MORE DETAILS EMERGE ON BOX BUTTE CASE; LAWMAKERS STILL DON’T GET IT

(Yup, this may be the shortest post in BLC history.)

Marley has all the details in her useful post, MOTHER PANICKED, REGRETS “SAFE HAVEN:” 1ST POST-NEBRASKA FIASCO BABY GOING HOME.

Within 48 hours, both parents had come forward requesting the return of their child.

This portion in particular, pertains to the infant’s current custody arrangements:

On July 23, under a plan arranged by HHS, Butte Box County Judge Charles Plantz (left) granted legal custody to the agency while the parents undergo genetic testing and psychological assessment. Plantz made it clear in his order that HHS should proceed with its plan to place the baby with his biological mother while its investigation continues. The maternal grandmother is taking a leave of absence from her job to help care for the infant and his mother. The Star-Herald says the grandmother will move into the mother’s home, but the Herald-World says the mother will move into the grandmother’s home. The father will be allowed easy access to the infant.

According to court documents, Larry Miller, the baby’s court appointed guardian ad litem said, “NDHS believes this arrangement will provide safety for the baby.” Hospital officials filed an affidavit in which they said they believe it would be best for the mother and baby to be together so the mom could nurse and bond with him. (Note: court documents are not available to the public; information on them comes from news reports.)

Marley’s post covers many aspects of the dump scheme and points out some of the ways Nebraska is attempting to grapple with the genuine needs of these families in the aftermath of the older kid dumps.

She also brings forth a crucial point from her years of research:

In the nearly 10 years I’ve researched legalized dumping I have not found one single case where a parent or a family member who petitioned for return was denied.

and goes on to explain some of the potential reasons why:

I believe there are two reasons for this:

• Child welfare workers by in large do not like “safe haven” laws and except when thwarted by legal anonymity laws that binds their hands, hold a higher child welfare standard than do politicians and amateur do-gooders via counseling, education, and informed consent whether the final decision of the parent(s) be reunification, kinship care, temporary foster care, or adoption.

• The state fears if victims of “safe havening” are not returned, except for good cause, a parent or relative will seek legal redress. Since “safe haven” laws are already dancing on thin ice, the chance of overturning a law on constitutional grounds given the right circumstances in any state, is good. Not only would costly time-consuming litigation be necessary, but if the plaintiff were successful the entire law could be overturned, and adoption placements of safe havened children be vacated. If the case goes up the law ladder far enough, the entire Ponzi scheme could collapse throughout the country. Keeping families in tact post-dump, then, is simply utilitarian even if it is the right thing to do.

For more on the constitutional problems with “safe haven” read Erik L. Smith here and here.

NEBRASKA: POST-FIASCO BABY CATCH– ‘NO QUESTIONS ASKED”

Both her piece, and this have been crossposted to our Nebraska blog chronicling NE’s series of legalized child dumps, Children of the Corn.

Monday evening a baby boy was left at Box Butte General Hospital in Alliance under Nebraska’s aged down new dump law created over the legislative special session. (Nebraska law, originally accepted older kids, but was “aged down” in the wake of their “big kid” dump fiasco that made international headlines.)

This marks the first legalized infant abandonment in Nebraska since the final “big kid” dump in late November ‘08.

Quoting Marley’s piece,

According to Nebraska Health and Human Services Chief Executive Officer Kerry Winterer (RIP Todd Landry), in an HHS press release:

“It’s important to gather information like family medical history to meet this child’s current and future needs,” he said.

Officials asked that anyone with information call the HHS office in Gering at 308-436-6559, the Box Butte County Sheriff’s Office at 308-762-6464, the Alliance Police Department at 308-762-4955 or the Nebraska State Patrol at 308-632-1211.

While it appears the “fiasco” taught Nebraska at least a little about the vital importance of preserving at least a few scraps of information for the kid, clearly Nebraska has yet to learn the broader lesson:

EVERY SINGLE LEGALIZED CHILD ABANDONMENT MARKS A FAILURE:

• a fundamental failure of the state to protect the long term interests and human rights of these kids.
• A failure of the state to treat these instances as what they are, marking a crisis for the parent (s), be that psychological, economic, covering over traumatic events such as incest or domestic abuse, etc.
• The state inexcusably providing what amounts to a “make it all just go away” vent, whereby underlying core issues, and genuine needs, are simply ignored. The kids themselves are left to deal with the legacy of such.

