Child Welfare Becoming 'Kinder and Gentler'?

Bet this is ruffling the feathers of child abuse propaganda machines!

Child welfare changes look positive
Under new method, families say they feel like they are getting help instead of blame.


By Josh Sweigart, Staff Writer
Updated 9:51 PM Tuesday, October 12, 2010

SPRINGFIELD — Clark County is leading a national study on how a kinder, gentler children services agency can lead to healthier families and safer children.

Incredible, so I take this is as an admission to children services being 'mean' and 'rough'.  That's child abuse.

Early results are positive. After 21/2 years of using this new approach, local children services officials say they’re seeing less recidivism, fewer children placed in foster homes and safer kids.

And that means less foster parents will be needed with less children aging out the system to a dismal future.

“This is where the federal government is headed in terms of child welfare,” said Clark County Job and Family Services Deputy Director Cathy Appel.

The funding structures are finally shifting.

But first, the feds want more data. So they’re paying for studies in Ohio, Colorado and Illinois.
Clark County commissioners Tuesday approved a $516,666 federal grant for the study, which will look at the children services model known as alternative response. Clark County will lead the yearlong, six-county study in Ohio. Champaign and Montgomery counties will also be included.

The theory is simple. Instead of coming into someone’s home and assigning blame, caseworkers ask the family what services they can bring to help. Then they respond with counseling, financial help and other services.

Cheaper with greater results.

“This is all about having relationships with families and instead of playing the blame game,” Appel said. “It’s about building relationships and saying what do we have to do to partner together.”

It's about busting up the imperialistic morality parade.

The new approach is only used in cases that aren’t likely to lead to prosecution, she said.

What will CASA do now?  Probably launch a campaign against this.

While it’s too early to produce local data from this study, statewide studies have shown families respond better to alternative response than traditional methods, caseworkers enjoy their work more and children were significantly less likely to be suspected victims of further abuse and half as likely to end up in foster placement.

Stefania Falke, supervisor of the program in Clark County, said families feel like they’re getting help under the new method instead of punishment.

“We’ve had families call and thank us,” she said.

I send my gratitude, also.

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The Educational Restructuring of Child Welfare

Oh dear, it seems there is much activity at the federal level on "amending" the current structures of the nation's child welfare philosophies.

Not since the introduction of the factory school model did we have any movement to invest in family and community to generate the best interests of society.

The factory school model is exactly what it is.  It is a model to give just enough education for a public school child (mainly designed for the inner city) to learn the basic skills to go and work in a factory.  It was the dumbing down of America.

The factory school model also came with a disciplinarian component.  Not corporal punishment of the child, but a discipline far more severe, moral discipline for the parent as a result of the removal of opportunity barriers and the enfranchisement for political participation.

Complete with the destruction of independent thought, the model was quickly adapted to form the child protection model.

During the 1960s and 1970s, these newly developing social service channels motivated the public to begin reporting suspected abuse. David Gil’s 1965 public opinion poll revealed that although only 23 percent of respondents said that they would report families they suspected of being involved in child maltreatment to the police, 45 percent said they would report such suspicions to social service agencies.⁹ The increase in formalized channels for reporting helped to build the field of child maltreatment prevention as a scientific and applied endeavor. It also advanced the professionalization of practitioners working with children and families affected by maltreatment. The focus of these systems, however, was on responding to reports of maltreatment, rather than on prevention.

And the State to make it first to the front of the uncapped federal funding handout line was...

Michigan, the automobile manufacturer of the world.

I could go on, but I already covered this in detail in my book.  

The interesting piece to this restructuring child welfare puzzle is not many people are catching the funding issues.  This is a Medicaid funded project.  This is the expansion of Medicaid, a singular funding source for community health.

S. 3769 To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to promote  family and community engage...

Have Child Abuse Data Been Manipulated?

Is this actually fraud?

 

No, this is not exactly fraud as she refused to do the deed, but it should raise serious questions into the operations of the administration.  Otherwise, it is an only an allegation without substantiation.

 

Perhaps, this is an indicator of potential fraudulent activity.  She said she did not engage in the generation of false reporting.  This only means there is no evidence of fraud, unless there is an investigation. 

 

Is this an indicator of false claims?  Absolutely.

 

Here we have a national skewing of statistical information in child abuse databases and it looks, once again, that no one will be held accountable and there will be no transparency, meaning external audits on the operations of the child placing agency.

If she was knowledgeable, she would have filed a whistleblower suit. Unfortunately, all you have is speculation and allegations which remain unsubstantiated.  This is why I call for more individuals in the legal profession to step up to the plate and embark on the journey of mastering this emerging market of the child industry and its regulation.

If Congress will not provide for checks and balances in the child industry, then I will.

Allegation claims Child Haven numbers falsified

A former Clark County child welfare administrator charges she was ordered to lie about the number of children at Child Haven to make it appear the county’s Family Services Department was doing a better job of placing children into foster care.

Teresa Medina said she quit her $65,000-a-year job because “I was asked to falsify documents relating to the time children arrived to the center and when they were pushed out into foster care,” she wrote in an e-mail to County Manager Virginia Valentine after she resigned.

“I was afraid of what I’d be asked to do next, what I’d be asked to lie about next,” she added, blaming Family Services Director Tom Morton for creating an “illusion that things are better for Clark County children.”...more