the trauma burn unit at the Ann Arbor hospital. The two had second- and third-degree burns, according to earlier reports. Link to Article

MI: Juvenile Justice Facilities to Stay Open Next Year

May 29, Times Herald: Michigan will continue housing juvenile offenders at Maxey Training School and two other state-run facilities for the coming year, but spending was cut by $2 million. The budget conference committee agreement reached Tuesday also requires the Department of Human Services to let private contractors bid on housing some youths rather than adding capacity if facilities become full. The final agreement still must be approved by the State House and the Senate later this week. Link to Article

MI: How Can They Sleep At Night?

May 29, Tuscola County Advertiser; Editorial Comment: The Paul Ryan (GOP) Budget Which Mitt Romney Has Declared To Be “Marvelous” Would Impact Millions Of Kids. With This Budget, Children Will Go To Bed Hungry, There Will Be More Hidden Child Neglect And Abuse Cases And Lack Of Foster Care Will Result In Homeless Children. With This Budget, How Can Congress People Sleep At Night? Link To Editorial

MI: Michigan Supreme Court: Prisoner May Withdraw Plea to Sex With Child

May 28, Muskegon News: An inmate imprisoned the last three years for sexual contact with a child in Muskegon County, must be allowed to withdraw his no contest plea because the judge who took it didn’t tell Cole his penalty would include lifetime electronic monitoring, the Michigan Supreme Court decided Friday. The high court unanimously upheld a 2011 Michigan Court of Appeals ruling to that effect. Link to MLive Article

NY: Day Care Program No Help For At Risk-Kids’ Siblings

June 4, Reuters Health: The younger siblings of kids who went through a preschool education program that included home visits and day care didn’t do any better on measures of intelligence or behavioral problems as teenagers, according to a new study. Link to Article

PA: Erie Jury Awards $8.7M to Adopted Child Raped By Foster Child

June 4, Erie Times-News: Kenny Bryan told jurors his future was derailed at age 9 when he was repeatedly raped by a 14-year-old foster child whom Erie County caseworkers had placed in his adoptive parents’ home. The panel meant the award to cover Bryan’s past medical bills, his lost earnings, and his emotional suffering, juror Bridget Swick, of Meadville, said. The verdict also was meant to send a message. “Maybe they will think twice about their procedures,” Swick said of the Erie County Office of Children and Youth. With the verdict, the jury accepted Bryan’s claim that former Erie County OCY caseworkers violated his civil rights when they placed the foster teen, J.O., who had a history of past sexual offenses, in the home of his adoptive parents in 2001. Bryan was repeatedly hospitalized after the assaults and suffers from debilitating mental-health conditions that were either exacerbated or induced by the sexual assaults. Link to Article

MN: Mayo Clinic Consult Service to Cut Harmful Psychotropic Rx to Kids

June 4, Star Tribune: Primary care doctors will need to check in before prescribing antipsychotics and other dicey psychiatric medications to many children in Minnesota. The state Department of Human Services has hired the Mayo Clinic to provide a new consult service to cut down on doctors who make questionable prescriptions of psychiatric drugs and to improve the quality of child mental health care in the state. “The vast majority of children who are prescribed psychotropic medications are receiving care from primary care practitioners, due to the critical shortage of child psychiatrists. Primary care practitioners have accepted this responsibility of necessity, but public and private sectors together must assure that adequate psychiatric supports are available to physicians prescribing psychotropic medications and the children they serve.” The proof that psychiatric drugs are being over prescribed and used incorrectly is the high rate of these drugs among Minnesota’s foster children. The drugs are five times more prevalent among foster children. “While it is certainly the case that children known to the child welfare system are more likely to be diagnosed with mental health disorders than either the general population or other children receiving Medicaid, the magnitude of the medication disparity is alarming.” Link to Star Tribune Op Ed:  Link to Business Journal Article.;  Link to Star Tribune Article

CA: Newton: What Dependency Court Delays Do

June 4, LA Times: In the weeks since Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Michael Nash opened this county’s dependency proceedings to the press, there have been a number of revelations about a system that, until now, has been largely shielded from scrutiny. For the first time, the public is getting a broad look at the consequences of sloppy social work, the defensiveness of lawyers used to operating in secret, the agonizing decisions of judges, even the occasional happy outcome in which a family, once torn apart, is successfully reunited. Link to Article

Nick Anderson  Editorial Cartoon June 3, 2012

An oversimplification but it does say something about our priorities.

OH: No Logical Reason to Deny Same-Sex Couples the Right to Adopt

June 3, LimaOhio.com: Nearly every modern study has demonstrated that children raised by same-sex couples are as well-adjusted and fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual. The key to raising a well-adjusted child, according to most studies, rests with the nature and interactions of the familial relationships rather than the sex of the parents. Link to Article

US: Eliminating Barriers to Adoption

June 3, Washingtonpost.com: Why is it easier for an American family to adopt a child from across the world than adopt a foster child across a state line? State Department data show that in fiscal 2010, Americans adopted 11,058 children from other countries. By contrast, according to data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, Americans adopted just 527 children from foster care across state lines that same year.  Link to Article

