Where Will They Go?

Here is a headline and a story we all have seen in Sarasota county recently:

Sarasota man Kenneth Stoddard arrested for hog-tying 11-year-old daughter Melissa, who later died

11-year-old Melissa Stoddard

SARASOTA, Florida -- A Sarasota man was arrested today for aggravated child abuse after police say he hog-tied his 11-year-old daughter, who later died.

The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office says Melissa Stoddard stopped breathing on December 12. The girl was taken to Doctor's Hospital, then transferred to All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, where doctors discovered she had severe brain damage. Deputies say she also had ligature marks on her upper arms, wrists, ankles and thigh area.

Melissa was classified as brain dead. She died on December 17.

The Department of Children and Families has taken custody of five other children who also lived in the home, some of whom described how the parents allegedly "restrained" Melissa. Investigators learned the girl was regularly "hog tied" to a board on her bed with duct tape covering her mouth, or tied up and put in a filthy family pool.

Five other children living in this home were taken into protective custody and placed in foster care. Where will they go? Who will take them in? Who will be prepared to minister to the special needs these children will certainly have?

Often in society when we have situations where people have to be placed, such as criminals in jails or the mentally ill in institutions or the elderly in nursing homes, we can let others handle it. But, when it comes to the abused and neglected children of our community, these children need to be in loving, caring and safe homes. We call this foster care.

The word foster means “to encourage or promote the development of something or someone.” When a child experiences abuse or neglect, or simply an unsafe environment and need to be removed from a home, even temporarily, their growth and develop is not suspended. They continue to need guidance, protection, security, instruction, encouragement, as well as the meeting of physical needs. Where will they go to get this? We have heard the reports of orphaned infants who grow up in a cold, sterile institution where basic physical needs are provided, but love and attention are in short supply. These children fail to thrive. They need more than a diaper change and a bottle. They need love.

There is a critical shortage in the state of Florida in general and in the 12^th circuit in particular for quality foster families to care for the little ones among us. Keeping sibling groups together requires special homes with the capacity to care for more than one at a time. Other children have special medical and mental health needs. Others need to be kept near familiar surroundings within their community.

Here is how you can help. If you want more information about how to become a foster parent call the Safe Children Coalition at 941-371-4799. If you represent a group or organization and would like to have someone come to speak about how foster call BAANK (Rod Myers) at 941-374-1818.

-Rod

Remind Me Why I Do This?

Why should we care about abused and neglected kids?

I know: it sounds crude to even ask the question. Isn't it obvious? It should be, but if it were, perhaps there would not be as many abused and neglected kids in our community as there are.

Let's make it personal: If you were working out in your yard and heard the screams of a small child who was obviously in pain and ran to his aid, only to find his father beating and kicking him senseless, what would you do? Of course, you would intervene to save the child even at risk to your own safety. What if you found a small child on the side of the road who looked as if they had not eaten in three days, what would you do? Of course, you would immediately intervene to get this child help.

But this and similar occurances happen in Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties every day. The only difference is that you do not personally witness these children. They are mostly "out of sight." And you know how the rest of that phrase goes.

According to James 1:27 it is a Christian's business to take care of the vulnerable within our midst. This is why BAANK exists. It is our purpose to identify strategic places Christians/churches can intervene right here in our community, to research and design—along with folks within the child welfare community—standards and trainings to provide the greatest quality of programs, and to recruit volunteers to step into these places to serve and make a difference.

Honestly it is my goal to be able to say one day that the abuse and neglect of our kids in this community is cut down to a trickle. But this will not happen unless we all commit ourselves to very practical work. Yes, work. Involvement. BAANK needs your partnership and your wisdom and your talents to find the best ways to do this work. Won't you help? Give me call.

-Rod Myers

Prescription Drug Abuse in Florida

Prescription drug abuse kills more than 7 Floridians per day. This number is 5 times greater than deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined, making it the number one public health and safety concern in Florida. It's also important to the child welfare community, since one-third to two-thirds of child maltreatment cases involve parental substance abuse.

The Florida Office of the Attorney General has developed a comprehensive plan to tackle the problem, Florida’s Prescription Drug Diversion and Abuse Roadmap (2012–2015). It's about forty pages long, but we've boiled it down to some highlights:

1.  Prescription drug abuse affects our community in a number of ways, one of which is child abuse and neglect. Many cases of prescription drug abuse start as legal prescriptions, but without proper treatment for addiction, the increased emergency room visits, child abuse and neglect, and crime creates a burden on society.

