Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Potty Training A Stubborn Three Year Old

By Marguerite Kelly April 24, 2012

Q. My 3 1 / 2-year-old daughter was successfully potty-trained when she went through a three-day diaper-free “boot camp” six months ago. There were very few accidents in the beginning and no accidents since then.

I say that there are no “accidents,” but my husband and I have had to deal with a lot of “on purposes.” Even though we know that our daughter can control her bladder easily, we’ve watched her deliberately empty it when she was unhappy with us for putting her in her room for a timeout.

Our latest challenge occurs at night. My child wears a diaper when she goes to bed since she pees during the night, but she now seems to move her diaper out of the way so she can pee directly onto her bed. It happened again last night. She seemed happy when I sent her to her room at bedtime, but she immediately emptied her bladder onto her clean sheets, even though she had just watched me change them.

I’m all about positive reinforcement, empowerment and having a drama-free home, but this behavior has been going on for weeks — maybe for months — and I don’t know what to do next. We encourage our little girl to go to the bathroom before she goes to bed, but I can’t force her to pee when she says she doesn’t need to go. That would be against my better judgment, and it wouldn’t work anyway. But what do we do?

A. There comes a time in every parent’s life when she suddenly realizes that a child who can walk and talk and recognize a few letters is not a baby anymore. And that’s when she says to herself, “That’s it! NO MORE DIAPERS!”

(Hadley Hooper/For The Washington Post)

Although the boot camp trained your daughter quickly and well, you could probably have trained her just as quickly if you had adopted a determined, no-nonsense attitude and promised to give her a Thomas the Tank table or a trip to the amusement park. Bribery nearly always works as long as the child is 18 months or so, isn’t constipated and isn’t bothered by milk or an allergy that makes her bladder malfunction.

A 3-year-old who is healthy and yet refuses to pee in the potty (or eat what you eat or sleep where she is supposed to sleep), however, probably has a control issue. And if she does, then her mom has one, too. Power struggles often show up when parents give too many unnecessary orders to their children, especially when they are between 15 and 30 months. A bad parent-child pattern, once set, can last for years, and so can the tantrums and the tiresome arguments that come with it.

Even if you have boxed yourself into this corner, don’t worry. You can get out of it quickly by giving your daughter more independence, teaching her to take care of herself, giving only one to two timeouts a week, and ignoring her small failures whenever you can. Once your child has no reason to rebel, she will pee in the pot just like you and her dad.

If you’ve never given your little girl many orders, however, look at the calendar. She may be having her “on purposes” because all children between 1 and 6 fall apart — and stay apart — for a few months every year, which usually happens about six months after their birthday. Even though your daughter’s behavior is driving you batty, this annual meltdown gives her the psychological space she needs to think and act with more maturity, the way a snake needs to shed its skin so its body can get bigger.

This rough patch will be smoother if you lower your standards, prevent problems before they start and laugh about your daughter’s “on purposes,” because it’s always better to laugh than to cry.

And for those parents who are tired of changing diapers, it’s time to train your child on your own and to follow Suzanne Riffel’s e-book, “The Potty Boot Camp” (Booklocker.com, $4.60), which is a short, intense program with many, many fans.

Whatever technique you use, keep it short and make harmony your goal.

Questions? Send them to advice@margueritekelly.com.

Also at washingtonpost.com Join Kelly on Thursday at noon for a live Q&A about parenting and other family relationships at washingtonpost.com/advice , where you can also read previous Family Almanac columns.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/potty-training-a-stubborn-3-year-old/2012/04/23/gIQAb4ZHeT_story.html

Saturday, June 27, 2015

After 2 deaths in a month, Hennepin County will add 100 workers to child ...

By Brandon Stahl Star Tribune

June 24, 2015 — 8:51am

 

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Two-year-old Sophia O'Neill. At least six children in Hennepin have died in the last two years despite child protection getting reports about their caregivers. O'Neill died after being allegedly kicked and stomped to death by her mother's boyfriend, who had been previously reported to child protection services.

Hennepin County’s struggling child protection agency got a boost Tuesday as the County Board gave preliminary approval to add nearly 100 new employees, but commissioners cautioned it was the first of many needed reforms.

“If this passes as it is, it should be considered a failure of this board to act,” said Commissioner Mike Opat. “There needs to be a lot more here.”

Six children whose caregivers were known to child protection have died in Hennepin County since 2014, including two this month. A study by Casey Family Programs released last week found that 10 percent of abused children in Hennepin County endured more abuse within a year, compared with 5 percent of children statewide.

The report blamed budget cuts and department leaders for the problems, saying the Casey team “found a notable lack of trust of agency leadership and a deeply felt view that leadership has little concern or care for employees’ well-being.”

Some child protection workers refused to take part in the Casey study because they feared retribution, the report said.

The board is set to discuss that report on Thursday. Commissioner Linda Higgins said the board will examine all areas of child protection after the review.

“Leadership is one of the aspects we’ll look at,” Higgins said. “We’ll be making changes as necessary.”

The criticisms from social workers in the Casey report were the result of inadequate funding and unrealistic expectations, said Assistant County Administrator Rex Holzemer, who oversees child protection.

Holzemer said some changes have already been made. Twenty caseworkers were hired last year, and there has been a complete turnover in the agency’s managers in the past two years, he said.

But the 155 county caseworkers are struggling to keep up with the rising number of abuse reports, Holzemer said. Last year the county received 15,500 reports. This year, that number is expected to approach 18,000.

All of the new employees will be hired by the end of the year and will be working on cases by February 2016, Holzemer said. Of the 98 new employees, 60 will be social workers, while the rest will be supervisors, clerical and assistant staff.

The Hennepin County attorney’s office will also hire five new employees to work with child protection.

The county’s decision to beef up its child protection department was motivated not only by the Casey report, but also by the Star Tribune’s reporting on the system’s failures statewide. In response to those stories, Gov. Mark Dayton formed a task force that recommended child protection agencies across the state respond to more cases while reducing caseloads. The Legislature approved $52 million to pay for the reforms.

Hennepin County will pay $3.6 million for the new hires next year.

Commissioner Peter McLaughlin said the board has not acted quickly enough to address problems in the agency.

“The county needs to own the problems that were identified and figure out how to fix them,” McLaughlin said. “This is a fundamental responsibility. There have been recent cases where the system hasn’t worked.”

On June 10, 2-year-old Sophia O’Neill died, allegedly after being kicked and stomped to death by her mother’s boyfriend, 17-year-old Cody Feran-Baum. Growing up, Feran-Baum was himself a victim of child abuse that resulted in investigation by social workers. More recently, Feran-Baum was suspected of beating Sophia in February, but the girl’s father blamed child protection for failing to investigate.

Last week, 3-year-old Corrianah Wright was found at the bottom of a cloudy Brooklyn Park swimming pool. Corrianah was living with her mother, Mykeisha Wright, but was under the protective supervision of Hennepin County because of previous abuse allegations made against Wright and the girl’s father.

The commissioners are expected to take their final vote on the child protection spending in early July.

 

 

http://www.startribune.com/hennepin-county-to-add-100-workers-to-child-protection/309371351/

Get Your Kids Back From CPS…

by Citizens for Parental Rights (Citizens for Pa...) on Tuesday Jun 23rd, 2015 10:27pm in NONPROFITS

There is new hope of children being returned to the loving families they were removed from.

Alex Hill - 2 yr. old in Texas murdered by foster parent.

Alex Hill - 2 yr. old in Texas murdered by foster parent. /Houston Press

Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported

Are you one of the many thousands of parents/relatives that lost a child/ren to the evil Child Protective Service (CPS) and Family Court system? One of the many parents/relatives who do not understand what happened or how you lost your child/ren in a nation such as America?

You are not alone, tens of thousands of loving parents/relatives have gone before you and if something is not done, will continue to go after you. Child Protective Service is a business of bringing federal funds from Social Security Title IV into each state to help support it, through the legal kidnapping of children. This must change!

There is new hope to regain the child/ren you were wrongly accused of doing harm to. The National Liberty Alliance is filing a national lawsuit against CPS. Following is information to get you started. There are only three simple forms to fill out and there is no cost to you. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

This is your invitation to join a national lawsuit against Child Protective Service

The national organization NATIONAL LIBERTY ALLIANCE (NLA) is presently setting up Common Law Grand Juries nationwide. In order to save America and take back our nation by the people.

NLA is also filing a national lawsuit against CPS. This lawsuit is just starting and will be filed shortly. If your case is in progress or it is over, does not matter. The lawsuit will be filed in almost every Federal District Court in the nation. The lawsuit will have a demand to immediately return children to their families via Habeus Corpus. The lawsuit will not take a long time, as common law is very different from statutory law which is presently used in our courts.

The lawsuit also addresses the fact that there needs to be compensation to the children and their families. Not because money is important, but to help curtail the abuse of families by CPS and family courts. This compensation will probably be one million per year that the child has been gone.

Go to the NLA website at www.nationallibertyalliance.org and click on the first page link which addresses the CPS lawsuit. It will take you to the lawsuit paperwork and instructions. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to call me or ask them during any NLA conference call. Info for the conference calls is on the lawsuit page and below. The paperwork consists of an application, an affidavit and a power of attorney. The power of attorney deals only with the lawsuit in order to represent you in the lawsuit. The information at the top of the affidavit will be given to you (by your Intake Receptionist) once the paperwork is filled out.

Information regarding NLA conference calls is as follows:

Sundays (9 PM EST).....This call is for the CPS lawsuit only.

There is a wealth of information on the NLA website to teach Common Law and learn the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is there for you to educate yourself, if you desire. However the only thing required to be involved in the CPS lawsuit, is to become a member of the NLA. This is a free membership and requires nothing from you, except that hopefully you will learn about due process in our courts. It is your choice whether to educate yourself from the website.

The number to call is: 712.775.7035 with pin number 378237#.

People nationwide are filing their cases to bring the children home very soon!

Mondays (9 PM EST).....This is the regular Common Law Grand Jury call. However, the CPS lawsuit is almost always mentioned during the conference call. The duration of the call is three hours with the last two hours being Q and A.

