Open Child Neglect Hearings To Public
By RICHARD WEXLER
September 14, 2010
There is only one thing worse than a child welfare agency stonewalling after it botches a case: a legislator grandstanding about problems he and his colleagues could have fixed long ago.
So state Sen. Ed Meyer, D-Guilford, stalked out of a recent hearing called in response to a child neglect case in Torrington shocked — shocked! — that the Department of Children and Families won't discuss the case at hand.
But who, exactly, made the absurd confidentiality laws that prevent DCF from talking? The General Assembly. That's why they're called lawmakers.
Several states have laws allowing their child welfare agencies to comment on cases if they've already become public. DCF claims it has unsuccessfully tried to get Connecticut to pass a similar law.
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We'd all know far more about what goes on not just in the egregious cases, but the everyday cases, if all court hearings in child welfare cases were open. But the legislature has refused to join at least 15 other states with fully open courts, approving only a pilot project in one court.
But worst of all, such grandstanding encourages the kind of response to high-profile cases that always makes everything worse — a foster care panic.
Compare the number of children torn from their parents to the number of impoverished children in each state, and Connecticut already takes away children at a rate well above the national average, and more than double the rate of states widely regarded as, relatively speaking, models for keeping children safe.
This high rate of removal has plagued Connecticut for decades. But that didn't prevent the death of Baby Emily in 1995 or Al-Lex Daniels in 2003, and many others.
With workers terrified of having the next such incident on their caseloads, the number of children torn from everyone they know and love is likely to soar, exactly as it did after the deaths of Emily and Al-Lex. And that is a disaster for vulnerable children.
The trauma of removal is, itself, so devastating that two landmark studies of more than 15,000 typical cases found that children left in their own homes typically fared better even than comparably maltreated children placed in foster care.
Worst of all, foster care panics overload caseworkers, so they have even less time to investigate any case thoroughly — so more children in real danger are missed.
Connecticut's high rate of removal and, in particular, its overuse of what is both the worst and the most expensive form of care — institutionalization — also explain why the state spends so much on child welfare, and gets so little protection for children in return.
DCF's handling of the Torrington case was idiotic. DCF concluded in May that the danger to the children required taking them from the home, yet also felt the removal could wait for two months.
What DCF should have done in May was try Intensive Family Preservation Services. Under this program, a worker with a caseload of no more than three families is in the home several days a week, sometimes for several hours at a time — for no more than six weeks. This kind of intervention costs less than foster care and has a better track record for safety.
After six weeks, either the family is linked up to less intensive help — or the worker concludes the family really is hopeless and recommends removal. Either way, odds are there would have been no crisis in July requiring police to intervene.
The reason to try it is because, as in the overwhelming majority of cases, family preservation is, in the words of the late Yale University child welfare scholars Albert Solnit and Joseph Goldstein, the least detrimental alternative.
Yes, the response of DCF in the Torrington case was idiotic. But the solution to the problems of idiocy is not more idiocy.
Richard Wexler is executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, a nonprofit child advocacy organization based in Alexandria, Va.
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/hc-op-wexler-dcf-0914-20100914,0,5748613.story
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
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
New Hampshire Creates Ombuds Office for Health & Human Service Issues
New Hampshire Creates Ombuds Office for Health & Human Service Issues
The state agency has unveiled a website for a new Ombuds program for clients, employees, and members of the general public. Although it does not explicitly adopt IOA standards of practice, the New Hampshire DHHS Ombuds is confidential, unbiased and informal.
The new program most closely resembles the Organizational Ombuds model, despite the fact that it serves internal and external stakeholders. Moreover, its methods of complaint resolution are strikingly familiar and include the option of upward feedback:
The Office of the Ombudsman responds to complaints and requests for assistance from clients, employees, and members of the general public to resolve disagreements in matters that involve DHHS. The Office of the Ombudsman is dedicated to maintaining an environment that supports the civil rights of all served.
http://ombuds-blog.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-hampshire-creates-ombuds-office-fo.html
The state agency has unveiled a website for a new Ombuds program for clients, employees, and members of the general public. Although it does not explicitly adopt IOA standards of practice, the New Hampshire DHHS Ombuds is confidential, unbiased and informal.
The new program most closely resembles the Organizational Ombuds model, despite the fact that it serves internal and external stakeholders. Moreover, its methods of complaint resolution are strikingly familiar and include the option of upward feedback:
The Office of the Ombudsman responds to complaints and requests for assistance from clients, employees, and members of the general public to resolve disagreements in matters that involve DHHS. The Office of the Ombudsman is dedicated to maintaining an environment that supports the civil rights of all served.
http://ombuds-blog.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-hampshire-creates-ombuds-office-fo.html
'I Do' To Divorce Insurance
'I Do' To Divorce Insurance
By Angela Kennecke
Published: September 13, 2010, 9:50 PM
SIOUX FALLS, SD - You buy car insurance, home insurance and life insurance. Do you need to insure you marriage?
A North Carolina insurance company is selling the "first" divorce insurance, designed to cover the costs of divorce if your marriage doesn't work out.
Nobody wants to think their marriage will end in divorce, but the fact is some 40 to 50 percent of marriages do.
