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Foundling Family Book Review – Issue 4 “Staying Cool in the Summer Heat”

Thanks to Foundling friend Celia McGee for this Issue!

Ages 3-6

Water in the Park, by Emily Jenkins, illustrated by Stephanie Graegin. Schwartz & Wade Books.

In addition to all the things water does in a city, it can also tell the time of day.Well-known children’s book author Emily Jenkins takes this idea and runs with it in this winsome book, lovingly illustrated by Stephanie Graegin, which is also a tribute to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Turtles bathing in the park as early dog walkers start to ramble, babies held high to take a sip at a water fountain mid-morning, play grounds filling up and emptying out depending on life’s other demands, park volunteers arriving to water the flower beds around 11—and had you noticed that “On very hot days, puddles ooze across the asphalt by nine o’clock,” and “three sparrows hop in and have their sparrow baths?” Then, of course, around five, there’s the little girl who doesn’t want to go home for dinner. Crammed with water lovers of all ages, shapes, sizes and colors, Water in the Park also has the advantage of offering many pages of busy scenes that young examiners can explore for activities and interactions that catch the eye only with careful attention.

Ages 7-9

Pluto’s Secret: An Icy World’s Tale of Discovery. By Margaret A. Weitekamp with David DeVorkin, illustrated by Diane Kidd. Abrams.

Treating astronomy as a fun game of hide-and-seek, Pluto’s Secretshows how scientific ideas and observation have changed over the centuries concerning the mysterious, “icy world” called Pluto—a name conceived by 11-year-old Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, in 1930, by the way, when none of the grown-ups’ suggestions would quite do. Planets, stars, and distant galaxies have their own personalities here, and often talk sassily about the poor humans who can’t quite suss out whether or not Pluto is a planet until 2006, a discovery that changed the face of outer space. In 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft is scheduled to visit Pluto for itself. Written and published in conjunction with the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, this book should whet many young appetites for a trip to Washington to visit the museum in person and learn about the many other wonders of the universe there.

Ages 9-12

Twerp, by Mark Goldblatt. Random House

When your name is so close to Twerp—ok, ok, his real name is Julian Twerski–you have a lot to live up to, even if you’re already the fastest runner and one of the smartest kids at P.S. 23 in Queens. Julian’s challenge in the course of this book, written in the form of a journal assigned by his English teacher, Mr. Selkirk, is to explain how and why a nice kid like him did something so cruel, malicious and shameful that he was suspended from school—and to come to terms with who he really is. Though the misdeed isn’t revealed until the very end, lending the book an air of suspense, the way Julian’s story builds up to its revelation allows Mark Goldblatt—who admits to some autobiographical elements—to immerse the reader in the world of Julian’s gang of friends, their rich range of families, his first love, his competitive fears of a new athlete in school, his reconciliation with betrayal, and evenhis ultimate acceptance of Shakespeare. Set in 1969, this book slyly brims over with life lessons more than fit for today, and Julian is an increasingly self-aware kid readers won’t soon forget.

Ages 12 and up, and adults

Mortal Fire, by Elizabeth Knox.Frances Foster Books. Farrar Straus Giroux

In a place called Southland that somewhat resembles Elizabeth Knox’s home base of New Zealand, things happen to 15-year-old Canny Mochrie that indicate it’s not quite of this world. Readers of Knox’s Dreamhunter Duet novels and her others will know to expect a complicated tale of the supernatural, this one taking place in the 1950s to give it a historic flavor from the start. This sense of the past is heightened, for instance, by the denigration—because she’s a girl–of Canny’s award-winning math abilities, and her outsider status as a fatherless, mixed-race teen. But the magic Canny comes up against when she embarks with her brother and his girlfriend on a research trip to a distant coal-mining town, devastated earlier in the century by an infamous mine explosion, is something truly ancient yet oddly familiar. For, as Caddy gets to know the strange, old-fashioned farming family the Zarenes, at whose seemingly Arcadian homestead she and her traveling companions come to board, she slowly discovers the magic in herself. This includes the ability to see a Zarene mansion farther up the hill normally invisible to human eyes, and to engage with the handsome, enigmatic young man held captive there. As their romance blooms, dangers only seem to mount, some foreshadowed by the cryptic alphabet developed by the Zarenes’ once populous and powerful ancestors, others lurking in Canny’s famous mother’s past. Canny must use not just her head but her heart to make her otherworldly powers work for her and those she loves. This is a complex, brain-teasing and rousing tale that adults will also appreciate.

