Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:18:31 -0800WeeblyFri, 16 Dec 2011 05:25:28 -0800http://minorsshouldbesafe.weebly.com/1/post/2011/12/close-to-child-abuse.htmlThe Swedish newspaper Expressen published on March 4, 2011 an article where the reward / punishment system on the so-called HVB-group homes are explained (HVB = hem för vård och boende).

It seems that one of the rewards is the ability to see their parents. Even days with illness are deducted from the reward system.

It is an unfair system. Love and comfort can not be put in a schedule based on rewards and punishments. Love and comfort are unlimited.

This system should be revised. It is close to neglect against children already suffering from being forced to live outside their homes. It is not far from being child abuse.

Source:
Svenska barn kränks på barnhem (Expressen - in Swedish)

]]>Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800http://minorsshouldbesafe.weebly.com/1/post/2011/11/cheap-labor-reality-for-children-in-foster-care-in-sweden.htmlA report ordered by the town of Eskilstuna did show that many of the children placed in the custody of the state between 1983 and 1986 ended up being used as cheap labor instead of getting better care.

We might ask why the state did not ensure that they didn't end up living under so poor condition that the removal from their birth parents did not improve their living standards.

We also might ask if the authorities are wondering whether is time to start monitoring the conditions in the foster families.

All these questions and we do know that we will not get an answer to them because children placed in foster care are troubled youth which you do best in forgetting once they have been placed at families living far out in the forests.

Source:
Ari Niemi, 33: Fosterfamiljen använde oss som arbetskraft (AftonBladet) ]]>Sun, 09 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0800http://minorsshouldbesafe.weebly.com/1/post/2011/10/it-is-about-the-money-story-from-sweden.htmlA minority of foster families in a lot of money do it because they want to help children in need, but for most it is a way to finance their lives.

When the authorities then lower the income of the foster families for one reason or another, they simply choose to stop working as foster parents robbing the foster child the only safe home they might have known.

One of these children was Niklas which at the time where the article was written was only 10 years old. A divorce between the foster parents resulted in him being send to the school one day with the message that he shouldn't expect to return and that was it.

All his life has he been living at this foster family and suddenly he only had the clothes he wore and his schoolbooks. We cannot even start to imagine how he felt that day about where he should go once the school ended.

Does it sound like a foster care system which works? No exactly!

Sorce:
Niklas, 10, slängdes ut från sin familj (AftonBladet) ]]>Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0800http://minorsshouldbesafe.weebly.com/1/post/2011/09/awful-habit.htmlMeeting a young woman - even a teenage girl - where the breasts are developing is a temptation for every man. Sometime the urge to touch them and feel how firm they are can become too much.

And by nature this urge is limited for most fathers’ biological offspring, which is a good thing.

However the role of a father in a foster family can be too much for some men and in Sweden such a man had a lot of children in foster care before his wife became tired of him running around a touch the breasts of the teenage girls the parents had in foster care. She pressed charges against him.

We might ask: Why wasn't it discovered before? The answer is simple. Children in need are in many cultures thought of as troubled youth. You tend not to believe them like the Danish social worker Gitte Blume didn't trust 3 girls when they explained about alleged sexual abuse. It took years before the foster parent was brought to justice.


Sources:
Fosterpappa åtalas för övergrepp (AftonBladet)

Skælskør: Tilsynet overså rædselshus (Ekstra-Bladet)
]]>Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:51:53 -0800http://minorsshouldbesafe.weebly.com/1/post/2011/08/press-release-judgment-day-in-the-kids-for-cash-case.htmlFor many years Luzerne County in Pennsylvania was known for its strict policy against juvenile crime. It was a model for those who plea for justice and a fight for less crime among adolescents.

But it did turn out that the tough sentences had nothing to do with a wish to fight crime. It was all done for greed. The owners of boot camps, wilderness programs and other residential options had paid the judges to impose tougher sentences.

Children charged with only minor crimes were put in prison taken out of courts in handcuffs and shackles as they had murdered several persons. It is needless to say how what was supposed to be a lecture in right and wrong instead turned out to be a life-changing turning point in the lives of every of the children who were put through this experience.

Many suffered for years  feeling being permanent branded as criminals and some did later take their own  lives.

The Pennsylvania Kids-for-Cash scandal is now well-known in our culture. An episode of Law- and Order was broadcasted world over letting everyone know how dangerous a system where minors are placed in various residential options without proper political supervision can be. Still in many countries audit of systems where case workers and judges have sole control with the faith of children and especially who they will grant the care of a specific child is basically missing.

The people we citizens vote into office must see to that they supervise the structure. They need to watch how money exchange hands very carefully. They must demand results and move out of their chair and visit children placed outside their home.

The hidden money transactions are not only a problem for Pennsylvania. As far away as Denmark and Sweden you can see stories in the media about children placed in public care which are abused and mistreated in group homes and in the foster care system - Cases where reports of alleged abuse have entered the system for over 20 years only to disappear.

The politicians should have asked to obvious question: Who caused these report to disappear? Who forgets to report when two minors at a group home have sexual encounters? In a country like Denmark it is reported that such encounters take place twice at month. Children aged down to 7 are abused by older children and the employees of the group homes are not educated to treat the victims who in extreme cases can cause them to grow up and become abusers themselves.

But the politicians have failed their jobs. They have not asked to have put every single contract between their administration and group homes and foster families on the table so they can discover suspicious patterns. We are talking huge amounts which are changing hands.

It is time for the citizens to step up and write the persons they have elected for office to ask them to dig into this area not leaving it up to a closed circuit of deals made in the dark.

Today it is judgment day in the Pennsylvania Kids-for-Cash scandal, but tomorrow it should be judgment day for all sick systems with the potential of corruption and possible damage of children’s lives.

