This is the latest in a series of posts I have done criticizing Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment laws. You can find my earlier posts via my Nebraska tag.

***

Please see these two action alerts on what can still be done about the Nebraska dump law, there is still time to demand nothing short of a full repeal/age it down to Zero!

• Bastard Nation Action Alert- URGENT: REPEAL NEBRASKA LB 157. STOP CHILD DUMPING!
• Wed. Update/Action Alert

***

Today, instead of working to (age) Zero out the dump law, which would save the next generation of kids the anguish of enduring the lifelong effects of child abandonment the Unicam took it easy.

Other than two resolutions:

• LR9 – Congratulate Dallas J. McMurtrey for earning the rank of Eagle Scout

• LR10 – Congratulate the Ewing High School girls’ volleyball team for winning the Class D-2 state championship

and some legislative confirmation reports, (link opens a PDF), and votes, today’s been pretty quiet. Not to fear though, legislators will still be paid, after all, the Nebraska constitution requires no final vote on the dump bill can be made before tomorrow.

Legislators are set to wash their hands of it during tomorrow’s 9 am (Central) session.

Their dump law 2.0 is set to comtinue the lifelong damage to a new and younger set of kids, only this time, the kids will be a bit less likely to go on TV and say things like:

“I don’t want anything to happen to kids like it happened to me,”

Instead State Senators are counting on media-genic and silent little armfuls of cuteness 30 days old or less. Kids who later, as they grow up, could certainly give today’s legislators an earful of what they think of having been abandoned with the state’s enabling and encouragement, but for the time being, will be rendered nothing more than ‘cute’.

As today was by and large little more than killing time for the Unicam, I figured I’d bring readers a little more of the flavor of yesterday’s session via this article, Senators pass 30-day limit on first-round debate.

When I say they’re treating this as a done deal, I mean it.

Senator Chambers:

A safe haven bill that will allow parents to legally abandon an infant up to 30 days old is headed toward the station.

And Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers — who Monday likened the bill to a runaway train — sang “toot, toot” during floor debate Tuesday.

Senator Nantkes:

Lincoln Sen. Danielle Nantkes took a long-term perspective.

“A human service system devoid of leadership and appropriate funding … over the course of many, many years brings us to this point,” she said.

“Those are not unintended consequences,” she said of the drop-offs. “Those are serious consequences.”

Then she pointed to the other problems facing Health and Human Services, including potential loss of federal funding for the Beatrice State Developmental Center for Nebraskans with developmental disabilities.

“How many task forces do we need? How many class action lawsuits do we need? How many Department of Justice investigations do we need?”

Senators McDonald and Preister:

Several senators also suggested that finding a real solution will cost money.

Many Nebraskans pride themselves on saving dollars, said Sen. Vickie McDonald, one of 16 senators who will not be returning in January.

“The biggest concern is that this is going to cost money,” she said. “So I challenge you to make sure you fund this program so we have services across the state for all our children who are mentally disturbed.”

Nebraskans want things cheap, said Omaha Sen. Don Preister.

“Our children are under siege and largely it’s because we are cheap,” he said.

“We closed mental health facilities to save dollars. Being cheap. Now we are looking at only a three-day (changed to 30 days) safe haven law. Being cheap,” he said.

“I don’t think being cheap is economical.”

Senator Ashford:

The 30 days allows moms with postpartum depression to give up infants, but doesn’t interfere with the traditional system of legally relinquishing babies for adoption, said Sen. Brad Ashford, Judiciary Committee chairman.

As I wrote back on September 28th:

Nebraska can do better. All 50 states can do better.

Child abandonment is evidence of a severely broken system. Passing the hard effects of that down to children, those least able to cope with such is nothing less than a cowardly shirking of duty. It is the ugly admission that some people feel the problems are simply ‘too big’, and rather than tackle them, they leave kids to deal with the consequences, personally, as best they can.

Dump laws are intrinsically bad for kids. They are intrinsically harm based.

It’s time to stop mumbling about the possibility of coming up with ‘new and improved’ ways for the state to encourage child abandonment and instead realize that there is no such thing as a ‘good’ child abandonment law.

Now as we go into the very tail end of special session, it’s time to let legislators know, 30 days is no solution, it’s merely a continuation of very problems dump law 1.0- the original version that brought in the older kids exposed to the light of day.

Again, I urge you to contact Nebraska state legislators and remind them to stop burning what little time the next batch of kids have left.
Permanently Repeal the legalized child abandonment law, age it down to Zero.

Protect Nebraska’s children from suffering the lifelong consequences of being abandoned.

