Tennessee Foster News

8,000 foster youth in Tennesse

2010-12-23T08:56:00.000-08:00

Foster care program vital this time of year

Tennessean, December 22, 2010.

Of the 200,000 or so children around the country who entered foster care last year in the United States, some 8,000 of them resided in Tennessee.

And of that 8,000 in Tennessee, around 1,000 entered the foster care system in Rutherford County.

"We have so many children who come in every single day," said Lauren Johnson, a senior recruiter and trainer for foster care treatment for Youth Villages, a Memphis-based nonprofit national leader in offering programs and services to help children and their families.

Johnson recruits and trains within eight Middle Tennessee counties, including Rutherford, Cannon, Robertson, Cheatham, Sumner, Williamson, Wilson and Trousdale counties.

"Our mission is to help children and their families live successfully," she said. "And that's not necessarily their birth family, but also could include their foster, adoptive or care-giving families."

And that is especially so during the holiday season.

"This time of year can be really sad for children within the welfare system if they are not with a stable and loving family," Johnson said. "That's the biggest thing we ask of families to provide the children."

Founded in Memphis in 1986, Youth Villages has offices in 10 states and the District of Columbia. According to its website YouthVillages.org, the private nonprofit organization "provides a fully integrated continuum of services, including residential treatment, in-home services, foster care and adoption, mentoring and a transitional living program for young adults aging out of foster care."

Locally, Youth Villages started offering foster care informational and instructional classes taught by Johnson last October. Another series of classes starts Jan. 15 for seven straight Saturdays from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at First Baptist Church at 200 E. Main St.

"The more homes we have, the better we are able to match up these homes to children," Johnson said.

Part of Johnson's battle is perception concerning foster care.

"A lot of people don't realize what foster care is, how it has changed, or that it is even out there," she said. "A few decades ago, people saw a lot of foster care as orphans and the system was a little bit broken. We have come leaps and bounds. There is so much support offered to families for them to be successful with these children in their homes."

There are other ways to become involved other than becoming a foster parent, including mentoring, where adults work directly with youths without housing them.

"The mentoring program gives a child someone to look up to as a positive role model and just have somebody to hang out with," Johnson said.

Last year around 29,000 young adults nationally were "aged out" of the foster care system without a safe and permanent family in which to reside. Several programs target those young adults, including a Transitional Living program at Youth Villages.

For more information, contact Johnson at 615-250-7318 or visit Youth Villages.org/foster.

Placing 15-yr-old two doors away from her abusive father led to her death

2009-08-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

Advocates question whether foster kids should be placed close to home
DCS tries to balance safety with familiarity
Ross, Janell. The Tennessean, August 9, 2009.

In the case of Stevie Noelle Milburn, a 15-year-old Dyersburg, Tenn., girl who loved soccer, dancing and singing, some facts aren't in dispute.

Two weeks ago, she accused her father of some sort of abuse. Tennessee Department of Children's Services caseworkers consulted Stevie, her father and police and arranged for her to stay with family friends two doors away.

Three days after Stevie's move, Christopher Milburn, 34, walked down the street to shoot and kill his daughter and his neighbor. A short distance away, he took his own life. People in the city of 17,000 about 80 miles northwest of Memphis raised money so Stevie's mother could take her body home to Oregon.

But what former foster children and those who knew Stevie — and some who didn't — are debating is the wisdom of placing a child at the center of an abuse investigation in a home so close to her accused abuser.

"Were the right decisions made in this case? I don't pretend to have any of those answers," said the Rev. Gary Meade, pastor of St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Dyersburg, the church Stevie's caretakers attended. Meade also is a former lawyer and foster father who adopted two children.

"This story highlights the reality of social work. There are laws and there are policies. The challenge is in how those laws and policies intersect with real life."

Some answers lie in a collection of state laws, Department of Children's Services policies and practices endorsed by the National Association of Public Child Welfare Workers. Together, they call for most parents to be consulted about places where their children can stay while investigations are under way and for children to be placed in homes near their families.

But some things will never be known because state law shields abuse investigations like Stevie's from public view.

State Custody vs. Open Investigations
In Tennessee, 5,333 children were in state custody at the end of June. There are 11,770 open investigations, some of which involve children, like Stevie, who have not been legally removed from their parents' custody but are living with relatives or friends under the terms of what's called an "immediate protection agreement."

She was not in foster care, said Rob Johnson, spokesman for the Department of Children's Services.

The Tennessee Department of Children's Services does not regularly track the number of children living under an immediate protection agreement, said Stacy Miller, the agency's general counsel. The Tennessean requested a review of case files involving immediate protection agreements between July 2008 and July 2009. It revealed one death — a child drowned while with a babysitter. That case is under investigation.

Johnson said the department will review its actions in Stevie's case. And, as with every child's death in Tennessee, a county health department-led team will review her death to determine if it was, in any way, preventable.

As a standard part of the initial investigation into unsubstantiated allegations like Stevie's, the department often works with the family and child to identify a safe, neutral space where the child might stay for at least a short time. It's a process that happens quickly but carefully, said Carla Aaron, the Department of Children's Services executive director for child safety.

Caseworkers make a number of observations about birth and host families, the child and his parents' safety and mental stability as well as any criminal records of the people involved. State records show Christopher Milburn had no Tennessee arrests and served no time in prison here.

"If we thought there was danger, we would not go down the road of doing an IPA," Aaron said. "We might pursue protective custody. … In this case, we had no indication that this was a dangerous situation at all."

Protective custody gives the state at least temporary custody of a child and in most cases will lead to a placement in a foster home. If family issues can't be resolved or corrected, it can lead to years in foster care or, ultimately, adoption.

DCS practice criticized
Nashville attorney Natasha Blackshear, an alumna of the New York state foster care system, said she doesn't believe the practice of placing children in their home communities — either for the night or for years — is best.

"I think that that's one of those policies that's been made with a middle-class, blond-haired, blue-eyed child in mind," said Blackshear, who serves on the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth. "The child that benefits from that policy comes from a middle-class neighborhood with good schools or is the kind of child that people are looking to adopt.

"But that's not the story with most of the kids that come into the system. A lot of them come from the ghetto, from neighborhoods where the trouble isn't just in their home and from bad schools."

Blackshear said the close-to-home approach to placements is part of the reason only 25 percent of the children in state custody have earned a high school diploma or equivalent or are working by their 18th birthday. And, when parents are accused of abuse, Blackshear believes that some additional care and caution need to be taken to protect children, she said.

"Even when there are unproven accusations, it does seem like some additional caution, more than two doors' distance, might be a good idea," she said.

There are benefits to keeping foster children near the schools, stores, gathering places and perhaps places of worship they know, said Ira Lustbader, associate director of Children's Rights, a New York-based nonprofit child advocacy agency. The agency in the late 1990s brought a civil rights suit against Tennessee over the state's treatment of children in its care.

"Safety trumps everything and has to come first," Lustbader said. "But it's an important goal because the experience of being removed from one's home and placed in foster care is in itself traumatic, and you don't want to expose that child to any additional trauma."

Lustbader said there is not enough publicly available information about the Dyersburg case to assess whether the appropriate balance was struck between Stevie's emotional and physical safety needs.

Some former foster children agree with the idea that children in state care belong closer to their families of origin. Krista Noel said she was 13 when false allegations of sexual abuse led the Department of Children's Services to remove her sister and her from their homeless mother's custody.

Noel's sister, then a student at Hume-Fogg High School, asked to be placed in a home in Nashville so that she could continue attending the magnet school. Noel says she wasn't asked where she wanted to go and ended up in Baxter, Tenn., about 70 miles east of Nashville.

"Even though DCS was taking me, had I had a say, I would have wanted to stay in Nashville," said Noel, 24, an expectant mother and waitress. "I would have already known my community and I wouldn't have felt so like I was alone.

"Not that race is so much an issue, but I'm mixed with black and white. In Baxter, there's not that many black people."

Today, she serves on the Tennessee Youth Advisory Council, which works to give children in the state system a voice.

"Even now, not many kids have a choice or a say in where they are placed," Noel said. "Children who know their rights are able to advocate for themselves. But in most cases, youth don't know what's going on. They don't know what rights they have."

Concern about GAL services in Tennessee

2008-06-06T14:32:00.001-07:00

http://stateofapathy.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/i-am-not-your-attorney-thank-god/#comment-4

TN's rankings on Kids Count report

2007-07-07T06:38:00.001-07:00

Report: state still ranked high in infant mortality rate
Kids Count report , WATE.com, June 26, 2007.

KNOXVILLE - Once again, Tennessee ranks near the bottom of the list when it comes to a national report on the health and well-being of children and teenagers.

