For over 150 years, The New York Foundling has worked in partnership with our neighbors to ensure that everyone can meet their full potential when facing challenging situations. This hasn’t changed, and our staff continue to provide life-changing and meaningful support in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This series shares how The Foundling’s many programs are responding to the needs of their community.

In recognition of National Foster Care Month in May, we are pleased to share updates from our foster care programs. The Foundling’s foster care programs serve over 1,000 young people, from newborns to young adults, every year. Recognizing the trauma and risks associated with family separation, as well as the abuse and maltreatment that lead to it, our programs are specially designed to support families through challenging times. In cases where more extensive support is needed, specialized foster care programming helps address significant behavioral or mental health concerns.

Through the COVID-19 pandemic, The Foundling’s foster care staff are working with families and children to address serious challenges to wellbeing while also facing their own personal struggles. Despite the difficulties, they have not only managed to continue providing essential support, but have also worked tirelessly to adapt their work and support to be effective within our current situation.

It’s no secret that family separation is a harrowing experience. For many young people in foster care, separation causes serious trauma, in turn causing anxiety and depression. Stressful situations, like stay at-home isolation, can easily trigger those symptoms.

“I tell them it’s okay to feel this way,” says Maria Lubina Qadeer, a sociotherapist in our Treatment Family Foster Care (TFFC) Program, “but to focus our energy on what we have control over and not what we don’t have control over.”

With stay at home orders keeping New Yorkers isolated in their homes, the support that Maria and other foster care staff provide to families is critical now more than ever. Many young people in foster care are dealing with incredibly difficult emotions on top of existing challenges. Some have withdrawn, are eating less and have isolated themselves in their rooms; others have acted out by disobeying stay at home orders.

“My role overall is to make sure the child is thriving in their home. If they are not, I try to support them with different interventions.”

To that end, Maria and her team have added daily check-ins, in addition to normal weekly check-ins, for more extensive support. This time ensures that families aren’t displaying COVID-19 symptoms and have access to necessities, while also providing more regular emotional support.

“The current sessions, in light of COVID-19, are foremost about ‘how are you feeling and managing today?’ Living in isolation, this additional social emotional support is what they need,” Maria explains.

“It may be harder to get the children to describe difficult emotions by phone or video conference… we are working harder to keep those relationships strong so we can help them work through whatever they’re feeling.”

Simultaneously, one of the greatest challenges facing our families and staff is the loss of foster parent lives to COVID-19. Due to various socioeconomic factors, foster parents – especially those who are relatives of the young people in foster care – generally tend to be older, and may suffer from pre-existing conditions. As a result, many fall into the virus’s most at-risk populations.

“The foster parent losses have been tragic,” Elizabeth Wright, Vice President of Family Foster Care mourns, “especially because we can’t express sympathy in the usual ways we would.” To compound this, many foster care staff have suffered tremendous losses of their own family and friends. “They go from those difficult situations at home to more difficult situations at work,” Elizabeth says, “That weighs on me, and certainly it weighs on my team.”

Nonetheless, foster care staff have rallied to support each other in order to continue supporting the families. “I’ve been amazed by their ongoing, overwhelming commitment and dedication,” Elizabeth adds, “It’s made me feel really proud.”

Maria feels the love and support on her own team: “[We are] good at utilizing each other for processing the different situations that occur with our families and youth. The most important thing during difficult times like these is being a part of a communicative team.”

Meanwhile, foster parents and birth parents alike have remained understanding and supportive as they work with staff to push through together. The Foundling’s staff have been able to continue frequent family visitation virtually, keeping birth parents in touch with their children through the crisis. Though visitation with young children and babies has been more challenging, foster parents have risen to the occasion by sending regular photos and videos to birth parents in lieu of in-person visitation.

“In the beginning there was a lot of uneasiness around how much support we would get, but there has been clear support,” Elizabeth says, explaining that the system is adapting to meet the current needs. While permanency placement had been made difficult with temporary closure of family courts, the system has started to go virtual.

The capacity is seriously limited, however, and in the interim The Foundling has pushed to review cases where extended visitation and trial discharge had already been granted. This has helped reunite youth with their birth parents sooner than originally anticipated, bringing families back together in this difficult time.

There is still work to be done and more challenges lie ahead, but Elizabeth is optimistic about things to come. “System-wide it’s been really collaborative… [it’s] been really encouraging and hopeful.”