The call begins with a song and scripture reading. So do not think you are on the wrong call during the first few minutes.

The number to call is: 605.562.3140 with pin number 385698#.

Thank you,

Sally Borghese

Michigan Intake Receptionist for the CPS lawsuit.

616.272.3441

falseallegations@mail.com

http://therapidian.org/get-your-children-back-child-protective-service-and-family-court

Sunday, June 21, 2015

To My Son Richard James Hepner









ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ
Tomorrow my son leaves to go back home to Iowa.  This visit we had I will cherish until my dying days.  It was wonderful to get to know the man he became.  I am so proud of him, and I know Pop would be very proud of him as well.

Richard James Hepner, my Son, I love you more than mere words could ever express.  Thank you for taking the time to come down and getting to know me all over again, and I you, all over again.  We have created memories that will be with me forever.  I am so proud of you.  And I love you…..
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ


Saturday, June 20, 2015

Happy Fathers Day

Arizona's foster care crisis is worse than ever

By Barbara Grijalva

Connect

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) - There are 17,000 Arizona children in foster care, a new record.

So many, there are not enough seats in the University of Arizona's McKale Center to fit them all. That doesn't even include the 15,000 cases that are backlogged in the system.

The state is taking action to respond to the the foster care part of the crisis, but local child advocates say more is needed.

A few years ago we reported that there were 14,000 children in the Arizona foster care system. It was called a crisis then. Imagine what it is now.
In Tucson, Casa de los NiƱos staff and volunteers care for children who need a safe place to live temporarily.

Casa is on the frontlines of the crisis, a crisis Casa's CEO Susie Huhn says is damaging a whole generation of children who experience abuse and neglect before they are removed from their homes. She says agencies feel as if they are acting like emergency rooms.

"How do we stop the bleeding today? But we have to be looking at the bigger picture if we're ever going to fix the system," Huhn says.

The bigger picture.

The new head of the Arizona Department of Child Safety, or DCS, Greg McKay, has created a commission to look at the foster care problem, but Huhn says the entire situation needs to be addressed, not just one part of it.

"How do we do more to keep families together before removing the kids so that they don't come into the system? And then how do we take the kids that are already in the system and make sure their families have enough support services to safely reunify? We have to have a plan that works on all--the beginning, the middle and the end at the same time. But we also have to have a commitment politically to fund it, to staff it and to stay the course for some time because it will take time to turn it around," Huhn says.
Huhn says it costs $5,000 to give a family the support it needs to stay together in a healthy way so the children are not removed.

Compare that to the more than $30,000 a year it costs for one child to be in foster care.

As Huhn puts it, the government should not be raising our children.

Copyright 2015 Tucson News Now. All rights reserved.

www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/29193878/arizonas-foster-care-crisis-is-worse-than-ever-before

Stepfather of previously missing child arrested

June 03, 2015 8:30 pm  •  Arizona Daily Star

After an extensive search led to the safe recovery of a missing child Tuesday, subsequent investigation led authorities to arrest the child's stepfather.

Wayne Blake Siddle, 53, was arrested on suspicion of four counts of child abuse and booked into the Pima County jail, a spokesman for the Pima County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday night.

Deputy Tom Peine said that after the 10-year-old boy was located, he was brought to the Southern Arizona Children's Advocacy Center, where he was forensically interviewed.

"The interview revealed information which prompted an investigation by detectives with the Sheriff's Crimes Against Children Unit," Peine said in a news release.

A search warrant was served on the family's southeast-side home Wednesday and Siddle was arrested. No details were released about the suspected abuse.

The 10-year-old was reported missing at about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when his mother returned home and he was gone, Peine previously said.

The search — which led to the child being located Tuesday night in the area of Colossal Cave Road and Interstate 10 — involved significant resources — "20 patrol deputies, nine detectives, nine Sheriff's Auxiliary Volunteers, four volunteers and two dogs with the Southern Arizona Rescue Dogs Inc., four volunteers with the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, three Search & Rescue deputies, a Search & Rescue deputy with the Pinal County Sheriff's Office and two aircraft with the Sheriff's Air Unit were involved."

Copyright 2015 Arizona Daily Star. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://tucson.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/stepfather-of-previously-missing-child-arrested/article_dbbca086-0a68-11e5-9f88-4b423a20f24e.html

Stepfather of previously missing child arrested

June 03, 2015 8:30 pm  •  Arizona Daily Star

After an extensive search led to the safe recovery of a missing child Tuesday, subsequent investigation led authorities to arrest the child's stepfather.

Wayne Blake Siddle, 53, was arrested on suspicion of four counts of child abuse and booked into the Pima County jail, a spokesman for the Pima County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday night.

Deputy Tom Peine said that after the 10-year-old boy was located, he was brought to the Southern Arizona Children's Advocacy Center, where he was forensically interviewed.

"The interview revealed information which prompted an investigation by detectives with the Sheriff's Crimes Against Children Unit," Peine said in a news release.

A search warrant was served on the family's southeast-side home Wednesday and Siddle was arrested. No details were released about the suspected abuse.

The 10-year-old was reported missing at about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when his mother returned home and he was gone, Peine previously said.

The search — which led to the child being located Tuesday night in the area of Colossal Cave Road and Interstate 10 — involved significant resources — "20 patrol deputies, nine detectives, nine Sheriff's Auxiliary Volunteers, four volunteers and two dogs with the Southern Arizona Rescue Dogs Inc., four volunteers with the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, three Search & Rescue deputies, a Search & Rescue deputy with the Pinal County Sheriff's Office and two aircraft with the Sheriff's Air Unit were involved."

Copyright 2015 Arizona Daily Star. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://tucson.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/stepfather-of-previously-missing-child-arrested/article_dbbca086-0a68-11e5-9f88-4b423a20f24e.html

Bill Aims To Clarify Child Protective Services Law; Critics Worry It Would Weaken Measure

By Deanna Garcia Jun 8, 2015

The Pennsylvania House will take up a bill that makes some changes to the Child Protective Services Law. That is the law crafted after the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

“This is the bill that clarifies the existing statute requiring employees and adult volunteers who work directly with children to obtain criminal background check clearances and child abuse clearances,” said Rep. Katharine Watson (R-Bucks), the bill’s sponsor. “The legislation further delineates who is and who is not subject to those requirements.”

Some have criticized the initial law, saying it’s too vague. Watson’s bill, passed by the House Children and Youth Committee, would address concerns over confusion and ambiguity.

“It more clearly defines who is and who is not subject to the background check clearance requirements, and it changes some language in the interest of consistency and to better reflect the intention of the Legislature, making several technical corrections,” said committee Executive Director Gregory Grasa.

Those include changing an “or” to and “and” in the definition of direct contact so it will refer to “an individual who provides care, supervision, guidance or control of children; AND has routine interaction with children.” But, Grasa said there was ambiguity in that as well.

“There was never a definition for the term ‘routine interaction,’ which caused quite a bit of confusion,” said Grasa. “We’re now defining that term as the regular, repeated and continual contact that is integral to a persons’ employment or a volunteers’ responsibilities. In other words, in that persons’ role as either an employee or volunteer – their contact with children, is it integral to that role?”

This bill would also:

  • Permit volunteers who are residents of the Commonwealth, but have not resided in Pennsylvania for the entirety of the previous 10-year period to obtain the required FBI criminal history background check only once upon establishing residency. Current law requires those individuals to obtain an FBI background check clearance every three years until they reach 10 consecutive years of residency in the Commonwealth.
  • Exempt minor employees (ages 14 to 17) from obtaining the FBI criminal history background check if the minor has been a resident of the Commonwealth for the previous 10-year period and the minor and the minor’s legal guardian affirm that the minor is not disqualified from serving in the position under the list of prohibited offenses in existing law.
  • Make the portability/transferability of the background check clearances applicable to employees who are employed in more than one paid position in which they work directly with children, just as those clearances are portable/transferable for volunteers volunteering for multiple organizations under current law. Current law requires employees to obtain separate sets of clearances for each paid position they hold.
  • Stipulate the actual calendar dates by which employees and volunteers must be in compliance with the background check clearance requirements.
  • Correct a number of other inconsistencies in the amendment to the CPSL during the 2013-14 legislative session to better reflect the intent of the General Assembly.

The original Child Protection Law was crafted and passed after a couple of years of work by the PA Task Force on Child Protection and lawmakers. Rep. Todd Stephens (R-Montgomery) said he is concerned the measure undoes a lot of that work.

“This bill significantly reduces the protections that the task for recommended and that we spent two years in hearings adopting before moving forward,” said Stephens. “If there are tweaks, that’s one thing, but this is a policy change.”

Watson had asked that the bill be moved out of committee so that the full House could weigh in and offer amendments. With only two “no” votes, the measure was approved and will now be considered by the full House.

http://wesa.fm/post/bill-aims-clarify-child-protective-services-law-critics-worry-it-would-weaken-measure

Woman Jailed After Fleeing From Child Protection Services

Posted: Jun 20, 2015 7:10 AM PST Updated: Jun 20, 2015 7:17 AM PST

BUNNELL, Fla. (AP) - A 23-year-old woman faces charges of interfering with custody after fleeing from child protective services investigators who were trying to take the child.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal  reports that a Bunnell police officer contacted Jasmine Lee Sloan about an hour later. She agreed to surrender the child Thursday night and was taken to the Flagler County Jail, where she remained Saturday on a $10,000 bond.

An arrest report indicates Sloan refused to turn her child over to the Department of Children and Families, telling investigators they'd have to take the baby over her "dead body."

There were two active warrants for Sloan's arrest for violation of probation and failure to appear in court.

The child's age wasn't released. It's not known whether Sloan has an attorney.

Information from: Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal, http://www.news-journalonline.com

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/story/29367435/woman-jailed-after-fleeing-from-child-protective-services

Friday, June 19, 2015

21 Effective Home Remedies for UTI (Urinary Tract Infection)

 

Urinary tract infection or UTI occurs when the bacteria present in the urinary tract is pushed back into the kidney, bladder or urethra. Urinary tract infection mostly affects females. It can be really painful and irritating if not treated properly. There are several home remedies for UTI that can be tried in order to prevent the infection from getting worse. However, if the problem persists, you should consult a doctor immediately.

