"Camp brings scattered foster kids together"
By Aurelio Rojas - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, August 6, 2007 on Sacbee.com
SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST -- The mountain lake, ringed by some of the tallest trees in the world, provided a stunning contrast to the bleak experiences that the dozen foster care children perched on a dock have endured.
They eyed the water warily, declining camp counselors' invitations to test their swimming skills, until a 16-year-old named LaToya accepted the challenge.
No one cheered more loudly than her brothers, Reggie, 15, and D'Andre, 14. When LaToya, exhausted, stopped short of completing the course, Reggie jumped in and finished it for her as his siblings screamed with joy.
The setting was Camp Connect, the only summer camp in California that brings together -- for a glorious week each year -- sisters and brothers who've been separated in foster care because a home could not be found to keep them together.
"We look forward to this every year," said LaToya, who has attended the camp each year since it was launched five years ago. "It allows us to share good memories."
California has nearly 80,000 foster care children who have been removed by county child protective services workers from their parents' custody.
More than 54,000 have siblings, but only a third of them are placed with a sibling, according to Aspira Foster & Family Services, a Daly City-based nonprofit that runs Camp Connect.
Lisa Nichols, a Fresno County social worker who works with foster children, said the camp provides hope for children who have been neglected and abused by their parents.
"They've lost hope they're not going to see their parents, but seeing their siblings gives them a sense they have a family," Nichols said.
This year's camp, attended by 50 children from around the state, was held last week at Sequoia Lake in Sequoia National Forest.
Amid a landscape studded with giant redwoods and anchored by the 80-acre lake, the children rode horses, climbed rocks and laughed their way through other activities.
They danced, staged skits and blew out candles on cakes at a joint birthday celebration that allowed them to share family functions they've missed. They exchanged cards and donated gifts.
Counselors took hundreds of photographs, mindful that as adults, former foster children often lament they don't have childhood photos with their siblings.
Dennis Bush, a spokesman for Aspira, said that in "dysfunctional homes, siblings often take comfort in each other," a comfort that is disrupted when they're separated.
"The older kids often parent younger siblings because their real parents aren't doing the job," Bush said. "They become obsessed with seeing their siblings when they're separated."
When "that barrier is removed," Bush said, they "can start to relax a little bit, start taking care of themselves, and being the kids they need to be."
Child welfare advocates say that because of family disruption, most foster children have trouble in school and are not prepared for life on their own.
Within a few years of leaving the system, half of them are unemployed, a quarter are homeless and one in five is in jail, according to the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles.
"Legislators (in Sacramento) should recognize the importance of the sibling bond and provide counties with the support they need to put a higher focus of keeping children together," Bush said.
Assembly Bill 149 by Assembly Majority Leader Karen Bass would provide counties with software to allow foster kids to connect with their extended families.
The Los Angeles Democrat chairs a select committee on foster care. AB 149 grew out of hearings and focus groups the committee held.
"One of the things (foster children) said they wanted more than anything was to find their siblings," Bass said.
The software in her bill, she said, was created by a former foster child. Bass said a dozen counties in the state already are using the technology.
"How many more counties use it will depend on appropriations, frankly," Bass said of AB 149, now before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed previous incarnations of the bill, citing costs. Bass said she has "stripped it to the bare bones" in an effort to win approval.
Aspira, the state's largest private foster-care agency, hopes the state and counties also will replicate projects such as Camp Connect, which was modeled on a similar program in Colorado.
The camp, which depends on year-round fundraising, is able to accommodate only a small percentage of separated siblings, who must be 11 to 17 years old to participate.
This year, Aspira budgeted $84,000 for the project and extended invitations to 65 children through county foster-care officials.
Fifteen of the invitees, including four from Sacramento County, were not able to attend because of transportation or other problems. A group from San Mateo County made its way up the mountain roads in a stretch limousine provided by a donor.
"We look for kids with the greatest needs," Bush said. "We also take into account their ability to be part of a larger group."
As a camp counselor, Nichols has seen LaToya and her brothers grow physically and emotionally.
The children, who live scattered throughout the Bay Area, never knew their father and rarely see their mother. Nichols said Camp Connect has allowed them to forge a lasting relationship.
"The last night is the saddest, watching these kids go their separate ways," Nichols said.
As she spoke, this year's participants ate lunch in a meadow by the lake and exchanged blankets embroidered with messages they wrote.
A 16-year-old girl named Linda read the message she stitched together for her 11-year-old brother, Fernando.
The siblings were removed from their parents' care years ago because of "neglect and abuse" and rarely see each other, Linda said.
"Whenever you need a shoulder to cry on," Linda wrote to her brother, who teared up, "I'll be there to catch your love. Your big sister for life, Linda."
