End kids court totalitarianism | court, system, child - Opinion - The Orange County Register
The most heart-wrenching issues I've written about involved the state's dependency court and foster-care systems. Officials have the power to remove children from their family homes and to place them in the care of strangers, yet the system that exercises these vast powers is veiled in secrecy and, therefore, off-limits to serious news coverage and oversight.
Fortunately, Assembly Bill 73, by Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles, offers hope of fixing that system with a simple but time-tested approach: sunshine. His new legislation would make hearings in dependency court presumptively open, meaning that the public and media could cover the goings-on unless a judge finds good reason to close the proceedings.
Typically, I would hear from a distraught parent whose child had been taken into protective custody. Imagine the horror of such a situation. Often, the child would be taken by force as child-protective services officials would show up with armed deputies. In the world of CPS, the parent has no rights, and the child is taken away based mainly on the opinion of the social worker, who might start an investigation based on an anonymous tip. It's a "guilty until proven innocent" system, based on the idea that if a child is in danger, that child must be removed from the home immediately.
Obviously, we all want children removed from abusive and dangerous situations, but government officials don't always get it right. Many times, families are torn asunder based on unproven allegations and hearsay. The parents have no real standing in the court system and no real rights. The overburdened court system makes quick decisions that involve the fate of children and their families. Parents spend their life's savings hiring attorneys and battling this impenetrable system.
America remains a remarkably free society, but there are parts of our society that are frighteningly totalitarian. This is one of them. In one case I wrote about, Russian immigrants watched as the authorities removed their autistic son from their home and placed him in one of those developmental institutions, where he was pumped full of drugs and kept away from his loving family. No one had ever accused the family of mistreating the boy, but the authorities decided that it would be better to treat him with drugs than in the drug-free manner preferred by the family.
I recall the parent telling me that the authorities would never touch your family in the Soviet Union. He was shocked that such a travesty could take place in America. In another case I wrote about, an 8-year-old girl was taken from the loving care of her grandmother and placed in the custody of a foster parent who had been accused of some rather bad behavior at his foster home. In yet another case, a social worker was credibly accused of committing fraud – by claiming that a child's burn was the result of abuse rather than a household accident. It was extremely difficult getting any information about these situations. The approach from the authorities was clear: It was none of anybody's business. No wonder so many parents live in fear.
On the other end of the spectrum, we've all read about children who are left in abusive homes and end up being brutally abused, even murdered. Many of the bigger CPS systems are bureaucratic nightmares. We'd like to think that the people who make these decisions operate with a Solomonic sense of justice, yet we know better given what we know about closed bureaucracies.
A recent San Jose Mercury News editorial supporting AB73 detailed the same problems: "Three years ago, Mercury News reporter Karen de Sá documented the troubled state of this system. Her yearlong investigation found that overwhelmed, undertrained lawyers weren't properly representing their clients, that older children were too often excluded from proceedings affecting their lives, and that parents' and children's rights were routinely at risk."
Year after year, we see attempts to increase funding or reform the system, yet nothing ever changes. This is not a money issue but, rather, a problem rooted in the nature of the system. Feuer's bill could actually help. There's nothing like sunshine to expose injustice and create a push for reform.
Here is the bill summary: "Existing law provides that the public shall not be admitted to a juvenile court hearing in a dependency proceeding, unless requested by a parent or guardian and consented to or requested by the minor concerning whom the petition has been filed. Existing law permits the judge or referee to admit those persons as he or she deems to have a direct and legitimate interest in the particular case or the work of the court. This bill would express the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to provide that juvenile court hearings in juvenile dependency cases shall be presumptively open to the public, unless the court finds that admitting the public would not be in a child's best interest."
Feuer is still crafting the final measure and is considering a pilot program. Seventeen states have presumptively open dependency court hearings, and the results are good. One judge from Minnesota attended a recent hearing in Sacramento and testified about the value of an open system. We don't need much testimony to know that openness is the preferred path in a free society.
While legislators waste their time introducing bills designed to play to their partisan base, here's someone who is looking to fix an actual problem. I don't often agree with Feuer's politics, but this is a stellar effort and proof that there can be areas of genuine bipartisanship. Possible resistance might come from unions, which generally prefer that their workers be able to do their jobs without much public input.
We'll see how it plays out, but let's hope legislators from both sides of the aisle take the side of openness and reform.
Steven Greenhut is editor of www.calwatchdog.com; write to him at sgreenhut@calwatchdog.com.
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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
Friday, March 18, 2011
Maine-LePage: Federal auditors to look into DHHS Medicaid payments-What about NH DHHS Audit?
WLBZ2.com | Bangor, ME | LePage: Federal auditors to look into DHHS Medicaid payments
AUGUSTA, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Governor Paul LePage's office says Federal auditors are coming to Maine to review Medicaid payments for school-based services from 2006-2008.
The payments totaled $138.9 million.
LePage's office says Maine Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew recently learned that auditors from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General will conduct the audit. Maine DHHS officials say the notice of audit was not shared with them by the previous leadership of the department.
"The outgoing leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services failed to share information that my team needed to make budget decisions," said Governor LePage.
A state auditor is also looking into nearly $12 million in adjustments to claims that take advantage of higher Federal medical assistance rates. LePage's office says DHHS often has to make adjustments to MaineCare claims. The auditor is questioning the practice of processing these adjustments at higher federal match rates than those that were in place when the original claim was processed. If the auditor's concerns are affirmed, DHHS may have overbilled the federal government by several million dollars.
DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew said, "We are committed to a comprehensive analysis of the Department's finances to ensure that our limited state resources are spent appropriately and most importantly are focused on the direct care needs of the most vulnerable people in Maine. To move forward we must first resolve these problems from the past and get our financial house in order."
NEWS CENTER
AUGUSTA, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Governor Paul LePage's office says Federal auditors are coming to Maine to review Medicaid payments for school-based services from 2006-2008.
The payments totaled $138.9 million.
LePage's office says Maine Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew recently learned that auditors from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General will conduct the audit. Maine DHHS officials say the notice of audit was not shared with them by the previous leadership of the department.
"The outgoing leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services failed to share information that my team needed to make budget decisions," said Governor LePage.
A state auditor is also looking into nearly $12 million in adjustments to claims that take advantage of higher Federal medical assistance rates. LePage's office says DHHS often has to make adjustments to MaineCare claims. The auditor is questioning the practice of processing these adjustments at higher federal match rates than those that were in place when the original claim was processed. If the auditor's concerns are affirmed, DHHS may have overbilled the federal government by several million dollars.
DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew said, "We are committed to a comprehensive analysis of the Department's finances to ensure that our limited state resources are spent appropriately and most importantly are focused on the direct care needs of the most vulnerable people in Maine. To move forward we must first resolve these problems from the past and get our financial house in order."
NEWS CENTER
DHS, foster parents settles lawsuit over foster child's death
DHS, foster parents settles lawsuit over foster child's death | NewsOK.com
The mother of a toddler who died in foster care has settled her lawsuit against the Oklahoma Department of Human Services and the foster parents for $400,000
BY NOLAN CLAY nclay@opubco.com
Published: March 18, 2011
The mother of a toddler who died in foster care has settled her lawsuit against the state Department of Human Services and the foster parents for $400,000, records show.
ADVERTISEMENT
Tamara Ely, of Ardmore, and her attorneys accepted $100,000 this year to dismiss her claims against DHS, records show.
She accepted $300,000 last year to dismiss her claims against the foster parents, the records show.
Raymond Palmer died on June 28, 2008, while under the care of foster parents Dale and Darla Owen. He was 19 months old when he was run over by a pickup in a pasture near Ardmore. He had been taken from his mother four months earlier.
In 2009, Ely sued DHS, the foster parents and the pickup driver, Heath Claborn. She alleged in her lawsuit that DHS knew the couple had too many foster children in the home to properly supervise.
Two weeks before the death, a Chickasaw Nation child welfare worker had visited the home and found no adults supervising the foster children, records show. The worker's supervisor reported the concerns to DHS, records show.
Raymond and his sister were among seven children at the foster home, DHS said. A DHS investigation confirmed child neglect, DHS said. No criminal charges were filed.
At the time of the accident, Dale Owen and some of his friends had been drinking a few beers and watching their children swim at a pond, DHS said.
The DHS settlement came from the state's self-insurance liability funds and not from the agency's operating funds.
The foster parents' settlement came from a foster parent liability insurance policy paid for by the state, records show.
The mother also reached a separate, undisclosed settlement with the driver's auto insurance, records show.
Read more: http://newsok.com/dhs-foster-parents-settles-lawsuit-over-foster-childs-death/article/3549651#ixzz1GxKyqgtA
The mother of a toddler who died in foster care has settled her lawsuit against the Oklahoma Department of Human Services and the foster parents for $400,000
BY NOLAN CLAY nclay@opubco.com
Published: March 18, 2011
The mother of a toddler who died in foster care has settled her lawsuit against the state Department of Human Services and the foster parents for $400,000, records show.
ADVERTISEMENT
Tamara Ely, of Ardmore, and her attorneys accepted $100,000 this year to dismiss her claims against DHS, records show.
She accepted $300,000 last year to dismiss her claims against the foster parents, the records show.
Raymond Palmer died on June 28, 2008, while under the care of foster parents Dale and Darla Owen. He was 19 months old when he was run over by a pickup in a pasture near Ardmore. He had been taken from his mother four months earlier.
In 2009, Ely sued DHS, the foster parents and the pickup driver, Heath Claborn. She alleged in her lawsuit that DHS knew the couple had too many foster children in the home to properly supervise.
Two weeks before the death, a Chickasaw Nation child welfare worker had visited the home and found no adults supervising the foster children, records show. The worker's supervisor reported the concerns to DHS, records show.
Raymond and his sister were among seven children at the foster home, DHS said. A DHS investigation confirmed child neglect, DHS said. No criminal charges were filed.
At the time of the accident, Dale Owen and some of his friends had been drinking a few beers and watching their children swim at a pond, DHS said.
The DHS settlement came from the state's self-insurance liability funds and not from the agency's operating funds.
The foster parents' settlement came from a foster parent liability insurance policy paid for by the state, records show.
The mother also reached a separate, undisclosed settlement with the driver's auto insurance, records show.
Read more: http://newsok.com/dhs-foster-parents-settles-lawsuit-over-foster-childs-death/article/3549651#ixzz1GxKyqgtA
Study puts blame on DHS for deaths of five children while in State Custody
Study puts blame on DHS for deaths of five children | Tulsa World
By GAVIN OFF World Data Editor
Published: 3/18/2011 2:31 AM
Last Modified: 3/18/2011 5:11 AM
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110318_11_A9_Achild667628&allcom=1
Read a Children’s Rights report on the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.
A children's advocacy group that is suing the Oklahoma Department of Human Services for failures in its foster-care system released an independent study Thursday intended to bolster claims it is making in federal court.
