Infancy/Early Childhood Pilot Program - Children's Hospital of Michigan

Medical Home
Children’s Hospital of Michigan Primary Care Pediatrics Clinic is available to be a “medical home” for children enrolled in the Infancy/Early Childhood Pilot Program. The clinic is staffed by WSU Department of Pediatrics faculty who will provide well child care and acute pediatric care as well as referral to and coordination of any specialty care that is needed.

The practice is located in the University Health Center, Suite 4B, 4201 St. Antoine.

Scheduling Appointments
Appointments should be scheduled through the central DMC appointment line at
(888) DMC-2500. Callers should ask to schedule an appointment with the Dr. Yvonne Friday in Primary Care Pediatrics or Faculty Practice Clinic. Callers should identify the child as a participant in the New Beginnings Program. The appointment scheduler will need basic demographic information (name, birth date, address, phone, etc.) as well as insurance information and numbers.

Forty eight hours prior to the appointment, CHM registration personnel will contact Medicaid to verify that the insurance is active. If the insurance is not active, the registration clerk will contact the foster parent to inform them of the problem. The foster parent may then contact the worker to request that the Medicaid be activated as soon as possible.

What To Bring to the Appointment
Please bring the following items to the appointment:
· Picture ID (drivers license, state ID, etc.) of caregiver
· Foster care license
· Copy of placement order
· Current insurance card
· Current medications in their bottles
· Immunization records (if available)
· Prior health records or information about prior health care providers

If there are general questions about the CHM component of this program, contact Mary Mueller, Manager Social Work Department at
(313) 745-4263 or Dr. Friday at 745-4817.

MCHS Pilot Trainings in November!

Please invite your foster parents in the New Beginings Program to attend trainings in November. Trainings will be on Thursday, 11-06-08 and Thursday, 11-20-08 from 6:00 PM until 7:30 PM. The location of the trainings will be at MCHS located at 26645 W. 6 Mile Rd., Redford, MI 48240. The trainings will be held on the third floor of the Kresge Building located at the back of the campus. The training on 11-06-08 will be on Session 3: Parenting Time, Supporting Effective Visits. The training on 11-20-08 will be on Session 4: Discipline and Tricky Situations with Traumatized Children. (Due to the early timing of these trainings other topics at the introductory level will be worked in as needed.) Please call me directly at (313)531-3311 with any questions regarding the trainings and to let me know if any of your foster parents or relatives are planning to attend! Thanks!!!! Megan Owens, MCHS

Training of Trainers

1. For those of you who agreed to do training: Have you developed a schedule for this training? If so, could you send it to YLC.

2. Would those of you who will be participating be interested in a training on conducting ice breakers for social workers in your agency? Would you be interested in receiving the ice breaker form that we developed?

Please respond to YLC by Friday, October 24th. Thank you again for your interest and particpation.

Parent Trainers Manual

Hi,  Click on this link (below) to access the most updated version of the parent support group manual (for trainers).  Let me know if you have any difficulty accessing the .pdf file, or if you need any of other materials.  Best, Kate

Parent trainers manual PDF File

FOSTER PARENT ORIENTATION - August 13th

The next foster parent orientation will be held August 13th at 6:00 p.m. at the Children's Center.

Please note: This meeting was previously scheduled for August 14th. The date has been changed. Please be sure to note the change.

Child care will be provided.

Please email Robin Bishop with names of foster parents who can attend (and number of children they will bring, if possible).

TRAINING OF TRAINERS - August 13th

The next training of trainers meeting is sheduled for AUGUST 13TH at 5:00 p.m. at the Children's Center.

Please note that this meeting had been previously scheduled for August 14th, but the date has been changed.

Please email Robin Bishop at rbishop@ylc.org if you can attend.

FOSTER PARENT ORIENTATION (potential)- Sept. 17th

If there are any foster parents (licensed or potential) who are interested in the project and have not been trained by this date, we will hold another training on the evening of September 17th at the Children's Center.

Please let Robin Bishop or Carole Shauffer know if you have foster parents that are still in need of training. Rbishop@ylc.org; cshauffer@ylc.org.

SEPTEMBER 17TH - LUNCH MEETING

There will be a lunch meeting from 12:00 - 2:00 on September 17th at the Children's Center. It is essential that at least one representative from every participating agency attend. We will make a training calendear for this protect that will enable those agencies who want to partner to do so. It will also allow the parent partners to attend the training to improve their ability to serve as part of the parenting team.

Please RSVP to Robin Bishop via email: rbishop@ylc.org

Life Interrupted - Teens Remember their First Days in Care

from REPRESENT - The Voice of Youth in Care

Without My Family
By Dominique

I remember it was about 9 o’clock and there was a knock at the door.

