Nebraska set to revise safe haven law
Discussion to begin tomorrow on age limit
OMAHA - When social worker Courtney Anderson got the urgent call, she knew another child was being abandoned to the state. She spotted a boy, 12, sobbing in a chair at the emergency room registration desk.
Standing behind him was a woman, also crying.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," the woman told the boy over and over.
"Please don't leave me," he begged.
Anderson introduced herself and began asking the woman the boy's name, his address and school, but the woman said she was in a hurry. She got ready to leave and hugged the boy, who asked through his tears, "Will you come see me?"
"I will if I can," the woman said and ran out the door.
When Nebraska legislators passed a bill creating a safe haven to help overwhelmed parents and guardians, they were thinking of babies and toddlers who had been abandoned by young mothers. Instead, 35 children - typically adolescents - have been dropped at the hospital door, most recently a 5-year-old on Thursday night.
The Legislature opened a special session on Friday to fix the law. Discussion is expected to begin tomorrow to set an upper age limit of days or weeks for parents to give babies to the state without repercussions. By next weekend, the old law probably will be history, but the unexpected images of adults from half a dozen states dumping their children in Nebraska has revealed a largely hidden crisis across the country.
"They'll close the books, but they'll still be dealing with the same issues," said Tom Rawlings, the state children's advocate in Georgia, home of Tysheema Brown, who drove 15 hours to drop her 12-year-old in Lincoln. She later said to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "I ran out of fight. I ran out of hope. I never ran out of love for my child."
"Looking back, a number of us would have voted differently," said Republican state Senator Mike Flood, the speaker of the Nebraska Legislature. "But it has uncovered a bigger issue. It demonstrates . . . families in crisis."
In Nebraska, the adults who dropped children on the doorsteps of hospitals and police stations typically told social workers they were at wit's end. In some cases, they blamed stress in their own lives. In other cases, they said the child had become depressed or uncontrollable.
Courtney Anderson and seven fellow emergency room social workers at Omaha's Immanuel Medical Center have seen 11 children surrendered to state custody. They found children who had no idea that they were being turned over to the state.
Troubled children and the children of struggling parents cycle in and out of state custody, foster homes, and juvenile courts across the country. Nebraska alone oversees 6,600 children who are wards of the state, said Jeanne Atkinson, a spokeswoman at Nebraska's Department of Health and Human Services.
Of the first 30 children abandoned in Nebraska, 27 had received mental health services. Twenty-eight came from single-parent homes.
Twenty-two had a parent or guardian who had been jailed. Twenty of the children were white, nine black, and one Native American.
Children dropped off under the safe haven law are passed along to the family court system, where judges seek solutions. More than half are now wards of the state, either in Nebraska or in their home states, Atkinson said.
Legislators intend to have a new law ready for Governor Dave Heineman, a Republican, to sign by Friday, said Flood, who described himself as "committed to looking at the bigger issue" when the Legislature opens a new session in January. 