Studies Show Children are Worse Off in Foster Care

The Child Trafficking Business



 by Brian Shilhavy
Health Impact News Editor

Children taken away from troubled families and put into foster care do not do as well as children left in troubled homes. This fact is not even in dispute. So why does the current system still exist, when it is clearly destroying the lives of so many children?

Studies Show Children are Worse Off in Foster Care

There have been numerous reports published over the past several years that clearly show the current foster care system is an abysmal failure. Children who stay with parents who are accused (but not arrested or convicted) of “abuse” or “neglect” clearly do better than most of the children being put into foster care.
In 2007 Joseph Doyle, an economics professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, published a study which tracked at least 15,000 kids from 1990 to 2002. It was the largest study of its kind at that time.

USA Today ran a story on the report – Study: Troubled homes better than foster care. Here are some excerpts:

Children whose families are investigated for abuse or neglect are likely to do better in life if they stay with their families than if they go into foster care, according to a pioneering study. Kids who stayed with their families were less likely to become juvenile delinquents or teen mothers and more likely to hold jobs as young adults.
Doyle’s study…. provides “the first viable, empirical evidence” of the benefits of keeping kids with their families, says Gary Stangler, executive director of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, a foundation for foster teens. Stangler says it looked at kids over a longer period of time than had other studies. “It confirms what experience and observation tell us: Kids who can remain in their homes do better than in foster care,” says Stangler.

Joseph Doyle did another study, one year later in 2008, comparing children left in troubled homes with foster care children to see which group was more likely to be arrested as adults. The study looked at 23,000 children, and it found that “children placed in foster care have arrest, conviction, and imprisonment rates as adults that are three times higher than those of children who remained at home.”  
Why Is This Failed System Allowed to Continue?

In his 2007 study, Joseph Doyle gives clear evidence as to why the foster care system is still in existence, even with such abysmal results:

Although foster care is meant to be a temporary arrangement, children stay in care for an average of two years, and there are currently over 500,000 children in care (US  Department of Health and Human Services 2005). Roughly 60 percent of foster children return home; 15 percent are adopted; and the remainder “age out” of foster care (Fred C. Wulczyn, Kristen Brunner Hislop, and Robert M. Goerge 2000). Three quarters of these children live with substitute families, one-third of which are headed by relatives of the children. These families are paid a subsidy of approximately $400 per month per child (Child Welfare League of America 1999), and states spend over $20 billion each year to administer these child protective services (Roseana Bess et al. 2002).



The foster care system is a $20 billion taxpayer funded business, employing tens of thousands of people in the United States. Do we really expect government employees, which include not only social service workers but juvenile and family court judges and employees, to advocate putting themselves out of a job?

What is the Solution?

There is only one solution, since the system is so corrupt and beyond reform: Abolish it.

All federal funding for foster care and adoption should immediately be abolished. Let local law enforcement arrest and prosecute criminal parents the same as any other suspected criminal, rather than incarcerating the alleged victims by kidnapping them. Criminal parents are the ones who should be removed from homes, not innocent children.

Without the more than $20 billion in federal funding used for trafficking children, far fewer children will be taken from their homes. In cases where parents are removed with due process of law, the incentives in local communities would be to place the children with relatives, rather than the State. For the very few remaining children who have had their parents incarcerated and have no relatives, local communities can develop their own programs without federal funding, which would include adoption to parents who can afford to take care of children without the aid of federal funds.

It is time the American tax payer stops funding the U.S. child trafficking business, which is nothing more than a modern-day form of slavery.

For those just being introduced to the topic of medical kidnapping and child trafficking via foster care for the first time, and having doubts that this is real, or thinking that we are exaggerating the problem, please review these previous articles where former CPS whistleblowers explain how this is in fact happening.

Original Article

Child Sex Trafficker Admits On Camera To Have Killed 400-500 Children

A child trafficker has gone on the record and confessed during a filmed interview to selling thousands of children into sex slavery and admitted to killing hundreds that he was "unable to sell."

British investigative journalist, Ross Kemp, tracked down and interviewed the child trafficker, who admits that he has lost count of how many young girls he has killed, but it's "somewhere between 400 and 500."

Kemp, an award-winning journalist who's best known for his fearless documentary making, seems to be struggling with his emotions during the interview in which he's sat face-to-face with the man as he admits to killing hundreds of kids.

Speaking about the encounter afterward, Mr. Kemp said he had to fight back the tears and was "shocked" and "horrified" by what the serial child killer told him, saying:

"Interviewing a guy who admits to killing 400 to 500 kids but doesn't know exactly how many – that did make me cry."

During the interview, in which Ross Kemp is sitting just inches away from the trafficker, "Mr. Kahn" reveals that he has "trafficked three or four thousand" young girls, "maybe more'.

Kemp then asks if it's true that he has sold girls as young as nine for sex, to which the man replies, "I've sold girls who are 12."

