|
Black and White Ball Benefiting FKCS
The Florida Keys Children's Shelter celebrated more than 20 years of service during the Black and White Ball held on March 27, 2010, at the beautiful Marriott, Key Largo -- Bay Beach Resort. Blue Marlin Jewelry, Armando Gonzalez, Owner, was the title sponsor of this year’s Black and White Ball.
During the night, there was time set aside for Kathy Tuell, President and CEO of FKCS, to thank several friends and partners of the Shelter. Tuell stated that, "the Florida Keys Children's Shelter, through the hard work and help of others, has been able to protect and care for more than 22,000 children and families in Monroe County." Tuell reminded the group of the ongoing challenges children, teens and families are facing every day in our current economic climate.
 
 
The Florida Keys Children's Shelter expressed their tremendous gratitude to all their many supporters. Following the dinner, Tuell recognized the strong partnerships with Jay Rourke, Frank Crowely and Dr. True and Lisa Lansden by presenting Dream Keeper Appreciation Awards for their dedication and committed support of FKCS. Last year, the Ocean Reef Community, TIB Bank and Connie and David Helwig were the recipients of the Dream Keeper Appreciation Awards.
FKCS serves Monroe County's most vulnerable citizens by offering shelter and child, parent and family counseling -- leading to help, hope and healing.
For more information on becoming involved with the Florida Keys Children's Shelter, you may contact Janey Wawerna, Chief Development Officer at 305-852-4246 ext. 222 or by email at jmiller@fkcs.org.
Rolex Raffle Winner Announced!
Congratulations to Dana Gonzalez! Dana was our lucky Rolex watch winner. And Thank You!!! Armando Gonzalez, Owner of Blue Marlin Jewelry in Islamorada, for supporting our important work by donating the outstanding Rolex!!!
 
A Message from the President
Kathy Tuell, President and CEO
Florida Keys Children’s Shelter, Inc.
WHY DO THE SAME THING, THE SAME WAY AND EXPECT DIFFERENT RESULTS?
When I worked in administration at a psychiatric hospital in Fort Lauderdale, there were five psychiatric hospitals, all with specialized units for children and adolescents. There were several specialty facilities for children/youth with substance abuse problems. There were maternity group homes, therapeutic group homes, and therapeutic foster homes. There were many specialty residential and non-residential programs, including facilities for children or youth who had been victims of sexual abuse and for those who were perpetrators of sexual abuse. This is typical of urban/suburban communities. While the need is great, there is a depth and breadth of service capacity to address current and emerging needs.
In Monroe County, there are no psychiatric beds for children or adolescents. There are no substance abuse beds for children or adolescents. There are no therapeutic foster homes. There are no therapeutic group homes. There are no specialized residential beds. The reason that these programs do not exist in this county is that, on any given day, the number of children/youth requiring these services is usually too small to encourage establishment of separate programs – each one specialized and expensive. The government is unwilling to invest in separate programs for such a small number of children and youth to be served. This is not unique to Monroe County – but it is unique to programs located in small, rural, isolated locations across the country.
There is: the Florida Keys Children’s Shelter. Paid and staffed to be a shelter – and expected to provide 24-hour care for children and youth regardless of the issues they present with or those issues that are discovered while they are in residence. FKCS, while paid and staffed to provide care for the lowest risk client, is expected to “manage” higher risk children and youth who will eventually receive assistance at a specialized program, or who have been sent to a therapeutic setting that has returned them because the children fail to follow the programmatic guidelines. These children and youth, who (for whatever reason) have no other place to be, are deserving of our very best effort to provide them with the best of support, care and intervention that we can gather – if we expect to have any kind of positive outcome.
There are 67 counties in Florida. There are only 28 homeless/runaway shelters in the state. Not every county has a shelter, and the competition for those state dollars is fierce – especially the push-pull between urban and rural areas. We maintain our funding by over-performing and, literally, holding on as tight as we can to the funding we have. Our strategy of being absolutely excellent and giving the funders little wiggle room to ponder taking our money has – so far – worked. In the end, the government funding only covers 60 % of the cost of doing the business – leaving a hole of about $600,000 to be covered by county government and private donor support. Given this situation, you can see why it is difficult for us to address the issue of needing “richer” staffing to address the multiple levels of child/youth need.
