This story is very descriptive...(sorry!)I would advise you not to let children watch it, as it is very sad, and in some parts gross.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZMRmYeiKEs
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
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Advocacy group urges R.I. to reduce institutional custody in child-welfare system
Advocacy group urges R.I. to reduce institutional custody in child-welfare system
Wexler said that Rhode Island should look to Maine as a model for how a state can transform its child-welfare system to keep more children in their homes and improve home-based services. NH should take lesson's from Maine also. They're no better than Rhode Island. Services are NOT given to at-risk families. Every child is supposedly in imminent danger and kidnapped from their homes immediately. I believe NH is worse than Rhode Island. They both need to get their act together. Traumatizing our next generation is NOT the answer! unhappygrammy
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, July 21, 2010
By Lynn Arditi
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island must dramatically reduce its reliance on group homes and other institutional care for children and improve its home-based services to prevent traumatizing children by removing them from their homes, the leader of a national advocacy group said at a State House news conference Tuesday.
Removing children from their homes is an “extremely toxic intervention that needs to be used sparingly and in small doses,” the group’s executive director, Richard Wexler, said. “Rhode Island has been using it in mega-doses.”
Rhode Island removes children from their homes at a rate nearly 80 percent above the national average and places a higher share of its children in state care — nearly 40 percent — in group homes and residential-care facilities, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. The national average was 16.7 percent in 2006, according to the latest available data.
State welfare officials responded that the Department of Children, Youth and Families has “undertaken major system changes” to reduce the number of children removed from their homes and placed in residential facilities. The DCYF is “helping them address their needs in their own homes and community, keeping children with parents whenever possible,” the agency’s deputy director, Jorge Garcia, said in an e-mail Tuesday evening that summarized remarks from DCYF Director Patricia Martinez.
Though agency officials did not contradict the report’s data, the DCYF deputy director said that the numbers show that the state welfare agency is heading in the right direction. The DCYF has reduced the population of juveniles in group homes, residential facilities and independent-living arrangements in fiscal 2010 to 743, down from 1,012 in fiscal 2007. (The numbers do not include children in foster homes.) Out-of-state placements, he said, have fallen to 65, compared with 178 in fiscal 2006.
In the report, “State of Denial: Why Rhode Island’s child welfare system is so dismal and how to make it better,” Wexler compares Rhode Island with other states and national averages which offer a dimmer view of the system and provides recommendations for reforms.
Wexler, a former news reporter and author of “Wounded Innocents: The Real Victims of the War Against Child Abuse,” helped found the Alexandria, Va.-based advocacy group. He has been widely quoted about child-welfare policy by national media outlets, including The New York Times and PBS “Frontline.”
Wexler said that Rhode Island should look to Maine as a model for how a state can transform its child-welfare system to keep more children in their homes and improve home-based services. Wexler was joined by Mary Callahan, of Maine, who became a foster parent after her own children went off to college. She helped lead a drive over the last 10 years to reform Maine’s child-welfare system.
Callahan said that one of the surprising things she learned being a foster parent was that many of the children were removed from their homes unnecessarily. Her first foster child had been removed from her home “over a spanking,” she said. She was then sent to live with a foster mother who “molested, starved and emotionally abused” her.
Poverty is the main reason, Callahan said, why her foster children had been removed from their homes and placed in her care. And most birth parents are so “terrified of retaliation” from child-welfare officials that they don’t speak out, she said.
Wexler said he decided to focus on Rhode Island because the state is likely heading toward a negotiated settlement of a class-action civil rights lawsuit filed in 2007 by the New York-based nonprofit Children’s Rights and Rhode Island Child Advocate Jametta O. Alston. Although Wexler has criticized the Children’s Rights group for its approach, the possibility of a negotiated settlement, he said, would provide an opportunity for the state to tackle some longstanding problems.