According to the report - conducted by child-welfare advocate John Goad and released by the group Children's Rights - proper DHS intervention could have prevented the deaths of at least five children who died between 2007 and 2009 of abuse or neglect while in state custody.
Additionally, the study found that:
It took personnel in the DHS Office of Client Advocacy a month or more to contact one-third of the alleged victims who lived in large group homes.
DHS Child Protective Services Division investigators failed to take the proper steps to protect 20 percent of the alleged victims in foster care and kinship/family member homes.
About half of all investigations of foster or kinship/family member homes ignored or discounted credible evidence of abuse or neglect.
DHS failed to interview nearly a quarter of key sources, including doctors, police and caseworkers.
"What the findings do is confirm that children in the foster care system in Oklahoma are in danger and are being neglected by the child-welfare system," said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights.
DHS officials discredited the report.
In a news release, DHS officials state that Goad's Oklahoma report is strikingly similar to his 2003 report on Georgia's child-welfare system. Goad was paid $62,000 for his expertise, DHS officials stated.
Marq Youngblood, DHS' chief coordinating officer, stated in the news release: "Protecting the children who are placed in OKDHS care is our top priority. The people working in this agency have dedicated their lives to making sure kids are safe while getting the care and treatment they need."
Children's Rights sued DHS in February 2008, seeking widespread reforms in the state's child-welfare system. Reforms include lowering worker caseloads, adding training for foster families and increasing oversight.
The federal trial is expected to begin as early as October.
Thursday's report is the second study released by Children's Rights in recent months to target DHS.
Last month, the group released a report stating that one in eight children in the department's custody suffered from confirmed abuse or neglect. The Center for the Support of Families conducted that report.
Sheree Powell, a spokeswoman for DHS, said that in the coming days, the department will examine how Goad reached the conclusions found in the latest study.
She said Goad's conclusions differ sharply from the state's review of the same data.
But Lowry said DHS is ignoring the problem and that Oklahoma traditionally has been one of the worst states for abuse in the foster care system.
The Children's Rights report pointed to specific Oklahoma cases, such as a 5-year-old who died from blunt-force trauma less than five weeks after DHS reunited the child with his parents, who repeatedly abused him.
Also, a 1-year-old was struck and killed by a truck nine days after DHS screened out allegations from a child-welfare worker that the child and six others were left in the foster care home without adult supervision, the Children's Rights report said.
Goad attributed many of the problems to "systemic failures among DHS' responses to reports of child maltreatment in foster placements," the group's new release states.
Gavin Off 918-732-8106
gavin.off@tulsaworld.com
By GAVIN OFF World Data Editor
Published: 3/18/2011 2:31 AM
Last Modified: 3/18/2011 5:11 AM
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110318_11_A9_Achild667628&allcom=1
Read a Children’s Rights report on the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.
A children's advocacy group that is suing the Oklahoma Department of Human Services for failures in its foster-care system released an independent study Thursday intended to bolster claims it is making in federal court.
According to the report - conducted by child-welfare advocate John Goad and released by the group Children's Rights - proper DHS intervention could have prevented the deaths of at least five children who died between 2007 and 2009 of abuse or neglect while in state custody.
Additionally, the study found that:
It took personnel in the DHS Office of Client Advocacy a month or more to contact one-third of the alleged victims who lived in large group homes.
DHS Child Protective Services Division investigators failed to take the proper steps to protect 20 percent of the alleged victims in foster care and kinship/family member homes.
About half of all investigations of foster or kinship/family member homes ignored or discounted credible evidence of abuse or neglect.
DHS failed to interview nearly a quarter of key sources, including doctors, police and caseworkers.
"What the findings do is confirm that children in the foster care system in Oklahoma are in danger and are being neglected by the child-welfare system," said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights.
DHS officials discredited the report.
In a news release, DHS officials state that Goad's Oklahoma report is strikingly similar to his 2003 report on Georgia's child-welfare system. Goad was paid $62,000 for his expertise, DHS officials stated.
Marq Youngblood, DHS' chief coordinating officer, stated in the news release: "Protecting the children who are placed in OKDHS care is our top priority. The people working in this agency have dedicated their lives to making sure kids are safe while getting the care and treatment they need."
Children's Rights sued DHS in February 2008, seeking widespread reforms in the state's child-welfare system. Reforms include lowering worker caseloads, adding training for foster families and increasing oversight.
The federal trial is expected to begin as early as October.
Thursday's report is the second study released by Children's Rights in recent months to target DHS.
Last month, the group released a report stating that one in eight children in the department's custody suffered from confirmed abuse or neglect. The Center for the Support of Families conducted that report.
Sheree Powell, a spokeswoman for DHS, said that in the coming days, the department will examine how Goad reached the conclusions found in the latest study.
She said Goad's conclusions differ sharply from the state's review of the same data.
But Lowry said DHS is ignoring the problem and that Oklahoma traditionally has been one of the worst states for abuse in the foster care system.
The Children's Rights report pointed to specific Oklahoma cases, such as a 5-year-old who died from blunt-force trauma less than five weeks after DHS reunited the child with his parents, who repeatedly abused him.
Also, a 1-year-old was struck and killed by a truck nine days after DHS screened out allegations from a child-welfare worker that the child and six others were left in the foster care home without adult supervision, the Children's Rights report said.
Goad attributed many of the problems to "systemic failures among DHS' responses to reports of child maltreatment in foster placements," the group's new release states.
