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I have had multiple request to post the foster care reform bill draft… The most importaint thing you can do to protect your family is to call your federal senator and demand that they pass the Family Preservation Act of 2015
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ERN15204 Discussion Draft S.L.C.
The Family Preservation Act of 2015
Using Science Based Diagnosis and Interventions
Respectfully Submitted by Kathleen Arthur RN BSN BlueKathleen@live.com
Nurse, Foster-mother, and grandma…An army of one.
114th CONGRESS
1ST Session S. _______
A Bill
To amend parts B and E of the Title IV of the Social Security Act to invest in funding of science based diagnosis and interventions to preserve families. Prevention and family services to focus on keeping children safe and supported at their home with their families and for other purposes. Our national goal is no foster care or group care by 2020.
The current Children’s Administration (CA) Model is not working.
Foster Children are suffering irrevocable permanent neurological damage. (See The Charlie Rose Show: Brain Series, The Biology of Parenting.)
Social Workers are unable diagnose ICD-9 based medical diagnosis. Social Workers are only able to assign punitive labels.
80% of CA caseload is labeled as abuse and neglect.
The focus is on punitive, not restorative.
The new Title IV e and b funding will focus on science based diagnosis and treatment.
The focus will be restorative, not punitive.
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬________________________
90% of the CA caseload can be categorized into three ICD-9 medical diagnosis:
Postpartum Depression
Attachment Disorder
Parental Drug Addiction
The Family Preservation model will replace the CA model using home health nurses on the street level. Nurses will use a care- path model to assess child/parental needs and formulate a ICD-9 diagnosis. The Family Preservation Model will provide services that have objective, research based interventions and outcomes. The resources focus will be bringing help to the child’s home/kin..…not removing the child to the resources.
(This model will be much less expensive, as the primary family assessment does not involve activating the judicial system, or foster care. In 30 years as a home health nurse, I have only had 3 cases that required judicial involvement)
Page 1
Line 5. (Suggestion) Family Preservation Act of 2015
Section 2. Findings
Page 2
Line 9. Recent research indicates that Children who are raised in foster care have permanent neurological damage. Children who do not receive adequate neurological neuron stimulation (love) in the first 24 months of life will have irreparable damage. Our national goal is no foster care placements by 2020.
Line 10. Add… Title IV-E also provides no incentive for timely resolution of the child’s judicial case. The current judicial model pays appointed lawyers an hourly reimbursement rate. Children are languishing in the judicial system, because their lawyer will get paid less for a timely resolution.
Innovative new judicial structures are encouraged such as a mediation cycle with bonus for early resolution to replace the hourly paid model. The goal is speedy resolution, and family preservation. Kids have a short shelf life.
Page 3
Line 17. Add…
1. Science Based Interventions:
A nurse model will focus on restorative interventions based on ICD-9 diagnosis and restorative treatment interventions.
Social workers are simply unable to diagnosis medical conditions.
Social worker can only label: Abuse and Neglect
Currently parents with post-partum depression are grouped under the “Abuse and Neglect” category.
In 2010 1million parents suffered from post-partum depression. A curable, time limited medical disorder.
In 2010, thousands of parents lost their infants forever to mismanagement of a curable, time limited medical disorder.
And now those parents are being targeted for removal of any subsequent births….their infants are being taken from their arms at the hospital and placed into foster care.
Section 3 TIME LIMITED FAMILY SERVICE UNDER PART E OF
TITLE IV OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT
(a) TIME LIMITED FAMILY SERVICES DEFINED.
Section 475 of such Act (42 U.S.C. 675) is amended by adding at the end the following:
(A) All Family service timelines will be driven by evidence based ICD-9 diagnosis interventions.
Time limited services to be driven by specific evidence based ICD-9 medical diagnosis.
90% of all Children’s administration caseload could have been served under three ICD-9 diagnosis timelines:
• 0-3 month Post-Partum Depression of Mother or Father
• 0-24 months Detachment Disorder
• Drug Addiction of Parent *
Postpartum Depression is a time limited specific medical condition.
It can occur in either the mother or father.
A newborn has a 25% chance of having one parent with postpartum depression.
Postpartum depression is a treatable time limited medical diagnosis. Not abuse and neglect.
In the current system, parents are losing their infants forever to a time limited, treatable, medical diagnosis. Social Workers are only able to label parents as abusive. Home health nurses can make a diagnosis of postpartum depression under a standardized nursing care path.
• The CA Model labels postpartum depression as abuse and neglect. The CA Model then will offer parenting classes and counseling for postpartum depression. The CA model will then judiciously intervene and removes the infant from the parent if the services are not completed.
• The Family Preservation Model labels postpartum depression as a treatable ICD-9 medical diagnosis. The nurse will offer in home services to the parent, as profoundly sad parents are often unable to attend counseling or classes….because of the depression.
Postpartum depression is a time limited treatable condition.