Monday marks yet another sad day, a day on which the State of Nebraska failed one of its most vulnerable and least able to protect their own interests, and a day when whatever family this child once had is left to disappear into shadows with their own lifetime’s worth of a festering secret that can never be rectified.

Nebraska had an opportunity after seeing what legalized child dumping or what is oh so politely reframed as “safe haven,” meant to those old enough to speak of their own experiences of being “legally abandoned.” An opportunity to dismantle its dump system. Instead they chose to preserve it, aging down to those unable to speak about their own experiences. In essence, Nebraska found a way to silence its most directly affected and experienced critics, at least until they grow older, long after this crop of politicians leaves office.

No, this is not some “greater good,” this is not a “save,” nor should this act be celebrated. This is nothing more than rot from within. Shame on Nebraska for maintaining its system of secrets and lies, pushing the lifelong consequences of such down onto a newborn.

Last Friday, December 5th, 2008, the SECA web-page finally went live. (http://www.stopdumpingkids.com/)

SECA, short for “Stop Encouraging Child Abandonment,” is a concept that has been a long time coming.

From the first of the legalized child abandonment laws passed in 1999 until now, efforts to repeal and stop the dump laws have suffered from a lack of an alliance dedicated to focusing primarily on the issue.

Before SECA, responses to dump laws had been piecemeal, portions of existing organizations’ broader missions. Over the years numerous organizations have opposed and testified against the legalization of child abandonment, and individuals have contacted legislators and worked against legalized child dumping. But, there had been no one place dedicated to dismantling the evolving child abandonment infrastructure.

Thus, SECA has finally been created.

Stop Encouraging Child Abandonment works toward nothing less than the full and permanent repeal of laws that legalize child abandonment.

We feel it is not the proper role of any government to encourage child abandonment as policy.

We approach this work firmly grounded in a human/civil/identity rights perspective. We support kids, women, and reproductive autonomy.

The need for SECA had become apparent over the past nine years, but the child welfare crisis in Nebraska with its law legalizing the abandonment of older children finally made it clear to the broader public, a formalized response to legalized child dumping is necessary.

Since the beginning, the consequences of such laws have been clear to those of us “in the field.” With bills rushed through state legislatures and policy and legal criticisms by and large dismissed, the general public simply never had reason to even think about the consequences of “safe haven” laws. Most people had never heard the voice of a kid who had been legally dumped. They had never seen the desperation of mothers and families utilizing the legalized abandonment laws.

Nebraska changed everything.

Nebraska’s older kid dumps, and the state’s eventual age down of eligible dumpees from 18-year olds to those 30 days and younger has solved nothing. It has merely attempted to put off dealing with the inevitable consequences “safe haven” laws create until the infants abandoned under the new law grow old enough to speak for themselves.

The child welfare abandonment disaster across the United States, legalized everywhere except Washington DC., is far from over. It is just beginning.

Out of that context, SECA was born, not so much a formal organization, for now more of a collective voice of allies, organizations, bloggers, and individuals among others working together towards the repeal of the dump laws.

If you are interested in working against the legalized child abandonment laws, or already are, SECA can serve as a resource in that work.

We can be contacted through the SECA contact page.

***

So Monday, in what could set a pattern for the “safe haven” cases, the court hearing for the first of the abandonment cases disappeared into a closed court session.

Nebraska, having non-anonymous legalized child abandonment, now appears to want things closed on the back end, in the court hearings.

Clearly this is more of the state attempting to cover its own ass than any genuine privacy concerns as the names of both the parents and the kids are not merely in the public record, but some parents have come forward to the media doing interviews and using their children’s names on Television and in print media.

None-the-less, yesterday Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Douglas Johnson took the “rare” step of closing the hearing. No reason was given for having done so.

This particular case, dating back to September 1rst is not counted among the official Nebraska DHHS “safe haven” cases, as the boy was left off at a police station. Police stations are not state designated dump sites. The boy was however, placed in foster care following the abandonment, so he was certainly no less dumped than any of the other kids.

Not only is his case not among the officially state recognized “safe haven” statistics, but now his court proceedings have gone behind closed doors as well.