He then goes on to ask if he ever returns any of the children for any reason, to which he replies, "no". When he asks if it's true that he kills the children that he can't sell, Kahn replies:

"If they try to run away, or if there's any trouble selling them, they are killed and buried."

Sheriff: Child found naked, chained in central Alabama home

'Three adults are facing torture and child abuse charges after a child was found naked and chained up inside a central Alabama home.'

by Emma Simmons

The child's mother, Danielle Nicole Martin, 32 (left), stepfather Joshua Daniel Martin, 26 (center), and grandmother Vickie Seale Higginbotham, 58 (right), were taken into custody and charged with torture and child abuse. (Autauga County Sheriff's Office)

Three adults are facing torture and child abuse charges after a child was found naked and chained up inside a central Alabama home.

On Thursday an anonymous caller tipped off Autauga County Sheriff's Office to a case of child abuse at a Prattville home on the 2500 block of County Road 46. Deputies responding to the home found a naked 13-year-old boy whose ankles were padlocked and chained to a door, restricting his movement. An investigation revealed the child had been chained over a long period of time.

The child's mother, Danielle Nicole Martin, 32, stepfather Joshua Daniel Martin, 26, and grandmother Vickie Seale Higginbotham, 58, were taken into custody and charged with torture and child abuse. Each suspect was booked into the Autauga  Metro Jail on a $15,000 cash bond.

The child, along with two others aged five and 12, was removed from the home and placed in the care of DHR.

Autauga authorities say additional charges could be forthcoming pending the investigation.

tiny.cc/hxh6yy

DCF Hid Reports on 30 Dead Kids

After an embarrassing article appeared in The Miami Herald in September, a regional supervisor for the Department of Children and Families ordered workers not to file required incident reports on the deaths of children who were supposed to be safeguarded by DCF, the Herald reports.

DCF Deputy Secretary Peter Digre

CREDIT DCF

Because of that order, the deaths of at least 30 children in Southeast Florida over five months were never entered into the state information system, Carol Marbin Miller of The Miami Herald reported on Sunday. That region covers five counties, including Broward and Palm Beach.

The regional DCF administrator who issued the order on Dec. 13 was Kimberly Welles, an administrator at the Department of Children & Families’ Southeast Region, according to e-mail records obtained by the Herald.

Welles took the action after supervisor Lindsey McCrudden sent her a report on the death of an infant  in a family that had been the focus of DCF on four occasions, the Herald said. Welles deleted her copy and ordered McCrudden to do the same, the e-mails show.

"No incident reports right now on death cases," Welles wrote to McCrudden, the Herald said. Welles said she'd explain later.

At the time, DCF administrators knew that the newspaper was assembling a series of articles on the deaths of children from abuse or neglect who were supposedly under the protection of the agency.  The series Innocents Lost, which began in late March, reported that 477 children fell into that category.

But that total left off at Nov. 1, so on March 31, the Herald reporters asked for the death reports filed after that. In gathering materials to fulfill that information request, DCF headquarters discovered there weren't any from the region that usually produced the most.

DCF's new secretary, Mike Carroll, has assigned deputy Peter Digre to follow up, the Herald said.

The Child Welfare Act, which orders an overhaul of the way DCF looks into abuse and neglect cases,  passed last month and was signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott. Health News Florida reported last month that the act was the major accomplishment of the 2014 Legislature.

Scathing Pennsylvania grand jury report accuses hundreds of priests of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children

A scathing grand jury report released Tuesday reveals accusations of sexual abuse against 301 priests — 37 from the Allentown Diocese — whose actions went unchecked for decades in dioceses across Pennsylvania.

Instead of reporting pedophiles, dioceses routinely shuffled them from parish to parish, enabling them to prey upon new victims, the document shows. The statewide grand jury, launched by former Attorney General Kathleen Kane, spent two years on the most exhaustive investigation of the church taken on by a state. It covered allegations in the Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton dioceses, which collectively minister to more than 1.7 million Catholics.

"The time for institutions to place their own interests above protecting our children is over,” state Attorney General Josh Shapiro said at a news conference moments after the report was released. “I will not tolerate it."

Among those cited as enablers was Allentown’s bishop, Alfred Schlert, who played a role in the diocese’s handling of complaints when he was vicar general, or top aide, to Bishop Edward Cullen. Shapiro pointed out that Schlert was among those promoted in the years since he handled abuse allegations.

The 23 members of the grand jury took testimony from dozens of witnesses. But it was in the church’s own files — more than half a million pages of internal diocesan documents in “secret archives” — that the grand jury found the names of more than a thousand children who were victimized, most of them boys.

“We believe that the real number — of children whose records were lost, or who were afraid ever to come forward — is in the thousands,” the report noted.

Several victims who joined Shapiro at the news conference in Harrisburg wiped tears as a video of their stories played.

