By Sandra Michaud

How do we keep at-risk children and families from falling through the cracks? That was the question posed to panelists and audience alike at the final Thursday Forum for 2015 at the WNMU Miller Library.

Alena Johnson, a foster parent; Richard Anderson, County Office Manager of the Grant County CYFD (Children, Youth and Families Department) Office; Bianca Padilla, program Coordinator of the Juvenile Probation Office and Jeanine Jones of WNMU's School of Social Work were on the panel and Anita Roberts of CASA of Grant and Luna Counties moderated.

Roberts began by explaining how the CASA - Court Appointed Special Advocates - program worked. She said that the CASA volunteers are appointed by the court and talk with various people involved in the case, from the children, parents, and foster parents to medical experts, school staff and others involved in the case and compile a report for the judge to read before the hearing. The children are abused and/or neglected and the volunteer stays involved until the case is closed.

She also said that, in the past, alcohol and marijuana abuse fueled much of the problem, but now it is meth.

“Many of the children are at high risk for neurological and cognitive development impairment before they come into custody, due to the exposure to their parents' drug use,” she said.

Roberts said that they are seeing kids coming into the foster care system that are children of former foster care kids, who have been traumatized in their pasts.

“With all the programs, past, present and future, with all the money invested, there has to be another way to prevent our children from falling through the cracks,” she said.
“So far, this year in Grant County there have been 23 neglect cases, totaling 32 children who are living in foster homes. Many of these children have had CYFD involvement in the past. In your opinion, what could prevent these parents' involvement in the future to avoid repeating history and adding to the trauma of the children?” she asked the panel.

Anderson said that there's probably a lot of misunderstanding about the CYFD program, since children are sent back to parents who are still struggling with their issues, but that the regulations are strict as to what the parents have to do to have children returned to them, and that is that the parents have to meet minimal standards, but that the department works with them to ensure that they do meet these standards.

Jones said that intervention is the key. “One of the things that, as social workers, we do with families who are at a very challenging and difficult point in their lives, and their children are suffering because of it is to try to intervene with everyone.” She said. This strategy is to take the child from the home, but also to treat the parents as well. If you don't teach them the skills to get along in society, then you will have generation after generation going through the process. “'Why?' you need to ask, ‘Why did this happen?'.” she said.

Jones gave the example of one of her cases, where a father threw his five-month old baby into a wall. Her department got the baby to the hospital, where he was in a body cast. They taught to baby to bond, and went to deal with the father, who had an alcohol and anger management problem. The parents have to want to change their behavior in order to get their child back. That is the crux of the issue.

“Intervention, work, support,” She said. “That would be my suggestion.''

Padilla was the next to answer. She said that the individuals she dealt with were a different group, pre-teens and teenagers. “We need to know who are they, where do they come from in our community and what is their life like.”

She said that of the 60 kids on probation, only four live with both biological parents, 36 live with one parent, 6 with step-parents, and 14 that don't live with a biological parent.
“When I see these kids come into the office, what I see is chaos in the home, either they've been the victim of, or have witnessed violence, sexual, emotional, physical. They don't have a sense of hope, a sense of vision for their future,” she said.

She said that the best thing her department could do,would be to mend the family relationships. They use a program called Strengthening Families, used in all 50 states, as well as 20 countries. The program, started here this year, has classes for eight weeks where the families eat dinner together, then the parents and kids are separated, each to learn the same coping skills, and then practice those skills together interacting with one another.

“Even if they're teens or pre-teens, it's not too late build those relationships, give them conflict management skills, proper discipline, love and support, following through with boundaries, and trying to put some healthy family activities in their families,” she said.
Padilla said that Strengthening Families is also open to anybody who wants or needs a parenting class, even if their kids are not in trouble.

Anderson said, “I think we need to understand that child abuse and neglect didn't start with grandparents, it's been going on for ages and it's something we have not been able to get any serious control over.”

He said that the three main issues are substance abuse, mental illness and mental retardation, and that poverty plays a big role. “I think a lot of people use methamphetamine because it make them feel good because their life is crappy, that their life has had no real positive experiences.”

He said that some parents are so beaten down that they have no joy in life and no joy in being a parent. During an audit they found that of the eight cases they were looking at, seven of them were going to adoption. The CYFD office is working with people suffering from all three issues, with parents going in and out of prison and many of whom had started using drugs at 14 years old.

Anderson talked about the numbers; currently there are 32 children in foster care, which has been the average for the past seven years, and that 12 years ago there were 140 children in foster care in Grant County alone. He said that part of the cause for the drop is that they getting better at finding relatives to care for the children and better support for the families, but part of the reason is that the pendulum has swung back to parental rights being paramount. “We've got to protect the Constitutional rights of our parents, and are totally ignoring the potential danger and risk that children are put in because we are supporting the Constitutional rights of parents.”

