Family Rights and Child Abuse News

Child Protective Services Worker Faces Drug Allegation

SULLIVAN, Ind. -- A Marion County Child Protective Services worker has been arrested after he tested positive for marijuana while he was transporting two juveniles to a foster care home.

Donald Joseph Tate, 27, of Indianapolis, was pulled over Sunday by a Sullivan police officer after he saw Tate driving erratically on U.S. 41, about 25 miles south of Terre Haute.

The Indy Channel (IN)

October 24, 2005

DCF fires employee over false records

by Mary Spicuzza

Kerry Griffin, a former child protective investigator based in Sumter County, falsified commencement times, attempted face-to-face contacts and other information in investigation records, a state inspector general report said.

Griffin worked as investigator in DCF's District 13, which includes Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion and Sumter counties. Discrepancies were found in four of the 40 open cases that were assigned to Griffin. Based on information obtained by investigators, he had falsified information in HomeSafenet between Aug. 1 and Aug. 22. HomeSafenet is a statewide computer system used by caseworkers to enter data about child safety.

St. Petersburg Times (FL)

October 18, 2005

Debunking the Claimes about Joint vs. Sole Custody

by Joint Custody Studies

A number of father's rights websites and "position papers" cite the following items to make the claim that "the research" supports joint custody as being either innocuous or actually beneficial for children or women.

Rarely have so many strained arguments and optimistic can-do slants been incorporated into researchers' write-ups as has been the case with findings emanating out of joint custody and father involvement studies.

The Liz Library

October 17, 2005

Once Woeful, Alabama Is Model in Child Welfare

by Erik Eckholm

As a mother, Stephanie Harris seemed hopeless. She was 29 and a determined crack addict back in 1993, when she was sent to prison for neglecting her six children, including infant twins.

The authorities had little choice, she now agrees, but to give custody of her children to relatives. If history were the guide, in Alabama or perhaps any other state, Ms. Harris might never have regained her children, child welfare officials here say. More likely, the children would have been shuffled among relatives and foster homes.

The New York Times

August 20, 2005

As a homeschool advocate in Ohio, I monitor legislation. A Ohio newspaper reported:

by Mary Nix

"In fiscal year 2006, the state will provide $94 million for the Early Learning Initiative Program... That will increase to to $113 million in 2007."

The Early Learning Initiative program, jointly administered by the Department of Education and the Department of Job and Family Services, provides:

-Early learning and child care to income-eligible children, and effectively eliminates Head Start.

-Establishes a program to support ECE (preschool) programs offered by school districts and educational service centers to serve preschool children whose families earn up to 200% of the federal poverty guidelines.

-Prohibits specified ECE programs from receiving state funds in fiscal years 2006 and 2007 unless at least 50% of the program's teachers are working toward an associate degree and, beginning in fiscal year 2008, prohibits any such program from receiving state funds unless all of the program's teachers have an associate degree.

-Permits an accredited Montessori program that is licensed as a preschool program to combine three- to five-year-old preschool children with kindergarteners.

August 12, 2005