Shapiro said the abuse was “systematically covered up by church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican.” He said those officials weaponized the faith, using it against victims and to protect the institution at all cost. Victims were reluctant to come forward, some waiting decades before summoning the courage to tell their stories. Because of that, the grand jury recommended an end to the statute of limitations on criminal cases. “We should just get rid of it,” the report said.

Only one of the six bishops — Erie’s Lawrence Persico — testified before the grand jury, Shapiro said. The others sent statements.

The 884-page redacted grand jury report — with an additional 472 pages in attachments — was to be released by the end of June, but the state Supreme Court halted that when more than a dozen of those named in the report filed objections, claiming the allegations would damage their reputations while denying them their constitutional right to due process.

The Morning Call joined a media coalition appealing the decision that included The Associated Press, The Washington Post and the Philadelphia Media Network, which publishes The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. The court decided to release the report with the names of the priests who appealed redacted.

Every redaction, Shapiro said, represents a story that needs to be told.

Shapiro highlighted the case of the Rev. Thomas D. Skotek, who sexually assaulted a girl in the Scranton Diocese while he was pastor of St. Casimir in Freeland in the 1980s and then aided her in getting an abortion when she became pregnant. Bishop James C. Timlin, then head of the diocese, wrote a letter to Skotek informing him that he would be sent for treatment, adding: “This is a very difficult time in your life, and I realize how upset you are. I too share your grief. … Please be assured that I am most willing to do whatever I can to help.” That letter, Shapiro said, was in the diocese’s files.

Arthur Long, a Harrisburg Diocese priest at the time, admitted to a sexual relationship with four or five girls, telling a church official, “God wants us to express our love for each other in this way.”

And in graphic detail, Shapiro summarized an allegation against Monsignor Thomas Benestad, former pastor of Notre Dame of Bethlehem and St. Francis of Assisi in Allentown, who is accused of sexually abusing a boy for two years beginning when the child was 9 and taking catechism classes at St. Bernard's. A nun brought the boy to Benestad because he had worn shorts to class, which was against the rules. Benestad, the report says, told the boy to get on his knees and pray. The priest then forced the boy to perform oral sex on him. And afterward, washed the child’s mouth out with holy water, the report says. Benestad later retired and moved to Florida.

Among the most tragic cases was that of “Joey B,” who was so severely sexually assaulted by the Rev. Edward Graff in the Allentown Diocese that he injured his back and later became addicted to painkillers and overdosed. Before his death, Joey wrote, "Father Graff did more than rape me. He killed my potential.”

Graff, who left the Allentown Diocese in 1988, was jailed in Texas in 2002 on charges of molesting a teenage boy. He also has been accused of abusing state Rep. Mark Rozzi when Rozzi was an altar boy at Holy Guardian Angels parish in Reading in the 1980s. Graff, 73, died in jail in November 2002.

Schlert called the incidents outlined in the report “abhorrent and tragic.” In a written statement, he said, “We apologize to everyone who has been hurt by the past actions of some members of the clergy. We know that these past actions have caused pain and mistrust for many people. The victims and survivors of abuse are in our prayers daily.”

He added that much has changed in the past 15 years, notably, that the diocese immediately removes accused priests from ministry and reports allegations to law enforcement.

Shapiro said the investigation reveals that law enforcement as well as church officials failed to protect children. The “cover-up,” he said, “was sophisticated.”

"They claim to have changed their ways. They claim to have put appropriate safeguards in place," Shapiro said of the dioceses. "Statements are one thing. The proof of their claims will be if they support the grand jury recommendations."

According to the report, Schlert was involved in attempts to discredit a woman who alleged she was molested by the Rev. Francis J. Fromholzer in 1965, when she was a student and Fromholzer a teacher at Allentown Central Catholic High School. Fromholzer denied the allegation, the report notes, and then decided to retire.

In fall of 2002, months after The Boston Globe broke the stories that sparked an international scandal, Schlert, then a monsignor, and Monsignor Gerald Gobitas were receiving discrediting information about victim Juliann Bortz through a diocesan attorney, Tom Traud, who was relying on tips from a priest’s relative.

The diocese’s files show that church officials found Bortz’s accusation against Fromholzer credible and that a second victim had accused him of also touching her inappropriately. That victim was expelled from school, though the report doesn’t specify which school, after reporting the abuse to her principal. The principal, the Rev. Robert M. Forst, told her to repeat the “made up” story to her father, who was known to be abusive. The man responded by beating his daughter, the girl told the grand jury.

The report notes that the diocese was conducting its investigation under the watch of then-Allentown Bishop Edward Cullen, who also was cited in a Philadelphia grand jury report as being among church officials aware of accusations there against pedophile priests who were then reassigned. Cullen served as vicar general in Philadelphia before becoming Allentown bishop in 1998.

Reached at his Lower Macungie Township home Tuesday, Cullen declined to comment to The Morning Call, saying, “I don’t want to discuss anything with you.”

Schlert denied trying to discredit Bortz. “As a diocese, we treat victims with compassion, respect and dignity,” he said. “We did not direct anyone to do otherwise.”