Overall, Tennessee ranks 46th for 2006 in the annual Kids Count report. That's also where the state was ranked in 2005.

The Kids Count report also ranked Tennessee 47th in the category of infant mortality.

However, there are some improvements when you break down the numbers in Knox County.

Knox is currently ranked fourth worst in the state for infant mortality, with 23 cases. But that's a decrease from 2005, when there were 39 cases of infant mortality, ranking Knox County third worst.

The number of teen violent deaths has also decreased in Knox County. In 2006, there were 11 deaths compared to 2005, when there were 14.

And in proven child abuse and neglect cases, Knox County came in third worst with 516 cases, according to the children's services. That's another decrease. In 2005, there were 640 cases of abuse and neglect.

The report by the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth outlines strategies to improve those rankings.

One plan is to provide more pre-pregnancy health programs that make sure women have a proper diet and avoid smoking, using drugs or alcohol.

Lawmakers this year approved $390,000 for a pilot program that will provide in-home visiting nurse services to low-income, first-time mothers during pregnancy and through the child's second birthday.

The program will be based in Shelby County.

TN couple understands stigma of foster care, stays in contact after foster youth "age out"

2007-07-06T18:44:00.000-07:00

Fostering children is a mission for local couple: DCS starts foster parent training program
Tatum. Cheryl. Hendersonville Star News, July 6, 2007.

Over the last four years, more than 30 children have found refuge in the Hendersonville home of Johnny and Rita Parrish.

Mostly teens, these young people have had a laundry list factors placing them in foster care in Sumner County. For some it was circumstances beyond their control and for others behavioral problems lead to their placement in state custody.

But whatever the reason, Johnny Parrish said as a certified foster home he and his wife always have a room ready for children in need.

"We have had calls at midnight, we always keep the room available. Sometimes they stay the night until they see the judge and sometimes they stay longer," he said.

It is homes like the Parrishes that keep the foster care system in Sumner County operating, according to Clifton Funk with the Department of Children's Services (DCS).

Without foster homes, DCS would have an even more difficult time caring for those children whom judges say can no longer live at home.

Currently Sumner County has about 230 children in foster care.

With only 60 foster homes, that means some of this county's children have to go out of county for care.

All parties involved say that is not the in the children's best interest.

"A lot of children are placed outside the county. That makes it difficult for the families and children. They are taken out of their schools, home communities and churches," Funk said.

That is why homes like the Parrishes are so vital, the DCS foster family recruiter said, particularly because Johnny and Rita take teens into their home.

"That is where out biggest need is," Funk said.

For the Hendersonville couple, fostering teens has its own special reward.

According to Rita, providing teens is both challenging and rewarding. Having raised two children of their own, she adds fostering teens provides the opportunity to steer them on the right path for life.

"We are full of love and there are a lot of children out there who are in need of love," she said.

Johnny adds caring for teens does have its advantages.

"They are old enough to take care of themselves and you have the opportunity to make an impact on their lives before they are either reunified with their families or they age out of the system," he said.

Both Johnny and Rita say many of the teens who have passed through their home stay in touch.

"We have a bond with the ones we stay in close contact with, they know they have a forever home here," Johnny said.

Fostering children is calling for the couple who have lived in Hendersonville for 14 years.

"We are a Christian family and we try to never turn away a child unless we know we can't provide for them," said Johnny, who also serves as a pastor for a Madison church.

Funk said for the good of Sumner County children, more families need to share the Parrish's mission.

"We never have enough," Funk said of foster homes.

To help in the recruitment of foster families in Sumner County, DCS is hosting a seminar introducing local residents to the foster care program.

Known as PATH (Parents As Tender Healers) the class is designed to answer questions about foster care and introduce foster parents to those interested in serving children.

Johnny will be an instructor for the series of classes that begin Monday.

"People need to think of their own children and if they have any parenting left in them, the Department of Children's Services needs their parenting skills," he said.

Rita adds that foster children sometimes have negative image, one that in most cases they do not deserve.

"People are quick to judge children because they are in foster care, but they don't know why they are in the system. There are all types of reasons," she said.

Both Johnny and Rita say being a foster parent is not always easy with letting go sometimes being the hardest job of all.

"It's very difficult when they leave, its heart wrenching, but most of the time the teenagers will stay in contact. And, it's easier to let go when you know they are going to what's best for them," Rita said.

Creating a network to support Tennesse children

2007-07-03T08:13:00.001-07:00

We need a network of child development
O'Neal, Linda. Tennessean. June 28, 2008.

In the past 50 years, in Tennessee and the nation, we have built a series of modern networks that are essential to our quality of life — our power grid, phone systems, water systems, interstate highways and the Internet.

Tennesseans need to work together to build comparable public structures, systems and networks to support the development of healthy, productive citizens.

The failure to provide comprehensive supports for Tennessee children — the backbone of our future work force and economy — is the equivalent of having scattered wells, individual generators and county roads, but no infrastructure to ensure future success for our children.

The work force of tomorrow depends on the investments we make today. Our legacy needs to be one of responsibility. We must ensure Tennessee children have a bright future and, consequently, the future of the state as a whole is enhanced.

On June 26, the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth released a publication entitled, "Blueprint for the Success of Tennessee's Children" http://www.state.tn.us/tccy/kc-soc06.html

Investing in Tennessee children is the most important thing we can do to provide them with good quality of life and opportunities for success. Our future is at risk if the health, education and development of Tennessee children are not given the priority they deserve.

Cory's goal is to help other foster children

2007-06-23T08:00:00.001-07:00

MONDAY'S CHILD: Cory wants to help other kids in foster care
WBIR-TV, June 18, 2007.

Fifteen-year-old Cory says he wants a family who will give him the opportunity to be himself and express his feelings.

Cory has a very outgoing personality and likes to be the center of attention. He is intelligent, and does well in school, although he admits he could do better.

He says his career goal is to work in social services to help youngsters like him who are in foster care and need to find permanence.

For more information about any adoptable child call 594-7091, Extension 121 in Knoxville or contact the Department of Children's Services in any Tennessee County.

Click here to view Tennessee Department of Childrens Services website.

1,1717 displaced children in Tennessee

2007-06-23T07:57:00.001-07:00

Everyone needs a dad but none more than special kids in foster care
Lewis, Dwight. The Tennessean, June 17, 2007.

"There is a man in my house/He's so big and strong/He goes to work each day and stays all day long/Comes home at night, looking tired and beat … I think I'll color him Father … I think I'll color him love.'' O.C. Smith, as reprinted in My Soul Looks Back, 'Less I Forget: A Collection Of Quotations By People of Color (HarperPerennial).

It was 12 years ago now, and twins Micheala, a girl, and Adrian, a boy, were just 2 years old. They were really just babies, special-needs babies living in a lovely foster care home. Not a permanent home but a foster-care home.

A short time later though, a middle-aged East Tennessee man named Samuel Vaughn Thomas Jr., and his wife, Rosa, adopted Micheala and Adrian and gave them a permanent home, like so many children in foster care would love to have.

"Why did you all adopt Micheala and Adrian?'' I asked Vaughn over the telephone recently.

"It was simple,'' he replied, "there are not enough fathers in our homes. There was a need, a void, and that void needed to be filled.

"Adopting children in foster care is great, but adopting special needs children can even be more fulfilling.

"They're loving kids. They're wonderful, and they've brought a lot of joy into our lives. If I had to do it over again, I would do it.

"There are so many things our children need, especially our boys. They need a father figure in their lives.''

In addition to Micheala and Adrian, Vaughn, who happens to be my cousin, and Rosa have another adopted son, Ryan, who turns 18 next month and earlier this spring graduated from high school with honors.

A few days before talking to Vaughn, who was in the early stages of muscular dystrophy when he and his wife adopted Micheala and Adrian, I received an e-mail saying, "With Father's Day coming up, it's easy to think about what to get Dad, but have you thought about how many children don't have fathers?

"In fact, in Tennessee, 1,717 children do not have permanent, loving homes or parents to call their own.''

The e-mail went on to say that:

• More than 114,000 foster children in the U.S. are waiting to be adopted.

• The average age of a foster child is nearly 9.

• The average time a child spends in foster care is five years, and that can be a lifetime for a child.

In recognition of this special weekend for dads and their families, Wendy's is introducing, "Father's Day Frosty Weekend.'' Today, participating Wendy's restaurants across the nation will donate a minimum of 50 cents from every Frosty product sold to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

The goal is to raise $1 million for the foundation and its program, Wendy's Wonderful Kids (WWK). The program hopes to fill a "critical gap by funding and supporting full-time adoption recruiters at local agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces to match prospective parents with waiting foster-care children."

My cousin Vaughn will tell you that adopting a child or children is a neat thing to do, and he has two grown biological daughters.