CO: More Kids Now Live With Relatives Other Than Their Parents, Study Says

June 2, Denver Post: Most of those children are living with relatives in informal relationships. Part of the increase is because child-welfare agencies increasingly recognize that kids whose parents can’t care for them do better with family members rather than strangers in foster care. Link to Article

New Mexico Court Lets Same-Sex Partner Seek Child Custody

June 1, WSBT-TV: New Mexico’s highest court has ruled in a precedent-setting case that a same-sex partner of an adoptive mother has legal rights as a parent and can seek child custody. Link to Article

HI: Parent, Child Therapy Helps Military Families Connect

June 1, Hawaii Army Weekly: Researchers and providers from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Services; School Behavioral Health Team and Child and Adolescent Psychology Services; here, have been collaborating with the Mayerson Center for Safe and Healthy Children at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to adapt a therapy called Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, or PCIT, for use with military families. Link to Article

WA: Tribe to Operate Child Welfare Services

Children’s Bureau: The Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe in Washington State recently became the first Tribe in the nation allowed under new Federal rules to operate its own foster care, adoption, and other child welfare services. This shift in control over child welfare services is a result of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. Now, the Tribe can evaluate child abuse and neglect reports and operate its own foster care, adoption assistance, child support, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families programs. The Tribe also plans to develop, in partnership with the State of Washington, a Medicaid and food benefits eligibility pilot program for Tribal members in Kitsap County. Link to Information

NE: Governor Appoints Children’s Commission Members

May 31, Lincoln Journal Star: Gov. Dave Heineman named his appointments Wednesday to the Nebraska Children’s Commission. The Legislature created the commission in reaction to the many troubles that played out in the past two years with foster care reform and privatization of services for state wards, including foster care children and families. Link to Article

PA: Child Abuse Reports Lead to Threats

May 31, Tribune-Review: Doctors, school nurses and others required by law to report suspected child abuse said they want better protection from retaliation by people they report, a panel of health care professionals told the Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protection on Thursday. If parents are investigated soon after taking their children to the doctor, they often suspect the physician as filing the report, they said. Dr. Amy Nevin, a pediatrician at Hilltop Community Healthcare Center in Beltzhoover, told members of the task force meeting at Children’s Hospital in Lawrenceville that she has had to call police after receiving threatening phone calls from parents she reported. Link to Article

US: Bill Would Help Foster Youths With School Records

May 31, Associated Press: Federal lawmakers proposed a bill Thursday that would give social workers better access to school records in an effort to improve education for foster children. Current law requires social workers to get a court order to access a foster child’s school records to protect the child’s privacy. But advocates said the extra red tape has made it extremely difficult for social workers because foster youths change schools frequently as they move between different homes. Some end up taking the same classes over because credits are lost or don’t transfer. The proposed law would give child welfare workers access to school records and pave the way for better data sharing between education and child welfare agencies. The bill would also allow child welfare agencies to use education records to study how well foster kids are measuring up to federal education mandates. Link to Article

US: Preventing Child Abuse Requires Many Approaches, Not Just One

May 30, Huffington Post: Although Nurse Family Partnership is a stellar example of how to design, test, and replicate an intervention, solving high-cost problems such as child maltreatment, unintentional injuries, and poor cognitive development requires more than replicating a single promising intervention. Link to Article

CT: On The Front Lines of Change In the Risky World Of DCF

May 29, CT Mirror: Adversarial visits by DCF social workers often begin with the parent refusing to answer questions and end with the child being removed from the home to enter the Connecticut’s highly criticized foster care system. Instead, flexibility given to social workers has become the new norm for CT DCF staff answering the 8,000 phone calls each month. It is a national model known as a Differential Response System, and Connecticut is following the lead of 20 other states by implementing it. This involves getting the child’s family the support they need to improve his living situation. And it seems to be paying off. Eight years after this system rolled out statewide in Minnesota, an independent analysis by the Institute of Applied Research, shows a drop in calls resulting in a child entering state custody. And maltreatment recurrence has declined. Link to Article

US: Report: US Has One Of The Highest Child Poverty Rates In The Developed World

May 29, ThinkProgress: According to a new report from the Office of Research at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world. Of the 35 wealthy countries studied by UNICEF, only Romania has a child poverty rate higher than the 23 percent rate in the U.S. Report. Link to ThinkProgress Article

NY: Alaskan Can Give Up Child For Adoption Without Notifying Tribe

May 29, Thomson Reuters: An upstate New York state judge has ruled that an Alaskan Native woman is free to give her baby up for adoption without notifying her tribe, concluding that her privacy rights would otherwise be violated. The decision is the first in New York to address the question of whether a tribe is entitled to notice of a voluntary adoption proceeding when the adoptive parents are not Native American, according to the ruling. Link to Article

UK: Profit-Driven Adoptions Turn Children Into a Commodity

May 29, The Globe and Mail: A dramatic rise in foreign adoptions from Africa is ringing alarm bells among child advocates who worry that the soaring numbers are fuelled by financial incentives and a lack of basic safeguards. Link to Article

US: More Mental Health Care Urged for Kids Who Self-Harm

May 25, HealthDay News: Doctors have long known that some kids suffering severe emotional turmoil find relief in physical pain — cutting or burning or sticking themselves with pins to achieve a form of release. But researchers now are questioning whether enough is being done to reach out to these young people and help them before they do themselves irreparable damage.

