The Thursday afternoon shooting death at Virginia Tech bring up memories of the 2007 massacre that killed 33 students on the academic campus. For Nebraskans, it also brings up memories of another tragic shooting that happened the same year: the Westroads Mall murders.
Dec. 5 marked the fourth anniversary of the tragic day when former ward of the state Robert Hawkins walked into Omaha’s Von Maur department store and opened fire, killing nine people.
Afterward, Nebraska officials vowed to take a closer look at the way foster children and other at-risk youth are assisted while under the state’s care. The progress over the past four years is up to interpretation: some feel there’s been progress; others think nothing has changed.
“There is no consistency, [families] are telling us,” State Sen. Annette Dubas told the Grand Island Independent in November. “Every time they call in, they are talking with a different person, and they have to start all over again in telling their story. They say there is a total disregard and a lack of respect for foster parents who know these kids better than anybody, yet nobody is listening to them.”
Nebraska faces a stiff uphill battle to provide the level of care officials want to provide foster children.
* Nebraska ranks near the bottom when it comes to the amount of money foster families earn for taking in children, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.
* The percentage of foster children with four or more case managers is now 51 percent, compared with 35 percent in 2008, according to the Journal Star. Turnover and budget cuts are largely blamed.
“If the people working directly with the kids, the boots on the ground, are shifting too much or have an overwhelming caseload, it is not going to work,” Foster Care Review Board member Mario Scalora said during a board meeting in early December.
* Foster children typically come from violent homes, according to Foster Care Review Board member Marcia Anderson. Many of these suffer from mental illnesses that are not adequately addressed by the Nebraska foster care system.
“That carries with them,” she said, according to the Star. “And if they don’t have the right mental health services, these issues stay with us long past their time in foster care.”
* The number of Nebraska children who stay in foster care is rising. Adoptions of foster children numbered 218 between January and June 2008, according to the Journal Star. The number decreased to 175 between January and June 2010 and 155 in 2011.