Child Welfare Information Gateway E-lert! August 2014 Encourage your colleagues to subcribe to E-lert! To ensure that E-lert! reaches you each month, please add us to your safe senders list. The following new and updated publications and resources are now available from Child Welfare Information Gateway. Use the links listed below, or contact us to request print copies, which we will mail you free if they are available. Share our publications with your colleagues via email, Facebook, and more! Child Welfare Evaluation Virtual Summit Series In continuation of the Child Welfare Evaluation Virtual Summit Series, the Children's Bureau has released a five-part video series entitled A Framework to Design, Test, Spread, and Sustain Effective Practice in Child Welfare. Each video in the series addresses components of the framework: (1) Introducing the New Framework, (2) Identify and Explore, (3) Develop & Test and Compare & Learn, (4) Replicate & Adapt and Apply & Improve, and (5) Tying It All Together. The Child Welfare Evaluation Virtual Summit Series videos tackle evaluation-related topics, and many propose solutions to common evaluation problems. The videos combine illustration, animation, motion graphics, and content from national experts. Access all videos currently available from the Virtual Summit Series on the CB website. New and Updated Publications Two companion publications on intercountry adoption are now available: Intercountry Adoption: Where Do I Start? Provides an overview of the intercountry adoption process. Adoption procedures vary depending upon the service provider and the State or country from which the child is adopted and may change over time. This factsheet addresses meeting legal requirements, bringing a child home, and adjusting to the new family. https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_inter/ Intercountry Adoption From Hague Convention and Non-Hague Convention Countries Compares two types of intercountry adoption: adoption from countries that are party to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption and from countries that are not. The process for adopting a child from another country changed in some significant ways with the U.S. ratification of the Hague Convention. https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/hague.cfm The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood The passage of the Family Preservation and Support Services Program in 1993 authorized the Children's Bureau to direct additional resources and support to State and local agencies to strengthen and expand front-end preventive services to families; improve the functioning of judicial systems; and support an approach to child welfare that was increasingly family centered, community based, and individualized. Learn more in Chapter 7 of The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood. http://cb100.acf.hhs.gov/CB_ebook Revisiting Child Abuse Prevention Month 2014 Professionals and community members nationwide have been accessing our enhanced 2014 prevention resources and applying them to efforts to help children and strengthen families. The 2014 National Child Abuse Prevention Month website received more than 70,000 visits, and the 2014 Prevention Resource Guide: Making Meaningful Connections has been distributed or downloaded nearly 63,500 times. In customer feedback surveys, an overwhelming majority of respondents tell us that these resources are useful. Visit the National Child Abuse Prevention Month website and let us know what you think: https://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/preventionmonth/ Did You Know? The Child Welfare Information Gateway website provides links to reports, databases, and other sources of statistical and demographic data on children and families in the United States, child abuse and neglect, child welfare services, children and youth in foster care, and domestic and international adoption. https://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/statistics/ In This Month's CBX The July/August issue of Children's Bureau Express (CBX) highlights the co-occurrence of child maltreatment and domestic violence and points to research and resources on supporting families affected by domestic violence, including immigrant and refugee families. https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov Subscribe to CBX at https://www.childwelfare.gov/admin/subscribe. Upcoming Conferences We will be at the following upcoming conferences. Please stop by and see us if you will be attending! August 17-20: 37th National Child Welfare, Juvenile, and Family Law Conference, Denver, CO August 26-29: 27th Annual National Independent Living Conference, "Growing Pains 2014" for Adults and Youth, Denver, CO September 7-10: 19th International Conference & Summit on Violence, Abuse & Trauma, San Diego, CA September 17-19: Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) National Kinship Care Conference, "Building Communities of Caring for Children and Families," New Orleans, LA Give Us Your Feedback To help us meet your needs, we welcome your ideas and suggestions. Please check out our website for publications surveys and other ways you can provide input. Thank you! Connect With the Children's Bureau and Information Gateway on Facebook The Children's Bureau and Child Welfare Information Gateway are on Facebook! "Like" both pages today and start connecting with others in child welfare and related professions. http://www.facebook.com/thechildrensbureau http://www.facebook.com/childwelfare Contact Information Child Welfare Information Gateway Phone: 800.394.3366 Email: info@childwelfare.gov Web: https://www.childwelfare.gov Chat live with an Information Specialist between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. EDT. E-lert! is a free service of the Children's Bureau/ACF/HHS and Child Welfare Information Gateway.