Gavin Off 918-732-8106
gavin.off@tulsaworld.com
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Solano County foster dad appears in court in homicide, abuse case
Solano County foster dad appears in court in homicide, abuse case - ContraCostaTimes.com
By Reporter Staff
Posted: 03/17/2011 01:09:53 AM PDT
Updated: 03/17/2011 07:48:02 AM PDT
A Solano County foster parent suspected in the death of a 3-month-old infant last November made a brief appearance in the Fairfield courtroom of Solano County Superior Court Judge E. Bradley Nelson on Wednesday.
Reginald Tanubagijo, 54, of Suisun, has pleaded not guilty in Solano County Superior Court to one count of homicide and one count of child abuse resulting in death. It is alleged that an infant who had been entrusted to his care died in the hospital from injuries that medical personnel referred to as "non-accidental trauma," according to police.
On Wednesday, Nelson set 8:30 a.m. May 5 for a readiness conference and set 9:30 a.m. June 1 for a preliminary hearing.
According to police, the infant had been surrendered at birth and was placed under the care of Solano County Social Services. Custody of the child was then given to Tanubagijo and his wife, both of whom are approved foster care providers and, according to authorities, had undergone the extensive screening process.
Tanubagijo was arrested on suspicion of felony child abuse on Nov. 30, 2010, the day after police and emergency personnel were called to his home where they found the unresponsive infant. The child was taken to NorthBay Medical Center in Fairfield and then to Children's Hospital & Research Center in Oakland, where he died from his injuries, police said.
Tanubagijo remains in Solano County Jail custody without bail.
By Reporter Staff
Posted: 03/17/2011 01:09:53 AM PDT
Updated: 03/17/2011 07:48:02 AM PDT
A Solano County foster parent suspected in the death of a 3-month-old infant last November made a brief appearance in the Fairfield courtroom of Solano County Superior Court Judge E. Bradley Nelson on Wednesday.
Reginald Tanubagijo, 54, of Suisun, has pleaded not guilty in Solano County Superior Court to one count of homicide and one count of child abuse resulting in death. It is alleged that an infant who had been entrusted to his care died in the hospital from injuries that medical personnel referred to as "non-accidental trauma," according to police.
On Wednesday, Nelson set 8:30 a.m. May 5 for a readiness conference and set 9:30 a.m. June 1 for a preliminary hearing.
According to police, the infant had been surrendered at birth and was placed under the care of Solano County Social Services. Custody of the child was then given to Tanubagijo and his wife, both of whom are approved foster care providers and, according to authorities, had undergone the extensive screening process.
Tanubagijo was arrested on suspicion of felony child abuse on Nov. 30, 2010, the day after police and emergency personnel were called to his home where they found the unresponsive infant. The child was taken to NorthBay Medical Center in Fairfield and then to Children's Hospital & Research Center in Oakland, where he died from his injuries, police said.
Tanubagijo remains in Solano County Jail custody without bail.
Throwaway Kids
Throwaway Kids
by Christine Parrish
Feature Writer
In 2008, the Breakwater teen homeless shelter in Rockland closed after seven years in operation.
"That first winter you would see kids on the street. Since then, they've gone underground," said Jack Carpenter, who has spent 20 years in Maine, working with troubled youth.
Carpenter helped start KITS, an effort to provide replacement shelter in local churches. The goal of KITS, the Knox Interfaith Teen Safe-havens project, was for area churches to take turns providing meals, transportation, clothing and supervised shelter to homeless youth between the ages of 18 and 24 years old.
This age bracket is the most at risk for homelessness and for entering a defeating lifestyle that is hard to break.
"I've seen lots of homeless kids," said Carpenter. "They have aged out of foster care. Or dad is in prison and mom's a doper. Mom has a new boyfriend, but the boyfriend says you can't bring those kids.
"I was working as a youth advocate for a 12-year-old boy and mom is there, pleading with the judge not to send the boy to Juvee. And the judge says, what alternative do I have? Will you supervise him? She says, I can't because my boyfriend refuses to have him. I'll tell you, the look on that 12-year-old's face was: 'I'm screwed.' He was. He got sent to Juvee."
Some kids end up in juvenile corrections, then foster care, and some just get thrown out.
The kids may not end up literally on the street, but they are without a home, sleeping on someone's couch one night, a floor the next, unsupervised and often making bad decisions.
"You got this big strapping 16-year-old boy and the family, mom or whoever, says we can't afford to feed you anymore, you're old enough to take care of yourself," said Carpenter. "The boy may look like a man but he's no more emotionally mature than any kid. What's he going to get into? Who is he going to look to for guidance?
"There was a girl at the Rockland High School, a good student with a full-ride scholarship for college. She came to school one day, to the guidance counselor, with her belongings in trash bags. Things had changed again: her father had a new girlfriend. Earlier she had been in a foster home after her grandparents, who raised her down in Biddeford, died. She found out her father was out of prison and asked if she could live with him up in the Rockland area. The new girlfriend kicked her out and because there was nothing available, no place to go, she ended up back in Biddeford, couch surfing."
The KITS shelter project was set to go by November, 2009, with 70 volunteers trained to manage the shelter, which would rotate from one church to the next every month, during the five months of the coldest weather.
"It gets complicated when you're talking about unsupervised minors," said Carpenter.
They did it, though. Orientation and drills had been held. The volunteers, who would always work in pairs, were trained. Liability coverage was in place.
Then the project was shut down because the churches didn't meet code requirements for lodging.
* * *
Up in Waldo County, school social worker Judy Cohen< has 10 to 15 students in Searsport, Stockton Springs and Frankfort schools that she knows are not living at home. "We see their little faces every day," she said.
