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Shining light on child welfare system
Shining light on child welfare system
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/...80525029.shtml By Tom Rawlings | Commentary | Story updated at 10:39 PM on Sunday, May 25, 2008 Sometimes it takes someone from the outside making a little noise to draw our attention to necessary changes. And that's just what a national child advocacy organization did recently when it issued a report critiquing all 50 states' laws on the release of information about deaths and serious injuries from child abuse. In a report titled "State Secrecy and Child Deaths in the United States," First Star and the Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law graded each state on two main issues. The first was whether the state allows public access to juvenile court abuse and neglect proceedings. The second was whether the state is in compliance with a federal law allowing public disclosure of information about cases of child abuse that have resulted in fatalities or "near fatalities." More than half the states received no better than a "gentleman's C." Georgia, along with nine other states, received a failing grade. As I sometimes have to remind my children, when you receive a poor grade, that's not the time to start making excuses. It is, rather, the time to focus attention on building the skills at issue and figuring out how to improve. And that's what Georgia will be doing in the coming months. This state already has good laws allowing public access to information about children who died from abuse or neglect. When a child dies from abuse or neglect in Georgia, the child abuse records that otherwise would be confidential under state and federal law are opened up and are accessible to the media and the public. The results of that law have been seen in the heavy news coverage that follows the death of a child involved with our child protective services system. A federal law, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, provides for our state to make those records public. The idea behind public access is that if citizens and policymakers understand the situations causing these children to suffer so horribly, we will be in a better position to research and find ways to prevent these deaths. More information yields better policies and better laws. More public information also helps reassure Georgians that the child welfare system they pay for with their tax dollars is working. Those same purposes motivated the Georgia legislature in 1990 to create statewide child fatality review panels to study the causes of child deaths and work toward better child death and injury prevention programs. Much of our public focus on such issues as sudden infant death syndrome, the proper use of seat belts and proper fencing for swimming pools has grown out of the child fatality review process. A major reason Georgia fared poorly in the First Star study is that we have not updated our state laws to comply with another part of CAPTA. As part of the 1996 amendments to this law, Congress provided that states also must allow access to child abuse records when abuse results in a serious or critical injury. That makes sense, especially when you consider the fact that whether a child dies from abuse or lives through a serious injury may be a matter of fortune or divine mercy. Now that First Star and the Children's Advocacy Institute have pointed out this gap in our state law, we will begin working to fix the problem. In collaboration with Commissioner B.J. Walker and the Department of Human Resources, the Office of Child Advocate will work for the passage of legislation in the 2009 session of the Georgia General Assembly to put us in compliance with this federal CAPTA provision. As we make plans for that legislation, we welcome suggestions on how best to balance the public's right to this information against the child's right to privacy. Another issue the First Star report raises is whether abuse and neglect proceedings in juvenile court should be open to the public. For many years, the consensus was that these proceedings should be closed to protect the child. More recently, many juvenile courts across the country have been opening up these proceedings on the principle that the public should know more about how children suffer and how we work to protect them through our courts and our child welfare system. Judges, policymakers and child advocates in Georgia remain conflicted on the issue, but the First Star report will help focus our attention on this needed debate. I have a friend who, before his retirement, was the longest-serving Superior Court judge in Georgia. When parties to a domestic or divorce dispute would appear before him and start going back and forth about who had done what in the past, he would always stop them and say: "I'm not so much concerned about what happened as I am about what you're going to do about it from now on." When it comes to making state child welfare policy, that advice is as sound as any. • Tom Rawlings, Georgia's Child Advocate for the Protection of Children, was appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue to assure quality and efficiency in Georgia's child protective systems. The Office of Child Advocate is a resource for those interested in the welfare of our state's neglected and abused children. Rawlings can be reached through the OCA Web site at www.gachildadvocate.org. Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 052508 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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