{"id":9854,"date":"2017-11-29T16:06:52","date_gmt":"2017-11-29T16:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arknews.org\/?p=9854"},"modified":"2021-04-30T09:52:51","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T14:52:51","slug":"one-faith-based-group-recruits-almost-half-of-foster-homes-in-arkansas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arknews.org\/index.php\/2017\/11\/29\/one-faith-based-group-recruits-almost-half-of-foster-homes-in-arkansas\/","title":{"rendered":"One faith-based group recruits almost half of foster homes in Arkansas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
LAURI CURRIER: Executive director of The CALL (file photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This story was produced by The Chronicle of Social Change<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Ashley and John Herring of Heber Springs decided to become foster parents in 2009, they were told there were just four foster homes in Cleburne County. Children taken into state custody in this rural county in the Ozark foothills were often sent to homes or short-term placements in other communities, sometimes hours away.
\nFor kids, being abruptly separated from school and other community supports only compounded the inherent trauma of family removal. For overburdened staff at the local office of the state Division of Children and Family Services, out-of-county placements entailed lost time and bureaucratic headaches.<\/p>\n

Yet DCFS workers had little choice: There simply weren\u2019t enough placement options in Cleburne County (pop. 25,970) to keep up with the number of children coming into care.<\/p>\n

Today, the county has 23 open foster homes, a five-fold increase since 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn average, in our county right now, there are about 33 kids in care,\u201d Ashley Herring said. \u201cI have three right now, and some other families will have three, so we meet our need. We don\u2019t get ahead, [but] we haven\u2019t been in a situation in a while where we\u2019ve just been terribly behind, and have to send, send, send out of county \u2026 . We would get very upset if a kid has to leave our county.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vast majority of the county\u2019s new foster homes have been recruited into Arkansas\u2019s network not by a statewide campaign, but by The CALL<\/a>, a Christian nonprofit that takes no state funding.<\/p>\n

The CALL moved into Cleburne County in 2009, and has expanded its operation across the state since. Herring, who is a nurse, and her husband, a family practice doctor, have opened their home to 42 foster children over the past six years. In addition to the couple\u2019s five biological children, they have adopted one former foster child and are in the process of adopting two more. Herring now serves as The CALL\u2019s volunteer county coordinator.<\/p>\n

The organization recruits potential foster parents, trains them, guides them through the state\u2019s certification process and provides ongoing assistance once the kids begin arriving. It has become the source of 40 percent of all foster homes in Arkansas, according to the DCFS, and \u201cCALL families\u201d have also adopted hundreds of children in the DCFS system.<\/p>\n

All of this is done without any public money \u2014 state, federal or local. The CALL\u2019s $1.7 million budget comes from individual donations, churches, businesses, foundations and other private sources.<\/p>\n

That also gives The CALL greater operational freedom than most child welfare providers. It means the faith-based organization is allowed to limit its recruitment and training only to those Christian households that meet its criteria. The CALL does not work with cohabiting couples, same-sex couples or couples who follow other faiths or who are nonreligious, instead referring such families to the DCFS directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really don\u2019t have any families in our county who are not CALL families, because even if they went through the state [training process] for some other reason, they end up just being a part of us and supporting and being supported by us \u2014 as long as, you know, they agree with the Apostle\u2019s Creed,\u201d Herring said.<\/p>\n

National advocates have expressed concern that LGBT youth may face bias and discrimination within state foster care systems. Ellen Kahn, the director of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Children, Youth & Families Program, indicated by email that she was not familiar with The CALL specifically.<\/p>\n

However, she wrote, \u201cbased on what is publicly known about The CALL, we would certainly have concerns about whether their families are safe placements for LGBTQ youth.\"<\/p>\n

Making The CALL<\/strong><\/p>\n

The CALL was founded in 2007 by a group of church leaders and child advocates in Pulaski County. It now operates in 44 of Arkansas\u2019s 75 counties, with an additional 10 county outposts planned for 2018.<\/p>\n

The DCFS needs the help: It has seen a record surge in numbers of fosters in the past two years, with 5,079 children in care as of early November. That\u2019s down slightly from a high of 5,200 last year, but still represents a 38 percent increase since 2012.<\/p>\n

In a 2016 report, the DCFS itself bluntly stated that \u201cthe system is in crisis,\u201d an assessment echoed by Governor Hutchinson, who has pushed for more aggressive foster parent recruitment.<\/p>\n

Hornby Zeller Associates, an outside contractor hired by the state to assess its foster care surge, found in 2016<\/a> that the state might be removing more kids than necessary. \u201cThe increase in foster care is due largely to two factors: the DCFS removing more children [from their homes] immediately upon investigation and the courts ordering removals against the recommendations of the agency,\u201d the consultant firm stated in its report.<\/p>\n

