An Overview of Treatment Foster Care

Foster care is certainly not a new concept; in fact, references can be found to caring for the children of others as far back as the New Testament and the Talmud. In the 1500s, children without families were served in the Almshouses in England. By the 1800s, the so-called Orphan Trains were organized by the first child welfare organization in America, the Children’s Aid Society in New York. These trains transported children whose families could not care for them to western states where they were taken in by families to work on farms. A highly publicized case of child abuse involving a girl named Mary Ellen illustrated the fact that the laws which protected animals from abuse were stronger than those that protected children. As a result of this case, the first child abuse laws in the United States were enacted, and some states began providing subsidies to families that took in foster children.

 

In 1909, the problems facing children in America were recognized by the first White House Conference on Children. This, the first White House Conference on any subject, signaled a new era where government increasingly recognized its responsibility to its youngest citizens.  In fact, after a 38 year hiatus, legislation has been introduced to Congress this year that proposes a 2010 White House Conference on Children to mark the 100 year anniversary of this historic event and to renew our attention and focus on the problems faced by children and families in this new century.

 

The roots of Treatment Foster Care are found in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when agencies began to train foster families to provide more than just a home to their foster children. This model has, at its core, evolved to believe that a foster family, provided with specialized training, supervision, and other clinical supports, can be a powerful agent of change for a child with special behavioral, emotional and/or medical needs. Unlike traditional foster care, where a child’s primary need is for placement, in treatment foster care, the positive aspects of a nurturing family environment are combined with active and structured treatment interventions.

 

From the initial experiments in small agencies around the country, the popularity of the model grew as the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1970s became the national policy of the 1980s. In the 1990s,research demonstrated that the model produced outcomes that in many cases were comparable to residential treatment and, when compared to traditional foster care, had 20 – 30% fewer disrupted placements. Many states used the Medicaid program to expand the availability and service intensity of  Treatment Foster Care. Today, Treatment Foster Care is widespread and a viable alternative to residential treatment, with foster parents receiving specialized, intensive training to help their foster children heal while residing in normalized family settings.

 

Ken Olson is a Foster Care and Family Services Regional Director for KidsPeace, overseeing treatment foster care programs in Maine, Georgia and North Carolina to help children with a multitude of emotional, psychological, social and behavioral needs. Having started out as a treatment foster parent in 1975, Ken has seen the system from both sides and always keeps the challenges faced by foster parents in mind when making decisions. He definitely understands when foster parents describe their work as “the hardest job you’ll ever love.” He relates when foster parents are having a particularly bad day or worrying about how the foster child’s meltdown will affect their biological children or how they will be able to do everything they need to do in a day and still take their foster child to treatment or for a supervised visit with the birth parents. Ken also has no problem explaining to foster parents that they will be held accountable for the safety and well-being of their foster children, and that they must never use physical restraint or punishment on their foster children. He refers individuals who want to learn more about foster care to www.fostercare.com provides information and resources on foster care for current and potential foster parents.

 

According to 2005 U.S. Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) estimates, there were 513,000 children in our nation’s foster care system that year, with more than 114,000 waiting for adoption. Those estimates also indicate that, while 24% were in foster care in the home of a relative, 46% were living in foster homes with which they had had no prior contact. Quite obviously, more trained foster parents are needed.

 

“The federal mandate is to reduce ‘drift,’ which means kids being placed in home after home, which is very damaging to their ability to attach and their self-esteem. It is therefore the job of organizations such as ours to be extremely selective when interviewing potential foster families and providing them with in-depth training and support to deal with any crises that arise, 24/7,” Ken explained. “At KidsPeace, we pay close attention to the matching process and do everything in our power to make our placements successful. We want our kids to stay in one foster home until they are returned to their families or are adopted, often by their foster families.”

 

According to Ken, trends in foster care are to reduce the number of kids in the system and their time in the foster care system. This has resulted in an explosion of home-based services that were not available 10 years ago, allowing many kids to remain at home while receiving the treatment they need, even if that means counselors visiting a home three times weekly to work with the children and their families.

 

“At KidsPeace, we work with families during supervised visits on parenting and psychoeducational issues, medical problems and dealing with behavior disorders in order to get the kids back home as quickly as possible,” Ken said. “When reunification is impossible, we work to find the appropriate adoptive family, which is often the foster family that has grown to know and love the child. This is a blessing, but it also can reduce the number of trained foster parents available due to the number of children in the home.” Most states limit foster families to one or two foster kids unless the family takes a group of siblings, which all agencies strive to keep together.