Planning for the Future
One of the biggest challenges for social service agencies in rural areas such as the Florida Keys is recruiting and retaining qualified professionals who are often required to have advanced education degrees. One of the constraints is financial. Rural areas seldom receive the funding necessary to support the positions and salaries of professional staff because of the smaller demographics of such areas.
The Florida Keys Children’s Shelter has teamed up with the Eckerd Foundation to explore an innovative program that would address this challenge, not only in the Florida Keys, but in rural areas across the nation.
The concept is similar to that of teaching hospitals, where hospitals team up with universities to create a hands-on educational environment. Similarly, the Children’s Shelter, with a grant from Eckerd, is exploring ways that model may be applied locally. The $36,000 grant will fund an eight-month study that will examine the academic, social service, policy and funding requirements necessary to implement the model.
“This is an innovative way to bring some of the newest care and counseling techniques to our children and families,” said Kathy Tuell, president and CEO of the Florida Keys Children’s Shelter. “If we are successful, not only will college students get the real-world experience they need, colleges will get the internship placements that their students need, our organization will have the enriched staffing necessary to provide the highest quality of care and, most importantly, the children, youth and families we work with will have the best of care and better outcomes.”
Before receiving the grant, the shelter had begun exploring the concept with an initial planning team, including Dr. Wayne Baker, Chancellor of York College, York, NE, who said, “The students, faculty and administration are enthusiastic concerning the opportunity of serving children and families in a supervised applied learning environment. Our students, majoring in social work, counseling and psychology, with the expectation of licensure, need not only the theoretical classroom experience, but the kind of “hands-on reality” that can only come for a guided and supervised learning in real-world experiences such as this.”
Other members of the early planning team included Paul Gardner, Ph.D., CFRE, Searcy, AR., who will serve as the project facilitator, and Patrick J. Cooney, of The Federal Group, Alexandria, VA, who will assist with policy and legislative recommendations. As the process continues the planning team will include specialists in youth work and related social service and funding from around the country.
Joe Clark, president of the Eckerd Family Foundation, congratulated FKCS on the grant award and said the “Board of Directors of the Foundation look forward to hearing about the success of the planning of the pilot program and its impact on the lives of youth in the community.
The Eckerd Family Foundation's mission provides leadership and support for innovative educational, preventative, therapeutic and rehabilitative programs for children, youth and their families.
The Foundation seeks to support the most promising and innovative ideas that provide vulnerable youth with not merely transitional services, but rather transformational opportunities helping them to reconnect with their futures. Just as importantly, all of the Foundation's investments are evaluated against clear goals and measured by results and performance outcomes.
Kids shelter receives $36K counseling grant
The Citizen (April 17, 2010)
By John L. Guerra
Citizen Staff
The Florida Keys Children’s Shelter may have found the answer to keeping professional counseling staff in paradise.
With the help of a $36,000 Eckerd Foundation grant, the shelter is developing an internship model that would bring in psychologist candidates and counselors from Midwest colleges and universities to supplement shelter counseling services.
The money will let the shelter perform an eight-month study to iron out the policy, funding, academic and social services requirements necessary to implement the unique model.
Kathy Tuell, the shelter’s president and chief executive officer, said expensive rent and other hardships in the Keys make recruiting qualified psychologists and counselors difficult.
“One of the constraints is financial,” she said. “Rural areas seldom receive the funding necessary to support the positions and salaries of professional staff because of the smaller demographics of such areas.”
An idea long in the making, however, could fix that problem: signing agreements with colleges and universities to bring down post-graduate counselors and psychology interns to practice their specialty here. The students could earn their degrees while expanding counseling services for the shelter’s children.
“It would be a formal internship program with universities outside of Florida,” Tuell said.
Janey R. Miller, chief development officer for the shelter, said few of the details are finalized yet; the study will help guide those decisions. “Similar to a teaching hospital, what we hope to do is bring students that have the newest techniques in their areas of study so kids will get cuttingedge counseling and therapy,” she said.
