ALL TOO COMMON: Michigan has one of the nation’s highest rates for child abuse and neglect, according to the most recent state figures. Child welfare officials and advocates have theories as to why, but there’s no consensus explanation. (courtesy photo/used under Creative Commons license) The number of abused and neglected Michigan children rose in recent […]
Children & Families
About 1 in 5 children in Michigan live in poverty. Bridge will explore the reasons behind this disturbing result and the ideas to address it.
Posted inChildren & Families
Legal immunity worries child advocates
The fear of getting sued if a foster child attempts suicide or theft prompted private social service agencies to push in the waning days of the lame-duck session for a law granting them limited immunity to lawsuits. They got their wish late in the night of the last session of the Legislature last week, even […]
Posted inChildren & Families
Starfish group leads charge for Inkster families
Helping vulnerable children all across Metro Detroit is the goal of Starfish Family Services, but the Inkster-based nonprofit decidedly recent it needed to go local with its work – like right outside the door local. Of Inkster’s 26,000 residents, about 1,500 children under the age of 5 are considered high-risk, according to an assessment done […]
Posted inChildren & Families
Lansing mom bumps up against preschool rules
It’s October and Lansing resident Kennedy Barnwell, 4, who is eligible for the Great Start Readiness Program, is still not in school. Her mother Brittany Johnson, 27, has made several attempts to get her daughter in a classroom, without success. So Kennedy is stuck in what she likes to call “day-care school” to let everyone […]
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Welfare reform results: few jobs, few state answers, refuge in a vacant home
Welfare reform hasn’t been kind to Tamika Thomas. Eight months ago, the 33-year-old lived in a rental home in Detroit with her four children. She attended Wayne County Community College, where she was working her way toward an associate’s degree in radiological technology that would have led to the first good-paying job of her life. […]
Posted inChildren & Families
Some Michigan welfare recipients get reprieve
When the long-awaited cash appeared in her Bridge card account June 29, Elizabeth Weaver had her list ready. She made an appointment to repair her car, which had been leaking coolant for months. The 31-year-old bought shelves, and filled them with toilet paper and toothpaste, things she can’t buy with food stamps. “I need to […]
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Michigan's prescription for foster kids: drugs
Taxpayers have spent more than $70 million in a single year in Michigan on psychotropic drugs for foster kids and other children on Medicaid. And, nearly a quarter of Michigan foster kids were on psychotropic drugs to counteract behavioral problems and diagnosed mental illness in 2008, according to a recent government report. That report comes […]
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Michigan Radio continues look at welfare reform's consequences
How are Michigan families faring after losing welfare cash assistance? Tracy Davenport lost her house and her car — and can’t find work because of a medical condition that causes her to fall down constantly. Learn her story at Michigan Radio, which has teamed up with Bridge Magazine to chronicle the first year after welfare […]
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Welfare reform: Back to the drawing board
What would you do if you could reform Michigan’s welfare system? That may be a question state leaders are asking today, after Michigan’s massive welfare reform was thrown out in court. Calling it an “end-run around the Legislature,” a Genesee County Circuit Court smacked down a Department of Human Services policy that knocked between 11,000 […]
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Welfare reforms put care-givers in a wrenching bind
Todd Stafford has an uncontrollable neurological disorder that causes him to beat himself in the head hundreds of times a day. The beatings have made him blind and caused his head to “look like Frankenstein,” he says. His wife, Tina Stafford, doesn’t have a job because someone needs to be at their St. Joseph County […]