Among the more interesting findings in the report was the correspondence about abuse cases that church officials kept, often as part of its secret archives. Those letters strengthen the report’s conclusions, said Jules Epstein, a Temple University law professor.

“To the extent that this report is based on church documents, the documents speak for themselves,” he said.

Those documents might have been revealed a decade earlier, said Altoona lawyer Richard Serbin and Reading attorney Kenneth Millman, if the lawyers were allowed to pursue the cases of about 100 clients who alleged abuse by Pennsylvania priests. But their cases hit the statute of limitations and never made it to the discovery phase.

Serbin called the grand jury report sad in its at once shocking and depressing detail and, yet, “wonderful in the sense that the public will now know, and the shield of secrecy will come off.”

The report offers victims validation that the law didn’t, Millman said. “That’s why it was so important to have this grand jury report and give them the chance to tell their story and tell people what happened to them”

Attached to the grand jury’s report are roughly 470 pages of responses — from the dioceses that were investigated, to individual priests who were named. In the Allentown diocese, Benestad, Fromholzer and the late Monsignor Anthony Muntone, who was vicar general under Cullen’s predecessor Bishop Thomas Welsh, all submitted responses in which they denied the grand jury’s findings against them.

Benestad accused the panel of falsely implying that he retired because of the allegations.

“Monsignor Benestad has never done anything that would be deemed inappropriate with any individual,” his attorney, John Waldron, wrote.

Muntone, who died in May, denied in his written response that he enabled priests to abuse children.

“It is Monsignor Muntone’s position that during the time frame mentioned in the investigating grand jury he was not in a position of authority to appoint priests to various positions in the [diocese] of Allentown,” wrote Waldron, who was also his lawyer.

Mitchell Garabedian, who represented many of the Boston victims and was featured in the movie “Spotlight,” said those who spoke up about being abused should be commended for having the courage to come forward. He added that the report, “lays out the standard blueprint of dishonesty, immorality, criminality and cover-up of the Catholic Church which has been previously revealed in Boston and archdioceses and dioceses worldwide.”

He called the Vatican “complicit in the cover-up.”

Call to extend limits

It is unclear whether any charges will come out of the report, because of time limits imposed by Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations on child sexual abuse crimes.

Under state law, criminal charges can be filed up to the time the person making the claim of child sexual abuse is 50 years old. Civil claims can be filed for child sexual abuse until the person alleging the abuse turns 30.

Previously released grand jury reports on the other two Pennsylvania dioceses — Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown — advocated a two-year window to allow people alleging long-ago abuse to pursue civil claims. Efforts to pass that legislation have stalled or been blocked.

Rozzi, D-Berks, who put forward the legislation, said he will reintroduce legislation to extend the statute of limitations.

Calling the report “monumental,” Marci Hamilton, a Bucks County attorney and the founder of Child USA, an organization that seeks to prevent child abuse, said this and other grand jury reports on abusive priests indicate why victims need more time to make civil claims.

“What these reports are showing is the lack of justice that is being created from the short statute of limitations,” she said.

The church has said changing the statute of limitations would be unfair to schools and parishes and could be financially crippling.

In a letter to be read at Allentown Diocese churches this weekend Schlert apologizes to Catholics for the way the church mishandled cases and reassures them that the diocese has better protections in place to keep the past from repeating.

“I sincerely apologize for the past sins and crimes committed by some members of the clergy. I apologize to the survivors of abuse and their loved ones. For the times when those in the Church did not live up to Christ’s call to holiness, and did not do what needed to be done, I apologize,” Schlert wrote.

“I also apologize to you, the faithful of the diocese, for the toll this issue has taken over the years: the sadness, the anger, the doubts, and the embarrassment it may have brought you as a Catholic. I ask for your forgiveness, and I thank you for your perseverance and for your courageous witness to our faith.”

PREVIOUS GRAND JURIES

Grand juries also looked into allegations in the state's other two dioceses.

2005: Philadelphia grand jury investigates allegations against more than 60 priests, finding abusive priests were moved around and not reported to police.

2011: Phildelphia's second grand jury focused on the church's practices since 2005, finding many credibly accused priests remained active; charges are filed against three priests, a teacher and Monsignor William Lynn, who was convicted of recklessly endangering children for not removing an abusive priest. His conviction was overturned, then reinstated and he awaits retrial.

2016: A statewide grand jury into the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese uncovers allegations against more than 50 priests and an effort to keep the complaints secret.

Tim Darragh, Laurie Mason Schroeder, Sarah Wojcik, Carol Thompson and Christina Tatu contributed to this story.

11 kids found on 'filthy' New Mexico compound during search for missing 3-year-old boy, sheriff says

An unsuccessful search for a missing 3-year-old boy led police to another discovery -- 11 children who were malnourished and living in filth, police said.  (AP/Clayton County Police Department)

Authorities hoping to end a monthslong search for a missing 3-year-old boy raided a New Mexico compound Friday to look for the toddler — but instead found 11 other children who were malnourished and living in filthy conditions, authorities said.

