Social Service Agencies' Plates Full:

October 1st Deadline for Welfare Cutoff on Horizon

Aired February 1, 2000

You are tuned to 90.3, Cleveland Public Radio, I am David C. Barnett, welcoming you to Tuesday, the first day of February in the year 2000, and the first day of Black History Month. On today's program, we'll hear the personal history of a woman named Cicely Barrie, who grew up in Shaker Heights and now lives in Montclair, New Jersey, a couple of U.S. communities that have been touted as hallmarks of peaceful integration. Ms. Barrie will tell us about the racial stereotyping she experienced and her children are experiencing from other African-Americans. It's a story of peer pressure which we're going to explore, but we're going to start things off with pressures of a different sort: the stresses of a life in poverty. While they can affect a familiy in many ways, record numbers of cildren are in custody of Cuyahoga County due to neglect or abandonment, for example. With a welfare benefits cutoff deadline of October 1st coming up over the horizon, a new pressure is on thousands of Ohioans to find jobs by the fall. Local social service agencies face all sorts of challenges, trying to preserve families as the face of welfare changes.

David C. Barnett–On a chilly Thursday evening, ten people have gathered in the basement of the Jones Center on the west side of Cleveland. This hearty group has braved the elements to demonstrate their commitment to some young people no one else will commit to. Cindy Dooley helps train foster parents here at the Jones Center, which is a branch of a private social service agency called Applewood Centers.

Cindy Dooley–People that become foster parents do so because usually they have parented or have a desire to parent, and those that have parented, I think, come in thinking that it's going to be like they've already done.

DCB–But these aren't their children. They come from very different families and situations. These young people are coming out of neglect and possibly physical abuse, emotional abuse, or even sexual abuse. Cuyahoga County's Department of Children and Family Services is charged with removing kids from such situations and putting them into a stable home environment, until their biological parents are able to get back on their feet. William Denihan is the director of the Department of Children and Family Services.

William Denihan–We don't want to see children in foster care for a long period of time. We are opposed to that, and that's why we work hard on the family reunification portion.

DCB–Until recently, it wasn't uncommon for a child to be in foster care for many years, while the natural parent worked to reclaim his or her life. This past March, a federal law called the Adoption and Safe Family Act went into effect, declaring long-term foster care to be "unacceptable." Denihan says, under the new rules, if his agency has a child in its custody for more than 12 months, legal ties to the biological parents must be severed. Then, the child is made available for adoption.

WD–Incidentally, in Cuyahoga County, that is now a crisis situation. Last year, in 1998, or should I say a year ago in 1998, we had 486 adoptions. That was 100 more than 1997 and 200 more than 1996. In 1999, we had 560 adoptions. If we could find the parents and move it as fast,we could probalby adopt between 2,500 and 3,000 children this year.

DCB–Some have argued that allowing a child to be put up for adoption after only 12 months isn't fair, especially for welfare recipients who have their hands full with the stresses of looking for work. Rebecca Dorman is vice president of the Family and Child Development Division of Applewood Centers, and she's sympathetic to the challenge, but she argues that the needs of the child should come first.

Rebecca Dorman–A year in the life of an adult may not seem like a real long time, but a year in the life of a child is a very long time, so it is a balancing act in terms of trying to meet everyone's needs fairly and everyone's rights.

DCB–Once the children are in foster care, services are available to help the parent. Assistance ranges from substance abuse counseling to anger management training, and even training to be a better parent. Dorman notes that sometimes basic parenting skills aren't there because the young mother was never really nurtured in her own childhood.

RD–I sort of think about it as your furnace that hasn't been given the fuel, but you're expected to give off the warmth, which is the love, and those of us who are lucky enough to be raised with that kind of love and support, when we become parents and have to deal with all the difficult challenges of being a parent, have those years as sort of a fuel within us and we can eminate that warmth, if you will, to the child. But if your furnace has no fuel in it, you can't provide that love and warmth to your children.

DCB–The stresses of learning to be a good parent are matched by the stress on the county's family counselors, who have been processing the increasing caseloads. Children and Family Services director William Denihan is well aware of the pressure on his employees.

WD–Are they overworked? Yes, I think they're overworked. Do they have too many cases? Yes, I think they have too many cases. Are they not appreciated? I think a lot of times they are not appreciated. Are we doing something about it? Yes we are.

DCB–The county has allocated money to add as many as 240 new workers to the present staff of 1100, and wages have been increased to make the jobs more attractive. Still, Applewood Centers' Rebecca Dorman is concerned about what will happen when the current welfare recipients reach the benefit cutoff deadline on October 1st.

RD–If a family does get sanctioned and all their sources of income are gone and they don't have any sort of safety net that many middle class families would have, and they don't have a place to go, they're not going to be able to care for their kids and that could result in many more kids coming into the foster care system. I think that is a concern for us.

DCB–As an administrator, Dorman is a couple steps removed from the burn-out of an overburdened caseworker or counselor. But that doesn't insulate her from the emotional realities of her work.

RD–If we weren't still able to have our hearts broken, then I don't think we should still be in this business. I think what you have to find is the balance that allows you to see small steps with one family instead of big steps that allows you to keep working and feeling like you're able to make a difference, and you have to accept the fact that there are going to be cases where the outcome is not going to be a happy one, and that is something that will make you very sad.

DCB–Rebecca Dorman and her staff hope that these small steps will go a long way towards rebuilding and preserving more full-time families.