See Judge closes hearing over teen left by mother at police station:

In a rare decision, a Douglas County judge closed a court hearing Monday in a case related to the Nebraska safe haven law.

The hearing was for a 14-year-old boy whose mother left him Sept. 1 at the Omaha Police Department, mistakenly thinking that it qualified as a “safe haven.”

His mother was expected to enter a plea to an allegation that she neglected the boy by leaving him at the police station.

When the hearing was about to start, attorneys approached the bench to speak privately with Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Douglas Johnson, who then announced that he was closing the hearing.

No written motion was filed, and no reason was given for the decision.

Fortunately, the Omaha World-Herald is still paying attention.

Unlike most of the rest of the world who seem to think the situation is now ‘resolved’ and attention can now shift elsewhere, the World-Herald staff appear to understand what a unique situation the Nebraska legislators and Governor created by passing their “child” abandonment law, and they continue to keep a watchful eye (as best they can what with closed hearings and all) despite the roadblocks thrown in their way.

The World-Herald objected in court and requested a delay to consult with its attorneys.

Johnson would not delay the hearing, saying it was important to expedite the case for the child’s sake.

“What an unfortunate decision,” World-Herald Executive Editor Mike Reilly said. “The U.S. Constitution, Nebraska statutes and common law all call for the public’s courtrooms to remain open to the public. Exceptions are to be made only through a public hearing process that was flouted here without explanation.”

In short, to whatever extent, the World Herald staff ‘get it’. They understand that secret hearings on cases Nebraska would far rather just go away, far from the public’s gaze are not an acceptable outcome.

The World-Herald is continuing to follow safe haven cases through those proceedings in order to educate the public about the law and its ramifications.

Perhaps the paper, like those of us who have been nose down in the details of these cases have come to understand that what happened in Nebraska was extraordinary, and that the ongoing child welfare mess on the back is likewise extraordinary.

Certainly most of these kids who were legally abandoned would most likely not have been were it not for the actions of Nebraska lawmakers. Much as the world’s attention is easily distracted, for some of us these kids are not to be forgotten.

Their ordeal, far beyond the mere act of being “legally abandoned” is ongoing. Their cases are only now beginning their journey of winding through the courts. Their custody issues and situational stability are still very much up in the air.

To the paper’s credit, they understand that the issues these kids face didn’t fade just because much of the media glare has moved on.

The World-Herald is also fighting for open hearings in the Gary Staton case. This will be particularly critical as the Staton kids are also at the heart of what may well be the first Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) claim in relation to any state’s “safe haven” law.

Equally critically important, Nebraska DHHS has filed a motion to retro-actively strip identifying information out of public documents.

This would create the first retro-active removal of information already in the public record relating to kids dumped under the law, in essence, a form of after the fact anonymity, something the Nebraska lawmakers did not write into the law in the first place.

The DHHS is doing an end run after the fact, attempting to obliterate information already in the public record by way of the courts.

The World-Herald also is fighting efforts to close a hearing in one of the official safe haven cases.

That case involves a father who left his nine children at a hospital under the safe haven law. The case increased national publicity about the safe haven law.

An HHS attorney filed a motion to close an Oct. 8 hearing a day before the hearing and requested that identifying information about the children and witnesses be removed from public documents.

The HHS attorney argued that the children’s need for privacy outweighed the public’s interest.

The World-Herald argued that access serves an important function to provide information about the cases. Additionally, family members have granted press interviews.

That decision is on hold while HHS is appealing another issue in the case.

Back in the September 1rst case, we see precisely what Marley and I have been writing about, when one parent dumps a kid, the other parent’s parental rights are trampled. Now it appears the boy’s father hopes to gain custody.

In the police station case, the guardian ad litem filed a motion last week requesting that visits between the teen and his mother be suspended temporarily at the suggestion of the boy’s therapist.

Action on that motion took place during the closed hearing.

The court’s order detailing the mother’s plea and any required services for her, determined during the closed hearing, was unavailable by the time the court closed for the day.

Johnson commended the mother for making positive progress.

A portion of the hearing about the boy’s father was held in open court.

The couple are divorced, and the mother had legal custody of the teen.

The father has been visiting his son, and HHS workers recommended making those visits unsupervised.

The father’s lawyer said he hopes that the teen can live with him.

