Spaulding for Children
1999 Annual Report

Programs and Services
Activities and Accomplishments 1999

Adoption Program for abused and neglected children
The goal of the special needs adoption program is to ensure that waiting abused and neglected children have families to call their own. During 1999, the program placed 84 waiting children ­ a new organizational record ­ thanks to grants from Abell-Hanger Foundation, Burlington Resources, Harry S. and Isabel C. Cameron Foundation, The Clayton Fund, Donohue Industries Inc., The Hoglund Foundation, Robert and Pearl Wallis Knox Charitable Foundation, George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation, LIATIS Foundation, McGovern Fund, Saint Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Strake Foundation, Swalm Foundation and Sysco Food Services. Of the children placed, 29 are African-American, 30 are Hispanic and 25 are Anglo or other. The largest sibling group included five children and the oldest child placed was seventeen years old. The program also set a record by finalizing 70 adoptions during 1999.

Foster-to-Adopt Program
The year 1999 was a busy one for the Foster-to-Adopt Program as well. Through this program, Spaulding for Children partners with Christian Child Help Foundation to recruit adoptive homes for children in the foster care system. Of the 52 children served through the Foster Care Program in 1999, ten were moved into permanent placement with adoptive families. In addition, six other children were moved to permanency through alternative plans such as kinship care.

Post-Adoption Program
The Post-Adoption Program provides Spaulding for Children's abused and neglected children, along with their adoptive parents and siblings, the necessary services to ensure that the newly created adoptive family remains permanent. In 1999, 98 families and 231 adopted children accessed and utilized the Post-Adoption Program's services. Another 21 families joined the program and received its invaluable services in 1999.

During 1999, 781 hours of case management services were provided to families. Group therapy designed specifically to deal with adoption issues was a unique service offered at Spaulding for Children. 20 families (67 individuals) participated for a total of 815 hours of service. An additional 600 hours of individual and family therapy were provided to adoptive families by community mental health professionals through the program.

Post-adoptive families received 420 days of respite care. 16 children received five days of respite care at Camp Buckaroo, a day camp collaborative between Spaulding for Children and United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Houston. The innovative respite care program, Family Day Out, served 188 children and parents, and ended the year with over 20 adoptive family members on "wait list" status to access the program's popular services. Family Day Out is implemented through a collaborative effort involving Spaulding for Children, DePelchin Children's Center and United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Houston, and is funded by the Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation.

Spring and Summer camps expanded from five in 1998 to six in 1999. These included three camps for pre-teens and three for teens, all designed exclusively for adopted children. The number of children participating - 38 - increased by almost one third over participation in 1998. The year ended with a fun family weekend at Camp Gateway, where seven families (34 individuals) enjoyed the R.O.P.E.S. course, hiking, fishing, a campfire, as well as the fellowship and peer support of other adoptive families.

Texas CAN!
The Texas Cooperative Adoption Network! program enables Spaulding for Children to collaborate with five other Texas child placement agencies in order to help them initiate adoption placement programs of their own, in addition to their existing foster care or other programs. Through generous grants from The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, Rockwell Fund and The Houston Foundation this innovative collaboration enabled Spaulding for Children to place 22 children in 1999. The collaborating agencies identified children needing adoptive families, prepared foster families to become adoptive families, and recruited additional prospective adoptive families. Due to the program's 1999 successes, Spaulding for Children is working to add new partnering agencies in 2000.

PACE
PACE is Texas' only federally funded, managed care pilot project aimed at achieving permanency for waiting foster children. Through this partnership, the Lena Pope Home, a Ft. Worth child placement agency, provides therapeutic foster careand other services, and Spaulding for Children provides all adoption services. 1999 was Spaulding for Children's first full year of operating a satellite office in Ft. Worth as part of this ground-breaking partnership, 14 children were placed and finalized in adoptive families through this office.

Nuestros Niños
Project The Nuestros Niños project serves the adoptive and placement needs of waiting Hispanic children. We are happy to report that Nuestros Niños placed nine Hispanic children in 1999. Through Nuestros Niños, Spaulding for Children initiated another "first" in 1999, when for the first time, state and private entities joined to train Spanish-speaking, prospective adoptive families for adoption. Current plans call for this state/private collaborative effort to expand in the year 2000. Nuestros Niños was supported by funds provided by Houston Endowment Inc. and The Houston Foundation.

CARE ­ Cooperative Adoption Resource Endeavor
CARE is a collaborative initiative established in 1997 to provide mediation and educational services to pre-adoptive parents and children to help move them more quickly through the child welfare system. Partners in this effort include Associated Catholic Charities, DePelchin Children's Center, and Spaulding for Children. Through CARE, these partnering agents provided 8,586 hours of PRIDE training for 318 families in 1999. The CARE collaborative model also laid the foundation for Adopt2000, a more ambitious partnership project also described in this report. The Adopt2000 project involves four private agencies and the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (TDPRS) modeling unprecedented public/private partnership.

Adopt2000
This exciting collaborative endeavor is a privately funded, four-year, Greater Houston Community Foundation sponsored project. Its partners include Spaulding for Children, Associated Catholic Charities, Depelchin, Homes of St. Mark and the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (TDPRS). The purpose of the project is to place 700 waiting children over the next four years with permanent new adoptive families. The larger aim is to place 2,000 children ­ 500 per year ­ in permanent homes. There are currently 700 waiting children in TDPRS's Region Six, which includes Harris and twelve surrounding counties. In 1999, Adopt 2000 developed a public relations/ awareness campaign to be spearheaded in 2000 through a contract with WB 39 television. (See attached article from the op/ed section of the Houston Chronicle, 5/7/00)

FAST FORWARD To Permanency - Mediation Program
This ambitious three-year pilot program offered by the partners in the CARE collaboration is focused on reforming the judicial system in Harris County as it relates to children removed from their birth families. Its purpose is to provide mediation services to families involved with Harris County 314th District Court and Harris County Children's Protective Services. During its final full year of implementation in 1999, 79 new children began the mediation process and 48 completed it. Federal funding is being sought to continue this ground-breaking initiative.

PRIDE Training
PRIDE training provides pre-service and on-going training to prepare foster and adoptive families to parent abused and neglected, at-risk children. 108 foster and adoptive parents accessed the PRIDE program in 1999 and, together, completed 3,240 hours of training though its curriculum. For 2000, Spaulding for Children is partnering with Casey Family Services to provide PRIDE training using a teleconferencing model. In this innovative collaboration, three to six teleconferencing sites will serve a maximum of 30 people each. This will make PRIDE training available to those who would otherwise be unable to access this valuable service due to distance from, or scheduling conflicts with, the traditional PRIDE sessions.

Ongoing Endeavors
We are grateful for the invaluable support of our additional partners in the funding community, such as American General, ExxonMobil, RSMIS Foundation, USX Corporation and Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, whose gifts immeasurably aided Spaulding for Children's ongoing efforts in all of the above-mentioned, specific programs in 1999. Whether through in-kind donations or gifts supporting such vital organizational enhancements as improved communication technology, marketing initiatives or updating our computer capabilities, these donors make an enormous difference in empowering all of our programs and outreach efforts to serve our community as fully and effectively as possible. Thank you!