Program to return children expands

Safe tots, better parents are aim

About 10,000 cases of child abuse or neglect entered the Arkansas court system last year, nearly half involving infants and children under 5.

And each year, nearly 4,000 Arkansas children — almost a quarter of them under the age of 3 — are removed from their homes and placed in foster care. Some never leave the system until they reach adulthood.

A pilot program that began four years ago in Pulaski County and is now expanding is making inroads to change those statistics.

The Safe Babies Court Teams Project — a coalition spearheaded by the Zero to Three National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families in conjunction with the Arkansas Department of Human Services — is an intervention process for abused and/or neglected children from birth to 3.

The program focuses first on protecting children and ensuring they receive timely services to address medical problems and identify any developmental delays.

Secondly, with the main goal of reunification in mind, the team works with parents to remove the barriers to keeping children at home. They provide access to services such as parenting classes, family and individual therapy, and longer supervised visitation.

“When the families come in the door, it’s heartbreaking. We tell our families going in that this is going to be hard work, but being a family is hard work,” said Darneshia Bell, who has been the community coordinator for the Pulaski County Arkansas Pilot Court Team for Safe Babies since its inception.

When Heather Shores fell on a rock more than two years ago during a fight with her ex-husband at a Little Rock campground, the crushing injury sent her into cardiac arrest.

It wasn’t until she woke up later in the hospital that she realized the extent to which her life had spiraled out of control. The state had placed her two toddlers in foster care.

“I had been drinking with my mom when the accident happened. We were living in a camper,” said Shores, 24. “It was just a horrible time in my life.”

After her first court hearing, Shores said, she

was swarmed by people offering to help return her children home.

“I had no idea the Zero to Three program existed. They told me, ‘ We can help you if you’re willing to help yourself and really make a life change,’” Shores said. “I broke down and just started bawling. I said, ‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’ Through it all, I got close to God and could just immediately feel my life changing.”

Participation is voluntary once a child enters the court system and is appointed to one of the select judges who offer the program. The parents must be fully committed to the goals set with the Safe Babies teams, however.

“What we’ve discovered is when we sit and talk to these parents, they were never parented themselves. They honestly do not know how to parent,” said Kristi McGibbony, who was the assistant coordinator for the Pulaski County pilot project since its beginning.

McGibbony has been working since July to establish and lead the Lonoke County Safe Babies Court Team, the program’s first expansion outside Pulaski County.

Lonoke County is ideal for expansion of the program, McGibbony said, because it is geographically close enough to Pulaski County to share resources and services, and Lonoke County also has widespread community support.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

The Safe Babies Court Teams Project operates with a small staff — Bell and McGibbony — and relies heavily on a public-private collaboration of more than 160 representatives from community support services such as judges, Court Appointed Special Advocates, caseworkers, therapists, doctors, child and family advocates, child-welfare agencies, schools and attorneys.

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences also is a vital part of the team and offers numerous programs and support services under the umbrella of the Center for Children’s Emotional Well-Being.

Team members gather once a month to review the cases, identify possible roadblocks and chart progress. The judges — currently Pulaski County 10th Division Circuit Judge Joyce Warren, Pulaski County 11th Division Circuit Judge Patty James and Lonoke County 23rd Division Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore — attend the first half of the meeting, but then leave the room so the other attendees can speak freely about the cases.

The result of the collaborative focus is quicker access to more intervention services, Bell said.

“It increases the quality of services we are able to offer, too,” she said. “Instead of waiting three months for an opening with a family therapist, we’ve had providers at the table who would say, ‘Send them to my agency; we’ve got them covered.’”

Without the program, parents and children often would languish months longer in the system before being reunited, awaiting court hearings and sporadic services that have lengthy waiting lists and are not specific to families’ needs and circumstances.

And too often, children would be placed in the system permanently because parents were not offered the retraining and tools needed to build strong parenting skills and coping mechanisms.

Shores said it took nine months of intensive classes, therapy and mentoring visitation sessions to regain custody of her children.

