Foster Grandparents
Successful program expands to Chattanooga’s youth summer camps
The city of Chattanooga expanded its successful Foster Grandparent program into the summer through a pilot program at four of the city’s Youth and Family Development summer camps this year.
Chattanooga’s Foster Grandparent Program, which belongs to the national group of service programs, SeniorCorps, places nearly 100 seniors at 29 sites across the city, including Head Start early childhood centers, Youth and Family Development centers and several Hamilton County schools — Calvin Donaldson, Clifton Hills, East Ridge, DuPont, Hardy, Hillcrest, Orchard Knob and Woodmore elementary schools.
The foster grandparents, including Joyce Fletcher, who is serving at the Avondale YFD Center this summer, provide a variety of services such as tutoring students in one-on-one or small group centers as well as filling in to assist the camp overall.
“I make myself available for all the students,” Fletcher said. “The children, they need to know ‘I am, I am important …’ and I make them feel important.”
This summer at Avondale, Fletcher, a 79-year-old retired educator, has been working with four students specifically to improve their reading skills, but she also works with all the campers.
Her program, inspired by her own experience as an educator and dance teacher, is focused on the butterfly life cycle. Students are reading butterfly-themed books and passages, learning about a butterfly’s life cycle and
preparing for an end-of-summer production of the life of a butterfly by creating and decorating wearable wings and practicing acting like caterpillars.
Bria Sibley said having someone such as Fletcher is an asset. She previously worked with her at Orchard Knob Elementary, where she teaches first grade and Fletcher served last year.
“For the students who go to Orchard Knob, it’s that familiar face,” Sibley said. “For other teachers, it’s that elderly presence she brings, it’s like a peace in the room.”
One afternoon, Fletcher coached a group of boys in kindergarten through second grades on how to practice performing as a caterpillar.
Holding up a rectangular, fabric costume, she explained to the boys how to place their feet correctly inside the costume.
Sitting in rapt attention, the boys took off their shoes and waited their turns, sometimes being quieted or calmed by Fetcher.
“You’ll all have a chance,”
she encouraged. When each boy tried out the red, green and purple costumes, they would then crawl on their stomachs and move like a caterpillar would, bursting from inside the costume with their arms outstretched — as butterflies.
Foster grandparents receive a small stipend, are required to work a set number of hours throughout the year, and participate in monthly service trainings as a group.
Fletcher said she was inspired to become a foster grandparent as she grew bored after a few years of retirement.
“I taught all over this city,” Fletcher said. She also was inspired to bring her creative skills, learned from running pageants and studios for the city’s minority students over the years, to the program.
“Not every child is going to make A’s and B’s in math or reading,” she said. “But deep down inside, they are going to have a talent … a talent to tap into that will make them do well.”
Based on the success of the program at this year’s
summer camps, which end Aug. 3, the city hopes to expand the program next summer, placing more foster grandparents in the Youth and Family Development centers, according to Susan Kroll, the Foster Grandparent program field supervisor.
“This is the first year that foster grandparents have come to the YFD centers in the summer,” Kroll said. “We wanted to avoid the summer gap and summer learning loss, but they are also here to have fun.”
Avondale’s facilities manager Gerald Perry said he was excited to have Fletcher work with the more than 60 students at the summer camp. He said foster grandparents brought another layer of support and expertise to the center.
“They are more seasoned, especially retired educators,” Perry said. “A lot of the students here built a rapport with her and started calling her ‘Granny.’ She builds positive relationships that kids may not have at home.”