Causes

UTI mainly occurs due to the following reasons:

  • Cystitis: It is one of the most common causes of UTI. It mainly happens due to sexual intercourse when the harmful bacteria from the gastrointestinal tract cause infection in the bladder. Though, sometimes, females can also develop cystitis without any intercourse.
  • Urethritis: When the harmful bacteria are pushed back in the urethra, urethritis occurs.
  • Pregnancy
  • Kidney stones
  • Diabetes
  • Menopause
  • Waiting too long to urinate
Symptoms
  • Cloudy or yellow-coloured urine
  • Burning sensation while passing urine
  • Frequent feeling to urinate
  • Urination in small quantities
  • Fever
  • Nausea
  • Vomiting
  • Abdominal pain
  • Foul-smell while urinating
  • Traces of blood with urine
Home Remedies for UTI Infections

1. Baking Soda

Baking soda is one of the most effective home treatments for UTI. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water and wash the opening of urethra with this solution. It helps to neutralize the acid content present in the urine, thereby, removing the infection.

2. Drink Plenty of Water

Drink lots of water as it will flush out all the harmful toxins and bacteria from the body resulting in fast removal of the infection.

3. Apply Heating Pad

This is an excellent home remedy for UTI pain. You can place a hot water bottle or heating pad over your abdomen to help soothe the pain caused due to an infection.

4. Cranberry Juice

This is another good home treatment to cure UTI. Drink cranberry juice as it works great and does not allow the bacteria to remain in the urinary tract.

5. Have Pineapple

The enzyme, known as Bromelain, is found in pineapple. This enzyme imparts anti-inflammatory properties to this fruit and is helpful in trimming down the UTI symptoms. Either eat a cup of fresh pineapple or drink juice of half a pineapple on the daily basis. Avoid using the canned version.

6. Blueberry Juice

Drink blueberry juice (without adding artificial sweetener) or have some blueberries early in the morning. Blueberry is a good home remedy for UTI in women.

7. Try Aromatherapy

This is also one of the best natural remedies for UTI infections. Take some sandalwood oil, bergamot oil, tea tree oil, juniper oil and frankincense, and mix them well. Now, apply this mixture on the areas closer to the bladder. This process should be repeated for about 3-4 days in order to eliminate the symptoms.

8. Try Fruit Juices

You can also have lemon juice, carrot juice or coconut water to eliminate the harmful bacteria from the body. Sugarcane juice also works wonder in order to control and prevent a urinary tract infection.

9. Radish Juice

Drink a cup of radish juice on a regular basis to get relief from the UTI.

10. Banana Stem

Take out juice of banana stem and drink it to get rid of the urinary tract infection.

11. Eat Vitamin C Rich Fruits

Have fruits with a high content of Vitamin C, such as oranges, guavas, kiwi, melons, raspberries and tomatoes. Vitamin C helps to kill the bacteria present in the urinary tract.

12. Tea Tree Oil

Mix equal proportion of tea tree oil, sandalwood oil and juniper oil. Now, rub it over the abdominal area for 3-4 days. This is a proven home remedy to treat the UTI.

Alternatively, mix 6 drops of tea tree oil and 2 teaspoons of plain yogurt in warm bath water. Soak in this water for about 8-10 minutes for 10 days.

13. Apple Cider Vinegar

Apple cider vinegar also helps to flush out the bacteria accumulated in the urinary tract. Take a glass of water and add 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to it. You can also add some honey and lemon juice to it. Drink it twice a day.

14. Cod Liver Oil Supplements

You can take cod liver oil supplements in order to fight against the UTI. Cod liver oil also helps to boost up the immune system while making the body strong to fight off any type of bacteria or viruses.

15. Blue Brinjal Leaves

Boil some blue brinjal leaves in water, and consume it at least 2 times a day. This is an excellent natural treatment for the urinary tract infections.

16. Lotus Petals & Rose Petals

Boil some lotus petals and pink rose petals for some time. Strain, and then drink this concoction at least thrice a day in order to cure a urinary tract infection.

17. Take Over-the-counter Medication

To get relief from the abdominal pain caused due to the UTI, take over-the-counter tablets, such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen. This will also help relieve the fever and other symptoms.

18. Chameli Plant

Boil chameli plant for some time, and then drink it after straining. Take this once a day to get relief from the urinary tract infection.

19. Coriander

Take 3 tablespoons of powdered coriander and mix it with 1 tablespoon of powdered rock candy in 3 cups of water. Leave it overnight. Drink a cup of this water the next day, at least thrice a day. This is a good remedy to treat the infection of the urinary tract.

20. Barley Water

Add one teaspoon of roasted barley water and ½ teaspoon of unrefined sugar (or powdered rock candy) into a cup of water. Drink this mixture twice a day. This combination is an excellent diuretic and a perfect cure for the UTI.

21. Indian Gooseberry

Take 1 teaspoon of Indian gooseberry powder with a glass of water every morning before eating the breakfast. It is a tested remedy for UTI.

Else, mix 1 teaspoon each of turmeric powder and Indian gooseberry powder in a cup of water. Boil it until the water reduces to half. Drink the residue thrice a day for 3-5 days.

Herbal Remedies for UTI

There are several herbal remedies, which are also used to cure a urinary tract infection.

1. Uva Ursi

This herb contains a compound, known as arbutin, which kills the bacteria present in the lining of the urinary passage. It also helps in stimulating the urination.

Note- Children, nursing or pregnant women, and people with liver or kidney disease should not take this herb.

2. Horsetail

Horsetail is a good diuretic, which aids in the proper urine flow as well as stops the bleeding during the urinary tract infections.

3. Echinacea

Echinacea works as a natural antibiotic. Therefore, it helps to fight against the viruses and bacteria that are the main cause of infection in the urinary tract.

4. Parsley

Parsley seeds are also helpful in treating the urinary tract infection as it reduces the inflammation and pain caused due to the UTI.

5. Mullein

Another effective herb for treating the inflammation caused due to the UTI is Mullein.

6. Horseradish

Horseradish is a natural antibiotic, which is good for controlling the infection of the urinary tract.

7. Goldenseal

The compound berberine found in this herb stops bacteria from sticking to the urethra walls.

Homeopathic Remedies for UTI

1. Aconitum apellus

This remedy is useful when there is a feeling of anxiousness both before and while urinating. It is also good for UTI burning relief.

2. Belladonna

If there is a frequent feeling of urination along with cramps in the area of the bladder, accompanied by very small amount of coloured urine, this remedy is helpful.

3. Apis mellifica

This remedy can be taken if there is frequent urge to urinate along with a burning sensation and soreness in the abdominal area.

4. Borax

This remedy is helpful to treat the acute cystisis accompanied with pain in the bladder as well as urinary opening.

5. Chimaphila umbellata

If a person has to strain a lot in order to pass the urine, along with a scalding sensation, this remedy works well.

6. Staphysagria

This remedy is quite useful for women if cystitis occurs due to the sexual activity. This condition may be accompanied by a feeling of pressure in the bladder even after urinating.

Apart from these, you can try some other homeopathic treatments, like berberis vulgaris, cantharis, clematis, lycopodium, equisetum, nux vomica, sepia and sarsaparilla.

Does AZO cure UTI?

Before you go to the doctor to get treatment for a urinary tract infection, you can take an over-the-counter medicine, known as ‘AZO Urinary Pain Relief’ or ‘AZO Urinary Pain Relief Maximum Strength’. You can take these tablets for about 2 days to cure the painful symptoms of the UTI. But, make sure you tell your doctor if you are having this medication. You can take AZO Cranberry tablets once your UTI is cured in order to maintain the health of the urinary tract.

Preventive Measures for UTI
  • Drink lots of water.
  • Urinate immediately every time after you have sexual intercourse with your partner.
  • Don’t hold back urine as it may also cause the bacteria to stick.
  • Wear cotton panties.
  • Have a balanced and nutritious diet.
  • Avoid bathing in a bathtub as it may provide a site for the bacteria to grow.
  • Avoid douching and scented pads.
  • After using the toilet, always wipe in the direction of front to back as this may avoid any germs from getting into the urethral opening.
  • Wash your hands properly every time after you use the toilet.
  • Avoid alcohol or caffeinated drinks when you are suffering from the UTI.

 

 

http://www.homeremedyshop.com/21-effective-home-remedies-for-uti/

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Mom who uses medical marijuana faces up to 30 years in prison

By Brigid Schulte June 8 Follow @BrigidSchulte

 

With a wave of legalization measures in recent years, marijuana in some form is now legal in 38 states. But in the 12 where it is not — a swath of the west and Midwest, including Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas, and in the rust belt states of Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania — parents whose use of the drug would be legal elsewhere are losing their children and often seen as irresponsible parenting pariahs.

In March, Child Protective Service workers took Shona Banda’s 11-year-old son from her home in Garden City, Kansas, saying her use of marijuana to control debilitating Crohn’s Disease put the child in danger.

Last Friday, the state of Kansas charged Banda with five felony counts of possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute, manufacturing Tetrahydrocannabinol, an oil extracted from marijuana, two counts of possession of drug paraphernalia and one count of child endangerment.

Banda, who will turn herself in to authorities June 15, according to her attorney, could face a maximum of 30 years in prison.

On the day she was charged, June 5, the Louisiana state legislature sent a bill to legalize medical marijuana to Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, who’d indicated he’d sign it, and the Detroit Free Press reported that establishment Republicans are backing a recreational marijuana bill for 2016. It was also the day Amber Thurmond, of Arizona, appeared in family court in Hays, Kansas and was told by a judge that if she ever wanted to be reunited with her nine-year-old daughter, Thurmond would have to move to Kansas.

Thurmond lives in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal, uses medical marijuana to control seizures and works at a medical marijuana dispensary. She’s facing charges of physical, mental and emotional neglect in Kansas, where she sent her daughter to live with her brother, a police officer, for a semester, she said, while she got on her feet financially. Eighteen months later, her daughter has been put in the state foster care system and placed with her brother.