The Eckerd grant will help Tuell and the shelter iron out details to make a future internship program work, she said. “There are issues of clinical supervision,” Tuell said. “Would colleges expect us to do that? Would we place visiting professors, and how would we do that for multiple colleges and universities? It’s the first time this kind of organizing would have to be done.” The shelter now has at least five full-time licensed counselors who travel the Keys helping children and families, Miller said. The shelter serves 30 children in three different facilities and also works with runaways in its Project Lighthouse program, Miller said.
Among the colleges the shelter has approached include York College of Nebraska, Abilene Christian University in Texas and Harding University in Searcy, Ark.
York College Chancellor Wayne Baker said his students could benefit from such internships.
“Our students, majoring in social work, counseling and psychology, with the expectation of licensure, need not only the theoretical classroom experience, but the kind of ‘handson reality’ that can only come from a guided and supervised learning in real-world experiences such as this,” Baker said.
Click here for original article in The Citizen
FKCS Receives Florida Network of Youth and Family Services' Top Performer Award!
(View PDF Here)
Something Worth Sharing!
This is a poem that Kathy Tuell shared with Janey Wawerna shortly after she began my work with FKCS. It is her favorite poem. When you read it, you may have a clearer picture why we do this work and why we boldly ask you to help! Enjoy!
"A Prayer for Children"
By Ina J. Hughs
We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.
And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never "counted potatoes,"
who were born in places we wouldn't be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those who
never get dessert, who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can't find any bread to steal,
who don't have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
whose monsters are real.
We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone, whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.
We pray for children
who want to be carried and for those who must,
for those we never give up on and for those
who don't get a second chance,
For those we smother with love,
and for those who will grab
the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.
Do you know kids like these? I bet you do!
Kids – Big Ones, Small Ones – They All Need All of Us!
Would you feed a child that’s hungry? Would you stop an adult from beating a child? Would you help a runaway get home or somewhere safe if home isn’t safe? Would you give a child a place to sleep, a place to play, a chance at a better life? If you could, would you help?
Why do we need your help? Because these issues are too big and too important to do without your help!
It’s simple – feeding, clothing, counseling, caring for and providing a safe place to be a kid is a big investment with a price tag. Each year, FKCS takes care of more than 700 children and families. Picture what would happen if we weren’t here, if you didn’t help… What would happen to these children and families? Who would feed them, protect them, shelter and counsel them? Who?
Please think about that when you are considering making a donation. You can help and when you do, we believe whatever is right for you, is right for us. Every single donation is precious. Every dollar matters! Whether you make a one-time gift of $5.00, $50.00 or $5,000.00 or monthly gifts of $5.00, $50.00 or $5,000.00 it is all very helpful to our kids and families. As always, your donations are needed and welcomed. You can truly change, improve and save lives through supporting this very necessary work.
Financial donations are not the only way to help! Below you will find our current wish list. As wish list go, ours is typical – filled with both “needs” (must have items) and there are plenty of “wants”. We post both because we are hopeful that something on the list will appeal to someone and we don’t want to rob anyone an opportunity to be involved and help our kids. So please, remember whatever is right for you – is right for us! We are tremendously grateful to have your support! THANK YOU!
Wish List
For detailed information on any of the items below or to make a donation, please contact Janey at 305-731-4741 or jmiller@fkcs.org. Or visit us online at fkcs.org. Thank you!
Project Light House – Key West
A refrigerator
Personal hygiene items
Acoustic guitar
Bikes with locks and lights
Flat screen television
Emergency Shelter for little kids – Key West
Two sturdy sofas
Large area rug
32” Flat screen television
2 - 79” window blinds
Group Home – Key West
Stainless steel pots and pans set
2 chests of drawers
2 - 79” window blinds
Jelsema Children’s Center - Emergency Shelter – Tavernier
Summer passes at swimming facilities
Paint both interior and exterior
Painting supplies
Landscape supplies including flowers, etc.
Tile flooring and Concrete Repair
The Florida Keys Children's Shelter,
inc. is a 501(c)3 tax- exempt organization. An audited
financial statement, Continuous Quality Improvement data
and Risk Management information are available upon request.
|
