Marion County Children Services

MARION – Her smiling, brown-haired, apple-cheeked son raced up to her for the occasional reassuring hug. Then he was down on the floor again driving his toy truck over the carpeted floor in the courtroom office.

Unaware as he was, 3 1/2-year-old Mason Thacker was the motivation his mother, Crystal Bonsel, said she needed to commit to stop using heroin. [Read more…] about Fight with heroin addiction leads Crystal Bonsel along a winding road

Written by John Jarvis The Marion Star

Bethani Temple spent 20 days in jail after she crashed a car while stoned on heroin. She hasn’t used for 31 months. Her husband was in prison for a year on drug-related charges. He’s been clean for 19 months.

On a recent afternoon, their 2-year-old daughter, Cambree, and their 1-year-old son, Benton, smile and giggle as they play with each other and intermittently bounce in and out of moms arms in a whirlwind of energy. Dads at work.

“I worry about them becoming addicted,” Temple said, sitting in the living room of the family’s Prospect home where the siblings ignore a cartoon playing on the television. “My husband and I being addicts leads them to a really, really high chance of becoming addicted. I think the biggest way to prevent that is to educate them, asking questions my parents didn’t know they needed to ask.”

The Temples were part of an upward trend in the number of children being placed outside the custody of their immediate family because of parental drug abuse, Jacqueline Ringer, Marion County Children Services director, said. Cambree was placed in the temporary custody of her paternal grandmother while her mother was in jail and her father was in prison.

“We actually track our reasons for child removal,” Ringer said. “Drug abuse has always been one of our top reasons. We saw sharp increases starting in 2010, and it continued in 2011and 2012.” Parental drug abuse was the leading cause for 120 Marion County children to be removed from their homes and placed in safe environments last year.” Cambree tested positive for drugs at birth, Ringer said, a fact the 28-year-old Temple volunteered, saying, “When I had her, she had heroin in her system. It gave me an open case with children services.”

On Thanksgiving Day 2010, Cambree was in a safety seat in the back of the car her mother fell asleep driving on Silver Street while high on heroin. Temple drove the car across North Prospect Street and crashed it. “I don’t remember anything,” she said. “I woke up to the cops and the squad.” She said she was charged with having physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence, a first-degree misdemeanor, along with possession of drug abuse instruments and child endangerment. Marion Municipal Court records show she pleaded no contest to the charge of having physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence, and was ordered to complete a court-approved program of alcohol counseling and not consume or possess any alcoholic beverage, drugs or drug paraphernalia and not operate a motor vehicle without a valid license.

After she was charged, but before she went to jail, she continued injecting heroin four to eight times a day, using one-half gram to a gram in each 24-hour period. She said during her 20 days in jail where she had to talk to her 2-month-old daughter through glass at visiting time she realized she wanted to stop her drug use, and voluntarily entered Marion County Family Dependency Court.

“Julie (McGinniss) drug-tested me 15 times in my first eight days out of jail,” she said, smiling as she referred to the dependency court coordinator and adding she was clean every time. “I haven’t used since I got out of jail, Dec. 28, 2010.”

“We placed her daughter with her grandparents while Bethani worked on her addiction,” she said. “She’s sober and strong, and we’re very happy for her.”

Children in danger

Ringer worries about other children whose parents use drugs and continue to put their children’s lives in danger because of their own addiction.

“The big thing for me when it comes to substance abuse is that a child’s safety, stability and basic needs oftentimes are unmet while the parent struggles to meet their own needs, and that’s what happens,” she said. “When a parent’s on drugs, they’re not intending to harm their children, but addiction has such a hold on them it becomes a need for them. It could be just a lack of knowledge or skill or resources, but I do know Marion is suffering from a heroin epidemic, and children are suffering because of it.”

Working as an elementary guidance counselor and mental health counselor at four Marion City Schools buildings, Elizabeth Claborn encounters the problem regularly as she speaks to a range of children from kindergarteners through adolescents.

“What I hear about the most is domestic violence,” Claborn said. “My guess is (it’s) underlying drug and alcohol abuse, but that’s an assumption;” finding out for sure can be difficult “because kids protect their parents.”

She said one kindergarten student told her he sat on the floor of the family’s house over a trapdoor to the basement where his father was hiding while police were looking for him on drug-related charges.