The NCCPR’s recommendations for improving Rhode Island’s system include:
•Reduce the overall rate of institutionalization of children to no more than the national average within three years; in six years, reduce it to 10 percent of all the children in state care by building a comprehensive system of home-based services.
•Change the financial incentives for residential programs to discourage providers from keeping children in programs to fill beds and maintain per diem payments.
•Move children placed in out-of-state residential programs back to Rhode Island so that they can be more closely monitored.
•Seek assistance from groups such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Child Welfare Strategy Group, which has helped reform systems in other states.
larditi@projo.com
http://www.projo.com/news/content/CHILD_WELFARE_REFORMS_RECOMMENDE_07-21-10_3IJ_v69.1fc5dbc.html
Wexler said that Rhode Island should look to Maine as a model for how a state can transform its child-welfare system to keep more children in their homes and improve home-based services. NH should take lesson's from Maine also. They're no better than Rhode Island. Services are NOT given to at-risk families. Every child is supposedly in imminent danger and kidnapped from their homes immediately. I believe NH is worse than Rhode Island. They both need to get their act together. Traumatizing our next generation is NOT the answer! unhappygrammy
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, July 21, 2010
By Lynn Arditi
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island must dramatically reduce its reliance on group homes and other institutional care for children and improve its home-based services to prevent traumatizing children by removing them from their homes, the leader of a national advocacy group said at a State House news conference Tuesday.
Removing children from their homes is an “extremely toxic intervention that needs to be used sparingly and in small doses,” the group’s executive director, Richard Wexler, said. “Rhode Island has been using it in mega-doses.”
Rhode Island removes children from their homes at a rate nearly 80 percent above the national average and places a higher share of its children in state care — nearly 40 percent — in group homes and residential-care facilities, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. The national average was 16.7 percent in 2006, according to the latest available data.
State welfare officials responded that the Department of Children, Youth and Families has “undertaken major system changes” to reduce the number of children removed from their homes and placed in residential facilities. The DCYF is “helping them address their needs in their own homes and community, keeping children with parents whenever possible,” the agency’s deputy director, Jorge Garcia, said in an e-mail Tuesday evening that summarized remarks from DCYF Director Patricia Martinez.
Though agency officials did not contradict the report’s data, the DCYF deputy director said that the numbers show that the state welfare agency is heading in the right direction. The DCYF has reduced the population of juveniles in group homes, residential facilities and independent-living arrangements in fiscal 2010 to 743, down from 1,012 in fiscal 2007. (The numbers do not include children in foster homes.) Out-of-state placements, he said, have fallen to 65, compared with 178 in fiscal 2006.
In the report, “State of Denial: Why Rhode Island’s child welfare system is so dismal and how to make it better,” Wexler compares Rhode Island with other states and national averages which offer a dimmer view of the system and provides recommendations for reforms.
Wexler, a former news reporter and author of “Wounded Innocents: The Real Victims of the War Against Child Abuse,” helped found the Alexandria, Va.-based advocacy group. He has been widely quoted about child-welfare policy by national media outlets, including The New York Times and PBS “Frontline.”
Wexler said that Rhode Island should look to Maine as a model for how a state can transform its child-welfare system to keep more children in their homes and improve home-based services. Wexler was joined by Mary Callahan, of Maine, who became a foster parent after her own children went off to college. She helped lead a drive over the last 10 years to reform Maine’s child-welfare system.
Callahan said that one of the surprising things she learned being a foster parent was that many of the children were removed from their homes unnecessarily. Her first foster child had been removed from her home “over a spanking,” she said. She was then sent to live with a foster mother who “molested, starved and emotionally abused” her.
Poverty is the main reason, Callahan said, why her foster children had been removed from their homes and placed in her care. And most birth parents are so “terrified of retaliation” from child-welfare officials that they don’t speak out, she said.
