The business of rehabilitating foster children
By: Heidi Zhou
(Part 3)-- Imagine leaving your home, your school, your friends and even your family. Now, imagine starting over alone with nothing but a suitcase.
That’s a reality for 27,000 Texas children in foster care, and it happens all too often. Some get moved five, 10 or even 20 times. The results yield young people continually re-traumatized by the system that's supposed to rescue them.
Options for becoming a foster parent:
1) Complete an "interest form" for your Texas area and receive an informational packet from DFPS staff in your area.
2) Attend a free foster/adopt information meeting. View the schedule of information meetings in your area, local contacts, events and statistics.
3) Work with a Private Adoption Agency who works in partnership with DFPS.
For 19-year-old Jarod Smith, he just learned to detach himself.
He learned that from living in 35 different foster homes since the age of 10.
"I've been detaching myself from everybody and anybody," Smith said. "I stay most of the time in my room. I don't know why. It’s just me and my emotions. They’re just overrating right now."
Smith will be the first to tell you he's not easy to handle.
CPS rates children according to their rehabilitative need, and Smith bounced between the top two, of the four, service levels.
"Going to a new place is scary because my personality is, I don't want to get to know nobody," Smith said. "They're just going to hurt me, and I’m going to hurt them. My foster dad and my foster mom, I just didn't want to click. I didn't want to have that experience with them like I had with my real mom."
So whenever things got rough, Smith's foster parents would request he be moved. That's a common pattern in foster care, former district judge and child welfare expert Scott McCown said.
"You have such need to have children placed in foster care, that if that child is the least bit of trouble to me, I want to toss him out. I don't have to worry that I lose any money because you have so many other kids, you'll place another one with me," he said.
McCown is talking about the state's foster care reimbursement system which consists of four service levels. Each level comes with a distinct pay rate.
• Basic = $22.15 per day
• Moderate = $38.77 per day
• Specialized = $49.85 per day
• Intense = $88 per day
"The fee for service system doesn't incentivize, I hate that word, but incentivize good behavior. In fact, it doesn't favor helping the child or helping the family," McCown said.
It also makes it hard for foster families to keep a child once his service level drops.
"I don't do basic care children because at $18 a day, you look at the overhead. You can't do it," foster parent Joyce Johnson said.
Johnson runs a group foster home in Orange. She's seen around 600 teenage boys come and go in the 15 years as a foster parent.
"What helps these kids is the supervision we give them," Johnson said.
Learn more:
• Read and watch more about Jarod Smith's story.
• Click here to view our interactive timeline of the changes of CPS and foster care. Also you can see videos of those who've made it through the system and see their take on it all.
Johnson has rehabilitated many boys to a "basic" level. The boys have wanted to stay longer, but she's had to tell them no, because she couldn't afford to keep them.
"When you’ve got a $600 light bill and a $300 water bill, $2300 in mortgage, I've got teenage boys that eat. Then, you can't do it," Johnson said.
The Legislature recognized the problem in 2009, but didn't do anything about it. A bill that would have looked at changing the reimbursement policy died when lawmakers ran out of time.
Now, it's up to a group of public and private partners to reexamine the problem. The group is drafting a plan to redesign foster care. Lutheran Social Services President Betsy Guthrie is a member.
"We are penalized financially for doing well with the child," she said.
Lutheran Social Services is the largest of the agencies. They’re contracted to manage the state's 10,000 foster homes. Jarod Smith knows those homes all too well.
CPS Assistant Commissioner Audrey Deckinga said Smith's experience was unacceptable.
"It sounds like we have failed him in not finding a place, a provider and the department together, working together to keep him in one place," she said.
http://news.adoption.com/uni/frame.php?url=http://news8austin.com/content/headlines/270920/the-business-of-rehabilitating-foster-children&name=The+business+of+rehabilitating+foster+children+-+News+8+Austin
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Peeking into the life of a foster child
Peeking into the life of a foster child
By: Heidi Zhou
(Part 1)-- Every year, more than 10,000 children become wards of the state after suffering major episodes of abuse and neglect. These children grow up knowing they’re different, but that's no excuse to look away from them.
Ryan Dollinger became a ward of the state when he was 12-years-old.
"When you look at any other parents and you look at their children, you relate it back to how that child was raised as to how they have become. If they go out into the world and they're great people, you say they had really good parents, or if this kid robbed that store over there, you'd say it's probably the parents. As a child in foster care, my parents were the government," Dollinger said.
For more information:
• Find out why Jamie's House was shut down by CPS.
• View the state inspection reports for Pathfinders, the residential treatment facility in Dripping Springs.
On the surface you’d say the government did well. Twenty-three-year-old Dollinger is a junior at Lamar University.
But, dig a little deeper and you'll find the scars from foster care.
"I can remember my first night, kneeling on the side of my bed all night, praying and crying because I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know where I was. I remember praying to the Lord, take me out of this. Please, just save me," he said.
Dollinger’s first stop in foster care was at an emergency shelter in Houston. The facility has since been closed due to safety violations.
"I remember a man. I still to this day, when I smell his cologne, I cringe. There were instances he pushed kids down the stairs," he said.
His next stop was 200 miles away at a residential treatment center in Driftwood.
"We lived in a place with no walls, no electricity,” Dollinger said.
Against the recommendation of his child advocate, he lived there for more than a year.
