Youngsters capture images of foster care which are on exhibit in Amherst

AMHERST - The photograph shows some cute and cuddly stuffed animals - a mama dog and her puppies - sitting on a bed.

It was taken by a 17-year-old teenager, a young man who calls himself BMP, who has lived in six foster homes and three residential programs since the age of 9.

A few months ago, BMP was given a camera as part of a project to encourage kids in the foster care system in western Massachusetts to capture images of their lives.

The project was spearheaded by Friends of Children Inc. [1], a Northampton-based child advocacy agency. Ani Rivera, a photojournalist who lives in Leverett, met with the fledgling photographers every week for six weeks, offering guidance and teaching them how to use the cameras. One week, he asked them to take pictures of something meaningful in their lives.

That was when BMP came back with the photo of his stuffed animals.

This is what life is like in foster care, the photo says: When your parents don't care about you, when people drift in and out of your life, and when you get bounced from school to school and from town to town, you learn to look elsewhere for constancy and comfort.

'Seeing Their Voices'

The photo is part of an exhibit on view through Thursday at the ETTA Gallery, at 534 Main St., Amherst. Titled "Seeing Their Voices," the exhibit showcases photographs taken by BMP and three other teenagers who have been in foster care.

The idea of presenting their experiences to the general public came from Jane Lyons, executive director of Friends of Children Inc.

"We can speak to people about foster care," she said last week at the gallery as she and several others were hanging the show.

And administrators like Lyons do just that - all the time. They decry the budget cuts and the pitiful $17 per day allotment - and less for younger children - that the state provides per child. Friends of Children now operates on about $160,000 a year, $100,000 less than it used to have, Lyons said.

They point to the rising number of children in foster care across Massachusetts - there are about 9,800 children in placements, Lyons said, up from about 8,500 in recent years. They hammer away at the corrosive effects of treating children, many of whom are victims of abuse and neglect, as if they're traveling salesmen, as Lyons puts it, who are often shunted from temporary home to temporary home.

But the numbers and the abstractions have only a fleeting effect, she said. Lyons said she wanted to let the kids themselves tell their stories, even though that's not easily done in a system that protectively shields foster children from public view.

"Seeing Their Voices" pulls that veil partway back. While the photographers' full names aren't disclosed, we see their faces in the self-portraits they've taken and we read their words.

"Dad chose the wrong person over me," says BMP in the biographical statement that accompanies his photos. "My mother doesn't give a crap." He does have a caring aunt who "takes me home places and takes me home and has stayed in touch with me since I was a little kid." He has been living in his current foster home for two years, he said, making it one of his longest placements.

Jose, 17, says the instability and uncertainty of the foster care system has turned him into someone who doesn't try to make friends anymore. "One day you have best friends in school," he says in his the artist's statement. "Then the next day you're torn apart."

Despite the many moves and upheavals he's been through, Stephen, 18, strikes a note of appreciation for those who have tried to help him. "Foster parents may not be your real parents," he says, "but they just might be the closest thing."

Foster care to college

Devonne McLaughlin, 19, recently finished her first year at Westfield State College. (Now out of the foster care system and living in Springfield, McLaughlin agreed to be identified by name.)

"It gave me a good feeling," said McLaughlin, as she talked about the photo project during a telephone interview. When you're taking pictures, she said, you're taking in everything around you. "You're capturing each moment."

One of McLaughlin's most arresting pictures is a pensive close-up of her wide-eyed, toddler-age niece. She took that one, and others of her young nephew, "to show what's important to me," she said. Another captures a very different scene - the ominous sky and dark clouds that covered Springfield on the day the tornado hit. A self-portrait, also included in the exhibit, shows a dark-haired young woman with a smile that belies the life she's led.

"I felt like I grew up too fast," she said, "and I missed a lot - being part of a family, toys. Foster care is very hard. You lose a lot of friends and you feel like you don't really belong anywhere."

McLaughlin said she hopes the show will encourage people to get involved, for example as mentors to foster children.

"I had one when I was in the third grade," she recalled. "She would pick me up and take me out to eat. We'd always get a book - she knew I loved to read."

McLaughlin was 3 when her mother died. She lived with her father, a drug addict, and with various relatives before entering foster care at 6. She lived in five homes, attended four schools. She was adopted once, but the arrangement didn't work out and she drifted again. She moved five times during the last two years of high school, worked nearly fulltime to support herself, and graduated.

Having made it to college, she wants to help others.

"I think I'll be a great social worker," she said, one who knows first-hand the troubles kids face.

On the road

To turn her hope of finding a way to put a public face on the foster care system, Lyons and her co-worker, Randee Laikind, turned first to Lou and Leslie Ekus of Montague. The Ekuses, longtime volunteers and supporters of Friends of Children, helped shape the exhibit's concept and came up with the title of "Seeing Their Voices."

Lyons and Laikind connected with artist Ani Rivera, director of Community Photo Access in Amherst, which offers photo-based arts programs, workshops and exhibits for teens, adults and professsionals who want to develop their skills.