I was happy because I thought it was my mother. But it was the cops. I was so scared because I didn’t know what was about to happen or what was going on. There were four cops and three white ladies and they were there to take everyone under the age of 18.

I was nowhere near 18 so I knew I was f--ked. I knew I was never going to be able to return to that house again. My whole body shut down. All I could think about was how I was never going to see my brothers, and I started to cry.

Out of nowhere my mother busted through the door talking about, “Why are you people here?”
The cop just said, “Don’t say anything, mama. We’re just here to take the little ones. You can take it up with your lawyer.”

At that point I knew that these people were taking me and my brothers and sisters to a place where we were not going to be able to get away.

It Didn’t Last

The cops dropped us off at this big building. We stayed at that building for one or two weeks, but it felt like forever.

When they finally took us out it was a Wednesday and it was dark outside. They were taking us to my aunt’s house. Her name is Flor and her house was the best house that they could bring us to because I loved and respected her more than anybody else. She was the only one there for me when I really needed someone to cry on and to talk to.

When I was living with my aunt, I had everything. But that didn’t last long.

My Life Was Over

After three months my sister started acting up. One day she took it upon herself to put her hands on one of my little brothers and my aunt had to put her in a resting position just so she could chill. But my sister and my mother blew it out of proportion and made these damned white people come and take us out of my aunt’s house and just separate us. That’s when I knew my life was over, starting that day.

When they came to get us I was so scared that my cousin Nelly came and grabbed me up and took me into the projects across the street so they could not take me. But as soon as I looked down the block I saw three men carrying my little brothers and their things away.

My heart grew a pain that no one ever felt before. I dropped down to my knees and started crying. I could not believe it, and I couldn’t believe that it was happening all over again. I knew that I wasn’t gonna be able to handle the system without my family.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone Else’s Home
By Manny

It happened so fast, with no warning. It came and hit me just like that.

My first day in foster care, I was so confused, so lost, I didn’t even know what was going on. I only caught a glimpse of my grandmother’s downhearted look as we were leaving. I cried as I stood there, dying inside, no knowledge of what lay before me, what my future would be like. All that was happening around me was drowned away by my tears.

Into the Unknown

I was put into a car with my brother and sister, all of our things packed in blue garbage bags. We were taken to a recreation center-type place. It was a nice place, but it sure as hell didn’t make up for the fact that I’d just been taken from my family.

After spending the night there, we were again put into a car and driven to an unknown location. My sister was dropped off first. Then we stopped and my brother and I got out of the car.
We were in front of a building that loomed over me like a skyscraper. We went inside and up the stairs, my heart beating like a conga drum. When my social worker knocked at one of the doors, I stepped back.

A New Routine

We were greeted and invited in, into a home I was not familiar with, with people I had never seen before in my life. I was frightened out of my mind. I didn’t understand why I had to be here, in this apartment, with these people I did not know.

That night I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up most of the night crying and wishing I was with my family again. I reflected on memories that seemed so distant, so long ago.

The next morning was the beginning of an undying routine. I would get home, go to the room and stay there. The only time I’d leave was when my foster mother called me out to eat dinner. She had two other children and we all sat at the dinner table. We all just sat there, silent, rushing to finish so that we could go back to our pre-dinner activities. I always had this lingering feeling of isolation, like I didn’t belong with this family.

Eventually I moved on to other homes, where those feelings all came back. All the fear and isolation were more or less the same in every place. The truth is, you never really get used to being in someone else’s home, no matter how many homes you’ve been to. It takes a great foster parent and a welcoming home to make you feel like you belong.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who Am I Now?
By Shameka

Another torturous day in hell. A few weeks had passed since my dad’s release from jail and my family’s eviction from our home, and nothing had improved. My 10 brothers and sisters and I were still crashing out with my dad at his girlfriend’s tiny apartment, along with her two children. We were not attending school, barely eating, sleeping on hard floors and working like slaves in her house. We cooked, we cleaned and we took care of her baby.

After about a month, my dad decided to opt out. He said he couldn’t take care of us anymore, not that he ever really did. He said we had the option of either going into a shelter together or being split up amongst the family. We chose the shelter, but he chose the split, so off we went to live with different family members. I, along with one of my sisters and three of my brothers, went to live with our uncle, who we barely knew.

I didn’t really feel the pain and anger of the separation until about a week in. I missed my other brothers and sisters and was tired of this foreign home, where I didn’t feel much like family. I even began to miss those annoying days in a crowded house with no privacy.

Everything Changed

Then one day my uncle, a man of lectures who was big on family meetings, sat us all down in the basement with his own children for a discussion. That’s when he told us we were becoming his foster children.

