Posts tagged with Community News
Affordable Adoptions
Do adoptions really cost between $10,000 and $40,000 as stated in a LJW article of February 8? That was a long time ago but life intervened and caused this delayed response.
Well some adoptions are expensive. Adopting a child from another country or working with an attorney for what is called a private adoption like the one in the film Juno can be very expensive.
Adoption from one of the agencies that have contracts from the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS) is virtually free according to the adoption coordinator of one of these agencies. She recommends that someone wanting to adopt might want to have a few hundred dollars available for miscellaneous costs. However most of these expenses will ultimately be reimbursed. Her agencies public relations people never got back to me about this piece so I can’t use her name. That is too bad because she does good work.
So there are affordable adoptions in Kansas and nearly 900 children waiting to be adopted. Kansans like citizens of most states provide financial assistance for adoption of children from the child welfare system. Much of this financial help is from federal funds.
Available financial assistance is detailed in Section 6000 of the SRS Policy Manual (http://www.srskansas.org/CFS/robohelp/PPMGenerate/). Examples include reimbursement of non-recurring adoption expenses of up to $2,000. This can be used for such items as attorney’s fees and travel expenses to court hearings. There is reimbursement for one-time only purchases limited to $1,000 per child for things like special equipment for children with disabilities, home modifications to make the house handicapped accessible and lifts for vans if needed.
Health care through Medicaid is available for special needs children. In addition, there is a possibility of a monthly cash subsidy to help meet the costs of providing for the child’s special and ordinary needs. The monthly payments are based upon the needs of the child and the resources of the family and range from $0 to $500 per month.
Not only are these adoptions affordable but they may be the most common type of adoption in the United States. The Children’s Bureau latest report shows that there were 50,379 child welfare adoptions during the 2006 federal fiscal year. While international adoptions are frequently in the press, the number of these pales in comparison. The United States Department of State reports 17,438 international adoptions in 2008.
In Kansas there were 712 child welfare adoptions during the state’s 2008 fiscal year. 53% of these children were adopted by foster parents. Foster parents have always stepped up and adopted children in their care. Increasingly relatives are coming forward to adopt children in the extended family and they represented 39% of last year’s adoptions.
There is still a great need for families to adoption children through public child welfare. SRS reports that as of 12/31/2008 there were 870 children waiting for adoption. These children have had their parental rights terminated or relinquished and are ready for a new family.
Adoption in Kansas can be inexpensive and is very rewarding. Let’s celebrate those foster parents and relatives who adopt child welfare children and encourage others interested in adoption to call one of the agencies contracting with SRS.
The mental health needs of foster children.
46% to 49% of Kansas children entering foster care are receiving mental health services within six months. This eventually became 56%. This is according to a study done at the University of Kansas by Terry Moore and Becci Akin (http://www.socwel.ku.edu/occ/viewProject.asp?ID=75).These findings are consistent with national studies (i.e. Leslie, Hurlburt, James, Landsverk, Slymen & Zhang, 2005). It is not surprising that foster children need mental health services given that they enter care from a variety of troubled backgrounds including child abuse, neglect and their own troubling behavior which may be early onset of serious mental illness. Let’s hope that this is not an area for budget cuts in these dismal fiscal times. Our foster parents need all of the help that they can get in parenting our children. Another finding is that it is about 40 days on average from entry into foster care and first mental health contact. This is a concern given that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends mental health screening for all children entering foster care within 24 hours and a comprehensive assessment within 30 days. Children entering care may not be screened for mental health needs using the best instrument. The report found that if a child under the age of 6 enters care and is screened for mental health needs, they are screened by a well regarded instrument. However this is not true for children over that age of 5.Finally (only in terms of this entry, the report’s 145 pages contains lots more information) 75% of foster children receiving mental health services are receiving only 1 or 2 different services. This is distressing given that one of the two services is assessment. More distressing is that only 5% of these services are family based. Most Kansas foster children need mental health services. However, it takes 40 days to get the process started. If the child is over the age of 5 the screening instrument may not be the best. The services provided may not go beyond a mental health assessment and only 5% of services are family based. So foster parents are not receiving the help they need to care for our children where it will do the most good, in the foster home. Certainly we can do better than this.
