Child Advocate

A while back, I blogged about The Judah Brown Project .  Listening to Judah’s mom educate about infant survival swimming has gotten me thinking about it quite a bit. As a mom and someone who worked with kids before motherhood, everything about ISR seems counterintuitive to what I was taught. As a young person working in a daycare, the extent of any water play we were ever allowed to do was running through a sprinkler. We were taught that a child can drown in an inch of water.  And  they can! But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that many times the things I was taught as a young person were wrong. Floatation devices give kids a false sense of security in the water.  We were taught that they are absolutely necessary, though!  It’s weird to think of something that we were taught was so necessary and life saving could actually give a child a false sense of security and therefore lead to their death. This is what happened to Judah Brown.  ISR is not without co...

  When news broke in 2009 that a 29 year old woman named   Jaycee Dugard   had been found alive after being missing since she was 11, I thought it was wonderful. I also thought it was a fluke. When it comes to missing children, we are always told that they die within about 72 hours of going missing. Everyone tells me that “statistically” they do. I have not found solid statistics about this, though.   Four years later in 2013,  three young women  were rescued from their abductor’s home in Cleveland. Just like Jaycee, they were all assumed to be dead. Their rescue was major news, because it was three of them instead of just one. The Cleveland abductions were what led me to discover several more individuals who were found alive after being missing for a considerable period of time. Some examples are Shawn Hornbeck, who was missing for over four years when found alive; Elizabeth Smart, missing for 9 months; Steven Stayner, missing for 7 years when found alive,...

  Yesterday I purchased an ebook called   Empowering Abilities by Jeanine Leech . It’s a very easy read and goes through the basics of special education advocacy for many different diagnoses. You can also check out   Jeanine’s Website  I am not the biggest fan of the school system, but it does exist, and advocacy is needed for kids who struggle. I was one of those kids- I struggled in school immensely. I was diagnosed as being ADHD when I was 43, and suddenly my entire life made sense. But I graduated from high school in 1996- too soon for the no child left behind act. Even with the no child left behind act, children with disabilities and differences face a lot of discrimination from teachers and school staff.  In my opinion, an ideal world would consist of every man, woman and child everywhere just following their passions and interests all day. Yes, this would lead to learning and income earning! But for now, I’d like to do a deep dive into what “would have be...

  On a 90 minute drive last week, I listened to   this episode   of the Suffer the Little Children Podcast. The host, Laine, took a break from talking about child abuse to talk about water safety. She interviewed a woman named Christi Brown who is the founder of   The Judah Brown Project . It was named after her son who died at age 3 in 2016 from an accidental drowning. Photo of Judah Brown taken from the Judah Brown project webpage linked above  Similar to car seat safety, it seems like so many recommendations have changed since I started working with children and since I had a small child. We used to swear by “floaties”! But as it turns out, floaties in pools tend to give children a false sense of security.  She talked about teaching infants as young as 6 months old “survival swimming”, which I had seen videos of before, and it gave me an anxiety attack!   Here  is an example of an infant survival swimming lesson. Please don’t try this at h...

  Two days ago, I was at a convenience store. A woman was trying to get her young child to use the restroom. The child, who looked to be about five or six years old, insisted he didn’t have to go. The mother got visibly enraged and told him, “You better go in and try right now, before I start popping!” By “popping”, she meant she was going to physically hit him if he didn’t go to the bathroom.   The importance of listening to kids when they verbalize their bathroom needs is a topic for another day, but her statement about “Popping” was actually a threat. If anyone told you or I they’d physically hit us if we didn’t have to go to the bathroom, we could press charges for threatening. Threatening a child is a  Textbook form of emotional abuse 

  I just wanted to throw this out there. I see stuff like this online and in real life all the time. Talking about your children “ruining” things, “ruining” your life, “ruining” events, your finances, your career, your body, etc is damaging to the kids.  You are the person that your child loves the most, and if they think they ruined you, that’s devastating to them. This particular content creator has clarified that it was a joke when they said this, but if a child sees or hears them saying this, they might not have the capacity yet to understand a joke. They mentioned in the comments that anyone who had a problem with this must be a perfect parent. I say, no not at all. Just conscious of how our words affect our kids