And can you imagine where Micheala and Adrian might be today if Vaughn and Rosa had not come along? Sure, they were living in a lovely foster home 12 years ago, but that might have soon run out.

Today, they're in a permanent home and are as happy and cheerful as can be. That's why it's important for all of us not to forget those children still in foster homes. They, too, would love to be in a permanent home with someone they can color Father and love as well.

Almost 1,000 foster children in Metro Nashville area

2007-05-31T15:26:00.001-07:00

Churches called on for help with foster care
WKRN-TV, May 29, 2007.

Nashville Mayor Bill Purl is calling on churches for help, asking the faith community to get more involved in the lives of 1,000 foster children living in the Metro Nashville area .

The mayor's program, called Faith in Foster Care, and along with recognizing how much the faith community helps already, is asking or pleading for more help as foster children grow older and grow out of foster care.

Reverend Neely Williams knows first hand about life in foster care.

She's a grandparent of a foster child, one of nearly 10,000 living in Tennessee.

Reverend Williams said, “They're coming into the system with multiple problems. The things that rendered them to the system in the first place are the things that still need to be addressed.”

An estimated 9,590 foster children live in Tennessee, 1,000 in Metro Nashville.

Of those, 17% live in either group care or in instructional settings. Nearly 1,800 are waiting, hoping to be adopted; a process that on average takes nearly four years of their childhood.

Reverend Williams believes people of faith can make a big difference in those numbers.

She said, “What better way could we demonstrate that love than providing whatever support we can for thosethat are caught in situations that render them to the state of life that says 'these are the least of these."

People in the pews already make a big dent in the number of children waiting to be adopted.

Faith is the motivation behind many, if not most foster parents.

This month, churches in the Nashville area received information and a request for pastors to mention from the pulpit, how much the foster care program depends on the faith community and how others are needed to step forward.

“Let's just say if we did more, how big a difference could that make and I think it's more than we can even imagine,” said ReverendWilliams.

One of the most pressing needs right now is not foster families to take children into their homes permanently.

About half of the foster children in Tennessee will soon grow too old for foster care.
Williams said those teenagers need mentors to call with questions and for advice.

For more information on helping with foster care programs, visit www.faithandethics.com

Foster children are the community's children

2007-05-29T17:16:00.000-07:00

'Any time you can give a child a loving home, that's the greatest benefit'
Anthony, Ashley. Jackson Sun, May 28, 2007.

A CHAT WITH Gwen Ragland, president of The Madison County Foster/Adoptive Care Association Inc.

Whether they have been abused, neglected or orphaned, some children are waiting for a place to call home. May is National Foster Care Month, a time when agencies serving these children try to educate the public about the dire need for more foster parents.

More than 500,000 children were reported in the U.S. foster care system as of 2005, according to Foster Care Month's Web site. Tennessee is home to almost 10,000 of these children.

Some children spend years in foster care before reaching a permanent home. And some never find it before they turn 18. The Madison County Foster/Adoptive Care Association Inc. works year-round to place children in foster homes, and is committed to making the wait shorter.

Gwen Ragland, president of the local foster and adoptive care group, says "the numbers are just too high" and continue to grow.

She spoke Friday with The Jackson Sun about the importance of foster care families and what potential foster care parents need to know if they're interested in making a difference in a foster child's life.

Question: What does National Foster Care Month include?

Answer: It was our aim to make the public aware of the need for more foster homes by recruiting more resource parents and letting the public know the age groups that are needed for fostering in Madison County.

We are planning a silent auction fundraiser. There's no date yet because we're still trying to collect items and donations.

The money would be used for the things that foster parents don't use their government stipends for. That's for basic needs, and just like with anyone's kids, there are always extra needs. We're trying to raise money that goes beyond the stipend that the government gives.

Q: Explain the need for more foster families. Is it more prevalent in this area?

A: What's happening now is that you have a lot of young people that are having children, and you have children that are being removed from homes because of drug use. Whatever the reason the children are being removed from the home, we have to have somewhere to put those children.

Many times there is not a relative who can take them, or they may have to enter foster care until a background check is complete.

Therefore, we need resource homes that will be available by a phone call from people that will say, "Yes, I will take that child." They have to go somewhere. We need new resource homes to accommodate the growing number of children in foster care.

Q: What do people need to know if they are interested in becoming a foster parent?

A: They would have to go through the Department of Children's Services and take path classes. They would need to have a background check and references. There would be home visits made to see that there was adequate room for "X" amount of children. Also, there are safety inspections done.

Some of the classes are for medication administration since there are so many children that take medication these days. There are classes on behavioral issues and parenting.

We prepare the parent for all kinds of children and all kinds of problems that could arise. Whatever problem the child is faced with, we want that parent to be adequately trained to at least begin to handle it.

And there are always resources. We have counseling available and medical services for the children. All of the basic needs are met. They do get clothing allotments.

It's not like the child comes into your home, and you're on your own. There are always resources available to try to incorporate this child into your home.

Q: What makes a good foster parent?

A: That person would need to have that child's best interest at heart and have a love for children. Just know that, that child may not come to you being the perfect little angel, but they still need someone to love them, someone to guide them.

Patience is a good thing to have. The child may not warm up to you the first day they meet you, but in time, they could become the best of friends.

Q: What are the pros and cons to becoming a foster parent, and how can you deal with the cons?

A: It's rewarding to know that you were there, helping to mold this child's future. You played a part in that child's life, hopefully a positive role.

There are children who have gone on from fostering and to college. They're productive citizens. Knowing that you've done something to help that child would definitely be one of the pros to becoming a foster parent.

It's not only that you're giving to that child, but that child is also giving to you. Many people, especially those that don't have children and bring foster children into their home - this is their way of parenting. They have an opportunity to be a parent.

One of the biggest cons in fostering is having to say goodbye. You form an attachment to the child sometimes, and that child has to leave and go back to a relative or back home. That can hurt because you really do form attachments.

There are times when the family doesn't click with the child, the child is disruptive, and may have to be placed with another family. That would be one of the cons because you would hope you could do what you can for that child, but it's not always received by that child for whatever reason.

Q: What can the Jackson community do to contribute to foster care awareness besides becoming a foster parent?

A: I think that when the public hears about events, fundraisers, foster care meetings, anything that's going on in the community - they should take the time to try to find out what's involved. We need everyone.

Just as people say it takes a village to raise a child, our villages are changing. We've got to connect with communities because our homes are looking different. We have families that have biracial, black, white and Hispanic children.

We are a family now. They're children, and when we bring them into our home, they're our children. They're the community's children.

It will take the entire community working together to help these children live normal lives. The association isn't large, so we need the help of the community.

It's not because these children are bad. It could be through a death in the family that the child had to enter foster care. It could be misplacement of a family member or something the child is going through.

There aren't any specific reasons why a child is in foster care. It could be just life, and we try to make things easier so that child can adapt until things get better.

Any time you can give a child a loving home, that's the greatest benefit.

Visit jacksonsun.com and share your thoughts.

- Ashley Anthony, 425-9763

Nashville encourages people of faith to reach out to foster care

2007-05-27T07:12:00.001-07:00

Nashville promoting mix of faith and foster care
Cass, Michael. Ashland City Times, May 8, 2007.

Houses of worship will be encouraged to help look after Nashville's foster children under a program announced by Mayor Bill Purcell and other officials today.

The program, called "Faith in Foster Care," will urge the city's faith community to adopt and mentor foster youths, feature information about foster care during worship services, hold donation drives and provide a support system for foster parents.

"There are more than 1,000 children in foster care in Davidson County today," Purcell said in a news release. "They need caring adults to help them reach their full potential, and I believe our city's faith community can be a strong partner in their success."

Carla Aaron, Davidson County regional administrator for the Tennessee Department of Children's Services, said the state appreciates the helping hand from faith-based organizations.

"DCS cannot do this alone," Aaron said.

The faith program is part of "Fostering Success," a partnership between DCS and several other organizations.

Rutherford County foster care crisis: Cycle of foster care, drug abuse

2007-05-23T18:55:00.001-07:00

Children in crisis: An epidemic of neglect
Marchesoni, Lisa. Murfreesboro Post.

Two mothers accused of smoking marijuana with their children, ages 10 and 14, lost temporary custody of their children last week.

One of the mothers was accused of smoking marijuana with two orphan brothers, ages 7 and 6, in her care.

All four children tested positive for marijuana, causing the Department of Children’s Services to remove the children from their homes. Juvenile Court Judge Donna Scott Davenport placed the children in foster care.

For Davenport, the cases are becoming too familiar.

“We’re in a crisis,” Davenport said simply.

Juvenile Court removed 36 children from their homes through the Department of Children’s Services and 16 children through private means in April.