One study this year found that six of every 10 adolescents who went to an emergency room for treatment after harming themselves were released without receiving a mental health assessment or any follow-up mental health care. The findings were reported in the February issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Link to Article

LINKS FROM CHILD INFORMATION GATEWAY WEB SITE

ACYF Issues Guidance on Well-Being

The Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) is promoting the social and emotional well-being of children and youth who have experienced maltreatment and trauma and are receiving child welfare services. To focus on social and emotional well-being is to attend to children’s behavioral, emotional, and social functioning—those skills, capacities, and characteristics that enable young people to understand and navigate their world in healthy, positive ways. This approach can significantly improve outcomes for children while they receive child welfare services and after their cases have closed. Link to Information

State Measures of Child Well-Being

A recent State-by-State comparison of measures of child well-being showed enormous variation across States and a picture of child well-being that differs from that found in national studies. This report combines data from the KIDS COUNT Project with the methodology developed for FCD’s Child Well-Being Index (CWI). The analysis revealed drastic variation across States, indicating that a national landscape reveals very little about actual child well-being in the States. However, the data did denote a geographic pattern in which States in the South and Southwest show low rates of overall child well-being and States in the Northeast and Upper Midwest show higher rates of child well-being. Link to Information

Enhancing Permanent Connections

A four-part series in the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY) newsletter, The Exchange, focuses on improving outcomes for homeless and runaway youth. The issues feature a variety of programs that help achieve and enhance well-being, permanent connections, safety, and self-sufficiency for this vulnerable population. Link to Information

Policies That Promote Well-Being

The paper urges States to review their data on children with social, emotional, and behavioral health problems, note trends, compare the data to those of other States and the nation as a whole, and then set targets for improvement. Three evidence-based strategies are described for improving child well-being:

●   Promote early childhood social and emotional development, such as through Kansas’s expansion of Early Head Start

●   Prevent social, emotional, and behavioral health disorders, such as through Delaware’s child welfare and early intervention program that established policies for referring children involved in cases of abuse or neglect

●   Connect the specialized needs of children with appropriate services, such as Florida’s pilot program in Miami-Dade County, which addressed the mental health needs of young children and their families involved with child welfare Link to Information

Supportive Housing and Child Welfare Outcomes

The provision of concrete services, such as housing, can have a positive impact on child welfare outcomes. A new publication by the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (CASCW) highlights results from a longitudinal study in Minnesota evaluating the role of supportive housing on homeless children’s well-being, specifically, educational and child welfare outcomes. Link to Information

Solutions to Help Transitioning Youth

The National Resource Center for Youth Development (NRCYD) hosts a one-stop-shop resource center for child welfare professionals and agencies working with transitioning youth. The Solutions Desk website provides practice models, reports, statistics and the latest research about transitioning youth, and a bevy of resources to enhance collaboration. Funded by the Children’s Bureau, Solutions Desk is a service of the Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs (IWGYP), a 12-agency consortium. Link to Information

Updates From the Children’s Bureau Training &Technical Assistance Network

The Children’s Bureau’s Training and Technical Assistance (T&TA) Network continues to produce resources that can help States and Tribes in their work with children and families. This is a long list of many resources helpful in child welfare. Link to Information

Ten Things Every Child Professional Should Know about Children in Foster Care

2012, University of Rochester. Department of Pediatrics: Removal from family and all that is familiar is emotionally traumatizing because, with very few exceptions, even maltreating families have some strengths. Removal is not traumatic for every child however.  For some children or teens, it is the first time they have felt truly safe. But even those children are leaving the only world they have known.  Provides details of types of traumatic experiences. Link to Slides & Notes

Educational Outcomes for Children in Out-of-Home Placement.

2012, Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare: This study explores the educational well-being of Minnesotan children whose out-of-home care experience occurred during the 2009-2010 academic year in conjunction with a child protection case. Children’s out-of-home placement records were matched to their corresponding educational records. Children who are involved in child protection, and especially children who experience out-of-home placement, struggle in their educational well-being. Although less than 10% of all children in out-of-home care experienced school transfers, during their placement, those that did experience school mobility during placement fared worst across all educational measures. Link to pdf Report

Foster Children in Licensed and Unlicensed Kinship Care

2012, Annie E. Casey Foundation: Table 4 from Stepping Up for Kids: What Government and Communities Should do to Support Kinship Families. Link to One Page Table

The Importance of the Sibling Relationships for Children in Foster Care.

May 2012, National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections: Sibling relationships are essential to children, and the maintenance of sibling ties “can nurture a sense of stability and continuity in the lives of foster youth”. Oftentimes, “children who are abused or neglected by their caregivers have especially strong ties to one another” and separating them may cause additional trauma. Moreover, the emotional support of the sibling bond can provide “a sense of safety” as children enter foster care. In addition, “children in care are likely to form sibling-like relationships with non-related children in their placements. As a result, professionals must “seek the views of children” in making an assessment of sibling relationships. Contains many links to additional resources.  Link to pdf Info Packet

Understanding Child Abuse in Rural and Urban America: Risk Factors and Maltreatment Substantiation.

