Bio Families - S3E2 "A Chance At Life"

Interested in becoming a foster parent? Find info here Every Child Arkansas
Read the SmartJustice Season 3 magazine

Guests
Jeff Piker
Skye Mitchell
Mahogany Smith
Licia Etheridge
Devin Singh

In this episode we talk with Children and Family Services staff and community leaders in Russellville, AR about supporting families during and after child welfare cases. They share how their community is collaborating in a new way and seeing better outcomes for families.


Restore Hope https://www.restorehopear.org

A Chance At Life was written and recorded by artist/producer Jason Truby and licensed for use through Wixen Music Publishing, Inc. Watch the music video that includes the artist and community members passionate about making Arkansas a great place to raise a family. 

Transcript

00;00;02;07 - 00;00;22;02
Mahogany Smith
I can say from my caseload, in all the years I've worked for DCFS, my approach has never changed. I do have a good success rate of getting families put back together. Of course, I've had to terminate some. A lot of times I share with my clients. Here's my story. Just so you know that I don't think that I'm better than you.

00;00;22;05 - 00;00;47;07
Mahogany Smith
You know, both my parents were drug addicts at one time, so I know exactly what your kids are feeling. Because I've been there. I've been in foster care. I know what your children are feeling. You know, I know how my mom felt when I was in foster care. So I think it makes a big difference on being able to share with your clients real life situations so that they understand, Hey, I can change.

00;00;47;09 - 00;00;54;20
Mahogany Smith
I can beat this addiction. I can get my children back and make it better for my whole family.

00;00;54;22 - 00;01;02;19
Narrator
This is season three of the Smart Justice podcast. A chance at Life.

00;01;02;22 - 00;01;09;05
Paul Chapman
Crime and Punishment are hot topics. Are there solutions different than what we're hearing about at a national level?

00;01;09;07 - 00;01;13;29
Devin Singh
Kids find themselves just struggling to survive, doing the best they can.

00;01;14;01 - 00;01;19;21
Paul Chapman
There is a different way to approach justice that has a better return on investment.

00;01;19;23 - 00;01;25;16
Misha Martin
We don't want people to be dependent. We want to help them get to stability.

00;01;25;18 - 00;01;31;29
Paul Chapman
That seems to strengthen both law enforcement and courts. The number.

00;01;31;29 - 00;01;34;16
Jerome Strickland
One goal in most cases, we want reunifications.

00;01;34;17 - 00;01;42;16
Paul Chapman
And tie that together with community resources and then track the impact to communities and better outcomes.

00;01;42;18 - 00;01;46;20
Secretary Kristi Putnam
The best place for a child who's in our foster care system is with a family.

00;01;46;27 - 00;01;50;18
Paul Chapman
And we're calling this approach Smart Justice.

00;01;50;20 - 00;02;11;10
Narrator
Smart justice is a work of Restore Hope and partner organizations. Restore Hope is a software and services organization that helps communities achieve better outcomes for justice and child welfare efforts. Smart Justice is focused on optimizing the system by improving the relationships among its parts.

00;02;11;12 - 00;02;35;16
Paul Chapman
Hey, in this episode, we're going to talk about what it takes and the importance of being able to wrap around families and support them to prevent child welfare cases, to help settle successfully child welfare cases and then post a child welfare case, how is it that you help a family so that they don't get back into situations that might require a case again scan?

00;02;35;19 - 00;02;58;27
Paul Chapman
So in this episode, Andrew, we're going to have the chance to go in deeper into 100 Families in one of the communities over in Russellville and get to spend some time with the coordinator there and some of the the alliance members. But 100 Families, it's been in your community for a number of years and you helped bring it there.

00;02;58;29 - 00;03;08;02
Paul Chapman
And so let's talk about just for those that don't understand what this model could do in their community, what are the different components?

00;03;08;05 - 00;03;34;22
Dr. Andrew Baker
Well, the main components within 100 families are being able to be there to provide advocacy, to provide alternative options, to help people understand what is happening. There's just a lot of misinformation and there's a lot of stuff where you've dealt with families and they're going off of a case of a friend from ten years ago. Well, things have changed.

00;03;34;22 - 00;03;54;16
Dr. Andrew Baker
Laws have changed, expectations have changed. What it takes to get your children back in certain situations has changed. Like there's so many things that have changed and then so many times in which people end up finding themselves stuck, not knowing that you went to the wrong door. Right. I mean, it's that. People are, oh, come on.

00;03;54;18 - 00;04;00;23
Paul Chapman
Gaining access to different service providers or or legal requirements.

