Colorado Court Rules Social Workers Potentially Liable in Foster Home Abuse

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Earlier this month, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that social workers in Adams County may be held legally responsible for failures to protect children in foster care from abuse. The ruling stems from a case involving a lawsuit filed by three siblings, who claim that social workers failed to safeguard them from abuse in their mother’s home, and later deceived their adoptive parents about the severity of their abuse history. Prior to the ruling, the adoptive parents of the children unsuccessfully filed a separate suit against the Adams County Department of Social Services, claiming that social workers did not disclose the full records of abuse prior to their adoption. Last December, a federal judge ruled that Denver’s social workers could be sued, following the case of a 7-year-old who starved to death under the watch of his foster parents. The ruling allows the siblings to proceed with their lawsuit against the Adams County Department of Social Services, on the grounds that their rights to safety were violated by county social workers.

New Studies Fail To Find Substantial Link between Dietary Habits and ADHD in Children

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The results are in from two studies evaluating the effects of diet on children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While neither study resulted in data conclusively linking dietary habits to ADHD, researchers suggest that children with diets high in fiber, folate and omega-3 fatty acids may be at a lesser risk for developing ADHD symptoms than children with diets high in processed and preservative-rich foods. Researchers at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago recently conducted research analyzing the findings of several studies that attempted to uncover whether changes in diet and dietary supplements provided any effect on children displaying ADHD symptoms. The study coincides with similar research conducted by Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, the results of which will be published in next month’s issue of Pediatrics. Both studies appear to discount the influence of high sugar diets and foods containing large amounts of additives and dyes in the development of ADHD symptoms in children, such as inattention and impulsivity. However, Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago study author Dr. J. Gordon Millichap said that he did believe that children displaying ADHD symptoms may benefit from “elimination diets” that omit milk, cheese, nuts and other common allergenic foods, although he considers such diets “difficult for families to manage.”

Dr. Andrew Adesman, Chief of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, said that despite research results, there’s no evidence present that establishes dietary habits as an effective form of treating ADHD symptoms.

“For better or worse, medications are the single most effective treatment available for ADHD,” he said.

In King’s Hometown, the Sights, the Sounds and the Mood on his Day

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In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a blossoming movement rose forth to recognize the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a federally observed holiday, culminating with more than six million people signing a petition to Congress. In 1986, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was first celebrated, three years after President Ronald Reagan signed a bill authorizing the third Monday in January as a federal holiday. According to 2007 statistics, however, only a third of the nation’s employers give their employees the day off for the federal holiday, and it wasn’t until 2000 that every state in the union recognized the date as an official state holiday. Nor is the official terminology consistent throughout the country, with Arizona and New Hampshire celebrating the date as “Martin Luther King. Jr. Civil Rights Day” and Mississippi recognizing the day as a co-celebration of the lives of both King and Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Enrollment in Kids’ Health Insurance Programs Grow Under Medicaid Bonus Program

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Last month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services awarded 23 states approximately $296 million in bonuses for increasing the number of children enrolled in health insurance programs.
The bonuses, funded by the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA), came a week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report stating that about 1.2 million more children have health insurance in the United States than three years prior. According to the most recent estimates, approximately 93 percent of the nation’s children now have some form of health insurance coverage, a 2 percent increase from federal levels around 2008. When the Children’s Health Insurance Program was initially created in 1997, the national statistics hovered around 86 percent. In addition to providing performance bonuses for states that simplify and increase coverage for children, CHIRPA provisions allow states to enroll children using information culled from other public programs, as well as automatic eligibility for babies whose mothers are already covered by Medicaid or CHIP programs.

Cindy Mann, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said that although the nation faces “serious fiscal challenges,” she still believes that children’s health should remain “a top priority” for states. “Not only have more states qualified for performance bonuses in the past,” she said, “but many have continued to improve the efficiency of their programs.”

In 2010, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services awarded more than $217 million in CHIPRA Performance Bonuses to 16 states, all of which qualified for performance bonuses again in 2011.

Anti-Anti-Bulllying Bill May Make Comeback in Tennessee

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A controversial anti-bullying bill that faltered in Tennessee’s General Assembly last year seems to be set for a comeback as lawmakers convene Tuesday. The measure -- pushed by David Fowler, a former state senator and president of the Family Council of Tennessee (FACT) -- would alter the current anti-bullying laws in the state, effectively creating a loophole that would protect students from reprimand for expressing their “religious, philosophical, or political views” providing that that they do so without physically threatening another student and/or his or her property. Additionally, the bill would disallow anti-bullying programs from using materials or training policies that “explicitly or implicitly promote a political agenda [and] make the characteristics of the victim the focus rather than the conduct of the person engaged in harassment, intimidation or bullying.”

In the December 2011 FACT newsletter, Fowler said that the purpose of the proposed legislation is to protect “the religious liberty and free speech rights of students who want to express their views on homosexuality.” In a recent Chattanooga Times Free Press article, he said that the intent of the bill was to “stop bullying” without creating “special classes of people who are more important than others.”