Taos County Sheriff’s deputies stormed a makeshift compound in Amalia and removed the children, ranging from ages 1 to 15, and turned over to state child-welfare workers. Police were initially at the compound to look for Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj and a 39-year-old man, Siraj Wahhaj, accused of abducting the boy last December. Wahhaj was located on the property and arrested. The child that sparked the initial search was not found.

Wahhaj was jailed on a Georgia warrant alleging child abduction after law enforcement officers searching a rural northern New Mexico compound for a missing 3-year-old boy found 11 children in filthy conditions and hardly any food.  (Taos County Sheriff's Office)

“We did an extensive search for the missing child, our primary target,” Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said, according to the Albuquerque Journal. “We certainly didn’t want to leave that place and leave a child behind and I’m confident we did not.”

Another man, identified as Lucas Morten, was also taken into custody on suspicion of harboring a fugitive.

Lucas Morten was arrested on suspicion of harboring a fugitive.  (Taos County Sheriff's Office)

Three other women at the compound were also detained, but later released.

Hogrefe said authorities had conducted surveillance of the compound while looking for the missing boy before he decided Thursday to get a search warrant immediately after a Georgia investigator forwarded a message in which someone at the compound reportedly told another person that people at the compound were starving and needed water.

Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj was reported missing last December.  (Clayton County Police Department)

“The message sent to a third party simply said in part, ‘We are starving and need food and water,’ ” Hogrefe said. “I absolutely knew that we couldn’t wait on another agency to step up and we had to go check this out as soon as possible.”

When police arrived at the scene, Wahhaj was armed with an “AR-15 rifle, five loaded 30-round magazines, and four loaded pistols, including one in his pocket,” according to Hogrefe. Wahhaj and Morton refused to cooperate with authorities.

The sheriff described the living conditions as “the ugliest looking, filthiest” he’s ever seen.

The children ranging in age from 1 to 15 were removed from the compound and turned over to state child-welfare workers.  (AP)

“The only food we saw were a few potatoes and a box of rice in the filthy trailer,” Hogrefe said in a news release. “But what was most surprising, and heartbreaking was when the team located a total of five adults and 11 children that looked like third world country refugees not only with no food or fresh water, but with no shoes, personal hygiene and basically dirty rags for clothing.”

Abdul-Ghani’s mother reported in December her son missing after Wahhaj took the boy to the park in Clayton County, Ga., and didn’t return for nine days, The Albuquerque Jounral reported. The mother said the 3-year-old suffers from a medical condition.

Law enforcement officers searching the compound for the missing child didn't locate him but found 11 other children in filthy conditions and hardly any food, a sheriff said Saturday.  (AP)

Wahhaj and the boy were last seen about two weeks after the child disappeared. The pair were involved in a car crash on I-65 in Alabama. Another five children and two adults were also with Wahhaj and the boy in a vehicle that was registered to Morton, CBS46 reported.

Authorities said on Saturday they believe the boy was at the compound in recent weeks, but could not get information from any of the five adults found on the property.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Katherine Lam is a breaking and trending news digital producer for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @bykatherinelam

Diocese of Temuco opts for transparency strategy: reveals cases of priests involved in sexual abuse

by El Mostrador

Diocese of Temuco opts for transparency strategy: reveals cases of priests involved in sexual abuse:

Through a statement, the bishopric referred to the perpetual expiatory penalties imposed on the priest Pablo Walter Isler Venegas, among whom is established "the prohibition to publicly exercise the priestly ministry and to work pastorally with adolescents and young people."

Through a communiqué, the Diocese of Temuco made public the three most infamous cases of priests involved in cases of sexual abuse against minors.

This after a report from El Mostrador on those episodes that have "crunch" to said diocese and of which the victims have criticized the tendency to the protection that the bishop of said area, Héctor Vargas, deployed in favor of the perpetrators.

A week ago,  El Mostrador  published " The double morality of Bishop Vargas" , a note that referred not only to the non-compliance of the bishop's celibacy, but also to the cases of abuse, which Vargas acknowledged, but in which he denied that there were "protective nets or a cover-up cloak".

One of the most notorious cases was that of priest Pablo Walter Isler Venegas , suspended from the priestly exercise forever. The diocesan, who was also episcopal vicar of Illapel and was a priest of Temuco, after completing a canonical process for sexual abuse of minors, received a clear sanction from Rome: the suspension. He can not publicly exercise the ministry or hold masses, he can not approach children, let alone have a foundation in the name of the Church. This in perpetuity.

In that  communiqué , the diocese referred to the expiatory penalties for the priest, among which is established "the prohibition to publicly exercise the priestly ministry and to work pastorally with adolescents and young people."