“That’s constant,” Davenport said. “We’ll reach that or more this month.”

The high-growth Rutherford County doesn’t reflect the state figures.

DCS spokesman Rob Johnson said the numbers of children in state custody dropped by more than 2,000 children in the past three years statewide.

Davenport, who has served eight years as court referee and the only Juvenile Court judge, refers to the people in her court as “my children” or “my parents.”

She heard several cases last week. Four of those cases are outlined below:

• DCS removed a 14-year-old La Vergne girl after she tested positive for marijuana. Her father lives in North Carolina. La Vergne Police Cpl. Jeri Lynn Champion charged the mother with child abuse. The mother also hid a runaway juvenile.

The girl’s mother and stepfather also care for the two orphan brothers whose grandmother gave them custody when she moved to a Florida retirement community.

After hearing from attorneys representing all parties, Davenport placed all three children into foster care. She ordered the Social Security checks for the orphans and child support of the daughter be turned over to the state to pay for the children’s care.

With all three children testing positive for drugs, Davenport said it was one of the worst cases she’s heard.

• A Murfreesboro mother was charged with child neglect after she was accused of smoking marijuana with her sons, ages 10 and 5. The older son tested positive for marijuana. She remains incarcerated.

The father of one son is jailed in Michigan. The father of the second son asked for custody of both boys who wanted to remain together. He’s still legally married to the mother but lives with his girlfriend. The mother indicated her husband has not seen the boys in about one year.

Davenport ordered the children remain in foster care while DCS checks out the father’s living conditions.

Their case will be one of 75 cases set on her DCS docket July 3.

• A 21-year-old homeless mother of two children, ages 3 and 7 months, told a DCS employee she could not care for her children because she didn’t have shelter or a job. Davenport remembered the mother whom she placed in foster care several years ago.

The father, who has a felony record, was accused of physically abusing the mother, throwing a 7-month-old baby on a couch and hitting the 3-year-old in the head in separate events this month.

Davenport noted she knew both the mother and father from being in her court as juveniles.

“It just breaks my heart” to see them both in her court as adults, Davenport said.

Davenport ruled the children will remain in foster care because the mother can’t care for them and the father placed them in harm’s way. She ordered the father, who does not pay child support, to pay $50 per week to the state.

Off the bench, Davenport vows she’s going to “break this cycle of abuse.”

• A father accused his teen daughter of being unruly and disrespectful several weeks ago. During a hearing, Davenport found the girl dependent and neglected after the teen blamed her father’s beatings for her behavior.

After services for the family, DCS and the attorney who represented her interests recommended she return home.

Davenport returned the teen to her father with an order the teen get her high school degree. She addressed the father.

“Don’t expect me to parent your child,” Davenport said.

***
When a Child Protective Services officer removes a child who cannot stay with a relative or friend, they contact Davenport or Referee Keith Siskin immediately who must set a hearing within three days.

The majority of parents are single mothers who are trying to manage their children.

Attorneys are appointed to represent the child and the parents. A Court Appointed Special Advocate speaks for the child.

Susan Maguigan, CASA’s executive director, said the advocates have almost doubled the caseload in three years. They have been advocates for 247 children this year, 10 more than last year. Forty-five volunteers represent the best interest of the abused or neglected children.

“These advocates will work to ensure the court recognizes the rights of these children to safe, permanent and loving homes,” Maguigan said.

Maguigan believes substance abuse has become a major problem for parents. When she became a Child Protective Services worker 30 years ago, she experienced some alcohol abuse.

“People (now) seem to be so addicted,” Maguigan said.

Parents are addicted to prescription drugs, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Some parents devastated by the separation from the children work hard to get their children back.

Maguigan said when a child is placed in foster care, some parents don’t comprehend the impact foster care has on their children either.

Children are “suddenly taken away and placed with strangers,” Maguigan said. They don’t understand what happened.

Some parents say they overslept or are too busy to visit with their children.

“It’s is devastating for these children to lose their connection to their parent and their home to think they can just say, ‘Oh well, I don’t have the time…I couldn’t manage visitation.’ It is unconscionable. It’s so very harmful.”

Parents just don’t have a clue about how to manage their own lives, Maguigan said, adding they are unstable and unable to provide for their children’s basic needs.

It’s sad when children have undergone the worst separation from their parents and the parents haven’t visited for several months because they couldn’t pass a drug test, the director noted.

When children are placed in foster care, the parents don’t even try to get a full-time job.

While transportation is an issue for some, Maguigan is interested to see if Murfreesboro’s Rover buses will make an impact for them.

Does she have any answers?

Maguigan said one issue stems from crowded dockets so cases aren’t heard in a timely manner.

Davenport hopes to get funding for a fulltime referee to hear cases faster.

Children’s cases take more time than adult cases.
“If you don’t take the time, unfortunately, you’re going to wind up with them in adult court,” Maguigan predicted. “If we continue to treat them without care, their (parents’) lack of stability is going to show in these children. They are going to wind up in the adult system.”

Gov. Phil Bredesen’s education program offers help for at-risk children.

“If we invest more in the court system, it would pay off in the long run,” Maguigan believes. “We wouldn’t see them again.”

***
Davenport said more teens come into foster care through court because parents aren’t being parents.

She’s noticed an increase in parents filing petitions accusing their children of being unruly, complaining their child’s behavior is disrespectful or they won’t abide by the rules. She conducts a court hearing when the teen pleads not guilty.

During the hearing, she learns the fault lies with parents.

“My parents are not taking care of business,” Davenport said.

Although the teen has done nothing wrong, they must go into foster care. Meanwhile, the court system gives the parent services and tools to help them be parents.

In many cases, DCS identifies and offers services for the parents such as anger management, better choices, and alcohol and drug assessment and treatment and in home services.

Davenport orders many parents to parenting classes.

“I have found that this is such an epidemic it’s a standing order for my parents to take a parenting class,” the judge said. “Our goal is to reunify the family.”

She’s also found parents who show a selfish or entitlement demeanor so they want someone else to take care of their child.

Siskin said he, Davenport and referee Adam Dodd are operating at full capacity because of the epidemic of neglect and abuse.

“I think parents are more selfish these days,” Siskin said. “They put themselves ahead of their children.

When it gets to be extreme, where the children totally get shuffled aside, that’s when we see them.

“More and more parents are trying to get rid of their kids,” the referee added. “It’s sad but what changes their opinion in court is when I tell them they have to pay child support to the state. That’s what makes them want to get their child back. That’s a pretty sad commentary.”

Todd Savage, assistant youth services director, said some parents “want everyone else to raise their child.”

Youth Services Officer Greg Shapard said the environment, home life and peers affect their lives.

Assistant Public Defender Ray White said with some kids, “You can’t do a lot with them, not matter what you do.”

Davenport wants to try with each child but realizes she can’t handle the problem alone.

“I’m supposed to be the mother of the county and I’ll take on that responsibility but I expect the parents to help me,” Davenport said.

Casey Journalism Center shares scary (and discouraging) news about child development

2007-03-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

Love's limited in helping foster kids
By Leanne Kleinmann

It's been a couple of weeks since I saw the pictures, and they're still burned into my mind.
I was at a conference in Maryland sponsored by the Casey Journalism Center to learn about the latest research and trends on children and families. The first presenter was a Harvard pediatrician who'd done fascinating research on brain development in babies and small children. His pictures showed a fetus' brain at various stages of development.

At 25 weeks, the brain was smooth as an egg. Just two weeks later, at 27 weeks, the distinctive folds and crinkles of higher-level development were clear, even to my untrained eyes.

It wasn't too hard to imagine what might happen to a fetus -- and later a child -- whose brain was bathed in alcohol, cocaine or other drugs during that critical stage of brain development. Or whose mom was not sleeping, not eating well, fending off physical abuse, depression or worse. Judgment, impulse control, higher level thinking and decision-making; all are developing around that time.

Next up was a social worker and psychologist whose work focused on children in the foster care system, some of the most at-risk children in the country, not only because of their unstable original families, but because of the sometimes deplorable foster care conditions they face in their early lives. But what really caught my attention was that she vetted parents for potential foster care adoptions, and had adopted two foster children of her own.

Even this nationally recognized expert was struggling with the challenges her two kids presented her. What shocked me most, though, was how clear she was about the limits of the progress that kids who have had so many early problems can make. Brain deficiencies can be finite, and their results devastating.

She was also quite blunt about how difficult it is to adopt these kids, and how unwilling some families, especially affluent families, are to acknowledge the limits of their resources and efforts.

"Love is not enough," she kept saying, over and over.

