December 19, 2018 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 3
News
cont’d from pg 1
been limited about the
number of youths held
at each facility overseen
by the Office of Refugee
Resettlement. The AP ob-
tained data showing the
number of children in in-
dividual detention cen-
ters, shelters and foster
care programs for nearly
every week over the past
20 months, revealing in
detail the expanse of a
program at the center of
the Trump administra-
tion’s immigration crack-
down.
It’s been taking at least
twice as long as it did in
January 2016, on aver-
age two months now, for
youth to get out of ORR
custody, in part because
the administration added
more restrictive screen-
ing measures for par-
ents and relatives who
would take them in. That
changed Tuesday when
officials ended a policy
requiring every adult in
households where mi-
grant children will live to
provide the government
with fingerprints.
All still must submit to
background checks, and
parents themselves still
need to be fingerprint-
ed. Nonetheless, officials
said they could now pro-
cess some children more
rapidly, and hoped to
shorten shelter stays that
had dragged on so long
kids sometimes won-
dered if their parents
had abandoned them for
good.
“It’s a pain we will
never get through,” said
Cecilio Ramirez Casta-
neda, a Salvadoran who
was separated from his
12-year-old son, Omar,
when they were appre-
hended in June under
the
administration’s
“zero tolerance” policy,
which led to nearly 3,000
children being separat-
ed from their families.
Omar feared his father
Library
Read the rest of this story at
TheSkanner.com
Retiring
Saltzman
Delivers Gift to
The Skanner
Artwork was created by Monique Clayton, then a
sixth-grader at Tubman Middle School.
Retiring City Commissioner Dan Saltzman visited The
Skanner’s office last week. He delivered a piece of
artwork created by Monique Clayton, then a sixth-
grader at Harriet Tubman Middle School. Saltzman
inscribed the back of the frame with the following
message: “Bernie & Bobbie, From my office wall for
20 years, in appreciation for all your support of me
& my causes. - Dan Saltzman, 12/12/18.” He is pictured
here with The Skanner’s publisher, Bernie Foster.
Saltzman, who leaves office at the end of this month,
first assumed office in 1999. As of 2017 he had served
longer than any member of the Portland City Council
since 1969. In January he will be succeeded by Jo Ann
Hardesty.
Foster
cont’d from pg 1
who was just then starting Youth
Unlimited – a nonprofit that pro-
vides therapeutic foster care ser-
vices to children with high needs
— by happenstance.
“I was actually in the wrong
coffee shop,” Johnson, formerly a
behavioral health policy analyst
with the Oregon Health Authori-
ty, said, laughing. She hadn’t even
really started recruiting foster
parents yet, but gave her card to
Davis, and he later became one
of her first foster parents after
Youth Unlimited was licensed in
January.
Davis’ foster son is 12-years-
old and biracial, with Black and
White biological parents; he also
has a developmental disability
and could not spell his own name
before he came to live with Davis.
“It makes me feel good as a per-
son to give back to someone of my
color,” said Davis, who is African
American himself, college edu-
cated and works as a letter car-
rier for the U.S. Postal Service. A
second foster child, who is 14 and
Hispanic, will be placed in Davis’
home later this week.
Youth Unlimited is part of a
newly created coalition of orga-
nizations that serve foster youth,
and while it’s set up to serve ev-
eryone, Johnson is particularly
eager to recruit foster parents of
color and serve foster youth of
color. So far, there are five fam-
ilies working with Johnson, all
headed by people of color – four
are Black and one is a biracial
couple.
“When there is a crisis, people
of color suffer the most,” John-
son said. In Oregon, as in many
other states, Black and Native
American children are overrep-
resented in foster care: African
American children make up 7
percent of foster care youth ver-
“
It makes me feel
good as a person
to give back to
someone of my
color
sus 3.3 percent of children state-
wide, and Native youth make up
4.5 percent of children served
in foster care versus 1.6 percent
of children in the state’s general
population.
“I like to use data to inform my
decisions,” Johnson said. “If I see
that foster youth are dispropor-
tionately Native American and
African American, that tells me I
need to do something intentional
and specific,” Johnson said.
After a career in the state and
nonprofit sector, Johnson was
driven to create her organiza-
tion in part because of historic
mistrust between communities
of color and the child welfare sys-
tem, and provide opportunities
for culturally competent care of
children of color.
