Kinship Bridge

In the fall of 2009 OKDHS was uh one of
24 awardees of a federal grant from the
Children's Bureau, which is a part of uh
the US Department of Health and Human Services.
I think uh OKDHS did a wonderful job on the
grant application and we're so fortunate to
be awarded this highly competitive grant
which provides for staff
at the two OKDHS-operated shelters,
uh Pauline Mayer Shelter which is located in Oklahoma City
and the Laura Dester Shelter which is in Tulsa
uh to have staff imbedded or co-located
in both shelters for the sole purpose of
um moving children uh ideally
within the first 24 hours from shelter placement
into kinship care and then also um
the staff um can also assist with
Child Protective Service investigators
in diverting children from ever uh entering the shelters
or coming into OKDHS custody.
Kinship care in Oklahoma is defined as
being related by blood, marriage or adoption,
but I think we're very unique in Oklahoma
that we also uh have defined Kinship care
as having an emotional tie or bond
uh to a child, so uh that opens up more resources
for available placement.
Someone who may have been a coach,
a teacher, a neighbor, uh a scout leader.
Our unit is notified of a child that has come
into a shelter and that can come from
a variety of different ways.
Sometimes the CPS worker,
the Child Protective Services worker, uh gives us a call
and a heads-up and lets us know
that they are bringing a child to the shelter.
We go with whatever information we have.
Sometimes we have to go back to the office
and start doing some searches on our computers
to see if we can find last names or
if we can find what that relationship is.
The background searches and the house assessment
must be completed to determine if
this is a safe placement for this child
before we can even uh
go any further at all.
This is all, remember, the clock is ticking.
We're having to do this um
in an expedited fashion.
I have a new worker.
His name is George, George Gayne.
He came to us from the Laura Dester Shelter.
George had a huge learning curve coming here.
He had no actual child welfare worker background.
He um he just took it as a head-on challenge
and he said, "I'm here. I'm ready to work,"
and he experienced his first 24-hour placement
a few weeks ago and we were all
so happy for him and excited for him.
Um he had to go through all those steps
we talked about and they can sound
simple to you, but they are, it's a,
it's a complicated series of steps that we have to go through
and this is one of the first placements
that he had been able to do
from beginning to end.
As it turned out before the 24-hour timeframe
was up it would have been a time
where George would have been off work.
It would have been his day off.
So he he asked,
"May I come in on my day off and complete this placement?"
and he says, "I want to be the one to do that."
And I said absolutely!
I was at home that day on call when a caseworker
called me about 10pm that there was a kid
that needs placement and the kid
was at a shelter.
She gave me a name of her family friend
so that night I called the lady about 11:30
and she said okay.
She was willing.
So I started a background check
at home on my laptop and by 7:45
I was at the lady's house and she said wow!
I gave her her papers to fill in.
Everything came out positively.
So in the evening we were able to
place that kid within 24 hours.
Basically I had to get her permission to
do her formal background check
and then do her house assessment
and ask her questions about her income.
Those kind of things and inspected the home
at the same time all that morning.
I was excited because that was
my first 24-hour placement and also I was happy
that the kid was not going to foster parents
but was going to a kinship person
that the kid had a bond with already.