National CPS News Archive

Budget cuts lead to foster care workers laid-off

by Laura Anthony

There was frustration and concern over job cuts that took effect on January 1, 2009 in Contra Costa County.

Supervisors in Contra Costa County will be considering how they're going to cut another $10 million by February to close a projected budget deficit of $28 million. [Video News Report]

East Bay 7 News

January 1, 2009

Group cites examples in Oklahoma DHS suit

by Randy Ellis

DHS received serious complaints of abuse and neglect involving foster children in its care but failed to disclose the complaints to judges handling their child welfare cases, according to documents filed in an ongoing Tulsa federal lawsuit.

In one 2007 case, a boy told an Oklahoma Department of Human Services worker that his foster mother whipped him with a pink leather belt. The worker made a confirmed finding of abuse. "Nevertheless, DHS made no mention of this abuse" in its next report to the judge assigned to the boy's child welfare case.

News OK

December 28, 2008

Former CPS supervisor is accused of making false report

by Mary Ann Cavazos

CORPUS CHRISTI -- A former Child Protective Services supervisor faces a charge that she falsely accused a man who is instrumental in helping convict child abusers of molesting a child himself.

Grizelda Lopez-Hess was indicted Thursday on a charge of making a false report of abuse. The indictment accuses her of making a false indecency with a child report on Oct. 9 with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, under which CPS falls.

Corpus Christi Caller Times

December 5, 2008

Ideology gives way to nurturing for adoptive parents

by Audora Burg

Jim and Anne Cook, longtime Sturgis residents have raised six children and been foster parents to more than 70 children in the last 36 years.

35 years ago, foster parents were counseled not to attach to the children in their care. She knew even then that was bad advice and said it "broke her heart." "Attachment - holding, responding - is what makes human beings," she said. "Studies have shown that if we leave babies to 'cry it out,' their cortisol response is the same as if they had been stung by a jellyfish."

Sturgis Journal

November 26, 2008

Grandmother of boy killed in Wilson wreck said he was in foster care

by Randy Ellis

WILSON -- A 5-year-old boy who was in foster care was killed today when he was hit by a car that a 13-year-old girl had started up to warm the engine.

The car was parked in a private driveway when the girl started the engine, shifted it into gear and moved forward, striking the boy, troopers said.

The Oklahoman

November 26, 2008

Improving foster care their goal

by Steve Marroni

The Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children conducted a study showing that about 28 percent of Pennsylvania children in foster care have been in the system for more than 17 months.

The group would like to see that number reduced. Joan Benso, partnership president and CEO, said the goal is to get children back to their original families if possible. They don't want to see children kept in foster care for more than 17 months unless there are extenuating circumstances.

The Evening Sun

November 23, 2008

Treated like a dog, used as a punchbag: The life and death of a baby boy called 'Smiley'

by Vanessa Allen and Colin Fernandez

Baby P's happy smile masked months of pain and terror inflicted by his mother and stepfather. He was used as a punchbag by the sadistic thug who trained him 'like a dog' - the child instinctively put his head to the floor when the brute approached.

The baby's cot and bedroom walls were stained with his blood. He weighed as little as a child five months younger and had been inflicting pain on himself by headbutting walls and floors. His fingernails were pinched - and possibly ripped by pliers - until they fell off.

Mail Online (UK)

November 18, 2008

Protecting children

A recent study criticizing Indiana for removing endangered children and placing them in foster homes at a higher rate than the national average places a welcome spotlight on child welfare.

The National Coalition for Child Protection reported that in 2007, Indiana moved children into foster care at a rate of 4.86 per 1,000 children, about 23 percent above the national average. The increase coincides with a phenomenal increase of 800 child welfare caseworkers Gov. Mitch Daniels hired after creating a separate Department of Child Services division headed by former Marion County Judge James W. Payne.

The Journal Gazette

November 13, 2008

Department admits it's in the dark on foster homes

by Caroline Overington

THE NSW Department of Community Services regularly places children in homes it has never seen, with foster parents its own army of welfare workers has never met.

The business of providing foster care is worth more than $600 million a year in NSW alone. Some agencies, such as Life Without Barriers, which was established by lawyers and businessmen in the Hunter Valley in the late 1990s, last year received tens of millions of dollars in funding from DOCS.

The Australian

November 11, 2008

Young Homicide Victim Wanted To Be Adopted

OMAHA, Neb. -- Anthony Ray liked to play Game Boy and eat Chinese food. He was a straight-A student who, on the surface, seemed to have everything he needed. Though he never fulfilled a wish he carried in his heart: He wanted to be adopted.

On Saturday night, Ray was shot to death on the couch of his foster mother's home at 37th and Bedford streets. Police arrested a 12-year-old boy for the homicide. Ray's life was not that of a carefree teenager. He was a child of the system since he was 3.

KETV Omaha (NE)

November 11, 2008

Regional child abuse coalition begins to form a vision

by Robin Pyle

Child abuse and neglect had a price tag of more than $9 million last year in Lubbock County alone. And it affected 1,439 boys and girls - that authorities know of - in the community.

Lubbock County has a higher child abuse and neglect rate than most cities in Texas - 22.7 children per 1,000 compared to a statewide average rate of 11.2, according to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

Avalanche-Journal (TX)

November 11, 2008

Police: parents left kids in car to go gambling

by Collette Wieland

A local couple faces child endangerment charges after police say they left their children in a parked car as they gambled at a Las Vegas casino.

Police found an 11-year-old and a one-year-old alone in the Tuscany Suites and Casino parking lot while their parents were inside the casino playing the slot macines.

News 3

November 10, 2008

Adoption's Numbers Mystery

by Jeff Katz

Tens of thousands of children in foster care nationwide grow older each year waiting to be adopted, yet a government agency has found that there are far more women seeking to adopt children than there are children awaiting adoption.

So why aren't the laws of supply and demand working in U.S. adoptions? There are three primary sources of "supply" for adoption -- newborns, foreign-born children and children in foster care. The first two groups are small and shrinking.

The Washington Post

November 8, 2008