  Recently, one of my favorite YouTubers, Hannah Alonzo, switched the theme of her channel from anti-MLM content to anti-influencer content. I honestly like the anti-MLM content better. I’ve had my own “semi-horror stories”, which I haven’t emailed to her yet. She is way behind on those emails.   Her anti-influencer content only drew me to follow specific influencers that she featured on the series. One in particular is Nara Smith. I had never heard of Nara before Hannah started bashing her and now I absolutely love Nara’s content.  Then, Hannah did  this video  on unschooling influencers.  I’m a huge fan of unschooling, even though I was never an unschooling mom. I had to put my only child in school because I had to work, and my daughter is right for the school system anyway. She would choose to go to school if she actually had a choice. Actually, her dad, stepmom and I did give her a few options to do her senior year at home, but she still chose to go. Sh...

  Earlier, I shared in this post several podcasts I listen to. Since then, I’ve discovered another one. It’s called   By Their Side: Advocating for Children in Foster Care .   I recently listened to the latest episode, featuring  Maryann McEvoy . I loved this episode. The main takeaway for me was to fight off any self doubt- and God knows I’ve had a lot of that over the years!! Maryann McEvoy seems to have achieved a pinnacle in her career that, 25 years ago, I thought I wanted to achieve as well. Maybe I still will. I will never go back to school for an advanced degree, though. I am done, and I have a four year bachelors.  Here  is a link to Maryann’s job description. Thanks for all you do, Ms. McEvoy!

  Starfish Story  On my first day of “Advocacy University”, I was given a handout with this story on it. Advocacy University was the training to be a CASA volunteer, or volunteer advocate in the courts. I remember being very inspired at the time by this, but as time went on, my love for this story waxed, waned, and even turned into cringe and even hatred. (And then back to cringe and back into liking it or loving it). I do have a couple pieces of starfish artwork on my walls at home because of this story, but it took me a while to be comfortable enough to put it up and be reminded of the CASA program on a constant basis.  This is because I didn’t always feel like I was helping when I was a volunteer advocate. One of the chapters I worked with was so closely intertwined with CPS that we were highly discouraged from making a report that disagreed with the recommendations of CPS. And as you may be aware, CPS has a tendency to either ignore blatant abuse and allow kids to fal...

  When I was a young woman trying to figure out how to be an effective advocate, I discovered political organizations in the state capitol that specifically advocated for children. I didn’t live in the state capitol, so I couldn’t work or volunteer for these organizations, but they did offer their own letters to congressmen, which you could use as a template. A great example from Texans Care in Austin is found   here  I’ve also recently discovered many advocacy templates online for various projects. I found the best ones come from the Harken Institute.  Scheduling a meeting with a USA legislator.  I was involved with Texans Care in Austin for a couple of years. I never “met with a legislator” on my own, but I did go with Texans Care on what they called “Child Advocacy Day” at the time. (There is no official holiday called Child Advocacy Day. It’s different in every state, every year.). We went from office to office at the capitol building giving our pitch. I don...

  Yesterday I listened to   The Suffer the Little Children Podcast’s episodes on Jonathan Carey’s story   I’m so glad Laine got to talk about Jonathan. He sounds like he was an amazing kid.   Jonathan was a non verbal autistic child who was murdered by a direct care worker in a live in facility at the age of 13 in 2007. His parents have since done amazing work with advocacy to change the state laws in New York. They created  The Jonathan Carey Foundation  and helped pass  Jonathan’s law  Losing a child has got to be the biggest nightmare imaginable, but the Carey’s didn’t give up their son’s fight. I admire them greatly.

