Blogs

January has brought change to Just Beginning and the Youth Law Center. As you can see our new site design and modified content are now live thanks to the heroic and unremunerated efforts of our editor, Eric Berkowitz, and our designer/architect Rick Erickson. (No, you don’t have to have at least one “ric” in your name to work on this, but it helps.) We’re interested in your opinion of the new look and functionality. We hope it’s easier for you to find useful information and that there is more information to find. Let us know how we can serve you better.

Sometimes, the challenges we face seem overwhelming. Our efforts to change lives in the foster care system are great and the results are not always immediately apparent. But as the holiday season comes upon us, let us stop for a moment and notice that good changes that have already taken place. Our challenge in the coming year is to make sure that foster care system supports and enhances important family relationships rather than, as happens too often, making such relationships impossible.

We hope you are all getting acquainted with the revamped Justbeginning.org. We are thrilled about it, and we are proud to present advanced research from the finest and most innovative sources in the United States.

Once again a child had died in appalling circumstances, and once again the government’s response is to put other children directly in harm’s way. The latest case comes out of Arizona, where an emaciated 6-year-old boy died after being admitted to the hospital with a brain bruise and other injuries. While the parents have pleaded not guilty in causing the death, the Arizona Child Protective Services agency (CPS) had five child abuse and neglect reports on file when the boy was hospitalized, two of which were still “under investigation.”

For my Department it was never a matter of prioritizing our services to our children 0-6 in the child welfare system but reallocating our resources and our practices to better understand the needs of this vulnerable population.

I never knew when I arrived at a local park on April 2, 1980 to meet and take home the 13 month little girl who was the foster child I was going to adopt, that I would one day be in a position of directing policy in a large child welfare agency. I only knew that our dream of having a daughter was finally going to come true.

Kristy Smythand her familygrown throughadoption.

Photo credit:
Jamie Ibey of I See BeautyPhotography

Kristy Smythand her familygrown throughadoption.

Photo credit:
Jamie Ibey of I See BeautyPhotography

Kristy Smythand her familygrown throughadoption.

Photo credit:
Jamie Ibey of I See BeautyPhotography

Prominent researchers, child advocates and other concerned individuals are voicing their opposition to SB 1214, a bill currently pending before the California State Senate. This bill would allow infants and toddlers to be placed in crisis nurseries, institutions that do not meet the minimum standards that protect all other children under the age of 6 in foster care. Researchers and child advocates are in agreement that these institutions are damaging to the development of young children. Here are some letters written in opposition to SB 1214.

Charles H. Zeanah, M.D.

The impact that the Baby Elmo Program has had on incarcerated teen parents is perhaps best told by “graduates” themselves. Here are some letters from youth who have recently participated in the program talking about their experiences and thanking us for making the program available.

The impact that the Baby Elmo Program has had on incarcerated teen parents is perhaps best told by “graduates” themselves. Here are some letters from youth who have recently participated in the program talking about their experiences and thanking us for making the program available.

What have we found out so far?

What we already know

• Parent-child interaction is critical during the first 3-years of life
• On any given day more than 100,000 youth are under California’s juvenile justice system, and 30% of incarcerated males are teen parents

The Baby Elmo program, coined by one of the first groups to participate in the program in an Orange County facility, focuses on strengthening family ties between incarcerated teen parents and their infants. The program involves planned visits between incarcerated teen parents and their babies. Prior to the visit the teen parent and trainer (a line staff member at the juvenile detention facility) work on a goal and during the visit the teen uses this new skill to interact with her/his baby.

In Wayne County Michigan, we have been working to implement a systems-based intervention. A central component of this intervention has been training and education to share findings from current developmental science. For example, with child welfare and protective service workers we are sharing information about early attachment relationships and the trauma that occurs when young children experience relationship disruptions, and ways to minimize these impacts.

Foster care is a nationally-implemented intervention designed to protect and care for children when their parents are not able to provide necessary protection and care. A paradox of this system is that while removals may at times be necessary, they may also be costly for young children. Research tells us that children under 3 are the largest group entering care, and that younger children entering the system are likely to remain for longer periods of time, and are more likely to experience repeated relationship disruptions with moves from placement to placement.

“There’s no such thing as a baby.” This assertion, first made by the eminent development theorist, Winnicott in 1965, remains today a fairly radical statement. Yet the sentiment expressed continues to gain support from cutting-edge research in neuroscience and developmental psychology. Young children do not, indeed cannot, survive as “isolates,” but instead can only thrive within a primary relationship context.

Joan Kaufman

See the New York Times letter to the editor

To the Editor:

Re: ''Study Suggests Orphanages Are Not So Bad'' (news article, Dec. 18):

Blog response dialogue (as seen in email between authors an contributors to this counter to the Whettan article)

Joan Kaufman Ph. D.

Here’s the article in USA Today - http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-12-18-orphanages_N.htm

NC: Study finds orphanages can be a 'viable option'
Date: Friday, December 18, 2009
Source: USA TODAY
Author: Wendy Koch

On December 17, the New York Times ran an article about a study that purported to show that orphanages in some “low resource countries provided equal or better quality care to home or community care."