June 3, 2023 • 29 mins
DeJuana Jernigan is the CEO of Arms Wide. They provide adoption, post adoption and fostering support to families in the Houston area. We discuss the long processes of adoption and foster care and the consequences to the children in the system. Open Arms helps to protect the children by supporting them and their family and that include partnering with other Organizations. We discuss post-Adoption and post-Permanency programs and the need for new foster families. They have a lot great resources online:www.armswide.org
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Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Welcome to Houston, PA, Houston'spublic affairs show, an iHeartMedia broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressedon the show to not necessarily reflect those
held by this radio station it's managementstaff for any of its advertisers. My
name is laurent I am the Texanfrom France, and my guest today is
(00:29):
Dejuana Jernegin. She is the CEOof arms Wide and they are online at
arms wide dot org. Arms widedot org. Dejuana every time every time
I say arms Wide, since it'snot the first time, I welcome the
organization on the show, I thinkof arms wide adoption services, but you
(00:49):
provide so many more services. Yourprograms are so vast involving the care of
children and helping foster parents that you'vedecided to rebrand and just call yourself arms
Wide. And I'm also interested inknowing that you're kind of an offshoot of
the Depelchian Children's Center. You usedto be a part of that organization and
you've essentially split off. No,no, it's not split. So how
(01:14):
did it happen? Tell us?No, So arms Wide has been arms
Wide is actually legally known as Spaldingfor Children Ah, and we are forty
six year old organization. Yeah,we started back in nineteen seventy seven in
response to a need from the stateto provide foster families for children who were
(01:34):
in foster care. In twenty sixteen, we rebranded twenty seventeen, sorry,
we were rebranded to become ARMS WideAdoption Services, And in twenty twenty three,
a couple of months ago, werolled out our new brand refinement and
now we're known as ARMS Why Andthe reason we did that is because when
(01:57):
people refer to us as ARMS AdoptionServices, they thought that we only provided
adoption services, and we wanted tomake sure that we were making the community
aware of the fact that though adoptioncontinues to be the cornerstone one of our
cornerstone services that we provide, thereare so many other services that we provide
(02:19):
that we're kind of gone unnoticed becausepeople focused on the adoption piece. But
some of these programs are really big, and we're gonna say several times that
you're really looking for foster families,we are. There's a great need for
that. There's a huge need forthat, and we'll talk I'd like to
talk about that in more detail.But what are some of the other programs
that are under the umbrella of Volumb'swide. So we provide foster care services,
(02:46):
and that's either temporary foster care orfoster to adopt. We also provide
what's called our post permanency support services, and those are aftercare support for families
who've either adopted children from foster care, are families who are caring for children
on a long term basis through apermanent custody order who had been in foster
(03:07):
care. So that's obviously a courtordered intervention in the life of the child
to separate them from the family.And it sounds horrifying, which it is
for the kid. I think it'sprobably horrifying for the parents too, but
very often the parents are embroiled inso many problems their behavioral but they're also
legal. Um, what is therea way to describe the average No,
(03:30):
because there's no average situation. Soyeah, my question answers itself. No
question forgive me, folks. Yeah, every family is unique and their circumstances
are they vary, and obviously everykid is unique and changing a lot with
every every meaning, you can sortof make the argument that a child at
(03:53):
seven is a different person than thechild at eight, and they keep moving
and in part of the being yeah, yeah, and obviously if you're if
you're being yanked around the court system, and that's I'm sure that's how it
feels to the kids. It's reallydifficult to develop normally. So your your
foster care programs and the assistance thatyou give to these families, they must
(04:15):
be specific to the various court orders. And you might even work with Child
advocates. Yes, we do,Yeah, we do. When a child
is being cared for by one ofour foster families, there are a number
of organizations that they may come intocontact with and as their mutual care providers
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that means that we come into contactwith them and Child Advocates is one in
Harris County and in most of thecounties throughout the state of Texas, there's
what's called a COSTA Child child CourtAppointed Special Advocate program. Yeah, and
um. Those programs are specifically designedto sort of be the voice for children
(04:57):
who are in foster care. They'rethe legal advocate of the child in front
the judge and to judge while actuallyaddress them privately without the lawyers ordering the
lawyers to stand down, so tospeak, so that the court can talk
to this advocate of the child,so that the child's and needs are actually
making it through to the judge,uninterpreted by lawyers, so to speak,
(05:18):
and literally that in fact, youcould say that the child advocate is someone
who is legally ordered to ignore thelawyers. You only listen to the child.
It's an awesome program. They needa lot of the need volunteers.
It's a volunteer driven organization. Theseare people like you and me, folks
(05:39):
who decide to go through the trainingsystem. It's fantastic. You can looking
up online Child Advocates of Houston.Send me an email if you want some
specifics on that, I'll be gladto share it with you. But we've
well, we just we touch uponthis. I grew up with, you
know, brilliant parents and they're stilltogether and we love of each other,
(06:00):
and well we're talking about seems horrifyingto me if I put myself in the
place of these childs, especially sinceI was a very sensitive, shy and
you know, you take a kidlike me and you throw them in foster
care and it can just completely changetheir lives, absolutely shut them in completely
absolutely. You know, the traumathat children experience can have lifelong impact.
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It can impact the way that theyrelate to their peers. It can impact
them and the way that they developor don't develop relationships. It's something that
people don't often think about when childrenhave to be removed from their families because
of abuse or neglect, and evenwhat happens when they have been when they
(06:46):
enter into the foster care system andmay have to move from one place to
another. You know that that traumais compounded by the lack of stability.
