WASHINGTON - A Senate Foster Youth Caucus speakers' series started by Senators Chuck Grassley and Mary Landrieu continues tomorrow morning with a discussion on the sexual trafficking of girls in the foster care system.

 

Landrieu and Grassley will host the March 8 event, and panelists will include survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse, a placement service specialist, a legal advocate for foster youth, a prevention specialist, and a child and family services agency leader.

 

The event is scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. (ET) in SVC-209 of the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center.

 

The senators created the Caucus to educate policy makers about issues facing older children in the foster care system and in the early years after those young people age out of the system.  The Caucus is committed to providing a platform for those who grew up in the foster care system to describe their experiences, identify problems and suggest solutions.

 

Here is more information about the panel speakers.

 

Tanee Hobson is a Survivor Mentor and Group Facilitator with My Life My Choice.  A survivor of sexual exploitation who had been in Massachusetts Department of Children and Families custody since the age of two, Hobson is a former client of My Life My Choice who uses her life experience to help reach other exploited and high risk girls.  Hobson is a frequent presenter at public speaking events, and has represented My Life My Choice in panels at the Germaine Lawrence School and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley's hearing for human trafficking legislation.  Currently studying Human Services at Northern Essex Community College, Hobson plans to continue working with exploited girls in the future and become a national leader in the movement to end the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Withlema "T" Ortiz is a survivor leader and advocate.  She entered the foster care system as an infant and endured more than 14 different placements while in foster care.  During those years, Ortiz also survived being subject to commercial sexual exploitation.  Ortiz now uses her lived experiences to teach, lead, and educate on needed reforms to the child welfare, juvenile justice and mental health systems.  Ortiz has lectured at Alameda County and Georgetown Law.  She has testified before members of Congress and shared her story on a national level as one of Glamour magazine's 2011 Women of the Year.  Ortiz currently serves on Casey's National Foster Care Youth and Alumni Policy Council and is a Young Woman Leader with the Human Rights Project for Girls.  She is also a mentor to other girls who have been similarly forced into the modern day form of slavery.

Michelle Guymon is currently the Director of Placement Administrative Services with Los Angeles County Probation Department.  Guymon graduated from California State University, San Bernardino where she received her master's degree in social work.  Various positions and/or assignments throughout Guymon's tenure include Deputy Probation Officer Treatment and Counselor at Dorothy Kirby Center, Mental Health Consultant for Probation, and Director of Camp Kenyon Scudder, an all-female probation camp, which serves about 300 girls a year.  Guymon is a frequent presenter and trainer regarding child abuse issues and strategies for working with youth in the probation system.  She is an advocate for children at risk and is currently a member of the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Committee, as well as a Probation Department representative with the Innocence Lost Los Angeles Task Force.  Most recently, Guymon has been designated as the Project Manager for the newly created Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking program within the Los Angeles County Probation Department.

 

Teresa Lowry has worked for more than 25 years on behalf of abused, neglected, and vulnerable children.  She began her career investigating the physical and sexual abuse of children for the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services.  After graduating law school she maintained her focus on ensuring justice for children and joined the Special Victims Unit in the Criminal Prosecution Division of the Clark County District Attorney's Office.  There she secured convictions for murder, sexual assault, child abuse, pandering, kidnapping, use of a minor in the production of pornography, and statutory sexual seduction.  She then was promoted to Chief of the Juvenile Division where she worked collaboratively with the juvenile court judge, probation and the public defender's office to create a specialized court responding to sexually exploited girls victimized through human trafficking.  She is currently the Chair of the Policy Governing Board of the Children's Advocacy Center which oversees the multidisciplinary protocols to respond to sexual abuse.  Five years ago, in order to respond to the need for a new way to treat child victims of human trafficking, she and other juvenile justice partners and university researchers established the nonprofit Protecting Sexually Exploited Children-Nevada, PSEC-NV.  The mission is to create programs and services for high risk youth as well as a safe house for sexually exploited teens.  As the current administrator over the Family Support Division, Lowry acts as sponsor for employment opportunities and mentor for former foster youth.

 

Lisa Goldblatt Grace is the Co-founder and Director of My Life My Choice.  Since 2002, My Life My Choice has offered the only comprehensive prevention curriculum aimed at reaching girls most vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation. Further, My Life My Choice offers a unique continuum of services including prevention groups, training, survivor mentoring, and program consultation.  Goldblatt Grace has been working with vulnerable young people in a variety of capacities for more than 20 years.  Her professional experience includes running a long-term shelter for homeless teen parents, developing a diversion program for violent youth offenders, and working in outpatient mental health, health promotion, and residential treatment settings.  Goldblatt Grace has served as a consultant to the Massachusetts Administrative Office of the Trial Court's "Redesigning the Court's Response to Prostitution" project and as a primary researcher on the 2007 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study of programs serving human trafficking victims.  In addition, Goldblatt Grace has written in a variety of publications regarding commercial sexual exploitation and offered training on the subject nationally. She is an Adjunct Faculty member at the Boston University School of Social Work and a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, and she holds masters degrees in both social work and public health.