“Oftentimes I’ll hear, “Mom and dad are fighting again. I couldn’t sleep because mom and dad were fighting,”” Claborn said. “We do talk about at what point do you call 9-1-1, if you see blood, if you see things flying, so they have a safety plan and know what to do. I’ve had some tell me they’re told to sweep up the glass after a fight. I can’t imagine drugs and alcohol aren’t involved in some of that. So who knows whether we’re talking about a 12-pack or a syringeful? And I’m glad the kids don’t know.”

She said she’s directed parents who’ve acknowledged that they’re drug users to treatment facilities, adding that she’s noticed heroin use has been a significant problem for about eight years. “It’s really gotten bad in the last two to four years,” she said.

Loss of family

Insufficient space in suboxone treatment programs reduces the number of parents and nonparents who seek help in breaking their heroin habit, she said.

“You’ve got people ready to kick it finally, and they can’t get in,” she said. “You’ve got to catch them when they’re ready.”

Meanwhile, children live in homes where one or both parents are in jail because they’ve been convicted of drug charges.

“Parents are fighting, police are in and out of the house, but obviously the root of it being all the drugs, not knowing whether ‘mom is going to be home when I get home from school,'” she said. “I’ve had kids who were afraid to go to school because they didn’t know if mom would be home when they got back.”

She said she’s seen parents’ drug addictions break the spirits of their children.

“At a certain point, the third-, fourth- or fifth-grade age when it’s still going on I see them sort of checking out, a kind of apathy going on,” she said. “They lose that resiliency, where it seems like nothing’s going to change. I’ve seen them cynical as early as fourth grade.”

Sometimes the result is children are moved to the homes of grandparents, who try to raise their children’s children. Situations in which well-meaning grandparents are raising grandchildren can create an additional loss of a family relationship for the child, she said.

“Grandparents raising the kids is not good because the grandparents can’t be grandparents, they can’t spoil them, they have to discipline them, deal with the tantrums,” she said. “They can’t be the grandparents.” The children lose not only the child-parent relationship, but also the child-grandparent relationship, she said.

Stopping the cycle

Marion County Children Services removed 120 children from their homes in 2012, placing 48 of them with extended family or friends and 72 in foster care, Ringer said.

“It’s one of our leading family conditions that our families experience, in the top three,” she said, listing those conditions as single-head-of-household, economic problems and substance abuse. “Drug abuse has always been one of our top conditions. We saw sharp increases starting in 2010, and it continued in 2011 and 2012.”

The drugs for which parents most commonly tested positive in 2012 were opiates, marijuana and cocaine, in that order, she said.

“What I believe is because of drug abuse by the parent we saw that sharp increase … in 2012,” she said, and expressed her concern for children of those addicted people. “I feel younger children are more vulnerable. They can’t speak, they can’t remove themselves out of a situation, they can’t contact law enforcement. They’re completely subjected to the environment their parents provide.”

She said her agency also is seeing an increase in the number of newborn infants testing positive for drugs or suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

“We see children in dirty and unsafe environments, heroine needles within the children’s reach,” she said. “We’re also seeing lack of supervision, a parent who is incapacitated while providing care for a child.”

The potential of creating a vicious cycle of drug use from parent to child is a long-range concern for such people, she said.

“I am concerned because we tend to parent how we were parented,” Ringer said. “Of course, I’m concerned about that in the future, but I’m more about living in the now, the trauma these children are experiencing.”

Having eliminated immediate concerns about her children’s safety by ending her drug use of eight years, Temple has a strategy for attempting to head off any imitation by their daughter and son of the addiction from which she and her husband are recovering.

“I think the biggest way to prevent that is to educate them, asking questions my parents didn’t know they needed to ask: If it’s been offered? If they’ve heard about it? What they know? The biggest thing a parent can do is ask questions they need to ask, because it can lead to (addiction),” she said. “I don’t want to tell them our stories because they may think, ‘Well, they got through it.’ I don’t want them to put a glorified picture on it, because the reality is we both should have died, and we didn’t.”

Temple recently completed her associate’s degree in applied sciences and human and social services at Marion Technical College, and works for Family & Children First Council in Crawford County. Her long-range objective is to help others who suffer from drug addiction. Hers has been a success story, Ringer said. It began at age 18 when she took all of the pain pills in her father’s medicine cabinet after he died from cancer. She moved on to heroin when she found out it was cheaper. It came to a climactic turning point when with her daughter in the back seat she crashed her car. Clean and sober, she continues to work on the happily ever after.

Written by: John Jarvis, The Marion Star

MARION – While she said it’s too early to provide statistical evidence locally, the Marion County Children Services director insists that by using a new state-approved approach involving families her agency is seeing improved results in child neglect cases.