Here is the Nebraska Legislators main list (each entry has contact information & phone)

and

E-mail address for those that have them:

Adams, Greg – gadams@leg.ne.gov
Aguilar, Ray – raguilar@leg.ne.gov
Ashford, Brad – bashford@leg.ne.gov
Avery, Bill – bavery@leg.ne.gov
Burling, Carroll – cburling@leg.ne.gov
Carlson, Tom – tcarlson@leg.ne.gov
Christensen, Mark – mchristensen@leg.ne.gov
Cornett, Abbie – acornett@leg.ne.gov
Dierks, Cap – mdierks@leg.ne.gov
Dubas, Annette – adubas@leg.ne.gov
Engel L. Patrick – lengel@leg.ne.gov
Erdman, Philip – perdman@leg.ne.gov
Fischer, Deb – dfischer@leg.ne.gov
Flood, Mike – mflood@leg.ne.gov
Friend, Mike – mfriend@leg.ne.gov
Fulton, Tony – tfulton@leg.ne.gov
Gay, Tim – tgay@leg.ne.gov
Hansen, Thomas – thansen@leg.ne.gov
Harms, John – jharms@leg.ne.gov
Heidemann, Lavon – lheidemann@leg.ne.gov
Howard, Gwen – ghoward@leg.ne.gov
Hudkins, Carol – chudkins@leg.ne.gov
Janssen, Ray – rjanssen@leg.ne.gov
Johnson, Joel – jjohnson@leg.ne.gov
Karpisek, Russ – rkarpisek@leg.ne.gov
Kopplin, Gail – gkopplin@leg.ne.gov
Kruse, Lowen – lkruse@leg.ne.gov
Langemeier, Chris – clangemeier@leg.ne.gov
Lathrop, Steve – slathrop@leg.ne.gov
Lautenbaugh, Scott – slautenbaugh@leg.ne.gov
Louden, LeRoy – llouden@leg.ne.gov
McDonald, Vickie – vmcdonald@leg.ne.gov
McGill, Amanda – amcgill@leg.ne.gov
Nantkes, Danielle – dnantkes@leg.ne.gov
Nelson, John – jnelson@leg.ne.gov
Pahls, Rich – rpahls@leg.ne.gov
Pankonin, Dave – dpankonin@leg.ne.gov
Pedersen, Dwite – dpedersen@leg.ne.gov
Pirsch, Pete – ppirsch@leg.ne.gov
Preister, Don – dpreister@leg.ne.gov
Raikes, Ron – rraikes@leg.ne.gov
Rogert, Kent – krogert@leg.ne.gov
Schimek, DiAnna – dschimek@leg.ne.gov
Stuthman, Arnie – astuthman@leg.ne.gov
Synowiecki,John – jsynowiecki@leg.ne.gov
Wallman,Norman – nwallman@leg.ne.gov
White, Tom – twhite@leg.ne.gov
Wightman, John – jwightman@leg.ne.gov

-Lauren Sabina Kneisly

(Author of Baby Love Child
and co-author of Children of the Corn.)

(photo: Canadian National Archives)

This is the latest in a series of posts I have done criticizing Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment laws. You can find my earlier posts via my Nebraska tag.

***

Please see these two action alerts on what can still be done about the Nebraska dump law, there is still time to demand nothing short of a full repeal/age it down to Zero!

• Bastard Nation Action Alert- URGENT: REPEAL NEBRASKA LB 157. STOP CHILD DUMPING!
• Wed. Update/Action Alert

***

This morning’s Nebraska special session was quick, slightly over an hour long.

This article from the Omaha World-Herald contains a pretty good summary of the day’s discussion:

Before today’s vote to advance the bill, some lawmakers emphasized that help is available in Nebraska for parents and guardians struggling with troubled older children. Others vowed to improve mental-health and other services for children.

State Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, for example, pointed to existing law that requires law enforcement to take children into custody if they are endangered or mentally ill and dangerous.

“Most of the (safe haven cases) fit within the parameters of this law,” Lathrop said. “We do not leave these families in crisis out in the cold.”

Sen. John Synowiecki of Omaha said although Nebraska has done much in recent years to improve mental health services for adults, it has done too little in the area of mental health services for children. He said that is why some families turned to the safe haven law to get help for their older children.

“Unfortunately, we focused almost entirely on the adult system of care — and I think we’re seeing the results of that,” he said, adding that Heineman is proposing to allocate $18 million to build new mental health facilities for children in coming years.

Sen. Tom White of Omaha, however, said lawmakers should not be too complacent about people being able to turn troubled children over to police. He said police don’t have any place to take mentally ill people once they get them.

“It is a failing of us and this administration to provide necessary acute beds,” he said. “That is what we leave when we close the door on this special session. That is the situation our police officers and our mentally ill citizens continue to face.”

LB 1 (now the 30 day limit bill) was advanced through the second round by a vote of 41-6 (link opens a PDF- the NE Legislative Journal for Day 5 of the special session.)

The final vote may occur Friday.

As Senator Tom Carlson pointed out today, Nebraska Legislators are treating the 30 day limit as pretty much a done deal at this point. (see 30-day age limit for Neb. safe-haven law advances)

“The rails are greased and the train’s heading down the track,” said state Sen. Tom Carlson.

Mind you, it’s a runaway train about the jump the rails, but then understanding that would involve foresight… .

While Legislators may be relaxing and looking forward to getting Friday’s vote over and done with, Nebraska’s kids are just being given a second helping of failure.

After the child welfare catastrophe the Unicam and Governor created last time out, leaving a minimum of 48 kids in LB 157’s (Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment law) wake, now they want to come back for yet still more.

