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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Medford's black bear moves on ... Howard Prairie to host ODFW event ... VIDEO: Woman shares her story of self-injury ... Medford's black bear moves on ... Howard Prairie to host ODFW event ... VIDEO: Woman shares her story of self-injury ... SUNDAY FOCUS: FAMILY NURTURING CENTER L.I.F.E. gives hope to parents struggling to win their children back from foster care Parents who've conquered addictions help others win their children back from foster care Comment By Tammy Asnicar for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Tammy Asnicar for the Mail Tribune Posted May. 8, 2016 at 12:01 AM By Tammy Asnicar for the Mail Tribune Posted May. 8, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News At age 6, Daylene Padilla witnessed her half-sister’s father commit suicide in their home. It was just the first tragedy, she says, in a childhood colored by tragedies. At age 9, she met her biological father and brother for the first time. At age 10, she was their drinking buddy. Later, she saw her father shot and killed in front of the neighborhood liquor store. Introduced to methamphetamines at age 13 by her mother’s boyfriend, she was using and selling by age 15. A habitual runaway, she survived life on the streets by selling drugs and stealing cars. She celebrated her 19th birthday in jail. At age 20, although she had given birth to a daughter, she continued her habit of “shooting meth,” “slamming dope” and stealing cars, she says. After a two-year stint in prison and absconding parole, she lost her parental rights and eventually her daughter was adopted. Now, the mother of a second daughter and clean and sober for 2½ years, she has a second chance at parenting her 5-year-old after nearly losing custody of her, too. Padilla is living in an apartment, not a hotel. She recently bought her first car, she says, emphasizing “bought, not stolen.” And, she has her first real job. Padilla’s past is only the prologue to the rest of her story. She, along with three other women with similar stories, is now a full-time employee of the Medford Family Nurturing Center as a peer parent mentor. Her clients are parents whose children are in foster care because of substance abuse, criminal behavior, domestic violence or the inability to provide a safe and healthy home for their children. Padilla, Karie Brunette, Delia Gonsalez and Rebecca Schubbe are using their tragedies and triumphs to help other parents navigate the foster care system, have a voice in juvenile and family courts, adhere to case plans and reunite with their children. Padilla feels her journey was with a purpose — all roads led to this junction, or, as she calls it, “the scariest, most intense moments” of creating a new life for herself and her daughter. “I see I have my DHS (Department of Human Services) history for a reason,” she says. “I have a chance to excel, change and grow.” She adds that she is “blossoming” in the opportunity to give others the same chance. Schubbe feels the same. Like Padilla, she was immersed in alcohol and substance abuse, criminal behavior and motherhood at an early age. She says she was “filling the emptiness” of a childhood spent in the foster care system and the pain of losing her mother to a drunken driver “just when she was in the process of getting us back.” Ironically, Schubbe chose a similar path. After Schubbe tested positive for meth, her children were placed in foster care for nine months before she decided she'd better “do it DHS’s way” and clean up her act. Clean and sober for more than two years with both her daughters at home, she says her life today is “a blessing.” “I can use my setbacks as lessons for others,” she says. Mandi Gould, the peer parent mentoring director, is a former deputy district attorney in Jackson County and founding board member of FNC. After 20 years of handling child abuse and dependency cases, she is enjoying the view from the other side of the courtroom. She calls the mentors “superstars” in their victories over addiction and winning their children back. “They have the unique experience of being there and being out (of the system),” she says. “They believe in themselves, and now they have an opportunity to believe in these parents until they can believe in themselves.” FNC’s peer parent mentoring program is made possible through federal Title IV-E dollars — a major source of Oregon’s child welfare funding. In 1997, Oregon was one of a few states granted an IV-E waiver which has allowed flexibility in addressing the needs of the 11,000 children that came into foster care across the state. The waiver made way for pilot programs such as peer parent mentoring — officially titled "Leveraging Intensive Family Engagement,” or L.I.F.E. — with the intent of preventing family break-ups and reunifying families. The goals of L.I.F.E. and FNC are similar: diminish family risk factors, reduce time children spend in foster care and foster positive parent-child interaction. The parent mentor program was launched March 1 in both Jackson and Josephine counties. Modeled on the partnership between the Morrison Center in Portland and DHS, the program pairs parent mentors with DHS-engaged parents. Medford was picked as the