Child Protective Services finally moved Dollinger to a group foster home in Orange. There, he aged out of the system at the age of 18, but not before his foster father issued his words of wisdom.
"I remember being told, 'Ryan, you are going to be a criminal. You're going to be homeless, you're going to end up selling yourself on the street,'” Dollinger said.
He said since that day, his mission has been to prove his foster father wrong.
Studies show, in the system, people like Dollinger are rare.
One in four foster children aging out of the system have been homeless since turning 18. Another one in four has been in jail.
“We can always, always, always improve,” CPS Assistant Commissioner Audrey Deckinga said.
Deckinga is also asking the same question of about 27,000 other children in the Texas foster care system.
For more information:
• Watch and read more about Ryan Dollinger's story.
• Click here to view our interactive timeline of the changes of CPS and foster care. Also you can see videos of those who've made it through the system and see their take on it all.
Child welfare experts are working to redesign the whole system.
"I think we are all, for the first time in a long time, on the same page, seeing the same problems, and really working toward the same solution for children and families,"Deckinga said.
Those experts have given themselves until December to come up with a solution, then they'll ask lawmakers to take it up.
The catch is, the redesign can’t cost a penny more than what CPS already has in its budget.
"I think they can be smart about how we spend the money that we have. [We can] spend it more wisely with better outcomes. I think if they do that, it will be a win, win," Rep. Patrick Rose, D-San Marcos, said.
But this isn't the first time foster care has been,"overhauled." That was the word used to describe reforms in 2005 and again in 2007. In 2009, more reforms weren’t even taken up due to the Legislature’s division over the Voter ID bill.
"You look at all the problems at once and you get overwhelmed, like not in my lifetime will I be able to help change all of this," Dollinger said.
CPS officials say they can tackle one problem at a time.
Throughout the series, we’ll explore issues like caseworker turnover, how foster parents are paid, aging out of the system and kids going unadopted.
We’ll also bring you more stories from Ryan Dollinger’s siblings, other wards of the state, foster kids raised on your tax dollars, who still deserve a chance for a better future.
http://news8austin.com/content/top_stories/270906/peeking-into-the-life-of-a-foster-child/?ap=1&MP4
By: Heidi Zhou
(Part 1)-- Every year, more than 10,000 children become wards of the state after suffering major episodes of abuse and neglect. These children grow up knowing they’re different, but that's no excuse to look away from them.
Ryan Dollinger became a ward of the state when he was 12-years-old.
"When you look at any other parents and you look at their children, you relate it back to how that child was raised as to how they have become. If they go out into the world and they're great people, you say they had really good parents, or if this kid robbed that store over there, you'd say it's probably the parents. As a child in foster care, my parents were the government," Dollinger said.
For more information:
• Find out why Jamie's House was shut down by CPS.
• View the state inspection reports for Pathfinders, the residential treatment facility in Dripping Springs.
On the surface you’d say the government did well. Twenty-three-year-old Dollinger is a junior at Lamar University.
But, dig a little deeper and you'll find the scars from foster care.
"I can remember my first night, kneeling on the side of my bed all night, praying and crying because I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know where I was. I remember praying to the Lord, take me out of this. Please, just save me," he said.
Dollinger’s first stop in foster care was at an emergency shelter in Houston. The facility has since been closed due to safety violations.
"I remember a man. I still to this day, when I smell his cologne, I cringe. There were instances he pushed kids down the stairs," he said.
His next stop was 200 miles away at a residential treatment center in Driftwood.
"We lived in a place with no walls, no electricity,” Dollinger said.
Against the recommendation of his child advocate, he lived there for more than a year.
Child Protective Services finally moved Dollinger to a group foster home in Orange. There, he aged out of the system at the age of 18, but not before his foster father issued his words of wisdom.
"I remember being told, 'Ryan, you are going to be a criminal. You're going to be homeless, you're going to end up selling yourself on the street,'” Dollinger said.
He said since that day, his mission has been to prove his foster father wrong.
Studies show, in the system, people like Dollinger are rare.
One in four foster children aging out of the system have been homeless since turning 18. Another one in four has been in jail.
“We can always, always, always improve,” CPS Assistant Commissioner Audrey Deckinga said.
Deckinga is also asking the same question of about 27,000 other children in the Texas foster care system.
For more information:
• Watch and read more about Ryan Dollinger's story.
• Click here to view our interactive timeline of the changes of CPS and foster care. Also you can see videos of those who've made it through the system and see their take on it all.
Child welfare experts are working to redesign the whole system.
"I think we are all, for the first time in a long time, on the same page, seeing the same problems, and really working toward the same solution for children and families,"Deckinga said.
Those experts have given themselves until December to come up with a solution, then they'll ask lawmakers to take it up.
The catch is, the redesign can’t cost a penny more than what CPS already has in its budget.
"I think they can be smart about how we spend the money that we have. [We can] spend it more wisely with better outcomes. I think if they do that, it will be a win, win," Rep. Patrick Rose, D-San Marcos, said.
But this isn't the first time foster care has been,"overhauled." That was the word used to describe reforms in 2005 and again in 2007. In 2009, more reforms weren’t even taken up due to the Legislature’s division over the Voter ID bill.
"You look at all the problems at once and you get overwhelmed, like not in my lifetime will I be able to help change all of this," Dollinger said.
CPS officials say they can tackle one problem at a time.
Throughout the series, we’ll explore issues like caseworker turnover, how foster parents are paid, aging out of the system and kids going unadopted.