The lack of stability exactly. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just saying that's
why at Arms Wilde we work tomake sure that children are matched with the
most appropriate family so that that's there. They're only the only place that they
(07:11):
have to be until they're either reuniteit with their birth parents or with a
relative, or if neither of thosesituations work out, that they're able to
be adopted by either their foster parentsor another family who's decided that they want
to expand their family through adoption.You are listening to Houston, PA,
Houston's Public Affairs Show. My nameis Laurent and my guest is de Juana
(07:34):
Joern Again, she is the CEOof arms Wide. There are online at
arms wide dot org arms wide dotorg. As we mentioned, they're in
great need of foster parents, especiallyAfrican American parents. Disproportionately Black kids are
(07:55):
affected by these legal decisions. Andwhen we talk about these proportions, we
mean that if you take a hundredHispanic kids and one hundred Black kids,
those black kids are going to bemore likely to end up in foster care.
And it's it's it's a complicated sothey'll show economic problem. There's nothing
wrong with the kids. The rawmaterial is fine. They just need good
(08:18):
teachers, just like every kid.It's really really rare when there's a kid
who's just a bad kid or adumb kid. They exist, but they're
the exceptions. They're very It's true, isn't it. Most kids are just
fine, but they're unhappy and they'reafraid, and it's unimaginable to me in
a lot of ways. And soyou need foster families that are going to
(08:39):
take home these burdens. And youmentioned that for the kids to stay in
a family is good for that familyto be as close to them as they
can be ethnically, and obviously ifyou just think of the language barrier,
that's one way to think about that. But you mentioned that the child might
be in foster care through the timewhen they can be reunited with their family.
(09:03):
But if that doesn't happen, maybethey'll get adopted by their foster family.
What about the kids that don't getthat, They don't get that chance.
Maybe they enter the foster system toolate, they're mid teens, late
teens. What happens to these childrenwho aren't adopted by someone else and become
adults. Well, unfortunately, abouta thousand youth each year age out of
(09:26):
the Texas foster care system without beingadopted, being adopted a thousand a year,
thousand a year, and the consequencesthe outcomes for these children are not
good. That's why we're working sohard to raise awareness about the foster care
and the needs of the Texas fostercare system at arms wide and also providing
(09:48):
specific services that are targeted. Arespecific programs that are targeted for the higher
needs children, for the children whohave complex behavioral health needs. You know,
we have a therapeutic foster care programfor the black children who are disproportionately
represented in the system. We havebeen able to start a program called it
(10:13):
Takes a Village, and that's amultifaceted recruitment program that is aimed at one
looking for families who are able andcapable and willing to care for Black children
who are in foster care, whetherthat's through foster care provision or through adoption,
and to work with Kinshipcare. That'ssomething that I hadn't talked much about
(10:35):
yet. We have our Kinship CareSupport program which works specifically with those family
either grandparents or aunts, or unclesor a godparent, you know, somebody
who's been significant in a child's life. And these are people who step up
when a child is removed from theirbiological parents and placed in foster care.
(10:56):
These folks step up to take careof that child so that they don't have
to go to a stranger. Andso one of the programs that we have
designed over the past few years iscalled our Kinship Care Program, and we
work with them to provide them thesame sorts of supports as foster families.
So you're able to deploy these programsand I guess your counselors are talking directly
(11:20):
to the family obviously, and you'rediscussing the fate of these children and how
they're doing in the family, andyou're able to sort of move services into
their lives if they're necessary. Right, absolutely, absolutely. Through foster care.
Like I said earlier, there area number of organizations and entities that
are involved in making sure that thatchild's needs are met physical needs, psychological,
(11:46):
social, medical, educational needs.Our foster care adoption coordinators work to
make sure that all those pieces areconnected and that all of the needs of
the child are met while they're inour mutual care with our foster parents.
How well does it work. It'shard, it's difficult, right, yeah,
(12:09):
yeah, I mean that's why ittakes people who are are compassionate about
doing this work. It's not anine to five job, right, No,
it's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle, and it takes people who understand
or are willing to learn how thesystem works and how all the different pieces
come together, because it can feelreally disjointed at times. And our job
(12:31):
is to help make the child andthe parent that they're the foster parent that
they're living with at that time feellike it's not a difficult process and that
it's not disjointed. Our job isto be that liaison to pull all those
things together and to make it feelseamless so that the foster parent can focus
on meeting that child's need and thatchild can focus on being a child.
(12:52):
So if we have listeners listening andthen they're thinking themselves a thought of being
a foster parent, whether it's temporaryor permanently, what's the first step is
going to arms wide dot org agood place to start. There's an application
process right there online. That wouldonly be step one. Obviously, that
would be step one. Go toarms wide dot org and then go to
an orientation session. Yeah. Yeah, At some point there's going to be
(13:15):
a background check to by police department. They're gonna actually they're gonna look at
your ticket record and everything. Youknow. When they say yeah, your
ticket will be expunged from your record, but only from your eyes. When
the police doll is your license playedon the street, They're like, oh,
you got a ticket and you tookdifference of driving, but it was
only seven years ago and you're beingnice to me. You're getting a warning
(13:37):
today. It always pays off tobe nice to people, and not just
police officers. It just people.You actually speaking of the police, I'm
I like to give them a shoutout because while I understand the importance of
coming down on bad police, mostpolice is good and they have a really
(13:58):
really hard job, and at leastwhen it comes to homeless youth, they're
very often the one person that ison the front line that police officers knows
their name, knows where they're goingto hang out, and they might be
the person to come to that youthto offer the opportunity to go into a
kind of service. And they providean invaluable service and are not getting the
(14:22):
respect that they deserve. And ifyou're listening police officers, we appreciate you.
Yea. They bring people in obviouslyand separate them from from their families
when there's there's an immediate violence,but you're actually dealing with administrative separations.
