A Parent for Every Child Vignettes

Transcription

Introduction
A Parent for Every Child (PFEC) is a five-year diligent recruitment project to identify and
prepare permanent families for freed youth with serious emotional, behavioral, and
developmental challenges. PFEC is sponsored by the New York State Office of Children and
Family Services (OCFS) and funded through a Cooperative Agreement with the Department
of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’ s
Bureau, Grant #C025776.
OCFS has partnered with three service agencies with extensive experience in working with
youth with special needs: Hillside Children’s Center (Rochester), Parsons Child and Family
Center (Albany), and You Gotta Believe! (New York City). These three agencies provide
services to youth in residential facilities in all regions of New York State.
The following personnel were assigned to the PFEC project:
Project Director
Michael Carroll
Hillside Children’s Center
Permanency Specialists
Parsons Children and Family Center
Kelley Salamone
You Gotta Believe!
Patricia Dudley
Stephen McCall
Denise Royal
Hillside Children’s Center
Michael Finn
The vignettes on the following pages summarize the journey to permanency for some of the
youth assigned to PFEC. These stories are based on interviews with the PFEC Project
Director and PFEC Permanency Specialists, as well as adoptive parents and representatives
from the counties and agencies who were willing to be interviewed. Some are success
stories; some are journeys still underway.
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Anthony
By the time Anthony was assigned to A Parent for Every Child Project, he had been in
psychiatric institutions for the past seven years and had experienced several failed
placements and adoption disruptions. He had been in a RTC for several years when the
Permanency Specialist met him in February, 2011. "Anthony wasn't interested in being
adopted at first," the Specialist says. "But it’s not about asking them if they want to be
adopted but if they want a family, and a lot of [PFEC youth] don't know what that means. ...
He's had matches or pre-adoptions that fell through, so why should he trust these people
who don't know him from anyone?"
Once the Specialist helped Anthony to overcome his initial resistance, she did a
Wednesday's Child TV news segment on him. The Specialist also had the PFEC Project
Director tape an Adoption Chronicle (video) in which Anthony talked about his dream of
becoming an auto mechanic and opening his own garage.
[D], one of the Specialist's colleagues had adopted a number of children and indicated that
she and her husband were considering adopting again. The Specialist thought they would be
the perfect family for Anthony. "Her husband is an auto mechanic and Anthony wants to be a
mechanic," the Specialist says. [D’s] husband had learned his trade through a BOCES
program, so “he was proof of what they were going to tell Anthony was possible."
"The Specialist said to me, 'Oh, I have this really great kid. You should meet him, [D] says.
She and her husband watched Anthony's Adoption Chronicle. "It had an immediate impact
on us. His personality came right across. He's not very talkative. He's very quiet, and that
definitely comes out in that video. ...the video gave me the ability to look at him and say to
myself, 'I think we could do that.' Just looking in his eyes, it gives you the ability to have a
connection beforehand." [D] and her husband attended several adoption panels in which
Anthony participated, just to observe him and confirm that they wanted to proceed. "That
all set the stage for us to meet him," she says.
"I had all the paperwork ready so the permanency planning agency could process
everything," the Specialist says, "but they put up barriers. For three to four months, they
made [the adoptive parents] drive to see Anthony on campus -- a three-hour trip each way.
They would not transport him."
"We went to our first meeting at the residence [planning agency] and they weren't very
receptive," [D] says. "In fact, they were downright rude. They made us jump through a lot
of hoops. They were really difficult, but we stuck with it." [D] and her husband called
Anthony between visits, but "sometimes the person who answered the phone [might not
have given] him the messages," the Specialist says.
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Anthony's chronic AWOLs and subsequent legal issues further complicated the situation.
"On one excursion, he and a girlfriend got hungry and broke into the agency’s cafeteria and
did some damage," the Specialist says. "The agency prosecuted him and he went to jail."
[D] and her husband still wanted to proceed with the adoption. However, the agency would
not license them for foster care, so they pursued licensing on their own through another
agency. "Anthony did weekend visits and holiday visits for about a year before deciding he
wanted to move in," [D] says. She asked about transitioning him to a group home closer to
them, but the planning agency told her there were no openings available. "Ultimately,
Anthony went to court and we went to the permanency hearing and Anthony told the judge
he wanted to move in with us, and then the judge ordered them to place him.”
"Once he moved there, he had nothing to do," the Specialist says. "When he was supposed
to go to court about his case, [D] was supposed to go and the planning agency forbade it.
They didn't send a social worker with him and he got the book thrown at him -- 3 years of
probation." After he missed a probation appointment, Anthony ended up in a group home
in New York City.
After several weeks of non-communication, Anthony contacted [D] and her husband again
and started visiting them on weekends. But after some probation violations, he was sent
back to jail for 60 days. "When he went to jail, I talked to him every day,"[D] says. "I sent him
care packages and clothing while he was incarcerated. I wanted him to know that he had a
family that cared. None of the agency people were taking his calls from jail, and they
weren't there for his court date for him to get released. But I was there. If he didn’t have us,
he would have been standing outside that jail having no idea what to do. His reading and
writing is not great. He really would have been totally stranded.
"He got out of jail and he's here now," [D] says. "It’s rarely a straight line with these things.
He kept saying he loved having a family and all that, but he was a city kid and we live a long
way from the city. It was hard for him. The agency is making a reapplication for a group
home in the city, so that’s an option. He hasn't really said what he wants to do. But for now,
he's here. We're his family. I think he has potential, but it’s going to take us a while to get to
it. Overall, he's a really great kid, and maybe we saved him from getting locked up again."
[D] and her husband fought … for Anthony," the Specialist says. "He gets it that, no matter
where he lives, they are his family."
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Brian and Brandon
[B] adopted two youth through A Parent for Every Child. “I have four children I’ve legally
adopted and a couple more I’ve morally adopted,” she says. “I like to have a big family. I
was adopted myself. It’s important to me to be able to give back. … It’s so emotionally
gratifying.”
[B] adopted Brian and Brandon with the help of the PFEC Permanency Specialist. “And I’ll
be honest with you, if it wasn’t for them, I don’t know if I would have continued adopting
because they gave me the support I needed. If there was a problem, I could call them at
any time and somebody would be willing to talk me through things or talk to the
children.”
[B’s] PFEC journey started at a Meet-and-Greet event, where she met Brian. “He said, ‘I love
Duncan Donuts,’ which I do, too,” she says. “So right away I knew it was meant to be.” After
several phone conversations, the relationship progressed to home visits.
“At the same time, I also started visiting with Brandon; two very different boys. Brian was
much more manageable than Brandon. Brandon did more acting out on a daily basis. He had
some issues, so when I started visiting with him, things was a little rocky. What made things
worse is I had no support from his [planning] agency. I would call them for help and they
would kind of tell me it was my problem. They would send him to my house without his
meds, so he would really act up. On more than two occasions, he came to me without
medication and spent the whole weekend. That was a challenge.”
