Foster children who participate in their court proceedings gain a sense of control and ownership.  They may  better understand the process.  The court gains valuable insight by engaging youth in solving their own problems.

Yesterday I attended a presentation in Lawrence, Kansas by the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law .  Their Youth Empowerment Project tries to involve foster children more actively in their court proceedings.

Courts must consult with foster children according to the federal Child and Family Service Improvement Act of 2006.  In Kansas, foster children are recognized parties in their court proceedings.  Nonetheless, sometimes matters arise in court which could inappropriately disturb young children.

Children are required to attend their juvenile offender hearings.  In custody litigation, children usually do not attend their trials.  Instead, judges use other means to solicit the preferences of children, such as custody evaluations and CASA reports.  Some judges will interview children in private chambers with only the lawyers present.

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.

The international operator asked if I would accept a collect call from Carmen from Mexico.  “Si,” I answered.

Carmen had been my client four years ago.  She lost her teenage daughter to foster care.  Carmen completed her six month reintegration in only four months.  To recover her daughter, she needed only to complete family therapy, which the state never provided.

We argued for months for the state to allow the family therapy to commence.  Finally, the state relented.  Carmen had only one session with her daughter, though.  Before the next session, someone called immigration enforcement and had Carmen deported back to Mexico.

That was years ago.  Now, Carmen was telling me that her daughter had run away.  Her daughter had been living with a Kansas foster family for the past year and a half.  She had been calling Carmen every Sunday until last week.  Now she couldn’t be found.

I told Carmen that I would investigate.  I called the foster family.  They were generous people who had given Carmen’s daughter every opportunity.  Her daughter had graduated from high school with top grades.  She was scheduled for a promotion at work.  She had plans to become an American citizen and study engineering at college.

But then she met a boyfriend, a “novio.”  Her novio had been in and out of jail, had been deported and returned.  We suspect that her daughter might be running with her novio.  I am worried that as a seventeen year old Mexican girl, she could be trafficked to the sex or drug industries.

I exchanged contact information with the foster family.  I also called the foster care case manager.  Perhaps I can help by relaying any information I receive from Carmen in Mexico.  Her daughter might be headed that direction.  The foster family also promised to keep me informed so I can tell Carmen.  If I hear any news, good or bad, I’ll let you know on this blog.

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.

Nebraska remains the only state to allow parents legally to abandon teens at hospitals.  The number of abandoned children has almost tripled to about a three a week as Nebraska legislators rush to change the law.

All states permit parents to leave newborns at safe places.  These “safe haven” or “Baby Moses” laws prevent parents from abandoning their babies in dumpsters or doorsteps.

When Nebraska passed its safe haven law last July, legislators could not agree on an age limit for abandoned children.  So they passed a law that applied to “children” of any age.

Since then, more than half of the 31 children legally abandoned have been teenagers.  On Thursday, authorities searched for a 14 year old boy and a 17 year old girl who ran from an Omaha hospital where they had been abandoned by their mother.

A deeper question would address the social and economic pressures that lead parents to abandon their children in the first place.

Kansas permits babies legally to be relinquished up to 45 days after birth.  Missouri allows safe haven up to one year.  Restrictions apply, including who may abandon, where the children may be left, and other conditions.

Last year I posted a poem from a foster child.  I have been worried about her for months.  She ran away in July.  She used to call me while she was on the run.  This time she didn’t…

…until Thursday night.  I was driving with my family to a Kansas University women’s volleyball game.  She called me out of the blue.  I was thrilled to hear that she was still alive!

Yesterday I visited her for several hours in a Mental Health facility.  She was detoxing from multiple drugs– both street drugs and abusive amounts of prescription drugs.  She said that she had not slept in a week.  I believe her, because she kept dozing off for a few seconds at a time while we met.

She said that she doesn’t want to stay in the “system” anymore.  She has been a foster child nearly her entire life.  I told her that she can’t live on the streets anymore.  She is a cute, young girl.  There are people who want to make lots of money using her.  I told her to avoid them, and to stay with people who consider her priceless instead.

I will work in the coming weeks to get her transferred to a place that is safe and appropriate for her.  She enjoys the outdoors; so, I might advocate for her to be placed in a wilderness rehabilitation program.  I’ll let you know on this blog what we find for her.

She would appreciate your comments in her support.  Any encouragement you give her could help to keep her alive.  If you post your comment to this blog, I’ll make sure she sees it.  Thank you!

I just returned from a trial for termination of parental rights.  The child is a one year old girl.  Her father has been absent most of her life.  Her mother is recovering from addiction to drugs.

My client is the child’s maternal grandmother.  We hope that the state will allow the grandmother to adopt her grandchild.  To help that happen, the mother voluntarily relinquished her parental rights.

Nothing can be as emotional as a mother relinquishing her parental rights to her child.  Whatever mistakes she previously made, today the mother was brave and selfless in placing the needs of her child ahead of her own.  When she returned from presenting her relinquishment, she fell crying into the arms of her child’s grandmother.

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.

An ever increasing phenomenon that I have come across in my law practice is grandparents wanting to provide for their grandchildren. Grandparents come to me frustrated, confused, and broken because their grandchildren are in state custody and they are being forced to choose between their grandchild and their own child.

Unfortunately, many grandparents that I have encountered in my practice have faced resistance from state agencies when they have tried to take on the responsibility of raising their grandchildren because of a parents inability to do so. The reality is grandparents are often forced to choose between supporting their own child or caring for their grandchild. A choice that is far too often minimized by professionals in the child in need of care system.

If grandparents choose to support their own child they are accused of enabling. Grandparents are very often faulted for their own child’s poor choices. Faced with these obstacles despite Kansas state law and family service policy and procedure manuals requiring state agencies and their contractors to turn to family first, grandparents wishing to be considered as a resource option are far too often snubbed. Social workers tend to rationalize that a grandparents alleged enabling behavior will continue in their rearing of their grandchild and the “mistakes” the grandparents made in raising their own child will be made again this time around.

If grandparents decide to support their own child in hopes of helping him/her recover from his/her own current plight and get him/her into a position where he/she is able to raise his/her own child, grandparents are often condemned. The best chance that these parents have at recovery is when they turn to their support network for help, their family. Social workers assigned to these parents are often overworked and underpaid and do not have the time, energy, or commitment to offer these parents the support they need to fully recover. But if grandparents offer their child support and that parent subsequently fails and does not successfully recover or does not recover quick enough and the court system finds the parent to be “unfit” the grandparents loose their grandchild to the state.

If a grandparent cuts their own child off they are heartless, and they risk losing him or her. If they support their child they are “unfit” to raise their own grandchild. This phenomenon that grandparents face is far too often minimized and most be more thoughtfully considered by social workers when making placement decisions.

This video uses photos, music, posters and poems to bring attention to the reality of child abuse. Warning: Some of the photos show disturbing images of children with injuries.