CHILDREN SWEPT UNDER THE CARPET
In Pending Child Welfare Legislation
A double-sided printed flyer (Issue #21) distributed at Family
Court and electronically to the Nevada Legislature
on Mar. 19, 2007.
Available here as a PDF File (98k). (Requires Adobe Acrobat or equivalent, already installed
on most computers. For authenticity, the newsletter should
be printed on canary (yellow) paper. If you are unable
to read the PDF file, here is the newsletter as
graphic files.)
Related Links & Notes
- Also see our other
Newsletters. (Four of our prior newsletters concern the Legislature.)
- Opposing Testimony Suppressed at State Assembly Hearing - Includes audio of
the testimony of activist Glenn Campbell (interupted by the chair after
two minutes) and DFS director Tom Morton (8 minutes).
There are also some additional points here in opposition to
AB147.
- Our Reference Page for AB147
- If you Google for Assemblywoman Susan
Garhardt, you'll see the gift we left her (coming soon
for other committee members).
- Wikipedia entry
for "Groupthink"
Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is usually used as a derogatory term after the results of a bad decision.
- The Youth Law Center, which
made a presentation at the hearing, should not be confused with
the National Center for Youth Law,
across the bay in Oakland. They are competitors! Both of them
threatened to sue the county, but the National Center got there first and is the one who is suing the county now.
Although both of these law firms are "nonprofit,"
suing may not be purely a humanitarian effort.
In the end, legal fees will probably be awarded, and only
the National Center will collect.
- NOTE: When we use the term "foster care" in the
newsletter, we
are referring collectively to both long-term foster care and
short term home placements (which are called "shelter homes"
by the agency). Although these programs are administered
separately, we see them as drawing on the
same pool of available foster parents. Any increased demand for
shelter homes is going to impact the quantity and quality
of available long-term homes.
- The support of the ACLU for this bill
may seem a little less strange
when we note that Barbara
Buckley, Assembly Speaker and an architect of this bill,
is married to the ACLU. Her husband, Chan Kendrick, is a
former director of ACLU chapters in Virginia, Tennessee and
Nevada.