Brandon’s travel arrangements were also challenging for [B]. “They [the agency] would put
him on a train to come here without a phone, without any means of communication. It was
unbelievable -- a 15-year-old kid with mental health issues, going through New York City
with no supervision. I’d sit at the train station for three hours not knowing what train the
kid was going to get off of. I would call up [the agency] and they would be no help. ‘We don’t
know, we just know that he went to the train station.’ They told me, ‘Once he leaves the
campus, whatever happens is your problem. You deal with it.’ So it was very, very
challenging.”
When [B’s] father became ill, she put visits with Brandon on hold. “He was hard to
handle,” she says, “and with no cooperation [from the agency] it was next to impossible.”
After her father’s death, [B] wanted to start visits with Brandon again. “I started
communicating with him and he said he would like to visit with me. He had spent some
time in a psychiatric hospital and had acted out. But while there, he said he wanted to
resume visits. He called me Mom. He still refers to me as Mom.”
However, [B] says the agency insisted that [B] come to the agency every month for a
meeting, even though they had not required monthly meetings when she was in the process
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of adopting Brian. …. “They [the agency] stopped all visits between me and Brandon
because they said I wasn’t cooperating. I will not travel that distance [to the agency] alone.
I said, ‘if you are willing to come pick me up, I would be more than happy to come to
monthly meetings to discuss Brandon.’ The agency said, ‘Sorry, if you can’t get here, then
you are not cooperating.’”
In an effort to work with the agency, [B] suggested a meeting every other month. They told
me absolutely not,” she says. “If I do not sign the paper and say that I would be there every
month…, and [Brandon] had to come here [to her home] every weekend -- and they weren’t
bending on that -- I was not cooperating.”
When Brandon had a permanency court hearing scheduled, “[the agency] … did not
transport him to the court,” [B] says. “They said he was not stable enough to be transported
to the court, yet a few days prior to that, he was stable enough to travel to his lawyer’s office.
… Fortunately, Brandon’s law guardian would not allow the hearing to take place without
Brandon and had the hearing postponed.
“Here’s a kid who’s really trying to be placed in my home, doing what he needs to do. He’s
stepping up and acknowledging -- which he never did before -- that his behaviors are his
own, and he’s trying to own them. Brandon is now showing me that he is making an effort.
But] the agency] told me ‘Brandon has not changed.…. He will never improve. We’re
looking basically to put him into an adult group home when he turns 21.’” [B] says.
[B] believes that “what they [were] really doing is setting [Brandon] up for failure … She
credits the PFEC Specialist for helping her to get through the adoption process. It helped
me emotionally to be stronger in the whole process. She is there to support me.”
[B] is optimistic about Brandon’s future. “He is difficult. He is a very difficult child, but I
believe he has potential.” She believes that potential would never be realized in a group
home. “Some people do a really good job at these places. But it’s not a permanent solution.
The kids see the constant turnover at these places. Few of the workers stay around for
more than a year or two, so they are constantly getting use to new people. To bring these
kids who have nobody into my home, give them a family, give them a future – to me, that’s
the most rewarding thing I can do in life.”
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Brian B.
Brian was 17 and had experienced a series of residential placements when the Permanency
Specialist first met him. “One of his mother’s boyfriends had abused him, and [probably] his
sister had also abused him,” the Specialist says. “He’s a really nice kid, so people liked him.
But he had a really hard time with the abuse.”
Brian was arrested because of an incident with his four-year-old brother during a visit with
his father. “If it had happened in … [another] County, they would have gotten treatment for
him,” the Specialist says. “Because he was in a rural county in upstate New York, he was
arrested and convicted as a sex offender. His lawyer … didn’t process his appeal paperwork.
I had to get involved.” However, Brian didn’t want to risk another trial and so will be on the
registered sex offender list until he turns 36.
Brian was placed at in a residential treatment center for youth with sexually harmful
behaviors. “He has done very well there,” the Specialist says. Brian was not interested in
re-establishing contact with his biological family, so the Specialist began to explore
adoption options. The PFEC Project Director produced an Adoption Chronicle, in which
Brian talked about his love of reading, swimming, snowboarding, and running. He also
spoke of his grandmother, who sparked his lifelong love of cooking.
A number of prospective adoptive parents inquired about Brian after viewing his Chronicle.
“I had 50 or 60 families wanting him,” the Specialist says, “but when they found out about
his history, they ran. There were lots of sad stories.”
As he waited and hoped for a forever family, Brian kept working towards his goal of going
to college and pursuing a career in culinary arts. “The agency helped him with college prep
and did a wonderful job placing him in a community college,” the specialist says. “Brian
couldn’t live in a dorm because of his status as a registered sex offender, so the County
[with custody and guardianship] found and paid for an apartment for him and provided
support for independent living.”
Brian made new friends in college and even shared the fact that he was hoping to be
adopted in his public speaking class. “I just think it is cool how I can take such a negative
situation for me and turn it around and make it something positive for others and then, in
return, it becomes positive for me,” Brian says. He hopes to share his experiences with
more people to inspire them and help them see how much good they have in their own
lives.
Shortly after Brian started college, the Project Director produced a new Adoption Chronicle
in which Brian talked about joining a band and playing guitar. He expressed his continued
desire to have a forever family: “I’d love to have someone who accepts me for me and
doesn’t judge me based on my situation or history.”
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Fortunately, a family saw Brian’s Chronicle, came forward, and fell in love with him.
Because they have small children, they didn’t feel they could handle the legal complications
of adoption, so they completed a permanency pact instead. Brian still lives independently in
his apartment, but his forever family visits him regularly. “We feel like God didn’t make
Brian to be unloved,” his “adoptive” mother says. “A lot of people have let him down in his
life and, for whatever reason, he came into ours and we’re committed to being there to
support Brian and be a part of his life.”
“I’ve found a family who loves me and accepts me,” Brian says. “I spent Christmas with
them. Even if they hadn’t gotten me Christmas gifts, I would have loved just being there and
the family environment. I feel that I’m accepted, that I actually have a family, whether
they’re blood-related or not. It’s good to have that feeling and support, to know that
somebody’s always there, that somebody loves me. They’re always going to be there,
through thick and thin.”
Brian plans to pursue a Master’s in Business Administration after he completes his
Bachelor’s in culinary arts. He hopes to open his own restaurant in the Adirondacks in the
future.
Daniel
“Daniel is one of our success stories, but we had to go through an awful lot to get there,” says
the Permanency Specialist. “Just trying to locate him at first was tough. All the people were
saying he was in a Staten Island psychiatric center. We went back and forth, and we finally
located him in upstate New York. So it took months just to find him.”
By the time Daniel was selected for A Parent for Every Child, his mother’s parental rights had
been terminated for some time. His father had been in and out of Daniel’s life; he would visit
Daniel, but wasn’t fully engaged. Daniel “had various family members he would speak of, but
nobody who seemed really invested in him, nobody whom he had spent a lot of time with
besides his father,” says [J] Daniel’s therapist.
