Lawyers Will Bring Suit on Behalf of Foster Children

[Doug]

STATE FAILS KIDS - FORCING FOUNDATION TO STEP IN

On 3 October 2001, Keenan's Kids Foundation launched the Keenan's Kids Law
Center - the first ever children's rights law center started by a private
foundation.

PURPOSE: The Keenan's Kids Law Center has as its core mission prosecuting
lawsuits on behalf of Georgia's abused, neglected and at risk children -
children who are neglected by the institutions and governmental agencies
that are supposed to protect them. Each and every case prosecuted by the law
center will be done pro-bono - at no cost to the clients whatsoever. The
lawsuits chosen by the center will have a central goal - that is to bring
about major systemic changes in the way children are treated by government
and institutions.

TIME Magazine listed Georgia as one of the three worst states in dealing
with children under protective custody, the cover story was titled: "The
Shame of Foster Care". 60 Minutes II, in a story detailing the death of a
child in protective custody, titled its newscast: "Georgia, A State of
Neglect". For nearly 25 years, the child protective system has deteriorated
into a state of almost meltdown. The State has consistently shown a lack of
leadership and all legislative reforms have failed. When the State fails its
children, they must be held accountable in the Courts of Law.

For more information and detail on the projects, activities and successes of
the Law Center, please see www.keenanskidslawcenter.com.

[william j.]

It is about time that someone is there representing our children. When are the other states going to really take a look at the kids in care of all the states. Az has just past the most abusive laws against children in the country's history and the governor does not want former foster children on the planning board for children and families because they dont know what is going on. Well we do and we know that your aim is to steal children without assisting the families becuse you feel that it is easy to have that child adopted either before the child is removed or just after that way your states may take orders like any other adoption agency.

bill ritchotte i am so ashamed of the states on how they treat children today. God help us all

From Moira
Hey Guys,

Thought I would share this - recently our Governor decided to have a committee
on changing CPS - only thing is, she did not talk to the kids. They are
proposing making it more difficult for a family to get their children back,
making CPS not liable to even try to reunite the family and make it easier for
adoptions to fly through on the younger children in the system without having to
attempt to return the children home.

So, I wrote this:

Sen. Anderson,

I am writing this to you because of your position in the Committee on Family
Services. It is my understanding that your committee will be the ones to hammer
out the finances, etc., on the Governor's Proposed Changes.

As a former foster child here in the State of Arizona and a fourth generation
native of the state, I have to say this....do not allow our Governor, no matter
how well meaning, to make the changes she has proposed with regard to CPS.
Doubtless some of these changes are positive and would be for the best for the
children. I do not disagree. But, as a person intimately familiar with Arizona's
CPS, I know that other changes will make many many more children pay in
emotional illness and later on in life by way of instability.

The facts are simple. According to a study done at Cambridge University, and to
numerous other studies, there are at present 500,000 children in the United
States in some form of foster care. Of those 500,000 children, 20,000 will age
out of foster care each year. All of these children who age out are expected to
do what most other children are not required to do - survive on their own
without a family to support them.

Yes, there are programs. These programs are available for, as the social worker
told us in one of the last Foster Care Review Boards that I attended, children
who show promise or who appear to be able to utilize the help offered by the
program. This does not seem to take into account that almost every child turns
18 at some point.

I did say almost every child. The studies also show that children in foster care
are 4 times more likely to be abused in foster care than out of care. So, for
every child we put in care, we risk more serious damage by the very people that
are supposed to care for them. In our nation's capitol alone over 180 children
where murdered either through neglect or abuse while in care in the years 1999
and 2000.

Yes, I fear that more children will be abused. But I also fear that we are
building more and more on a system that has never functioned as designed and
that creates more than 60% of our criminal element - as records show for prisons
- and almost 80% of our homeless population.

To allow an agency the power to simply decide to take a child on a suspicion, a
neighborhood squabble, or a report that is unsubstantiated and then to make sure
this child is not returned to the parent, that is heinous. By our own numbers
there are more than 40,000 reports of abuse in Maricopa County alone and out of
that number only approximately 1,200 are substantiated. But, with the Governor's
new plan, any social worker - underpaid, overworked and using their own life as
a frame of reference to positive living conditions - may remove a child from the
people the child loves and knows and place them with strangers. Thus creating
another lost soul.

Please, Please, as a parent and a human being, do not allow this proposal to be
adopted. It creates a monster in our society.

Thank you.

Moira



"Doug" > wrote in message link.net...
> STATE FAILS KIDS - FORCING FOUNDATION TO STEP IN
>
> On 3 October 2001, Keenan's Kids Foundation launched the Keenan's Kids Law
> Center - the first ever children's rights law center started by a private
> foundation.
>
> PURPOSE: The Keenan's Kids Law Center has as its core mission prosecuting
> lawsuits on behalf of Georgia's abused, neglected and at risk children -
> children who are neglected by the institutions and governmental agencies
> that are supposed to protect them. Each and every case prosecuted by the law
> center will be done pro-bono - at no cost to the clients whatsoever. The
> lawsuits chosen by the center will have a central goal - that is to bring
> about major systemic changes in the way children are treated by government
> and institutions.
>
> TIME Magazine listed Georgia as one of the three worst states in dealing
> with children under protective custody, the cover story was titled: "The
> Shame of Foster Care". 60 Minutes II, in a story detailing the death of a
> child in protective custody, titled its newscast: "Georgia, A State of
> Neglect". For nearly 25 years, the child protective system has deteriorated
> into a state of almost meltdown. The State has consistently shown a lack of
> leadership and all legislative reforms have failed. When the State fails its
> children, they must be held accountable in the Courts of Law.
>
> For more information and detail on the projects, activities and successes of
> the Law Center, please see www.keenanskidslawcenter.com.
>
>
>