Wexler said he decided to focus on Rhode Island because the state is likely heading toward a negotiated settlement of a class-action civil rights lawsuit filed in 2007 by the New York-based nonprofit Children’s Rights and Rhode Island Child Advocate Jametta O. Alston. Although Wexler has criticized the Children’s Rights group for its approach, the possibility of a negotiated settlement, he said, would provide an opportunity for the state to tackle some longstanding problems.
The NCCPR’s recommendations for improving Rhode Island’s system include:
•Reduce the overall rate of institutionalization of children to no more than the national average within three years; in six years, reduce it to 10 percent of all the children in state care by building a comprehensive system of home-based services.
•Change the financial incentives for residential programs to discourage providers from keeping children in programs to fill beds and maintain per diem payments.
•Move children placed in out-of-state residential programs back to Rhode Island so that they can be more closely monitored.
•Seek assistance from groups such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Child Welfare Strategy Group, which has helped reform systems in other states.
larditi@projo.com
http://www.projo.com/news/content/CHILD_WELFARE_REFORMS_RECOMMENDE_07-21-10_3IJ_v69.1fc5dbc.html
Re: Teghan Alyssa Skiba -- Deceased 7/19/10 Johnston Co. 4-year-old dies after being beaten, tortured
Re: Teghan Alyssa Skiba -- Deceased 7/19/10
by Snaz Today at 12:06 pm
Johnston Co. 4-year-old dies after being beaten, tortured
By Rachel Gallaher
Published: July 20, 2010
SMITHFIELD, N.C. - A four-year-old is dead after being beaten and tortured in Johnston County.
21-year-old Jonathon Richardson now faces first degree murder charges this afternoon.
Teghan Skiba was admitted to the hospital with cuts, bite marks and signs of sexual assault last Friday.
Earlier last night, she passed away at the UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill.
Police say the torture happened on Richardson's grandparent’s property in Smithfield, where he lived with his girlfriend and Teghan's mother, Helen Reyes.
The young girl was in the care of Richardson while her mother was away for military training.
Now Reyes is being investigated because she left the child in Richardson's care, although there's no word if charges will be filed or not.
"We've been meeting with the district attorney and looking at the totality of those involved in this case, what charges are appropriate and if anyone else will be charged," said Steve Bizzell, Johnston County Sheriff.
Richardson was in court yesterday morning for the felony child abuse charges.
http://www2.wnct.com/news/2010/jul/20/johnston-co-4-year-old-dies-after-being-beaten-tor-ar-305561/
by Snaz Today at 12:06 pm
Johnston Co. 4-year-old dies after being beaten, tortured
By Rachel Gallaher
Published: July 20, 2010
SMITHFIELD, N.C. - A four-year-old is dead after being beaten and tortured in Johnston County.
21-year-old Jonathon Richardson now faces first degree murder charges this afternoon.
Teghan Skiba was admitted to the hospital with cuts, bite marks and signs of sexual assault last Friday.
Earlier last night, she passed away at the UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill.
Police say the torture happened on Richardson's grandparent’s property in Smithfield, where he lived with his girlfriend and Teghan's mother, Helen Reyes.
The young girl was in the care of Richardson while her mother was away for military training.
Now Reyes is being investigated because she left the child in Richardson's care, although there's no word if charges will be filed or not.
"We've been meeting with the district attorney and looking at the totality of those involved in this case, what charges are appropriate and if anyone else will be charged," said Steve Bizzell, Johnston County Sheriff.
Richardson was in court yesterday morning for the felony child abuse charges.
http://www2.wnct.com/news/2010/jul/20/johnston-co-4-year-old-dies-after-being-beaten-tor-ar-305561/
UPDATE: Long-term abuse possible in foster child death
UPDATE: Long-term abuse possible in foster child death
Child welfare workers said Monday that confidentiality laws prohibited them from responding to claims they had been warned a little girl was in danger before the child’s bruised body was abandoned in a southwest Bakersfield home Sunday.
Also on Monday:
The coroner’s office identified the victim as Serenity Julia Gandara, 3.