Stevia, Sunflowers and Paraguay
http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e... is about to be allowed to be used as a food additive in the United States says a recent article in the LJ World. What is Stevia?Stevia is a plant with leaves that taste like sugar and the extract is said to be 300 times sweeter than sugar. Some research indicates that it shows promise in treating high blood pressure and obesity. It was also banned as a food additive in the US from 1991 until now. We are still waiting final food additive approval. The banning of it is another story that is clouded in mystery. I suspect the sugar growers had something to do with it. Although it was available as a supplement for a long time. Try the Merc.Stevia is also a member of the sunflower family. I am not a botanist but that is what I am told. So here is an interesting connection. Kansas, the sunflower state, is partnered with Paraguay through the Partners of the Americas program. In the case of stevia Paraguay has been way ahead of the US for hundreds of years. The Guarani who predated the Europeans in Paraguay have long used Ka’ ahe’ê. That is ‘sweet herb’ in the Guarani language. Stevia is our word.The Guarani understood the health benefits of mate for a long time. They used it for heartburn and blood problems and to sweeten their yerba mate. Mate is another story. The consumption of mate is a treasured social ritual in Paraguay and other parts of South America. Yerba Mate is a tea that is sold in bulk like the package in the picture. It is placed in the cup along with stevia leaves (if you like your mate sweetened) and either cold or hot water is poured in (hot in the winter and cold in the summer). The result is sipped through the metal straw called a bombilla. Water for the mate is carried in a thermos bottle. This is a rather simplified description. There are lots of different ways of preparing mate.Paraguay is a hot in the summer, like Kansas, so drinking a lot of mate is a good way to stay hydrated. Paraguayan winters are relatively mild, unlike Kansas, so few houses have central heat. Mate with hot water is a great way to start a cold morning. There is also an entire social ritual for drinking mate in a group with hours of conversation, guitar playing and singing. It is a wonderful way to socialize. Kind of like coffee used to be in this country except local coffee houses have become solitary places with everyone plugged into a computer, media player or phone.If you see a KU student with a large thermos over their shoulder, it is probably a Paraguayan. Stop and say hi and welcome them to their partner state. They might invite you to share a mate.
The holidays, economy and the homeless
This holiday time that celebrates something other than consumption has somehow become a time of excess. Yet the news on the economy is awful and it's all our fault. We aren’t consuming enough to keep the economy afloat. It’s all about personal responsibility. Just like the homeless. The Lawrence Community Shelter’s (LCS) newsletter came yesterday with news of people being responsible while struggling with personal problems. Go ahead start the tirades. I am going to speak kindly of the homeless and LCS.The newsletter features several success stories like that of ‘B’ who was helped to obtain housing outside the shelter. These are not isolated incidents. The newsletter includes data saying that 121 residents moved into permanent housing or applied for housing to the Housing Authority, 65 people obtained jobs and 55 people moved into substance abuse detox or rehab. These are just the results that I as a citizen of Lawrence want from LCS. I am sure that the Salvation Army and others who are working with the homeless are also showing results. I just don’t have their newsletters. So if you want to help the economy, help an agency that is successfully helping the homeless become productive members of our community. I am going to go out and buy some gloves and take them to LCS.Happy Holidays.
