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mimzy-writing-online · 5 years ago

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In my Creative Writing class, I wrote a scene where the protagonist is being dropped off at an orphanage. The orphanage I set up was ugly and dark, and the head mistress was a mean, horrible lady. One of my peers that reviewed it warned that this is a cliche. Is that true? I don't mind changing it, but the thing is my orphan boy will be adopted by a wonderful man and finally have a home he truly belongs to. How can I create a need to belong without being trite or cliche? Am I better off

anon continued: making the orphanage a good place? I want to build up to the fact this boy will finally find a loving family and home.

My answer: You should change your setting, but it’s very possible for you to maintain that it’s an unpleasant experience that sets a strong contrast for the eventual loving family.

I recommend switching the setting to a group home. Group homes function similarly to the way orphanages did in the past.

Group homes are facilities attached to child protective services that are designed to house a large number of children in the foster care system at one time.

To do that, there will be a staff of child caregivers to manage the children. The caregivers work in shifts, so there will be a day shift, evening shift, and night shift. Meaning they work 8-9 hours a shift (the extra hour might be related to catching up the next shift on any new developments, such as a new child arrival).

There might also be a care worker or two specific to managing that group home who works with each child’s case worker. They would have day shifts, a normal 9-5 type consistency.

There will also be a manager for the group home who accounts for funding, financial decisions, staffing and schedules.

These facilities work with CPS and by extension the government. They get government funding and must meet state government established standards for quality of care, child-safety, and facility management/wellbeing.

Group homes usually stick to a specific demographic of children. Example: boys or girls group homes, only accepting children within specific age ranges (0-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-18) or group homes that are specific to children with special needs. And they have a set capacity, a number of beds they can fill at max. Set capacity varies on state laws. According to the Children’s Bureau (a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, average capacity is 4-12 children (source)

They are by far more humane than the media-presented image of an orphanage.

But that said, they can still be unpleasant.

For one, a group home isn’t a replacement for the love and care you get from an emotionally healthy family. The child is competing with several other children for attention and resources. Your character may develop an attachment to one or two of the caregivers, but the caregiver is not there all the time and their attention is stretched between multiple children.

There’s always a sense of temporariness. Children get placed with new families and new children take up the beds the same day. That’s not an exaggeration. The foster care system is overwhelmed by cases of children being removed from the home, so there is a high demand for foster families and group homes with open beds. As soon as there’s an opening, case workers are jumping to get one of their kids placed there.

It should be noted that CPS works hard to make sure that removing the child from the home is the last resort. To do this, they try to offer services to children in need, like helping parents apply for welfare if the issue is the child isn’t getting fed. Loving family, but parents who are struggling financially. Or helping connect families with finding therapy for special needs children.

The other children aren’t in a happy situation either. They’ve come from abusive or neglectful homes or have lost their loving parents. They’re living with unknown traumas and high emotions that are difficult to process. It can lead to acting out: temper tantrums, anger, trying to hurt themselves, all of which are stressful for the caregivers trying to calm the child and the children watching from the side lines. It can lead to bullying, hoarding of food or toys.

And in the defense of children who act out this way, because villainizing the bully is a cliche as well, those children aren’t acting out of some evil desire to hurt. They’re just in pain and they don’t know how to express their emotions fully, which leads them to the form of expression they’re most familiar with: what their parents did, or what they did in the past that has worked before.

Those children are the protagonists of their own story in a sense, they don’t fully understand that everyone around them has emotions they’re dealing with inside, or how their actions make others feel. The younger they are, the harder it is to understand the feelings of others and the consequences of their actions.

Which is why bullies apologize years later, when they’re old enough to understand that what they did and said hurt someone else, another person with their own complex emotions and experiences, realizing that they became someone else’s nightmares when they were too young to understand.

So, so far (recapping for my ADHD self, because tangents are a thing I struggle with)

Group homes can be painful experiences because: 1. Not enough love 2. Lack of stability 3. Other children acting out and being visibly distressed is a distressing thing to watch.

4. Group homes (and the foster care system in general) get a very limited amount of funding. I can’t speak for other countries and their social welfare programs, but America has a habit of cutting social welfare funding in favor of just about anything else.

So sometimes group homes have a few hidden, run down parts. Things that have fallen through the cracks because funding can’t take care of everything and they have to meet the bare minimum first.

Children are fed and clothed and the facility is clean, has running water, electricity and is heated. That’s the bare minimum. Smaller things slip through the cracks- like furniture is old and creaks and on the verge of breaking, there are rips in couch cushions, little holes dug in the wall or tiny graffiti hidden in corners and behind furniture where bored children tried to find something interesting to do. The bathroom pipe leaks so the floor is always wet. One of the bedrooms doesn’t get warm air, so there are extra blankets for that room.

They don’t make the place awful, it’s not the worst thing about living there, and for children who had hoarder or neglectful parents it’s a good deal better, but those are details that are pretty common.

5. Caregiver fatigue. Caregivers are wonderful people who put a lot of time and energy into caring for children, but it can wear down on their mental and emotional health. And they try their best to hide it, but children are sensitive to those things somehow, even if they don’t understand what it is they’re sensing.

It’s to be expected that you find a tired social worker who is late and harried from managing god-knows how many cases. Or caregivers who have a little less patience, but certainly aren’t cruel. There are so many sad cases they deal with every day and there’s never an end in sight, so they run the risk of caregiver fatigue or burn out.

They’re human, and they’re trying their best, but sometimes their job demands more than they have in that moment.

Also, it should be addressed that social workers are not paid enough, not anywhere near as much as they should be.

So it’s easy for a group home to be an unpleasant but not necessarily evil experience.

#writing community #writing advice #writeblr #writing #fanfiction #Anonymous

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cards-onthetable · 6 years ago

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An Education

Two foster care-related storylines in 3 episodes? I don’t have time for a full rant tonight so that may come tomorrow but first I’m going to just LET YOU ALL KNOW what we’re dealing with here. Here’s your little dose of foster care reality since the show does.not.care.

“You want to adopt that baby.” Sounds sweet, right? Wrong. Here’s what would happen if Jamie and Eddie tried to “adopt” this child who already has two parents:

Jamie and Eddie have to become certified foster parents. This process takes 60-90+ days and no, having the last name Reagan does not automatically jump them through all those hoops in 12 hours (I’m looking at you, ff.net writers). By this point, Annie has been in another home for months and realistically, she would not be moved just because Jamie and Eddie ~want~ her. Hello trauma and interrupted attachment!

But let’s say Annie did get placed with Jamie and Eddie.

Neither of her parents’ rights have been compromised. Therefore Annie will have court-ordered visitation with her dad, even if he’s incarcerated. Jamie and Eddie will spend 3 evenings a week transporting this infant to the jail (or to the foster care agency office, if the dad has been released) for visits.

Annie’s mom is in rehab - once Mom is at a point in her program where she can have family visitors, Jamko will be heading upstate for rehab visits, too. Since it’s a hike, maybe the judge will be nice and only mandate one visit per week. There go all of Jamko’s Saturdays.

A family court judge will set a “case plan” which will basically be “let Mom finish rehab, let Dad finish his jail sentence, and then we’ll re-evaluate.”

Let’s say Mom gets out of rehab. If she has stable housing, there’s a high chance the judge will immediately order Annie back into Mom’s custody since Mom was not involved in the incident that led to Annie entering foster care. Mom may not even have to prove extended sobriety - she could have her kid back 2 days after leaving rehab because it was not her drug use that put Annie in care (she’d just have to do regular drug tests according to her original court order, unrelated to child welfare). Bye-bye Annie!

Okay, but maybe Mom does not get custody for some reason. Nice! It’s looking good for Jamie and Eddie. Right?

Sure. They’re excited to keep going with all the foster care bullshit.

Like Annie’s third caseworker since entering foster care has just quit, so the new caseworker is coming over at 7am tomorrow to check things out. The new caseworker opens the fridge and gets mad that there’s no juice. “Toddlers need juice!” She says. Eddie explains that Annie had 3 cavities at her first dentist appointment, and they cut out juice to protect her teeth. The caseworker still notes “inadequate food in the home.” Jamie and Eddie forget about this until 2 months later, when they’re told they’re being investigated for failure to provide for their foster child’s needs. Another month after that, an inspector combs through every inch of their apartment and shrugs. “Looks fine to me.” Case closed. Eddie sleeps peacefully for the first time in a month.

Or like the time Jamie and Eddie came to pick up Annie from a visit with Mom at the foster agency. They get to the reception area but aren’t allowed into the huge, single room where all the visits take place at the same time. Cops come storming in and arrest an enraged bio father who has pulled out a pocketknife. Once he has been removed, they are allowed to dig their kid out from the supply closet where she was shut with 8 other kids for protection.

They also really enjoy continued visits to the prison, where their innocent toddler is always patted down invasively. A few times, after security breaches, security has asked Jamie and Eddie to open Annie’s diaper to make sure nobody’s smuggling anything in.

Annie’s growing up! She’s walking, and learning to talk. She’s almost two when Eddie hears Annie say “fuck” for the first time. She’s not sure if Annie picked this up from visits with Mom, visits with Dad, or her sketchy state-funded daycare, which was the only foster-agency-approved daycare without a waiting list.

Speaking of daycare, that’s probably where she keeps picking up all these minor bugs. This kid has a constant cold. If she shows up to a visit at the agency with too much green snot running down her face, Jamie and Eddie will be ordered to spend their evening in an emergency room for “medical clearance.” It will take 4 hours for ER staff to diagnose her with a cold and send her home.

It’s been a while! 15 months, actually, since Annie went into foster care. In accordance with the Adoption and Safe Families Act, a motion is filed to terminate Mom and Dad’s parental rights.

Great! One step closer to adopting her. Right?

LOL as if. TPR (termination of parental rights) trials don’t have any time constraints. The trial will finally start oh, a year or two after the motion is filed. They’ll get one hour of court time every month or so. 30 minutes of each session will be spent picking a date for the next session that works for Mom’s lawyer, Dad’s lawyer, Annie’s GAL, and the ACS lawyer. 25% of the time, one of the above parties has to cancel, and the court time is not made up. The trial goes on for 3 years.

Annie is 5 now, starting kindergarten! She wants to play soccer at the YMCA with her kindergarten BFF Jack (all the boys in blue bloods are named Jack). She can’t because until TPR is finalized, mandatory visits at the foster agency continue 2-3 nights per week.

Oh, Mom got a new job (this will complicate the TPR trial for sure!). She can’t possibly make it to the foster agency before 7pm. Visits are pushed back to accommodate her. Annie doesn’t leave the foster agency until 9:15pm on visit nights. A note comes home saying Annie is acting tired, frustrated, and distracted at school. There’s nothing Jamie and Eddie can do.

Finally, the TPR trial winds to a close. The judge rules to terminate Mom and Dad’s parental rights. Annie is legally free for adoption! Hooray!

Did you think it was that easy? You ignorant slut! Dad’s lawyer files an appeal. It won’t be heard in front of a judge for six months, and it’ll take a year to resolve.

Meanwhile, Jamie and Eddie have always wanted to go to Europe. They didn’t go when Annie was younger because they didn’t want to leave her. Now that she’s 7 they’d love to take her with them... but as a foster child she can’t get a passport.

Are you even still reading? I’m impressed.

I think it’s time to give Jamie and Eddie a break. Let’s say the appeals have been exhausted. The judge has approved Jamie and Eddie as Annie’s adoptive placement. They just need to fill out the paperwork and get a court date!

Of course, that takes forever too. Annie’s latest caseworker - they’ve lost count at this point - misplaces paperwork and incorrectly tells Jamie they don’t need to fill out one random medical form that turns out to be critical. This type of shit takes even more months to resolve.

Finally, the big day has arrived! Annie has been in foster care since she was 10 months old. Now she’s 9 and she’s finally getting adopted by the people who have parented her for the last 8+ years.

It WaSn’T EaSy. BuT iT wAs WoRtH iT! Right? 👍

👎 ugh no. Thank goodness that baby ended up with her grandmother, who can/will provide a permanent home with minimal court involvement. A life in the System is no life at all, bro.

