One morning Nate and Marc went outside to play after their breakfast.
Nate decided to go for a ride on his new bicycle.
He rode the bike down the driveway, then down the sidewalk and around the block. He was riding so fast that before he knew it, his training wheels fell off.
Continue reading A bedtime story
I have several friends (and family members) with blogs that get updated somewhat frequently. Others are far more occasional, and still others, I have to wonder if they’ve forgotten their password.
When I ask them about it, their usual response is, “Well I don’t know what to write about.”
I understand, I’ve had writer’s block before.
But there’s one thing I’ve found that gets me over my writer’s block every time — writing.
I know you’re all looking at me funny now but perhaps I can explain.
Continue reading Answering the question :: What should I blog about?
“We need the church.”
“In order for the church to be effective to this ministry and this calling… They’re going to have to be a healing culture. They’re going to have to be a forgiving culture. They’re going to have to a faith that is renewed daily.”
Continue reading Creating a culture of adoption in the church
In 2009, there were 6,510,210 children between the ages of birth to 18 in the state of Texas and 1,795,971 in the North Texas region.
Continue reading Texas foster care statistics for 2009
280 Texas children died as the result of child abuse and neglect in 2009 — up more than 30% from 2008.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is still trying to figure out why.
According to one think tank, the reason is likely due to increased teen pregnancies and increased poverty — which seems very probable. But Texas DFPS isn’t convinced.
Another possible cause is case workers being overworked (the average caseworker in the North Texas region is 20 investigations per day) and a turnover rate of nearly 24%.
Just my uneducated assumption is that Texas DFPS is removing far less number of children from their homes over the past five years — it would seem that if you’re removing less children, either parents are doing a better job — or you’re going to end up with more fatalities.
In 2005, DFPS removed 17,428 children from their homes.
In 2009, they removed 12,107 children from their homes.
There may be other factors to this — but that would be the first place I would look.
Austin’s KUT has a report on the issue.
You can also read the full DFPS study online — or I’ll post some highlights tomorrow.
HT Funky Shapes for the photo