00;04;00;23 - 00;04;24;20
Dr. Andrew Baker
Well, I give one prime example of a family who was a 100 Families client that their daughter was sick and they were trying to get her the necessary care that she needed, but they couldn't because her AR Kids number was wrong. It was a data entry error. Nobody had done anything wrong in that family. Nobody did anything wrong at DHS.

00;04;24;20 - 00;04;26;22
Paul Chapman
They just didn't know how to fix it.

00;04;26;24 - 00;04;48;03
Dr. Andrew Baker
Story I have also told to a number of different occasions was my wife helping a mom whose kids happened to be in care. And after two days of driving around to all the places that she had to go, my wife came home pretty upset and I said, What? What's wrong? And she said, I have a college degree, I have a car, I have the gas, I have the time.

00;04;48;05 - 00;05;14;08
Dr. Andrew Baker
And I'm frustrated the number of places we went and they told us we were at the wrong place, even though the paperwork says that's where we were... The communication gaps, they're just there. They're part of the problem. They're part of the process. And so what 100 Families has been able to do in communities is many times remove the communication barriers and all of a sudden it's like, oh, we’re for the child, which means that I'm for the family, which means that I'm for the community.

00;05;14;14 - 00;05;34;07
Dr. Andrew Baker
I can do everything I can to remove anything that I know to be a barrier. And what I think 100 Families has done in a very beautiful way in many counties and communities across the state of Arkansas is help to remove barriers. Sometimes that are really there and sometimes that are just there in our imagination. Either way, to remove those so that families can find success.

00;05;34;07 - 00;05;53;20
Dr. Andrew Baker
Families can find the services that they need. How can we put people in position to see that they have a chance at life? They have a chance at something that is better? Well, it’s 100 Families in communities that's helping that to be the case by removing those barriers that many people just they don't know what to do.

00;05;53;23 - 00;06;21;15
Paul Chapman
You know, 100 Families follows a collective impact kind of strategy on how do you bring all the different community members together in that communication, focusing on a goal. But also there's some technology that the communities that adopt the model now have access to called Hope Hub that allows fully compliant communication. And you can measure where we're doing well, where is the individual not doing well.

00;06;21;15 - 00;06;51;08
Paul Chapman
Maybe they've regressed a little bit and you can run that over all the way up to a community level so that community members can address certain aspects of problems that many of their citizens are having. Like transportation's pretty big deal in Arkansas is a rural state, and you can see exactly what kind of problem that is here. But there was a church in Russellville, The Journey Church, who was heavily involved and is heavily involved in homelessness and providing ways out of homelessness.

00;06;51;10 - 00;07;22;25
Paul Chapman
They've been serving DCFS for a number of years and they were running into this same communication barrier problem that they themselves were having and definitely their clients were having. And so they approached us many years ago and said, teach us how to use this model. And we've had the opportunity now to work with Jeff Piker who is the coordinator of 100 Families in that community, and he's at pastor at the Journey Church there in Russellville.

00;07;22;27 - 00;07;34;15
Paul Chapman
So, Jeff, thanks for joining me today. Tell me a little bit about how in the world did you find out about 100 Families and, you know, how did you become the coordinator of such a thing as that?

00;07;34;17 - 00;08;04;28
Jeff Piker
It's kind of a crazy story. So I was an associate pastor at Journey Church here in Russellville. One of the things that we did often is we worked with DHS. We would host events for DHS, we would host events for foster families. So there was a long standing relationship with DHS and we'd really built a trust. Our lead pastors dad was the first one that heard about Restore Hope, and 100 families brought it to us as a staff and said, Hey, there's something we need to get involved in.

00;08;05;00 - 00;08;16;22
Jeff Piker
And in conversations I kind of felt, man, I would love to take on that role. Jumped headfirst into 100 Families in April of last year.

00;08;16;25 - 00;08;22;04
Paul Chapman
So you jumped in. Was it what you expected or...?

00;08;22;06 - 00;08;45;20
Jeff Piker
No, It was not what I expected at all. We were used to helping people. I mean, we love people. We serve families on the social service side of it. But it's different. It's different than what we've always done. The biggest thing for me was learning a new language. I had a friend, bless her heart. I'd be sitting in meetings and I'd be texting her acronyms.

00;08;45;20 - 00;09;05;00
Jeff Piker
What does this mean? And finally, one day she said, What are you doing? Where are you? I mean, it's been an amazing ride. It's been at first like trying to get a drink of water through a firehose because there were so many things to learn, so many changes, how we did things, how we talked to people. All of that was different.