Source:
Parents: Give him the max (The Times Leader, August 11, 2011) ]]>Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0800http://minorsshouldbesafe.weebly.com/1/post/2011/08/are-abuse-investigated-in-the-swedish-foster-care-system.htmlYou may answer: Of course!

At it should be expected that such a serious accusation always should result in an investigation.

But this is rarely the case!

Out of 89 cases where the foster child reported alleged abuse only 1 case ended in the termination of the status as foster parents. In many cases the report is filed and the archived.

That is not acceptable when taken into consideration that the state placed these children at the very foster families because the birth parents allegedly did a poor job as parents.

Sweden should demand higher standards and ask that all cases are investigated by the police. Only then would Sweden be able to claim that it as a country acts in the best interest of the children.

Source:
89 misstänkta övergrepp – bara en familj förbjöds att ta nya fosterbarn (AftonBladet) ]]>Fri, 08 Jul 2011 02:21:34 -0800http://minorsshouldbesafe.weebly.com/1/post/2011/07/the-swedish-foster-care-system-not-something-to-admire.htmlAbroad several countries seem to view the foster care system in Sweden as one of the best.

However we are talking of a flawed system. The system functions something like placeing at-risk children at families living very far from the larger towns and then leave them there where they cannot interact with other at-risk teenagers.

It is a kind of positive peer culture system where there is very few humans to talk with at all. The risk is that the isolation in the forest areas might cure the children of choosing a criminal future, but at a prize where they don't learn to interact with larger social masses forcing them to remain living outside the cities.

As the article mentions below there are few demands put upon parents who want to be foster parents, which place the children at risk of abuse in the hands of the foster parents. Oversight and supervision from the authorities are almost entirely left out due to the huge distances.

We will publish a number of articles about the dysfuntional foster care system in Sweden so other countries may choose a different path which actually saves children.

Source:
Vad krävs för att få bli fosterfamilj? (AftonBladet)

]]>Sat, 26 Mar 2011 01:37:16 -0800http://minorsshouldbesafe.weebly.com/1/post/2011/03/article-from-denmark-confirms-international-trend.htmlA study by the John Hopkins University children in foster care risk being subjected to sexual abuse in a much higher degree than children, who live with their family.

This study was confirmed by a survey conducted in conjunction with a Baltimore lawsuit. Trudy Festinger, head of the Department of Research at the New York University School of Social Work confirmed the negative trend.
But also in Denmark headlines speak of this risk. Still Denmark continues to place more children in foster care than other Nordic countries like Norway and Sweden.

Some professionals tried to defend the higher level of children in foster care by claiming that the level of supervision of the foster parents and group homes are far better than in any other country in the world. However this has not stopped scandals like the Mern foster care scandal from appearing.

The only solution to keep the children safe is to improve the preventive work in the families. In Denmark where social workers basically built their careers on getting cases where they can help their colleges who supervise placements to foster parents or group homes, shifting focus to preventive work in the families properly will demand a new generation of social workers as the culture inside the department of social services will be subjected to a 100 percent conversion in order to achieve such a new strategy.

Sources:
Sexual Abuse: An Epidemic in Foster Care Settings? (HG Legal directory, by Orlow, Orlow % Orlow)
A Critical Look At The Foster Care System: How Widespread a Problem? (Lifting the Veil, by Rick Thomas)
Mern Foster Care Scandal (Fornits Wiki Database)
Børn krænker hinanden sexuelt (Nordjyske Tidende, by Kirstine Christensen, article in Danish language)

]]>Tue, 22 Mar 2011 13:24:51 -0800http://minorsshouldbesafe.weebly.com/1/post/2011/03/boarding-school-raided-in-costa-rica.htmlOnce again has the government in Costa Rica closed a boarding school for teenagers from the United States down.

Over the years has there been such closings in the Costa Rica, the Czech republic and Mexico.

It seems that the method of forcing teenagers to go to school outside their hometown may be conflicting with basic humans rights, which is something parents in every country should consider.

As long as the court down in Costa Rica hasn't ruled in this case, it is not known what led the government to start the investigation. We hope to receive more information about this case later.

Sources:
PANI cierra academia juvenil por supuestos maltratos a alumnos (In spanish)


]]>Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:32:23 -0800http://minorsshouldbesafe.weebly.com/1/post/2011/03/damage-control-in-a-time-of-recession.htmlIn 2010 the Danish economy was under severe pressure. The government tried to impose a number of cuts in all sectors - also the education sector.

Several places in Denmark the children do no longer learn how to swim in water. They are told to do swiming exercises on land.

Also a number of smaller schools have been closed and a higher number of students are put in every class.

Everybody did suffer. All but the boarding schools known in Danish as "Efterskoler". They have a large lobbyist organization called the "Efterskoleforeningen".

First and foremost they hunt down every negative article online or in newspapers trying to do damage control. Even on foreign versions of Wikipedia they are active. People can judge for themselves by looking at the history of continuation schools and the marketing article the association created on Wikipedia trying to distance themselves from other kind of boarding schools regardless of the fact that they offer what most boarding schools market: Small classes and special subjects.

In the end they managed to be spared in the cuts putting a burden on the public school system in Denmark, which lose a huge amount everytime a stuent choose these "Efterskoler" instead of the normal public schools.

In a country many Americans find under influence of socialism it is a rare exception.

In the school year 2010 - 2011 news about a number dangerous situations at sea reached the newspapers. Also a number of cases involving lack of supervision and violence among the students were published.

Still the schools try to supress the truth and selling a product to the families which can be dangerous to the individual student.

We will monitor the present vandalism of Wikipedia and follow their other movements. ]]>