This morning, the Omaha World-Herald published another article about the closed hearings, Bruning upset haven hearing closed:

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning on Tuesday told lawyers for the State Department of Health and Human Services that they may not file motions to close hearings or seal evidence from the public without his consent, which he expects to be rare.

“I can’t foresee a circumstance where that would be necessary,” he said.

Bruning learned about the issue Tuesday through a World-Herald story about efforts to close two juvenile court hearings related to the safe haven law.

“The state’s interest is that the public know everything we’re doing,” Bruning said. “That’s what’s going to rule the day at the end, even when the state business is a bit messy and less than pleasant, as it has been in these safe haven cases. It brings up difficult realities.”

Juvenile court hearings are typically public and part of the usual process when a child is placed in foster care.

Then we learn Juvenile Court Judge Douglas Johnson closed the hearing thinking that the boy abandoned at the police station was a safe haven case, which clearly, according to Nebraska DHHS it never was.

This is remarkable, as it means even judges hearing these cases are unaware that some of these cases never qualified as “safe haven” cases:

Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Douglas Johnson closed a hearing Monday about a 14-year-old boy whose mother left him Sept. 1 at an Omaha police station, mistakenly believing that it qualified as a “safe haven.”

Clearly when it comes to the court phase, a ghost in the machine dump such as the September 1rst case is being treated as if they are official “safe haven” case. They’re all lumped together for the judge hearing the case.

If even the judges hearing the cases can’t distinguish those that are ‘official’ vs. those that never met the Nebraska legal guidelines, then where are we?

In any case, Attorney General Bruning said the closed hearing didn’t come as a result of a DHHS motion:

Bruning said Tuesday that the HHS attorney, John Baker, did not make the motion to close the hearing.

As for keeping the public record intact, the World-Herald brings up an interesting recent Nebraska precedent:

In the other case, an HHS motion is pending to close a hearing and remove identifying information from court records in the case of a father who left his nine children.

Jodi Fenner, HHS chief legal counsel, argued in court documents that the children’s need for privacy outweighs the public’s interest.

The World-Herald argued that access serves an important function to provide information about the cases.

Baker of HHS also argued extensively in December against the release of juvenile court exhibits about Robert Hawkins, the 19-year-old who killed eight people and himself a year ago at the Von Maur department store.

Sarpy County Juvenile Court Judge Robert O’Neal released the records, compiled when Hawkins was a state ward to receive mental health services as a teen.

***

I wanted to include a few more links about the boy from Davis in Yolo County, California who was dumped Friday before Governor Heineman signed the 30 day limit into law. I blogged about his case very briefly at the time, Squeaking in under the wire, another big kid safe haven dump.

Keep in mind, this was the roughly 16 hour drive from near Sacramento California to the Southwestern-most corner of Nebraska, and Kimball County Hospital . Basically a ‘cross the state line and dump him quick before the law changes’ dump.

Nebraska DHHS has their press release about his case from the 22nd. They label him the 36th case in the official statistics (link opens a PDF.)

Our unofficial stats, find him somewhere closer to at least number 47. (We feel secure in saying even our estimates are low.)

He is now in the process of being sent back to California.

These first two articles go into a little bit of detail about the way in which he was dumped:

Nebraska to send back abandoned Davis teen

She told the boy to pack his bags, and with her oldest son and a friend, drove all night.

Only when they were at the hospital did she tell her son she was leaving him there.

She said the boy got out of the car and walked into the hospital without looking back.

The woman said she had expected to feel relief but instead felt “sick to my stomach.”

and

California ‘haven’ teen being sent back

The mother didn’t stay long after reaching the Kimball hospital, local officials said.

She left “as soon as she dropped him off,” said Kimball County Attorney Dave Wilson.

Interestingly, there is no word about whether the Mother went in with him to dump him or not.

If not, would he have otherwise been another self “haven” wherein the kid shows up without a designated dumper?

I’ll be keeping my eye out for more details on this, as Nebraska has refused to accept self “haven” cases in the past as part of the official “safe haven” program. I’m wondering if an exception was made for this boy as they had traveled so far.

The following article (& videos) lay out the woman who adopted him’s side of the story. (Legally, she’s his “adoptive mother.”)