00;09;05;02 - 00;09;11;11
Jeff Piker
But one thing that didn't change was our love and compassion for people and wanting to see them better themselves.

00;09;11;14 - 00;09;17;01
Paul Chapman
Has it allowed you to serve or your church serve in the way that you were wanting?

00;09;17;03 - 00;09;43;04
Jeff Piker
We're able to see people... a genuine difference made in their life. We've been able to see families come back together. We've been able to see addicts find the help that they need. We've been able to help people find homes and jobs. And and for us, they're able to find somebody that genuinely loves, that genuinely cares that it's more than just lip service.

00;09;43;04 - 00;09;55;18
Jeff Piker
But we're going to support you and we're going to be there when you stumble. We're going to be there when you fall and we're going to help you up. We're not going to judge you. We're just going to say, all right, let's let's keep going. And so it's been a great journey for us.

00;09;55;21 - 00;09;59;13
Paul Chapman
Jeff but how many folks are in this alliance?

00;09;59;15 - 00;10;12;02
Jeff Piker
We have almost 80 members in our community alliance right now. And and that's growing. Most of those have been trained on our Hope Hub system. And that's a pretty, pretty amazing number.

00;10;12;05 - 00;10;28;15
Paul Chapman
All right. So you've got 80 organizations that have banded together in this alliance to help 100 families at a time move from crisis to career. What are the new components that the communities added...? Tell me about what that 100 Families is practically.

00;10;28;17 - 00;10;55;16
Jeff Piker
Well, the first thing I tell everybody is that we have no money because people come in and like, hey, can you pay this? No, I can't. I can't pay that. I can't put you in a hotel. But what we can do is we have a wealth of relationships and our job is basically connectors. We connect with people in our community that that can help pay the bills, that can help with education, that can help you find a job.

00;10;55;18 - 00;11;20;17
Jeff Piker
And we don't just give somebody a phone number and say, hey, go see them. We will get in our Hope hub system, which is an amazing component that you guys have allowed us to be a part of. With that, we're able to reach out to like our contact at Staff Mart or at Tyson and say, Hey, we're sending we're sending John over for this afternoon to pick up applications.

00;11;20;19 - 00;11;45;03
Jeff Piker
So with that relationship, when John comes in, Brooke, who's our manager at our local Staff, Mark goes, Hey, I was expecting you. Here you go. And it's great. Even people that have felonies, we've got a great list of second chance employers through our Arkansas Workforce program here in Polk County. So we're able to really just integrate all those different pieces and we're all speaking the same language.

00;11;45;06 - 00;12;00;10
Paul Chapman
So in the families that you're meeting and getting connected, the community resource, can we talk about some of the the common issues that they're kind of in, the problems that they're having that that they want and need help with?

00;12;00;13 - 00;12;39;22
Jeff Piker
When we first started... and one thing I love about Restore Hope and the Hope Hub system is we're able to keep score. We're able to track the things that we're able to track every month is where do our referrals come from? How do people come into our program in the beginning? For the first several months, we had two referral sources DCFS and Russ Bus, which is a homeless organization, and all of our clients came through those two avenues over the last several months as we've gotten the word out and people in the community are seeing the success that we're having.

00;12;39;25 - 00;13;08;11
Jeff Piker
DHS last month was only responsible for about 30% of our referrals. Russ Bus has dropped to under 15%. The rest of our referrals are coming in through the community, through our partners, places like rehab services, Universal Housing. The school district has been an amazing referral source. So we're starting to see more and more people in our community see what's happening and refer people.

00;13;08;11 - 00;13;44;23
Jeff Piker
Oh, I know somebody that can help and they'll go call. Some of the biggest problems that that we have are addiction. You know, addiction is big. Poverty is big. Housing is a big thing. And so many of the people that we deal with those problems are generational. So when you're raised in a home that is controlled by addiction, that's all you know, or in a home that is riddled with poverty, that's what you know.

00;13;44;25 - 00;14;08;11
Jeff Piker
And so being able to show someone, Hey, you can live a different life. We’ll help you. We’ll help you make, you know, better choices. Nobody comes to us because they've made great choices, you know? So we partner with them to help make better choices. And it's amazing the influence that we've been able to gain in their lives.

00;14;08;13 - 00;14;30;26
Dr. Andrew Baker
You know, one of the things of a Chance at Life, you know, the theme here is the support that's given through schools both to kids and to families. As a teacher, you know, said to me, a hungry kid's not going to learn. Right? And so you have all these schools who've put things in place and food voucher programs and all of the things that are happening.

