Michigan Loses Track Of 302 Abused Or Neglected Kids

By Jack Kresnak
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
9-2-2

Twelve-year-old Prentiss Rachal is supposed to be under the legal care of the state's child welfare agency.   But the agency has no idea where he is.   Prentiss is just one of 189 abused and neglected children from Wayne County -- and a total of 302 statewide -- whom the state has lost track of, according to the Michigan Family Independence Agency.   Officials believe he may be in Georgia with his biological mother, whose rights had been terminated by Wayne County Juvenile Court in 1998.   "I just pray to God that this child is safe because I don't have any indication that he is," a Wayne County Juvenile Court referee said during an emotional Aug. 20 hearing on Prentiss.   FIA spokeswoman Karen Smith said the "vast majority" of the missing youths are older than 14 and that many of them are runaways from foster care.   Teenage girls, especially those who come from homes where they were abused or neglected, often run off with boyfriends they think they're in love with, Smith said.   Missing children aren't just a problem in Michigan. READ MORE: http://www.rense.com/general28/michiganlosestrack.htm

Reporting Holds Michigan’s Child Welfare System Accountable

At the Detroit Free Press, a watchdog reporter sees the impact of his stories.

Like other children’s beat reporters, I closely followed the case of Florida’s missing five-year-old foster child, Rilya Wilson, whose disappearance last year added to the already abysmal reputation of Florida’s Department of Children and Families. I wondered how many foster kids were missing in my state of Michigan.

After 15 years on the juvenile justice beat, I already knew that runaway foster children were a chronic problem in the child welfare system, but it was a problem that no one seemed too concerned about. The typical response from juvenile court judges and child welfare officials has been to file a missing person report with the police and hope for the best.

READ MORE: http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/101260/Reporting-Holds-Michigans-Child-Welfare-System-Accountable.aspx

Child welfare in Michigan: Why let a few hundred “missing” foster children spoil the party?

   It was another love fest at federal court in Detroit last week, during a hearing on the dreadful consent decree between the Michigan Department of Human Services and the group that so arrogantly calls itself Children’s Rights (CR).

            According to one news account, the judge overseeing the decree praised “a different day, a different mindset, and a different atmosphere” in court compared to when the original settlement was reached in October, 2008.  According to another, a CR lawyer praised DHS for "some really important strides."

            No kidding.  The current director of Michigan DHS, Maura Corrigan, and the director of CR, Marcia Lowry, have identical outlooks: Both have contempt for birth families (Corrigan literally walked out on them during their one and only chance to tell their stories to one of those Obligatory Blue Ribbon Commissions that states and localities love to name to avoid actually changing their systems) both view permanence for children only in terms of adoption and neither cares about the slash- and-burn budget cuts in support for impoverished families used to finance their so-called reforms.  (For full details see our reports on Michigan child welfare.)

            Corrigan also is the one who wrote an op-ed column for the Detroit Free Pressunder the headline “Removing children from families always follows legal procedures” at the very time probation officers were illegally rubber-stamping the names of judges on orders removing children from their homes.

            So of course they get along famously.  The so-called progress largely involves hiring hundreds of new caseworkers to tear apart more families (financed in part bycutting family preservation and public assistance programs) and extending foster care until age 21.

READ MORE: http://www.nccprblog.org/2012/07/child-welfare-in-michigan-why-let-few.html