 

The Past 25 Years

Ken discussed how treatment foster care has changed over the past few years. “It has become more focused on permanence as an outcome,” he said. “We are seeing kids who present with great emotional and behavioral acuity. This poses many more challenges in terms of finding and training foster parents. Additionally, Medicaid, which provides a source of funding for TFC in about 50% of our states, is under increasing pressure to cut the amount it spends, requiring higher standards to qualify for funding, which, in turn, creates a mountain of additional paperwork.”

 

Funding and some aspects of the model are different in each state, depending on whether treatment foster care is considered a  “mental health” or “child welfare” program. “What we have learned,” Ken explained, “is that best practices mean that services need to be integrated, and integrated services need to wrap around the kid and blend treatment with daily living.” Foster parents are seen as professionals in some states and volunteers in others. Regardless of how their roles are defined, Ken described foster parents as the most powerful agents for change in foster children’s lives.

 

Treatment foster families come from a wide variety of backgrounds and are by no means strictly defined. While the screening process to become a foster parent can be cumbersome, it is imperative to ensure the safety and well being of any child placed in the home. Home studies are conducted with all families to ensure that the right children are matched with the right family. There are background and criminal history checks, personal interviews about attitudes and prior experiences and comprehensive training. According to Ken, it can take anywhere from three to six months to become a licensed foster parent, and annual training is ongoing for the entire time one remains a licensed foster parent.

 

Aging Out

Ken said that one of the “huge problems” with the foster care system is that kids age out at 18 without the skills, resources or support to move on to independent living. He believes that, in this regard, the system has poorly prepared our foster kids socially. Ken said that studies have shown that few kids from any background are ready to live on their own at 18 or 19 years old. There need to be more programs that prepare foster kids to transition into independent living and help them avoid the pitfalls of homelessness, unemployment, dropping out of high school or not attending college, illegal activities and drug and alcohol abuse.

 

The Future

Finding new foster parents can be challenging, but, according to Ken, foster parents are the best recruiters, showing family and friends how rewarding foster parenting can be and being walking, talking advertisements for the program. “Friends visit their homes and see what goes on, and then they call us to see if they qualify to be foster parents, and the word of mouth just keeps spreading,” Ken said. “Our foster parents develop a fantastic support system for each other, and our staff go above and beyond to do everything possible to help our foster families stay together. The most difficult recruitment issue we experience is finding families for teens. They can be the most difficult age group to place because they can be the most difficult to control and reach and often have the greatest number of emotional and behavioral problems.”

 

Ken is optimistic by nature, and is hopeful about the future of foster care, predicting that it will continue to evolve. He believes that government agencies are getting better at understanding which kids are best served by the foster care model and that other foster care organizations will improve their matching processes. Ken also looks forward to permanency options improving for foster kids, with many states establishing policies to terminate parental custody after one year of foster care, freeing the children up for adoption sooner. Foster parents are also helping birth parents with parenting skills and becoming role models for parents, as well as for their foster children. Ken predicts that kinship foster care will continue to grow, especially with the assistance of technology that can help locate relatives who live far away from other family members.

 

Ken asked readers to “Call us. Let us show you how you can become a foster parent and how you can have a really positive impact on the life of a child. It is an extraordinary experience that will change you forever.”

 

For more information on KidsPeace Foster Care Programs across the country, please call 800-8KID-123 or visit www.fostercare.com.

KidsPeace is a private charity dedicated to serving the behavioral and mental health needs of children, families and communities. Founded in 1882, KidsPeace provides a unique psychiatric hospital; a comprehensive range of residential treatment programs; accredited educational services; and a variety of foster care and community-based treatment programs to help people in need overcome challenges and transform their lives. Visit our websites, KidsPeace.org, ParentCentral.Net, and Fostercare.com for more information. 

Blue-green Algae the Key to Baby Boomer Mental Health

In the American market today, Baby Boomers represent approximately 1/3rd of the total US population — that’s 76 million people. The leading edge of the boomers, those born between 1946 and 1955, will enter old age in 2011. As these boomers age, it’s going to be critical for them to maintain the independent lifestyle they have become accustomed to and retaining their mental and cognitive function is vital to this goal.

