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New Faces at Voices for Children
We are pleased to introduce three new board members who joined Voices for Children at the March meeting. All of them were bitten by the Voices for Children bug a while ago and were helping Voices for Children even before their election to the board. We are very fortunate to have Jennie Dodson on our team. Jennie is Assistant Public Relations Director for Adamson Public Relations and is serving on the Development and Communications Committee. Our recent spots on TV, in the paper and on the radio are a testament to her interest in Voices for Children and her tenacity at getting the word out. She is a wonderful writer. Jennie has been active and present at information sessions, swearing-in ceremonies and court observation, all in order to understand our mission and the work we do. She gives generously of her time, even though she has a two year old son, or perhaps because she understands the importance of childhood.
Chris Kerckhoff is a faithful friend of Voices for Children, first introduced to us by Training Coordinator Nancy Inman. Chris is currently Vice President at Sports & Fitness Management Corporation and has also served in leadership positions for many years with Lockton Companies and Pevely Dairy. For Voices for Children he gathered colleagues together in 2000 and raised the necessary money to hire our Development Director. Chris has extensive experience on not-for-profit boards as well as in strategic planning and organizational development. We look forward to his assistance on the Planning Committee and his contributions to our growth as an organization.
Jeff Miller first became involved with Voices for Children in 1998 after reading a short letter from the Executive Director and offering to help "any way I can." Jeff is the Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of Adamson, Inc., an advertising/public relations firm of which he is a partner. Jeff’s firm designed our letterhead, business cards and Voices for Children brochure in 1999. Currently, he is deeply involved in creating and producing the Voices for Children video, which will have its premiere at the Voices for Children Child Advocacy Breakfast on April 19th at the Sheldon Ballroom. A new logo is also in the works. He wants to understand the stories of the children we serve, in detail, so that he can communicate our work to others. Jeff will also work on the Governance Committee.
In April we will welcome Kimberly Hutson as staff attorney/supervisor. After graduation from Indiana University and before law school, Kimberly was a DFS worker in Indiana. She then attended Washington University Law School, graduating with the goal of doing public interest work. She has been involved in helping indigent clients through Land of Lincoln Legal Services for several years, first as an intern and later as an attorney. Most recently she worked in the domestic violence project. She understands the needs of children, the effects of violence on them and is committed to using her training and considerable skills to help them. She is eager to get to know the volunteers and get to work, but not nearly so eager as we are to have her.
Welcome to the world of Voices for Children, Jennie, Chris, Jeff, and Kimberly. We are truly fortunate to have you with us.
Wanted: Journals and Diaries for Kids
"In Their Own Words" was the title of a message from Mary Taylor in a recent Voices for Children E-News. She told of a 12-year-old girl who fell in love with the Harry Potter books and then moved on to C.S. Lewis, after which Mary gave her a diary so that she could write whatever she wanted. The girl was excited to have her very own journal (and even more excited that it included a lock and key). "This is a girl who won’t talk to anyone, won’t engage in therapy, and has terrible secrets, I’m certain." The experience led to Mary’s buying a few reasonably priced and beautiful journals at Sam’s, and now Voices for Children advocates are giving them to children old enough to be interested. We also have colored gel pens to go along with them. "I don’t know what will come of this, but something tells me it’s going to be profound, even if the words aren’t," says Mary. Giving our children another way to express their thoughts and feelings, whether dramatic, sad or silly, can be life changing or just plain fun for them. This is one more way to let a child’s voice be heard--if only by herself.
We have added diaries, journals and small photo albums to our Wish List. If you want to make a small difference in an older child’s life, please consider donating some of these items. Voices for Children advocates will happily pass them on to the children.
Voices for Children Marketplace: Voices for Children Marketplace or stop by the office for Voices for Children wares--kid pins (new designs!), mugs, note cards, posters.
Spotlight on DFS: Tena Thompson, Children's Services Director
Children and families deserve the best efforts of all those involved in child welfare practice—and that includes Voices for Childrens. This is a fundamental belief of Tena Thompson, a seasoned professional with more than 25 years of experience. She knows whereof she speaks, having come through the ranks, from frontline social worker to supervisor, and through middle management to Children’s Services Director of the St. Louis City Office of DFS. Her name is first in the City Children’s Services Directory that all Voices for Childrens keep in their manuals, and problems often end up on her desk.
Tena Thompson, MSW with a master’s in counseling, has always felt drawn to children and family issues, and her interest was further piqued in graduate school when the Battered Child Syndrome was first identified and introduced into child development study. Since then she has focused on child development, and most particularly on abused children here in the City.
