I believe that many of today's news stories could make more of an impact – and foster more empathy in the audience – if they were written through a child welfare angle.
For now, I'd just like to get more of these stories into the public's awareness.
So, I'm creating a semi-monthly Texas child welfare roundup of news briefs. In these posts I'll provide Texas, national and international news and opinion. I'll also provide new relevant studies and available resources for families, youth, reporters and child welfare workers.
This is the first one; items are from September 1, 2015 to date. Enjoy.
TEXAS NEWS
CPS summit focuses on urgent need of homes for children in foster care
September 10, 2015 | By Amanda Weber | KSAT
Excerpt: “The number of children who age out of the foster care system in Texas has dropped by 41 percent in the last five years. But last year, more than 1,000 foster youth still aged out of care without finding a forever home. Child Protective Services wants that number to continue to drop.”
Help available for foster children aging out of the system
September 10, 2015 | By Audrey Castoreno | KENS 5
Excerpt: “Children in the foster care system are aging out at a rapid rate. This year Bexar County expects more than 150 kids to turn 18 without ever finding a loving home. ‘We really think that's a failure,’ Director of Permanency Camille Gilliam said. In an effort to change that, Child Protective Services and other children's advocacy groups came together to find out how many permanent homes are needed for foster children in San Antonio.”
Therapy money soon to be cut for thousands of Texans
September 8, 2015 | By Phil Prazan | KXAN
Excerpt: “This isn't just a problem for Dena, up to 60,000 Texans could be dropped by providers. ‘Like a slap in the face actually. To have families that have stepped up to take care of these children, then have the state back up from providing the services that are needed,’ said Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin.”
Child Protective Services Speaks
September 7, 2015 | By Natassia Paloma | Crossroads Today
Excerpt: “When investigating child abuse or neglect cases, Child Protective Services program director Katherine Scott said the child and family's privacy must be protected - which may lead the public to assume nothing’s being done.”
Gatesville attorney named judge of new specialty CPS court
September 2, 2015 | By Tommy Witherspoon | Waco Tribune-Herald
Excerpt: “A Gatesville attorney with broad experience in family law and cases involving neglected and abused children has been appointed to preside over a new court created solely to handle Child Protective Services cases.”
Rep. John Otto receives CASA's 2015 Big Voices for Little Texans award
September 2, 2015 | By Staff Report | Dayton News
Excerpt: “Besides CASA Liberty/Chambers Counties Executive Director Debbie Dugger, CASA's CEO Vicki Spriggs and Director of Public Affairs Andrew Homer were on hand to present Otto with the 2015 Big Voices for Little Texans award recognizing Otto for his ‘outstanding leadership and dedication to improving the child protection system’ during the 84th Legislative Session.”
County's first child protection judge sworn in
September 1, 2015 | By Staff Report | San Angelo Times
Excerpt: “Gary L. Banks was sworn in as the first associate judge of the Child Protection Court for the Concho Valley on Tuesday. Banks presides over child protection suits filed by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services for Concho, Runnels and Tom Green counties.”
New residential youth home comes to North Lawndale
September 1, 2015 | By Wendall Hutson | Austin Weekly News
Excerpt: “This week, 65 youths will move into the newly built Uhlich Child Advocate Network (UCAN) Therapeutic Youth Home in North Lawndale as part of a plan by the nonprofit to relocate its North Side campus to the West Side.”
NATIONAL NEWS
Helping Foster Youth Build a Home Within: Q&A with Toni Heineman
September 11, 2015 | By Melinda Clemmons | Chronicle of Social Change
Excerpt: “Working with foster children in her private psychotherapy practice in the 1980s, Dr. Toni Heineman realized that the profound effects of trauma and loss experienced by foster children were often exacerbated by another loss: that of their therapists.
“Seeing too many foster children lose their therapists just because the allotted number of county-approved sessions ran out or the intern to whom they were assigned left the agency, Heineman set out to develop a better option. In 1994, she founded A Home Within….
“Her latest book, Relational Treatment of Trauma: Stories of Loss and Hope, published in August by Routledge Press, is a collection of professional journal articles and book chapters Heineman has published over the past couple of decades.”
Federal Apprenticeship Grants Include Youth-Focused Programs
September 10, 2015 | By Sarah Barr | Youth Today
Excerpt: “A $175 million federal investment in apprenticeship programs includes models that focus on the needs of youth and young adults.
“The Obama administration announced American Apprenticeship Grants for 46 public-private partnerships. The groups aim to train and hire 34,000 apprentices in industries such as healthcare, information technology and advanced manufacturing during the next five years.”