E-News: The Positive Indicators Issue

	August 14, 2014  Subscribe Flourishing Children Project What helps children flourish? Indicators of positive development are essential for a balanced, scientifically-sound study of children and youth, and are increasingly called for in schools, after-school programs, and governments. With grants from the John Templeton Foundation and others, Child Trends' Flourishing Children Project has tested the applicability of measures of positive youth well-being to racially-and economically-diverse populations, and spoken with youth to find out what they think is important to measure. We have also developed short, sound multi-item measures of positive development that work among diverse youth. Measures are available for use, as is a data set based on a nationwide poll, here. READ MORE Measures for Youth  Flourishing Children: Defining and Testing Indicators of Positive Development Measures of many aspects of adolescent flourishing are either not available, not developmentally-appropriate, not appropriate for diverse populations, or not short or rigorous enough to be used for national surveys and program evaluations. Child Trends' Flourishing Children Project developed multi-item measures, or scales, to measure 19 aspects of flourishing in six areas: flourishing in school and work, personal flourishing, relationship skills, relationship quality, helping others to flourish, and environmental stewardship. We learned a lot about developing scales for youth through cognitive interviews, and we pass on what we've learned in this book. SEE THE BOOK Measures for Early Childhood Measuring social and emotional development High-quality measures of social and emotional development in early childhood are needed for federal and state data collections, as well as early childhood programs. Child Trends is vetting existing measures of social and emotional development in early childhood for the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, and is preparing an inventory of measures, with a paper (to be released this fall) reviewing the measures according to multiple criteria. The areas of social-emotional development being reviewed include emotional competence, social competence, self-regulation, behavior problems, and executive function. (In another report released last week, Child Trends suggested ways to incorporate social and emotional skills measurement into regular classroom data collection.)  LEARN MORE Other Positive Indicators Child Trends' work on positive indicators includes a collection of these in our DataBank. The DataBank examines and monitors indicators, summarizing research, tracking trends, and highlighting strategies likely to improve child and youth well-being. SEE THE INDICATORS Copyright © 2014 by Child Trends

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Bring Parental Rights Home to Your State

