Clinton Twp. Open Meeting Aims to Aid Foster Children
By Melanie D. Scott, Detroit Free Press
Mar. 9–With more than 1,160 children in Macomb County living in foster care, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Care Macomb are hoping they can decrease that number.
“Support and providing resources to families can help children stay in their homes,” said Kathy Rager, executive director of Care Macomb, which is based in Fraser.
“The Casey Foundation recognizes that kids who lived outside of their homes grew up with significant disadvantages.”
Macomb County is participating in a national initiative that helps families so children may stay in their homes or at least be reunited with their parents sooner than in the average amount of time.
Family to Family, a program funded in part by the Casey Foundation, is based on neighborhood collaboration.
At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Clinton Township will host its first neighborhood collaborative at Robbie Parker School on Quinn Road between Gratiot and Harper.
Anyone interested in helping foster families may attend.
“It is difficult to reunite a family after it has been split up,” Rager said. “The neighborhood collaborative is geared toward building a stronger community.”
So far, there are two neighborhood collaborative programs; they meet at Mt. Calvary Church in Warren and Sacred Heart Church in Roseville.
“The locations were chosen because they have the highest incidents of foster care,” Rager said. “These meetings take place once a month.”
The meetings bring residents, community leaders and parents together to discuss ways they can help parents in danger of losing their children to foster care, or parents who are trying to be reunited with their children.
The goal is to pool resources, for example, helping parents find substance-abuse treatment, adequate housing and employment, as well as parent education.
“Some of the resources might just include stuff like a working heater or furniture,” Rager said. “There are people who lose their children who are not bad parents, they just don’t have the resources.”
The Clinton Township meeting is open to the public.
For more information about the program, contact Care Macomb at 586-541-0033.
Contact MELANIE D. SCOTT at 248-351-3681 or scott@freepress.com.
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