Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "foster care"

La-Z-Boy Owners Donate More Than $12,000 in Furniture to Home For Former Foster Youth

2011-12-21T23:45:57Z

Earlier this week, the local owners of six La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries stores in Northern California donated nearly $12,000 worth of beautiful
La-Z-Boy furniture to a privately funded home for recently emancipated foster youth in Placer County. Purchased by a concerned citizen and CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) volunteer, “Taylor House” is a six-bedroom, newly remodeled home located in downtown Roseville. Once furnished, the home will welcome its first young women residents -- all of whom are no longer able to stay in a foster care environment after turning 18 years of age -- within the next few weeks.

To help furnish the empty home, local La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries owners Liz & Jim Reego donated a beautiful La-Z-Boy sofa, a leather chair, a chaise lounge, two fabric chairs, an English hutch/TV cabinet, five ottomans, a bedside chest, two rugs and a variety of home decor accessories valued at nearly $12,000 total. The local La-Z-Boy owners would like to encourage other businesses and involved community members to follow suit by providing support to Taylor House, volunteering at CASA volunteer or working with foster youth.

“As long-time community members, our hearts go out to abused and neglected children and youth in need of a safe and nurturing home environment,” said Liz Reego, co-owner of six (soon to be seven) La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries showrooms in Northern California. “We hope other businesses and community members will follow our lead and offer to donate, volunteer their time or find some way to support this worthwhile effort.”

Young women chosen to stay at “Taylor House” are required to be actively employed, pay reduced rent, remain drug and alcohol free and abide by the agreed-upon house rules as they bridge from a foster care environment to being completely independent and living on their own.

Disclosure: Traci Rockefeller Cusack represents a number of businesses and organizations throughout the greater Sacramento area including La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries.

Make holiday dreams come true for Sacramento foster youth

2011-11-23T00:25:34Z

SACRAMENTO – As foster youth in the Sacramento area spend the holidays away from home, local residents can ensure they still have stockings and presents to open, thanks to United Way’s Women in Philanthropy and Sacramento County’s Gifts From The Heart program.

“I cannot imagine how lonely it must feel to be removed from your home, especially during the holidays,” said Lisa Watts, chair of United Way’s Women in Philanthropy. “This is a fantastic way to give back during the holiday season and know that your gift will brighten the holidays for a hurting child.”

Visit www.yourlocalunitedway.org to sign up to bring specific gifts for children in Sacramento County’s Child Protective Services or to provide a $30 donation to purchase a holiday stocking for a foster youth preparing for emancipation. All items must be received by 4 p.m. on Dec. 5 at United Way’s office, 10389 Old Placerville Road, Sacramento. For more information, contact Kaila Ricci at kricci@uwccr.org or (916) 856-3910.

Holiday gifts will be distributed through Sacramento County’s Gifts From The Heart program, and stockings will be distributed through United Way’s certified nonprofit partners that work with foster youth preparing to leave the foster care system.

United Way’s Women in Philanthropy brings women together to foster the future, preparing foster youth for a successful adulthood. A dynamic group of businesswomen, homemakers and community leaders, Women in Philanthropy members raise funds, hold drives and provide trainings focused on helping foster youth rise to their dreams. The group also is a partner in United Way’s $en$e-Ability project, helping foster youth become financially self-sufficient through financial literacy courses and individual development accounts that provide a matched savings program. For more information, visit www.yourlocalunitedway.org/wip.

Sacramento County’s Gifts from the Heart is an annual holiday gift-giving program that operates on donations and benefits children and seniors who are in the Department of Health and Human Services’ system of care. For more information, call (916) 875-2027.

Disclosure: Kristin Thébaud is the marketing consultant for United Way California Capital Region, as well as other local nonprofits and philanthropic companies.

3,400 local children and youth are growing up in foster care. Over 1,000 need a permanent home today.

2011-11-01T22:00:14Z

November is National Adoption Month. As the nation recognizes this important social issue, counties and communities across California will promote adoption and permanency awareness through activities and events that bring attention to the needs of the over 25,000 children and youth living in foster care throughout the state waiting for families to love and adopt them.

November 3, 2011 is National Adoption Awareness Day. On November 3, 2011, the month-long effort will kick off, raising awareness about the thousands of children in California waiting for families, celebrating those special people who have provided a loving home to children in foster care, and inspiring others to come forward and be a forever family to children and youth.

Special Event
National Adoption Awareness Day - California State Capitol - “Calling Out of Names” - 11 am to 6 pm
On the North steps of the California State Capitol, state and community leaders, adoptive parents, former foster children and child advocates will “call out” the names of children and youth who continue to wait for family love and belonging. This meaningful event will recognize the thousands of children in California waiting for forever families as well as those who have come forward to provide permanency to children through adoption. Three local families will be recognized with 2011 Adoptive Family of the Year awards.

Adoption Orientation inside the State Capitol: 4:45pm – 5:45pm:
A unique and intimate orientation will be co-hosted by three local agencies specializing in finding permanent families for children and youth living in foster care. The orientation will be held inside the State Capitol in room 113 . This orientation is open to the general public.

A candlelight vigil concludes the event at 6pm.

Get Involved. Become A Parent.
To learn more about how you can help strengthen our community by becoming a permanent family to a child or children in foster care in the greater Sacramento area.
Please visit the websites of one of these sponsoring agencies:
          EMQ FamiliesFirst: www.emqff.org
          Lilliput Children's Services: www.lilliput.org
          Sierra Forever Families: www.sierraff.org

November 1-14:
The Capitol Heart Gallery – a display of beautifully taken photographs of children and youth living in foster care in California and continue to wait for a family – is featured at the State Capitol.

Disclosure: Written by: Sara Hanson, Public Relations Specialist, Sierra Forever Families and the National Adoption Month Coalition

Waste Connections, Inc. supports charitable golf tournament with proceeds to help children in foster care.

2011-10-04T22:10:36Z

Waste Connections, Inc. sponsored and helped fundraise $145,000 during Sierra Forever Families’ seventh annual Golf Classic for Kids tournament at Serrano Country Club on Sept. 12.

The funds raised during this year’s tournament will help more than 20 children living in foster care find permanent placements with loving families. This tremendous success of the 2011 tournament would not be as significant without the gracious support of Ron Mittelstaedt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, along with Jerri Hunt, Vice President of Employee Relations, of Waste Connection, Inc.

Hunt, who retired from the Board of Directors of Sierra Forever Families in July, served as the four-time Chair of the Golf Classic Committee. Hunt’s passion for the cause and her enthusiastic leadership of the committee proved to be an integral part to the success and continuation of the tournament. For the past four years, Mittelstaedt and Hunt have donated their time and have worked with national vendors and global business associates to help prepare and sponsor the agency’s signature fundraising event. Some of these sponsors include but are not limited to the following: Evergreen Flexible Bonding Solution, Littler Mendelson, Blue Shield of California, Pacific Coast Companies, Inc., RecycleBank, the SureWest Foundation, and Vision Service Plan.

