I did not learn everything I needed to know in Mrs. Waggoner’s kindergarten in Beeville, Texas, but I did learn valuable lessons. One important rule was that if one of us brought candy to class, we had to bring enough for everybody. The lesson? No one gets left out. The next year I attended the first grade at F.M.C., the…
Posts published in “Louisiana Children in Crisis”
Good evening, Friends! I attended the 2nd National Building Bridges Initiative this week so I missed some of the daily child welfare news I follow. This morning, while catching up on what I missed, I was excited to see this headline in The Atlantic: “America’s Child-Poverty Rate Has Hit a Record Low“! “Yes!”, rang out in my head! Reducing child…
Have you ever read an old document and, as you settled into it, you found yourself confused about whether you are reading something from the past or the present? Perhaps you felt a reader’s deja vu and had the sense the old document in your hands could have been written this morning! I had the experience this week. It started…
Bad enough for parents, parental opioid abuse is especially harmful to children and has lifelong consequences for them including removal from the neglectful care of their parents. Across the country and in Louisiana, the opioid epidemic is swelling the number of foster children. Recent headlines tell the tragic story. “Why America’s Babies Are Suffering: Opioid Addictions Placing More Babies In…
While the budget debates during the Louisiana Legislature’s first Special Session of 2017 kept child advocates on the edges of their seats, Louisiana’s Representatives and Senators acted at the end to protect funding for foster children. Louisiana’s legislature did the right thing in funding the Department of Children and Family Services. In a state which sits at the bottom of…
There is no longer any excuse for ignoring Louisiana’s children. For anyone who has waited for the condition of Louisiana’s children to hit rock bottom before engaging in solutions, the wait is over. We are there. The Times-Picayune article, “Louisiana is the worst state in the U.S. for children, report says“, by Danielle Dreilinger, provides information about a report released…
Earlier this month our blog posted an article titled, “Infant Mortality: Louisiana Lags Latvia“. The chart below ranks countries and Louisiana on infant mortality during 2016 as reported by American Health Rankings using Center for Disease Control’s National Vital Statistics System data and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s World Fact Book. The number to the right of each country’s bar…
Louisiana’s Children in Crisis: Too Few Louisiana Children Receive Necessary Dental Care A few years ago, a bowl of seafood gumbo did me in! I cracked a tooth all the way into the root on a piece of sand hidden in the gumbo. The tooth required a root canal. Because of an allergy to local anesthetics a dentist referred me…
7/10/2015 – A year has passed since the June 2014 release of the advocacy paper, Advocacy Paper Louisiana’s Children are Being Placed Out of State. Today I would like to remind you of that paper and provide an update regarding Louisiana’s current ability to care for its own children. That we are still without a complete child welfare system in…
This sad story is growing old. For the 10th consecutive year Louisiana is ranked as the 49th worst state in the nation – next to last – in terms of child well-being. 48 other states take better care of their children than we do in Louisiana. KIDS COUNT is the national and state-level effort of the Annie E. Casey Foundation…