Through the Eyes of the Child Initiative

By PERRI KLASS, M.D. Published: May 11, 2009 I had just started out in practice when one day I examined a little boy, maybe 4 years old, and discovered around his neck the clear mark of a noose. I asked him what had happened; he said he didn’t know. I asked his mother; she said she didn’t know, but it was the fault of her ex-husband. I had to tell her I was filing a report with the Department of Social Services — the child had clearly suffered an inflicted injury. My training had included many slide shows about the stigmata of cigarette burns, belt marks and other suspicious injuries, but it was the first time I had been the person alone on the front line, looking at a mark on a child, knowing something was wrong. New York Times [...]
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By Robert Zullo Senior Staff Writer Published: Sunday, May 10, 2009 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Sunday, May 10, 2009 at 12:19 a.m. HOUMA — When the connections are severed, the void that’s left never goes away. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of children separated from their siblings by adoptions and foster care have faced emotional and legal barriers in their attempts to reconnect. But philosophical shifts about closed adoptions and the wisdom of separating brother and sisters who go into foster care have begun to trigger changes in some states, child advocates say. Historically, foster care and adoption systems were set up under the belief that children coming from abusive and neglectful family situations needed to cut ties with their former lives to thrive, according to Linda Spears, a vice president at the Child Welfare League of America, a coalition of groups that advocate for disadvantaged and vulnerable children. Robert Zullo can be reached at 850-1150 or robert.zullo@houmatoday.com The Thibodaux Daily Comet [...]
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NEW YORK -- May 1, 2009 -- In suspected child abuse and neglect cases, diagnostic imaging can provide documentation of inflicted injuries and evidence in child protection proceedings, according to a revised policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), published in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics. "When all cases of child abuse and neglect are studied, the incidence of physical evidence documented by diagnostic imaging studies is relatively small. However, imaging studies are often critical in the assessment of infant and young child with evidence of physical injury, and they also may be the first indication of abuse in a child who is seen with an apparent natural illness," the authors wrote. The revised statement is available here: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/105/6/1345 SOURCE: American Academy of Pediatrics Doctor's Guide [...]
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By GINGER THOMPSON Published: April 22, 2009 CARTHAGE, Mo. — When immigration agents raided a poultry processing plant near here two years ago, they had no idea a little American boy named Carlos would be swept up in the operation. One of the 136 illegal immigrants detained in the raid was Carlos’s mother, Encarnación Bail Romero, a Guatemalan. A year and a half after she went to jail, a county court terminated Ms. Bail’s rights to her child on grounds of abandonment. Carlos, now 2, was adopted by a local couple. NY Times [...]
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SACRAMENTO –According to a new report released today, continuing support for older youth in foster care can create substantial cost savings for California while helping build better lives and futures for some of the state’s most vulnerable young people. The report estimates that California could realize at least a 2-1 benefit-to-cost ratio in extending foster care for youth to age 21. Released at a Sacramento briefing featuring legislative leaders Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, Assembly Human Services Committee Chair Jim Beall, Jr. (D-San Jose), Assemblymember Danny Gilmore (R-Hanford), Assemblymember Nathan Fletcher (R-San Diego), children’s advocates, including John Burton of the John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes, and former foster youth, the report provides additional support for implementing AB 12 (Beall, Bass), legislation recently introduced in the California Assembly to draw down newly-available federal funds to provide enhanced support for relative caregivers and foster youth from age 18 to 21. [...]
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New research supports a radical shift in child-welfare policy for the thousands of teens who 'age out' of foster care at age 18, only to face high rates of homelessness, unemployment and incarceration. By Daniel Heimpel | Newsweek Web Exclusive Mar 9, 2009 Eighteen-year-old John Kyzer's blue eyes are bleary and the skin around them puffy as he paces a corner of Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Kyzer has been spending his nights on a bench in front of a Starbucks. And now, he is dangerously close to entering the ranks of dozens of other former foster youth who "cop a squat" (sit) on concrete stairwells and sleep in "abandos" (abandoned buildings) up and down the street. © 2009 Newsweek [...]
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December 12th, 2008 @ 10:00pm By Sarah Dallof Come Sunday, Heather and Clint Larson will drive to the South Jordan police station and hand over the baby they've raised for six months to a tribal representative, and they worry they'll never see him again. Not a lot is certain in little Talon's life, except for the fact he is loved. Heather and Clint adopted him through a local agency. His birth mother is from Minnesota, a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribe, and a drug addict, according to the Larsons. "I felt: ‘This is my boy.' And we were ready to take care of him," Clint told us. [...]
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By Paula Rhoden, The Daily Courier Monday, September 22, 2008 PRESCOTT - Arizona Child Protective Services' began the Family to Family Team Decision Making program to give children a safety net as they enter the child welfare system. With it already working in other Arizona counties, CPS began the program in western Yavapai County Sept. 22. CPS District III Program Manager Gary Arnold said Family to Family lets parents, foster parents and other child welfare representatives get involved immediately when CPS is thinking about removing a child from a home or actually does so. "First and foremost, Family to Family is about community," Arnold said. Contact the reporter at prhoden@prescottaz.com The Daily Courier [...]
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By Laurel Chesky Two Travis County judges are trying to achieve the impossible: Create a bureaucracy that will improve service to the public and save taxpayer dollars. Travis Co. Civil Court Judges Darlene Byrne and Jeanne Meurer have proposed forming two new public defenders' offices in Travis Co. One would represent parents involved in civil cases in which the Texas Department of Fam­ily and Protective Ser­vices' Child Protect­ive Services Division seeks to terminate parental rights because of alleged abuse or neglect. The second office would represent the children involved in those cases. The Travis Co. District Attorney's Office represents CPS in such cases. The new public defenders' offices, Byrne and Meurer say, will provide higher quality and more expedient legal representation for indigent parents and their children and would cost less than the current system of appointed counsel. Austin Chronicle [...]
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