In three months…the CA Model will probably result in removal of the infant.
In three months …the Family Preservation Model will probably result in resolution of post-partum depression and an intact and thriving family, no longer in need of services.
Attachment Disorder 0 to 24 months.
New science has reviled there are only two types of caregiver in the child’s 0 to 24 months of life.
1. Positive stimulation of nurturing neurons within the hypothalamus (IE loving interaction between caregiver and child)
2. Non- stimulation exchange of nurturing neurons within the hypothalmus.
• Foster care has been proven to cause permanent, irrevocable e neurological damage in children aged 0 to 24 months who do not have a loving caregiver exchange. (Positive stimulation of nurturing neurons)
• Kin placement should be the first choice child placement, if the child is unable to safely cohabitate with parents.
• In home services at the child’s home of origin should be deployed until a loving kin relative can be found.
Monkeys is deprived light in their infancy will be forever blinded. And so our children are becoming forever damaged by deprivation of love in foster homes.
If a child is deprived of love during the period of 0-24 months permanent irrevocable brain damage will occur.
Parental Drug Addiction= Child age 0 to 24 months =
1 month immediate inpatient parent/child centered treatment services for parents with any child aged 0-24 moths with 6 month follow up.
Child aged 24 months and greater= 1 month immediate inpatient drug treatment for parent, with in home care for children in the parents absence, if no kin are available. Then a 6 months of follow up care.
(If mom or dad had a burst appendix, they would not have delayed treatment….drug addiction is a medical diagnosis that must be given scientifically based resource in a timely fashion to assist with a cure.}
All parents will be offered an Advanced Directive of Child Placement and Care
Much like an Advanced Directive for health care, this will be a legally binding document that directs what kin children should be placed with in the event that the parent is unable to fulfill their parenting role…kids to kin….not to foster care. The only requirement is that the selected kin be able to pass a standardized background check.
This one document alone will significantly reduce foster care placements and increase kin placements.
Other:
Incarcerated mother
Funds to keep mother and Child aged 0 to 24 months together during incarceration of mother of non-violent crime. The neurological nurturing stimulation will neurologically make them both better human beings. The nurturing neuron stimulation will alter for the better the inmate’s behavior. Lack of infant neurological nurturing stimulation will cause irreparable neurological damage.
If possible delay incarceration of mother until the child is 24 months.
Homeless Child and Parent
Funds to avoid separation of child and parent because of homelessness. Children aged 0 to 24 months will suffer irreversible neurological damage if not loved during this period. Special intense funding should be given to homeless children aged 0 to 24 months to prevent irreversible neurological damage to the child.
(Perhaps vouchers for family friendly hostels for homeless familys….at $30 per night the William Penn House is pretty cool. Or perhaps a tax deduction for hotels donating unused rooms to homeless folk)
Children in a yert with a loving parent will have better brain function that children cared in a mansion with kind strangers.
Page 8
Strike child’s case plan and insert child’s ICD-9 treatment plan or family preservation treatment plan.
Service shall follow the child, not the adult
We do not need research to find a better model. We already have one. It is a public health nurse. Social workers cannot diagnosis, and should not be used in the care and planning of children in critical developmental phases. Children have a short shelf life, and are being irrevocably harmed by the current model.
Use these funds to transfer the CA model to home health nurse based services.
Page 10
Services should be provided in four categories
• Postpartum intervention period child 0-3 months
• Attachment disorder prevention intervention child 0-24 months
• Parental Drug Addiction
• Other
For children currently in foster care, kin should be offered the same amount and type of support to get kids who are currently in foster care to get out of foster care.
If a child qualifies for SSI, the full amount of SSI disability payments for the child must go directly to the child’s caregiver.
The ssi disability payment qualification follows the child not the adult/agency.
Page 11
This is important: All research must be done by a federal independent research facility. It is very, very easy to lie using statistics, and at a State level there is an incentive to stack the information deck to keep federal funding intact.
Creation of a legally binding Parent Child Advanced Directive that allows parent to choose kin placement of child. This one document will significantly increase kin placements, and reduce government reliance.
Page 17
Part E Amend to read as follows
Federal Payments for Child Permanency….skip the foster care part…our goal should be no foster care by 2020.
Page 20
Line 23 made for ICD-9 diagnosis
Based and evidence-based programs
Page 21
Research should be done by independent transparent entities that are not in any way connected to the current CA. Very, very bad and biased research has gotten a lion’s share of the research funds so far.
Add:
Time limited voluntary respite care vs foster care
Open all records/transparency
Parental and kin rights to contact with child
Parents may have medical and mental health care provider of choice
ADA individual assessments and accommodations
Remove Social Worker immunity. Nurses and Doctors to not have immunity. We should all be accountable equally for forgery, evidence planting, forging criminal background checks, falsifying doctors reports, purchasing PhD and consolers testimony ect.
