Category: Child Welfare System
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Has Covid19 Made it Harder For Kids in Foster Care to be Reunified With Their Families?
When a child is removed by CPS because the agency believes they may be in danger of potential abuse and neglect, their immediate safety is the main issue at hand. However, while the initial removal is devastating, in most cases the ultimate aim is reunification, which means that the agency is supposed to work towards…
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Michigan to Shut Down Group Home Where 13-Year-Old Boy Died
Hearing about a child who died at the hands of their own parents or caregivers is tragic. Few things could be more heartbreaking. But hearing about a child who was removed from their parents care, ostensibly for abuse, and placed into the care of the state where they were poorly treated and finally killed, is…
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Keeping Kids With Their Families During The Quarantine
During this very stressful period of life, while Michigan families are locked away in quarantine inside their homes under the “stay home, stay safe” order, the number of calls to CPS have risen significantly. As a result, the number of child abuse and neglect investigations has also increased, and the number of children removed from…
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Does CPS Have More Authority Than The Cops? Some Say Yes!
When the police show up at your door for whatever reason – whether it’s to interview you, arrest you, or simply break some bad news to you, they have rules and regulations they have to follow. Every police officer’s actions are managed by a code of conduct, and by the law. There are things they’re…
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Child Abuse Calls to CPS Have Increased Significantly During Quarantine!
A great many places around Michigan, and the grester US, have seen significant reductions in crime during the quarantine. Murder, sexual assault and burglary numbers have dropped well below the average for this time of year, and that’s great. But when you trap families together in their homes with very little relief and no fixed…
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Even a Short Stay in Foster Care Can Have Detrimental Effects on a Child (Pt 2)
Hi there and welcome back. We’ve been talking about how foster care stays affect children’s mental and emotional wellbeing, and how even a very short stay in foster care can seriously hamper a child’s socio-emotional development. As we explained in the previous article, a recent study conducted by the Marshall Project showed that an astounding…
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Even a Short Stay in Foster Care Can Have Detrimental Effects on a Child (Pt 1)
Think your kids will never end up in foster care? Listen to this: You have a child who, for reasons no doctor can determine, isn’t meeting their developmental goals. They struggle to sit up by the six-month mark, and by 18 months they’re still showing no signs of being able to walk. At 4-years of…
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Cooperation Between Foster And Bio Parents Gets Kids Home Faster! (Pt 2)
Welcome back – we’ve been discussing the fact that when biological and foster parents communicate about the child they’re all invested in, that child ends up going home faster in the long run. Several studies have shown that when children get removed from their parents care and placed in foster homes, one of the factors…
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Cooperation Between Foster And Bio Parents Gets Kids Home Faster! (Pt 1)
When CPS takes a child away from their parent’s home because of suspected abuse or neglect and places them in a foster home, a whole chain of events is kicked off. First, the agency has to find a licensed foster home (hopefully nearby) that has room for that kid. Once the child is established in…
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Should ‘Visitation’ be Changed to ‘Family Time’ For Kids in Foster Care? (Pt 2)
Welcome back and thanks for joining us again for this discussion on the issue of visitation for kids in foster care, and how that time together should be viewed more as “family time” and less as a short visit. As we explained in the previous article, the federal government has recently released a memo addressing…