23rd Street and Wall Street
http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e... Street has a credit crisis for large banks and Lawrence has a credit crisis for people with a lot less income. While Wall Street has the US Treasury as a cheap or no cost source of credit, Lawrence has plenty of sources of high cost credit.The street with the traffic and fast food restaurants is also a busy financial center. I counted 15 functioning offices of financial institutions on 23rd Street. Two other offices were vacant. One was a mortgage broker out west an apparent victim of the current housing market. A sign on the building at Naismith announces that the KU Credit Union is coming soon. Hasn’t that been there a long time? Surprisingly 6 of these 15 (all east of Iowa) are businesses that make payday loans among other things. The cost of a payday loans is equivalent to an annual interest rate of 391.07%. That figure comes via the rates and returns page at www.checkngo.com and is pretty standard for the industry. It amazes me that there is enough business to keep all of these companies going. I do know about not making enough money to cover expenses and running short at the end of the month. I have been there and done that. The surprise is the number of people in Lawrence who are apparently in this difficult situation. If there weren’t enough people using these places, there wouldn’t be 6 of them on the same street.There is a bit of competition among these folks. I saw a women standing near the curb out front of one of these offices with a sign saying ‘First Loan Free.” What a deal. This sign acknowledges that for many people there is a need for more than one of these loans. It kind of seems like an invitation to get hooked.Paying $15 to borrow $100 for two weeks may seem reasonable when one is desperate. However, it is not only a high rate of interest but doing this more than once really adds up. Imagine if you only received 85% of your pay each month? Have your paycheck direct deposited in my bank account and I will give you back $85 for every $100 deposited. I like that deal.Another company offers a $25 refund if you refer a friend. Friends don’t let friends borrow at these rates. I know. If I had a friend who was desperate and I didn’t have the money either, I would probably refer a friend. When I was young and had little money I occasionally overdrew my checking account at the end of the month. The check that I wrote got to the bank before my paycheck did. That was another era. My bank was a small local business where I knew people and they would call and I would assure them that my paycheck would get there in a day or two. I was embarrassed but there was no hassle and no fees. That would never happen today. I just checked US Bank (with 2 outlets on 23rd Street) overdraft fees. They charge $8.00 per day for an overdraft. That makes $15 per hundred sound like a good deal. Perhaps the move away from locally owned banks is part of the problem.These payday loan companies seem to exploit people in desperate financial circumstances. But what is a single mom with 2 kids to do when it gets to the end of the month and there is little food in the house?Before you or a friend sign up for a payday loan, call Housing and Credit Counseling (749-4224). They are our local (Lawrence and Topeka) non-profit that can help you reduce and eventually eliminate your need for these high cost loans.If anyone wants to start a non-profit that would make these kinds of loans at low cost, I will be one of the first to donate a little capital to get started. The Journal World article on pawn shops cited an interest rate of 120% per year. That is less than a third of the payday loan outfits and should be enough to keep a low cost non-profit in business.
No Safe Haven for Nebraska Teens Is Kansas next?
You may have read "No more teens: Neb. safe haven law to be changed" (LJWorld, 10/21/2008). Nebraska got caught by language that was too broad in its law to provide a safe haven for parents (usually young mothers) to abandon their infants at hospitals without being prosecuted for abuse or neglect. The language is going to be changed from 'child' to infants up to 3 days old. So don't think about driving to Lincoln and dropping off your difficult teen. In Kansas the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services in response to the request of Governor Sebelius (6/27/2008 news release) to reduce budgets by 1% - 2% is proposing to cut back on services to teens (http://www.srskansas.org/admin/Budget/SRS%20Budget.htm). One proposal is to no longer place youth 16 years of age and older into state custody except for maltreatment. They expect to save $3 million with this proposal. I like the idea. I think that child welfare foster care should be reserved for children who are victims of abuse or neglect who cannot be safely kept at home. I am concerned about how these families will get the help that they are looking for. These teens will still exhibit out-of-control behavior, truancy and running away that overwhelms parents. SRS proposes to add $254,998 to Family Services and $239,432 to Family Preservation to assist these families. Is it enough? Can $494,000 serve these teens as well in family preservation as $3 million did in foster care? I hope so. If it can, why didn't SRS do this a long time ago? Someone once told me that they thought that the usual community response to difficult teens was like the bubble under the rug. You try to smooth out the rug and the bubble simply moves someplace else. In this context this means that when child welfare tightens up and stops serving a group of kids they don't get better they simply move on to mental health or juvenile justice. Let's hope that this is not true this time.If this proposal is implemented, I call on the legislature to require SRS to report on the results for the children and families involved.