00;14;30;26 - 00;14;39;19
Dr. Andrew Baker
Well, now you're starting to see schools like Searcy and Russellville and others who are stepping up and saying, oh, it's even more complex than just food.

00;14;39;22 - 00;15;03;25
Paul Chapman
So schools are one of those key organizations. And each one of our communities that not only are educating children, but also have the opportunity to connect families that are struggling with services that are available in their communities. And that's happening in Searcy. And I know it's I'm aware of an aid program out in Southwest City in central Arkansas, but it's also happening in Russellville.

00;15;03;27 - 00;15;13;12
Paul Chapman
And Jeff Piker got to sit down with Skye Mitchell and talk about her as a resource worker from the schools and helping families connect services.

00;15;13;14 - 00;15;20;17
Jeff Piker
Okay. So joining me now is Skye Mitchell. And Skye, what is your official title with the Russellville School District?

00;15;20;19 - 00;15;28;24
Skye Mitchell
I am the Human Services Worker, Homeless Coordinator for all of Russellville Schools, and I serve pre-K through 12th grade.

00;15;28;26 - 00;15;34;11
Jeff Piker
That's why I asked you to explain that. So in a nutshell, tell everybody like what you do.

00;15;34;14 - 00;16;04;17
Skye Mitchell
My primary focus has always been to focus my attention on on the safety and welfare of children, and that is still my mission today. However, that is so hard to do because, you know, a lot of times people want to focus on the child, the whole child. When our focus needs to be on the whole family, it's almost impossible to make the child whole

00;16;04;17 - 00;16;08;10
Skye Mitchell
if the family is struggling in whatever area they're struggling in.

00;16;08;12 - 00;16;30;09
Jeff Piker
So I know you help a lot of families that are, by definition, homeless. Most people hear that word homeless and they think of the guy standing at the exit holding a cardboard sign. You and I both know that that's not true. What is your typical homeless family look like that you're working with?

00;16;30;14 - 00;17;13;22
Skye Mitchell
Okay, so I work for a federal grant called the McKinney Vento Grant. That was enacted in 1985. And its primary focus is to identify children who meet the federal definition of homelessness, which consists of children living in motels, children living in shelters, children whose families are doubled up with friends, family, anyone because of financial reasons, substandard housing, car parks, cars, obviously transitional units.

00;17;13;25 - 00;17;39;21
Skye Mitchell
The thing that I see most within our school district is obviously doubled. We have a lot of families who just cannot sustain their own homes, so they move in with grandparents, relatives, friends. But as we all know in this line of work, those situations never last. Yeah. So that, you know, that's why they become extremely mobile and they move around so many times in a school year.

00;17;39;23 - 00;17;43;10
Jeff Piker
How do you find the families that you work with?

00;17;43;12 - 00;18;13;06
Skye Mitchell
I've worked for the district now for 17 years, so people are very aware of me. I get calls like 100 Families all day, every day from area businesses, bus drivers, DCFS, the Housing Authority. A bulk of my referrals obviously come within the school district and I do a lot of professional development where I go around and we discuss what homelessness in our district looks like, what I need people to look for.

00;18;13;12 - 00;18;36;26
Skye Mitchell
I can't be everywhere and I've said it's so important for for people to recognize what homelessness looks like and it may not be what you think it looks like, but it is. As I educate people, I want them to be aware that these are you know, there's certain definitions that do qualify family for additional services.

00;18;36;29 - 00;18;45;17
Jeff Piker
What are your steps? How do you help a family move from from crisis, homelessness to stability?

00;18;45;20 - 00;19;15;21
Skye Mitchell
You go you go through this journey with families. There are so many barriers that are created which prevent families from becoming stable, especially if they're living in motels. It's extremely expensive here. Roughly $350 a week to house a family at a motel. And again, you know, my program doesn't have any money either. Now, I'm extremely fortunate to to rely on community resources.

00;19;15;23 - 00;19;26;19
Skye Mitchell
And the school district each year is given money. But with so many parents and families relying on temporary lodging, there's just no way that we can afford to keep that up.

00;19;26;22 - 00;19;43;25
Jeff Piker
So we're talking about $1400 a month, which for a lot of people is is more than they're paying rent or mortgage. Tell us about those families that are in in that situation or how did they get there?

00;19;43;28 - 00;20;10;20
Skye Mitchell
A large majority of my families that are now residing in motels all have jobs. Now, it may not be a glamorous job, but it's a job. Unfortunately, even minimum wage is not enough to sustain them in a motel. Not to mention them still having to feed their children, clothe their children, gas to get to and from work.

