The Invisible Runaway

This week the New York Times published a story about a 13-year-old runaway who had been riding the subways for 11 days before he was discovered, even though hundreds of flyers had been distributed in the subways and the city with his picture.  Francisco was not your typical boy but he may be a typical runaway.  He had run away after school because he was afraid to face his mother who knew he was not doing well in school.  He also had Asberger Syndrome.

Many of the youth served by Bill Wilson Center’s runaway shelter have trouble with school.   Many parents of these youth do not know where to turn when their kids need help.  Kids with Asberger’s have an additional handicap — they often lack the social skills to connect with their peers and teachers.   We have seen many kids with Asberger’s over the years.

The story also reminds me of the results of a survey that the Search Institute conducts every year with teenagers to gauge their asset level.  The majority of the teens feel that adults do not value them or even like them.  They repeatedly report that many adults ignore them when passing them on the streets.  I wonder how many adults saw Francisco sitting on the subway every day?

After reading the story I was again reminded about what we can do to reach out to young people.  Just saying hello to a teenager you pass on the street will go a long way in making our community a better place.  And, next time you see a young person looking lonely and with their head down, why not ask if there is something you can do for them?  You might be surprised when they ask for some help.

Who Buries Our Former Foster Children?

About two weeks ago a regular at Bill Wilson Center’s Drop-In Center, Carl Weisman, 24 years old, died from complications from Swine Flu. Carl had a rough life.  After suffering abuse, he was placed with Future Families at age 9 and then went to a Unity Care Group home at age 13 where he lived for 5 years.  After turning age 18, Carl left foster care and never quite made it to successful independent living.   Abusing drugs and alcohol, Carl was always at our Drop-In Center where counselors and case managers helped him with basic needs and worked tirelessly to get him off the streets.   Carl was successful for short times, but the lure of drugs and the street always short circuited his plans.

Several weeks ago, Carl was hospitalized for pneumonia and heart problems; complications from years of street life and abusing drugs.   He apparently was released but then contracted the H1N1 virus and ended up back in the hospital and soon after on life support.  Carl’s sister, who also spent her life in foster care, was the only relative willing to see him and make decisions about the end of his life.  Unity Care and Bill Wilson Center staff were there to support her.  A few days later, Carl passed away.

Carl’s sister wanted a church funeral for her brother, but she had no money.  I assumed that because Carl had been in foster care and was in Santa Clara County’s Connected by 25 program that there would be some funds available to help pay for his funeral costs.  I called and staff from Unity Care called social services to check.  Carl was not eligible for funds because he was over 21.  Also, he was originally from Alameda County so not really from here.  I was told to try the Children’s Shelter Foundation.  The Foundation told me to check with the county and then get back to them.  To the Social Services Agency credit, social workers organized a bake sale and collected donations for Carl’s funeral.

The clock was ticking, the hospital was putting pressure on Carl’s sister to take her brothers’ body somewhere.  The Neptune Society would not take the body until they had a guarantee of funds.  Unity Care raised funds from their staff, Bill Wilson Center passed the hat around at an event, and finally the county Mental Health Contractors Association wrote a check for the final amount.  Carl could now have the funeral his sister wanted.

Trying to arrange for Carl’s funeral was a stressful time for me, Andre Chapman from Unity Care, and his sister.  There must be an easier way to take care of our former foster youth who die homeless and penniless.  I tried calling the county public guardian and coroner for help.  Homeless agencies had suggestions of funeral homes who had helped in the past, but maybe due to the economy, they weren’t a help this time.

I believe there is a better way.  I plan on asking our state representatives to sponsor a bill in the state legislature to pay for burying our former foster children if they die without family and without money.  At the very least, we should help with costs if they die before age 30.  After all, when children are placed with the state they are now the children of the state.  Let’s at least remember them with a funeral we would want for our own children.

President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize For Starting the Dialogue

Bill Wilson Center encourages youth to get involved in the community and to learn the art of “dialogue.”  The hardest part for many of the kids to learn is that  a dialogue also includes listening.  They often are so enthusiastic about a subject that they want to jump in to express their view.  On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult to get teens to talk about anything to adults!  Go figure.