It all changed that very second. My cousins started calling me their sister (sometimes with ‘foster’ in front of it). My aunt and uncle started calling me their daughter and setting rules down for me to follow. Rules. I’d never once encountered them with my own mother or father. The way of the house stayed the same, but in my mind the whole dynamic changed.

I was now a foster child. The term was loaded with meaning and unleashed so many different feelings in me. For the rest of my life, I thought I’d have to deal with people looking down on or pitying us as the family no one really cared about. I’d have to deny and try to hide my identity, all because of him. My father had already done so much wrong to me and my family. Now he had abandoned us, and the era of my hatred for him began.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Out of Confusion, A New Start
By Amber

We were in a car. My older sister was upset, talking loudly, complaining how her twin had just been snatched from us. The social worker was silent. He’d already explained to us the protocol: we’d spend the night in this building where they collect foster kids. “Like a kidnapping agency or something,” I thought to myself.

He was the one that had done the “snatching” earlier that day. He went into my sister’s school and said he was from ACS and here to take her. Jerk. She must have been humiliated, and scared. I was scared, wondering if I’d ever see her again.

A Holding Pen

The building was in the city. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t a group home, but it wasn’t one of your regular agencies, either. It was a holding pen. For kidnapped youth. It had to be. We didn’t have all of our clothes with us. My mother had kept telling us that we’d be back, and not to take anything. I knew not to believe her, I knew it was just another lie, but my sister, she was naïve. She didn’t even bring her backpack.

The room we slept in was huge. It had four twin-sized beds on each side, and everything was peach and white. Even the sheets. Some lady took our picture, gave us a medical exam, two white T-shirts, pink pajamas and green sweats, then sent us off to our peach-colored beds. I went to sleep wondering if my other sister was okay.

They woke us up early for breakfast. My sister was pissed by that time. She wanted to speak with her twin, wanted to be back with our mother. I stayed quiet. I didn’t understand too much of what was going on, but I wasn’t living in the shelter anymore, so that was something to be grateful about.

We met the other kids that were living in the holding pen. They were all teenagers, around my sister’s age. They were fun. Later that day, we all went to the movies together. I couldn’t understand what my sister had been complaining about. Aside from the peachy walls, I was enjoying myself.

As soon as we got back from the movies, my sister and I were told that we were going to be transferred to a home. I thought that was very speedy since a couple of the girls I spoke with said they had been in the holding pen for months.

Second Chance

The car ride to Queens was interesting. It felt like a road trip. So many questions kept popping into my head. “Where am I going? Is my other sister there? How long are we staying there for?” I wondered if I would see my school again.

My other sister was already at the house when we got there. So was this stranger, and her family. She was kind, but I still didn’t know who she was, or why the three of us were living with her. The ins and outs of foster care were only explained later. I thought it was a nice alternative to being homeless.

I missed my mom, but it was also a breath of fresh air to be away from her. It felt like a new start, like I was given a second chance to have a decent family, a decent life. I never knew foster care did that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I Didn’t Know What to Expect
By Akeema

I’ve been in the foster care system ever since I was born. But growing up, I always lived with different relatives.

When I was 8, my brother and I went to live with my aunt in New Jersey. Life with her was hell. My aunt and uncle were verbally and physically abusive. We endured it for six years, until my aunt called ACS and told them she couldn’t deal with my brother anymore.

I told ACS to come get me, too, because I hated it there and didn’t want to be anywhere without my brother. But I had to wait three more months, until I graduated from 8th grade. ACS finally came and removed me from my aunt’s house. My aunt wasn’t home at the time, but my clothing and everything had been packed the night before.

Before placing me in my new foster home, ACS took me to some kind of group facility in Brooklyn. They registered me, took my belongings and sent me up to where all the other kids were. I felt like I was in a juvenile center. The kids were wearing gray uniforms, and their rooms looked like cell blocks.

Just Visiting

A lady introduced me to some of the kids who were in the main area watching a movie. She told me that many of these kids were here because of abuse, or were just runaways. One girl looked as though she had just gotten out of a fight, with her hair all messed up.

Then another lady showed me to my room and offered me clothing, toiletries, and socks. I tried to explain to her that I wasn’t going to be staying there for long, but she kept insisting that I take them. I didn’t. I had no idea where those clothes had been before me. In the end, I only stayed for a couple of hours until my social worker came and got me.

A New Home

It was about two in the morning when I arrived at my new foster home. Surprisingly, my brother, little sister and my foster mother’s daughter, sister, and brother were still awake.
I had spoken to my new foster mother a couple of hours before arriving. She sounded nice and asked me what I wanted for dinner. I told her Chinese food and, sure enough, when I got there she had it for me. She greeted me with a big bear hug, almost crushing me because I was so little at the time. It felt kind of awkward, yet nice. I wasn’t used to getting hugged.

