A magistrate judge found a former director of a childcare center in Lynchburg, Virginia guilty of failing to report a staff member’s abuse of children at the center. What makes this an unusual story is that the police also had charged three Board members as…
How to help our kids transition to adulthood has been on my mind lately, as we are currently helping a young adult who has aged out of foster care. Maybe I’m just getting old, but it seems to be a more difficult…
North Dakota has changed its requirements for mandated reporting for teachers. As of last Friday, teachers now must have training only before initial licensing rather than every year. The standard training in that state appears to be relatively short and not particularly onerous. But short trainings, while better than nothing, rarely can…
One of the difficulties in fashioning child protection policies is that there is little evidence about what actually works. We can reason backward from incidents, arguing that closing a loophole that a particular abuser exploited will prevent abuse in the future. That backward-looking reasoning, however, is simplistic and…
Last week, I discussed how Plan B parents can lower the risk of false allegations. This week, let’s discuss how you can respond if you actually are tagged with a false allegation. Allegations are rare, but they’re part of the…
A recent article about a Reddit thread offers an important case study for single foster parents. A father posted about his discovering that his ex-wife had allowed their 8-year-old daughter to stay alone overnight with the ex-wife’s boyfriend. The response to his question about whether…
One situation that I’m hearing more frequently is foster, adoptive, and stepparents facing false allegations of abuse. It’s a lurking nightmare for every Plan B parent, and sometimes it becomes a reality. These claims, even when untrue, can shake your…
A story from New York City illustrates the sad fact that even good crisis response can have difficult consequences. The reporter starts with the bombshell fact that the health department “received a complaint” about staff abuse of children at a Bright Horizons childcare center. You…
Today is Wrong Way Corrigan Day, and it has a lot of great lessons for those of us Plan B parents trying to weave love, patience, and resilience into our families’ stories. Douglas Corrigan, a 1930s pilot, became famous for flying from New York to…
Today is World Youth Skills Day, and a good time to consider the value of Career and Technical Education (CTE) for our kids. Children who have suffered trauma often face failure and more trauma in traditional classrooms. Not every kid is wired for academics, and…
The reports about a district attorney’s recent press conference in Massachusetts contain some important lessons for youth-serving organizations. The DA in Pittsfield, MA has charged two middle school educators with involuntary manslaughter and related crimes after the 2024 drowning death of a young teen during…
The first step in crafting solid child protection policies is knowing the standards in your field. We lawyers call it the “standard of care,” a term that means the policies and procedures that youth-serving organizations (YSOs) similar to yours follow in your area. Camping programs,…