To learn more about how The New York Foundling is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York, visit our emergency response page. Stay tuned for more stories from the frontlines as we continue to support our neighbors on paths to stability and strength.

For over 150 years, The New York Foundling has worked in partnership with our neighbors to ensure that everyone can meet their full potential when facing challenging situations. This hasn’t changed, and our staff continue to provide life-changing and meaningful support in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This series will share how The Foundling’s many programs are responding to the needs of their community.

Over the course of 34 years, The New York Founding’s Child Abuse Prevention Program (CAPP) has taught nearly 600,000 children in New York City how to recognize, resist, and report abuse. CAPP partners with hundreds of New York City elementary schools each year to present its Child Safety Workshop, which uses life-size puppets in skits to educate children about their right to safety. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of city schools, CAPP has been unable to present their workshops. Students in our programs abruptly had to adjust to social distancing, online learning, and other disruptions to their daily routines. Knowing this, The Foundling’s programs sprang into action to help the young people we serve stay connected, feel safe, and know they are supported outside of the classroom walls.

The closure of schools across New York has caused considerable stress and anxiety in many communities. While families are concerned their children may disconnect socially or fall behind academically, there are several additional dangers presented by the switch to remote learning.

“We really rely on schools, as a community, to have eyes on kids,” Marion White, CAPP’s director, explained, “To see them on a daily basis and see that they’re present, that they don’t have any bruises.” Over the years, CAPP has helped schools serve this function – offering the opportunity for children to express concerns to a trusted adult and state-mandated reporter. At the same time, CAPP’s puppet-centered performance provides children with an age-appropriate way to understand abuse and maltreatment.

As schools continue to remain closed, educators and child welfare experts alike have expressed concern about the increased risk of sustained child abuse and maltreatment during this time. Families are increasingly socially isolated, some without access to food, stable income, even shelter. As stress rises, healthy parenting may encounter obstacles, and children won’t have easy access to support resources.

“One of the greatest fears with remote learning is that students in New York City will have fewer opportunities to speak up and ask a trusted adult for help,” Marion noted. “In the first three weeks since schools closed city-wide, the number of reports made to the New York State Central Register have decreased by nearly two-thirds,” indicating the decrease in contact between children and state-mandated reporters.

“You forget how much schools are a center point for the community. To not have that feels like a loss of control,” Trevor Raushi, CAPP’s program coordinator expressed. “CAPP is one of the only programs in the city that provides the opportunity for children to speak directly to an adult [about possible abuse]. We’re really trying to find a way to replicate that support model remotely.”

To do so, CAPP has developed a plan of action that includes providing educators with informational materials, offering virtual Positive Parenting Workshops, and reaching out directly to children through educational activities. The hope is that this approach will continue to inform children about their right to safety, while also addressing factors that may cause child abuse or maltreatment in the first place.

“We’re addressing the same mission as always: to protect children,” Marion said.

CAPP’s first step was to provide online safety tools for families and students as schools transitioned into remote learning. With school occurring remotely, children are accessing the internet more than ever, putting them at risk of coming into contact with online predators.

“The goal here is to lock some of the doors before they can get in,” Trevor explained.

With that in mind, the team created resources for parents and caregivers that detailed simple instructions to keep children safe online, whether on social media or gaming platforms. Additionally, CAPP provided suggestions for alternative educational platforms, along with resources to help families cope with anxiety and manage stress.

CAPP distributed the documents to partner schools at the end of March, and so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“This is amazing,” one guidance counselor wrote, “Thank you all for putting this together in such an easily usable way. We are drowning in tasks and tech. You all just made my day!”

“Thank you so much,” another replied, “We posted it to our School Story on ClassDojo so it reached about 650 school members including parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, staff, and [administration].”

Moving forward, CAPP plans to create short video skits using the same puppets featured in the Child Safety Workshop to deliver educational messages online. Employing similar language and themes as Child Safety Workshop, CAPP hopes these video skits will remind students that even though they may not see their school teacher or counselor in person, they should still look to them for help when they feel unsafe.

CAPP is also collaborating with Safe Horizon Child Advocacy Centers, Prevent Child Abuse New York, The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, and the Department of Education to identify further ways to protect children in this critical time. With the situation evolving and changing quickly, the team is working hard to address urgent needs as they emerge.

You can access a full library of CAPP’s resources here. To learn more about how CAPP and The New York Foundling are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York, visit our emergency response page. Stay tuned for more stories from the front lines as we continue to support our neighbors on paths to stability and strength.