The good, the bad - the year in review

January 23, 2020

Mission work is never easy. Hours are long. Weeks, months, and sometimes years pass before the effort involved is recognized or bears

Communities Connected for Kids celebrated many wins in 2019 despite a growing concern over opioid abuse and its impact on the local foster-care system.

Those wins include fewer children removed from home, more children adopted and a growing number of youth in foster care graduating high school and enrolling in college.

"These successes mean the services offered through our provider network are working," said Christina Kaiser, CCKids community relations director.

For example, CCKids saw a 22 percent reduction in the number of children removed from their own homes last year.

"Under stress and without the proper tools, parents and caregivers often revert to how they were treated as a child, which in some cases can lead to abuse or neglect," said Kaiser, explaining the cyclical nature of abuse. "But there are degrees of mistreatment, and many children can remain at home while their families receive services that both protect and teach."

We know these services are working when fewer children are removed from home for services, she said.

Also during 2019, adoptions continued its years-long trend of exceeding expectations.

Children's Home Society, working with case management teams across Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee and St. Lucie counties, found permanent homes for 167 children.

"More over, 78 percent of children still available for adoption have identified pre-adoptive placements -- another record for our community," said Kaiser, attributing the success to recruitment efforts and new tools like the Forever Family program, which leverages the power of the media and the Selfless Love Foundation, which uses cutting-edge technology to identify potential adoptive matches.

That's especially important considering the number of children entering care is growing, Kaiser said.

"Opioid addiction is behind most of it," she said. "It's getting harder to keep up, but we're managing so far."

Other 2019 achievements include:

252 families reunified

55 new foster homes licensed during fiscal 2019, and another 29 from July to December

30 youth enrolled in college

An increase in clinical referrals, resulting in more children receiving mental health care

Support services and licensing expanded to include relative caregivers

Expedited re-accreditation

Several large sibling groups adopted together

A thorough review of outcomes is available in the 2019 Annual Report, which will be available to the community in February here on our website.