00;20;10;22 - 00;20;43;29
Skye Mitchell
Food costs, I mean, just basic cost of living essentials. And what's really sad is when these families are displaced and they become displaced for reasons that literally could happen to any of us. Loss of job, a death in the family, domestic violence, divorce, separation, illness is one that I see a lot of. And, you know, if you're working a minimum wage job at a job that does not offer FMLA or short term disability.

00;20;44;06 - 00;20;59;05
Skye Mitchell
These families, they become homeless because they can no longer sustain their their household. And then what's really sad is they get stuck in this motel where they're never able to save enough money for a deposit and first month's rent.

00;20;59;10 - 00;21;03;13
Jeff Piker
And that doesn't count their utility deposits and all of those things.

00;21;03;16 - 00;21;28;16
Skye Mitchell
I never want to create a barrier for a family if it's just as simple as getting, you know, a resource together to pay an electricity bill or a water bill or provide additional food because there's, you know, they're food insecure. But it goes much bigger than that because, again, I go back to, you know, as an educator, we focus on

00;21;28;19 - 00;21;59;29
Skye Mitchell
the child, the student, you know, it goes so much deeper than that. There are real problems that these kids are facing at home within the family dynamic. And if I if it's just as simple as them not having electricity or them not having enough food, I want to do everything within my power to sustain that home, regardless of where that home is, whether it's somebody else's home, the motel. You know, addiction around our community is really taking a toll on the families that we serve.

00;22;00;04 - 00;22;22;17
Skye Mitchell
And, you know, despite how we feel about addiction, these families are hurting, hurting in a in a really bad way. And we really need to get to the root of why are they using, you know, if we can if we can come in and address the reasons why and get them the help that they need, they they can they can do so much more with their lives.

00;22;22;20 - 00;22;45;07
Jeff Piker
Yeah, I think a lot of times we focus on on symptoms rather than the actual disease. And I think you're able to to really look past the current situation and try to figure out... Kind of like what we do at 100 families. Let's figure out why you're here and let's work on preventing that. Skye, let’s talk about your typical caseload.

00;22;45;09 - 00;22;48;18
Jeff Piker
Tell me about some of the families that you've been working with over the last month.

00;22;48;20 - 00;23;18;21
Skye Mitchell
In the last month. Unfortunately, I've had 12 of my identified students go into foster care, and with all 12 of those kids, three families, it was a result of drugs. Very heartbreaking. And the other sad truth to that is all 12 of these kids have been displaced from this community except for two. And, of course, that's what we see a lot.

00;23;18;24 - 00;23;26;08
Skye Mitchell
Unfortunately, it's just we don't have enough foster care homes in this area to keep the family unit intact.

00;23;26;10 - 00;23;35;19
Jeff Piker
So in thinking about 100 Families in our community, how has that helped or assisted you in in what you do?

00;23;35;21 - 00;24;03;29
Skye Mitchell
It takes more than just myself to meet the needs of these families. There's just no way that I could do everything that I need to do, just doing it myself. I have really, really enjoyed working with 100 families because it allowed me to collaborate with with people that I may not have collaborated with before. The Hub is especially vital to our mission, us all

00;24;03;29 - 00;24;23;06
Skye Mitchell
being able to to band together, collaborate, share, share information with one another. And it's just it's been it's been a huge asset to just me and what I do for the district.

00;24;23;08 - 00;24;32;04
Paul Chapman
So practically speaking, what happens? So the school district refers a family that’s struggling to you. And then what happens?

00;24;32;06 - 00;24;56;16
Jeff Piker
So we have a couple of different ways that people refer clients. We've had usually it's a phone call or an email. We've had people referred to our Facebook page. We've had people just show up at our resource center. And regardless of how they get there, once they get there, we sit down and we have a conversation and we go through an assessment.

00;24;56;19 - 00;25;42;23
Jeff Piker
Assessment sounds really formal and it sounds really kind of rigid, like you're at the doctor's office answering the health questions. Our case managers do an amazing job because that assessment becomes a conversation. And as we go through that conversation, we can see the walls begin to come down. I'm amazed, continually amazed by the honesty that people have as we go through the assessment, because I think as we establish the relationship, if they know that we're there to not just say, hey, we want to help you or we're trying to pay your light bill, they know that we genuinely want to be involved in their life and it's a long term commitment that we're making.

00;25;42;25 - 00;25;46;13
Paul Chapman
What are the types of areas that you're kind of doing this assessment?

