34 results for tag: Foster Care
70% of Child Prostitutes are Foster Children
According to FBI agent Gregory Christopher--who was recently named the State/Federal Law Enforcement Officer of the Year--"about 70 percent" of child prostitutes in the Tampa area are foster children.
"A lot of these kids are foster kids, runaway kids. There's not a lot of people looking out for them. I'd say about 70 percent or so are foster kids."
Last year, 22 children were removed from their pimps in Hillsborough and Pinellas county Florida. According to Christopher, "I have no doubt there's a lot more out there. I get at least two or three leads a week. We can't act on everything. There's no way."
For the complete interview of Agent Christop...
Sex Offenders Penetrate Foster Homes
A Kentucky audit discovered at least 12 instances of children living or being cared for in state-regulated homes where sex offenders lived. The report, released last week by the Kentucky state auditor, compared the addresses of registered sex offenders with those of foster homes; the residences of other children under state care; and homes that provide state-subsidized day care for low-income families.
The addresses of registered sex offenders were compared through an electronic data match to the addresses of homes and facilities that provide care and out-of-home placements for children, resulting in matches for 30 different homes. Follow-up reviews ...
NYTimes: Child’s Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young
Now just imagine if this child were in foster care (a topic I have written about frequently on this blog).
At 18 months, Kyle Warren started taking a daily antipsychotic drug on the orders of a pediatrician trying to quell the boy’s severe temper tantrums.
Thus began a troubled toddler’s journey from one doctor to another, from one diagnosis to another, involving even more drugs. Autism, bipolar disorder, hyperactivity, insomnia, oppositional defiant disorder. The boy’s daily pill regimen multiplied: the antipsychotic Risperdal, the antidepressant Prozac, two sleeping medicines and one for attention-deficit disorder. All by the ...
The Rights of Foster Children – legal update
Appellate decisions regarding foster care are rare and decisions that focus on foster children are rarer still. So when two decisions appear in the space of about a week they deserve some commentary. One is from the Maryland Court of Appeals, Maryland's highest court, and addresses an issue of great interest: under what circumstances and to what extent does a foster child's attachment to foster parents impact the rights of the biological parents when such parents are confronting the termination of their parental rights? The other case, from the New York Appellate Division, also addresses an issue of interest: can foster children sue foster parents ...
Wrongful Death of Children in Foster Care
The first law review article on the topic of wrongful death of children in foster care has just been published. It is co-authored by Daniel Pollack, Professor at the School of Social Work at Yeshiva University in New York City and a frequent expert witness in child welfare lawsuits, and Gary Popham, Jr., an attorney in Arizona. For a PDF of the article please contact Professor Pollack.
For more articles on ChildLaw by Professor Pollack click here.
ASFA Failure – Only 71 Interstate Adoptions Last Year
This just in from blogger Jeff Katz of the Huffington Post:
The simple fact is that it is virtually impossible to adopt a foster child across state lines in the United States.
In the most recent year for which we have data, states reported that only 71 children in the entire country were adopted from foster care across state lines by non-relatives.
Why is interstate adoption so rare? The primary reason is that we do not have a national adoption system. Instead, we have 50 different child welfare systems, each with its own process for adoption eligibility, recruitment, approval, and training.
Even worse, our current system has created profound ...
Big Pharma: if you can’t treat ’em then drug ’em
Powerful mood-altering drugs were prescribed to hundreds of Illinois foster children without the required consent of state child welfare officials, a Chicago Tribune analysis of government data has found.
And increasing numbers of young wards were diagnosed with bipolar disorder and given a class of anti-psychotic medicines that some physicians consider risky for youths because they can cause such side effects as metabolic abnormalities and pronounced weight gain.
Psychiatrist Michael Naylor, MD, who reviews psychotropic medicine regimens for DCFS, said that he worries that "marketing efforts" by pharmaceutical companies are driving increasing ...