As a family-model group home agency we never gave up on a child. We felt that we had plenty of time, and with that thought we usually won the child over in that extended time. Today we do not have that time. The focus today is to quickly intervene and help a child change his or her identified behaviors, and then move them on to a more permanent level of care - adoption, family, guardianship, or foster care. The group home is now called a Short Term Residential Center, and the focus is to be an intervention, not a home. The expectation will be that in six months a child will be ready to transition into a lower level of care where the child can live and thrive until adulthood. Therefore, we have to know when we cannot work with a child any more, when to let them go. Our previous thinking of never giving up had to change.
Although it saddens us to not have the time to build the relationships with the children that we were once able to build, the goal has always been to help foster youth learn the skills necessary to function successfully in a family setting, whatever that family setting may look like. Our past foster children do not agree with the change, and tell us that they never would have made it if we hadn't kept trying with them. However, we are as optimistic as always that we will be able to make a positive difference. We will rise to the occasion as we have always done. Here is where the new thinking comes into play: We will have superior trained staff, which will be able to work with the more difficult behaviors that we are seeing these days. Since we will no longer have the luxury of time we will improve our techniques and our ability to build relationships in a more timely manner and the relationships will still be built. We will still be available to all of our clients, both past and present, to give advice, to support and encourage, and to make a difference in their lives and the lives of their families.