Originally from Illinois, Tena came to St. Louis after graduate school and raised her family here. On her days off, those days when she is not addressing problems or educating workers and the community about children’s issues, she finds time to volunteer for the U.S. Figure Skating Association, work she began when her daughter was a figure skater. She gets away from the intensity of her work by traveling, gardening and going to the theater, most recently to a performance of Godspell at the Black Rep. Such respites are essential to foster the level- headedness for which Tena Thompson is known. In spite of the pressures of her work, she remains a calm and caring presence, always willing to listen to others, including those who offer suggestions for improving the system.
When considering the role of Voices for Childrens in child welfare, Ms. Thompson says she appreciates that a Voices for Children’s sole perspective is the welfare and best interests of the child. "Ask Voices for Childrens to continue to challenge all partners involved in children’s lives--to keep the child in the forefront," she says. "Don’t let go of that perspective." With the unique focus provided by Voices for Childrens, she thinks, the Division of Family Services, the family court, family members and the community can come together in a collaborative manner to raise the bar of child welfare practice. Children and families deserve no less.
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Keeping Informed: A Legislative Update
The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, one of the most important recent pieces of child welfare legislation, requires that "reasonable efforts" be made to reunite families once children are placed in foster care. There are some situations in which a judge has the discretion not to require the Division of Family Services to engage in such "reasonable efforts." For example, "reasonable efforts" are not required when a parent has subjected the child to a severe act of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, or when the parent has committed murder, voluntary manslaughter, or felony assault. In these situations the judge is able to expedite permanency for children.
There are other children, not encompassed by the current legislation, who would benefit from a "no reasonable efforts" finding. These children may include the sibling of a child killed by a parent or the sibling of a targeted child, a child left in the care of someone the parent knew or should have known posed a danger, or a child injured when both parents were present but the explanation given is inconsistent with the injuries sustained.
During the last year we gathered examples of cases in which the statute prevented this kind of safekeeping. Because children such as these also deserve the opportunity for expedited permanency, Voices for Children proposed to Senator Pat Dougherty revisions to R.S. Mo §211.183, the section of the Missouri Juvenile code on "no reasonable efforts."
Debra Klopert, staff attorney, drafted the proposed changes. The revisions, now Senate Bill 528, can be viewed on line at http://www.senate.state.mo.us/01info/billtext/intro/SB528.htm. Voices for Children was invited to attend the Committee hearing on Tuesday, March 6, 2001, at which time Mary Taylor was asked to testify in support of the Bill.
Senate Bill 528 is likely to be enacted shortly. The expansion of the "no reasonable efforts" language is an opportunity for children in homes not capable of repair to have a safe, loving, permanent home more quickly.
In every child who is born under no matter what circumstances and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again….(James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men)
Volunteer Spotlight: Mindy Carney
One thing leads to another, we say. Thus, there are no coincidences. For Mindy Carney, learning to be a Voices for Children came directly on the heels of learning to be a mom. "Being a child advocate was what I wanted, though at first I didn’t know it," says Mindy. Though drawn to children and attracted to working with them, for a time she did not seriously consider working with abused kids because she thought they were already lost. However, adopting two little girls from China, now ages 6 and 3, opened her eyes. She saw firsthand that children are remarkably resilient, strong and responsive to appropriate affection.
At about the same time she and her husband were preparing to adopt their second child, Mindy read an interview of a young man who said that as a child he had no concept of a future and did not think he’d live beyond age 25. This should not be, she thought.
Gradually, Mindy began to see abused and neglected children not as lost causes but as causes for hope. When Nancy Inman told her about Voices for Children, Mindy was ripe for moving from her previous community volunteer work as board member or fund raiser to the hands-on work of helping foster children have better lives.
So far, Mindy is working on her third case, two others having been resolved. First she represented 4 of 9 siblings, working to establish guardianship. Her second case, a toddler who was burned, ended with the child’s return home. Her influence in the case? Well, she was the one familiar face the child saw while in residential care and also a presence of calm for the family, who were new to the language, customs and juvenile welfare system of the U.S. Family members could see that Mindy was focused on the child’s well-being. Mindy definitely feels that a Voices for Children needed to be there, monitoring and making a difference.
In Mindy’s third case, a nine-year old girl was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. At first, no one believed her, not even her mother. Mindy, however, believed her, and she became the girl’s only consistent advocate. Her knowledge of the child, and her reading of non-verbal signs of attachment and trust, led to the girl’s being placed with a relative rather than with her mother.
Every Voices for Children case, every reunification, every adoption is unique, just as every child is unique. For her own adopted children, says Mindy, she could find no good baby books when she needed them. No prepared book would suffice to tell her daughters’ stories, so she had to make her own. Thus was born Creative Memories, Mindy’s business of teaching scrapbooking to adoptive parents and kids. Now Mindy’s dream is to provide scrapbooking for City foster kids (perhaps a scrapbooking day), for who says displaced children don’t deserve creative memories, too? Most of the children we serve don’t have pictures of themselves, much less baby books, and yet photographs, written records and other mementos can give a sense of history and permanency to disrupted lives. Imagine each of our Voices for Children children with his or her own life scrapbook under one arm and a new Voices for Children gift book under the other. Of such dreams come realities.