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Aug. 13, 2014 Bring Parental Rights Home to Your State Just two years ago, only three states offered legislative protection for parental rights. Since then five more states have secured similar laws. The Parents’ Bill of Rights adopted by Oklahoma this spring was likely the most comprehensive parental rights legislation anywhere, ever. And we anticipate seeing even more gains in 2015. But the time to get those efforts started is now. That’s why Jim and Patti Sullivan of Florida are already talking with lawmakers about a parental rights statute in the Sunshine State. They’re working with some of the same leaders in the Florida government who were instrumental in the passage of a 2011 memorial calling on Congress to adopt the Parental Rights Amendment. And in Ohio we have been working to coordinate with two potential allied organizations regarding parental rights legislation there. Our hope is to introduce an Oklahoma-like bill early in the term that starts in January, 2015. Similar efforts are in the works in other states, too, including Mississippi, Washington, Missouri, Idaho, New Jersey, Texas, and North Carolina. At this point, ParentalRights.org has a wide array of sample parental rights statute language to fit nearly any state’s political climate. Even the least parent-friendly states can agree on our medical rights statute drafted in answer to the Pelletier case in Massachusetts. It quotes a New York appeals court decision in saying that the state cannot charge parents with medical neglect if the parents are operating under the direction of a licensed medical professional, following a known course of treatment, for their child’s reasonably diagnosed condition. More parent-friendly states may be ready to adopt a more wide-ranging statute, such as our basic language that declares that “the liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their child is a fundamental right.” This is the same standard that would be adopted nationally with the passage of the Parental Rights Amendment. And the most parent-friendly states could model their legislation on the full-spectrum statement of detailed parental rights signed by Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin in June. So whatever the climate in your state, we can provide a fitting starting point. It may be that all we need is you to get the ball rolling! Action Items 1. Remember to visit your Congressman this month and encourage their support for the Parental Rights Amendment, HJRes. 50. For more on how to plan your visit, go to 4pra.us/visit. 2. Remember also to visit your Senators and urge them to oppose ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. For more on why we oppose this treaty, visit parentalrights.org/crpd. Then go to 4pra.us/visit for more on making your visit. Let them know that no reservation, understanding, or declaration can excuse using the international treaty power to pass domestic policy in a free and self-governing nation. 3. Get the ball rolling in your state! To see where you stand, visit your state’s page by clicking on your state at parentalrights.org/states. Then, email your State Coordinator and ask them how you can help get a statute going. Or fill out our volunteer form at parentalrights.org/volunteer, and put “state statute” in the “special skills” box. Working together, we can protect children by preserving parental rights all across the country. Sincerely, Michael Ramey Director of Communications & Research P.S. – This month’s Elite Member premium packet is on the theme of Internet Safety, and we’re throwing in July’s packet (“Parental Rights in the Medical Setting”) at no extra cost. Join now and receive a new packet every month to empower you as you protect and raise your precious children.

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Communist goals for American schools read into Congressional Record by Rep. Herlong, 1963

