3 results for month: 08/2009
Report finds Florida overmedicates foster children
Yesterday, the Miami Herald revealed that in a report "expected to be released publicly later this month," a "panel of child-welfare experts, including two top administrators from the" Florida Department of Children & Families, "says child welfare authorities too often rely on the potent medications to manage abused and neglected children -- but fail to offer psychiatric treatment to help them overcome the trauma they suffered."
The report states that "caregivers for children in state custody frequently use powerful mind-altering drugs to manage unruly kids, rather than treat their anger and sadness." According to the report, "psychotherapeutic ...
A Bold Gambit to Reduce Demand for Child Porn
From today's Christian Science Monitor:
Federal prosecutors and New York lawyer James Marsh are persuading courts to order anyone caught with illicit images to pay financial restitution to child victims.
Federal prosecutors are embracing an aggressive approach to fight the spread of child pornography on the Internet, urging judges across the country to order full restitution to identified child victims in cases where the defendant possessed the images but played no role in their creation.
Generally, restitution is awarded in cases where a defendant's direct actions caused the injuries suffered by the victim. In a child pornography case, the person ...
Legal Immunity for CPS Workers who Lie?
The critics and plaintiffs’ attorneys are out there. They seethe with frustration in their assertion that there are child protection workers who are as dysfunctional and flawed as some of the abusive and neglectful parents they investigate. They feel mistreated, ambushed, without recourse to a neutral oversight authority, and fume that the courts will believe the word of child protection workers over their clients.
And yet, when there is a credible allegation that a child protection worker has knowingly made misleading or false statements which resulted in the wrongful removal of a child, their criticism and anger seem justified. Such misrepres...