LB 1, if passed will simply ensure a whole new class of younger kids will join their older predecessors in the tragic common bond of state enabled and encouraged abandonment.

Nebraska has barely begun to deal with its first batch of “dumplings,” now legislators appear to want to make yet still more.

State enabling and encouragement of child abandonment guts 100 years of child welfare social policy, of which one of the key goals was to convince guardians NOT to abandon their children.

When the state shifts its role from that of protecting the long term interests of kids to that of encouraging the abandonment of some of it’s smallest citizens least able to fend for themselves, something has gone horribly awry. Enabling child abandonment is not “saving” children, it is instead the very definition of harm, a harm the kids will have to endure for a lifetime.

There is still a tiny pocket of time left to avert impending disaster for the next set of Nebraska’s soon to be “dumplings.”

There is still time to contact Nebraska legislators and tell them in no uncertain terms that abandonment is never good for kids, and that when the state abandons the stance of trying to stop abandonments, all abandonments, it abandons those who need it to stand firm the most: kids.

Please, contact the legislators before it’s too late. Don’t agonize over the wording, short and simple is often best.

Permanently Repeal the legalized child abandonment law, age it down to Zero.

Protect Nebraska’s children from suffering the lifelong consequences of being abandoned.

Here is the Nebraska Legislators main list (each entry has contact information & phone)

and

E-mail address for those that have them:

Adams, Greg – gadams@leg.ne.gov
Aguilar, Ray – raguilar@leg.ne.gov
Ashford, Brad – bashford@leg.ne.gov
Avery, Bill – bavery@leg.ne.gov
Burling, Carroll – cburling@leg.ne.gov
Carlson, Tom – tcarlson@leg.ne.gov
Christensen, Mark – mchristensen@leg.ne.gov
Cornett, Abbie – acornett@leg.ne.gov
Dierks, Cap – mdierks@leg.ne.gov
Dubas, Annette – adubas@leg.ne.gov
Engel L. Patrick – lengel@leg.ne.gov
Erdman, Philip – perdman@leg.ne.gov
Fischer, Deb – dfischer@leg.ne.gov
Flood, Mike – mflood@leg.ne.gov
Friend, Mike – mfriend@leg.ne.gov
Fulton, Tony – tfulton@leg.ne.gov
Gay, Tim – tgay@leg.ne.gov
Hansen, Thomas – thansen@leg.ne.gov
Harms, John – jharms@leg.ne.gov
Heidemann, Lavon – lheidemann@leg.ne.gov
Howard, Gwen – ghoward@leg.ne.gov
Hudkins, Carol – chudkins@leg.ne.gov
Janssen, Ray – rjanssen@leg.ne.gov
Johnson, Joel – jjohnson@leg.ne.gov
Karpisek, Russ – rkarpisek@leg.ne.gov
Kopplin, Gail – gkopplin@leg.ne.gov
Kruse, Lowen – lkruse@leg.ne.gov
Langemeier, Chris – clangemeier@leg.ne.gov
Lathrop, Steve – slathrop@leg.ne.gov
Lautenbaugh, Scott – slautenbaugh@leg.ne.gov
Louden, LeRoy – llouden@leg.ne.gov
McDonald, Vickie – vmcdonald@leg.ne.gov
McGill, Amanda – amcgill@leg.ne.gov
Nantkes, Danielle – dnantkes@leg.ne.gov
Nelson, John – jnelson@leg.ne.gov
Pahls, Rich – rpahls@leg.ne.gov
Pankonin, Dave – dpankonin@leg.ne.gov
Pedersen, Dwite – dpedersen@leg.ne.gov
Pirsch, Pete – ppirsch@leg.ne.gov
Preister, Don – dpreister@leg.ne.gov
Raikes, Ron – rraikes@leg.ne.gov
Rogert, Kent – krogert@leg.ne.gov
Schimek, DiAnna – dschimek@leg.ne.gov
Stuthman, Arnie – astuthman@leg.ne.gov
Synowiecki,John – jsynowiecki@leg.ne.gov
Wallman,Norman – nwallman@leg.ne.gov
White, Tom – twhite@leg.ne.gov
Wightman, John – jwightman@leg.ne.gov

-Lauren Sabina Kneisly

(Author of Baby Love Child
and co-author of Children of the Corn.)

This is the latest in a series of posts I have done criticizing Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment laws. You can find my earlier posts via my Nebraska tag.

***

Please see these two action alerts on what can still be done about the Nebraska dump law, there is still time to demand nothing short of a full repeal/age it down to Zero!

• Bastard Nation Action Alert- URGENT: REPEAL NEBRASKA LB 157. STOP CHILD DUMPING!
• End of Tuesday’s session- contact legislators ASAP

***

Regrettably, I do not have time to do a full report on Monday’s public testimony before the Judiciary Committee, at least not right now. That said, I did want to backtrack a bit to point readers at some of what’s online by way of recap.

Here is a PDF of the Judiciary Committee Statement from that Monday meeting with the Committee vote tally.