site of the third pilot program in the state because of the high number of children in foster care in Jackson and Josephine counties. FNC was ideal for the expansion of the pilot program because it already has a highly successful program responding to the foster care crisis in both counties. Along with its smaller center in Grants Pass, FNC serves more than 300 high-risk families each month. According to Lacey Andresen, the Title IV-E waiver program manager overseeing Southern Oregon programs, the two counties were chosen based on several other criteria, including how many children are in foster care longer than six months. According to Children First for Oregon — a not-for-profit child advocacy program — 730 children came into foster care in Jackson County in 2015; 375 came into care in Josephine County in the same year. With just under 2 percent of the child population in foster care, Jackson County rates 20th among the state’s 36 counties in a ranking of best to worst; Josephine County rates 28th, with 2.3 percent of the county’s children in care. Neighboring Douglas County ranked 26th with 2 percent of its children in care; Klamath County sits at 31 with 2.6 percent in care. Tiny Gilliam County fared the worst. At number 36, 12.6 percent of that county’s children are in foster care. Andresen says that both Jackson and Josephine counties “do a great job moving children” out of foster care based on a DHS timeline called Another Planned Permanent Living Arrangement. With regular reviews, within 12 to 15 months, most children are reunited with parents, placed in relative foster care, or placed in permanent homes through adoption or guardianship. The peer mentor concept is “exciting” and “innovative” in meeting that timeline, Andresen says. And it fits into the wrap-around care model that child welfare is implementing statewide. Regular structured family meetings, intensive efforts to find relatives to foster parent, and parent mentoring “all have proven to be very effective,” she adds. “We are having incredible outcomes. (The mentors) teach us to do it better.” Gould says the parent mentors received 80 hours of “intense” classroom instruction, training in sexual assault and domestic violence prevention and counseling, and they shadowed their peers at the Morrison Center in Portland. They’ve also attended “Darkness to Light” workshops about child sexual and physical abuse and sessions on Trauma-informed Care. The mentors encourage parents to stay connected with their caseworkers and stay engaged in the reunification process. They model a healthy, clean and sober lifestyle and effective parenting. And they support parents through court proceedings at Family and Drug courts and numerous meetings with community social service and mental health providers. Gould says she and the mentors can translate “the oftentimes threatening, scary and confusing” foster care system and court process. “We are helping parents to have a voice,” says Gonsalez, who relates to feeling voiceless and powerless as she fought law enforcement and the child welfare system to keep her marriage, family and jobs intact through two decades of selling and using drugs. And, speaking from a heart that knows “you are only loved if you are doing good,” she adds, “we are able to love them when they can’t love themselves.” Now employees of FNC, one of 23 Relief Nurseries in Oregon, the four new parent mentors have seen firsthand the impact of a strong support system. “Had I had the Family Nurturing Center in the midst of my addiction, I could have prevented child welfare intervention,” Gonsalez says. All four women hope to help FNC continue its success rate of 99 percent of families having no further involvement in child welfare. One of the most significant outcomes of peer parent mentoring, says Gould, is “more people to help us help more people.” Brunette, a mother of five, has her own story of twists and turns through alcohol and drug abuse, bad relationships and divorces because of domestic violence, and the struggle to maintain her parental rights. After a lifetime of “rocking the boat” and constantly living in a “flight or fight” mode, she says she made life changes and became “an overachiever to get my kids back.” After getting two college degrees, she became a drug and alcohol counselor. But, she admits, it’s not been easy. “It’s not a quick process getting rid of 30 years of bad habits,” she says. “The important thing, I didn’t stop doing the next right thing. The past doesn’t define me.” Brunette, tears in her eyes, says she is still astounded that “we’ve been trusted to take care of not only ourselves, but others.” “I want to help develop hope . . . which is so basic to the human soul,” she says. "They need to know this moment is not forever.” It is an important piece of L.I.F.E., Gould adds. "We want to give hope.” To learn more about the Family Nurturing Center and the peer parent mentoring program, call 541-779-5242 or visit www.familynurturingcenter.org . Reach Grants Pass freelance writer Tammy Asnicar at tammy.asnicar @q.com. By Tammy Asnicar for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Tammy Asnicar for the Mail Tribune Posted May. 8, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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