JEFFERSON — Nicole Ruder of Family Works said her agency alone receives around 900 requests per year to place children in foster homes statewide, but they’re only able to help around 50 of them.
The story is similar for other treatment foster care agencies, particularly when it comes to higher-level treatment care for children who have experienced significant trauma and might have difficulty adjusting.
A licensing specialist and social worker, Ruder has spent the past 16 years doing this kind of work, and she said the need is growing.
Ruder joined Jefferson foster parent Taunya Hammonds last Wednesday in addressing the Jefferson Rotary Club. The social worker said her agency, based in Madison and serving the whole state, recruits, licenses and trains foster parents to care for children in need of a loving, supportive environment.
The statewide agency was founded 90 years ago. Locally, it works with Jefferson County Human Services.
Ruder said the need is great for foster parents in this area and around the state.
“There just aren’t enough homes for (children in need,)” she said. “A zillion kids have been through some really, really rough things, but they are still here.”
“Children and teens are resilient, but they need positive adult role models — someone they can rely on to be there for them when they need it,” she added.
The need has been rising in recent years, in part due to opioid addiction, which has left so many parents unable to carry out their responsibilities.
“The opioid crisis has been devastating for families,” Ruder said.
Ruder said her agency and others state- and nationwide have moved to “trauma-informed care,” based on research on the long-term effects trauma like abuse and neglect can have on children, even into their adulthood.
She cited the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) studies, done in the 1990s, which demonstrated an association between childhood experiences and negative health outcomes as an adult.
Pretty much everyone understands that early abuse and neglect can leave emotional and mental scars, but this and successive research that corroborated the same results showed that children who experienced trauma have a higher level of physical conditions as adults, including heart disease and cancer.
Examples of Adverse Childhood Experiences could include physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, the mother in the home treated violently, household substance abuse, household mental illness, separation or divorce in the family, or an incarcerated household member.
Ruder said 64 percent of adults have experienced at least one ACE, and if you have experienced one ACE, there is an 87-percent chance that you’ve experienced two or more of these events, increasing the effects.
Foster parents need to be aware of this research and to learn approaches that maximize good outcomes for children who have suffered trauma. Trauma-informed care requires caregivers who can:
• Identify trauma triggers which might cause a child to respond negatively.
• Be emotionally and physically available for the child.
• Respond rather than “react” to negative behaviors.
• Avoid physical punishment, which likely could bring back memories of past abuse and serve as a trigger for even more negative behavior.
• Avoid taking children’s behaviors or words personally.
“That’s hard, because it feels personal: it’s happening in your home,” Ruder said.
• Listen attentively.
• Help children learn to relax and utilize better coping mechanisms.
• Be consistent and predictable.
• Be patient.
• Allow children some control, as they need to learn how to make better decisions for themselves.
• Encourage self-esteem.
Everyone has stress in their lives, Ruder noted. Some stress even can be healthy, such as the rush of adrenalin people might experience before competing in a sporting event or other contest or giving a speech.
Tolerable stress can include serious, but temporary stresses, which are buffered by supported relationships.
Toxic stress involves prolonged activation of the body’s stress response systems in absence of protective relationships. What this means is that the body’s stress responses never go down, which leads to long-term negative health effects.
“Kids’ bodies and brains are still growing and developing,” Ruder said. “I have already grown and my brain has developed as much as it’s going to.”
Generally, a child entering the foster care system already has been through five to 10 years of challenging circumstances.
“They’re not going to change overnight,” she said. “They’ve got years of stuff to unlearn.”
Children need positives in their lives, Ruder said. She commended Hammonds and her husband, Jim, for encouraging students’ positive interests and making it possible for their foster children to pursue them, from sports to drama to other activities.
She said protective factors that can bolster children who have experienced stress include:
• A caring relationship with caregiver(s).
• Good health and history of adequate development.
• Good peer relationships.
• The ability to pursue hobbies and interests.
• Above-average intelligence.
• Positive disposition.
• An active coping style.
• Positive self-esteem.
• Good social skills.
Even if you can’t be a foster parent, everything you can do something to help children who enter the foster care system, Ruder noted, adding that people can become respite providers, caring for foster children for short periods of time.
They also can become foster care ambassadors, sharing information about the need for more foster families.
And they can donate time or money to programs assisting foster children, she said.
Asked where children live if they’re waiting for foster care, Ruder said that some might stay in a previous foster home that’s not working well for them, while others might live in shelter care or in a group home as opposed to a family environment that would help them more.
Asked how long children usually stay in foster care, Ruder said, it’s not meant to be more than about 18 months. It can be a short time, while a high school senior finishes out his or her education in a safe place or while a child waits to be placed in a willing relative’s house.
The idea always is to provide a place for youngsters to be so they can get better and their families can work things out, with the ultimate goal of sending them home if the situation improves.
After 18 months to two years, adoption becomes a more viable solution, Ruder said.
Mark Rollefson, superintendent of the School District of Jefferson, said that the need is clearly growing.
He said the Jefferson district is seeing more children in greater levels of need and he did not expect to see numbers drop anytime soon.
As someone who has worked with Family Works for years through his educational role, the superintendent complimented the agency as being a “very well-run organization which does a great job.”
Hammonds then spoke briefly about her experience as a foster parent. She and her husband have opened up their home to 33 foster children over the last few years.
She said they went into foster care in part to help keep family groups (siblings) together.
They have taken over guardianship for one of those children, with another in process, and currently, they are housing five foster children.
Hammonds said that she has worked closely with the Jefferson school district, which has “bent over backwards” to make sure her foster children get what they need.
Asked about the requirements in terms of space, Hammonds said that every child must have his or her own bed, but can share a room.
Joann Miller, a local attorney specializing in family law, noted that there are changes being considered in state law involving how much space is required, because willing families are being turned down under the current regulations and foster parents are so badly needed.
Miller, too, had high praise for Family Works and its ability for find homes for children who have experienced trauma.
“You guys are saints,” she said.