Another of the sanctions established was the "definitive prohibition of residing within the territory of the Diocese of San José de Temuco and of visiting without previous and express authorization of the Ordinary, the parishes of Lautaro, Imperial and Traiguén".

"Priest Pablo Walter Isler Venegas is ordered to faithfully fulfill, with religious assent of the understanding and will, the canonical sanctions indicated in this decree," it is indicated.

The public statement states that the process began in 2011, during the previous administration, when they received the first complaints.

"The priest Pablo Walter Isler Venegas, since 2003 was outside the Diocese of Temuco, carrying out various pastoral experiences in the Illapel Prelature," he explains.

The diocese also unveiled two other similar cases that equally involve priests. This is Juan Carlos Mercado Elgueta, who in the middle of 2013, after the previous investigation as a result of the complaint of sexual abuse of minors, submitted his resignation to the priestly ministry, and José Vicente Bastías Ñanco, who is currently facing a process canonical penalty for sexual abuse of minors, according to what is established with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and is temporarily suspended from the public exercise of the ministry.

"We take advantage of reiterating the firm disposition of the diocesan Bishop to assume the challenges that Pope Francis has asked for, in the sense of ensuring healthy, safe and reliable spaces in the Church for children and young people," the statement ends.

Abuse Numbers Rise For Sacramento Foster Kids

Abuse numbers rise for Sacramento foster kids. County can’t say why:

Sacramento County foster kids are being mistreated at a rate not seen since the recession a decade ago, the latest state data show, but the county has no immediate answers about what’s causing the increase in confirmed cases of abuse of children in its care.

County officials substantiated 85 reports of maltreatment in Sacramento County foster homes between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017. That's an increase of 30 cases, or 55 percent, from the same period the prior year, according to state Department of Social Services data maintained by the University of California, Berkeley.

Only five other California counties had a higher rate of substantiated child maltreatment cases per 100,000 days in foster care: San Bernardino, Del Norte, Madera, Siskiyou and Stanislaus.

“We are aware of it,” said Sacramento County Child Protective Services Deputy Director Michelle Callejas. “We are actually digging deeper into that data.”

In a review of substantiated complaints against Sacramento foster placements, The Sacramento Bee found a variety of violations, including physical and sexual abuse in residential foster homes, group settings and other placements.

In one instance, a county social worker investigating a January 2017 claim that a “foster mother starved foster child,” found that there was a lack of food in the house.

A June complaint alleged “unknown males allowed to enter facility and have sex” with foster kids. An investigation subsequently confirmed that men were able to come into the housing at night, and ordered the facility to improve supervision.

In another placement, investigators found that a staff member called “his friends to the group home to fight” in June 2016. The men attacked a foster youth, leaving him with a concussion. That same facility, though using a different name, was subsequently found not to have adequate food for its six foster youths twice during 2017 inspections. Most recently, it was cited by the county for failing to properly report that a resident with a history of arson set a fire in the facility in September.

Callejas said she convened a team in recent weeks to look at the rising numbers, but does not have answers yet. Callejas said the county would need to “do the hard file pull” to review records and examine each case to better understand the circumstances.

“I don’t want to speculate,” said Callejas. “I want to hear from my team.”

Callejas said there was no timeline for how long that review might take.

Sacramento has not seen such high numbers of substantiated child maltreatment in foster care in more than a decade. During 2006, 193 foster care maltreatment allegations were substantiated, but roughly double the number of children were in foster care at the time. In each of the last five years, the number of substantiated complaints generally fell between 40 and 60, state figures show.

State officials said they were also aware of the increase and were working “collaboratively” with Sacramento County to review the rise.

“It’s very typical when you are dealing in child welfare services that understanding what is going on is extremely important vs. doing something very quickly without being informed,” said Mike Weston, Deputy Director of Public Affairs and Outreach with the California Department of Social Services. “Obviously any abuse in care needs to be addressed immediately, but understanding some of the causes of that are important as well, and that’s really where things are right now.”

Trinity Mount Ministries

Dauphin County Children & Youth inspection marred by 84 citations:

A random review of Dauphin County Children & Youth agency cases resulted in 84 citations for offenses ranging from misfiled paperwork to caseworkers working without required child abuse clearances.

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services reviewed the agency on several different occasions for its yearly inspection, as well as "for the purpose of investigating complaints" and ultimately placed the agency on a six-month provisional license. Its report on the ruling was released to the public Thursday.

"In the past year, the overall level of services with the children, families and service providers has declined," the state wrote in its review, commenting on the quality of services being provided to area children and families.

• MORE: Dauphin County Children & Youth won't appeal license downgrade

The state highlighted a number of problem areas, including issues with screen-out and referral paperwork, missteps in the process of assuring the safety of all children and a lack of family engagement.

Quality of care diminished as a result of an increased staff turnover rate, a restructuring of the agency that did away with specialty units and an increase in cases referred to the agency, according to the state's report. 