During their four-year involvement with the tournament and enduring support of the agency’s mission, Waste Connections, Inc. helped Sierra Forever Families raise more than $550,000, transforming the lives of more than 110 children living in local foster care.

At this year’s tournament closing ceremony, hosted by local personality Kelly Brothers, Hunt was recognized for her leadership with an excellence in service award and stated in her acceptance speech that helping children through this tournament has been, “the most important project of my life.”

One of the most touching recognition pieces Hunt received during the closing ceremonies were two homemade thank you cards from two sisters who directly benefitted from the efforts and commitment of Waste Connections, Inc.

Bob Herne, Executive Director of Sierra Forever Families, acknowledges Waste Connections, Inc. for their four-year commitment. In four years, Hunt, with the support her company and affiliates, has transformed a tournament that was heavily impacted by an ailing economy. “Her tireless efforts and passion to help children find the loving homes they deserve has successfully positioned Sierra’s Golf Classic as a tournament that is now regionally-known as one of Sacramento’s best,” said Herne.

Bob Herne continues, “Waste Connections, Inc. has generously benefitted local Sacramento charities for many years. With the support from Waste Connections, Inc., Sierra Forever Families has been able to transform the lives of hundreds of children living in foster care, which has not only impacted their lives, but the lives of their forever families, leading to increased opportunities of hope and positive outcomes for our children.”

Sierra Forever Families is committed to hosting the eighth annual Golf Classic for Kids tournament tentatively set for September 2012. For more information, or if you would like to be a sponsor for the tournament, contact Bobby Cobbs, Development and Public Relations Officer at 916.368.5114.

About Waste Connections, Inc.:
Waste Connections, Inc. is an integrated solid waste services company that provides solid waste collection, transfer, disposal and recycling services in mostly exclusive and secondary markets.The Company serves more than two million residential, commercial and industrial customers from a network of operations in 31 states. The Company also provides intermodal services for the movement of containers in the Pacific Northwest. Waste Connections, Inc. was founded in September 1997 and is headquartered in Folsom, California.

About Sierra Forever Families:
Founded in 1983, Sierra Forever Families mission is to transform the lives of children in foster care by building and nurturing permanent families. Traditionally focused on finding families for harder-to-place children living in foster care, Sierra has successfully placed more than 2,700 children with permanent, loving families in their 28 years of service. Since 2009, Sierra has also provided positive mentors to children who currently in foster care.

Disclosure: Written by: Sara Hanson, Public Relations Specialist, Sierra Forever Families

Child safety improves as CPS takes fewer kids

2011-09-07T12:42:28Z

After years of holding the dubious distinction of tearing apart families at one of the highest rates in California, Sacramento County finally has brought its rate of child removal in line with the state average, the Sacramento Bee reported Monday.

But the Bee left out some good news: The two key measures of safety used by the federal government show that, as entries into foster care declined, child safety improved.

Apparently even with budget cuts, setting clear standards and doing a better job of weeding out false reports and trivial cases has given workers more time to focus on finding children in real danger.

One would think the fact that Sacramento County used to be the child removal capital of California was unknown to the Bee before Monday – since that’s the first time I saw it reported in that newspaper. In fact, reporter Margie Lundstrom was aware of this, but I have never seen it in any of her stories. Lundstrom has been Sacramento media’s biggest cheerleader for the county’s previous, failed take-the-child-and-run approach to child welfare.

In contrast, Brad Branan, who reported Monday’s story, apparently takes the refreshing position that readers are entitled to all sides of a story.

Of course, some Sacramento Press readers have known about the county’s dubious distinction for more than a year – it was the subject of a series of stories I wrote for the Press in 2010.

Those stories also outlined the enormous harm done to children when they are torn needlessly from everyone they know and love and consigned to foster care, and they discussed the significant risk of abuse in foster care itself.

Now, at last, the Bee acknowledges that, as Monday’s story put it:

Even those charged with advocating for abused and neglected children accused the agency of overreaching. "They were removing too many children," said Bob Wilson of Sacramento Child Advocates, which provided legal representation for children in Juvenile Dependency Court for almost 20 years, before losing its contract in July.

The Bee notes that the number of children torn from their homes declined from 2,391 in 2008 to 1,005 in 2010, according to county data. Unfortunately, data from a comprehensive database maintained by the University of California, Berkeley show that the rate of removal is increasing again, but not to its previous level.

That same database tracks the two key measures used by the federal government to assess child safety, the percentage of maltreated children who are maltreated again within six months and the percentage of children sent home from foster care who are removed again within 12 months.

During the same time period that entries into care declined, both of these measures improved.

Now, instead of being the child removal capital of California, Sacramento’s rate of removal is about average for the state’s larger counties, when entries into care are compared with the number of impoverished children in each county. Full details are in NCCPR’s updated California Rate-of-Removal Index available here: http://www.nccpr.org/reports/2009californiaror.pdf

But Sacramento can do better still.

Orange County does almost as well as Sacramento on one safety indicator, and significantly better on the other. But Orange County removes children at a rate more than 20 percent lower than Sacramento.

The Bee story notes concerns by Wilson and others that, as a result of budget cuts, the county may be overlooking children in real danger. And it cites a report from the CPS Oversight Committee which found lapses in investigations of cases that ended in tragedy.

But sadly, both problems existed even before the budget cuts – when Sacramento was squandering money on tearing apart all those families needlessly. The data suggest that these problems remain serious and real, but they occur less often now.

Another concern is the elimination of a key prevention program, the family maintenance unit. That program provided voluntary help to families before problems reached the point where CPS intervention was needed. Eliminating that program may indeed set the stage for future tragedies.

But there is a way to revive it without adding to the total budget of the agency. The agency can free up a lot of money by ending the barbaric practice of parking children at that very expensive relic of 19th Century child welfare, the Children’s Receiving Home. I discussed the problems with using the home in this story last year.

CPS actually faces a bigger challenge than money: maintaining its smart, sensible new approach in the face of the next horror story. You can bet that those wedded to the disgraced take-the-child-and-run approach are just waiting for the next tragedy so they can scapegoat the reforms – and hope everybody forgets that the same tragedies occurred when the county was tearing apart far more families. And you can bet Margie Lundstrom will be glad to oblige them with a front-page story parroting their views and ignoring all dissent.

By now, however, perhaps the leadership in county government and the people of Sacramento County know better than to be fooled again.

Former journalist Richard Wexler is Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, based in Alexandria Va. The full NCCPR California Rate of Removal Index and comprehensive recommendations for reforming child welfare in California and nationwide are available at www.nccpr.org

Local Charities Wish for “Regifting” this Christmas

2010-12-02T21:05:37Z

Sacramento CASA is a local nonprofit that helps children who have been removed from their homes because of neglect or abuse and placed in foster care. They are one of more than 1,000 cause-based organizations registered on The Giving Effect that are hoping to connect with new donors this holiday season.