  I found   this article   on how to prevent shaken baby syndrome when you are alone and feeling frustrated with the baby’s crying. I’m not sure why, but lately I’ve come across a lot of parents in online spaces that are claiming to suffer from post partum rage. I see others who don’t name post partum rage specifically, but still seem enraged at an infant they are having trouble calming down. It instantly makes me afraid for the baby’s safety.   The article that I linked to above states that when you’ve tried everything to get your baby to stop crying and they don’t, you may feel like you need to step aside for a moment. The best thing at that moment that you can do is: “Place your baby in a safe place, such as a crib or playpen without blankets and stuffed animals; leave the room and let your baby cry alone for about 10 to 15 minutes.”  Follow the linked article for a complete list of official recommendations. It is definitely ok for the baby to be alone in a s...

  Marise Chiverella was a little girl who was murdered at the age of 9 in 1964 while she was walking to school. Marise was missing for only a few hours when she was found. Her murder went unsolved for about 57 years.   This post isn’t about child murder, but about the way in which the mystery was solved. Eric was an 18 year old whose special interest was genetic genealogy. His mother facilitated his special interest by allowing him to surf her own genealogy accounts.  I will expand on this more later, but I firmly believe that kids and young people flourish when they are allowed to just dive into the things they’re interested in. I believe that the majority of the time, school gets in the way of that- unless they are going to school specific for their special interest by their own choice.  Here  is a link to an episode of Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace about how Eric solved Marise’s case. The detectives described Eric as “beyond his years”. However, I bel...

  (Photo removed to protect my daughter’s privacy) Me baby-wearing my daughter while walking on the beach in 2007 or 2008.  I have one very vivid memory from when I was working at the child crisis center. A 10 month old baby was recently admitted to the nursery. This center had two houses- the baby house was for birth to age 3, and the big kid house was for ages 4-12. I worked in the 3-11 shift in the baby house about 70% of the time. Other times, I filled in on the night shift in either house. This ten month old baby that was admitted to the baby house cried constantly, and was only content when being held. In the baby house at the time, there were four staff members and ten children. The ten children consisted of 8 toddlers that were able to walk, this ten month old infant, and a one month old newborn That’s only a ratio of 2 and a half to one. Not only that, but there was a baby wearing device almost identical to the one I’m wearing in the above picture with my own baby abo...

  I saw   This article   about a daycare who went on a field trip and accidentally left a child behind. I consider myself very lucky that my first job, which was as an assistant in a daycare when I was 16, was very stringent about making sure you knew how many kids you had at all times. They would randomly buzz your room and say “How many?” If you didn’t call back the accurate number promptly, you were in trouble! As a result of that, any job I ever had with children in the years following, I was always aware of how many I had. I remember waking up from a dream where I was counting heads, and I looked all over my room frantically for a few seconds for heads to count, before realizing it was a dream. No matter where I was, I always block counted heads. Always. I don’t get how it was only nine kids on this field trip and they still managed to lose one! Nine kids aren’t that many kids at all for a daycare. what were they thinking

  How important is spirituality in your life? I’m not going to talk about my current beliefs and spiritual practices. This blog is about me working with kids, being their advocate, and how and why I made the decision to do so about 24 years ago. At that time, I was an evangelical born again Christian. I attended a college age ministry with my fiancé Caleb Wells, and the teachings were extremely heavy on God’s will not being your will. They harped on it so much that I remember my female roommate at the time struggling because she had been offered two new jobs- one at the ice cream shop across the street and another at a grocery store four miles away. She struggled with “which one was God’s will”. I told her, “Why don’t you take the ice cream store job? That way you can walk to work.” She struggled because that seemed like too easy of a solution. In her mind, God didn’t want what she wanted. She took the teachings about God’s will in our church so seriously that she made it hard on h...