It appears that everyone, including President Obama was surprised that he has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize so early in his presidency.  Perhaps it is a strong endorsement of the process of dialogue and inclusion — we don’t all agree but at least we can sit down and discuss matters of importance in a civil way.

According to  the Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Obama has already provided outstanding leadership in the effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.

“He has shown an unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts,” ElBaradei said.

I am struck by how difficult it has been recently to have civil dialogues — whether on health care reform or passing a state budget — no one wants to compromise.  I am working with a group of concerned leaders from the Silicon Valley American Leadership Forum to create opportunities for participative dialogue.  The Collaborative for the Common Good invites everyone from Silicon Valley to join in.

24/7 Drop-In One-Stop Center for Homeless Youth

Bill Wilson Center’s Drop-In Center is so successful that we have created a problem:  youth sleep on our doorstep after we close for the night because they have no other place to go and they feel safe at our Drop-In Center.  Unfortunately, there are a few kids that cause problems, so we have added security – spending money we would rather use for services for our kids.  There must be a better way.

Ever since we opened the Bill Wilson Center’s Drop-In Center in 1995 we have served a steady stream of youth over age 18.  Our goal was to get all the youth off the streets, but we soon realized that there was this “in between age” young person who was caught between being a teenager and an adult.  We have a shelter for the kids under 18, but there are few options for 18-24 year olds. Although these young people (usually up to age 22) are adults they often don’t feel comfortable in adult shelters and need comprehensive services provided in a place they know by people they trust.  These young people build a protective shell to keep them from further hurt.

Over the years, we have added more programs for homeless young people who have aged out of the foster care system or other institutions, or have lived on the streets.  We have also expanded services at the Drop-In Center such as increasing our hours, adding three free meals a day, free showers, storage lockers, counseling, job assistance, support groups, HIV and pregnancy prevention, and health care.  We also linked youth up with our other programs including transitional housing.

Our one goal that remained out of reach was to extend our drop-in services to 24-hours so that we could be available all the time to anyone who needed help.  In the next few weeks, before winter sets in, our goal is to find the funds to remain open 24-hours, every day.   Instead of paying for security to move kids away from our courtyard when we are closed, we will hire counselors who will invite them into the Drop-in center to talk or to sleep on a cot.   Our vision of a 24/7 one-stop service center is within our reach.

Javier starts High School in San Francisco

Today my son, Javier, started Gateway High School in SF.  It is a new beginning for both of us because it is the first day that he is no longer living with me during the school week.  It seemed best for Javier to go to SF to live with his dad, stepmom, and little brother, Oscar for high school, and we have been planning the move for over 6 months.  He was lucky to get into a top-notch charter school and his little brother adores having his big brother around.  Javier will still come down to visit on weekends but I expect, as time passes, he will want to spend more time with friends and less time with his mom.  After all, that is what teenagers do.

Javier grew up at Bill Wilson Center so it seemed only fitting that I should blog about our changes. My goal is to have fun with him on the weekends and to have a life during the week.  I know it would be all too easy for me to just extend my work hours in the evening.  I plan to text Javier, write him on Facebook, and occasional call him, although we both prefer other methods of communications.   I already miss him.

Enhanced Ranch Program: Change for Double the Cost and Time

The Santa Clara County Probation Department has completed its evaluation of their new Enhanced Ranch Program and the news is mixed at best.   While violent incidences are down for kids while in the ranch, outcome for kids 12 month after leaving the program show little difference from the original ranch program.

Today the Santa Clara County Public Safety and Justice Committee will accept a report from the Probation Department on the new Enhanced Ranch Program.  Sheila Mitchell, Chief Probation Officer commissioned the report from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.   The final report documents the changes that occurred at the two county ranches, the James Boys Ranch and the Muriel Wright Center, both located in South County.  The report compared two cohorts:  youth who were in the ranches from 2005-2007 before the enhanced program was implemented and a group of youth who completed the new program.  The report focuses on evaluating the violations and failures of the youth (as identified by the Probation Department) while in the facility and 12 months after leaving the program (see page 36 of report).