Other Testimony that was not delivered in person but was sent to the committee includes both my own very brief testimony:

Honorable Members of the Nebraska Judiciary Committee,

I am writing to encourage your support of nothing short of fully and permanently repealing Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment law.

I strongly urge you to decouple getting kids and families help from the act of child abandonment.

Due to the structure of the special session itself, if the only option available is to set an age limit on the existing law (LB 157,) I then urge you to set an age cap at zero point zero (i.e. 0.0, such that no children may be legally abandoned in Nebraska.)

Over the last several months I have written at great length, explaining my reasoning as I blogged about the unfolding child welfare catastrophe in Nebraska. My posts can be found my blog’s Nebraska tag here- http://www.babylovechild.org/tag/nebraska/.
Thank you for your time and consideration.

-Lauren Sabina Kneisly

[contact information block removed]

and Bastard Nation:The Adoptee Rights Organization’s important testimony (link opens a PDF). I STRONGLY urge readers to take the time to follow the link and read through it.

A copy of Todd Landry of Nebraska’s DHHS testimony can be found online here.

As I find time, I hope to add other online copies of the publicly submitted testimony. For the moment, this is what I have at my fingertips that are online.

In the mean time, here are a few media reports both on the hearing and on the “Safe Harbor Coalition” action that occurred outside the Capitol.

AP story- Neb. senators told safe-haven law exposes problem

But for many of the roughly 120 people who jammed into a Capitol hearing room Monday, an age cap was secondary to what they said use of the safe haven law has illustrated: A ragged safety net for troubled children that needs to be mended soon.

“We’re trying to decide which hole to put a finger in, meanwhile the whole dike’s falling down around us,” said Topher Hansen, president of the Nebraska Behavioral Health Coalition.

KPTM (Fox/Faux news) Public Speaks out at Safe Haven Hearing

“We have watched hysterical children begging their parents not to leave,” says Ann Schumacher of Immanuel Hospital. “One child pleaded, ‘I’ll be good. I’ll be good I promise.’”

This article also includes the only quotation from a person who had actually been abandoned who spoke before the committee Monday:

“I want you to know that abandonment is a very serious issue that leaves a scar on a person’s life,” says Lyman Wostrel, who was abandoned as a child. “For all my life I know I’ll bear this cross, that what is in my heart, hurts.”

Also from the KPTM piece:

Those parents’ stories have caught the attention of some Nebraskans, who’ve formed what they call The Safe Harbor Coalition.

Members of the new group demonstrated outside the Capitol before Monday’s public hearing. Numerous family organizations are included in the coalition. They say they won’t let senators off the hook in finding a way to help children and teens that need mental and behavioral health care.

“We want to be a resource to support,” says Leslie Byers of the Safe Harbor Coalition. “Once we get past this first step, on to step two of improving the system that not only can Nebraska be proud of, but that our whole nation can be proud of. Because what’s going on here, we’re being watched closely.”

The Safe Harbor Coalition says you can expect to hear more from them as senators debate the issue during next year’s legislative session.

Be sure to see the video off this piece, Safe Harbor Coalition Rallies Outside the State Capitol.

***

Please see these two action alerts on what can still be done about the Nebraska dump law, there is still time to demand nothing short of a full repeal/age it down to Zero!

• Bastard Nation Action Alert- URGENT: REPEAL NEBRASKA LB 157. STOP CHILD DUMPING!
• End of Tuesday’s session- contact legislators ASAP

***

See the Omaha World-Herald article, Hall County teen is 36th ’safe haven’ dropoff.

A 15-year-old girl has been dropped off at St. Francis Medical Center in Grand Island — the latest child left under Nebraska’s safe-haven law.

The Hall County teenager was taken to the hospital Tuesday afternoon by her guardian, a relative, says Todd Landry, director of children and family services for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

She’s in a foster home now, Landry says.

She is number kid number 36 in the Nebraska DHHS official tabulation (link opens a PDF) but the 45th “safe haven” related case if you count the 12 “attempts” Marley and I have documented to date. These uncounted cases in the NE DHHS tabulation included “Self havens” i.e. kids who have turned themselves in under the safe haven law only to be turned away, 18 year olds and others.

Here is the Nebraska DHHS press release (link opens a PDF) about the incident.

While “debate” continues inside the Capitol’s halls, kids continue to be dumped outside the walls…

…and at least one teen whose parent attempted to dump her is still on the run. to the best of my knowledge she hasn’t been found yet. (I hope to find time to blog about her separately, later.)

Again, I urge readers to contact the Nebraska legislators and call for and end to all child dumping in Nebraska.

***

Children of the Corn
A new blog in support of Repealing legalized child abandonment laws and chronicling the Nebraska dump law case study.

Reporting, Theory, and Opinion on Legalized Child Dumping in Nebraska

***

As Marley Greiner (who blogs the Daily Bastardette) and I were both detailing the Nebraska disaster, we came to the conclusion that combining our shared blogging of the history into one common resource would be helpful to others researching the still unfolding mess. She and I both support nothing short of full repeal of all legalized child abandonment laws.

Our posts to date have often overlapped and referenced one another, going forward, we will likely each bite off separate pieces to tackle, or write from different angles about the same set of events.