This article looks at how blue-green algae can help them maintain this healthy brain function.

According to a mental institute, some 55% of boomers fear losing their mental brain capacity. In fact, about 41% of baby boomers said their brain fitness has declined over the last 10 years. They’ve already noticed this. Scott Hagerman, CEO of a nutrition company, said that “the future for cognitive enhancing nutriceuticals remains very bright and every month, more and more innovative cognitive improving natural products are launched to receptive consumers who are acting proactively to their mental stress and mood challenges.”

The Baby Boomers are going after these products and one of the best blue-green algae products seems to give them mental clarity.

When the blue-green algae is taken, it goes to the weakest place. And it seems in Americans, it’s their brain. In many tech fields, people are hired internationally because we just don’t have the scientists in this country. We don’t produce the scientists needed to run high performance machines, so they have to go to places like China, Japan and India to find these people today. We need to bolster our brains, that’s what we need to do.

A nutritionist, Dr Scala was involved with the astronauts on Apollo 11 and 13. At a talk some years back, Dr Scala revealed what he put in the astronauts supplies — a bucket of algae. Why? Because algae produces oxygen and algae has a particular load of PA and DHA which is desperately needed by the brains of people who are under stress.

The astronauts are under great g-forces have their brains slammed against the skull which needs to be repaired. The brain floats, but it’s a ball a fat and one third of the brain is DHA, a 22 chain of carbon tied together with 6 double bonds of hydrogen. Dr Scala knew that algae was the absolute best when it came to the nutrition of an astronaut. And the best way he knew was to just put a bucket of algae in there. Soon, the Russians began to copy and do the same thing.

Many years later, we have some of the finest algae in the world from which fish get the omega fish oil that is so famous. We’re told over and over that if we want to be sharp and our brains to remember things, we need to eat fish oil. We’re told that omega 3s are the #1 thing for the support of our cognitive function. We’re told that, but what we’re not told is that fish cannot make it, they have to get it from eating algae.

The source of all that is algae. Blue-green algae, AFA, is full of omega fish oil. The baby boomer generation now that’s concerned with their mental health is really starting to take notice of fish oil and the omega fish oil they need comes from blue-green algae.

Day Trading Strategy …. It PAYS to know how to do it … $1000 per trade

When it comes to stock market trading it PAYS to have more knowledge than the rest of the pack. Pure gold can be harvested in each profitable trade that you accomplish.
But when you don’t know what you are doing stock trading can become a very difficult and life consuming business. You can lose a lot of money and time. Valuable time of your life. Stock trading can resemble the closest thing to a get-poor-fast system when you don’t implement a proven stock trade strategy.

Even when there are traders that can make more than $5000 on a single trade, it’s not unusual for a novice stock trader to lose $1000 in less than 3 minutes from the comfort of his own home, or waste a lot of family time thinking about the stock he should trade for tomorrow “according to the charts and the stars” and other confusing technical analysis trading indicators.
As an online stock trader your homework is all about learning and testing different online trading strategies that can help you take advantage of stocks and at the same time protect your profits. Just always keep in mind that a good stock trading strategy is simple and practical. Complicated stock systems will always make you slow in your decision making process or confuse you right from the start.
There are some very good sites on the web where you can access practical stock trading strategies that are easy to implement. One of those sites is Smart Day Trading http://www.smartdaytrading.com
They focus on momentum stock trading strategies that can help you identify and handle hot stocks while reducing your trading risk.
All in all, online stock trading is all about picking the best stock opportunities and following your buy and sell signals with ease and simplicity. Once you learn to master your trading decisions, you can aspire to produce consistent profitable results.
Learn how to stock trade in a practical way every day at Smart Day Trading http://www.smartdaytrading.com

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Looking For A Medical Malpractice Attorney Seek Help From The Right Legal Expert

If you are looking for an attorney to handle a medical malpractice case but know not how to choose the right one, it is a good idea to learn the basics. A medical malpractice may be defined as a negligence or wrongdoing on the part of a medical professional resulting in injury or death of the patient.

In case you or a member of your family has been a victim of any such incident you need to act immediately. The first thing to do is contact an attorney. He would be able to help you understand the legalities, advice you on the matter and act as your legal representative if the case goes to the court.

