NORFOLK — Fifteen-year-old Abraham Starchild Cherrix never intended to challenge the medical establishment when he refused chemotherapy earlier this year.

He simply believed the treatment was poisoning him, rather than saving him from Hodgkin’s disease. What he wanted was a more natural approach, which he sought through an alternative treatment clinic in Tijuana, Mexico.

That decision has led to a courtroom battle, accusations of parental neglect, and the possibility of being removed from his Chincoteague home.

Found on the Committee on Ways & Means website on May 12, 2006. http://waysandmeans.house.gov/index.asp

Found on front of Committee on Ways & Means website on May 24, 2006. http://waysandmeans.house.gov/index.asp

Currently in Alabama, there are more than 5,000 children in foster care. Some simply need foster care for a matter of days. Others may need foster care until they are reunited with their biological family or a plan is made for them to be adopted. All of these children share the need for a caring and committed family that can bring them the future they deserve.

Who are these children who need foster care?

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - The Florida Supreme Court has denied an appeal for a 4-year-old foster child to be returned to relatives. Instead, he will stay with foster parents.

Tiffany Delk, a second cousin of the boy, Christian, was denied requests to gain custody Thursday. Delk and her husband, Jeff, were challenging a 5th District Court of Appeal's decision, which said foster parents Denise and Ivar Baklid are the only ones eligible to adopt Christian at a hearing to be held next month.

Friends and family of Tom and Laura Puckett of Pontoosuc carried picket signs outside the Hancock County courthouse Wednesday, May 10, during a hearing in family court.

The protest in support of the Pucketts challenged actions by the Department of Children and Family Services that removed Tom and Laura's two teen-aged children from their home last September.

Well, I suppose this is one way for the Department of Children and Families to decrease the number of runaways on their rolls.

After years of saying that there were no plans to reunite her with her daughter, DCF officials suddenly told Ann Mercey Tuesday that maybe it was time to put the family back together.

For five months — ever since around midnight Dec. 16, 2005 — Miller has been fighting for her right to be a parent.

Her children, 18-month-old Bryson and 4-year-old Skylar are in foster care.

She faces allegations of neglect and possibly abuse.

A week ago Saturday, Skylar was severely bitten by a dog at the foster home, five days after his fourth birthday.

Agency uses law as 'cloak,' Jackson says

TENNESSEE - A 5-year-old boy alleged to have died at the hands of his cousin. A 15-year-old Wilson County boy found malnourished and chained to a bed.

A drug-addicted mother who locked her two toddlers in the closet. A teenager accused of murder.

In all four instances, state Department of Children's Services officials disclosed that caseworkers had been involved in the cases before the circumstances turned tragic.

But in recent weeks, DCS leaders have refused to say whether they've had prior contact with the family of a missing 2-year-old Smyrna girl, citing confidentiality laws.

PORTLAND, OR - Just months into Washington's strict new smoking law, Oregon is moving to put its own on the ballot next year.

However, there is another anti-smoking movement brewing behind the scenes, with the potential to reach much further into people's private lives.

The movement is to make smoking around kids a form of child abuse. The crime would include smoking while you are pregnant, smoking around kids inside your home and smoking inside a vehicle with kids inside.

Bobbie Jo Cunningham says she’s doesn’t know what else she can do. She’s hired a lawyer, taken parenting class, visited counselors, and taken the medication they prescribed to her.

Still, the Grottoes woman says none of it has accomplished what she wants: her four children back home.

CALIFORNIA - It is comforting to know that Solano County does more than merely talk the talk when it comes to helping vulnerable children. Here, we also walk the walk.

The county rightly gained favorable marks among the state's 58 counties when it came to dealing with the threat to children in need of assistance. According to a study by the Oakland-based nonprofit National Center for Youth Law, which has for the past quarter century focused on improving child welfare, health and mental health, Solano County ranked 12th out of the state's counties and sixth out of 24 medium-sized counties on key child welfare performance standards.

n the eyes of the Assembly Budget Committee, the Division of Youth and Family Services cannot seem to do its job properly. After reports the child welfare service is understaffed, overworked and letting children in danger fall through the cracks, DYFS is fighting to reform its ways with a $52.2 million "turnaround plan."

However, the master plan - which includes money for hiring more workers and expanding deteriorated mental health services - will probably not come to fruition, because the Budget Committee has threatened to cut off any extra funds DYFS was hoping for.

AUSTRALIA - SOUTH Australia's inquiry into the abuse of children in state care will focus on stories from the foster care system at a public hearing next week.

Commissioner Ted Mullighan has called the hearing for May 3 to take submissions from anyone involved in foster care, including foster parents, carers or children.

It will form part of his investigations which are now expected to extend to the end of 2007, three years after he was first appointed to inquire into allegations of sexual abuse and the deaths of children in state care.

VIRGINIA - It's something that no one wants to talk about – but child abuse and neglect does happen in Fauquier County, say authorities.

Barbara Crowling is a child protective services specialist with the Fauquier County Department of Social Services. She provided the most recent statistics, for FY 2004-05 (July 2004 to June 2005). The data shows that during that time, county social workers investigated approximately 400 suspected child abuse cases.

