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Foster Care Population Drops Again (August 31, 2010) by Patrick Boyle Youth Today New federal data indicate that child welfare reforms are drastically reducing the nation’s foster care population, which fell by 8 percent from 2008 to 2009 and by more than 20 percent since 2002. There were 423,773 children in foster care at the end of fiscal 2009 (September 2009) – down from about 460,000 a year earlier and from more than 540,000 a decade ago, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (A year-by-year chart is here.) Child welfare experts attribute the decline to state and federal reforms aimed at preventing abuse and neglect, keeping children in their homes, placing more children in kinship care, and more quickly reunifying youths with their families after removal from home or permanently placing them for adoption. “All these efforts combined have really made an impact,” said Terri Braxton, vice president of the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA). “It’s a combination of legislation, wonderful practices and research, and people now doing what they know works.” Child welfare advocate Richard Wexler, who is routinely at odds with the CWLA, agreed that much of the decline is due to welcomed changes in child welfare practice. “Most encouraging is the fact that, once again, a lot of the decline is being driven by a decline in the number of children taken from their parents in the first place,” said Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. The foster care population has been dropping since hitting 523,000 in 2002 (save a slight uptick in 2005), according to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), which is maintained by the Administration for Children and Families.  Among the reasons for the overall decline from 2008 to 2009, according to AFCARS data: * Fewer youths entering the system – 255,000, compared with 274,000. * More youths adopted – 57,000, compared with 55,000. * Fewer terminations of parental rights – 70,000, compared with 79,000.  “The bad news,” Wexler said, “is that there still are far too many children taken and far too many trapped in foster care.”

FDA looks to curb abuse of cough medicine By MATTHEW PERRONE, AP Business Writer  August 31, 2010 WASHINGTON – Federal health regulators are weighing restrictions on Robitussin, NyQuil and other cough suppressants to curb cases of abuse that send thousands of people to the hospital each year. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday posted its review of dextromethorphan, an ingredient found in more than 100 over-the-counter medications that is sometimes abused for its euphoric effects. The practice, dubbed "robotripping," involves taking more than 25 times the recommended dose of a cold medicine and is mainly associated with teenagers.  FULL STORY

Public called to prevent child abuse Updated: 05:35, Wednesday September 1, 2010 Sky News Australia- An alarming new study has found only one-third of Australians would call police if a child told them they were being sexually abused. But most of the 22 thousand people surveyed by the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect believe child abuse is a serious issue. NAPCAN chief Rosanna Martinello says she's shocked by the findings with 33 thousand Australian children (allegedly) abused or neglected each year. She says participants were given three scenarios and less than half said they'd definitely act to protect the child by ringing protection authorities or police. The study results have been released ahead of National Child Protection Week which begins this Sunday on Father's Day. Perhaps they are sick and tired of the insane witch hunt.  Is it possible that an "abused child" is in less danger where they are at than in government custody? "As many as 75 percent of all children in foster care, upon leaving the system, will have experienced sexual abuse.  One study by Johns Hopkins University found that the rate of sexual abuse within the foster-care system is more than four times as high as in the general population; in group homes, the rate of sexual abuse is more than 28 times that of the general population." --Sexual Abuse: An Epidemic in Foster Care Settings? By Orlow, Orlow & Orlow July 17, 2009

August 31, 2010 Doctor in child abuse trial refutes Shaken Baby Syndrome Published: 1:00 PM, 08/31/2010 Last updated: 1:00 PM, 08/31/2010 Author: Gilbert Soesbee Source: The Newport Plain Talk NEWPORT, Tennessee- A neurosurgeon called by the defense in the child abuse trial of a Jefferson City man in Cocke County Circuit Court said Monday that "Shaken Baby Syndrome" does not exist. Clinical Neurosurgeon Dr. Ronald Uscinski, who was called as an expert witness on the fourth day of the trial by the attorney representing Joshua Isham Henegar, told the criminal court jury that Shaken Baby Syndrome, as it is currently diagnosed, "defies the laws of physics" and cannot occur. For more details, please see (subscribe to) the latest edition of The Newport Plain Talk. I and numerous others have maintained for many years that it is impossible to SHAKE a baby hard enough to cause the injuries alleged.  It is much more likely to be VACCINE caused.  Much easier to blame the young, dumb parents.  See one of the earliest editorials I wrote on that subject. Nonetheless, you DO NOT shake a baby.  Does absolutely no good. See my old fatherly advice- New (First Time) Parent?

State hotline taking all child abuse reports August 31, 2010 Post-Tribune staff report Effective Monday, all reports of child abuse and neglect in the state will be taken by the Indiana Child Abuse Hotline Network at  (800) 800-5556. Lake County is the last to transition to the system. Reports will not be accepted at the local level in person or by telephone or fax. Callers reporting child abuse and neglect will provide the information to a case manager who has been trained to take such calls. All reports will be evaluated to determine if they meet legal sufficiency for assessment*, officials said. Reports will then be routed to the Lake Division of Children's Services office where they will be assigned to a case manager. *Do you suppose they are going to try to filter out the EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT (85%) of all calls that are false allegations?  Won't that massively cut down on the number of state kidnappings?  Maybe the Federal Perverse Incentive funding is disappearing?

