Vermont Division News

From the Valley News: Casey Family Services Relocates Offices


June 18, 2010

The following article appeared in The Valley News on June 18, 2010:

Hartford, Vermont – Casey Family Services has new digs in White River Junction but the mission remains the same: Find permanent homes for foster kids.

Last month, the organization moved its Hartford office, from the “cozy” office on Palmer Court, off of Route 5, to the stylish, eco-friendly building on Railroad Row overlooking the White River. An open house event last night celebrated the new location. The move will increase visibility for Casey Family Services and also contribute to the revitalization of downtown White River, said Nita Lescher, director of the organization’s Vermont division.

“Just being here expands our ability to help the community,” Lescher said.

The possibility of a few more prospective families taking note and straggling into Casey’s third-floor lobby could only help. It has become more difficult to place kids in permanent adopted homes, said Maggie Reilly, deputy director of the Vermont division. Three years ago, the division had 60 children placed in adopted homes; now, there are only 29.

Between the two Vermont Division offices, in White River and Winooski, Casey Family Services has 20 kids in need of an adopted home.

There are as many as 1,200 foster kids under the state’s custody, Lescher said, and 120 in the Upper Valley. Their placements vary, including foster homes, pre-adoptive homes, residential treatment facilities and temporary arrangements with kin. Casey is typically referred the older and more challenging cases from the Department for Children and Families and strives to find them legally permanent homes, through adoption or guardianship, Lescher said.

Casey’s social workers aid in the various steps in the process, matching the children to potential families and providing support in what is often a difficult transition for both kids and families, she said. The initial efforts are usually made to reunite children with their birth families, but family issues, such as substance abuse, make such attempts rare successes, she said.

“Many kids have that loyalty to their birth parent and don’t’ want to break that bond,” Lescher said. “But they get to that point, as they mature, where they might realize, ‘she’s always going to be my mom, he’s always going to be my dad, but they may never be good parents for me.’”

If no one within the child’s birth family can step up, the emphasis is placed on trying to find a family that will legally and emotionally embrace a child as its own, she said.

It’s never smooth sailing.

“Adoption is not an event. It’s an ongoing thing,” Lescher said. “Many of our kids haven’t developed the skills to handle the intimacy of being in a family. They often have a lack of trust that anything lasts and an amazing ability to sabotage it.”

Teams of social workers counsel parents before adoption on how to manage behaviors and what to expect. They provide 24-hour phone advice. And they go into the homes and mediate issues with families, she said.

“We tell them to stick in there, be there, stay calm. Until you have the kids in your home, it’s difficult to gauge how you might react,” said Jessica Hathorn, one of Casey Family Services’ social workers at the White River Junction office.

Despite the challenges, the successes outweigh the failures, Hathorn said, recalling one in particular. One kid, now 18, had been in the custody of the state since he was 5 years old – bouncing around between group homes and failed adopted homes. Now, he’s about to graduate high school, having been with the same adopted family for three years.

“It’s hard to make that connection when you’ve had so many failures and so many people have let you down,” she said. “But now he’s part of that family. There have been some ups and downs but they love him to pieces, and they’re never going to give up on him.”

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