Yolo Mom Who Abandoned Boy In Nebraska Speaks Out

Lori says she struggled to raise Kevin ever since taking him in as a foster child at age four.

(He had reached 14 by the time he was dumped.)

Be sure to see the 3 videos connected to this last piece. In one, the woman claims she was unaware that Friday was the last day before the law was set to age down, she thought it was going to change at the end of the month. (Note that at the end of this video segment, the California law is erroneously described as being for infants 14 days and younger, California’s legalized abandonment law actually only applies to infants 3 days old or less.)

Despite her promise:

She told Kevin, her 14-year-old son, “if you walk into this hospital, they will find a home for you.”

Odds are pretty slim a 14 year old with a so called “troubled past” is going to be adopted by someone new anytime soon. He has been in Nebraska foster care for the last few days as preparations were being made to ship him back to California.

This final article confirms his adopted status:

Davis mother drops kid off in Nebraska

She had adopted him when he was four years old.

19 of the 34 kids included in the most recent version, updated November 17th, of the Nebraska DHHS “matrix of commonalities of safe haven cases” (link opens a PDF) are currently or had previously been state wards.

12 of the 34 tabulated cases were listed as “Adopted/Guardianship or Relative Placement.”

As the California boy came in after this latest version, he has not been included in these statistics yet. (Nebraska made it up to 36 officially counted cases before the law changed, the “matrix” only goes up through number 34 so far.)

As I have said before, the crisis these generation 1.0 of the dump kids in Nebraska face is in many cases a crisis of adoption and kids already entangled in state care.

The next generation, those dumped under version 2.o of the dump law, those 30 days and younger, remain to be seen.

There has however been one case of a self “haven” who falls squarely between the two generations, a 12 year old who was disqualified and is going by and large unnoticed. He came in on Sunday after the law had aged down.

But as for Kevin, from California, he is unfortunately just another kid dumped into Nebraska’s “returns department” for no longer desirable adoptees.

Sure, everyone wants one when they’re young and cute, but similar to many adopted pets, as they grow older, bigger, and less manageable, now kids like those once cuddly and adorable pets have been dumped, abandoned by those who no longer wanted them.

***

Backtracking here a little, Saturday, the Wall Street Journal ran a major story on the Nebraska legalized abandonments, Safe Haven: a Mother’s Agonizing Choice.

The article provides more information about some of the kids from the parents’ perspective.

As for the kids themselves, the article contains a small but critically important detail that may explain part of the reason the directly affected kids’ voices in all this have been so absent.

In Tyler’s case at least, he is effectively shut up by conditions the state has put upon his placement:

After staying at a youth shelter, Tyler was recently sent by the state to live with a relative on his father’s side. The relative declined to allow the child to be interviewed, saying it was a condition of Tyler’s placement with his family. State officials also declined to make Tyler available.

(emphasis added)

***

Over time, I’ve seen a lot of what I consider delusional statements about child welfare and kids’ realities out of the National Safe Haven Alliance, but this one really takes the cake.

Yesterday, via a Moonie Times (Washington Times) article we get this little gem:

Ironically, not a single one of those children relinquished was an infant, said Tracey Johnson, executive director of the National Alliance of Safe Havens. Besides, she added, Nebraska has one of the best social service networks in the country that provides temporary foster care until parents and children “can get their heads back together.”

(emphasis added)

You have got to be kidding me.

Ms. Johnson is talking about a system currently under federal restrictions that came as a result of a federal inquiry!

Nebraska removes more kids per-capita from their families than any other state. They have the most kids living in state care. (As of October ‘08.)

Nebraska has been hard at work trying to bring it’s current system up to even the most basic child welfare standards in order to avoid up to potentially more than $250 million in penalties.

When federal officials conducted the previous audit, Nebraska failed to meet minimum national standards for protections against a list of priorities including child abuse and neglect foster care, financial support and health care.

The federal inquiry came as part of a national drive to curb domestic violence and to try to reduce the number of homicides related to domestic violence.

In 2002, Nebraska was among the states with the highest per capita numbers of child fatalities.

Back in 2006, this is how the Columbus Telegram summarized the situation not long after the number of children in the state’s child welfare system reach an all time high (in April):

Hahn said the governor was simply telling HHS how to handle the issue, but there was no plan for resolution.