The coroner’s office reported an autopsy was performed and the cause and manner of death “are pending further investigation."
The Bakersfield Police Department said the girl’s foster parents – who were her aunt and uncle – probably are in or near Mexico hiding from authorities. The parents, Carla Garcia, 26, and Alberto Garcia, 26, apparently took their three biological children. Relatives said Carla Garcia is a Mexican citizen.
Police said Carla Garcia called her sister Sunday morning and asked her to come to the Garcia house in the 5900 block of Summer Country Drive, in southwest Bakersfield.
When she got there, the sister found Serenity’s body on the floor in one room, and Serenity’s 4-year-old brother sleeping in another room. The Garcias and their three children were gone.
Police said Serenity had trauma to her head and torso, and both she and her brother had injuries in various stages of healing.
On Monday, Maria Garcia, the maternal grandmother of the foster children, told Channel 17’s Emily Moore she had warned a CPS social worker about abuse in the Garcia household.
"I told her many times something happened with these kids,” Maria Garcia said.
The children belonged to Alberto Garcia's sister, but he and Carla were fostering them and were in the process of adopting them.
The toddler’s paternal grandmother, Renee Maese, said other family members wanted to adopt the children, but CPS would not consider anyone but Alberto and Carla.
Barbara Zimmerman of the Kern County Department of Social Services said she could not comment on the case, even to answer the family’s allegations, until the case was determined to have been foul play.
Alberto and Carla Garcia are believed to be in a white 1997 Ford Explorer, Eddie Bauer edition, with a license plate number of 5FLC681.
Anyone who sees the car is asked to call 911.
http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/UPDATE-Long-term-abuse-possible-in-foster-child/ZQ6xBey4HUSBt2GRo8jMiw.cspx
Child welfare workers said Monday that confidentiality laws prohibited them from responding to claims they had been warned a little girl was in danger before the child’s bruised body was abandoned in a southwest Bakersfield home Sunday.
Also on Monday:
The coroner’s office identified the victim as Serenity Julia Gandara, 3.
The coroner’s office reported an autopsy was performed and the cause and manner of death “are pending further investigation."
The Bakersfield Police Department said the girl’s foster parents – who were her aunt and uncle – probably are in or near Mexico hiding from authorities. The parents, Carla Garcia, 26, and Alberto Garcia, 26, apparently took their three biological children. Relatives said Carla Garcia is a Mexican citizen.
Police said Carla Garcia called her sister Sunday morning and asked her to come to the Garcia house in the 5900 block of Summer Country Drive, in southwest Bakersfield.
When she got there, the sister found Serenity’s body on the floor in one room, and Serenity’s 4-year-old brother sleeping in another room. The Garcias and their three children were gone.
Police said Serenity had trauma to her head and torso, and both she and her brother had injuries in various stages of healing.
On Monday, Maria Garcia, the maternal grandmother of the foster children, told Channel 17’s Emily Moore she had warned a CPS social worker about abuse in the Garcia household.
"I told her many times something happened with these kids,” Maria Garcia said.
The children belonged to Alberto Garcia's sister, but he and Carla were fostering them and were in the process of adopting them.
The toddler’s paternal grandmother, Renee Maese, said other family members wanted to adopt the children, but CPS would not consider anyone but Alberto and Carla.
Barbara Zimmerman of the Kern County Department of Social Services said she could not comment on the case, even to answer the family’s allegations, until the case was determined to have been foul play.
Alberto and Carla Garcia are believed to be in a white 1997 Ford Explorer, Eddie Bauer edition, with a license plate number of 5FLC681.