We’ll also bring you more stories from Ryan Dollinger’s siblings, other wards of the state, foster kids raised on your tax dollars, who still deserve a chance for a better future.
http://news8austin.com/content/top_stories/270906/peeking-into-the-life-of-a-foster-child/?ap=1&MP4
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Inspectors Find Fraud at Centers for Children
Inspectors Find Fraud at Centers for Children
By SAM DILLON
Published: May 18, 2010
Federal undercover investigators found workers at federally financed child care centers frequently misrepresenting information about applicants’ job status and earnings to fraudulently register ineligible children, the Government Accountability Office said in a report issued Tuesday.
The investigators posed as parents or guardians of fictitious children and used bogus pay stubs and other documents to seek to register for day care services at Head Start centers, the report said. In 8 of 15 undercover tests, employees lied on federal forms about the applicants’ family income and other information to gain approval for the ineligible children, the report said.
An employee at one New Jersey Head Start center disregarded $23,000 worth of income to qualify a too-affluent, fictitious family the undercover agents were seeking to register.
“Now you see it, now you don’t,” the New Jersey employee told the investigators, referring to the $23,000 in income, the G.A.O. report said.
Head Start, an agency of the Health and Human Services Department with a budget of about $9 billion this year, provides child care and other services to nearly one million children nationwide. To be eligible, children must be from families whose incomes do not exceed 130 percent of the poverty level, or about $28,600 a year for a family of four.
Examining records at one nonprofit Head Start center in Texas, federal investigators found that the center had enrolled two families with incomes higher than $110,000, the report said.
“The system is vulnerable to fraud,” Gregory Kutz, the G.A.O.’s managing director for special investigations, told the House education committee in a hearing on Tuesday.
Investigators carried out their undercover inquiries at 13 Head Start centers in California, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. In an initial inquiry after two calls to a G.A.O. fraud hot line, investigators found fraud and abuses at two additional centers, one in the Midwest and one in Texas. Mr. Kutz said in an interview that he could not identify the Midwestern state or the names of any of the centers because the investigation was continuing.
The G.A.O. will soon refer the Head Start findings to the inspector general’s office at the Health and Human Services Department for its consideration for a criminal inquiry, Mr. Kutz said.
The report and the hearing left unclear just how widespread the fraudulent practices may be. The investigation found fraud in more than half of all the centers it examined. But those were only a tiny fraction of the 1,600 or so nonprofit operators that receive Head Start money to run more than 3,000 programs.
Republicans on the House committee called for a broader investigation.
“The G.A.O. has brought to light a disturbing pattern of abuse,” said Representative Judy Biggert, Republican of Illinois.
In a letter to the committee, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said that President Obama had been briefed on the investigation and that her agency had begun its own internal investigation and would make unannounced visits to Head Start centers.
One in five preschool children live in poverty, but less than half of the children eligible for Head Start are able to receive federally funded child care because of the agency’s long waiting lists.
“That’s why it’s vital that Head Start enrollment procedures are followed and that taxpayer dollars are used as intended,” Representative George Miller, a California Democrat and chairman of the committee, said in opening the hearing.
Minutes later, Mr. Kutz played videotapes in which various employees at Head Start centers, unaware that they were being taped, were seen conversing casually with the undercover investigators about how they would lie on the federal applications.
After viewing the video, Mr. Miller sought to confirm with Mr. Kutz that it had shown “people in different programs appearing to doctor the income requirements.”
“I wouldn’t say appearing to,” Mr. Kutz replied. “I’d say they did. They committed fraud.”
Mr. Kutz said the motivation for the employees’ behavior was not entirely clear. In some cases, it appeared that the management of the nonprofit agencies receiving Head Start money were pressuring employees to lie on the applications to make sure the agencies met enrollment targets.
A version of this article appeared in print on May 19, 2010, on page A18 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/education/19headstart.html
By SAM DILLON
Published: May 18, 2010
Federal undercover investigators found workers at federally financed child care centers frequently misrepresenting information about applicants’ job status and earnings to fraudulently register ineligible children, the Government Accountability Office said in a report issued Tuesday.
The investigators posed as parents or guardians of fictitious children and used bogus pay stubs and other documents to seek to register for day care services at Head Start centers, the report said. In 8 of 15 undercover tests, employees lied on federal forms about the applicants’ family income and other information to gain approval for the ineligible children, the report said.
An employee at one New Jersey Head Start center disregarded $23,000 worth of income to qualify a too-affluent, fictitious family the undercover agents were seeking to register.
“Now you see it, now you don’t,” the New Jersey employee told the investigators, referring to the $23,000 in income, the G.A.O. report said.
Head Start, an agency of the Health and Human Services Department with a budget of about $9 billion this year, provides child care and other services to nearly one million children nationwide. To be eligible, children must be from families whose incomes do not exceed 130 percent of the poverty level, or about $28,600 a year for a family of four.
Examining records at one nonprofit Head Start center in Texas, federal investigators found that the center had enrolled two families with incomes higher than $110,000, the report said.
“The system is vulnerable to fraud,” Gregory Kutz, the G.A.O.’s managing director for special investigations, told the House education committee in a hearing on Tuesday.
Investigators carried out their undercover inquiries at 13 Head Start centers in California, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. In an initial inquiry after two calls to a G.A.O. fraud hot line, investigators found fraud and abuses at two additional centers, one in the Midwest and one in Texas. Mr. Kutz said in an interview that he could not identify the Midwestern state or the names of any of the centers because the investigation was continuing.
