Stark County program aims to keep children out of foster care, provide help to families

CANTON − Family Court Judge Rosemarie Hall has spent countless hours in her office talking to Stark County children involved in custody cases.

The majority have told her the same thing when she asked what they hope the outcome of the case will be.

"They want to stay with their parents," Hall said. "And we want them to stay there if at all possible. If they can be safe."

Removing children from their homes can be a traumatic experience. The National Library of Medicine reports that youth in foster care have a nearly 90% trauma exposure rate and are significantly more likely than the general population to have direct experience with violence, abuse or neglect. Last year, the Division of Children Services had a total of 649 children in agency custody, and currently there are 391 children.

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Several Stark County agencies have come together to create the Boosting Understanding, Interventions and Legal Defense program, otherwise known as B.U.I.L.D. The multi-agency initiative provides support and legal counsel to Stark County families in an effort to keep more children out of the foster care system. It is part of a larger pilot program through the Ohio Supreme Court.

What is Stark County's B.U.I.L.D. program?

The program is a collaboration between Job & Family Services, Family Court, the public defender's office, Community Legal Aid Services and Stark County Family Council.

Jerry Coleman, assistant deputy director of legal services for Stark County Job & Family Services, said the agency has strived in recent years to help families at risk of involvement in the child welfare or juvenile court systems through alternative responses. This practice aims "to help families access services, support and other help that will resolve concerns when a report is made without requiring a formal investigation of child abuse or neglect," according to Childrenservices.org.

One notable issue, Coleman said, is that many families do not have the ability to have legal representation prior to filing a case with Children Services.

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"There were barriers at times that could have been removed through legal involvement or legal advice," he said.

Another problem is that even when agencies use alternative response methods, many families remain skeptical of the process.

"There's always an inherent distrust of the system," Coleman said. "There's always defensiveness when you come to court. It's just a natural anxiety of being drawn to court. You don't want to cooperate. You don't get the buy-in from families."

Hall is part of the Ohio Supreme Court's Child Welfare Quality Legal Representation Project. The initiative's main focus is to find a solution to limit the number of cases that end up in the system while prioritizing children's safety and limiting their exposure to trauma.

"When we remove kids, and they go through the process, these families struggle to do everything they're supposed to do in their case plan. So why would we think that some of these families would be doing wonderful if we tell them, 'Go do this. Go do this.' and they don't even have an attorney?"

The B.U.I.L.D. program provides custodial parents with an attorney at no cost in the early stages of a child welfare case. Hall said the attorney gives the parents legal advice and helps them understand their rights while the child still remains in the home.

Families also receive support from engagement specialist Monica Holt-Parish, who helps them meet the goals of their case plan.

"She's like a case manager wraparound person. ... She'll do anything that's needed to help this family, whether it's transporting them to a doctor's appointment, making an extra phone call for them, leading them through the system and giving them some confidence, giving them some peer support," Hall said.

The program is voluntary. Children Services refers eligible families.

Hall said 25 cases have been in the program so far, and the current caseload is 17. She said Holt-Parish expected to close five cases on Friday. She has already closed seven successful cases, Hall said. There has been only one case where children were removed from the home.

"We're hoping that with all this the success rate is going to be much higher," she said.

How is the program being funded?

The Ohio Supreme Court is funding the project in Stark, along with similar pilot programs in Summit, Wayne, Clark, Erie and Cuyahoga counties. Hall said each of the programs are slightly different. Summit County's initiative, for example, addresses issues once a complaint has already been filed by a family service agency.

The Ohio Supreme Court partnered with the state Department of Job and Family Services and the Ohio Children's Trust Fund for the project. It received $850,000 in federal grants from the Court Improvement Program for the project, according to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Stark County recently finished the first year of the project. It is a three-year grant cycle, Hall said, and they already have received approval for funding the program next year.

Coleman said the agencies are evaluating the program's success using both short-term and long-term criteria and comparing the results to cases that didn't utilize the program.

"There's the immediate measure that we're doing (which) is while this case is open, did we successfully get through the program and not have to file? Then we're also looking longitudinal in the long term. Did the family come back again? Did those changes ... keep families from coming back in?" he said.

They said they hope if the program is a success that they will be able to expand it.

"We're just trying to evaluate it all the way through and see what we can do to help these families to keep children in the home, families together and keep them safe," Hall said.

Reach Paige at 330-580-8577 or pmbennett@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @paigembenn.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Stark County initiative aims to keep children out of foster care