Family Rights and Child Abuse News

Special Report: Young Couple Speaks Candidly About Child Abuse Investigation

by Victor Lopez

ODESSA -- All it took was one call to Child Protective Services, to change the lives of 18-year-old Vassella Pride and 20-year-old Randal Trout, forever.

She says she was honest with CPS from the very start, "When she came to me I said, I'm not going to lie to you. Yeah, I smoke weed. Yeah, I smoke everyday." Pride says she would never intentionally hurt her child. But the question remains, how did the pot get into Elijiah's system?

KWES NewsWest 9

May 4, 2009

Schools use new software to monitor students' social media posts

by Victor Skinner

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Md. - Officials in western Maryland's Washington County schools will be tracking students' social media activity while at school using new software that scans for keywords like "kill" or "bomb."

The district is using software called Social Sentinel that employs "geofencing" protocol to determine when students are on school grounds and scans their Twitter, Facebook and other social media posts for evidence of violent threats, harassment, drug or alcohol use, or similarly dangerous language, WJLA television station reports.

eagnews.org

August 19, 2014

HOME Program helps students living with grandparents

by Victoria Grabner

The HOME Program was created to help students whose families lose their homes and are displaced, forcing them to live in hotels, shelters, cars, foster homes or other temporary housing, as well as with relatives or non-relatives.

The program is backed by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which Congress passed in 1987. This federal law gives children and youth without permanent homes the right to remain in the same school even if they move; to enroll in a new school without typically required records such as proof of residency, immunizations, school records or other papers; provides them bus transportation to school; and allows them access to all the school programs they need.

courierpress.com

March 3, 2012

Children in foster care of prostitute

by Victoria Laurie

CHILD protection authorities in Western Australia were warned last May that a foster carer of four children was working as a prostitute, gambling heavily and using her taxpayer-supplied vehicle to drive to work at a suburban brothel.

But nine months later, the Department for Child Protection has not removed the four children, who still live in the woman's house with a male lodger, who sleeps in a queen-size bed in the living room. The woman's brother, who has convictions for serious criminal offences, also stayed at her house until a departmental officer told the woman he had to leave.

The Australian

February 20, 2009

Indictment of family in death of 8-year-old Reserve boy invalidated

by Victoria St. Martin

A district court judge voided an indictment that charged a Reserve family with murder in connection to the 2008 death of their 8-year-old son because a sheriff's deputy sat on the grand jury.

However, it's unclear whether that means all charges will be dropped or whether an earlier indictment reached by another panel of jurors would simply replace the one voided.

The Times-Picayune

February 11, 2010