Marian Wright Edelman: Children Need Better Protection from Abuse and Neglect
In January 2008, four sisters were found dead in their southeast Washington, D.C. home. The girls, ages 5, 6, 11 and 17, had been murdered by their mother, Banita Jacks, months earlier. She was recently convicted and sentenced to 120 years in prison. None of the District of Columbia’s social service agencies or the police intervened to save the girls despite some alarming signs that they were in great peril. The Jacks case is by no means isolated.
U of I experts to aid state in evaluating child abuse | The Des Moines Register
In the wake of a series of serious injuries and deaths of children who were previously abused, Iowa’s Department of Human Services has contracted with University of Iowa Hospitals to use a variety of medical experts to better evaluate cases of suspected child abuse.
‘Cookie-cutter’ plan failed child in abuse case | The Columbus Dispatch
The case file contained standard recommendations: To be reunited with her son, Franklin County Children Services said, the abusive mother should attend parenting classes, maintain an appropriate living environment and visit the boy at least once a week.
But that plan – one often written in child-abuse and neglect cases – did not fit the reality of the child’s life.
L.A. County will no longer strive to reunite families – latimes.com
Los Angeles County has suspended a long-standing effort to reduce the number of children in foster homes because keeping more of the children with their birth families could be unsafe, the county’s top child-welfare official said.
Children on Medicaid Found More Likely to Get Antipsychotics – NYTimes.com
New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.
Texas plan to hire abuse investigators struggles | AP | Houston Chronicle
Texas’ plan to hire hundreds of child abuse investigators with law enforcement backgrounds was designed to save children and improve investigative techniques throughout the ranks of Child Protection Services caseworkers.
But four years later, hundreds of the “special investigators” have left the agency amid complaints of culture clash and ineffectiveness, and one-third of the positions are vacant.
BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | Dismissed Baby P chief ‘suicidal’
The director of children’s services who lost her job over the Baby Peter case has been left financially ruined and suicidal, the High Court has heard.
Sharon Shoesmith argues she was treated unfairly and illegally when removed from her Haringey Council post on the children’s secretary’s instructions.