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Say
Hello to our New Family Finding Director, Paula
Kenneth |
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I
would like to introduce myself to all of you as the new
Local Program Director for Family Finding. I come to you
with a background of 8+ years experience in DHS
(Oregon), 12+ years experience in Human Resources with
my SPHR certification, and 10+ years in social services
throughout the country. I am more than just an advocate
for foster children, adoptive children and children in
general.....I am also an advocate for the
Family
Finding Program
and the volunteers
in Family Finding because you are the program.
Without all our great volunteers, we would have no
Family Finding Program.
Case
Follow-Up Coordinator.
Kathy will be working on all our cases that have been
closed by DHS to ensure that all connections and tasks
promised by case family connections have actually
happened, and if not - why. It is our goal to
communicate the results of Kathy's work to all of you so
that you are not left at the end of a case wondering
"What happened to......" "Did ------ end up sending the
foster child those pictures?.. so on and so on. All of
our Family Finding volunteers put so much of their time
and personal energy into locating family members/friends
and establishing a bond with our agency and those
connections, that it's only fair that you get to hear
what the end product produced. These follow-up "Memos"
will be posted in our upcoming Family Finding
Newsletters (hopefully) starting
soon.
Cindy
Herzog, a volunteer that has worked with A Family For
Every Child since December of 2008, has agreed to be our
Family
Finding Volunteer Coordinator.
Cindy will be working with the new volunteers on
checking references, ensuring we have all required
documentation in place, sending out e-mailings and much
more. In an effort to keep the lines of communication
alive and open, we will be posting our new volunteers
and perhaps a line or two about their
background.
Family
Finding is planning a FF Volunteer Gathering, where we
will all be treated to free food, comfortable
surroundings away from our office location. We thought
that this would be a great time to introduce ourselves
to each other. Learn more about what we do and why. Most
of us work out of our homes and never really have an
opportunity to meet all the other wonderful volunteers
in the Family Finding Program. A "Who's Who" if you
will. We are also working on volunteer information
exchange and networking.
Some
volunteers have 1-2 years experience working with our
program and others are fairly new or have never been
assigned a case. By networking and exchanging contact
information, we have the resources available to
hopefully be successful in family finding. We will not
give out any contact information to anyone until we have
permission from each volunteer to exchange.
We
are working on presenting some fun and interesting
trainings that may include some outside speakers,
outside professionals, new programs and new search
tools. Keep your eyes and e-mail open for upcoming news
and events.
I
would love to hear from each and every one of you and
would welcome you to e-mail me @ paula@afamilyforeverychild.org. My
reply back may be somewhat delayed, but I will reply. I
am also open to new ideas, new suggestions and
criticisms.
Warmest
Regards,
Paula
J. Kenneth |
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Telephone
Conferencing for Family
Matters |
We
have the capability of telephone conferencing. When
family members/relatives live outside of the area and/or
cannot attend for any other reason, we can add telephone
conferencing to our FAMILY MEETINGS. Please feel free to
include that option to family members when connecting
with them and hopefully anticipating their wish to
participate. Helen or Paula can set that function up for
the FAMILY MEETINGS.
REMINDERS
TO VOLUNTEERS: Remember to turn in your time logs before
the end of the month. Thank you for all your help!
Without you, we have no
programs
FOOD
FOR THOUGHT - FAMILY
FINDING
WHAT
IF YOU NEEDED TO KNOW?
-Would
you know your family's medical issues that may or may
not be passed on if you had children?
-Would
you be concerned about the medical issues that may or
may not be passed on if you had
children?
-Could
you have a child with a serious disability?
-How
would you know if your child was going to be a
Hemophiliac? Have Muscular Dystrophy? Would you worry?
HOW
DOES FAMILY AFFECT US?
-What
personality traits do you carry that make you similar to
other family members?
-What
if you had no idea what your family was
like?
-Who
would that make you?
-Self-Idenitity
in this and many cultures is highly affected by family
ties ......Take time to look at your own reaction to
these types of questions.