2012, University of New Hampshire Carsey Institute: Given the climate of limited resources, it becomes more challenging to meet the many needs of families in rural communities, which confront fewer qualified caseworkers, lack of transportation, and longer driving distances to services. There are, however, a number of promising strategies to enhance the clinical skills of rural providers and access to services for rural families. Telehealth technologies, such as videocon­ferencing, offer ways to connect specialists to enhance training in rural areas as well as connect services with clients in rural areas. In addition, comprehensive web-based training courses for evidence-based therapeutic approaches, such as Trauma-Focused Cognitive Based Therapy, are available online via the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Rural providers have greater access now to distance technologies that can result in enhanced quality of services for children and families. Link to pdf Report

Permanency Enhancement Interventions for Adolescents.

2012, California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare: Permanency Enhancement Interventions for Adolescents are defined by the CEBC as interventions to increase the timely achievement of permanency for adolescents by locating one or more adults that will care for the child or youth up to and beyond the age of 18. The interventions reviewed for this area are designed to address the various barriers to permanency for adolescents. Includes links to various resources on the stated topic. Link to Resource List

Responding to Students Affected by Trauma: Collaboration Across Public Systems.

2012, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago:  Many youth involved with the juvenile justice system have been exposed to trauma and also struggle in school. Yet, success in school may help to mitigate the effects of trauma exposure and reduce the likelihood of engaging in high-risk behaviors. Building on the research connecting trauma and learning, this article draws out lessons learned from three initiatives in which public systems attempt to assess trauma and meet both the behavioral health and academic needs of students. Promoting a shared view of child development and an understanding of the impact of trauma on that developmental trajectory is an important step toward implementing an effective, coordinated system of care for high-risk youth. Link to pdf Report

The Four Rs of Service Delivery (Rules, Routes, Relationships, Resources) for MFIP Teen Parents: Approaches of Eight Minnesota Counties.

2012Minnesota Department of Human Services. Transition to Economic Stability Division: This special report presents the results of an environmental scan, based on a policy and practice framework – Rules, Routes, Relationships and Resources – developed for the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS). The purpose of the study is to understand the characteristics of service delivery models for teens – caregivers under age 20 – in the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) in eight of Minnesota’s 87 counties. This report supplements program manuals and administrative data with a glimpse into the reality of the program on the ground, from the perspective of the adults. Link to pdf Report

PPCD Research Report: Washington Workload Site Assessment: Spokane.

Aug 2011, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Permanency Planning for Children Department: Using a standardized case file review instrument, PPCD researchers coded 72 case files, examining case processing and outcomes related to timeliness, child placement, permanency, and parental engagement. Further, researchers explored predictors of timely reunification and examined the role of family team decision meetings (FTDMs) as a means of improving efficiency of practice. Link to pdf Report

PPCD Research Memo: Assessing the Relationship Between Efficiency and Effectiveness in Juvenile Dependency Cases.

Nov 2011,National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges: The current analysis seeks to answer two questions:

(1) Do judicial workloads (estimated from judicial time logs and structured hearing observations) predict reunification?

(2) Are timely outcomes (within statutory guidelines or state goals) related to safe and permanent outcomes? Link to pdf Report

Integrated Programs for Mothers With Substance Abuse Issues: A Systematic Review of Studies Reporting on Parenting Outcomes.

2012, Harm Reduction Journal: Conclusions: This is the first systematic review of studies evaluating the effectiveness of integrated programs on parenting. The limited available evidence supports integrated programs, as findings suggest that they are associated with improvements in parenting skills. However, more research is required comparing integrated programs to addiction treatment-as-usual. This review highlights the need for improved methodology, study quality, and reporting to improve our understanding of how best to meet the parenting needs of women with substance abuse issues. Link to html Report; Link to pdf Report

Building a System of Support for Evidence-Based Home Visiting Programs in Illinois: Findings from Year 2 of the Strong Foundations Evaluation.

2012, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.: This evaluation focuses on three models of evidence-based home visiting programs in Illinois—Parents as Teachers (PAT), Healthy Families America (HFA), and the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP). The primary research questions are:

●   State system: To what extent do state partners in the Strong Foundations initiative collaborate and implement an effective state infrastructure to support evidence-based home visiting programs, for example, with respect to governance, funding, monitoring and quality assurance, and training and technical assistance?

●   Community partnerships: How are communities supported and assisted by the state infrastructure in selecting evidence-based home visiting programs to meet the needs of families and in delivering services effectively? Are home visiting programs integrated into the full array of services and supports for families with young children in the community?

●   Program quality and fidelity: Are home visiting programs being implemented and delivered in a way that is faithful to their program model, for example, with respect to staff selection, training, and supervision; engagement, participation, and retention of families; intensity, length, and frequency of services; and links to other community services?

To address these questions, the evaluation includes a process evaluation to assess the implementation of the state system, local infrastructure, and the operation of local programs; a pilot study of the newly implemented Strong Foundations trainings on domestic violence, perinatal depression, and substance abuse, and an administrative data study of program performance, capacity, and fidelity. Link to pdf Report

Issue Brief: Using Practice-Based Evidence to Complement Evidence-Based Practice in Children’s Mental Health.

