Œlye
Page 4
|Jnrf lanò (Observer
lune 8. 2011
Family’s plea: ‘Give Us Our Children Back’
w ithin their hom es en ter the foster a position for adoption.
care system m ost com m only as a
C urtis said she w as ordered to
p a re n tin g and re q u ire d c la sse s, result o f their p a re n t’s actions, not attend A lcohol A n o n y m o u s and
which were m ade m andatory by fam ­ the behavior o f the child.
dom estic violence sem inars even
ily court adm inistrators and judges.
G eorge said the court determ ines though she w as not a violent p er­
Still, after years o f experiences if child welfare officials are making son and d o e sn ’t drink.
w orking w ith the state, they said reasonable efforts to prevent the child
H er daughter C arol, w ho w orks
their struggles have gotten them from going into foster care or to assist as a caretaker at a nursing hom e,
now here, and they claim the system in the reunification o f the child with also attended parenting classes to
d o e sn ’t w ork hard enough to try to their families. The challenges o f suit­ prove to the state she is a capable
reunite A veana w ith her relatives.
able guardianship are m ultiplied by a person to care for the baby. But
“ I haven ’ t been able to see her for lack o f state services that could help even with her ow n apartm ent in north
o v er a m onth, and there is a lack o f prevent the child from going into Portland, and after three attem pts to
u n d e rsta n d in g and c o m m u n ic a ­ foster care to begin with.
have the baby in h er custody, the
t i o n , ” s a id J a w a n d a G r if f in ,
“W hen the child com es in, the state turned her dow n citing her
A v e an a ’s m other. “ I w ould love to court asks if there are other services character, said C urtis.
have full custody, but if I'm not able to prevent the child from going into
“ She has never been in ja il and
to do it then I w ould appreciate if foster care,” he said. “ But it gets d o e sn ’t have a crim inal h isto ry ,”
they would give my family, my grand­ challenging w hen there aren’t more she explained. “T hey said it w a sn ’t
m other or m y aunt, a chan ce.”
services to be offered to the families.” right, but they never said she failed
A ccording to the U.S. D ep art­
A v ean a’s m om , w ho is now 16- the evaluation, and they still h av en ’t
m ent o f Health and H um an Services, years-old, gave birth to her d au g h ­ sent her p aperw ork.”
federal law has long required state ter at Em anuel H ospital w hen she
T here have long been co n tro v er­
agencies to dem onstrate that rea­ w as 13-years-old. Looking back on sies surrounding fam ily p reserv a­
sonable efforts have been m ade to the day she gave birth to her d au g h ­ tion and child protection.
provide assistance and services to ter, she still sees a lot o f confusion.
A ccording to the N ational C o ali­
prevent the rem oval o f a child from
“ I explained to the hospital w hat tion o f C hild Protection Reform , rea­
his or her hom e, and to m ake it w as going on, and they used this sonable efforts ex ist to help return a
possible for a child w ho has been against m e,” she said. “I have never child to their parents o r relatives,
placed in out-of-hom e care to be understood how they can take the but the reality is that little effort is
reunited w ith his or h er fam ily.
child aw ay at tw o days o f age w hen actually m ade to return children to
A lth o u g h m an y sta k e h o ld e rs my fam ily was there w ith m e at the their families.
believe state statutes have a broad h o sp ita l.”
“But even after all this,” said Curtis.
definition o f w hat constitutes rea­
Although she recognizes she was “I want the baby to com e hom e into
sonable effort, som e parents are too young at the time o f the birth to have the family for my daughter.”
unable to m ake the changes n eces­ been a mother on her own, she doesn’t
In Jaw a n d a ’s opinion, the m ain
sary to get the child back hom e, said understand why DHS felt her family problem in A v ean a’s case has been
O regon Foster C are Program M an ­ couldn’t help her raise the child.
a lack o f com m unication betw een
ager K evin G eorge.
O v er the past three years, sev­ D H S w ith her fam ily.
“T his is a big issue,” G eorge said. eral m em bers o f h er fam ily, even
“I know it takes a village to raise
“C hildren in the foster care com e w hen they d id n ’t feel the court o r­ a child, and my fam ily has alw ays
from every county and com m unity ders w ere ju stified , have follow ed been supportive o f the situation
across the state.”
n u m e ro u s in stru c tio n an d c o m ­ and w illing to help w ith anything
C hildren w ho c a n ' t rem ain safely pleted several classes to put them in they can ,” she said. “A nd they never
co n tin u ed
fr o m fr o n t
took that into co n sid eratio n .”
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tim e to in a n sw e rin g re p o rts o f
c h ild a b u se an d n e g lec t.
But a 2010 report also highlights the
need for improvement in reducing the
number of children in long-term foster
care and reducing Oregon’s high foster
care placement rate.
The n um ber o f ch ild ren entering
foster hom es rose last y ear by 3.9
percent, w hile the n u m ber o f ch il­
dren leaving foster care decreased
by 9.9 percent, officials said.
G eorge said the research show s
that relative or kinship care is really
w here children should be raised if
they c a n ’t be w ith their parents.
“ K ids have biological c o n n ec­
tions to their parents and relatives,
and m ost people need to grow up
w ith others w ho look like them and
share cultural trad itio n s,” he said.
The Fam ily Rights Association
explained that m aintaining families
has historically been the central goal
in child welfare, which is grounded in
the belief that the best place for achild
is within their ow n hom es w here they
will be cared for by their parents.
