ABC's 20/20 November 21st  

Friday, November 21, 2008

If you have heard about the Nebraska Safe Harbor Act and the recent dumping of preteen and teen age children at hospitals in Nebraska, you need to see tonights show. From the outside looking in...you maybe thinking "what kind of parent could do this"?

If I hadn't been exposed to children with profound behavior problems I would just assume that the parents of these children were monster's. The truth is that these parents have tried all the psychology/therapy/pills/charts and redirection theories that social workers and state agencies have to offer. Nothing worked. They aren't millionaire's and cannot afford residential care. Even if they could afford it the intake process for residential care is so restrictive that a child would almost have to have committed murder before they would even be considered. The sad fact is that once the child has committed murder they are more likely to be tried as an adult and sent to prison where their brain damage/mental health issue's are left to fester and grow even worse.


What do you do with a child that is physically or sexually abusive to family members? Here in Washington State the only option is for the parents to terminate Parental Responsibility. From there the child is placed in foster care with all the dangers that holds. Then after a period of some months the child is placed on the open adoption lists. Of course with the new medical privacy laws in place an adoptive family may not find out the child is dangerous until after the adoption is finalized and by then the child is no longer the states problem. Which is what I believe is the states plan to begin with.

When will something be done about this problem? When will the medical community and social services get the fact that some children cannot live in a family situation?

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2 comments: to “ ABC's 20/20 November 21st

  • Anonymous
    December 30, 2008 at 2:42 PM  

    found this from Happy Mom Anna's site... not sure your hole story..

    but even us parents who took in a child from foster care with every promise of assistance face the very same struggle (this is a kid on medicaid already... a kid who blew out 12 foster home, had been in RTC before landing here... has been in JDC, etc... psy hospital stays...)

    some who I'd supposed to go homeless and give up everything (in many states signing over one child means signing over all your children to be hurt even more...)

    this is a problem I had no idea of when I signed up for this...

  • Molly
    January 1, 2009 at 7:46 PM  

    Sorry to hear of your travel down this painful road.
    As I write this I am waiting to hear from the state if we (the foster child's aunt/uncle and cousins) will be allowed to visit him in the morning. This after being jerked around for a week.
    I also have my suspicions as to why this visit came up in the first place. ??? under the circumstances (too long to go on about here) it's very curious.

    Thanks for visiting and I hope you find answer's for your family.

 

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