Anyone who sees the car is asked to call 911.
http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/UPDATE-Long-term-abuse-possible-in-foster-child/ZQ6xBey4HUSBt2GRo8jMiw.cspx
Mother sues state workers for ignoring danger signs that led to ex-husband's 2007 murder-suicide that killed her 9-year-old son Nicholas Braman
Mother sues state workers for ignoring danger signs that led to ex-husband's 2007 murder-suicide that killed her 9-year-old son Nicholas Braman
Published: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 7:02 AM Updated: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 8:59 AM
John Agar | The Grand Rapids Press
Nicholas Braman
MONTCALM COUNTY -- A federal lawsuit alleges Children's Protective Services workers ignored obvious danger to 9-year-old Nicholas Braman, and kept him in his father's care despite the father's abuse conviction for using an electric cattle prod on two older sons.
"The death of Nicholas Daniel Braman would have been avoided if defendants had simply done what they were obligated to do by law to protect (the boy) from further abuse and neglect ...," attorney Gregory Wix wrote in the civil lawsuit, filed earlier this month by the boy's mother.
The tragedy gained wide attention when Nicholas Braman, along with his father, Oliver Braman, and his stepmother, Elaine Kaczor-Braman, were found dead Oct. 16, 2007, in their Stanton home. The boy was drugged before his father attached his pickup exhaust to the dryer vent of their house, flooding a bedroom with carbon monoxide.
The deaths occurred 11 days after Braman failed to appear for sentencing hearing on child abuse charges.
Adding to the heartbreak was a suicide note young Nicholas had left behind, scrawled in his childish hand, saying he wanted to be with his father and stepmother "forever and ever." While authorities say the boy was too young to make such a decision himself, a portion of his note read, "I take care of my mom and dad just like they take care of me."
The lawsuit alleges Children's Protective Services, under the state Department of Human Services, ignored evidence the boy was at risk with his father. Both a prosecutor and the boy's mother, Rebecca Jasinski of Saginaw, raised red flags.
A month before the deaths, Assistant Montcalm County Prosecutor Misty Davis told CPS that "An investigation should definitely be commenced ... . Oliver literally 'shocked' his older boys with a cattle prod repeatedly. As you know abuse to one child is abuse to all. In my opinion, there is no justification for the youngest boy to remain in the care of this man."
Two weeks later, she told authorities that Braman had pleaded guilty to child abuse charges. The response, just hours before the deaths were discovered: "We've never felt that Nicholas was at risk."
Jasinski had "begged" CPS workers in Saginaw to remove her youngest son from Braman's home, but was denied.
The state agency has admitted that the boy should have been removed from his father's home and placed with his mother.
Named as defendants are: CPS workers Sheri Tyler and Mary Sommers; supervisors Jamie Lovelace and Rhoda Dietrich: former director of the Department of Humane Services Marianna Udow; Laura Champagne, former chief deputy director; Ted Forrest, manager of CPS: and Chad Campbell, director of Community Hope Christian Counseling and Mental Health Center.
Edward Woods III, spokesman for Department of Human Services, said he could not comment on pending litigation, but said the agency continually works to improve services to children.
"Obviously, we're very concerned about the safety of children."
Children's Protective Services workers are represented by the state Attorney General's office, which would not comment on pending litigation. Harvey Heller, attorney for Campbell and the counseling center, declined to comment.
The lawsuit cited the father's "long history of abuse" of his children, including the older boys, Oliver and Tyler.
Oliver Braman
Among complaints investigated -- and denied -- by CPS, beginning in 1998, were:
• The father abused the children, and struck one so hard blood vessels broke in the child's nose.
• The father threatened to kill Nicholas, who feared his father. The father and his live-in girlfriend pulled out the children's teeth before they were ready to come out on their own.
• The father threw son Oliver off the porch and kicked him because the boy could not find his glasses.
• The father, believing that Oliver was afraid of the dark, left him miles away at night to find his way home. He did the same with Tyler. The boys told CPS workers they were beaten on their bare bottoms, and pliers were put on their fingers.
In 2006, the father was investigated for molesting a child. During that investigation, authorities learned the boys were disciplined with a cattle prod.
