This week's blog is:

On the political left, the UpEND movement wants to abolish child welfare.  This includes letting communities decide the fate of children who can’t stay with their parents.  Such a process, with no regulation or enforceable guidelines, could not be relied on to keep children safe or produce decisions in their best interests.  It could easily open the door to anyone who desires access to children.

On the right, groups like the Homeschool Legal Defense Association resist any government involvement with families, overwhelming more moderate voices like the  Coalition for Responsible Home Schooling. One consequence is demonstrated by this Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate study, which found that 36% of children removed from school were subjects of one or multiple credible child maltreatment reports.

While child protection and foster care need reforms, the solution is to improve, not abolish them.

What is really going on? Who or what is motivating these movements? Who wins and who loses? What about the children? Join Rich for a full discussion on this plus in-depth commentary and analysis in this week's podcast.

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Rich Gehrman is the founder and Executive Director of Minnesota nonprofit organization Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota. He is the 2021 winner of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Minnesota’s 2021 "Mark Proctor Hero for Children Award."

Read the full blog and podcast transcript at https://safepassageforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Narrative-for-efforts-by-conservatives-and-progressives-to-abolish-child-welfare-with-comments-on-1.pdf 

Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota’s nonprofit mission is to strengthen the Minnesota child welfare system so children are safe and can reach their full potential. If you know someone who cares about children, be sure to share this podcast with them.

Support Safe Passage's work for Minnesota's most vulnerable children at www.safepassageforchildren.org/donate and visit them at www.safepassageforchildren.org

Approximately 10%-12% of foster children are entitled to Social Security benefits either because of a disability, or as survivors of parents who paid into the system.  Most Minnesota counties use these revenues to pay for foster care. This fact sheet has details. However House File 3211, authored by Rep. Dave Pinto, preserves these funds for youth when they reach adulthood. The Department of Human Services and counties are working with Safe Passage and Foster Advocates to craft a bill all can support. What do the benefits look like? Is there opposition? From who? Are there other cities or states already taking this step? Join Rich for a full discussion on this plus his in-depth commentary and analysis in this week's podcast.

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Rich Gehrman is the founder and Executive Director of Minnesota nonprofit organization Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota. He is the 2021 winner of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Minnesota’s 2021 "Mark Proctor Hero for Children Award."

Read the full blog and podcast transcript at https://safepassageforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Narrative-for-Podcast-on-Revenues-to-Children-in-Foster-Care.pdf

Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota’s nonprofit mission is to strengthen the Minnesota child welfare system so children are safe and can reach their full potential. If you know someone who cares about children, be sure to share this podcast with them.

Support Safe Passage's work for Minnesota's most vulnerable children at www.safepassageforchildren.org/donate and visit them at www.safepassageforchildren.org

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Are you a resident of Minnesota? Join us to advocate for abused and neglected Minnesota children at the state capitol later in March! Just go to https://bit.ly/spchildadvocacyweeks2022

This week we interviewed Child Welfare Monitor blogger Marie Cohen for a combined webinar/podcast. The Monitor makes child welfare research accessible to those not in the business. In the process it has challenged many child welfare myths that, despite having no empirical basis, are widely accepted as fact simply because they have been repeated so often. 

Join Rich for a full discussion on this plus his in-depth commentary and analysis in this week's podcast.

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Rich Gehrman is the founder and Executive Director of Minnesota nonprofit organization Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota. He is the 2021 winner of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Minnesota’s 2021 "Mark Proctor Hero for Children Award."

Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota’s nonprofit mission is to strengthen the Minnesota child welfare system so children are safe and can reach their full potential. If you know someone who cares about children, be sure to share this podcast with them.

Support Safe Passage's work for Minnesota's most vulnerable children at www.safepassageforchildren.org/donate and visit them at www.safepassageforchildren.org

The federal Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) just released 2020 child maltreatment reports, more than a year after the reporting periods. They showed wide variations among states and counties. Why is that? What is happening? What needs to change?

Join Rich for a full discussion on this plus his in-depth commentary and analysis in this week's podcast.

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Rich Gehrman is the founder and Executive Director of Minnesota nonprofit organization Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota. He is the 2021 winner of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Minnesota’s 2021 "Mark Proctor Hero for Children Award."

