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.