00;25;46;13 - 00;26;04;04
Jeff Piker
And it's pretty extensive. It runs everything. It runs the gamut from from housing to addiction to education to transportation to finance, to to health, dental. I mean, it's it looks at the overall...

00;26;04;04 - 00;26;05;17
Paul Chapman
Kinda looking at the whole person.

00;26;05;20 - 00;26;34;16
Jeff Piker
It's a it's a holistic approach. It's not just about, like I said, paying somebody’s light bill. It's, hey, what if we get you in a position where what do you want to be? What would you love to do? Would you want to dream again? And if you could dream again, what? What do you want to do? So many of our families have been just going from crisis to crisis so long that taking a minute to dream about what their life could be.

00;26;34;18 - 00;26;46;22
Jeff Piker
And a lot of times that brings people to tears because they're so caught up in the moment and in a crisis. The thought of what could be? They've lost touch with that.

00;26;46;24 - 00;27;00;17
Paul Chapman
What are your hopes? You've been at this now this community kind of organizing in the community, serving people in this collaborative way. Now, you've been at it for about a year. You know what? What's the next year look like?

00;27;00;20 - 00;27;22;25
Jeff Piker
One of the biggest needs that we have in our community is for mental health services. I'm not sure what it looks like yet, but I know that we're going to be instrumental in bringing mental health, advancing mental health services to our community. That's something we're very passionate about and we know that's a that's a piece that has to be there.

00;27;22;27 - 00;27;30;17
Paul Chapman
I know you work closely with DCFS. Are you getting referrals now in where the children have been removed.

00;27;30;20 - 00;28;01;08
Jeff Piker
Through that relationship, we get both supportive service calls and protective service calls. One of our investigators here is amazing. And she'll call and go, hey, there's really not a case to remove the child, but they need some help. Can I send them to you? And of course, our answer's always yes. So we've been able to see some really good things happen that prevent kids from going into the system.

00;28;01;11 - 00;28;28;22
Paul Chapman
So being able to try to prevent that removal and then if a removal occurs, trying to speed the reunification and make the reunification option a lot more likely is something that they're working on in Russellville with in partnership with DCFS. And Jeff Parker got the opportunity to introduce us to some key workers, DCFS workers in Polk County.

00;28;28;26 - 00;28;37;23
Mahogany Smith
My name is Mahogany Smith. I am a family service worker specialist, and I specifically just work with foster care cases.

00;28;37;26 - 00;28;41;14
Devin Singh
I'm Devin Singh. I work with Polk County, DCFS.

00;28;41;17 - 00;29;04;01
Licia Etheridge
I'm Licia Etheridge. I’m an investigator. I'm a family service worker. But I do investigations. So the best way to put it is I go in first. If I get a report, I investigate it. It's true, not true. If I make a true finding, these ladies step in. Once I do my investigation. Do we have food, do we have water? If they don't, how can we provide families with those services to turn on their water or bring food out to them?

00;29;04;02 - 00;29;19;10
Licia Etheridge
I went out to First Baptist Church over here, got food boxes and taken them out to families because I'm not going to take your child if you don't have food. What can I do to get food in your home? If it's a normal investigation and I just step in and I do my investigation, I'm like, okay, well, we have a threat,

00;29;19;17 - 00;29;34;14
Licia Etheridge
but this family, it's not immediate to take that child, but they need services. Let's open up a case to keep their child in the home. It's a protective service case. So I haven't opened... Like, I haven't removed the child. But we're trying to prevent a removal by keeping a worker in that home and helping that family.

00;29;34;16 - 00;29;51;03
Devin Singh
In order to do a removal, you have to identify an immediate safety threat. Sometimes it could be one, sometimes it could be multiple, and sometimes you won't remove for the same one that you removed in someone else. So it's like compounding factors.

00;29;51;05 - 00;30;21;19
Licia Etheridge
I try to work with families. Let's get this cleaned up within this many hours and I've gone to homes where we have trash. It's like a hoarder home. Kids at school. Okay, well, we have 8 hours to get some of this cleaned up. How fast can we get this cleaned up? And sometimes, even when you put those safety plans in, when you go into that TDM, which is a team decision making meeting, so much comes out that it's in the parent's best interest to let the child come into care, let them work on themselves and then reunify because we don't want anything to happen to the children.

00;30;21;21 - 00;30;32;15
Licia Etheridge
But I've done everything to keep children in the home because I don't... Um mm. I don't. It's just a lot and it's traumatic. So we try hard to work with families.