The new Enhance Program is loosely based on the Missouri Model where kids were removed from locked facilities and treated in smaller, homelike settings and they wore street clothes.  Although the Probation Department did change the setting to create “pods” instead of the old dormitories, the James Ranch is still surrounded by a high chain-linked fence topped with razor-wire which is exactly what the Missouri Model removed.   The study refers to the facilities as “open” omitting the fact of the wire.  Oh, well, maybe kids don’t see the wire from their comfy new couches.    Also, kids are still required to wear uniforms in the facility, not their own clothes which is a key component of the Missouri Model.  The report does state that the probation department hopes to change the uniforms to street clothes soon.

There are several questions I have about the evaluation such as the cost of the program before and after the changes.  The staff ratio during the day are now 1:6 while before were 1:15.  Also, kids stay an average of 8 months now with 6 months of aftercare while before they stayed 4-5 months.  For double the cost and double the time 28% of the kids in the new program were rearrested while 31% in the old program were rearrested — only a 3% improvement.  Nine percent had a probation violation compared to 11% from the old program.   Not exactly stellar outcomes for the program.  The report does say that these outcomes are “promising” but  “not definitive” which means not much change at all.  In other words, the jury is out on whether there is really any long-term impact on the Enhanced Ranch Program.

I have talked to kids who stayed in the old ranch program and the new one.  They agree the staff are nicer and there are better services.  However, they complain that they waited months in juvenile hall to get into the program and while in the hall did nothing but sit around in their cells for hours.  The real issues is that there is little programming in juvenile hall where less serious offenders wait for months to either go to the ranch or to a placement or just go home.  Santa Clara County has one of the longer stays for kids in juvenile hall than any other large facility in the state.  I hope that can retrain staff in juvenile hall and start releasing these kids sooner to community based programs.

The report also shows that the ranch kids are now younger and 80% are Latino and 78% male.   The report does not identify the percentage of Latinos in the first cohort group although it does breakdown age for both groups.  I would hope we are not sending even more Latinos to the Ranches than before.  If so, it would really show a failure of our Juvenile Justice Detention Reform effort which had the goal to reduce the overconfinement of kids of color.

Questions I still want answered:  are the kids in the ranches really failing group homes before being sent to the ranches?  How do they define group home failures?  Kids often leave group homes which are truly in an open setting without permission but they usually return.  Often group homes now complain that probation is quick to remove kids from their programs and “violate” them when before kids were given more chances to settle into the programs.

If they are taking kids that would normally be sent to California Youth Authority why aren’t they taking the most serious violent offenders like 707 violators?  Why aren’t they taking kids with serious alcohol and substance abuse problems when they refer these kids to open group homes?  Also, with all the cutbacks to community based programs this year, are the aftercare programs and other services gone and what new programs are planned?

Stay tuned as I explore these questions more.

Santa Clara Children’s Shelter Quietly Closes

With barely a whimper, the Santa Clara County Children’s Shelter for abused and neglected children will close by December 31, 2009.  This is in stark contrast to when it opened to much fanfare in 1993.  It was the state-of-the-art facility with plenty of space and groomed fields.   The shelter, built in 1993 to house 132 kids, now stands almost empty.  Although some are lamenting its demise, I for one, am celebrating!  After more than 15 years the County is finally adopting the best practice model of keeping abused children with family members or placing them in temporary foster homes.   A recent article in the San Jose Mercury News laments the closing of the shelter.

In 1989 the County’s then Supervisor Diane McKenna spear-headed a fundraising campaign to build the new $14 million  shelter.   The campaign incorporated as a nonprofit to secure private donations and foundation support.  I was keenly aware of this campaign because I was out raising funds for Bill Wilson Center’s new $3 million runaway shelter.  While the Children’s Shelter Fund had three full-time fundraisers, I was Executive Director/CEO and the sole fundraiser for Bill Wilson Center.  Every time I solicited a foundation I had to explain how our runaway shelter was different from the Children’s Shelter.  We were all about reuniting kids with their families and the Children’s Shelter was the legal entity that removed children from their homes if abuse and neglect was substantiated.

