NASW Social Work Talks - EP7: Foster Care

Episode Date: May 15, 2018

May is Foster Care Month, so we speak with Matt Anderson and Malissa Flores, two social workers from the Children's Home Society of North Carolina, who partner with public agencies to help kids move from foster care into permanent families. See Episode 7 show notes for resources

Welcome to NASW Social Work Talks. The National Association of Social Workers is one of the largest membership organizations of professional social workers in the world. NASW works to enhance the professional growth and development of its members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. With our mission in mind, the purpose of NASW Social Work Talks is to inform, educate, and inspire. We encourage you to learn more about NASW by visiting www.socialworkers.org. And we thank you for joining us for this episode of NASW Social Work Talks.

This is Greg Wright, NASW Public Relations Manager. May is foster care month. Social workers play a crucial role in foster care. In this episode, we're speaking with two social workers from the Children's Home Society of North Carolina, Matt Anderson and Melissa Flores. Welcome, Matt and Melissa. Thank you, Greg. Happy to be here. Thank you so much. Can you tell us about the Children's Home Society? I understand that the organization has been around since 1902. What kinds of services do you provide? Yeah, Children's Home Society of North Carolina, We have been around for quite a while. We started in 1902, started in Greensboro, North Carolina, and really started in response to a need that was here related to homeless youth. And the organization formed around helping youth get off the streets and into families and into an opportunity to be successful into adulthood.

And so we've been family focused for a long time. Our mission and focus of our work really hasn't changed over the years. Our mission today is to promote the right of every child to a safe, permanent, and loving family. And we do that from a belief and from a practice that family is most important for kids. And kids do best when they grow up in a stable and loving family. And, you know, kids do best going into adulthood when they have the support of a family around them. But that mission, that focus has never really changed for us over the years. And our work certainly has. The needs of families and kids have changed over the years, and so we've evolved alongside that. And today, our work really runs the gamut. We're a statewide organization, and we do services, early prevention work to help families start strong. We do prevention work to help families stay strong and help kids stay out of foster care and stay at home.

And we do work, foster care, adoption, post-adoption, and even lifelong post-adoption services. So we do other things, too. But that's a big part of what we do is now more in the child welfare arena. So it's been a long and proud history for CHS. Melissa, can you tell us more about your work at the Children's Home Society? And as a social worker, how did you first get involved in working with foster children and adoptions? When people ask that question, my initial response is that I kind of was born into social

work and specifically child welfare. I grew up in a home that provided therapeutic foster care and my extended family, my grandmother who lived around the corner, provided care for over 100 children and youth through fostering. My mother was a CPS or Child Protective Services social worker. I lived for about six years in South America at an orphanage and graduated from high school there and later came back to the United States to study social work and specifically focus on child welfare. So I have a long history of just kind of growing up within services that focused on child welfare. I came to be a part of the Children's Home Society about a year ago,

and I currently serve in a role as a permanency or placement specialist working to match families and children for the purpose of fostering and adopt. And I work to ensure that families have the services that they need to be successful in their role and that children also are having their needs met to be successful as well in their placements. So that's kind of where I've come from and the role that I'm currently serving here with the Children's Home Society. It's been a wonderful journey and I'm very proud, as Matt was mentioning, the Children's Home Society has a really beautiful legacy of serving families and children and we're really doing some amazing things.

Thank you, Melissa. Matt, can you tell us about your work as Vice President of Programs and Business Development? Yeah, sure. Well, I guess it involves a lot. It keeps me busy day in and day out. But on the program side, I work to provide leadership and support to what we call our Foster Care Permanency Program. So that is a program that is designed to train, license, and then support foster and adoptive families. And then, as Melissa was saying, our staff does great work to match kids with families and place kids with our licensed families all over the state.

And our focus of that work is really not foster care. Yes, we provide foster care. We're actually North Carolina's largest provider of foster care services and the state's largest provider of adoption services. We completed almost 200 adoptions last year. But our work is really not about foster care. It's really about what can we do to partner with our public agencies to help kids move from foster care into a permanent family. And so that may be guardianship. That may be reunification.

And for us, oftentimes that means adoption. And so our focus is really how do we help to quickly and safely move kids out of foster care into a permanent family? And so we have, you know, we have just over 500 licensed families around the state. And we have just over 400 kids placed with those families today. And we're looking to expand our work to help serve more kids and provide support to more county agencies across North Carolina. And that's a big part of it.