An independent panel of national experts found the state failed to meet two-thirds of its goals in a landmark effort to improve foster care, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report, authored by an oversight group known as the Braam Panel, is the first indication of the state's commitment to dramatically overhaul the way it deals with foster children.

LANSING, Mich. Critics are saying the state's emphasis on keeping abused or neglected children in their neighborhood after being removed from their homes is misguided.

They say that's because Detroit and other urban areas are too violent and poverty-stricken.

It sounds dry and technical, but the decision by the federal government to grant Florida a "waiver" allowing more flexibility in the use of child-welfare money is the best news the state's vulnerable children have received in decades.

As things stand now, the federal government offers a perverse incentive to states when they think that a family is having problems: Take children away, and we'll pick up a large share of the tab. And the money is unlimited; the federal government helps pay for every eligible child thrown into foster care, no matter how many are taken. But if a state wants to use safe, proven alternatives to foster care, the state often must pay almost all of the bill itself.

The result: Though the alternatives cost less overall, foster care may cost less for the Florida Department of Children and Families and privatized lead agencies. So there is a huge incentive to destroy families through the needless misuse and overuse of foster care.

State completes probe of missing complaints

NEW JERSEY - An investigation into 13 complaints of child neglect left discarded in a box for two years found no evidence the children had been mistreated, Human Services Commissioner Kevin Ryan said.

Calls to the statewide child abuse hotline between July and November 2004 reporting 13 kids had been neglected or left unsupervised at foster homes, camps and group homes, were noted but never entered into the computer system, Ryan said.

CALIFORNIA - A study just released by the National Center for Youth Law shows that all of California's 58 counties failed at least two of six federal standards for ensuring the safety of abused and neglected children in public care.

The study was done to measure the impact of a bill passed two years ago requiring counties to gauge their success by such criteria as reducing the number of times a child is moved while in foster care and the length of time before a child is reunited with his or her family, or adopted.

Boston - A 4-year-old boy remains hospitalized for second-degree burns from his waist to his toes after he was exposed to scalding water while under the supervision of his foster mother Tuesday night, Department of Social Services officials said yesterday.

The boy's mother, 39-year-old Jacquelyn Cleveland, said yesterday that her son, Isiah Barboza, says he was burned by his foster mother.

The mother of a child bitten by a bear at a Richmond wildlife park has been cleared by authorities of any wrongdoing in the incident.

Richmond Department of Child Protection Services this week mailed a letter to the 30-year-old single mother, identified only as Julie, saying the facts did not show that neglect or abuse had occurred.

Rescued Boy, Sister In State Custody

LYME -- The father of a toddler saved Thursday evening from drowning in Rogers Lake said Saturday his parents and sister want custody of his two children.

The state Department of Children and Families has taken custody of 5-month old Alanna Cox and 2-year old Thomas Cox III. The boy ended up in the lake almost three-quarters of a mile from his home and was saved by a woman who swam out to him.

LYME, Conn. --The state has taken temporary custody of two children after one of the youngsters wandered from his home and was rescued from a lake by a neighbor.

An official at the Department of Children and Families said the action was warranted because the absence of 2-year-old Thomas Cox III went unnoticed for a time and the conditions of the family's home were "deplorable."

CONNECTICUT - State senators have approved a bill that would require the Department of Children and Families to notify grandparents when the agency removes children from their parents' homes.

CONNECTICUT - A bill that would prevent the Department of Children and Families from licensing its own facilities is set to pass before the end of the legislative session, after similar proposals failed in previous years.

Court: Obstructon Of Justice Case In Child's Death Filed Late

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Court of Appeals has overturned the obstruction of justice conviction of a former Family and Social Services Administration caseworker in connection with a 4-year-old boy's death.

Denise Moore was convicted in 2005 after prosecutors alleged she lied about doing a background check on a couple that adopted Anthony Bars, who died in 2002 of dehydration. The court on Wednesday dismissed the conviction, saying the case was filed three months after the statute of limitations had expired in the case.

The agency created to protect our most at-risk children has actually contributed to some of their deaths. That's according to a panel of national experts hired by the state to examine Clark County's Child Protective Services system.

A review of 79 child death cases found almost half were the result of abuse and neglect yet CPS investigators either didn't investigate or didn't dig deep enough to reach the same conclusions. I-Team investigator Colleen McCarty has been on this story from the beginning and has more on this alarming new information.

"We have been receiving complaints against DFCS for several years," said Karl Hoffower, president of the South Bay Chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, in a statement last week. "Parents have brought evidence of improper conduct on the part of social workers that never made sense until now. By this suit, it appears that DFCS social workers have a monetary motivation behind their actions."

Commissioner Kevin Ryan told legislators they could trust him to fix the system with more money.

Kevin Ryan readily acknowledges that the $300 million-plus that New Jersey has poured into overhauling its troubled child-welfare system the last few years has not produced a successful result.

Yesterday, the new commissioner of the Department of Human Services tried to convince skeptical legislators that if they gave him a little more, he could finally get the job done.