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OCTOBER 2012 focuspolkcounty.com16

Teri Saunders

Heartland for Children, a local not-for-profi t agency, promotes the prevention of child abuse and provides services for abused and/or neglected children in Polk, Highlands, and Hardee counties. These services include in-home family strengthening, adoption, case management, foster care and independent living. Focus Magazine recently had the privilege of sitting down with CEO Teri Saunders in her Bartow offi ce, where she described to us all the good this organization is doing for children. She spoke also of the pressing need for quality foster homes in order to keep providing this type of care.

Focus: Tell us a little about yourself and your family. Are you a Polk County native?

Teri Saunders: I grew up in Oklahoma, but have lived in Polk County for over 20 years. I studied psychology at the University of Oklahoma and moved to Orlando after I graduated to attend grad school at the University of Central Florida, studying industrial organizational psychology. I met my husband J.P., who grew up in Winter Haven, so that’s what brought me here. We just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. He runs Hurricane Harbor Marine in Dundee, a boat and fi berglass repair shop. We enjoy spending time with our 13 nieces and nephews and our baby, a Westie named Skippy.

CEO

Interview by: Valerie McCutcheonPhotos by: Nate Mundell Photography

FOCUS MAGAZINE POLK COUNTY OCTOBER 2012 17

Focus: Tell us a little about Heartland for Children.

TS: Heartland for Children was founded in 2003 specifi cally for the purpose of redesigning the foster care system for Polk, Highlands and Hardee counties. In the late 1990s, the state legislators realized the child welfare system wasn’t working and developed a new model and approach in recognizing that kids could be better served outside of just the government systems. Th e model really recognizes that child welfare is bigger than government, and the solutions are in the community. It takes businesses, churches, and individuals stepping up to the plate to make sure kids are safe here. I really believe in the model of community-based care; it is a much better way for us to improve the safety and well being of kids in the community.

Focus: How did you get started here?

TS: Prior to coming on as CEO in 2008, I served on the Board of Directors here as a volunteer. I previously worked with Children’s Home Society of Florida, and before that as faculty at the University of Florida where I did research and evaluation of state-funded programs, exposing me to all of the child welfare services. Whenever they came up with a community based model and put it out to the local not-for-profi ts, I thought, I want to be a part of that. I wanted to be a part of making a diff erence, so I went to the Children’s Home Society, which led into Heartland for Children.

Focus: What would you say your biggest advantage is over government or state-run programs?

TS: We don’t have to deal with a large bureaucracy, so that’s a huge advantage. We’re able to be more creative and innovative, and if something’s not working, we’re able to try something diff erent. I report to a local Board of Directors made up of people from the community, not politicians in Tallahassee. Th ey’re very in touch with what’s going on here, so we’re able to make the decisions locally. When I fi rst started, our system didn’t have a lot of well-developed services for teens, so we’ve really put a lot of emphasis on that. My thinking is that we really have to help the teens in the foster care system if we want to prevent the next generation from coming back around into the child welfare system.

Focus: What are your biggest needs right now?

TS: We really need more great foster parents. We know that for children to heal from their emotional trauma and pain, they need to have someone they can get into a good, nurturing relationship with. Th ere are 1,800 kids in the system of care right now, newborns up to age 23. Th ere are about 350 in three counties living in foster homes, 120 in group homes, and a large chunk of kids are with relatives. If we are able to keep kids at home and safe with their parents,

we want that to happen, because just being removed can be traumatic and we want to minimize that if at all possible. We provide counseling, in-home support services, parenting classes, or help with basic needs like just making sure the home is clean enough for a baby. We try to support the parents so their kids don’t need to be removed, but if they are removed, the next step is to fi nd a relative caregiver. We also have children still with their parents but under protective supervision, and then another 75-100 between the ages of 18-23.

Focus: What is the process of becoming a foster parent?

TS: Th e process includes a phone interview and an orientation meeting, hours of preparation training, a personal interview, medical exam, in-home visits, background screenings and character reference checks. Over the last few years we’ve put a lot of eff ort into improving our licensing process and have revamped our training curriculum to make everything as streamlined as possible. Our Passport to Parenting training program really works with preparing foster parents for taking in children who have been victims of abuse and neglect, and we work with them to have an understanding of the impact childhood trauma has on brain, social and emotional development. You really do have to have a lot of patience, be very understanding and really capable of giving a lot of love and nurturing. We want foster parents who are going to get in there and be active in the kids’ lives, helping them to be successful in school, getting them involved in extracurricular activities and just making sure the kids in their home are getting a normal experience.

Focus: Where would you like to see this organization in fi ve years?

TS: We’ve made a lot of progress with regard to the quality of care since 2003, and I would love to continue to push that to the next level and make sure all of our relative caregivers are getting the training and support they need, and that we’re successfully reunifying families. Th ere will probably always be a need for a child welfare system, but my vision is that we will have one operating very effi ciently and getting good outcomes for kids and families. You have to take a long-term view to know whether we’re breaking the cycle of abuse in families where it’s passed along from one generation to the next. If children who have been in the system can grow up and become emotionally healthy and productive individuals with functional family relationships, that’s how we’ll know we’re successful.

Focus: What would you say to someone contemplating becoming a foster parent?

TS: If you’ve ever thought about foster parenting, now is the time to do it! We’ve done so much work to redesign and change how we approach foster parents and really embrace them as true partners in our system of care, which wasn’t always the case years ago with government-run programs. If you’ve ever thought, “I could do that, I want to take children into my home, and I can parent them and love them,” now is a good time. You will not be in this alone. Th ere is a whole team of us here to help and support you, and with our training programs we can better prepare you to understand the children coming into your home and really provide what they need, so that you don’t see behavioral problems as you might have in the past. We know that good foster parents are an essential part of helping these children heal.

Focus: I imagine you’ve seen some really hard situations but also some very rewarding ones. What would you say is the best part of your job?

TS: Some of the stories we hear are very heartbreaking and tragic, and you really have to have a good work/life balance in order to be able to not let that get you down. But, we see so many successes as well, so we try to focus on that to keep us in balance. My role is more administrative and I don’t have a lot of direct contact with the children, so I really love when I get the opportunity to meet some of these kids. I especially love getting to know some of our teens. We recently had a graduation ceremony for our 13 high school graduates. We had a dinner, gave them gifts and helped them celebrate, because many of them don’t have families who will throw them a party. I enjoyed talking with them about their future goals and was so impressed because I think about their challenges and what they’ve had to overcome, but they just want to be like any other teenager and have friends and family that they can count on, and they want to accomplish things with their lives. To me, that’s just really inspirational.

Teri, the work you’re doing to improve the lives of these kids is inspirational. � ank you for sharing.

For more information on foster parenting or any other services, visit www.heartlandforchildren.org or call 863-519-8900.

Improving safety, permanency, and well being for all children

in Polk, Highlands, and Hardee Counties.