My heart seemed to jump out of my chest as she went around the room introducing everyone to me. These people were a bunch of new faces, and I was scared and nervous because I didn’t know what to expect from them. This was now considered my family.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Freedom was Snatched
By Alex

There I was in a Salvation Army van on my way to my first foster home with nothing to call my own. It was one o’clock in the morning and I felt restless and annoyed, with a twist of anxiety. We turned onto a beautiful, quiet block in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I got out of the car and my caseworker led the way.

A chubby lady with an overlapping belly opened the front door and I stepped in cautiously. She had nappy hair and her teeth were very yellow. “She kinda looks like the Grinch that stole Christmas,” I thought. Like it or not, this was my new foster mother.

When ACS picked me up from school that day, I felt like my freedom was snatched while I wasn’t looking. They told me my mother had been arrested, so my younger brother Alan, little sister Cearra and I had to go to a foster home.

I didn’t know what to expect. All I’d heard about the system was that children often fought, stole and got into trouble with each other. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. Would I ever see my family again?

I felt like the system had just interrupted an interesting story I was telling to a friend—my story. Now I had to start following their story line. It would take a while before I figured out how to beat the system by writing my own script.

Article about Benefit to Providing Early Childhood Services

What Does Economics Tell Us about Early Childhood Policy? By the Rand Corporation. Research Brief. (Rand, Santa Monica, California) 2008 5 p.

["An increasing chorus of Fortune 500 CEOs, Federal Reserve Bank analysts, Nobel Prize-winning economists, and other business and economic leaders have led the call to increase public "investments" in early childhood. This call is driven by research findings that increasingly emphasize the importance of laying a strong foundation in early childhood and that show that a range of early interventions can successfully put children on the path toward positive development, preventing poor outcomes in adulthood. These findings-along with increasing recognition in the public-health and social-service sectors that providing program services in early childhood has benefits over treatment later in life-have contributed to the evolution of economists' support for early childhood investments. To help decision makers in the public and private sectors, service providers, and the public more generally, RAND researchers drew on their decades-long expertise in applying economics to early childhood issues to demonstrate how two economic concepts-human capital theory and monetary payoffs-contribute to a unifying framework that provides evidence-based guidance for early childhood policy. These concepts are summarized in this research brief."]

Full text at: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2008/RAND_RB9352.pdf

Training for Protective Services Workers

We have scheduled a training on help protective services workers deal with removals involving infants and young children
June 17, 2008 1:00 to 3:00
South Central CFS
1801 E. Canfield St.
Detroit, MI

First Foster Parent Orientation Scheduled

The initial orientation for existing foster parents will be:

June 17 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Children's Center.

please invite any foster parents or prospective foster parents whom you believe will be interested in the program even if they are not currently available to accept a child.
We will have copies of the DOC available and will explain the program.

Please send the names of families that might attend to Myee@ylc.org

Updates on Training for Foster Parent Trainers

In response to suggestions at the training of trainers and further discussions we have developed the following schedule and requirements for training for the Infant/toddler program

1) Trainers/group leaders who are supporting foster parents in the program must have training in the following sessions: 1. Attachment, 2. visitation/working with bio parents, 3. dealing with behavioral issues 4. interpreting the child's signals and 5. talking with babies and young children (language) The initial session in covered attachment.

3) The next training will be at 1:00 p.m. on June 18 at the Children's Center. We will cover the following
a. The log (with a sample log) and how to maintain it
b. Supporting Parenting time and
c. Recap of information we gained from the foster parent orientation
We will start promptly at 1.

4) Subsequent sessions will cover sessions :
a. working with behavioral issues and discipline
b. interpreting the child's signals
c. talking with your child (language)

At each meeting we will begin with a discussion of issues that have arisen since the last meeting then conduct a model session.

We hope this format will better meet everyone's needs.

Up Coming Events

We have scheduled three events for May and June

The next two training of trainers will be held at the Children's Center on May 14 and June 18 from 1 to 4. We have asked all participants to review the training materials before then

The first orientation for foster parents interested in participating in the program will be held on June 17 from 6 to 9. We will have a light supper. The location is to be determined, but if you wish to offer your facility, please let us know.

Thanks to everyone for the outstanding participation at our April meetings. If you have specific questions or need additional copies of any materials, you can reach me at Cshauffer@ylc.org

Training of Trainers, April 23

Just a reminder that the Training of Trainers will be held on

April 23, 2008
10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
at
The Children's Center
90 Selden
Detroit, MI 48201

Lunch will be provided.