Rivera suggested pulling together a group of young people interested in learning how to take pictures. Lyons and Laikind recruited the would-be photographers and Rivera provided the cameras and the coaching. At each session, the group shared the pictures they'd taken over the previous week, gave each other feedback and left with new assignments.

"They were totally into it," Rivera said. Just the act of taking pictures often draws people out, he said, as their attention shifts from themselves to the world around them.

He, Lyons and Laikind have hopes for "Seeing Their Voices" that go far beyond its short stint in Amherst. After it closes there, they'd like to take it to several other locations in this area and to the Statehouse in Boston.

"I'd like to make sure the legislators don't forget who these kids are," Lyons said.

And after that?

Maybe on to other states, where, says Lyons, the foster care systems are generally plagued with the same problem of too few resources and too many children who need help. The idea would be to keep expanding the exhibit by adding stories and pictures from foster care children in other states.

Getting the show on the road will be a huge challenge that will require winning grants and donations totaling more than $500,000. That's the cost of a specially outfitted tractor trailer - essentially a museum on wheels in which the vehicle itself houses the exhibit - that could take the stories of Devonne, Jose, BMP, and Stephen to locations around the country.

Museums on wheels offer the flexibility of showing exhibits almost anywhere, Lyons said - in a store parking lot, at a university, outside a state capitol building.

Yes, it's an ambitious dream, as Lyons admits, but she's looking at ways to raise the money and make it happen.

"We want to keep the focus on the needs of the kids," she said. "We don't want this to be a story that goes away."

"Seeing Their Voices" is on view at the ETTA Gallery, 534 Main St., Amherst, through Thursday, hours are 5 to 8 p.m.

Food Network chef lends hand for Northampton benefit

Posted: Nov 6, 2010 08:04 AM

by Jenna Hagist

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. (WGGB) -- Ready, set, and cook! Three local chefs are whipping up their tastiest dishes in the Iron Cook competition at the Calvin Theater in Northampton.

Their biggest competitor is Celebrity Iron Chef Michael Symon who has a number of shows on Food Network.

"I've met my competitors, they seem really focused, they're ready to rock and I'm sure their food is going to be beautiful and I can't wait to taste it," said  Symon.

All the money raised goes to the non-profit organization Friends of Children.

"Our mission is to advocate on behalf of vulnerable kids who can't speak for themselves, most often those are kids who are drawn into foster care because they have been abused or neglected," said Friends of Children Executive Director, Jane Lyons.

Friends of Children has been struggling for the past two years since they lost over $77,000 in state funding.

"This event is so important, we went from a staff of four point five people to two and we still have hundreds of kids to serve every year. This will hopefully help to replace those lost funds," added Lyons.

Each chef has one hour to prepare their best dish, and of course use the secret ingredient, squash.

"They can expect to be entertained it's going to be a lot of fun, there's going to be some beautiful food, but at the end of the day it's about having a good time entertaining the people and raising some money for charity," added Symon.

A cooking showdown that Michael Symon is happy to take part in.

In Our Opinion: In children's corner

For the sake of the children: New advocates step up

By Daily Hampshire Gazette
11/05/2009

NORTHAMPTON - Last year, Kim Clairemont went looking for volunteer work. She started by asking herself: "Who needs the most help?"

The answer, she said, was clear: "It's the children."

This week, Clairemont is one of seven new court-appointed special advocates working in Hampshire and Franklin counties, following a period of training and a swearing-in last week.

Volunteers in the CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocates) program act as a child's legal guardian in cases that often involve abuse or neglect.

They serve vulnerable children caught in "a system that has limited and diminishing resources to help them and their families," said Jane Lyons, executive director of Friends of Children in Northampton, a nonprofit child advocacy organization.

Friends of Children runs the local CASA program.

The organization started in 1990 to work on children's behalf after the state of Massachusetts closed its own advocacy program. Since its inception, Lyons said, Friends of Children has implemented strategies to fulfill its vision.

"All kids, especially those most vulnerable, should have opportunities to reach their potential," she said.

Friends of Children supports children in a variety of ways. It provides guidance and assistance to parents while advocating for children. It manages the Adolescent Advocacy Mentoring Project, offering volunteer mentors to youth ages 14 to 18 who will "age out" of the child welfare system.

In the Foster Dignity Project, the group distributes backpacks filled with donations, such as warm socks, gloves and school supplies, to needy kids. At the same time, it raises awareness about the problems and concerns facing vulnerable children in our community through outreach and media.

Friends of Children has faced a decline in public funding and private donations. Until recently, 85 percent of the CASA program's funding was covered by the state of Massachusetts in an earmark in the Franklin/Hampshire Juvenile Court's budget. Those funds are no longer available.

Lyons said Friends of Children maintains the CASA program because, in her view, it is "a vital, effective and critical program for so many of the kids we serve each year."

Today the United Way of Hampshire County, community donations, grants and creative endeavors keep Friends of Children and its CASA program going. "We made responsible cutbacks at the beginning of last fall," said Lyons.

