R.I. child-welfare agency gets federal money to help keep children out of the state system(At least RI is working to PRESERVE FAMILIES!)

R.I. child-welfare agency gets federal money to help keep children out of the state system (Well at least RI is Working To PRESERVE FAMILIES!)
01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, May 22, 2010
By Lynn Arditi

Journal Staff Writer
CRANSTON — At Joyce Sylvia’s age, family responsibilities usually amount to spoiling the grandchildren on birthdays and holidays. But long after she was done raising her own children, her family needed her — and she couldn’t say no.

So, instead of relaxing on a cruise boat with her silver-haired friends, Sylvia, 68, spends many days chauffeuring her 15-year-old granddaughter, rap music blaring on the car stereo.

Though “it hasn’t been easy,” Sylvia said, “I’m kind of enjoying it.”

Sylvia was one of the “Grand Divas” of the Rhode Island’s child-welfare system who spoke Friday before about 350 employees of the state Department of Children, Youth and Families and its network of private service providers who attended a conference at the Rhodes on the Pawtuxet in Cranston. The event was organized by the Rhode Island Partnership for Family Connections, a network of child-welfare service providers and the DCYF.

Rhode Island is among the 22 sites in 13 states last year that received federal grants — in Rhode Island, $2.4 million over three years — to fund the program to create more permanent homes for children in state custody by expanding the role of “kinship care” providers. In Rhode Island, the “kin” can be relatives or friends or a teacher or coach or someone who has a connection with the child.

Sylvia and her husband were in their 60s when they suddenly became parents again. Sylvia’s son was involved in drugs, she said, and fathered children and didn’t care for them. One of the women whose children he fathered was evicted from her house and wound up in a shelter. She had six young children.

“The way we were brought up,” Sylvia said, “you take care of your own.”

Ana Perkins also found herself suddenly drawn into the role of mother again when her niece in Rhode Island died of cancer, leaving five children, ages 4 to 14. Perkins, who was living in Brooklyn, N.Y., at the time, moved to Providence to care for two of the children; her sister took the other two. At first, Perkins said, she survived on welfare and $120 a month in food stamps. Eventually, she got a job and a pay raise.

Discipline was a struggle. “None of them like the way I treated them because I was old-school,” she said. “I was strict!”

The girls began fighting. One time, one of the girls pulled out a kitchen knife and threatened her sister. Perkins, fearing for their safety, called the DCYF. One of the girls wound up being placed in a group home because she couldn’t get along with Perkins.

On Friday, one of those sisters who fought in Perkins’ kitchen years ago sat in the audience, wiping her eyes.

Jeree Holloway is now 21 and a senior at Bennett College for Women in North Carolina. When the question-and-answer period began, she raised her hand.

“I just want to say thank you to my auntie,” Holloway said, “for taking us in.”

larditi@projo.com

http://www.projo.com/news/content/FAMILY_CONNECTIONS_05-22-10_OKIJ67C_v81.20871ea8.html