Sacramento CASA is hoping people will donate gifts this holiday season that can be distributed to the children in their care. Kimberly Loya, the organization's Development Coordinator, writes, "These supplies are for school and the holiday season. Some of these children do not have a support system that can provide them with all of the items they need for school. They also may not receive gifts at holiday time. These items will help them feel well prepared and cared for and bring great happiness to them."

Donors use The Giving Effect to connect with charities that need pretty much everything you can spare, from clothes, food, books and shoes, to cleaning supplies, cars, fencing and lumber.

“We are working to create a greater awareness of people in need, which is especially urgent during the holidays,” says Mitchell Silverman, co-founder of The Giving Effect. “Each donation on our site becomes a living story that can be shared on Facebook or Twitter to spread the holiday spirit, encouraging friends to follow your lead.”

Other local organizations registered on The Giving Effect include the Sacramento County Animal Shelter and the Tubman House.

Donating is easy—browse the site by needs, location, and categories to find causes you’d like to connect with. Then, complete a simple form to arrange a pickup, drop off, or shipment. Tax receipts are issued via email when the items are received.

About The Giving Effect

The Giving Effect uses social media to help donors discover and connect with organizations that need items such as clothes, shoes, and food. It’s the first website to create stories around each in-kind donation that can be easily shared online to inspire others to give. The goal is to create a national movement to get food, gently-used items, and more to people in need. The Giving Effect is headquartered in Brooklyn, NY.

About Sacramento CASA

Sacramento CASA volunteers are Court Appointed Special Advocates for children – trained community volunteers appointed by a judge as Officers of the court to speak up for children in juvenile court, and to help to humanize the often frightening and confusing child welfareand legal systems for these children.

Disclosure: Mitchell Silverman is the Founder/CEO of The Giving Effect

Sacramento Community Dreams Big with Lilliput Children's Services

2010-09-29T19:21:56Z

As Harriet Tubman once said, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

On September 11th, as over 200 Sacramento community members gathered at the California Museum to celebrate the 30 years that Lilliput Children's Services has been serving the state's most vulnerable children and their families, Lilliput was humbled to remember exactly who they are helping and why. Founded in 1980, Lilliput is committed to building families and making dreams come true, and has completed over 4,500 adoptions for California foster children.

Throughout the evening, guests enjoyed food, wine and beer tastings that were donated by local restaurants, caterers, wineries and breweries. The atmosphere was fun and relaxed as they perused the beautiful artwork that was gifted by local artists for display and auction. The program was the highlight of the evening as Lilliput honored two special families, as well as a local business and nonprofit agency, for the difference they have made to our community.

The adoptive family that was honored has four children, all under the age of six, in their home. Their oldest three, now six, four and two, were all adopted from foster care with Lilliput's help. Their youngest, in their home for only 3 weeks now, is their middle child's sibling and is only 3 months old. Lilliput presented them with an "Adoptive Family Champions" recognition.

The kinship family that was honored is a family of six with five children in the home. The children were adopted by their great-aunt in 2006 and ranged in age from one year old twins to six when they first came into her home in 2002. Lilliput presented them with a "Kinship Family Champions" recognition.

The Metro Chamber's Leadership Sacramento Program was founded in 1985 and develops community-minded business and civic leaders. Lilliput makes it a priority for their executive leadership team to participate in the class and is sending their third through the program now. Lilliput was selected as the class project by the Class of 2008 and is ever so grateful for all that was done on the agency's behalf. Lilliput presented Leadership Sacramento with a "Local Business Hero" recognition, which was accepted by Shirley Smith, the Metro Chamber's Community Development Director.

KVIE Public Television continues to serve their mission of educating ,enriching, enlightening and inspiring diverse audiences and individuals with high quality television programming and related services that enhance the qualify of life for people throughout Northern California. KVIE and Lilliput began collaborating in 2008 thanks to the Leadership Sacramento Class Project. KVIE has been instrumental in helping to increase awareness about Lilliput's foster, adoption and kinship services by creating public service announcement and videos. KVIE in partnership with the Documentary Foundation facilitated the creation of the Dream Big video that was shown throughout the evening. Lilliput presented KVIE with a "Local Nonprofit Hero" recognition, which was accepted by Mike Sanford, KVIE's Vice President for Content Creation.

Dream Big was led by an event committee, Lilliput staff and the board of directors. Thanks to the time that these individuals volunteered as well as the numerous food, beverage, artwork and other in-kind donations, Lilliput was able to net over $22,000. All ticket sales, silent auction proceeds and the majority of event sponsorship dollars will go directly to Lilliput's services and did not host the event.

The support that was offered by the following, as well as those who attended, helps Lilliput to fulfill their mission - that every child deserves the opportunity for permanence in a safe and nurturing family - and to sustain services during these challenging economic times. By working together with those in the community, Lilliput can give children the chance to reach for the stars and make their own dreams come true. For more information about Lilliput, please visit www.Lilliput.org.

Dream Big Event Donors

SPONSORS - Visionary: Wells Fargo Bank Hero: Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, Union Bank Friend: Teichert / Stonebridge Properties, Kaiser Permanente, SMUD, Bank of the West, Laurellen Mattos of Vitek Mortgage

Food - California Pizza Kitchen, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Crawdad’s River Cantina, Giovanni’s Old World New York Pizzeria, Hoppy Brewing Company, Jack’s Urban Eats, Paesano’s Pronto, Raley’s Bel-Air—AFC Sushi, River City Cake Company, Sugar & Spice Specialty Desserts, Taylor’s Kitchen

Wine - Bogle Winery, Crew Wines, Middleton Family Wines, Scribner Bend Vineyards, Sean Minor Winery

Beer - Hoppy Brewing Company, Sudwerk Restaurant & Brewery

Beverage - La Bou, Norcal Beverages

Monetary ($500 & up) - C.C. Myers, Kasey & Sean Cotulla, Greg & Erin Levi, Muller & Associates

In-Kind Services - Crisp Catering (Joe Thompson), Documentary Foundation (Mimi Wilcox & Oscar Boido), DS Pictures (Diego Salazar), Jack Nadel International (Bruce Pettinari), Kathryn Scott, Leslie Colby, Linda Johnson, KVIE Public Television (Mike Sanford), Tom’s Printing (Robert Tom)

Artists - Leslie Colby, Linda Johnson, Marla Kolb, Gregory Kondos, Alan Post, Mary Sorrels

Auction Items - Bidwell Street Bistro, A Dash of Panache Tea Parlor, Discovery Museum, Esquire IMAX, Fairytale Town, Freshberry Frozen Yogurt Café, Granite Arch Climbing Center, Maloof Sports & Entertainment, Middleton Family Wines, The Moak Family, Perry Creek Winery, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Piatti Ristorante & Bar, Relish Burger, Roller King, The Sacramento Zoo, Sienna, Solomon Dubnick Gallery, Standing Room Only, Vintner’s Cellar Custom Winery

Receiving Home: Turning children into human teddy bears

2010-07-07T13:56:05Z

THE PEOPLE AT THE CHILDREN’S RECEIVING HOME OF SACRAMENTO MEAN WELL. BUT THEIR PROGRAM HURTS CHILDREN, WASTES MONEY, IMPEDES REAL REFORM, AND HASN’T HAD AN OBJECTIVE EVALUATION IN 66 YEARS.