"For selfish reasons," says Mindy, "child advocacy is a good thing for me. It’s more personally rewarding than writing a check, although checks are necessary." More often than not, after a visit with a child she represents or after a court hearing at which she makes a difficult recommendation, Mindy goes home to give her beautiful and well-loved children an extra hug. This is not a coincidence. One thing leads to another.
From the Development Director
Greetings from the Voices for Children "Development Office"! The development program has been underway for some seven months now, and we have much to be thankful for. Through the hard work and generosity of many of you, we have made significant strides towards enabling Voices for Children to provide a voice for the ever-increasing number of St. Louis City children in foster care.
The job of development is to tell the Voices for Children story far and wide in order to build public support for our mission, ensuring that each child we represent has a safe, permanent, and loving home. We work to call serious attention to the children and their needs. Only through community awareness and financial support are we able to recruit, train and supervise the volunteer child advocates who are the lifeblood of Voices for Children.
With these important goals in mind, our Development and Communications Committee (DCC) will host a special fundraiser, Breakfast with Voices for Children: Voices for Abused Children, on April 19 in the Sheldon Ballroom. Modeled after a concept used by other Voices for Childrens with great success, this free one-hour event will feature pertinent information, poignant testimonials to the power of Voices for Children child advocacy and the premiere of our own Voices for Children video. Heartfelt thank you’s to our major Underwriters Kate and Tom Gunn: our Table Sponsors Tom Ellinwood and Nina Gilpin, Chris and Peggy Kerckhoff, and Sunnen Foundation; our committed Table Captains; and all others who have contributed to the success of this landmark event.
More good news: Following a thorough review process, the Junior League of St. Louis has approved a year-long project to renovate and furnish a new Children’s Waiting Room in the Voices for Children wing. Also, in the last quarter we have been awarded major grants from the Deaconess Foundation and the Daughters of Charity Healthcare Foundation of St. Louis. For all of these gifts we are truly grateful.
Mary A. Murawski
Development Director
(314) 552-2356
mamurawski@stlcityVoices for Children.org
Car Pros for Kids
In February, Voices for Children and customers at two local auto repair shops were beneficiaries of great deals—Voices for Children received close to $3,500 to support our work with City children, and the shops’ customers received two free oil changes in exchange for a $25 minimum donation to Voices for Children. We are grateful to Dick Sant of Sant Automotive and Rudi Cavataio of RPM, Inc. for their generous support of Voices for Children in a different kind of fundraiser, and also to those who took advantage of the offer--over 120 individuals, including some of our own Voices for Childrens and their families and friends. Thank you all! We look forward to making Car Pros for Kids a yearly event.
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New Group of Voices for Childrens Sworn In
On Friday, March 2, twenty-eight new child advocates, having successfully completed their twenty-five and a half hours of classroom training, were sworn in by Judge Frawley. The new advocates and their witnesses were transfixed by the Judge’s inspiring words, as he described to them the importance of their work for children. "You are doing God’s work," he said.
Voices for Childrens and guests then moved to the North Conference Room for sandwiches, sodas and a big cake decorated with the Voices for Children logo and children’s faces. Mary Taylor, Executive Director, introduced honored guests, including Board President Joan Kelly Horn and other board members, as well as State Representative Barbara Fraser and State Senator Betty Sims. Senator Sims congratulated the class, symbolically embracing all 28 new Voices for Childrens with the words, "I love you all, and I don’t even know you!"
The Voices for Children class was diverse: women, men, Caucasian, African-American, Indian, working retirees, a pediatrician, attorneys, law students, businesspeople, entrepreneurs, stay-at-home moms.
All have more than a passing interest in children, and they are determined to make a difference, one child at a time. That this was such an outstanding class of community volunteers bodes well for the City children we serve.
Congratulations to all!
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Recruiting for Voices for Children
Many new and wonderful Voices for Childrens have been sworn in, with many of them already working on their first case. In fact, by early May we will have more than 100 trained Voices for Children child advocates! Still, that number is not enough. In order to reach our lofty goal of serving every child who needs an advocate, we need more Voices for Childrens. We count on you to help us identify good people for this good work. Please help us. Contact Shirley at 314-552-2121 or sbsmith@stlcityVoices for Children.org with names, phone numbers, addresses of special people who may be suited for this special volunteer work. Also be advised that we will cheerfully speak to your meetings and groups. The next training class will begin in September, and once again we want to have a full house. We—and the children—are counting on you.
Voices for Childrens, one by one, make a difference, one child at a time.
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