I am in for the Long Haul
My intention for wanting to receive a grant is so that I can effectively run a non-profit that will give back to my community. I have almost 10 years dedicated to being in social work. I have 12 years of working a position that gives back to my community. Although this is not the path that I originally chose when going to college to receive my Bachelor’s Degree, that is the road that I took.
I originally went to college with big dreams of becoming a business owner. My first year was spent in prerequisites, where I was able to explore what kind of business I would even want to open. As I thought more and more, I didn’t see myself feeling passionate in any for-profit type business, and did not want to sell meaningless stuff to people.
I decided to change my major to Liberal Arts, with a focus in Public Relations. I started to learn more about fund raising, and how to reach several different types of audiences in order to explore what needs were for the community. I went to work at a radio station the month I graduated college. I went to work in the promotions department, to learn more about how to brand yourself in the community, and build relationships with local companies. I also started to branch into becoming on air talent, to learn about production, and all the small, working pieces that needed to be put into place when trying to put on an event.
I also started my first internship right out of college. I was fortunate enough to have a friend of the family that ran her own copy writing and editing business. I loved being able to write copy, and research programs that might want to engage with our business for booking guest speakers. I also started substitute teaching at this point, and was regularly booked as a substitute teacher at a local Title I school for the most disadvantaged children in the county. Being able to work at all three places helped me to see that my passion was for helping my local community, and not so much for searching out opportunities to make a profit through writing copy for new real estate developments.
Although I left my internship after two months, I received the most valuable piece of enlightenment into myself; I was a true writer. I found joy and peace out of writing creatively. It brought me back to the days of when I was a child from a broken home. My parents split up when I was the tender age of 8, and while they stayed amicable I their relationship for my benefit, both parents didn’t have the ability to be nurturing. Many years I felt alone, and that I was raising myself, learning important life lessons watching my friends make terrible decisions, then noting “don’t do that” in my writings. I still remember my first book I created and illustrated. A fictional short story based on a dog named Spot, that was involved in a murder mystery. I also have fond memories of visiting my father and writing novels on his fancy computer that had Word Perfect installed on it. I used writing to feel alive as a child, and when I was given a chance to write with my internship, I felt that missing need to be happy in life. Even though writing was my passion, I didn’t know how to use it correctly, or what the benefit could be in story telling. I decided to take teaching and Radio Promotions more seriously to see where I would find my place in life.
Two years later I found my first child welfare position. I was still teaching at a Title I school, and felt a need to do more. I couldn’t stand the feeling of teaching kids algebra (even though I loved math), when they came to school hungry, or not properly clothed. What the hell was I doing with this life, I asked myself. I applied for and was hired as a Child Protective Investigator with Florida Department of Children and Families. Not only did I get to help families but there was SO MUCH PAPERWORK. I was introduced to the world of writing long assessments, petitions, and home studies that had to be included with our investigation, along with detailed progress notes. I loved going into work every day, hearing stories, then putting them together for my supervisor to read. I learned so much about people, what made them tick, what they needed to thrive, what made them act the way they did, what helped and didn’t help their family; I could go on and on. I did this work for 4 years and 10 months, just shy of making my 5 year tenure. This is hard work, and I wasn’t able to get promoted past field work, and burnout was the result.
I then went into dependency work for 1 year and 8 months. It was my position to work with children and families that had to be separated for the best interest and safety for the child. I would try and help the parents complete all needed classes in order to gain back full custody. This was another position where I had tons of paperwork, and thrived in writing detailed statuses and judicial reviews. The judges took notice to my epic record keeping, and I became well known for my details and being depended on for knowing the full story from my paperwork alone.
I was then promoted to work as an Adoptions Specialist for children that could not be reunified with their parents. I did this position for 1 year and 4 months. It was more heavy on paperwork and less heavy on field work. This is where I saw a need for my grant. In my new position, we had access to funding for helping children during holidays and birthdays. It was important to the program to recognize children at these important milestones, and was something that was rarely recognized in the dependency program. Not only supplying parties and presents for Christmas alone, but offering them for birthdays, Easter, giving costumes for Halloween, all helped to promote a higher morale during the adoption process. I noticed when I was able to supply the needs for gift giving to the adoption placement or foster home, the morale lifted overall for the family as a whole. The child was able to feel appreciated during these special events. I saw the most growth from children deemed “unadoptable” in group homes. I was able to give incentives for good grades and attendance, and would throw pizza parties for a small group home that had 5 of the 8 teenage boys that were on my case load. Giving these boys incentives reminded them that they were children that were deserving of presents, even though they had such an ugly label. I found that I was able to overcome some serious obstacles with children diagnosed Reactive Attachment Disorder, with providing these incentive programs, and mandating they hold themselves accountable for good behavior.