Read the full blog and podcast transcript at https://safepassageforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Narrative-for-podcast-on-federal-and-state-child-maltreatment-reports.pdf

Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota’s nonprofit mission is to strengthen the Minnesota child welfare system so children are safe and can reach their full potential. If you know someone who cares about children, be sure to share this podcast with them.

Support Safe Passage's work for Minnesota's most vulnerable children at www.safepassageforchildren.org/donate and visit them at www.safepassageforchildren.org

Guardians ad litem (GALs) represent the best interests of the child in Juvenile Court maltreatment proceedings.  They may be paid staff or volunteers.  Volunteer GALs are recruited and trained by the nonprofit CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). CASA volunteers have become passionate advocates for children.  And they often can spend more time with children than paid GALs, who handle large caseloads. But as the Neal St. Anthony article describes, the state agency that manages GALs isn’t allowing CASA to recruit new volunteers.  Unless this changes CASA will soon die through attrition.

Join Rich for a full discussion on this plus his in-depth commentary and analysis in this week's podcast.

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Rich Gehrman is the founder and Executive Director of Minnesota nonprofit organization Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota. He is the 2021 winner of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Minnesota’s 2021 "Mark Proctor Hero for Children Award."

Read the full blog and podcast transcript at https://safepassageforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Volunteer-Guardian-ad-Litem-Program-at-Risk-of-Closing-Ebrief-and-Narrative-for-podcast.pdf

Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota’s nonprofit mission is to strengthen the Minnesota child welfare system so children are safe and can reach their full potential. If you know someone who cares about children, be sure to share this podcast with them.

Support Safe Passage's work for Minnesota's most vulnerable children at www.safepassageforchildren.org/donate and visit them at www.safepassageforchildren.org

Child welfare and early childhood development advocates are both concerned about the lifelong impact of trauma, neglect, and abuse on brain development, especially in infants and toddlers. But often our advocacy in child development arenas for child safety has been deflected with pointed reminders about the trauma caused by removing children from their families, and the importance of respecting families and communities. Obviously, these things are both true. But the trauma of separation does not outweigh that of being maimed or killed.

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Rich Gehrman is the founder and Executive Director of Minnesota nonprofit organization Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota. He is the 2021 winner of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Minnesota’s 2021 "Mark Proctor Hero for Children Award."

Read the full blog and podcast transcript at https://safepassageforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/The-Voice-of-Early-Childhood-Advocates-is-Crucial-to-Child-Safety-with-narrative-for-podcast.pdf

Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota’s nonprofit mission is to strengthen the Minnesota child welfare system so children are safe and can reach their full potential. If you know someone who cares about children, be sure to share this podcast with them.

Support Safe Passage's work for Minnesota's most vulnerable children at www.safepassageforchildren.org/donate and visit them at www.safepassageforchildren.org

Volunteers and friends of Safe Passage are starting a support group for adult survivors of child abuse.

Similar groups, such as SNAP for survivors of sexual abuse by priests, have found that sharing one’s story with people who have had similar experiences can generate healing that therapy doesn’t always accomplish.

Their ground rules open with this statement:

“We who have survived childhood abuse understand as few others can. We carried that experience with us through adolescence and into adulthood as we were developing our lives. We urge you to share our meetings, our experiences, strength, and hope.”

The group meets the second Sunday of each month at 7:00 p.m. via Zoom.  Upcoming topics include self-care, letting go of behaviors that no longer work, and speaking up for oneself.

Anyone interested in participating can contact Karen Nestingen at [email protected].

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Rich Gehrman is the founder and Executive Director of Minnesota nonprofit organization Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota. He is the 2021 winner of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Minnesota’s 2021 "Mark Proctor Hero for Children Award."

Read the full blog and podcast transcript here: https://safepassageforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Support-Group-for-Adult-Survivors-of-Child-Abuse-Offers-Healing-with-narrative-for-podcast.pdf

Safe Passage for Children’s nonprofit mission is to strengthen the Minnesota child welfare system so children are safe and can reach their full potential.

If you know someone who cares about children, be sure to share this podcast with them.

