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| HEART TO HEART
Gift Away for Foster, Adoptive, and Kinship Families Fostering Attachments for Foster, Kinship &
Adoptive Caregivers
Mentors help stabilize foster children's lives Julie Schmitt coaches foster parents through the tough times, whether it’s giving up a child, handling defiant teenagers or navigating the child-protection system. “The hope is people don’t get to the place where they want to throw in the towel,” said the longtime foster mom, who mentors families that take in abused and neglected children. Officials in the county Human Services Agency credit the work of Schmitt and other mentors with helping boost the rate at which Ventura County children stay in a foster home, rather than being shifted from place to place. As 2005 ended, officials found that close to half the children who had been in foster care for 12 to 24 months had been in three or more homes over the time period. That was worse than a national standard set to give children stable homes until they are adopted or reunited with their parents. But last year’s results show the local picture has improved, matching the national standard. A smaller proportion of children, roughly one-third, were moved too often. Elaine Martinez, a Human Services Agency manager, says the mentoring program was not the only effort that fueled the turnaround. Martinez said the agency also refined the system for matching foster parents and children; social workers committed themselves to explore every alternative before moving a child; and foster parents got more help through meetings with teams of experts, family members and others involved in the child’s life, she said. Staff member Kari Garman is the matchmaker who puts together children removed from their parents’ custody with foster families. Garman combs a computer database of foster families and her personal contacts to get the best fit. Garman said she strives not just to keep kids in the community where they live but sometimes can make a match down to the child’s pastimes from cooking to sports. After the children move in and reality hits, the mentors go to work. It’s then that foster parents may wonder whether they’re in over their heads, said Schmitt, 49, of Simi Valley. She knows the complexities: She has taken care of foster children for 16 years, adopted three and is in the process of adopting two more. But she doesn’t pretend that foster care is easy. “You’ve got the kids, but that’s just the beginning,” she said. “You’ve got the child’s parents and the parents could be at cross purposes, you’ve got the social workers and their point of view and a judge, and if they’re school-age kids you’re dealing with the teachers.” After getting a referral from social workers, Schmitt calls the parents and introduces herself. Then they talk as often as needed, often just by phone. She’s paid about $16 an hour and works five to 15 hours a week in the program operated by Kids & Families Together, a Ventura nonprofit organization. Lisa Nighswonger, 35, of Simi Valley said Schmitt helped her get past the heartache so she could bond with a foster child she is now adopting. The boy came to her at 10 months after several infants she had hoped to adopt were reunited with their families. He did not want to be held or rocked like the newborns she had nurtured in the past, and she was afraid to get close after losing the others. “I did talk her through it,” Schmitt said. “I said, ‘I think without realizing it you were guarding your heart.’ ” Children are moved for a variety of reasons, but it’s often because the foster parents can’t deal with the child’s behavior. Emily said she wavered when she had trouble with her two teenage foster daughters, but that Schmitt helped her though it. She asked that her full name not be used to protect the children’s privacy. “I never had kids of my own,” she said. “They were just a new situation, and she has been a godsend to me. I get a little tongue-tied. She can come up with the words I need to say to the girls and she’s extremely knowledgeable about the foster care system and what services are available to me.” Schmitt figures she’s counseled 35 families over the last year, and probably three-quarters of them are still intact. She said there are times, though, when a move is best. “There’s just people where it doesn’t click. No matter how much help or services one gets, it is not a good match. When that happens, it’s better for everybody if a better match can be found for that child.” © 2009 Ventura County Star
Agency helps foster kids ease