Abandoned kids at TX fire station highlight 'Safe Haven' laws
September 9, 2015 | By Lynnanne Nguyen |WHBQ
Excerpt: “Child advocates say not many people know about 'Safe Haven' laws where you can safely surrender any unwanted newborns, no questions asked.”
Democrat pushes military for data on child abuse, neglect
September 9, 2015 | By Rebecca Kheel |The Hill
Excerpt: “Speier, who serves as the ranking member of the House Armed Service Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, made her request on the heels of a Washington Post report from last week about abuse or neglect of military children.”
Blue-ribbon commission collects ideas to save children in abusive homes
September 6, 2015 | By Cheryl Wetzstein | Washington Times
Excerpt: “A blue-ribbon commission is working to gather fresh answers about how to stop such child fatalities. What it is learning may lead to critical changes in child welfare operations -- and save lives. "I do believe that we have some things that are just very different because people haven't had the opportunity to put things together on a national level," said clinical psychologist David Sanders, chairman of the 12-member federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities.”
For many US adoptees from Guatemala, a complicated legacy
September 5, 2015 | By David Crary | Associated Press
Excerpt: “Scattered across the United States are more than 29,000 young people born in Guatemala and adopted by U.S. families before that troubled Central American nation shut down international adoption in 2008 amid allegations of rampant corruption and baby-selling.”
Don’t Stereotype Kids Who Quit School, Says Center for Promise
September 3, 2015 | By Stell Simonton | Youth Today
Excerpt: “Contrary to popular opinion, kids who drop out of high school are often very capable, according to America’s Promise Alliance….
“The report “shows that young people who leave school often possess the same individual strengths as young people who stay in school,” said Marissa Cole, associate director of the Center for Promise, the research arm of America’s Promise Alliance.”
Stories of Mexican mothers having babies in U.S. are complex, Texas doctors say
September 3, 2015 | By Molly Hennessy-Fiske | Los Angeles Times
Excerpt: “The mother arrived at the hospital last week in need of an emergency caesarean section, saying she had crossed the border to run an errand in town, not so her baby would be born an American citizen.”
From the Expat Blog: Help for Expatriates Adopting a Child Overseas
September 2, 2015 | By Kaitlin Solimine | Wall Street Journal
Excerpt: “Adopting a child while living abroad involves particular challenges, from the logistical to the emotional. Legal requirements will vary depending on factors like the parents' nationality, where they reside and which country they will be adopting from.”
The number of child abuse cases in the military hits a decade high
September 2, 2015 | By Missy Ryan | Washington Post
Excerpt: “Confirmed cases of abuse and neglect of military children increased markedly in 2014, Defense Department data showed on Wednesday, prompting concerns among Pentagon about efforts to safeguard the nation's over 1 million military children.”
California Lawmakers Approve Plan to Tackle Misuse of Psychiatric Meds
September 2, 2015 | By Elaine Korry | Youth Today
Excerpt: “A sweeping package of laws to regulate the prescribing of powerful psychiatric medications to children and teens like Cortijo in the child-welfare system is heading to the governor’s desk in California — reforms that are already being eyed as possible federal legislation. Anna Johnson, a social analyst at the Oakland, Calif.-based National Center for Youth Law, which helped write the legislation, said a new enforcement mechanism was needed to change prescribing practices throughout youth services.”
Foster Care: There’s an App for That
September 2, 2015 | By Lisa Jenkins | Chronicle for Social Change
Excerpt: “...one Los Angeles organization has channeled this energy into the creation of something with the potential for real impact within the foster care community. This summer, the Nathanson Family Resilience Center at UCLA launched the FOCUS on Foster Families app with the intent to foster connections in a system than can be isolating for the children, parents and professionals involved.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Survivors of child trafficking exhibit symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD
September 10, 2015 | Medical News Today
Excerpt: “About one-third of girls and boys who survived child trafficking experienced physical and/or sexual violence during their ordeal in a study of children receiving post-trafficking services in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.”
World Health Organization: child mortality under 6 million for first time
September 10, 2015 | Medical News Today
Excerpt: “Deaths among children aged 5 and under worldwide have more than halved over the last 25 years, falling from 12.7 million a year in 1990 to 5.9 million in 2015."
OPINION
Foster Kids: Our Inconvenient Truth
September 9, 2015 | By Lola Reed | Huffington Post
Excerpt: “But what if instead, on your first day back to school nobody cared enough to take a photo of you? What if you'd grown up with hardly any moments that were even photo worthy?
“That's the reality for so many young people in foster care.”