That's where WedLock divorce insurance comes in. If you get divorced and the policy has matured, you send the company proof and you get cash to cover your legal and housing expenses.
"It's a novel idea. I don't propose it for my clients," Family Law Attorney Jim Billion said.
http://www.keloland.com/News/NewsDetail6376.cfm?Id=104853
By Angela Kennecke
Published: September 13, 2010, 9:50 PM
SIOUX FALLS, SD - You buy car insurance, home insurance and life insurance. Do you need to insure you marriage?
A North Carolina insurance company is selling the "first" divorce insurance, designed to cover the costs of divorce if your marriage doesn't work out.
Nobody wants to think their marriage will end in divorce, but the fact is some 40 to 50 percent of marriages do.
That's where WedLock divorce insurance comes in. If you get divorced and the policy has matured, you send the company proof and you get cash to cover your legal and housing expenses.
"It's a novel idea. I don't propose it for my clients," Family Law Attorney Jim Billion said.
http://www.keloland.com/News/NewsDetail6376.cfm?Id=104853
Family to Receive $1.5M+ in First-Ever Vaccine-Autism Court Award
Family to Receive $1.5M+ in First-Ever Vaccine-Autism Court Award
Posted by Sharyl Attkisson
Nine-year-old Hannah Poling is shown. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, John Spink) The first court award in a vaccine-autism claim is a big one. CBS News has learned the family of Hannah Poling will receive more than $1.5 million dollars for her life care; lost earnings; and pain and suffering for the first year alone.
In addition to the first year, the family will receive more than $500,000 per year to pay for Hannah's care. Those familiar with the case believe the compensation could easily amount to $20 million over the child's lifetime.
Hannah was described as normal, happy and precocious in her first 18 months.
Then, in July 2000, she was vaccinated against nine diseases in one doctor's visit: measles, mumps, rubella, polio, varicella, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenzae.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html
Posted by Sharyl Attkisson
Nine-year-old Hannah Poling is shown. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, John Spink) The first court award in a vaccine-autism claim is a big one. CBS News has learned the family of Hannah Poling will receive more than $1.5 million dollars for her life care; lost earnings; and pain and suffering for the first year alone.
In addition to the first year, the family will receive more than $500,000 per year to pay for Hannah's care. Those familiar with the case believe the compensation could easily amount to $20 million over the child's lifetime.
Hannah was described as normal, happy and precocious in her first 18 months.
Then, in July 2000, she was vaccinated against nine diseases in one doctor's visit: measles, mumps, rubella, polio, varicella, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenzae.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html
Foster mom pleads guilty to having sex with teen
Foster mom pleads guilty to having sex with teen
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 09:59 AM
BY RANDY LUDLOW
The Columbus Dispatch
A Licking County woman pleaded guilty this morning to sexual contact with a 16-year-old foster child in her care and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
Marcina Samberson, 50, of St. Louisville, was charged Dec. 18 with sexual battery after a teenage boy who had lived with her as a foster child reported he had been sexually abused by her last summer.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/09/14/Foster-mom-plea.html?sid=101
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 09:59 AM
BY RANDY LUDLOW
The Columbus Dispatch
A Licking County woman pleaded guilty this morning to sexual contact with a 16-year-old foster child in her care and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
Marcina Samberson, 50, of St. Louisville, was charged Dec. 18 with sexual battery after a teenage boy who had lived with her as a foster child reported he had been sexually abused by her last summer.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/09/14/Foster-mom-plea.html?sid=101
Monday, September 13, 2010
Heaven, friend covered old abuse Foster Mom investigated by CPS 2 months before Emily died
Source:Heaven, friend covered old abuse
The woman accused of killing a 5-year-old foster child in July …
Source:Heaven, friend covered old abuse
Mom investigated by CPS 2 months before Emily died
Updated: Monday, 13 Sep 2010, 7:25 PM EDT
Published : Monday, 13 Sep 2010, 4:16 PM EDT
By Ken Kolker
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - The woman accused of killing a 5-year-old foster child in July was investigated two months earlier by Child Protective Services after bruises were found on the girl, a source close to the investigation told 24 Hour News 8.
But CPS closed the investigation against Joy Heaven after she and a friend said Emily Meno was hurt in an accident on a farm, the source said Monday.
Read the entire article at:http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/kent_county/Source-Heaven-friend-covered-old-abuse
The woman accused of killing a 5-year-old foster child in July …
Source:Heaven, friend covered old abuse
Mom investigated by CPS 2 months before Emily died
Updated: Monday, 13 Sep 2010, 7:25 PM EDT
Published : Monday, 13 Sep 2010, 4:16 PM EDT
By Ken Kolker
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - The woman accused of killing a 5-year-old foster child in July was investigated two months earlier by Child Protective Services after bruises were found on the girl, a source close to the investigation told 24 Hour News 8.
But CPS closed the investigation against Joy Heaven after she and a friend said Emily Meno was hurt in an accident on a farm, the source said Monday.
Read the entire article at:http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/kent_county/Source-Heaven-friend-covered-old-abuse
New study finds children labeled as ADHD may not be
Read the article at:http://druggingchildren.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-study-finds-children-labeled-as.html
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