For example, I am relying on her reporting this evening about the two latest teens who when taken to a Nebraska hospital ditched their dumper and ran-

BORN TO RUN! TWO ESCAPE SAFE HAVEN MOM

Children of the Corn will be the repository for our interwoven coverage from here on.

To be perfectly frank, I was honoured to be invited to join her. She and I are old friends. we have both spent years working, researching, and writing in support of adoptee rights and about the seemingly unending abuses kids and parents have endured in the name of what often passes for child welfare both in this country and internationally.

I’ve linked across to her coverage many times, but she’s long overdue a proper introduction for my readers here.

(This is one of my favourite older pictures of her.)

Marley’s background in American history brings a wealth of experience to her adoptee advocacy work.

As does her time spent abroad. As but one of many examples, her careful research and chronicling of the deaths of so many of the Russian adoptees, NIKTO NE ZABYT — NICHTO NE ZABYTO, Nobody is forgotten. Nothing is forgotten, is an incredible resource.

Marley is a maintainer of memory.

To all this, add her ongoing work and years of experience as Executive Chair and Co-founder of Bastard Nation and it readily becomes clear why she’s the right person to team up with. BN has been one of the strongest most consistent voices against all dump laws, from the very dawning of them back 9 years ago. Year after year BN fought the dump laws, building in the testimonies given state after state, perhaps the most clear articulation of why the dumps laws must be repealed. She is also the creator of the Adoptee Rights News Blog.

It’s her passion and unflinching tenacity that makes this a natural pairing. She through the years has shown again and again her willingness to turn over the rocks, and not turn away at what she finds crawling about beneath. Her realistic view of the current state of child welfare and adoption is a vitally needed counterweight voice in opposition to the so often Vaseline smeared lenses the adoption industry, dump marketeers and others would prefer we all look though.

When legislators or media fall for the marketing, Marley has been there time and again, bringing forth the facts that undercut the lies.

She’s been more than willing to do the legwork and follow through to look at what the kids themselves are really experiencing; homelessness, being passed around in the endless circle jerk of referrals to nowhere, kids who end up living on the streets, abused, even murdered. (Herein of course, I’m speaking more broadly, not merely about Nebraska.)

Perhaps most pertinent to the Nebraska situation though, is that for a number of years now, since 2001, Marley has been the creator and sole editor of the Baby Dump News, “a weekly e-chronicle of newborn abandonment, infanticide, safe haven legislation, and related issues.” E-mailed out week after week, very little of the BDN is online, but the 2007 index can be found here.

Marley has been case by case, article by article tracking abandonments and child dumps for years. In short, she has been nose down in the details of the dump laws for about forever.

She is also a board member of and writer for the (Columbus, Ohio) Free Press. She and I both share interests as activists and researchers writing about issues of womyn’s autonomy and those would impose their interpretation of theonomy.

When it comes to the things kids are enduring, from denial of equality under law to state encouraged abandonment, she understands the critical importance of holding those responsible’s feet to the fire, as well as both looking and working systemically at how interlocking aspects of systemic structures are broken and failing kids and families.

In short, I’m damn proud to team up with her. Honoured actually, that she wants to place my work alongside hers.
I hope regular readers here will understand the vital contribution she has been making and continues to make, both in relation to the Nebraska situation and dump laws more broadly, but also in her many years of tireless work on behalf of all dumped kids sitting alongside her work on for adopted people and their families.

If there’s anyone who should be listened to at this critical juncture in the Nebraska process, it’s Marley.

All of this of course, is a mere thumbnail sketch. Marley is all this and much more. But mostly she’s got a wicked sense of humour, historical perspective, and a particular way with penning a poem.

This is the CotC announcement she has added to Bastardette tonight, feel free to pass it along to others who are researching the Nebraska mess:

Lauren Sabina Kneisly (Baby Love Child) and Bastardette are happy to announce the posting of our new blog: Children of the Corn: Reporting, Theory, and Opinion on Legalized Child Dumping in Nebraska.

Since we were both writing so much on the topic of Nebraska child dumping law, LB 157, we decided it would be a good idea to put our work together in an easy-to-access format. The blog is a repository of our Nebraska writing, in chronological order, since the first “legal” abandonment took place in September. It is intended as a resource for those researching so-called “safe haven” or “Baby Moses” laws, Nebraska LB 157 , adoptee rights activists, adoption reformers, child welfare advocates, bastards, legislators, the media, and those who are just plain disgusted.

We may occasionally add the work of another blogger or scholar. Over the next week or so we add more links and other resources.

We will continue to post our Nebraska blogs on our individual blogs as well.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN

http://cornkids.blogspot.com

please distribute freely!

***

Another day, another out of state dump, this time, a boy from Florida.

The AP has an article out, just a couple hours old at this point, 11-year-old boy is 31st Nebraska ’safe haven’ case.

 Todd Landry, director of children and family services for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the boy’s father left him at Boys Town National Research Hospital on Wednesday afternoon.

The latest Nebraska DHHS summary of the officially counted dump cases (link opens a PDF) lists the boy as being from Miami-Dade County, FL. How he was transported to Nebraska remains to be seen.

