Updates
Mandatory Home Visits Coming to Oregon?
Dear Champion of Parental Rights, Are the headlines true? Are universal mandatory home visits coming to Oregon in the near future? At first read, it appears Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s latest budget proposal would introduce over the next six years a program of mandatory in-home visits for every family with a newborn child. Not just…
Read MoreState of the Children Welcomes Parental Rights Foundation
On Saturday, October 13, I was privileged to travel to Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan, for the State of the Children conference. The event brought together key public figures in the Detroit area along with speakers and organizations from all over the country to network and share their concerns about parental rights and child…
Read MorePaid to Pull Children from Their Homes
“The federal government has always paid us only if we pull children from their homes” Crouch is West Virginia’s Secretary of Health and Human Resources, head of the department of the same name. Last week Crouch spoke to state lawmakers about upcoming changes resulting from the Family First Prevention Services Act, recently passed as part…
Read MoreMom Investigated for Neglect: “There’s Something Really Wrong”
“For something like this to happen to me, there’s something really wrong.” That is the thought of a lot of good parents who suddenly find themselves caught up in a child welfare investigation without cause, and it’s the exact words of Wilmette, Illinois, mother Corey Widen to the Chicago Tribune last week. On August 2,…
Read MoreMedically Kidnapped, Forced to Escape
Image from Google Earth of a Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Here we go again. Just when I started to think nothing would surprise me anymore, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota held a teenager hostage a la Justina Pelletier, working to cut her parents out of the picture and take control of the girl’s healthcare…
Read MoreThe “Age of Fear” in the “Land of Surveillance”
It’s one of the toughest balancing acts you face as a parent: how to teach your child independence and self-reliance while keeping them safe in a dangerous and interconnected world. I say “interconnected” because, as wonderful as connection is, in some instances it can cause more harm than good. A key example: anonymous reporting. You…
Read MoreNew Guidance Protects Student Privacy, Parents’ Rights
New Guidance from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) is bolstering protection for student privacy, while sending a warning to organizations who might abuse the ACT and SAT testing systems for your child’s data. Background Traditionally, students registered and paid for the tests on their own with parental consent. The nature of the privacy relationship…
Read MoreTroubling Trends in Foster Care
The Parental Rights Foundation this week reviewed the five latest AFCARS reports and uncovered some disturbing trends. According to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) summary of 2016 data released in October of last year and the four previous reports, the number of children in foster care nationwide has been trending…
Read MorePrepare to Be Shocked
Prepare to be shocked, or even angry. Imagine you are driving your young daughter home from preschool. You’ve just endured a child welfare investigation stemming from allegations that someone else physically abused your daughter, allegations which have thankfully been deemed unfounded. The intrusion was mercifully brief compared to many, and the investigator is now out…
Read MoreThe Law Versus Judge Lyris Younge
Photo from Google.Room 5A of the Philadelphia Family Court is one of those places parental rights go to die. Or it would be, if presiding judge Lyris Younge had her way. “She has the capacity to be a good judge,” one lawyer who has served before her told The Legal Intelligencer for a recent article,…
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