Gov. Laura Kelly has a new opportunity to address systemic issues in Kansas foster care. Ira Lustbader, litigation director at Children’s Rights, is quoted: “Given how dysfunctionally run the system has been for so many years there is no question that new, fresh leadership is desperately needed.”
Sandy Santana called for increased attention in the accreditation process for psychiatric hospitals and other behavioral-health facilities in the U.S. treating children in this Letter to the Editor in The Wall Street Journal.
“Amidst continued challenges that will affect the agency every year, Tennessee’s sustained success in reforming its foster care system is a major accomplishment,” wrote Ira Lustbader, litigation director at Children’s Rights.
Sandy Santana, executive director for Children’s Rights, issued this statement: “We are pleased that the Senate took steps to reverse some of the most onerous policies in our nation’s broken criminal justice system by passing the bipartisan FIRST STEP fAct and ending the cruel practice of juvenile solitary confinement at the federal level.”
“No child should ever be removed from their home and then harmed in the places that they are supposed to be placed to be safe,” said Elissa Glucksman Hyne, a senior policy analyst at the New York-based nonprofit, Children’s Rights. “If that happens, then we would hope that something is done about it.”
“Cuffing and locking up children who run away from foster care is cruel and pushes young people away from the care and services they need,” Children’s Rights Executive Director Sandy Santana writes in a New York Times Letter to the Editor.
A new report found that 59% of victims had a history of being reported missing to Milwaukee police at least once. “These findings are a call to immediate action to protect at-risk children, especially in group homes, from being recruited into sex trafficking,” said Eric Thompson, an attorney for Children’s Rights.
“Children in Pennsylvania’s residential care are being harmed by the very system created to protect them because of a shocking lack of oversight and accountability,” said the report, written by staffers with the organizations, Children’s Rights and the Philadelphia‑based Education Law Center.
Residential facilities in Pennsylvania are doing an inadequate job of educating foster children in their care, according to a new report from Children’s Rights and the Education Law Center. The advocacy groups are calling for greater state oversight of these facilities.
“Broken system.” “Extreme housing disruption.” These are words used in a lawsuit against Kansas leaders and Department for Children and Families. Kansas Appleseed, Children’s Rights, and National Center for Youth Law are fighting for the rights of 10 foster care children it said the system has failed.
