Q&A with Julie Nelson
Approximately half a million children are placed in foster care each year in the U.S. Author, teacher, and activist Julie Nelson is committed to improving the lives of young children in foster care. "High quality support of at-risk children and their families is an investment in the future," Julie says. "The right support can increase school success, reduce criminal justice involvement and support healthy relationships."
Q: What is a typical workday like?
A: I ride the school bus in the morning to pick up the children, spend three hours in the classroom with them, and ride the bus home with the children at the end of the morning. Every day there is both great pain and great promise in my work. I am greeted with swear words and kicks, as well as hugs.
Parents often share their worries when I pick up or drop off the children. They may be moving to the homeless shelter, have no food, or be worried about an older child having difficulty in school. We support the families of the children in our preschool, as well as the preschoolers themselves, and my afternoon may involve helping a family get to the food bank or a doctor's appointment.
Q: What is the most heartening thing you've witnessed during the course of your work at Families Together?
A: I see much healing and growth in the children. It's amazing, really, the difference a school year can make. Children who engaged in unprovoked aggression when they began school, become empathetic and protective of one another. Children who regarded story time as a punishment, bring book after book to be read. Children who had a negative image of themselves (such as stating firmly, "I'm a bad boy!"), develop a sense of self-worth and pride in their accomplishments. Parents come to like and understand their children and themselves in a healthier way.
One child was in a foster home with a foster mother who had difficulty with sad feelings, and insisted the child act "happy," even if the child was not. One day at preschool the child was stomping around expressing many angry and sad feelings. All of a sudden she stopped and smiled at me saying, "We can have all of our feelings at school!"
Q: What are the stigmas typically associated with foster care?
A: I don't think of "stigma" when I think of foster care. It isn't about what other people think of the experience of foster care, but about what the experience of foster care does to a child's development, sense of self, and sense of the world. Grief, loss, and trauma are part of the foster care experience.
Q: Is foster care safe? How can people know they're not trading one bad situation for another-for instance, abusive parents for abusive foster parents?
A: The quality of foster homes vary tremendously, and sometimes children are abused in foster care. A much more common problem is that children get moved from one foster home to another, disrupting attachments and contributing to more difficulty for the children. We often see new staff in their first year of work, thinking many more of our hurting/at-risk children should be in foster care; then in their second year they think no child should be put in foster care, understanding how difficult this is for children. But then they understand that when the risk to the child is too high at home, foster care may be the safer option, even with the grief, loss, and uncertainty that comes with out-of-home placement.
Added 05/16/06
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