“There is no specific action, no funding commitment to make these things happen,” Hahn said. “He is providing neither the mechanism nor the funding to make (improvements).”

“The situation is so critical a lawsuit was filed against the governor and the state of Nebraska,” he said, referring to a pending federal lawsuit that alleges the state is endangering children with an “understaffed, underfunded and unresponsive” foster care system.

The class-action lawsuit was filed last year in U.S. District Court in Lincoln by New York-based Children’s Rights, the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest and several private law firms on behalf of the 6,000 children in the state’s foster care system. One of the children, identified only as “Paulette V.,” was placed in 17 different foster homes or facilities and was repeatedly physically and sexually abused during 12 years in foster care.

The lawsuit says many foster homes are overcrowded, often housing as many as six children at a time, and many children do not receive adequate medical care or mental health services.

In 2006, despite Governor Heineman’s hype, the numbers continued to tell a sad story.

Voices for Children in Nebraska gathered some key facts here that provide a sketch overview of out of home care in Nebraska based on the 2006 census report (the most recent):

• 10,972 children in out-of-home care-Source: Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, 2006
• 55.1%of children in foster care have experienced four or more placements- Source: State Foster Care Review Board, 2006
• 36%of children in foster care have had four or more different caseworkers- Source: State Foster Care Review Board, 2006

These are kids being bounced around, placement after placement, caseworker after caseworker.

By 2007, the Feds were arguing Nebraska had improved enough to avoid penalties, but the groups the brought the suit pointed out the ongoing problems, see Federal Government Approves Nebraska’s Improved Child Welfare System; Nebraska Appleseed Argues Still a Long Way to Go for:

Recently, the federal government found that Nebraska had improved its child welfare system enough to avoid federal penalties. In response, Gov. Dave Heineman claimed that Nebraska’s satisfaction of its federal Program Improvement Plan, was a “major milestone.” Unfortunately, these improvements still do not meet even minimal federal standards for a decent foster care system, and Nebraska’s Health and Human Services System recognizes that there is still far to go. – While even marginal improvements in this system can be deemed good news, to hail the federal approval as a major step or a signal that significant changes have been made in Nebraska’s child welfare system would be a mistake – and a costly one for foster children in Nebraska.

(emphasis added)

All of this set against a backdrop wherein Nebraska’s children aren’t doing so well:

• According to Voices for Children’s annual Kids Count report for 2007 (by way of this Journal Star article)- 15 percent of Nebraska children were living in poverty and 36 percent were from families considered to be low income. And, between 2000 and 2005, the report stated, the poverty rate for Nebraska children rose 50 percent.
• 45,000 Nebraska children (10.1 percent of the child population) did not have health insurance coverage in 2006 (according to this Voices for Children press release- link opens a PDF)
• Also, from the same report (by way of the Journal Star article cited above) 71 percent of all black children living in Nebraska were from low-income families, which the report described as families earning 200 percent of the federal poverty level or less. In 2006, the federal poverty level was $20,000 for a family of four, so such a family could have an income of up to $40,000 and still be considered low income under the report’s guidelines. Of the state’s Hispanic children, 61 percent were from low-income families. For white children, it was 26 percent.
• The same Journal Star article included this important figure-In 2006, 10,972 children were in out-of-home care at some point, an increase of 175 over 2005 and 611 over 2004.

The Child Welfare League of America has a page full of basic statistics on Nebraska here, NEBRASKA’S CHILDREN 2008. The child poverty numbers alone tell a sad tale.

As I quoted earlier:

“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.

Then you have Governor Heineman’s initiative to get the young and cute out of the system as quickly as possible, some via reunification with their families, some via adoption.

Heineman specifically instructed child welfare officials to “prioritize” the cases of kids 5 years old and younger coupled with “find permanent homes for children who have been out of their homes for at least 15 of the past 22 months.”

In other words, if they’re young and in the system, place ‘em out whenever possible.

Again, from the Voices for Children out-of-home care and adoption page:

456 adoptions of state wards, up 79% from ‘05 (Source: Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, 2006)

The older kids, of course are not “prioritized”. They are left to bounce around in the child welfare pinball machine until they age out.

But even in other adoptions, Nebraska is showing disregard for parental rights.