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[J] made contact with 11 or 12 of Daniel’s extended family members in hopes of finding
permanency for him, but she encountered barriers early in the process. Daniel’s
permanency agency, wanted everyone to have state central registry clearances and criminal
background checks before they could even see Daniel’s Adoption Chronicle. “It was very
frustrating,” [J] says. “All foster care agencies are different. I think the Parent for Every Child
idea is the motto of many of these agencies, but I don’t think it’s always acted upon as
strongly as it should be. If you go to any foster care agency and ask where a kid should be,
they’ll tell you family and they’ll tell you permanency, but I don’t know that those workers
and those supervisors push quite as hard as they should.”
With support from A Parent for Every Child, [J] started working to bring Daniel’s father into
his life on a more consistent basis. “We really wanted to get these two together, get them
reunited,” she says. With support from his girlfriend and family members, Daniel’s father
decided to make permanency plan for Daniel.
Mr. [M] went through Family Court to obtain legal guardianship for Daniel. However,
because he wasn’t named as the father on Daniel’s birth certificate, he had to file a petition
for paternity and attend a series of permanency hearings before finally being granted legal
guardianship.
The PFEC team began planning Daniel’s transition to his father’s home, but soon
encountered another roadblock: the planning agency would not approve the plan because
Daniel’s father lived in a one-bedroom apartment. The social service district with
guardianship and custody would require that Daniel have his own bedroom. The planning
agency instead wanted to place Daniel in a foster home – yet another transition that would
have been very difficult for him. “At times the system creates barriers to permanency,” says
PFEC Project Director. “The kids are in the custody of [the social services district], but
there’s a planning agency and sometimes a residential facility involved, too. I think it’s
workable, but it adds layers of complexity.” In Daniel’s case, the PFEC Specialist says, the
PFEC team convinced the planning agency not to proceed with the foster care placement
while Mr. [M] resolved his living situation.
Daniel’s unresolved feelings of abandonment, which resurfaced when his father started to
take an interest in him, have also posed challenges to permanency. Daniel started to reject
his father and refused to go home on weekends. “He is an example of the kind of kid who
has been institutionalized, which kind of plays into some of his difficulties transitioning into
the community,” [J] says. “He hasn’t really lived out in the community with a family since he
was a little boy. He shows up with impulsivity and aggression and moodiness and stuff like
that. These types of transitional challenges are normal. It’s understandable for a child who
has been in foster care, who has been moved around so much and had so many insecure
detachments to feel this kind of anger and distrust. He’s never had the opportunity to really
develop a meaningful, trusting relationship with his father or, really, with anybody. He’s
understandably wary.”
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Continuing contact with his biological mother has fed into Daniel’s feelings of resentment
towards his father. “I think his mother is telling him this and that, and that’s complicating
things,” [J] says. “His relationship with his dad is a work in progress, which is to be
expected. But Mr. [M] has been great. He’s working his way through the rejection. Once he
said, ‘Okay, Daniel’s my son, I’m going to follow through on this,’ he’s been there every step
of the way. He’s come to every appointment. He is where he needs to be. He’s beginning to
understand Daniel’s history and why he does some of the things he does.” The PFEC team
has also encouraged Daniel to continue to develop relationships with his younger sister
and several aunts and uncles.
[J] is very optimistic about Daniel’s future and hopes he will be discharged to his father’s
care soon. “He has a fair amount of mental health challenges, which kind of complicates the
whole situation, and there also are just some of the normal struggles of being a teenager
and being a parent. Daniel’s never really been parented, and his father has never parented a
teenage boy. There’s still going to be more work that needs to be done when he gets home.
He and his father are pretty much having biweekly therapy sessions… I would like to see
Daniel be discharged home as soon as the after-care services are in place. We can’t wait
until this relationship is perfect because that’s not how life is.”
“I think we’ll work everything out and Daniel will eventually move in with his dad,” the
PFEC Specialist says. “Even if he doesn’t, he’ll still have this connection to his dad
weekends and holidays, and that’s a big success story.”
[J] believes that Daniel’s success would not have been possible without A Parent for Every
Child. “Workers in foster care who are expected to do this work often do not have the time or
the skill or the supervision to assess what needs to be done to find permanent, successful
placements for these children,” she says. “To bring in a team that focuses specifically on
permanency helps change lives and that’s what these kids need. And I think the PFEC
Specialist has been an important vehicle for this whole process. The relationship that he and
Daniel have has been very, very helpful in keeping things moving forward. I’ve reached out
to him and spoken to him about helping to counsel Daniel through these feelings of loss and
abandonment. …To have that big brother worker-type person in his life has been really,
really helpful.”
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David
For the PFEC Specialist, the biggest challenge in David’s case was the county [agency with
guardianship and custody]. Because of an incident that had occurred when he was only
eight or nine years old, David had been labeled as a sexual predator. “They felt he was a
high risk for the community and they would not approve him for foster care,” the Specialist
says. By the time he was assigned to A Parent for Every Child, David had been in residential
treatment for 10 years.
The residential treatment facility was supposed to develop a transition plan for David, but
no plan was created. “This kid had been in residential care forever,” the Specialist says,
“and all he ever wanted was a family. Kids identified as sex offenders have no way forward.
They should be going through treatment programs. There are tools to rate the risk of
recidivism. There are safeguards you can put in place. But the counties and the agencies
don’t want to risk the liability.”
Family Finding proved to be a dead end for David, as well. “The residential treatment
facility knew his biological family and ruled out all contact,” the Specialist says. “A lot of the
work was just getting the county to cooperate. I had to really fight to get his picture [photo
listing] taken. They have a mandate to do a certain amount of recruiting, but it never went
anywhere because the county felt there were safety issues.”
To get past the barriers, PFEC Specialist proposed finding a mentor for David, rather than
finding adoptive parents. The county agreed and the Specialist was able to have David’s
photo taken for the Heart Gallery and have an Adoption Chronicle produced.
[N] expressed interest in becoming David’s mentor. “We introduced them and the
relationship really took off,” the Specialist says. When it became clear that [N]was
interested in adopting David, The PFEC team wrote a safety plan. [N] eventually went to
court for a permanency hearing and said he would be willing to provide foster care for
David. “The judge has been very enthusiastic,” the Specialist says.
David moved into [N’s] home and the relationship has continued to develop well. [N]
recently signed a form confirming his intent to adopt David and he plans to proceed with
finalizing the adoption.
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Edward
According to PFEC Project Director, “Edward was one of the most challenging youth PFEC
staff worked with.” He has lived in foster care with his grandmother on and off for most of
his life. To ensure a forever home for Edward, the Permanency Specialist worked with them
[Edward and his grandmother] toward adoption.
About two months before the adoption would have been finalized; Edward started to act
out and was removed from his grandmother’s home and placed in residential care. “She
was not encouraged to adopt him while he was in placement,” PFEC Specialist says. The
grandmother stopped working with the agency and, although Edward visited her on
weekends for a while, the relationship deteriorated.