Confused about where to look for an attorney? The best source is a referral. Ask all your contacts whether they have faced any similar situations. If they have, ask them about the lawyer who handled the case. You can also look for such attorneys using the Internet.

There are certain things you need to look for in an attorney. You need to choose an attorney who knows the details of the medical malpractice laws. It is only the sound knowledge of the law that makes an attorney capable of handling your case.

The most important thing to check is whether the attorney has any previous experience in dealing with such cases. Expertise comes only with experience. Check the success rate of the attorney in such cases.

Only a licensed attorney can represent your case at a court of law. Check whether the attorney you have chosen has a license to practice in your state. For this you need to visit the local bar association and request the information.

Choose an attorney who is an expert in the branch of medical malpractice. You don’t visit a dentist for an eye checkup. The same rule applies to legal matters as well. You need a specialist in the particular field. It is better if you could find a lawyer who has experience in the particular kind of medical malpractice incident similar to your case.

Knowledge about the insurance laws of the state is also necessary. An expert lawyer would be able to understand which insurance laws are applicable to the case. He could deal with the insurance adjuster and help you get a better compensation for the injury or death that occurred due to the malpractice.

It is advisable that you choose a couple of legal firms specializing in medical malpractice cases at first. Most offer a preliminary discussion free of charge. This discussion is necessary as this would give you a clear idea about whether to hire the attorney or not.

When you go for the preliminary discussion with a Fort Lauderdale medical malpractice attorney you need to be prepared. You may be asked for your medical records and insurance details. Carry these on your visit with the lawyer.

You need to ask the lawyer relevant questions about the case. Discuss the best strategy to use in handling the case. It is also necessary to talk about the charges as well. Many attorneys take a part of the compensation as their charge. Clarify these beforehand to avoid any hassles later.

Legal Fees Are Too High, Pro Se Litigation On The Rise

 

   

With our economy at its worst, people loosing their jobs, the rate of divorce increases. Legal fees are high and people don’t want to go broke ending a relationship so the number of people serving as their own lawyers is on the rise across the country. 

Cases are no longer limited to uncontested divorces and small claims. Even people embroiled in child custody cases, potentially devastating lawsuits and bankruptcies are representing themselves, legal experts say. The trend has resulted in court systems clogged with filings from people unfamiliar with legal procedure. Moreover, some pro se litigants, as they are known, are making mistakes with expensive and long-lasting consequences — perhaps confirming the old saying that he who represents himself has a fool for a client. 

I filed for divorce in 2001 and it was finalized in 2007. Part of the time I had attorneys when I absolutely had no choice and it was clear the issue that was to be litigated, needed to be handled by an attorney.  Most of my case I handled myself.  I researched, read and became familiar with the family law court system.  I made mistakes, but learned from them quickly and made sure not to do it again.  

At one point, I had earned the respect from a judge and he granted a motion I prepared regarding my home.  I enrolled in Paralegal Studies. This gave me the advantage of how to prepare documents, how to research law, how to cite case law and codes. There are a few internet sites like Nolo.com, Legalzoom.com and Freelegalforms.net that can help you with document preparation.

While the fees lawyers charge vary widely, the average hourly rate ranges from around $180 to $650.00.  In California, about 80 percent represent themselves in civil family law cases such as, divorce, custody and domestic violence cases according to the Self-Represented Litigation Network.

Courts are absolutely inundated with people who do not understand the procedures. Many states offer self-help Web sites or desks at court offices that offer standard legal forms for such things as simple divorces. In some states, volunteer lawyers are made available to give legal advice to those who cannot afford an attorney.

The legal profession may not like the trend but realizes it is here to stay, and has gotten behind the effort. The American Bar Association is encouraging states to set up self-help desks and adopt standard forms.

Also, a majority of states have amended their attorney ethics rules to promote a growing practice known as “unbundling,” or representation “in which a lawyer handles just part of a contract, lawsuit, divorce or other litigation for a fee, rather than taking on the entire case.

My personal experience with having an attorney with limited representation was difficult. If you hired an attorney for one issue, sometimes in family law and dissolution, issues can be “bundled” together and you are left with half an issue dealt with.

The best advice, do your homework. Research case law, family law code, child custody laws, and child support laws in your state. Review the many forms to be filed. When you go to file documents with court, the family law clerk will review the documents before filing them and will always point out to you the mistakes and what needs to be corrected, you can count on that.

