Extreme Recruitment: Foster Care Edition

My good friend Shelly is a CPA and stay-at-home mom. She is also a really cool person, which is why I roped her into becoming the volunteer treasurer for the Southwest Chapter of the Ohio Association for Infant Mental Health. She slid into a chair next to me during a monthly meeting recently and placed an article about foster care on the table.


"Check this out. This is awesome," she said enthusiastically. I had to laugh.


The Time Magazine Article and the concept behind it were awesome. In March 2008, Melanie Scheetz sat down to watch an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and wondered how massive teams of professionals and volunteers could build a luxury home in a week yet foster kids wait in limbo on average for one to five years before achieving permanency.


Under Scheetz' direction, Extreme Recruitment was born. Under the Extreme Recruitment Model, long-lost relatives are zealously sought for hard to place foster kids in need of permanent homes. The Extreme Recruitment Team includes two full-time private investigators who track down a minimum of 40 family members per child languishing in the system. The outcomes are promising. Seventy percent of Extreme Recruitment's children were matched with families. This is an outstanding accomplishment. I can't help but wonder if the fates of severely abused Victor Barahona and his murdered twin sister, Nubia would be different if they had an Extreme Recruitment Team looking for family members prior to their adoptions.


When Shelly put the article in front of me, I had to laugh because this is exactly what I think will ultimately help children. They will be helped when people who aren't normally involved in the system become engaged. We can all make contributions, no matter what our skill sets, to further the mission of helping vulnerable kids in our own unique way. The government alone cannot save these children. But together, we can.


At our monthly meetings, Shelly is a lone CPA in the midst of therapists, social workers, and childcare professionals. While we talk kids and families and trends, she talks business and dollars and bottom lines. She will likely never be a foster or adoptive parent or on the frontlines of infant mental health work, but that's OK. She's doing the part she can do and passing on good information in the process.


What might you have to offer?

Swapping Stories

I had lunch yesterday with a colleague who is a child therapist and works with young children who have been abused or neglected. A dozen years ago we started working cases side-by-side. She taught me almost everything I know about young children and largely shaped the ideas portrayed in my book, Invisible Kids, regarding the importance of relationships as vulnerable children grow and develop.

We sat across from each other in booth at a crowded Panera swapping horror stories we'd read in the local paper or heard on the news in recent weeks.

Did you hear about the nine-month-old baby who died of burns from a heater? Did you hear about the two-year-old beaten to death by his teen father? What about the mom who over-dosed on heroin in a restaurant restroom and left her three young kids sitting at a table in the dining area? What do you think of the three-year-old little girl who was found dead in her bed? Did you catch the story about the two-year-old who was severely scalded with hot water?

Not your typical lunchtime conversation, to say the least. Maybe it should be.

These stories are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what has been happening in the past MONTH alone in our neck of the woods. Horror stories like these dot the landscape of our daily paper, sandwiched between news on the economy and the silliness of city council meetings. Do we even notice these stories? Do we think about the surviving siblings of battered babies and what their lives look like?

We need to, hard as it is to come face-to-face with children's pain.

I'm sorry. I wish I could spread happy sunshine about how we live in a wonderful world and stop there. But I can't. The reality is that we do live in a wonderful world. And because we do, we must step into this hell and help these kids and families find a way out.

Today, please visit my Invisible Kids Facebook Group and click on a link from Zero to Three that gives you information about using your political voice to help young children. Read up on your ability to inform public policy. It won't take you long.

I have faith that our most vulnerable children can live in wonderful worlds. We just need to help make that happen.

Make It a Happy New Year!

The sun had set into cold, dark skies on the night I had a fading suntan and a bright, shiny new diamond on my finger. My week long honeymoon had ended and days later, I was swallowed up into my Children's Services job as if I had never even left it.

On this particular night in 1995, I was thrilled to get a parking spot right outside the doors of my office in downtown Cincinnati. Snow covered the ground and it was freezing. Panhandlers dotted the city blocks surrounding the Children's Services building. I had three reasons for not wanting to walk far in the cold, dark, and sometimes scary streets. Their names were Alan (age 5), Marissa (age 4), and Christopher (12 months). They were inside the building finishing a supervised visit with their biological mother when I arrived to take them back to their foster home just before dinnertime.

After hugs and kisses from their very mentally ill mother, Alan put his coat on and turned to help Marissa with hers while I bundled the baby. Alan was forever looking out for Marissa and it both warmed and saddened my heart.

