Families on welfare foster children with special needs - Living in Family Environments foster care program, Michigan

Children Today, July-August, 1989 by Marn G. Myers

Families on Welfare Foster Children with Special Needs

Kristi's parents were beside themselves. They were exhausted and afraid for themselves and their 14-year-old daughter. Kristi - who is autistic and has the mental capacity of a toddler - was volatile, given to head banging, physical intimidation of others and compulsive rituals. She required constant attention.

Kristi's parents were on the verge of having their daughter institutionalized when they were introduced to Cynthia Crane, who offered an alternative. A single mother who had been living on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Crane at first appeared to be an unlikely candidate to care for their daughter. Crane had never before cared for a child like Kristi, but she was bright, determined and resourceful, and she had a gentle, caring spirit toward others. In a way, her whole lifestyle was devoted to caregiving in one form or another. It was these attributes that led to Crane's selection as one of the six families who piloted Living in Family Environments, or LIFE, an innovative specialized foster care program funded by the Michigan Department of Mental Health and coordinated by the Judson Center, a nonprofit child and family service agency in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Launched in 1987, LIFE selects and trains families receiving welfare assistance to serve as specialized foster parents to children with developmental disabilities who would otherwise be housed in a pediatric nursing home, hospital or other state institution. To date, the LIFE program's average cost per family and child has totalled $35,000 a year - versus the combined costs of approximately $62,625 a year for caring for a developmentally disabled child in an institution ($45,625 per year) and maintaining a family on public assistance (about $17,000 a year, including Medicaid and food stamps).

A Problem with a Solution

In 1981, there were 7,000 developmentally disabled individuals under the care and supervision of Michigan's mental health system. Some 2,000 of these individuals lived in state institutions, at an average cost of $125 a day, while the majority were housed in 6-bed group homes in the community. The quality of these placements varied greatly.

At the same time, the Michigan economy, which is heavily dependent upon the automobile industry, had fallen on hard times. Some 230,000 families in the state who were receiving public assistance struggled with a sense of hopelessness, diminishing self-esteem, and the stigma generally tied to being "on welfare."

The LIFE program was conceived by Judson Center President Mounir Sharobeem as a logical solution to alleviate the pressures on the state's public assistance and community placement programs. By avoiding unnecessary institutionalization of children with developmental disabilities, the program would reduce the costs of providing services while offering the children a more enriching, normal family environment. Simultaneously, it would increase the yearly income of participating foster families, making it unnecessary for them to be on welfare while instilling a sense of self-esteem, achievement and pride in their jobs as foster parents.

After several years of submitting proposals and lobbying by Sharobeem to make this concept a reality, the LIFE program was funded in 1986 as a 3-year pilot project. The Judson Center has overall responsibility for administering the project, including providing case management to the foster families and developmentally disabled clients and obtaining support, training and payment for service.

The Macomb Oakland Regional Center (MORC) of the Department of Mental Health administers program funding and provides ongoing oversight and direction, as well as technical assistance to the Judson Center in establishing procedures and policies. MORC selects developmentally disabled children for the foster families - matching family skills with the individual needs of the children - and maintains legal responsibilities for each client. The children selected are those given priority status by the Department of Mental Health. In some cases they are hospitalized and awaiting placement after the closing of a pediatric nursing home; in others, their families are burned out and stressed out trying to cope and, after exhausting other options, have appealed to the Department - and, sometimes, the Governor of Michigan - for help.

The Department of Social Services in Oakland County refers qualified welfare families to the program and oversees the licensing process.

Each foster family receives $21,000 a year plus $3,000 in medical benefits. An additional $2,000 per family is budgeted annually for training, and $3,000 per family is available on a one-time only basis for home improvements linked to meeting licensing requirements. Some families - like that of Cynthia Crane and her 10-year-old son J.R. - have used the home improvement money as a down payment on a new home.

Crane points out, in fact, that she would never have been able to afford a home without her participation in LIFE, and she feels that the program has given her and her son a new lease on life. "We have enough food now. I can go to the store without using food stamps. I can cover the bills. I bought a new car. We're coming together as a family. We're not stressed out. I almost feel middle-class. You know how you kind of look for a niche in life? Well, this is mine."