***

Also, here on the eve of the beginning of the special session, Nebraska DHHS has compiled a chart detailing some basic statistics on their official count (link opens a PDF) now at 31 though the chart only covers the first 30 .

The chart while not counting a number of attempted “safe haven” and self “haven” cases, is still an incredibly useful tool.

For example, we learn 11 of the 30 were either adopted/guardianship or relative placements, what I had been terming “returns department” dumps. 17 of the kids have been previously or currently are state wards.

28 of the kids have endured prior allegation(s) of abuse neglect.

Perhaps most importantly, NONE of these kids were at risk of immediate harm.

The chart shows check marks alongside all 30 kids as assessed as safe from immediate harm, though the tabulation at the bottom of the page reads 29 instead of all 30. If the raison d’etre for the dump law was to protect kids from immediate harm, the Nebraska case study shows a unanimous failure.

27 of the kids had experienced some level of prior mental health services. 7 had had prior mental health treatment listed as “higher than outpatient”.

27 of the kids came from single parent homes.

As to the dumps themselves, 25 of them came in on weekends after 4pm. (this was precisely the pattern Marley/Bastardette and I were noting.)

Currently

• 11 are in foster care
• 8 are in a relative’s home
• 6 are in the temporary emergency shelter
• 2 are in hospitals
• 1 is in a group home (* see below)
• 1 is in a treatment group home
• and one kid has returned to their own home

Going by the check marks on the chart, 9 are classified as “Black, 1 is classified as “White/Native”, and 20 are classified as “White”, and “. (The summary at the bottom of the chart says “8 Black, 1 White/Native, 20 White” which only adds up to 29, not 30.)

(I’m unclear on how the Staton kids are being classified, apparently as mostly “White” though that has been an important question, see my piece Nebraska- the Staton abandonment and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) for further discussion of such and how the Staton abandonment raises questions of Nebraska’s ICWA obligations.)

Both Marley/Bastardette and I have been working up our own tabulations statistically, particularly as relating to the number of child dumps that Nebraska is refusing to count in the official tally.

The official count now stands at 31, our count now stands at 42. (See my earlier piece Nebraska- another ghost in the machine dump (unoffical total 41, the official count reaches 30 for further details.) roughly 1/4 of the abandonment cases are not included in the state’s tally.

We had been tracking many of the same kinds of details about the case studies (whether in the official count or not,) particularly some of the outcomes on the out of state dumps and the 18 year olds.

Allow me a few examples to scratch the surface of just a few of the more interesting ‘undercounts’ and possibly incorrectly tabulated:

• The plight of the 18 year old uncounted Grand Island self “haven” boy- Therapist: Safe-haven hubbub shows families need respite help
• * The Iowa dumpee who after being shipped back to Iowa by Nebraska (a “return to sender” out of state dump) went on to become a teen runaway, Girl now a runaway after safe-haven stint and ‘Safe haven’ runaway found, police say. Being 14, she was included in the official count, (she was the initial out of state dump case.) Nebraska shipped her back home to Iowa ASAP so as to avoid the precedent of out of state kids being able to land in the Nebraska system. You tell me, does it sound like she got the help she needed? As I don’t see ‘teen runaway’ under the options listed in the “current placement” column, she is clearly being counted as something else. The second article says she had been ” placed in a home for troubled youths” prior to running away, so perhaps she is still inaccurately being counted as being in a “group home?”
• Here, for example is yet another 18 year old abandonee left out, not in the official tabulation- Two more teenagers dropped off.

The list of examples goes on and on. My point is, many are not even in the stats and of those that are, Nebraska may for example think the Iowa girl is still in a group home outcome when in fact she’s been a runaway.

It’s a disaster, and the actual follow up with the kids seems to not fully be in place even on the 42 cases to date.

Perhaps Nebraska legislators would care to deal with the mess they’ve already created before they go creating yet still more (and a whole new class of) dumped kids?

Aging down to newborns under dump law 2.0 cannot and will not deal with the fundamental flaws and problems inherent to all legalized child abandonment laws.

***

Repeal the dump laws now.

Nebraska’s record of failure is no foundation to build upon.

***

Addendum- just as I came to the end of this post, I ran across the Omaha World-Herald’s piece, There are common threads in haven drop-offs. Apparently they’ve been crunching the numbers provided by the Nebraska DHHS as well.

According to the article:

HHS officials provided the analysis, along with a letter, to state senators Wednesday.

Here are the key sentences:

Nebraska’s law was intended to protect children in immediate danger of being harmed, Landry said in the letter to senators. The HHS analysis found no threat of immediate harm in any of the 30 cases.

and

“The role of the state’s child welfare system is to protect children who are fundamentally unsafe,” Landry said. “For children or youth who are otherwise safe, it is not the role of the state to intervene in a family’s life.”

So the only question that remains is, will Nebraska state legislators listen to those most intimately acquainted with the dump law;

• the kids themselves
• child welfare experts
• Nebraska’s own DHHS
• parents and other relatives
• adoptee rights experts
• First Nations peoples’ ICWA concerns
• etc

or will they continue on, closing their eyes, covering their ears, hell bent upon their fantasy of making the dump law “work?”

