Kids Matter

The organization I have come to know over the past few months and really appreciate is Kids Matter.(www.kidsmatterinc.org)  This organization was founded 9 years ago with the mission of helping the so many children placed into foster care.  Helping them by finding them permanent, safe, and happy homes.  In the beginning  of this project I was overwhelmed with the idea of foster care almost as much with how much Kids Matter truly does.  Some of their services include:Fostering Healing, a program dedicated to children who are under child protection order or who live with relatives. Fostering Hope, a service in which they provide children a “fostering hope package” that includes toys, books, even personal hygiene items.  Kids Matter CASA, an organization of volunteers who are the advocates for abused and neglected children in Milwaukee.

 These are just a few things that the organization does, and to hear the inspiring stories of both Sharon and Aaron as volunteers for Kids Matter, was truly amazing.  There are huge problems with the foster care system…as the Kids Matter website says, youth in foster and kinship care…

• have the worst health status of any population of children in America;
• drop out of high school at twice the national rate;
• are 12 times more likely to end up homeless than other young adults.

 To see that there are individuals who are VOLUNTEERING their time and effort to help give these children better lives is nothing less then inspiring.

 

Recently I had the pleasure of joining Kids Matter  for an event titled: Fostering Hope.  It was on May 1st at the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum in Milwaukee.  It was a “free evening of fun for foster & kinship families” and it was truly a blast.  There were so many families there – it was packed.  So many children were having so much fun with face painting, doing crafts, story time and even getting a free book.  

To be honest I had this preconcieved attitude that the kids would be sad, and the families would look like they were enduring the hardships of being foster familes however, I was wrong.  These kids were having a blast and it was really nice to see so many families.  Below are some pictures that Professor Vicki Callahan took at the event:

Interview with Aaron Vargas

Aaron is a CASA Volunteer, and sits down with me to share a few things about CASA and his experiences being a volunteer.  One thing that I would like to note is how Aaron talks about “wanting to do good” and generally caring.  This type of attitude was seen throughout my interviews and even the articles I’ve read.  As it seems, to make a difference, the most important thing you need is the intention of doing so.  I would like to give a special thanks to Aaron for meeting with me, and despite our technical difficulties sharing his wonderful story with us.

Photo Project

I thought it would be nice to have a sort of a montage of all my pics running through.  I now realize I could have just made a video on this and will see if I still can do so with the time available or afterwards.

This project is simply a series of photographs around Milwaukee.  What’s interesting about these pictures is that all of the photo’s I took are of areas that are virtually MINUTES from each other.  Milwaukee has always intrigued me in this aspect in that one minute your surrounded by luxury and the next your surrounded by houses in which you wonder if people can even life in. It is honestly, horrifying.

 I have uploaded a widget on the side of my blog that has posted five pictures, and underneath a link to all the photos, please click the link to be taken to the Flickr account profile I set up for this site.

Thank You.

Interview Project

 

I decided to fuse the two projects – the interview with David Celato and my photo project into one and create this interview video.  I really felt the two projects were really based off each other and I wanted to keep them in that fashion.

My interview with David was great, what he said about poverty and milwaukee was quite impressive.  The hardest part about making the interview was having to cut out other things we talked about for the sake of time.

Three main things that David touched on was the organization, what it does and what that means, poverty specifically in milwaukee, and of course how he got involved.  The reason I wanted to include these specific clips is because of their direct relation to my project.

The organization SDC is a great organization from the little that I know about it, and as David says to say your charged with reducing poverty is quite a task.  It was interesting to see that although this daunting task is before his organization, he still had so much enthusiasm and also hope.  Also David’s own journey of how he got to where he was, was something else I wanted to hear – I have been in school for five years and not once been encouraged to work for a social program like SDC, and was curious to see how David went from wanting to be in law school to writing policy for SDC in Milwaukee.

I will let the video say the rest.

– nooruddin

Conquered by Segregation

In 2002 the census bureau released data suggesting that Milwaukee had beaten Detroit for the ‘acclaimed’ title of the most segregated city in our country.  And our prize is…

Well, according to one  of Milwaukee’s own local historians, “its been like that for 40 years…”.  Jim (name changed to protect privacy) was contacted by press on Milwaukee’s segregation and so I decided to talk to him on what he and his neighbors in his local community thought of the city.  Jim told me that it was the black people who shrugged their shoulders, and it was the white people that “try and defend themselves”.

