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October 3, 2025
The Link Between Maternal Drug Use and Rising Infant Mortality
Mississippi has just declared a public health emergency involving an alarming rise in infant mortality rates. Between 2023 and 2024, deaths of children under age one rose to 9.7 per 1,000 live births from 8.9 per 1,000 in 2023. “Every single infant loss represents a family devastated, a community impacted and a future cut short,”…
June 20, 2025
What Kids Need—and Adults Need to Know—to Combat the Youth Mental Health Crisis
Starting this fall students in New York will join those in other states like California in not being able to access cellphones during the day. These bans are the culmination of years of education and activism by parents, teachers and researchers concerned about the effect of technology not only on academic performance but also on…
April 3, 2025
The dangerous myth that poverty is the cause of child abuse
Why does child abuse happen? A new public service announcement says most people think it’s a “bad parent problem,” but the ad suggests “the root causes may be different than you think.” This message from Prevent Child Abuse America goes on to explain that child abuse is the result of families’ lack of financial resources — a…
April 1, 2025
Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s Dangerous Radicalism on Child Welfare
Socialist state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani has made a splash in the race for New York City mayor. A relentless social media campaign has helped him raise big dollars, despite his long-shot odds against incumbent mayor Eric Adams and former governor Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani has also adopted a platform of terrible ideas. His campaign materials portray him as a Robin…
April 1, 2025
Did Maltreatment Fatalities in Texas Really Decline?
A drop in the number of children entering foster care and fatalities due to abuse in Texas is, on its face, welcome news, and some stakeholders in the well-being of children are heartened. “There have been more net positives than any negatives that show up,” Brandon Logan, executive director of the Texas nonprofit One Accord…
February 22, 2025
Why Long Island Is Hoping Former Cops Will Become Child Protective Services Workers
“It’s incumbent upon us to make sure these children are safe,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said at a press conference recently. “That’s job No. 1.” Blakeman launched a program in 2023 to hire more workers for child protective services in order to reduce caseloads at the Department of Social Services. But Blakeman’s January decision to bring on former…
January 23, 2025
The Effects of Child Neglect Can Be As Harmful As Child Abuse
When Rob Henderson was growing up, he scored only 86 out of a possible 140 points on a verbal IQ test. His teachers thought he might have some kind of learning disability. But Henderson, who went on to graduate from Yale and Oxford, has a different theory. In a recent tweet, he noted that during…
January 8, 2025
Child Abuse Is Child Abuse, Regardless of the Circumstances
Two months ago, Wendell James Snell, age 42, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for the sexual abuse of three children under the age of 12 on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation between 2011 and 2014. “The depravity of Snell’s actions is reflected in today’s sentencing,” said Special Agent in Charge Alvin M. Winston Sr….
January 5, 2025
Racine Case Tragically Exposes Gaps in Wisconsin’s Protection of Kids from Abuse
In February 2021, residents of Racine learned that 17-year-old Shavale J. Powell was facing homicide charges in the death of his 1-month-old son. The child suffered blunt force trauma to the head, chest and extremities. The Racine Journal Times reported on the case and noted that there was also a “1-year-old child with a bruised, injured eye.” Powell was arrested and…
December 19, 2024
How Child Protective Services Have Failed Children
In October, Nyisha Ragsdale, the maternal aunt of four-year-old Jahmeik Modlin, filed a lawsuit against the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), claiming that the city could have saved her nephew from being starved to death at the hands of his parents. Standing by her side was none other than the Reverend Al Sharpton. Sharpton’s…