Here’s the latest child welfare news!
I’ve been following the case of Elijah Vue, the three-year old who disappeared after his mother sent him to be “disciplined” — abused and degraded — by Jesse Vang, a man with whom she had a relationship. Elijah has been missing for a month, and chances of finding him safe are decreasing rapidly. I had lumped his mother, Katrina Baur, in with other terrible people, but this article gave me a bit of a pause. As it turns out, it appears Ms. Baur is or was herself a sex trafficking victim who “belonged” to the child’s criminal biological father, Jimmy Vue. It also appears Vue is or was Vang’s boss in the criminal gang involved. So while I can’t excuse Ms. Baur for her abuse and neglect of Elijah, I am reminded that this poor child was born into tragic circumstances over which his mother may have had little control
Advocates for family preservation are having a field day following a ProPublica article on Diane Baird, who often testifies in favor of foster parents in dependency and termination of parental rights cases on the attachments that have formed between child and caregivers as well as the dangers of disrupting those attachments by placing the child with relatives. “Expert in Foster Care Cases Admits Her Method Is Unscientific,” reads the headline.
Whatever fault might be found with Baird’s particular approach, the problem is that the article falsely suggests that attachment theory is itself unscientific. The importance to children of secure, stable attachments has been demonstrated over many years by many researchers. It’s true that in determining the best long-term placement for a child in need of permanence, courts need to weigh the child’s existing attachments (to foster caregivers, relatives, and birth parents) in determining the child’s needs. Removing a child from the family home is traumatic, as is removing a child from a substitute caregiver to whom they have become attached. To reject the value of attachment entirely, however, is foolish.
At Atlanta’s 11 Alive, Rebecca Lindstrom has a fascinating story about a child diagnosed as abused by child abuse pediatricians. It was only after the family was able to get an independent medical examination in Boston that an underlying genetic condition was found to explain the child’s bruises.
As a growing number of states “re-open” the limitations period for child sex abuse victims to file claims against their abusers, the Louisiana Supreme Court has found that state’s efforts to do so unconstitutional.
Three years after Colorado stopped requiring hospitals to report prenatal drug exposure in newborns unless there’s documented evidence of harm to the child, such reports are — unsurprisingly — down 25%. The rationale for the change seems to have been that if expectant mothers are using drugs, they won’t seek prenatal care if they believe they will be reported to authorities. I’m not sure I follow the logic.
In Syracuse, New York, the child protective system appears to have utterly failed DeGonzaque, an 11-year-old who died from a drug overdose in a feces-infested drug den on March 7, 2024. Police had been called to the home over 50 times in the prior year. There were supposedly multiple agencies “looking out” for the child, who was living with a severely impaired drug addict. The agency’s response to the death has been to fire a case manager and a supervisor.
Catch up on the discussions around the proper approaches to children with gender identity issues. (1) Wall Street Journal on gender ideology in foster care; and (2) France and the UK are moving away from prescribing puberty blocker, hormones, and other medical responses to children’s identity issues.
Thanks for reading!
Child abuse pediatricians are notorious for disregarding the diagnoses of children with rare diseases. Countless families have been destroyed by it and the rare disease community is very wary of child abuse pediatricians for this reason.