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Parental Obligation: Congress Must Step Up to Help Foster Youth
July 22, 2008 | San Francisco Chronicle
What dreams do we have for our children? What future do we seek to chart for them? What supports do we endeavor to give them as they transition into adulthood? When we address these straightforward questions for our own children, all of the complexities of reforming the nation's beleaguered foster care system disappear. The answers are self-evident. We want our children to have a good education, a stable, loving environment, and the opportunity to grow into healthy young adults. -
Rep. Danny Davis: Advancing Kinship Care
July 02, 2008 | The Washington Times
According to Census data, there are just under 120,000 children in Illinois being raised by their grandparents or other relatives. Kinship care is especially significant for Chicago. My Congressional District, the 7th, has the highest percentage of children living with kinship caregivers in the nation, followed by the 1st District of Illinois with the second-highest percentage and the 2nd District of Illinois with the 10th highest percentage in the nation. -
Sen. Susan Collins: Adoption proves there's no place like home
June 19, 2008 | Sanford News
Nowhere is the human spirit of kindness and generosity shown more vividly than it is through adoption. When families open their hearts and their homes to foster children, they are giving them the love and stability that all children deserve, as well as a solid foundation on which to build a successful life. -
Gazette Opinion: Pass legislation to better life for American Indian foster children
May 24, 2008 | Billings Gazette
In the United States today, half a million children are in foster care. More than 10,000 are American Indian children. In Montana, more than a third of the 2,200 children in foster care are Native American. -
Grounded in limbo
May 16, 2008 | Seattle Times
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Foster care should respect heritage
May 14, 2008 | Seattle Post-Intelligencer
According to a report by the National Indian Child Welfare Association and Kids Are Waiting, Washington has one of the nation's highest rates of American Indian foster children. While they make up only 2 percent of Washington's child population, American Indians represent 8.4 percent of children in foster care. -
Making new families for foster children
April 10, 2008 | San Jose Mercury News
Although foster care was intended as a short-term safety net for children in crisis, almost half of California's foster children have been in the system for more than two years, and 25 percent of these children have spent five years or more living in foster care. For many of these children, a supported legal guardianship with a relative or another caring adult can be a way out of foster care and into a safe, permanent family. -
Preventing the fires of abuse
February 12, 2008 | Fort Worth Star-Telegram (This piece also appeared in the Clute The Facts, Bryan-College Station Eagle, Harlingen Valley Morning Star, Ellis County Press, San Marcos Record, Big Spring Herald, Beaumont Enterprise, Baytown Sun, Dallas Daily Commercial Record, Deer Park The Progress, Brownwood Bulletin, Fort Bend Herald and Texas Coaster, Waco Tribune Herald, and the Wise County Messenger (TX) on March 9, 2008 and the Deer Park Progress (TX) on March 10, 2008)
We all agree that preventing child abuse is better than dealing with its aftermath. It also turns out to be a lot cheaper. -
Don't cut foster care
February 09, 2008 | San Bernardino County Sun
Last October, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stated: "Every child deserves to grow up in a safe, stable and permanent home, surrounded by the nurturing influence of family and friends. It is California's goal to ensure that this happens for all our young people and especially those in foster care." -
Healthy families, stronger state
January 30, 2008 | Daytona Beach News-Journal
For families already at-risk, the broad impact of an economic downturn can be catastrophic and enduring. It is Florida's fiscal, social and moral obligation to make maintaining programs and services that strengthen families our top priority, especially during these difficult times. -
Fighting Child Abuse
January 23, 2008 | The Washington Times
The recent tragic deaths of four sisters in the District of Columbia raise once again the question of why the United States, despite local outrage and national and state efforts, has not reduced child deaths from abuse and neglect. -
Families need federal support for guardianships
January 05, 2008 | The Buffalo News
For an increasing number of grandparents in the United States, “grandparenting” means much more than weekend trips or summer vacations at grandma or grandpa’s house. Unable to live with their parents due to issues such as parental neglect, drug abuse or mental illness, young children are finding safe, loving places to grow up in the homes of their grandparents. -
Expand use of legal guardians
December 28, 2007 | Wichita Eagle
Movie scenes become classics for good reason. When a young Judy Garland, as Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz," repeats, "There's no place like home," it strikes a responsive chord in our hearts. -
A loving foster family can be a holiday gift
December 23, 2007 | Arizona Daily Star
Holidays are a time of magic for children, a time of special music and lights, family traditions and gathering with loved ones. For more than half a million children living in foster care, however, the holiday season is too often a sad reminder of what we are missing. -
When a child can't be home for Christmas
December 17, 2007 | San Francisco Chronicle
For youth from foster care, the holidays are often a stark reminder of what it means not to have a family. We miss the comfort of knowing we have a place where we are always welcome, year after year. We don't know the family traditions of mom's best tablecloth and china, dad's carving the turkey, grandma's famous stuffing recipe, football in the den with the cousins, or even the inevitable family dramas. -
In need of a safe, permanent family
November 22, 2007 | The Oregonian
Thanksgiving is a time for families. Most people look forward to gathering around the table with relatives who join together in holiday celebrations. I was not that fortunate. -
Guest Opinion: Grandparents raising grandchildren need help
November 20, 2007 | Billings Gazette (MT)
My husband and I had planned carefully, so at ages 50 and 51 we thought we'd be financially ready to retire. But we have had to rework those carefully made plans because, like so many grandparents in Montana and across the country, we now find we will be raising two of our grandchildren rather than settling into the quiet retirement we imagined. -
Keeping family, culture alive
October 05, 2007 | Rocky Mountain News
Today, there are more than 8,100 children in foster care in Colorado. They will remain in the foster-care system for an average of almost two years, and 40 percent will move more than three times. Too many will be separated from their brothers and sisters, be moved far away from friends and family, and will never know when — or if — they will come home again. -
Grandparents are the rock
September 28, 2007 | Philadelphia Daily News
Statewide, over 80,000 grandparents, from their 40s to their 80s and 90s, are successfully raising and parenting grandchildren, while more than six million children are being raised in households headed by grandparents across the country. -
Foster kids need federal money
September 09, 2007 | The Patriot News
Today, there are nearly 22,000 children in Pennsylvania's foster care system. These children remain in foster care for an average of two years, and 34 percent move three or more times.