So when you're training these foster parentsand these foster families, there must be
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a lot to do with teaching themhow the court works and training them how
to interact with the judges for instance. Yes, how long does it take?
So our training it's a we callit our preservice training. It's about
thirty five hours, and so yeah, so it's a commitment. Yeah,
it's a commitment. It's a commitment, and they learn everything from what the
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needs are of the children who arein care, what these children look like,
to how the court system works,how CPS works, how the educational
system works, because they have tobe advocates for these children in school,
right, So it's it's a lotof information and it doesn't just stop at
preservice. We have an ongoing trainingcomponent and we have support groups that the
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families are able to participate in aswell. So we are committed to making
sure that the families who make thiscommitment to fostering, to opening their hearts,
to open in their homes, todoing this, that they have all
the support that they need to besuccessful to take care of not only the
children you know that's that are beingconnected and joined with them through foster care,
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but also themselves, because many familiescome to us with children of their
own right, whether they're minor children, are adult children, and we want
to make sure that the entire familyis supported because if that entire family is
not supported, it makes it thatmuch more difficult to operate within this complex
system of child welfare. Yeah,that's a good point and you know,
(16:15):
being childless, I have to admitI didn't mention. I didn't think of
this. When we're thinking of afoster family, you're talking about parents becoming
foster parents, but the children ofthe parents become foster to siblings, and
so they're part of the process too. Yes, Is there a training program
or there's some orientations for them too, Well, there's not orientations for them,
but as in our work with eachindividual foster parent, depending on you
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know, what their needs are.Yeah, you know, if they reach
out to us and say, hey, you know, my biological child is
having a problem with whatever, youknow the situation brings, then we're going
to try to find resources to helpsupport them. You are listening to Houston,
PA, Houston's Public Affairs Show.My name is Laurent and my guest
is de Juana, and again sheis the CEO of arms Wide. They're
(17:03):
online at arms wide dot org.Arms wide dot org. It's a great
place to go find out what programsare available to you if you want to
become a foster parent, or youwant to give and get involved. They
also need money to keep the lightson, so we're a community and donating
small amounts. You know, justa few dollars actually makes a difference.
Don't feel bashful about that. Youknow, I can't afford to give thousands
(17:27):
of dollars, but I'm happy tosign into a website and you know,
you can use PayPal and credit cards. It's really safe. I've I've donated.
I've donated to countless organizations on differentwebsites. I've never ever had a
problem with my credit card being stolen, only from car rental agencies and oil
change places. Yeah, Dewana,one of the things that we haven't talked
(17:51):
about yet is a success story.And that's the thing is that these your
organization and other organizations like this existsbecause ultimately it works out and now maybe
it doesn't work out perfectly, maybeit doesn't work out very well, but
it works out enough that the childcan be taken out of a bad situation
where it wouldn't have worked out atall and they can get they can get
(18:11):
a better step up into life.Yeah, but that's got to be one
of the biggest everybody wants it towork out really well. Right now,
your foster parents are coming in,especially the ones that are maybe looking to
adopt permanently. They're hoping to fallin love, so to speak, what's
the what's the proper way of sayingthat fall in family? It is love,
but it's a yeah, it's parenting, fostering. So when people come
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in and they probably have rosy eyes, what do you tell them? So
we tell them, you know,first of all, we say thank you,
right, because the decision to becomea foster parent is not one that
people take lightly, from the timethat a person first thinks about becoming a
foster parent until they actually take thefirst step, and sometimes takes two to
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three years for that that progression tohappen, you know, because they come,
they learn a little bit about it, then they get scared, yeah,
or you know, things in theirtheir lives maybe uh not where they
would like for them to be,and they hold off for a while.
But it's a really big decision tomake, and a generous one because it
(19:19):
is very generous. It's not justyour life. Of course there's money involved,
but I mean it's your soul,absolutely, absolutely, because we expect
for the families to love the childrenthat they're caring for, right, and
so it's not just opening a physicalspace to them, but opening your heart,
opening your family, your friends,you know, your life to a
(19:41):
child who needs to be loved andunderstood and care for. You mentioned potent
those future foster parents who are onthat line, they're thinking about it.
It is frightening, such a bigdecision in your experience. Have you have
you met people that tell you whatmade them cross over the line? So
it's what tipped them over the line, so to speak, Maybe we could
(20:03):
do that. Yeah, what aresome of the things that helped over the
line? Yeah, I've heard fosterfamilies say the fact that you're either your
your foster home developer or coordinator,made a connection with me, a personal
connection with me, or they werethere to answer all of my questions,
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or they made me feel like Iwasn't in this alone, gave me that
extra special personal touch. Those arethe things that I hear that helped people
to tip over to the other side. So, unfortunately for the show,
it doesn't make our task much easierbecause we're already talking about someone who has
come into contact with the agency.But how do we get people to to
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cross the line and actually contact onceI'm confident that once people put their finger
in the machine, so to speak, you have people that are super competent
that will make him feel comfortable.It's like, listen, you're not by
yourself. It's not just you becausewell, I mean, I think that
I'm looking at it from the outsideand there's so much that I don't know.
I'm only just realizing, so well, there's a lot of support,
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but I also don't kind of don'tknow what it looks like. And you
know that especially women who who aregoing to be great mothers, they tend
to turn these things around in theirhead a million times. That's that's what
makes them great moms very often.So I'm not criticizing, but yeah,
you're we're still the barrier here isto actually get into contact with Arms Wide
(21:33):
arms wide dot org. Hey,you can just take a look at the
website and see how how welcoming itis. But I really you've given me
the feeling that if I was goingto do something like this, I would
have a copilot. You would.Absolutely. Yeah, it takes a village,
right, you know, none ofus can do this alone, and
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we have some uniquely qualified credential staffwho are experienced, who know the system,
who are gonna walk with parents,step bus step along that journey to
whether they decide that they want toprovide temporary foster care or whether they want
to adopt. We've got folks whoare going to walk alongside them. And
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the beauty of the services our servicearray is that once a family has made
the decision to adopt a child who'sin their care, they can continue to
work with us. You know alot of people think that adoption is the
end of the story, right,you know, it's happily ever after.