Several issues were found with mandated Safety Assessments including, missing entirely or conducting late assessments, not listing all children, children not seen within required timeframes, missing or late supervisor reviews and signatures and children listed as "safe" when their realities should have been deemed and listed as "unsafe."

Children at risk

Some violations put children's immediate safety at risk.

In some cases, "there was no indication that the safety of the victim child and other children in the home was ensured immediately," according to the report.

Caseworkers should also assess the risk under which all children within a targeted home live, but this didn't happen in all cases.

The findings outline issues that some may find trivial — a forgotten photograph, putting down the wrong race for a child on paper work, not collecting the correct records or signatures and missing case review deadlines by a day. 

Others, a bit more troubling — examples of caseworkers finding clear safety threats, but not documenting any protective steps; No proof that families were ever visited and cases where a child was placed in out-of-home care and not put through the "child grievance procedure" to explain what was happening.

Caseworkers closed out cases without seeing and re-evaluating children within the mandatory 30 days of the caseworker ending the case. A number of cases showed a child was classified as "unsafe" and in placement but was listed as safe on assessment sheets.

Some cases were closed out without a safety assessment or visiting the child's home at all.

Conversely, in one case, a child was found to be "safe" but a safety plan — which is not necessary for the determination — was still found in the file.

The county submitted a corrective plan to address some of the issues in last year's licensing rotation, but the violations remained, only to once again be spotted as a problem area during the annual-April inspection. 

Dauphin County will undergo additional reviews as the state provides greater oversight until the agency is granted a full license. A county can receive three provisional licenses before its license would be revoked by the state, but the state also can revoke a license if it finds the agency is negatively impacting the safety of the children it serves.

The county provided the state with a list of cases, to which the department selected a random sample. The findings were enough to downgrade the agency's standing.

The state considered "the number of violations, the nature and severity of those violations, whether the violations are systemic and cross numerous cases and repeated from one year to another," according to an email from Kait Gillis, press secretary for the Department of Human Services.

"Violations that impact the safety and well-being of children are given greater weight," Gillis added.  

A grand jury probe into the agency — which was independent of the DHS review — revealed similar issues and children's safety impacted to the point of death. 

On the state's part, all fatality and near fatality cases are examined for regulatory violations as part of the department's fatality and near fatality review process. 

A number of the violations were repeat offenses that had been previously identified in the agency during other licensing cycles, but the citations did not stop at the case level.

Staff members were hired without proper criminal, child abuse and FBI clearances. An unnamed caseworker was employed with the agency for nearly a year before termination and the proper clearances had never been supplied. Others waited more than a month to supply the proper clearances to be working with children.

While Dauphin County officials could fight the downgrade, they don't intend to pushback against the state's determination.

'Serious mistakes'

"The department has acknowledged that serious mistakes were made in the past and will not be appealing today's issuance of a provisional license," said Amy Richards Harinath, county spokeswoman, in a statement released in response to PennLive's request for an interview with Children & Youth interim administrator Joseph Dougher and oversight Commissioner George Hartwick.

The agency, Richards Harinath said, is confident that it's corrective decisions already implemented address all of the violations and, "most importantly, will serve to better protect the children and families of Dauphin County."

In fact, a majority of the issues identified by the state had "already been addressed" by the April inspection, according to the statement. Richards Harinath acknowledged that several of the violations came down to compliance issues and not quality of care.

"Many [violations] had to do with a failure to properly document how cases were handled and not submitting reports to the state on time," she said.

By Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico's standards, the county is "heading in the right direction," and he called for state officials to address issues that can't "easily be fixed at the local level."

"Not all the issues uncovered during the grand jury investigation can easily be fixed at the local level," Marsico said in a released statement. "Some issues, such as a review of caseworker training and high caseloads need to be addressed at the statewide level."

DHS will rule again on the status of Dauphin County's license when the provisional license expires on Jan. 24, 2016.

By the numbers

Dauphin County Children & Youth saw a "significant increase" in staff turnover rate with 28 members of the staff leaving the agency:

• 1 Administrative Staff;
• 3 Clerical support;
• 2 Fiscal staff;
• 1 Case aide;
• 1 Legal staff;
• 20 caseworkers.

The state reviewed the following Dauphin County Children & Youth records:

• 20 of 988 Child Protective Service records;
• 30 of 1,961 General Protective Services intake records, including 10 "Once & Done" records;
• 20 of 296 Ongoing/In-home Services records;
• 10 of 319 Placement records;
• 43 agency Resource family home records, including 37 new resource homes
• 4 of 32 Adoption records; and
• 169 personnel records, including 24 new employees.

Dauphin County has participated in the Quality Service Review process:

• First review in 2012;
• Second review in 2014;
• Third review scheduled for 2016.

The public welfare agency serves "a diverse population":

• About 271,000 residents make up the population.