"Again, CPS, including defendant Lovelace, denied that the children were being abused or neglected and completely failed to 'investigate, collect evidence, or reach a disposition on the allegation that Mr. Braman used a cattle prod on his children,' according (to) the Office of the Children's Ombudsman," Wix wrote in the lawsuit.
The three boys were living with their father on Aug. 1, 2007, when the older boys called their mother and said they were running away because of abuse. The mother called CPS workers in Saginaw, but was threatened with arrest for kidnapping if she picked them up, she said.
She picked up her two older sons and brought them to Saginaw.
The next day, the boys told CPS workers about the use of a cattle prod. Braman did not deny the abuse, and was arrested by Montcalm County sheriff's deputies.
Sheri Tyler, a CPS worker in Montcalm, confirmed in an e-mail that there was no investigation, which was proper because Saginaw authorities "'did not seek removal,'" the lawsuit said.
The Office of Children's Ombudsman said that regardless of any action by Saginaw authorities, Montcalm CPS should have acted "at the earliest point it became aware of Mr. Braman's egregious acts of abuse ... ," the lawsuit said.
E-mail John Agar: jagar@grpress.com
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/07/mother_sues_state_workers_for.html
Published: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 7:02 AM Updated: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 8:59 AM
John Agar | The Grand Rapids Press
Nicholas Braman
MONTCALM COUNTY -- A federal lawsuit alleges Children's Protective Services workers ignored obvious danger to 9-year-old Nicholas Braman, and kept him in his father's care despite the father's abuse conviction for using an electric cattle prod on two older sons.
"The death of Nicholas Daniel Braman would have been avoided if defendants had simply done what they were obligated to do by law to protect (the boy) from further abuse and neglect ...," attorney Gregory Wix wrote in the civil lawsuit, filed earlier this month by the boy's mother.
The tragedy gained wide attention when Nicholas Braman, along with his father, Oliver Braman, and his stepmother, Elaine Kaczor-Braman, were found dead Oct. 16, 2007, in their Stanton home. The boy was drugged before his father attached his pickup exhaust to the dryer vent of their house, flooding a bedroom with carbon monoxide.
The deaths occurred 11 days after Braman failed to appear for sentencing hearing on child abuse charges.
Adding to the heartbreak was a suicide note young Nicholas had left behind, scrawled in his childish hand, saying he wanted to be with his father and stepmother "forever and ever." While authorities say the boy was too young to make such a decision himself, a portion of his note read, "I take care of my mom and dad just like they take care of me."
The lawsuit alleges Children's Protective Services, under the state Department of Human Services, ignored evidence the boy was at risk with his father. Both a prosecutor and the boy's mother, Rebecca Jasinski of Saginaw, raised red flags.
A month before the deaths, Assistant Montcalm County Prosecutor Misty Davis told CPS that "An investigation should definitely be commenced ... . Oliver literally 'shocked' his older boys with a cattle prod repeatedly. As you know abuse to one child is abuse to all. In my opinion, there is no justification for the youngest boy to remain in the care of this man."
Two weeks later, she told authorities that Braman had pleaded guilty to child abuse charges. The response, just hours before the deaths were discovered: "We've never felt that Nicholas was at risk."
Jasinski had "begged" CPS workers in Saginaw to remove her youngest son from Braman's home, but was denied.
The state agency has admitted that the boy should have been removed from his father's home and placed with his mother.
Named as defendants are: CPS workers Sheri Tyler and Mary Sommers; supervisors Jamie Lovelace and Rhoda Dietrich: former director of the Department of Humane Services Marianna Udow; Laura Champagne, former chief deputy director; Ted Forrest, manager of CPS: and Chad Campbell, director of Community Hope Christian Counseling and Mental Health Center.
Edward Woods III, spokesman for Department of Human Services, said he could not comment on pending litigation, but said the agency continually works to improve services to children.
"Obviously, we're very concerned about the safety of children."