One can only hope cooler heads will prevail.

***

I’m going to work chronologically, (yet in inverse order from the Nebraska DHHS safe haven page’s latest press release.)

Firstly, there was another uncounted in the official tabulation dump the Sunday night:

In addition, there was a report that the safe haven law may have been used in Lincoln last night regarding an 18-year old. DHHS has investigated and confirmed with the Lancaster County Attorney’s Office that a juvenile petition will not be filed in this instance. As a result, Landry said DHHS does not consider this a use of the safe haven law, but is providing assistance to the young woman on a voluntary basis.

Once again, another 18-year old fell down the dump slot, 18 being that age that Nebraska won’t provide foster care etc to, nor count as an official dump, yet still legally classifies as a “child”, not yet an adult.

KCCI has a report, Another Teen Abandoned In Nebraska. She was another adoptee, “returns department” dump:

The woman told officials at BryanLGH Medical Center West that her daughter, who was adopted, is bipolar and has a learning disability, Assistant Police Chief Jim Peschong said Monday. The girl was left at the hospital at about 11 p.m.

“The adoptive mother says that the daughter refused to take some medication for some conditions that she has,” Peschong said. “She won’t listen to her, can’t control her.”

Marley/Bastardette has a post up about the incident as well, MORE NEBRASKA FIASCO: WOMAN ATTEMPTS TO DUMP ADOPTED DAUGHTER.

Her tabulation of the dumped adoptees, “returns department” dumps to date:

So far, one other dumpee has been confirmed as adopted, 2 others reported (but not confirmed) as kinship adopted. I believe there are more.

Then secondly, yesterday (Monday) morning, a 17 year old boy was abandoned. According to the Nebraska DHHS safe haven page’s latest press release, his mother left him off at Creighton University Medical Center. He is counted as the 30th officially counted dumped kid in the Nebraska DHHS count. (Link opens a PDF)

Both Marley and I have been tracking the number of kids not included in official Nebraska DHHS count as well. She’s found an additional 11 cases of what she’s terming “attempted dumps.”

So DHHS count aside, the kid-centric count, actually stands at at least 41.

As I’ve said before, mine is a Bastard blog. I care about what the kids themselves are experiencing. Some of the uncounted, “unofficially” dumped kids are every bit as separated from the world they once knew as any other counted dumped kid, they just don’t match the state’s dumper criteria or age limit criteria.

Some are self “haven” cases wherein the kids themselves have reached out for help, only to find no “haven” on the other end.

Those 11, roughly 1/4 of all the Nebraska dump cases are rendered invisible. The kids are treated as mere ghosts in the machine, the memories of their dumps kept alive only by those of us who continue to insist, they are no less dumped, they are no less in need.

Yet as Nebraska legislators gather to age down to the next version of dump law failure, a Nebraska dump law 2.0, a full quarter of the cases, a quarter of the dumped kids, will likely never even be considered, because they don’t apparently count.

***

Repeal the dump laws now.

***

Friday an 11 year old girl was left by her mother at Bergan Mercy Hospital. NE DHHS counts her as the 29th kid in the official count.

Be sure to see A Mother’s Story of Trying to Get Help. Note that the girl was originally going to go into an adoption:

The mother in Nebraska’s most recent Safe Haven case speaks out about why she dropped off her eleven year old daughter. It’s another story of a parent who tried to get help, but instead ran into roadblocks.

…

“She was originally supposed to go up for adoption. We were living in Minnesota, I was a young single mother.” Another family was ready to adopt the newborn and take her in, but the girl’s grandmother stepped in.

Once again we come back to what sits in the middle of these cases, guardians feel the only way they can get these kids help is to use the dump laws. The cost of getting a kid the help they need should never be loss of their family. One should not have to surrender parental or guardian rights to gain access to the services necessary to get a kid what they need.

Marley’s got a post up about her, along with updates on both the Indiana and Michigan dump cases.

Also on Friday the full court press media circus kicked in as everyone gears up for the special session.

The lip-flapping-to-fill-the-space-between-the-commericials “Dr. Phil” television show did an hour long dump supportive promo (be sure to catch his “uncensored” commentary here in which he sings the praises of leglaized child abandonment. ) My comment on both the Laura the moralizing hypocrite (link not suitable for minors or workplace reading) insipid blog post and Phil-the-shill show that Marley pointed her readers at can be found here.

Again, I couldn’t make stuff like this up. We are so far into the realm of whacked out fiction I couldn’t write characters like this if I tried. Supposedly “pro-family” morons singing the praises of child dumping, through the looking glass we go.

If you had told me 20 years ago that I would be sitting here, having to explain to people that abandoning children is never a good thing, I never would have believed you. These are things I used to consider self-evident.

But once this latest crop of dump-abandonment propagandists got involved people began to loose track of which way is up and which way is down.

Hint;

• kids not being abandoned=good,
• abandoning kids=bad.
• State enabled and encouraged legalized child dumping=bad, very bad.