Home Based Businesses – Revealed

One new business is Varolo. The idea is you build a village (sponsor people) and watch commercials for 10 minutes a day. As your village creates their own villages is when you make money. You could conceivably need 500 people within your network to make any decent money. It’s worth looking into if you think you can get enough people to sign up and it’s completely free.I spent many hours researching Project Payday, tried it out, and read all the forum rules. So far I’ve been charged $12.95 for a service that was supposed to cost $3. When I tried out Equifax, I tried to sign in and couldn’t sign in to my account it took me over 20 minutes to cancel my account with the representative on the phone. I still have two services to cancel.The idea behind Project Payday is you “try” services and products and once you build up enough you get paid, say $20. You need to keep track of it though because the trial period may be 7 days free and then you get charged the monthly rate if you don’t cancel in time. Since you’d be doing a lot of offers to get paid any decent money, you would have to be highly organized to do this as a business. Plus, to really make money, you would need to become a trader yourself. This means you’re paying people $20 to earn a $600 PayPal card which isn’t $600 when you get it (because you paid people to do the offers for you.) I thought it was a lot of work, there are a lot of rules, and its tedious. There also seems to be difficulty in canceling offers and if you cancel all your offers you may be guilty of fraud because you’re trying offers for the trial period only, canceling, and getting paid to try them. There are not many offers and some require you to pay $39.00 for a service in which you get paid only $20. For instance, you have to sign up for Direct TV for $100 to get paid $20. In 8 hours of research, I made $30 and I’m trying to cancel all the offers now because I don’t want them.Similar to Project Payday is Inbox Dollars. You do surveys, trial offers, free offers (usually along the credit report variety) play games and other tasks to make money. You have to remain active in order to get paid and it can take 3 months to get a check. I “read” e-mails and made $30 but because I let my account go inactive, I never got paid. An example of a survey they offered was 30 minutes long and you’d get paid $.60. That means you’d make $1.20 per hour! Plus, you may not qualify for many surveys so they can be a waste of your time.Next, I tried AW Surveys, Surveyhead, and Opinion Outpost. Their surveys are similar to the ones on Inbox Dollars. Plus, when you’re filling out the survey it pops up with advertisements which become full blown ads at the end of the so-called survey. Again, they paid roughly $2.00 per survey which could take up to 30 minutes to do.So my advice is to stay away from these time wasters and focus on a top ten rated MLM and network marketing tools to build your business online. For more information please visit my blog.

Importance of Internet Marketing to Your Web Business

In the internet world of abundance, internet entrepreneurs attempt to stimulate demand for their products and services. The internet marketplace is flooded with numerous products and product variations, services providers, and ‘how to’ ideas of thousand of internet experts. This has led to individuals having a wide choice regarding which particular product or service among many he will purchase or subscribe to respectively, to satisfy his wants.Since most online buyers and prospects are faced with this problem of choice each time they want to make an online purchase, they tend to favor the product or service that, within their individual limited experience, has yielded the greatest amount of satisfaction in the past. In order to compete with these online buyer loyalties toward products, services, or ideas already established in the internet marketplace, online business owners, services providers, and information marketers must distribute information about their offerings though various internet marketing and advertising media vehicles.Do a little research online on companies and individuals offering internet marketing, or web sites designing services and you will discover that there are a lot of them. So fully established, some partially, while others, not at all. Now what is the fate of new individual or firm trying to join the internet marketplace and offering any of those services? Most of them usually gain converts slowly, if at all, because the major providers of such services have spent thousands of dollars in persuading customers and prospects to subscribe and use their services. These marketing and promotional expenditures have been justified, as evidenced by the continual rising of internet marketing budget, as compared to offline media vehicles such as television, radio, and newspapers.Web business owners and internet entrepreneurs can try to overcome online customers’ resistance toward market offerings by learning as much as they can about internet marketing or hire a company that specializes in internet marketing to help them market their web businesses.Internet marketing tools and media vehicles web business owners can learn how to use include banner ads, forums, blogs, social networking sites, RSS distribution, text-link ads, e-mail, autoresponders, PPC ads, search engines, article marketing, web directories, and social bookmarking sites.Marketing your web business is very important if you really want to be successful selling your products, services, or ideas on the internet, so it is very advisable to learn as much as you can about internet marketing, or hire a company that specializes in internet marketing and advertising to partner with you in marketing your business online.