"Alan, thanks for helping. I'll tell you what. I'll do zippers, gloves, and hats, OK?" He nodded and smiled. "It's cold out, but we don't have far to walk. My car is right outside the front door." Good thing, I thought, as I remembered I had a car seat to carry out as well.

I grabbed the car seat and let the straps dangle over one arm while I put the baby on my hip and reached out to hold Marissa's hand. Alan held her other one. We took the elevator to the first floor.

A well-dressed crowd of Children's Services higher-ups, politicians, and local leaders stood in the center of the newly renovated building, preparing for its dedication. A security guard approached me.

"You'll have to exit the back of the building," he told me. I just stared at him. The large building took up an entire city block. It was cold and dark and I had three kids and a car seat with me. The back exit involved a dark alley and a much further walk.

"I can see my car from right here. It is right out front. They haven't even started yet. These people are just milling around. They won't even notice if we squeak through. My car is right there." I pointed out the front window. He was unmoved.

"Sorry," he replied. "Orders are orders. All employees must leave through the back entrance. No exceptions." Meanwhile, Alan and Marissa just held hands and stared up at me. I took a deep breath as I re-adjusted the baby in my arms and headed out the back door.

We walked around the building as the wind from the Ohio River kicked up and snow blew around us. "I'm cold," Marissa said with a red nose and piercing blue eyes. Alan held up his two hands as he climbed into my backseat when we finally arrived. "It's OK," he said. "Miss Holly did gloves." Marissa held her hands up too as she inspected them and thought this over.

"That's right, buddy. I did gloves. The car will be warm in just a minute," I said as I started getting them all situated. "Who wants to listen to Barney on the way home?" The big, purple dinosaur was their favorite.

"Me!" came shouts in unison from the backseat. I slid behind the wheel in time to see two news crews arrive to cover the event going on inside the building. But I knew I had the real story in my backseat.

I will be married 16 years next month. What has changed for foster kids during this time? Everything and nothing. Too often, they are still the untold story, the ones shuffled to the back of the society and cast aside when it is convenient.

But the arrival of 2011 gives us a fresh start and another chance to learn more about these precious children who live in every community across our nation. Maybe this will be the year we get it right when it comes to taking responsibility for these kids.

Get educated. Get involved. Spread the word. Make a new year's resolution to do something, however little, to help a foster child, family, or non-profit agency that serves them.

Make it a happy new year for a child who is frequently cast aside.

From Horror to Hope

Trevor* was three-years-old when the relatives who planned to adopt him changed their minds and abandoned him in the emergency room of a local hospital. Three years later, Trevor's adoptive parents sent pictures of a little boy grinning from ear to ear and getting onto a school bus for his first day of kindergarten.

Rhonda* was a drug-addicted mother on the verge of permanently losing custody of her seven-year-old daughter, Mikki*. Ronda got sober and went on to become an addictions counselor. Mikki, formerly in foster care, on medication for depression, and failing first grade was reunited with her mom. Today she is eleven-years-old, on the honor roll, and sings in the church choir.

Eighteen-month-old Josh* was in the backseat of his mother's car when she drove drunk and crashed into a concrete barrier. He was grossly neglected and physically delayed to the point his pediatrician suggested he may never walk. Josh, now four, went sled riding last week, giggling all the way down a hill and climbing back up with his foster brothers and sisters. His foster parents, along with physical therapists and others, have lavished devotion, professional skill, and ton of love onto this little boy. It shows in his wide grin, eyes that sparkle, and his healthy body that can do everything other preschoolers can do.

CASAs, foster parents, social workers, therapists, and countless others build the bridges between horror and hope for hurting children. They give the gift of new life every single day, despite how difficult and devastating it can be. They know the cost of standing in the gap for children who need safety and protection is a small price to pay for the reward of a job well done and a child saved.

Only two small words can begin to suffice when I think about what these people offer to children and to our world: thank you.

If you want to learn more about how you can help a foster child, visit www.invisiblekidsthebook.com for ideas on getting educated or getting involved.

*Names have been changed to protect identity.

Marcus Fiesel, Lessons Learned: A Five-Year Retrospective Review

It has been nearly five years since three-year-old Marcus Fiesel was murdered by his foster parents. It feels like yesterday when I listened to Hamilton County Prosecutor, Joe Deters, speak at a press conference detailing the horrific manner in which Marcus died. The toddler was wrapped up like a mummy with his arms pinned behind him and held bound by a blanket and packing tape. He died a slow, torturous death, stuffed into a hot closet and left there alone while his foster family went out of town. My heart shattered. I wasn't the only one devastated by his death.


