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Schooling Issue a Complication for Foster Care



 
 
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Old June 10th 08, 08:17 AM posted to alt.support.child-protective-services,alt.support.foster-parents,alt.dads-rights.unmoderated,alt.parenting.spanking
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Default Schooling Issue a Complication for Foster Care

Schooling Issue a Complication for Foster Care
By Linda Jacobson
Article Tools

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/20...rkids.h27.html

Policymakers from Congress to the state and local levels are sharpening
their focus on the educational needs of children in foster care, a
population that can exceed 700,000 nationally in the course of a year
and which has doubled in the past two decades.

In many cases, their strategies coincide with recommendations outlined
in a recent report on California’s massive foster-care system: access to
preschool for foster children, specialized training for teachers, and
making sure child-welfare agencies have educational liaisons.

“A focus on school readiness and school success may not heal all the
damage already inflicted early in the lives of foster children, but it
can give these children—and many of their peers—the fighting chance they
need and deserve to thrive as adults,” says the report

http://www.cftl.org/documents/2008/FCfullreport.pdf

released last month by the Center for the Future of Teaching and
Learning in Santa Cruz, Calif., and Mental Health Advocacy Services
Inc., a Los Angeles-based public-interest law firm.

Among the signs of renewed attention to the educational needs of foster
children:

• The reauthorization of the federal Head Start preschool program last
fall lists children in foster care as one of the groups designated to
receive priority for enrollment.

• Efforts are under way in Congress to include foster children in the
federal McKinney-Vento Act, which is meant to provide school stability,
transportation, and other educational services for homeless children.

• A six-state project launched by the National Governors Association
last month includes improved school performance for foster children as
one of its goals in an effort to cut the number of children in foster
care by 50 percent in the next 12 years.
Added Challenges

Such efforts are intended to help compensate for a range of challenges
facing children in foster-care placement.

Foster-care providers tend to have fewer resources to support learning
than do traditional families, according to William O’Hare, the
coordinator of Kids Count, a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a
Baltimore-based philanthropy.

For example, U.S. Census Bureau data show that the average income in
foster households is lower than that of traditional homes with
children—$56,364, compared with $74,301. In addition, Mr. O’Hare said,
foster parents are more likely than traditional parents to be unemployed
and have less than a high school education.

At a recent presentation to a Population Association of America
conference in New Orleans, where he outlined those statistics, Mr.
O’Hare said such factors can have serious drawbacks for the educational
success of children in foster care.

Foster families “have fewer human resources and fewer financial
resources,” he said in a subsequent interview. “It’s got to have a
negative impact.”

The NGA pilot program begun last month seeks to address some of those
issues, even as it aims to bring down the numbers of children in
out-of-home placements.

http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/m...1a01010aRCR D

The association’s Center for Best Practices has chosen six states—
Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina—to
participate in a “policy academy” to work on the project.

One of the states’ tasks will be to improve collaboration among various
agencies that all might have an interest in helping the same child. A
lack of cooperation between social workers and educators is often blamed
for gaps in children’s learning.
For More Info
For more stories on this topic see Curriculum and Learning.

And while the primary aim is to bring down the numbers of children in
foster care, the initiative also will seek to improve school
performance, said Joan Smith, the senior director of systems improvement
at Casey Family Programs, a partner in the project.

In addition, at least two of the states, Pennsylvania and Ohio, have
included education officials as team members.
Scarce Resources

In California, which is home to more than 10 percent of the nation’s
children in foster care, the recent report by education and
mental-health experts outlines a variety of strategies that policymakers
and practitioners can use to reverse the many learning deficits among
such children.

The report is the culmination of work conducted in 2005 and 2007 by the
California Education Collaborative for Children in Foster Care, a
committee that included child-welfare and education experts, former
foster children, lawyers, and researchers. The Stuart Foundation, based
in San Francisco, has supported the project with a $326,000 grant.

It notes that children in foster care are more likely to repeat grades,
to be in special education, and to leave school without a high school
diploma.

The authors place a special emphasis on making sure children under age
5—who make up 32 percent of the more than 74,000 foster children in the
state—receive preschool and early-intervention services.

Social workers, foster parents, and other caregivers, the authors
recommend, should receive training on early brain development and the
developmental problems that can occur for foster children. Preschool
slots should also be increased in neighborhoods with high concentrations
of foster families, such as low-income and minority neighborhoods, the
report says.

“This is a population,” said Jane Henderson, a consultant who worked on
the California report, “that already qualifies for a lot of special
services.”
See Also
See other stories on education issues in California.

See data on California's public school system.

California and Delaware also have taken steps to allow children to stay
in the schools they were attending before being placed in foster care,
an effort to address the problem of high mobility that can disrupt
children’s education.

“That is a discussion that is happening in a lot of jurisdictions,”
added Robin Nixon, the executive director of the Washington-based
National Foster Care Coalition, an advocacy organization.