American Minute with Bill Federer Communist goals for American schools read into Congressional Record by Rep. Herlong, 1963 Democrat Congressman Albert S. Herlong, Jr., of Florida, read into the U.S Congressional Record, January 10, 1963, a list of Communist goals for America, (Vol 109, 88th Congress, 1st Session, Appendix, pp. A34-A35). Communist goals included: "Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of 'separation of church and state'... Discredit American culture... Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and divorce..." Democrat Rep. Herlong continued listing Communist goals: "Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as 'normal, natural, healthy'... Infiltrate churches and replace revealed religion with 'social' religion... Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a 'religious crutch'... Control schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put party line in textbooks... Control student newspapers..." AUGUST 11, 1984, by an 88-11 Senate vote and a 337-77 House vote, Congress passed the Equal Access Act, stating: "It shall be unlawful for any public secondary school which receives Federal financial assistance and which has a limited open forum, to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the speech at such meeting." Regarding this, President Reagan commented August 23, 1984 at Reunion Arena, Dallas, Texas: "We even had to pass a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago to allow student prayer groups the same access to school rooms after classes that a Young Marxist Society...would already enjoy." The Supreme Court upheld the Equal Access Act by a vote of 8-1 in Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, June 4, 1990: "If a State refused to let religious groups use facilities open to others, then it would demonstrate not neutrality but hostility toward religion. The Establishment Clause does not license government to treat religion and those who teach or practice it...as subversive of American ideals." The Ten Commandments and their influence on American Law   Ronald Reagan stated in a radio address, February 25, 1984: "Former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart noted if religious exercises are held to be impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvantage. Permission for such exercises for those who want them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion. And a refusal to permit them is seen not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism." Get the book, PRAYERS AND PRESIDENTS-Inspiring Faith from Leaders of the Past U.S. District Court, Crockett v. Sorenson, W.D. Va,. 1983: "The First Amendment was never intended to insulate our public institutions from any mention of God, the Bible or religion. When such insulation occurs, another religion, such as secular humanism, is effectively established." This reaffirmed what George Washington wrote to the United Baptist Churches of Virginia, May 10, 1789: "If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed by the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical Society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it." Ronald Reagan, on the National Day of Prayer, May 6, 1982, commented: "Well-meaning Americans in the name of freedom have taken freedom away. For the sake of religious tolerance, they've forbidden religious practice." Ronald Reagan told the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, January 30, 1884: "I was pleased last year to proclaim 1983 the Year of the Bible. But, you know, a group called the ACLU severely criticized me for doing that. Well, I wear their indictment like a badge of honor." In the Supreme Court case of Town of Greece, NY, v. Galloway et al, Justice Kennedy wrote in the decision, May 5, 2014: "Respondents maintain that prayer must be nonsectarian...and they fault the town for permitting guest chaplains to deliver prayers that 'use overtly Christian terms' or 'invoke specifics of Christian theology'... An insistence on nonsectarian or ecumenical prayer as a single, fixed standard is not consistent with the tradition of legislative prayer... The Congress that drafted the First Amendment would have been accustomed to invocations containing explicitly religious themes of the sort respondents find objectionable. One of the Senate's first chaplains, the Rev. William White, gave prayers in a series that included the Lord's Prayer, the Collect for Ash Wednesday, prayers for peace and grace, a general thanksgiving, St. Chrysostom's Prayer, and a prayer seeking 'the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c'..." Justice Kennedy continued: "The decidedly Christian nature of these prayers must not be dismissed as the relic of a time when our Nation was less pluralistic than it is today. Congress continues to permit its appointed and visiting chaplains to express themselves in a religious idiom... To hold that invocations must be nonsectarian would force the legislatures...and the courts...to act as...censors of religious speech... Government may not mandate a civic religion that stifles any but the most generic reference to the sacred any more than it may prescribe a religious orthodoxy..." Justice Kennedy added: "Respondents argue, in effect, that legislative prayer may be addressed only to a generic God. The law and the Court could not draw this line for each specific prayer or seek to require ministers to set aside their nuanced and deeply personal beliefs for vague and artificial ones. There is doubt, in any event, that consensus might be reached as to what qualifies as generic or nonsectarian..." Justice Kennedy continued: "While these prayers vary in their degree of religiosity, they often seek peace for the Nation, wisdom for its lawmakers, and justice for its people, values that count as universal and that are embodied not only in religious traditions, but in our founding documents and laws. The first prayer delivered to the Continental Congress by the Rev. Jacob Duché on Sept. 7, 1774, provides an example: 'Be Thou present O God of Wisdom and direct the counsel of this Honorable Assembly; enable them to settle all things on the best and surest foundations; that the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that Order, Harmony, and Peace be effectually restored, and the Truth and Justice, Religion and Piety, prevail and flourish among the people. Preserve the health of their bodies, and the vigor of their minds, shower down on them, and the millions they here represent, such temporal Blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting Glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Saviour, Amen'... Get the book, Endangered Speeches-How the ACLU, IRS & LBJ Threaten the Extinction of Free Speech Justice Kennedy concluded: "From the earliest days of the Nation, these invocations have been addressed to assemblies comprising many different creeds... Our tradition assumes that adult citizens, firm in their own beliefs, can tolerate and perhaps appreciate a ceremonial prayer delivered by a person of a different faith." Search AMERICAN MINUTE archives    Watch past FAITH IN HISTORY episodes for FREE News from AmericanMinute.com Invite Bill Federer to speak - large or small groups - email wjfederer@gmail.com or call 314-540-1172 Visit the American Minute archive   Click here to shop AMERICAN MINUTE store Daily Reading at: http://www.biblegateway.com/reading-plans/old-new-testament/today?version=NKJV Receive American Minute on your Facebook wall, Twitter feed, or RSS reader.  Click here to make a donation. Thank you! American Minute is a registered trademark. Permission is granted to forward. reprint or duplicate with acknowledgement to vwww.AmericanMinute.com     Invite Bill Federer to speak - large or small groups - email wjfederer@gmail.com or call 314-540-1172

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