“It eliminates the labels, which tend to create barriers,” Jacqueline Ringer, the director, said. “Minnesota’s been doing this for over 10 years. They have found it actually reduces the recidivism rate and the number of children requiring foster care placements.”

The Ohio Alternative Response Pilot Project grew from an initiative of the Ohio Supreme Court and Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. The Ohio Legislature authorized up to 10 counties to pilot the alternative response model. Franklin County was one of the counties that participated in the initial project, which began in July 2008 and ran through December 2009.

Marion County was among a fifth round of counties that implemented the program, in April 2012, Ringer said. The state’s goal is to implement the alternative response statewide by June 2014.

“We waited for results, which came out in 2010,” she said. “It showed better outcomes for families and local communities,” with an increasing number of case workers who used the alternative response linking families with services. “Families were more satisfied, and when you’re more satisfied you’re more likely to follow through.”

As an alternative approach to the traditional child protective services investigation, the new response uses a non-adversarial approach that avoids determination of fault and identification of victims and perpetrators, states an executive summary conducted by the Institute of Applied Research in St. Louis, Mo.

Ringer said Marion County Children Services uses the alternative response, also known as differentiated response, to handle child neglect cases that are reported to the agency. Neglect is the failure to provide a child with his or her basic needs, she said.

“We used to do one size fits all,” she said, describing the traditional investigation, which involved investigating an allegation and identifying the perpetrator and determining the basic facts of the case. As its name suggests, alternative response allows the children services agency a second way to respond to an allegation of child neglect, she said.

The collaborative approach also saves the agency money, a valuable byproduct as annual receipts shrink, from $3,372,909 in 2010 to $2,888,621 in 2012, she said. Meanwhile, the agency’s expenditures decreased from $3,198,188 in 2010 to $3,135,763 in 2012.

“We don’t look at it through a financial lens, but by doing what’s best for (the children) it also benefits the bottom line,” Ringer said. “If we’re doing our jobs well, the families are not going to need our services in the future, children are going to be saved, and if you don’t need our services, great.”

She said the agency is proud that, while revenue has decreased in recent years, so have expenditures “and a lot of that is because of our reduction in the number of children in residential facilities.”

Ringer has estimated agency expenditures of $3,821,698 in 2013 and estimated receipts of $2,753,474 in 2013.

“We always have to budget high,” Ringer said. “When you consider our placement costs, I have no control over the children that some into our custody and the needs that they have. I tend to budget higher to ensure we have those funds available.”

While the agency strives to keep children in the custody of their families, placements in foster homes can make expenses grow rapidly, she said. The per-diem rate for foster care starts at $21 a day and goes up to $84 a day for foster homes certified in Marion County, and can climb to $300 per day for placements in residential facilities secured through a network of agencies.

“I hope we’re not going to expend that amount,” she said.

“Right now, when it comes to revenue, we tend to budget low because we have to prepare for possible impending state budget cuts. We do best with what we have, and we look at historical trends, as well.”

Marla Hobson, who’s been an intake investigator for Marion County Children Services since July 2010, said alternative response makes working with families to alleviate child neglect easier and more likely to succeed than traditional response.

“The families are a little more responsive,” she said. “The huge difference between alternative and traditional is with traditional response we have to go out within 24 hours, knock on the door, say ‘We have allegations you’re an alleged perpetrator.’ There’s the labeling with the traditional response. With alternative response we have the option to contact them by phone. Being able to contact them by phone, letting them know they can take a deep breath. Nobody likes getting a phone call, let alone us knocking on their door. It’s a less-abrasive approach. No labels. So that’s a little bit of a breather for the families, especially if they’ve had previous involvement with us. Maybe they had a bad experience. We can smooth it out on the phone.”

The agency continues to employ traditional response for all sexual abuse allegations and other reports that involve the court system, such as drug felonies and domestic violence cases.

She said alternative response is used in neglect cases such as the home is dirty or has no utility service or no food, “just a lot of the basic needs.”

Instead of investigating with the objective of determining a perpetrator, the case worker offers to work with the family; “we may be able to help you, we may be able to pay your electric bill. We can stay involved with the family without court involvement. Traditional response, if we can’t resolve the issues, we have to file a complaint with family court.”

Alternative response also provides the agency with more days to work with the family than does traditional response, 45 rather than 30, and the 45 can be extended to 60. “If at that time we still have concerns that aren’t being addressed and the family doesn’t want to do a family service plan with us,” the agency can switch its “pathway” from alternative to traditional, Hobson said.