They are among the most sacred cows in all of child welfare, and no wonder. Donors love them. They can get a plaque on the wall for giving money or furniture or, if they're really rich, donating a whole building. The volunteers love them. They can turn real flesh-and-blood human beings into human teddy bears who exist for the volunteers' gratification and convenience, even as they convince themselves they're helping children. When they get bored with their human teddy bears, they simply hand them back to the shift staff.

In short, they're good for everyone but the children.

They are "shelters" - those first-stop parking place institutions in many communities where children are deposited for a few days or a week or a month or longer, to be examined and "assessed" by "trained staff" in order to prepare them for exactly what they would have gotten without the shelters – usually a succession of foster homes.

Like most people in child welfare, the people who run shelters, and the people who volunteer there mean well. They’ve done a great job of convincing themselves that they’re really helping children. But they’re not. Shelters do nothing for children. Shelters are exercises in adult self-indulgence and adult self-delusion.

As with any form of orphanage, and that's really what shelters are, a whole rationalization industry has grown up around them. And there may be no shelter in America that has perfected the art of rationalizing adult self-interest better than the Children’s Receiving Home of Sacramento County. The fake “Home” is the first stop for many children torn from their real homes in Sacramento, Yolo, Nevada and El Dorado Counties.

It is an institution that has scarfed up taxpayer dollars for 66 years without once being subject to an independent objective evaluation to see if it does children any good – or, as is more likely, actually does many of them harm.

Not only does the “home” risk harming the children passing through, their PR machine has been quick to undermine better alternatives, by demonizing all birth parents and attacking any attempt to curb Sacramento County’s outrageous rate of tearing children from their homes.

That PR machine is so slick that, if you don’t want to volunteer, but might be lured into making a donation, the Receiving Home still will oblige any adult with a guided tour – just as if you were visiting the zoo. (Even better, in fact. While the Sacramento Zoo charges at least $10.00, you can tour the Receiving Home for free.)

In a county where there is so much wrong with child welfare, a remarkable amount of what’s wrong can be traced back to the Children’s Receiving Home.

THE HARM OF INSTITUTIONS

While there is much about which child welfare scholars disagree, on one point there is near unanimity – it does enormous harm to institutionalize children, even for a short time. And the younger the child, the greater the harm. So there is no excuse for taking children as young as one year old and institutionalizing them for an average of 35 to 40 days.

This is where the rationalizations kick in:

"How can you call us an institution?" the people who run the institution say. "We have 'cottages' and they're so pretty. We're so homelike."

Whenever somebody says his or her institution is homelike, I think of the stuff I sometimes put on bread when I'm trying to lose weight. It may be called "buttery spread" or "buttery light" but it always tastes like liquid plastic. I can tell the difference between “buttery light” and butter. And children know the difference between "homelike" and home.

"Our shelter provides 'stability'" the operators will say, so children don't move from foster home to foster home. But it's the people in a child's life that create stability, not the bricks and mortar. A child in a shelter endures a multiple placement whenever the shift changes. She endures multiple placement when the weekend workers replace the weekday workers. And she endures multiple placement when the volunteer who seemed so interested in her last week has something better to do to this week and doesn't show up.

The parking place industry will come back with claims that they can "assess" children and "stabilize" them, so that they can find the right foster home for the child when he or she leaves.

But they have no evidence for this.

On the contrary, the only “evidence” the Receiving Home offers for success is the word of their own Mental Health team which, according to the "Home"'s website, provides “after care” to “a certain amount [sic] of kids.” They also sometimes hear from the children’s county social workers. But the obvious bias aside, this doesn’t tell us if the children are doing better because of the Children’s Receiving Home or because they’ve left the Children’s Receiving Home.

The other substitute for “evidence” is a throwback to the 19th Century. Back then, Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children would build public support – and raise money – by using the worst horror stories they could find, sometimes complete with “before” and “after” pictures. They knew full well such cases bore no resemblance to the children they typically took from their families – mostly impoverished immigrant children whose poverty was confused with "neglect."

Similarly, after 66 years and thousands of children passing through, the Children’s Receiving Home manages to come up with three “testimonials” from former residents – one dating back to 1974 – talking about the horrors of their lives with their own parents and how the "Home" supposedly rescued them. (You can bet there soon will be more among the comments at the end of this post – one thing the Receiving Home does superbly is promote itself.)

I don’t doubt that the stories are true. But even in these cases, the children got nothing they wouldn't have gotten in a good foster home. And these cases bear no resemblance either to typical cases or typical outcomes for children who pass through shelters. Rather, they serve a double-barred PR purpose: They demonize birth parents, helping to keep the take-the-child-and-run frenzy going in Sacramento County, and, of course, they portray the Receiving Home as a success – by ignoring the fact that the many children who passed through the "Home" only to wind up as adults in jails, psych wards and homeless shelters aren’t likely to write a tribute or stop by for a nostalgic visit.

People who run a program and really want to know if their program is working commission independent outside evaluations comparing people who go through the program to people who don’t. But apparently, the receiving home has gone 66 years without ever doing that – at least they make no mention of any such study.

And I doubt they’d want to commission one now, especially after what happened in Connecticut.

WHAT REAL RESEARCH TELLS US ABOUT SHELTERS

Connecticut state set up a network of such shelters in 1995, in the wake of a foster-care panic – a sudden spike in the number of children taken from their parents in the wake of a high-profile child abuse death. These are modern, state-of-the-art facilities providing the best of what the shelter industry has to offer.

But a comprehensive study of the shelters by Yale University and the Connecticut child welfare agency itself found that the rationalizations of the shelter industry didn’t stand up to scrutiny. On the contrary, the children who went through the shelters tended to have worse outcomes than those who didn't. The only thing she shelters were good at was wasting huge sums of money. (As usual, in child welfare, the worse the option for children, the more it costs).

But the shelters are still up and running. Because in child welfare, research is no match for political clout and adult self-indulgence. Take away our human teddy bears? Never! As the Hartford Courant put it:

Three years after a study that showed short-term group homes for first-time foster children are a costly failure, the state Department of Children and Families is still funneling hundreds of children through the facilities each year.

So instead of making the lives of foster children more stable, shelters like the Children’s Receiving Home force them to endure only more turmoil. First they’re institutionalized, cared for by an ever-changing cast of shift nstaff. Then, at the Receiving Home, for about half the children after 35 to 40 days they’re uprooted again to begin the same journey through foster care they would have endured anyway. (What happens to the other half is even more revealing, and I’ll get to that below.)