“These mothers are being forced to choose between their health and their ability to be a parent,” said Sarah Swain, a Kansas attorney who is representing both Banda and Thurmond. “And there really is no choice to be made. We can’t be mothers if we’re so sick that we’re bedridden, or if we aren’t alive.”

[Related: Even where it’s legal for parents to smoke pot: What about the kids?]

Thurmond was featured on the National Geographic TV series, “American Weed,” which followed the story of the town of Castle Rock, Colorado voting to close down her medical marijuana dispensary, Plants4Life.

“I want to tell everyone I see, ‘you have children? Well, you better reconsider your usage,’” Thurmond said. “And yet, we can go home and drink ourselves to death and never have children removed from our homes.”

Charlene Brubaker, the county attorney involved in Thurmond’s case, said the judge found that her daughter had special needs that could only be met with Thurmond’s frequent presence with the child in Kansas. “The court did not make its decision based on medical marijuana. It’s just their spin, not the truth,” Brubaker said, though she said she could not say more for confidentiality reasons.

Chuck Noerenberg, president of the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children, a group that works with law enforcement and social services, say they’re intensely watching how legalizing marijuana is affecting caregivers’ ability to provide proper care to children.

“Whether it’s a legal or illegal substance, if it has an impact on caregivers’ ability to take care of children, that’s a concern of ours,” he said.

Banda, who has become an outspoken advocate for medical marijuana, had 17 surgeries, tried a number of medications and was prescribed the powerful narcotic, fentanyl, to “ease her passing,” she said, because her doctors thought she was going to die. Then she tried marijuana, and began to heal, a journey she chronicles in her book, Live Free or Die, and on her Facebook page.

[Related: A D.C. doctor makes medical marijuana a specialty]

“I spent years raising my children from a couch, not being able to move much,” Banda said, who also has an 18-year-old son. “I wasn’t able to be a proper mother when I was sick. And now I’m a fantastic mother.”

Twice Banda tried to move to Colorado, where marijuana is legal, she said, but was forced to move back to Kansas near family for financial reasons. Banda is separated from her husband, who now has custody of their 11-year-old son.

The child was in a drug education class at school March 24, and spoke up about his mother’s medical marijuana use. School officials called the police and Child Protective Services. A search of the house found marijuana and drug paraphernalia on the kitchen counters.

Banda has seen the child just once since March 24, she said. Nor has she used cannabis, advocates’ preferred term for marijuana. She’s begun losing weight and an infection that rotted the roof of her mouth has returned. “I’m very afraid,” she said. “I cannot believe that I could be facing 30 years in prison for trying to save my life.”

Keith Stroup, founder and legal counsel for NORML, the advocacy group pushing for marijuana legalization, said he gets calls from parents every week who are embroiled in custody battles because of their marijuana use.

“There are far too many people who presume that if you smoke marijuana, you’re not a qualified parent,” Stroup said. “That’s the result of 80 years of prohibition, and the natural tendency to presume there’s something terribly wrong with it. Only 14 percent of the country are regular marijuana smokers. Eight-six percent are not. A lot of people still presume that if you have children, you should not smoke. Even though they’re quite comfortable with you drinking alcohol around children.”

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/06/08/mom-who-uses-medical-marijuana-faces-up-to-30-years-in-prison/

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/06/08/mom-who-uses-medical-marijuana-faces-up-to-30-years-in-prison/

Not Suitable for Children: Can Arizona's Broken Child Welfare System Ever Be Fixed?

By Miriam Wasser

 

Two-year-old Cloud Gerhart weighed just 17 pounds when the Department of Child Safety finally removed him from his home in September 2014. The first call to authorities had come before he was even born, after Cloud's mother, Megan, tested positive for marijuana during two prenatal appointments.

Between the time of his birth and the day DCS took him away, the state's child abuse hotline received six more calls expressing concern that Cloud was skinny and hungry, that Megan drank and smoked a lot, and that their trailer in Sierra Vista was dirty and full of trash. Documents show that caseworkers visited the Gerhart residence and discussed parenting classes with Megan more than once, but no one thought the situation ever warranted removing the baby.

Almost eight months after the last caseworker visit, the Cochise County Sheriff's Office called DCS to complain about Megan and Cloud. An officer had responded to the Gerhart residence for an unrelated trespassing incident and put a note in the police report saying he had concerns about the child's health. The cop's supervisor called the child welfare agency.

DCS flagged the case as a top priority and dispatched a field investigator who, upon seeing Cloud, removed him and took him to a hospital. He was released to a family member a few weeks later, and Megan and her boyfriend were charged with child abuse.

Though it's unacceptable that Cloud had languished in Arizona's "broken" child welfare system, it's almost unfathomable that he continued to do so for seven months after what arguably was the most drastic overhaul of the system ever attempted in this state.

In January 2014, then-Governor Jan Brewer dissolved Child Protective Services, Arizona's long-maligned child welfare agency. She replaced it with the new cabinet-level Department of Child Safety, to which she named Charles Flanagan director. Flanagan, then head of the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections, previously had headed Brewer's task force on child welfare reform.

In a short period of time the Flanagan administration was reporting some measurable success.

Then came Cloud Gerhart.

In November 2014, Greg McKay, head of the Office of Child Welfare Investigations—the law enforcement arm of the new DCS— heard about Cloud's case and saw it as proof that what Flanagan was doing wasn't working. In early January, he brought it to the attention of Governor Doug Ducey, and on February 10, Flanagan was fired and replaced by McKay.

It's not unusual for a new governor to change state agency leaders, but Flanagan was still so new and showing progress (he'd made significant changes to the child abuse hotline, for instance, so that 87 percent of calls were answered in 60 seconds or less, and the number of abandoned calls dropped to 4.1 percent from 32 percent), and knee-jerk reactions every time a problem arises or a child dies are part of why the system remains a mess.

There's very little data available, so it's hard to know what McKay's impact has been so far. What is known, however, is that two kids have died on his watch in the past month. In Surprise, 3-year-old Alexandra Tercerro was pronounced dead on May 23 after being taken to a hospital covered in bruises and weighing only 15 pounds. And in Mesa, 21-month-old Joylynne Giebel died on June 5 at the hands of her stepfather, six months after DCS had been alerted about a potentially abusive situation.

 

 

Cloud Gerhart weighted 17 pounds when DCS removed him from his home in September 2014.

Cloud Gerhart weighted 17 pounds when DCS removed him from his home in September 2014.

For decades, politicians, bureaucrats, academics, and the media have labeled Arizona's child welfare system as broken, and according to the most recent DCS data, one out of every 100 kids is in out-of-home care. In a 2014 state-by-state comparison, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private charity devoted to helping disadvantaged kids, ranked Arizona's system 46th in the nation.

Few frontline employees last beyond three years, and there are never enough caseworkers to meet demand. There's a lack of funding for preventative and poverty-assistance programs, and because of a perpetual shortage of foster homes, kids frequently end up sleeping in DCS offices for a night or two before being placed with families — in April, 287 children spent at least one night in DCS offices across the state.

On top of that, 14 percent of kids in foster care live in group homes or shelters, which is more than ever before. DCS is embroiled in a federal class-action lawsuit filed earlier this year by a coalition led by the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest against DCS and Department of Health Services for maintaining a "dangerous, severely deficient foster care system."

Getting rid of CPS was supposed to solve Arizona's child welfare problems once and for all. And by many accounts, Flanagan was doing a good job: His team dealt with thousands of uninvestigated cases, fixed the child abuse hotline, increased staffing, and began the process of replacing an outdated computer system. Flanagan reportedly was well liked and respected among employees. Former and current staff members tell New Times that Flanagan was open to new ideas, and that they felt optimistic and supported for the first time in years.

State Senator Debbie McCune Davis, a Democrat who sits on the legislative Child Safety Oversight Committee and has been involved with child welfare politics for years, believes Flanagan was a DCS leader with "a long-range view" of problems and solutions.

"He worked with kids in juvenile corrections, so he saw the impact of us failing kids in child welfare," she says. "I had the sense he was making progress."

Then Cloud Gerhart ended up in the hospital and McKay was appointed director. Rumor has it that McKay got the position because Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery didn't like Flanagan or his vision for DCS and pulled strings to get Flanagan out. Both Montgomery and McKay deny it, and Ducey's people won't say exactly why Flanagan was fired, only that DCS needed a new direction and renewed focus on child safety.

McKay took over amid promises to solve his predecessor's problems, but his critics say he has done the opposite. In the past four months, McCune Davis' office, she says, has been getting "all sorts of phone calls from all sorts of people who have been pushed out of the agency or have left voluntarily and just can't believe what's going on. We hear a lot about people leaving the agency out of frustration, about firings or other changes at the top." She says employees are "afraid to make decisions based on professional judgment" because they're "scared of becoming scapegoats."

New Times has spoken with many current and former DSC employees who describe McKay as retaliatory and vindictive. They talk about how he got rid of the internal investigations department that previously had investigated him, and they say DCS has become a place where people are regularly fired for unexplained reasons and where those remaining tiptoe around, waiting and wondering when they'll be let go.

DCS spokesman Doug Nick says the department doesn't have statistics on the number of employees who were fired or who resigned in the past four months, but it becomes apparent just how much has changed when you compare agency organizational charts from early February and the first week of June. It's not just the few people in the top tier of leadership who have been replaced. People have quit at all administrative and operation levels, say employees and child welfare experts.

"When they [fired] two of our program managers, Gene Burns and Nanette Gerber, that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. The two of them knew everything about the agency," says Jane, who worked at DCS for 11 years before quitting in early June. ("Jane" asked that New Times not use her real name because she works in a related field and fears retribution.)

Burns and Gerber, who oversaw case-management supervisors in the Southwest and Central regions, respectively, had both worked at DCS for decades and were fired without explanation in early March.

"Nanette was highly regarded by ASU, by all the providers. She has a master's degree in social work and was all about reunification," Jane says. "Nanette is a wonderful lady. I mean, come on, you're getting rid of Nanette? That was the one that got to me."