 

Joyce Capelle has been the Chief Executive Officer of Crittenton Services of Children and Families in Southern California since 1998.  Prior to joining the agency in 1997, she worked as an administrator in public education and in hospital management for a total of more than 35 years in the human services field.  She holds a Master's degree in Public Administration with a Public Policy focus from California State University, Long Beach and a Juris Doctorate degree from Pacific West College of Law.  She has also served on a number of local, state and national committees on child and family welfare issues. Capelle currently serves on the Board of Directors for the California Alliance for Child and Family Services.

 

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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

WASHINGTON - The Senate Tuesday night unanimously approved a bill authored by U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to increase penalties for trafficking counterfeit drugs.  The legislation responds to recommendations made by the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator and the administration's Counterfeit Pharmaceutical Inter-agency Working Group.

 

The Counterfeit Drug Penalty Enhancement Act will increase penalties for the trafficking of counterfeit drugs to reflect the severity of the crime and the harm to the public.  While it is currently illegal to introduce counterfeit drugs into interstate commerce, the penalties are no different than those for the trafficking of other products, such as electronics or clothing.  The Counterfeit Drug Penalty Enhancement Act will target violators that knowingly manufacture, sell or traffic counterfeit medicines to the United States.

 

"We cannot allow the counterfeiting of life-saving medicine to be just one more low-risk venture from which international organized criminals can profit," said Leahy.  "While we should not expect that enactment of this or any legislation will completely deter the serious problem of counterfeit medication entering the American supply chain, it is an important step in the fight.  I urge the House of Representatives to act quickly on this legislation."

 

"Worldwide counterfeit medicines are a multi-billion dollar industry, and growing at an alarming pace, especially over the internet.  These medicines pose a serious threat to the health and safety of unsuspecting Americans," Grassley said.  "The House should act as quickly as possible to ensure that counterfeit drug traffickers are punished accordingly for putting people's lives at risk with this serious crime.  "

 

The legislation is cosponsored by Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Robert Casey (D-Pa.).  Companion legislation in the House of Representatives was introduced last year by Representatives Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.) and Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.).

 

It has been reported that counterfeit drugs result in 100,000 fatalities globally each year, and account for an estimated $75 billion in annual revenue for criminal enterprises.

 

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Sen. Chuck Grassley today made the following comment on the Taiwanese government announcement that Taiwan plans to set an allowance level for U.S. beef that contains the feed additive ractopamine but not set a similar level for U.S. pork.  Ractopamine has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is used by many U.S. beef and pork producers as a feed additive.

"I'm encouraged that the Taiwanese government may allow some U.S. beef that contains traces of ractopamine into Taiwan, but the announcement falls far short of resolving this issue.  The Taiwanese government has not set any allowable level of this additive for U.S. pork imports.  As I've said before, Taiwan must treat U.S. agricultural products fairly, in accordance with scientific evidence, and in keeping with its trade obligations, if it expects to maintain its status as a strong economic partner with the United States.  There is no scientific reason for Taiwan to set residual levels of a certain additive for beef but not pork.  I hope Taiwan's announcement was just a first step in the right direction toward more removal of the trade barriers hurting U.S. farmers."

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Herb Kohl, D-Wis., today released a report urging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to improve oversight of the new system being created to monitor the quality standards in nursing homes.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, entitled, "Nursing Home Quality: CMS Should Improve Efforts to Monitor Implementation of the Quality Indicator Survey," urges CMS to improve efforts to monitor implementation of the Quality Indicator Survey (QIS) for nursing homes.  The full report can be found here.

CMS started moving toward the QIS process in 2005 after reports indicated a need for improvements in the traditional survey process.  But the agency has decided to temporarily suspend implementation until a number of concerns raised by states and regional CMS offices have been resolved.

"The report shows CMS doesn't do enough to monitor and facilitate states' implementation progress," Grassley said.  "After six years of implementation, 26 states had trained or started training surveyors to use the system, but uncertainty about progress by these states led CMS to suspend implementation for the rest of the country.  If CMS were better tracking state implementation from the beginning, the agency could have identified these problems earlier and helped the states that are struggling."

"There's an obvious need for a clear, consistent and efficient system for monitoring nursing home quality," Kohl said. "QIS has the right goals in mind, and has the potential to make a positive difference in the consistency and accuracy of state survey work across the country -- but implementation needs to be done well, and the agency's goals need to be realized sooner rather than later."

Grassley and Kohl have worked together on nursing home quality for many years.  Most recently, their bill, the Nursing Home Transparency and Improvement Act of 2009, was passed into law.  Through the Senate Special Committee on Aging, the senators have pressed the federal government and states to improve the quality of nursing home care through more rigorous inspections and better information about inspection results for consumers through the federal Nursing Home Compare database.  Kohl is chairman of the Aging Committee.  Grassley is former chairman.  A landmark GAO report from 1998 was the subject of Aging Committee hearings Grassley convened.  The hearings exposed serious quality of care problems in nursing homes, exacerbated in part by highly predictable annual inspections and few citations for serious deficiencies.  After the hearings and at the urging of the Aging Committee, the Clinton Administration took steps to improve the inspection process.  Grassley and Kohl have urged continued attention and refinements.

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