What a sad fact to have to acknowledge. But what a clear mandate it proposes: That we strengthen the support, both public and private, for every pregnant mom. Prenatal care, nutrition counseling and substance abuse treatment, the promise of quality child care. All of these factors might -- might -- help during those critical brain development times.

Because love is not enough.

State of Tennessee is accountable for the care it provides to its foster children

2007-03-10T16:39:00.000-08:00

Our Opinion: Foster care needs a fix
Children in system harmed by too frequent moves from home to home
Clarksville Leaf Chronicle, March 10, 2007.

A group that monitors Tennessee's foster-care program has found the state's program improving, but it's not at the place it should be yet. Too many children are being moved around too much.

Children's Rights, an advocacy group that filed a class-action lawsuit against DCS, has checked for the last six years on the foster-care program as a result of the court-ordered settlement. Specifically, it's looking at how children are treated during the first six months in the state system. Most of these youngsters find themselves in state care due to abuse and neglect.

Of those, more than 50 percent had been moved at least twice during that initial six-month period. Another 18 percent found themselves in three or more homes during that time frame.

Children's Rights says that number of moves is not acceptable. Tennesseans should concur with that assessment.

These children already have been through the wringer. They don't need a high level of instability once they are removed from abusive homes and placed in foster care.

The report also said the program came up short in required visits by their caseworkers in the children's first eight weeks in state custody.

On the plus side, conditions for foster children have improved since 2001, according to the group. DCS has moved children out of places that were very similar to outdated orphanages and into foster families. A greater effort also is being made in keeping siblings together, which keeps important family ties intact.

Many adults have overcome horrendous childhoods to have happy and productive lives. If the state of Tennessee can intervene on behalf of its citizens and help to make childhoods a little easier for those children in foster care, it has an obligation to try to do so.

Grand opening of New Creations foster care center -- um, it's just a group home

2007-03-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

New Creations Foster Care Center Has Grand Opening
The Chattanoogan, March 6, 2007.

New Creations held a grand opening ceremony this week at 2404 Navajo Road.

The mission of New Creations is to provide a clean, safe family oriented living environment, where the child is nurtured, encouraged, and supported as he works toward reunification and independence, officials said.

Special program guests included Suzanne Bailey, Hamilton County juvenile court judge, Rev. Frank Scott, president of New Creations, Tupelo, Miss., and Rev. Bernie Miller, New Covenant Fellowship Church.

New Creations is a home for boys’ between the ages of 13-18.

“This is a unique approach to foster care” said Jim Stubbs, executive director of American Family Institute, the agency that oversees New Creations.

Collins Lord, board chairman of American Family Institute, said, “This home has full-time live house parents with case management support staff. It’s a creative approach to foster care for the juvenile justice transitional adolescent.”

One-third of Tennessee child-welfare cases are poorly documented

2007-03-09T16:15:00.001-08:00

New report takes critical look at Tennessee's foster care system
Granju, Katie Allison. WBIR-TV, March 7, 2007.

Children are being shuffled from one foster home to another. Caseworkers aren't visiting the kids enough. And about a third of child-welfare cases "contained significant gaps in documentation."

But the state, through the Department of Children's Services, has made great strides with foster children in other areas.

Those findings by a group that monitors Tennessee's foster-care program were filed in a federal court in Nashville on Tuesday. Since 2001, Tennessee's foster-care system has been under a court order to reform its treatment of some of the state's most vulnerable children.

The report looked at how children are treated in the first six months after they come into the foster-care system in Tennessee. Most had been taken from their families because of abuse and neglect.

It found that more than half had moved at least twice during the six months, and 18 percent had been placed in three or more homes during that time.

"That level of multiple moves is just unacceptable," said Ira Lustbader, an attorney for Children's Rights, a New-York based advocacy group that initiated a class-action lawsuit against DCS that was settled with the court order.

"We've got to see more stability for these children."

DCS agrees.

"Some of the challenges we've got are with placement stability," DCS spokesman Rob Johnson said. "One of the things we're working hard to do is limit the number of times a child moves when a child comes into custody."

The department is working to get more foster parents, which would help limit the number of times a child has to move.

The report also faulted DCS because only a little more than half of the children in foster care received required visits by caseworkers during their first eight weeks in custody. Seventy-six percent received the required visits after eight weeks.

The report found that DCS had made conditions better for children, including moving kids out of orphanage-like institutions and into foster families and keeping more kids together with their siblings.

The number of children in state custody also has significantly decreased. There were 10,600 kids in DCS custody in early 2004. There are now roughly 8,700 in the system.

Too many placement changes and not enough visits from social workers

2007-03-09T16:14:00.001-08:00

DCS Seeks To Create More Stability For Foster Children
WKRN-TV, March 7, 2007.

Despite improvements to Tennessee’s foster care program, case workers are not visiting foster children enough and those youngsters are being moved around too much. Those were the findings of a children's rights group's report.

A small study found over a 6-month period that 52% of children were moved twice, and 18% moved three or more times in that time period. A children’s rights attorney says that is unacceptable.

A 150-page progress report, resulting from a federal court order to improve foster care, focused concern on the amount of times youngsters are moved around.

Kathy Jack has been a foster mother......in Rutherford County for three years, caring for young ones in her home. The court monitors’ new report says youngsters in foster care need stability. Jack agrees. “Without it, they don’t feel like they belong anymore,” she says.

While the new report shows foster children moving to different homes much too frequently, Jack says that's not been her experience. “They (the state) work very hard at creating stable environments and getting good foster parents,” she says.

DCS is trying to find more foster parents, which would limit the number of times a child is moved around. Jack agrees with that.

“Fostercare is what gives those kids that have been in care a long time a taste of being a normal kid,” she says.

DCS commissioner Viola Miller says the agency has some important challenges. “We've got to do a better job of finding relatives,” she says. “All of the research indicates that if you place children with relatives, they are less likely to move than children who are placed with strangers.”

Miller wants even more visits to homes by caseworkers. “We’re at about 67% of our children who are seen two or more times per month, and we want that number to go up to about 80%.”

The DCS commissioner says 98% of children in foster care are now seen at least once a month by their care workers. The report does cite improvements in a number of areas: conditions at foster care homes, and keeping family members together.

Tennessee has some 5,000 foster parents to care for some 8,000 children now in the system. The good news is the number of children in state custody has dropped dramatically. In 2004, about 10,000 children were in DCS custody, compared with only 8,700 today.

More on the six-year custody battle - what happened to the rights of the child?

2007-02-21T18:38:00.000-08:00

The Hes, Bakers & Foster Care
Well-publicized case casts spotlight on the state system that spawned it
Guy, Rosalind. Memphis Daily News, Feb. 19, 2007.

Eight-year-old Anna Mae He, whose name has spawned a media blitz across the country, soon will be reunited with her birth parents, Shaoqiang "Jack" and Qin Luo "Casey" He, despite relentless efforts by her foster family to hold onto her.

In 1998, before Anna Mae was born, her biological parents met with a birth-parent counselor at a local social services agency to seek temporary care for their daughter because they faced legal and financial difficulties, according to court records.

The Hes placed Anna Mae with Jerry and Louise Baker of Cordova. But the Hes expected the arrangement to be temporary, they since have said in court documents and reports about the ordeal.

"My baby was never given away or adopted," Casey He wrote The Daily News in an e-mail this week. "On June 4, 1999, both families signed an agreement called (a) 'temporary custory transfer.'

"Based on two credible witnesses, both families knew that the custody transfer was intended only for a short period of time for the sake of Anna's health insurance coverage. I was grateful to (the) Bakers for covering my baby's health insurance.

"A few months later (November 1999), we came back on our feet and asked the Bakers to return Anna and they refused, citing my failure to pay child support. For seven years, we have been asking the Bakers and the Tennessee courts to return our baby."

But Shelby County Chancellor Robert Childers terminated the Chinese couple's parental rights in 2004 and awarded custody of their daughter to the Bakers. That decision later was upheld by the state Court of Appeals.

About foster care
In Supreme Court papers filed last month that ordered Anna Mae returned to her biological parents, the following information was presented as facts and procedural history of the case:

"The father testified that the parents were seeking social services when they went to Mid-South and did not ask to place their child for adoption. This is consistent with the testimony of the Mid-South counselor, who testified that she discussed with the parents placing (Anna Mae) in foster care through the Tennessee Department of Children's Services, but advised against this option because of the potential 'risks' and 'difficulties.'"

Differentiating this case as either a "foster" or "adoptive" situation is important for one reason. Foster care is meant to be a temporary respite for biological parents to deal with whatever problems are prohibiting them from being able to care for their children properly, even though rare occasions occur in which the foster parent or parents become so attached to the child that they seemingly will do anything to try and prevent him or her from returning to their biological parent or parents, say social workers who work with foster and biological parents.

