Touchstone Village

Touchstone Village

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (June 22, 2010) — It takes this special village to raise foster kids to adulthood

Submitted by Tonyaa Weathersbee on June 22, 2010 — 11:26pm Tonyaa Weathersbee's Blog

When Mikessia and Dimesha were born, their mother welcomed them into the world with unique names. Too bad she wasn't able to stick around to help them navigate their way through it. When the girls were toddlers, their mother became so drug—addled that the state removed them from her home. From that point on through their teen years, they lived with a string of relatives - and a lot of anger and uncertainty. "Since I was a baby, it's like everything hasn't fallen in the right place," said Dimesha, who is now 16. "My dad died, and my mother has been on drugs her whole life ... I lived with my aunt, but I started acting out ..." But these days Dimesha and her sister, who is 17, are working to find their way in a world that other adults were unable to shepherd them through, and one in which most foster children become adrift. And they're doing it through the help of Touchstone Village, a program that provides transitional housing for youths ages 16 to 21. These are youths like Dimesha and Mikessia; youths who have never known the stability of a permanent home as children and who, without help, won't know how to create one for themselves once they are too old for foster care. During a recent luncheon at Touchstone Village, guests listened to the sisters' story and toured the complex. Twenty apartments and a group home comprise the village off Parental Home Road on Jacksonville's Southside. Youths who live there are taught the things they need to know to survive on their own; the things that a parent would normally teach them. Among other things, they are taught how to properly clean their apartments, and how to manage money and pay bills, as well as shop and cook. Many of them have jobs — Mikessia works at a McDonald's — and they learn good work habits and other life skills. Touchstone Village couldn't have opened at a more crucial time. According to a study published by the National Foster Care Month Partnership, the number of children who age-out of foster care has ballooned from 19,000 in 1999 to nearly 30,000 in 2008. What that means is that for years, thousands of children have been shunted from home to home, with the priority being that their basic needs — a safe place to live and food to eat - are met. Once those foster children turn 18, they are turned out on the streets with virtually no clue as to how to survive. As a result, more than one in five wind up homeless. "They're [former foster children] really the new homeless population," said Tom Patania, president of Youth Crisis Center Foundation, which also oversees Touchstone Village. On top of that, one in four will wind up in jail or prison after two years of leaving the system. This situation, however, shouldn't surprise anyone. If children have only known disruption most of their lives, it's impossible to expect them to be able to build a stable life when they have no clue as to what that looks like. And with so many children either moving from foster home to foster home, or from relative to relative - chances are they've been so busy trying to survive that they haven't learned how to drive, or have a checking account, or how to handle basic adult tasks. That's why Touchstone Village is needed - and it needs help. It needs gift card donations, mentors, twin bed ensembles and donations of dependable vehicles. But what's also needed is for everyone to examine ways to dismantle the drug culture and the community dysfunction that causes youths like Mikessia and Dimesha to have to depend on strangers to teach them what every kid, ideally, ought to be able to learn at home.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (May 4, 2009) — New Village on Jacksonville's Southside to raise foster teens. Program's housing, skill training offer chance at a brighter future.

New Village on Jacksonville's Southside to raise foster teens

Program's housing, skill training offer chance at a brighter future

By Jessie-Lynne Kerr

Story updated at 6:37 AM on Monday, May. 4, 2009

BOB SELF/The Times-Union

Tom Patania, president of the Youth Crisis Center, stands at the site of the new Touchstone Village, which is designed to house 40 foster youths and young adults. Behind Patania is the apartment building that will house 18 to 21 year-olds. The program will teach independent living skills, focusing on education, job training and money management.

BOB SELF

By the numbers

A study of foster care youths by the Annie E. Casey Foundation showed that within two to four years of aging out of foster care:

61 PERCENT HAD NO JOB EXPERIENCE

66 PERCENT HAD NOT COMPLETED HIGH SCHOOL

60 PERCENT OF THE FEMALES HAD GIVEN BIRTH

MORE THAN 50 PERCENT WERE UNEMPLOYED

LESS THAN 20 PERCENT WERE SELF-SUPPORTING

THE NEXT LEVEL

Level I - Eight residents ages 16 or 17 will be housed two to a room for the orientation and adjustment phase, in which they will have a structured schedule with daily chores. Before progressing to Level II, they must be enrolled in school and attending classes, complete goals on their action plan, complete independent living skills classes, complete volunteer hours, prove proficiency in job-seeking skills and complete a mock interview.

