CHILDREN MATTER

It’s meant to feel like coming home when kids walk through the door of one of the Children Matter Family Life Center’s houses.

The center has two houses in San Antonio, where parents can have supervised visitations with their children, better their parenting skills, and learn how to create a stable, loving and safe environment for their kids.

Weekly, foster parents drop children off at one of the two houses for supervised parental visits, where parents go through planned activities. Each house has a dining room and living room, an infant room and activity room where children and parents play games, have a meal or a snack time, and engage in other family bonding activities.

Cynthia McGee, founder and executive director of Children Matter, explained the goal is to create an environment that feels like home.

“We have a home setting where children run into the house, kick off their shoes and say, ‘hey mom I’m home’. It allows parents to plan activities they can mimic doing in the home,” McGee said.

To make the visits productive learning experiences as well as bonding experiences, Children Matter staff meet with parents before and after each visit and use the visits to teach them parenting skills. The home-like setting provides a peaceful place to come together and nurture family bonding.

It’s also easier for parents to execute the activities they’ve planned with the guidance of Children

Matter staff.

“We’re there to help reunite (families) by giving them the tools they need to become a better parent and get their children back,” McGee said.

McGee said most often children who are in foster care want nothing more than to be back home with their biological families, and Children Matter was founded to help make that happen. They do that through parental training and supervised visitations, as well as working with courts and Child Protective Services.

The goal, she explained, is to get the child ad into a safe, nurturing and permanent environment as quickly as possible – and that the biological parent is the best option for the child, if that parent can provide a safe and loving home.

“Children in placement homes want their own family to be healthier and a stable place for them to be, so if we can help their parent learn how to create a healthy, safe and loving environment, we’re helping that child.”

The nonprofit records information with each weekly supervised visit and gives it to those entities to help document parental activity and family interactions. This helps the courts decide more quickly whether the child is on the path to adoption or reconciliation with the biological family.

One way Children Matter staff help parents prove to the court system they’re ready to welcome their child back into a safe, stable and loving environment at home is to not provide items for basic care of the child.

Instead, parents are expected to arrive with everything they need for their visit, for example a well-stocked diaper bag, snacks and other essentials.

“We provide toys and books and crafts and all kinds of things, but we don’t provide the basic needs of the child because we want the parents to show us they know what to do,” McGee said. The parent’s level of preparedness is recorded, along with all the other information Children Matter submits to the courts and a record of dedication and improvement can help a parent prove their readiness to get their kids back. “We give parents the opportunity to bring supplies, that gives them an opportunity to show us they’re learning good parenting skills,” McGee said. “If we determine this parent isn’t going to pull it together, that documentation goes to the court system and they can determine more quickly if that child’s path is to adoption and take the steps.”

Children Matters’ strong focus on fortifying families and bringing children back to their biological parents springs from McGee’s personal life. As an adopted child, McGee said she understands the desire to be reunited with biological family.

“I can relate to a child having a yearning in your heart to learn who your biological parents are, even more so if you know, that yearning to go and be home with them is there,” McGee said. She and her husband have also been foster parents themselves, which is what sparked their desire to found Children Matter more than 30 years ago. They recognized the need for a safe, peaceful place where parents can lean skills, feel empowered and bond with their children in a safe environment.

“Unfortunately there are more children in foster placement homes than there were then,” McGee said. “our goal is to help those children get into permanent homes as quickly as possible.”

She also pointed out that their work helps out the State of Texas in the long-term, because they are freeing up foster homes to take on new children, thus unburdening the system a bit. Children Matter also works toward reducing recidivism rates, teaching parents better skills so they can avoid having their children taken away again.

Part of those parenting lessons includes a strong focus on empowering parents as caregivers and role models.

“Part of our program is to encourage the parents, even though they made a mistake in whatever aspect it was to get their children removed, they’re able to overcome and we can give them the tools they need,” McGee said. Children Matter’s nonprofit didn’t originate in San Antonio, the flagship offices are in Atascosa, about 14 miles away. The organization moved into their San Antonio offices last fall. With all the expanding, expenses pile up and that’s where the community comes in.

The nonprofit is 70% funded by private donors and most of those people are what Children Matter call “Godparents” – people who have committed to be monthly donors to Children Matter.

The Godparents are what help make the organization tick, they help provide toys and books, parenting resources and staff members. According to Director of Operations Cyrae Mereigh, they’re the glue that holds Children Matter together.

“There are no words to how valuable that Godparents are for us right now,” Mereigh said. “Expenses vary every month and new things come up as we’re growing. Joining us in being a Godparent is huge.”

The easiest way to join the Godparent program is to go to the website: childrenmattertx.org. With the help of their Godparents, staff at Children Matter work to protect children, to empower caregivers and to rebuild families.

“If we can help families be that stable home that the child needs, that’s our goal,” McGee said.

Photos courtesy of Children Matter