They’ve also probably had to change schools twice, since children at the Receiving Home attend the "Home"'s own school, instead of the one they were in when they were taken from their families.

VOTING WITH THEIR FEET

So it’s no wonder so many children at the Receiving Home vote with their feet.

According to a 2007 Sacramento Bee story, a significant proportion of the county’s runaways are running from the Children’s Receiving Home. There were 680 reported incidents of running away in 2006 and 310 in the first half of 2007.

Of course the Receiving Home will blame the parents, they’ll blame the kids, they’ll blame the fact that they can’t lock the children in and force them to endure the place. They’ll blame everything but the fact that children should not be institutionalized.

Researchers know better. According to the Bee story:

Researchers have shed light on why the youths flee the large care homes – generally at higher rates than from foster homes and their own homes. The facilities are less personal, have rotating staff members and are more restrictive than a traditional home environment, said Andrea Nesmith, a researcher at the Center for Children at the University of Chicago.

The final rationalization is the one in which the shelter operators admit shelters are a lousy option but, supposedly, there simply is no alternative. There just aren't enough foster homes, they say. But the "shortage" is artificial, caused by taking away too many children. And shelters often are in the forefront of keeping it that way.

That's certainly the case in Sacramento County. With some counties apparently starting to wise up and park fewer children at the shelter, the Children’s Receiving Home responded to the threat to its existence with demagoguery – attacking even a minimal effort to keep more children safely in their own homes.

According to a Sacramento Bee story in April, the "Home"’s CEO, David Ballard, sent a letter condemning what he claimed was

CPS' current policy of keeping as many children as possible out of foster care regardless of the dangers involved. As a result, we are admitting less than half the number of children as a year ago - another severe drop in revenue that directly affects our ability to function.

Leaving aside the revealing characterization of the children as "revenue," the fact is, there is no such policy. On the contrary, Sacramento takes away children at the highest rate in the state among counties large enough to measure.

Indeed, the fact that the real policy of Sacramento County boils down to “take the child and run” can be seen in another revealing statistic straight from the Children’s Receiving Home website: After being institutionalized for an average of 35 to 40 days, half the children go back to their own homes. Odds are, if they could go home in 35 to 40 days, most of them never needed to be taken in the first place – if the help the families needed had simply been brought into the home.

And why didn’t that happen? In part because the money to do it is being wasted on the enormous expense of parking children at the Children’s Receiving Home.

GOOD CHILD WELFARE SYSTEMS CURB SHELTERS

In fact, there is no need to park children, particularly young children, in shelters. Better child welfare systems know it.

In Alabama, the system has been rebuilt to emphasize keeping children out of foster care in the first place. Today, Alabama takes children at a rate less than half the rate in Sacramento County, the reforms have been so successful that they made the front page of The New York Times and an independent court monitor found that the reforms improved child safety. It happened as a result of a suit brought by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law (co-counsel for plaintiffs is a member of the NCCPR Board of Directors). The lawsuit led to a consent decree that puts strict limits on shelters.

New Jersey is successfully implementing a consent decree that is, if anything, even more far-reaching. It bans placement of children under age 13 in shelters, period. And it’s succeeding. During the entire second half of 2009, in the entire State of New Jersey, one child under age 13 was placed in a shelter. Not one percent – one child.

It’s possible because, like Alabama, New Jersey significantly cut the number of children taken away in the first place. And, as in Alabama, an independent court-appointed monitor confirms that the decline in removals has been accompanied by a dramatic improvement in child safety.

By taking fewer children needlessly, these states have more options for children who really need to be taken from their homes – without turning those children into human teddy bears.

But not in Sacramento. It seems the attacks on family preservation (aided and abetted, of course, by the Sacramento Bee) and all the usual rationalizations worked again. According to the Receiving Home website, they were able to “minimize” county budget cuts.

That can only be a double blow for the region’s vulnerable children: More of them will be institutionalized, and fewer of them will get the help they really need, because something else had to be cut to save the county’s worthless, but oh-so-politically appealing, parking place shelter.

Former journalist Richard Wexler is Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, www.nccpr.org

Interested in Adopting?

2010-06-29T18:36:03Z

If you are interested in adopting a child, the first step is to educate yourself about adoption and become familiar with the various types of adoption available to you. The most common types of adoptions are:

Foster adoptions – The children were placed into child protective custody for their safety and cannot be returned to their birth parents or cared for by extended family.

Domestic private adoptions – The children are not in foster care and the adoption is typically handled by a lawyer and the two parties; birth parents and adoptive family.

International adoptions – The children are from a foreign country and, again, the adoption is typically handled by a lawyer or international adoption agency. Travel to the foreign county will most likely be required.

Lilliput Children’s Services is a local, Sacramento-based agency that specializes in foster adoptions. While we are headquartered in Sacramento, we have 10 other offices throughout Northern California, including Granite Bay and El Dorado Hills allowing us to effectively serve all of Northern California.

Lilliput has completed over 4,500 adoptions for California foster children; over 2,000 in the past two years alone! Lilliput has a 30 year history of serving children and families. In the private sector, we lead the state in numbers of children placed and adopted each year through foster/adoption. As foster/adoption specialists, we have a strong reputation and relationships within the public child welfare system, allowing us to truly work as a team with your family and the child’s county or state agency.

All of the social workers in our foster and adoption program have a Masters degree in Social Work and many of our social work staff and management are licensed clinical social workers. We also have a very low rate of social work turnover. This means that you will be working with a team of professionals with excellent social work skills and training, who are equipped to work sensitively and effectively with your family.

Orientation meetings for prospective foster and adoptive parents are regularly held at Lilliput offices. These informal group meetings are held in a casual setting and are led by a Lilliput social worker. Information about the foster-adoption process, the children in foster care and the role you would play is provided, with plenty of time for questions and answers.

You can contact your local Lilliput office (go to www.Lilliput.org to find the office closest to you) to register for an orientation and to learn more about the steps for fostering and adopting with Lilliput.

Sacramento CPS says bias against birth mother may have contributed to foster child’s abuse

2010-06-25T19:08:12Z

Bias against the birth mother of Amariana Crenshaw led Sacramento County Child Protective Services workers to “discount” her concerns that Amariana was being abused in her foster home, according to an internal review released by CPS Thursday.

Amariana was taken from her parents, only to die under mysterious circumstances in a foster home with a long history of serious problems.

That is the lead that should have begun the Sacramento Bee’s story today about the release of CPS’ internal investigation into Amariana’s death.

But that would contradict the birth parent-bashing “master narrative” that has dominated child welfare coverage in the Bee (as is discussed in this previous post). So not only is this not the lead, this information does not appear in the Bee’s story at all.

Nor is there a link to the full report on the Bee website. So I requested the report from Sacramento County CPS, which promptly provided it. Since the Bee failed to do it, I’ve now posted the report on the NCCPR website.

