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.

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!

Good Kids Also Need Support From A Caring Adult

Yesterday I was sitting with a group of kids over at the Bill Wilson Center shelter filming some background shots for a short film about our services. Because we protect the identity of our shelter kids, we asked for volunteers to bring in their own kids to stand in for our clients. We were having a great time talking and shooting pool…I think I was winning, when too soon the group background filming was over. The last filming was to be a shot of me sitting and talking with one of the kids. To make the scene appear believable, I asked the girl how she was getting along with her mom these days. Suddenly I was listening to her story of how she wished she received more attention from her parents, who seemed to focus most of their time on her younger brother who was always in trouble.

At that moment, I realized how little time it takes to ask a young person how she is feeling, and then to just sit and listen. She wasn’t really expecting any answers from me – she just wanted someone to hear what she was saying. She was feeling invisible because she was the good kid who did not cause problems. At the end of the filming we got up and I gave her a hug and wished her luck.

The Search Institute has developed 40 assets that it believes all children need to thrive. Connecting to a caring adult other than a family member is one of the identified assets. Youth organizations and schools throughout the country have embraced the concept of kids needing protective “assets” to grow. This is one of Bill Wilson Center’s core values to connect all young people to the community so they can become productive adults.

Preventing Poverty While We Are Ending Poverty

Bill Wilson Center’s long-range vision is to prevent poverty.   Yesterday I was part of a discussion with other homeless housing providers on how we can end poverty in Santa Clara County.   Catholic Charities is launching an effort to reduce poverty in Santa Clara County by 50% by the year 2020.  Bill Wilson Center is part of this movement.  City of San Jose officials through the Destination: Home Program have committed to end chronic homelessness by funneling more resources to that population.  Both have joined forces to help end one of the more vexing problems in San Jose and Santa Clara County: getting the chronic homeless population into housing.

Bill Wilson Center provides supportive and housing services to homeless youth and youth aging out of foster care and other institutions.  By federal definition, this population does not fit the “chronic homeless” category.  Neither do seniors living on a fixed income at the poverty level, or women who are victims of domestic violence living in emergency shelters.  While nonprofit agencies serving these groups applaud the effort to end chronic homelessness they are concerned that limited resources may be redirected away from their services.  How do we assure that we prevent poverty by serving youth, seniors, and victims of domestic violence and at the same time end poverty by housing the chronic homeless?

I believe we can do both, however, we need representation from various groups to be at the leadership level on Destination: Home when funding and policy decisions are being made.  Up to now, the Blue Ribbon Commission to End Chronic Homelessness and Destination: Home have only representation from public officials, foundations, United Way, and private corporations.   The nonprofit representation has been only at the coalition level.

The argument for not including individual nonprofit representation on the leadership groups has been that one nonprofit cannot represent another.  This is the same argument that occurs throughout the United States from the city to the state level.   If one city can represent all cities on the leadership or executive level why can’t the same occur for a nonprofit agency?  If we are to end poverty we need to start including the agencies that are on the ground floor doing the work.  In the nonprofit field we have been choosing leaders to represent our issues on numerous collaborations for many years.

A second common argument for not including nonprofit representation is that funding decisions may be made by the leadership group and an agency may steer funds their way.  Policies and procedures can be put in place to assure no “self-dealing” takes place.

Housing providers serving the chronic homeless and nonprofits working with homeless youth, victims of domestic violence, or other “non-chronic homeless” populations need to be represented at all decision-making levels  to prevent poverty while we are ending it.    Bill Wilson Center will continue advocating for connecting all young people to the community with the necessary resources to prevent poverty.  That includes speaking out for more inclusive public policy.

A Kid Shouldn’t Need a Mental Health Diagnosis to Get Help

It seems like we spend a lot of time these days diagnosing our kids. We know teenagers can be frustrating and difficult, but does every rowdy boy really have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)? If a young person is in foster care or juvenile hall the system scrutinizes them for a variety of disorders such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Bi-Polar, Depression, and on and on. I would be depressed, too, if I were locked up in juvenile hall! And, unfortunately, funding for mental health services often adds to the problem – if you want counseling and have Medi-Cal you need a mental health diagnosis.

In the 1970s, many kids ended up in mental hospitals or secure facilities because they were out of their parents’ control and the parents paid for a mental illness diagnosis. As a young advocate, I joined others in changing the federal and state laws so that kids were not placed in detention solely for being a runaway or truant. However, parents often skirted the law by getting their kid diagnosed with a mental illness and having them committed to a mental institution where a young person under 18 had no rights to a fitness or competency hearing like adults had. The parents were often desperate but the kids were powerless. As a different, more “kinder” approach, runaway youth centers such as Bill Wilson House sprang up across the nation and the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act became the law in 1974. These programs brought kids and parents together to work out their problems and teach them the skills to prevent future crises.  This is an example of Bill Wilson Center’s “lease restrictive environment” guiding principle.

Today the funding limit from the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (maximum grant of $200,000) is a fraction of the needed funding to operate runaway centers. Shelters must pull in private funding as well as local government funds to keep the doors open. Medi-Cal was always an option for runaways with mental health problems but most centers shied away from the funding due to its bureaucratic paperwork and stigma it placed on kids. On the other hand, there were many homeless kids with serious mental illness not getting treated. After much debate, Bill Wilson Center joined the ranks of other runaway programs and began accepting Medi-Cal in 2007. I will be blogging off and on about the impact of Medi-Cal and its implications on our services.

Building Connections

Building Connections is the new tagline for Bill Wilson Center, a nonprofit, social services agency with so many services it is hard to put them all in one category.   We asked staff and volunteers, what was one theme that went through every one of our 14 programs?  what surfaced over and over again was that we work with kids and families going through difficult transitions.  We help homeless youth, stressed-out parents, grieving relatives, alcoholics, drug addicts — you name it — build lasting connections to the community.   It all sounds simple enough, but in a fast-moving world like Silicon Valley, finding connections can be illusive.

Research from the Search Institute shows that kids who made the successful transition to become healthy, productive adults had supportive adults in their lives other than their parents or relatives.  They could name a mentor — a neighbor, a coach, or a teacher — who played a significant role in their lives.   We help families and teens identify and develop these links to their community.

The next time you pass a teenager on the street say. “hello”.  You can make a difference in a young person’s day.   Join us in “building connections”.