You know, we have a post-adoption program as well and some other adoption services and post-adoption services that we provide that I work with. And then we do, you know, we do a fair amount of work with our state, you know, really trying to help be a strategic partner to our state agency and help to add value and solve problems that the system is facing. and you know sometimes that that involves our advocacy work as well so we we work with the state legislature a fair amount um you know helping them understand what the issues and challenges are facing our system facing kids and families what solutions they can bring to the table so we we do some work there and we do a little bit of that work on the national level as well through children's home society of america so we're a member agency there and do a fair amount at the congressional level to educate policymakers and advance issues that are

important to kids and families across the country. So that's a little bit of what my day-to-day looks like. We have a great team. We have some of the best, maybe the best social workers, I think, working in child welfare around the country. So it's a fun job to have, and it's a great team to work with. What are some of the issues that foster children are facing in North Carolina today? The landscape has changed from a policy or legislative point of view. I think in part, at least in North Carolina and nationally too, I suppose, but we've done a lot in the last 10 years. I mean, in North Carolina, we've extended foster care to 21. We've created a foster youth bill of rights. We have implemented the prudent parent standard to create a more normal foster

care experience. The state has invested a lot in services to help older youth exit foster care to a permanent family. And for those who don't have good transitional support services, all of those things have happened in the last five, six years in North Carolina. You know, we're always thinking about as a state what to do next to help kids and to help families. And I think that now there is a lot of focus on what is driving kids into foster care. We've seen a significant increase in kids in care in the last five years. And not the only thing, but a big driver of that we think is the opioid crisis that is hitting North Carolina pretty hard. And, you know, we've been paying attention to the Family First Act at the national level that passed recently that will give states

the opportunity to invest more in upfront services to families, including how do we help families that are struggling with addiction? How do we help families who are dealing with opioid use in the family that are putting them at risk of losing their kids? But I think that's probably the next big thing is this bill has been passed. And so now all the states will think through and take the next steps of what do we implement that's going to help us address some of the challenges that we have today. So the good things have been happening, but there's always the next thing for us to do to make sure we're doing the best for kids and families. Melissa, as a placement specialist, how do you find the best possible fit when placing a child with a family? What are some of the things

that you're looking out for? Well, there's a number of things that we do. We spend a lot of time working with families on the front end as a part of the screening process to ensure that we fully understand who the family is and the type of child that they feel would be best suited in their home and whose needs they feel most equipped to meet. And we kind of measure that in conjunction with the identified needs of children and their profiles and the team of workers that are working with them that are communicating with us to let us know the specifics around who the specific child is and what their needs are. And we, we take a cautious and, and thoughtful approach to matching children. And, and I think one of the things that has

changed over the years is really giving a greater voice to the child in that process and, and allowing them to really speak about also what they're looking for. And so we begin a matching process through visits and allowing the child and the family to get to know each other and move in that direction until we and the team members that are involved, such as the DSS agency or foster care social worker through your local DSS that's assigned to that child and the guardian at Lytom and the specialist with the Children's Home Society or other persons that might also be a part of that, such as therapists, all can come together to kind of decide the pace at which we want to move forward in placing that child. And that team continues as that child is placed to

continue to work together to meet all needs that are present. Melissa, what is the most fulfilling thing about the job that you do? You know, one of the most fulfilling things that I've found over the past year or so working with the Children's Home Society is when I have a placement that has had challenges, because, you know, all of these children come with a history of adverse childhood experiences of abuse and trauma. And, you know, they come with some obstacles. And so when you have a placement that has had some ups and downs, and you've had those moments when you've just kind of shook your head and wondered, is this really going to play out? Is this going to work? Is this going to

result in an adoption or some form of permanency and you're able to work with that family and work with that child and overcome the doubts and the fears associated sometime with the unknown that comes with receiving a child or a child, you know, be in place with a new family and you're able to get to that place of permanency and you're able to process that adoption. I would say that that's the most rewarding piece of this of my job. Thank you, Melissa. Matt, you're not only a social worker, you're also a documentary filmmaker as well. Your film, From Place to Place, looked at the plight of aged out foster children. Why did you make that film and how did you use it to advocate on behalf of aged out foster children? I made it because one of the young people that I

was working with who was aging out of foster care asked me to make it really you know he he was a young guy that had a tough experience growing up in the system and aging out of the system and he told me one day that his story mattered and his life mattered and he wanted to make a movie about his life and in that very first conversation we talked what was the story that he wanted to tell and when we talked about that i said that's a great story and we'll call it from place to place um and so in that first conversation we named named the film and you know really from from the start to finish the whole purpose was there there are a group of kids all over the country who grow up in the system and age out of the system and they feel as though they were not