Both Fowler and the proposed legislation have come under fire from many gay rights activists, with several opponents of the bill saying that it would give students a “license to bully” gay teenagers. “This kind of legislation can send a message that it’s OK to hate and we’ll even give you religious sanction for it,” said Chris Sanders of the Tennessee Equality Project. “As long as you say it for religious reasons, you’ve got backup.”

On a recent FACT radio broadcast, Fowler said “the purpose of bullying statutes is to prevent people or the property being harmed, not their mere sensibilities of being offended.”

According to a spokesman for state Sen. Jim Tracy (R), who sponsored the bill last year, members of the Tennessee Legislature are “reviewing the legislation,” and seeking to “narrow” the “very broad” bill in its current incarnation.

Children of the 1980s, You are so Not Like Today’s Kids

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Last month, the National Center for Education Statistics released a new report detailing numerous changes in the demographic and behavioral patterns of America’s youth over the last 30 years. “America’s Youth: Transitions to Adulthood,” published by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, finds many differences between the youth -- described in the study as those between the ages of 14-24 -- of today, and their peers from 10, 20 and 30 years ago. The report states that while there are approximately 1 million more youth in the United States than three decades ago, the overall population percentage of the nation’s youth shrunk from 20 percent in 1980 to just 15 percent in 2010. The report,  Susan Aud, Angelina KewalRamani and Lauren Froehlich, also notes that the youth of today are more likely to be enrolled in school than the youth of 30 years ago, with 52 percent of the nation’s 20- and 21-year-olds currently enrolled in college, compared to only 31 percent in 1980. According to the report, the number of young adults whose highest education level was a high school degree dropped from 46 percent to 29 percent over the last 30 years.

After Iowa: Candidates’ Records on Juvenile Justice and Education Issues

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The first leg of the 2012 presidential race ended in a virtual dead heat between Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, with the former Massachusetts governor edging the former Pennsylvania senator by a mere eight votes in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses. With several primaries scheduled for the month of January, the results of Iowa’s contest may be just the beginning of a long and potentially tumultuous road to establishing a Republican challenger to President Obama this November. In regards to juvenile justice and education issues, both Romney and Santorum have figured prominently in establishing reform measures within their respective states. Romney served as the governor of Massachusetts from 2003-2007, overseeing an overhaul of the state’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee during his first year in office. In 2003, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized Massachusetts officials for failing to comply with the Disproportionate Minority Confinement provision of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Provision Act [JJDP] of 1974.  In response, the Romney administration outlined a complete reorganization of the state’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee [JJAC], a State Advisory Group established by a 2002 addendum to the JJDP Act.

Did the FDA Ignore Earlier Reports of Elevated Arsenic Levels in Juices?

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When Consumer Reports publisher Consumers Union announced its findings related to an investigation of arsenic levels in several popular fruit juices last month, the uproar was instantaneous. Released just two months after an episode of “The Dr. Oz Show” brought the issue to the public forefront, the Consumer Reports investigation aroused a nationwide debate, raising questions about the safety of juice products as well as Food and Drug Administration standards. What remains mostly unpublicized, however, is that several groups contacted the FDA about elevated arsenic and lead levels in fruit juices earlier this summer – a full two months before “The Dr. Oz Show” episode about arsenic levels in apple juices originally aired. “Right now, there are no standards for juices for arsenic at all, or even heavy metals,” said Judy Braiman, founder of the Empire State Consumer Project,  an advocacy group established in 1986. Braiman’s organization conducted an independent study analyzing heavy metals levels, including arsenic and lead, in several juice products in July, which found arsenic levels higher than the FDA’s established standards for drinking water in several apple juices and sauces.

Kentucky Newspapers Fighting for Release of Unedited Child Abuse Records

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Earlier this week, The Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier-Journal filed separate motions in an attempt to get the state’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services to release full case files involving child deaths and near-deaths as a result of abuse or neglect. The motions came following the cabinet’s release of more than 300 pages of heavily edited internal reviews on Monday. The redacted files omitted or censored the names of not only children that were killed or injured, but in some instances, the names of suspects and counties in which the abuses occurred. Wednesday, the Louisville Courier-Journal filed a motion in the Franklin Circuit Court requesting that the Cabinet for Health and Family Services be held in contempt for editing the files. That same day, the Lexington Herald-Leader asked Judge Phillip Shepherd to make the cabinet produced unabridged copies of social worker reviews from 2009 and 2010.

ARISE Launches New Program to Raise Teen Pregnancy Awareness

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This month, the nationwide non-profit organization ARISE launched a new website to promote its Sprouts Series, a program designed to encourage prevention and raise awareness of teenage pregnancy. The organization touts its Sprouts Series, a component of the ARISE Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, as “evidence-based” material intended to show teenagers “the realities of making babies and all that is involved in raising them.”

The latest Centers for Disease Control data finds that more than 400,000 American teenagers gave birth in 2009. The Sprouts Series program consists of five books, which are available in both English and Spanish. Each book charts a different aspect of the childrearing process, from prenatal care and postpartum expectations to family building and infant safety. Additional resources, including instructor manuals and learner’s workbooks, are available for the first four installments in the series.