There could be more.
"Not every school has a social worker and Waldo County has a poor, needy population. It's dysfunction and it's lack of money. Those are the problems. You've seen it: people living in houses that are sinking into the earth, houses with holes in the roof and all the winter firewood stacked inside."
"It's hard to know how many are homeless," said Cohen. It isn't always obvious and teachers and staff don't always know.
Across the country it is widely recognized among social service providers that the population of young people without stable housing is far greater than the numbers indicate. Many don't want to be counted.
Young people who become homeless typically already have a bad track record at school; if they haven't dropped out before they have no place to live, the research indicates they soon will. The likelihood of finishing high school and moving on to job training or college is very slim, according Opening Doors, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 2010 Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. The lack of education and job skills sets the kid up for a low-wage life that will be hard to escape.
"If you are couch surfing, if you don't know where to stay or don't have clean clothes, it's very unstable," said Cohen. That's when kids start dropping out.
Complicating that is the fact that not every kid who is not at home is homeless. Some are just unwilling to follow the rules.
"If the kid is really not interested in being at home where there are healthy expectations within a healthy family, then they are not homeless," said Gary Skigen, director of the Belfast high school alternative education program, BECOPE, and the spokesman for Waldo County Safe Homes, an effort to find housing for homeless students.
"If they just don't want to do chores, or follow the rules, that is not a legitimate reason," said Skigen.
Teens often run away because of severe family conflict which, according to the Opening Doors study, not uncommonly includes running away from violence at home, including incest and rape. Homosexuality, or uncertainty about their sexuality, are other reasons teens cut loose from ties at home. Kids taken away from crummy homes and placed in foster care can find themselves without housing on their eighteenth birthday.
"People do tend to have this idea that it's all kids who don't want to follow the rules," said Carpenter. "That is rarely the basic problem."
* * *
It's not just the throwaway kids that suffer. And it's not just the people whose hearts hurt when they find out they are right here among us. It's also the taxpayer and the consumer, because homelessness costs a lot of money - more, in fact, than housing, job training and counseling, according to a 2009 report, The Cost of Rural Homelessness.
That's because people who are homeless are in crisis and crisis care is expensive.
Expensive emergency room visits, for example, are passed on to paying customers and insurers. Regular clinic care is much cheaper. If they get hospitalized, homeless people tend to stay four days longer, on average, than those with housing, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. The extra cost is around $2,400 per hospitalization.
Health problems go up when kids become homeless, according to the Opening Doors study, including depression, asthma, hypertension, diabetes, hepatitis and suicide. Substance abuse is common, as are other mental health disorders.
No specific study has been done on the cost of youth homelessness in Maine, but the 2009 study on the cost of rural homelessness in Maine indicates that each homeless individual costs the rest of us around $19,000 a year. When they get supportive housing and services, including drug treatment, job training, and more, the cost to society drops to less than $12,000 a year.
The police and emergency services time devoted to these throwaway kids is no joke. When they end up in jail for using or trading drugs or for theft, that costs county and city taxpayers real money. According to the Maine Board of Corrections, it costs $43,000 a year to keep a prisoner in the Knox County Jail.
And, if the pattern continues and escalates and the messed-up kid becomes a messed-up adult and ends up in Maine State Prison or the minimum-security Bolduc unit, it costs $47,500 a year per person, according to Denise Lord, the associate commisioner at the Maine Department of Corrections.
* * *
For youth who are still in school or want to be, people in the greater Belfast area have gathered together to create the Waldo County Safe Homes Foundation.
"It's to provide safe, family-based living situations for students in need," said Skigen. "This effort has been under way in Waldo County for 10 or 12 years. I've only been involved for the last two.
"That's when I first noticed that I was losing students because they didn't have a place to live," he said.
Skigen, an infinitely patient no-nonsense man in his fifties, was dressed in jeans and work boots and a faded canvas shirt. His grey hair was pulled back in a ponytail. When Skigen recognized that he had homeless students, he also found out there was already a group of law enforcement officers, the juvenile probation officer, educators, job counselors, churches, restorative justice advocates and others who had joined together to find a housing solution.
The goal is to keep homeless kids in school.
"But it has to work for the kids, too," said Skigen, leaning back in his chair. His small office was crammed with students. One dark-haired boy in baggy black clothes was sitting a foot away from Skigen, writing a story on his laptop, a pretty girl was eating a bowl of fruit on the couch and another, with her hair pulled back, was tapping into her laptop. The phone kept ringing and students and teachers stopped in constantly. One girl was looking for her draft essay, which turned out to be in Skigen's out-box; a boy popped in to ask for Tylenol, another for a cough drop, a third wanted to go home sick and his mother arrived to take him.
"There are families willing to take them in, but there has to be an agreement," said Skigen, between interruptions. He turned to the young woman eating fruit.
"Would you stay at a house that expected you to go to church every Sunday?" he asked her.
"I wouldn't stay at a place that wouldn't let me stay at my boyfriend's," she said, then looked at me. "I have a serious boyfriend, right?"
"I might," said the other girl, looking up from her laptop. "I like going to church."
"A list of screening questions is very important," said
Skigen. "We placed one young woman in a home and realized too late we should have asked a lot of questions ahead of time.
"I am hoping that by the end of the school year we will have something in place, but I always want things done six months ago."
It's not foster care and it's not adoption. It is simply a way to provide housing in a stable home so a student can finish high school, if that is what they want, said Skigen.