“I did all my program classes and took extra counseling. It wasn’t just to get my kids back; I was doing extra things because I wanted to be a better mother,” she said. “I wanted to keep pressing forward and setting more goals. All the little things made a big difference. It was more of a privilege because you worked for it. I never missed one visitation or one court date. I achieved more things than I was supposed to.”

Shores said she was surrounded by cheering supporters in the program who pointed her in the right direction and helped her overcome barriers that cropped up to slow the process.

“I had no vehicle at the time. They gave me a free bus pass. I had to take a full-time job at night just to hold down the program classes during the day,” she said.

“I would leave from work and get on the bus for my classes and visitations. Sometimes I’d just go back to work without going home. When the buses wouldn’t run, I’d walk. Through rain, sleet or snow — it didn’t matter. I fought for my kids. I kept doing it and doing it and telling myself, ‘This is for my kids.’”

INFANT TRAUMA AND THE BRAIN

The Safe Babies Court Teams Project targets children from birth to 3 because studies say it is the time when the brain is developing the fastest.

There has long been a misconception that infants and toddlers aren’t affected by traumatic events, like abuse or neglect or witnessing domestic violence, because they are too young to understand or remember, said Nikki Burrow, associate professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at UAMS’ College of Medicine.

But scientists say trauma during that critical time affects brain development because the body’s stress-response system goes into overdrive.

“The part of their brain that is dedicated to thinking, focusing, reasoning, planning and behavioral control becomes underdeveloped. What this means is that as children enter school, their ability to focus on learning is hindered,” Burrow said.

“They may also have difficulty getting along with others and having healthy relationships. These children are also at high risk for mental-health problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, other anxiety disorders and disruptive behavior disorders.”

Burrow added that the early intervention is so important that expanding the Safe Babies Court Teams Project to “every jurisdiction in the state” should be a priority.

Funded through the Department of Human Services, the Pulaski County Safe Babies Court Teams is a pilot project, so the number of families served is limited.

About 32 families have gone through the court program since its inception, and no child has been sent back into the foster-care system to date, McGibbony said.

“We focus on helping find permanency for these infants and toddlers as soon as feasible — be that reunification with the biological parents, placement with a fit and willing relative or adoption,” McGibbony said. “As we expand into other counties such as Lonoke and continue to build a network of community stakeholders, the number of families we are able to reach should increase.”

BREAKING THE CHAIN

In cases where it is determined that parents cannot be reunited with their children, the Zero to Three team leads them through the transition and tries to lessen the effect on the children.

Bell said one of her most heart-wrenching cases was a very young mother who had three children with serious disabilities and was pregnant again. The mother decided the best decision was to let the children be adopted.

“We helped her make videos of goodbye messages for the children and to write letters. She was able to say, ‘Momma loves you. She can’t do this, but she loves you enough to get you to a safe place,’” Bell said. “We don’t want to be the monster that takes kids away from their parents. If they can’t do that, we want them to say, ‘It isn’t about me; it’s about my child.’”

Bell, a former elementary-school teacher, said the Safe Babies Court Teams Project is the most meaningful work she has ever done.

“This is the opportunity to change someone’s star; the whole ‘This is all I’ve ever known’ thing,” Bell said. “They change through this process. They have confidence in parenting their child. You actually see their physical appearance change. You see it. It makes every bit of the blood, sweat and tears worth it.”

Today, Shores is living in Alaska with her two children — Tade, 5, and Tate, 3. The family was recently baptized and attends church “every Sunday.”

What she learned in the Zero to Three program is evident in her everyday life with her children, she said.

She is there to greet Tade when he arrives home from kindergarten and takes extra time cuddling and reading with Tate. Shores is learning for the first time what it means to truly be a parent.

Her own childhood was spent in a church foster-care system after her father passed away and her mother “lost it.”

Her mother’s childhood was tumultuous, as well.

“I felt lost and didn’t know what to do. But the struggles have made me stronger. I’m glad in a way that I was born into this type of life because I will always need God,” Shores said. “I wouldn’t want to know a life without God. I know he’s working with us now. My whole entire life has been changed. The chain that’s been there for generations is broken.”