Before delving into the child welfare news of the past week, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the horror of the war going on in Israel, pray for peace, and especially pray for those affected by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad attacks against civilians, which included gunning down hundreds of concertgoers and kidnapping children to be used as human shields. Forgive my editorializing for a moment, but if the people of Gaza are ever to be free, they are going to have to reject Hamas and reject being used as pawns by Iran’s proxies. The International Red Cross has a webinar coming up on October 31 to discuss protecting children during urban warfare. It may be tragically timely.
Following more criticism of failures in Illinois’ DCFS, Director Marc Smith is stepping down at the end of the year.
This article out of Kansas highlights the need for greater transparency in the child protection process. While there’s been news coverage of the death of five-year-old Zoey Felix indicating a significant history with child protective services, the agency says it is barred by confidentiality rules from talking about the case. Transparency legislation introduced two years ago would have addressed that issue and would have given the public better insight into Zoey’s tragic situation.
A retired juvenile court judge in Massachusetts is, likewise, calling for greater transparency in the child protection process in this excellent column.
When children find themselves in foster care in foreign country due to parental death, deportation, or incapacity, foster care officials have a duty to work toward reuniting those children with parents or family in the country of origin. Here’s a very interesting article discussing the problem of children from India who are in foster care abroad.
With a nationwide shortage of foster homes, I’m interested in this new approach that Oklahoma is adopting: the Mockingbird foster home model. It’s designed to ensure foster parents and children are well-supported through all stages of child welfare. I’m surprised I haven’t heard about it before now. The key to addressing the foster care crisis isn’t more recruitment drives; rather, it’s supporting, mentoring, and caring for the foster parents you have and giving them the resources they need so they don’t walk away, as 30-50% of foster parents do every year.
Here’s another innovative idea: peer mentors for youth who have aged out of care and who are attending college.
Reports from New Mexico are sounding the alarm over deterioration of the State’s child protection system, especially in the area of mental health care for children and youth with complex needs.
A South Carolina federal court has ruled that a Christian foster agency can limit its panel of foster parents to individuals or families who share its beliefs.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently took steps to ensure that children on Medicaid or participating in CHIP have continuous coverage for 12 months.
Naomi Schaefer Riley hits hard on a juvenile court judge whose ideology, she opines, took precedence over the safety of a severely abused infant.
In Alabama, the foster agency Kids to Love is battling the State DHR, which had suspended referrals to the agency.
Iowa is looking to improve its continuum of mental health services for children in response to a class action lawsuit.
Please excuse the lawyer joke here, but is this piece encouraging child maltreatment?
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