Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/foster-care/page/7/)
The numbers are huge: An Oregon study found that 93 percent of girls in the state’s juvenile justice system had been sexually or physically abused at some time. South Carolina research found that 81 percent of girls in its system had experienced sexual abuse.
Economist and author Noreena Hertz created the name from that generation’s “Hunger Games” icon, Katniss Everdeen, after surveying 1,000 British and American girls.
The Red Hook Youth Court trains teens to serve as jurors and judges to handle real-life low-level misdemeanors committed by their peers. The all-teen jury has the power to impose sanctions such as community service hours, workshops or essays.
At long last, there is good news about ways to help youth in foster care and those who have been in custody in the juvenile justice system as they move into adulthood.
Each year, more than half a million children come into contact with the foster care system in the United States. Of those, 80 percent suffer from severe emotional problems, according to a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Less than 50 percent receive their high school diploma, and far fewer go into any type of post-secondary education. Those are some of the statistics, but what’s it’s like to walk in their shoes? What’s it like to face the tough challenges and choices these young men and women deal with on a daily basis?
More than four-years after Children’s Rights, a New York-based non-profit, filed a law suit on behalf of nine children in Oklahoma, a settlement has been reached that will bring changes to the state’s child welfare system. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell approved the settlement reached between Children’s Rights and Oklahoma’s Department of Human Services in January. “There just has not been the funding to hit some of these critical needs,” Sheree Powell, communications coordinator for the state’s Department of Human Services, said. “We don’t control the purse strings, but it was understood in federal court that we’ll make good-faith efforts to improve everything within our control.”
Under the agreement, “specific strategies to improve the child welfare system” as it relates to 15 performance areas will be outlined, detailed and put into practice over the next four years. “We’re confident the settlement will result in better services and protection than foster children [in Oklahoma] currently receive,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, Founder and Executive Director of Children’s Rights.
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.
The Lexington Courier-Journal reported in late November that 18- year- old Garrett Dye was sentenced to 50 years for the murder of his adopted sister, Amy Dye, who was 9- years-old. Amy was removed from her mother in Washington state at the age of three. For two years she was shuffled between foster homes and relatives. Finally, at the age of five, her great aunt petitioned to adopt her, a seemingly happy ending to her ordeal. She came to Kentucky first as a foster child, into a home approved by state authorities, and then as an adopted daughter. The aunt received $550.60 a month to support the adoption.
One family in Dalton, Ga. is fighting to be reunited after the mother and father were stripped of their parental rights. The juvenile court judge ruled that Ovidio and Domitina Mendez were unable to care adequately for their five children, all of whom have complicated medical needs, according to The Chattanooga Times Free Press. But advocates working on behalf of the Mendez family argue the parents’ inability to speak English and illegal immigration status were the deciding factors in the case. The five Mendez children, aged three through seven, are currently living with a foster family who is trying to adopt them.
Hope’s* earliest memories are with her younger sister and her mother. But these are not the fond memories of a warm and carefree childhood, rather they are full of the pain she felt from watching her mother struggle with drug addiction. Hope’s mother loved her two girls, but did not consistently provide for the basic needs of her children, often leaving them for long periods of time with relatives with no explanation. At the age of 8, Hope’s life changed forever. Her relatives, realizing that the girls had been abandoned, and deciding they would not or could not care for the two children, called Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) and the children entered foster care.