Before the county decided to build a new shelter I testified at the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors meetings opposing opening a new expanded shelter for foster care kids.  Even in the late 1980s most of the emerging best practices showed that abused and neglected kids were best treated with family members or in foster homes.  Large institutional care was the last choice.  It is also the most restrictive setting for kids who are not criminals but victims.  Although the old shelter housed 70 children in a decrepit dorm hospital setting, I argued it was not the facility but the program that was at fault for the chronic runaways and other behavioral problems plaguing the old shelter.  I even suggested that they give the old building to Bill Wilson Center and we would use it as a new runaway center.

As is often the case, I was the lone voice opposing the $14 million expenditure for the new shelter.  My testimony fell on deaf ears.  Who could argue against removing kids from such a terrible place as the old shelter?  The campaign leaders showed off beautiful blueprints/pictures of a campus surrounded by adobe walls with a baseball field in the center.  Kids would be happy to stay in this new place with arts and crafts and sports all contained within the facility.

I remember when the Children’s  Shelter opened with great fanfare and front page stories in the San Jose Mercury News.  I still vividly recall the day I took a tour and watched eight toddlers walking hand-in-hand to the cafeteria to eat.  Why were such young kids in an institution?  Then I was shown the 20-bed cottage they shared with infants.  As I walked into the lobby of the cottage off to the right was a huge glass window with rows of cribs with babies lined up.   I wanted to cry — how on earth could we put babies in this place?  Weren’t there temporary foster homes for babies?

A year later apparently a state judge agreed after hearing a lawsuit from the National Center for Youth Law saying that very young children were harmed by being placed in institutional care.   He ordered all county dependency departments to remove kids ages 5 and under from their county-run shelters and place them  in foster homes.  Who would know this was the beginning of the end of placing kids in this institution?

Luckily for the county’s dependent children, around this time Will Lightbourne was hired as the Director of the Social Services Agency.  Mr. Lightbourne came from Santa Cruz County and San Francisco and knew that the Children’s Shelter was not only a poor model to treat kids in but it was also a costly one.   If dependent kids were placed with nonprofit agencies then Federal foster care funds could be used.  On the other hand, the Children’s Shelter had to be paid for out of limited county general funds.

Mr. Lightbourne soon hired the chief architect for changing the dependency system, Norma Doctor Sparks who has since retired.   Dr. Sparks was a direct, no-nonsense department head who soon butted heads with the employees union and some nonprofit leaders.  I was one of them.  However, after working with her for a couple of years I soon grew to appreciate her style and dedication to closing down the Children’s Shelter.

For the past year, the Children Shelter has been averaging fewer than 15 kids a night.  To make use of the large facility, the county will change the shelter to be a 23-hour assessment center.  The change will save at leave $1.5 million in reduced salaries, if the Board of Supervisors adopts Mr. Lightbourne’s recommendations.

If the county decides to have a party to celebrate the change of the shelter from an institution housing 132 kids to an assessment center I will be the first one there.  I know a few kids who will also like to say goodbye to the padded rooms they ended up in when they were out of control.  These days more and more kids are being returned to family or staying in foster homes.

I just wonder — what are they going to do with all that empty space?  What about all the public money that was used to develop the site with the requirement to keep the place as housing for 20 years?  Maybe they can make some of the space available to local nonprofits or schools needed extra room.

Closing ILP — What is the New Program?

As in my previous blog, I am writing about my experience with closing down our ILP that the Bill Wilson Center has been operating for 20 years.  Recently I attended a meeting at the County Social Services Agency where the new provider was presenting the new model.  I was expecting a slick Powerpoint presentation with grafts and charts.   The room was full of staff from other ILPs and my case managers and management staff.   What we got instead of the slick presentation was an extremely nervous CEO who read a two-page description of the program.  Stumbling through the document he admitted he had not read it before the meeting.  Constantly saying “material” grandmother for “maternal” grandmother I could here my program director mutter the correct word under her breath.  How hard would it had been to prepare a decent presentation for us?  I think even the County Social Services staff was a little surprised.  He spoke about managing transitions by William Bridges book by the same name.  Apparently we are all in the neutral zone.  I did get copies of this book a couple of years ago for my management staff and some parts are helpful.  I believe the Breakthrough Collaborative that the County is looking at using come from the work done by the Casey Family Programs.