PUT
YOURSELF IN THEIR SHOES
-We
need to find family members for each and every child in
the system.
-We
need to find them as soon as
possible.
-We
need to find as many as possible.
-We
need to be as thorough as possible.
-These
children deserve to have their
family.
-What
if these were your relatives?
-What
if it was
you? |
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Volunteer
Highlight: Roz Slovic |
Roz Slovic has been volunteering as a Family
Finder since August 2009. Since then, she has not only
actively participated in more than 5 Family Finding
cases, but she has also referred several new Family
Finding volunteers! She is always ready to help find
family members for children in foster care, and we are
so grateful to have her on our team.
With passion like Roz's, it is no wonder that
she is deeply involved in our community. Her biggest
concerns are social justice, human rights, race,
poverty, and issues facing women around the world. Her
work is also strongly influenced by her experiences as
the mother of a son with learning disabilities. She is a
participant on the Citizen's Review Board, a Eugene
Masonic Cemetery Board member, a participant in the Lane
County Darfur Coalition, and a board member for the
Friends of Kenya Schools and Wildlife. She has 4 adult
children and 5 grandchildren. As an adoptive parent, she
has long been interested in adoption. Over 30 years ago,
Roz chaired Lane County's Open Door for Adoptable
Children.
We appreciate everything that you have done for
our Family Finding program, Roz! Thank you for your
dedication and your compassion. Your efforts are really
making a difference in the lives of foster children and
their families.
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From
Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition
6/21/10 |
Lewis
and his brothers and sisters came into care six years
ago. Now 15, he is the last sibling left in foster care.
He lives in a group home - an institution where his
caregivers rotate in shifts. He can't connect with
adults because they constantly drop in and out of his
life. His case was referred to Extreme
Recruitment™, and his recruiter, Liz, began the
search for supportive family members for Lewis...
someone he could connect with. Thanks to her efforts, he
now visits his siblings and has met an aunt and some
cousins.
Although
his aunt couldn't adopt him, she happily welcomes him to
every family celebration. He is so excited to be part of
a family once again.
In
the spirit of Extreme Recruitment™, at the same
time Liz was working with the aunt, she also sent Lewis'
information to adoption licensing workers statewide. A
couple quickly responded, and Lewis will join their
family in just a few weeks. After meeting his aunt and
family, his new adoptive parents said, "Lewis is not
entering our family - we are entering
his."
ST.
LOUIS - After a day of knocking on doors chasing
fleeting leads, Carlos Lopez and his partner finally
heard welcome words: Yes, a resident confirmed, the man
they were seeking lived in this house and would be home
that evening.
Lopez,
a former police detective, does gumshoe work for what he
calls a more fulfilling cause: tracking down long-lost
relatives of teenagers languishing in foster care, in
desperate need of family ties and in danger of becoming
rootless adults.
That
recent day, he was hoping to find the father of a boy
who had lived in 16 foster homes since 1995. The boy did
not remember his mother, who had long since disappeared.
Finding
an adoptive parent for older children with years in
foster care is known in child-welfare circles as the
toughest challenge. Typically, their biological parents
abused or neglected them and had parental rights
terminated.
Limited
number of saints
Relatives
may not know where the children are, or even that they
exist. And the supply of saints in the public, willing
to adopt teenagers shaken by years of trauma and loss,
is limited.
The
intensive searches in St. Louis reflect a growing
national shift toward relatives as caretakers, a quest
that has often been limited by a scarcity of known
suitable kin. But scores of foster and adoption agencies
throughout the country have found that assertive efforts
relying on the Internet, the telephone, advertisements
and, in a some cases, door-to-door questioning by
full-time investigators, can turn up dozens of relatives
for almost any child. Many of them turn out to be
willing to help nieces, nephews and grandchildren they
had never seen.
"The
lost relatives are a largely untapped resource for
adoption," said Melanie Scheetz, director of the
nonprofit Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition in St.