The agency gives the family a family service plan for members to fill out, listing objectives they feel will help the family and actions they will take to accomplish those objectives, she said.

“We provide them with suggestions, but we want them to take the initiative to complete it and fill it out; what the family has decided to do, not the agency. It’s them letting us know, ‘I know I can do this. This is how I can reach my goals.’

“The rapport we’re building with our families is amazing,” she said. “When I see one of my families if I stop at Walmart, you have kids come up and hug you. That’s a good feeling. What better feeling can you get than that?”

Written by: John Jarvis, The Marion Star

MARION – Editor’s note: The Marion Star is not identifying its sources in this story out of concern for the well-being of the family members.

As his mother held him close, the 1-year-old boy smiled brightly at her, playfully using his tongue to slide a Cheerio onto his bottom lip then back into his mouth then back into view again.

The cheerful youngster toddled nearly non-stop as his mom spoke about her experience as a family approached by a Marion County Children Services case worker, who’d received a report of child neglect in the home. An unidentified individual contacted the agency out of concern that the 1-year-old was ill and his 4-year-old brother had several cavities in his teeth, she said.

“They came in,” the mother said. “She asked me some questions, basically to determine if my kids were abused or neglected. Of course, it came out they weren’t. … (The case worker) said the case was going to be closed, and I asked her to keep the case open because I could use the help.”

Prior to last April, the case worker would have conducted a traditional response to determine if the complaint of neglect was founded and identifying a perpetrator. But two months ago, the case worker was able to apply a new alternative response that has shown to be effective in other counties in Ohio. Instead of closing the case and moving on, the agency worked with the family and provided assistance.

The case worker helped the 21-year-old mother obtain a voucher to purchase a crib for the 1-year-old, who had been sleeping in a playpen, and helped her get furniture from a person the case worker knew was moving and was leaving it behind. She also helped the young family get into a three-bedroom apartment by calling the landlord and explaining the mother’s situation.

In addition to assisting with the immediate practical measures, the case worker encouraged the mother to develop a list of goals for long-range improvements in the home, a key aspect of alternative response.

“I made the goals myself, except for the parenting classes,” she said. “She gave me the push and the determination” to take the actions she said she had known had to be taken.

Earlier in the day, she attended her first session of counseling in Marion, one of the action plans for meeting her goals, along with signing her 4-year-old son up for counseling in Marion; she had signed him up for counseling in Columbus before coming into contact with children services. She is taking parenting classes provided through Marion Area Counseling Center and anger management classes.

She said she was diagnosed as having severe depression continuance and was surprised to gain a new insight into herself from her first counseling session.
“I knew I had an anger problem, but not as bad as my counselor said my anger problem was.”

Echoing an observation by Jacqueline Ringer, Marion County Children Services director, that the agency often encounters irritation when initiating responses to reports of neglect or abuse, the mother said her first reaction to the agency approaching her was anger.

“At first I was kind of mad,” she said. “I was thinking, I thought they were coming for no reason. But when I actually started talking to her, she was very nice, very polite. I’m glad she came because of the help she’s given me and the support.”

She said her contact with children services has helped her household’s situation.
“I think if she hadn’t come, things would have been worse,” she said. “I wouldn’t have had the support for the determination to do what I needed to do….She always listened. She always knew the right thing to say. She acted more like a friend than a case worker.”

Written by: Michelle Rotuno-Johnson, The Marion Star

MARION — The story of “Annie” was brought to life on stage 35 years ago, and audiences were introduced to a curly-haired girl who just wanted to find her parents and get out of the orphanage she was forced to call home.

The Marion Palace Theatre troupe will bring this Depression-era story to life in July. Two of the young actresses in the play were adopted, as Annie is at the end of the play. But their stories are far different from the title character’s, and from the characters they are playing.

“Annie” starts in the Municipal Orphanage, a dingy building in New York City run by the mean-spirited Agatha Hannigan. Miss Hannigan makes Annie and her friends in the girls’ ward scrub the floors and discourages them from laughing or having a good time. She confesses during the show that she actually hates children, though she does love mixing alcoholic beverages. Annie escapes the orphanage, but is caught. While she is in Miss Hannigan’s office, an assistant to billionaire Oliver Warbucks comes to the orphanage to find someone to participate in the Christmas program at the mansion. Annie heads to meet Warbucks and finds a strong connection with a man whose life is so different from hers.

