The youngest kids arrested and locked up in Colorado’s youth corrections system are 10 years old, a practice that will continue for now after legislation to raise the prosecution age to 13 was rewritten in the final days of the legislative session. So far this year, Colorado has arrested and locked up 33 kids ages […]
Minna Castillo Cohen
Posted inNews
The number of LGBTQ foster kids is on the rise, but does Colorado have enough accepting homes?
Diamond Kobylinski spent almost his entire childhood in foster homes, from age 2 to 17. The worst, though, was when one set of foster parents changed their mind about adopting him after Kobylinski blurted out during an argument that he was gay. It was the first time Kobylinski had ever said the words out loud. […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, Equity, Health, News
Colorado begins to reckon with racial bias in child welfare, where Black kids are way overrepresented
Black children are involved in Colorado’s child welfare system at rates far higher than all other kids, a disparity that has state officials reexamining decades-old policies that have contributed to racial bias. The overrepresentation exists in all levels of the child protection system — from the number of calls to the statewide child abuse hotline […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
A federal deadline for Colorado to redesign its child welfare system has arrived
A decade ago, 1,257 foster kids in Colorado were living in group homes and institutions, the kind of places where children and teens line up for medication and eat at appointed meal times in a cafeteria. That number now has dropped to 339, a joyful statistic that means hundreds of kids are instead living in […]
Posted inHealth, News
Colorado county leaders blast state officials over mental health, claim 69 foster kids are missing
The state system that treats children with severe mental health issues is so stretched that it’s become dangerous, Colorado’s county human services directors charged in a fiery letter to state officials. Previous efforts have failed to “shift the course of the emergency,” wrote the leaders of the Colorado Human Services Directors Association and Colorado Counties […]
Posted inSun Investigation
Families kept in the dark about children’s safety in Colorado’s child welfare system
Colorado’s child fatality review team did not investigate the death of a 12-year-old boy who ran away from a residential center. State officials refuse to release numbers of abuse allegations.
Posted inColoradans, Housing, Politics and Government
Foster youth who leave the system as teens could return until age 21 under new Colorado proposal
Viviana Cervantes was released from foster care directly from a residential treatment center. Within a few months, she found herself in her college dorm room “with a bagful of psychiatric medication” she didn’t know how to manage. She had a $500-per-month stipend to help start life on her own, but little financial sense to use […]
Posted inCOVID, Health, News
Calls to Colorado’s child abuse hotline fell during coronavirus, but harm to kids likely didn’t
As feared by child advocates, the number of calls to a statewide abuse and neglect hotline dropped significantly during the coronavirus pandemic. That’s not because abuse and neglect declined, but because the isolated days of COVID-19 have kept children out of sight. Calls to the hotline fell 13% compared with 2019 — that’s 193,448 calls […]
Posted inCOVID, News
Social distancing could drag on for months in Colorado. How will we stay sane?
Vincent Atchity found himself in the near-constant company of his family this week as he worked from home in his role as president and CEO of the advocacy group Mental Health Colorado. At one point, he half-jokes, he had to hide in the basement from his two kids, 7 and 9, to get things done. […]
Posted inColoradans, Crime and Courts, News, Politics and Government
A youth corrections center plagued by escapes, drugs and a riot is headed for a physical — and cultural — reorganization
GOLDEN — Colorado’s most troubled youth corrections center, where several teens and staff were injured in a riot last spring and where a new report found rampant drug use, will undergo a physical transformation this year. The massive complex — surrounded by mesh fence that bends inward to prevent escape — will become four separate […]