Feb 2011, Outcomes Roundtable for Children and Families: This issue brief addresses important issues associated with the emergence of Practice-Based Evidence, (PBE), with particular emphasis on:

• The emergence of PBE as a construct,

• The role of PBE as part of an array of evidence supported and evidence-informed practices,

• Characteristics and dimensions that begin to define PBE more precisely,

• Potential policy implications for the use of PBE in services/systems. Link to pdf Brief

LEGISLATIVE UPDATES

Senate Bill 0743: Allows a court to order abduction prevention measures in a child-custody proceeding if evidence established a credible risk of the child’s abduction (that the child would be taken or retained in violation of custody or visitation rights). Analysis file added. Link to Bill Status Page

May 23-29: CA&N Media Articles and Resources 

Some recent media articles and resources relating to child abuse and neglect. If you have items that you think would be helpful to include in this occasional post, please forward them to me at the email in my signature block.
These stories were chosen because of their perceived relevance to the child welfare community.  MiPSAC is not responsible for the views expressed in any of these articles, nor does it take a position for or against the positions expressed in the articles.  They are presented merely to provide a sampling of what the media is saying about child welfare.

Charlie Enright, JD, MSW
4907 Foster Rd.
Midland, MI  48642
(989) 600-9696
[email protected]
Secretary,
Michigan Professional Society on Abuse of Children, MiPSAC
This and previous posts can be found at: http://www.mipsac.org/category/can-articles

RECENT MEDIA ARTICLES

India: Adopted Indian Orphan Deported from US Alleges Sexual Abuse

May 29, The Indian Express: An Indian orphan who was deported from the US in 2008 following her arrest on drug charges today wrote to External Affairs Minister S M Krishna asking him to help her get back to the US so that she can live with her two children – eight and nine year olds. In a letter to Krishna, Jennifer Edgell Haynes, claims that she was a victim of child trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation after she was adopted by an American couple when she was seven years old. Link to Article

US: Are Foster Kids Helped, Harmed by Open Hearings

May 28, AP: A California judge’s decision to open a county’s child welfare hearings earlier this year has energized a debate among advocates in other states about whether greater transparency helps or harms the young victims appearing in family court. Link to Article

OH: Gay Families Struggle to Safeguard Adopted Kids

May 27, The Columbus Dispatch: Because same-sex couples cannot marry, they cannot jointly adopt in Ohio and several other states that prohibit second-parent adoption. That should remind Americans that the nation’s long-running debate about gay marriage is a child-welfare issue, too, advocates for same-sex couples say. It’s also an issue that is being pushed to the forefront by growing numbers of those couples who are turning to, and often being embraced by, agencies seeking permanent homes for tens of thousands of foster children. Link to Article

OK: Court Rules DHS Must Provide Foster Parent Information to Media

May 26, Tulsa World: An appeals court has upheld a Tulsa district judge’s ruling that the Department of Human Services must provide information on foster parents to the Tulsa World and television station KOKI-23. Citing the state Open Records Act, the media outlets sought a list of current DHS foster parents, including birthdates and addresses. The birthdates and addresses were requested only for use in distinguishing between individuals with the same names. While another section of state law made information about foster parents confidential, the World and KOKI argued that a compelling reason exists for disclosing the information: checking names to determine whether foster parents have criminal backgrounds. In the appeal, the World and KOKI claimed that at least two children in DHS custody had been placed with a foster parent who had a criminal conviction listed in state law that would bar participation in the foster program. Such crimes include assault, battery, drug offenses, child abuse or neglect, domestic abuse, a crime against a child or a violent crime. Link to Tulsa World Article; Link to Appellate Court Decision

WI: Wis. Black Earth Pastor Gets 2 Years in Child Abuse Case

May 26, Wisconsin State Journal: A Black Earth pastor was convicted of conspiracy to commit child abuse for advocating the use of wooden rods to spank children and has been sentenced to two years in prison and court supervision afterward. Link to Article

IN: Woman adopted as baby faces deportation to India; single-mother never filed for citizenship

May 27, The Republic: Attorneys are scrambling to find a way to prevent the deportation of a woman who was adopted from an orphanage in India as a 3-month-old baby following a determination by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that she is in the country illegally. Kairi Abha Shepherd’s adoptive mother died when she was 8-years-old, never having filed citizenship paperwork. The appellate court earlier this month upheld an immigration court’s ruling that Shepherd, now 30, is too old to qualify for automatic citizenship under the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 that applies to children from foreign countries adopted by Americans. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began efforts to deport Shepherd in 2007 after she was jailed in Salt Lake City for probation violation. ICE said Shepherd’s conviction was an aggravated felony, making her an immigration enforcement priority. Link to Article

FL: In One Year, Number of Florida Child Abuse Deaths Dropped 30 Percent?