DCS doesn't comment on personnel matters, but McKay tells New Times that "it turns out that just because somebody has worked in a capacity for a very, very long period of time, doesn't exactly give them the right to continue to work in that capacity indefinitely."

To Jane, it's not just that specific employees she liked got fired, it's that DCS lost these employees' institutional knowledge.

"This is the most political thing I've ever seen in my life. There is no rhyme or reason to anything," she says, adding that when employees, especially those who have been with the department for years, are either fired or so fed up with the agency that they quit, it "affects kids in a lot of ways." Caseworker relationships are a source of "stability for kids, and when that is gone, it's just another thing leaving their life."

DCS is "losing a lot of great, dedicated people who were invested in the kids, who knew the system," she says. "And it is a damn shame."

To be fair, McKay's personnel file from his 20 years at the Phoenix Police Department is spotless, and he has made important improvements at DCS. He created a commission of foster parents to advise him on ways to attract and retain foster families. And soon, when children are dropped off at foster homes, families will be given "placement packets" with information about the children's past experiences, medical history, and services they are entitled to receive. Also under McKay's leadership, DCS helped open a new emergency placement center in Phoenix so that children no longer would have to sleep in a DCS office while staff members find foster care placements.

(However, a recent Facebook post on the Arizona Adoptive & Foster Moms page suggests that the emergency placement center is wildly understaffed, and on days when no volunteers show up, one employee can be left watching over more than a dozen kids under age 5. When asked about this, DCS spokesman Doug Nick tells New Times in an e-mail, "If, for some reason, volunteers do not show up, we have sufficient staff to ensure the safety of that facility.")

When it comes to child safety, experts agree that outcomes are the most important thing. Since it probably was too soon to assess Flanagan after eight months (let alone McKay after four), in order to understand how recent leadership changes have affected the agency, New Times spoke with current and former DCS employees, public officials, advocates, and other community partners in the field of child welfare. New Times also reviewed hundreds of pages of public records, redacted e-mails, and various government reports, and consulted with experts across the country about best practices in child welfare.

There's no such thing as a perfect DCS director. No one can prevent every child fatality or instance of abuse. What's clear is that Flanagan and McKay have very different personalities, backgrounds, and ideas about how to fix Arizona's child welfare system. What's less clear is what Flanagan could have accomplished with more time and what McKay's impact will be in the long run.

No one — not even Greg McKay's staunchest critics — doubts his passion for child welfare. What they're skeptical of, though, is Governor Ducey's motivation for putting him in power and whether he has the skills and personality to make DCS succeed.

While the backlog of cases is at an all-time high and sweeping changes are being made to DCS, McKay seems poised to become either the best or the worst thing that's ever happened to Arizona's child welfare system.

Greg McKay

Greg McKay

Arizona Department of Child Safety

Humans have grappled with child welfare issues for as long as anyone can remember. At times, kids were considered property and at other times, they were thought to have rights. The ancient Egyptians believed that those who hurt or exploited children would be judged harshly after death, and the Babylonians spelled out rules in the Code of Hammurabi for how children should be treated. But who can forget how close Abraham came to killing his son Isaac because God told him to?

The history of child welfare practices in America also is complicated and messy. It dates at least as far back as the mid-17th-century practice of removing children from parents thought to be doing a poor job raising them. During the next 200 years, adults continued to intervene when children were noticeably abused, although there were no formal processes and interventions occurred only sporadically.

Things changed in 1875 when child-focused nongovernmental groups popped up around the country. They dominated child welfare until the federal government stepped in and created the U.S. Children's Bureau in 1912.

Over time, trends and developments in the practice of psychology influenced how child welfare agencies operate — experts talk, for example, about how society goes back and forth on whether it's more important to keep families together or remove children from potentially harmful situations. It's an inherent debate in child welfare, one to which Arizona is no stranger — particularly in times of crisis.

In July 2001, 5-year-old Aleicia Putrow was beaten, sexually assaulted, and drowned in a bathtub by her mother's boyfriend. Two months later, toddler Liana Sandoval was beaten to death, strapped to an 18-pound block of concrete, and dumped in a canal. And in November of that year, 10-day-old Anndreah Robertson died because "her insides were rotted by the smoke from Mommy's and Grandma's crack cocaine," the Arizona Republic reported.

In response, former Maricopa County Attorney Richard Romley commissioned a research group in early 2002 to study how CPS and law enforcement worked together to protect children from criminal abuse and neglect. The final report, issued in March 2003, was called "In Harm's Way." It was a landmark document, describing the tension between CPS' dual goals of protecting children and preserving or reunifying families, and it stated that many experts believed Arizona needed to put more emphasis on the former.

Like Bill Montgomery, Romley had always believed law enforcement needed to play a bigger role in CPS. He used the findings of the report to support his view and advocated for removing more affected children from their homes.

But by far, the biggest spike in the number of kids in foster care occurred in 2009. Following the 2008 economic crash, families in Arizona were hit with a double blow: rising unemployment rates and slashed social services. The number of children in foster care increased 47.3 percent from March 2010 to September 2013, rising to 15,037 from 10,207. The most recent data, which is from February of this year, puts the number of kids in state care at 17,438.

Kris Jacober, executive director of the Arizona Friends of Foster Children Foundation, a nonprofit that provides support and services to foster families, sees a clear cause-and-effect relationship between the 2009 budget cuts and the sudden increase in kids in foster care.

"Those cuts took away Family Builders [a collection of social services and financial assistance programs established in 1998] and they took away caseworkers," Jacober says. "They took a lot of support out of the system for foster families and for DCS workers.

"I don't understand why everyone is surprised that six years later our system is such a mess," she adds.

Another major change in Arizona's child welfare system came after a string of high-profile child fatalities in 2011. Bill Montgomery, elected to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office a few months earlier, tells New Times he "got fed up and starting calling attention to the failures of CPS to safeguard children." He was quoted at the time saying that CPS caseworkers "don't remove children that they should, and those children wind up dead."

As a response, Governor Brewer established the Child Safety Task Force in October 2011 and asked Montgomery to chair it. The group recommended, among other things, that Arizona create the Office of Child Welfare Investigations to handle situations involving criminal conduct.

Greg McKay, a Phoenix police detective known for investigating child abuse, was selected to head the new department, and it was in this capacity that he uncovered the "NI" (not investigated) scandal. On November 12, 2013, McKay sent Governor Brewer a memo describing "the dangerous and unlawful practice" that had caused more than 6,595 reports of child abuse between 2009 and 2013 to be closed without investigation. He wrote that he had "identified many reports of an extreme nature closed as NI," including cases that had prior abuse reports.

There had been talk for years about taking CPS out of the Department of Economic Security and making it a stand-alone cabinet-level agency, and Brewer took that drastic step after finding out about the uninvestigated cases. She put Charles Flanagan in charge, and he immediately put in place a triage system to investigate them all.

As DCS tackled the "not investigated" cases, a backlog of "inactive" cases grew to include more than 13,000. Cloud Gerhart's was one of them.

The agency uses a computer system that automatically flags an open case as inactive if no one enters a case note or other data in 60 days. Unlike the "not investigated" cases, which were never made into reports or investigated, inactive cases occur at all stages in the DCS system and do not necessarily mean a child is in danger. Much of the backlog consists of cases requiring final documents be filled out or approved by a supervisor.

Because already over-burdened employees were dealing with uninvestigated cases on top of their normal workload, paperwork took a back seat to fieldwork and the number of inactive cases grew.

On June 30, 2014, less than a month after the Legislature formally created DCS, Chad Campbell, deputy director of operations, sent an e-mail to all of DCS about the triage process the agency soon would implement to get through the backlog. He wrote that the administration was open to suggestions or ideas about the process.

Records show that Campbell sent five e-mails to the DCS staff between June 30 and September 5, 2014, with updates on the backlog process. But then on November 5, McKay sent Flanagan, Campbell, and bureau chief of field investigations Rob Bell an e-mail stating it was the first he had heard of the process and that he was concerned about its "quality/value."

Attached to the e-mail were details and disturbing photographs of an emaciated toddler, Cloud Gerhart, which he used to illustrate his point about the flawed backlog process.

The last time any caseworker had visited Cloud or entered a case note in his file was in early January 2014, and his case became part of the inactive backlog 60 days later. However, documents show that on March 13, another report was called into the child safety hotline because Cloud "looked like skin and bones." The caller also stated that Megan Gerhart would not feed Cloud for three days at a time because he would not say the word "eat."

A caseworker should have gone to the house to investigate, but no one did. Then on August 28, 2014, the March phone call was not discussed when the case came up for review in the backlog process. So based entirely on the January information that said Cloud was skinny but not malnourished, a DCS employee reviewing the case determined it required no immediate response.

Three days later, the Cochise County Sheriff's Office called DCS about Cloud.

No one will deny that DCS messed up on this case, but the Flanagan team didn't think it meant that the entire triage process was flawed. McKay felt that for every backlogged case, DCS should "put eyes on the kid," and he used Cloud's case to support his position.

Records show an e-mail conversation between McKay and Bell on November 5 and 6 about the process, culminating in an incendiary message from McKay: "This plan is dangerous and unsafe . . . I cannot support these kinds of paper-review, boilerplate circumventing's [sic] of our mandate to protect kids."

Bell forwarded the note to Flanagan, who chastised McKay for his "unfounded, inflammatory and inaccurate statements," and told him that if he had concerns, he should be professional and document them in a memo.

A week later, McKay sent Flanagan an eight-page document of grievances, and on January 6, one day after Doug Ducey was sworn in, McKay presented the governor with the binder of evidence that claimed to show why the backlog process was harmful to kids — he included 127 pages of case-specific information, a move that was questionably legal because of privacy laws.

The following day, Flanagan was called into Ducey's office and met with a staff member who slid McKay's binder across the table and said Flanagan had until the next morning to provide a response. He submitted a binder of his own that included all of the above-mentioned e-mails, as well as a detailed description of the review process for inactive cases.