You’re not a victim of domestic violence, are you?
This is the title of an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine about screening for domestic violence in emergency rooms. Unfortunately the title tells much of the story. Since October is domestic violence awareness month I thought it would be good to visit this problem that plagues all of our communities. Many victims visit emergency rooms as a result of domestic violence injuries. This study that took place in emergency rooms in two large hospitals, one urban and one suburban, demonstrated that the question that a health care professional asks makes a big difference. The researchers audio taped emergency room interviews of women who were not medically emergencies and consented to the audio taping. Missed opportunities: This research found that screening for domestic violence only occurred for 34% of women who could be interviewed. Domestic violence is a problem: When there was a domestic violence inquiry 26% (n=77) of women disclosed either a current or past problem. It is possible that 150 additional cases of domestic violence would have been revealed if the other 66% of the women would have been screened.More missed opportunities: The study found that medical staff inquires were "often perfunctory," did not usually include follow-up questions or opportunities to talk. Only 31% were documented in the medical record and only 25% were referred for counseling.So what about Lawrence? The emergency room at Lawrence Memorial Hospital does better. According to Belinda Rehmer who is the LMH communications coordinator personnel use a computer generated list of questions when someone is comes to the emergency room. The domestic violence question is: Do you feel safe at home? If the answer is no an automatic referral is made to a hospital social worker. The study was conducted only with women. Women are victims of abuse much more than men. But some men are victims. I was once in a hospital recovery room (in another community) after an outpatient procedure and a nurse asked me a question about domestic violence. After I recovered from my surprise I was pleased that my hospital cared enough to ask.If you use a different hospital other than Lawrence Memorial and share my concern for domestic violence, ask them how their emergency room staff asks patients about the problem. Rhodes, K.V., Frankel, R.M., Levinthal, N., Prenoveau, E., Baily, J., & Levinson, W. (2007). "You're not a victim of domestic violence, are you? Provider communication about domestic violence."Annals of Internal Medicine, (147), pp. 620-627.
Feria Hispana - recycling?
http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e... photo says it all. People want to recycle. At yesterday's Feria Hispana people put their aluminum cans on top of the trash can so that they could be recycled. But note the plastic bottle inside. There were others further down. Every year there is an article in the Journal World about Lawrence being above average in the rate of recycling. Yet if you go to a public event in South Park you can't recycle unless you pack it somewhere else. Last November I traveled in Paraguay (our partner in Latin America). Paraguay is not nearly as developed as the USA. In several public places there were 3 trash cans with 2 set aside for recycling. Clearly Lawrence can do as well.
Kansas versus Iowa
As we begin football season that morphs into basketball season I recall that last year the pigskin Jayhawks beat Iowa State by a score of 54 to 17 and that Self's guys beat them here and there. But Iowa is beating Kansas in the race to provide health insurance to low income children.The latest census report on poverty and health insurance includes information on the percentage of uninsured children by state. I was amazed to find that 20 states have a lower percentage of uninsured low income children than Kansas. Then I saw that our sister state of Iowa beat us with only 2.9% of their children living in households at or below 200% of poverty not having health insurance while the rate in Kansas was 5.2%. These may not seem like large percentages but this represents 39,000 uninsured low income children in Kansas while Iowa had only 21,000. I am focusing on Iowa because it is the state that is most like Kansas. The census report shows Iowa as having a population of 743,000 children under 19 while Kansas has 747,000. That is really close. So what accounts for the difference?First, the Iowa legislature passed a declaration of intent stating the goal that all children in the state have health care coverage which meets certain standards of quality and affordability. Second, Iowa disregards 20% of earned income before they calculate income eligibility. This means that a family of four with an earned income up to $53,000 is eligible for state subsidized health insurance for its children while in Kansas the limit is $41,300 (200% of the poverty). In addition, an Iowa family of 4 with an income less than $35,750 pays no premium while in Kansas the limit is $30,975. Above that a modest monthly premium applies in both states. Third, and perhaps most important, Iowa has an outreach program to get children enrolled. There is a person in each county designated as the outreach coordinator whose job is to get children enrolled. You can go to a state map and click on a county and find the name, email address and phone number of the person responsible for outreach (http://www.hawk-i.org/en_US/outreach.html). Kansas does not have such a program. Imagine how many more Kansas children could have health insurance coverage if we had an outreach program. This is not just a children's health issue. Imagine the financial help to our community. Each year Health Care Access, Heartland Medical Clinic and the hospital emergency room provide medical care to the uninsured. What a help it would be to have more children insured.Certainly Kansas can beat Iowa in providing health insurance to low income children.