May 26, NECN.com: The dip between 2009 and 2010 seems remarkable, but wasn’t due to a massive campaign to prevent child abuse deaths. Rather, it’s because the state changed the way it categorized such deaths. Only a fraction of Florida’s 2,282 overall child deaths in 2010 were labeled as abuse. The state child abuse death review team which compiles the tally is only forwarded cases that the local investigators determine to be abuse. Just before the dip, former DCF director of family safety Alan Abramowitz sent out a draft policy in 2010 narrowing guidelines for how to classify drowning and the deaths of children sleeping with parents known as co-sleeping deaths, saying there had to be a willful act of a caregiver to be considered neglect. The classifications have sometimes put the child death review team at odds with DCF because the team has repeatedly pushed to review all child death cases, saying it removes politics from the process and gives authorities a more accurate picture to help prevent future deaths. Link to Article

State Ends Dispute Over Child Welfare Testimony

May 25, The Journal Gazette: After months of haggling with Allen County prosecutors about whether they should testify about confidential information in child abuse cases, state officials said Friday they are backing off their original positions and seeking to resolve the issues away from the courtroom. Since March, attorneys with the Department of Child Services have filed motions in two separate criminal cases, expressing concern that if DCS officials testify to confidential information in open court, they could be opening themselves up to civil or criminal penalties. Since DCS records are confidential and trials are conducted in public, DCS employees would be violating state law by testifying, DCS officials said. The information they sought to protect was the content of DCS’ child abuse and neglect records and the identity of all reporting sources according to motions filed by the DCS attorneys. Link to Article

Michigan Supreme Court Reinstates Man’s Conviction for Raping Two Girls

May 25, MLive.com: The 2007 child rape conviction of James Henry Buie has been reinstated by the Michigan Supreme Court. The state high court decision comes a year after the Michigan Court of Appeals overturned the conviction. The appeals court ruled that since two experts testified via video — and there is nothing on the court record indicating 47-year-old Buie agreed to allow this — there was a Constitutional violation of his right to confront his accusers, and he had a right to a retrial. But the five justice higher court majority found that since Buie’s attorney Valarie Foster agreed with the use of the video, and Buie did not raise a specific objection on the record to his lawyer’s decision, the jury verdict should stand. Link to Article

Measure of a Mother’s Love: How Early Neglect Derails Child Development

May 24, Healthland.Time.com: To understand how early maltreatment can derail a child’s development requires careful study — and is fraught with ethical peril. Researchers were allowed to randomize abandoned infants without clear birth defects to either usual orphanage care or foster care from birth. (To mitigate the thorny ethics of the study, adoption was encouraged as early as possible for the orphanage-assigned kids, even though that could have potentially weakened the findings.) Nonetheless, the study showed that the children placed in foster care developed normally, with appropriate head sizes, and less distress, better attention skills and a 9-point higher IQ on average, compared with children sent to orphanages. Follow-up studies found that the orphanage-raised group was more than twice as likely to develop mental illness, compared with those who had been in foster care. More than 50% of the orphanage group was diagnosed with at least one mental illness. Link to Time Article

US: USMC Braces for Post-Combat Child Abuse Spike

May 23, MarineCorpsTimes.com:With the end of full-scale combat in Afghanistan in sight, the Marine Corps wants to head off an anticipated spike in the number of child-abuse and child-neglect incidents associated with post-deployment stress and family reunification. Family advocacy personnel throughout the service are being trained to better help Marines, along with their spouses and children, improve communication and cope with traumatic events. The effort focuses on techniques that emphasize participation from parents and children. Link to Article

US: Foster Kids on Too Many Meds: is the Government Taking Action?

May 23, ABC News: The senator who spurred the Government Accountability Office to investigate the startling numbers of foster children being put on powerful, mind-altering drugs is calling on the Obama administration to follow through on its vow to find solutions to the issue. Link to Article

Identity Theft: Kids Don’t Know They’re Victims

May 23, NPR: Jennifer Andrushko, discovered when she applied for Medicaid in 2009 and found out that someone had been using her 5 year old son’s Social Security number for years. According to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America. Many identity theft victims are children and, because children don’t usually have reason to check their credit reports, the crime often goes undiscovered for years. Now, Utah has partnered with a credit reporting company to provide a service that would help protect kids against fraud. After she discovered that someone had been using her 5 year old son’s Social Security number, Jennifer Andrushko had a lot of questions. For one thing, she wanted to know how the Social Security Administration could issue a number to her child that was already in use. Until this year, there was very little parents could do to protect their children. The Utah attorney general’s office is now piloting an online child identity protection service. It allows parents to register their children, free of charge, for protection through the credit rating agency TransUnion. So far, about 4,000 children have been enrolled since the program was introduced in January, and Carter Andrushko is one of them. But Carter’s mother says their family’s ordeal isn’t over. Link to Article

Files Show How Priest Child Abuse Was Generational

May 22, AP: Robert Van Handel was a 15-year-old seminarian at St. Anthony’s, a prestigious Franciscan boarding school, when, he said, a priest slipped into the infirmary where he was recovering from a fever and began to molest him. The priest told him it would help draw the fever out. More than a decade later, Van Handel himself was molesting children while working as a Franciscan priest at the same Santa Barbara boarding school. Van Handel formed a boys’ choir for local children and chose his victims from among its ranks for eight years. The sexual abuse at St. Anthony’s, including Van Handel’s own account of his crimes, is included in more than 4,000 pages from the confidential files of nine Franciscan religious brothers who were accused of abuse. The internal files, coupled with an additional 4,000 pages of sworn testimony obtained by the AP, are the largest release of a religious order’s files to date and paint one of the fullest pictures yet of a pervasive culture of abuse that affected generations of students at the seminary dedicated to training future Franciscans. Link to Article