The G.A.O. will soon refer the Head Start findings to the inspector general’s office at the Health and Human Services Department for its consideration for a criminal inquiry, Mr. Kutz said.
The report and the hearing left unclear just how widespread the fraudulent practices may be. The investigation found fraud in more than half of all the centers it examined. But those were only a tiny fraction of the 1,600 or so nonprofit operators that receive Head Start money to run more than 3,000 programs.
Republicans on the House committee called for a broader investigation.
“The G.A.O. has brought to light a disturbing pattern of abuse,” said Representative Judy Biggert, Republican of Illinois.
In a letter to the committee, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said that President Obama had been briefed on the investigation and that her agency had begun its own internal investigation and would make unannounced visits to Head Start centers.
One in five preschool children live in poverty, but less than half of the children eligible for Head Start are able to receive federally funded child care because of the agency’s long waiting lists.
“That’s why it’s vital that Head Start enrollment procedures are followed and that taxpayer dollars are used as intended,” Representative George Miller, a California Democrat and chairman of the committee, said in opening the hearing.
Minutes later, Mr. Kutz played videotapes in which various employees at Head Start centers, unaware that they were being taped, were seen conversing casually with the undercover investigators about how they would lie on the federal applications.
After viewing the video, Mr. Miller sought to confirm with Mr. Kutz that it had shown “people in different programs appearing to doctor the income requirements.”
“I wouldn’t say appearing to,” Mr. Kutz replied. “I’d say they did. They committed fraud.”
Mr. Kutz said the motivation for the employees’ behavior was not entirely clear. In some cases, it appeared that the management of the nonprofit agencies receiving Head Start money were pressuring employees to lie on the applications to make sure the agencies met enrollment targets.
A version of this article appeared in print on May 19, 2010, on page A18 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/education/19headstart.html
The Actual Problems with DCFS are Incompetent Personnel and Inappropriate Fund Allocation
The Actual Problems with DCFS are Incompetent Personnel and Inappropriate Fund Allocation, Pasadena Family Law Attorney, Mark B. Baer, Believes
In his Blog, Mark B. Baer, Esq. explains that it is false and misleading for the Director of the Los Angeles County Director of Children and Family Services to imply that if fully staffed, the Department would produce quality results.
It is false and misleading to imply that if fully staffed, the Department would produce quality results.
Pasadena, CA (PRWEB) May 19, 2010 -- Thousands of child abuse tips (more than 18,000) go uninvestigated by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) within the time mandated by the State, even though the deadline for completing such investigations was recently increased from 30 to 60 days, according to the Los Angeles Times. In response, Troist Ploehn, the Director of DCFS blamed the fact that the Department is short staffed and stated, "All of the things that equate with quality do take time."
Mark B. Baer, Esq.
The County of Los Angeles admits that DCFS has approximately 7,000 employees and an annual budget in excess of $1.5 billion. According to the Los Angeles Times, only 596 of those employees are emergency response unit workers.
"The most appropriate allocation of its funding should be the investigation of allegations of abuse and neglect in those situations in which the children are still at risk," said Mark B. Baer, a Los Angeles family law attorney. Mr Baer also commented that, "It is false and misleading to imply that if fully staffed, the Department would produce quality results. Even if DCFS had all the time in the world and had all of its purported staffing issues resolved, quality would not be a term used to describe its results."
According to the Los Angeles Times, "more than a dozen children had died of abuse or neglect in each of the two previous years after coming to the attention of the department." Referring to what he described as the incompetence of DCFS and the inappropriate allocation of funds within DCFS, Mr. Baer commented that, "when 'lives and families (especially the children) seem to pay the price', that price is just a bit too high."
http://www.prweb.com/releases/MarkBBaerEsq/02/prweb4018724.htm
In his Blog, Mark B. Baer, Esq. explains that it is false and misleading for the Director of the Los Angeles County Director of Children and Family Services to imply that if fully staffed, the Department would produce quality results.
It is false and misleading to imply that if fully staffed, the Department would produce quality results.
Pasadena, CA (PRWEB) May 19, 2010 -- Thousands of child abuse tips (more than 18,000) go uninvestigated by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) within the time mandated by the State, even though the deadline for completing such investigations was recently increased from 30 to 60 days, according to the Los Angeles Times. In response, Troist Ploehn, the Director of DCFS blamed the fact that the Department is short staffed and stated, "All of the things that equate with quality do take time."
Mark B. Baer, Esq.
The County of Los Angeles admits that DCFS has approximately 7,000 employees and an annual budget in excess of $1.5 billion. According to the Los Angeles Times, only 596 of those employees are emergency response unit workers.
"The most appropriate allocation of its funding should be the investigation of allegations of abuse and neglect in those situations in which the children are still at risk," said Mark B. Baer, a Los Angeles family law attorney. Mr Baer also commented that, "It is false and misleading to imply that if fully staffed, the Department would produce quality results. Even if DCFS had all the time in the world and had all of its purported staffing issues resolved, quality would not be a term used to describe its results."