00;30;32;18 - 00;31;10;11
Mahogany Smith
For me, working in this position is very personal. I myself was in foster care at one time. That is why I chose this profession. I take my job very seriously. So no matter how many kids I have on my caseload, I always make sure they all have my attention. And if they need something, I'm there. Even if it's traveling four hours just to visit with them for 2 hours, or specifically making sure, like Devin did this past week, making sure a child has an actual birthday, because we do have a lot of children that rights have already been terminated.

00;31;10;14 - 00;31;19;28
Mahogany Smith
And so it's hard. It's very hard. But I don't know. It does something good for my heart to do this job.

00;31;20;00 - 00;31;47;19
Devin Singh
When you have a parent who doesn't understand how they were neglecting their kids or doesn't understand what they did wrong, that caused the threat of fear of safety for their children, It's a mindset that you have to transition them into thinking. A lot of them will immediately start telling you the problems in their lives as opposed to the problems in their kids lives.

00;31;47;21 - 00;32;13;10
Devin Singh
So the process of case management is kind of like transitioning that frame of mind into, Your life isn't just about you, it's about being a parent and putting those kids first. So then when the goal of reunification happens, it's when those parents are able to kind of stop thinking about themselves or are able to get the help that they need for themselves.

00;32;13;16 - 00;32;20;17
Devin Singh
So they can be that parent that thinks in a way that could allow for reunification.

00;32;20;19 - 00;32;51;27
Jeff Piker
We've also... We've also gotten a lot of calls from the families, Hey, what do I need to do to get my kids back? And our friends at DHS will say, hey, call 100 Families. And we’ll work hand-in-hand with the case manager, the caseworker to do what needs to be done. And that's one great thing about our Hope Hub system is the integrated communication we have with those workers that they're able to tell us exactly what the families need.

00;32;51;29 - 00;33;00;29
Jeff Piker
We're able to tell them exactly what we're doing with the family. And any time there's progress, they immediately know. And that's been, that's been a huge advantage.

00;33;01;02 - 00;33;28;22
Devin Singh
Just means a lot to know that we can make a difference in these kids lives or when when a parent says thank you or calls to tell you things about their day, I got a job like and you're the first person they decided to call, not because they were checking off that box, you know, on a on a court order, but because they knew you would give them excitement back, you know, and then say, good, you know, and just cheer them on.

00;33;28;24 - 00;33;45;03
Licia Etheridge
I would say that like when you see parents who are thrilled for an accomplishment they made. Even as investigator, I'm like, I tell families, okay, this is what we need to work on. This is what we need to do. We're going to make a referral here, referral here. Let's get services started. They get excited for jobs. Guess what? I got a job.

00;33;45;03 - 00;33;46;05
Licia Etheridge
That's awesome.

00;33;46;10 - 00;33;51;23
Licia Etheridge
Well, it's only at Casey’s. Hey, it's a job. It's only at the Family Dollar. It's still a job.

00;33;51;26 - 00;34;18;08
Paul Chapman
Jeff, thanks so much. I'll tell you what excites me is that I've been a part of some of your alliance meetings here. And then I'm looking at the data that the Polk County Alliance is producing, and y'all are really at it. Last time I looked, you had almost 80 families that were active, actively being served by the community and the impact that you were having on on recovery and housing and employment.

00;34;18;08 - 00;34;29;01
Paul Chapman
It's just... it's the kind of thing that that I hope would exist, you know, here and everywhere in every county in Arkansas. And so thanks for what you do.

00;34;29;03 - 00;34;47;09
Jeff Piker
We couldn't do it. We couldn't do it by ourselves because we in the grand scheme of things, we do very little. We supply support and and friendship to our families, but it's our community partners that make everything happen and we wouldn't be able to have a success without them.

00;34;47;11 - 00;35;10;17
Paul Chapman
Let's talk about that just a little bit, Jeff. So so all these resources were currently here and y'all being one of them. You were at the church offering a set of services. You know, why are things different now? What is it about the collaborative that kind of has the momentum that that I feel in the community now?

00;35;10;20 - 00;35;36;11
Jeff Piker
Well, I think it's so easy to get caught up in your own Hula-Hoop that you get really good at doing what you do, but you lose sight of what's happening around you and you're really focused on doing your job well. But once you complete your job, you don't know what's next. So what we've done is we've just taken advantage of people that are doing their job really well.

00;35;36;13 - 00;35;46;02
Jeff Piker
And when our clients receive the service from them, we're able to then take them or lead them to another one of our partners that's able to help with the next phase of their life.

00;35;46;04 - 00;35;52;04
Paul Chapman
So in the collaboration, you're actually seeing clients move faster, further?

