Partner Spotlight

The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (DCS) is responsible for more than 9,000 children in state custody for neglect or delinquency. As Executive Director of the Office of Child Permanency within the Department, Elizabeth Black has a big job. Her work helps promote and insure that kids have a family to care for them. As of May 31, 2006, there were 313 youth over age 14 waiting to be adopted.

 

“We work hard to reduce the trauma of removal and foster care placement,” said Black. “We struggle to get the best placement in the best home as quickly as possible.”
           

To do that the Department has 4 divisions, Foster Care and Adoption, Permanency Planning, Child Placement and Private Providers, and Recruitment. There are 12 regional offices around the state. Those offices work with 107 licensed child placement agencies which provide residential programs, group homes and foster care placement. To make the process more efficient Black says DCS is shifting to a more community-based model so decisions are made locally
           

“We want to build a model for resource parenting to aggressively and creatively reunite or find permanent homes for these kids,” said Black. “A team meeting process has been implemented to shift decision making from department staff to people in the child’s network who can dig into their personal connections and find the best solution to the situation.”
           

It worked for Chey Korvandi-Geledar when her Sunday School teacher became her foster mother (her story is in this edition’s youth spotlight). She has been impressed by Elizabeth Black’s work and believes DCS is improving services.
           

“I didn’t mind going to court hearings and doing all the stuff the State wanted me to do because I knew I had a home to go to and no one could take that away from me,” said Chey.
           

To make this possible for other youth, the department has worked on equipping 74 DCS Facilitators to build, prepare and manage child and family teams. Thirteen Universities and Colleges around the state have helped present best practice training for case managers as well as the youth in foster care themselves.             .
           

There has been a learning curve, according to Black. She said that early in the process she was caught up in figuring out the details of creating the right process and procedures. More recently, however, she has been working with the youth board of the Nashville Youth Opportunities Initiatives and has begun to understand the child’s side of the process.
           

For example, Black said that her team has always focused on getting kids into placement more quickly. From youth who have been through the process she learned that while timing is important, most young people are willing to wait for a good placement if someone is able to talk to them and explain what is going on. In fact, good communications and having a voice in the process seems to empower youth during this traumatic time.
           

By continuing to use this voice and work for system change as they get older, youth leaders are finding ways to help their peers through the times that were most difficult for them. Currently the youth board is partnering to start a “Home for the Holidays” program that assists former foster care kids now in college to stay with faculty and staff members, or on campus, instead of being homeless over the holidays.

           

“They have lived it. They know the realities of trying to get an education on their own,” said Black. “It is so powerful when we work together and advocate for a better system to help them succeed.”