In the fall of 2021, Dogwood Health Trust received a flurry of grant requests for emergency transitional housing for children in Western North Carolina (WNC) involved in the child welfare system. Departments of Social Services (DSS) were scrambling to find temporary safe living space for children in their care — sometimes resorting to hotel stays or makeshift sleeping cots in county office spaces.
Dogwood responded in 2022 with $4.7 million in grants over the course of three years to help support the development of several housing projects to address the immediate need. However, one prevailing question persisted: Why?
“We wanted to better understand why this situation was becoming so dire in Western North Carolina,” explained Channah VanRegenmorter, Dogwood program and strategy officer. “Some counties had over 100 nights a year with kids sleeping in DSS offices. We wanted to know what was behind this — why were kids staying in the foster system for two, three or even five years at a time, and how could we help our partners get upstream?”
Weighing in
To find answers, Dogwood looked to those with firsthand knowledge and lived experience to lead the way. Through formal convenings and one-on-one discussions, more than 200 conversations occurred over the course of the next two years, elevating voices of frontline workers and families and providing neutral ground for stakeholders to collaborate and innovate within North Carolina’s 18 westernmost counties.
DSS directors, judges, attorneys, foster families and organizations serving foster youth weighed in, VanRegenmorter said, offering diverse expertise and perspectives. “Listening to folks in our communities, we began to hear consistent themes emerging around the child welfare system that, in turn, helped identify root causes.”
Stakeholders said children idle in foster care due to court delays, often caused by a shortage of parent attorneys or adequate court days for child welfare cases. Other challenges came to light too, such as a lack of support for kinship caregivers, a need for improved medical examination processes in child abuse cases, and a lack of open adoption options in state policy.
The Way Ahead
These learnings ultimately informed additional Dogwood grants of more than $5 million between 2021 and 2024 to organizations working to improve child welfare, addressing issues like kinship care, expedited court proceedings, family reunification and advocacy.
Sometimes, this meant investing in infrastructure. For example, grants to 17 WNC counties equipped juvenile courtrooms with technology so that parents, lawyers, interpreters, and children could participate in proceedings remotely. Structural improvements and the installation of internet cable improved accessibility and removed attendance barriers such as access to transportation, which often factored into court delays and case continuances.
Pilot Programs
Another initiative was bringing the Safe Babies Court Team (SBCT) pilot to WNC counties, including the two court districts serving Mitchell, Madison, Yancey, Avery, Rutherford, McDowell and Watauga counties. This evidence-based model helps infants and toddlers transition more quickly from foster care to a safe, permanent home by providing professionals to help with family decision-making and communication with the courts. This SBCT pilot in WNC is among five others currently underway statewide.
Partner Collaboration
To improve access to timely medical care and forensic interviews for children who experienced abuse in rural areas, Dogwood partnered with the Child Medical Collaborative in the far western part of the state to develop a rural, flexible model to provide medical evaluations. Additional investments in Awake Child Advocacy Center, Aspire Polk County, Safelight Child Advocacy Center have since reduced gaps in care, with more families now able to access urgently needed services in more counties such has Swain, Jackson and Polk counties.
Centering Voices
Advocacy and amplifying the voices of those impacted by the system has been vital to the work as well. NC Child is an advocacy organization that advances strategies and policies around child wellbeing. After participating in community conversations with Dogwood, NC Child added child welfare to their mission as a priority area. Dogwood has since supported the organization in an assessment of the state child welfare system and identification of policy solutions to improve wellbeing for children in state custody.
Emerging Outcomes
Key victories are beginning to emerge. One such accomplishment took place within Transylvania courthouses, where court continuance rates have been trimmed from 76% to 44%, helping expedite cases and exit youth from the foster system more quickly. Meanwhile, a partnership with Foster Family Alliance of NC, headquartered in Weaverville, supports the piloting of kinship support programs, leading to statewide expansion of their kinship family support line and other services.
On a larger scale, the recent passage of the Fostering Care in NC Act (HB 612) has partners celebrating the momentum of a new standard of care for the state. The bill provides funding for kinship caregivers and open adoptions where biological parents can remain in contact with children – which can help to improve permanency.
Brighter Futures
When it comes to work still on the horizon, Dogwood and its partners are focused on exploring opportunities to replicate successful models, continuing to address attorney shortages and court efficiency, and engaging with state-level stakeholders to drive systemic improvements in child welfare. While there is more work to do, VanRegenmorter, says what has been learned by listening through the years has been invaluable for the region.
“We’re filled with gratitude for so many good people on the ground who care deeply about these kids and continue to come together and go above and beyond,” she said. “We might not be able to eliminate the need for foster care, but we can make things better. If we’re strategic, if we lift people up, if we figure out the process and the pain points and come together to make some shifts, we can make a difference.”
