Foster Care Archives

Why Reporting Foster Care Abuse Is So Hard – And How to Fight Back the Right Way

The Call That Changed Everything The call came from inside the foster home. A 14-year-old girl, barely whispering, told the caseworker exactly what had been happening. The nights her foster father came into her room. The threats to keep her quiet. The fear that no one would believe her. The response? “We’ll look into it.” […]

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How a Lawyer Can Help You Hold Group Homes Accountable for Abuse in Colorado

Foster Care / allison.mahoney

The Truth About Group Home Abuse: You’re Not Alone Each year, thousands of children in foster care, including many in Colorado, are placed in group homes. The expectation is that they are safe. But this is not always true. Too often, these vulnerable children are hurt in the very places meant to protect them. Unfortunately,

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The Dark Side of Foster Care in Illinois: How the System is Failing Kids

Foster Care / allison.mahoney

Drawing on road of adult holding child's hand

Aunt Martha’s Scandal: A Wake-Up Call for Illinois’ Foster Care System The Illinois foster care system was supposed to protect its most vulnerable children. Instead, at Aunt Martha’s Integrated Care Center in Chicago, children were met with horrific abuse. Staff members who were supposed to be caregivers were arrested for sexually assaulting minors. Despite reports

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Why Abuse in Foster Care Facilities Often Goes Unnoticed

Foster Care / allison.mahoney

Image of child running away with a bench in the background

Shocking Reality: 4X Higher Risk of Abuse in Foster Care Did you know that children in foster care are four times more likely to experience abuse than those in the general population? For many, foster care group facilities and residential are supposed to be safe havens—but for too many children, they become places of neglect

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The Illinois Foster Care System

Civil Rights, Foster Care / allison.mahoney

Picture of Tribune building in Chicago and skyline

On May 13, 2024, Crain’s Chicago Business published an article entitled, “The child welfare system is hurting the kids it was designed to protect. Why?” The answer to the question is a complicated one, but the issues facing Illinois’ foster care system are stubborn and longstanding. My grandmother was placed in foster care in Illinois

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5 Tips if a Child is Abused at a Residential Facility

Civil Rights, Foster Care, Sexual Assault / allison.mahoney

In the White House’s 2024 proclamation on National Child Abuse Prevention Month, it wrote, “[t]here is no greater sin than the abuse of power, especially when that abuse is directed at a child.” When state and county child welfare agencies remove children from their homes, we expect that they are placed in safer environments. But

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Congregate Care Gone Wrong

Civil Rights, Foster Care / allison.mahoney

Problems With Today’s Foster Care Residential Facilities & Group Homes Over 40,000, or 10 percent of the children in foster care in the U.S., are placed in congregate care facilities, including group homes, residential facilities, and psychiatric residential treatment facilities. In some states, the percentage of children in congregate care facilities exceeds 30 percent. Most

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Legal Resources for Children in Foster Care

Foster Care / allison.mahoney

There are nearly 400,000 children in foster care in the United States. These children enter care for a variety of reasons, including due to physical abuse, sexual abuse and exploitation, neglect, parental substance abuse, abandonment, etc. In other words, some sort of trauma brought them to the attention of state or county child welfare officials.

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