“I have adopted grandchildren,” the Specialist says, “so I could relate with the grandmother
on that level, grandmother to grandmother. Those conversations got her to take Edward
back, but the agency wasn’t happy about it. I told her that being angry with the agency was
stopping her grandson from having a home. He needs to come home.”
At end of the school year, Edward did return to his grandmother’s home. “The agency was
supposed to provide daycare services and other supports, but they didn’t,” the Specialist
says.
The Specialist worked through the challenges and the adoption was finalized, but “Edward
left shortly afterward to live with a friend,” she says. “The grandmother called the agency
and they recommended that she go to court to rescind the adoption. I told her, ‘You can
rescind the adoption on paper, but you’re always going to be his grandma.’” Edward’s
grandmother decided not to rescind.
Edward isn’t living at home, but he is still in contact with his grandmother. “He’s a very
angry young man. I counsel her on how to support him appropriately and keep the door
open,” the Specialist says. “I’ve told her to set ground rules that he must be on his
medication in order to come back and live with her. So he still has a grandma and she still
takes care of him. Otherwise, he would be on the streets.”
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James
James was 11 years old when he was assigned to A Parent for Every Child project. He had
been removed from his biological family at a very young age. He had had 10 placements
by that time and was in the RTF program when the PFEC Specialist first met him.
“James had experienced trauma and had been diagnosed with ADHD, mood disorder,
anxiety disorder,” the Specialist says. “You name it; he’d been diagnosed with it. He was
really a handful – very reactive, extremely angry, and he’d go off the wall sometimes. the
RTF couldn’t get anywhere with him.”
James was reluctant to talk with the Specialist initially. “He said he already had a family,”
the Specialist explains. “He had a visiting family that wanted to adopt him, but they decided
they couldn’t handle it. They stayed connected with James, but he was really devastated by
the adoption loss.”
The Specialist worked with James and convinced him to give it another try. James did an
Adoption Chronicle, in which he talked about his love of sports and animals, as well as his
proficiency in the Star Wars video game and his special talent in origami. The Specialist also
had James create a photo listing for posting on the Children Awaiting Parents (CAP) book,
AdoptUSKids, and “every electronic device we could find.”
The PFEC Specialist found another home for James and coordinated a lengthy transition
from the RTF to the foster family. “After almost a year, James had an episode,” The
Specialist says. “The foster father … [over reacted] and James came back into residential
care. We started over again and put his Adoption Chronicle back up.”
When the Permanency Specialist learned that Children Awaiting Parents (CAP) in Syracuse
was planning a regional exchange for professionals to present youth awaiting families, he
asked to attend and took James’s photo listing to the event. “A home finder from an agency
left a home study for a woman who was very anxious to adopt,” the Specialist says. “I called
her and asked her to look at James’s Chronicle. She called me back and said, ‘That’s my kid.’”
He arranged for them to meet. “They hit it off right away,” he says.
The Specialist adds that the County [agency with custody and guardianship] was extremely
helpful with James’ case. “They felt … he was where he was because they had moved him so
many times. They had had opportunities to find a family for him, but they’d concentrated on
his mental health issues instead. They are extremely interested in their kids and very open
to trying innovative things.” A Parent for Every Child gave them the opportunity to help
James achieve permanency.
“The adoption was finalized in November 2012,” the Specialist says…. He’s living on a huge
farm with lots of animals and he’s a happy kid.”
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Jasmine
It took 18-year-old Jasmine a little time to warm up to the Permanency Specialist. “She was
in a group home,” the Specialist says. “Her DSS case worker told me, ‘She’s so difficult to
work with. She’s angry. Don’t expect the first meeting to go well.’ So I met her with the DSS
worker, and she was very guarded.” Jasmine had reason to be suspicious. “She’s had a birth
family and an adoptive family that failed her,” the Specialist says.
According to [F], Jasmine’s aunt, the family had originally lived in the south, where
Jasmine had been adopted after her birth mother’s parental rights were terminated. “She
had a really tough time,” [F] says. “My sister took sick and moved back to New York and
wound up dying. Jasmine was a teenager at the time, dealing with her mother’s death and
all the other things that teenagers deal with. She had this thing about wanting to run away.
I tried to calm her down a bit and my son tried, too, but it didn’t work out. They moved her
upstate and she had a baby.”
The Specialist’s second meeting with Jasmine went better and Jasmine gradually relaxed
and became receptive to the idea of finding a family. “When she asked Jasmine about
family members, she said she didn’t have any who would want her. The county told me not
to contact any of her family members.” So they began to look for an adoptive family.
“Jasmine came to all the panels looking for a family, and she did a TV video for a local news
outlet.”
“She was doing pretty well for a while,” her aunt says, “but she had some issues with the
other young ladies in the home. They all were going through stuff and they lashed out at
each other. Jasmine is a big girl and I think her size intimidated a lot of them in the home. I
was down here working and one day I get a call and [Jasmine] says, ‘I’m in the precinct. You
need to bring some money and bail me out.’ I was told she won’t be able to go back to her
[group home] that night. I said, ‘Well, you know her baby is there and her things are there.’
I found out that [the group home] had an order of protection against her. I said, ‘Let me get
her baby and take her home with me.’”
“It took 10 days to get her clothing and her baby’s medication from the group home,” the
Specialist says. “And her aunt was not certified [as a foster parent]. But now the Specialist
had a family member to work with. It turned out that [F] had fostered and adopted a
number a children and she was willing to keep Jasmine. She told the Specialist the county
had never contacted her about taking Jasmine before placing her in the group home.”
The Specialist immediately started working on getting [F] certified. “Jasmine lived with her
aunt – in an uncertified home – for three months before the county … [went] out to meet
her. They didn’t want Jasmine living there, but Jasmine was refusing to move. So the
Specialist got ’L’ to start certification classes and tried to get an emergency certification so
[F] could get subsidy money for Jasmine and her three-year-old son. The county … [had her
aunt] go through the whole certification process before they would start paying.”
Page 14
“PFEC Specialist helped us get through this,” [F] says. “She’s been a tremendous advocate.
Jasmine was angry about a lot of things at first. the Specialist helped me calm her down; get
her on the right path. The Specialist came in and we went to the classes and did everything
we could do to get things into place for her so she could get a little subsidy while she’s
trying to transition to adulthood.”
“A lot of Jasmine’s behavior issues went away when she was living with family,” The
Specialist says. “She got her GED and a cosmetology certificate. She’ll take her state boards
in January. She won’t be adopted by her aunt because she’s already had a birth and
adoptive family who failed her, but she’s doing well.”
“She’s got a little part-time job and she’s going to college and is holding her own,”
Jasmine’s aunt’ says. “I think we’ve come to understand that a lot of Jasmine’s acting out
was because she felt unloved. Everybody wants to feel like they belong someplace.
Everybody wants to feel loved. Everybody wants to have a parent, a family. I know what it’s
like to be alone, but I told her she need not feel alone. She can come to me when she has
needs, when she needs someone to lean on. She can depend on me. She has a parent now.