2.  The overall goal of prevention is twofold: (1) to increase the lawful and medically appropriate compliance to prescription drug use by patients and physicians, and (2) to reduce the abuse of prescription drugs and their negative consequences.

3. An increasing number of children are born with Neonatal Withdrawal Syndrome as a result of mothers' abuse of drugs while pregnant. Florida experienced a fourfold increase in instances of Neonatal Withdrawal Syndrome from 2003 to 2010.

The problem of expectant mothers abusing pain medication has become so prevalent that All Children’s Hospital in Tampa estimates that at any given time there are at least 10 newborns being treated for prescription drug withdrawal. These numbers may, in fact, be much higher than reported because many pregnant women are neither tested for drug use, nor admit to using prescription drugs during pregnancy. 

4. Florida in particular has been a hub of prescription drug abuse because of its permissive laws toward doctors' prescriptions of pain killers. Here exist "pill mills": illicit merchants of prescription drugs under the guise of pain management clinics. People visit these places because prescription drugs, usually painkillers, are cheaper and easier to obtain than elsewhere.

5. Prescription drug abusers are likely to have used illicit drugs in the past. Other correlated factors include "time spent in jail, a family history of substance use disorders, cigarette smoking, post-traumatic stress disorder, being a non-Hispanic white male, and/or having a high degree of pain-related limitations" (page 28).

6. Children who learn about the risks of drugs from their parents or caregivers are up to 50 percent less likely to use drugs. If children make it to adulthood without experimenting with drugs, they become far less likely to start using later in life. Although a caregiver is most effective at educating children about drug abuse, part of the Florida plan is to increase education.

7. There is a myth out there that prescription drug abuse is "safer" than illicit drug use. This is simply not true. Dispelling this myth is crucial in order to make progress in prevention.

Read more about Florida's plan to reduce prescription drug abuse here.

Reason for Alarm: Abuse and Neglect in the 12th Circuit

What is happening to our children in the 12th Circuit of Florida (Sarasota, Manatee, and Desoto counties)?

You sure you want to know? Knowledge requires action. Here are the facts:

In the 12th Circuit, almost 10,000 investigations of alleged abuse and neglect were conducted over the past 10 years. Picture each little boy or girl involved. How many were verified? Let’s look at the last 15 months: there have been over 1,800 verified findings of abuse and neglect just within our neighborhoods. Can we ever look up and down our streets the same way again?

So what happens to these children? In the current fiscal year (2011-2012), nearly 1,400 children have needed services from child welfare workers, with 854 in out-of-home care. Most live with friends and relatives, but over 300 lived in licensed foster care and group care homes.

Try not to get lost in the numbers. These are real children who exist in our community. They represent every race, ethnicity and socioeconomic level. Some enter the world and spend weeks in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, born with drug and/or alcohol addictions. Others are pre-teens or teens who suffer from physical, psychological and/or emotional abuse. All are victims of trauma. All have scars. All of them just want to be loved and feel secure. These children live in your neighborhood, go to your child’s school, and attend your churches.

The need never stops. About the same rate that children enter the system, they exit and others come in to take their places. For instance, in the current fiscal year, 675 children entered services and 731 exited. In one month (December 2011), over 100 children entered state care, most of them under the age of six. An army of workers are needed to care for these children. There are 69 authorized case managers overseen by Safe Children Coalition (SCC), a division of the YMCA and the lead agency for the Circuit. This does not account for the investigators, support services, volunteers, foster parents, grandparents, other relatives, or responsible friends.

But even the positives highlight the negatives. It's just as bad at the end of the day than when we started. We're not gaining ground. Over $24,000,000 has been allocated through the Department of Children and Families, a State of Florida agency—just for the 12th Circuit. Since 2005, almost 900 children have been adopted to forever families within the Circuit. On average, of the children who are removed from their homes and are then reunified with their families, 80% return home within 12 months. Currently, about 200 young people are being assisted in moving toward adult independence. These are good things, but they remind us that there is a deep problem that we have only just begun to alleviate.

Consider seriously this perspective: three children per day are verified as victims of abuse and neglect right here in our community. Pause a moment. Let that sink in: three per day...three per day. That’s three per day, every day. Day in and day out. Every month, every year. It never stops. And it’s getting worse.

But before you judge the parents, we have to try to understand the abusers as well as the children. What are the factors that cause these families to be at risk? Why have so many family structures broken down? What are we going to do to make a difference? This is the heart of what BAANK is trying to figure out.

(Thanks to Maureen Coble at Safe Children’s Coalition for the data found in this article.)