#sandy hates it all #a realistic dose of new york city foster care for your reading pleasure

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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The foster care system is failing Black children and the death of Ma'Khia Bryant is one example, experts and attorney say While there are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the April 20 incident and the investigation is ongoing, one thing is clear: 16-year-old Ma’Khia died while under the care of a system that was created to provide safe, temporary homes for children whose biological parents are unable to raise them. And Ma’Khia’s biological mother, the family’s attorney and child welfare experts say they believe the foster care system failed Ma’Khia. Columbus police records show several 911 calls in the last three years made from the foster home where Ma’Khia lived including one in late March where a caller using the name of Ma’Khia’s younger sister threatened to kill someone in their foster home if she couldn’t be placed in a different home. The National Coalition of Child Protection Reform reports that children often face neglect, abuse and other harmful conditions in foster care. According to the coalition, family preservation programs have a better record with safety than foster care. Cheryl Grills, a professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University who has promoted and investigated child welfare reform, said the abuse is particularly hurting Black children, who are overrepresented in foster care and already face implicit bias and police brutality because of the color of their skin. Black children made up 23% of the kids in foster care nationally but only 14% of the total child population in 2018, according to Kids Count. “The system is broken and we just as a country have not come to terms with that,” said Grills. “They have a duty to protect and ensure a child’s well-being and that’s where I see the system failing miserably.” Grills said youth are removed from their families and placed in a foster care system that has a shortage of adequately trained case workers and may not be teaching coping skills or safe conflict resolution methods in every foster home. In Ma’Khia’s case, Moore told CNN it was normal for her foster children to argue in the house, but she never expected it to escalate to Ma’Khia being killed by police. “I never in my worst nightmare would have thought it would ever come to this,” Moore said. Moore described Ma’Khia as a fun teen who liked to dance and do chores around the house. Moore declined to further discuss any prior disputes at her home or calls to police. She also would not discuss the growing concerns about Ohio’s foster care system following Ma’Khia’s death. A troubling foster care journey Police records indicate there had been reports of trouble at the foster home in the past. For example, a girl who identifies herself as a 15-year-old and uses the name of Ma’Khia’s younger sister, called 911 from the home on March 28 and said she got into a fight with her sister, and she wanted to be placed in a different home. The caller doesn’t identify which sister she had fought with, and it is unclear if Ma’Khia was home when this incident occurred. CNN is not naming her because she’s a child. When officers said they could not move her out the house, the girl “became irate and stated that if she does not get to leave, then she was going to kill someone in the home.” Officers took her to a hospital for a psychological evaluation at the foster mother’s request, according to the incident report. Other police calls include Moore reporting that she was shot at while driving a car about 3.8 miles west of their home, and at least seven reports of missing foster children between July 2018 and April 2021. Michelle Martin, an attorney for Ma’Khia’s biological family, said Ma’Khia had been removed from her mother Paula Bryant‘s care about three years ago. Franklin County Children Services had initially placed Ma’Khia and her three siblings with their paternal grandmother Jeanene Hammonds for about 16 months after the children made allegations of ongoing physical abuse from their mother Bryant, according to records obtained by The Columbus Dispatch. Bryant said she denies those allegations of abuse. The Columbus Dispatch reported that Franklin County Children Services had developed a plan, which included mental health counseling, to reunite the children with Bryant. Bryant, however, did not comply with the plan, the newspaper reported. Bryant disputed this, telling CNN that she had done the required counseling and therapy and made oral and written motions to the court to get her kids back. According to the Dispatch, the children were ultimately removed from Hammonds’ care in the summer of 2019 due to a conflict between Hammonds and Bryant. The grandmother filed a motion to regain custody of the children in December 2019 saying the siblings endured emotional distress from being separated in foster care. Franklin County Children Services declined to return them, and told the court that Hammonds “does not understand the children’s special needs” and had “failed to facilitate counseling for the children when she had placement, the Dispatch reported. Ohio’s foster care system is supervised by the state and foster care is administered by the county. Franklin County contracts with a company, SAFY, for a service to screen or approve of foster care settings. CNN has reached out to Franklin County Children Services for further comment multiple times and has not heard back. A person who answered the phone at SAFY of Ohio referred calls back to the county. Martin said Ma’Khia was placed in various group homes and foster homes in both Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, after leaving the grandmother’s care. She moved into Moore’s home in February of this year, Martin said. Bryant, the biological mother, said Ma’Khia had expressed to her on several occasions that she was unhappy and uncomfortable in foster care. Franklin County Children Services allowed Ma’Khia to move into Moore’s home because she wanted to be close to her 15-year-old sister who was already living there, Bryant said. Bryant said she would occasionally Facetime her daughters and had weekly visitation with Ma’Khia, but neither child had told her about specific issues at the house. Bryant suspects it was because they feared being placed in an even worse environment. “I believe that the foster care system failed her (Ma’Khia) and failed us as a family,” Bryant told CNN. “I’m very hurt but also angry at the same time.” Bryant said her 15-year-old daughter was removed from Moore’s home after Ma’Khia’s death and now lives with a family member. She has another 13-year-old daughter who lives with the same family member. Her 11-year-old son remains in a residential facility, Bryant said. Martin, the attorney for Ma’Khia’s family, argues that Bryant has been fighting to get her kids back and that Franklin County should put in more efforts to ensure she has the parenting resources she needs to reunite with her children. Paula Bryant, she said, has “substantially complied with her case plan objectives” and is “able to meet the basic needs of her children.” Before her death, Ma’Khia had expressed a desire to move back home with her mother, according to Martin. “Where the failure came in was that they were (away from family) for entirely too long,” Martin said. “You’re supposed to work to remedy the situation as soon as possible because you want to limit the kids’ exposure to this traumatizing situation.” According to the US Department of Health and Human Services Children’s Bureau, the median amount of time for a child to spend in foster care is 14.7 months. In 2018, 78% of foster care children in Ohio had been in the system for less than two years and 17% for two to four years, according to data from Public Children Services Association of Ohio. A neglected system Martin called it “clear negligence” that Ma’Khia faced a level of trauma that made her feel compelled to pull out a knife on two young women at her foster home. Martin said she is urging the US Department of Health and Human Services to investigate Ohio’s foster care system. There needs to be more funding redirected toward helping parents and supporting kinship care, she said. Placing children in unfamiliar settings with strangers can be traumatic, Martin added. “When you have people who are not performing their jobs appropriately and really doing what they promised to do as civil servants which would be to protect and serve these families and then children begin to fall through the cracks, the most heinous situations can arise from that,” Martin said. “And this is what that nightmare looks like.” Scott Britton, assistant director of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, said Ohio’s foster care system had been largely neglected by the state until about two years ago when Gov. Mike Dewine appointed an advisory panel that made recommendations on how to improve the system. Suggestions included providing more support and oversight of the foster care system and creating an ombudsmen program to field complaints. Britton said the investment was critical as the state has lost many case workers in recent years and struggled to help families impacted by the opioid epidemic. Still, he doesn’t believe it’s fair to say the foster care system failed Ma’Khia. “I think there were a lot of things going on in this case,” Britton said. “I think we need to await the results of the investigations.” Some experts insist that the nation’s foster care system has historically neglected the needs of Black children. Stacey Patton, a child advocate and author of Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America, said while some children need to be placed in foster care, the system often rips Black families apart without giving parents the resources and tools they need to have a chance at raising their own kids. Many children are also emerging from the system unprepared for the world and likely to repeat the cycles of trauma and dysfunction in their biological families, Patton said. It’s unclear whether Ma’Khia was getting therapy or had a court-appointed advocate she could call when she was in distress. But Patton said “demonizing” or talking about Ma’Khia like she was an adult for wielding a knife, is not going to solve the broader issue with foster care. “What was going in that foster home where there was so much disruption, kids running away, violence in the home?” said Patton, who grew up in the foster care system. “Where was Child Protective Services in monitoring that home, making sure it was a safe placement for her? There are a lot of unanswered questions.” CNN’s Peter Nickeas, Evan Simko-Bednarski and Mark Morales contributed to this report. Source link Orbem News #attorney #Black #Bryant #care #children #Death #experts #Failing #Foster #Ma'KhiaBryant:Didthefostercaresystemfailthe16-year-old?-CNN #MaKhia #system #us

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dipulb3 · 4 years ago

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The foster care system is failing Black children and the death of Ma'Khia Bryant is one example, experts and attorney say

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/the-foster-care-system-is-failing-black-children-and-the-death-of-makhia-bryant-is-one-example-experts-and-attorney-say/

The foster care system is failing Black children and the death of Ma'Khia Bryant is one example, experts and attorney say

While there are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the April 20 incident and the investigation is ongoing, one thing is clear: 16-year-old Ma’Khia died while under the care of a system that was created to provide safe, temporary homes for children whose biological parents are unable to raise them.

And Ma’Khia’s biological mother, the family’s attorney and child welfare experts say they believe the foster care system failed Ma’Khia.

Columbus police records show several 911 calls in the last three years made from the foster home where Ma’Khia lived including one in late March where a caller using the name of Ma’Khia’s younger sister threatened to kill someone in their foster home if she couldn’t be placed in a different home.

The National Coalition of Child Protection Reform reports that children often face neglect, abuse and other harmful conditions in foster care. According to the coalition, family preservation programs have a better record with safety than foster care.

Cheryl Grills, a professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University who has promoted and investigated child welfare reform, said the abuse is particularly hurting Black children, who are overrepresented in foster care and already face implicit bias and police brutality because of the color of their skin. Black children made up 23% of the kids in foster care nationally but only 14% of the total child population in 2018, according to Kids Count.

“The system is broken and we just as a country have not come to terms with that,” said Grills. “They have a duty to protect and ensure a child’s well-being and that’s where I see the system failing miserably.”

Grills said youth are removed from their families and placed in a foster care system that has a shortage of adequately trained case workers and may not be teaching coping skills or safe conflict resolution methods in every foster home.

In Ma’Khia’s case, Moore told Appradab it was normal for her foster children to argue in the house, but she never expected it to escalate to Ma’Khia being killed by police.

“I never in my worst nightmare would have thought it would ever come to this,” Moore said.

Moore described Ma’Khia as a fun teen who liked to dance and do chores around the house.

Moore declined to further discuss any prior disputes at her home or calls to police. She also would not discuss the growing concerns about Ohio’s foster care system following Ma’Khia’s death.

A troubling foster care journey

Police records indicate there had been reports of trouble at the foster home in the past.

For example, a girl who identifies herself as a 15-year-old and uses the name of Ma’Khia’s younger sister, called 911 from the home on March 28 and said she got into a fight with her sister, and she wanted to be placed in a different home. The caller doesn’t identify which sister she had fought with, and it is unclear if Ma’Khia was home when this incident occurred. Appradab is not naming her because she’s a child.

When officers said they could not move her out the house, the girl “became irate and stated that if she does not get to leave, then she was going to kill someone in the home.” Officers took her to a hospital for a psychological evaluation at the foster mother’s request, according to the incident report.

Other police calls include Moore reporting that she was shot at while driving a car about 3.8 miles west of their home, and at least seven reports of missing foster children between July 2018 and April 2021.

Michelle Martin, an attorney for Ma’Khia’s biological family, said Ma’Khia had been removed from her mother Paula Bryant‘s care about three years ago.

Franklin County Children Services had initially placed Ma’Khia and her three siblings with their paternal grandmother Jeanene Hammonds for about 16 months after the children made allegations of ongoing physical abuse from their mother Bryant, according to records obtained by The Columbus Dispatch.

Bryant said she denies those allegations of abuse.

The Columbus Dispatch reported that Franklin County Children Services had developed a plan, which included mental health counseling, to reunite the children with Bryant. Bryant, however, did not comply with the plan, the newspaper reported.

Bryant disputed this, telling Appradab that she had done the required counseling and therapy and made oral and written motions to the court to get her kids back.

According to the Dispatch, the children were ultimately removed from Hammonds’ care in the summer of 2019 due to a conflict between Hammonds and Bryant. The grandmother filed a motion to regain custody of the children in December 2019 saying the siblings endured emotional distress from being separated in foster care. Franklin County Children Services declined to return them, and told the court that Hammonds “does not understand the children’s special needs” and had “failed to facilitate counseling for the children when she had placement, the Dispatch reported.

Ohio’s foster care system is supervised by the state and foster care is administered by the county. Franklin County contracts with a company, SAFY, for a service to screen or approve of foster care settings.

Appradab has reached out to Franklin County Children Services for further comment multiple times and has not heard back. A person who answered the phone at SAFY of Ohio referred calls back to the county.

Martin said Ma’Khia was placed in various group homes and foster homes in both Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, after leaving the grandmother’s care. She moved into Moore’s home in February of this year, Martin said.

Bryant, the biological mother, said Ma’Khia had expressed to her on several occasions that she was unhappy and uncomfortable in foster care. Franklin County Children Services allowed Ma’Khia to move into Moore’s home because she wanted to be close to her 15-year-old sister who was already living there, Bryant said.

Bryant said she would occasionally Facetime her daughters and had weekly visitation with Ma’Khia, but neither child had told her about specific issues at the house. Bryant suspects it was because they feared being placed in an even worse environment.