Foster mom charged with felony child endangerment August 31, 2010, 02:34 AM By Michelle Durand Daily Journal Staff A 65-year-old South San Francisco woman wrapped her 20-month-old foster daughter in bleach-soaked diapers, leaving the girl with first- and second-degree burns on her backside, according to prosecutors who charged her with felony child endangerment. Patricia Ann Moore was arrested Aug. 27 after her adult daughter brought the toddler to the South San Francisco Kaiser Medical Center for care. Moore allegedly told authorities she had bathed the toddler in water mixed with a cup of bleach to clean her often-soiled buttocks but couldn’t explain why the girl then didn’t have burns on other parts of her body that would have been submerged, such as her legs. Moore posted $50,000 bail about eight hours after her arrest and will appear in court Oct. 4 on the single count of willful cruelty to a child likely to produce great bodily injury, said Assistant District Attorney Karen Guidotti. The endangerment charge means a person is accused of acting negligently in a way that is likely to result in physical injury or death rather than acting more knowingly, such as a deliberate blow. The charge carries up to five years in prison, Guidotti said. HOW DARE THEY ACCUSE A FOSTER!  Everybody knows that fosters are the smartest humans on earth (second only to CPS agents).  They are the PARENTING EXPERTS- the PAID PROFESSIONALS, and their actions MUST be above question!

Not a parenting tip- Police: Salem man hid stolen pills in baby's diaper Daily Herald Daily Herald | Posted: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 12:00 am  SALEM, Utah -- A Salem man was arrested Friday after he allegedly concealed stolen pills in his baby’s diaper. According to a police affidavit, Austin M. Bennett, 29, was seen on a video camera removing a box of sleeping pills and placing them in his shopping cart. He then paid for the items in his shopping cart and passed all points of sale. However, when a clerk held Bennett’s baby for him, the clerk reportedly found the sleeping pills in the manufacturer’s packaging inside the baby’s diaper. Bennett was arrested on a charge of retail theft, a third-degree, felony because Bennett has three previous convictions.

Foster parents have right to fair reimbursement, court rules August 30, 2010 | 1:16 pm LA Now California- Foster parents have a legal right to compensation for the actual cost of providing children with housing, food, clothing and other care required by the state, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the state was violating the Child Welfare Act by failing to adequately compensate foster parents caring for about 13,000 wards of the state of California. The court last year found the state similarly remiss in its reimbursements to institutions that care for the majority of California's 90,000 foster children. Average monthly compensation by the California Department of Social Services is about $520, while the costs for care and services specified by the state run well over $900 a month on average, said Marc Peters, a Palo Alto lawyer who represented the foster parents in their suit. The ruling doesn't have the power to compel the state to change its compensation formula, Peters said. But it should put pressure on the state to correct the deficiencies or face possible loss of federal funds that augment the state payments, Peters said.  FULL STORY Considering how many kids get kidnapped from "Good Enough Homes" just because of poverty, it looks like the insane socialist scheme that CPS is- is crashing and going up in flames.  "The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money" --Margaret Thatcher

Published August 30 2010 North Dakota takes updated approach to foster care State aims to keep families together By: Andi Murphy, INFORUM North Dakota is at the forefront of a new trend in the way foster care is administered: Don’t put children in foster care. The idea is to help families help themselves so they can keep their children, rather than having a judge order them into the foster care system. When children stay with their families, they typically do better in school, and the odds of them aging out of the foster care system and struggling with adult life – free of the assistance they received before – are diminished, said Gary Wolsky, president and CEO of The Village Family Service Center in Fargo. “The problems get costlier to fix if left untended,” Wolsky said. “Prevention is always cheaper.” The effort could save taxpayers a bundle because it’s more expensive to put a child through foster care than it is to help the whole family, Wolsky said. The family preservation initiative has also grabbed the attention of some North Dakota lawmakers, who say they hope to see the idea take off in the state. “In the long run, I think it will cost us less money,” said Sen. Judy Lee, R-West Fargo.  FULL STORY Somewhere along the line this past week, I picked up a new soundbyte- "Good Enough Families".  I highly doubt there is such a thing as Perfect Families.  But the record is complete against CPS kidnapping kids and interring them in foster carceration or "residential care".

Originally Published: 8/30/2010 About dependency court ReadingEagle.com Pennsylvania- What is dependency court? A branch of juvenile court in which a judge decides if a child will be placed in the custody of courts. Why is it in the news? Pennsylvania laws now require caseworkers to make an all-out effort to place children with parents or relatives instead of in foster care. As a result, Berks taxpayers paid $2 million less for child services from 2005 to 2009. The number of cases in dependency court has been reduced by almost 49 percent, to 301 in 2009 from 587 in 2005.  FULL STORY Which oddly enough is exactly what the LAW has said was supposed to be happening all along- The Federal LAW says- 42 U.S.C. § 671 (a) (15) Reasonable Efforts and 42 U.S.C. § 671 (a) (19) Relative Placement

"HHS is the largest line item in the federal budget at over 700-billion last year, much of the expense going towards weakening the marriage market or attempting to Humpty-Dumpty the downstream wreckage."  --David R. Usher September 7, 2008

quisling [kwiz-ling] –noun a person who betrays his or her own country by aiding an invading enemy,  often serving later in a puppet government; fifth columnist. Origin: 1940;  after Vidkun Quisling  (1887–1945), pro-Nazi Norwegian leader Sound like your CPS witch?

What fuels fraud? Classic reasons underlie most embezzlement cases By DAVE STEPHENS South Bend Tribune Staff Writer August 30. 2010 6:59AM Imagine a triangle. One side is pressure. Another is opportunity. The third is rationalization. It's called the fraud triangle, and the way it explains embezzlement is uncanny. They left out a major reason- No Ethics to begin with- Humanist Manifesto II, 1973-   Ethics THIRD: We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life. Human life has meaning because we create and develop our futures. Happiness and the creative realization of human needs and desires, individually and in shared enjoyment, are continuous themes of humanism. We strive for the good life, here and now.

AFRA EDITORIALS By Leonard Henderson August 29, 2010 Do I need a lawyer to fight CPS?

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