Child Welfare
Former Michigan foster youth Jerome Jones, in an op-ed for the Detroit News, lauds his home state for considering legislation that would expand foster care and guardianship through the age of 21. Jones found himself aged out and clueless at age 18, forced to start college three days after finishing high school.
Los Angeles County has lost its third child welfare director in nine months, reports Rong-Gong Lin II and Garrett Therolf of the Los Angeles Times. Jackie Contreras was named the interim chief after Antonia Jimenez quit in May; Contreras quit on Monday.
The Albany, N.Y. area has its own satellite office of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, thanks to the fundraising efforts of NCMEC Founder John Walsh’s college roommate, reports Dennis Yusko of the Albany Times Union.
Education/Jobs
A Congressional hearing on reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act planned for today has been cancelled and not rescheduled, reports Michelle Diament of DisabilityScoop.com. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee nixed the hearing on Monday as the contentious debt ceiling legislation was moving to votes in both houses.
Ben Wolfgang of the Washington Times looks at the 20 Under 20 grant program, funded by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, which offers grants to young innovators interested in leaving college to pursue their business ideas.
Juvenile Justice
Deborah Sontag of the New York Times examines the case of Pericles Clergeau, a Massachusetts teen whose violent path through the child welfare and juvenile systems ended this year with an allegation of murder. Clergeau bounced from placement to placement, Sontag reports, without any person or agency gaining a clear picture of just how troubled he is
A state-funded residential program in Kansas was recently investigated for housing foster girls and male juvenile offenders in the same apartment complex, reports Reshma Kirpalani of ABC News. There have been three different allegations of rape at the complex since 2008, she reports.