Well, the fact that these childrenof youth have been in foster care indicates
that they've experienced in trauma and soalthough you know, they have now been
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joined with a family that has pledgedand committed to loving them and being there
forever family, that trauma doesn't justgo away. And so through our post
adoption services, those are really justafter care services for families who've adopted.
We're able to continue you to supportthat family through case management. So if
they have a crisis four seven,you know, we can help support them
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through that. If they need mentalhealth therapy, we can help with that.
There's some financial support for that andreferral for our mental health therapy services
if there is they need babysitting.So a lot of the children who have
been in foster care, like Isaid, have been impacted by trauma and
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it rewires their brain sometimes and ittakes a long time for some of these
these youths to work through that.And what that means is they sometimes have
some challenging behaviors that may require someonewith some special skills to be able to
care for them well. Through ourpost adoption services, we're able to help
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families pay for that. We callit respite care, but a lot of
people don't know what that means.So that's why I say specialize babysitting support.
So we were able to help themwith that. And for some children
who have been maybe been in thechild welfare mean the foster care system for
an extended period of time, orwho have gone through some really really severe
(24:11):
abuse or neglect, they may needsome extra structured support through residential treatment placement,
and so we can help families withthat as well. And you're also
helping the families understand the treatment thatthe child is going through because of course
we're talking about highly private relationships herewith therapists and all that, so the
(24:33):
family has to be in on what'sgoing on, but they're obviously not going
to know a lot of it becauseclient privilege, all those all those secrecies
that are important to keeping our livestogether. I want to encourage people to
go online and search for something likefamily adopts Child. Videos of children opening
adoption papers for Christmas, for theirbirthdays. Do you know what I'm talking
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about? These are These are videosof families that I've had a foster child
with them and they decide to adoptthe child. And some people will have
put some of these things online.It's as moving as you might have seen
those videos of children who get acochlear implant and you see a video of
the implant being turned on for thefirst time, and these deaf children here
(25:18):
for the first time. If youdon't tear up when you watch that,
I don't know what kind of humanbeing you are. But the point being
is that that that that goal ofhaving an amazing story of literally saving somebody's
life and then welcoming them into yourfamily is something that is completely attainable.
Yeah, and you We've talked alot about the difficulties because we want to
(25:41):
be honest about this subject. Butlike we said, earlier in the show.
The kids are fine. Some ofthem have experienced too much trauma to
be to have normal lives like ordinarypeople like me do. But most of
them are okay. They're You're youngand resilient. Their kids are going to
heal and you can send them ona path that is productive and prosperous and
(26:02):
full of a family and loving life. Do you have do you have kids
or young adults who come back tothe agency to to to maybe thank a
counselor or how does that happen?So we through our because we are able
to offer the post adoption and thepost permanency support services, specifically our post
adoption because we've offered those for probablythirty years, um, we're able to
(26:26):
stay connected to those those those youthsand they've been adopted. So that's the
beauty of that program. We canwork with that family until that child turns
eighteen years old, right, andso to the youngest child. So many
of the youth children and youth areadopted are adopted as siblings, and so
until the youngest person, youngest siblingturns eighteen, we can continue to work
(26:48):
with them. So we get thebenefit of having ongoing long term connections with
those youth because we're continuing to workwith their families past their eighteenth or that
must motivate you, right, it'slike you, I don't know as a
CEO, I don't know how muchyou deal with the kids, but you
see them that you have events andyes, that's what And I love going
(27:10):
to those events because that's the waythat I stay connected to under to connected
to my Why. You know whyI do this is for outcomes like that,
Right, it must feel like it'shard to lose sight of it sometimes
because I know that you're on thefront line for some really bad stories.
And so it's good. It's goodto remember. Like we said, the
kids are fine. They just needgood parents, good mentors, and the
(27:32):
average human being is going to bea terrific person, prosperous good parents.
But man, it takes education.And we live in a country that has
a culture that is particularly aggressive andrough towards kids. I think I think
that we're just so kids are justso quickly exposed to violent verbal confrontation where
(27:56):
often the line to violence is practicallynon existent, and we might want to
take care to protect our kids.I love for violent entertainment. It's my
favorite kind of entertainment. I'm ahorror film fan. But man, you
need good parenting for horror because youneed kids to understand that it's not real
(28:17):
and all that. And we reallywe were. We need to be more
of gatekeepers for kids, I guess, and I've digressed. I want to
encourage you, folks. Arms Wideneeds foster parents, people who would foster
a child temporarily, or if you'reone of those people who has thought,
man, my family is ready.There's the space, we have the money
and the will to be to beto foster a child in view of adopting
(28:44):
them. But I'm afraid of howmonumental the task is. I'm telling you
go to arms wide dot org.Arms wide dot org. It's a very
very welcoming door into the system andyou can at least just talk to somebody
if you want to ask a bunchyour questions. Just because you call them
up doesn't mean you gotta get inright. It's it's important for everybody to
(29:07):
take steps at their own speed.Folks. If you have any questions related
to Houston, PA, you canjust send me an email. Texan from
France at gmail dot com. Texanfrom France at gmail dot com. I'm
happy to send you websites anything youneed, and I want to thank you
for listening and caring about the issuesthat put on this show, folks.