According to Finding #5:

Evident in this review was the belief that all reports of alleged maltreatment [of Amariana while in foster care] emanated from the mother and were driven not by her concern for her children, but by her anger at Ms. Dossman [the foster mother].
• Numerous allegations appear to have been discounted based upon a bias in favor of the foster parent and against the credibility of the reporting party.
• This bias also contributed to unresolved discrepancies in findings among oversight agencies which were further exacerbated by a lack of inter-agency communication.

Since the bias within the agency is so similar to the bias in the Bee newsroom, Finding #5 never made it into the Bee’s story. So give CPS credit for this much: Unlike the Bee, at least in this one case, CPS acknowledged the bias.

But CPS failed to acknowledge that the bias permeates Sacramento County child welfare. And that may explain why none of the “Action Items” in the report addresses this problem. Instead, the solutions tend to be bureaucratic, involving more forms to fill out, more boxes to check off on each form and more “consultation” and “coordination.”

The paperwork is not meaningless. The solutions do, in fact, make sense – and if they could be implemented successfully they would help a little around the edges.

But in the real world of Sacramento County child welfare, they will increase the workload for frontline staff who already lack the time to do their jobs. And that, of course, is because Sacramento County, the child removal capital of California, overloads its workers with false allegations, trivial cases and children who never needed to be taken away in the first place. This also tempts workers to overcrowd foster homes and lower standards for foster parents.

That is the elephant in the room, and CPS' review of Amariana's death pretends it isn’t there. There are no recommendations to deal with the problem of wrongful removal, which drives everything else.

So what will cause the next tragedy? Quite possibly some overwhelmed caseworker who didn’t do everything she was supposed to do – because she was too busy complying with one of the new procedures put in place in response to this tragedy.

Foster Care Defined

2010-06-22T18:26:12Z

No one aspires to be a foster child. No child wants to live in a stranger’s home. No brother or sister likes having their family torn apart; losing contact with siblings. No teen chooses an unknown future.

Yet, every month, over 2,000 children statewide are placed into protective custody through the foster care system. Over 150 of these children are from Sacramento County.

Foster care is designed to be a temporary safety net for children who are unable to live safely with their birth families. Children enter foster care because they have been abused or neglected or have experienced other family problems such as substance abuse, mental illness or a parent’s incarceration.

A primary goal of foster care is to help children return to their families, preferably their birth parents. If that is not possible, kin (extended family members such as grandparents, aunts, uncles or adult siblings) are often able to step in and raise a child. This is usually an ideal situation as the children tend to stay connected to their siblings and other family members, as well as to their culture, community and church. However, family care is not always an option. At this point, when the courts have determined that children cannot return safely to their birth parents and extended family is not available to care for them, an adoptive family is needed.

Lilliput Children’s Services is a local non-profit agency that works with children and families who have been touched by foster care, adoption and kinship care.

Founded in 1980, Lilliput has completed adoptions for over 4,500 foster children statewide.

In fact, Lilliput finalizes the most foster adoptions of any private agency in California.

Last fiscal year, of Lilliput’s 519 adoptions, 146 of the children were from Sacramento County’s foster care. This accounted for 40% of the county’s foster-adoptions.

Please follow “Lilliput Children’s Services” for more articles about foster care, adoption and kinship care.

For more information about Lilliput and their services, visit www.Lilliput.org.

Sacramento CPS: The hostility extends to extended families

2010-06-21T13:15:26Z

In response to my column last week, about how Sacramento County is the child removal capital of California, an aunt who is providing foster care for a nephew raised several objections. Among other things, she argued that it was unfair of me to lump in relatives providing foster care, known as “kinship care,” with strangers in calculating Sacramento’s rate of removal.

In one sense she is right; it’s unfair - unfair to other counties, because it makes Sacramento look too good. When you look only at the proportion of children placed with total strangers, Sacramento actually fares even worse.

My previous column documented the extensive research on the inherent trauma of foster care - trauma that occurs even when the foster home is a good one, as the majority are. That trauma can be reduced, but not eliminated, if the child is placed with a relative instead of a stranger.

Study after study has shown the enormous benefits of kinship care.

Kinship care is still foster care, and even grandma is no substitute for leaving children in their own homes. But when that really isn’t safe, at least if a child is placed with a relative, or with an aunt, it’s likely to cushion the blow. The child is with someone he knows and loves. And odds are the placement is in his own neighborhood, so he doesn’t have to change schools and lose all his friends.

Kinship care also lessens one of the most damaging problems of foster care, moving children from foster home to foster home. People who love you are far less likely to give up on you than total strangers. So grandparents and other relatives are more likely to put up with behavior that might prompt strangers to either reach for the psychiatric medication or throw the child out.

Indeed that helps explain why in Florida, for example, where the child welfare agency is trying to crack down on the misuse and overuse of sometimes dangerous psychiatric medication on foster children, while 26 percent of institutionalized foster children and 21 percent of foster children placed with strangers are on such medication, only four percent of foster children are medicated when they are placed with relatives.

And there are more benefits to kinship care. A study by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that children placed in foster care with relatives had fewer behavior problems than children placed in stranger care.

Another study found that children in kinship care did far better than children in stranger care on multiple measures of safety, permanence and well being.

This is one of several studies showing the most important result of all: Kinship care is safer than stranger care.

But apparently the word hasn’t reached Sacramento County.

HOW COUNTIES USE KINSHIP CARE

San Francisco also has a dismal record for taking away children from their families – a record almost as bad as Sacramento. But at least San Francisco manages to place nearly one-third of those children immediately with a relative. Orange County does almost as well. Contra Costa and Alameda Counties place about one-quarter of children immediately with relatives. The statewide average is 17.4 percent.

In Sacramento the figure is only 9.3 percent – only seven of the counties ranked in the NCCPR California Rate-of-Removal Index do worse.

There is a similar discrepancy when one looks at the percentage of all foster children placed with relatives on any given day – not just those placed with relatives immediately.

San Francisco places half of such children with relatives, Orange County and Santa Clara County place more than 42 percent of foster children with relatives; Los Angeles, Alameda and Contra Costa counties all are over one-third – which is the statewide average.

In Sacramento County it’s 29.1 percent. Only eight of the ranked counties do worse.

I’ve updated the full NCCPR California Rate of Removal Index to include kinship care data for all the ranked counties. It’s available on our website here: http://www.nccpr.org/reports/2009californiaror.pdf

“A TREE HAS MORE THAN ONE BRANCH”

Because grandparents bring an extra ingredient to the mix – love – it should surprise no one that kinship care generally is safer than stranger care. So why is Sacramento County so reluctant to use it?

Sadly, it’s not unusual for child welfare systems that are deeply hostile to birth parents to extend the hostility to extended families. It’s all summed up in one pernicious little smear: “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” If mom is abusive, it is claimed, it must be because grandma has failed in some way.