Records show that during the following week, Flanagan and Montgomery had an e-mail conversation about the inactive process. As Flanagan attempted to clarify the triage method, he repeatedly asked Montgomery to meet with him, but the request was never acknowledged in Montgomery's responses.

On February 10, Flanagan was fired. An hour later, Ducey announced McKay was the new DCS director.

On May 23, DCS received a call stating that a 3-year-old girl from Surprise named Alexandra Tercerro was dead, her 15-pound body covered in bruises and lacerations. The department's first involvement with family occurred in May 2011, days after Alexandra was born, because both she and her mother tested positive for amphetamines.

The department immediately removed Alexandra and an older sibling, but they were returned in April 2012 after their parents, Rosemary Velazco and Carlos Tercerro Cruz, successfully completed substance abuse treatment and parenting classes. The case was closed in July 2012. Less than three years later, Alexandra was dead.

On June 5, DCS received a call saying 21-month-old Joylynne Giebel had been found dead in her home in Mesa. According to DCS documents, she had significant injuries, including bruising to the left side of her head, several small bruises and scrapes to her face and body, internal trauma to her abdomen, and three broken ribs. The treating physician declared that the injuries appear to be caused by abuse.

Joylynne died six months after DCS received its fifth call alleging her stepfather, Andrew Isaacs, physically abused and neglected her. The report also alleged that Isaacs used and sold drugs in the home and gave Percocet to Joylynne to "tranquilize" her. In December, a caseworker went to the house and found no one at home, so she left a note asking a parent to contact DCS.

No one from the department followed up, and Joylynne's case became part of the growing inactive backlog shortly after McKay took over.

Ultimately, regardless of how many kids DCS saves and finds permanent homes for, the agency's director ends up in the spotlight every time a child with past DCS involvement dies. This was true for Charles Flanagan and all those who came before him, and it's proving to be true for Greg McKay.

McKay openly says DCS failed these two little girls and has promised to investigate both situations thoroughly, but he still insists children in Arizona are better off now than they were in February. It's impossible to say whether Flanagan's backlog triage process would have saved Joylynne if he had remained director.

Doug Ducey and Bill Montgomery also say they believe things are improving. Montgomery tells New Times that under Flanagan, DCS struggled with "professional investigations and getting things done with a first-person interaction," strong suits for McKay, under whom, he says, the agency is doing better.

Charles Flanagan, like many others New Times spoke with, disagrees. "The outcomes that are being produced by the current administration are far worse than what we were producing, and it's not good for child welfare in Arizona," he says, declining to comment further. Flanagan, who now works for Rio Salado College, says he pays close attention to what happens at DCS.

Both McKay and Flanagan promised positive outcomes and both have said it would take time. "I know [patience] is a dirty word because people are sick and tired of hearing about the same old problems, giving more money, more grace to this place, and hearing the same problems," McKay says. "[But] I can't produce outcomes in [four months] that are sustainable and mean something real."

During the most recent legislative Child Safety Oversight Committee meeting on May 28, five days after Alexandra Tercerro died, Greg McKay stood at a podium wearing a sharp suit and gave a presentation about his first 100 days as director to the group tasked with monitoring DCS' progress.

"There's a lot of rebuilding needed. And we've done that," he said. "And I'm proud of what we've done, I'm proud of this team for doing it."

McKay talked about making changes to remove redundancies in the agency, like getting rid of the Office of Special Investigations, the internal DCS department responsible for looking into employee misconduct and wrongdoing, because he felt its mission was unnecessary and could be handled by other departments.

McKay's critics say he got rid of the unit because it previously had investigated him and the entire criminal conduct investigations department he oversaw. According to McKay, they were investigated only for small infractions, like using profanity in the workplace. New Times' request for documents regarding the investigation has gone unanswered for more than three months.

McKay also acknowledged to the committee that the backlog of inactive cases had increased since February. He went on to describe a triage process that sounded a lot like the one Flanagan put in place — the one he claimed was illegal and harmful to children. He mentioned he was looking into using outside providers to help with the burden, something Flanagan had been negotiating for months prior to his dismissal.

"I'm hearing that every quarter, people are quitting in droves," said State Senator Nancy Barto, a committee member. "I'm wondering how many quit in the last month, and how many of those were senior level staff?"

McKay said he didn't have those statistics on hand.

"I don't think I've seen the morale any lower than it is today," committee member Bill Owsley said, looking directly at McKay. Owsley, who litigates dependency cases, told McKay that from what he's seen and heard, DCS employees have no sense of where the agency is headed or why leadership is making particular decisions.

State Senator Debbie McCune Davis, who sat next to Owsley at the committee meeting, made it clear she was disappointed in McKay's lack of data. "I'm struggling, because a year ago we created a new agency and we are measuring progress from that date, not from 100 days ago." For decades, the people of Arizona have been hearing a lot about supposed reforms to child welfare, but all of the data that exists or that was "released at the meeting was based on Flanagan's time," she tells New Times.

"We don't know what has changed under Director McKay," she adds, "but simply making the transition from Flanagan to McKay did nothing to fix [DCS'] problems."

 

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/not-suitable-for-children-can-arizonas-broken-child-welfare-system-ever-be-fixed-7417413

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Appalling failure in children's services

The Virginian-Pilot
© May 29, 2015

The phone messages went unretrieved for months, accumulating in a voice mailbox at the Verona office of Child Protective Services.

When they finally were discovered, staffers didn't follow up on any of the messages left by people calling a number reserved for reports of child abuse and neglect.

Instead, as the Staunton News Leader reported, a staff member listened to a few, deleted them, and then deleted the rest - in all, more than 200 messages - without listening to them.

Augusta County officials learned of the action in October, and county and social services officials have told the newspaper that corrective actions - including a letter in the employment file of a supervisor who permitted a worker to delete the messages - were taken. The director of the Shenandoah Valley Department of Social Services has announced she's leaving this summer for a similar position in Orange County.

The episode, which went undisclosed to the public until the News Leader's report this month, presents an outrageous breach of trust and a colossal failure for a department that exists to protect children from violence and neglect.

A spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police confirmed that the Bureau of Criminal Investigation's Appomattox field office is reviewing a request from Augusta County's chief prosecutor to investigate whether any laws related to receipt or review of messages were broken.

Such a criminal investigation may be a longshot, at least in terms of holding anyone accountable.

And, beyond the local department's boundaries, there appears little recourse for the public. Local social services departments enjoy great autonomy, despite receiving substantial funding from the state.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe has asked state social services officials to look into the matter and to determine during a broader review whether more policies and procedures need to be changed beyond what was done in response to the News Leader's report, a spokesman said.

That's an inadequate level of oversight, and it falls woefully short of providing the accountability made necessary by the amount of money funneled annually to local social services departments.

This year, more than $400 million - about a quarter of it from Virginia's general fund - will flow to those local offices, which draw even more funds directly from their respective municipalities.

Three years ago, it took the death of a child in foster care to produce overdue change in Virginia Beach's social services department. The state conducted an extensive review of the department and, in 2012, two years after Braxton Taylor's death, issued a damning report that detailed terrible morale and ineffectual leadership, spurring Beach officials to take serious action.

Some officials in municipalities served by the Shenandoah Valley department, however, appear insufficiently concerned about the gravity of their department's failures.

As the News Leader reported, "Staunton Deputy City Manager Steve Rosenberg, who this year serves as the head of the DSS board, took... the news organization to task for sensationalism, saying that it's not possible to know what was in the voice mails since they were wiped from the CPS voice mail system."

Of course, that's the point.

Nobody knows what information the callers tried to provide to staff members charged with looking out for society's most vulnerable.

Nobody knows how many children might have been affected, or how many callers called again, or how many simply gave up.

It is a horrifying failure, compounded by opacity and the absence of a mechanism that assures the public that the error won't be repeated.

 

 

 

 

 

http://hamptonroads.com/2015/05/appalling-failure-childrens-services

Tusla voices concern over Louth-Meath child protection services

Mon, Jun 8, 2015, 01:00

 

Agency head Gordon Jeyes: anxious about structure, relationships and practice

The latest national figures from Tusla, as at March 31st 2015, show 6,403 children were in care, including 4,108 with foster families, 321 in general residential care and 17 in specialist residential care. Photograph: Getty Images

The latest national figures from Tusla, as at March 31st 2015, show 6,403 children were in care, including 4,108 with foster families, 321 in general residential care and 17 in specialist residential care. Photograph: Getty Images

Fiona Gartland

 

The head of Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, has said he has concerns about child protection services in Louth-Meath.

Gordon Jeyes said the agency was as concerned in Louth-Meath about “some of the organisational structure, relationships and practice”, as it was about Laois-Offaly, though the issues were different.

In April, it emerged there were more than 1,000 files in Laois-Offaly that appeared not to have been progressed. A review identified 127 children who required urgent attention and 660 who needed an allocated social worker.

Mr Jeyes said there were aspects of Louth-Meath that would become clear in the future.

“We think the way in which they were managing the workflow from the front door – assessing, working with and passing on to longer-term teams: that was not working properly and led to some categorisation mistakes,” he said.

In Laois-Offaly, he said, all cases had been reviewed and allocated, with additional staff engaged and the agency was “piloting a rapid improvement” there, and in Louth-Meath.

“My view is the quality of social work staff in Ireland is very high; we need to continue to improve leadership and management of that.”

The latest national figures from Tusla, as at March 31st 2015, show 6,403 children were in care, including 4,108 with foster families, 321 in general residential care and 17 in specialist residential care.

Of those in care, almost 500, or 8 per cent, did not have an allocated social worker, a 1 per cent rise on December 2014.

There was a higher percentage of children in Dublin regions without social workers: 193, or 12 per cent for Dublin Mid-Leinster, and 140 children, or 9 per cent, in Dublin North East. In the South region, 62 children, or 3 per cent, had no social worker and in the West, 110, or 7 per cent were without a social worker.

 

 

 

 

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/tusla-voices-concern-over-louth-meath-child-protection-services-1.2240781

Bill Aims To Clarify Child Protective Services Law; Critics Worry It Would ..