According to the Los Angeles Times, "more than a dozen children had died of abuse or neglect in each of the two previous years after coming to the attention of the department." Referring to what he described as the incompetence of DCFS and the inappropriate allocation of funds within DCFS, Mr. Baer commented that, "when 'lives and families (especially the children) seem to pay the price', that price is just a bit too high."
http://www.prweb.com/releases/MarkBBaerEsq/02/prweb4018724.htm
State expanding investigative approach to child abuse cases
State expanding investigative approach to child abuse cases
Licking among 10 counties to pilot technique
BY JESSIE BALMERT • ADVOCATE REPORTER • MAY 19, 2010
NEWARK -- Ohio is implementing a family-oriented approach to investigating child abuse and neglect allegations after receiving positive results from 10 pilot counties, including Licking County Children Services.
The approach, called alternative response, is focused on finding the underlying causes of child abuse or neglect more than the traditional response, which is focused on investigating specific allegations, Licking County Children Services Intake Supervisor Sue Wasiniak said.
Under the traditional approach, if a child reported an injury, social workers would interview the child, other relatives, the alleged offender and potentially police, setting up a combative dynamic. It could lead to children being removed from the home or other court-mandated requirements.
Under the alternative response, a social worker would sit down with the family and discuss what happened and why, trying to find the root problems. Then they would set up a plan to improve the situation.
"It's not a value judgment. Neither way is bad or good," Wasiniak said.
Results from the pilot program, which included Licking County and nine other counties selected to participate, indicated children were just as safe under the alternative response approach and less likely to return for a different report, according to the Ohio Alternative Response Pilot Project Final Report released Monday.
Of the 10 counties reviewed, 13.3 percent of traditional response families had a new report of abuse or neglect within a year when compared with 11.2 percent of alternative response families, according to the final report.
Licking County Children Services noticed a decrease in reopened cases within six months when the alternative response approach was used -- 2 percent -- when compared to 5 percent of reopened cases using the traditional response.
Between July 2008 and September 2009, social workers entered cases into a computer to select which families would be treated with either the alternative or traditional approach at random, Wasiniak said. The cases were tracked through December 2009.
Not all allegations were included. Fatalities, child sexual abuse and severe physical abuse were not appropriate for the new approach because documentation and a finding are important, Wasiniak said.
"It is not for all reports," said John Fisher, director of Licking County Job and Family Services.
The pilot project report revealed interaction between families and social workers was more positive when the alternative response approach was used. Families described feeling optimistic, reassured, pleased and relieved.
Those from the traditional approach expressed feeling tense, confused, anxious and stressed, according to the report.
The pilot counties reported 3.7 percent of children were removed from the home under the traditional approach, as compared to 1.8 percent of children from the alternative response, according to the report.
Because of the pilot program's success, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services plans to expand the number of counties offering alternative response to 25 by fall and eventually include the entire state, according to a news release from the Ohio Supreme Court.
"Usually the families know best and we need to listen," Wasiniak said. "They appreciate the fact that we are there with open hearts and open minds."
Jessie Balmert can be reached at (740) 328-8548 or jbalmert@newarkadvocate.com.
http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20100519/NEWS01/5190310
Licking among 10 counties to pilot technique
BY JESSIE BALMERT • ADVOCATE REPORTER • MAY 19, 2010
NEWARK -- Ohio is implementing a family-oriented approach to investigating child abuse and neglect allegations after receiving positive results from 10 pilot counties, including Licking County Children Services.
The approach, called alternative response, is focused on finding the underlying causes of child abuse or neglect more than the traditional response, which is focused on investigating specific allegations, Licking County Children Services Intake Supervisor Sue Wasiniak said.
Under the traditional approach, if a child reported an injury, social workers would interview the child, other relatives, the alleged offender and potentially police, setting up a combative dynamic. It could lead to children being removed from the home or other court-mandated requirements.
Under the alternative response, a social worker would sit down with the family and discuss what happened and why, trying to find the root problems. Then they would set up a plan to improve the situation.
"It's not a value judgment. Neither way is bad or good," Wasiniak said.
Results from the pilot program, which included Licking County and nine other counties selected to participate, indicated children were just as safe under the alternative response approach and less likely to return for a different report, according to the Ohio Alternative Response Pilot Project Final Report released Monday.
Of the 10 counties reviewed, 13.3 percent of traditional response families had a new report of abuse or neglect within a year when compared with 11.2 percent of alternative response families, according to the final report.
Licking County Children Services noticed a decrease in reopened cases within six months when the alternative response approach was used -- 2 percent -- when compared to 5 percent of reopened cases using the traditional response.
Between July 2008 and September 2009, social workers entered cases into a computer to select which families would be treated with either the alternative or traditional approach at random, Wasiniak said. The cases were tracked through December 2009.
Not all allegations were included. Fatalities, child sexual abuse and severe physical abuse were not appropriate for the new approach because documentation and a finding are important, Wasiniak said.
"It is not for all reports," said John Fisher, director of Licking County Job and Family Services.
The pilot project report revealed interaction between families and social workers was more positive when the alternative response approach was used. Families described feeling optimistic, reassured, pleased and relieved.
Those from the traditional approach expressed feeling tense, confused, anxious and stressed, according to the report.
The pilot counties reported 3.7 percent of children were removed from the home under the traditional approach, as compared to 1.8 percent of children from the alternative response, according to the report.
Because of the pilot program's success, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services plans to expand the number of counties offering alternative response to 25 by fall and eventually include the entire state, according to a news release from the Ohio Supreme Court.