Louis, which employs Lopez. "The system has overlooked
all these amazing, strong people who are out there and
willing to help.
Role
of Washington program
The
potential of such searches was established about a
decade ago by Kevin Campbell, a former head of a charity
in Washington state. In his initial work, mainly using
computer databases, Campbell located 40 to 150 relatives
each for most children in his program, reaching as far
as grandparents' siblings.
"Some
relatives recoil when contacted," he said; the surprise
calls can rekindle ugly family histories. "But many want
to help and are willing to consider adoption."
Many
foster children are intensely curious about their
biological families, said Campbell, now a consultant who
trains agencies in a six-stage strategy of counseling
and searches known as Family Finding.
But
the children also must be prepared to learn unpleasant
facts.
"People
have a right to know the truth about their families," he
said. "We work with youths to get answers, knowing that
some of the answers may not be hopeful."
Efforts
to help foster teenagers, including those in St. Louis,
have been widely supported by grants from Wendy's
Wonderful Kids, created by the founder of the fast-food
chain.
In
the St. Louis area, at any given time some 400 foster
children ages 10 and older whose parents' rights were
terminated are eligible for adoption. With a $2 million
federal grant and private aid, the Foster and Adoptive
Care Coalition has begun unusually intense 12- to
20-week searches for family connections and potential
adopters.
Of
56 cases last year, 90 percent were connected with a
relative and 70 percent were matched with adoptive
parents, most but not all of them relatives, Scheetz
said. | |
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My
Contact Information |
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Paula
Kenneth
880
Beltline Rd.
Springfield,
OR 97477
(541)
343-2886
paula@afamilyforeverychild.org |
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Family
Finding Training |
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The
next Family Finding training is on July 17th: 9 a.m. - 1
p.m.
If
you or anyone you know is interested in becoming a
Family Finding volunteer, please let me
know! |
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Mentoring |
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Every
child deserves to grow up in a loving home with parents
who serve as role models. But, not every child gets
that.
Each
year over a half a million children are placed into
foster care. While in foster care, these children will
move an average of three times. Some will move as much
as forty or fifty times before they age out of the
system at eighteen. Each time they move, they will lose
ties with their friends, families, communities and even
culture. Mentoring can truly make the
difference between a child who grows up to be a
functional, responsible adult or much
worse.
If
these children do not have a caring adult in their life
to guide them through everyday experiences they can also
fall behind physically, emotionally, educationally. The
goal as a mentor is to break that cycle down. If we can
provide a child in the foster system with a mentor who
is always there for them no matter the circumstances, it
can turn their life around. By providing a mentor to
these children we will begin to break this cycle of
destruction.
The
mentor role can be as simple a friendship that
builds memories and trust. It can be as little as
spending time together a couple times a month (that
still makes a huge difference). But it can also be much
more! The mentor can become an advocate for the child in
their care, behavior management and/or education. The
mentor can bridge those gaps in so many ways and provide
them with
encouragement
and opportunities in life and show them that they can be
anyone or anything they want.
If
you can find the time, just 10 hours a month to be a
mentor, you will be surprised at the difference you can
make! |
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Permanency
Pact from FosterClub.com |
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This
Permanency Pact is a great resource for our Family
Finding volunteers. It clearly states the need for
building permanent connections for youth in foster care.
These connections are not limited to blood relations,
these connections include anyone who knows and cares
about the youth.
Supportive
adults can provide assistance that many of us take for
granted: a home for the holidays, a place to do laundry,
regular check-ins, job search assistance, and other
things that can truly help a young adult adapt
to the "real world." FosterClub lists 45 simple
ways that a supportive adult might assist a youth
who is transitioning from foster care.
Follow
this link below to read more: Permanency Pact
Family
Finding is not just about locating family members, we
are identifying and connecting with any adult who cares
about the youth and wants to be involved. These adults
can include teachers, counselors, coaches, mentors,
their friends' parents, foster parents, family friends,
or church connections. The types are
endless! | |