Too Often in Foster Care, Kids’ Privacy Rights Used to Protect Agencies
September 9, 2015 | By Marie K. Cohen | Chronicle of Social Change
Excerpt: “The privacy rights of children and their families caught up in the child welfare system should be protected. But all too often, they are used to shield agencies from questions about their actions…. The story of a child welfare system trying to suppress information about the death of a child is unfortunately all too common.
“But a recent story from upstate New York illustrates an agency hiding behind privacy rights at the expense of a living child. A 13-year-old in Warren County, New York, is being kept in foster care so that the child welfare agency can keep secret the circumstances under which she was allowed to stay with a heroin addict and convicted felon who was unrelated to her.”
Equal Rights for Adoptees Cannot Be Compromised
September 8, 2015 | By Mirah Riben | Huffington Post
Excerpt: “Restrictions that apply unequally to citizens who were adopted imply that adoptees are a suspect class of people because of something that occurred TO them when most were babies or young children. This is not fair, just, or equitable. There are sufficient laws to protect ALL citizens equally from being stalked or harassed. To create special laws that apply only to adoptees is a violation of the 14th amendment and treats them as second-class citizens.”
Shame, sex ed and Texas: How classes fail the kids who need help most
September 8, 2015 | By Monica Faulkner | Houston Chronicle
Excerpt: “As a result, the school districts in Texas that do address sexual health convey a strong message that self-worth is tied to virginity. Twenty-four other states have similar policies that force educators to stress abstinence before marriage. Some programs even use the analogy that virginity is like gum or a candy bar. The take-away message is that no one wants a chewed-up piece of gum or an unwrapped candy bar that has been passed around….
Sex education curricula that tie premarital sex, getting pregnant or getting an STD to shame don’t leave much space for anyone to develop healthy views about sex and sexuality. But they are especially unhelpful, and even harmful, for youth who have been sexually abused.”
The Pointless Banishment of Sex Offenders
September 8, 2015 | By The Editorial Board | New York Times
Excerpt: “It's a chilling image: the sex predator skulking in the shadows of a swing set, waiting to snatch a vulnerable child. Over the past two decades, that scenario has led to a wave of laws around the country restricting where people convicted of sex offenses may live-- in many cases, no closer than 2,500 feet from schools, playgrounds, parks or other areas where children gather. In some places, these "predator-free zones" put an entire town or county off limits, sometimes for life, even for those whose offenses had nothing to do with children.”
The U.S. Children's Bureau: time for a revival?
September 8, 2015 |By Janet Golden | Philly.com
Excerpt: “Today, no single federal agency has the resources and mandate to address issues such as child poverty, high rates of illness among children, and a stagnant infant mortality rate that reflects dramatic disparities by race, ethnicity and income.”
September 4, 2015 | By Mark Redmond | Huffington Post
Excerpt: “This past June a nonpartisan organization called Measure of America issued a report entitled, ‘Zeroing in on Place and Race - Youth Disconnection in America's Cities.’ It begins, ‘Disconnected youth are teenagers and young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither working nor in school. There are 5,527,000 disconnected youth in America today, or one in seven young adults (18.8 percent) - about as many people as live in Minnesota. The national disconnected youth population is larger than the populations of thirty US states.’”
The 'Orphan Train' part of American history
September 4, 2015 | By Kathi Nailling | Athens Daily Review
Excerpt: “More than 200,000 children rode the orphan train in the United States between 1854 and 1930. The train was part of a placing-out program created to find homes for children who were orphans, or whose parents could not afford to take care of them.”
School Discipline: Standing Up for All Children in the Public School System
September 3, 2015 | By Stacey Steinberg | Huffington Post
Excerpt: “The dichotomy of Sam's time-out and counseling compared to Bobby's suspension and permanent record might seem appalling, but these sorts of inequities occur in schools across the country every day. Clearly, Sam benefited from his parents having the skills, time, and motivation to challenge the status quo. But not all children have the benefit of confident, involved parents to help them navigate in the public school system.”
Closed Adoption Is on its Last Legs So Here's What We Must Do
September 2, 2015 | By Lori Holden | Huffington Post
Excerpt: "Release of a new memoir, God and Jetfire: Confessions of a Birth Mother, has brought up many opinions on the success or failure of open adoption.”
Will: Law puts children's race before their needs
September 2, 2015 | By George Will | Washington Post
Excerpt: “The 1978 act's advocates say it is not about race but about the rights of sovereign tribes, as though that distinction is meaningful. The act empowers tribes to abort adoption proceedings or take children from foster homes, solely because the children have even a minuscule quantum of American Indian blood. Although this act is supposedly not about race.”