“I believe that the foster care system failed her (Ma’Khia) and failed us as a family,” Bryant told Appradab. “I’m very hurt but also angry at the same time.”

Bryant said her 15-year-old daughter was removed from Moore’s home after Ma’Khia’s death and now lives with a family member. She has another 13-year-old daughter who lives with the same family member.

Her 11-year-old son remains in a residential facility, Bryant said.

Martin, the attorney for Ma’Khia’s family, argues that Bryant has been fighting to get her kids back and that Franklin County should put in more efforts to ensure she has the parenting resources she needs to reunite with her children. Paula Bryant, she said, has “substantially complied with her case plan objectives” and is “able to meet the basic needs of her children.”

Before her death, Ma’Khia had expressed a desire to move back home with her mother, according to Martin.

“Where the failure came in was that they were (away from family) for entirely too long,” Martin said. “You’re supposed to work to remedy the situation as soon as possible because you want to limit the kids’ exposure to this traumatizing situation.”

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services Children’s Bureau, the median amount of time for a child to spend in foster care is 14.7 months. In 2018, 78% of foster care children in Ohio had been in the system for less than two years and 17% for two to four years, according to data from Public Children Services Association of Ohio.

A neglected system

Martin called it “clear negligence” that Ma’Khia faced a level of trauma that made her feel compelled to pull out a knife on two young women at her foster home. Martin said she is urging the US Department of Health and Human Services to investigate Ohio’s foster care system.

There needs to be more funding redirected toward helping parents and supporting kinship care, she said. Placing children in unfamiliar settings with strangers can be traumatic, Martin added.

“When you have people who are not performing their jobs appropriately and really doing what they promised to do as civil servants which would be to protect and serve these families and then children begin to fall through the cracks, the most heinous situations can arise from that,” Martin said. “And this is what that nightmare looks like.”

Scott Britton, assistant director of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, said Ohio’s foster care system had been largely neglected by the state until about two years ago when Gov. Mike Dewine appointed an advisory panel that made recommendations on how to improve the system. Suggestions included providing more support and oversight of the foster care system and creating an ombudsmen program to field complaints.

Britton said the investment was critical as the state has lost many case workers in recent years and struggled to help families impacted by the opioid epidemic. Still, he doesn’t believe it’s fair to say the foster care system failed Ma’Khia.

“I think there were a lot of things going on in this case,” Britton said. “I think we need to await the results of the investigations.”

Some experts insist that the nation’s foster care system has historically neglected the needs of Black children.

Stacey Patton, a child advocate and author of Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America, said while some children need to be placed in foster care, the system often rips Black families apart without giving parents the resources and tools they need to have a chance at raising their own kids.

Many children are also emerging from the system unprepared for the world and likely to repeat the cycles of trauma and dysfunction in their biological families, Patton said.

It’s unclear whether Ma’Khia was getting therapy or had a court-appointed advocate she could call when she was in distress.

But Patton said “demonizing” or talking about Ma’Khia like she was an adult for wielding a knife, is not going to solve the broader issue with foster care.

“What was going in that foster home where there was so much disruption, kids running away, violence in the home?” said Patton, who grew up in the foster care system. “Where was Child Protective Services in monitoring that home, making sure it was a safe placement for her? There are a lot of unanswered questions.”

Appradab’s Peter Nickeas, Evan Simko-Bednarski and Mark Morales contributed to this report.

0 notes

gracieyvonnehunter · 5 years ago

Text

Disturbing video shows an Arizona sheriff’s deputy body slam a quadruple amputee

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

It all happened in a group foster home.

There was screaming, cursing, and a head slammed against the wall. A public defender called it “egregious.” Another called it “horrific.”

In a video that aired Thursday on Tucson’s KOLD news station, a white sheriff’s deputy is seen tackling and wrestling a black teen in foster care. The teen — an amputee with no arms or legs — repeatedly screams at the police officer to get off of him.

The sheriff’s deputy holds the boy in a headlock on the ground and curses in his face before arresting him for disorderly conduct. The deputy then screams at the teenager who was recording the scene, handcuffs him, and slams his head against the wall.

It was an extraordinary amount of violence against two defenseless youths — all in the span of eight minutes. The incident happened in September, but KOLD didn’t get a hold of the footage until this week.

According to KOLD, the Pima County sheriff’s deputy was responding to a call at a Tucson group home about a disruptive teenager. Yet his angry and violent response was striking, especially because the teens seemed to be behaving like, well, teenagers.

youtube

The sheriff’s office told KOLD that it is investigating the officer’s conduct, and state prosecutors have since dropped charges against the two youths. The incident is all too similar to other videos that have gone viral, showing police officers use excessive force against black men. But there was something particularly disturbing about watching a deputy mistreat such vulnerable children. As if they hadn’t been through enough.

Children in group homes have already experienced enough trauma

One of the most remarkable things about the latest incident was where it happened: in a group home for boys in foster care. These residential facilities are supposed to be safe places for some of country’s most troubled youths.

More than 23,000 children in the foster care system live in group homes like the one in Tucson. And they are far more likely to have experienced multiple forms of trauma in their short lives, according to research by the Casey Family Programs. For example, 55 percent have been physically abused, 40 percent have been sexually abused, 68 percent have been emotionally abused, and 62 percent have suffered a traumatic loss. A majority have mental health problems or physical disabilities.

Few details about the Tucson teenager have been released to protect his privacy, but KOLD said he was in a group home because he was abandoned by his parents. Little is also known about the group home where the incident took place, and there is no reason to believe there was abuse or neglect by caregivers.

However, reports of abuse and neglect of children in group homes are common. In Illinois, for example, a 2016 investigation by the Chicago Tribune described state taxpayer-funded group homes as “a system where caregivers often failed to provide basic care while regulators cloaked harm and death with secrecy and silence.”

The newspaper uncovered 1,311 cases of documented injuries, hundreds of which were not reported by the Illinois Department of Human Services. Residents were often deprived of food, forced to wear dirty clothing and restrained with duct tape.

The investigation prompted Congress to request and audit of group homes by the US Department of Health and Human Services. In 2018, the agency released its report, which found that children in these settings “often experienced serious injuries and medical conditions that resulted in emergency room visits.” The audits also revealed that 99 percent of those critical injuries were not reported to the appropriate law enforcement or state agencies, as required by law.

Foster children who live in residential facilities are already traumatized and at high-risk of abuse. These are children that need police protection, not mistreatment. Black young people, in particular, are already overexposed to police violence.

Exposure to police violence can have harmful effects on black and brown children

Children of color, like the two teens in Tucson, often have traumatizing encounters with police officers from a young age.

In recent years, a number of media stories have called attention to the ways that black children in particular are exposed to police violence, whether they are directly confronted by police, live in communities where police violence has occurred, or witness excessive force from law enforcement.

And research has shown that adults often see both black boys and girls as older, more deserving of suspicion, and less innocent than white children. This suggests that when it comes to policing incidents where black children are present, authority figures may not see these children as bystanders needing protection. In some cases, black children may instead be seen as suspects themselves, and are denied the presumption of innocence given to other children.

Witnessing police violence also affects their ability to trust officers and very likely shifts how they perceive themselves in many cases.

In April, a Florida sheriff’s deputy was been placed on restricted duty after a video showing him slamming a black teenager’s head into the ground and punching him went viral, fueling calls for the officer to be fired. Deputy Christopher Krickovich and another officer had approached a large group of high school students in a shopping center in Tamarac, and one of the boys was arrested for trespassing, according to a report submitted by the officers. Video footage taken by students at the scene shows the boy in handcuffs and a nearby officer push another boy back. As the boy moves, he is pepper-sprayed in the face. When the teen begins to walk away, the officer pulls him to the ground.

This kind of police aggression is all too similar to the deputy’s response in Tucson. Viral videos like these have done a lot to raise public awareness of the violence that black boys and men deal with on a regular basis. It’s just not enough to stop it from happening again.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Kqdz9Q

#Vox - All

0 notes

timalexanderdollery · 5 years ago

Text

Disturbing video shows an Arizona sheriff’s deputy body slam a quadruple amputee

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

It all happened in a group foster home.

There was screaming, cursing, and a head slammed against the wall. A public defender called it “egregious.” Another called it “horrific.”

youtube

Children in group homes have already experienced enough trauma

Exposure to police violence can have harmful effects on black and brown children

Children of color, like the two teens in Tucson, often have traumatizing encounters with police officers from a young age.

Witnessing police violence also affects their ability to trust officers and very likely shifts how they perceive themselves in many cases.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Kqdz9Q

#Vox - All

0 notes

corneliusreignallen · 5 years ago

Text

Disturbing video shows an Arizona sheriff’s deputy body slam a quadruple amputee

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

It all happened in a group foster home.

There was screaming, cursing, and a head slammed against the wall. A public defender called it “egregious.” Another called it “horrific.”

youtube

Children in group homes have already experienced enough trauma

Exposure to police violence can have harmful effects on black and brown children

Children of color, like the two teens in Tucson, often have traumatizing encounters with police officers from a young age.

Witnessing police violence also affects their ability to trust officers and very likely shifts how they perceive themselves in many cases.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Kqdz9Q

#Vox - All

0 notes

shanedakotamuir · 5 years ago

Text

Disturbing video shows an Arizona sheriff’s deputy body slam a quadruple amputee

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

It all happened in a group foster home.

There was screaming, cursing, and a head slammed against the wall. A public defender called it “egregious.” Another called it “horrific.”

youtube

Children in group homes have already experienced enough trauma

Exposure to police violence can have harmful effects on black and brown children

Children of color, like the two teens in Tucson, often have traumatizing encounters with police officers from a young age.

Witnessing police violence also affects their ability to trust officers and very likely shifts how they perceive themselves in many cases.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Kqdz9Q

#Vox - All

0 notes

socialjusticeartshare · 5 years ago

Text

U.S. Held a Record Number of Migrant Kids in Custody This Year

After being forcibly separated at the border by government officials, sexually abused in U.S. foster care and deported, the once bright and beaming girl arrived back in Honduras withdrawn, anxious and angry, convinced her father abandoned her.

This story is part of an ongoing joint investigation between FRONTLINE and The Associated Press on the treatment of migrant children, which includes the film “Kids Caught in the Crackdown” premiering on PBS and online Nov. 12 at 10 p.m. EST/9 p.m. CST.

Leer en español.

COMAYAGUA, Honduras — The 3-year-old girl traveled for weeks cradled in her father’s arms, as he set out to seek asylum in the United States. Now she won’t even look at him.

He fears their bond is forever broken.

“I think about this trauma staying with her too, because the trauma has remained with me and still hasn’t faded,” he said, days after their reunion.

This month new government data shows the little girl is one of an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children held in U.S. government custody over the past year, enough infants, toddlers, kids and teens to overflow the typical NFL stadium. That’s more kids detained away from their parents than any other country, according to United Nations researchers. And it’s happening even though the U.S. government has acknowledged that being held in detention can be traumatic for children, putting them at risk of long-term physical and emotional damage.

Some of these migrant children who were in government custody this year have already been deported. Some have reunited with family in the U.S., where they’re trying to go to school and piece back together their lives. About 4,000 are still in government custody, some in large, impersonal shelters. And more arrive every week.

Read more: Trump Admin Shifting to Privatize Migrant Child Detention

The nearly 70,000 migrant children who were held in government custody this year — up 42 percent in fiscal year 2019 from 2018 — spent more time in shelters and away from their families than in prior years. The Trump administration’s series of strict immigration policies has increased the time children spend in detention, despite the government’s own acknowledgment that it does them harm. In 2013, Australia detained 2,000 children during a surge of maritime arrivals. In Canada, immigrant children are separated from their parents only as a last resort; 155 were detained in 2018. In the United Kingdom, 42 migrant children were put in shelters in 2017, according to officials in those countries.

“Early experiences are literally built into our brains and bodies,” says Dr. Jack Shonkoff, who directs Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child. Earlier this year, he told Congress that “decades of peer-reviewed research” shows that detaining kids away from parents or primary caregivers is bad for their health. It’s a brain-wiring issue, he said.

“Stable and responsive relationships promote healthy brain architecture,” Shonkoff said. “If these relationships are disrupted, young children are hit by the double whammy of a brain that is deprived of the positive stimulation it needs, and assaulted by a stress response that disrupts its developing circuitry.”

Read more: ‘I Can’t Feel My Heart:’ Children Separated from Their Parents at US-Mexico Border Showed Increased Signs of Post-traumatic Stress, According to Watchdog Report

Younger children are at greater risk, because their biological systems are less developed, he said. Previous harm, and the duration of separation, are also more likely to lead to trauma.