"Usually the families know best and we need to listen," Wasiniak said. "They appreciate the fact that we are there with open hearts and open minds."
Jessie Balmert can be reached at (740) 328-8548 or jbalmert@newarkadvocate.com.
http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20100519/NEWS01/5190310
Children Drugged with Psychotropics for Profit, Social Control
CCHR http://www.cchr.org/#/home Museum Tab
For more information: Alliance for Human Research Protection http://www.ahrp.org and http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/blogs...
http://www.legallykidnapped.blogspot.com/
The Bribed or Manipulated Child: Handling Your Child Custody Case in 2008
The Bribed or Manipulated Child: Handling Your Child Custody Case
Written by valeri Posted May 19, 2010 at 12:16 pm
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The Bribed or Manipulated Child: Handling Your Child Custody Case in 2008 Barry Bricklin, Ph.D. and Gail Elliot, Ph.D.
Dr. Bricklin and Dr. Elliot are nationally-known child custody experts. They have written many publications offering help and guidance for mothers, fathers, and grandparents involved in child custody issues. Their publications can be found at http://www.custodylibrary.com
One of the saddest and most frustrating situations occurs when a child has been bribed or manipulated to turn against one of the parents. The child might previously have had a wonderful relationship with the so-called “target parent.” Manipulations can range from very subtle, like the parent who looks sad and distressed when the child goes off to visit the other parent, right on through the entire spectrum to the other extreme, where the parent actively damns and condemns the target parent. The parent will say things like, “It’s all his fault; he deserted us,” right on through to saying that the target parent has all kinds of drug problems or alcohol problems or that he or she left us to run off with some low-life.
Unfortunately, subtle forms of bribing or manipulating a child will work as well as the more blatant strategies. In fact, the subtle ways work best, because even a savvy child, who might recognize (and better deal with) blatant alienation, will not recognize more subtle forms. It might be a mother, for example, who says: “Well you know you’re father; he has a drinking problem. He tries, but he really is just an alcoholic.” Or the father who says, “You know your mom; she means well but is just so uptight you can’t have any fun around her.” These kinds of subtle strategies might work every bit as well as the more blatant ones.
First of all, the target parent must learn to recognize situations that look like a bribed or manipulated child, but in actuality is not. It is frequent for older children, for example, say from twelve years of age and up, to basically want to have one home. It simply is a matter of convenience for them. They want to be around the friends with whom they socialize.
Also, a child of older years may simply want to switch from where he or she already lives to the other house, based on the-grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-street. This is the child who believes the “other house” is the place where he or she can stay up later, where there is less discipline, less insistence on cleanliness, less insistence on chores or homework.
Regardless of the cause of a child’s not wanting to see you, the core skill needed is what we call non-adversary communication. This is a skill which we also teach to businesses. It is a very powerful tool, but very subtle in its power. It will sound simple enough when we run the rules by you, but it will take a little bit of dedicated practice to use it well.
First, you must see the value in using it. It brings two main benefits. One benefit is that it will make your own communications more powerful. Second, it is tremendously self-therapeutic. It would take us too far off point to explain this fully right here, but the fact is that any piece of “output behavior,” an angry face, tight vocal-cord muscles, a tense body, accesses in you your worst and most fearful memories at an unconscious level, memories of times you felt helpless and scared. You are unwittingly hurting yourself.
The first principal is that whatever the issue is you are dealing with, you immediately seek a solution.
This next point is extremely hard for most people to implement. It simply states that you never blame or make the other person wrong, not even in the slightest way. No matter how angry, hurt, or vindictive you feel, you do not use a time where some problem needs a solution to air your anger. There are not only blatant ways of making the other person wrong e.g., “You idiot! You never understand anything!” There are also subtle ways. The use of the word “but” is subtly making the other person wrong. If you tell me your position, and if I answer you, even in a very gentle and warm voice, with a phrase that starts with the word “but,” you know that shortly thereafter I am going to make your position “wrong.”
Suppose one of my children says to me: “You always talk to me in a loud voice.”
Suppose I answer: “But honey, it is so hard to get your attention.”
The third point is to learn to not give more than one (short) explanation of your own position. To do so is not only strategically ineffective, but self-damaging. When you spend a lot of motor-output time trying to justify your position, that is, trying to get the other person to accept the wisdom of your explanation, you are accessing in yourself, at an unconscious level, all of the memories of when you felt helpless, vulnerable, misunderstood and “on the carpet.” Here are some brief examples of non-adversary statements. Instead of saying “You’re late every time you drop Mary off,” (making the other person wrong), say: “What can we do to make drop-offs and pick-ups work better for all of us?”
We absolutely know your thinking at this point: “You don’t know my ex. He wants to hurt me! He doesn’t care about solving anything!” We know this might very well be true. But what you don’t know, and we do, is the subtle, cumulative power of the strategies we want to share with you. Give us a chance. Master them, and try them before judging how you think they will work. Further, our purpose here is to teach you how to use these skills with your children, especially those from whom you may have been alienated.
This skill of non-adversarial communication is necessary to make most of the other strategies that you might use work better. It is an amazingly powerful tool when used the ways we will describe. It is so subtle that the other person might not even consciously know you are using it. But it definitely moves people off of aggressive or hostile positions. Here are some other examples. Take the, child who complains the parent speaks too loudly.