She has a family. I call her my baby girl. That’s how I introduce her to people. She is getting
reconnected back with her brothers, her family, and that is very important to her, too.”
Klarence
Klarence was 20 years old when he was assigned to A Parent for Every Child project. In
addition to dual mental health and developmental disability diagnoses, he had been born
with a serious, chronic medical condition. His mother had been … [on the streets]; his father
hadn’t always admitted to being Klarence’s father and had been on the periphery of the boy’s
life. When I met him,” says the PFEC Permanency Specialist, “he had just moved to a
residence, in New York City.” In working with Klarence, the Specialist never talked with him
about the possibility of his being adopted “because [the social services district’s] Disabilities
Unit forbade it,” she says.
If you want a case that we’ve worked on that really talks about all of the reasons why there is
such a need for a program like this, as well as all of the obstacles and problems that you could
run into, I’d have to say Klarence would be the quintessential case,” says, the Clinical
Coordinator for the Disabilities Unit in New York City. “He is somebody that we’ve been
working with and have known about for years. He has serious emotional problems. He’s got a
serious medical condition. He’s got autism, a developmental disability. And after years of
being determined eligible [for services] by the state, the state psychologist came out and said,
Page 15
‘Nope, you don’t meet the state criteria anymore for the adult residential program.’ You
know what? He can have a medical problem and nobody is going to care for him as an adult
with a medical problem. And he still has an emotional problem and nobody is going to care
for him as an adult with an emotional problem. And the only thing that kind of secured his
future was the fact that the state said he had a developmental disability. But then the state
turned around and said; ‘No you don’t.’ So our unit then took the state to task and, ultimately,
he got determined as eligible and got added to the list. So after all of the fighting with the
State of New York [OPWDD] about whether he’s going to qualify, are we going to talk to him
about family coming in and upsetting his apple cart that way; as if his life hasn’t gone
through enough hell already.”
The PFEC Specialist was determined to create family connections for Klarence, even
though she couldn’t talk with him in terms of legal adoption. The agency is a big believer in
what we call moral adoption. It’s a heart-to-heart connection, not a piece of paper. Too
many people are concerned about getting the piece of paper signed for a kid. We need to
focus on life-to-life connections.”
The Specialist finally convinced the social service district to let her take Klarence to a Meet
and Greet. “To me, the best strategy is getting kids in the room with adults, and the kids do
the magic themselves. …It’s amazing the magic that happens and people fall in love with
these kids.” The magic worked for Klarence. “There was a single mom with her mother and
her adopted daughter. The daughter wanted a sibling. They came to the session to meet a
girl. They ended up sitting next to Klarence and fell in love with him. It turned out that the
woman had a nephew with developmental disabilities.” Even though they had never
discussed the possibility of adoption, Klarence asked the specialist on the way home from
the Meet and Greet, “Do you think they’ll adopt me?”
The PFEC Specialist set up an informational meeting for the woman with all the parties
involved in Klarence’s care. “She wasn’t feeling well that day and wanted to postpone it,”
the Specialist says. Because so many people were involved and rescheduling would have
been difficult, the meeting proceeded as planned, but it didn’t go well. “They thought she
was flippant and didn’t understand Klarence’s needs.” the social services district didn’t
want to proceed. “But Klarence had seen the woman at the meeting and he knew what
was going on,” the Specialist says. “So ... [the district] said I [the Specialist] couldn’t work
with him anymore. she could visit him, but nothing else.”
The PFEC Specialist continued to visit Klarence regularly and take him out to lunch. The
prospective adoptive mother was still interested and tried to work through [another
organization] to pursue adoption, but the Specialist’s hands were tied. “Klarence was 20 at
the time. I told him that when he was 21, we could reintroduce them. Then …[ the facility]
said he could stay there until he was 22. The day before he turned 22, they moved him to a
group home in the Bronx.” The social services district believes this placement is in
Klarence’s best interests. “It’s a beautiful home,” the Clinical Coordinator for the Disability
Unit says.
Page 16
Klarence’s situation underscores the divergent missions of the child welfare system and
the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD). “The child welfare system
values family, values adoption,” the Clinical Coordinator for the Disabilities Unit says. “And
the adult system values independence and community involvement and reaching your
potential. …So it’s a challenge, because these two systems aren’t meant to work together.
They often have different purposes. …I want children to have the best support and
services that New York State can afford them and the best family that we can provide.
…Your whole job as a parent is to prepare your child for independence. So when I hear
about how he’s going to be adopted at 21, well, that’s him becoming a child at 21. …We
want that young person to have the best of services and housing that are life-long.”
The PFEC Specialist continued to work on establishing permanent family connections for
Klarence. “I contacted the mom and she was still interested,” she says. “But then her
adopted daughter started having problems. So they haven’t reconnected yet, but I’m still
working on it. But we had to wait two years until he aged out of foster care to make this
happen.”
Klarence has also reconnected with some of his biological family members in recent
months. “His father gave him the phone number of a half-brother no one knew existed,”
Denise says. “He also has a half-sister and grandmother in Virginia who have been trying to
find him and they’re reconnected. He’s visiting with them now. He doesn’t want to live in
Virginia. He wants to stay in New York and he’s still interested in the other family being
part of his life. He won’t live with them, but he’ll spend holidays with them and go camping
with them.”
Robert
Both of Robert’s parents died when he was young, and he had been in and out of group
homes, foster homes, and psychiatric hospitals for most of his life. Despite those challenges,
“Robert is a very charismatic child,” says the Permanency Specialist. “He’s easy to fall in
love with.”
[W] and [C] were experienced adoptive and foster parents when they met Robert, and they
did fall in love with him. But their path to adopting him was not easy. “They’ve had their ups
and downs with him,” the Specialist says.
“The experience of getting him was kind of hard,” [W] says, “because the agency he was
with at that particular time felt that we weren’t capable of having him. We had to show
them we were capable.
Page 17
”[W] and [C] attended training through You Gotta Believe! “I trained them to make an
unconditional commitment,” the Specialist says. “I’m an adoptive parent myself, so I can
relate to what they’re going through. Anybody who’s raising a teenager knows that they can
really push you to your limits. [W and C] are amazing people, but they are human.”
“The Specialist taught us different ways to tackle certain situations…,” [W] says. “She’s
taught us to size up the issue before reacting to it.”
“Robert was constantly getting into trouble with the law over minor traffic infractions and
other minor issues,” the Specialist says. “At one point he was really going downhill and he
allowed us to sign him into ..[another program] for a diagnostic. He did wonderful in the
program, but the county decided that he shouldn’t go back to the family because they
figured the family wouldn’t want him.
“The toughest thing with Robert was that he wanted more freedom to do what he wanted
to do,” [W] says. “We had to teach him that you cannot just do what you want to do in our
household, in other people’s households. … There was a transition period, where you’re
getting used to each other and you’re putting down rules. It’s tough at times to get them to
understand the rules. They will try to break them constantly.” “They are older when we
get them,” [C] adds, “and if they’ve been in a facility, they’ve had to follow a regimen. So
when they move into a home with a family, they feel free. …They just want freedom, so
they think there won’t be any rules anymore. It’s a struggle, and you have to try to
reestablish that structure.“ [W] says, “Don’t think an institution can do the job of a loving
parent.”
