A child has the right to........
by Kimberly Foley on Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Thought you would all find this interesting -
A child has the right to:
• a continuing relationship with both parents.
• be treated not as a piece of property, but as a human being recognized to have unique feelings, ideas, and desires consistent with that of an individual.
• continuing care and proper guidance from each parent.
• not to be unduly influenced by either parent to view the other parent differently.
• express love, friendship, and respect for both parents: freedom from having to hide those stated emotions or made to be ashamed of such.
• an explanation that the impending action of divorce was in no way caused by the child’s actions.
• not to be the subject and/or source of any and all arguments.
• continuing, honest feedback with respect to the divorce process and its impact on the changing relationships of the family.
• maintain regular contact with both parents and a clear explanation for any change in plans and/or cancellations.
• enjoy a pleasurable relationship with both parents, never to be employed as a manipulative bargaining tool.
• the obligation of being a parent does not end after a divorce. It is extremely important to understand that the bond of marriage is completely different from that of parents. This is the most common down fall in today’s society, as a dissolution of marriage takes place so does that of parenting. (someone so smart 2011)
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, July 5, 2011
Handbooks for Birth Parents-None from New Hampshire-No Surprise!
NRCPFC.ORG: Handbooks for Birth Parents
For birth parents whose children have entered the foster care system, the intricacies of the foster care and legal systems can be overwhelming. In response to this, some states have created handbooks for birth parents to help guide them through the process. Below are some handbooks that are available on-line.
Don't bother looking for one from New Hampshire. As usual they have their head's up their butt's!
For birth parents whose children have entered the foster care system, the intricacies of the foster care and legal systems can be overwhelming. In response to this, some states have created handbooks for birth parents to help guide them through the process. Below are some handbooks that are available on-line.
Don't bother looking for one from New Hampshire. As usual they have their head's up their butt's!
Casey Anthony acquitted of murdering daughter Caylee
Casey Anthony acquitted of murder - Yahoo! News
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A Florida jury has acquitted Casey Anthony of murdering her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.
Anthony began crying when the jury's verdict was read Tuesday after more than 10 hours of deliberations. She hugged her attorney afterward, and a prosecutor shook his head in disbelief. She could have received a death sentence if she had been convicted of first-degree murder.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A Florida jury has acquitted Casey Anthony of murdering her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.
Anthony began crying when the jury's verdict was read Tuesday after more than 10 hours of deliberations. She hugged her attorney afterward, and a prosecutor shook his head in disbelief. She could have received a death sentence if she had been convicted of first-degree murder.
Dangerous Prank Aimed At Mother Of Three By Her Ex's Wife
Dangerous Prank Aimed At Mother Of Three By Her Ex's Wife
This morning the TODAY show featured Tracy Wilder, a divorced mother of three, who "began getting phone calls, text messages and visits to her home from men she didn't know seeking sex," last February, TODAY reports.
This morning the TODAY show featured Tracy Wilder, a divorced mother of three, who "began getting phone calls, text messages and visits to her home from men she didn't know seeking sex," last February, TODAY reports.
Foster care in America: Sometimes it takes a lawsuit to save a child
NCCPR Child Welfare Blog: Foster care in America: Sometimes it takes a lawsuit to save a child
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Foster care in America: Sometimes it takes a lawsuit to save a child
In a previous post to this Blog, I took issue with an attempt by Bryan Samuels, who runs the federal government’s Administration on Children Youth and Families, to try to let the foster care system off the hook for the dismal prospects of so many former foster children.
Fortunately, Samuels now has a new boss who believes in accountability.
In that same interview, with Youth Today, Samuels made comments that were nearly as absurd concerning class-action lawsuits to reform child welfare systems. He appears to suggest that these lawsuits really aren’t needed anymore because now the federal government has its own process for evaluating child welfare systems, known as Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs).
Yeah, right.
As it happens, one of the very few issues on which there is near-unanimity in the child welfare community is the consensus that CFSRs are c-r-a-p. Some of the reasons are described in this publication on our website. Samuels himself acknowledges how bad the CFSRs are in response to the very next question from Youth Today.