The parent might respond to such an accusation with: “You may be right. Help me to find better ways to get your full attention.” Now, since the child has no position to bother defending (which would have been the case had the parent said, “You don’t pay attention,” to which the child would have said, “Yes, I do,” and the conversation would go nowhere), the child can begin wondering what options the parent may have to get his or her attention without yelling. As long as anyone has to defend a position, no creative thinking goes on. As soon as you make someone wrong, all they will do is endlessly explain to you why they’re not; we are genetically engineered, one might say to “defend our territory.” It is an almost irresistible urge.
The final strategy, but one which we recommend you do not use until you have thoroughly tried the others is to seek help through the legal system. This is something you definitely would like to avoid, unless there are no other options available. You will have to initiate these steps through your attorney. There are two important pieces of information you may need, since not all attorneys are aware of the mental health options that may be available and not all options will be available in every state.
Dr. Bricklin and Dr. Elliot are nationally-known child custody experts. They have written many publications offering help and guidance for mothers, fathers, and grandparents involved in child custody issues. Their publications can be found at http://www.custodylibrary.com
Authors:
Dr. Barry Bricklin is a psychologist in private practice, Adjunct Associate Professor at Widener University and has previously served on the faculty of Jefferson University and of Hahnneman University. He is past president of the Philadelphia Society for Personality Assessment and the Philadelphia Society of Clinical Psychologists. He has authored books and articles many topics related to custody evaluations. For over 25 years, Dr. Bricklin has developed various data-based approaches to the decisions which must be made when parents divorce. He is the Chair of the Executive Operating Committee of the Professional Academy of Custody Evaluators (PACE).
Dr. Gail Elliot is Head, Child Development and Family Processes Research, Bricklin Associates, the Vice Chair of the Professional Academy of Custody Evaluators and a psychologist in private practice. She has served as a consultant to public and private schools and coordinated multidisciplinary treatment plans. She has authored and researched numerous works related to custody evaluation.
—————————————————
Dr. Bricklin and Dr. Elliot are nationally-known child custody experts. They have written many publications offering help and guidance for mothers, fathers, and grandparents involved in child custody issues. Their publications can be found at http://www.custodylibrary.com
Dr. Barry Bricklin is a psychologist in private practice, Adjunct Associate Professor at Widener University and has previously served on the faculty of Jefferson University and of Hahnneman University. He is past president of the Philadelphia Society for Personality Assessment and the Philadelphia Society of Clinical Psychologists. He has authored books and articles many topics related to custody evaluations. For over 25 years, Dr. Bricklin has developed various data-based approaches to the decisions which must be made when parents divorce. He is the Chair of the Executive Operating Committee of the Professional Academy of Custody Evaluators (PACE).
Dr. Gail Elliot is Head, Child Development and Family Processes Research, Bricklin Associates, the Vice Chair of the Professional Academy of Custody Evaluators and a psychologist in private practice. She has served as a consultant to public and private schools and coordinated multidisciplinary treatment plans. She has authored and researched numerous works related to custody evaluation.
http://howtocontrolchildren.com/the-bribed-or-manipulated-child-handling-your-child-custody-case/
Written by valeri Posted May 19, 2010 at 12:16 pm
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The Bribed or Manipulated Child: Handling Your Child Custody Case in 2008 Barry Bricklin, Ph.D. and Gail Elliot, Ph.D.
Dr. Bricklin and Dr. Elliot are nationally-known child custody experts. They have written many publications offering help and guidance for mothers, fathers, and grandparents involved in child custody issues. Their publications can be found at http://www.custodylibrary.com
One of the saddest and most frustrating situations occurs when a child has been bribed or manipulated to turn against one of the parents. The child might previously have had a wonderful relationship with the so-called “target parent.” Manipulations can range from very subtle, like the parent who looks sad and distressed when the child goes off to visit the other parent, right on through the entire spectrum to the other extreme, where the parent actively damns and condemns the target parent. The parent will say things like, “It’s all his fault; he deserted us,” right on through to saying that the target parent has all kinds of drug problems or alcohol problems or that he or she left us to run off with some low-life.
Unfortunately, subtle forms of bribing or manipulating a child will work as well as the more blatant strategies. In fact, the subtle ways work best, because even a savvy child, who might recognize (and better deal with) blatant alienation, will not recognize more subtle forms. It might be a mother, for example, who says: “Well you know you’re father; he has a drinking problem. He tries, but he really is just an alcoholic.” Or the father who says, “You know your mom; she means well but is just so uptight you can’t have any fun around her.” These kinds of subtle strategies might work every bit as well as the more blatant ones.
First of all, the target parent must learn to recognize situations that look like a bribed or manipulated child, but in actuality is not. It is frequent for older children, for example, say from twelve years of age and up, to basically want to have one home. It simply is a matter of convenience for them. They want to be around the friends with whom they socialize.
Also, a child of older years may simply want to switch from where he or she already lives to the other house, based on the-grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-street. This is the child who believes the “other house” is the place where he or she can stay up later, where there is less discipline, less insistence on cleanliness, less insistence on chores or homework.
Regardless of the cause of a child’s not wanting to see you, the core skill needed is what we call non-adversary communication. This is a skill which we also teach to businesses. It is a very powerful tool, but very subtle in its power. It will sound simple enough when we run the rules by you, but it will take a little bit of dedicated practice to use it well.
