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March 27th 2006 • Printer version On behalf of the children
The videos Joy Osofsky brought with her to Eugene told the story best.
First, there was the 11-month-old baby, briefly reunited with an
abusive mother, who fussed, then cried, then screamed. When taken away,
the infant quickly settled down and fell asleep.
Then there was the 2-year-old so terrified in the presence of her
abusive mother that she stood at stiff attention until told to sit
down; then she sank to the floor and did not move. The same child, in
the presence of a loving grandfather, played and chattered in the
typical way of inquisitive youngsters.
Osofsky, a professor of pediatrics, psychiatry and public health at
Louisiana State University, was the keynote speaker at a conference on
children organized by the Oregon Child Advocacy Project, a new program
at the University of Oregon Law School.
Osofsky spoke to an audience of child-care workers, lawyers and judges
from around the West who work every day with children in troubled
families.
Her message: The youngest children in the foster care system face a
range of risks, from developmental delays to behavior and psychiatric
problems. And once they develop problems, they are less likely either
to be reunited with their families or to be adopted.
But Osofsky offered more than a depressing flood of statistics. She
also described a unique program she developed with a judge in Florida
that targeted the youngest children whose mothers were at risk of
losing them.
The partnership with the judge was a strategic decision, Osofsky said.
While social scientists understand the developmental issues and the
needs of children, judges are the ones who can do something about the
problems they face, she said.
Osofsky and Miami Judge Cindy Lederman put together the Miami Safe
Start Initiative to help parents in danger of losing their infants and
toddlers by offering a variety of support services that included 25
sessions of therapy for mothers with their babies.
"Because they were harmed in the relationship, they should be healed in the relationship,"
Osofsky said.
The challenge now is creating more such partnerships with judges and finding funding
to implement the program in other places.
Osofsky was one of several speakers at the two-day event.
Conference-goers also heard from social workers, law professors and
judges who spoke on methods for nurturing children in difficult
settings - affected by poverty, divorce, custody and involvement with
juvenile court.
The conference is the first one organized by the Oregon Child Advocacy
Project, project director Leslie Harris said. The new program at the UO
Law School has a grant from law school graduate Duncan Campbell, a
Portland entrepreneur long concerned with child welfare issues.
Campbell also founded Friends of Children, a national mentoring
program, where mentors are paid and commit to 12 years of contact with
a child.
For more information about the UO project, visit www.law.uoregon.edu/org/child/. Read the NPR story on Miami's safe start initiative. |
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