Source: Washington Post ()
A former U.S. Army Ranger accused of killing his roommate and fellow Ranger last year in Gaithersburg has tested for marijuana numerous times in recent weeks, violating the terms of his release on bond, according to court documents.
Source: NorthJersey.com ()
For parents on either side of the child protection system, the holidays bring both joys and sadness.
Parents who lost custody of a child or children are reminded of the family they now see intermittently – and, then, only under a social worker’s watchful eye. Foster parents may shower kids with gifts, but the children are not theirs to keep.
Adults who reunite with their children have personal battles that sometimes get in the way of parenting. And foster children uprooted from their homes often have no clear concept of mommy and daddy.
For the holidays, the Herald News tells the stories of Passaic County parents who overcame obstacles to reunite with their flesh and blood, and of devoted foster parents who love and lose their temporary children.
Lola Santos bore her son and daughter a decade ago. This Christmas, she finally became their mother.
For far too long, Santos was high on crack cocaine, unable to care for children. She lived on the streets of Paterson, letting her in-laws raise her toddler and 1-month-old baby. She lived a life defined by the next day’s high, prostituting herself and cycling in and out of jail.
And then, after nine years, she found a way out. It wasn’t easy. It still isn’t.
“She’s having it rough,” said Jo Ann Hill, Santos’ caseworker through a child protection program at the Paterson YMCA. “When you are out of (your) child’s life for so long, you have to start that bond all over again.”
This year, Hill watched the ups and downs of 26 local families who lost their children to foster care. Often, drugs undid them. Some parents died, others went to jail. Only nine of the 26 parents regained their children from state custody this year, Hill said.
Those who reformed, like Santos, underwent months of counseling, random urine sampling and court dates. Caseworkers commend their strength parenting after so much turbulence. Not all of the reunions last. About a quarter of foster …
Source: NorthJersey.com ()
For years, child welfare advocates sounded alarms about the failures of New Jersey’s foster care system. Now, they are finally starting to get results.
In 2003, one in every five foster parents had abused their charges. Fewer than half of children received the mandatory monthly visit by a caseworker. Two of every three foster children bounced between multiple placements, according to Children’s Rights, a child advocacy group that sued the state for its failures to protect children under its watch.
The system’s woes attracted national attention when a 7-year-old boy was found starved to death in a Newark basement. Child welfare officials had received 11 complaints of child abuse or neglect involving the boy’s mother. Caseworkers had taken no concrete action.
Still, the state failed to reverse the problems. In response, the federal government threatened to take over New Jersey’s troubled Division of Youth and Family Services.
Since Gov. Jon Corzine took office, things have begun to change. Last year, the Division of Youth and Family Services was folded into a new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Children and Families. New Jersey is now in phase one of a five-year overhaul of its child protection services.
This year, adoptions are up, caseloads are down, and the state is on track to comply with a settlement to the Children’s Rights lawsuit.
The state acknowledges that much work still remains. “We still have a long way to go and a lot more work to do,” said Andy Williams, a spokesman for the Department of Children and Families. “But we are making incremental progress and are on the right track.”
By 2011, state officials hope to cure many of the system’s ills through a slew of new initiatives, including child abuse preventative services and a health care plan for foster children. But advocates say it will take if not generations, to undo the damage caused by decades of neglect.
“I think New Jersey …
Source: Indianapolis Star ()
NEW CASTLE, Ind. — A foster father who pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct after he impregnated a 15-year-old girl who been placed in his home was sentenced to five years of probation.
Darrin K. Reid, 37, will spend three of those years on electronic monitoring under terms of the plea agreement approved this week by Henry Circuit Judge Mary Willis.
Willis said Reid, who is blind, was not well-suited to spend time in an Indiana prison. But he also received a suspended prison sentence of 12 years — time that he could be ordered to serve if he violates terms of his probation, which include strict limits on contact with children under age 16.
“Just the thought of going through this again scares me to no end,” said Reid, a former New Castle resident who now lives in Indianapolis. There was no telephone number under his name in published listings and he could not be reached for additional comment. The Associated Press left a phone message seeking comment at the office of his attorney, B. Joseph Davis of Muncie.
The girl, who was placed in Reid’s home in January 2006, told her caseworker that she and Reid had had sex several times and that a hospital test had confirmed she was pregnant. The state removed her from the home in August 2006.
The girl also told a Henry County sheriff’s detective that she and Reid had sex several times.
Prosecutor Kit Crane said the plea agreement was affected by a defense motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that Reid was being denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial.
“We had some concern with regard to some of the evidence we had to work with on the case,” he added. “This disposition avoids the necessity of having the victim testify.”
