Vol. 8, No. 2• May 2004

Passage to Adoption: A Camp for Older Youth in Foster Care

As part of her work with Campaigns for Kids, a nonprofit that consults with foster care and adoption agencies, Diane Delafield often interviewed teens in foster care. As she did, she came to understand that, though they often live in supportive, nurturing foster families, many of the youth cleared for adoption have behavioral, emotional, and psychological issues that make the transition to adoption difficult.

What these youth needed, Diane realized, was a camp that offered a healing program that would make the path to adoption easier for them to travel. As she envisioned it, this camp would be safe, yet transformational. It would be a place where youth could have experiences that would support their passage both to new families and to meaningful, productive adult lives.

When she looked around, Diane found very few camps like this, and none in North Carolina. And so last year, working with her colleague, Tina Peterson, and her friend Chris Weaver, the director of a 4-H Education Center, she set out to create one.

Passage to Adoption
Under the auspices of her nonprofit organization, Under One Sky, Diane and her friends have developed a vision and a plan for a camp for older youth in foster care whose track is adoption. The camp is called Passage to Adoption. If adequate funding can be secured, the camp will be developed and tested in a comprehensive three-year pilot at the Swannanoa 4-H Education Center, a 90-acre camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville.

The Campers. The program is designed to serve youth who are at least partially clear for adoption, including youth who have an identified family and may be living with them while they go through the legal adoption process. Based on interest already expressed by county departments of social services, the camp will host 32 to 48 youth during its first year. In the second and third years, new groups of 48 teens will be added.

Duration. The program will include a ten-day summer camp during June 2004, 2005, and 2006, each of which will be followed by fall, winter, and spring retreat weekends that will include a family retreat for foster families, prospective adoptive families, and social workers.

Activities. The camp will offer youth activities, workshops, and discussions about adoption basics (what it is, its potential benefits), grief and loss, adoption recruitment, and other relevant issues.

The youth will also direct their own learning by choosing small-group workshops in life skills, creativity, team-building, and leadership. These workshops will be led by experienced instructor-mentors. The camp cabin-counselor team will consist primarily of students from schools of social work across the state.

A Recruitment Connection
During the camp, youth will be invited to partner with camp staff and Campaigns for Kids staff to create their own personal recruitment materials. The youth will have the final say in how these materials will be used. Participating county departments of social services will receive the following recruitment materials for each participating youth:

  • A 3–5 minute child-specific video co-produced and scripted by the youth

  • A child-specific profile that includes photographs of the youth, and quotes

  • 24 digital photographs

  • 15–20 minute, professionally recorded interview

  • 30-second radio public service announcement

Matching with Parents
As part of the ten-day camp experience, qualified prospective parents will be recruited by NC Kids Adoption and Foster Care Network and invited to attend an orientation with social workers at a comfortable nearby facility.

Parents will then attend the camp’s culminating celebration, “Sharing the Gift.” Here prospective parents will interact with the youth in a neutral, relaxed setting to help facilitate potential matches. Youth will present the results of their work at camp to families, including personalized profiles that the youth have created with the help of camp staff. The youth’s choice to interact with the prospective parents will be respected, and the emphasis will be on the personal growth and self-esteem of each youth.

Funding
Passage to Adoption is being funded by foundation grants, county DSS’s, individuals, churches, and businesses. Under One Sky is in the process of applying to foundations to fund the first three years of this pilot project. Summer camp 2004 is contingent upon receiving a portion of these grants prior to June. Under One Sky will implement the three-day opening retreat even if grant funding does not come in prior to these dates, since this event has been paid for by county departments of social services.

For more information about this program, contact Diane Delafield ([email protected]; 828/645-1046). To learn about the application process to serve as a volunteer or to join the camp staff, contact Chris Weaver ([email protected]; 828/686-3196). To make a financial contribution online, visit www.networkforgood.org/donate, and enter the organization name Under One Sky; or mail your contribution to Under One Sky, Inc., PO Box 8411, Asheville, NC 28814.

Copyright � 2004 Jordan Institute for Families