The Safe Homes project, which is newly formed, is just about at the point of starting to raise money to offset some of the costs to the families who volunteer to take in students. Families will not be paid. Instead, the goal is for Safe Homes to pay for clothes, unfunded medical care and transportation in an effort to reduce the cost to the family, said Skigen.
"Most families that have talked to me about providing a home are not asking for money," said Skigen.
* * *
Jack Carpenter in Rockland said KITS is now directing its efforts towards raising money to help six families who have taken students into their homes. Typically, these kids are staying with the family of a friend.
"The help includes paying back rent, a truck payment, heat and electric bills, a mortgage payment, clothing, food cards and more," said Carpenter.
Recently, a newly formed group has gotten behind the KITS fund-raising effort. Where Do I Go Now (WDIGN) started a homeless-teen awareness project in the past few months and on Saturday evening, March 19, will hold a "Camp-a-thon,"a fund-raiser at Chapman Park next to the Rite Aide pharmacy on the corner of Park and Main streets in Rockland. Volunteers will make a soup from donated food over an open fire and provide it free to all comers. They plan to have music and speakers on teen homelessness from 5 to 9 p.m., and pass the hat for donations to KITS.
* * *
Judy Cohen in Searsport is part of the Waldo County Safe Homes effort. But she doesn't think there is a silver-bullet solution to the problem.
"There is no one-size-fits-all for these kids," said Cohen. One of her homeless teen boys, who was living in a motel room with his three siblings and his mother, jumped at the chance to go to Job Corps when he was told about it.
Job Corps, a federal Department of Labor program for at-risk youth, provides education and job training, housing, and a paycheck for youth 18 to 24 years old.
"It's very structured. Students have to live there. It's not for everyone," said Cohen. "But he's doing great.
"Look, I've been here 17 years and it's a patchwork approach to helping kids," she said. "It's just the way it is."
* * *
Long-term planning to address teen homelessness is also under way and that effort is also new. Pinny Beebe-Center, the director of Penquis community programs, also serves as the spokesperson for the Midcoast Homeless Consortium, which was started last year.
The Homeless Consortium has rallied behind the idea of starting a resource center and homeless shelter in downtown Rockland to help two key homeless populations for which there are few resources: single parents aged 18 to 24 years old, and kids who have been in the foster-care system who have turned 18 years old and have no place to go.
"It would be on the Camden Community School model of instruction and life skills; a resource center with beds," said Beebe-Center. "We even have a building in mind in downtown Rockland, where you can walk to everything."
What they don't have is money.
"We went after a major source of funding," said Beebe-Center. "But it fell through."
by Christine Parrish
Feature Writer
In 2008, the Breakwater teen homeless shelter in Rockland closed after seven years in operation.
"That first winter you would see kids on the street. Since then, they've gone underground," said Jack Carpenter, who has spent 20 years in Maine, working with troubled youth.
Carpenter helped start KITS, an effort to provide replacement shelter in local churches. The goal of KITS, the Knox Interfaith Teen Safe-havens project, was for area churches to take turns providing meals, transportation, clothing and supervised shelter to homeless youth between the ages of 18 and 24 years old.
This age bracket is the most at risk for homelessness and for entering a defeating lifestyle that is hard to break.
"I've seen lots of homeless kids," said Carpenter. "They have aged out of foster care. Or dad is in prison and mom's a doper. Mom has a new boyfriend, but the boyfriend says you can't bring those kids.
"I was working as a youth advocate for a 12-year-old boy and mom is there, pleading with the judge not to send the boy to Juvee. And the judge says, what alternative do I have? Will you supervise him? She says, I can't because my boyfriend refuses to have him. I'll tell you, the look on that 12-year-old's face was: 'I'm screwed.' He was. He got sent to Juvee."
Some kids end up in juvenile corrections, then foster care, and some just get thrown out.
The kids may not end up literally on the street, but they are without a home, sleeping on someone's couch one night, a floor the next, unsupervised and often making bad decisions.
"You got this big strapping 16-year-old boy and the family, mom or whoever, says we can't afford to feed you anymore, you're old enough to take care of yourself," said Carpenter. "The boy may look like a man but he's no more emotionally mature than any kid. What's he going to get into? Who is he going to look to for guidance?
"There was a girl at the Rockland High School, a good student with a full-ride scholarship for college. She came to school one day, to the guidance counselor, with her belongings in trash bags. Things had changed again: her father had a new girlfriend. Earlier she had been in a foster home after her grandparents, who raised her down in Biddeford, died. She found out her father was out of prison and asked if she could live with him up in the Rockland area. The new girlfriend kicked her out and because there was nothing available, no place to go, she ended up back in Biddeford, couch surfing."
The KITS shelter project was set to go by November, 2009, with 70 volunteers trained to manage the shelter, which would rotate from one church to the next every month, during the five months of the coldest weather.
"It gets complicated when you're talking about unsupervised minors," said Carpenter.
They did it, though. Orientation and drills had been held. The volunteers, who would always work in pairs, were trained. Liability coverage was in place.
Then the project was shut down because the churches didn't meet code requirements for lodging.
* * *
Up in Waldo County, school social worker Judy Cohen< has 10 to 15 students in Searsport, Stockton Springs and Frankfort schools that she knows are not living at home. "We see their little faces every day," she said.
There could be more.
"Not every school has a social worker and Waldo County has a poor, needy population. It's dysfunction and it's lack of money. Those are the problems. You've seen it: people living in houses that are sinking into the earth, houses with holes in the roof and all the winter firewood stacked inside."