Reid was licensed as a foster parent from June 2004 until his license was revoked last year, the Indiana Department of Child Services has said.
Source: phillyBurbs.com ()
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Employees protest plan to take guards’ guns
By JENNA PORTNOY
The Intelligencer
Security officer Richard Quinn’s colleagues call him “The Mushroom.”
“I sit by myself in the dark and once in a while they throw a little fertilizer on me,” he joked while at his post outside the county’s Children and Youth offices on Swamp Road in Doylestown Township.
But the Vietnam veteran and retired New York City cop plays a vital role for caseworkers and employees committed to protecting children. Just a few months ago he had to restrain a woman who wouldn’t stop screaming when she found out her child was being taken away from her.
Quinn’s presence is so important that 35 children and youth employees came to a county commissioners meeting Wednesday to protest the county’s plan to take away the guns Quinn and his two dozen colleagues carry while guarding various county buildings, including the courthouse, domestic relations and children and youth.
The firearms will be replaced with Tasers starting Jan. 1. The police-style uniform the officers wear will also go to the wayside in favor of blazers and tan slacks.
After hearing from the employees, commissioners said they will convene a meeting to review the policy.
“There is nobody in this administration whose first concern isn’t employee safety,” Chief Operating Officer David Sanko said. “People who deal with county government for the most part aren’t here because they’re getting a good citizenship award.”
The county’s security committee started looking into “soft security” early this year, brought their proposal to Sanko in October and got commissioners approval in November, said Emergency Services Director John Dougherty.
The committee includes Dougherty, Human Resources Director Carmen Thome, Sheriff Donnelly and the security director, a position that is vacant. The committee found that Montgomery, Chester, …
Source: Ad-Hoc-News (Pressemitteilung) ()
While the Holiday Season tends to be a very difficult time for those struggling with addiction and the people who love them, Treatment Solutions Network (www.treatmentsolutionsnetwork.com) felt that in order to practice what they preach, it would only be fitting to go above and beyond the Call of duty.
While donating toys, dinners and vacations are so important to the very fiber of benefit auctions like the one held on the Paul & Young Ron Show (http://www.pnyr.big1059.com/main.html) (Miami?s Big 105.9), when the good souls at Treatment Solutions Network thought about what they would donate, their gift idea was something that far exceeds money. Their donation was the gift of life. Their team has set out on a mission to gather their collective wisdom from life experience and provide a solution to an epidemic that is claiming an unacceptable number of lives everyday…the disease of addiction. With their gift, a person will be able to offer a friend, a family member or themselves another chance at life before it is too late. With this gift, Treatment Solutions will provide the recipient with a comprehensive in-patient stay at their Treatment Solutions of South Florida location (http://www.treatmentsolutionsnetwork.com/factssf.html) - a residential program that Montel Williams called “the best treatment facility in the country!” This is a premium facility with one focus - saving lives.
While the package they are offering includes all-inclusive treatment and any possible intervention services that may be required, the recipient is receiving a gift that can only be articulated by those who have successfully come out the other side…it is beyond words.
The entire package is roughly valued at $25,000.00 but again, they are happy knowing that someone will live on to share many more Christmases with the ones they care most.
About Treatment Solutions Network
The primary purpose of Treatment Solutions Network is to …
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer ()
Residents may be asked to decide twice in the next year how much money the Butler County Children Services department needs to sustain itself, if discussions at Monday’s commissioners’ meeting become reality.
The two-pronged approach, discussed and given an unofficial nod by the three county commissioners, would “ask the voters to give abused and neglected children what they already have and then ask voters to give them what they need,” said Children Services Director Mike Fox during a presentation to the commissioners.
Ballots for the primary election in March will ask voters to approve a replacement levy. In November, they could be asked for a tax increase.
Before next fall, Fox said, he and his staff will prepare a specific plan to put before voters, and the county will solicit ideas from the public and a newly formed committee.
A 2-mill levy is set to expire at the end of next year, leaving agency leaders to search for alternatives to replace $13 million of its nearly $28 million budget. This replacement would cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $200.
Commissioners have shied away from pushing an increase on voters, instead offering suggestions for ways to cut the agency’s budget.
Some of those ideas include recruiting more foster parents to reduce the costly out-of-county living expenses and collaborating with nearby counties to combat the shared housing dilemma and reduce the costs. Fox plans to address these ideas and others in a strategic plan to be released this summer.
Fox, a former commissioner, has said that without an increase his agency would be forced to either reduce child placements or fire some employees. The agency came under fire in 2006 when 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel was killed by his foster parents. Since then, a restructuring effort has created more positions.
Recent poll findings show that an overwhelming majority of likely voters would support a replacement levy.