“One of the reasons I’ve been
able to recruit Black foster par-
ents is that I’m not afraid to speak
up for Black people,” Johnson
said.
Youth Unlimited is supported
with state funds and is part of
Foster Plus, a network of 13 so-
cial service agencies around the
state that collaborate to provide
resources and services for foster
youth.
“The great thing about a pro-
gram like Youth Unlimited is the
support for families,” said Diane
Brandsma, an interim program
manager at Boys and Girls Aid,
which is also part of the Foster
Plus network. “What [Johnson]
provides is, there is someone on
the other end of that phone when
she needs it.”
Currently the organization pro-
vides therapeutic foster care, a
“semi-clinical” approach to treat-
ment to help children develop so-
cial and academic skills they may
not have been taught in previ-
ous homes or settings, or may be
struggling with due to trauma. It
will soon have the capacity to pro-
vide therapeutic shelter care and
residential services for children
and youth with intellectual and
developmental disabilities.
Johnson is now actively recruit-
ing foster families of color, as well
as families that may want to pro-
vide relief care or volunteer.
“I want Youth Unlimited to be
visible. I don’t want Black kids
in foster care to be invisible any-
more,” Johnson said.
cont’d from pg 1
The renewed commitment to Black
families aligns with the library’s steady
expansion of its linguistic and cultural-
ly relevant services – including Black
Storytime and the archival collection
“Our Story: Portland Through an Af-
rican American Lens” — as well as an
effort to ramp up diversity among its
staff members.
The bulk of the effort will go towards
what the library calls “community ac-
tion research.” It works by partnering
researchers with community members
to solve local problems – one of the most
pending being the barriers and inequi-
ties tied to kindergarten transition.
“Research has shown that Black chil-
dren often face disparities in school
readiness, which signal disparate edu-
cational, economic and social outcomes
later in life,” stated Multnomah County
Library in a press release.
The library is currently requesting
proposals for consulting services to
lead the community action research.
Selected consultants will guide efforts
to learn from Black parents and care-
givers about kindergarten transition
and community needs, as well as make
recommendations to the library on cul-
turally responsive programs and prac-
tices.
Consultants will also train library
staff with the goal of carrying the work
forward with Black communities and
other cultural groups in the future.
Official research and consulting is set
to begin in spring of 2019.
“A public library should be a commu-
nity’s most open and inclusive institu-
tion,” said director of Libraries Vailey
Oehlke. “Thanks to the generosity of
Meyer Memorial Trust and the sup-
port of The Library Foundation, Mult-
nomah County Library can live that
value, better serve Black families and
eliminate barriers for those who are
oppressed or have been oppressed.”
COURTESY OF MULTNOMAH LIBRARY
“
It’s a sys-
tem that
causes ir-
reparable
damage
had given up on him
during his five months in
a Texas shelter.
Ramirez was reunited
with Omar last month
only to learn that his
son had been hospital-
ized for depression and
medicated for unclear
reasons, and suffered
a broken arm, while in
government
custody.
“It’s a system that caus-
es irreparable damage,”
Ramirez said.
Experts say the anx-
iety and distrust chil-
dren suffer while insti-
tutionalized can cause
long-lasting mental and
physical health prob-
lems. It’s worse for
younger children, those
who stay more than a few
days and those who are
in larger facilities with
less personal care.
“This is a moral di-
saster,” said Dr. Jack
Shonkoff, who heads
Harvard
University’s
Center on the Develop-
ing Child. “We are in-
flicting punishments on
innocent children that
will have lifelong conse-
quences.”
Administration
offi-
cials say increased need
has driven them to ex-
pand the number of beds
available for migrant
children from 6,500 last
fall to 16,000 today. Shel-
tering children in large
facilities, while not pref-
erable, is a better alter-
native than holding them
for long periods at Bor-
der Patrol stations, said
Mark Weber, a spokes-
man for the U.S. De-
partment of Health and
Human Services, which
oversees ORR.
“There are a large num-
ber of children and it’s a
difficult situation, and
we are just working hard
to make sure they are
taken care of and placed
responsibly,” Weber said.
Weber confirmed a
number of the shelter
populations from the
data the AP obtained. To
further verify, report-
ers contacted more than
a dozen programs that
contract with ORR.
PHOTO BY THE SKANNER
Kids
Community members at Multnomah County
Library
