The Register-Guard: February 5, 2010
Charities would establish volunteer networks to care for Oregon children whose families are in crisis
By David Steves
The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Friday, Feb 5, 2010
SALEM
— Oregon would become the first state to adopt a novel approach to
providing child-rearing respite for troubled families under a bill
unveiled at the Capitol Thursday.
The legislation heard by a
Senate panel would clear away regulatory restrictions to allow
charities in Oregon to replicate the “Safe Families” program pioneered
in Chicago five years ago. The program is meant to give parents an
alternative to their two primary options when the families are thrown
into turmoil by domestic abuse, addiction, or economic desperation:
giving their children up to foster care or continuing to rear them in
an unsafe home.
Safe Families, expanded to several cities and
areas within five states, allows parents to temporarily turn their
children over to volunteers in their communities to raise for a few
days or several weeks while the parents put their lives in order.
The
program’s founder in Chicago, psychologist David Anderson, flew to
Oregon to testify on behalf of Senate Bill 991. If approved, Oregon
would be the only state to have amended laws to allow Safe Families to
provide a short-term alternative to foster care statewide.
“The
idea I came up with, which is really kind of an old idea, is how can we
as a community leverage our homes and our resources to care for
children of families who are going through a difficult time,” he said.
Anderson
said the benefits of the approach include helping parents who might
otherwise “move closer to that line of abuse,” and saving taxpayer
money by establishing alternative homes for children who would
otherwise end up in state-paid foster care.
Safe Families
volunteers are not paid or reimbursed for the costs of caring for
children. Anderson said it was impossible to determine how many
children avoided foster care placement.
In Oregon, the average foster home placement for a child extends for 15 months at a cost of $30,000.
The
Chicago Tribune last year reported that within its metro area, more
than 500 volunteers had hosted an estimated 1,000 children since 2004,
for times ranging from a few hours to several months.
The Oregon
bill’s chief sponsor, Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said he
could not guarantee that in the future state dollars would not be
sought for the program.
But he did not foresee that happening,
and said it was certain that, with Oregon struggling to stretch tax
dollars during the economic recession, no government money would
subsidize Safe Families program.
As he’s learned more about how
the program has worked elsewhere, Courtney said he was encouraged to
find that people are eager to donate their homes, their time, and their
own money to take in children until the children’s parents are ready to
resume caring for them.
“Safe Families gives volunteers an
opportunity to help in their own communities and gives parents in
crisis the support and flexibility they need to work through their
challenges and bring their families back together again,” Courtney said.
Oregon’s
Catholic Community Services would operate a demonstration version of
the program starting this summer in Marion and Yamhill counties before
Safe Families might be expanded statewide.
The charity is
raising $50,000 in donations to pay for the pilot project’s costs,
which would include background checks on those who volunteer to house
children and training for participants.
The Oregon executive
director of Catholic Community Services, Jim Seymour, said he knows the
value of a home where children in troubled families can take refuge
until their parents put their lives back in order.
Seymour’s own
father was an abusive parent, and his mother frequently took him and
his siblings to his grandparents to stay, he said.
“They were
our safe family,” said Seymour, noting extended families don’t play
that kind of role as frequently. “Many of these children don’t have
safe families that they can turn to.”
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