| Birmingham YMCA: The CPC Family Reunification Program
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"You'd have families with multiple kids, who hadn't seen each other for some time, crammed into a small office cubicle, in the same building where often times the parents had lost custody in the first place. There was nothing that said 'have fun with your kids.'"
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Terri Harvill, Executive Director for the YMCA's youth center is animated when she describes the previous conditions under which kids in foster care would have visitation with their birth parents at the Jefferson County Department of Human Resources in Birmingham, Alabama. There was a real need, says Harvill, for a more family-friendly environment that was more conducive to positive outcomes. Fortunately, however, there were many people in the community who agreed:
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"Judge Sumner was a Presiding Judge in Family Court, which had previously been known as drug court. He was a powerful advocate for transforming the role that the court plays in families lives, turning it from a punitive institution designed to hold 'bad' parents accountable, and into an entity that was specifically designed to help everyone in the court room—including the parents."
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Under the umbrella of Jefferson County's Children’s Policy Council, Judge Sumner convened a group of stakeholders interested in changing the environment in which such visitations happened. Originally, the YMCA was primarily invited to the table as a potential provider of space, but the vision quickly blossomed into the Y playing a more central, comprehensive role in bringing families back together. Harvill explains more:
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"Our Youth Center doesn't look anything like the DHR offices. If doesn't even look like your typical YMCA. From the color schemes to the activities available, everything is set up to be an inviting, engaging and youth-friendly environment. The more we talked, however, the more we realized that we had so much more to offer than the physical space alone."
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That's how The CPC Family Reunification Program—a program that's designed to provide comprehensive support for 'reunification therapy'—was born. Brittany Lindsey, Program Coordinator, for Y Reunify, explains that the goal was to create a genuinely supportive experience in which families don't feel judged, but rather are encouraged to be their best selves:
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"From the start, we were intentional about rewriting the narrative that people intervening in a family's life aren't necessarily there to impose their views. Everything we do is focused on uncovering and supporting the strengths and values that the parents and families themselves bring to the table. We emphasize and encourage the positive behaviors we see. And we're careful about how we communicate potential areas for improvement."
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| Birmingham YMCA Youth Center | |
Garden at the youth center | |
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This is often a marked difference to many families' previous interactions with the system, and Lindsey recalls one family in particular for whom the experience was transformative:
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"We had a family come in, and the dad was quiet, resistant, even hostile. But as he settled into the environment, he relaxed—and those layers of resentment started to fall away. He asked us for a soccer ball, and spent a good long time simply playing soccer with his kids. I handed him a business card at the end of our meeting, and you could see he was taken aback—he'd never felt treated as an equal by the system before. 'That's the first time I've been able to be a dad in a long time,' he told me."
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Because the YMCA wants to remain a constant and positive presence in the lives of these families, it's offering them a year's free membership on completion of the program. The goal is to provide a space for families just to be, and to make sure they know that there's a community that's looking out for their best interests. In some cases, reunification isn't even in the best interests of the children, but here too the hope is that kids and parents alike learn to see the YMCA as an ally and a resource that they can come to when they are facing challenges. Already, Y Reunify has seen one family brought back together—with a young, previously rebellious teenage daughter rejoining her family. The change in her behavior was remarkable, says Lindsey:
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"When this girl was taken into foster care, she was hanging with the wrong crowds, exhibiting hyper-sexual behavior and her mom was having a hard time controlling her. Having gone through the program, she's been able to set rules and expectations for herself—she even signed a behavioral contract to commit to those rules. And she's playing an active role in modeling positive behavior for her younger sister. The family was so pleased they've invited us to drop by unannounced anytime we like!"
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The Y Reunify program has been so successful that the YMCA is now looking at expanding it into neighboring Shelby County. And through a $25,000 Innovation Grant from The Redwoods Group Foundation, Y Reunify is also developing 'family nights,' and 'parents' nights out,' as part of the programming. Harvill is excited about where it could go from here:
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"There's no doubt the program is working, but we have so much more learning and growing to do. Already, it's impacting areas of our operations outside of the immediate program—helping us how to better serve foster kids in our summer camp program, for example, by supporting them after family visitation. We're even wondering if there's a way to incorporate visitation into the summer camp experience..."
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None of these possibilities were discussed when the YMCA first started talking about how to support visitations and reunification therapy in their community. But that, say both Harvill and Lindsey, is the point. By opening up conversations, reaching out to appropriate partners, and keeping the well-being of program participants at the heart of their decision making, Y Reunify has been able to learn, grow and evolve as the real needs of the community came more clearly into view.
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2018 Innovation Challenge
The 2018 Innovation Challenge is open to Boys & Girls Clubs, Jewish Community Centers, Non-Profit and Certified B Corp Camps and YMCAs. Applicant organizations do not have to be a Redwoods customer. We will award up to four $25,000 prizes to innovative strategies focused on creating brave spaces. Applications are now open until August 24th. Please visit our website to learn more about this year's theme and what we're looking for in the applications.
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