In this November 4th piece, In re Adoption of Rylee R. we see how issues of abandonment and Nebraska’s premature elimination of parental consent as the prelude to termination of parental rights and adoption clearly in at least this case has been far too hasty, running roughshod over the rights of parents, leading to a reversal in court, (link opens a PDF):

The finding of abandonment, and the resulting consent to adoption, was improper because the petitioners did not provide clear and convincing evidence to establish the father’s intent to rid himself of parenting obligations in the 6-month period prior to filing the petition.

The technical definition of “abandonment” by an adult under Nebraska state law appears to rely upon six months of essentially no contact before a child can then be declared legally abandoned.

In order for a court to eliminate the necessity of obtaining consent to adoption in Nebraska, a child must be classified “abandoned.”

(Note that in our blog posts we use “abandoned” as an act as seen through the eyes of the kids themselves, not the technical Nebraska legal definition. The dumped kids most certainly feel “abandoned” by their parents when left at state designated dump sites, whether such lines up with the legal definition or not. This being “child-centered” writing, we go by what they kids themselves experience.)

The push for moving kids out of the public system is in many ways ultimately a cost saving measure (all denials to the side) and an attempt to shift from a public model to a privatized/outsourced/subcontracted model of delivery of child welfare services.

To accomplish the change, state child welfare officials for the first time sought bids from private agencies.

They signed contracts worth a total of $32.7 million this year with five agencies. Each is to provide a full range of services for one or more regions of the state. Contractors were chosen on a mix of program quality and cost. Each will be required to report how well their programs help children and families.

The contracts replace those the state had with 116 agencies, each of which provided a more limited range of services in limited locations.

(Please read the full article to get the full context of the subcontracting measures.)

This Lincoln Journal Star article explains more about the contracts and gives the dollar amounts involved:

Agencies to provide servicesThese agencies have signed contracts to provide services in a specific region under the new system.

Southeast Service Area: OMNI Behavioral Health, $2,846,347; Cedars Youth Services, $3,580,925; and Visinet Inc., $2,730,983.

Western Service Area: Boys and Girls Home of Nebraska Inc., $5,096,562.

Central Service Area: Visinet, $1,899,229; and Boys and Girls Home of Nebraska, $2,488,125.

Northern Service Area: Boys and Girls Home of Nebraska, $7,674,062.

Eastern Service Area: Boys Town, $1,953,930; OMNI Behavioral Health, $3,931,574; and Child Saving Institute, $957,967.

The big ‘winner’ here is Boys and Girls Home and Family Services Inc. who have facilities across Nebraska, Iowa and even in Alaska.

Doing even a quick web search on such, we learn what kind of “parasitic organizers” are working on evangelizing kids in the Boys and Girls Home program.

Here for example you will find the Siouxland area Youth For Christ program aimed at the Boys and Girls Home kids.

Opportunity for New Program at Boys and Girls Home
Every Sunday YFC is at the Boys and Girls Home Community Center presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ to approximately 60 young people. We call this “Sunday Live”. They call it church. In one hour we say hi to every young person that comes through the doors, sing praise and worship songs and take a look at God’s word. This is a vital ministry, but every significant story we have to tell about the young people we meet at the Boys and Girls Home takes place outside of this time. When we become involved in a young persons life, we see God’s hand move.

God has chosen to work through His people to reach people and that is through connection not performance. It is for this reason we covet your prayers asking God to build a unit mentor ministry in each unit at The Boys and Girls home. Each unit is comprised of 6-10 young people. We like to think of these new mentors as surrogate grandparents. The Boys and Girls Home has 20 such units.

We are asking God to use us as His servants in this project; that we might get to experience His grace in the lives of the 200 plus students. The doors are open.

This could refer to either the Boys and Girls Home and Family Services in South Sioux City, Nebraska or the first of the B&GH facilities based in Sioux City Iowa (the Iowa location is apparently the residential program), but it does give one a feel for the the kinds of “projects”/ministries Boys and Girls Home feel are appropriate in their residential settings.

According to this Daily News Miner article on the opening of the Alaska facility:

The home’s philosophy is modeled after Dr. Sandra Bloom’s “Sanctuary Model,” a theory that focuses more on trauma-based issues that provides structure but in a nurturing manner.

