Together with Children
About this blog
Together With Children is the blog of the Office of Child Advocacy.
Recent posts
- Media Violence is Violence, Too
- Fragile Children in Fragile Families
- Home: A Safe Place for Children?
- The Vanishing Culture of Civility
- When Violence Supercedes Dialogue
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Fragile Children in Fragile Families
Among the children in this nation who are abused and neglected, infants and children of color are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. In The State of America’s Children 2011, the Children’s Defense Fund reports that infants are the most likely to suffer from maltreatment. And even though the number of Black children in foster care is declining, Black
children are still overrepresented. Thirty percent of the children in foster care are Black, double the percent of the child population who are Black.
These children and youth are the victims of physical and emotional violence, as well as the violence of being denied the love, care and nurture that all children need. Some children experience violence is as overt as broken bones, cigarette burns and head trauma. Other children suffer from the violence of poverty that leads to stunted development and the death of the dreams that might have come to fruition with a stable upbringing. Foster care, intended to provide the stability and structure missing in a child’s dysfunctional home , has too often been just the opposite, Many children move from one foster home placement to another until they finally age out of the system altogether.
Today, pray for children who have never experienced home as a sanctuary. Pray for those for whom no place seems to be home. Give thanks also for those foster parents who view what they are doing as a calling and who treat the children in their care with loving nurture. Open your heart to the guidance of God’s Spirit as to how best to support fragile families and the children who are growing up in them.
- Posted at 6:00 a.m.
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