Since A veana was bom , she has
been placed in tw o foster hom es,
both with white couples. A lthough
the fam ily says the adoptive hom es
were good to the baby, they believe
it is im portant for A veana to be raised
by a family o f her ow n ethnicity.
W hile Jaw an d a e x p lain ed her
deep desire for her daughter to com e
back into h er ow n fam ily, she said if
A veana is raised by others, she
w ants h er to be brought up by p a r­
ents w ho are A frican A m erican, and
she d o esn ’t believe D H S u n d er­
stands how im portant this is to her.
“T hey w ant us to trust them , but
they d o n ’t trust us,” she said.
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In 1980 C o n g ress p assed the
A d o p tio n A ssista n c e and C h ild
W elfare A ct, w hich required efforts
to prevent the rem oval o f children
from their hom es; but in 1997, C o n ­
g ress p assed T he A d o p tio n and
Safe Fam ilies A ct that changed the
requirem ents, such as the am ount
o f tim e a child is in foster care, and
allow ing children to be put into adop­
tive care faster.
“T he courts m ake these d e ci­
sions,” said G eorge. “ W hat often
people d o n ’t realize is how heavily
involved the court system is.”
He said if children are rem oved by
the police, it’s up to a ju d g e to deter­
mine , within the time frame o f the next
court day, w hether or not the child
stays in foster care or returns to the
family. Ifth ech ild h asju st been bom ,
the child will go into foster care and,
once again, the judge will make a
determ ination. These kids rem ain in
care until the state can be assured the
hom e is a safe place for the child.
A lthough new challenges have
em erged, G eorge said the require­
m ent to m ake reasonable efforts to
reunite fam ilies has im proved the
child w elfare system .
“A long tim e ago people w ould
go into foster care and never com e
h o m e,” he said.
A c co rd in g to O re g o n C h ild re n ,
A d u lt and F a m ilie s D iv isio n o ff i­
c ia ls, th e state has m ad e n o ta b le
im p ro v e m e n ts in th e ir e ffo rts to
in v o lv e fa m ilie s an d re la tiv e s in
c u sto d y c a se s, p re v e n t re -a b u se
o f c h ild re n , an d c re a te sta b ility in
fo s te r care p la c e m e n ts fo r c h il­
d re n w h o c a n ’t re m a in sa fe ly at
h o m e . T h e s ta te h a s a ls o a t ­
te m p te d to sh o rte n th e ir re sp o n se
ing nearly 100,000 visits a year,
B u r c h e ll s a id O r e g o n ’s tw o
c h ild re n 's hospitals are often at full
capacity.
D esigned w ith state-o f-th e-art
m edical technology, architects for
the new hospital aim ed to provide
patients, aged birth to 18, w ith fa m ­
ily-centered care and a m ore holistic
healing environm ent for earlier re­
covery.
T his includes private room s w ith
large w indow s and acoustical sepa­
ration w alls to reduce sounds, tw o
stories o f glassed-encased Lantern
lit lounges fo r v isitors, w orkout
room s for long-stay fam ilies, and
resource and art therapy room s for
k id s’ hom ew ork, gam es, and activ i­
ties.
W hile L egacy H ealth has g en er­
ated $220 m illion fo r the project, it
falls $25 m illion short o f final costs,
lead in g the C h ild re n ’s H o sp ital
F o u n d a tio n to la u n c h a p u b lic
fundraising cam paign.
“T here w ill be the sam e num ber
o f full-tim e em ployees as now ,” said
Public R elations specialist M aegen
V idal, w hen asked about the p ro s­
pects o f jo b creation, though 250
w orkers from H offm an C o n stru c­
tion w ere hired tem porarily for the
h o sp ita l’s m anufacture.
H offm an Field Superintendent
A aron Jones says his connection to
the hospital is m ore near and dear to
the heart than sim ply construction,
“M y son has ju v en ile diabetes and
has been in and out o f hospitals—
I’d like to see other people get the
sam e kind o f care that he got.”
T h e h o sp ital sp ecialized care
units w ill be divided colorfully by
O regon landscapes; The C ascades,
T he C oast, T he D esert, and the
W illam ette V alley -w ith each floor
representing a local anim al— the first
a dragonfly and the ninth a salm on.
Y oung patients can also expect
to w atch m ovies w ith friends and
fam ily in the h o sp ital’s new S tar­
light T heatre and take a stroll in the
terrace garden that w ill be located
on the third floor.
As the largest p ro v id er o f ped iat­
ric inpatient and traum a services in
a green-invested O regon, it’s no
surprise L egacy touts that the new
m edical to w er w ill follow the latest
in sustainable energy efficient fea­
tures.
U sing its ow n built-in utility plant,
the new building will heat and cool
itself. B iosw ells and storm w ater
treatm ent will flow through planters
and drip rainw ater into a w ater foun­
tain at the c h ild ren ’s terrace garden.
In addition, an adjoining com m u­
nity garden w ill help provide the
local Eliot neighborhood w ith m ore
than ju st m edical care.
The C h ild ren ’s H ospital will also
feature a new C hildren’s Em ergency
D epartm ent, separate from L egacy’s
adult ED , a 22-bed C h ild re n ’s D ay
Surgery Unit, a new N eonatal Inten­
sive C are departm ent w ith 31 single
room s and ad d itio n al ro om s for
tw ins, triplets and q uadruplets, and
a new Pediatric Intensive C are Unit.