  Audible and Apple Pod Picks for Child Advocacy I have a basic Audible membership for $17 a month. I also have Apple Podcasts, where all podcasts are free. No membership required. I have several audiobooks and podcasts on there over several interests of mine, and here are some of the things I listen to in order to be a better child advocate.  On Audible: The Child Welfare Raising Awareness Podcast  – This one is based out of Tuskegee University in Alabama, and even though I’m not a social work major in any college and never will be, I love listening to what the people Croft interviews have to say.  Advocacy by John A. Day  – If y can get past the robotic voice, this is a super interesting and educational book.  I Speak for This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate by Gay Courter  – I first read this book 25 years ago when I was trying to figure it all out. I recently listened to the audio version a couple months ago.  Ten Things Every Child wi...

  Lately in political arguments between the far left and the far right, I started noticing that both sides are using child sexual abuse as points in their political narratives. Those on the far left only mention clergy as perpetrators when bringing it up. Those on the far right only mention members of the lgbt community when bringing it up. If you listen closely to the arguments, you’ll realize that the people on both sides that are making these arguments aren’t doing so as members of society that are actually concerned about the welfare of children. The arguments are made to disparage either clergy or members of the lgbt community. Childhood sexual abuse is used as a pawn in their narratives of hate, and it’s pretty gross if you ask me. I don’t associate with extremes in any movement, and that includes the American far left and far right.   I have personally wondered what would happen if a child disclosed sexual abuse to one of these people and the perpetrator was one of the ...

 I  became aware of the neurodiversity movement about five years ago, right after my stepdaughter from my previous relationship was diagnosed with autism. About 3 years later, I was late- diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 43.   The neurodiversity movement  argues  that conditions such as ADHD and autism are natural and valuable differences in human variation, rather than disorders to be stigmatized.  I feel as if autism was especially stigmatized.  The YouTuber Illuminaughtea  made a wonderful video about how negatively autistic children were viewed. The organization  Autism Speaks  largely contributed to the stigma, especially with their awful  ad  . I remember the terrible stigma in every day life as well. I worked with autistic children in every single role I played in my entire career helping children. I also remember it coming into play with family planning. In the early 2000’s, the incidence of autism was rising drastical...

  Describe one of your favorite moments. When I worked at the children’s museum, one exhibit was dedicated to inventions. One day, I was leading a school tour with either 2nd or 3rd graders. When introducing them to the invention exhibit, I asked the class, “Who here knows what an inventor is?”  No one knew, so I answered for them. “An inventor is someone who makes something that has never been made before.”  One kid immediately made eye contact with me, raised his hand and said, “You can do that?” I could see a lightbulb go off in his head. It was the first time he realized that you are allowed to be creative.  My tenure at the children’s museum had many moments like this where I could see the kids’ aha moments regarding the most basic things. 

  Muffin Tins This is something I learned along the way in order to help kids who are picky eaters. Sometimes it helps picky eaters to have a variety of things in front of them all at once. I got the idea once to fill muffin trays with many different snack varieties. With my own daughter, I used to let her have dinner like this sometimes. Of course, the foods in the tins can literally be anything, and some kids don’t like their food touching.  Here’s a mommy blogger talking about the same thing  I wasn’t always able to be very free range with kids at meal and snack times. When I worked at the child crisis center, the older staff members were so extremely strict with the kids and their meal times that they used to make kids eat all of one thing before eating another thing. This was taken to bigger extremes than just making kids finish their meal before dessert. They used to make them have all meat before vegetables, all vegetables before fruits, etc. and every kid at the t...

  My Experience: The Child Protective Services Debate I served as a  Child Advocate  in two states over the course of about 18 years. I worked with a total of 23 children in this capacity. What this program does is appoint an advocate to a child or sibling group who is in the custody of the state. We visit the child, interview all involved with their cases, draft court reports on our recommendation for the best interests, and testify in court.  Child Protective Services has a bad reputation. As the years went on, I also developed a negative opinion on them. However, the negative opinions of CPS take two extremes. Some who dislike them claim that they don’t do enough, and some who dislike them claim that they do too much. They either fail to help a child in a truly abusive situation and the child “falls through the cracks”, or they are too eager to remove a child from a home for “every little thing.” It’s a popular opinion in the “they do too much” camp that families ...