Editor's note: To report suspected child abuse, call ChildLine at 800-932-0313 (TDD 866-872-1677)

Dauphin County Children & Youth Violation Report

 

By Megan Trimble

Trinity Mount Ministries Website

Missing persons shake-up ‘could lead to more child sex abuse’

By Tariq Tahir

Changes to the way police deal with missing people could lead to vulnerable children being more at risk of sex abuse, a charity has claimed.

Some 327,000 people are reported missing each year, two-thirds of whom are children and chief constables say dealing with every one the same way is a drain on their resources.

From next month there will be a new two tier approach and police will launch a full investigation only for people whose disappearance is out of character or who are thought to be at risk.

But David Tucker, head of policy at the NSPCC, said the children’s charity fears the new definitions could put children at risk.

‘We are very concerned that the new definition of ‘missing persons’ will put vulnerable children at risk of being groomed and sexually exploited,’ he said.

‘The length of time a child goes missing is irrelevant because they can fall into the clutches of abusers very quickly.

‘Children go missing for a variety of reasons; they may be bullied, abused or are generally unhappy. But whatever the reason, this problem must be taken seriously.

‘We expect all professionals including the police to invest the right amount of time and take the necessary action to protect all children as soon as they go missing.’

The Association of Chief Police Officers hopes the new policy will cut bureaucracy and stop officers from being seen as ‘taxi drivers’ sent to collect runaway children who regularly abscond.

In the sex abuse Rochdale case, nine men were jailed in May last year for grooming and abusing vulnerable teenage girls many of whom had gone missing from care.

Chief Constable Pat Geenty said: ‘The police are often the first agency to take a missing person report and our aim is to ensure we get the best possible response to those most at risk of harm.

‘This means identifying these cases early so that policing resources go where they are most needed. We need to move beyond a one-size-fits-all response.’

Sequestration Puts Children at Risk:

Michael Piraino

CEO, National CASA Association

Sequestration is a scary word. Outside of Washington, D.C., it has the sense of seizing property or isolating juries. But the D.C. definition -- a general cut in funding -- carries a real likelihood of danger. Danger to children.

Many programs that keep children safe, educated and healthy are supported at least in part through federal discretionary spending. An eight percent reduction in those funds may not sound like an overwhelming amount. But it comes on top of already large cutbacks for children. In recent years, 31 federal programs for children have been entirely eliminated, and another 71 saw their funding reduced, affecting everything from child safety to health and education. 

It's not as though these programs aren't sorely needed. One of the programs, cut back by nearly 77 percent, was for violence prevention in schools. It's too bad it takes an awful incident in an elementary school for people to realize how important this funding is. Do children have to die before we think about investing in their safety?

Recent funding cutbacks have already threatened to interfere with core commitments our nation made to children. Among the most vulnerable are children who cannot live safely at home due to abuse and neglect. They are under the care of state child welfare systems -- which are already reeling from previous federal and state cutbacks. Yet funding for the four child abuse programs in the Victims of Child Abuse Act were targeted for elimination in the last two Administration budgets. Congress did step in and preserve funding, though at hugely reduced levels. These levels may be reduced even further through sequestration this Friday.

These federal funding trends would be of less concern if private charitable giving was helping to fill in at least part of the need. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. Charitable giving for human service organizations declined last year. Over the last five years, the number of new donors giving to human services has gone down.

It is downright expensive not to make investments in good programs that help children. For example, a foster youth who is connected to a trusted advocate and mentor is more likely to carry with her a varied set of protective factors. Research shows that this will lead to more positive outcomes. And the consequence of not doing right by a foster youth? Tens of thousands age out of that system every year and are at high risk for homelessness, unemployment and criminal behavior. The median cost of a single incarceration was $31,000 in 2010. We would all save money, and feel safer, if we invested that money in young people rather than wasting it on prison cells.

Politicians are fond of referring to every parent's dream of a better life for their children. If we believe in our children's safety and well-being, then budget decisions need to be based on a real understanding of the connection between funding and those dreams for our children.

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Feds Seek Public’s Help To ID Woman In Child Porn Video:

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Federal investigators sought the public’s help on Friday in identifying a woman who allegedly produced pornographic videos featuring herself and an adult male engaging in sexual conduct with two young children.

U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations special agents in Los Angeles have not been able to identify or locate the children in the videos, who officials believe are between the ages of three and seven years old.

“We known she and an unknown, unseen male in these videos have been molesting children, taping that material, and sharing it with others through the Internet,” said Danielle Bennett, ICE Public Affairs Officer.

The suspect is described as a white female between the ages of 25 and 35 with a medium build, dark brown hair and blue eyes. She has a large mole on the back of her left thigh.

Agents believe she is somewhere in the United States.

ICE officials discovered the two videos while examining a computer in an unrelated child pornography case and said the Victim Identification Program of HSI’s Child Exploitation Investigations Unit obtained a warrant for the woman’s arrest this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.


Anyone with information on her whereabouts was asked to call the HSI tip line at (866) 347-2423 or to contact agents using an online tip form at the ICE website. (More)

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