The Specialist was determined to make sure that Robert returned to [W and C’s] home. “I
had to literally step in and have a meeting at …[the facility] and have the worker sit there
and have Robert sit there and have her listen to [W and C] tell her that they wanted Robert
to come home. …It’s sad because this stuff is getting in the way of success stories like
Robert’s.”
Robert returned to [W and C’s] home and his adoption was finalized. “He’s turned things
around,” [W] says. “He’s a good kid. I’m seeing a lot of progress. We have Daddy Days
where he accompanies me when I run errands. A lot of times in the summer, we go fishing
or go to the pool to go swimming. Or we’ll go see the ferry. And he’ll tell me, ‘I’ve never
done these things before.’ He gets as excited as a six-year-old kid because this is all new to
him, especially the part about an adult taking an interest in him.”
Robert believes that [W and C] have given him a future. “For the first time in my life, I feel I
have parents who care about me,” he says. “If [they] didn’t come into my life, I would
probably have ended up in jail because I have a very short temper. [They] helped me work on
that. They showed me how not to act so quick, just let things go, you can live to see another
day instead of fight.”
Page 18
And Robert has big plans for his future. “Thanks to [W and C], I have hope that I can realize
my dreams,” he says. “I want to build the first full hydrogen-powered car. I want to build a
car that runs on nothing but water. The idea hit me when I was a little kid. …I figured, why
not build something that would help people and make people know me for something good.
I’m not going to stop until I achieve my goal.”
[W and C] value the ongoing support A Parent for Every Child has given them. “The help
from the program doesn’t stop once they’ve made a match,” [W] says. “They are always
there for us -- 24/7 -- every day of the year.” It’s a resource they rely on as they help
Robert transition to adulthood and independence. “He’s still a work in progress,” the
adoptive mother says. “Everybody looks at him as a grown man, but in reality he’s not
quite there yet.”
Shakur
Shakur was in a residential program when he was assigned to PFEC. He had dual
developmental disability and mental health diagnoses and had been in residential care for
about 10 years because of parental neglect and abuse. His mother had been incarcerated for
several years and his father had died. Shakur had some contact with his aunt and
grandmother and was close to his sister, but none of them could give him a permanent
home.
“When I first met Shakur, I discovered a great kid,” says the Permanency Specialist . “He did
have a lot of psychiatric issues. And he kept going back and forth about whether or not he
wanted to find a family.”
Shakur finally decided that he would like a family. PFEC Project Director produced an
Adoption Chronicle, in which Shakur talked about his love of reading, his strong faith, and
his desire to become an EMT so he can help people.
A family in Rochester saw Shakur’s Chronicle and expressed interest in him. “The foster
mom met him over Skype,” says [the facility] Social Worker [D]. “And then she came here [to
the facility] two or three times to meet him. We did a lot of work to make it happen.”
Page 19
After frequent phone calls and visits by the prospective foster mother, the PFEC team
arranged for Shakur to spend a weekend with the family in Rochester. “Shakur hadn’t lived
in a home and he didn’t know what to do,” social worker says. “He was a young man who
was very needy. He wanted to be around adults all the time. He wasn’t particularly
interested in hanging out with his peers. [The foster mom] was looking for someone a little
more independent, someone who was more of a typical teenage boy, who was into sports
and hanging out with friends and things like that.”
Shortly after his last trip to Rochester, Shakur had a sexual incident with another [facility]
resident. “So we wound up putting everything on hold,” [D] says. “Dealing with that and
processing that was a lot for him. Both parties decided this wasn’t what they wanted.”
Despite the disruption to the relationship, [D] feels it was a positive experience for Shakur.
“He got a lot out of it. He was able to have that sense of being in a family.”
At about the same time, Shakur began to reconnect with his biological mother, who was
still in prison. “The relationship with his mom was huge,” [D] says. “She said she wanted to
have contact with him, but she had no rights to him. But Shakur responded. He wanted to
speak with her. I asked PFEC Project Director for help in reconnecting them and I started
coaching him. We began with phone calls and we started very slowly. They wanted to see
one another, so I started bringing him up for visits. And that was one of the most incredible
experiences I had, seeing them reunite after so many years, after so much heartache and
tragedy between them.”
The reunification had a profound effect on both Shakur and his mother. “She has totally
turned her life around,” ‘D’ says. “She is like a model resident [in prison]. She finished her
degree and she teaches classes. She is really an incredible person and their relationship
was amazing to see. And it was amazing to see the changes in Shakur once he came back
here. He was much more stable.”
During one of Shakur’s visits with his mother, a woman doing ministry at the prison took a
real interest in Shakur and asked if she could mentor him. Shakur’s mother agreed, and the
woman became a visiting resource for him. As their relationship strengthened, she
expressed an interest in taking Shakur in and began foster parent training through You
Gotta Believe! “But over time it got to be too much for Shakur,” the PFEC
Specialist says, so they put the foster parenting plan on hold.
Shakur is currently living in a group home. He sees his mother regularly and is
reconnecting with his extended family.
Page 20
Taylor
Taylor, a teenager with pervasive developmental issues and a mental health diagnosis, had
been in residential care for most of his life. He lived in an Office of Person with
Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) foster home until he was 9 or 10 and was then
placed in a residential program, about five hours away from his foster home. By the time
he was selected for A Parent for Every Child project, Taylor had lived at residential
program about four years.
Taylor’s case was challenging for the Permanency Specialist from the start because the
residential facility would not let her see or work with him. “The folks [facility staff] refused
to meet with me for the first two months. [D] [Taylor’s case worker from the County
Department of Social Services) actually got me in,” the Specialist says. “She attended a
monthly meeting at the facility and took me in with her. They wouldn’t have let me in there
on my own.”
The Permanency Specialist initially worked on finding a visiting family for Taylor. “I went
back to his foster parents to talk about being a visiting resource,” she says. “They still had
several kids at home to care for, but they were receptive.” Visits with the foster family
started, but “the distance was a huge barrier for this family,” Kelly says. However, [D] was
committed to making the situation work. “I kept telling myself, this is what’s best for
Taylor,” she says.
After several months of visits, the PFEC Specialist and Taylor’s case worker asked the foster
family if they would consider taking custody of Taylor or becoming his legal guardians.
“They didn’t feel they could do that,” the Specialist says, “so we started looking for an
adoptive family.”
The Specialist had Taylor’s photo taken for the Heart Gallery. PFEC Project Director did an
Adoption Chronicle, in which Taylor talked about his interest in weather (and named
several types of clouds), playing soccer, and his desire for a family. It was the Chronicle that
led to a match. “[H], a Methodist minister who lived not too far from the facility, wanted to
adopt an older child.” When he saw Taylor’s Chronicle, [H] was very interested.