An …
Source: Seattle Times ()
There are plenty of reasons Alicia Gutierrez, 11, is proud of her mother.
This is a woman who worked nights and studied days, caring for two daughters as best she could. When Veronica Perez lost her job, and then her home, she still got her girls to school on time. She found space for them to sleep, at friends’ houses, on couches, and in spare beds.
For nearly three years she tucked them into bed at Vision House in Renton, an apartment complex for homeless families. Then, last winter, she found them a new home.
After all that, one thing stands out:
“Her trying,” Alicia said.
Trying is not always enough to get out of homelessness. But in this case, it proved to be, because behind Alicia’s family was Vision House, and behind Vision House, among others, were Bill and Melinda Gates.
For the past seven years, in one of its few Northwest initiatives, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has worked with government and nonprofit groups to help more than 600 families find permanent homes. The $40 million effort, called Sound Families, has also raised the profile of family homelessness in the state.
Last winter, the state’s one-night count found nearly 3,700 homeless families — about 10,000 people — not including the many sleeping in cars or on spare couches. Nationally, advocates say, families now represent more than 40 percent of the homeless population.
“It’s one of the more invisible and hidden crises in the community,” said David Wertheimer, the senior program officer for the Foundation’s Pacific Northwest initiative.
The Gates Foundation gave out its final Sound Families grants this fall, and it’s studying data from the initiative, with an eye for how to move forward. But for the past several years, it has focused on the concept of “supportive housing” as a way out for families, pairing or affordable housing with social services such as child care and budgeting classes. The goal is …
Source: Indianapolis Star ()
Marion County’s new system for notifying police about families involved in the child welfare system could be the first step in launching an even bigger project to share information statewide.
The system expected to debut in Marion County next week would tell police whether they are heading to an address under scrutiny by the Department of Child Services.
The plan to improve the sharing of information between law enforcement and child welfare agencies came out of a meeting Monday called by Marion County juvenile court Judge Marilyn Moores to discuss communications gaps revealed by the death of TaJanay Bailey. The 3-year-old died Nov. 27 as a result, prosecutors say, of abuse and neglect at the hands of her mother, Charity Bailey, and the woman’s boyfriend, Lawrence Green.
The two are charged with murder and neglect in the case.
Seventeen days before TaJanay’s death, a police officer was called to the couple’s home at the Phoenix Apartments on a report of a domestic dispute.
The investigating officer had no way of knowing that child protection workers had removed TaJanay from the couple before because she had been abused while in their care and were closely monitoring the family.
And because the officer saw no signs of trouble or injuries and left the scene without filing a report — as happens with hundreds of police runs every day — DCS workers were unaware that family tensions had escalated to a point where the police had been called. Child protection officials didn’t learn of the incident until after TaJanay’s death. Had officials learned of the incident, that might have led them to remove the preschooler from the home.
As an immediate step, participants agreed to expand the use of a system now operated by the Metropolitan Emergency Communications Agency that allows for special messages to be stored by about a week, Moores said, that system will include instructions for officers to contact a DCS …
Source: Seattle Times ()
A bruising 2004 class-action lawsuit forced Washington state to dramatically improve its record of service to troubled families and foster children.
Tragedies still happen. The Department of Social and Health Services is the state’s most-sued agency. But child-welfare reforms are making a difference. In 95 percent of child-abuse and neglect complaints, a response comes within 24 hours. Quicker responses reduced the rate of repeat cases. Time to press on with reforms.
This is a point worth underscoring as Gov. Christine Gregoire and, soon, the state Legislature review a request for 1,240 more child-welfare workers to handle rising numbers in foster care.
But they should hold off on the employment ads. The number is little more than arbitrary. Cheryl Stephani, head of Children’s Administration, a section of DSHS, said the survey and its recommendations are simply a starting point for further analysis.
Another critical point: State lawmakers authorized 400 new child-welfare workers in 2005 and the agency still has 100 hires to go. The study’s recommendation equals a 70-percent staff increase, a move better made slowly over the next decade.
Even as courts and child-welfare agencies emphasize keeping children in their homes, a national trend shows an upswing in neglect cases. Methamphetamine abuse and an increase in mental-health cases are two reasons. A sense of urgency is amplified by the steady pressure of court-ordered benchmarks resulting from the lawsuit.
There are 10,300 children in foster homes statewide, a 16-percent increase. More kids mean more caseworkers. In 2005, each caseworker juggled about 24 cases. The ratio is now about 20-to-1.
There is a compelling argument to lower the ratio beyond the national standard of 18 cases for every caseworker. The Workload Study survey found that 60 percent of foster children are receiving monthly visits by their caseworkers — and 17 percent did not get a visit at …