Category: Children and Families
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Betrayal 4 – Portsmouth
by James C. Sherlock DD/ID (Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities) refers to services, supports, and classifications for individuals with cognitive, physical, or emotional impairments. ย The authorโs first three articles on this subject provided background on Virginiaโs broken system of services to that population. In many instances, it doesn’t work well due to combinations of oversight failures…
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A Dangerous Mission Creep for Virginia’s Public Schools
by Derrick A. Max Virginia parents should be alarmed that the Virginia General Assembly just passed House Bill 355ย ย which mandates annual mental health screenings for allย public schoolย students in grades 6 through 12. While framed as a compassionate response toย aย very realย “mental health crisis,” itย representsย a fundamental shift in the mission of public education: fromย academic instructionย toย clinical surveillance.ย By…
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Married Moms Twice as Likely to Be “Very Happy”
Married women receive more physical touch and are less lonely than single or childless women Press release from the Charlottesville-based Institute for Family Studies: A new YouGov survey, sponsored by the Institute for Family Studies with the Wheatley Institute, finds that married women are more likely than their unmarried counterparts to report feeling deep connection…
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Mother Of Dead Infant Pleads Guilty To Child Neglect
by Kerry Dougherty Norfolkโs Commonwealth Attorney Ramin Fatehi promised to talk to us about what appeared to be a lenient plea agreement in the case of a dead infant after the mother whoโd been charged with murdering her 9-day-old daughter had her day in court. He kept his word. And Fatehiโs explanation for comparatively mild…
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Preschoolers Gone Wild?
by James A. Bacon The number of Virginia preschoolers with disabilities has increased 24% of the past two years. The response of the Virginia Board of Education? Hire more special education teachers! Voting 7 to 0, the Board directed the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) to remove the requirement for special-ed teachers to do graduate-level…
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Regulate It, Make It Unaffordable, Subsidize It
by James A. Bacon “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” So said former President Ronald Reagan in one of his pithier takedowns of government intervention in the economy. I don’t believe that daycare providers were ever singled out for taxation, but here in…
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Virginia to Stop Mutilating Children
by Kerry Dougherty Health centers at the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University have stopped mutilating children! Not that the doctors are eager to stop. These patients-for-life are big moneymakers. Theyโre being forced to leave the kids alone. It took an executive order from President Donald Trump plus a stern warning letter from Virginia…
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Whose Kids Are They Anyway?
by Kerry Dougherty Itโs official. Virginia Democrats have declared war on families. And theyโre just warming up. So far, in the nascent General Assembly session, theyโve introduced two appalling anti-family measures. More to come, no doubt. The first is a proposed constitutional amendment thatโs an abortion enthusiastโs wet dream. It would enshrine in Virginiaโs constitution…
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SB 805 Tries to Squeeze Blood from Turnip
by Hans Bader Legislation has been introduced in the Virginia legislature to increase child-support obligations a lot, even for parents with very low incomes. The legislation, SB 805, violates federal child-support regulations, such as 45 CFR ยง 302.56(c)(1), by imposing excessive child support obligations on thousands of parents that they will be unable to pay,…
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The Welfare Net
by James A. Bacon The United States has spent trillions of dollars on poverty programs, yet hard-core inter-generational poverty and its attendant social ills remain endemic. Federal and state benefits are not lavish, and they are contingent to some degree upon recipients finding work, or at least looking for work. But anti-poverty programs are doing…
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Virginia’s Fertility Rate — Nothing to Write Home About
Following up on yesterday’s post showing the variation in birth rates by Virginia locality… the National Center for Health Statistics map above provides a breakdown of fertility rates by state. Virginia falls in the middle of the pack (but bottom half) with a fertility rate for women aged 15โ44 with 55.3 births per 1,000. It…
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Short-Changing Richmond’s At-Risk Youth
by Jon Baliles Tyler Layne with WTVR News reported last week another disturbing story about how City Hall has been shortchanging the cityโs at-risk youth and leaving a lot of state money on the table that could be helping them find brighter and better futures. According to Layne, about $1 million of available state money…
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Fight the Culture Wars — Get Married!
๏ปฟ The institution of marriage is under attack in popular culture. Celebrating the single life, childlessness, and the pursuit of individual self-fulfillment, many journalists, academics, and Hollywood script writers view marriage and parenthood as barriers to happiness. But Brad Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia, says they’ve got it all wrong. The…
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Youngkin Tackles Maternal Health Disparities the Right Way
by James A. Bacon Governor Glenn Youngkin has launched an initiative to address disparities in maternal healthcare outcomes, and he’s doing it right. Rather than presupposing what the problem is and what the solutions are, he is resurrecting the Task Force on Maternal Health Data Quality Measures to do a deep dive into the data…
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Frosted Fame in Chesterfield
by Jon Balilesย The Chesterfield County weekly newsletter featured a great story last week about Bailey Sheetz, a 13-year old Chester resident who is now on a first-name basis with Jerry Seinfeld and Melissa McCarthy in Hollywood. Sheetz made his movie debut in Seinfeldโs new Netflix movie Unfrosted, the satirical comedy about the launch of…