Child Abuse Inquiry to hear evidence against 7 Scottish boarding schools in 2020

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has announced it will hold hearings into abuse allegations in boarding schools in summer next year.

Chairwoman Lady Smith urged anyone with evidence to get in touch with the inquiry, even if they have already spoken to police or been involved in other investigations.

More >> Child Abuse Inquiry to hear evidence against 7 Scottish boarding schools in 2020

Highland Council apologises after giving MSP wrong foster care information

A council that sends children to foster care hundreds of miles away has apologised after giving incorrect information to an MSP.

Highland Council initially suggested it relocated foster children up to 484 miles away but has now admitted this figure was incorrect due to “human error”.

More >> Highland Council apologises after giving MSP wrong foster care information

Shock as Scots children sent hundreds of miles away for foster care

Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch MSP Kate Forbes condemned the situation, describing it as “a matter of great sadness”.

A Freedom of Information request by Ms Forbes revealed that one child was sent 484 miles (779km) to a foster home, seven children were placed more than 250 miles (402km) away and 11 were relocated more than 200 miles (322km).

More >> Shock as Scots children sent hundreds of miles away for foster care

• A child sent 300 miles from home for care due to Highland foster care shortages

Hundreds of orphans buried by Scots charity

SHOCKING details of unmarked common graves at a Scottish orphanage can be revealed today, raising questions for the country's largest children's charity. More than 230 children are buried without headstones in the cemetery at St Margaret's Episcopal Church in Aberlour, Morayshire.

More >> Hundreds of orphans buried by Scots charity

Scottish inquiry: Children endured abuse at sister-run orphanages

As scandals over sexual abuse and bullying in the Catholic Church spread globally in recent years, women religious orders seemed to have been spared the worst accusations.

Yet the tidy image was jolted this October, when a congregation of nuns in Scotland faced charges in an official report of showing "no love, no compassion, no dignity and no comfort" to children in its care.

More >> Scottish inquiry: Children endured abuse at sister-run orphanages

Former orphanage residents to sue religious order over child abuse

Former residents who claim they were physically and sexually abused at two orphanages in Scotland are suing the religious order that ran them.

Ten people are taking legal action against the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent De Paul.

More >> Former orphanage residents to sue religious order over child abuse

Government inquiry documents abuse at Catholic orphanages in Scotland

A new report published Thursday in Scotland shows that children suffered abuse at two children’s care homes run by a Catholic religious order, both of which have been closed for decades.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) said that the two children’s facilities run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul - Smyllum Park in Lanark and Bellevue House in Rutherglen - were “places of fear, coercive control, threat, excessive discipline and emotional, physical and sexual abuse, where they found no love, no compassion, no dignity and no comfort.”

More >> Government inquiry documents abuse at Catholic orphanages in Scotland

• Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry – Kids sexually abused, assaulted and beaten with crucifixes in Catholic orphanage and care home
• 'No Love, No Compassion': Two Scottish Orphanages Were Rife With Abuse - Report

Child abuse inquiry says orphanages were places of 'threat and abuse'

Children at Smyllum Park orphanage were sexually abused and beaten with leather straps, hairbrushes and crucifixes, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has found.

Nuns belonging to the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul ran the Catholic Children's home near Lanark, as well as Bellevue House, Rutherglen.

More >> Child abuse inquiry says orphanages were places of 'threat and abuse'

Child abuse inquiry set to publish orphanage findings

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will publish its findings from the case study examining residential institutions run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul (DoC) on Thursday.

Evidence was heard over 20 days from 54 witnesses about their experiences of Smyllum Park in Lanark and Bellevue House in Rutherglen.

More >> Child abuse inquiry set to publish orphanage findings

Another woman arrested over historical child abuse claims at orphanage

A twelfth woman has been arrested in connection with alleged historical abuse of children at Smyllum Park orphanage. Police Scotland said on Friday, a 76-year-old woman has now been charged in connection ‘with the non-recent abuse of children’

More >> Another woman arrested over historical child abuse claims at orphanage

Scotland’s child abuse inquiry to investigate ‘additional institutions’

The judge leading Scotland’s child abuse inquiry has said a “significant number” of additional institutions are to be investigated by her team.

More >> Scotland’s child abuse inquiry to investigate ‘additional institutions’

Child Abuse Inquiry: Orphanage staff ‘tried to protect boy from nun’

A former volunteer at an orphanage has told how she tried to cover up a child’s bed wetting to save him from being “ridiculed” by a nun. Margaret White was studying at the University of Aberdeen between 1974 and 1977 when she helped out at Nazareth House in the city.

More >> Child Abuse Inquiry: Orphanage staff ‘tried to protect boy from nun’ 

Governments and courts are turning parenting into an Orwellian nightmare

It is hardly controversial to say that the institution of the family is in crisis. Fewer and fewer people are getting married, in or out of the Church. Fertility rates have been in freefall for 50 years. Nearly a quarter of families in Britain are single-parent, with nearly half of these living in poverty. By almost every metric you can use, the family, which is the essential mechanism by which our cultural and social DNA is passed on, is in decline.

