Aliante View
February 6, 2007
Remodeled facility to keep siblings together at Child Haven
Being separated from their siblings might just be the second hardest thing children admitted to Child Haven go through.
Lou Palma, Child Haven’s manager, said being separated from their parents is probably the hardest thing for most of the organization’s charges. Until recently, if sibling groups were far enough apart in age, or of different genders, they often found themselves divided from the little family they had left.
But a recent donation, which funded the renovation of Child Haven’s Claude I. Howard Cottage, will help change that.
The cottage is expected to open late next week, and was designed to keep sibling groups together and to keep teen mothers with their babies. Currently, children at Child Haven are separated into the facility’s different cottages by age and gender.
Funds for the renovations were raised by Focus Property Group’s Mended Hearts team, a part of the company’s Community 911 project. Through the project, employees of both Focus Property Group and LandTek were split into four teams charged with selecting a charity and then developing a philanthropic project for each organization.
The team secured contributions from Hager Marketing Group, The Children’s Service Guild, Station Casinos, Ronald McDonald House Charities, an anonymous donor and Focus Property Group/Ritter Charitable Trust totaling $569,550.
Mended Hearts also secured $101,500 in in-kind donations.
“John Ritter challenged his employees to go out and make a difference in the community, and their first thought was to do a community ropes course, but they changed their minds and decided to donate the money to provide a cottage, “ Palma said.
He said for children in an already precarious situation, a cottage equipped to house large sibling groups is a blessing.
“When siblings come into Child Haven and they end up separated by age and gender into different cottages, it breaks our hearts,” he said. “They’re already separated from their parents and in a strange place, and usually all they want is to be with their siblings. We don’t want to do more to hurt their feelings by separating them.”
Child Haven spokeswoman Christine Skorupski said while having a parent around is the biggest priority for the children, even just having their siblings can be a relief.
“We had a large sibling group in here recently, and they were different ages, so they were split up among the cottages, and they all kept asking for each other,” she said. “The other kids were comforting them and helping them, but they all kept asking for each other, and that happens a lot with sibling groups.”
The Howard cottage, previously used as office space, was expanded from 2,757 to 3,781 square feet and can house up to 30 youth. The cottage has 11 bedrooms, three bathrooms and one office.
The Howard cottage also has personal touches, including a series of framed paintings created by children from Child Haven between the ages of 2 to 5, and rooms equipped with beds and cribs for teen mothers and their babies.
Palma said the painting were sold in an online auction, with the proceeds going to Child Haven, and the paintings were donated back to the organization to decorate the Howard Cottage’s walls. The cottage’s room names also were up for auction. Skorupski said the auction raise a total of $71,000.
Palma said child Haven tries to keep teen mothers and babies together, if it is appropriate to do so.
“Sometimes it’s not, you might have a teen mother who isn’t showing any interest in her child, or one who is threatening to run away,” he said “But if it’s possible, we like to keep them together.”
Even if teen mothers do keep their babies, Palma said the mothers still attend school and partake in activities with the youth in the teen cottage. He also said Child Haven offers training to teen mothers, teaching them to feed, clean and care for their children.
Nearly 5,800 abused, abandoned and neglected children came through Child Haven’s facilities in 2005, and officials predict more than 180 children per year will use the Howard Cottage.
Children are taken to Child Haven by Clark County if they have been abused, neglected or abandoned.
Skorupski said ideally, children would be out in 10 days or less.
“This is temporary placement, and it’s the last resort,” Palma said. “We want to get these kids back with their parents, that’s our first priority, or get them with family members, that’s our second priority, or into foster care as our third. Child Haven is here as a last resort.”
One of the benefits of Child Haven is that the kids being housed at the facility can relate to each other, Palma said.
“when kids are here, they’re surrounded by kids in the same boat,” he said. “They talk to each other about their situations, and they comfort each other. But one of the things that we always tell donors is that these are your kids if you live or work in Clark County.”
Palma said because the county is growing so quickly, there is always a need for additional foster parents.
“One thing we’re very blessed with is the support of the community,” he said. “All of the toys and clothes we have here come from donations, funds to take the kids from the schools on field trips and to events comes from donations and all of the toys we give the kids at Christmas come from community donations, so we have a lot of support, and this cottage is testament to that.
“Now what we’re asking of the community is that (they) open (their) hearts even farther and take in these foster children.”
For information about Child Haven, visit www.accessclarkcounty.com. For information about becoming a foster parent, call 702-455-0181.