No one has been more critical than I of the group that so arrogantly calls itself “Children’s Rights” and their McLawsuits. But the notion that somehow a CFSR process, even a reformed CFSR process, could have brought about the transformation of the Alabama child welfare system into, relatively speaking, a national model is an act of self-delusion. As The New York Times documented in this story, that transformation took a lawsuit, R.C. v. Hornsby. (The suit was brought by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. Their legal director, Ira Burnim is a member of NCCPR’s volunteer Board of Directors.)
Similarly, New York City wasn’t about to stop taking children from battered mothers just because expert after expert says that’s a terrible thing to do to children. And, needless to say, that issue isn’t covered by the CFSRs. Once again, it took a class-action lawsuit, Nicholson v. Scoppetta. (Co-counsel for that one was NCCPR’s volunteer Vice President, Carolyn Kubitschek.)
It is particularly absurd to read such a comment from Samuels who, before taking his present job, ran the child welfare system in Illinois. No state has benefitted more from aggressive class-action litigation.
●There is no way federal regulators would have broken the iron grip of private agencies on the Illinois system and changed financial incentives for those agencies – reducing the foster care population from over 50,000 to under 16,000. That took a lawsuit, brought by the Illinois Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, B.H. v. Coler.
●There is no way Illinois would have volunteered to provide concrete help to families so their children are less likely to be taken when family poverty is confused with neglect. That took another lawsuit – Norman v. Johnson, brought by the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago.
●It took still another lawsuit, Dupuy v. McDonald, to provide a bare minimum of due process for families – and children – trapped in the Illinois central registry of alleged child abusers, problems Samuels whitewashed in that same Youth Today interview.
The lead plaintiff in that suit was a child who was, herself, listed as a child abuser because she’d pulled up the pants of some children playing “doctor” in her parents’ day care home. For months she was exiled from her own home from 7am until 9pm; since that was a condition of her parents’ continuing to earn a living. At one point she tried to kill herself – all because of a listing in a central register. Good thing some good lawyers at the Family Defense Center had a problem with that, since apparently Commissioner Samuels does not.
And because lawsuit settlements usually come with independent court monitors we know that in both Alabama and Illinois, child safety has improved.
Of course these suits also have one key element in common – they were not brought by “Children’s Rights.” But even CR’s suits occasionally are helpful, particularly when other groups get them to craft better settlements than anything they come up with on their own, as in New York City and New Jersey. Their other suits sometimes lead to slight improvements, if only because of the publicity they get.
The key problem with CR is that their litigation has been getting worse – and they crossed a bright line in Michigan, where their litigation has made a bad system worse.
But that doesn’t mean we can simply replace all such suits with an idiotic federal evaluation process and expect that America’s vulnerable children will live happily ever after.
Posted by National Coalition for Child Protection Reform at 6:00 AM
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Foster care in America: Sometimes it takes a lawsuit to save a child
In a previous post to this Blog, I took issue with an attempt by Bryan Samuels, who runs the federal government’s Administration on Children Youth and Families, to try to let the foster care system off the hook for the dismal prospects of so many former foster children.
Fortunately, Samuels now has a new boss who believes in accountability.
In that same interview, with Youth Today, Samuels made comments that were nearly as absurd concerning class-action lawsuits to reform child welfare systems. He appears to suggest that these lawsuits really aren’t needed anymore because now the federal government has its own process for evaluating child welfare systems, known as Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs).
Yeah, right.
As it happens, one of the very few issues on which there is near-unanimity in the child welfare community is the consensus that CFSRs are c-r-a-p. Some of the reasons are described in this publication on our website. Samuels himself acknowledges how bad the CFSRs are in response to the very next question from Youth Today.
No one has been more critical than I of the group that so arrogantly calls itself “Children’s Rights” and their McLawsuits. But the notion that somehow a CFSR process, even a reformed CFSR process, could have brought about the transformation of the Alabama child welfare system into, relatively speaking, a national model is an act of self-delusion. As The New York Times documented in this story, that transformation took a lawsuit, R.C. v. Hornsby. (The suit was brought by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. Their legal director, Ira Burnim is a member of NCCPR’s volunteer Board of Directors.)