The Pennsylvania House will take up a bill that makes some changes to the Child Protective Services Law. That is the law crafted after the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

“This is the bill that clarifies the existing statute requiring employees and adult volunteers who work directly with children to obtain criminal background check clearances and child abuse clearances,” said Rep. Katharine Watson (R-Bucks), the bill’s sponsor. “The legislation further delineates who is and who is not subject to those requirements.”

Some have criticized the initial law, saying it’s too vague. Watson’s bill, passed by the House Children and Youth Committee, would address concerns over confusion and ambiguity.

“It more clearly defines who is and who is not subject to the background check clearance requirements, and it changes some language in the interest of consistency and to better reflect the intention of the Legislature, making several technical corrections,” said committee Executive Director Gregory Grasa.

Those include changing an “or” to and “and” in the definition of direct contact so it will refer to “an individual who provides care, supervision, guidance or control of children; AND has routine interaction with children.” But, Grasa said there was ambiguity in that as well.

“There was never a definition for the term ‘routine interaction,’ which caused quite a bit of confusion,” said Grasa. “We’re now defining that term as the regular, repeated and continual contact that is integral to a persons’ employment or a volunteers’ responsibilities. In other words, in that persons’ role as either an employee or volunteer – their contact with children, is it integral to that role?”

This bill would also:

  • Permit volunteers who are residents of the Commonwealth, but have not resided in Pennsylvania for the entirety of the previous 10-year period to obtain the required FBI criminal history background check only once upon establishing residency. Current law requires those individuals to obtain an FBI background check clearance every three years until they reach 10 consecutive years of residency in the Commonwealth.
  • Exempt minor employees (ages 14 to 17) from obtaining the FBI criminal history background check if the minor has been a resident of the Commonwealth for the previous 10-year period and the minor and the minor’s legal guardian affirm that the minor is not disqualified from serving in the position under the list of prohibited offenses in existing law.
  • Make the portability/transferability of the background check clearances applicable to employees who are employed in more than one paid position in which they work directly with children, just as those clearances are portable/transferable for volunteers volunteering for multiple organizations under current law. Current law requires employees to obtain separate sets of clearances for each paid position they hold.
  • Stipulate the actual calendar dates by which employees and volunteers must be in compliance with the background check clearance requirements.
  • Correct a number of other inconsistencies in the amendment to the CPSL during the 2013-14 legislative session to better reflect the intent of the General Assembly.

The original Child Protection Law was crafted and passed after a couple of years of work by the PA Task Force on Child Protection and lawmakers. Rep. Todd Stephens (R-Montgomery) said he is concerned the measure undoes a lot of that work.

“This bill significantly reduces the protections that the task for recommended and that we spent two years in hearings adopting before moving forward,” said Stephens. “If there are tweaks, that’s one thing, but this is a policy change.”

Watson had asked that the bill be moved out of committee so that the full House could weigh in and offer amendments. With only two “no” votes, the measure was approved and will now be considered by the full House.

By DEANNA GARCIA JUN 8, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://wesa.fm/post/bill-aims-clarify-child-protective-services-law-critics-worry-it-would-weaken-measure

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Bailey's fight against Leukemia


All blood counts have reached pretty much zero so she has no ability to fight infections and is receiving blood and platelets nearly every other day. She continues to be treated for a blood clot which is postponing one of her chemo medications. We are also still struggling with weight gains but otherwise all is going as expected and should continue through the month. We anticipate going home for at least one week, possibly two then returning to inpatient chemotherapy as a part of the second phase. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers and we appreciate all those who have shown support throughout these tough times.



 




 Meet my precious niece Bailey Hope Farmer. She was born on November 20, 2014. Weighing 6lbs, 8oz, she was so tiny and absolutely adorable. As any parents would be, my brother and his wife were ecstatic to bring their baby home. On December 20, 2014, Bailey turned one month old and unfortunately on that very day she was diagnosed with Infant Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Bailey has already undergone an Exchange Transfusion, which has taken her white blood cell count from 600k to 77k currently. The normal blood cell count should be 5-19.5k. She has started chemotherapy as well. My brother is the sole provider for his four children and his wife, which isn’t easy. He is a Captain/Paramedic at Picture Rocks Fire District where he has been since 2001. With the situation at hand, it’s very difficult for him to return to work due to his need to be at his baby girls side everyday. This is going to cause him to fall behind in many ways, their home, bills, etc and also the medical bills for Bailey that will be coming as well. My brother will be responsible for 20% until the maximum out of pocket is reached. He has worked for years helping others and now the role has reversed and he is the one in need. He has exhausted all of his paid emergency leave at work back in June when our father had a massive stroke and we nearly lost him. At this point, if we can help alleviate the financial burden for his family so they can focus on being there for their brand new baby girl during her fight against Leukemia, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for all the continued love, support and prayers for Bailey and our family. God Bless. Follow updates on Bailey at www.facebook.com/baileyvsleukemia
 http://www.gofundme.com/

 http://www.gofundme.com/baileyvsleukemia

Sunday, June 7, 2015

A grandmother's 36-year hunt for the child stolen by the Argentinian junta

Practically all of Argentina has cried on this one,” says Ignacio Montoya Carlotto, patting his right shoulder. We are crisscrossing the old cobblestone streets of San Telmo, the colonial district of the capital, Buenos Aires. The 36-year-old musician, his crinkly curls prematurely greying, his mouth fast to resolve into a smile, is not bragging. It’s impossible to walk even one city block without someone rushing to hug him and then burst into tears, as he predicted, on his rumpled T-shirt.
Maybe it’s because, thanks to his grandmother, the whole of Argentina had been waiting – praying – for more than 30 years for the day when he would be “found”. Most Argentinians can remember exactly what they were doing when that moment finally came in August last year.
“When I turned 80, I begged God not to let me die before I found my grandson,” says Estela Carlotto. Estela has led an extraordinary life, rising from tragedy into one of the most loved and respected public figures in Argentina. It took four more years. “We all cried; everyone has something to say about how they felt to have found this grandson we were all searching for.”
Estela was a 47-year-old schoolteacher, housewife and mother of three in November 1977 when a death squad from Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship picked her daughter Laura off a street in the city of La Plata where she lived, about 32 miles south of Buenos Aires. Laura, a 22-year-old political activist, became one of the thousands of young dissidents who were made to “disappear” by a bloody, fascist regime. Unknown to Estela, her long-haired, strikingly beautiful daughter was three months pregnant at the time of her abduction. She was taken to a secret “detention centre” called La Cacha. There, in her presence, they killed her companion and the father of the child she was carrying, 26-year-old Walmir Montoya.
Ignacio was born in June 1978 while his mother Laura was still in captivity. One report states she gave birth handcuffed and was allowed only five hours with her baby. Two months later, she was dragged out of the camp and a mock armed confrontation was staged by the military. When her body was turned over to Estela, she had been shot through the stomach and her face was smashed, apparently by a rifle butt. Survivors of the camp told Estela about the birth, and that she had named the newborn Guido, after her father.
For 36 years afterwards, Estela devoted herself to finding her grandson. All she had was a name, Guido, and an approximate birth date. An excruciatingly difficult search led her through three decades of legal action against police officers, military officers and doctors involved in the “missing grandchildren” cases. Leads were hard to come by. Her grandson had been swallowed by the complicity and silence that surrounded so many of the regime’s horrendous crimes.
Estela realised there were many others like herself looking for the babies of their “disappeared” daughters. They formed a group called the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, named after the city square facing the presidential palace in downtown Buenos Aires where they marched, drawing attention to their plight. By 1989 Estela had become president of the association.
The group believes there are some 500 cases of grandchildren born in captivity. In most cases, the babies were turned over to military families to raise as their own. In the warped thinking of the profoundly Catholic yet murderous generals who ruled Argentina then, it would have been unchristian to kill an innocent, unborn child by executing the expectant mother. By the same token, in their macabre minds turning the babies over to “good” military families to raise as their own represented the ultimate victory over the “godless” left-wing enemy they wished to crush into nonexistence.   