For starters, this assumes that if mom is doing a poor job raising the children it has to be grandma’s fault. In fact, there are any number of times when a grandparent may raise four children under circumstances of poverty and need that many of us can’t possibly imagine, and have three of them become happy, healthy productive adults. The fourth is lost to the lure of the streets. When that grandmother then comes forward, at a time when finally she should be able to rest, and offers to take care of that child’s children, she should be treated as a hero, not a suspect.

And, as one of the nation’s leading experts on kinship care has said: “a tree has more than one branch.”

Unfortunately, some child welfare systems have sought to take advantage of the benefits of kinship care and pretend that it is not foster care at all. But make no mistake: When it is done because a child welfare agency demands it or a court orders it, kinship care is still foster care.

Indeed, the federal government counts such placements as foster care placements. Kinship care is still a blow to the child, and it is no substitute for safe, proven alternatives to keeping children in their own homes. That’s why, when calculating rates of removal, I will continue to “lump in” kinship care placements and stranger care placements.

Even if that makes Sacramento County look better than it deserves.

Sacramento: Child removal capital of California

2010-06-15T13:11:12Z

Sacramento is now California’s capital in more ways than one.Data released today by the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform show that Sacramento County is the child removal capital of California.

Among the state’s larger counties, Sacramento County takes away proportionately more children than any other, when the number of children taken away is compared to the number of impoverished children in each county. Sacramento takes children at a rate nearly double the average for these counties.

NCCPR released its latest California Rate of Removal Index Monday. It’s available on our website here.

The Index shows that in recent years, much of California has made remarkable progress in reducing the trauma of needless foster care and making children safer. But that hasn’t happened in Sacramento. And while progress is threatened everywhere by budget cuts, in Sacramento County, progress also is threatened by the take-the-child-and-run mentality that makes all children less safe.

(NCCPR’s ranking of counties factors in child poverty because we believe it is the fairest way to compare county performance. But when entries are compared to total child population, Sacramento County still performs atrociously, with the second worst rate of removal, only slightly better than Imperial County).

HOW FAMILY PRESERVATION MAKES CHILDREN SAFER

Given the kinds of child welfare stories that have made headlines in Sacramento for the past few years, some may be tempted to applaud the county’s status as number one in child removal. After all, “gut instinct” says that if we just take more and more children from their parents, those children will be safer.

But the best way to fix a child welfare system often is to listen to gut instinct – and do the opposite. That’s because tearing apart families unnecessarily doesn’t just do enormous harm to the children needlessly taken. It also steals time and resources from finding children in real danger – and that almost always is the real reason for the tragedies that make headlines in Sacramento County.

Many counties that take proportionately fewer children do better than Sacramento on the two key measures of child safety used by the federal government to evaluate child welfare systems.

That’s because, contrary to the common stereotype, most parents who lose their children to foster care are neither brutally abusive nor hopelessly addicted. Far more common are cases in which a family’s poverty is confused with child ‘neglect.’

Several studies have found that 30 percent of America’s foster children could be home right now if their parents just had decent housing. And single parents, desperate to keep their low-wage jobs when the sitter doesn’t show, may have to choose between staying home and getting fired, or going to work and having their children taken on ‘lack of supervision’ charges. Other cases fall between the extremes, the parents neither all victim nor all villain.

Sacramento County children are victims of a “take-the-child-and-run” mentality that has been part of the culture of Child Protective Services for at least 14 years. And every time there is an attempt to bring needless removal under control, scapegoating of family preservation by The Sacramento Bee, in the wake of a high-profile tragedy, starts another “foster-care panic” – a sharp, sudden increase in child removals, fueled by caseworkers terrified of landing on the front page if they leave a child in his own home and something goes wrong.

One sign of such panic can be found in a report released Thursday by the Sacramento County Grand Jury. According to that report, of all the children torn from their families by Child Protective Services, about a third are sent home again within 30 days. That’s plenty of time to do great harm to a child’s psyche. But if a child can be sent back home in a month, odds are that child never needed to be taken away in the first place.

THE MOST DANGEROUS PHRASE IN CHILD WELFARE

Attacks on family preservation typically are justified with the false claim that only adults suffer when children are taken needlessly and agencies have to “err on the side of the child.”

In fact, there probably is no phrase in the child welfare lexicon that has done more harm to children than “err on the side of the child.”
When a child is thrown needlessly into foster care, he loses not only mom and dad but often brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, friends and classmates. For a young enough child it can be an experience akin to a kidnapping. A major study of foster care “alumni” found they had twice the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder of Gulf War veterans and only 20 percent could be said to be ‘doing well.’ How can throwing children into a system which churns out walking wounded four times out of five be “erring on the side of the child”?

Two more studies, of more than 15,000 typical cases, found that even maltreated children left in their own homes with little or no help fared better, on average, than comparably-maltreated children placed in foster care.

All the harm of foster care can occur even when the foster home is a good one. The majority are. But the rate of abuse in foster care is far higher than generally realized and far higher than revealed by official statistics, which involve agencies investigating themselves. That same alumni study found that one-third of foster children said they’d been abused by a foster parent or another adult in a foster home.

Switching to orphanages won’t help -- the record of institutions is even worse.

Furthermore, the more a foster care system is overwhelmed with children who don’t need to be there, the less safe it becomes, as agencies are tempted to overcrowd foster homes and lower standards for foster parents. That probably goes a long way to explaining the tragic case of Amariana Crenshaw, who died under mysterious circumstances in a foster home with a long history of serious problems.
If a child is taken from a perfectly safe home only to be beaten, raped or killed in foster care, how is that “erring on the side of the child”?

None of this means no child ever should be taken from her or his parents. Rather, it means that foster care is an extremely toxic intervention that must be used sparingly and in small doses. But for more than a decade, Sacramento County has been prescribing mega-doses of foster care.

CPS: ONLY DAMNED IF THEY DON’T

Sacramento County child protective services might well respond by claiming to be “damned if they do and damned if they don’t.”
Don’t believe it. In 34 years of following child welfare, I have never seen a caseworker fired, demoted, suspended, reprimanded or so much as slapped on the wrist for taking away too many children. All of these things have happened to workers who left even one child in her or his own home and had something go wrong.

When it comes to taking away children, caseworkers are not damned if they do and damned if they don’t – they’re only damned if they don’t.

And that’s one reason why Sacramento is the child removal capital of California.

Sierra Forever Families Elects Dee Hartzog to Board of Directors

2010-04-01T17:21:16Z

Sierra Forever Families Elects Retired Attorney and Child Advocate Dee Hartzog to the Board of Directors.

Sacramento, CA – April 1, 2010 – Sierra Forever Families, Northern California nonprofit and industry leader in youth permanency, elects Dee Hartzog to its Board of Directors. Dee joins the 15 member board led by Eric Ratinoff, partner with Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff.

Dee Hartzog is a retired corporate attorney, having practiced 23 years with Weintraub, Genshlea & Chediak, a Sacramento law firm. Even before retirement, she began to realize the importance for a child to grow up in a loving and caring environment, both for the child and the community.