We, as a community, were outraged. We demanded answers. We demanded justice. We demanded change for the vulnerable children still in foster care who needed out help. But in five years, we've moved on. Have our foster children? How have they fared since Marcus' death shook the system, and the rest of us, to the core?


On Thursday, November 18, UC Clermont College will host a symposium on what system leaders and child advocates have learned since Marcus' death and what has changed. We will discuss the gaps discovered when authorities retraced the steps leading to Marcus' placement in the foster home of Liz and David Carroll. We will talk about changes in law and changes in policies governing the care and oversight of foster kids.


More importantly, we'll talk and listen to each other as passionate people who want to work together to improve the system for all our foster children. College students and community members will join us as we put our best thinking forward. We hope you will too.

Marcus Fiesel, Lessons Learned: A Five-Year Retrospective Review
UC Clermont College, Kreuger Auditorium
Thursday, November 18
2-4 PM, book signing and reception immediately following
Questions? page.beetm@uc.edu or jill.gomez@uc.edu

Got Peeps?

Just last week someone asked me if I collected anything. "As a matter of fact, I do," I answered. "I collect friends." I've never been one to clutter up my life with a bunch of stuff. I'd much rather be surrounded with friends and family who daily engage in the give and take of life. The relationships I cultivate and tend are central to the deep satisfaction I experience in life. I need my peeps and they need me.

Think about it. Anything of any value that has ever stood the test of time was the direct result of a relationship. Healthy relationships with the people in our lives build, nurture, and sustain us. The absence of such relationships leaves us vulnerable and compromised. This is especially true for children who are growing and learning about our world and how it works.

I've long thought that basic needs for children should include food, water, shelter, and a healthy, loving relationship with at least one competent adult. Science tells us so.

When making decisions about the lives of children, too many professionals fail to consider this important fact. Childhoods are destroyed and futures compromised as a result. Sometimes we are more focused on parental rights or those of blood-related relatives than we are on the non-negotiable needs of children.

Consider the case of two-year-old Vanessa. Her birth mother consented to her adoption upon Vanessa's birth. For whatever reason, her birth father was not involved in the adoption decision. He should have been, and it is wrong that he wasn't. But it is more wrong to return a toddler whose entire world revolves around the loving care her adoptive mother has given her. It is more wrong to take away the center of Vanessa's world and thrust her across the country into the arms of a stranger who has been convicted of multiple domestic violence charges and is not parenting any of his other children. Too often, we rip children from the loving embraces of people who have mothered and fathered them in the truest sense of the word and put kids with strangers who happen to share their biology. Where is the science that supports this?

Children need people who can love, support, and provide for them, as well as offer consistency and stability. And once a child is securely attached to such an adult and is thriving, the train has left the station. Why derail it? The rest of us need to get onboard.

The Got Milk? Campaign was successful at doing a body good. Maybe a Got Peeps? Campaign will do our babies good.

WANTED: Loving Caregiver for Abused Baby Girl

Requirements: Must be a licensed foster parent. Love, structured routine, bedtime stories, hugs, and kisses desperately needed but not mandatory.

Immediate Availability.

How many of you would sign up if you came across an ad like this? How many of you would say yes if I stopped you in the parking lot at Target as you buckled your own kids safely into their car or booster seats? If I came to you and said, “Look, there is a ten-month-old baby girl sitting in the county children’s services office with caseworkers while they look for a home for her. She was exposed to cocaine, and not just prenatal. She has to go somewhere. Tonight. She can’t sleep or be raised in an ugly gray cubicle with ancient computer equipment. She needs YOU. Can you take her?”

How many of you would say yes? How many of you would think about it, go home, and talk to your spouse? How many of you would cruise the Internet for information on how to become a foster parent? How many of you would swallow down the fear that catches in your throat and trust that you can give a precious child a chance at a childhood? Your arms are the ones needed to comfort and console a baby who was dropped into this world without safe arms waiting to catch and protect her.

Go. Now. Google. Talk about it. Figure it out. Then sign yourselves up. Because children under age five make up the fastest growing group of kids in foster care. They are more likely to be abused in foster care than older children and more likely to stay in foster care longer. They desperately need you.

Please (and thank you).