'The children in the system'
That's why grief and loss are discussed in the classes every person interested in adopting or becoming a foster parent through AGAPE Child & Family Services Inc. must take.

In a continuing Monday night class at the agency, class facilitators Louvadie King and Claire DePriest offer potential foster and adoptive parents an overview of the children "in the system," as well as some of the reasons why those children end up there.

Through discussion and videos, King and DePriest attempt to cover as many issues as possible.

The PATH (Parents as Tender Healers) class is intended to provide a broad overview of the children whom the agency represents, as well as obtaining an in-depth profile of all prospective parents. In this particular class, about 20 people agree they want to have a positive effect on the lives of children who may not have had that to this point.

One of the women in the class went so far as to specify that she wants to take in children who have been exposed to drugs in the womb.

Michelle Miller, director of social services, said it takes a special kind of person to want to offer that kind of love and support.

"I think, for the most part, people want to help children," Miller said. "I think people have a heart for that, and when you start talking about getting people engaged in the lives of kids ... generally people just like helping kids."

For the children
Helping children should be the reason people decide to become foster or adoptive parents in the first place, she said.

"Not to take anything from anybody who wants to be a foster or adoptive parent, but if you come to this because you have some need that you're trying to get met, then foster care probably is not what you need to do," she added.

Of course, the He/Baker case was complicated by issues such as immigration and language barriers, so it's not a direct reflection of the foster care process in general, according to media reports and court documents. Anna Mae's biological mother, Casey, speaks "little English and has used an interpreter throughout these proceedings," according to court documents.

On letting go
AGAPE currently has two PATH classes - the one on Monday night and a Saturday class.

Miller said the agency typically offers about four to five classes throughout the year.

Besides the two classes going on now, a group is scheduled to meet in May and another in September.

But, depending on interest, AGAPE facilitators may offer more classes.

"If we get a ton of people wanting to do this, we are prepared to put on more groups," Miller said, adding that the agency has offered as many as six groups in one year.

Valerie Wright, a foster mother working with AGAPE, offers a view of foster care that reveals the good moments as well as the discouraging ones.

Wright joined AGAPE in 2004 as a foster parent. And she currently has three children, one of whom she is in the process of adopting. The little girl she's adopting is 3 years old and has been with her since May 2005.

The girl could not be named because the adoption is not yet final.

But within the last two years, she's experienced grief over losing a child to whom she had grown very close.

One of the children she took in actually ran away from home. And the two children she first took into her home - a sister and brother - eventually were reunited with their birth mother.

"It was hard," Wright said. "I didn't want to let them go."

But the siblings did leave. Their mother later died in a house fire, so they currently live with their father. But the brother and sister do come back every other weekend to visit.

"Even when they leave my home," she said. "I'm still known as Auntie Valerie."

Miller said the agency works with the foster family and the biological family to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Some families even keep in touch once a child is returned to his or her biological family.

AGAPE: Greek word for love
Besides offering the PATH classes, AGAPE makes available a number of other services for families. In November, AGAPE formed a partnership with the Department of Children's Services (DCS) to offer "family preservation work."

"The part that's different is that these are children who have not been removed from their homes," Miller said. "But there's a threat of it. There's been a child protective services report filed on the family because something's going on."

Together, officials from DCS and AGAPE work with the family to try and stabilize things so the children don't have to be removed.

Typically, the issues that must be addressed are rebellion in the children, children who run away or issues with the adults such as substance abuse.

The program is still relatively new, so it's too soon to judge the overall effectiveness of it just yet. Miller said so far she and the others are seeing good results.

"There are challenges, but they're going to be when you're dealing with families in crisis," she said. "But we're also seeing some really good results."

One of the challenges for the agency, she said, is to make sure the workers are helping to implement real change.

"You don't want it to just be a Band-Aid on the problem for right now and then you pull out and things go back to the way they were before," she said.

The following is a letter sent to The Daily News last week by Jerry Baker, Anna Mae He's foster father. Baker, who says he does not hate the Hes and is certain the letter did not reach the Tennessee Supreme Court as intended, is sorrowful over the court's ruling Jan. 24 to give 8-year-old Anna Mae He back to her biological parents, Shaoqiang "Jack" and Qin Luo "Casey" He. Baker sent the letter to justices Gary M. Wade, Cornelia A. Clark, William M. Barker and Janice M. Holder:

Dear Tennessee Supreme Court Justices,

In your decision, IN RE ADOPTION OF A.M.H., filed January 23, 2007, you stated, and I quote, "Here, the only evidence of substantial harm arises from the delay caused by the protracted litigation and the failure of the court system to protect the parent-child relationship throughout the proceedings. Evidence that A.M.H. will be harmed from a change in custody because she has lived with the Bakers cannot constitute the substantial harm required to prevent the parents from regaining custody." End quote.

After two previous courts had ruled that it was in the child's best interest to remain with the only family she has known, we were shocked at your decision. What happened to (the following)?

"In all cases, when the best interest of the child and those of the adults are in conflict, such conflict shall always be resolved to favor the rights and the best interests of the child, which interests are hereby recognized as constitutionally protected and, to that end; this part shall be literally construed." Tenn. Code Ann. 36-1-101(d)

I would like to take a moment to say that A.M.H. are not just letters of the alphabet.

Those initials stand for an 8-year-old young lady. She is a citizen of the United States by birth. She came into our home and became a part of our family when she was just 3 weeks old. Because of her oval eyes, she is sometimes asked, "What part of China are you from?" She will quickly say, "I am an American from Tennessee."

While the rights of the Bakers and the rights of the Hes were being debated in court after court, a strange thing happened: This infant turned into a toddler and then a young lady. Because we, in an attempt to protect her from the press year after year, never released her photograph, many think of her as a small child unable to make a decision for herself. That could not be further from the truth.

Maybe, had we released a recent photograph, each of you could have seen this for yourself. The court uses initials to protect the child. How ironic is that? If only ... you would have been as interested in protecting her rights as it appears you were the adults in this case. If only it was each of you who had to sit down with this beautiful young lady and explain to her why after years and years and courts after courts she must endure what is to happen next.

Please explain to her that even though the evidence clearly indicated in two previous courts that a change in custody would constitute substantial harm, each of you feel that because the harm was brought about by the courts themselves, it does not count.

Let me assure each of you that the trauma caused by this life-altering event will be with this young lady and her 7-year-old sister (Aimee Baker) the remainder of their lives.

I would like to invite each of you ... supreme beings to our home the day (Anna Mae) is to leave. I hope to be standing nearby as you fasten her seatbelt so I can hear your response when asked, "When will I get to come home?" I might suggest you bring a large box of tissues for her, as it is a long way to China.

Maybe ... you could chip in and purchase a book or tape on how to speak and understand Chinese. I would hate to think (the Hes) might send her back to China alone like they did their son years earlier.

I see no need for a van. Space on the plane will not allow for many personal items.

Since you directed the juvenile court on what it must do, it seems that now another court will have to operate with hands behind its back. Or maybe I should say with hands covering its eyes and ears.

If only this court would call this young lady into its chambers and ask her, "In what country do you want to live? With what family would you prefer to stay?"

We are told there is little chance the Supreme Court of the United States will hear a family law case. Now we're praying that Americans will rise up together and in a loud voice scream, "When rights of the child conflict with those of adults, the rights of the adults should be secondary!"

Only then might the Supreme Court of the United States consider this appeal.

To the Tennessee justices who made this decision, I would like to say, "A.M.H. stands for Anna Mae He! She is more than letters on paper."

Attached is a photograph of both Anna and Aimee. Please look into their eyes. All of us involved in this case deserve to see those faces every time we close our eyes for the rest of our lives.

Sincerely,
Jerry Baker
Father of Anna and Aimee

6 year custody battle ends in child being returned to her biological parents

2007-01-29T16:23:00.000-08:00

Tennessee Supreme Court Rules in Anna Mae He Custody Battle
Custody Given to Jack and Casey He
King, Wendy. WMC-TV, Jan. 27, 2007.

After a long court battle, Jack and Casey He were awarded custody of Anna Mae He on January 23, 2007 by the Tennessee Supreme Court. This has been a highly publicized custody battle that has lasted for more than six years.

Jack and Casey He first gave temporary custody of their daughter, Anna Mae, to Jerry and Louise Baker on February 24, 1999. She was just a few weeks old at the time. The Bakers were to have custody of Anna Mae for ninety days in a sort of foster care agreement.

However, the He's agreed to allow the Bakers to continue to offer foster care for Anna Mae in April 1999. On June 4th of that same year, custody of the young child was transferred to the Bakers.

Almost a year later, in May of 2000, the He's filed a petition to have their daughter, Anna Mae returned to them. This petition was denied due to lack of income and pending criminal charges against Jack He for sexual battery.