“We started with visiting and it went well,” the Specialist says. “We had to work through
the process with the facility” because the OPWDD system promotes independence rather
than permanency. “They have adult programs for kids who age out, so they don’t look for
families. They had to go through an internal process to figure out how this would work for
them, too. Taylor is fairly limited in his ability to communicate. We discussed ways to
Page 21
measure how the bond was developing and how we would know if there was a problem.”
Once residential facility concerns were addressed, the relationship between Taylor and [H]
progressed well. “We had a number of meetings with all the parties to see if and how it
would proceed. We did a lot of work with Family Court, too, and the judge was very profamily,” the Specialist says. “[H] lived in … County and they don’t offer foster family
services,” the Specialist says, “so we put Bridges to Health in place and that was great.”
After about eight months of visits, including overnights on weekends and vacations, [H]
was transferred to a congregation in Connecticut. “There were quite a few roadblocks
along the way,” the Specialist says, “but we didn’t anticipate the roadblocks that came up
when [H] moved out of state. Taylor had to be transferred into foster care in New York and
then transferred to foster care in Connecticut.” “The system in Connecticut balked at
certifying the foster home and providing services,” the Specialist says, “so we couldn’t get
the foster home set up. So Taylor had to be hospitalized for a weekend. That was extremely
difficult.”
[H]had to be recertified in Connecticut. He also lost Bridges to Health coverage when he
moved out of New York State and had to apply for services in Connecticut. “Getting
Medicaid coverage was difficult,” the Specialist says. “Hal couldn’t register Taylor in school
until he had a Connecticut physical, but [H] couldn’t take him to get the physical until the
Medicaid coverage was set up.” When the system created challenges for [H], Hal created
challenges for Kelly and Denise. “He was great with Taylor,” Denise says, “but he didn’t
understand the bureaucracy. He had a preconceived notion of how things should work and,
when they didn’t work that way, he sent me nasty, nasty emails.”
When everything was finally in place for Taylor to be discharged to [H] another roadblock
appeared: “Taylor couldn’t be released until [H] found a psychiatrist to prescribe
medications,” the Specialist explains. “And in Connecticut, most psychiatrists won’t accept
any insurance, much less Medicaid.” the PFEC Specialist was able to arrange for Taylor’s
psychiatric supervision through Parsons so that he could be released into Hal’s care.
When the Specialist and case worker did a home visit about a month later, the relationship
between [H] and Taylor was not going well. “Taylor had started to develop a lot of
behavioral problems and aggression,” the Specialist says, “probably because of two moves
in a short time. He also had some medication problems.” “We weren’t sure it was going to
work,” [D] says. “[H] had problems with aggression, even though Taylor had a history of
aggression and [H] had known that.” [D] arranged for support services to help resolve the
Page 22
problems.
“It was the most complex adoption ever,” the Specialist says. “Connecticut thought we
were dumping this kid and they were stomping their feet and saying no,” [D] says, “and
we had to bring in (Director of New York State Adoption Services and the PFEC Project
Supervisor). Once the Project Supervisor got involved, things settled down and we
worked much better together. Connecticut finally realized we were just trying to get the
right services.”
[D] believes the PFEC team should have done a better job of communicating with [H] up
front about Taylor’s behavior challenges. “[H] didn’t want an assaultive kid,” she says. “We
could have done a better job of communicating that Taylor had a history of assaulting.”
[D] also believes the system left them unprepared to handle [H]. “We didn’t have all the
home finding records initially. the PFEC Specialist finally did get them and we learned that,
when [H] didn’t feel the system was treating him fairly, he’d come full force at the system.”
Despite all the challenges, Taylor’s adoption was completed early in 2013. “The judge had
tears in his eyes,” [D] says. “He couldn’t believe we had found this family for Taylor.”
Taylor is doing very well in his adoptive home. “I just say them at Taylor’s 18th birthday
party,” Kelly says. “[H] had family from all over the area there, plus friends from Taylor’s
school. His biological sister was there, too. [H] has a very good relationship with
everybody. And Taylor is in a great school that really meets his needs. He and [H] have a
wonderful relationship. To see the transformation from the kind of care he was getting at
Devereux and what his quality of care is now is amazing.”
Page 23
A Parent for Every Child Permanency Specialists
What barriers did you encounter?
Denise Royal: The biggest barrier is the system itself, the workers who don’t believe in
permanency for older kids, who believe no one will want a kid like that (especially OPWDD
kids or kids with mental health issues). The system thinks of all the reasons something
can’t work instead of all the reasons it could work.
Another barrier is not being part of the New York State Connections system. There’s so
much information you can get off Connections.
The system in which PFEC info went out to different agencies or workers was a problem,
too. I don’t know anybody who received a letter introducing me or telling them I would be
contacting them.
ACS has had so many changes over so long a period. They have workers who’ve never met
kids. ...Some of my kids I never even found. I couldn’t get people to return calls. In some
cases, I couldn’t even get records to read on them. Agencies wouldn’t talk to me unless ACS
okayed it – and they wouldn’t.
Mike Finn: Most barriers were with some counties and their view that kids would be in
danger if any of their family was contacted. Counties didn’t want to rock the boat; they
didn’t want to bring anything into the kids’ lives that would disrupt the placement they had
worked out. It would have made more work for them. They feared they would be left with a
kid on their hands and no place to put him.
Counties felt these kids were unadoptable and what we were doing was a waste of their
time. Many mental health institutions still have the mentality that the kids need treatment
before you can find a family or “we’re their family, our staff is their family.”
The time it takes for local districts to figure out whether they like a family’s home study or
not is unbelievable. The judgment they pass after just reading a piece of paper is
unbelievable. They decline because of stupid stuff. They have too much to do; they don’t
want to take the time to dig into things. They don’t give opportunities a chance. Some
accumulate home studies for six months and then go through them all – and then they just
look at the top three or four. You’re at the mercy of the worker who gets the home study.
You go through so much to have a home study written and then it’s just worthless if it’s not
interpreted accurately. There’s no face-to-face contact.
Another barrier was that at age 14, when kids in New York State have the legal right to
refuse adoption, that’s the first time anyone talks to them about permanency. If the kid says
no, they don’t push it any further than that.
Page 30
Kelly Hart Salamone: It was so individual. A lot of times the barriers were policy barriers.
Sometimes it was individuals who really did not feel they wanted to participate.
I’m used to working with OCFS. Going over to the OPWDD system was challenging. They
have a lot of different policies about visiting family, what their goals and mission are and
how that’s interpreted by the agencies. It made a huge difference in whether or not we
were able to get in and introduce foster families. Their philosophy of care is different. They
feel strongly they are providing the best care and they won’t entertain the idea of the child
moving to a foster care/pre-adoptive situation and the possibility of that falling apart.
Sometimes they don’t believe their kids can be cared for as well outside the facility. Part of
their reluctance is a desire to protect the kids from further loss.