But Ms. Henderson said that a 2003 California law never specified who
would cover the cost of transportation if children are placed in foster
homes outside their schools’ attendance zones.

Ms. Henderson noted that while California’s multibillion-dollar budget
deficit won’t allow for major new initiatives in this area, existing
legislation could be more fully implemented.

California’s 2003 law also allows for foster children to enroll in
schools even if they lack the proper records and for students to receive
partial credit for a course. But advocates say there is sometimes still
resistance among school staff regarding such matters, and that more
awareness is needed.

“There is so little sunshine on the issue, and the kids are kind of
invisible, and they get bounced around,” Ms. Henderson said.
Higher Profile

Ms. Nixon and other advocates say they have seen an increase in efforts
elsewhere to elevate foster children’s educational needs.

Eight years ago, Advocates for Children of New York—a nonprofit
organization that focuses on securing educational services for children
at risk of school failure—was trying to get New York City child-welfare
agencies to share data on children in foster care.

The intention was to better understand the educational needs of those
students, many of whom qualify for special education services.

The advocacy group ran a pilot project from 2002 to 2004 in the
now-closed Louise Wise Services, a child-welfare agency, in which
members of the group’s staff, including education lawyers, were placed
inside the agency to focus on children’s academic needs.

Advocates for Children made a big push to make sure the child welfare
agencies in the city were enrolling children in tutoring services under
the No Child Left Behind Act, said Gisela Alvarez, a senior project
officer at the organization.

The city has even created an education unit within its Administration
for Children’s Services, which contracts with agencies to handle child
placements.

“Just the presence of having someone focused on education really changed
the culture of the agency,” said Ms. Alvarez.






An Inconvenient Truth about Child Protective Services, Foster care, and
the Child Protection "INDUSTRY"

Child Protective Services Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of CPS.

every parent should read the free handbook from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

Perpetrators of Maltreatment

Physical Abuse CPS/Foster care 160, biological Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS/Foster care 112, biological Parents 13
Neglect CPS/Foster care 410, biological Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS/Foster care 14 biological Parents 12
Fatalities CPS/Foster care 6.4, biological Parents 1.5

Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.

THIS IS AMERICA'S HIDDEN HOLOCAUST

Currently Child Protective Services violates more constitutionally
guaranteed liberties & civil rights on a daily basis then all other
agencies combined, Including the National Security agency/Central
intelligence agency wiretaping programs…

THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES
BY: Nancy Schaefer Senator, 50th District of Georgia

http://www.senatornancyschaefer.com/...s.php?filter=6

This is Child Protection?
By Gregory A. Hession, J.D.

http://www.jbs.org/node/4632

Mercenary Motherhood: "Memoirs of a Babystealer."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...nion-rightrail

FOSTER CARE IS A 80 PERCENT FAILU. A Brief Analysis of the Casey
Family Programs. Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study. By Richard Wexler

http://www.nccpr.org/reports/cfpanalysis.doc

HOW THE WAR AGAINST CHILD ABUSE BECAME A WAR AGAINST CHILDREN

http://www.nccpr.org/issues/1.html

Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness
DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families
By Nev Moore Massachusetts News

http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/...May/mayds4.htm

A recent study has found that 12-18 months after leaving foster ca

30% of the nation’s homeless are former foster children.
27% of the males and 10% of the females had been incarcerated
33% were receiving public assistance
37% had not finished high school
2% receive a college degree
50% were unemployed

Children in foster care are three to six times more likely than children
not in care to have emotional, behavioral and developmental problems,
including conduct disorders, depression, difficulties in school and
impaired social relationships. Some experts estimate that about 30% of
the children in care have marked or severe emotional problems. Various
studies have indicated that children and young people in foster care
tend to have limited education and job skills, perform poorly in school
compared to children who are not in foster care, lag behind in their
education by at least one year, and have lower educational attainment
than the general population.
*Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support

80 percent of prison inmates have been through the foster care system.

The highest ranking federal official in charge of foster care, Wade Horn
of the Department of Health and Human Services, is a former child
psychologist who says the foster care system is a giant mess and should
just be blown up.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2017991

Four rigorous studies have found that at least 30 percent of America’s
foster children could be home right now if their parents had decent housing.

This study found thousands of children already in foster care who would
have done better had child protection agencies not taken them away in
the first place.

Front-page story in USA Today.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...m?csp=34#Close

Read the studies online.

Casey "alumni" study: "Improving Family Foster Ca Findings from the
Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study,"

http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publi...lumniStudy.htm

MIT study: "Child Protection and Child Outcomes: Measuring the Effects
of Foster Care,"

http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_fo...arch07_aer.pdf

Texas comptroller's "Forgotten Children" reports:

www.window.state.tx.us/forgottenchildren

The bottom line? - Child Protective Services and the Foster Care system
for the most part turns out young adults that are nothing more than
walking wreckage...

CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CONSTITUTIONALLY
GUARANTEED LIBERTIES & CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER
AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAMS....

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...

BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...
 




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