heard that nobody really listened to what they had to say that their voice didn't really matter wasn't really part of the system and that that experience engaged them those that were part of the film and engaged them as being uh the stories of the film and their experiences made up the film but it engaged an audience all over the country as well because it was a shared experience of i know i'm not speaking up right now but they are and i want to support them and um we were able to use that as a vehicle to really create conversations with communities all over the country to really educate professionals, community members, policymakers, decision makers about what it means to grow up in America's foster care system and then age out and what can we do about

this. And, you know, a number of things happened. I think some of what happened was what happened to the young people that were a part of this and that were able to watch this film. And I think the impact that it made on them in their own lives, to me, I think was most rewarding and most important. But it did some other things too. And I'll just use one example of, you know, I mentioned North Carolina has invested in more services focused on getting older kids to a place of a permanent family who are in foster care before they age out. And I really think that it was the stories in this film, getting in front of the right decision makers in North Carolina that helped people understand

why that investment was the right investment and really helped make that a success. It was and continues to be a big part of who I am as a social worker. Not a filmmaker anymore, but still a believer in the power of youth voice for sure. Your listeners probably won't know this, Greg, but if they watch the film, there will be a Greg Wright cameo. end of the film. So you are a character in this too. When we were first testifying in front of

Congress about the experience of youth aging out of foster care, NASW was there to cover the story, which was great. Yes, it was an honor to have a small partner in that film. It also won an NASW Media Award. I want folks to know that too. Melissa, if I'm a non-social worker, what are some of the things that I can do to help foster children? Well, I think that there's this notion that foster care is the only way to, or serving as a foster parent, rather, is the only way to support youth veteran care. And while we consistently need foster parents and we're constantly recruiting for foster and adoptive parents and greatly want that. I don't think that it stops there, that there are

many ways that people can come and serve. I think one of the first ways is reaching out to your nonprofit or your local DSS agency that's serving that population and finding out what needs they may have. I worked for a number of years for a local DSS and, you know, they're always needing care packages to provide to children who are coming into care and that are in immediate need of just hygiene products and things like that. You know, learning more about the Guardian at Litem program and serving as a voice and advocate for children who are in foster care. There's so many different areas of social welfare that affect outcomes for children, whether it be homelessness or domestic violence, poverty, all of those things affect children who

can potentially end up in foster care. So I think there's a number of ways that non-social workers can support children and youth that are in care. Matt, I was wondering if you had anything you wanted to add to that. I think Melissa covered quite a bit. I guess what I would say is everybody can educate themselves about foster care system and the experience of young people in foster care. Just for example, in North Carolina, there's about 12,000 kids in foster care. So the opportunities to get involved are endless. And so I would encourage people to educate themselves on what are the needs in their local community or in their state, and then figure out where the need fits with the skills, the resources, the connections,

the knowledge that that individual person has, whether it's just you as an individual, your family your company your civic organization find out where your your your talents and resources align with the needs of kids and then and then take action you know find a way to get connected to bring what you have to to the kids that are in the system and that may be that you're a teacher you know and find out you know are there kids in foster care in your school and if so maybe how is their experience different? And what can you do to help them be successful in your school? And I can't tell you what that is, but I think you can, everybody can find ways to do something. I will say, though, that we also all over the country, and certainly in North Carolina,

we need more foster families. So if you're moved, you know, I would encourage people to find out how you can get licensed as a foster family we we never have enough never have enough families and in the in the conversations i've had with families um that do this the benefits that they get from it um and and the experience that they have is is life-changing in a positive way and so there's there's something that that you can give and receive um as a foster parent so So I would encourage people to think about that as well. Thank you, Matt. Well, that's it for this episode of NASW's Social Work Talks.

I want to thank Matt Anderson and Melissa Flores for being such great guests. Thank you so much. Thank you, Greg. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. It's been an honor. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance

the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. And don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. We also invite you to join us for the 2018 NASW National Conference, which runs June 20th through the 23rd in Washington, D.C. You'll have an opportunity to earn 25.5 CEUs, hear nationally renowned speakers, participate in unique professional development workshops,

and enjoy fulfilling networking opportunities. To learn more and to register today, we invite you to visit www.socialworkers.org. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode. Thank you.