Many families are able to see behavior modification in this instance when they are not involved with the child welfare program. You may use the tactics of offering incentives when you are potty training, or getting a child to clean their room. Now imagine that your child is put into a foster home, and their birthday and Christmas present are heavily weighed on their behaviors. They aren't being given the chance to modify their behaviors because many foster parents and group homes are barely being given enough money to host a foster child, let alone cover a birthday party. What about the cupcakes you send to school with your child during an event? A balloon you send them to school for a special day? These children are not getting these because most of the time they are shuffled from one foster home to another for various reasons, and these special events never take place. There is no stability for them to take happen. I was happy and content with being able to provide this to my children, and built some strong relationships and bonds with children that were given to me as “defiant” and “unreliable”. All they needed was the constant positive reinforcement that you lack as a foster child due to a broken system.
As the cliche goes, all good thing come to an end. The Community Based Organization that I was contracted through as an Adoption Specialist, lost the contract. The future was not concrete, and no one could give definitive answers as to what was going to happen to the program. I went into becoming a Foster Care Licensing Specialist with a new contracted employer.
As a Foster Care Licensing Specialist, I was working with foster families more than the children, and got an up close and personal look into the instability of the foster care system. I was witness to children being shuffled from one home to another for various reasons, and we weren't meeting their needs. They fell through the cracks. We would start to have “problem children” that were “hard to place”. The company I had now worked for did not allocate funds for incentives, and you could see in the numbers of foster children to foster homes, that it was detrimental and a nightmare to our most vulnerable children. Homes started to close. We now had more children than beds. Children were sleeping in offices, on couches, anywhere we could get them for a night or two just to have them get a few hours of sleep, let alone an Easter basket. After 15 months I knew I wanted to make some big moves and changes, but I didn’t know how. I set my sights on Portland, OR as a beacon of hope to meet people that had the same vision as I did when helping children and families.
I came to Portland with heavy weight aspirations to change the world and get support. I applied with Oregon Department of Human Services over 200 times, and went to over 60 interviews. No matter what I said, did, or brought to the interview, I wasn’t getting a second look in Child Welfare, even though I had so many successful years in Florida. I went to work with a Homeless Veterans Program as a Case Manager for 6 months, while continuing to apply for child welfare jobs. I became completely defeated in my opportunity to work in child Welfare in Oregon. I couldn’t find my fit with the Veteran program. That is where my big bang idea came from to open a Non Profit Organization.
While working with the Veteran’s Program, I was exposed to grants. My Supervisor had written three impeccable grants, that were granted, for funding with the VA as a partner. I started thinking to myself,I can write grants. This is what you were born to fulfill. You can not only meet your passion of writing, but also include your dual passion of helping child welfare. The idea was born.
I thought long and hard about what I could offer to children that could really help nurture them. I went back to my fond memories of offering the incentives to my teenage boys in that group home. How one pizza party for good grades changed their outlook in their situation, even if it was small. I knew this is what I needed to do for the children. I want to have a non-profit organization that offers presents to children in foster care. I don’t only want to help at Christmas, but also the small holidays we forget about in our busy lives. Halloween, Easter, Birthdays, incentive trips, and congratulatory parties for meeting milestones need to be part of these children’s lives to get some of the normalcy they need. We owe it to them if we want them to grow up to become functioning members of our society. We need to invest more time and energy into our forgotten youth.
I am in the very preliminary part of starting this journey. I have rented a book from the public library titled: Grant writing demystified, just today. I am only in the first chapter of the book, and a part of the process to graduate to the second Chapter was to write 3 pages on why you want to apply for a grant. I have learned so much today alone that I did not even realize! First I need to establish a 501c(3) NPO before I can go any further. I also need to research if there are other organizations doing this same thing. It didn’t even cross my mind to do that. I read that grants do not like to offer funds for duplication of services. I have many hours of hard work ahead of me, but I know I can do it, I was a Case Manager for almost 10 years. I can seriously do anything.
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I’m open to all advice suggestions and help in my journey, and will continue to post my outcomes, which I’m hoping are going to be positive.