When state child welfare officials arrived at a now-closed youth center to collect teenagers and send them to other placements, surprised kids scattered into the fields surrounding the residential facility in Watkins. A month later, two teenage boys are still missing. And in the aftermath of what critics are calling a botched operation to abruptly […]
child protection ombudsman
Posted inSun Investigation
Colorado may toughen probes into institutional child abuse claims following Colorado Sun/9News investigation
A state child welfare committee will consider changing the way allegations of institutional abuse are investigated at residential centers for troubled kids, following news reports about a chronic runaway problem that resulted in two deaths. Two state lawmakers, meanwhile, are vowing to strengthen mental health treatment for children and compel the state child welfare division […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: An open letter to child protection and human services staff everywhere
Thank you for coming to work today. Like many of us, you woke up this week and saw a tragedy unfolding. The world as we know it altered – off course – leaving thousands of people without basic food, shelter and health care. Like many of us you were scared. But you showed up anyway […]
Posted inColoradans, Health, News, Politics and Government
Despite reforms, the number of children dying of abuse and neglect in Colorado hasn’t subsided
In the past five years, 146 children died in Colorado from abuse or neglect. You haven’t heard about almost any of them. The children are listed — not by name but by case number — on spreadsheets published online under Colorado law by the state human services department. Only a few of their deaths made […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Let’s help struggling families before bad situations spiral into abuse and neglect
What a particularly crummy few weeks for kids. The Trump Administration just announced that children at our borders can be detained indefinitely in the same week that we learn the extent of abuse detained children placed in foster care face across the country. Colorado children have fared no better. The state’s Child Protection Ombudsman released […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News, Politics and Government
A Pueblo center for troubled kids had 243 abuse allegations in the year before it closed
A center for kids with severe behavioral and psychiatric problems was ordered to close its doors in 2017 — but not until 243 reports of suspected abuse and neglect were filed in the span of a year, according to an investigation released Tuesday by the state’s child protection ombudsman. The delay allowed children and teens […]