The Kansas Supreme Court upheld the rights of Native Americans in a case decided last week.  The trial court in Johnson County, Kansas terminated the rights of indigenous parents in a Child in Need of Care (CINC) case.  The parents and their child had Native American heritage.

The Kansas Supreme Court overturned the termination.  The Johnson County court failed to apply the extra requirements of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).  The social worker did not meet the requirements for an expert in cases involving Native Americans.

This case demonstrates the importance of compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act in cases involving children with Native American heritage.

Abusing a child changes the victim’s brain, making the victim susceptible to drug addiction as she matures, according to drug addiction specialist, Dr. Gabor Mate, the author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts.

During an interview on Democracy Now! on February 3, 2010, Dr. Mate detailed the biophysical changes to the brain of an abused child and how that makes the child vulnerable to drug addiction.  His experience treating addicts is consistent with the results of the national studies he cites: 90% of hardcore addicts suffered child abuse that changed their brain circuitry.

I embedded Dr. Mate’s interview so you may watch it now.  Just click this video:

Some of the children I represent survive their trauma and abuse better than others.  A researcher at the University of Kansas received a $1.7 million grant to study why some children show exceptional resiliency.

Yo Jackson, associate professor of applied behavioral science and clinical child psychology, will share the five year grant with, among others, Jackson County Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services, the Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association in Jackson County, and faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Last Friday I rescued a child from foster care.  The child left the state with his grandparents.

The child’s mother was drunk when she tried to pick him up from his daycare.  The daycare refused to let her leave with her child.  Instead, they called the police.  The police arrested the mother and put the child into police protective custody.

Fortunately, I already had met the grandparents when they were visiting from their home on the West Coast.  As soon as we learned the child was lost to foster care, we started working furiously on a voluntary guardianship.  We had to act fast, before the state sought temporary custody.

I have to credit the prosecutor and the SRS social worker for working openly with me and trusting this family.  They agreed to release the child if I could obtain guardianship orders in less than a day.  I faced a stressful, rushed day, trying to obtain signatures from the mother in Kansas City, the grandmother on the West Coast and the grandfather on a business trip in Chicago.  I found a judge on Friday afternoon to sign temporary orders, and then delivered the orders to the prosecutor and the SRS all before 5 pm.

With a lot of hard work and cooperation from all participants, the plan worked.  By Friday evening, the grandfather picked up the child from foster care.  By Saturday morning, he left with his grandchild to return home.

The child was spared months in foster care.  He can live with his grandparents instead.  His mother now has the opportunity to work on her own rehabilitation while knowing that her child is safe and well cared for.   The state saved scarce resources to use for other children who really need foster care.  Everyone wins.

I’m back to blogging after a break for Thanksgiving.  During the break we enjoyed a visit from our daughter who is a freshman studying apparel design at Iowa State University.  Now, though, I’m thankful to be blogging again with you and meeting great clients.

I met two new clients today who remind me to be thankful for adults who love children.  The first client was rescuing an unrelated 16 year old boy who was thrown out by his mother.  This client has mentored the young boy since he was about nine years old.  I hope to help them by obtaining custody through a guardianship or through a private child in need of care petition.

The second new clients were parents of a high functioning autistic boy.  I was impressed with how knowledgeably and assertively these parents have advocated for their son.  Even so, they have been struggling with their son’s school district this year.  The district is failing to implement his IEP.  Some of the staff have been yelling at their son to the point of bringing him to tears.  We talked about filing a formal complaint about the staff’s discrimination through bullying which denies him access to a public education.  We might also request an Independent Educational Evaluation at public expense to remedy the inadequacies in the school district’s re-evaluation, especially regarding their son’s need for assistive technology.

I am thankful for these clients and all adults who love kids.  I am grateful for the opportunity to assist them in improving the lives of the children they serve.

How can you protect your grandchild if the parents are missing, abusive or inadequate?

Recently I filed two petitions for private children in need of care.  In both cases, the parents were missing or neglectful.  I represent the grandparents.

“Child in Need of Care” is the term Kansas uses for foster children.  Normally, the state files those petitions.  That is how children are placed in foster care.