In listening to the “three phases” of the new program it was sounding a lot like the current program.  The goal was to provide more case management and fewer group classes.  Most of this is already occurring in our program.  There was the “circle of support” which sounded like us still working with the kids but without the funds.  One case manager asked how 5 case managers were going to serve 650 kids.   Each worker would be assigned 120 kids to keep track of but most would not need “high touch” services.  However, if each were only contacted once a month that is still servicing 5.5 kids per day — a pretty difficult task.  There was talk about using interns and volunteers and that “circle of support” for the kids.  My staff is skeptical and concerned that their kids will fall through the cracks when transferred.

How do we assure that the high school seniors we have been supporting  fill out the needed forms this fall so they can qualify for college scholarships?  Who is going to drive them to school orientation?  We are worried like any parent sending their kid away.

Saying Goodbye to a 20-Year Program of the Bill Wilson Center

Last week I said goodbye to Rudy, the program manager of Bill Wilson Center’s Independent Living Skills Program for kids aging out of foster care.   The goodbye was bitter-sweet; Rudy had recently accepted a management position with First Place For Youth in Oakland overseeing similar programs for kids leaving foster care.   I was delighted that they had hired him for the position because he had exceptional skills working with youth and as a manager.  He was leaving us because our Indpendent Living Sills Program was ending after 20 years and he was the program director and slated for layoff in August.     The closing of this program is not due directly to the budget shortfalls government is facing but because the County of Santa Clara has decided to have one contractor provide countywide services rather than the existing five.   It will be easier for them to deal with just one agency.

Their rationale is that it is more cost-effective to have one contract and that they will have better outcomes for the kids with one provider.   Of course, they had no outcome data to support this claim; it was just a feeling on their part.  We had never received a report from the county that our services were not meeting the goals or had unsatisfactory outcomes. 

Although state and local funds are decreasing, this federal pass-through, John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, continues to have strong support.   Most other counties in California have the Social Services Agency run the program but this county has chosen to contract out the program, although the county takes almost 50% of the federal grant for overhead and supportive services.   Every three years the contracts are put out to bid and the funding has remained consist.   Bill Wilson Center has added its own funding over the years plus volunteers and donated goods. 

When the RFP (request for proposal) was issued I knew we would probably not get the grant.  In the RFP, the county was requesting a certain model that they had already implemented with one of the other current providers.  But, we had high hopes that our track record with the kids would prevail.    Unfortunately, in the midst of the county budget battle, we received word that we were not selected.  

At the end of May I called Social Services Agency  staff and asked when we needed to discontinue services.  Our current contract only lasted 30 more days and we needed to provide 30 days notice to staff for lay offs.  I was told not to worry that we would have a transition time of two to three months.  After 20 years I expected that we would have 3 months to say goodbye to kids and staff and move them to another provider.   Our experience with other similar situations was that the county would provide us with three months.

I heard nothing else from the department until I happened to read the Board of Supervisors’ agenda for June 9, 2009.  On the consent calendar was a ILP Board Transmittal Item 7 for June 9 2009 director to give authorization to extend current ILP contracts for three months and not to exceed $80,000.  I knew that amount was not nearly enough to extend 4 providers for three month transition as was stated in the transmittal.   I contacted Social Services and was told by contracts management staff that they were proposing one full month and two half months of funding.  Contracts would have three months to spend this money.  What?  How were we supposed to operated a program with 1/2 funding?  I explained you can’t pay 1/2 month’s rent each month.