One Honduran teen who was held in a large detention center for four months before reuniting with his mother said that, as each day passed, his fear and anxiety grew.

“There was something there that made us feel desperate. It was freedom. We wanted to be free,” he recalled. “There was despair everywhere.”

Another Honduran teen, who arrived in the U.S. at 16 and was detained in a series of increasingly secure shelters for more than a year, said he saw his peers harm themselves.

“They would cry sometimes, alone, or they would hit themselves against the wall,” he said. “I thought that was because of them being here for such a long time.”

The teens spoke on condition of anonymity out of concerns for their safety.

The 3-year-old Honduran girl was taken from her father when immigration officials caught them near the border in Texas in March 2019 and sent her to government-funded foster care. The father had no idea where his daughter was for three panicked weeks. It was another month before a caregiver put her on the phone but the girl, who turned four in government custody, refused to speak, screaming in anger.

“She said that I had left her alone and she was crying,” said her father during an interview with the AP and FRONTLINE at their home in Honduras. “’I don’t love you Daddy, you left me alone,’” she told him. The father agreed to speak about their case on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

What the little girl didn’t, or couldn’t, tell her dad was that another child in her foster home woke her up and began molesting her, according to court records. As the days passed, she began urinating on herself and seemed unable to eat or drink, a foster parent said in the records.

“She’s so small for something like that to happen,” said her father, who found out about his daughter’s abuse while he was in detention. “I felt like I couldn’t do anything to help her.”

Read more: Claims: Migrant Children Molested in US-Funded Foster Care

Desperate to see his daughter, he begged for a DNA test which, four months into his detention, proved their relationship. Still the government kept them apart. In June, he gave up and asked a judge to reunite him with his daughter and deport them. The government sent him back to Honduras alone. His daughter followed a month later in mid-August.

On an August afternoon in their hometown, the little girl had her hair tied up in pigtails. Her dress was a frilly lavender and her pink sneakers were decorated with bows. She played with her younger sister and snuggled up beside her grandfather, but ignored her father’s entreaties and refused to hold his hand, convinced he tried to leave her for good.

“When I wanted to cradle her in my arms she started to cry,” he said.

He didn’t know of any psychological support in their town to help her process the abuse she suffered.

“For now we’re going to try to give her more affection, more love and then if there isn’t a change we’re going to try to find some help,” he said.

The U.S. government calls migrant children held without their parents “Unaccompanied Alien Children” — UAC in bureaucratic jargon. Federal law requires the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide them food and shelter, and medical and mental health care. But the HHS Office of Inspector General found there aren’t enough clinicians or specialized care in shelters holding migrant children.

HHS spokesman Mark Weber said that, with the largest number of migrant children in their program’s history, “you must give credit to the Office of Refugee Resettlement and the shelter network staff for managing a program that was able to rapidly expand and unify the largest number of kids ever, all in an incredibly difficult environment.”

In an urgent request to fund an emergency shelter earlier this year, HHS warned “Without a way to provide these services, there is an unacceptable risk that thousands of UAC would be without their basic human needs, which would result in injury/death of children.”

In the September issue of the journal Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics says migrant children who are detained “face almost universal traumatic histories.” The group recommends specific therapies to help children recover and reunite with their families, warning of serious consequences if left untreated. But few of the thousands of children separated from their parents are receiving therapy after being deported back to Central America. Many are from impoverished communities where there are few, if any, accessible mental health resources.

The U.S. is now being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by some families who say their children were harmed by being held in detention, and on Nov. 5 a federal judge ordered the government to immediately provide mental health screenings and treatment to immigrant families traumatized by family separations. The judge found attorneys for separated families presented evidence that the government’s policy “caused severe mental trauma to parents and their children” and that U.S. government officials were “aware of the risks associated with family separation when they implemented it.”

Child trauma expert Ryan Matlow at Stanford University says toxic stress in children is associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress syndrome, heart disease, cancer, and even early death.

“So we want to be a country that inflicts further trauma on individuals who are experiencing intensive adversity and are seeking refuge and help in a neighboring nation?” asked Matlow, who has met with detained migrant children inside several of the largest migrant detention facilities. “Are we okay with the implications of doing harm to vulnerable children — to 2 and 3-year-olds and to teenagers as well? Is that something that we can accept?”

This year President Donald Trump signed a law approving $2.8 billion for the government to house, transport and care for migrant children. Nine out of 10 come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, with fewer than 3% from Mexico. They’re fleeing Central America often to save their own lives, because violence and abuse, even murder, are committed with impunity under corrupt governments the U.S. has supported for decades.

While children have been arriving alone at the U.S. border for more than a decade, the number of children in government custody has grown sharply over the last two years, largely because they have been held for longer time periods. A few months after Trump took office, the federal agency was caring for about 2,700 children, reuniting them with awaiting relatives or sponsors in about a month. This June, that topped 13,000, and they stayed in custody for about two months.

U.S. immigration authorities have separated more than 5,400 children from their parents at the Mexico border, before, during and after a controversial “zero tolerance” policy was enacted and then ended in the spring of 2018.

Eskinder Negash, who heads the nonprofit U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, knows the trauma of separation and detention all too well, and has spent his life seeking solutions.

“I was a refugee, I know what they have gone through,” said Negash, who fled Ethiopia alone as a teen after his country was thrown into chaos by a military coup.

Negash also knows what it’s like to suddenly have to care for tens of thousands of migrant children caught at the border. He was heading the Office of Refugee Resettlement in 2014 under the Obama administration when more than 60,000 children surged over the border, mostly unaccompanied. Negash and his team scrambled to shelter them in a variety of situations, including on military bases. The fallout, at the time, was harsh: human rights advocates who today decry the way children are treated in government custody were, under Obama, frustrated with their care and urged that children be swiftly granted asylum.

Leaving government to head the nonprofit refugee support agency USCRI, Negash wanted to do better for children, both in the U.S. and abroad.

In El Salvador, USCRI now runs the Livelihoods project, teaching young adults who were deported from the U.S. skills to support themselves. On a recent visit, students clustered in small groups around workbenches to practice building circuits that would make small motors run. They learn everything from residential and commercial electrical installation to building substations and transformers. Other career tracks include auto mechanic, chef and bartender. Since 2016, about 400 young adults have graduated from the program, which is a partnership with the El Salvador government.

“I don’t think about migrating anymore,” said José Fernando Guillén Rodríguez, 21, who was apprehended in the U.S. at 18 and spent time in adult detention before being deported. Now he’s completed a year of daily electrical classes and works as an apprentice at an electrical construction company.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. this summer, USCRI also opened what Negash hopes is a model government-funded shelter in southern Florida, just down the road from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club. Rinconcito del Sol, which translates to “A Little Corner of Sunshine,” is different than other facilities holding migrant children.

There is no uniformed security guard at the entrance. The residents, girls 13-17, can call their families as needed, staff say, and there are more therapeutic services — including intensive treatment for victims of trafficking and abuse — throughout the week. They sleep two to a room, and are free to wander in a large, outdoor area, or “shop” in a store filled with donated items. Case workers hustle to reunite them with family in the U.S. quickly, averaging four weeks. And costs to taxpayers are a third of the $775 per day costs at large, emergency shelters where kids sleep 100 to a room.

“Here, we change lives,” said shelter director Elcy Valdez, who worked as an ORR federal field specialist visiting a variety of facilities for six years. She saw a variety of operations, and took note of best practices. Today they hope to share their practices with some 170 shelter programs in 23 states.

“The girls come in very sad, nervous, not knowing what to expect, unsure what the future holds for them,” she said. “We give them that sense of security, of safety for the first time.”

Sherman reported from Comayagua, Honduras and Santa Tecla, El Salvador. Burke reported from Lake Worth, Florida. Mendoza reported from Washington DC. FRONTLINE reporters Daffodil Altan and Andrés Cediel, and AP Data Journalist Larry Fenn contributed to this report.

Article Source

#kids at the border #migrant kids in custory #record number of migrant children in custody

0 notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

Text

US held record number of migrant kids in custody in 2019

https://apnews.com/015702afdb4d4fbf85cf5070cd2c6824

US (CRUEL TRUMP ADMINISTRATION) held record number of migrant kids in custody in 2019

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, MARTHA MENDOZA AND GARANCE BURKE | Published November 12, 2019 7:52 AM ET | AP | Posted November 12, 2019 |

COMAYAGUA, Honduras (AP) — The 3-year-old girl traveled for weeks cradled in her father's arms, as he set out to seek asylum in the United States. Now she won't even look at him.

He fears their bond is forever broken.

"I think about this trauma staying with her too, because the trauma has remained with me and still hasn't faded," he said, days after their reunion.

This month new government data shows the little girl is one of an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children held in U.S. government custody over the past year, enough infants, toddlers, kids and teens to overflow the typical NFL stadium. That's more kids detained away from their parents than any other country, according to United Nations researchers. And it's happening even though the U.S. government has acknowledged that being held in detention can be traumatic for children, putting them at risk of long-term physical and emotional damage.

Some of these migrant children who were in government custody this year have already been deported. Some have reunited with family in the U.S., where they're trying to go to school and piece back together their lives. About 4,000 are still in government custody, some in large, impersonal shelters. And more arrive every week.

______

This story is part of an ongoing joint investigation between The Associated Press and the PBS series FRONTLINE on the treatment of migrant children, which includes the film "Kids Caught in the Crackdown" premiering on PBS and online Nov. 12 at 10 p.m. EST/9 p.m. CST.

______

The nearly 70,000 migrant children who were held in government custody this year — up 42 percent in fiscal year 2019 from 2018 — spent more time in shelters and away from their families than in prior years. The Trump administration's series of strict immigration policies has increased the time children spend in detention, despite the government's own acknowledgment that it does them harm. In 2013, Australia detained 2,000 children during a surge of maritime arrivals. In Canada, immigrant children are separated from their parents only as a last resort; 155 were detained in 2018. In the United Kingdom, 42 migrant children were put in shelters in 2017, according to officials in those countries.

"Early experiences are literally built into our brains and bodies," says Dr. Jack Shonkoff, who directs Harvard University's Center on the Developing Child. Earlier this year, he told Congress that "decades of peer-reviewed research" shows that detaining kids away from parents or primary caregivers is bad for their health. It's a brain-wiring issue, he said.

"Stable and responsive relationships promote healthy brain architecture," Shonkoff said. "If these relationships are disrupted, young children are hit by the double whammy of a brain that is deprived of the positive stimulation it needs, and assaulted by a stress response that disrupts its developing circuitry."

Younger children are at greater risk, because their biological systems are less developed, he said. Previous harm, and the duration of separation, are also more likely to lead to trauma.

One Honduran teen who was held in a large detention center for four months before reuniting with his mother said that, as each day passed, his fear and anxiety grew.

"There was something there that made us feel desperate. It was freedom. We wanted to be free," he recalled. "There was despair everywhere."

Another Honduran teen, who arrived in the U.S. at 16 and was detained in a series of increasingly secure shelters for more than a year, said he saw his peers harm themselves.

"They would cry sometimes, alone, or they would hit themselves against the wall," he said. "I thought that was because of them being here for such a long time."

The teens spoke on condition of anonymity out of concerns for their safety.

"She said that I had left her alone and she was crying," said her father during an interview with the AP and Frontline at their home in Honduras. "'I don't love you Daddy, you left me alone,'" she told him. The father agreed to speak about their case on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

What the little girl didn't, or couldn't, tell her dad was that another child in her foster home woke her up and began molesting her, according to court records. As the days passed, she began urinating on herself and seemed unable to eat or drink, a foster parent said in the records.

"She's so small for something like that to happen," said her father, who found out about his daughter's abuse while he was in detention. "I felt like I couldn't do anything to help her."

On an August afternoon in their hometown, the little girl had her hair tied up in pigtails. Her dress was a frilly lavender and her pink sneakers were decorated with bows. She played with her younger sister and snuggled up beside her grandfather, but ignored her father's entreaties and refused to hold his hand, convinced he tried to leave her for good.

"When I wanted to cradle her in my arms she started to cry," he said.

He didn't know of any psychological support in their town to help her process the abuse she suffered.

"For now we're going to try to give her more affection, more love and then if there isn't a change we're going to try to find some help," he said.

The U.S. government calls migrant children held without their parents "Unaccompanied Alien Children" — UAC in bureaucratic jargon. Federal law requires the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide them food and shelter, and medical and mental health care. But the HHS Office of Inspector General found there aren't enough clinicians or specialized care in shelters holding migrant children.

HHS spokesman Mark Weber said that, with the largest number of migrant children in their program's history, "you must give credit to the Office of Refugee Resettlement and the shelter network staff for managing a program that was able to rapidly expand and unify the largest number of kids ever, all in an incredibly difficult environment."

