Liberty Dycus, 23, who was adopted from Ethiopia as a child, ended up in foster care after being abused. She says that when she emancipated at 19, she “never felt more alone.” She wishes there had been “someone who’d said, ‘Let’s make a plan for you. Let’s get you in the right direction.’” Instead, like [...]
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-teens-in-foster-care-overcome-adversity-in-the-kitchen-20160225-story.html Teaching teens to cook can be as difficult as perfecting a Croquembouche. It can be even harder for teens in the foster care system. “People my age they feel like they can’t do it because it’s already so hard on us being in the foster care system or whatever the case may be,” said [...]
http://youthtoday.org/2016/03/giving-foster-youth-a-chance-at-college/ The Academy (program) was created as a partnership between the nonprofit First Star Academies, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, and one of the nation’s top public universities. By the following summer, Turner had joined a cohort of other foster youth heading into high school who first spent three weeks [...]
First Focus announced that over 120 state and national organizations led by the First Focus Campaign for Children endorsed today the Children’s Bill of Rights (H. Res. 476). The resolution, recently introduced by Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), would establish a national Children’s Bill of Rights recognizing that [...]
Emotional abuse may be equally harmful to a child as physical abuse and neglect, the results of a McGill University study suggest. Importantly, the researchers also say, sexually abused children are usually mistreated in other ways as well. "Child maltreatment" is the psychological umbrella covering child physical abuse (affecting 8.0 percent of the world’s children), [...]
John Kelly reported on October 14, 2015 in The Chronicle of Social Change on Focus on Figures. Focus on the Figures is a regular partnership between The Chronicle of Social Change andKidsData.org, a nonprofit dedicated to providing data on the health and well-being of California’s children. In 2014, there were 496,972 reports (allegations) of child abuse and [...]
Tara Haelle, HealthDay News, reported today the news of a new study that states that further testing of all children with suspicious injuries could minimize misdiagnoses. The early signs of child abuse among infants and toddlers -- head trauma, cracked ribs or abdominal injuries -- are often missed, and that may be due in part to [...]
David Crary of the Associated Press reports that for the first time in a decade, there was a notable increase last year in the number of U.S. children in foster care, according to new federal figures released Wednesday. The annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services tallied 415,129 children in the foster [...]
U.S. Reps Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) will introduce a bill next week that would allow former foster youth access to Medicaid in any state until the age of 26. The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2009, guarantees Medicaid eligibility until 26 to youth who age out of foster care, the same amount of [...]
First Star joined a brief in a Maryland case involving an individual who is extraordinarily fragile and who is likely to lose his life if he does not receive round-the-clock skilled nursing care. Numerous disabled children in Maryland and elsewhere face dramatic changes in their living situations, including loss of access to necessary medical care, [...]