The University News

Issue date: 10/20/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Kevin Bryce Experts address foster care and adoption at the annual convention.

In an effort to make known the needs of the community, the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Social Work hosted the Sixth Annual Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association Conference last week.

This year's conference focused on "Integrate, Innovate, Collaborate," bringing together all the people involved in a child's life: therapists, counselors, teachers, social workers, foster and adoptive parents and others.

In the past, the conference has been geared toward foster and adoptive parents, and this year organizers of the conference hope to get these people more involved with service providers for their children.

UMKC alumnus Justin Newkirk, a 2007 graduate from the School of Social Work, readily serves as conference chair.

"We're looking to create a dialogue that's often not naturally there," said Newkirk. "A lot of times these people are working individually to try to help a child, but they could better serve them by working together."

Kim Stevens, project manager of Community Champions Network for the North American Council on Adoptable Children, spoke to conference attendees on engaging foster teenagers in the permanency conversation.

Speaking from her own experiences as a social worker and an adoptive mother, Stevens stressed the importance of a permanent family for adolescents aging out of foster care. She spoke of the risks involved for teenagers without family lives.

"The thing about teenagers and adoption is, developmentally, they're supposed to be breaking away from families," Stevens said. "They're thinking about college and cars and moving away from home. For kids who have grown up in care, they don't even have that place to break away from. Sometimes they start making really bad decisions."

Stevens serves as an ardent advocate for foster children across the nation. She argues on their behalf, citing them as intelligent children who get lost in a mess of family troubles. Too often, they can slip between the cracks, losing hope for a stable future. She maintains we must always be honest with such kids.

"Often social workers are reluctant to talk with kids about what really happens. We don't tell them the whole truth because we want to protect them," Stevens said.

The good intentions of that failed protection sometimes come as a burden for kids.

"Kids don't believe what we're telling them, yet they're the very kids who need help the most," Stevens said.

Stevens also told the story of Billy, a foster teen fast approaching his 18th birthday, when he will age out of the foster care system.

When asked who cared about him in his life, the only person he could think of was his bus driver. Every day, the bus driver asked him how he was and told him to have a good day.

Social workers got in contact with the bus driver and told her of Billy's situation. He moved in with her six months later.

To this day, she remains in touch with Billy.

Stories like this are glimmers of hope for many foster teens without anyone to care for them, and people in the community must be aware of how they can help as the bus driver did, Stevens said.

awright@unews.com

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