Minutes from 11/26/2019
Shield NC Meeting
Attendees:
Nicole Bernard, Director, Shield NC
Lance Olive, Vice President, Board of Directors, Shield NC
Kim Adcock, Recruitment, Training and Licensing SW, Wake County Government, Child Welfare/Human Services
Jim Ahler
Jodi Bailey
Steven Bodhane
Danica Coleman
Sonya Edwards
Ines Freile
Josh Komis
Matt Mitchell
Niki Miller
Patty Patrick
Kenneth Ragland
Ellen Rose
Kris Shuart
Britney Travis
Joi Whittington
Annette Williamson
Kim Adcock, with Wake County Government, Child Welfare / Human Services spoke today on sex trafficking and foster care. Child Welfare’s slogan is “Recruitment is Everybody’s Business.”
Child Welfare gets involved with a family when a call is received about a prospective issue with a family. Child Protective Services completes an assessment on a child’s home situation and then decides on the safest environment for the child whether it is in their own home, a relative’s home, or foster care.
Foster care is a temporary living arrangement for children ages 0-21 years, when they cannot remain in their homes with parents or guardians safely due to abuse, neglect, or chemical or alcohol dependency. Foster care provides a safe and nurturing home for a child with a foster parent or family where the child can get their basic needs met as indicated in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Once the child is in a safe environment, social workers work with birth parents to address issues that lead up to a child being removed from the parental home. It is the goal of foster care to eventually reunite the children with their parents or guardians.
Currently in Wake County, 488 children have been removed from their homes and placed in foster care. Of that number, 13 have been removed from Apex homes, 10 Cary and 5 from Morrisville. Oftentimes, when children are removed from their homes, they lose connections with their schools, churches and communities, etc. Thus, it is vital every attempt is made to place them in foster homes close to their community or in their town. By removing them from their town or community, foster children become vulnerable and easy prey to sex traffickers and others who would view them as easy targets to exploit.
From the 488 children removed from Wake county homes, 368 have been placed in foster family/kinship care, 5 in IAFT (Intensive Alternative Family Therapy), 83 in therapeutic, 7 in group homes, 15 in psychiatric placement therapy, and 1 in acute care (medical placement – possible hospital). Of the 368 children placed in foster family/kinship care, 17 have been placed in Apex homes, 15 in Cary, and 3 in Morrisville.
Parents of foster children may be found to suffer from social and community needs such as; unemployment, mental health issues, homelessness, substance abuse or poverty. This may stem from parents having their own Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), which affects their own ability to keep a child safe. This results in parents’ possible inability to access unsafe situations and leaving children unsupervised, their needs not being met and/or developing unsafe methods of getting their needs met. Thus, what can be defined as the trauma cycle is the reason children end up in the foster care system. However, prevention services such as; employment assistance, parenting classes, financial counseling as well as a host of other services assists in breaking the trauma cycle.
Wake County is in need of more foster families to help meet the demand they are experiencing as more people move into this area. Eligibility requirements to become a foster parent are: must be 21 years of age, a Wake County resident, stable home and income, adequate sleeping space for child, willing to complete a background check and have an open heart and mind. It takes six months to complete the process to become a foster parent. During that time, there are two four hour home visits/interviews to discuss how one was brought up and how they were disciplined. Once a family or individual has been approved as a foster family or parent, they participate in eight training sessions per year. Foster parents are Wake County’s best recruiters.
Wake County has over 2,000 faith organizations. It is the hope of Child Welfare/Human Services that one family from each church would become a foster family to host a child.
A placement usually lasts one year but can last anywhere from seven days to two years. Each foster child usually has two to four families.
Once a child reaches the age of 13, they participate in Links Academy, which teaches them basic life skills such as how to rent an apartment, balance a budget, plan a meal, etc. A lot of foster children leave the system at the age of 18; however, they are eligible to return to the program until the age of 21 as long as they are in school.
Nicole Singletary, Injury and Drug Prevention Consultant, with Wake County Drug Overdose Prevention and Tobacco Use Initiative, will be speaking on January 28, 2020.