In an urgent request to fund an emergency shelter earlier this year, HHS warned "Without a way to provide these services, there is an unacceptable risk that thousands of UAC would be without their basic human needs, which would result in injury/death of children."

In the September issue of the journal Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics says migrant children who are detained "face almost universal traumatic histories." The group recommends specific therapies to help children recover and reunite with their families, warning of serious consequences if left untreated. But few of the thousands of children separated from their parents are receiving therapy after being deported back to Central America. Many are from impoverished communities where there are few, if any, accessible mental health resources.

The U.S. is now being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by some families who say their children were harmed by being held in detention, and on Nov. 5 a federal judge ordered the government to immediately provide mental health screenings and treatment to immigrant families traumatized by family separations. The judge found attorneys for separated families presented evidence that the government's policy "caused severe mental trauma to parents and their children" and that U.S. government officials were "aware of the risks associated with family separation when they implemented it."

"So we want to be a country that inflicts further trauma on individuals who are experiencing intensive adversity and are seeking refuge and help in a neighboring nation?" asked Matlow, who has met with detained migrant children inside several of the largest migrant detention facilities. "Are we okay with the implications of doing harm to vulnerable children - to 2 and 3-year-olds and to teenagers as well? Is that something that we can accept?"

This year President Donald Trump signed a law approving $2.8 billion for the government to house, transport and care for migrant children. Nine out of 10 come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, with fewer than 3% from Mexico. They're fleeing Central America often to save their own lives, because violence and abuse, even murder, are committed with impunity under corrupt governments the U.S. has supported for decades.

U.S. immigration authorities have separated more than 5,400 children from their parents at the Mexico border, before, during and after a controversial "zero tolerance" policy was enacted and then ended in the spring of 2018.

Eskinder Negash, who heads the nonprofit U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, knows the trauma of separation and detention all too well, and has spent his life seeking solutions.

"I was a refugee, I know what they have gone through," said Negash, who fled Ethiopia alone as a teen after his country was thrown into chaos by a military coup.

Negash also knows what it's like to suddenly have to care for tens of thousands of migrant children caught at the border. He was heading the Office of Refugee Resettlement in 2014 under the Obama administration when more than 60,000 children surged over the border, mostly unaccompanied. Negash and his team scrambled to shelter them in a variety of situations, including on military bases. The fallout, at the time, was harsh: human rights advocates who today decry the way children are treated in government custody were, under Obama, frustrated with their care and urged that children be swiftly granted asylum.

Leaving government to head the nonprofit refugee support agency USCRI, Negash wanted to do better for children, both in the U.S. and abroad.

"I don't think about migrating anymore," said José Fernando Guillén Rodríguez, 21, who was apprehended in the U.S. at 18 and spent time in adult detention before being deported. Now he's completed a year of daily electrical classes and works as an apprentice at an electrical construction company.

USCRI also opened what Negash hopes is a model government-funded shelter in southern Florida, just down the road from Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club. Rinconcito del Sol, which translates to "A Little Corner of Sunshine," is different than other facilities holding migrant children.

There is no uniformed security guard at the entrance. The residents, girls 13-17, can call their families as needed, staff say, and there are more therapeutic services — including intensive treatment for victims of trafficking and abuse — throughout the week. They sleep two to a room, and are free to wander in a large, outdoor area, or "shop" in a store filled with donated items. Case workers hustle to reunite them with family in the U.S. quickly, averaging four weeks. And costs to taxpayers are a third of the $775 per day costs at large, emergency shelters where kids sleep 100 to a room.

"Here, we change lives," said shelter director Elcy Valdez, who worked as an ORR federal field specialist visiting a variety of facilities for six years. She saw a variety of operations, and took note of best practices. Today they hope to share their practices with some 170 shelter programs in 23 states.

"The girls come in very sad, nervous, not knowing what to expect, unsure what the future holds for them," she said. "We give them that sense of security, of safety for the first time."

___

Sherman reported from Comayagua, Honduras and Santa Tecla, El Salvador. Burke reported from Lake Worth, Florida. Mendoza reported from Washington, DC. FRONTLINE reporters Daffodil Altan and Andrés Cediel, and AP Data Journalist Larry Fenn contributed to this report.

0 notes

itsfinancethings · 5 years ago

Link

November 12, 2019 at 02:07AM

(COMAYAGUA, Honduras) — The 3-year-old girl traveled for weeks cradled in her father’s arms, as he set out to seek asylum in the United States. Now she won’t even look at him.

After being forcibly separated at the border by government officials, sexually abused in U.S. foster care and deported, she arrived back in Honduras withdrawn, anxious and angry, convinced her once-beloved father abandoned her.

He fears their bond is forever broken.

“I think about this trauma staying with her too, because the trauma has remained with me and still hasn’t faded,” he said days after their reunion.

This month new government data shows the little girl is one of an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children held in U.S. government custody over the past year, enough to overflow the typical NFL stadium. That’s more kids detained away from their parents than any other country, according to United Nations researchers. And it’s happening even though the U.S. government has recognized detention can be traumatic for children, putting them at risk of long-term physical and emotional damage.

The nearly 70,000 migrant children who were held in government custody over the last year — up 42 percent in fiscal year 2019 from 2018 — spent more time in shelters and away from their families than in prior years. The Trump administration’s series of strict immigration policies has increased the time children spend in detention, despite the government’s own acknowledgment that it does them harm.

One Honduran teen who was held in a large detention center for four months before reuniting with his mother earlier this year said that as each day passed, his fear and anxiety grew.

“There was despair everywhere,” he recalled.

He spoke on condition of anonymity out of concerns for their safety.

The 3-year-old girl, taken from her father when immigration officials caught them near the border in Texas in March 2019, was sent to government-funded foster care. When a caregiver put her on the phone with him, the girl refused to speak, screaming in anger.

What his daughter didn’t, or couldn’t, tell her dad was that another child in her foster home woke her up and began molesting her, according to court records. As the days passed, she began urinating on herself and seemed unable to eat or drink, a foster parent said in the records.

“I felt like I couldn’t do anything to help her,” said her father, who found out about his daughter’s abuse while he was in detention. The father agreed to speak about their case on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

In June, he gave up and asked a judge to deport them. The government sent him back to Honduras alone. His daughter followed a month later.

On an August afternoon in their hometown, the little girl had her hair tied up in pigtails. She played with her younger sister, but ignored her father and refused to hold his hand.

He didn’t know of any psychological support in their town.

“For now we’re going to try to give her more affection, more love and then if there isn’t a change we’re going to try to find some help,” he said.

Federal law requires the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide migrant children with food, shelter, and medical and mental health care. But the HHS Office of Inspector General found there aren’t enough clinicians in shelters holding migrant children.

HHS spokesman Mark Weber said that with the largest number of migrant children in their program’s history, “you must give credit to the Office of Refugee Resettlement and the shelter network staff for managing a program that was able to rapidly expand and unify the largest number of kids ever, all in an incredibly difficult environment.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics says migrant children who are detained “face almost universal traumatic histories” and warns of serious consequences if left untreated. But few of the thousands of children separated from their parents are receiving therapy after being deported back to Central America. Many are from impoverished communities where there are few, if any, accessible mental health resources.

Nine out of 10 of the migrant children detained last year came from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, with fewer than 3% from Mexico. They’re fleeing Central America where violence and abuse, even murder, are committed with impunity under corrupt governments the U.S. has supported for decades.

Eskinder Negash, who heads the nonprofit U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, knows the trauma of separation and detention all too well. He fled Ethiopia alone as a teen after his country was thrown into chaos by a military coup.

Negash also knows what it’s like to suddenly have to care for tens of thousands of migrant children. He was the Obama administration’s ORR director in 2014 when more than 60,000 children arrived at the border. Negash and his team scrambled to shelter them.

Leaving government to head the nonprofit refugee support agency USCRI, Negash wanted to do better for children, in the U.S. and abroad.

This summer, USCRI opened a model government-funded shelter in southern Florida, just down the road from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club. Rinconcito del Sol, which translates to “A Little Corner of Sunshine,” has no uniformed security guard at the entrance. The residents, girls 13-17, can call their families as needed staff say, and there are more therapeutic services — including intensive treatment for victims of trafficking and abuse — throughout the week.

“The girls come in very sad, nervous, not knowing what to expect, unsure what the future holds for them,” said shelter director Elcy Valdez. “We give them that sense of security, of safety for the first time.”