On February 21, 2002, Jack He was acquitted of the sexual battery charges. Later that same year the He's would visit their daughter for the first time in three years.

Almost two years after the acquittal of the sexual battery charges against Jack He, there was a custody trial. On May 12, 2004, Judge Robert Childers (Memphis, TN Circuit Court judge) terminated the He's parental rights. Full custody of Anna Mae He was awarded to Jerry and Louise Baker. The He's appealed the hearing and in November 2005, the courts upheld the decision to terminate their parental rights.

In October 2006, the Tennessee Supreme Court began to hear arguments in an appeal filed by the He's. On January 23, 2007, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that Anna Mae He be returned to the custody of her biological parents, Jack and Casey He.

So, what does all of this mean for little Anna Mae (who will 8yrs old on Sunday)? The Bakers must turn over custody of Anna Mae to the He's. This will be arranged through the Memphis Juvenile Court system.

The He's plan to take Anna Mae back to their native country, China. They have stated that they would like for the Bakers to remain part of Anna Mae's life.

The only way the Bakers can appeal the decision is to take it before the U.S. Supreme Court. They have ninety days to file an appeal. At this time, there are no plans for such an appeal.Jack and Casey He first gave temporary custody of their daughter, Anna Mae, to Jerry and Louise Baker on February 24, 1999.On May 12, 2004, Judge Robert Childers (Memphis, TN Circuit Court judge) terminated the He's parental rights.

On January 23, 2007, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that Anna Mae He be returned to the custody of her biological parents, Jack and Casey He.This custody battle has been going on for more than six years.

Gov. Bredesen initiates mentoring program for teens in foster care

2007-01-16T16:53:00.000-08:00

Bredesen Launches Mentoring Program For Teens In Foster Care
The Chattanoogan, Jan. 16, 2007.

Gov. Phil Bredesen Tuesday unveiled a new statewide mentoring initiative that pairs volunteer mentors with teenage children in foster care. The Governor’s mentoring program will provide young people in state custody with a positive, adult influence to help support them in making the right decisions as they grow toward adulthood.

The statewide initiative was launched today during a Martin Luther King Day observance event in Nashville with Gov. Bredesen, First Lady Andrea Conte, Department of Children’s Services Comm. Viola Miller, and former Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. The mentoring program will be operated through the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet.

“Helping teenagers in foster homes prepare for the transition to adult responsibilities is a critical investment in our youth,” said Gov. Bredesen. “A fundamental part of Dr. King’s vision was to ensure that all children, regardless of race or class, be provided the same opportunities to succeed in life. This program will go a long way in advancing that vision.”

The Children’s Cabinet will work with private organizations and individuals to pair volunteer mentors with early teenage children who are currently in Tennessee’s foster care system. The program is voluntary for the youth and will include optional mentor support groups and resources for mentors.Volunteer mentors will be asked to serve as a positive role model and friend through an ongoing, one-on-one relationship. Mentors will help teens set and meet goals and provide motivation and guidance to help achieve those goals. Mentors agree to spend four to six hours per month with the young person with whom they are paired.

The Governor’s Children’s Cabinet was created in March 2003 to coordinate and streamline the state’s efforts to provide needed services to Tennessee’s children, including those inside and outside of state custody. The Cabinet includes the Commissioners of Children’s Services, Education, Health, Human Services, Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, the Executive Director of the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth and six citizens, including First Lady Conte, appointed by the Governor who are involved in issues affecting Tennessee’s children.

Adult Tennesseans interested in becoming a mentor must commit to taking a mentoring training class and pass a mandatory background check. Individuals interested in applying to be a mentor can call 1-866-519-LIFT (5438) to receive an application.

Abuse and child trafficking by adoptive parents of up to 10 disabled children

2006-11-05T08:07:00.000-08:00

Safe haven or house of horror?
Hewitt, Bill. People Weekly, Feb. 13, 2006, pg. 1000.

A shocking Tennessee child-abuse case sheds light on a hidden world of hard-to-adopt kids-and a bizarre method of disciplining them.

As the dozen deputy sheriffs and child welfare workers approached the tidy, three-story white house in Trenton, Tenn., intending to remove all the kids because of reports of abuse, they came upon a bizarre sight.

A young girl, 14 years old, was sitting cross-legged on the ground with her nose pressed up against the house. When a social worker asked why she was there, the girl said she had gotten in trouble. Asked how long she had been there, the girl replied, "Before lunchtime." It was 2:30 p.m. "It was pitiful," says investigator Don Curry. "It was so hot that day it made me sick." As Curry recalls, the girl was being disciplined that afternoon in June 2004 for getting a sibling's shoes wet. "It was something silly," he says, "something silly like that."

But as investigators began to examine Debra and Thomas Schmitz, who lived at the house with their 18 children-16 of them adopted, foster children or unofficially transferred to their care-they say that that incident proved to be among the milder forms of punishment. On Jan. 30 the Schmitzes went on trial in Brownsville, Tenn., on 31 counts of child abuse and child trafficking.

The case of the Schmitzes-most of whose kids suffered from physical or emotional problems-has also focused attention on a little-known gray-market network of families who take in children (often through word of mouth and the Internet) cast off by their own adoptive parents. The collectors of unwanted children say they do it to help kids, though some skeptics suggest that money, in the form of state subsidies, furnishes another motive.

"People call and say, 'I need your help; we can't have these kids in our home,'" says Frances Matthews, a friend of the Schmitzes' who has 10 adopted disabled kids at their home in nearby Kenton. "Sometimes you need a break."

Matthews explains that it is not uncommon for families in this kind of adoption network to exchange for brief periods disruptive or challenging children among themselves as a means of lessening the stress. What's more, many of the families practice "attachment therapy," a method that includes some controversial forms of discipline (see box). In Internet chat rooms, the Schmitzes sold themselves as AT experts-which they insist is a legitimate form of child rearing-to parents looking to unload their kids.

But in his opening statement, prosecutor Garry Brown said they took the idea of discipline to criminal extreme, painting a harrowing portrait of life in the Schmitz household. He accused Debra, 46, of forcing one child to eat his own vomit; holding another child's head underwater as punishment; sitting on a girl and urinating on her; and hurling a wheelchair-bound girl into a swimming pool (the girl was pulled to safety).

Tom, 48, who works for a portable-toilet company, is accused of placing a hose in a girl's mouth and turning on the water, and lancing a boil on another child with a box cutter as she screamed in pain. The couple allegedly forced children to dig what they were told were their own graves.

The witnesses: 10 of the kids the Schmitzes cared for. Natasha Bennet, 16, told the court how she had been adopted from Russia at age 5 by a single American mom but was so unruly that the woman drove her to the Schmitzes one day in 2003 and left her there. "[Debra] welcomed me to a house of living hell," testified Natasha, who is now living in McKenzie, Tenn. "She told me I could call her 'mom' or 'master.'" Her first day at the house, said Natasha, she was put in the storm cellar for 20 minutes: "[Debra] told me every time I misbehaved that's where I'd go."

In his opening statement, Debra's attorney Barney Witherington tried to downplay the seriousness of the Schmitzes' actions. "They say she threw a butter knife at one of their children," he said. "It's a butter knife; it's not even a sharp knife."

Witherington continued, "Everybody loves children. These children are different. The things that the Schmitzes did were absolutely necessary. The rest didn't happen." - WHAT??

But to authorities, it was abuse by any name. "If you put kids in a storm cellar or a bed that's really a cage, that's not right," says Gibson County Sheriff Joe Shepard, who has led the investigation of the Schmitzes. "Psychologically it will affect them the rest of their days."

Some of Debra Schmitz's own kin, including her estranged mother, Shirley Hogan, 67, and daughter Melanie, 21, emphatically second that notion. (Debra was married twice and had three children, including Melanie, a student, prior to her marriage to Tom, with whom she has a son, Mackenzie, 16.) According to Shirley, in 1995 Debra and Tom began taking in kids from other families for brief stays, then moved on to taking foster children and finally to adopting their own in 1996. Their first adopted child was an African-American toddler named Marcus who fell prey to their abuse, says Melanie, who left home in 2001: "If Marcus dirtied his diaper, she'd make him wear it on his head."

Before long, the Schmitzes had branched out to taking in children that other adoptive families no longer wanted. Melanie recalls seeing her mother spending hours trolling the Internet looking for candidates, some of them foreign-born adoptees with special needs whose new parents had underestimated the burden of caring for them. "She'd barely get off the couch," says Melanie. "She'd be online all day looking at kids." In one instance, Melanie says, she went with her family to a truck stop in the Midwest to pick up one child, an episode that Debra has said never happened. (At the time of their arrest, the Schmitzes had seven kids living in their house who had not been adopted through official channels, though their lawyer has maintained that the couple intended to get legal custody.)