Cherokee Nation Asking US Supreme Court to Review Indian Child Welfare Act Case

May 21, Indian Country Today: The Cherokee Nation and one of its members, the mother of the child in question, are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling last April that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) did not apply to what a three-judge panel termed “temporary” tribal citizenship conferred solely for ICWA purposes. At the birth of the child, the mother had not formally become a tribal member. The Cherokee Nation intervened on her behalf, arguing that the child was an Indian child under ICWA because of a section in its Citizenship Act which provides that every newborn “who is a direct descendant of an original enrollee shall be automatically admitted as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation for a period of 240 days following the birth of the child.” The court acknowledged tribes “have exclusive authority on membership determinations for tribal purposes,” but charged that the Cherokee Nation was trying to expand federal law. The ICWA definition of “Indian child” applies to an unmarried person under age 18 who is a tribal member, but the child was an Indian child only if he was a member of the Cherokee Nation at relinquishment, the court said. ICWA does not apply to the 240-day citizenship awarded by Cherokee law, the court said, citing “gamesmanship” on the part of tribes if they authorize temporary citizenship on a “nonconsenting” person to invoke ICWA protection. Link to Article

CHILD DEVELOPMENT; How to Cut Crime, Alcoholism and Addiction?

It’s Not Elementary, But Preschool

June 9, 2011: To cut crime, raise education and income levels, and reduce addiction rates among the poor, no program offers more bang for the buck than preschool, as a new study published in Science demonstrates. After tracking the children to age 28, researchers found that those who had attended preschool were 28% less likely to develop alcohol or other drug problems or to wind up in jail or prison in adulthood, compared with kids who did not go to preschool. What’s more, their odds of being arrested for a felony were cut by 22% and they were 24% more likely to attend a four-year college. Incomes in adulthood of those who attended preschool ere also higher than those for the children who did not.  Link to Article

RESOURCES WITH ONGOING VALUE

Pathways to Desistance Study

Ongoing: Center for Research on Health Care (CRHC) Data Center: The Pathways to Desistance study is a two-site, longitudinal study of serious adolescent offenders as they transition from adolescence into early adulthood. The study was designed to:

●   To identify distinct initial pathways out of juvenile justice system involvement and the characteristics of the adolescents who progress along each of these pathways.

●   To describe the role of social context and developmental changes in promoting desistance or persistence of antisocial behavior.

●   To compare the effects of sanctions and selected interventions in altering progression along the pathways out of juvenile justice system involvement.

Link to Study Web Site; Includes a long list of publications of study results; Highlights From Pathways to Desistance: A Longitudinal Study of Serious Adolescent Offenders; An OJJDP summary of results.

Key Points of Pathways to Desistance Study:

●   Most youth who commit felonies greatly reduce their offending over time.

●   Longer stays in juvenile institutions do not reduce recidivism.

●   In the period after incarceration, community-based supervision is effective for youth who have committed serious offenses.

●   Substance abuse treatment reduces both substance use and criminal offending for a limited time.

Unexplained Fractures in Infants and Child Abuse:

The Case for Requiring Bone-Density Testing Before Convicting Caretakers

2011, BYU Law Review: This Comment highlights the problems inherent in making a diagnosis of child abuse based solely on findings of unexplained fractures in x-rays and ultimately proposes a solution to the problem that will help protect innocent children and caretakers alike. It proposes a statute requiring that bone-density tests be performed when the prosecution wishes to use unexplained infantile fractures as evidence of child abuse.  Link to Law Review Article

LINKS FROM CHILD INFORMATION GATEWAY WEB SITE

Michigan Foster Care Review Board 2011 Annual Report: Parent-Child Visitation.

May 14, Michigan Supreme Court; State Court Administrative Office; Michigan Foster Care Review Board: This report provides an overview of the MFCRB’s functions and program activity details from this past year. Included are data, trend summaries, and observations from the review of cases involving over 1,100 children in foster care. The information obtained from case reviews provides an objective, third-party evaluation of the care that Michigan’s foster care system provides to abused and neglected children and address significant issues related to parent-child visitation and its impact on child well-being and timely reunification for children in foster care. Link to pdf Report

Study on Title II and Title XVI Benefits for Children in Out-of-Home Placements.

2012, American Public Human Services Association. National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators.: While children are in out-of-home placement, it is the child welfare agency’s responsibility to ensure that their needs are met. This study examined state public child welfare policies and practices regarding Title II Social Security and Title XVI Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for eligible children in out-of-home placement. It addresses the following questions:

1. How are eligible and potentially eligible children identified?

2. How are decisions about benefit utilization made when children are eligible for funding from multiple federal funding sources?

3. How do child welfare agencies that serve as representative payees use and track federal benefits for children in out-of-home placement?

Who might find this report helpful?

This report is designed to help community stakeholders and national, state, and local policy-makers understand how states use Title II Social Security and SSI funds to help provide top-quality child welfare programs and individualized services for eligible children in out-of-home placement. Link to pdf Report

Postsecondary Education Resources for Youth in and Transitioning Out of the Child Welfare System.