#IFTTT #Blogger

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thewebofslime · 5 years ago

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Sierra Vista, AZ — While many think that the state taking children from parents is a noble gesture to protect the child, all too often, the state removes kids from a bad situation and throws them into a situation akin to a horror film. Many times the children are taken from caring parents, who happened to hit a rough patch in their lives, and thrown into torturous and outright sadistic situations where they end up raped, tortured, and even murdered. Beth Breen, a former employee of Arizona DCS recently broke her gagging order and went on Northwest Liberty News where she detailed the horrifying treatment suffered by a young girl named Devani at the hands of the state foster system. According to Breen, she is not supposed to speak about the case because of the gag order, but is anyway because the information is vital and the order unconstitutional. Breene explained that she was a driver for a 5-year-old girl whose stay in foster care ended with her being permanently disfigured and fighting for her life in ICU because of her bureaucratic ‘protection’ within the system. The child, who is referred to as Jane Doe in a lawsuit, but whose real name is Devani, was taken from her parents because they had substance abuse issues. Trending: TRUTH BOMB: Dinesh D’Souza Says Michelle Obama’s College Thesis Was “Illiterate And Incoherent” Because her mother struggled with addiction, the state took Devani from her. Like mentioned before, they took her from a bad situation and threw her into a nightmare where she was repeatedly raped and tortured. Breene’s job involved driving Devani from her foster home 90 miles away for a 2-hour supervised visit with her parents each week. Because the round trip was four hours, Breene spent more time with Devani than her parents. During the interview, Breene states that there were 36 police reports made to the foster home in which Devani lived, but that they were never investigated. The foster parent, David Frodsham — the deputy commander of the Fort Huachuca Army base, a position he held after being kicked out of Afghanistan for deviant sexual behavior — would only be arrested after this monster became so overtly careless that he went to the foster office drunk to collect his check for fostering children. Breene said she was perplexed at the fact that only three people were arrested in connection with the child sex trafficking and torture ring Frodsham was running out of his DCS-approved foster home. Instead of opening a statewide investigation after Frodsham and another sex-trafficking sicko were arrested, the state went after those who tried to expose it. During the interview, Breene explains how she was arrested for peacefully protesting the abuse of children inside the system. In 2017, TFTP reported on Devani’s case and a subsequent lawsuit which is nothing short of something out of a horror film. After having her child taken, Michelle Tremor-Calderon, the girl’s biological mother, began to improve her condition. With a clearer head, Tremor noticed that her daughter seemed to be deteriorating in the care of her state-appointed foster parent — David Frodsham. “I did everything DCS wanted me to, and received certificates of completion, and was in full compliance when my rights were severed,” Tremor said. After only a few weeks in the care of the Frodsham, multiple signs of abuse and neglect began to arise. However, no action was taken. Tremor had pointed out, on multiple occasions, that her daughter had continued urinary-tract infections, which can sometimes indicate signs of repeated sexual abuse in children. Her concerns, however, fell on deaf bureaucratic ears. “I told my CPS/DCS caseworker on several occasions due to my concerns, and they were all ignored,” Tremor said. “Instead of investigating Jane Doe’s biological mother’s concerns of abuse, [DCS] and the defendant caseworkers accused her of making false and exaggerated reports to DCS,” the lawsuit states. Despite jumping through all their hoops, the state refused to give back Tremor her daughter. The longer she stayed away from her mom, the worst things got for little Devani. Frodsham had been in the state’s foster program from 2002 until 2015 when he was removed after being caught DUI with children in his car — one of whom was Devani. It was no ordinary DUI, however. This monster was so comfy with the statist system that was paying him to rape children that he went to the foster office drunk to get paid! As the complaint notes, despite her mother’s repeated complaints, the state did not act on behalf of Devani until “David Frodsham, driving drunk, left 3-year-old Jane and another child in his parked car while he was collecting his foster parent check in a state office, while “visibly drunk and acting belligerent.” Even after they found abused children in his car while drunk at the state office, the DCS did not conduct a review of his home. It took him getting arrested again — this time with another child rapist. David Frodsham, the state’s choice for a better environment than her own mother, was arrested along with an active duty soldier for allegations of transferring child porn over the internet. According to the lawsuit, “Later, David Frodsham was arrested and accused of sexual misconduct with a minor, procuring minors for sex, and possessing and/or manufacturing child pornography. Law enforcement’s investigation revealed a video made by David Frodsham of a 3- or 4-year-old girl being penetrated by an adult male and screaming for her mommy. David Frodsham pled guilty rather than face a trial and has been sentenced to 17 years in the Arizona Department of Corrections. David Frodsham was part of a pornography ring involving numerous children in his pornography and the procurement of sex for the ring.” For more than a decade, this sicko likely preyed on children — all of whom were given to him by the State of Arizona. Naturally, one would think, that once Tremor’s daughter was found to have been placed in a home and sexually abused because of the negligence of the state, they would give Devani back to her mom who had done everything they asked to improve her situation. However, one would be wrong. Instead of reuniting this poor abused girl with her biological mother, she was placed into another horrifying nightmare. Devani’s new state-appointed abuser was Samantha Osteraas. After staying with Osteraas for a few months, this little girl would be nearly killed. According to the complaint, “Defendant Samantha Osteraas submerged and held down Jane Doe, a 5-year-old, in a bath of scalding hot water. Jane Doe suffered severe burns over 80 percent of her body. When police arrived, there was blood on the floor and pieces of Jane Doe’s skin were falling off her body. There were bruises to her neck and arms along with other signs of trauma.” Devani was put into a medically induced coma, suffering from organ failure. She lost her toes to amputation “and will undergo lifelong operations to replace 80 percent of the skin on her body and will need incredible amounts of care for the duration of her life as a result of the abuse she suffered in the Osteraases’ home.” No one within the agencies involved in placing this little girl in the ‘care’ of sick child abusers has been held accountable. The only means of accountability will come from this lawsuit which seeks punitive damages for negligence, respondeat superior, breach of duty, intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault and battery, and constitutional violations. Sadly, as the Free Thought Project has reported far too many times, this is not an isolated incident. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, many in the mainstream media and the government refuse to see this very real epidemic of child sex trafficking in the United States. What’s more, according to the government’s own data, the vast majority of a portion of these trafficked kids are coming from the government system who promises to keep them safe—a horrifying irony indeed. But it appears to be set up this way. This system is set up to pull children from their families for ridiculous reasons and turn them over to for profit systems—funded by your tax dollars—that use these children as cash cows and have no incentive to keep them safe. In 1984, the United States Congress established the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), and, as part of Missing Children’s Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013 they receive $40 million to study and track missing and trafficked children in the United States. In 2017, NCMEC assisted law enforcement with over 27,000 cases of missing children, the majority who were considered endangered runaways. According to their most recent report complied from FBI data and their own, of the nearly 25,000 runaways reported to NCMEC in 2017, one in seven were likely victims of child sex trafficking. Of those, 88 percent were in the care of social services when they went missing. Showing the scope of the abuse, in 2017 alone, NCMEC’s CyberTipline, a national mechanism for the public and electronic service providers to report instances of suspected child sexual exploitation, received over 10 million reports. According to NCMEC, most of these tips were related to the following: Apparent child sexual abuse images. Online enticement, including “sextortion.” Child sex trafficking. Child sexual molestation. Other governmental organizations have corroborated this horrifying trend. In a 2013 FBI 70-city nationwide raid, 60 percent of the victims came from foster care or group homes. In 2014, New York authorities estimated that 85 percent of sex trafficking victims were previously in the child welfare system. In 2012, Connecticut police rescued 88 children from sex trafficking; 86 were from the child welfare system. Equally as disturbing as the fact that most sex trafficked kids come from within the system is the fact that the FBI discovered in a 2014 nationwide raid that many foster children rescued from sex traffickers, including children as young as 11, were never reported missing by child welfare authorities. Even high-level government officials have been ensnared in these foster care abuse scandals. As TFTP previously reported, multiple victims came forward and accused Seattle Mayor Ed Murray of sexually abusing them when they were children in Washington’s foster care system. The records in that case, dating back to 1984, explicitly noted that Ed Murray should “never again be utilized as a certified CSD resource for children.” It also showed that a criminal case was brought against Murray by prosecutors but in spite of the multiple accusations, charges were somehow never filed and his records buried. As Snopes and the mainstream media in general attempts to smear those who try to call attention to alleged and very real child trafficking, the government’s own data shows how irresponsible this is. While there are certainly some outlandish theories being presented online, the facts are outlandish enough to warrant serious scrutiny. Until this epidemic is taken seriously, the government, the media, and all those who deny it will remain complicit in keeping it going. As Michael Dolce, who specializes in these horrific child abuse cases, pointed out last year, “we have set up a system to sex traffic American children.” Indeed, and as the mainstream media continues to sensationalize issues like the non-crisis of vaping or measles or any other fear-mongering content, they are providing perfect cover to keep that system going. Below is the interview with Beth Breene.

#TheWebOfSlime

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kansascityhappenings · 6 years ago

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‘Gut-wrenching’ plight: Giving up custody of children so they can get mental health help

CHICAGO — When Toni and Jim Hoy adopted their son Daniel through the foster care system, he was an affectionate toddler. They did not plan to give him back to the state of Illinois, ever.

“Danny was this cute, lovable little blond-haired, blue-eyed baby,” Jim said.

Toni recalled times Daniel would reach over, put his hands on her face and squish her cheeks. “And he would go, ‘You pretty, Mom,’ ” Toni said. “Oh, my gosh, he just melted my heart when he would say these very loving, endearing things to me.”

But as Daniel grew older, he changed. He began to show signs of serious mental illness that eventually manifested in violent outbursts and nearly a dozen psychiatric hospitalizations, starting at age 10. Doctors said he needed intensive, specialized care away from home — institutional services that cost at least $100,000 a year.

The family had private insurance through Jim’s job, and Daniel also had Medicaid coverage because he was adopted. But neither insurance would pay for that treatment. Exhausted and desperate, the Hoys decided to relinquish custody to the state. If they sent Daniel back into the foster care system, the child welfare agency would be obligated to pay for the services he needed.

“To this day, it’s the most gut-wrenching thing I’ve ever had to do in my life,” Jim said. He went to the hospital and told Daniel, then 12, that they were legally abandoning him so child welfare could take over. “I was crying terribly. But it was the only way we figured we could keep the family safe.”

Two-thirds of states don’t keep track of how many families give up custody to help a child get mental health services. But a study by the Government Accountability Office found that, back in 2001, families in 19 states relinquished nearly 13,000 children.

Today in Illinois, state records show that dozens of children enter state custody this way each year, despite a 2015 state law aimed at preventing it. And new data collected by the University of Maryland for the federal government finds that Illinois is not alone in failing to address this issue.

Mental health advocates say the problem is one of “too little, too late.” Even when states try to help children get access to treatment without a custody transfer, the efforts come too late in the progression of the children’s illnesses.

The advocates blame decades of inadequate funding for in-home and community-based services across the country — a lack of funding that has chipped away at the mental health system. Without that early intervention, children deteriorate to the point of being needlessly hospitalized and requiring costly residential care.

Until that underlying problem is addressed, child advocates say, the problem of families trading custody for treatment will never truly be solved.

Out Of Options

Daniel grew up as the youngest of four children in Ingleside, north of Chicago. As a baby, he had been severely neglected in his birth family — starved and left for dead. The early trauma Daniel experienced very likely affected his brain development, doctors said.

Toni home-schooled her children until she had to return to work full time in 2005. She said Daniel, who was 10, just fell apart.

“After six weeks of being in a public school classroom — something kids do every day — he couldn’t emotionally handle it and had his first hospitalization,” Toni said.

Daniel’s post-traumatic stress disorder and severe anxiety manifested in violent outbursts.

“He held knives to people’s throats,” Toni said. “He tried putting his fingers and his tongue in the light sockets. He broke almost every door in the house.”

In the car, there were times he’d reach over and grab the wheel while Toni was driving, to try to force the car into oncoming traffic. Other times, he would lash out at his siblings.

“At the same time, he’s a little boy,” she said. “He didn’t want to be that way. He didn’t like being that way.”

Despite Toni and Jim’s efforts to help their son with therapy and medication, the violence escalated, and Daniel was repeatedly hospitalized.

Although his doctors and therapists said he needed residential treatment, which would run at least $100,000 a year, both the family’s private health insurance, and Daniel’s secondary Medicaid coverage, denied coverage.

So the Hoys applied for a state grant meant for children with severe emotional disorders. They also asked for help from Daniel’s school district, which is supposed to cover a portion of the costs when students need long-term, off-site care. They were denied both.

“We were told we had to pay out-of-pocket for it,” Toni said.

Then one night, Daniel picked up his brother Chip, threw him down the stairs and punched him over and over before their dad pulled the boys apart.

Daniel went back to the hospital for the 11th time in two years. That’s when the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services gave the Hoys an ultimatum.

“[They] basically said, ‘If you bring him home, we’re going to charge you with child endangerment for failure to protect your other kids,’” Toni remembered. “‘And if you leave him at the hospital, we’ll charge you with neglect.’”

“If any of our other kids got hurt once we brought him home, they would take the other kids,” Jim said. “They put our backs against the wall, and they didn’t give us any options.” So the couple left Daniel at the hospital.

Once the state’s child welfare agency steps in to take custody, the agency will place the child in residential treatment and pay for it, said Robert Farley Jr., a lawyer in Naperville, Ill., another Chicago suburb.

“So you get residential services, but then you’ve given up custody of your child,” Farley said. “Which is, you know, barbaric. You have to give up your child to get something necessary.”

Taking It To The Courts

The Hoys were investigated by DCFS and charged with neglect. They appealed in court and the charge was later amended to a “no-fault dependency,” meaning the child entered state custody at no fault of the parents.

They didn’t know where Daniel was for several weeks, until he phoned from the group home where he had been placed to tell them he was OK.

Losing custody meant Toni and Jim could visit Daniel and maintain contact with him, but they could not make decisions regarding his care.

Over the next three years, Daniel lived at three residential treatment centers. One was five hours away by car. His parents visited as often as they could.

Toni spent months reading up on federal Medicaid law, and she learned the state-federal health insurance program is supposed to cover all medically necessary treatments for eligible children.

The Hoys hired a lawyer and, two years after giving Daniel up, they sued the state in 2010.

Six months later, they settled out of court and regained custody of Daniel, who was 15 by then. They also got the money to pay for Daniel’s care on their own.

Around the same time, Farley, the attorney, decided to take on the issue on behalf of all Medicaid-eligible children in the state. He filed a class-action lawsuit, claiming Illinois illegally withheld services from children with severe mental health disorders.

“There [are] great federal laws,” he said. “But someone’s not out there enforcing them.”

In his lawsuit, Farley cited the state’s own data, showing that 18,000 children in Illinois have a severe emotional or behavioral disorder, yet only about 200 receive intensive mental health treatment.

As part of a settlement, a federal judge ordered Illinois Medicaid officials to completely overhaul the state system so that kids get home- and community-based treatment in the early stages of their illness.

The deadline for the state to roll out those changes is this month.

A Law That Didn’t Fix The Problem

While these legal battles were taking place, Illinois lawmakers began their own work to ensure that parents no longer have to relinquish custody to get their kids the help they need.

The Custody Relinquishment Prevention Act, which became law in 2015, ordered six state agencies that interact with children and families to intervene when a family is considering giving up custody to get access to services.

“I think the question is: Shouldn’t government be stepping in and doing their job? And they’re not,” said Democratic state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz. “We just want them to do their job.”

B.J. Walker, head of Illinois’ child welfare agency, said the reasons for custody relinquishments are complex.

“If law could fix problems, we’d have a different world,” she said.

In some places, waitlists for residential treatment beds for kids in crisis can be months long.

But even when beds are available, Walker said, some facilities are simply unwilling or unable to take a child who has a severe mental health condition or a co-occurring medical condition.

Out of desperation, some parents will give up custody in the hope of getting their child to the top of the waiting list. But that doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.

As ProPublica Illinois reports, many foster children languish for months in psychiatric wards that are ill-equipped to provide long-term care because the state is unable to place them in an appropriate therapeutic setting. Walker’s agency is being sued for allegedly forcing children to “remain in locked psychiatric wards, causing immense harm,” for weeks or months after they’ve been cleared for discharge.

The Underlying Issue

Neil Skene, spokesman for Illinois’ child welfare agency, said there are more options for families like the Hoys today than there were a decade ago. That includes a crisis-stabilization program launched in 2017 that helps families get access to services.

When the child welfare agency is blamed for this problem, Skene said, it’s like when a pitcher comes in at the end of a losing game to save the day and gets tagged with the loss.

Some mental health advocates agree it’s not fair to fault the state’s child welfare agency for a problem that stems from a chronically underfunded mental health system.

