• Feature
• Feature
short,” she says.“ We have a very short period of time to make an impact.”
UNINTENDED OUTCOMES Bill Ryland is concerned about how the new regulations will impact his nonprofit and others like it. A 29-year veteran with Koinonia Family Services, Ryland serves as director of Koinonia Homes for Teens & Treatment Clinic, a residential treatment program for foster teens. The state has mandated foster youth spend no more than six months in a short-term residential therapeutic program. Most of Ryland’ s programs are between nine and 12 months.
“ The state is expecting 6,000 very high-need kids to be taken in by single-family homes. That won’ t happen. They are going to have to revise the legislation to fit the reality,” he says.“ When you have a child who is abused and has attachment disorder, just because they are in a single family home, that does not mean they will automatically attach.”
Koinonia’ s residential program offers a drug and alcohol program with a treatment clinic, as well as an accredited public school. To warrant the level of treatment that Koinonia provides, children placed there have already failed in other foster care settings.“ We provide 12 hours of treatment a week and are fully committed to it,” Ryland says,“ and to expect families to be able to duplicate that is unrealistic.”
Ryland believes we could lose a generation of kids through this“ testcrash dummy approach.”“ The state is saying we don’ t want kids in group care. We aren’ t group care, we are treatment,” he says. Ryland is currently working to increase staffing to comply with the new regulations.“ The whole point of the legislation is demanding a continuum of care, but not readily accommodating it. We are big enough and old enough to make the switch, but not everyone is,” he says.“ We will lose a lot of our peers.”
While there are excellent providers who have brought in mental health and wrap-around services, and have a high-quality program that is trauma-informed, not all are operating at that level.
“ I feel like CCR is saying to all the other group homes that are not at this high standard,‘ this is where the standard ought to be,’” Trochtenberg says.“ It may eliminate some group home providers that are not willing or able to provide these high-quality services, but to be honest, kids deserve that. And if providers are not able to do that, then maybe they are not the best provider to be serving this population.”
Michelle Callejas, deputy director of child protective services for the County of Sacramento, is working on increasing the capacity within its community and home-based settings to step children down from group homes. She says the County has requested extra staff to recruit more potential foster families and intends to work closely with other agencies to learn from their strategies.
Under the new legislation, Callejas says, children won’ t have to change placements to get the services and support they need. Ideally, there should be no difference in access to services at a county foster home, relative’ s home or a foster family agency home.“ If we are able to do this piece well, there will be fewer placement changes,” Callejas says,” which will help us get to permanency in a more timely manner.”
For her perpetually positive attitude, Callejas has been called a delusional optimist.“ I truly believe every child is adoptable if we find the best services and support to enable that to happen. It is our job, in collaboration with our partners, to hold hope for children and families, even if they don’ t have it.”
After she emancipated, Trochtenberg quickly lost hope.“ I was given seven days notice and a handwritten list of board-and-care facilities and homeless shelters,” she says.“ And that was my exit into the world.” With no support system, she struggled for many years and spent time homeless.“ At 18, I was very unprepared for the world, very unable to care for myself, because of the nature of the institutionalization that occurs when youth are languishing in group care facilities.” Finally, a caring adult encouraged her to try community college, and eventually she enrolled at Humboldt State University where she earned bachelor’ s and master’ s degrees in social work.
“ Overall, this is probably the biggest reform of the California foster care system in decades and significantly changes how we care for foster youth,” Trochtenberg says.“ My hope is that as we get more youth out of congregate care settings and in more community and family settings, we will see better outcomes.”
Based on his experiences, Austin Nichols sees room for improvement.“ My time in foster care was sometimes good, but mostly bad,” he says.“ If I had gotten help earlier, maybe I wouldn’ t have been so angry and could have been adopted sooner. And maybe they could have helped my older brother.” •
* Child’ s name has been changed to protect his privacy.
Laurie Lauletta-Boshart is a contributing writer and editor for consumer publications, Fortune 500 companies, small business and higher education. She has written for Dwell, ESPN, Wall Street Journal, SI. com( Sports Illustrated) and others. On Twitter @ laurieboshart or www. wordplaycommunications. com.
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