When children become guardians of the state, they require a number of specialized services to address the trauma they have witnessed and experienced and the safety measures needed to ensure their personal wellbeing. Those services typically include:

• Mental and physical health
• Legal and Criminal justice
• Education

Consequences of Child Maltreatment:

• Not only do traumatized children have higher rates of suicide, mental disorders such as depression and PTSD, research now shows them to be more vulnerable to certain physical disorders and diseases.
• Ninety percent of the juveniles in the juvenile justice system have come out of the child protection system, according to former Minnesota Chief Justice, Kathleen Blatz, who goes on to say that over 90 percent of the adults in the criminal justice system emerged from the juvenile justice system. Former Justice Blatz calls prisons a "feeder" system.
• A National Clinical Evaluation Study finds 30 percent of abused children have a language or cognitive impairment, half have trouble in school and 25 percent will require special education services.

While it’s easy to get discouraged by such statistics, KARA encourages stakeholders to focus on outcomes by being more personally accountable for their collective community actions. When service providers such as judges, social workers, guardians and caretakers, teachers and corrections officers coalesce around the needs of children, progress will occur.