Even now, three decades after the collapse of the dictatorship, some Argentinians defend the military’s campaign against Cuban-inspired guerrillas in the 1970s, but even the most die-hard reactionaries draw the line at the baby-snatching cases. Each DNA confirmation that a missing grandchild had been found and reunited with their biological family, usually accompanied by legal action against the “mother and father” who had appropriated them, has been greeted with joy across the political spectrum.
Over three decades of work, 113 cases had been resolved by the slowly ageing grandmothers, but despite this, Estela Carlotto’s missing grandson remained unaccounted for, which left a deep, unhealed wound in the nation’s psyche. Despite being behind the restitution of the grandchildren of so many of her fellow grandmothers, the white-haired, softly spoken woman who had endeared herself as a perennial hopeful for a Nobel Peace Prize for Argentina, and a worldwide symbol of peaceful women’s activism, had not yet been able to find her own slain daughter’s son. “I am such a well-known public figure,” says Carlotto. “Everybody kept asking me: ‘When is it going to be your turn?’”
At the time Ignacio Montoya Carlotto still believed he was Ignacio Hurban, the only son of Juana and Clemente Hurban, a couple of humble rural workers who lived near the city of OlavarrĆ­a on a farm belonging to Francisco Aguilar, a well-to-do, conservative landowner who died last year.
“A few years ago I was watching television with my wife and Estela comes on talking about the search for her grandson,” Ignacio tells me. “And I said: ‘Look at this poor woman. It’s heart-breaking – she’s spent her whole life searching, and she may never find him.’”
Ignacio had, he says, a golden childhood. “I had a great life, but there was always this background noise. I didn’t look like my parents.” Growing up on the farm, surrounded by animals and cared for by those he still refers to lovingly as “Mother and Father”, he became a voracious reader, excelled in school, travelled to Buenos Aires to study music and finally returned to OlavarrĆ­a to become a successful music teacher and professional musician with his own band, the Ignacio Hurban Grupo.
“When this all started,” he says. “I was scared of it devouring my whole life. Things were really great for me, damn it. I was recording records with musicians I respected, I was able to buy myself a brand-new car working as a musician, teaching and playing the piano. I had my wife and we were thinking of starting a family. And before that I had a healthy childhood on the farm, with lots of love.”
It was precisely that bucolic, protective environment in the deep countryside that made it almost impossible for his despairing grandmother to find him. “Where he was, 200 miles away in the middle of farm country,” says Estela, “I was never going to find him.”
A year ago, on 2 June 2014, fate intervened. It’s the date the then Ignacio Hurban has always celebrated his birthday. OlavarrĆ­a is a small city of only 111,000. Among them was Celia Lizaso, a woman who knew the true story of his birth. “Celia Lizaso was the daughter of a farmer who was very good friends with Aguilar,” says Ignacio today. “She told my wife that I was adopted.” After a tearful birthday dinner during which his wife revealed to him the secret of his “adoption”, Ignacio went to see Lizaso, who had only told his wife half the story. “She left out the part that I was the child of a couple killed by the dictatorship.”
Estela Carlotto sitting on a sofa, smiling © Provided by Guardian News Estela Carlotto sitting on a sofa, smiling       
Both Ignacio’s adoptive parents are still alive and are certain to face a judicial inquiry due to the fact that he was falsely registered as their biological son. “When I went to them about it,” he says, “they explained their reasons for not telling me. They are humble farm people. They barely finished primary school.”
The circumstances of their employment with Aguilar weighed heavily in the equation, believes Ignacio. “They couldn’t have children, and Aguilar gave them the opportunity of bringing them a child born from a woman who didn’t want to have it, which was common in those days. They never suspected anything. They believed their boss – he was like God to them: they lived on his land and he was their only source of income.”
Ignacio is convinced of their innocence and good intentions. “I realise the sacrifices they made to raise me – I have nothing but gratitude for that. I also understand that they were tricked, they were made to sign things. They were made to believe things that weren’t true.”
Although the details remain unclear, and there is a court investigation pending, Ignacio has been able to piece together the essentials. Aguilar received him from the military when he was probably only a few days old and handed him over to the Hurbans, to raise as their own, with a solemn warning never to tell anyone the truth. “Aguilar probably did it to collaborate with the military,” he says. “Guys from his social background, sucking up to power – he’d do anything to ingratiate himself with some military officer. It’s kind of sad, actually.”
Ignacio grew up knowing Aguilar and his children well. “The kids used to come visit the farm. They live across from the music school where I teach.” But he has never thought of crossing the street to pound their door in anger. “Aguilar is dead and I’m told his widow has Alzheimer’s. That’s for the courts to deal with, I trust justice. There’s only two things that can affect families like that. Economic consequences, which is losing what they have, because those families often are what they own, or losing their prestige, and that they have definitely lost: their last name is now associated with the worst crime in our history.”
He is nonetheless adamant that Aguilar’s sons are innocent in the case. “I’ve met them and talked with them about it. The father was responsible, but the sons weren’t. They are victims of the shit their father did.”
Over the decades of their search, it was inevitable that some of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo died. The years are ticking by ever faster for those still in the fight – Estela is 84. With hundreds of grandchildren still unfound, they have set up a DNA bank with samples from their own DNA to ensure that anyone who suspects they are a “missing grandchild” can step forward after they are gone. In what was probably one of the last acts of his life as Ignacio Hurban, Estela’s missing grandson went to the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, took a DNA test and then went back to his daily life.
Estela says: “Somebody told me – and he hasn’t denied it – that he said: ‘Well, if I turn out to be the son of a “disappeared” couple, I want to be the grandson of the top grandmother, Estela.’” But when the phone call came, it not only showed that he was Estela’s grandson, it also revealed he was the son of Walmir Montoya, Laura Carlotto’s slain secret boyfriend. Suddenly the pieces fell into place. Montoya had been a drummer in a rock band. Nicknamed PuƱo (Fist) as a baby by his mother, Montoya, as a young man in the 1970s, soon gravitated to the Montoneros guerrilla organisation. He moved to La Plata, where he met Laura. They fell in love and lived in hiding, in an unsuccessful bid to outrun the secret police.
In 2006 forensic anthropologists unearthed his bones in a common grave. They found 16 bullet wounds, showing he was probably executed by machine gun fire. In Caleta Olivia, the coastal town in Patagonia where he grew up, a statue of PuƱo Montoya had been erected in his memory. Although there’d been rumours, no one knew for certain that he had a child, least of all his surviving 91-year-old mother, Hortensia Montoya, who also received a phone call with the surprise DNA results.
“God has given me a long life so that I could live to meet my grandson,” Hortensia said to the press. Like Estela, Hortensia is an exceptional woman, considered a pioneering teacher in Caleta Olivia. The two grandmothers talked to each other in a joint radio interview after the DNA results were announced, as a wave of joy swept across the nation. “We still haven’t met, but I love you so much for sharing this wonderful grandson with me,” Estela told Hortensia. Referring to the photos in the press of her son PuƱo, Estela added: “Now I understand why my daughter fell in love with your son.”
Estela with her daughter Laura in the 1970s © Provided by Guardian News Estela with her daughter Laura in the 1970s       
The phone call to Ignacio Hurban had been made by Estela’s younger daughter, who heads the DNA bank which holds the samples. “I asked for time,” Ignacio says now. “But then I thought: ‘They’ve been waiting for this for over 30 years. One more day for them must feel fatal.’” What followed was a hurried 400km journey with his wife and a group of their friends to meet the Carlottos in La Plata. “We left early, avoiding the press. We got lost, we went round in circles, it was a total scream.” By then Argentina’s media were staked out en masse in front of Carlotto’s La Plata home, so they had to rendezvous at the home of one of her daughters.
What the then Ignacio Hurban encountered at the Carlotto home provoked something akin to culture shock. An only son, raised among animals in a faraway farm, walked into a home where Estela’s 13 other grandchildren, his cousins, aunts and uncles were eagerly awaiting him. “It was meeting a whole family who are looking at you and can’t believe it: ‘It’s impossible – he’s there!’ Seeing the joy in their eyes simply because I was there – everybody crying, the hugs, the emotion.”
His grandmother Estela understands: “We’re a noisy bunch. He’s very quiet – I think he had more contact with animals than with children of his own age growing up.”
“I was a mess when I arrived after this long trip,” says Ignacio. As he got out of the car, he was told his grandmother was inside.
Estela recalls: “‘That’s my grandson,’ I thought. All the love I’d kept for him came over me, to tell him how much I loved him, how much I’d looked for him. He stood his ground, holding back. I, of course, had been travelling around the world looking for a baby, looking for a child, looking for a young man, and I’d always thought: ‘When I find him, you can all meet him because you’ve all helped me look for him.’” She soon saw she had to be more careful. “A grandmother’s anxiety wants everything to be fast, but there’s been cases where it’s taken years for a grandchild to accept their grandmother. So my advice to the grandmothers always is: give them time – that’s how you show your love. You must not get angry, you must not hurry them, you must demand nothing.”
For Ignacio, the sweetest moment came a few days later, when Hortensia Montoya arrived and the two grandmothers embraced.
“Meeting my two grandmothers was the most moving thing,” he says, speaking with passionate anger against the military who murdered his parents, “because it was like: ‘Bam, there it is, this is it – we won, we did it, we’re here, seeing each other, talking.’ Do you know what it was like hearing those two women talking to each other? The ground shakes when they meet. Two such powerful persons talking about their children, getting to know each other through the love their children had, crying for joy in the midst of this terrible tragedy.”
Ignacio has stood his ground by refusing to give in to one of his grandmother’s most cherished wishes: to rename himself Guido. “It hurt me when he said he didn’t want to change his name,” says Estela, sadness clouding her voice. “‘If it’s a boy, I want him to be called Guido,’ my daughter told one of her fellow prisoners who survived. She must have called him Guido when he was in her tummy; that has to resonate. But he told me he is Ignacio. It’s to reaffirm himself after that explosion. I understood completely. So I told him: ‘Look, I am going to call you Guido. I’ve been looking for you for 36 years as Guido.’ And he accepted that. But now, I don’t know – sometimes I avoid calling him Guido if he doesn’t want it.”
As the night descends over Buenos Aires at the end of my time with him, Ignacio Hurban is now fully transformed into Ignacio Montoya Carlotto the rising musician, talking about his new project, the Ignacio Montoya Carlotto Septeto. “They’re songs with folkloric roots, closer to folk music than to tango.”
Driving his car through the busy streets of Argentina’s capital, he seems slightly lost, far away from the quiet night skies and open horizons of his home, asking for directions, on his way to a rehearsal for a television show he will be performing on. He insists that he will not give in to resentment nor will he feign a suffering for what happened to his biological parents that he has not felt himself.
“It was horrible, to be ripped from your mother, but I have no recollection of that. Plus, what good would it do me to cry for what could have been? Or to start living a life of suffering that I have not lived? My parents suffered. When I think about what they went through, it’s so sad, and that willingness to give up their lives for their beliefs, such a strong will to go through with the pregnancy. It’s incredible. But I didn’t live through any of that. My memories are of growing up on the farm with a mother and a father. And they did everything any other parents would have done.”
Brute force: a protester against the regime is arrested in Buenos Aires. © Provided by Guardian News Brute force: a protester against the regime is arrested in Buenos Aires.        It is difficult to say whether denial is at play in Ignacio’s reasoning, although he himself admits to none. Perhaps he is that rare thing, a person determined to make the best of the world he has been born into, even if he discovers at the age of 36 that he had been “born” into a false world, the victim of a heinous crime.
Meanwhile Estela continues her work. She still travels to the offices of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires every day. That’s about a three-hour round trip. She travels continuously, carrying her message around the world. Her grandson was the 114th missing grandchild to be identified. Two more have been identified since then. Hundreds of others remain unfound. She has no intention of stopping: “The only thought I had was: Laura can rest in peace now. I felt Laura said to me: ‘Mother, mission accomplished.’ But there’s so much still to do. I’m going to keep looking for the other missing ones.”


 http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-grandmothers-36-year-hunt-for-the-child-stolen-by-the-argentinian-junta/ar-BBkN9rY