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by Richard Larson and Patricia O’Gorman, Children’s Village
Even three months after they are discharged from residential treatment, many youth in the boroughs of New York remain unenrolled in school and in living situations with little supervision. In short, the foundation established during their residential stay can erode.
Aftercare support could go a long way in preventing this erosion. But what’s an organization to do when it recognizes a distinct need for which funding is entirely absent?
For one member of the Alliance for Children and Families, the answer was clear: Go it alone; it’s the right thing to do.
he term “aftercare” is a misnomer, says Jeremy Kohomban, president and CEO of Alliance member Children’s Village, Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. It implies that the real work has already been done when, in actuality, efforts on behalf of teens who are returning to their home communities must be more intense and of longer duration than any interventions taking place on campus.
That’s why Children’s Village today uses the phrase “Community of Care” to describe its continuum of services that offers teens transitional assistance and follow-up support for at least one year.
“We have essentially privatized aftercare,” Kohomban says, “not only because we wanted to change the system, but also because it was the right thing to do in order to deliver the outcomes our children and families need. Our efforts will hopefully inform governmental priorities, as well as stimulate other organizations to also take extraordinary actions.”
Children’s Village was at the forefront during the aftercare movement 25 years ago. It began offering WAY, a post-discharge program that served about 15 teens annually. Since then residential stays have become shorter, and more teens have left the program without follow-up.
More than 100 teens each year left the residential school with little or no aftercare or follow-up. Most returned to communities where they had little support, and many struggled to be admitted to school or with adjusting midyear.
Often their outcomes weren’t tracked. For a growing number of teens, Children’s Village had no way of knowing whether the work done on campus was successful.
“I was shocked,” Bill Krupman, chairman of the Children’s Village Board of Trustees, says. “How could we not know about every single child we serve? How could it be that it was nobody’s responsibility to track children long term? I decided then and there that not knowing was unacceptable.”
Shock: A Powerful Motivator
Shock hardly had time to wane before the board responded. Board members created a plan to develop and execute a new initiative—all within 90 days—that would provide Community of Care, post-discharge support to each family for at least one year. (Learn more about the board’s aggressive efforts to fund this commitment in an article from the Nonprofit Director.)
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| Children’s Village advocates with families and the educational system to allow some teens to continue their education at the campus school even after they are discharged from residential treatment. This allows the organization to continue to close gaps in teens’ education through greater support, smaller class sizes, and the familiarity of staff students have grown to trust. |
Building upon the proven success of the WAY program (see sidebar article for information about the WAY program), the Community of Care initiative follows the same basic structure. The program focuses on five areas for successful adolescence: school, work, savings, family stability, and developing positive social activities.
“Our experience teaches us that school needs to be our primary concern during the post-discharge phase,” Kohomban says. “Many of our teens struggle with academics. They have credits to make up and required exams to pass. In addition, many have not developed successful study habits or attended classes regularly.”
While in residential care, teens generally do quite well within the structured environment, but the transition back home places them in situations where they have less support and more distractions.
In addition, they often face bureaucratic barriers to re-entering school. In 2006, almost 50 percent of teens discharged from Children’s Village were homebound for a month or more as they awaited admission to school. This was despite the preadmission work done by Children’s Village and, in many cases, the fact that admission had been assured prior to discharge.
In order to overcome this bureaucratic hurdle, Children’s Village developed relationships in the various departments of education, invested in aggressive advocacy, and created a new staff position assigned to be an educational advocate for each child. The intensity paid off, and for the past three years, more than 90 percent of Children’s Village teens entered a community school upon discharge, usually with a delay of no more than a few days.
“We also quickly realized that for some teens who are struggling, the transition to a new school, particularly during the school year, would be too abrupt,” Krupman says.
Children’s Village advocated with families and the educational system to allow some teens to continue their education at the Children’s Village campus school.
“This allows us to immediately know if a youth is out for a day of school so that we may follow up promptly and intervene, as opposed to learning about this several days after the fact, and losing the ability to intervene in real time,” Kohomban says.
It also allows Children’s Village to continue to close gaps in teens’ education through greater support, smaller class sizes, and the familiarity of staff they have grown to trust.
Overcoming the Funding Barrier
Paying for such a post-discharge effort is probably the biggest hurdle any organization considering a similar project will encounter, Krupman and Kohomban acknowledge.
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| To foster lifelong emotional and physical health, students at the residential school are encouraged to develop leisure interests and skills. |
“We’ve known of the need for long-term post-discharge support for more than two decades,” Kohomban says. “Yet despite the knowledge, the proven results, and the relatively low cost associated with this service, funding has been limited at best.”
Most funds for the organization’s post-discharge programs are paid through private grants. Several partners that support Community of Care have been both generous and persistent in supporting the effort over multiple years.
In general, government funders have been unwilling to pay for services past discharge from residential care.
“There are signs of change,” Kohomban says. “Two years ago our effort received a short-term government grant for three staff positions. At minimum, there is recognition in government that shortened length-of-stay in residential is only one part of the equation. There is recognition that targeted, expedient residential care must be paired with community-based preventive interventions if long-term success is to be assured.”
The change in perspective is slow, however, and the current recession may deter government from reinvesting the savings achieved from targeted, expedient residential care into community-based, post-discharge services, he adds.
Measureable Results in Only Three Years
Currently 85 percent of the teens participating in Community of Care are attending school and passing. “This is taking place in a city where the drop-out rate is astronomical,” Kohomban adds.
In addition to documented success in the area of education, the results of three years of data collection show that fewer than 5 percent of the teens in Community of Care have been arrested, and less than
5 percent have returned to residential care.
The program is voluntary, and a few families decline to participate in Community of Care. Some choose to receive aftercare from other agencies as part of their counties’ contracts. Most families, however, embrace the team Children’s Village tries to build with them.
“Families know that we will be there, that our efforts will not end at the most critical juncture—the point at which the teen rejoins the family in the community, for what we all hope is a permanent transition,” Kohomban says.
The program has essentially more than doubled the amount of time Children’s Village spends working with teens and their families.
“What have we learned?” Kohomban says. “That through true collaboration we can create meaningful change that spells success in the lives of the children and families we serve, all in a system that many feel is not working,”
Learn more about Children’s Village.
Patricia O’Gorman, Ph.D., is a freelance writer and consultant for Children’s Village. She also is a private practice psychologist in Albany, N.Y., and the surrounding Capitol District. She is noted for her consultant work with organizations in the fields of child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, and substance abuse. She is author of The Lowdown on Families Who Get High: Successful Parenting for Families Affected by Addiction. She can be reached through her website. |  |
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