Both Melanie and Shirley believe that Debra's initial motive was to help kids but that financial gain soon became a factor. "After she found out how much money could be made, it never stopped," says Shirley. Authorities say that thanks to the kids for whom they had legal custody, the Schmitzes received about $84,000 a year alone from Social Security and state and federal subsidies, which are higher for special-needs children. "They were living pretty good," says Sheriff Shepard. "Beautiful home, beautiful antiques." Not so, says Debra, who has claimed that she received no support for the last seven children she brought into her home. "I wore rags," she told USA Today, "but my kids always looked wonderful."

How could such alleged abuse continue unnoticed? Police found evidence that the couple had rigged up a warning system to alert them when anyone-including child welfare workers, who made visits to the house over the years and reported nothing amiss-came up the driveway. Authorities say they found the house to be im maculately kept but concluded that Debra had used the kids to do the vast bulk of the cleaning. The alleged abuses came to light when two home health care workers learned from some of the children about life in the house and notified a doctor, who called the police.

At least one expert, Ronald Federici, author of Help for the Hopeless Child, who evaluated the family last year at the invitation of the defense, voices sympathy for Debra and Tom. "They were adoption addicts," says Federici. "They were well-intentioned people. They wanted to make the world better for kids who were abused. They got in way over their head because of their rescue fantasies. This was like a psychiatric facility without a medical director." As for the investigation, which relied heavily on the word of the children themselves, Federici questions how much credence that testimony should be given. "Only four kids were competent under psychological standards," he says. "The rest were retarded, autistic, brain damaged. They were so impaired. Yet all the statements went into gospel."

To officials, the stories the children told rang true. Investigator Curry recalls interviewing Nora, then a 15-year-old who wore a leg brace because of polio, who had been adopted in China and then dumped at the Schmitz home by parents who didn't want her.

"She was telling us when she got in trouble Debbie made her sleep naked on the floor," says Curry. "She'd take her brace and the little girl would have to crawl up the steps." Even Schmitz friend Frances Matthews, who had a falling-out with her yet agrees that the accused couple wanted to do good and found themselves overwhelmed, recounts some disturbing practices. She acknowledges, for instance, that she was having such problems with her own adopted daughter Marianna, now 19, who has spina bifida, that she hit her in the face with a shoe (she was sentenced to 20 days in jail for that abuse) before sending her to live with the Schmitzes. But Debra, says Matthews, had no better luck with Marianna. "She said she had spanked her so hard that Marianna had an abscess on her behind," says Matthews.

In the run-up to the trial, which was expected to last about five days, all but two of the Schmitz children had been put in foster homes. That, says Matthews, has distressed Debra more than anything. "She's very depressed," says Matthews. "She wants her kids. She misses them. When they take your kids, you come unglued." Adds Matthews, with no intended irony: "She loved those children. Maybe she wasn't the best, but she loved them."

WHAT IS ATTACHMENT THERAPY? For children who have lacked a parental figure in the early years of life and as a result suffer an inability to bond with other people, attachment therapy offers at least the promise of being able to trust normally, many child-care experts agree. The trouble is that there are many forms of attachment therapy, some of which are highly controversial, explains Ronald Federici, author of Help for the Hopeless Child: "There is no consensus on what it is."

Federici himself endorses a form of AT that emphasizes family involvement and fosters a child's sense of safety. But there are plenty of unorthodox variants. Some AT practitioners advocate holding children and feeding them candy while staring in their eyes; others suggest that a 12-year-old nurse from a bottle so that the child regresses and becomes attached to the parent.

Alicia Lieberman, director of the Child Trauma Research Project at the University of California, San Francisco, believes the more coercive methods can easily hurt. The key, she says, "is becoming a trusted figure for the child and responding sensitively to the child's signals of need. In general, forms of therapy that force children to do things, or which are punitive, are counterproductive."

"Debbie is compulsive," says her mother, Shirley Hogan (with Schmitz's daughter Melanie in Green Bay, Wis.). "When she was young, she had animals. She had to have more and more. Before you knew it, we had a small zoo in the backyard."

Not the best candidate for foster care

2006-09-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

DCS hides problems, official says
Juvenile's felony charges pile up
Colby Sledge, The Tennessean, Sept. 23, 2006

A Juvenile Court referee reprimanded the Department of Children's Services after a minor with a history of aggravated burglaries was back in court Friday.

"The department acts like they have solved this problem, and they haven't," Referee Mike O'Neil said. "They have simply moved shelves around."

O'Neil's comments came at the detention hearing of Woodard Bowley, 17, who was in Juvenile Court after being arrested on a charge of aggravated burglary, his seventh felony charge since June 12. Bowley has pleaded guilty to six counts of aggravated burglary in the past but was in foster care at the time of the latest charge.

"Clearly, he is not appropriate for community placement," O'Neil said of Bowley. "That should have been clear three or four felonies ago."

O'Neil noted in court that only three felonies are required to place a juvenile offender in one of the state's four Youth Development Centers, residential facilities for delinquent teenagers.

O'Neil said in an earlier detention hearing Friday in an unrelated case that those centers were shutting down beds used for assigned teenagers and then, when contacted about new residents, responding they had limited space.

DCS came under fire after at least 67 juvenile offenders escaped state custody and were arrested on new charges in a 90-day span late last year. In May 2005 The Tennessean found that juvenile offenders escaped more than 4,400 times between 1999 and 2004.

Individuals have accused Bowley of stealing credit cards and personal documents, rummaging through drawers and taking two cars. The cars were later found and were being returned, according to the crime victims, who asked to remain unnamed.

Assistant District Attorney Jon P. Seaborg said that Bowley would probably be assigned to Woodland Hills Youth Development Center in Nashville and would certainly not be sent back to foster care.

Seaborg added that Bowley began to "tear up" the hallway he was being led down, grabbing and throwing a fire extinguisher, after learning he would be assigned to a facility.

Caring adult makes the difference for foster alumni

2006-09-25T18:28:00.000-07:00

The oldest foster kids risk falling to failure
Dwight Lewis, Tennessean.com
Sunday, 09/24/06

Michelle Crowley is one of the lucky ones. Unlike thousands of others in her situation, she had help to keep from falling into homelessness, unemployment and criminal activity.
But again, she was lucky.

"My case worker either didn't know or didn't tell me about some of the services that were available for older youngsters who had been in foster care,'' Crowley, 24, told me over the telephone recently. "I didn't know about some of these services such as tuition assistance, housing, tutoring — a whole list of incentives — until I was 21.

"I was lucky because I had people in my life who cared about me, people such as Ann Whitefield, my principal at Nashville's Hume-Fogg Magnet School. She paid for me to have breakfast when I was in high school. And there was a teacher who picked me up in the mornings from the three different group homes I lived in to take me to school.

"There were a lot of people who cared about me. I had a lot of connections to people who helped me realize my potential. Being in foster care can make your living situation unstable. That can affect your situation in school. The leading predictor of success for a youngster in foster care, especially an older one, is a caring adult.''

I talked to Crowley after taking part in an audio news conference Tuesday on the subject of youth permanence. A meeting on the issue, held Sept. 13-15 in Washington, brought together child welfare commissioners and directors, judges, attorneys and care providers from 40 states, including Tennessee, where about 9,000 youngsters are in foster care.

Representatives from each of those states went home with a specific plan of action for improving the way their states handle the betterment of children.

During the audio news conference, officials from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which sponsored the event, said many young people "age out'' of foster care at 18 without having established any meaningful and enduring relationship with a family member or other caring adult.

"This is a group of kids who are more likely by a factor of several times to end up homeless, to end up dependent, to experience a young adulthood of unemployment, underemployment and poverty,'' said Doug Nelson, president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, longtime innovators in the field of child welfare policy and practice. "No group of young American youth are more likely to be incarcerated or spend time in mental health institutions. The rates of homelessness are unconquerably high.

"This is the group of kids among us who are at the greatest risk of failure. And we want to make it as clear as we possibly can to anyone who will listen that the costs of our failure with these children who come into state custody and then exit state custody, the cost to them in human terms is immense in a way that statistics can't fully show — cost to their health, cost to their happiness, the costs to their mental well being. "

Michelle Crowley had help along the way to keep her from falling through the cracks. She won a scholarship to college and is now working as an intern in a program that focuses on transitioning foster youth.

Unfortunately, too many others like her don't get that help. We can help turn that around by volunteering to work with youngsters in foster care.

Why not call the Tennessee Children's Services Department (615-532-5619) or the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth (615-741-2633) to say count me in? You can't imagine how much some youngster will appreciate it. •