“I am extremely motivated by Sierra’s purpose and what it has accomplished,” remarked Dee, whose commitment to Sierra’s mission mirrors her passion for children, “Transforming children’s lives is my biggest passion.” As the grandmother of three small children, Dee sees first hand what nurturing can do for young children.

Dee has dedicated much of her time and her wealth of experience by serving on a number of non-profit boards, most of which are involved in helping children get a positive start in life. She currently serves on the following boards: Sutter’s Children’s Advisory Board, Mercy Foundation, and Mondavi Center Board, and previously she served on the board for Wonder, Inc.

“As president of the Board of Director for Sierra Forever Families, I am pleased that the board unanimously voted in favor of Dee’s nomination to the board.” Eric Ratinoff shared. “Dee’s passion for helping children and the experience she brings to the board will undoubtedly assist the agency in meeting its mission to transform the lives of children living in foster care.”

Sierra Forever Families mission is to transform the lives of children in foster care by building and nurturing permanent families. Through the leadership of our dedicated board and executive staff, Sierra has transformed the lives of over 2,500 children since its founding in 1983.

National Adoption Day is November 21

2009-11-18T23:25:20Z

November is National Adoption Month – Sacramento Shows its Commitment to Our Children

November 12 - Sacramento, California – Nationally, November is recognized at National Adoption Month. With nearly 500,000 children and youth living in foster across the country there is a tremendous need for families to come forward. In California, there are over 62,000 children and youth living in foster care and, of that, over 4,000 lived in the Greater Sacramento Region.

As the capital of California, Sacramento is committed to the children of our state who are living in foster care and are awaiting a permanent family. For many of these children, they have been removed from their birth families due to neglect, abuse and/or abandonment. Left to the system, these children will languish in foster care until they turn eighteen, and if a family or permanent connection is not found for these children, they will become a statistic – without a permanent family or connection, for youth who emancipate from the system at the age of eighteen, within 2-4 years, over 50% will be homeless, addicted to drugs, in prison or dead. This is unacceptable.

On November 21, National Adoption Day, Senator George Runner and Assemblyman Roger Niello will co-host an Adoption Resource Fair at Sunrise Community Church. The purpose of this event is to provide a call to action for area families and individuals who are considering helping a child by becoming an adoptive parent. Local foster/adoption agencies will be available to answer questions and provide resources to prospective families and post-adoption resources to existing foster/adoptive families. The event takes place from 11am – 3pm, with registration at 10:30am. Lunch and child care are available. To register: www.CommunityRenewal.net or call 916.349.1995.

Also taking place on November 21, Sacramento hosts a Calling Out of Names and Candlelight Vigil at the State Capitol from 2pm-5pm, concluding the event with a candlelight vigil on the north steps of the Capitol. Join government officials, child advocates, community leaders, adoptive families and former foster youth for this meaningful event. During the event, speakers will read aloud from a list of names of children living in California foster care. By reading aloud the names of the children who wait, Sacramento will stand up, speak and be the voice for the children who are waiting.

IKEA will recognize the Sierra Forever Families' Family of the Year with a $1,000 gift card during the event at the State Capitol. The Williams family has been selected as the Family of the Year. Michael and Michelle Williams have one biological daughter, Alexis, who is 10-years-old, and have expanded their family with the adoption of a sibling set of four. The children range in age from 20 months to 4 years. They truly are a wonderful family.

For those who are considering adopting a child, there are many resources available and tax incentives as well that will assist you in making the decision to welcome a child into your heart and home.

For more information on National Adoption Month and the activities taking place to support youth permanency, please contact: Sara Hanson at 916.368.5114 or visit www.sierraff.org

Sacramento Child Advocates 5th Annual Benefit for Children

2009-10-28T17:32:30Z

For the past 18 years, Sacramento Child Advocates (SCA) has been providing representation for every child entering our dependency court system in Sacramento County. Currently, we represent 4700 children within the dependency system and we never turn down any child brought before the court. SCA was established in Sacramento to be their “voice”, their personal advocate with a very determined mission. SCA does this through a unique model of using both attorneys and social workers. Foster youth who are represented in this manner truly have a partner in designing their future, someone they can trust, someone that is always looking out for their best interests. When a child is removed from their home due to abuse or neglect and enters the court system, an SCA attorney takes their cases, and advocates for their best interests. SCA works hard to ensure that these kids' needs are being met, and that they are living in a safe and healthy home.

SCA needs your support to continue to help these kids, and make sure that no foster child falls through the cracks.

The 5th Annual Benefit for Children will be held on November 8th at 2:00pm at the Radisson Hotel. Tickets are $75 each, and sponsorships are still available. Come out and enjoy a wonderful afternoon of great food wine, and raffle prizes while helping to improve the lives of foster children in Sacramento.

For more information visit www.5000kids.org, or call Katie Walker at 916-364-2365.

Thank you in advance for your support!

Sierra Adoption Services Launches New Customer-Focused Website To Promote Permanency for Youth Living in Foster Care

2009-04-02T18:43:51Z

April 2, 2009 – Sacramento, California - Sierra Adoption Services, a leader in providing permanence to children living in foster care, launched a brand new customer-focused, interactive website this week. The site, www.sierraff.org, which can also be accessed through www.sierraadoption.org, is designed in to meet the needs of our stakeholders, resource families and youth living in foster care.

“The agency was in desperate need of a new website,” said Bob Herne, Executive Director for Sierra Adoption Services. “Created by a volunteer over 10 years, the site had become antiquated; limiting how we update and maintain important communication to our stakeholders and prospective families.”

Sierra Adoption Services hired Circle Design, a local design and marketing firm, to guide the agency through the process and to create and implement a modern, user-friendly website to support in recruitment and fundraising efforts.

Bob added, “We vetted the proposed web content and usability upgrades with our staff, Board of Directors and stakeholders, and consulted with a leading public relations firm; the results greatly influenced the design of and development of our new site.”

Visitors to the site will easily access current information on the agency’s programs and services, requirements for becoming a resource family, profiles on available youth, online donation opportunities, upcoming special events and much more.

Beginning July 1, 2009, Sierra Adoption Services will become Sierra Forever Families. In the coming months, details of the exciting changes in store for the agency will also be communicated through the new website.

To allow search engines time to recognize the new site, Sierra has included a splash page from www.sierraadoption.org to direct visitors www.sierraff.org, which is the official new site for Sierra Forever Families.

About Sierra Adoption Services:

Founded over 25 years ago, Sierra Adoption Services mission is to transform the lives of children in foster care by building and nurturing permanent families. Traditionally focused on finding families for harder-to-place children living in foster care, Sierra has successfully placed over 2,000 with permanent, loving families and has helped hundreds more reunify with birth families or relatives.

For more information on Permanency Focused Foster Care and other ways to help local children living in foster care, please contact: Sara Hanson at 916-368-5114 or shanson@sierraadoption.org.