Similarly, New York City wasn’t about to stop taking children from battered mothers just because expert after expert says that’s a terrible thing to do to children. And, needless to say, that issue isn’t covered by the CFSRs. Once again, it took a class-action lawsuit, Nicholson v. Scoppetta. (Co-counsel for that one was NCCPR’s volunteer Vice President, Carolyn Kubitschek.)
It is particularly absurd to read such a comment from Samuels who, before taking his present job, ran the child welfare system in Illinois. No state has benefitted more from aggressive class-action litigation.
●There is no way federal regulators would have broken the iron grip of private agencies on the Illinois system and changed financial incentives for those agencies – reducing the foster care population from over 50,000 to under 16,000. That took a lawsuit, brought by the Illinois Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, B.H. v. Coler.
●There is no way Illinois would have volunteered to provide concrete help to families so their children are less likely to be taken when family poverty is confused with neglect. That took another lawsuit – Norman v. Johnson, brought by the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago.
●It took still another lawsuit, Dupuy v. McDonald, to provide a bare minimum of due process for families – and children – trapped in the Illinois central registry of alleged child abusers, problems Samuels whitewashed in that same Youth Today interview.
The lead plaintiff in that suit was a child who was, herself, listed as a child abuser because she’d pulled up the pants of some children playing “doctor” in her parents’ day care home. For months she was exiled from her own home from 7am until 9pm; since that was a condition of her parents’ continuing to earn a living. At one point she tried to kill herself – all because of a listing in a central register. Good thing some good lawyers at the Family Defense Center had a problem with that, since apparently Commissioner Samuels does not.
And because lawsuit settlements usually come with independent court monitors we know that in both Alabama and Illinois, child safety has improved.
Of course these suits also have one key element in common – they were not brought by “Children’s Rights.” But even CR’s suits occasionally are helpful, particularly when other groups get them to craft better settlements than anything they come up with on their own, as in New York City and New Jersey. Their other suits sometimes lead to slight improvements, if only because of the publicity they get.
The key problem with CR is that their litigation has been getting worse – and they crossed a bright line in Michigan, where their litigation has made a bad system worse.
But that doesn’t mean we can simply replace all such suits with an idiotic federal evaluation process and expect that America’s vulnerable children will live happily ever after.
Posted by National Coalition for Child Protection Reform at 6:00 AM
State Fact Sheets for Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children
State Fact Sheets for Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children
Fact Sheet
October 2007
More than six million children - approximately 1 in 12 - are living in households headed by grandparents (4.5 million children) or other relatives (1.5 million children). In many of these homes, grandparents (approximately 2.4 million) and other relatives are taking on primary responsibility for the children’s needs. Often they assume this responsibility without either of the child’s parents present in the home.
Fact Sheet
October 2007
More than six million children - approximately 1 in 12 - are living in households headed by grandparents (4.5 million children) or other relatives (1.5 million children). In many of these homes, grandparents (approximately 2.4 million) and other relatives are taking on primary responsibility for the children’s needs. Often they assume this responsibility without either of the child’s parents present in the home.
ARE WE DOOMED TO BECOME A ONE-GENERATION SOCIETY?
one-generation famiies
ARE WE DOOMED TO BECOME A ONE-GENERATION SOCIETY?
By Judge Walter L. Blackwell III (ret)
bellasophie.com
As a nation, we have strongly endorsed and encouraged solid, functioning families. Families have been touted as the bedrock of this nation. And by families, I mean multi-generational families. The federal government even funds a foster grandparent program. Granted, not all families are functioning entities but we have long viewed non-functioning families with sadness and disappointment.
ARE WE DOOMED TO BECOME A ONE-GENERATION SOCIETY?
By Judge Walter L. Blackwell III (ret)
bellasophie.com
As a nation, we have strongly endorsed and encouraged solid, functioning families. Families have been touted as the bedrock of this nation. And by families, I mean multi-generational families. The federal government even funds a foster grandparent program. Granted, not all families are functioning entities but we have long viewed non-functioning families with sadness and disappointment.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)