Yearly, nearly 30,000 Minnesota children stay in some type of public program: foster care, correctional facility, or shelter. Sadly, for at least a quarter of these children, this is one an on-going reality of their life.
Also, mistreatment is not only traumatic at the time, but also damaging in the long term. Abused and neglected children are more likely to become juvenile delinquents and adult criminals, to have trouble in school and at work, to leave home even if they have no safe place to go, and to have long-term emotional, intellectual, and social problems. They are also likely to continue the damaging cycle, if not helped, by abusing or neglecting their own children.
