Virginia: Making kinship care happen for kids in foster care

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Being a foster care kid is tough -- for all too many, it can mean a group home -- but Richmond grandmother Faith Spencer decided it shouldn't have been quite so tough for her grandson Adame.

His developmental disabilities brought him into the system when he was just 4 -- in fact, when Spencer had taken him to the Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C. for an assessment, social workers stepped in, saying he was too much for his estranged parents to handle.

Spencer kept in touch, undaunted by the long drives from Richmond to the Winchester group home Adame ended up in.

He was family, and family mattered -- even if, at the time, it didn't always seem that way in a Virginia social services system that lagged other states in asking relatives -- grandmas, aunts and uncles, siblings -- to step in to care for children who couldn't stay with their parents.

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It's called kinship care, and Virginia is starting to catch up.

Kinship care

Ten years ago, only 5% of Virginia kids in foster care were staying with kin. The term includes family members and others who have close emotional ties to a child, including close family friends, neighbors, mentors or teachers.

Kinship care is more likely to mean a permanent place, rather than the musical chairs of so many foster care placements. It helps families rebuild, helps keep siblings together and can help with the difficult behavior that past trauma often inspires, the Children's Bureau of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department says.

Today, just over 22% of the 4,869 kids in Virginia's foster care system are in kinship care. That's less than the national average of 35%, but it is also, finally, more than the percentage of Virginia youth in group homes or institutions: 15.6%. Five years ago, there were more kids in those places than in kinship care.

Spencer knew something about group homes -- she been a director of several for years.

"I understood a lot of things with being in group homes ... it was more upsetting to me to see how he was living," she said.

"It was very upsetting, because I never thought it would be me that would be looking at this with one of my loved ones," she said.

"His clothing was the No. 1 thing. Actually, I would buy new clothes. I would send the clothes there through Amazon ... But when I'd go back, the clothes were missing, even with the names in them, other kids would have them on," she said.

"I would go and visit him in Winchester in the wintertime, and I would just stop by the school. I see my grandson running out there in the wintertime with shorts on and flip-flops -- outside. I questioned that. What was going on with that?

"He never had on his glasses, because he had special glasses. And I had a lot of questions. Why, why? Why? Why?

"And his hair was never taken care of. I picked him up on a Saturday, and he had no pajamas and no socks, no nothing, just a pair of tennis shoes. The tennis shoes were too big for him, so finally I started going inside his room, and he had a blanket up for a curtain to keep the cold air out," she said.

She and her husband, Kirk, connected with UMFS. The Richmond-based statewide nonprofit focuses on social services for children and families. They worked with the nonprofit for the decade Adame was mainly in group homes before the answer for her grandson become obvious.

"We implemented a variety of recruitment strategies in an effort to find an adoptive placement that could meet Adame's unique needs," said Kerry Graeber, an adoption specialist with UMFS.

Although it explored several options, it became increasingly clear that his paternal grandparents, the Spencer family, who had maintained a strong connection with Adame throughout his time in care, "were the best possible match."

Not that it's easy.

"We know all too well that that balance of hope and heartbreak never ends when it comes to foster care," said Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Janet Kelly, speaking of her own experience as a foster parent of a relative's baby boy.

Youngkin's goal

She's spearheading a state push to hit Gov. Glenn Youngkin's goal that 35% of foster care kids be placed in kinship care, as part of a broad plan to transform the state's child welfare system. Last year 71% of children in Virginia who died from abuse or neglect were from families where the system had already been involved.

There can be a different kind of neglect inside the system, too.

With Adame, Spencer had to help a youth -- he was 15 then -- with a decade of life in institutional settings, places that he'd run away from, where aggressive opposition to what staff or other residents wanted could seem to be the best defense.

Behavior was a challenge.

Foster care bills pass General Assembly in bipartisan push

"When I first got him home from Winchester ... it was really difficult with him," she said. "He's the type of child that does not like no one to tell him 'No' or 'No, we can't have this right now,' " she said. "He will get very upset if you tell him, 'No, we can't have it right now.' "

But she tells him. And he listens.

"He had got to the point where elopement was one of his big things there," she said, referring to running away. "And of course, they did nothing, but probably run behind him and beg him.

"So, we had to sit down as a group in a family, and speak to him and tell him that there are a lot of bad people out there in the world," and that if he were to run away, "then we might not see you" again.

The whole family pitches in.

"I have grandsons in college. They were taking him with them out to play basketball, to teach him different things that boys do, or go out and do games," Spencer said. Interaction with family members "was the best thing for me, for him," Spencer said, noting that in a group home "you really don't have time to do that."

UMFS is there, too.

Network of programs

UMFS, which stands for United Methodist Family Services, connected Adame and his family with a network of programs, including treatment foster care, which links specially trained foster parents with therapists and other supports, family stabilization services, and its Charterhouse School in the UMFS Richmond campus just west of Scott's Addition.

"It's critical that (social) workers ask 'Does this family have the right tools to support a child who has experienced trauma? If not, how can we equip them?'" said Allison Gilbreath, senior policy and programs director at Voices for Virginia's Children, an advocacy group.

"The goal is not just to keep a child with someone they know, but to ensure they're in a home where healing and stability are possible," she said.

"Kinship care, placement with relatives or trusted family friends, is often the best first choice when a child cannot remain safely at home," Gilbreath said.

"Children in kinship care tend to experience greater stability, fewer school disruptions, and are more likely to stay connected to their cultural identity and community. There's also research showing that kinship placements can reduce the trauma of family separation, helping children maintain critical connections during a difficult time," she said.

And while some kids with foster parents who aren't kin, as well as the youth who live in UMFS residential facilities in Richmond and Tidewater, can tap these resources, living with his grandparents gives Adame something extra.

"He knows that I'm his grandmother and I'm there for his best interest. So the big difference between a group home is that an employee is there just to get paid," she said.

"Actually, sometimes they don't even care if they eat, but they just throw something in the microwave. We are not microwave-type people. I like to cook for him. I make sure that his clothes are clean, his hair is cut," she said.

"I never thought it would be me, but now it's me, so I'm not going to give in. ... I'm going to keep the fight going," she said.

Spencer said she promised Adame that she would do her best to make sure he was taken care of properly.

"So I really think it's a good thing. I really know it's a good thing because I see a total difference in a child that I didn't think that was gonna go far," she said.

It was trauma that landed Adame in foster care -- "but we are going to make up for everything that you have lost in life," she said. "And he's a whole lot different now. He interacts in the youth services at church. He's definitely a 'Yes, ma'am, yes, sir' type person. He's always trying to help, hands-on."

Spencer added: "I make sure I show him that this is something, that is love from the family, that you need, because you are a part of this family, and we want that for you."

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Dave Ress (804) 649-6948

dress@timesdispatch.com

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Dave Ress

State Politics / Growth and Development Reporter

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