Comprehensive Protection Needed for Individuals with Profound Developmental Disabilities at Risk of Abuse and Neglect

Maltreatment of individuals who are profoundly developmentally disabled is a problem that occurs across many settings and is investigated by human service workers and others. The prevalence [the total number of people who have experienced maltreatment in a specified time period] and incidence [the ...

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Your Name (required) [text* your-name] Your Email (required) [email* your-email] Subject [text your-subject] Your Message [textarea your-message] [submit "Send"] Blog: [your-subject] [your-name] From: [your-name] Subject: [your-subject] Message Body: [your-message] -- This e-mail was sent from a contact form on Marsh Law Firm's ChildLaw Blog (https://www.childlaw.us) jamesmarsh@marshlaw.us Reply-To: [your-email] [your-subject] Marsh Law Firm's ChildLaw Blog Message Body: [your-message] -- This e-mail was sent ...

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Psycho-legal Considerations of Placing Children in Foster Care

When a child is placed in a foster home it is the responsibility of the placing agency to evaluate the prospective home by considering its environmental, physical, emotional, medical, and educational benefits and hazards. Finding a compatible foster home is not just a question of finding the right foster parents. If there are other children in the home they are also crucial to the selection process.

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Anonymous versus Identified Reporting of Child Maltreatment

  The child abuse and neglect hotline rings. All other factors being equal, does it matter if the reporter is anonymous or identified? Effective child maltreatment investigation relies to a significant extent upon information supplied by anonymous reporters. Reliance on these reporters presents the child protection, law enforcement, and judicial systems with a challenge: giving proper weight to such reports while safeguarding everyone’s constitutional rights. During FFY 2012, child protective services agencies received 3.4 million referrals involving approxim...

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Children’s Law Center 2014 Helping Children Soar Benefit

Wednesday, September 17, 2014Kennedy Center Roof Terrace RestaurantBenefit Co-chairs: Jessica Abrahams and Ted SegalJoin Children’s Law Center as we celebrate with supporters who have helped us make a lasting difference in the lives of DC’s most vulnerable children. We believe that with a quality education, good health, and a permanent, loving home, all children can reach their full potential. Last year, we helped 5,000 District children and families soar to new heights. Come to the 2014 Helping Children Soar Benefit and help us find solutions for even more childre...

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Revisiting the Presumption of Jointly Placing Siblings in Foster Care

Until fairly recently, it was assumed that when parents divorced and custody was being assigned, it was in the child’s best interest to be placed with the mother. It took time and some tragic and avoidable situations to inform policy makers that this blanket assumption should be rebuttable—if a presumption at all. We have now come to a similar crossroad involving the placement of children in foster care. There is a presumption in law and policy that it is in the best interest of children going into foster care that they be placed together with their siblings. We ...

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A National Responsible Father Registry: Providing Constitutional Protections for Children, Mothers and Fathers

The United States Supreme Court initially acknowledged the right to raise children in 1923 when it held that the liberty interest referred to in the Fourteenth Amendment was “not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to … establish a home and bring up children ….” Despite this well recognized right, many parents chose to place their children for adoption for a myriad of reasons. Over the years, adoption in the United States has become more recognized, legally structured and more common. In fact, today every November is ...

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