First, you must see the value in using it. It brings two main benefits. One benefit is that it will make your own communications more powerful. Second, it is tremendously self-therapeutic. It would take us too far off point to explain this fully right here, but the fact is that any piece of “output behavior,” an angry face, tight vocal-cord muscles, a tense body, accesses in you your worst and most fearful memories at an unconscious level, memories of times you felt helpless and scared. You are unwittingly hurting yourself.
The first principal is that whatever the issue is you are dealing with, you immediately seek a solution.
This next point is extremely hard for most people to implement. It simply states that you never blame or make the other person wrong, not even in the slightest way. No matter how angry, hurt, or vindictive you feel, you do not use a time where some problem needs a solution to air your anger. There are not only blatant ways of making the other person wrong e.g., “You idiot! You never understand anything!” There are also subtle ways. The use of the word “but” is subtly making the other person wrong. If you tell me your position, and if I answer you, even in a very gentle and warm voice, with a phrase that starts with the word “but,” you know that shortly thereafter I am going to make your position “wrong.”
Suppose one of my children says to me: “You always talk to me in a loud voice.”
Suppose I answer: “But honey, it is so hard to get your attention.”
The third point is to learn to not give more than one (short) explanation of your own position. To do so is not only strategically ineffective, but self-damaging. When you spend a lot of motor-output time trying to justify your position, that is, trying to get the other person to accept the wisdom of your explanation, you are accessing in yourself, at an unconscious level, all of the memories of when you felt helpless, vulnerable, misunderstood and “on the carpet.” Here are some brief examples of non-adversary statements. Instead of saying “You’re late every time you drop Mary off,” (making the other person wrong), say: “What can we do to make drop-offs and pick-ups work better for all of us?”
We absolutely know your thinking at this point: “You don’t know my ex. He wants to hurt me! He doesn’t care about solving anything!” We know this might very well be true. But what you don’t know, and we do, is the subtle, cumulative power of the strategies we want to share with you. Give us a chance. Master them, and try them before judging how you think they will work. Further, our purpose here is to teach you how to use these skills with your children, especially those from whom you may have been alienated.
This skill of non-adversarial communication is necessary to make most of the other strategies that you might use work better. It is an amazingly powerful tool when used the ways we will describe. It is so subtle that the other person might not even consciously know you are using it. But it definitely moves people off of aggressive or hostile positions. Here are some other examples. Take the, child who complains the parent speaks too loudly.
The parent might respond to such an accusation with: “You may be right. Help me to find better ways to get your full attention.” Now, since the child has no position to bother defending (which would have been the case had the parent said, “You don’t pay attention,” to which the child would have said, “Yes, I do,” and the conversation would go nowhere), the child can begin wondering what options the parent may have to get his or her attention without yelling. As long as anyone has to defend a position, no creative thinking goes on. As soon as you make someone wrong, all they will do is endlessly explain to you why they’re not; we are genetically engineered, one might say to “defend our territory.” It is an almost irresistible urge.
The final strategy, but one which we recommend you do not use until you have thoroughly tried the others is to seek help through the legal system. This is something you definitely would like to avoid, unless there are no other options available. You will have to initiate these steps through your attorney. There are two important pieces of information you may need, since not all attorneys are aware of the mental health options that may be available and not all options will be available in every state.
Dr. Bricklin and Dr. Elliot are nationally-known child custody experts. They have written many publications offering help and guidance for mothers, fathers, and grandparents involved in child custody issues. Their publications can be found at http://www.custodylibrary.com
Authors:
Dr. Barry Bricklin is a psychologist in private practice, Adjunct Associate Professor at Widener University and has previously served on the faculty of Jefferson University and of Hahnneman University. He is past president of the Philadelphia Society for Personality Assessment and the Philadelphia Society of Clinical Psychologists. He has authored books and articles many topics related to custody evaluations. For over 25 years, Dr. Bricklin has developed various data-based approaches to the decisions which must be made when parents divorce. He is the Chair of the Executive Operating Committee of the Professional Academy of Custody Evaluators (PACE).
Dr. Gail Elliot is Head, Child Development and Family Processes Research, Bricklin Associates, the Vice Chair of the Professional Academy of Custody Evaluators and a psychologist in private practice. She has served as a consultant to public and private schools and coordinated multidisciplinary treatment plans. She has authored and researched numerous works related to custody evaluation.
—————————————————
Dr. Bricklin and Dr. Elliot are nationally-known child custody experts. They have written many publications offering help and guidance for mothers, fathers, and grandparents involved in child custody issues. Their publications can be found at http://www.custodylibrary.com
Dr. Barry Bricklin is a psychologist in private practice, Adjunct Associate Professor at Widener University and has previously served on the faculty of Jefferson University and of Hahnneman University. He is past president of the Philadelphia Society for Personality Assessment and the Philadelphia Society of Clinical Psychologists. He has authored books and articles many topics related to custody evaluations. For over 25 years, Dr. Bricklin has developed various data-based approaches to the decisions which must be made when parents divorce. He is the Chair of the Executive Operating Committee of the Professional Academy of Custody Evaluators (PACE).
Dr. Gail Elliot is Head, Child Development and Family Processes Research, Bricklin Associates, the Vice Chair of the Professional Academy of Custody Evaluators and a psychologist in private practice. She has served as a consultant to public and private schools and coordinated multidisciplinary treatment plans. She has authored and researched numerous works related to custody evaluation.
http://howtocontrolchildren.com/the-bribed-or-manipulated-child-handling-your-child-custody-case/
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