"It's hard to know how many are homeless," said Cohen. It isn't always obvious and teachers and staff don't always know.
Across the country it is widely recognized among social service providers that the population of young people without stable housing is far greater than the numbers indicate. Many don't want to be counted.
Young people who become homeless typically already have a bad track record at school; if they haven't dropped out before they have no place to live, the research indicates they soon will. The likelihood of finishing high school and moving on to job training or college is very slim, according Opening Doors, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness 2010 Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. The lack of education and job skills sets the kid up for a low-wage life that will be hard to escape.
"If you are couch surfing, if you don't know where to stay or don't have clean clothes, it's very unstable," said Cohen. That's when kids start dropping out.
Complicating that is the fact that not every kid who is not at home is homeless. Some are just unwilling to follow the rules.
"If the kid is really not interested in being at home where there are healthy expectations within a healthy family, then they are not homeless," said Gary Skigen, director of the Belfast high school alternative education program, BECOPE, and the spokesman for Waldo County Safe Homes, an effort to find housing for homeless students.
"If they just don't want to do chores, or follow the rules, that is not a legitimate reason," said Skigen.
Teens often run away because of severe family conflict which, according to the Opening Doors study, not uncommonly includes running away from violence at home, including incest and rape. Homosexuality, or uncertainty about their sexuality, are other reasons teens cut loose from ties at home. Kids taken away from crummy homes and placed in foster care can find themselves without housing on their eighteenth birthday.
"People do tend to have this idea that it's all kids who don't want to follow the rules," said Carpenter. "That is rarely the basic problem."
* * *
It's not just the throwaway kids that suffer. And it's not just the people whose hearts hurt when they find out they are right here among us. It's also the taxpayer and the consumer, because homelessness costs a lot of money - more, in fact, than housing, job training and counseling, according to a 2009 report, The Cost of Rural Homelessness.
That's because people who are homeless are in crisis and crisis care is expensive.
Expensive emergency room visits, for example, are passed on to paying customers and insurers. Regular clinic care is much cheaper. If they get hospitalized, homeless people tend to stay four days longer, on average, than those with housing, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. The extra cost is around $2,400 per hospitalization.
Health problems go up when kids become homeless, according to the Opening Doors study, including depression, asthma, hypertension, diabetes, hepatitis and suicide. Substance abuse is common, as are other mental health disorders.
No specific study has been done on the cost of youth homelessness in Maine, but the 2009 study on the cost of rural homelessness in Maine indicates that each homeless individual costs the rest of us around $19,000 a year. When they get supportive housing and services, including drug treatment, job training, and more, the cost to society drops to less than $12,000 a year.
The police and emergency services time devoted to these throwaway kids is no joke. When they end up in jail for using or trading drugs or for theft, that costs county and city taxpayers real money. According to the Maine Board of Corrections, it costs $43,000 a year to keep a prisoner in the Knox County Jail.
And, if the pattern continues and escalates and the messed-up kid becomes a messed-up adult and ends up in Maine State Prison or the minimum-security Bolduc unit, it costs $47,500 a year per person, according to Denise Lord, the associate commisioner at the Maine Department of Corrections.
* * *
For youth who are still in school or want to be, people in the greater Belfast area have gathered together to create the Waldo County Safe Homes Foundation.
"It's to provide safe, family-based living situations for students in need," said Skigen. "This effort has been under way in Waldo County for 10 or 12 years. I've only been involved for the last two.
"That's when I first noticed that I was losing students because they didn't have a place to live," he said.
Skigen, an infinitely patient no-nonsense man in his fifties, was dressed in jeans and work boots and a faded canvas shirt. His grey hair was pulled back in a ponytail. When Skigen recognized that he had homeless students, he also found out there was already a group of law enforcement officers, the juvenile probation officer, educators, job counselors, churches, restorative justice advocates and others who had joined together to find a housing solution.
The goal is to keep homeless kids in school.
"But it has to work for the kids, too," said Skigen, leaning back in his chair. His small office was crammed with students. One dark-haired boy in baggy black clothes was sitting a foot away from Skigen, writing a story on his laptop, a pretty girl was eating a bowl of fruit on the couch and another, with her hair pulled back, was tapping into her laptop. The phone kept ringing and students and teachers stopped in constantly. One girl was looking for her draft essay, which turned out to be in Skigen's out-box; a boy popped in to ask for Tylenol, another for a cough drop, a third wanted to go home sick and his mother arrived to take him.
"There are families willing to take them in, but there has to be an agreement," said Skigen, between interruptions. He turned to the young woman eating fruit.
"Would you stay at a house that expected you to go to church every Sunday?" he asked her.
"I wouldn't stay at a place that wouldn't let me stay at my boyfriend's," she said, then looked at me. "I have a serious boyfriend, right?"
"I might," said the other girl, looking up from her laptop. "I like going to church."
"A list of screening questions is very important," said
Skigen. "We placed one young woman in a home and realized too late we should have asked a lot of questions ahead of time.
"I am hoping that by the end of the school year we will have something in place, but I always want things done six months ago."
It's not foster care and it's not adoption. It is simply a way to provide housing in a stable home so a student can finish high school, if that is what they want, said Skigen.
The Safe Homes project, which is newly formed, is just about at the point of starting to raise money to offset some of the costs to the families who volunteer to take in students. Families will not be paid. Instead, the goal is for Safe Homes to pay for clothes, unfunded medical care and transportation in an effort to reduce the cost to the family, said Skigen.
"Most families that have talked to me about providing a home are not asking for money," said Skigen.
