An unusual service in Colorado Springs that helps parents and guardians keep their families intact during a crisis and avoid foster care for their children is seeing a spike in need.
“We’re in very high demand,” said Jillian Stephenson, a licensed clinical social worker who in fall 2019 founded the local chapter of Safe Families for Children.
“It’s a unique approach,” she said. “Our goal is to keep kids safe and parents together and prevent child abuse and neglect from happening in the first place.”
Safe Families for Children, which started in Chicago in 2003, provides free, voluntary respite care for kids when parents are in an unforeseen situation, such as being homeless, needing hospitalization, seeking a break from domestic violence, moving households or reassessing their lives.
Safe Families for Children has seen a marked increase in demand for its free respite care for parents and guardians and temporary in-home care for children whose families are in crisis.
“We identify families in danger of abuse and neglect and provide resources and strengthen the family,” Stephenson said. “We’re part of that village parents can call on.”
The organization is on track to assist more families this year than its first two years of operation combined, she said.
Parents can refer themselves to the program, and the organization accepts recommendations from hospitals, other medical settings, Medicaid programs, homeless shelters and human services.
But Stephenson, who previously worked for the Department of Human Services, is quick to say her organization is not linked to DHS, and using her program doesn’t mean clients are in the system.
“We’re not coming in and forcing parents to hand over their children,” she said. “The parents are coming to us, they get to decide how long their children stay with us, and we don’t withhold parents from their children.”
Twenty-five families in El Paso and Teller counties have received state-approved training as host families for children, who temporarily stay with them from 24 hours to six months.
Colorado Springs resident Amy Mayberry became the state’s first certified host in 2019, and her family continues in the role.
From newborns whose parents are homeless or working through post-partum depression, to teens whose grandparents need a once-a-week break to run errands or see a doctor, the Mayberry clan of six pitch in to make guest children feel comfortable while the adults figure things out.
Having adopted three of their four children, some through the foster care system, Mayberry said it was apparent that there’s room for additional services outside of child protection.
“We recognize that some children need to be removed from their families, but some families just need support — like figuring out a sleep schedule for a baby — and keeping kids with their parents as much as possible really is best for the children,” Mayberry said.
She’s a ministry leader at Woodmen Valley Chapel, which provides office space for Safe Families, access to a food pantry for clients and space for storing donated diapers, toys, car seats and clothing for host families and clients.
Other Safe Families for Children volunteers provide daytime babysitting, transportation to school or appointments, meals, emotional support and other basic duties. Some supply material donations such as diapers or household equipment.
One single mom needed scrubs and tennis shoes for a new job in the medical field, for example, Stephenson said.
As a licensed clinical social worker, Stephenson checks on children in homes and guides parents in getting over the hump.
Single mom Monique Burdine says she doesn’t know where she’d be without the help she received from the organization.
Monique Burdine says she doesn't know what she would have done without the help of Safe Families for Children, whose volunteers assisted her in several ways following the birth of her son, Ivan.
Volunteers delivered groceries, watched her son for an hour here or there so she could clean the house, work on her college studies or just take a nap.
“It’s like having an extended family,” Burdine said. “They’ve made such an impact on my life and blessed us. Just knowing that I have that love and support from other people, it’s an awesome resource.”
The organization's annual $154,000 budget is funded by private donations, local churches and grants, Stephenson said. A benefit concert is planned for Friday at Boot Barn Hall, with an eye toward expansion.
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