Level II - Private rooms will be provided for up to 12 residents (16 to 17 years old). They may stay for 12 to 18 months. They will continue to have a structured schedule and daily chores but will have more privileges and will be expected to obtain part-time employment. Nearly 20 Jacksonville organizations, some with apprenticeship programs, have partnered with Touchstone Village to support residents with employment. Before advancing to Level III, residents must continue to attend classes at school, maintain their employment and develop and adhere to a budget, saving at least 50 percent of their income. They also must continue their volunteer hours and complete a career inventory assessment.

Level III - Residents ages 18 to 21 will each have their own efficiency apartment, paying monthly rent and utilities. They must attend a post-secondary education program and maintain employment. Before advancing to Level IV, residents must demonstrate financial responsibility, master all independent living skills, complete high school or an equivalent and either enroll in post-secondary education with continued part-time employment or be employed full time.

Level IV - Residents are assisted by a life coach or housing specialist in locating a rental community and negotiating a lease, arranging for utilities and planning to move. Once they move, case-management services are provided to them for about six months. They are welcome to return to the village for further independent skills training or other help, and graduates also will be encouraged to mentor newer residents.

More information www.touchstonevillage.org

A village is rising on Jacksonville's Southside, one that will be able to salvage at any one time the lives of 40 young people, ages 16 to 21, to help make them responsible, productive young adults.

They are the young people who in most cases are destined to be underemployed if employed at all, stand a good chance of being incarcerated or homeless, become substance abusers, collect food stamps at 11 times the normal rate and, if a female, have a child out of wedlock before the age of 18 and a second baby by age 21.

They are teenagers who under state law age out of foster care when they turn 18.

Some of them have been in foster homes where the foster parents do it just for the money - $650 per teenager per month - and aren't equipped to build trust with teenagers.

Tom Patania, who has been president of Jacksonville's Youth Crisis Center since 1980, has a special interest in developing the $6 million Touchstone Village. The live-in campus for career and educational development is expected to open in October adjacent to the Youth Crisis Center on Parental Home Road.

Patania's mother, Theresa Patania, was one of five children in a family whose mother died at a young age. Their father, an alcoholic, abandoned the family. Of the five children, three were adopted. Theresa and another were placed in foster homes.

"My mother told of the nightmare of one after another foster homes in which she lived - sometimes in barely furnished attics," Patania said. "They were horror stories."

Spending the past three decades helping thousands of teenagers in crisis, Patania knew the foster care system had done little to nothing to break the cycle of foster care teenagers not getting an even break in life.

"All our clients are victims of poor parenting and, unless there is some intervention, they themselves will become poor parents just perpetuating the problem," he said.

Patania said that, nationwide, 25,000 youths age out of foster care each year and only one in four has a permanent home when turning 18. The National Association of Social Workers said 35 percent of the nation's homeless are former foster care youths.

In Northeast Florida, Patania said, on an annual basis there are about 400 foster care youths between the ages of 13 and 17 and only one in three will have completed independent living skills training.

"Many youths age out of foster care ill-prepared and disconnected from a family support system," he said. "In those cases, the parents are the problem and sometimes families just can't be mended."

Greg Matovina, owner of Matovina & Co. residential real estate developers and the project coordinator for the village, has rallied his building industry colleagues to either donate or discount materials and labor for the project.

Matovina got involved with the Youth Crisis Center about two years ago, just after he completed the women's and children's center at Trinity Rescue Mission.

"It was as if I was being told that it was time for a new assignment, and I found it is really easy to have compassion and to have others have compassion for homeless teenagers," Matovina said.

He said it was a shock for him to learn that a foster teenager turning 18 in October of his senior year of high school gets suddenly thrown out because the money stops coming to the foster family at age 18.

"And many of these kids are already a grade or two behind, so they are just adding to the homeless [problem] of the future," Matovina said. "Every child deserves a chance. They didn't ask to be born."

Patania said the key to the program will be the staff, about 28 employees he will begin hiring and training in August.

"We are going to be the parents for these kids, so we are looking for some special people," he said.

He's gotten off to a good start with his daughter-in-law, Mandi Patania, who worked in the foster care system for the past five years at other Jacksonville agencies. Now she'll be the research and development specialist and independent living coordinator.

He also plans to have some former foster care young people talk with the new staff "so they know where these kids are coming from. It takes a special staff to build trust and relationships with these young people."