* * *
Jack Carpenter in Rockland said KITS is now directing its efforts towards raising money to help six families who have taken students into their homes. Typically, these kids are staying with the family of a friend.
"The help includes paying back rent, a truck payment, heat and electric bills, a mortgage payment, clothing, food cards and more," said Carpenter.
Recently, a newly formed group has gotten behind the KITS fund-raising effort. Where Do I Go Now (WDIGN) started a homeless-teen awareness project in the past few months and on Saturday evening, March 19, will hold a "Camp-a-thon,"a fund-raiser at Chapman Park next to the Rite Aide pharmacy on the corner of Park and Main streets in Rockland. Volunteers will make a soup from donated food over an open fire and provide it free to all comers. They plan to have music and speakers on teen homelessness from 5 to 9 p.m., and pass the hat for donations to KITS.
* * *
Judy Cohen in Searsport is part of the Waldo County Safe Homes effort. But she doesn't think there is a silver-bullet solution to the problem.
"There is no one-size-fits-all for these kids," said Cohen. One of her homeless teen boys, who was living in a motel room with his three siblings and his mother, jumped at the chance to go to Job Corps when he was told about it.
Job Corps, a federal Department of Labor program for at-risk youth, provides education and job training, housing, and a paycheck for youth 18 to 24 years old.
"It's very structured. Students have to live there. It's not for everyone," said Cohen. "But he's doing great.
"Look, I've been here 17 years and it's a patchwork approach to helping kids," she said. "It's just the way it is."
* * *
Long-term planning to address teen homelessness is also under way and that effort is also new. Pinny Beebe-Center, the director of Penquis community programs, also serves as the spokesperson for the Midcoast Homeless Consortium, which was started last year.
The Homeless Consortium has rallied behind the idea of starting a resource center and homeless shelter in downtown Rockland to help two key homeless populations for which there are few resources: single parents aged 18 to 24 years old, and kids who have been in the foster-care system who have turned 18 years old and have no place to go.
"It would be on the Camden Community School model of instruction and life skills; a resource center with beds," said Beebe-Center. "We even have a building in mind in downtown Rockland, where you can walk to everything."
What they don't have is money.
"We went after a major source of funding," said Beebe-Center. "But it fell through."
Tot's death prompts window blind cord recommendation
Tot's death prompts window blind cord recommendation
A fatality inquiry into the accidental strangulation death of a toddler in foster care at a Calgary home has resulted in only one recommendation.
Judge John Bascom recommended that all cords for window blinds should be separated at the bottom to prevent children from harming themselves.
"Many blind cords are designed with a loop, which becomes a natural noose and is a specific danger to children," Bascom wrote in a report made public today.
The recommendation echoes a consumer safety bulletin issued by Health Canada in 2005, which recommends cutting looped blind cords.
The inquiry was probing the death in 2007 of a 16-month-old boy identified as DWL. Because the child was in foster care, his name is protected by a publication ban.
The boy's foster mother left DWL and a four-year-old boy briefly unattended in a play room while she used the bathroom.
The four-year-old boy told police DWL climbed onto "something white" -thought to be a window ledge -and wrapped the blind cord around his neck.
The young witness said DWL fell from the window ledge and was strangled by the cord, which was still around his neck.
The foster mother returned to the room moments later, called 911 right away and tried resuscitating DWL.
Neither the woman nor paramedics were able to revive DWL, who was pronounced dead at Alberta Children's Hospital.
The foster mother and her husband were caring for four children at the time of the fatal accident.
The couple had been foster parents since 1997 or 1998 and Bascom described them as "experienced and conscientious.
"Both parents testified that the cords for blinds in the residence were always tied up and regularly checked," Bascom wrote.
Between 1989 and 2005, Health Canada recorded more than 20 deaths involving children strangled by window blind cords.
jvanrassel@calgaryherald.com
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/death+prompts+window+blind+cord+recommendation/4454584/story.html#ixzz1GuUqZrl8
A fatality inquiry into the accidental strangulation death of a toddler in foster care at a Calgary home has resulted in only one recommendation.
Judge John Bascom recommended that all cords for window blinds should be separated at the bottom to prevent children from harming themselves.
"Many blind cords are designed with a loop, which becomes a natural noose and is a specific danger to children," Bascom wrote in a report made public today.
The recommendation echoes a consumer safety bulletin issued by Health Canada in 2005, which recommends cutting looped blind cords.
The inquiry was probing the death in 2007 of a 16-month-old boy identified as DWL. Because the child was in foster care, his name is protected by a publication ban.
The boy's foster mother left DWL and a four-year-old boy briefly unattended in a play room while she used the bathroom.
The four-year-old boy told police DWL climbed onto "something white" -thought to be a window ledge -and wrapped the blind cord around his neck.
The young witness said DWL fell from the window ledge and was strangled by the cord, which was still around his neck.
The foster mother returned to the room moments later, called 911 right away and tried resuscitating DWL.
Neither the woman nor paramedics were able to revive DWL, who was pronounced dead at Alberta Children's Hospital.
The foster mother and her husband were caring for four children at the time of the fatal accident.
The couple had been foster parents since 1997 or 1998 and Bascom described them as "experienced and conscientious.
"Both parents testified that the cords for blinds in the residence were always tied up and regularly checked," Bascom wrote.
Between 1989 and 2005, Health Canada recorded more than 20 deaths involving children strangled by window blind cords.
jvanrassel@calgaryherald.com
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/death+prompts+window+blind+cord+recommendation/4454584/story.html#ixzz1GuUqZrl8
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