2012, American Bar Association. Center on Children and the Law. Education Law Center. Juvenile Law Center. Legal Center for Foster Care and Education: Discusses resources that such youth may be able to use to further their education, both financial and support services. Includes a program at Michigan State University. Link to pdf Report

Stepping Up for Kids

What Government and Communities Should Do to Support Kinship Care

2012, CO Dept of Human Services. Univ of Southern Maine. Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service: Children placed with kin by the formal foster care system represent one-fourth of all children removed from their homes by the public child welfare system and placed in state custody.
Such kinship caregivers face the emotional, physical, and financial strain of raising children who have experienced the trauma of parental separation. Many kinship caregivers take on this responsibility without government assistance, often because they do not realize they could get help. Those who are able to get help find themselves navigating through thickets of bureaucratic rules and procedures that evolved without kinship families in mind. This guide can help get the support process started. Link to Kinship Guide

Psychotropic Medication Use by Children in Child Welfare.

2012, National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect. United States. Administration for Children and Families. Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation: These data add critical information to the current discussion regarding psychotropic medication use among children in the CWS. First, high levels of unmet need still remain among children in the CWS, despite findings published almost a decade ago from the NSCAW I study. More than one half of children either living in-home or informally with kin met a clinical threshold for mental health needs, as did a third of children in foster care; yet, many of these children did not receive any type of behavioral health service, either pharmaceutical or psychosocial. This underuse of mental health services is as important to address as concerns about potential overuse of medications. Link to pdf Brief

Understanding Practices in Residential Treatment Facilities (RTFs) for Youth

2012, Mathematica Policy Research: Link to Fact Sheet

1: Three Quarters of Residential Treatment Facilities Seclude or Restrain Children and Youth

2:  Only Half of RTFs for Children and Youth Monitor Patient Outcomes Beyond Satisfaction

3: Youth and Families Have Limited Involvement in the Oversight or Governance of RTFs

4: RTFs Can Increase the Adoption of Family-Driven, Youth-Guided Practices

How the IDEA and the Fostering Connections Act Can Work Together to Ensure School Stability and Seamless Transitions for Children With Disabilities in the Child Welfare System.

2012, ABA, Legal Center for Foster Care and Education: Children with disabilities have specific rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and other federal laws which require that children with disabilities receive special help to succeed in school. In addition, as children in foster care, these students are also entitled to school stability under the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act (the Fostering Connections Act) – and in some cases state laws – which seek to ensure school stability, prompt school enrollment, and regular school attendance for children in care of compulsory school-age. Anyone who works with a child in care who has or who may have a disability – including staff from child welfare and education agencies, parents, foster parents, juvenile court judges, children’s and agencies’ attorneys – needs to understand how these two independent federal laws can help advocates ensure school stability and smooth transitions for this highly mobile population. Advocates also need to comprehend how these laws fit (or do not fit) together. Link to Brief

No Place Like Home; (a) Lifelong Families; (b) Better Results for Foster Youth; (c) Conversation on Permanence

Spring 2012, The Annie E. Casey Foundation: Reducing Congregate Care p12Healthy family relationships are fundamental to successful human development. Nothing is more important to a child than a strong and loving lifelong family to promote emotional, physical, and financial well-being. Young people who are cut off from a family environment and left to languish in group care—either as a result of parental challenges, abuse, and neglect or involvement with the juvenile justice system—face long odds against transitioning to a successful adulthood. Far too many children continue to be housed in group settings, rather than in family homes. Yet many jurisdictions have significantly and safely reduced the number of children in foster care in group settings and the number of youth placed in juvenile correctional facilities. In this issue, we focus on efforts to reduce the number of youth in congregate care in the child welfare system and to move them more quickly into lifelong families. Link to Article

The NIS-4: What It All Means (and Doesn’t Mean).

2011, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges: This Technical Assistance Brief summarizes the findings from the most recent iteration of the National Incidence Study (NIS-4):

   Examines some of the differences from previous iterations

   Considers the implications of the study and these differences

   Offers some practical conclusions for courts and judges

The overall purpose of this Brief is to offer guidance on understanding the meaning of the NIS-4 findings in both a broader context, and in terms of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ (NCJFCJ) Courts Catalyzing Change: Achieving Equity and Fairness in Foster Care initiative priorities, goals, and opportunities. Link to pdf Brief

 LEGISLATIVE UPDATES 

Senate Bills 0246 and 0247 would amend the Juvenile Code and the Mental Health Code, respectively, to do the following regarding juveniles subject to a delinquency petition:

— Establish a presumption of competence to proceed for a juvenile who was 10 years of age or older, and a presumption of incompetence for a juvenile who was under 10.

— Allow a court to order, or a party to request, a competency evaluation to determine whether a juvenile was incompetent to proceed if he or she were charged as a juvenile in court.

— Establish standards for conducting a competency evaluation of a juvenile, including a requirement that an evaluation be conducted by a qualified forensic mental health examiner. Link to SB 0246 Page; Link to SB 0247 Page

APPELLATE COURT CASES 

Court: Michigan Court of Appeals (Unpublished)
Case Name: In re Grochowalski

The court held that the trial court did not clearly err in finding that §§ 19b(3)(c)(i), (c)(ii), (g), and (j) were established by clear and convincing evidence or in determining that terminating the respondent-mother’s parental rights to the minor child was in the child’s best interests. However, the court conditionally reversed the trial court’s order terminating respondent’s parental rights and remanded for the purpose of providing proper notice to any interested Native American tribe pursuant to the ICWA. Full Text Opinion