According to a February 1st article in the Indy Star, the
amount of children in foster care has more than doubled in the last 5 years. In
fact, according to the article, “Indiana has more children in its child welfare
system than any surrounding state — including those with nearly twice Indiana’s
overall population”. This is clearly a crisis for Hoosier children and
families. While there is substantial disagreement in the Indiana General
Assembly as to the reasons for this dramatic rise, both sides agree something
needs to be done to address the situation. While people at DCS and in the State
House debate what should be done to help Indiana’s most vulnerable children, we
here at Fathers and Families Center continue our work.
This year marks Fathers and Families Center’s 25th
anniversary of serving Marion County families. During our 25 years we have
refined an innovative approach to addressing the issue of children growing up
without both parents. Fathers and Families Center’s approach is to assist
parents in gaining the life-skills they need through a holistic continuum of
programs and services so they can become more engaged and productive parents
whose children never end up being involved with DCS. In former DCS Director
Mary Bonaventura’s resignation letter last December she stated, among other
things, that the opioid epidemic is one of the driving causes of the dramatic
increase of children in the child welfare system. Fathers and Families Center
has a full-time Licensed Mental Health Counselor on staff and also partners
with Fairbanks Hospital to provide drug treatment counseling for our program
participants. This is a prime example of Fathers and Families Center’s approach
to ensuring child welfare. By helping parents end their addiction to drugs, we
dramatically decrease the chances their child will end up in the child welfare
system.
Fathers and Families Center provides much more than
addiction/mental health counseling, however. We also offer job readiness
instruction and advanced training certification. In fact, this year Fathers and
Families Center was chosen once again as a recipient of EmployIndy’s Community
Development Block Grant. EmployIndy works with Community Based Organizations
who have a proven track record of helping low-income, underqualified residents
gain the skills necessary to compete for the high-demand, high-skilled jobs of
today. This year Fathers and Families Center will partner with a diverse group
of local training providers such as Hoosier Occupational Training Services,
Health and Science Innovation, The Indiana Plan, and Ivy Tech to offer advanced
training opportunities to all of our participants. When a parent is unemployed
they are more likely to make dangerous life choices in order to make ends meet,
which drastically increases their children’s chances of ending up in the child
welfare system; alternatively, when a parent is gainfully employed in a
fulfilling job, their children are far less likely to end up in the child
welfare system.
The type of interventions discussed above form the crux of
Fathers and Families Center’s approach to helping decrease the amount of
children who are engaged with the child welfare system. We help their parents
so the children never end up there in the first place. While fixing DCS is of
the utmost importance to ensure the most vulnerable children in Indiana have a
safe place to grow up, addressing the challenges facing parents (that cause
children to end up in the care of DCS) is equally.
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