Jim is not the only one who feels this way, I visited a neighborhood that was considered to be a ‘black neighborhood’ and visited a book shop by the name of The Reader’s Choice.  I met an employee there who talked to me about the irony of how Martin Luther King Jr. Drive suddenly becomes Old World St.  She even recalled the election between Pratt and Barrett for mayor.  Pratt who was black was acting then as mayor and Barrett was a former white congressman.  She recalled Pratts slogan “Its time”, and then said, “I guess it wasnt.”

According to the New York Times, Prats wife, Dianne said about the election “Racism is alive and well in Milwaukee, It’s alive and well and thriving. This is redneck America – citified. The vote showed it.”

Nathan Johnson who wrote for the UWM Post in a November 2008 article titled “Our Segregated City”, “since racial/ethnic minorities were economically disadvantaged relative to Caucasians in the past, they are predisposed to be disadvantaged today and tomorrow.”

So, if the economic issues directly affect families and whether or not their children are likely to be sent to foster care, and Milwaukee is segregated not only by color of skin but also by social classes…well then it means that minority children in our city are left as prime targets, to be shifted into foster care homes, and separated from their families.

I have contacted Keith Murphy a radio host on the city’s leading black radio show, WMCS.  to get more information on this topic.

Also their were articles that I read (only 2) that argued the census beaurau’s  validity and so I wanted to talk to Daniel H. Weinberg one of the authors of the study mentioned earlier.  I contacted him and wait to hear back.

Progress:

With the interviews previously mentioned and hopefully the ones mentioned above, I hope to get a better understanding of what’s really happening in our city.  I have also decided to make a photo project that can capture the cities division.  I have completed most of it but still am taking pictures…below is a little taste:

* two articles have been added to the links page, they are articles I have referred to.

-Nooruddin

Progress

(Deep Breath)

This is harder then I thought it would be so the progress I have made is quite precious although it may not as substantial as I originally thought.

I have contacted over a dozen professors all around the country who have directly worked on the issue of poverty and or wellfare.  So far only one has contacted me back and so I will hold myself back from naming the others and discuss my conversation with Teena M. McGuiness, (PhD, PMHNP, BC) a professor at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.  Professor McGuiness wrote an article in the Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (Vol. 13 No.5) titled Poverty, Child Maltreatment and Fostercare.

I have learned from Professors McGuiness’s article as well as our conversation the alarming statistics behind how child maltreatment occurs at significantly higher rates of those living in poverty.  This is what usually leads to children being put into foster care.  McGuiness quoted two authors of study regarding the socio economic dispersment of child maltreatment.

“The evidence suggest high levels of child abouse neclect amonth the poor and, despite the debate on the question there is no empirical data sugesting that the findings are a product of bias predisposing toward overestimates of child maltreatment among the poor.”Drake and Zuravin (1998 p.295)

Although I would have agreed that poverty played a role in fostercare after our conversation it became profoundly more clear that it is not just a matter of kids ending up in foster care.  Professor McGuiness talks about how child maltreatment, such as prenatal substance abuse or just plain neglect, is directly more present in poverty stricken homes.  This often results in kids being sent to fostercare…

So I can confidently say that Sharon was right, poverty is a primary reason of why so many kids are in foster care.

My next step: Talk to Milwaukee’s Social Devolopment Commission.  Here is what the organazation says about itself on the website:

For forty-five years, the Social Development Commission (SDC) has served as a planner, coordinator, and implementer of human service programs for low-income individuals and families in Milwaukee County. The SDC was established in 1963 as an intergovernmental Public Commission under Wisconsin State Statute SS66.433. In 1964, the SDC was designated as the Community Action Agency (CAA) for Milwaukee County.

I had set up a phone interview with one of their volunteers however that fell through.  Currently I am in the process of talking to their director of communications Tom.