Robert Berenson, one of the new volunteers sworn in last week, is a retired attorney who says he was motivated by a wish to serve the community. The Florence resident found Friends of Children's Web site on the Internet. "I liked the description," he said. CASA volunteers work "in the best interest of the children."

Other new volunteers are Janel Jorda, Sue Larson, Tom Sampson, Nancy Bird and Honey Minkowitz. They join a staff of CASA workers that now numbers 31.

According to CASA's local program director, Randee Laikind, people like Clairemont and Berenson who wish to become CASA volunteers undergo a rigorous screening, then go through 20 hours of training, part of which involves court observation.

Laikind describes a typical case the volunteers will soon handle: A child is removed from home due to abuse, then is placed in foster care and may experience multiple moves within the foster care system. The child may also have multiple therapists and social workers.

The judge handling the case appoints a CASA volunteer who acts as the child's independent voice and will remain with the child until the case is resolved in juvenile court. This can take up to four years.

When assigned to a case, volunteers review available documentation about the child they will be working with. They interview each person involved with the child, including parents and social workers, and meet with the child at least once a month. Volunteers then submit a written report to the judge.

Judge Lillian Miranda of Franklin/Hampshire Juvenile Court, said CASA volunteers are vital in resolving the most complicated cases she sees. As a case grows more complex, and as lawyers for each family member work on their client's behalf, a CASA volunteer will "look at the case from the child's perspective." CASA volunteers provide an objective voice, said Miranda. "Often their recommendations and insight help to resolve the case."

Meanwhile, reports by CASA volunteers "often get issues framed and get services for the child."

"It can be a very rewarding experience to see that a child's life is changed for the better," said Laikind, the CASA program director. But, she adds, "I always tell them, that it doesn't always work out the way they want." She calls being a CASA volunteer "pick and shovel work." The work is slow and not for someone "expecting instant gratification."

"Things change so much for these kids," said Laikind. "We fight for their needs as strongly as we can." A CASA volunteer, she said, is often "the only consistent face that child sees over the years."

Mass. disparity in social services for children By Jane Lyons  |  February 4, 2008 THERE IS something that Governor Deval Patrick's newly minted - and desperately needed - Office of the Child Advocate needs to add to a lengthy "to do" list: Find out why the children of Western Massachusetts don't get the same social service options as children in other parts of the state and how that can be fixed. When it comes to care for vulnerable children, the inequities between eastern and western Massachusetts include the availability of psychiatric treatment, of group homes and especially, of alternatives to foster care. The state's poorest counties are the counties with the highest rates of child abuse and neglect, and they are west of Worcester. But in those same counties, the evidence shows that children are far more likely to be placed in foster care rather than treatment. And the reason seems to be cost, not what is best for the children. Simply put: It is cheaper for the state to place children in foster homes in a region of the state where the $17 per day foster care reimbursement goes further for low-income families. So, in Hampden and Franklin counties, families will take in three or four or more foster children and use the daily payment as a secondary or even primary source of household income. This is not to say that the foster parents are not good - there are incredibly dedicated and gifted foster parents who are increasingly called upon to provide for extremely troubled children. However, in far too many cases, this has led to inappropriate placements where young, vulnerable children, for example, are housed with troubled and sometimes dangerous teens in a home where monitoring is insufficient or sporadic. How bad has this become? In some foster homes, the state has taken to affixing "alarms" to the bedroom doors of older children known to prey sexually on younger children in hopes of at least alerting foster parents that the troubled child is out of bed and younger children are at risk. There is no stronger sign that a system is overstrained to the point of breaking than knowingly placing dangerous children with vulnerable children. But in underserved Western Massachusetts, there are simply too few choices. The facts speak for themselves: In Western Massachusetts more than eight out of 10 children removed by the state from their homes are placed in foster care. In the eastern end of the state, the number is closer to six out of 10. Children who should be receiving a higher level of care than being placed in a foster home are getting it in the communities around Boston. They are being placed in group homes or residential treatment programs with trained staff. They are being seen in a psychiatric setting. They are receiving their education in the place they live rather than being shuttled from home to home and school to school. The numbers are stark. In the area immediately surrounding Boston, a third of the children - 32 percent - are in residential care. In Boston itself, a quarter of the children are in residential care. But in Western Massachusetts, only 13 percent of children are in residential treatment - and that is often in a facility on the other side of the state or in different counties, miles away from whatever family or support system they may have. It is not that these children don't need the help that such a setting would offer; it is that the facilities do not exist. To be blunt: It is cheaper to stick them in foster care than to provide the kinds of settings that may actually help these kids and are readily available in the eastern part of the state. All of us struggling daily to help battered and neglected children are thankful that the new Office of the Child Advocate finally gives us a place to turn and be heard. Now we hope that advocate listens to the children of Western Massachusetts. Jane Lyons is the executive director of Friends of Children, an independent, nonprofit child advocacy organization dedicated to improving the lives of children in Western Massachusetts.