(29:29):
I'll be here next week at thesame time. My name is Laurent I
am the Texan from France and thishas been Houston, PA, Houston's public
affairs show, Houston Strong.
Welcome to Houston, PA, Houston'spublic affairs show, an iHeartMedia broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressedon the show to not necessarily reflect those
held by this radio station it's managementstaff for any of its advertisers. My
name is laurent I am the Texanfrom France, and my guest today is
(00:29):
Dejuana Jernegin. She is the CEOof arms Wide and they are online at
arms wide dot org. Arms widedot org. Dejuana every time every time
I say arms Wide, since it'snot the first time, I welcome the
organization on the show, I thinkof arms wide adoption services, but you
(00:49):
provide so many more services. Yourprograms are so vast involving the care of
children and helping foster parents that you'vedecided to rebrand and just call yourself arms
Wide. And I'm also interested inknowing that you're kind of an offshoot of
the Depelchian Children's Center. You usedto be a part of that organization and
you've essentially split off. No,no, it's not split. So how
(01:14):
did it happen? Tell us?No, So arms Wide has been arms
Wide is actually legally known as Spaldingfor Children Ah, and we are forty
six year old organization. Yeah,we started back in nineteen seventy seven in
response to a need from the stateto provide foster families for children who were
(01:34):
in foster care. In twenty sixteen, we rebranded twenty seventeen, sorry,
we were rebranded to become ARMS WideAdoption Services, And in twenty twenty three,
a couple of months ago, werolled out our new brand refinement and
now we're known as ARMS Why Andthe reason we did that is because when
(01:57):
people refer to us as ARMS AdoptionServices, they thought that we only provided
adoption services, and we wanted tomake sure that we were making the community
aware of the fact that though adoptioncontinues to be the cornerstone one of our
cornerstone services that we provide, thereare so many other services that we provide
(02:19):
that we're kind of gone unnoticed becausepeople focused on the adoption piece. But
some of these programs are really big, and we're gonna say several times that
you're really looking for foster families,we are. There's a great need for
that. There's a huge need forthat, and we'll talk I'd like to
talk about that in more detail.But what are some of the other programs
that are under the umbrella of Volumb'swide. So we provide foster care services,
(02:46):
and that's either temporary foster care orfoster to adopt. We also provide
what's called our post permanency support services, and those are aftercare support for families
who've either adopted children from foster care, are families who are caring for children
on a long term basis through apermanent custody order who had been in foster
(03:07):
care. So that's obviously a courtordered intervention in the life of the child
to separate them from the family.And it sounds horrifying, which it is
for the kid. I think it'sprobably horrifying for the parents too, but
very often the parents are embroiled inso many problems their behavioral but they're also
legal. Um, what is therea way to describe the average No,
(03:30):
because there's no average situation. Soyeah, my question answers itself. No
question forgive me, folks. Yeah, every family is unique and their circumstances
are they vary, and obviously everykid is unique and changing a lot with
every every meaning, you can sortof make the argument that a child at
(03:53):
seven is a different person than thechild at eight, and they keep moving
and in part of the being yeah, yeah, and obviously if you're if
you're being yanked around the court system, and that's I'm sure that's how it
feels to the kids. It's reallydifficult to develop normally. So your your
foster care programs and the assistance thatyou give to these families, they must
(04:15):
be specific to the various court orders. And you might even work with Child
advocates. Yes, we do,Yeah, we do. When a child
is being cared for by one ofour foster families, there are a number
of organizations that they may come intocontact with and as their mutual care providers
(04:36):
that means that we come into contactwith them and Child Advocates is one in
Harris County and in most of thecounties throughout the state of Texas, there's
what's called a COSTA Child child CourtAppointed Special Advocate program. Yeah, and
um. Those programs are specifically designedto sort of be the voice for children
(04:57):
who are in foster care. They'rethe legal advocate of the child in front
the judge and to judge while actuallyaddress them privately without the lawyers ordering the
lawyers to stand down, so tospeak, so that the court can talk
to this advocate of the child,so that the child's and needs are actually
making it through to the judge,uninterpreted by lawyers, so to speak,
(05:18):
and literally that in fact, youcould say that the child advocate is someone
who is legally ordered to ignore thelawyers. You only listen to the child.
It's an awesome program. They needa lot of the need volunteers.
It's a volunteer driven organization. Theseare people like you and me, folks
(05:39):
who decide to go through the trainingsystem. It's fantastic. You can looking
up online Child Advocates of Houston.Send me an email if you want some
specifics on that, I'll be gladto share it with you. But we've
well, we just we touch uponthis. I grew up with, you
know, brilliant parents and they're stilltogether and we love of each other,
(06:00):
and well we're talking about seems horrifyingto me if I put myself in the
place of these childs, especially sinceI was a very sensitive, shy and
you know, you take a kidlike me and you throw them in foster
care and it can just completely changetheir lives, absolutely shut them in completely
absolutely. You know, the traumathat children experience can have lifelong impact.
(06:26):
It can impact the way that theyrelate to their peers. It can impact
them and the way that they developor don't develop relationships. It's something that
people don't often think about when childrenhave to be removed from their families because
of abuse or neglect, and evenwhat happens when they have been when they
(06:46):
enter into the foster care system andmay have to move from one place to
another. You know that that traumais compounded by the lack of stability.
The lack of stability exactly. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just saying that's
why at Arms Wilde we work tomake sure that children are matched with the
most appropriate family so that that's there. They're only the only place that they
(07:11):
have to be until they're either reuniteit with their birth parents or with a
relative, or if neither of thosesituations work out, that they're able to
be adopted by either their foster parentsor another family who's decided that they want
to expand their family through adoption.You are listening to Houston, PA,
Houston's Public Affairs Show. My nameis Laurent and my guest is de Juana
(07:34):
Joern Again, she is the CEOof arms Wide. There are online at
arms wide dot org arms wide dotorg. As we mentioned, they're in
great need of foster parents, especiallyAfrican American parents. Disproportionately Black kids are
(07:55):
affected by these legal decisions. Andwhen we talk about these proportions, we
mean that if you take a hundredHispanic kids and one hundred Black kids,
those black kids are going to bemore likely to end up in foster care.
