Kids Have Rights Action Center

Florida Children’s Campaign has highlighted a number of ways to increase the state’s revenue by almost 3.5 billion dollars – revenue that, if made available, could help meet the needs of Floridians without cutting vital services to children like maternal health, family preservation and child safety, early learning, before and after-school care and juvenile justice. Their recommendations for additional revenue sources, gathered from a laundry list of Florida non-partisan organizations, include ideas from Florida TaxWatch, Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, Associated Industries of Florida, Florida Council of 100, the Florida Chamber and many others.

And what can Florida do with 3.5 billion dollars? They’ve got answers to that as well:

• Restore and fully fund the successful Healthy Start program.
• Restore KidCare enrollment to pre-rule change levels.
• Adequately fund Part C Early Steps to provide necessary early intervention for young children with disabilities.
• Restore funding to cost saving Healthy Families Program.
• Fully fund the legislative mandate for Guardian ad Litem.
• Restore general revenue dollars to the Department of Children and Families.
• Restore the reimbursement rate to voluntary pre-kindergarten providers.
• Create a separate funding stream for before and after-school programs.
• Expand successful and cost saving Juvenile Assessment Centers to counties where they are not available.
• Restore past cuts to juvenile justice system. Redirect those dollars to front end prevention, diversion and early intervention, including the PACE Center for Girls, CINS/FINS, day treatment and other community based models.
• Fund other state services such as public education, aging, veterans, public libraries, arts and environment.

Raise Revenue, save Services. So simple, even a child can understand it….

With four children dead and two seriously injured since January 2011 while under the so-called “protection” of the Florida Department of Children and Families, Florida’s Children First has issued a well-researched and detailed position paper addressing needed reforms. The top five recommendations of the report are listed below. Although no universal agreement or consensus will come out of their efforts, it is a strong start toward addressing the systemic problems. You can access the full report here.

Florida‘s Children First Recommendations
1.  Changing the Structure of the Child Welfare System will not “Fix” it.
Just as privatizing child welfare did not cure-all the system’s ills, neither will returning to a state-run system.  Children cannot wait for an entire system change for reform to happen.

2.  Reform must be grounded in Evidence-Based Practice – Not Knee Jerk Reactions.
The social science is very clear that removing all children from parents suspected of being neglectful and placing children in institutions instead of homes hurts, not helps.

3.  There are No Sacred Cows and No Magic Bullets
Every aspect of the child welfare system can be improved, and therefore should be subject to scrutiny. No single change can fix everything.

4.  Transparency and Accountability are the Watchwords of Reform.
DCF has led the way in establishing the need for transparency and accountability – all other parties must follow, including all private providers, and the Guardian Ad Litem program.

5.  DCF Must Increase Oversight of Its Contracted Providers.
The State is ultimately responsible for the children in its care and it must do its utmost to ensure that its contracted providers are doing their jobs.  The boards of local community based care agencies need the training to ensure that they can provide proper oversight at the local level.

Did you know that kids in foster care can’t be “tagged” or publicly identified in things like Facebook photos, or have their pictures published in the newspaper – even for doing good deeds or great things? Crazy? Yes. Unfair? You bet.

Florida’s Children First works to give foster youth their voice in court, remove barriers to services for disabled children, provide free lawyers for children in Dependency Court, protect their right to receive quality health services and for better access to education. Check out their web link, above, to see how you can help.