00;35;52;07 - 00;36;25;24
Jeff Piker
Absolutely. They move faster, they move further. One of the things that... Probably the line that I've said the most as I'm building the the partners is I didn't know you did that. You know, so many of our organizations in our community do things that we just... nobody else knew about. So now that we're able to kind of organize all those things and take advantage of the things that our partners already do well, we're seeing success and success very quickly on behalf of our families.

00;36;25;27 - 00;36;42;04
Paul Chapman
You know, I've been doing this since 2005, and I said that very thing this morning about a resource in my hometown. Said, Who are they? What do they do? I've never heard of them. That sounds fantastic. We need to meet with them.

00;36;42;04 - 00;36;42;23
Jeff Piker
Yeah.

00;36;42;26 - 00;37;16;07
Paul Chapman
I would also say that too, to expect someone who's in deep crisis. Maybe they're having the worst time of their entire life to try to now figure that out. You've been at it now full time for a year. I've been at it in in central Arkansas since 2005. You know, trying to find these resources and I'm just now discovering more opportunities for our clients. That's one of the reasons why someone in crisis just... We don't have the results that we all want, including them.

00;37;16;09 - 00;37;19;21
Paul Chapman
They want us, you know, we don't know about a resource or how to access it.

00;37;19;23 - 00;37;48;19
Jeff Piker
And we are we really focus on celebrating the small victories, you know, when they make a small step or some of our our clients, when they actually turn in the application? For them, that's a big deal. And so we celebrate those successes. And you can see their demeanor change once they're celebrated, once they get the pat on the back, once they know that someone believes in them, it changes everything for them.

00;37;48;21 - 00;37;50;04
Paul Chapman
They got a bit of hope, don’t they?

00;37;50;07 - 00;37;51;15
Jeff Piker
Yeah, you get hope.

00;37;51;17 - 00;38;09;15
Licia Etheridge
And there's some of those families, I have removed their children and they louth the ground I walk on. They... Don't ever let me see you in public. And just a couple of weeks ago I was at my son's wrestling practice and I rushed in there because I was getting off work and I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to miss his picture day.

00;38;09;17 - 00;38;27;00
Licia Etheridge
And I had my badge on still, and I seen this mom looking at me while I'm watching my son take his group pictures with other little wrestlers. She comes up to me and she's like, Do you remember me? No. Her face looked familiar, but I didn't remember her. She's like, You took my kids two years ago. And I was like, Oh, my god.

00;38;27;02 - 00;38;40;08
Licia Etheridge
And I then I recognized her kids taking the picture with my son, like their group picture. And I was like, Well, congratulations. You did everything you were supposed to. I see you got them back. I was like, But we don't have to talk about this here. We're in a public. And she's like, It's okay. Everybody's up front about state care here.

00;38;40;09 - 00;38;57;07
Licia Etheridge
And I'm like, I'm really proud of you because I am. I want that for my parents. I want them even though I only spend 30 days with them, I want them to get their children back. It was actually one of Mahogany’s cases too. And she said, I just wanted to thank you and I wanted to apologize for what I said to you after court one day.

00;38;57;09 - 00;39;13;21
Licia Etheridge
And I was like, Oh yeah, yeah. She said, I told you if I ever seen you in public, it was going to be bad for you. And I said, Well, look at us. We're just talking like normal people now. And she said, I just wanted to apologize. That was not okay. I was just angry because I was in my addiction and I did not understand.

00;39;13;28 - 00;39;34;14
Licia Etheridge
But I've been clean ever since you took my kids. And I didn't recognize her because she had put on that weight. She looks healthy. She doesn't look like that person who was actively using. And I was so... and I'm still so proud of her.

00;39;34;16 - 00;39;58;12
Narrator
Thank you for joining this discussion about wrapping around families engaged in the child welfare system. Join us next week to discuss the role foster families provide in supporting families and children. Smart Justice episode hosts are Paul Chapman and Dr. Andrew Baker. Thanks to our guests Jeff Piker, Skye Mitchell, Mahogany Smith, Alisha Etheridge and Devon Singh Out of Sight.

00;39;58;15 - 00;40;23;26
Narrator
Our Season three theme song, A Chance at Life, is written and produced by Arkansas artist Jason Truby. Musical credits include “Clouds” by Wayfair, “In Hiding” by Pete Stewart, and “Here With You” by Moments. Smart Justice is produced by Restore Hope. To learn more, visit www.SmartJustice.org.

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Music
Two broken pieces made a brand new design and gave this soul a chance at life.

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