transition: Emancipating youths receive financial assistance He's 18, the age by which the law expects foster children to leave care and support themselves. Some wind up homeless amid the county's high housing costs, but officials now have the money to help a handful put roofs over their heads for up to two years. "This is the first time we have had specific money to go out and rent housing for them," said Debbie Barber, spokeswoman for the county Human Services Agency. The money can go toward utility bills, deposits and food, as well as rent, Barber said. The agency has $223,000 to aid five foster youths emancipating from the county system. About 50 youths leave care each year after turning 18. Shorter moved into an apartment in Oxnard on Thursday. Two more are due to move into apartments in Oxnard this month. Two others will be able to stay with their foster families after emancipating, and the money will be used to offset government subsidies the families will lose. It's not an easy transition, Shorter said. "I can deal with it," said the young man, who lived with an aunt and in a group home after his mother's death in 1998. "It's more like you gotta do what you gotta do." Shorter, a high school graduate who had been living in transitional housing in Thousand Oaks, said he will be looking for a job. The emancipated youths are expected to find work and start contributing to expenses within six months, Barber said. Human Services Agency Director Ted Myers says there's growing awareness that foster kids need help when they move out on their own. The state has recently begun putting more money into the cause, with legislators removing a requirement that counties provide a local match for the special housing funds. But an effort to triple state funding from $4.8 million to $15 million failed in the budget breakdown last week between Republican legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "It would have been great," Myers said. "We are very disappointed." Still, the county has the money to start the program this year. The Interface agency in Camarillo offered housing subsidies in the past, but the program ended with a cut in federal funding a few years ago. Myers said most kids aren't ready to live on their own at 18, let alone those who have been in foster care. The youths usually come from homes in which they were abused or neglected, plus they have lived under the restrictions of foster care. Many, for example, lack driver's licenses because foster parents don't have the time or fear the liability of teaching them to drive. Others lack job experience because they don't have transportation. Myers said the Ventura County youths will get counseling in how to become independent, plus subsidies for the housing that's critical to becoming adults. "When they're having trouble finding housing, it's also correlated with them having trouble finding employment, access to medical care, financing an education," he said. "A home is crucial to all our transition to adulthood. This would give them that base."
"Access & Excess: A
Look At Underage & Binge Drinking in Ventura County" For more information or to register for childcare, please call Carrie McAuliffe Liberatore at 986-5800 x 1935
Editorial: Chance for a bright
future Here in Ventura County, success depends on a dedicated cadre of county administrators, foster parents and numerous volunteers helping these children whose young lives have been marked by crisis. Thanks to an aggressive countywide recruitment program, 500 children are able to be placed in local foster homes. There's still much to be done to ensure these children in need have a safe and loving place to call home. In a May 30 commentary in The Star, Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett, who has long been active in the county's foster-care system, urged more residents to become involved in this worthy and vital program. "We need more people to become foster parents in Ventura County. People move, people have medical emergencies, there are a number of reasons why we must continue to recruit new foster families," he wrote. To further this end, the county's foster-care system will hold an information session Saturday, June 23, for organizations wishing to help support the county's foster children and for those interested in learning more about becoming a foster parent. By making a positive difference in the lives of these youngsters, many coming from abusive or neglected situations, the program can lead to adoption. We applaud all those, who, on a daily basis, are working to ensure these children have a secure home. Clearly, there's no better way to achieve this than by opening your heart and home to children in need of mentoring and love. It's really the true measure of a caring community.