Whatever the cause of the increase, the DCFS has come to consider The CALL an indispensable partner. In 2008, DCFS Deputy Director Beki Dunagan was working as a supervisor in Lonoke County, the second site The CALL targeted after its founding.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in the field, in the weeds, I know what it is like,\u201d Dunagan said. \u201cYou remove children, and sometimes you might be in that office for seven hours trying to find a placement. Then you might end up with that child in an emergency shelter or a placement just for the night, and you start all over the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

After The CALL took off, she said, \u201cit was like day and night. \u2026 Within an hour, we\u2019d have children placed.\u201d When Lonoke County DCFS told the upstart nonprofit that it needed help providing snacks to kids visiting their parents after school at the DCFS office, The CALL mustered resources to do just that. \u201cI can\u2019t even articulate to you the support I felt in Lonoke,\u201d Dunagan said.<\/p>\n

Lauri Currier began working with the original Pulaski County chapter in 2008. In 2011, the growing number of county affiliates were organized into a statewide, 501(c)(3) nonprofit at the behest of the DCFS, and Currier was hired as its executive director.<\/p>\n

The DCFS wanted The CALL to include \u201ca central hub to create best practices, to do training \u2026 so there was consistency in how we were operating at the local level,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Currier, who has been a teacher, a marketing director and a small business owner, said she was drawn to The CALL after \u201ca self-discovery Bible study\u201d led her to conclude her life\u2019s purpose was to \u201cpositively affect the lives of the fatherless.\u201d Currier\u2019s own family history played a role: When she was an 18-year-old college freshman, her father revealed to her that he was adopted.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad was brought into foster care in 1939, with four siblings,\u201d she said. \u201cHe had a younger sister and three older brothers, and they got split up and never got back together until much later in their lives, when they were in their 40s and 50s. There was such a stigma about adoption that my grandmother\u2019s wish \u2014 my father\u2019s adoptive mother \u2014 was that he not tell anyone until after she passed. \u2026 That is why I do the work that I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between church and state<\/strong><\/p>\n

Currier said the key to The CALL\u2019s recruitment success is building relationships within each church it works with. The group partners with about 700 of the estimated 5,000 churches in the state, Currier said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe identify generally someone in that church who is a layperson \u2014 somebody that's passionate about kids in foster care,\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe it's a foster parent or adoptive parent or someone who was a foster child when they were young. We train that person to kind of be our representative in the church.\u201d<\/p>\n

The representative will then connect any member of the congregation who expresses an interest in foster care to The CALL.<\/p>\n

Recruitment is only the first step. The foster care certification process \u201ccan be very daunting in that there a lot of requirements, a lot of hoops you're having to jump through,\u201d Currier said. \u201cWe're walking alongside [the family] and helping them stay on track.\u201d At the same time, \u201cwe want to make sure that we're appropriately vetting families, and we do that according to what DCFS' standards are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Potential foster parents in Arkansas have often complained of lost paperwork and endless delays, so The CALL\u2019s assistance can make a major difference. In 2015, a review of the DCFS commissioned by the governor and conducted by consultant Paul Vincent of the Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group found the overstretched agency was having trouble moving new foster parents through the certification process.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifficulty in securing staff and other barriers ... resulted in a large backlog of prospective foster parent inquires, applications and background clearances that the system couldn\u2019t respond to in a timely manner,\u201d Vincent wrote at the time. (The DCFS said later that it resolved the backlog issues.)<\/p>\n

Foster parent Ashley Herring said local DCFS employees were dedicated and diligent \u2014 and also \u201cthe most overworked people I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d That\u2019s why Herring maintains her own tracking system to keep up with potential foster families as they move through the process.<\/p>\n

Herring said her local DCFS resource worker told her she manages 83 cases spread over four counties. (Resource workers are responsible for opening and closing foster homes; they are distinct from caseworkers, who manage individual child welfare cases.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I only counted on her to walk my families through, you can imagine which files would be on the bottom,\u201d Herring said. \u201cI go meet with her once a month. We sit down together and I say \u2018This family, right there \u2014 where are they? Have they had their fingerprints? Have they done this, or this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most visible advantage of being a \u201cCALL family\u201d is a compressed training schedule. Arkansas statute requires foster families to undergo a specific 30-hour training model called Foster\/Adopt PRIDE, which the DCFS provides through a nonprofit contractor. PRIDE classes take place each Saturday over a two-month period in just five sites throughout the state, meaning families in remote areas may have to drive hours to attend.<\/p>\n