The Perversion of American Birth Certificates
September 2, 2015 | By Mirah Riben | Huffington Post
Excerpt: “Amended BCs were created to legalize the façade that adoption was "the same as if" having a child born to you. Because they do not indicate any alteration has been made, many people grew into adults never knowing they were adopted giving false medical history to their health professionals and causing feelings of betrayal upon discovery.”
What the Media Doesn't Tell You About Foster Parents Like Me
September 2, 2015 | By Dr. John DeGarmo | Huffington Post
Excerpt: “It should come as no surprise that our media is focusing on these stories. Of course they are. The media likes to shine the light on those stories that garner attention; those stories that disturb; those stories that readers are interested in. You know, those stories that are often focused on the horrible and the shocking. You might think that all foster parents are bad people. You might think that all foster parents are in it for the money. You might think that all foster parents don't care about the children in their homes.
“I am not that kind of foster parent.”
The U.S.’ Puzzling Refusal to Ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child
September 2, 2015 | By Rachel Roderick | Chronicle of Social Change
Excerpt: “Twenty-five years ago today, the United Nations entered into force the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, and as of May 2015, the United States stands alone in the international community in failing to ratify this treaty. This inaction flies in the face of our professed beliefs in human rights and international freedom.
“Closer examination of the document yields few clues as to our hesitation.”
STUDIES
Health-Care Screening for Children in Foster Care
From the Children’s Bureau Express: “Children and youth in foster care are more likely to develop health problems than any other group of children, according to a guide produced by the American Academy of Pediatrics. These health conditions are often underidentified, undertreated, and can be chronic, impacting children's lives in multiple ways, both after they have exited foster care and throughout their adult lives.
"Children in foster care should receive regular and periodic health and developmental screenings in order to recognize and address potential delays in their growth and development.”
Factors Influencing Job Satisfaction Among Child Welfare Staff
Abstract excerpt: “Many states are experiencing high turnover rates within the child welfare system, and Florida has been acutely impacted. Researchers have demonstrated that the nature of the work, supervision, and other organizational factors continue to contribute to job satisfaction among child welfare professionals.
"Guided by the social exchange theory as the theoretical framework, which is based on intraorganizational relationships and workplace behavior, this quantitative study determined which indices of job satisfaction influenced retention among workers in Palm Beach County, Florida. It also examined how job satisfaction impacted different worker groups.” Read the entire dissertation. By Meresa L. Stacy, 2015.
Effectiveness of Parenting Classes for Parents of At-Risk Youth
Abstract excerpt: “Parent education classes offered at the Catholic Charities Organization of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties were the focus of this study. A pre-test and post-test design was utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of the classes for parents receiving parent education classes.” Read the entire project. By Kristyne Armenta and Janell Edith Huerta, 2015.
Extended Foster Care: The General Population's Perspective
Abstract excerpt: “The following is a quantitative study, with a convenience sample of 117 adults, ranging in age from 18-73, to gather information about the public’s perspective towards extended foster care (EFC) and emerging adulthood. Topics varied from when foster youth should emancipate to when emerging adult children should move out of their parents’ homes.
"There is very little literature regarding the topic of EFC, which could impact the sustainability of this program as its objective is to help emerging adults transition more successfully into adulthood and out of the child welfare system.” Read the entire thesis here. By Laura Andrade and Daniela A. Salinas, 2015.
RESOURCES
This website was created by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It provides resources to help improve the health and well-being of children, teenagers and young adults in foster care. Some resources include: advocacy, state, Medicaid provider directories, health insurance information for former foster kids, and other health tools.
Parent Guide to Child Protective Services
This handbook is for parents involved with the child welfare system. It includes tips on self-advocacy, confidentiality, court processes, legal representation, visitation, permanency planning and other parts of the investigation and state soter care process. By the Supreme Court of Texas Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth, and Families.
Coping With Reunification Anxiety
This tip sheet defines reunification anxiety and discusses how foster families, foster children and birth families can cope with and manage reunification anxiety. By the Foster Care and Adoption Resource Center.
Documentary on Youth Homelessness
Description from Children’s Bureau Express: “The The Homestretch, a 90-minute documentary co-produced by Spargel Productions and Kartemquin Films, follows three Chicago-area youth who ended up homeless at an early age. The documentary captures the teens' various challenges as they navigate homelessness, poverty, trauma, stereotypes, and abandonment in hopes of transitioning into an independent life with improved circumstances.”
State-Tribal Partnerships to Recruit Resource Families
This is a guide for State child welfare agencies on recruiting foster, adoptive and kinship families for Native American children. By the National Resource Center for Diligent Recruitment at AdoptUSKids.