Children's Protective Services workers are represented by the state Attorney General's office, which would not comment on pending litigation. Harvey Heller, attorney for Campbell and the counseling center, declined to comment.
The lawsuit cited the father's "long history of abuse" of his children, including the older boys, Oliver and Tyler.
Oliver Braman
Among complaints investigated -- and denied -- by CPS, beginning in 1998, were:
• The father abused the children, and struck one so hard blood vessels broke in the child's nose.
• The father threatened to kill Nicholas, who feared his father. The father and his live-in girlfriend pulled out the children's teeth before they were ready to come out on their own.
• The father threw son Oliver off the porch and kicked him because the boy could not find his glasses.
• The father, believing that Oliver was afraid of the dark, left him miles away at night to find his way home. He did the same with Tyler. The boys told CPS workers they were beaten on their bare bottoms, and pliers were put on their fingers.
In 2006, the father was investigated for molesting a child. During that investigation, authorities learned the boys were disciplined with a cattle prod.
"Again, CPS, including defendant Lovelace, denied that the children were being abused or neglected and completely failed to 'investigate, collect evidence, or reach a disposition on the allegation that Mr. Braman used a cattle prod on his children,' according (to) the Office of the Children's Ombudsman," Wix wrote in the lawsuit.
The three boys were living with their father on Aug. 1, 2007, when the older boys called their mother and said they were running away because of abuse. The mother called CPS workers in Saginaw, but was threatened with arrest for kidnapping if she picked them up, she said.
She picked up her two older sons and brought them to Saginaw.
The next day, the boys told CPS workers about the use of a cattle prod. Braman did not deny the abuse, and was arrested by Montcalm County sheriff's deputies.
Sheri Tyler, a CPS worker in Montcalm, confirmed in an e-mail that there was no investigation, which was proper because Saginaw authorities "'did not seek removal,'" the lawsuit said.
The Office of Children's Ombudsman said that regardless of any action by Saginaw authorities, Montcalm CPS should have acted "at the earliest point it became aware of Mr. Braman's egregious acts of abuse ... ," the lawsuit said.
E-mail John Agar: jagar@grpress.com
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/07/mother_sues_state_workers_for.html
Child dies from traumatic brain injury; foster parent charged
Child dies from traumatic brain injury; foster parent charged
Christa Graban Chris Zoladz
Updated:7/20/2010 5:13:57 PM - Posted: 7/20/2010 2:39:12 PM
GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) - A foster parent is charged with open murder in the death of a five-year-old girl.
On July 16, Emily Meno was taken to Spectrum Hospital in downtown Grand Rapids for a traumatic brain injury. Hospital workers called the Kent County Sheriff's Department and child Protective Services to investigate.
Five-year-old Emily Meno died July 17. Her foster parent, a single woman providing care through Bethany Christian Services, was taken into police custody and charged with open murder.
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=124473&catid=14
David Pederson with Pederson Funeral Home in Rockford tells WZZM 13 News Emily's birth mother is mildly developmentally impaired and that is why the child was in foster care.
The prosecutor's office is reviewing the case and more information may be available after the foster parent's arraignment.
Christa Graban Chris Zoladz
Updated:7/20/2010 5:13:57 PM - Posted: 7/20/2010 2:39:12 PM
GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) - A foster parent is charged with open murder in the death of a five-year-old girl.
On July 16, Emily Meno was taken to Spectrum Hospital in downtown Grand Rapids for a traumatic brain injury. Hospital workers called the Kent County Sheriff's Department and child Protective Services to investigate.
Five-year-old Emily Meno died July 17. Her foster parent, a single woman providing care through Bethany Christian Services, was taken into police custody and charged with open murder.
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=124473&catid=14
David Pederson with Pederson Funeral Home in Rockford tells WZZM 13 News Emily's birth mother is mildly developmentally impaired and that is why the child was in foster care.
The prosecutor's office is reviewing the case and more information may be available after the foster parent's arraignment.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)