(I mention the phone interview falling through quite casually here, but fyi this was a four day phone tag situation that finally led to me trying to talk to someone else …grrr)

With that aside, I found an article written in 2003 by Judge Joseph R. Wall in the Journal Setinal titled “These are our Children”.  Judge Wall begins by saying, “I have seen the future. He is a 14-year-old boy, and although he is a composite, he is known and familiar to all of us here. I am about to sentence him for his third felony offense in two years.”  Judge Wall discuses how the whole system needs to be reworked, from even how we think about the future of our young generation to increasing funding to raise salaries of teachers and increase investment in our education programs.

This article could be the pinnacle of my research in that it would connect me to a figure who has been involved with the questions I want to answer for over 14 years.  Not to mention that this could be the very article that influenced Sharon to become a CASA volunteer.

I have so far, found three seperate numbers for Judge Wall, each of which are numbers to Childrens Court in milwaukee and they have no current number they can provide me.

Finally:

I have thought about a class mates advice on this project.  I have decided to intertwine the discussions with the above along with discussions of families who are somehow involved with or have been or are thinking about being involved with fostercare.

I have found three people (so far) whose stories I feel will really give a first person real-live story of how poverty and foster care are related.

This is my progress so far, ill keep updating as frequently as i can!

“The Most Rewarding Thing You’ll Ever Do”: A CASA Volunteers Story.

I wasn’t sure where to begin with my research, however I thought it would be a good idea to find out more about Casa as an organization. What I did know was Cour Appointed Special Advocates were assigned to children in the foster care system, but I wanted to find out more information like how are they appointed, who appoints them, etc.  I was able to talk to Sharon, A CASA volunteer for nearly six years, about CASA and her experiences in general.

Sharon says her and her husband have always liked giving back to the community, and have been helping out for many years. Then six years ago they read an article in a newspaper where a judge said that kids who appeared before him in court might not have been there with proper intervention, such as a Casa volunteer. At first all they knew was they wanted to help kids, they walked in to an informational meeting about Casa and liked what they heard. However, they knew it would be tough, Sharon says, “We knew it wasn’t something you could do for six months out of the year, so we sold our vacation home in Florida and decided to become Casa volunteers.”

She began to tell me about how Casa volunteers are sworn officers of the children’s court, they are their eyes and their ears and the courts rely on them when making judgments. Often times these volunteers are brought on in cases that seem unclear, for example if the child has multiple siblings, or if the child has been sent to multiple foster homes, or if multiple professionals are required to see the child. A casa volunteer visits the child in school, talks to their therapist, even talks to their parents to ensure the safety and happiness of the children.

I asked Sharon whether kids had trouble becoming close with Casa volunteers and she said that sometimes they do, especially those children who are older and have so many professionals working with them “your seen as another bureaucrat” she says. Most of the time if your patient and if you treat them with respect, they become very close with you.

“When a child runs up and hugs you”, she said with a smile on her face “that’ll really hit you”. The joy of being able to help these children was expressed in her face as she was telling me stories of past experiences. She told me about a child whose football game she attended and how rewarding it was to see him with his peers playing and laughing, especially considering he had been through some recent rough times. She said it is especially rewarding when parents whom you’ve dealt with in the past call you and ask for help. It may seem odd, she further explained, but when they call you, you know you have made a difference. It shows that they trust you and they are serious about continuing their improvement.

Sharon tells me that she is amazed by how many kids are actually in the foster care system and to her it seemed like it was increasing. She was right, according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway in the year 2000 about 293,000 kids nationally entered the foster care system, and five years later about 311,000 kids entered. When I asked what she feels might be a contributing factor in the rise, she said poverty. She said “Its amazing how segregated we still are and how much poverty affects people of color.” People give all sorts of excuses on how poverty is the result of people not making smart choices but she says its just not possible for so many people to live in better neighborhoods or to avoid crime and abuse. If it was possible people would be doing it however, they get stuck, and poverty becomes a huge contributor in the number of children in foster care.

When I asked her what she would say to people who were interested in becoming Casa volunteers she said, “It is the most important, rewarding thing you will ever do. There is a time commitment but you can’t let that deter you. These kids live in such an uncontrollable world, they need stability and I feel we are that stability. You actually feel like you are making a difference and nothing will ever be worth more.”  

This experience to say the least was unique, it was uplifting as well.  Sharon along with so many other CASA volunteers are not just helpers in the community but they are its unsung heroes.