Photo provided by Jody Diegel
Macomb Township family shares fostering experience
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MACOMB TOWNSHIP For National Foster Care Month in May, the Diegel family celebrates being together, just like any other month.
Childwelfare.gov, a service of the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, indicates that the month is an initiative led and promoted by the bureau.
It estimates that more than 423,000 children and youth are in foster care across the U.S.
Since November 2016 in Macomb Township, the Diegels Jody, Allen and their four children have fostered three siblings.
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One year ago, a 16 year-old boy sat in a cafeteria at a group home for teens in Kalamazoo and tossed a piece of bread at another boy. The adults in the room told him to stop. Smiling, he tossed another piece. An adult pushed him to the floor, and eventually seven other grown men held the boy down for 12 minutes.
Cornelius Fredrick died two days later, his death ruled a homicide.
In the year since his death, there have been lawsuits, criminal charges, and promises of reform. The home where Fredrick lived, Lakeside Academy, has closed.
Much has changed. But much remains unresolved.
Michigan aiming to reduce seclusion and restraints at institutions that care for children
Michigan is aiming to have a ban on restraints and seclusion at its child-caring institutions unless a situation is life-threatening.
By: Tianna Jenkins
and last updated 2021-04-30 22:33:18-04
LANSING, Mich. â
The state of Michigan is aiming to ban the use of restraints and seclusion in its juvenile justice system and at other institutions that care for children unless a situation is life-threatening.
This action comes in response to the death of 16-year-old Cornelius Frederick after being restrained by staff at Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo on April 29th of last year.
Michigan to ban youth facility restraints after death of 16-year-old Cornelius Frederick - TheGrio thegrio.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thegrio.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Fifteen years ago, Michigan’s child welfare system was in shambles.
Rather than protecting children, too often the system pulled them from homes only to allow them to languish in a bureaucracy, bouncing from foster home to foster home. In the worst cases, children were abused and neglected again.
Some disappeared.
And thousands would never find permanent homes, according to a 2006 lawsuit against the state.
Now, Michigan appears to be doing a far better job protecting vulnerable children so much so that the state appears poised to finally become extricated from more than a decade of federal court oversight of its foster care system.