Orphanages are no longer typical in the United States, so there is no chance of a story like Annie’s ever happening. And the young actresses in the Marion Palace Theatre’s production both say they didn’t really think about their connections to the play: at rehearsals, they’re just kids enjoying their time on stage.

The DeGood family

“Annie” is Tiffany DeGood’s first production with the Marion Palace Theatre. She is playing Tessie, an orphan who lives with Annie. The 11-year-old has a connection to the titular character. But she wasn’t adopted at 11, as Annie was: she came to Pat and Robin DeGood at 6 days old, as a foster child, from Marion County Children Services. She was their first foster child: in fact, Pat said they received their license to be a foster home the same day they got a call about Tiffany. “She couldn’t be any more ours,” said Robin. Tiffany thinks it’s kind of cool that she shares a similarity with Annie. “But I didn’t have to go through what Annie did,” she said. “I think about my biological parents. Sometimes it’s confusing.”

She said she wasn’t really thinking about her own personal story when she tried out for the play. She has known she was adopted all her life, and doesn’t think about it all the time. She has met her biological father, and visits with him occasionally. She said it was “kind of scary” talking to him and meeting him, but she wanted some sort of connection.

Robin says it is key for parents to let their child know if he or she is adopted. She and her husband both had experience with fostering when they were younger: Robin’s mother and father were foster parents, and Pat’s aunt and uncle ran a cottage home. Tiffany said she would consider adopting or fostering when she gets older. “There are kids out there who don’t have a family,” Tiffany said. “They need to be loved, too.”

The Radloff family

Jia Radloff is in her fifth production with the theatre at age 8. She plays Molly, one of Annie’s friends in the orphanage. It’s a comedic role, and Jia says she enjoys making people laugh.

Jia was born in Qichun, China, a very rural county in Hubei province. Adam and Jackie Radloff adopted her from an orphanage when she was 15 months old. “She cried nonstop for about 24 hours,” Adam said.

Jia’s adopted sister, Schwen, is also 8. She was adopted from Nanjing, China, the capital of Jiangsu province, at 6 1/2. Adam said that he was “definitely the oddball” in a city of 8 million people when he went to pick her up. Schwen also lived in an orphanage, and her parents said she doesn’t talk about it too much. The situation was somewhat like in “Annie,” with girls sleeping 30 to a room in bunk beds and wearing worn-out clothes. However, Schwen did say that the people at the home were not mean like Miss Hannigan.

The sisters watched the 1982 film version of “Annie” before Jia tried out for the play. “Some parts I was scared, other parts I was happy,” Jia said. She didn’t really think about her personal ties to the character.

Adam said it would be close to impossible to find any information about Jia’s birth family, but said she hasn’t asked too many questions yet. Jackie said they sometimes discuss the possibility that Jia’s mother and father had some artistic tendencies, since Jia enjoys the theater so much. They were told to expect more questions about her heritage and history when she reaches adolescence. “She’s a very levelheaded kid,” Adam said.

“Adoptions are a very special day”

In Marion County, three children have been adopted already this year. Six adoptions are pending. Terrie Robinson, community education and placement services coordinator at Marion County Children Services, says nine adoptions would be the most in the county in the last four years.

She said 30 to 35 families are registered as foster families yearly. Nationally, 75 percent of foster parents end up adopting the kids they care for. Robinson said the number is higher in Marion County. “It’s a good thing,” she said. “We’re very fortunate.” She said foster families are much better than orphanages or group homes. “Our first goal is to keep them in their community and be served in the least restrictive environment,” she said.

Children come into the care of Children Services for many different reasons. Some children stay in treatment facilities if they need special attention. If parents aren’t suited to take care of their children, Robinson said, the office tries to place them with a family member or friend. If there is no possible kinship placement, they can be put in foster care.

Robinson said one of the happiest moments for social workers, agency members and others involved in the adoption process is when a child finds a “forever home.” “Adoptions are a very special day,” she said. Annie Warbucks, as well as the DeGood and Radloff families, would probably have to agree.