And it's it's it's a complicated sothey'll show economic problem. There's nothing
wrong with the kids. The rawmaterial is fine. They just need good
(08:18):
teachers, just like every kid.It's really really rare when there's a kid
who's just a bad kid or adumb kid. They exist, but they're
the exceptions. They're very It's true, isn't it. Most kids are just
fine, but they're unhappy and they'reafraid, and it's unimaginable to me in
a lot of ways. And soyou need foster families that are going to
(08:39):
take home these burdens. And youmentioned that for the kids to stay in
a family is good for that familyto be as close to them as they
can be ethnically, and obviously ifyou just think of the language barrier,
that's one way to think about that. But you mentioned that the child might
be in foster care through the timewhen they can be reunited with their family.
(09:03):
But if that doesn't happen, maybethey'll get adopted by their foster family.
What about the kids that don't getthat, They don't get that chance.
Maybe they enter the foster system toolate, they're mid teens, late
teens. What happens to these childrenwho aren't adopted by someone else and become
adults. Well, unfortunately, abouta thousand youth each year age out of
(09:26):
the Texas foster care system without beingadopted, being adopted a thousand a year,
thousand a year, and the consequencesthe outcomes for these children are not
good. That's why we're working sohard to raise awareness about the foster care
and the needs of the Texas fostercare system at arms wide and also providing
(09:48):
specific services that are targeted. Arespecific programs that are targeted for the higher
needs children, for the children whohave complex behavioral health needs. You know,
we have a therapeutic foster care programfor the black children who are disproportionately
represented in the system. We havebeen able to start a program called it
(10:13):
Takes a Village, and that's amultifaceted recruitment program that is aimed at one
looking for families who are able andcapable and willing to care for Black children
who are in foster care, whetherthat's through foster care provision or through adoption,
and to work with Kinshipcare. That'ssomething that I hadn't talked much about
(10:35):
yet. We have our Kinship CareSupport program which works specifically with those family
either grandparents or aunts, or unclesor a godparent, you know, somebody
who's been significant in a child's life. And these are people who step up
when a child is removed from theirbiological parents and placed in foster care.
(10:56):
These folks step up to take careof that child so that they don't have
to go to a stranger. Andso one of the programs that we have
designed over the past few years iscalled our Kinship Care Program, and we
work with them to provide them thesame sorts of supports as foster families.
So you're able to deploy these programsand I guess your counselors are talking directly
(11:20):
to the family obviously, and you'rediscussing the fate of these children and how
they're doing in the family, andyou're able to sort of move services into
their lives if they're necessary. Right, absolutely, absolutely. Through foster care.
Like I said earlier, there area number of organizations and entities that
are involved in making sure that thatchild's needs are met physical needs, psychological,
(11:46):
social, medical, educational needs.Our foster care adoption coordinators work to
make sure that all those pieces areconnected and that all of the needs of
the child are met while they're inour mutual care with our foster parents.
How well does it work. It'shard, it's difficult, right, yeah,
(12:09):
yeah, I mean that's why ittakes people who are are compassionate about
doing this work. It's not anine to five job, right, No,
it's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle, and it takes people who understand
or are willing to learn how thesystem works and how all the different pieces
come together, because it can feelreally disjointed at times. And our job
(12:31):
is to help make the child andthe parent that they're the foster parent that
they're living with at that time feellike it's not a difficult process and that
it's not disjointed. Our job isto be that liaison to pull all those
things together and to make it feelseamless so that the foster parent can focus
on meeting that child's need and thatchild can focus on being a child.
(12:52):
So if we have listeners listening andthen they're thinking themselves a thought of being
a foster parent, whether it's temporaryor permanently, what's the first step is
going to arms wide dot org agood place to start. There's an application
process right there online. That wouldonly be step one. Obviously, that
would be step one. Go toarms wide dot org and then go to
an orientation session. Yeah. Yeah, At some point there's going to be
(13:15):
a background check to by police department. They're gonna actually they're gonna look at
your ticket record and everything. Youknow. When they say yeah, your
ticket will be expunged from your record, but only from your eyes. When
the police doll is your license playedon the street, They're like, oh,
you got a ticket and you tookdifference of driving, but it was
only seven years ago and you're beingnice to me. You're getting a warning
(13:37):
today. It always pays off tobe nice to people, and not just
police officers. It just people.You actually speaking of the police, I'm
I like to give them a shoutout because while I understand the importance of
coming down on bad police, mostpolice is good and they have a really
(13:58):
really hard job, and at leastwhen it comes to homeless youth, they're
very often the one person that ison the front line that police officers knows
their name, knows where they're goingto hang out, and they might be
the person to come to that youthto offer the opportunity to go into a
kind of service. And they providean invaluable service and are not getting the
(14:22):
respect that they deserve. And ifyou're listening police officers, we appreciate you.
Yea. They bring people in obviouslyand separate them from from their families
when there's there's an immediate violence,but you're actually dealing with administrative separations.
So when you're training these foster parentsand these foster families, there must be
(14:43):
a lot to do with teaching themhow the court works and training them how
to interact with the judges for instance. Yes, how long does it take?