Suffice it to say, Bloom has some rather bizarre notions of what words such as “Trauma” “or “violence” mean:

Trauma is contagious. It spreads from person to person…

and

Thinking about violence as a contagious disease…

The so called “Sanctuary Model” is based upon components such as

Training in attachment theory for all administrators, staff, support staff

“Attachment theory/disorder” or “Attachment therapy” is not an official term used in the DSM IV. It is at best a piece of ambiguous language or “unvalidated diagnosis”. From the theory article (see footnote ^[128] for citation):

Attachment disorder is an ambiguous term. It may be used to refer to reactive attachment disorder, the only ‘official’ clinical diagnosis, or the more problematical attachment styles (although none of these are clinical disorders), or within the alternative medicine field, the pseudoscience of attachment therapy as a form of unvalidated diagnosis.

Also see this Wikipedia page for:

The definition of Attachment Therapy is disputed and there is no generally recognized definition. For example, it is not a term found in the American Medical Association’s Physician’s Current Procedural Manual, 2006. It is also not found in Bergin and Garfield’s Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change, fifth edition, edited by Michal J. Lambert, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2004.

Quack “therapies” based on the notion of “attachment disorder” have a body count. Be sure to see this brief wikipedia entry on Candace Newmaker and Colorado’s and North Carolina’s “Candace’s law” enacted in her memory.

Other sub-contractors include (”faith-based”) Boys Town and (”faith based”) Child Saving Institute (a partner agency to Project Harmony, the intake path for many of the “safe haven” kids.

I profiled CSI and Project Harmony all the way back at the beginning of the Nebraska “safe haven” dumps.

As I quoted Nebraska State Senator Nantkes during the “safe haven” discussions:

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

If the Nebraska child welfare ongoing quagmire, barely staying one step ahead of federal penalties, is what Ms. Johnson and perhaps the National Safe Haven Alliance thinks passes for “one of the best social service networks in the country” they either haven’t done their homework, or are clinically insane.

Then again, if the whole point is to fast track those under 5 out into adoptions, should we be the least bit surprised when the National Alliance of Safe Havens, an outgrowth of the National Council for Adoption loves it and thinks everything’s just ducky?

***

Today’s 12 year-old attempted to “safe haven” himself.

The state of Nebraska has never counted kids who turn themselves over under the legalized abandonment law.

So once again, another “safe haven” attempt goes down the memory hole.

Marley and I of course, are counting all the “attempted” uses of the law and the interactions kids are having in relation to the law. So he will be included in our unofficial stats.

(Our statistics are based on what they kids themselves are experiencing in relation to the law culled from media reports. They are child-centered, unlike the Nebraska DHHS stats that dismiss many cases which makes it clear to kids, their experiences do not count.)

I call cases like this self “havens” as there is no real “haven” on the other end of such for the kids.

They also end up being counted in our stats as what I’ve been referring to as “ghost in the machine” cases. The kids are experiencing these things in relation to the dump law, but are never recorded in the official history.

Possible Safe Haven Case after the Law Changes – Update

A 12-year-old boy apparently tried turned himself in as an attempt to use Nebraska’s former Safe Haven law.

He arrived at Children’s Hospital just after 11 a.m., today. The hospital handled the situation as a safe haven case. Omaha Police were called and the child was moved to Project Harmony.

The Omaha police department says his parents filed a missing juvenile report for the child the same morning. The child is not being considered under the safe haven law.

This is not the first case of a child trying to use the safe haven law. A 16-year-old tried to turn herself in under the old safe haven law in October. County attorneys said her case did not qualify under the law.

***

As I said early Saturday morning on my post, Nebraska’s Safe Haven Roll of Shame:

Unlike this list of older kids, the next will (at least if all goes according to the state’s plan) be made up of those 30 days and younger.

(emphasis added)

Well sure enough, nothing ever goes as planned.

Today marks the first of the non-legalized big kid dumps:
Safe Haven Use Continues After Law Changes

A 12-year-old year old boy was dropped off today as a Safe Haven at Children’s Hospital.

A representative for Children’s Hospital says he was dropped of at 11:11 a.m.

Friday was the last day parents could use the safe have law for children up to age 18. After two months of children being left at Nebraska hospitals, a new Safe Haven bill was signed into law. Gov. Dave Heineman signed the bill Friday afternoon. It now only allows children 30 days or younger to be dropped off.

More details are not available at this time.