Tom Patania, president of the Youth Crisis Center, stands at the
site of the new Touchstone Village, which is designed to house 40 foster youths
and young adults. Behind Patania is the apartment building that will house 18
to 21 year-olds. The program will teach independent living skills, focusing on
education, job training and money management.
BOB SELF
By the numbers
A study of foster care youths by the Annie E. Casey Foundation
showed that within two to four years of aging out of foster care:
61 PERCENT HAD NO
JOB EXPERIENCE
66 PERCENT HAD NOT
COMPLETED HIGH SCHOOL
60 PERCENT OF THE
FEMALES HAD GIVEN BIRTH
MORE THAN 50 PERCENT WERE
UNEMPLOYED
LESS THAN 20 PERCENT WERE
SELF-SUPPORTING
THE NEXT LEVEL
Level I - Eight residents ages 16 or 17 will be
housed two to a room for the orientation and adjustment phase, in which they
will have a structured schedule with daily chores. Before progressing to Level
II, they must be enrolled in school and attending classes, complete goals on
their action plan, complete independent living skills classes, complete
volunteer hours, prove proficiency in job-seeking skills and complete a mock
interview.
Level II - Private rooms will be provided for up to
12 residents (16 to 17 years old). They may stay for 12 to 18 months. They will
continue to have a structured schedule and daily chores but will have more
privileges and will be expected to obtain part-time employment. Nearly 20 Jacksonville organizations, some with apprenticeship programs, have partnered with Touchstone Village to support residents with employment. Before advancing to Level III,
residents must continue to attend classes at school, maintain their employment
and develop and adhere to a budget, saving at least 50 percent of their income.
They also must continue their volunteer hours and complete a career inventory
assessment.
Level III - Residents ages 18 to 21 will each have
their own efficiency apartment, paying monthly rent and utilities. They must
attend a post-secondary education program and maintain employment. Before
advancing to Level IV, residents must demonstrate financial responsibility,
master all independent living skills, complete high school or an equivalent and
either enroll in post-secondary education with continued part-time employment
or be employed full time.
Level IV - Residents are assisted by a life coach or
housing specialist in locating a rental community and negotiating a lease,
arranging for utilities and planning to move. Once they move, case-management
services are provided to them for about six months. They are welcome to return
to the village for further independent skills training or other help, and
graduates also will be encouraged to mentor newer residents.
A village is rising on Jacksonville's Southside, one that will be
able to salvage at any one time the lives of 40 young people, ages 16 to 21, to
help make them responsible, productive young adults.
They are the young people who in most cases are destined to be
underemployed if employed at all, stand a good chance of being incarcerated or
homeless, become substance abusers, collect food stamps at 11 times the normal
rate and, if a female, have a child out of wedlock before the age of 18 and a
second baby by age 21.
They are teenagers who under state law age out of foster care when
they turn 18.
Some of them have been in foster homes where the foster parents do
it just for the money - $650 per teenager per month - and aren't equipped to
build trust with teenagers.
Tom Patania, who has been president of Jacksonville's Youth Crisis Center since 1980, has a special interest in developing the $6 million Touchstone Village. The live-in campus for career and educational development is expected
to open in October adjacent to the Youth Crisis Center on Parental Home Road.
Patania's mother, Theresa Patania, was one of five children in a
family whose mother died at a young age. Their father, an alcoholic, abandoned
the family. Of the five children, three were adopted. Theresa and another were
placed in foster homes.
"My mother told of the nightmare of one after another foster
homes in which she lived - sometimes in barely furnished attics," Patania
said. "They were horror stories."
Spending the past three decades helping thousands of teenagers in
crisis, Patania knew the foster care system had done little to nothing to break
the cycle of foster care teenagers not getting an even break in life.
"All our clients are victims of poor parenting and, unless
there is some intervention, they themselves will become poor parents just
perpetuating the problem," he said.
Patania said that, nationwide, 25,000 youths age out of foster
care each year and only one in four has a permanent home when turning 18. The
National Association of Social Workers said 35 percent of the nation's homeless
are former foster care youths.
In Northeast Florida, Patania said, on an annual basis there are
about 400 foster care youths between the ages of 13 and 17 and only one in
three will have completed independent living skills training.
"Many youths age out of foster care ill-prepared and
disconnected from a family support system," he said. "In those cases,
the parents are the problem and sometimes families just can't be mended."
Greg Matovina, owner of Matovina & Co. residential real estate
developers and the project coordinator for the village, has rallied his
building industry colleagues to either donate or discount materials and labor
for the project.
Matovina got involved with the Youth Crisis Center about two years
ago, just after he completed the women's and children's center at Trinity
Rescue Mission.
"It was as if I was being told that it was time for a new
assignment, and I found it is really easy to have compassion and to have others
have compassion for homeless teenagers," Matovina said.
He said it was a shock for him to learn that a foster teenager
turning 18 in October of his senior year of high school gets suddenly thrown
out because the money stops coming to the foster family at age 18.
"And many of these kids are already a grade or two behind, so
they are just adding to the homeless [problem] of the future," Matovina
said. "Every child deserves a chance. They didn't ask to be born."
Patania said the key to the program will be the staff, about 28
employees he will begin hiring and training in August.
"We are going to be the parents for these kids, so we are
looking for some special people," he said.
He's gotten off to a good start with his daughter-in-law, Mandi Patania, who worked in the foster care system for the past five years at other Jacksonville agencies. Now she'll be the research and development specialist and
independent living coordinator.
He also plans to have some former foster care young people talk
with the new staff "so they know where these kids are coming from. It
takes a special staff to build trust and relationships with these young
people."