Wanted: Loving homes for foster children in
V.C. It is gratifying to see the increasing awareness that our entire community needs to participate, at some level, in supporting our county's foster children. For some of us, this means becoming a foster parent, for others it may be providing respite for foster parents. It may be mentoring or tutoring these young people, fostering a teen or becoming a Big Brother or Big Sister. Many in our community participate by raising funds or making donations so that these children have a better opportunity to be placed with their siblings, experience joyful holidays, go to camp, attend college and participate in community outings. There is a role for each of us. We're making progress, yet there is much to do. We still have far too many parents who are not able to properly care for their children. In Ventura County, there are 501 children and youth in foster care who are provided with a safe, secure and stable home. These foster and kinship families not only provide safety, they also meet the daily physical and emotional needs of the children placed in their care. Foster families consist of committed and compassionate individuals, couples and families willing to share the eye-opening experience of opening their heart to a child. The foster family works to the child. They display empathy for the child's loss and for the parents with a disease or severe problem. The child's birth parents needs help. The foster parent is helping them by taking care of their child.Foster parents open their homes and hearts to children whose families are in crisis, playing a vital role helping children and families heal and reconnect. Sometimes the family is unable to heal and the family will not be reunified. The county does concurrent planning for children in its care: Plan A Children are reunified with their parent if possible and appropriate within legal timeframes; Plan B Permanent placement, and the first choice is usually the foster parent. It is the practice of the county that foster parents must agree to foster first before being considered for adoption. So adoption is possible, and foster parenting can help those interested be ready for adoption. When adoption occurs, we need to recruit more foster families to replace those who leave the system. We need more people to become foster parents in Ventura County. People move, people have medical emergencies; there are a number of reasons why we must continue to recruit new foster families. This recruitment effort will be most effective if we all take a role in making our friends and neighbors aware of the need. When I'm out speaking to groups about foster parenting, people often tell me that they've been thinking about becoming a foster parent for a long time, but they're a little scared and unsure of their ability. They don't know if they'd be good at it. Although every licensed foster parent receives formal training, foster parenting is a learn-as-you-go endeavor. That's why there are support systems in place such as the mentoring program that links newly licensed foster parents with more seasoned foster parents to assist them in understanding the system. These experienced foster parents help them through challenges that only another foster parent would understand. Foster parents tell us that although their job is difficult, the ways that these children touch their hearts is well worth the challenge. We all know someone who would make a great foster parent. If you know someone or if you are interested, attend an nformation session or call me for more information. Steve Bennett, of Ventura, is a District 1 supervisor, representing Ventura, Montalvo, Saticoy, Oxnard Shores, Mandalay Bay, Northwest Oxnard, North Ventura Avenue, Foster Park, Casitas Springs, Oak View, Mira Monte, Meiners Oaks, City of Ojai, Eastern Ojai Valley, and Upper Ojai, North Coast.
For some county caregivers, it's all relative Vulnerable populations lack the ability or the means to respond to
emergencies Grandparents adopted Oxnard teen At 57, the Ventura woman is rearing her brother's children, 10-year-old Guy Bartee and 9-year-old Joanie Bartee. They still see their dad, but the courts have found that Martinez can provide a better home. They don't know where their mom is. Rather than see them go into foster care, Martinez and her husband, Mario, 57, agreed to bring them into their comfortable suburban house. She expects to keep them until they're 18. "There really was nobody else to rescue them," the slender, gray-haired woman said. The trend has led to a huge number of relatives like Martinez providing care. Statewide, some estimate that there are 600,000 children in out-of-home placements with relatives, compared with 85,000 in the foster care system. One indication of the size of the relatives-as-parents force came when census workers for the first time asked how many grandparents were responsible for children under 18. The results: More than 5,600 grandparents in Ventura County, 295,000 in the state and 2.4 million in the nation were caring for minors. And the figures did not include other relatives such as aunts and uncles, older brothers and sisters who have stepped up to become parents. It isn't what they envisioned doing, even if they saw the signs coming, nor do many of them get much government aid to do it. Fewer resources for relatives "None of them volunteered or looked forward to raising kids again. These kids in some instances were really dropped on their doorsteps," said Falope Fatunmise, a regional director for Edgewood, a nonprofit organization advising the state on services for relative caregivers. "There aren't comparable resources to pay relatives for raising these kids if you compare it to the foster care