Child Welfare
Joette Katz, who leads Connecticut’s child welfare agency, wrote in the Hartford Courant that using the Penn State scandal as a basis for new law is dangerous territory. Writes Katz:
“I do not, and would not, advocate for a law that makes everyone a mandatory reporter. I take this position not because I am worried about the state Department of Children and Families’ hotline being inundated with calls — a hotline that received more than 95,000 calls last year, 46,000 of which resulted in more than 26,000 investigations. Rather, I worry about the children, some of whom will be traumatized by being needlessly subjected to forensic interviews and invasive medical procedures — a form of child abuse in and of itself.”
An obese third-grader was taken into foster care by Cuyahoga County, Ohio, reports Rachel Dissell. Sora Song of Time asks: can it help?
An Illinois mother came to Washington to advocate for less strings attached when it comes to international adoptions of children with HIV, reports Manya Brachear of the Chicago Tribune.
Education/Jobs
About 41 percent of all Mexicans between ages 16 and 19 in New York City have dropped out of school, reports Kirk Semple of the New York Times. No other major immigrant group in the city has a dropout rate higher than 20 percent.
Juvenile Justice
Virginia teen Edgar Coker was exonerated of a rape he pleaded guilty to to avoid a trial in adult court, reports the Washington Post, but his name remains on the state’s registry of violent sex offenders.