The next day I attended the Board of Supervisors meeting and asked for the item 7 to be pulled from consent so I could speak to it.  I often speak at the Board meetings but this time was very different.  I asked for them to consider three  full months funding for all four agencies as a transition.  After all, this was a program that we had been operating for 20 years.  The Social Services director had positioned himself at the table to respond to my request.  However, the supervisors seemed not to understand me or even hear me; perhaps it was that had just heard public testimony from 20 individuals on the impact of shutting down another program. Without even acknowledging me or my comments they passed the item as stated.  It was one of the most demoralizing moments I have had speaking to the Board of Supervisors — it wasn’t just that they chose to vote for the item, it was that they did not even seem to see me — it was like I was invisable.   I was having a bad day.

From my conversation with Social Services staff I was expecting to receive $28,000 (two full months of funding)  beginning July 1 to make the transition and close our program.  June 23, one week before our transition contract was to begin, we were told that we would receive $23,000 in funds beginning July 1 to make the transition.  I thought this must be a mistake — two months of funding is $28,000 why $5,000 less than was promised to us orally from staff?    The response from the county was simple — you have three months to spend $23,000 and run the program for as long as you have the funds.  Ok, then for practical purposes, the program ends in mid August.   Somehow the Social Services Agency expects us to operate the program for additional time as a voluntary program.    It’s hard to get PG&E to wave the utility bill and the landlord to skip his rent payment.    I was having another bad day.

For the past 20 years, Bill Wilson Center has built services around our Independent Living Program.   It is no longer a stand alone program but is part of a one-stop service center for kids aging out of institututions such as foster care and juvenile hall.  During the next few weeks I will write more about how the closing of this program will affect me, the kids we have been serving, and others who have been touched by our services throughout the years.

Denny’s Grand Slam and N.E.R.F.s — Jesse Goes Home

On Monday Jesse left Bill Wilson Center’s shelter and went to his new home.  Jesse has been someone I have been following closely because of a Federal monitoring visit soon after he arrived and a speech I made at our annual building dreams luncheon.

A little bit about Jesse (not his real name).  The 15-year-old boy came to us 3 months ago after a “dine and dive” incident at a local Denny’s.  Jesse had gone out to eat with some friends and decided to run out on the bill.  The manager caught them and called the police.  While the other kids were picked up by their parents from juvenile hall, Jesse’s mom did not want him back.  Bill Wilson Center was called and we took him into our shelter.  After calling his mom we soon learned that she had a life-long drug and alcohol problem and was now homeless, living with friends.  Jesse was often hungry.  Jesse was out of her control.

When Federal monitors reviewed Jesse’s chart they claimed that he did not meet the funding criteria for being homeless under the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act because he had been charged with a crime.  He belonged to the juvenile justice system not our runaway program.  We disagreed and prevailed the next day.  A few days later I shared this story with our 600 guests at our annual fund-raising luncheon.  By then we had gotten the court to drop the charges on Jesse, and the county social services agency had agreed to place him with us as an emergency foster care placement.  The future was looking brighter.

While working with Jesse on his issues with anger and school performance, staff at the Bill Wilson Center convinced his mom to sign herself into residential drug treatment.  She has a long way to go before she is well, but Jesse is visiting her twice a week.  Now the question of where Jesse could go live.  It looked like a long-term placement in a group home may be the only option.

With the County Social Services Agency taking the lead, a TDM (Team Decision Making) meeting was arranged.   The purpose of the meeting was to bring all Jesse’s family and adult friends together to brain-storm on where he could live.  Santa Clara County follows the youth permanency model which focuses on placing kids with family members not in foster care.  The State of California Department of Health and Human Services has several best practice initiatives listed that describes the Family Finding model used to track down Jesse’s family contact.  At the TDM meeting Jesse’s “cousin” stepped up and asked Jesse to live with her.  Jesse has known this family his entire life and was close to her three young children.  A social worker described his cousin as a N.E.R.F.  – Not Even Related Family.  The cousin listed her rules that Jesse had to abide by and he agreed.  Jesse had his new home!

Again, with the help of many others, Bill Wilson Center reunited a homeless youth with family.  Jesse will continue to come to Bill Wilson Center for group and individual counseling in aftercare.  He will continue visitation with his mom and we will be there to provide family support when needed.  Jesse was so happy when he left to live with his new family. Jesse finally got a real grand slam!