system." But there's growing recognition that they need a hand, officials say. Agencies from AARP to boards overseeing the needs of seniors are devoting money and resources to grandparents raising children. And this fiscal year for the first time, Ventura County won a state grant to start a program to support relative caregivers. About 200 of the Ventura County children placed with relatives are already in the court system because of suspected abuse or neglect by their parents. They may have lost their parents to death, drugs, jail, abandonment or disability. Many other relative caregivers step in before the kids come to the attention of authorities, said David Friedlander, executive director of Kids & Families Together, a nonprofit agency in Ventura. "A lot of them have no legal status whatsoever. They just took on the kid," he said. His agency began offering support services with the aid of small grants in the early part of this decade, and is expanding its effort now that Ventura County has won new funding. The state Legislature passed a law 10 years ago to start a kinship support program, but limited it to counties in which at least 40 percent of children in court custody were placed with relatives. Ventura County and many others, with only a quarter of court-controlled children in relative care, didn't qualify. Then in 2006, the Legislature removed the 40 percent threshold and boosted the funding to $4 million. Ventura County won start-up funding of $270,000 this year and expects $140,000 next year. The county Human Services Agency is spending money on services such as a caregiver library, tutoring for the children, and up to $3,000 to help relatives with deposits for larger homes. Nonprofit offers many programs But it awarded most of the money to Kids & Families Together, which provides counseling, support groups, and help in managing the parenting, financial and legal challenges. Martinez, who is beginning to mentor other parents, heard about the agency a few years ago when she began preparing for the possibility that her brother's two children would move in with her. She joined a support group. She learned that the kids could be expected to be angry on Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthdays and Christmas. She and her husband went through the sometimes-arduous process of becoming legal guardians. Faced with the prospect of taking the children or seeing them go into foster care, most relatives don't hesitate when they get the call. Social workers can clear them for placement in a few hours. It's not until later that the relatives realize what they've taken on, from homework to middle-of-the-night earaches. Legislators passed the law to start the kinship program after doctors at San Francisco General Hospital noticed a huge number of pediatric patients cared for by grandparents. That surge was blamed on the crack cocaine epidemic, but now the scourge is methamphetamine, some caregivers say. Linda Stafford knows the fallout. The Fillmore woman took in her 5-year-old granddaughter in 2002. Stafford said her granddaughter was so traumatized, she would cry every day when she took her to kindergarten and first grade. "They are little people, and they have fears and anxieties just like us big people. To be so young and have to go through so much it's not fair," Stafford said. The girl is now 10 and "absolutely thriving," said Stafford, who runs a business and mentors other parents. She keeps up her energy by running four miles a day and finds solace in her faith. But a high proportion of caregivers turn up with stress-related diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes, Edgewood's Fatunmise said. He said no long-term national research exists on how these children fare through adulthood, but the state program has shown that relative care can lead to stability. Statewide, 95 percent of the children assisted through the program stayed in their relatives' homes. In contrast, one-third of foster children entering the state system moved three or more times in a year. The Bartee children's father, Guy Bartee, believes that they are much better off with his sister than in foster care. "It's family," he said.
May 2007 Campaign Goals: Raise awareness about the magnitude of the issue and the urgent and sustaining needs of children and older youth in foster care and their families; Issue a national CALL-TO-ACTION that motivates, inspires and facilitates many more Americans to come forward and help change a lifetime for a young person in foster care; and, Develop a positive framework for maintaining visibility and interest in the foster care issue to support the year-round efforts of the National Foster Care Month Partner organizations and other child welfare agencies. Foster Care Month also provides an opportunity for acknowledging the
thousands of dedicated foster families and other caring individuals
and organizations who are already supporting these young people.
RESCHEDULED!
April 2007 The Psychology of the Adoptive Family
April 2007 Creating a Therapeutic Home
Starting March 2007 through June 2007 NEW SUPPORT SERVICES FOR FAMILIES
RAISING A RELATIVE'S CHILD Caregivers who are raising a relative's child may be eligible to receive support from our new Kinship Support Services Program (KSSP). Please call Sylvia Orozco at 805.643.1446 ext 107 for more information.
February 2007 A Conversation with Dan Hughes, PhD.
(author of "Building the Bonds of Attachment") WHEN: March 7, 2007 from 6:30pm-8pm
December, 2006 Kids & Families Together sends a special
thanks to our 2006 Holiday Drive helpers!
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Kids & Families Together |
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Ph: 805.643.1446 Fx: 805.643.0271 |