Stephen McCall: Mainly with some of the locations where the kids were living. In one case,
an OPWDD kid, he was in a family foster care program where they had to go through a
special program to become foster parents. The program didn’t want to work with me. They
said he should go into an OPWDD home, foster parents wouldn’t keep him. He has a bed for
life through OPWDD. If he bounces, he’ll go on the waiting list and it will take five years to
get another bed. They put up barriers by bringing up the problems and discouraging
prospective parents.
Some of the kids themselves would sabotage placements because they’ve been in
institutions so long. They haven’t lived with family in so long, there was a fear. The kids are
afraid. Most of my time was spent making the kids open to it. These kids are used to being
rejected.
Mike Carroll:
1. A lot of people thought most of these kids were unadoptable. For the most part, nobody
was doing the work to find permanency for these kids. The more years they were in the
system, the more lost they were.
2. There were natural barriers over who has control. Kids are the custody of certain
jurisdictions. In New York City in particular, the kids are in the custody of ACS, but
there’s a planning agency and sometimes even a residential facility. I think it’s
workable, but it adds layers of complexity.
3. We constantly had to explain the program to new people due to turnover. That was a
frustration for our people.
4. There’s a belief in the OPWDD programs that the kids have a lifetime plan to go into an
adult group home. They don’t want the kids to “lose their place in line” and have to go to
the bottom of the waiting list. Workers thought they had the kids’ best interests in mind
and had the plan all worked out.
Page 31
5. The kids were really spread out and that made the work too hard. When a Permanency
Specialist arrived for a meeting, lots of times the kid wasn’t there or a worker had taken
the day off. Our staff wasted a lot of time driving around.
6. The fact that these youth don’t get taken back to court every six months for a
permanency hearing and don’t have the chance to tell the judge what they want. Every
kid should have to do that. The kids become just a piece of paper for the judge. It’s
usually a distance issue.
What changes would have enabled you to find adoptive families for more PFEC
youth?
Pat Dudley: Fairy dust from Santa to sprinkle on these case workers! Adolescents in the
system burn through their workers so fast. The workers are so resistant to family members
sometimes. It takes time to earn family trust. The workers don’t believe [the kid] can make
it in a family or that there’s a family that will work through it. They figure the family will
give them back. And in all fairness, these kids can be bounced from families. Their main
concern is safety and that’s what they focus on. If they worried less about finding perfect
families and more on working through issues with imperfect families, the kids would be
better off. I understand where they’re coming from; teens can go AWOL and create lots of
problems. [Case workers] view things very black and white; they never see the gray. And
for these kids living in families, it’s all gray.
Denise Royal: If the PFEC Program had more weight behind it, if it were enforceable.
There’s no consequences for people not doing what they’re supposed to.
Also, kids get labeled as unadoptable because we don’t properly prepare foster parents to
handle them. We’ve been doing a lot of learning about trauma and how it affects kids. More
needs to be put into the MAPP classes about that. If people understood kids’ behavior and
how it’s affected by trauma, they would be better prepared to handle these kids. Fewer
placements would be disrupted. Right now we reward parents for not parenting. We allow
them to get another kid. If they’re not willing to put in the time, we shouldn’t certify them
as foster parents. We need to do a better job in educating parents about trauma.
Kelly Hart Salamone: That attitude that the homes are there. And support after the
adoption is so critical. That’s where I was seeing a lot of initial relationships fall apart. They
initially looked like great matches, but the family couldn’t deal with the trauma and had
difficulty adjusting. It’s a critical part of the equation. It doesn’t stop with the adoption
paper.
A stronger mentor recruitment and training program would be really helpful to PFEC.
There used to be a lot of mentoring programs in the area, but most of them have dried up.
Page 32
You have to do your own mentor recruitment and get them trained. That’s a real gap. Most
agencies had them 10 or 15 years ago, but the funding disappeared. And right now I don’t
have a training program to recruit them into. [Parsons] is talking about an abbreviated
MAPP training, talking about how we get them to the point where they’re trauma informed.
Stephen McCall: Language is important. Telling them we want to find mentors for these
kids would be more effective. Telling them we’re trying to find adoptive homes is a hard
sell. And there’s no way to fully prepare parents for these kids.
Mike Carroll: We look in the wrong places for families sometimes. We cast a wide net. The
project has found that throwing a narrower net – looking for someone who has raised or
worked with kids with developmental disabilities, for example – will be more successful.
They know what to expect and are connected with networks of people who can support
them. Others need our help to develop that support network. Families with experience with
the child’s particular needs have a better chance of succeeding. Finding ways to
communicate with those folks is very challenging. And some of the systems involved don’t
believe the kids are adoptable.
In some cases, agency staff wanted to adopt one of our youth, but their agency had a policy
against it. They would have had to change jobs to do it. There are reasons to be cautious,
but it should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
For everyone who is involved in these cases, we should be sure their only concern is the
safety and welfare of the child.
People need to be trained to be good, skilled recruiters – and there are a lot of steps to that.
I’m not sure how competent a lot of adoption workers are. They typically have huge
caseloads and I understand how the kids we work with get lost, but it’s not okay that they
get lost. They need adoption competence, they need Family Finding competence. There’s a
lot of heart and a lot of people who want to do a better job; there’s not a lot of support.
What else would you like NYS and federal policy makers to know about A Parent for
Every Child?
Pat Dudley: They need to know that everybody went in here with a pure heart and the right
motivation and the belief that we could do this work. They have to sprinkle some fairy dust
on the counties and let them know that it can be done and it has to be done the right way.
The families need support – somebody they can call and talk to 24/7. They’re so caught up
in county safety guidelines; they don’t have realistic expectations for kids living in homes,
so they don’t want to place them in homes. Everything has to be evaluated on an individual
basis with these kids.
Page 33
And a lot of these residential and group homes hire kids not much older than the kids
they’re caring for.
Mike Finn: This stuff works mainly because someone is sitting there saying to a child,
“You’re in charge. If you want a family, I will do everything in my power to help you find it.
It goes the way you want it to go.” I don’t do anything unless the kid says, “Yes, I want that.”
The kid is my supervisor. I report back to him/her on everything I do. It’s amazing what
happens when you give kids the power to do this. These kids don’t have the power to do
anything. To sit there and be in charge of something, they really bite into it.
Kelly Hart Salamone: There are wonderful people across the states who have come forward
interested in fostering and adopting. But they do need that support. The kids are great. We
need to keep the kids very visible and high profile. We must continue to do this work.
This has been a phenomenal experience for me. Making these connections has been so
powerful and meaningful for these kids – the first sibling visit in 10 years, families crying
over the loss they felt when their child went into care, and so many others. The trauma [of
family disconnection] affects so many people. It’s a loss for everybody.
There was so much that was done that was just so wrong – kids being moved away from
their homes, being disconnected from families, being bounced around from place to place,
overmedication. Let this be the last group of kids we see who have been cut off from
everything they knew without some sort of permanency work being done. Don’t let it die
out when the funding ends.
Page 34

A Parent for Every Child Vignettes

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