In Kansas, though, any person may file a petition.  The two that I filed recently were both on behalf of grandparents.  That way, instead of placing the child in foster care, the child can be put in the custody of the grandparents.

There are other ways to protect your grandchildren, such as guardianship and grandparents’ visits.  The tool which will best save your grandchildren depends on your unique circumstances.  Use the resource box on the right if you want to contact me about a child who needs protection.

Missouri’s on-again off-again Halloween restrictions on sex offenders is back on again.

The Missouri legislature passed a law affecting registered sex offenders on Halloween.  Missouri sex offenders must:

• stay in their homes from 5:00 until 10:30 pm,
• turn off all outside lighting, and
• post signs saying, “No candy or treats at this residence.”

The law applies retroactively to sex offenders who registered prior to its passage.   A federal court issued an injunction preventing the law from applying retroactively.  Yesterday, though, a federal appellate court overruled the injunction, allowing the law to protect trick-or-treaters tonight.

This week I accompanied a teen with Asperger’s into a police interrogation.  (Asperger’s is on the autism spectrum.)  He wasn’t accused of anything. He was the victim. A peer had sexually assaulted him the restroom.

Because of his Asperger’s, he could explain literally exactly what happened to him; but, he could not identify the perpetrator from a photo lineup. Of course, that’s exactly why the perpetrator chose him as a victim. He knew he could get away with it.

Children with special needs can become easy prey. They can be especially vulnerable in unsupervised settings such as the restroom, or unstructured settings such as passing periods or the cafeteria. For that reason, you could demand at an IEP meeting that your child with a disability be accompanied by a para in these risky situations.

Our clients hire us to rescue their children from the foster care system. We work to reunite children with their own parents, and also with grandparents, aunts and uncles, or even family friend. If you love a child in need of care, you should take note of a new study on the long term results of foster care.

Many foster families provide excellent care. Nonetheless, a new study concludes that children on the margins of needing intervention tend to have better outcomes when they remain at home, especially for older children. Children who are removed from their homes face higher delinquency rates, teen birth rates and lower earnings.

These results add credence to recent efforts to keep children in their own families. Even when their families are marginal, their children fare better in their own home instead of in foster homes.

Over 2 million children are investigated for abuse and neglect in the United States each year. About half of those are found to have been abused. Approximately 10 percent of the abused children are removed from their families.

Currently over 500,000 children reside in foster homes. About 60 percent of those return home; 15 percent are adopted; and the remainder age out of the system when they turn 18. The average amount of time spent in foster care is about two years.

Abused children are three times more likely to die in childhood, with about 1,400 child deaths each year attributed to child abuse. Children withdrawn from their families are more likely to commit crimes, drop out of school, join welfare, abuse drugs and alcohol, and become homeless.

Nearly 20 percent of young prison inmates and 28 percent of homeless individuals spent some of their youth in the foster system. Of children who turn 18 years old while in the system, two thirds of the boys and half of the girls had a history of delinquency.

Federal and state laws encourage preserving children in their own families. Before removing a child from a family home, the state must prove that reasonable efforts to prevent the removal were tried and failed. They also must prove that leaving the child in the family’s home would be contrary to the child’s welfare.

However, in practice many children are removed from their family homes anyway.

The research by MIT economics professor Joseph J. Doyle studied 15,000 children who had been reported for abuse and neglect. The study did not include children who were subject to drug use or severe physical or sexual abuse. Those children would have required removal from their families regardless of its trauma. For the remainder of the children, the ones who stayed in their own families did better in their adult lives than the children placed in foster care.

We help our clients recover their children from foster care by lobbying the social service agencies before we get to court. We have found that intense out of court advocacy succeeds better than courtroom tactics alone. Combining sophisticated advocacy both in and out of court helps children avoid the long term negatives associated with the child welfare system.

We have also found success in preventing foster care in the first place by using guardianship and other private actions. For example, in Kansas we can file a private child in need of care action to keep your child with your family.

If you need to rescue a child from foster care, you need to act promptly. Start now by using the free resources available at our web site, www.yourchild1st.com.

I found this one and a half minute video by NAPCAN, Australia’s National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. Let your influence on children be positive.