Please support our work for Minnesota's most vulnerable children at www.safepassageforchildren.org/donate and visit our website at www.safepassageforchildren.org

This week Canadian First Nations (Indigenous tribes) and the federal government reached a $31.5B ($40B US) settlement to both fund child welfare reforms and compensate children and their families for harms inflicted by the system.

Half of this Agreement will fund reparations to the 115,000 children removed from their homes since 1991, and half to repair Indigenous child welfare programs.

The Agreement emphasizes equally funding First Nation child welfare on a par with White programs and preventing removal of Indigenous children from their families.

The U.S. is unlikely to emulate this Canadian leadership.  The fact that we remain the only country not to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Childsymbolizes our relative callousness towards children.  But, we may learn something from our neighbors about how to better balance child safety with improved family preservation practices.

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Rich Gehrman is the founder and Executive Director of Minnesota nonprofit organization Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota. He is the 2021 winner of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Minnesota’s 2021 "Mark Proctor Hero for Children Award."

Read the full blog and podcast transcript here: https://safepassageforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Canada-and-its-First-Nations-Reach-31B-Settlement-with-narrative-for-podcast.pdf

Safe Passage for Children’s nonprofit mission is to strengthen the Minnesota child welfare system so children are safe and can reach their full potential.

If you know someone who cares about children, be sure to share this podcast with them.

Please support our work for Minnesota's most vulnerable children at www.safepassageforchildren.org/donate and visit our website at www.safepassageforchildren.org

This “just-when-you-thought-it-couldn’t-get-worse” New York Times article documents a “shadow foster care” system that tells parents to find their own foster care or else the state will take their children.

The quality of Minnesota’s foster care system is uneven.  But a non-system would be worse.

This testimony to a District of Columbia Oversight Committee details the consequences.  They include no path to either reunification or permanency for the child, no funding for services to the child or to pay the foster parents, and most importantly that the child has no voice – no social worker, Guardian ad litem or lawyer to represent their interests, however imperfectly.

Experts are quoted stating that the number of children in these shadow placements equals those in legal foster homes.  Thankfully this practice isn’t happening in Minnesota, as far as we know.  Let’s keep it that way.

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Rich Gehrman is the founder and Executive Director of Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota. He is the 2021 winner of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Minnesota’s 2021 "Mark Proctor Hero for Children Award."

Read the podcast transcript here: https://safepassageforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/What-is-worse-than-going-into-foster-care-with-narrative-for-podcast.pdf

Safe Passage for Children’s nonprofit mission is to strengthen the Minnesota child welfare system so children are safe and can reach their full potential. If you know someone who cares about children, be sure to share this podcast with them.

Support our work for Minnesota's most vulnerable children at www.safepassageforchildren.org/donate

Visit our website at www.safepassageforchildren.org

Good journalists deliver objective reports that we can rely on. They quickly grasp topics that others have worked on for years to assemble fact-based, informative stories.

This week for example Star Tribune editorial page writer D.J. Tice reminded us that many of the reforms recommended by the 2015 Governor’s Child Protection Task Force have been rejected by Minnesota child welfare managers, but pointed hopefully to the recent state Supreme Court ruling on the Eric Dean case, which finally placed some limits on risky practices by caseworkers and counties.

Previously, KSTP reporter Eric Rasmussen and former Trib/current KARE 11 reporter Brandon Stahl helped maintain public awareness that children are being killed by overly parent-centered child protection practices.

Without these journalists child welfare reform would have disappeared as a public policy issue. We appreciate their work, and they deserve our support.

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Rich Gehrman is the founder and Executive Director of Safe Passage for Children.

He is the 2021 winner of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Minnesota’s 2021 Mark Proctor Hero for Children Award.

Read the podcast transcript here: https://safepassageforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Do-We-Need-Journalists-to-Reform-Child-Welfare-with-narrative-for-podcast3.pdf

Safe Passage for Children’s nonprofit mission is to strengthen the Minnesota child welfare system so children are safe and can reach their full potential.

If you know someone who cares about children, be sure to share this podcast with them.

Support our work for Minnesota's most vulnerable children at www.safepassageforchildren.org/donate

Visit our website at www.safepassageforchildren.org