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Nonprofits in Palm Beach County help former foster kids live on their own
Nonprofits in Palm Beach County help former foster kids live on their
own By Shana Gruskin Staff Writer Posted February 21 2005 Amy Scranton remembers the days when she'd start each morning with a knot in her stomach. "I'd wake up [and] I'm wondering, `What's going to happen today? Will I be homeless today? Will I be able to eat today?'" A ward of the state on and off since childhood, Scranton found herself on her own, and painfully unprepared for it, at 18. With no high school diploma and no stable family, Scranton scraped by on $6.50 an hour as a parking attendant, faced an $800 credit card debt and crashed with a friend who wasn't any better off than she. Yet despite Florida's attempt in 2002 to create a safety net for former foster children such as Scranton, advocates remain frustrated with the state's effort. In Palm Beach County, that dissatisfaction has led nonprofit child-welfare providers to take matters into their own hands. "... These are our kids and we're going to do what's in their best interest," said Don Stewart, executive director of The Haven, a 48-bed group home for boys. "We don't have time to wait for the legislation to change. The days are just ticking by until another turns 18." While it has good intentions, advocates say, the Road to Independence Act has been crippled by limited resources and riddled with ambiguous rules that exclude some youth from getting aid while giving money to others who are ineligible. Administrative flaws, meanwhile, have allowed about 250 youths to get more money than they were supposed to -- a total of $542,000 this year, according to a report released last week by Florida's Auditor General. The analysis also found that the $16.4 million program for current and former foster children faces a deficit of between $1.4 million and $3 million. The program serves about 5,300 foster children 13-17 and an additional 1,800 former foster youth 18-22. Representatives for the state Department of Children & Families said they are reviewing the program's rules and financial health. But local providers are unwilling to wait for help from Tallahassee. Instead, The Haven now employs two full-time staff members devoted to preparing its boys for life after foster care, Stewart said. He and other providers across the county want to ensure former foster youth have a safe, affordable place to live, job training or access to higher education and a mentor to help them navigate the rough waters of young adulthood. It's a game plan Child & Family Connections, the nonprofit agency that runs foster care services in Palm Beach County, encourages. The agency, with money from the state, spends about $600,000 a year to prepare foster children for adulthood and help those who have turned 18. Sixty-three former foster children receive aid through the Road to Independence program while they attend school or receive vocational training. An additional 44 or so are expected to turn 18 this year. Younger teens participate in classes that teach everything from good study habits to banking. "We've been talking to providers that we think have an interest in it, knowing it's going to take both private and public money to make it work," Bob Barker, Child & Family Connections' executive director, said of independent living issues. "For these kids to succeed, they need job training, they need housing. The system is not going to be the only answer." Elizabeth Brown, executive director of Turtle Nest Village -- which already provides post-foster care services using private money to 16 young adults -- said she's working with housing specialists to establish 50 housing units in costly Palm Beach County for these youths. She has kicked off a $2 million fund-raising campaign to make it happen. "When a kid turns 18 in Palm Beach County..., I want to know they have a place to go," Brown said. "... They're America's orphans. They're coming out orphans into the world." Charles Bender, executive director of Place of Hope, a residential program that houses 24 foster children, said he plans to set aside a small cottage on his facility's Palm Beach Gardens campus for the first teen in his program to turn 18 later this year. She'll have to pay some rent and utilities, but the teen will continue to get financial and emotional support until she's ready to venture out on her own. "We're going to know if her lights are shut off. We're going to know if her water gets shut off. We're going to know if she doesn't pay her rent on time," Bender said. Dan Brannen, president of Kids@Home, said his nonprofit life-skills program mentors 50 young adults in Palm Beach and Broward counties. His program also has educated about 125 foster youth since August on the finer points of grown-up life with classes on everything from opening a checking account to paying rent. But as Brannen and the others say, and Scranton confirms, life isn't learned by watching a video or taking a field trip. It takes years of subtle education, the kind most kids absorb growing up in healthy households where bills are paid and beds are made. Before leaving foster care at 18, Scranton spent a year in a program that taught independent living skills such as grocery shopping. But, she said, it simply wasn't enough to fill the void left by neglectful parents and an insufficient child-welfare system. Once on her own, Scranton was soon teetering on the edge of homelessness. "When you turn 18, that doesn't necessarily mean you know what you're doing," said the now 22-year-old from West Palm Beach. A child-welfare counselor and Turtle Nest's Brown took her under their wings. They helped her find a place to live, set her up with a mentor and pushed her to get her high school diploma and go to college. "Even when I didn't want to be bothered, they'd tell me, `Amy do this, do that.'" Today, Scranton, who is studying accounting at Palm Beach Community College while working as a receptionist at a company that installs blinds, considers herself one of the lucky ones. When she wakes up in the morning -- and feels the baby kick inside her and sees her husband lying next to her and hears her sister and her best friend rustling around just a few rooms away -- she knows she's finally home. "I've been blessed to have good people around me." http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...home-headlines Defend your civil liberties! Get information at http://www.aclu.org, become a member at http://www.aclu.org/join and get active at http://www.aclu.org/action. |
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