He said the CYFD has implemented new programs to help parents and children and are seeing some successes in teaching parents how to cope with young children.
Johnson said, “I think in my experience there are some parents, who don't want to be parents.” She said that a lot of them became parents as a result of being on drugs or being drunk one night. “I'll be honest, as a foster parent, at first dealing with the biological parents is something you don't really want to do. Then you think, you know what, a lot of times the parents are victims, too, and when you decide that, then you decide it's okay that these kids love their parents, no matter what the parents have done, these kids want to go home at some point.”

Johnson spoke about a foster son she had, who had changed a lot, and she feared that he would go back to his parents after his father got out of prison; and whose mother had abuse issues. “As a foster parent, you are concerned for these kids.”

“To stop the process, we need to be in their homes, we need to teach them how to be parents, because a lot of them who are parents, don't want to be parents, didn't want to be parents, and now they are parents,” Johnson said.

She spoke of the Strengthening Families program, “I'm ready to be a better parent, so that I can teach these kids, that come in my home for a short time, one tool, sometimes it's going to be education, because a lot of these parents don't have education, a lot of them don't have jobs, so how can they provide for the kids. And when you don't have money coming in and you're spending what money does come in on an addiction, there's not a whole lot you can do for the kids.”

“It's definitely something that the community needs to be a part of. We need to help these families be families,” Johnson added.

Roberts then asked the panel if they thought a mentoring program to assist parents after state involvement has ceased would help, and what the first step would be to implement it.

Anderson said it could be useful, but since compliance is through the court system, it would have to either be voluntary, or court ordered. “And the court generally is not going to order something like a mentor.”

He said that he didn't know of any program that does mentoring; there are new programs with home visiting in place around the country, but not in New Mexico. “The behavioral health system is really struggling in this state, it's terrible in this county. We had a treatment foster care program for years in the border area, that was a real resource, since the change, since Border Area has left we don't have treatment foster care in this county, so as far as the gaps, it's a serious gap in this county and in this state.”

Jones said that maybe a group or a support person, who the parent or parents could call when they were having a really bad day coping with their child, giving them an ability to vent, to get some fresh input and problem solving ideas. “I think for us and for all our clients we need to have something that's ongoing.”

She said that sometimes when the parents have gone through the classes, the training and were to end the relationship with the state, many of them would ask to continue on for a while longer, not feeling secure in their ability to parent. She said the social worker tries to reassure the parent of their strengths, but a support program would help.

Padilla said that in the Office of Juvenile Probation, the formal mentoring programs didn't really work, but they found that the informal mentoring, bringing the community into the programs, works quite well.

“We've done a lot with the Volunteer Center, building a greenhouse, and we had a really great contractor, who came and showed the kids how to lay the footings, how to do the concrete, how to build the shelves, and that's the type of informal mentoring that normally those kids wouldn't have in the community,” she said. “You would really just have to start with a grass-roots program, until you get funding, until you get grants to do a formal program.”

Johnson said that as foster parents, they are encouraged to keep a relationship with their kids after they have returned to their parents. “I think it's needed, I think a lot of these parents can be overwhelmed.”

She gave the example of one of her foster children that was returned to his mother, who, sadly, after about six months came back and said that she just was not able to continue. The mother had no support from her husband or from the community and felt it was better. But she said that these parents also paid a price. “If you lose them, now society looks at you as a bad parent, you lost your kids, you gave them up... Do we need help for them? Absolutely, because sometimes they become parents again, maybe in a different community.”

An audience member asked the panel if they thought that programs such as Big Brother Big Sister were helpful. The panel agreed that they were. Anderson said that at one time there had been a very strong Big Brother Big Sister program here but that recently it had been struggling.

Padilla talked about a program called New Mexico Youth Challenge Academy, a program in Roswell that is for 17 and 18 year olds who will not graduate. They go to Roswell for five and a half months, get their GEDs and a two-year associate degree from Eastern New Mexico University. There is also a Job Challenge program in Roswell that they can continue their education.

Padilla said that there is strong mentoring in this program. “Something you have to keep in mind being a mentor is that you really commit your time, you really need to be invested in that kid's life.”

Another question was how cultural values affected success.

Jones said that it was important for social workers to learn about the culture of their clients. “Have your families teach you, talk about their traditions, and find out what their background has been like. They are the experts on their family, not what we may have written down in the file.”

Anderson agreed. “We do have to rely on the family and family is a big part of the culture of the Southwest. When I was working along the frontera, I could always find an auntie, a cousin, a grandparent that could help out. So recognizing and respecting that part of the culture is so important in the work we do.”

When asked how she deals with being separated, after a foster child was returned to his or her family, Johnson said that when it happens, it hurts, but she could not imagine not being a foster parent. “I'll be honest with you, after being a foster parent for some time, I couldn't not do it now.” Her voice shook as she continued, “I couldn't know what I know, and not be a foster parent now because there's a need, and I can't tell you how great the need is. These kids need someone in their lives. And you'll be surprised at how much you need them.”