Heather O’Donnell, a mental health advocate who works for Thresholds, a behavioral health treatment provider in Chicago, blames years of inadequate funding in Illinois and across the U.S.

Early-intervention services are either not available or not accessible because insurance companies deny coverage.

“If these kids had leukemia or diabetes, they would’ve gotten help long, long before,” O’Donnell said. “It’s because they have a mental health condition that causes their behavior to be challenging and erratic. And as a society, we sweep these conditions under the rug until there’s a crisis. We just wait for tragedy.”

“What Illinois needs to put into place is a system that helps these families early on, so that these kids never get hospitalized,” O’Donnell said.

Beth Stroul, who has been studying the problem of custody relinquishment for decades, agrees. She is the lead researcher on a new study — commissioned by the federal government and carried out by the University of Maryland — that explores why the problem persists.

Stroul said other states, including Georgia and New Jersey, have passed laws and stepped up efforts to help children get treatment while in parental custody.

“But those strategies, in and of themselves, are not sufficient unless there are home- and community-based services available that provide the supports and treatment needed to keep children and families safe in the community,” Stroul said.

The Difference Treatment And Family Can Make

Daniel Hoy is now 24 and has been out of residential treatment — and stable — for six years.

He said treatment was tough, and he would not have gotten better without his parents’ love and support. “It was never a question in my mind that my parents would always be there for me,” he said. “Sometimes it’s so hard to do it for yourself. It almost helps to know that I’m doing it for myself, but I’m also doing it for my family and for our relationship.”

Daniel now works nights for a shipping company and lives with his girlfriend and their toddler daughter in central Illinois, not far from his parents.

“I just love having a relationship with him,” Jim said. “I feel so privileged that [when] he’s having a bad day, he comes over and talks to us about it.”

Toni said, looking back, it’s shameful that families get torn apart by a system that’s supposed to be supportive.

She is grateful they made it through intact. Other families that have gone through this same thing, she said, have lost touch with their child forever. “Kids do need services,” Toni said. “But they also need the support of their families.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/01/21/gut-wrenching-plight-giving-up-custody-of-children-so-they-can-get-mental-health-help/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/gut-wrenching-plight-giving-up-custody-of-children-so-they-can-get-mental-health-help/

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battybat-boss · 6 years ago

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Chicago Psychiatric Hospital Investigated by Federal and State Authorities for Abuse of Children Under CPS Care

Aurora Chicago Lakeshore Hospital in the city's Uptown community (Vignesh Ramachandran/ProPublica Illinois)

Commentary by Terri LaPoint Health Impact News

A psychiatric hospital in Chicago is being investigated by federal and state authorities for multiple reports of abuse of children in their care, many of whom are under state custody through the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).

Although the following ProPublica article highlights one particular hospital, investigations by Health Impact News have found that the stories contained within this piece are repeated in psych wards, group homes, and juvenile detention centers all over the country.

Many children who are able to tell their stories have told our reporters of similar horrors to the treatment suffered by the children in this story. Once they are hidden away behind the locked doors of these facilities, in state custody, with little contact with the people who love them, they often become victims of sexual assault, physical abuse, and drugging that they neither consent to nor want.

They become invisible, hidden in the shadows, with their only hope of a voice being the very people with vested financial interests in keeping them silent about the abuse. It is not unlike slavery in many ways.

Children who are eventually returned to their families often come back traumatized. They are haunted, and triggers lie around every corner.

The stories of Samuel Mitchell, Brady Folkens, and the Odonnell twins contain some of the most brutal reports of institutionalized abuse that we have reported. There are many more such stories that happen that go unnoticed by any media.

See:

Colorado Mom Loses Medically Kidnapped Son's Childhood – Now Reveals State Corruption

Healthy 17 Year Old Dies Shortly After South Dakota Takes Custody Away from Mother

Kidnapped Twins in Michigan Physically Abused: Being Shipped out of State to Destroy Family Ties

youtube

It seems that every time that we talk to any former foster child that was forced into a psych ward, group home, or juvenile detention center, their stories of widespread sexual and physical abuse are the same. They are the rule, not the exception.

The response is always the same: the children all report that no one listened to them. When any one of them reported abuse by foster parents or in the facilities, they were told that no one would believe them. They are bullied or shamed into silence, left to suffer, while taxpayers pick up the tab to finance institutionalized abuse.

ProPublica reports that Neil Skene, special assistant to DCFS Acting Director Beverly “B.J.” Walker, gave the typical, politically correct response to the reporter and to the public:

“The question for DCFS is whether children are safe there,” Skene said. “Nothing that we are seeing gives us concern for their safety.”

DCFS acting inspector Mary Paniak disagrees with Skene's assessment:

Paniak wrote that she had “significant concerns for the care and safety of the children” at Lakeshore, according to a copy of the memo obtained by ProPublica Illinois.

She provided a list of actions that DCFS could take.

No mention is made about the most obvious to many of our readers, which is to stop taking children needlessly and to work to keep children with family as much as possible.

That simple step would serve to eliminate much trauma and the “need” for psychiatric services – a need which is based more on the agency's need for funding than the actual needs of the children.

Nonetheless, there was an important step that Paniak listed that would go far in addressing the problems facing the agency, but DCFS refuses to agree to it. That is:

…bringing in an independent expert to do a comprehensive review of the treatment and mental health services at the hospital.

In an interview, Paniak said an independent voice could provide expertise and objectivity. She said she was disappointed by the agency's decision not to seek an independent review.

Interestingly, DCFS and Child Protective Services nationwide routinely force parents onto some form of a “safety plan.” If the parents do not comply with every provision of the plan, their children can be taken, taken children can be kept in the system, and parental rights may be terminated.

Yet, in a twist of hypocrisy, the agency itself seems to be able to refuse to comply with the “safety plan” given to it in order to protect the children it is tasked with protecting, and consequences for the agency are rare.

Chicago Psychiatric Hospital Is Under Fire Over Reports Alleging Abuse of Children

Aurora Chicago Lakeshore Hospital is under federal and state investigation over reports that detail sexual assaults and physical abuse of children, including some who were cleared for release but remained hospitalized because child welfare officials couldn't find more appropriate homes.

by Duaa Eldeib ProPublica.org

A Chicago psychiatric hospital that treats hundreds of children in state care is under federal and state investigation over safety concerns and alleged sexual assaults, and it may be forced to close if it can't correct deficiencies.

STUCK KIDS Illinois Children Languish in Psychiatric Hospitals

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has investigated 16 allegations of abuse and neglect this year at the Aurora Chicago Lakeshore Hospital in the city's Uptown community, including allegations that children were raped and sexually abused by staff and other patients, physically assaulted and inadequately supervised, a ProPublica Illinois investigation found.

Among those reportedly abused or hurt in the incidents were children who were cleared for discharge from the hospital weeks or months earlier. DCFS, however, had failed to find them a place to go - a persistent issue for the troubled agency that ProPublica Illinois documented this year.

In addition to child welfare investigations, the Illinois Department of Public Health has conducted a series of inspections on behalf of federal authorities since July that found the hospital had failed to ensure the safety of suicidal patients, obtain consent before giving patients - including children - powerful medications and sufficiently monitor patients.

Federal authorities have said they will cut off funding that is crucial to the hospital's operations by the end of November if officials there do not implement immediate changes, according to federal records and court documents.

Hospital officials declined to answer specific questions from ProPublica Illinois, but the CEO, David Fletcher-Janzen, said in a statement that they have been working with state and federal authorities to fix deficiencies. He said the hospital strives to provide a safe, therapeutic environment for patients.

“Chicago Lakeshore Hospital takes every allegation of impropriety very seriously and files reports immediately. All allegations, regardless of probability, are reported to maintain a high level of caution and transparency,” Fletcher-Janzen said. “Our goal is to improve the lives of these young patients so they can grow to be healthy adults both physically and mentally.”

The hospital has come under fire before. State inspection reports in recent years found that an employee, who was later terminated, repeatedly punched a 26-year-old patient who had hit him; that the hospital failed to ensure a safe setting for a 15-year-old girl who received 18 stitches after cutting herself by breaking off part of a toilet; and that proper precautions were not taken with a patient with a history [of] inappropriate sexual behavior, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In 2010, DCFS hired consultants from the University of Illinois at Chicago to conduct a review of Lakeshore and found a host of problems, from patients reporting sexual assaults by peers to “lax or inconsistent supervision by staff.” Lakeshore officials disputed the findings at the time, saying the report was “highly subjective” and contained findings “unsupported by the facts.”

The Chicago Tribune revealed in 2010 that children at the hospital had been sexually assaulted.

Neil Skene, the special assistant to DCFS Acting Director Beverly “B.J.” Walker, said the agency is focused on making sure children are properly cared for and addressing the issues federal officials have identified.

“We are fulfilling our responsibility to oversee the care of youth who are our responsibility,” he said. “We believe that the current monitoring bodies will let us know if their concerns rise to a level where we need to stop using the hospital.”

Many of the new allegations echo those of the past. In September, a 7-year-old girl was taken to the emergency room at UIC after she reported that a 12-year-old boy pulled down her pants, sexually assaulted her with his finger and “made her bleed,” according to confidential reports obtained by ProPublica Illinois.

While at the emergency room, she also reported that a Lakeshore employee had kissed her on the mouth and sexually assaulted her with his finger, and said she was “afraid to go back” to Lakeshore. A UIC social worker, records show, expressed concerns about delays in Lakeshore's reporting and seeking medical care for the girl.

That same Lakeshore employee was at the center of another investigation in August. A 12-year-old girl reported that the man had locked her door, grabbed her by the shirt and touched her breasts. When she tried to pull away, she said that he pulled her down onto his lap, squeezed her buttocks and made her sit on his lap and touch his penis.

Both girls are in DCFS care. The agency said it continues to investigate the alleged assaults and the employee is not currently working at the hospital. Chicago police have also opened an investigation.

DCFS found sufficient evidence to support four other complaints this year, including one report in June that an 11-year-old girl sexually acted out toward four girls on her unit, according to agency records.

In yet another case, a 17-year-old boy diagnosed with bipolar disorder was left with a bloody mouth and bruising in April after he said two male employees dragged him to his room, where they pinned him down while holding his arms over the bedrail, according to DCFS records. The boy said one of the workers threatened to break his arm.

He had been admitted to the hospital that day after a suicide attempt, his mother said.

“It's never easy sending your child to the hospital, but the thing that helps you sleep at night is at least you know they're safe,” the mother said in an interview. “But he was far from safe. He was hurt and scared.”

When she arrived at the hospital to visit her son, she said she was horrified at the sight of blood on his lips and mouth and bruises on his face and arm. She began looking for another hospital to transfer him to immediately.

“I knew I could rescue him from there,” the mother said. “But most of the kids there are wards of the state. There is no one to rescue them.”

Hospital officials did not respond to allegations about individual cases. Fletcher-Janzen said employees who are subjects of allegations are either suspended or moved to a different building while Lakeshore and DCFS investigate.

The child welfare agency continues to send children to the hospital, which serves children and adults in two buildings a few blocks apart. Nearly half of the 16 investigations have not been substantiated, and the other cases reflect individual incidents rather than a systemic problem, Skene said.

“The question for DCFS is whether children are safe there,” Skene said. “Nothing that we are seeing gives us concern for their safety.”

As of late September, after officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services notified the hospital it planned to stop making its Medicare payments, 18 children in DCFS care were patients there, including a 4-year-old boy who had been at the hospital for nearly three weeks, according to documents.

At least three of those children had already been cleared for discharge but DCFS had not found them other placements, records show. ProPublica Illinois revealed in June that hundreds of children have spent weeks and even months trapped in psychiatric hospitals as the agency searched for residential treatment centers, foster homes and other placements.

DCFS acknowledged the problem and said it was working to find more appropriate homes.

The number of DCFS patients at Lakeshore remained at 18 earlier this month; some children, including the 4-year-old, had been released, but others were admitted as federal and state officials continued their inquiries.

The investigations alarmed Meryl Paniak, DCFS' acting inspector general, who in a confidential memo urged Walker to take action. Paniak wrote that she had “significant concerns for the care and safety of the children” at Lakeshore, according to a copy of the memo obtained by ProPublica Illinois.

Paniak listed steps the agency could take, ranging from immediately planning for alternative placements for the children to sending an official to Lakeshore each day to evaluate the hospital's progress resolving its problems.

DCFS officials complied with nearly all of the recommendations, including the daily inspections and making plans to move children. But they have not agreed to one of Paniak's most sweeping recommendations: bringing in an independent expert to do a comprehensive review of the treatment and mental health services at the hospital.