Meanwhile back in the real world the Omaha World-Herald had two good pieces today, The Children: Kids suffer sense of abandonment and The Parents: Myth aside, caretakers stay involved. Readers should go take the moment to go across and read the articles.

Once again, up through the cracks we barely hear the actual voice of a dumped kid:

One 12-year-old safe haven boy has posted this message on his MySpace page:”**choose me** Im so damn lonley.”

Finally, see Safe Haven Revision Set for Next Friday.

The law tweeks are on the horizon. Practically guaranteeing that the next set of ‘aged down’ kids will continue to deal with all the problems dump laws create under dump law 2.0.

Meanwhile the demand for full repeal continues on, apparently unheeded.

I don’t want to be sitting here in 6 months having to say “we told you so” all over again, I want the states to stop manufacturing still more dump-related ordeals.

As for the kids already dumped, the damage is done. They’ll be living with such the rest of their lives, unlike certain legislators (in any given state) who simply can, and do, walk away from the messes they made.

***

An 8 year old boy from Indiana was dumped in Nebraska today. He’s the fourth out of state kid dumped into the Nebraska system.

The AP has a piece here- Indiana boy latest Nebraska safe-haven case.

Marley’s got a few more details up on her blog:

NEBRASKA FIASCO CONTINUES: INDIANA MOM DEPORTS SON TO NEBRASKA; CASE UPDATES Thursday, November 06, 2008.

As she points out, other than the Staton case, this 8 year old is the other youngest kid dumped in Nebraska.

The Nebraska DHHS official count (link opens a PDF) has been updated to reflect him. As I continue to point out through, the official count does not include all the kids who have interacted with the Nebraska legalized child abandonment law. See Marley’s chronological account, CHILDREN OF THE CORN: NEBRASKA’S DUMPED GENERATION for a more accurate count.

***

As I mentioned recently, I’ve been busy the last week or so. While I’ve certainly still been following the latest twists and turns in the Nebraska situation, I haven’t had much time to actually write. Tonight is no exception.

I did however want to point readers across to two critically important pieces Marley has done on her blog, Bastardette:

CHILDREN OF THE CORN: NEBRASKA’S DUMPED GENERATION Saturday, November 01, 2008

and

MEET #25, #26, AND MAYBE #27–AND THAT PESKY 18- YEAR OLD: THE NEBRASKA FIASCO CONTINUES Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Since I last blogged on Oct 29th, even the official Nebraska DHHS count (link opens a PDF) has gone up to 27 kids dumped to date.

But as I’ve been pointing out for some time now, there are a number of situations under which kids have interacted with the law not tabulated in the official count. (Again see my earlier explanations, here and here, of some of those unoffical interactions.)

Marley pointed her readers at an important article, bringing up the plight of the self “havening” boy from Grand Island who has, sure enough, fallen through the cracks. As he was deemed “too old” and as he turned himself over, he is not counted among the official cases (He’s not in the Nebraska DHHS count.)

She saw the gap most recently when she housed the Grand Island teen, who in September, attempted to turn himself in at St. Francis Medical Center under the safe-haven law.

He was over the age of 17 and wasn’t turned in by a parent, so didn’t qualify to enter the Health and Human Services system, Schwan said.

He stayed in her home with Schwan and her family for three weeks, while Schwan tried unsuccessfully to find him placement in various community service programs.

and

Schwan said Grand Island’s safe haven teen was told to leave home by his mother’s boyfriend, had lived for more than a year with his grandmother in an area storage unit and has been in four high schools over the past four years.

“He just wants to finish school,” she said.

Kids like him need a safe place to go — even just temporarily, Schwan said.

The bottom line is, despite attempting to “safe haven” himself, he isn’t even listed among the cases.

Kid after kid is going through the system, some are counted, others like the boy from Grand Island are not.

Yet when legislators go to “fix” their broken law do you think they will even hear about the plight of these kids? They’re nowhere in the stats. They’re off the books. They may as well not even have every existed when it comes to the official stats in relation to the Nebraska legalized child abandonment law.

It’s come down to those of us on the outside to even remind people that kids like this are part of the history of the miserably failed child welfare social experiment in Nebraska.

Despite what the kids are undergoing day in and day out, Nebraska lawmakers and Governor Heineman apparently appear to feel no great urgency to try to deal with the mess of their own creation.

Instead they’ve offered up a ‘compromise’ a mere tweek to the law, offering it up as some kind of “solution”, (or at least a means of getting the attention to shift and die down.) Their inaction and lack of a genuine solution only continues to ensure the kids themselves are the ones who will suffer the consequences of such.

(By way a side notation for new readers, I’ve already explained how the plan to age down Nebraska’s dump law to infants 3 days old or less is no solution to the problem. I’ve taken to referring to such as dump law 2.0. From a genuine child welfare stance their short sighted “solution” is dead on arrival. Kids will continue to endure the harm all dump laws cause, but as the kids will be infants not teens they will be less likely to be able to vocalize the problems they will face until years later.)

***

As always, I continue to call for nothing short of full repeal of all legalized child abandonment laws.

With a little luck, I’ll be back to blogging in more detail very soon.