So our training it's a we callit our preservice training. It's about
thirty five hours, and so yeah, so it's a commitment. Yeah,
it's a commitment. It's a commitment, and they learn everything from what the
(15:05):
needs are of the children who arein care, what these children look like,
to how the court system works,how CPS works, how the educational
system works, because they have tobe advocates for these children in school,
right, So it's it's a lotof information and it doesn't just stop at
preservice. We have an ongoing trainingcomponent and we have support groups that the
(15:28):
families are able to participate in aswell. So we are committed to making
sure that the families who make thiscommitment to fostering, to opening their hearts,
to open in their homes, todoing this, that they have all
the support that they need to besuccessful to take care of not only the
children you know that's that are beingconnected and joined with them through foster care,
(15:52):
but also themselves, because many familiescome to us with children of their
own right, whether they're minor children, are adult children, and we want
to make sure that the entire familyis supported because if that entire family is
not supported, it makes it thatmuch more difficult to operate within this complex
system of child welfare. Yeah,that's a good point and you know,
(16:15):
being childless, I have to admitI didn't mention. I didn't think of
this. When we're thinking of afoster family, you're talking about parents becoming
foster parents, but the children ofthe parents become foster to siblings, and
so they're part of the process too. Yes, Is there a training program
or there's some orientations for them too, Well, there's not orientations for them,
but as in our work with eachindividual foster parent, depending on you
(16:38):
know, what their needs are.Yeah, you know, if they reach
out to us and say, hey, you know, my biological child is
having a problem with whatever, youknow the situation brings, then we're going
to try to find resources to helpsupport them. You are listening to Houston,
PA, Houston's Public Affairs Show.My name is Laurent and my guest
is de Juana, and again sheis the CEO of arms Wide. They're
(17:03):
online at arms wide dot org.Arms wide dot org. It's a great
place to go find out what programsare available to you if you want to
become a foster parent, or youwant to give and get involved. They
also need money to keep the lightson, so we're a community and donating
small amounts. You know, justa few dollars actually makes a difference.
Don't feel bashful about that. Youknow, I can't afford to give thousands
(17:27):
of dollars, but I'm happy tosign into a website and you know,
you can use PayPal and credit cards. It's really safe. I've I've donated.
I've donated to countless organizations on differentwebsites. I've never ever had a
problem with my credit card being stolen, only from car rental agencies and oil
change places. Yeah, Dewana,one of the things that we haven't talked
(17:51):
about yet is a success story.And that's the thing is that these your
organization and other organizations like this existsbecause ultimately it works out and now maybe
it doesn't work out perfectly, maybeit doesn't work out very well, but
it works out enough that the childcan be taken out of a bad situation
where it wouldn't have worked out atall and they can get they can get
(18:11):
a better step up into life.Yeah, but that's got to be one
of the biggest everybody wants it towork out really well. Right now,
your foster parents are coming in,especially the ones that are maybe looking to
adopt permanently. They're hoping to fallin love, so to speak, what's
the what's the proper way of sayingthat fall in family? It is love,
but it's a yeah, it's parenting, fostering. So when people come
(18:37):
in and they probably have rosy eyes, what do you tell them? So
we tell them, you know,first of all, we say thank you,
right, because the decision to becomea foster parent is not one that
people take lightly, from the timethat a person first thinks about becoming a
foster parent until they actually take thefirst step, and sometimes takes two to
(18:59):
three years for that that progression tohappen, you know, because they come,
they learn a little bit about it, then they get scared, yeah,
or you know, things in theirtheir lives maybe uh not where they
would like for them to be,and they hold off for a while.
But it's a really big decision tomake, and a generous one because it
(19:19):
is very generous. It's not justyour life. Of course there's money involved,
but I mean it's your soul,absolutely, absolutely, because we expect
for the families to love the childrenthat they're caring for, right, and
so it's not just opening a physicalspace to them, but opening your heart,
opening your family, your friends,you know, your life to a
(19:41):
child who needs to be loved andunderstood and care for. You mentioned potent
those future foster parents who are onthat line, they're thinking about it.
It is frightening, such a bigdecision in your experience. Have you have
you met people that tell you whatmade them cross over the line? So
it's what tipped them over the line, so to speak, Maybe we could
(20:03):
do that. Yeah, what aresome of the things that helped over the
line? Yeah, I've heard fosterfamilies say the fact that you're either your
your foster home developer or coordinator,made a connection with me, a personal
connection with me, or they werethere to answer all of my questions,
(20:26):
or they made me feel like Iwasn't in this alone, gave me that
extra special personal touch. Those arethe things that I hear that helped people
to tip over to the other side. So, unfortunately for the show,
it doesn't make our task much easierbecause we're already talking about someone who has
come into contact with the agency.But how do we get people to to
(20:49):
cross the line and actually contact onceI'm confident that once people put their finger
in the machine, so to speak, you have people that are super competent
that will make him feel comfortable.It's like, listen, you're not by
yourself. It's not just you becausewell, I mean, I think that
I'm looking at it from the outsideand there's so much that I don't know.
I'm only just realizing, so well, there's a lot of support,
(21:11):
but I also don't kind of don'tknow what it looks like. And you
know that especially women who who aregoing to be great mothers, they tend
to turn these things around in theirhead a million times. That's that's what
makes them great moms very often.So I'm not criticizing, but yeah,
you're we're still the barrier here isto actually get into contact with Arms Wide
(21:33):
arms wide dot org. Hey,you can just take a look at the
website and see how how welcoming itis. But I really you've given me
the feeling that if I was goingto do something like this, I would
have a copilot. You would.Absolutely. Yeah, it takes a village,
right, you know, none ofus can do this alone, and
(21:56):
we have some uniquely qualified credential staffwho are experienced, who know the system,
who are gonna walk with parents,step bus step along that journey to
whether they decide that they want toprovide temporary foster care or whether they want
to adopt. We've got folks whoare going to walk alongside them. And
(22:17):
the beauty of the services our servicearray is that once a family has made
the decision to adopt a child who'sin their care, they can continue to
work with us. You know alot of people think that adoption is the
end of the story, right,you know, it's happily ever after.