Written by: Michelle Rotuno-Johnson, The Marion Star

MARION — The story of “Annie” was brought to life on stage 35 years ago, and audiences were introduced to a curly-haired girl who just wanted to find her parents and get out of the orphanage she was forced to call home.
The Marion Palace Theatre troupe will bring this Depression-era story to life in July. Two of the young actresses in the play were adopted, as Annie is at the end of the play. But their stories are far different from the title character’s, and from the characters they are playing.
“Annie” starts in the Municipal Orphanage, a dingy building in New York City run by the mean-spirited Agatha Hannigan. Miss Hannigan makes Annie and her friends in the girls’ ward scrub the floors and discourages them from laughing or having a good time. She confesses during the show that she actually hates children, though she does love mixing alcoholic beverages. Annie escapes the orphanage, but is caught. While she is in Miss Hannigan’s office, an assistant to billionaire Oliver Warbucks comes to the orphanage to find someone to participate in the Christmas program at the mansion. Annie heads to meet Warbucks and finds a strong connection with a man whose life is so different from hers.
Orphanages are no longer typical in the United States, so there is no chance of a story like Annie’s ever happening. And the young actresses in the Marion Palace Theatre’s production both say they didn’t really think about their connections to the play: at rehearsals, they’re just kids enjoying their time on stage.
The DeGood family
“Annie” is Tiffany DeGood’s first production with the Marion Palace Theatre. She is playing Tessie, an orphan who lives with Annie. The 11-year-old has a connection to the titular character. But she wasn’t adopted at 11, as Annie was: she came to Pat and Robin DeGood at 6 days old, as a foster child, from Marion County Children Services. She was their first foster child: in fact, Pat said they received their license to be a foster home the same day they got a call about Tiffany. “She couldn’t be any more ours,” said Robin. Tiffany thinks it’s kind of cool that she shares a similarity with Annie. “But I didn’t have to go through what Annie did,” she said. “I think about my biological parents. Sometimes it’s confusing.”
She said she wasn’t really thinking about her own personal story when she tried out for the play. She has known she was adopted all her life, and doesn’t think about it all the time. She has met her biological father, and visits with him occasionally. She said it was “kind of scary” talking to him and meeting him, but she wanted some sort of connection.
Robin says it is key for parents to let their child know if he or she is adopted. She and her husband both had experience with fostering when they were younger: Robin’s mother and father were foster parents, and Pat’s aunt and uncle ran a cottage home. Tiffany said she would consider adopting or fostering when she gets older. “There are kids out there who don’t have a family,” Tiffany said. “They need to be loved, too.”
The Radloff family
Jia Radloff is in her fifth production with the theatre at age 8. She plays Molly, one of Annie’s friends in the orphanage. It’s a comedic role, and Jia says she enjoys making people laugh.
Jia was born in Qichun, China, a very rural county in Hubei province. Adam and Jackie Radloff adopted her from an orphanage when she was 15 months old. “She cried nonstop for about 24 hours,” Adam said.
Jia’s adopted sister, Schwen, is also 8. She was adopted from Nanjing, China, the capital of Jiangsu province, at 6 1/2. Adam said that he was “definitely the oddball” in a city of 8 million people when he went to pick her up. Schwen also lived in an orphanage, and her parents said she doesn’t talk about it too much. The situation was somewhat like in “Annie,” with girls sleeping 30 to a room in bunk beds and wearing worn-out clothes. However, Schwen did say that the people at the home were not mean like Miss Hannigan.
The sisters watched the 1982 film version of “Annie” before Jia tried out for the play. “Some parts I was scared, other parts I was happy,” Jia said. She didn’t really think about her personal ties to the character.
Adam said it would be close to impossible to find any information about Jia’s birth family, but said she hasn’t asked too many questions yet. Jackie said they sometimes discuss the possibility that Jia’s mother and father had some artistic tendencies, since Jia enjoys the theater so much. They were told to expect more questions about her heritage and history when she reaches adolescence. “She’s a very levelheaded kid,” Adam said.
“Adoptions are a very special day”
In Marion County, three children have been adopted already this year. Six adoptions are pending. Terrie Robinson, community education and placement services coordinator at Marion County Children Services, says nine adoptions would be the most in the county in the last four years.
She said 30 to 35 families are registered as foster families yearly. Nationally, 75 percent of foster parents end up adopting the kids they care for. Robinson said the number is higher in Marion County. “It’s a good thing,” she said. “We’re very fortunate.” She said foster families are much better than orphanages or group homes. “Our first goal is to keep them in their community and be served in the least restrictive environment,” she said.
Children come into the care of Children Services for many different reasons. Some children stay in treatment facilities if they need special attention. If parents aren’t suited to take care of their children, Robinson said, the office tries to place them with a family member or friend. If there is no possible kinship placement, they can be put in foster care.
Robinson said one of the happiest moments for social workers, agency members and others involved in the adoption process is when a child finds a “forever home.” “Adoptions are a very special day,” she said. Annie Warbucks, as well as the DeGood and Radloff families, would probably have to agree.