In contrast, The CALL\u2019s training is delivered locally and compresses the PRIDE curriculum into two weekends. \u201cWe knew there are awesome Christian families that would be available to do something like this, but they're busy families,\u201d Currier said. So, The CALL obtained permission from the DCFS to create an adapted version of PRIDE.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe'd have a weekend of training which would start on Saturday morning at 9 o\u2019clock and go until 7 in the evening,\u201d Currier said. \u201cThen, on Sunday, they'd show up at 1 and stay till 7. And then we skip a weekend, and then they'd come back for that marathon again.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2010, the independent consultant Hornby Zeller Associates performed a study at the request of the DCFS that compared the experience of CALL-recruited families to DCFS-recruited families. Hornby Zeller found a strong preference for The CALL\u2019s expedited training schedule and also found that CALL families \u201caveraged roughly 37 days between their home study date and approval date. Meanwhile, the DCFS-recruited families waited nearly twice as long (73 days) between their home study date and approval date.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evidence suggests The CALL has reached families that the DCFS could not recruit on its own. A 2013 paper authored by Michael Howell-Moroney, a researcher at the University of Memphis, found that 36 percent of CALL families said they probably would not have become foster or adoptive parents if it had not been for the nonprofit. Hornby Zeller similarly found that \u201cseveral CALL-recruited parents stated that they would not have fostered if not for the Christian environment promoted by The CALL.\u201d<\/p>\n

Questions of equity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Arkansas is an overwhelmingly Christian state, with 79 percent of adults identifying as such in a Pew Research Center poll. The number is likely higher in many rural counties.<\/p>\n

For non-Christians and unmarried potential foster parents, The CALL is simply not an option. Any prospective family is asked to provide a letter of reference from their congregation, and must sign a statement of faith, which Currier described as an adaptation of the Apostle\u2019s Creed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no unkindness involved in that decision. It\u2019s just who we are as an organization,\u201d Currier said. \u201cWe will always kindly refer those families [to the DCFS] ... for them to be able to become foster and adoptive families.\u201d<\/p>\n

The desire by some faith-based groups to limit their recruitment to Christian couples has become a hot-button political issue. Several states, including Texas, Virginia, Mississippi and Michigan, have passed laws<\/a> that exempt faith-based providers from working with same-sex foster and adoptive parents.<\/p>\n

But those laws relate to organizations that receive funding from state child welfare agencies. The CALL does not receive a single government dollar for supplying nearly half of Arkansas\u2019s foster homes.<\/p>\n

\"We would hope that the Arkansas [Division] of Children and Family Services is doing its due diligence to insure a safe placement for all children and youth in foster care,\u201d said Ellen Kahn, of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. \u201cNot all families will be suitable for supporting an LGBTQ child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether The CALL\u2019s limited focus on certain types of families creates challenges for the DCFS, Dunagan noted that the onus for recruitment ultimately lies with the agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a village \u2026 and The CALL is just one part, although it\u2019s a major part, of our village,\u201d she said. \u201cI will tell you that I think in years past we did not do a very good job of engaging other training partners or having specific targeted recruitment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dunagan said the DCFS has ramped up its own foster care outreach in communities across the state, thanks in part to a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think we do need to do some additional work with LGBT,\u201d Dunagan acknowledged. The DCFS is making efforts to recruit more same-sex couples interested in becoming foster parents, she said.<\/p>\n

Amy Webb, a spokesperson for the Department of Human Services, the agency that oversees DCFS, wrote in an email that the agency does not necessarily avoid placing youth who identify as LGBT with CALL-recruited families. It does take into account the preferences of the child and the foster parents, she said, so as to ensure stable placements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may have youth who prefer not to be in a home with a same-sex couple or who would prefer a same-sex couple home because that is what they are used to,\u201d Webb said. \u201cOr we may have great foster parents who honestly say they don\u2019t know how best to support LGBT youth and asked that they not be placed in their home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currier said the state-mandated training curriculum delivered by The CALL \u201caddresses the topic of appropriate interactions with LGBT children and youth in foster care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether The CALL avoids proselytizing to LGBT foster children, Currier replied that \u201cDCFS provides policies and guidelines regarding respecting the beliefs of children and youth in foster care. The families recruited by The CALL follow these policies and guidelines. These families simply live out their Christian faith on a daily basis as an example of a way of living.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chronicle of Social Change<\/em><\/a> is a national news outlet that covers issues affecting vulnerable children, youth and their families. Sign up for its newsletter or follow The Chronicle of Social Change on\u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/em>Twitter<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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