Well, the fact that these childrenof youth have been in foster care indicates
that they've experienced in trauma and soalthough you know, they have now been
(22:44):
joined with a family that has pledgedand committed to loving them and being there
forever family, that trauma doesn't justgo away. And so through our post
adoption services, those are really justafter care services for families who've adopted.
We're able to continue you to supportthat family through case management. So if
they have a crisis four seven,you know, we can help support them
(23:07):
through that. If they need mentalhealth therapy, we can help with that.
There's some financial support for that andreferral for our mental health therapy services
if there is they need babysitting.So a lot of the children who have
been in foster care, like Isaid, have been impacted by trauma and
(23:30):
it rewires their brain sometimes and ittakes a long time for some of these
these youths to work through that.And what that means is they sometimes have
some challenging behaviors that may require someonewith some special skills to be able to
care for them well. Through ourpost adoption services, we're able to help
(23:51):
families pay for that. We callit respite care, but a lot of
people don't know what that means.So that's why I say specialize babysitting support.
So we were able to help themwith that. And for some children
who have been maybe been in thechild welfare mean the foster care system for
an extended period of time, orwho have gone through some really really severe
(24:11):
abuse or neglect, they may needsome extra structured support through residential treatment placement,
and so we can help families withthat as well. And you're also
helping the families understand the treatment thatthe child is going through because of course
we're talking about highly private relationships herewith therapists and all that, so the
(24:33):
family has to be in on what'sgoing on, but they're obviously not going
to know a lot of it becauseclient privilege, all those all those secrecies
that are important to keeping our livestogether. I want to encourage people to
go online and search for something likefamily adopts Child. Videos of children opening
adoption papers for Christmas, for theirbirthdays. Do you know what I'm talking
(24:56):
about? These are These are videosof families that I've had a foster child
with them and they decide to adoptthe child. And some people will have
put some of these things online.It's as moving as you might have seen
those videos of children who get acochlear implant and you see a video of
the implant being turned on for thefirst time, and these deaf children here
(25:18):
for the first time. If youdon't tear up when you watch that,
I don't know what kind of humanbeing you are. But the point being
is that that that that goal ofhaving an amazing story of literally saving somebody's
life and then welcoming them into yourfamily is something that is completely attainable.
Yeah, and you We've talked alot about the difficulties because we want to
(25:41):
be honest about this subject. Butlike we said, earlier in the show.
The kids are fine. Some ofthem have experienced too much trauma to
be to have normal lives like ordinarypeople like me do. But most of
them are okay. They're You're youngand resilient. Their kids are going to
heal and you can send them ona path that is productive and prosperous and
(26:02):
full of a family and loving life. Do you have do you have kids
or young adults who come back tothe agency to to to maybe thank a
counselor or how does that happen?So we through our because we are able
to offer the post adoption and thepost permanency support services, specifically our post
adoption because we've offered those for probablythirty years, um, we're able to
(26:26):
stay connected to those those those youthsand they've been adopted. So that's the
beauty of that program. We canwork with that family until that child turns
eighteen years old, right, andso to the youngest child. So many
of the youth children and youth areadopted are adopted as siblings, and so
until the youngest person, youngest siblingturns eighteen, we can continue to work
(26:48):
with them. So we get thebenefit of having ongoing long term connections with
those youth because we're continuing to workwith their families past their eighteenth or that
must motivate you, right, it'slike you, I don't know as a
CEO, I don't know how muchyou deal with the kids, but you
see them that you have events andyes, that's what And I love going
(27:10):
to those events because that's the waythat I stay connected to under to connected
to my Why. You know whyI do this is for outcomes like that,
Right, it must feel like it'shard to lose sight of it sometimes
because I know that you're on thefront line for some really bad stories.
And so it's good. It's goodto remember. Like we said, the
kids are fine. They just needgood parents, good mentors, and the
(27:32):
average human being is going to bea terrific person, prosperous good parents.
But man, it takes education.And we live in a country that has
a culture that is particularly aggressive andrough towards kids. I think I think
that we're just so kids are justso quickly exposed to violent verbal confrontation where
(27:56):
often the line to violence is practicallynon existent, and we might want to
take care to protect our kids.I love for violent entertainment. It's my
favorite kind of entertainment. I'm ahorror film fan. But man, you
need good parenting for horror because youneed kids to understand that it's not real
(28:17):
and all that. And we reallywe were. We need to be more
of gatekeepers for kids, I guess, and I've digressed. I want to
encourage you, folks. Arms Wideneeds foster parents, people who would foster
a child temporarily, or if you'reone of those people who has thought,
man, my family is ready.There's the space, we have the money
and the will to be to beto foster a child in view of adopting
(28:44):
them. But I'm afraid of howmonumental the task is. I'm telling you
go to arms wide dot org.Arms wide dot org. It's a very
very welcoming door into the system andyou can at least just talk to somebody
if you want to ask a bunchyour questions. Just because you call them
up doesn't mean you gotta get inright. It's it's important for everybody to
(29:07):
take steps at their own speed.Folks. If you have any questions related
to Houston, PA, you canjust send me an email. Texan from
France at gmail dot com. Texanfrom France at gmail dot com. I'm
happy to send you websites anything youneed, and I want to thank you
for listening and caring about the issuesthat put on this show, folks.
(29:29):
I'll be here next week at thesame time. My name is Laurent I
am the Texan from France and thishas been Houston, PA, Houston's public
affairs show, Houston Strong.
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