More >> Governments and courts are turning parenting into an Orwellian nightmare

MSP: ‘Scots smacking ban would infringe on parental freedom’

Criminalising smacking in Scotland would remove parental rights and hand them to the state, an MSP has warned.

Gordon Lindhurst, a lawyer as well as an MSP, dismantled the Scottish Government’s arguments for a ban, before accusing it of being underhand in its tactics to outlaw smacking.

More >> MSP: ‘Scots smacking ban would infringe on parental freedom’

Foster parent shortage in Scotland leads to one in five sibling groups being split up

A report published by the Care Inspectorate, Scotland’s social care watchdog, revealed that three in four councils reported instances where the number of children requiring a foster care placement was greater than the placements available.

More >> Foster parent shortage in Scotland leads to one in five sibling groups being split up

Note: That and the fact that they're stealing too many kids.

Orphans 'treated like zoo animals' as witness tells child abuse probe how kids home was stop on tourist trail

Katharine MacKenzie told inquiry how youngsters were locked in the Moray orphanage gym to keep 'naughty boys' away from visiting tourists.

More >> Orphans 'treated like zoo animals' as witness tells child abuse probe how kids home was stop on tourist trail

Child abuse in care was "vastly underestimated" former government chief social work adviser Angus Skinner tells inquiry

CHILD sex abuse in Scotland’s care homes has been “drastically” underestimated, a leading social worker told an inquiry, as police were criticised for failures in investigating allegations.


More >> Child abuse in care was "vastly underestimated" former government chief social work adviser Angus Skinner tells inquiry

LK Daily Report for 7/12/17 - Sentencing Foster Mom, A House of Horrors and more

Here are the headlines for today.  Check back soon!  

This post could be updated at any time throughout the day.

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A state district judge has dismissed a civil lawsuit submitted by a woman against the Hunt County District Attorney’s Office and a former state investigator, alleging she was the victim of malicious prosecution.

More >> BREAKING: Lawsuit against DA, CPS investigator dismissed
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Lone child refugees stranded in Europe have been left vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking after being failed by the British government, a new report claims.

More >> Unaccompanied child refugees let down by British government, says new report

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A man charged with second-degree manslaughter after leaving his 3-month-old foster baby in a parked vehicle has received a two year-deferred sentence.

More >> Judge Agrees To Deferred Sentence In Hot Vehicle Death Of Foster Child

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The Senate’s proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and to sharply cut Medicaid payments to states through so-called per capita caps can sound very abstract to social workers and policymakers coping with the day-to-day tragedies and crises of child welfare. But these disastrous changes could take a major step toward becoming law after the July 4 recess when the Senate will return to its bill.

More >> Top Five Threats to Child Welfare from the Senate Health Care Repeal Proposal

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ST. CLAIR SHORES, Mich. - A foster mom is due in court Wednesday for sentencing for abusing a 1-year-old girl in her care in St. Clair Shores.

More >> St. Clair Shores foster mom to be sentenced for abusing baby in her care

A 29-year-old woman was sentenced to one year probation for squeezing her toddler-age foster child so hard that the girl suffered broken blood vessels.

Update: Former St. Clair Shores foster parent gets probation for abusing child
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CHILD abuse survivors at a Bridge of Weir home say the scale of attacks is comparable to a “house of horror” where eight people have been prosecuted for 145 criminal offences.

A lawyer for victims at the facility in Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, drew similarities with the notorious Haut de la Garenne children’s home in Jersey.

More >> 'WEASEL' APOLOGIES Child abuse survivors at Bridge of Weir home say scale of attacks is comparable to Jersey ‘house of horror’
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A federal judge ruled against a Department of Child Services case manager who illegally searched an Indianapolis veterinarian’s apartment after receiving a report of suspected child abuse or neglect. The case manager now must face a damages trial in the vet’s civil suit against her.

DCS case manager Nola Hunt conducted a warrantless search of an apartment attached to Beth Breitweiser’s Indianapolis practice, All Things Wild Exotic Animal Hospital near Broad Ripple. She and her two children were living temporarily in an apartment in the basement of the office while the family’s home was being renovated.

More >> DCS caseworker must face damages trial in illegal search suit
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Children had to bow and salute to care home staff, child abuse inquiry hears

A CHILDREN’S home where staff were convicted of sexual and physical abuse was warned of giving children decades ago, an inquiry has heard.


More >> Children had to bow and salute to care home staff, child abuse inquiry hears

Historic records highlight foster child suffered at the hands of carers

AS the ongoing Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry is demonstrating, there are many adults who claim to have been abused in residential care, and a growing number of church, charity and state institutions that admit such abuse took place.


More >> Historic records highlight foster child suffered at the hands of carers