December 21, 2011

I wish this YouTube had more hits ...

A S. Korean boy who was beaten by the care givers and social workers in an orphanage. He ran away at the age of 5 years old and lived on the streets selling gum and energy drinks to live. He slept in public bathrooms and stairways and got his GED instead of going to regular school. In the Koren's version of "Got Talent" Choi Song-bong tells his story and brought the audience to tears as he sings in an amazing voice.

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Choi would *never* escape this abuse in the US. As someone who works with a lot of birth families and the adopted and foster kids, I have heard so many of the same stories. But sadly I know he would have been returned to that abuse and not believed.

Neither life is something most people want for a child, but our institutions here force kids to live in abusive situations once the State has made their choice for a "permanent" custody situation with few questions asked once they have made their decisions. Like the elephant in the living room, whatever happens after that just does not exist.

Much of this is due to The Americas with Safe Families Act (another legislative ironic name for AFSA) and Title IV, (funding given out of Social Security) that is in full force for U.S. kids in the Foster Care and Adoption Industrialist Complex. Many if not most of these children are not abused, their families are poor working families. These children are taken for "maltreatment and neglect", much of the time relating to families living in poverty. Worse these institutions know for a fact many of these kids would thrive better if left in the birth family and given services rather than spending literally 1000% more to put them in the foster care system. Studies of foster and adopted children "alumni" adults who grew up within this System were done in NYC, Michigan State University and the University of Washington. They show that children who are taken are 5-7 X more likely to be abused in foster care and adoptions than if they were left in the home even if the parents are alcohol or drug addicted if given services.

Success can happen in most of these cases if there is a working with birth parents in advocacy and family preservation such as The Rebecca Project, http://www.rebeccaproject.org/ as well as others who are helping parents and children stay together. The Rebecca Project (whose own director has such an amazing story herself) is empowering women in and out of prison by teaching them their rights and advocating for better conditions for low income moms and kids. All over this nation the main news about child abuse you will hear is about parental abuse (and many of them are step parents thrown into the same bin as a birth parent), but you will seldom hear about foster care or adoptive abuse.

It should alarm decent Americans that these mandates for AFSA and Title IV funding are about all that is remaining for low income funding in an ever shrinking family support world. This funding is refusing to assist birth families with any support such as housing, health care, food or any other "welfare". Instead, funded by Title IV and after refusing these services, they are taking away children and "selling" them, spending literally 1000% more tax dollars doing so than if their parents were assisted.

[b ]This is because in order to get funding DHS agencies abide by Title IV and ASFA mandates saying that, "The more kids you take, the more money you make. If you return these kids home with services, you will LOSE any present and future funding for those children (around $8000 per month per non-disabled child for CPS and their DHS departments. even more for disabled children)..."

Choi Song-bong is an example about the inescapable fence that kids and even relatives who clearly want them, face with this institutionalized abuse. At the age of 5 Mr Song-bong already knew that the adults who were making decisions for him were blind fools living off the System themselves and they cared little about him. Saddest is that in both Systems, Choi would not have had a chance to go with family who DID want him.

While there are good foster homes out there, this is not the point. The point is that our society is more willing to allow an agency to profit when they take a kid and spend 1000% more than supporting their families. The point is that this is destroying intact families with false abuse claims that states like California even openly admit are 80% false allegations. The point is that we are paying taxes for a systematic and well funded money maker supporting corrupt court practices and procedures that every day ignore Constitutional rights for all family members, including these children's parents. The point is that the ADULTS within this system want it perpetuated so they can live off and depend on skewed laws and policies, damn the damage it will do for a lifetime to a child. The truth is that once a child and his family is in this System, there are few ways to escape without the loss of a child, which to many is a legal death of all they hold precious for both the child and their families.

If any reader wants to believe the American system is "better" think again, it is not. One of the most precious of those losses that do not bode well for the rest of society is the anger of all who are victims of this system feel when the most important thing we have to keep a community cohesive is the betrayal of TRUST that even a 5 year old can see.

Cat in Seattle

December 11, 2011

AARRGGHH! I lost my journal in the move ...

I thought I was reading everything carefully and did not realize we were losing everything, including all our journal and for me, since I could not save it anywhere else, there was a lot of work saved there.

This made me very sad

Cat in Seattle