Reasons to Celebrate in Paraguay and Kansas
Today Paraguayans are celebrating the end of the 61 year rule of the Colorado Party. It has the distinction of having been the longest ruling party in the world. Not a good thing in this case.Paraguay has been working on developing democracy since the removal of Alfredo Stroessner the dictator who ruled from 1954 until he was deposed in 1989. In 1993 Paraguay had their first free election since 1928. However, this year's election was the first time a non-Colorado candidate won. It is a hallmark of democracy when ruling parties change through free and fair elections. Fernando Lugo is the new president and is more personality than party. He was a Catholic Bishop who resigned his clerical position to run for president. The Vatican still does not recognize his resignation. He is considered a leftist but what that means is yet to be determined.What does this have to do with Lawrence? Well in addition to being interested in the peaceful spread of democracy, the Lawrence League of Women Voters had a small role in the development of democracy in Paraguay. After the 1993 election several Paraguayan women's groups were eager to have contact with the League of Women Voters in the U.S. The women presented their proposal to the Kansas-Paraguay Partners and Partners of the Americas. They were put in contact with the League of Women Voters of Kansas and Mary Miller a member of both Kansas-Paraguay Partners and the Lawrence League was the lead Kansas person in this project.In 1995 Mary traveled to Paraguay to become acquainted with the women's groups and their needs. In 1997 five Paraguayan women came to Kansas to spend two weeks hosted by five of the local Leagues. Their purpose was to see government in action and the participation of women in governmental and non-governmental organizations. Their project on returning home was to carry out a series of surveys in five public markets in and around Asuncion to determine and prioritize the concerns of thousands of women who work in the markets. Forums were held and the market women gained confidence in their ability to voice their grievances. The final forum was held before the municipal elections of November 1996, and was attended by a League member from Kansas. The candidates for mayor were invited and heard the women's complaints. The candidates then signed contracts to better conditions. Now that is democracy at work.By the way it is also the birthday of Asunción the capital of Paraguay. Asunción was founded on August 15, 1541 and is one of the oldest cities in the Americas.
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- Sound Off: How much does the city’s transit system collect in fares compared with how much it costs May 27, 2012 · 136 comments
- Blog: Writing Your Erotica: An Afternoon Lead By Dixie Lubin In The Company Of Other Women May 28, 2012 · 47 comments
- Kansas tax act most regressive in nation May 27, 2012
- Thread of pain ran through Jackson’s career June 28, 2009
- Friends mourn Lynn Bretz, former voice of KU May 28, 2012
- Hilltop executive director Pat Pisani stepping down May 28, 2012
- Kansas football scouring country May 29, 2012
- City, county mull upgrade to emergency radio system May 28, 2012
- How to help: Guides needed for Lamplight Tour of Black Jack Battlefield and Nature Park May 27, 2012
- Town Talk: UPDATE: Frank Male files for county commission; keep an ear open for local sales tax talk; city hires new city engineer; wholesale water district buys land near Kaw; weekly land transfers May 29, 2012
- Library kicks off reading program May 27, 2012
- Town Talk: UPDATE: Thellman files for re-election to county commission; News of salvage yards, curbside recycling and a pig May 25, 2012