In an interview, Paniak said an independent voice could provide expertise and objectivity. She said she was disappointed by the agency's decision not to seek an independent review.

“The question for DCFS is whether children are safe there,” Skene said. “Nothing that we are seeing gives us concern for their safety.”

DCFS relies on Lakeshore to treat children in need of psychiatric hospitalization. Last year, of the approximately 1,100 children and adolescent patients treated at the hospital, 41 percent were in state care, according to court filings from the hospital. The majority of the hospital's revenue comes from Medicaid payments.

Read More: Hundreds of Illinois Children Languish in Psychiatric Hospitals After They're Cleared For Release

The Department of Children and Family Services struggles to find appropriate homes for young people with mental illness

Lakeshore typically sees more children from DCFS than other area hospitals because it accepts children with the “highest needs and most volatile behaviors (that) other hospitals won't,” Skene said.

The majority of the cases that DCFS substantiated or continues to investigate involve sexual abuse or assault.

A 12-year-old boy reported in January that he was fondled by a 17-year-old. Five other patients reported the teen tried to touch them inappropriately when employees were not looking, records show. The 17-year-old was on probation and was sent to juvenile detention following the incidents, according to DCFS documents.

In that case, DCFS cited hospital staff for inadequate supervision and wrote that it was unclear “where responsible staff were” when the abuse happened and why a 12-year-old was on the same unit with older teens.

Another investigation into allegations of inadequate supervision involved a 16-year-old from Honduras who had come to the U.S. unaccompanied. The girl, who is transgender and in the custody of the federal government, reported she had sex with another patient at the hospital this summer. That investigation is ongoing.

DCFS also is investigating an allegation by an 8-year-old boy who said one of his roommates climbed on top of him and started “to hump” him and another stood next to his bed while masturbating, records show.

One complication in investigating these cases is the lack of video evidence. While the hallways contain cameras, the hospital has not provided footage to DCFS investigators on several occasions when asked for it, ProPublica Illinois found.

Skene said the agency has discussed the issue with the hospital, and the hospital is in the process of replacing its surveillance system. The installation of the new system in the children's building is expected to be completed this week, a hospital representative said.

“It's just an awful lot of very serious red flags in a very short period of time,” Charles Golbert, Cook County acting public guardian, said in an interview. He said children would be better served by an independent review of the hospital instead of separate investigations done by state and federal agencies.

He added it's difficult for DCFS to be objective because it depends on Lakeshore to care for so many of its children. Without Lakeshore, he said, the agency has few options for psychiatric treatment.

“That's a conflict of interest,” he said.

Last month, Michael Jones, a DCFS senior deputy director, said in court records that “significant challenges and harm” would follow if Lakeshore lost its federal funding and was unable to treat DCFS children, reducing the number of available beds for them by 25 percent. He called the hospital a “community partner and a necessary ally for DCFS and the children we serve.”

Jones also said the three other hospitals in Chicago that DCFS primarily uses do not always accept children in the agency's care and may not be geographically convenient for some patients.

But Golbert said there's another reason other hospitals are reluctant to take some children from DCFS. Those children, he said, sometimes end up staying weeks or months past their release dates because the agency can't find homes for them. Children who remain locked in psychiatric hospitals for long periods of time may suffer additional emotional harm and sometimes begin mimicking the negative behaviors they are exposed to, including sexual and physical misconduct.

The 12-year-old boy who allegedly sexually assaulted the 7-year-old girl at Lakeshore last month had been admitted to the hospital in June and was cleared for discharge three weeks later. But he remained at the hospital for nearly four more months because DCFS could not find him an appropriate placement.

The alleged assault occurred during that time. The girl he allegedly assaulted was cleared for release at the end of August but did not leave until September, a week after the reported incident.

Read More: Illinois Lawmakers Search for Solutions for Children Stuck in Psychiatric Hospitals

Witnesses at legislative hearing criticize state child welfare agency, say some teens prefer jail to psychiatric facilities

In addition, one of four girls targeted for sexual acts by an 11-year-old girl in June was cleared for discharge in May. She remained unnecessarily hospitalized for more than three months. And records show the 12-year-old girl who an employee allegedly sexually abused in August had been on a waiting list to go to a residential treatment center for two months.

Lakeshore's most recent regulatory troubles began this summer at its adult building, though documented concerns there go back several years. In the last 12 months, at least two people have filed lawsuits in Cook County Circuit Court against the hospital alleging sexual assaults at the adult building, including a woman who said an employee followed her into a bathroom and raped her. Both lawsuits are pending.

This year alone, state regulators conducted inspections three times at the hospital, in July, August and this month. During the July inspection, public health inspectors faulted the hospital for having doors that posed a suicide risk. They also found that the hospital did not collect samples for a rape kit after a patient alleged she was sexually assaulted, failed to complete required safety checks and did not obtain informed consent from patients before administering psychotropic medications, according to a July 27 report obtained through an open records request.

“IDPH is always concerned about the health and safety of patients and when deficiencies are found, we follow-up to make sure they are corrected,” department spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said in an email. “In situations where the health and safety of patients are in immediate jeopardy, the hospital is required to eliminate the immediate jeopardy and surveyors stay in the hospital until it does.”

When state inspectors returned the next month, they found the hospital had replaced the doors, but they identified additional suicide risks: 15 phones with long metal cords hanging from walls in hallways and dayrooms.

“This failure potentially put all 54 patients on suicide precautions, at risk for serious harm,” public health investigators wrote in the August report.

About three weeks later, federal authorities issued the notice to terminate Lakeshore's Medicare participation, effective Sept. 28.

One day before the deadline, Lakeshore attorneys filed an emergency motion in federal court to halt the move. The attorneys said the hospital serves a unique role as one of the largest behavioral health providers in Illinois, treating more than 5,000 patients a year and routinely accepting children in state custody.

The attorneys said the hospital would be forced to close and lay off hundreds of employees if its Medicare and Medicaid payments were ended. Attorneys argued the hospital is doing its best to comply with suicide prevention guidelines that are vague and often change. Safer doors had been on back order when inspectors arrived in July. The day after the inspection, an employee drove to Wyoming to pick up the doors from the manufacturer. In addition, they said the phone cords were removed while the inspectors were on site.

The hospital already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars before the inspections to remove and replace equipment that posed suicide risks throughout the buildings, according to the hospital's filings.

Hospital officials also took issue with some of the state regulators' other findings, saying many were related to documentation rather than actual patient harm. Still, they submitted a total of three correction plans - the most recent one just days ago - they said would “ensure patients are able to receive care in a safe setting,” according to records.

Federal regulators have twice extended the termination deadline, but a threat still looms. While the hospital addressed many of the violations, more emerged in an October inspection. Patients as young as 14 in the children's building were given powerful psychotropic medications without informed consent, records show.

With Lakeshore still out of compliance, federal authorities have notified hospital officials they are setting a new termination date of Nov. 30. On that date, the government will stop reimbursing the hospital for patients on Medicare. It is unclear if Medicaid payments would be affected. More than 80 percent of the hospital's patients this year were insured through Medicare or Medicaid, according to court records.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which monitors DCFS as part of a federal consent decree, has requested additional information from the agency about the conditions at Lakeshore in light of the ongoing investigations.

Claire Stewart, an ACLU attorney, said the group also wants an independent review of the hospital. The organization is considering legal intervention, she added.

“We will do what we need to do to protect the youth in care,” Stewart said. “This is an immediate safety concern and priority.”

For more, read this follow-up article:

Lawmakers Call for Independent Inquiry at Psychiatric Hospital After ProPublica Illinois Report on Abuse of Children

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In Israel, African migrant families battle hunger, trauma

TEL AVIV (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – In the concrete bowels of a vast bus station in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, a group of children gathers in the evening to play and dance to songs blaring from a CD player.

African migrants wait in line for the opening of the Population and Immigration Authority office in Bnei Brak, Israel February 4, 2018. REUTERS/Nir Elias

Their parents are African migrants who work until late, struggling to earn enough to put food on the table.

While their children have access to state education in Israel, they face hardships, support workers said.

“Everyone in their proximity is in dire stress, and there’s no money for basic necessities,” said Yonit Naftali, vice-president of Elifelet, an Israeli charity that supports children born to African migrants.

Over a decade from the mid-2000s, about 64,000 Africans – mainly from conflict-torn Sudan and Eritrea – arrived in Israel across the then-porous border with Egypt’s Sinai, which was fenced off several years ago.

Many experienced torture, were enslaved or imprisoned for ransom at the hands of Bedouin smugglers in the Sinai desert.

Today some 36,000 remain in Israel, with 6,000 more children, according to government data.

For many, life has got tougher since a 2017 law directed employers to deduct 20 percent from the wages of workers with temporary visas who entered Israel illegally from Egypt.

As an incentive for them to go elsewhere, the money is deposited in a fund, together with an employer-paid tax of 16 percent, which workers can only access when they leave Israel.

The new system is crippling for migrant families, said Naftali. “The children were the first to get hurt,” she said.

Parents must now work more – some clocking up 15 hours a day – while earning less, leaving them unable to take care of their children properly, she added.

In birthday cards to friends, children of migrants recently wrote messages such as “May you have food in your refrigerator” and “May you never go hungry”, Naftali said.

“Then we understood there is something really bad going on,” she said. Her charity had to close down one of its after-school centres in order to finance emergency food donations.

“There are actually hungry children, which I never believed I would see in Israel to such an extent,” Naftali told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The Israeli Ministry of Interior’s Population and Immigration Authority did not respond to requests for comment.

COMMUNITY SCHOOL

Many children of African migrants were born in Israel, speak Hebrew, attend Israeli schools and know Jewish culture and traditions. But they do not have Israeli identity cards and often encounter racist slurs, said Naftali.

Eritrean migrants in Israel, backed by rights groups, say they are asylum seekers fleeing violence, persecution and conscription under a repressive regime back home.

But the Israeli government views them as economic migrants, and has tried to deport them – although a failure to find a country willing to take them forced it to abandon a plan to expel thousands of mostly Eritrean and Sudanese men in April. [nL8N1S16BU]

Between 2009 and 2017, Israel granted refugee recognition to less than 0.5 percent of the almost 11,000 asylum applications it decided on, according to the Israeli non-profit Hotline for Refugees and Migrants.

Elifelet was established following a 2012 hate crime attack, when Molotov cocktails were thrown into a Tel Aviv centre for refugees where 21 children were sleeping, Naftali said.

For the children of migrant families, developing pride in their heritage is important to equip them to deal with the discrimination they face in everyday life, she added.

An after-hours school set up by the city’s Eritrean migrant community has similar aims, teaching children their own language and culture, and offering them a safe space in the evenings.

“If our kids go on the streets, they get a lot of discrimination. Here, it’s like a home,” said Kifle Bizen, director of the Abugida Eritrean Community School.

On the top floor of a rundown building in southern Tel Aviv, it is staffed by volunteers who, after finishing day jobs as cleaners or cooks, teach classes for about 120 Eritrean children, aged six to 14, four times a week.

Set up in 2013, it assists children with school work and fosters their Eritrean identity, Bizen explained.

“Our dream is to support our children not only with knowledge but also with their sense of self to help them develop,” he said.

Besides studying maths and science, the children sing, perform plays and recite poems in Tigrinya, one of Eritrea’s main languages.

Learning Tigrinya is key, said Bizen, not least because children and parents often cannot understand one another, sparking arguments.

“Here, 100 percent of the children talk in our language,” he said. The Eritrean community is like “an extended family”, working together to overcome shared challenges, he added.

The official monthly fee at Abugida is about 400 shekels ($108), but most Eritreans pay half that or less, said Bizen, while 40 children from single-parent households attend free.

Since the migrant job tax was imposed, about 20 children have dropped out because their parents could no longer afford to pay anything, Bizen added.

MENTAL SCARS

Some students are affected by psychological troubles, making them withdrawn and unwilling to make friends, said Bizen.

Berhe Teame, a volunteer at Abugida and an Eritrean community leader, said a psychologist was brought in last year, but the project collapsed due to a lack of funds.

“The trauma lives in us,” he said. His own daughter was held in a Libyan prison with her mother before arriving in Israel.

“My kid saw everything,” he said. “When the police beat her mother, she was with her.”

Many parents are also scarred by their ordeal, said Bizen, describing one father who talked of a severed head he saw in the Sinai desert.

Ultimately, many Eritreans in Israel dream of returning home once the situation there improves, said Teame.

“We hope to have peace in our country, to be able to give our kids our land,” he said. “There will be a time when things will change. Until then, we need to give them education.”

($1 = 3.6935 shekels)

Reporting by Inna Lazareva, Editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit news.trust.org

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