July 16, 2013/by Elefant Design

Blog, Education, Guest Blogger

Foundling Family Book Review – Issue 3

By Foundling friend, Celia McGee

Ages 3-5

Gus the Dinosaur Bus, by Julie Liu. Illustrated by Bei Lynn. (Houghton Mifflin)

The Dinosaur Tooth Fairy, by Martha Brockenborough. Illustrated by Israel Sanchez. (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)

Chick-O-Saurus Rex, by Lenore and Daniel Jennewin (Simon & Schuster)

These three books offer off-beat stories about some of the greatest creatures that roamed the earth, tailor made for little ones.

Gus the Dinosaur bus is this best possible school bus—no taking the elevator to board on the ground floor, for instance—until certain things start to get in the way. Like when he forgets about his tale and swings it in the middle of traffic, or that not every bridge can hold up “when you weigh as much as five elephants.” Put out to pasture next to his school, he cries big, fat dinosaur tears. And it’s these that bring the happy ending. Just read the book with its playful pictures and you’ll soon see how.

The dinosaur tooth fairy, on the other hand, lives deep in the bowels of a museum some might gleefully think resembles The American Museum of Natural History. She is happy with her collection of toothy, towering treasures. But one day she develops a longing for the wobbly tooth of a little girl visitor, and follows her home. But all isn’t easy in a human house for a dinosaur tooth fairy, until she encounters another visitor. Just as in children’s lives, friendship between tooth fairies is a cause for celebration.

Now, when Little Chick gets excluded from the fun-filled tree house on his farm by all the bigger animals, it’s sad and unfair. But what he lacks in size he makes up for in smarts, resolve and resilience, especially when his father comes to the rescue with an interesting tid-bit about his family tree. It turns out this modest chick is descended—you guessed it—from a Tyrannosaurus, and he has an archaeological dig to prove it. Even the big bad wolf can’t stand up to Chick-O-Saurus Rex. Newfound courage and unexpected knowledge win him just the kind of acceptance he had hoped for.

Ages 4-8

Mister and Lady Day:Billie Holiday and the Dog Who Loved Her, by Amy Novesky. Illustrated by Vanessa Brantley Newton (Harcourt Children’s Books)

The incomparable blues singer Billie Holiday lived a glamorous life but also a tragic one. The saddest notes affecting this African American icon are kept off-stage in this touching book about Ms. Holiday, who was a fervent dog-lover, and her favorite, “a boxer named Mister,” who stood by her in good times and bad. On the way to meeting Mister we encounter a lavish assortment of Lady Day’s other pooches, from Chihuahuas to beagles, poodles and Great Danes, whom she proudly paraded around dressed in her finest, another known grace note. At her lowest, though, Mister was there for her, and in this elegant picture book about steadfastness and loyalty, he helps her to accomplishments that have gone down in history.

Ages 6-10 and all ages

Barbed Wire Baseball, by Marissa Morse. Illustrated by Yuko Shimuzu (Abrams)

Yuko Shimuzu’s extraordinary illustrations, which evoke Japanese woodcuts crossed with 1940s American Scene painting, immediately signal that this is no run-of-the-mill baseball story. Mixing history and sports, Barbed Wire Baseball follows the successful and real-life Japanese-American baseball player Kenichi “Zeni” Zenimura as he defies many odds—not the least of which is his short stature and parents who would’ve preferred he be a doctor or lawyer—to become a well-known player and manager, playing exhibition games with the likes of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. But after the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor, Japanese and Japanese-Americans on American soil were herded into internment camps, surrounded by barbed wire, and Zenimura’s hardest challenge began. This was to build not only a first-rate baseball diamond at the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona, where he was detained, but to gather and train baseball players, uniforms, equipment and all, to instill a sense of pride, hope, self-confidence and joy in a community unfairly brought low. Everyone played a part, and each of those roles is now happily commemorated in the form of this book.

Ages 8 and up

The 13-Story Treehouse, by Andy Griffiths. Illustrated by Terry Denton. (Feiwel& Friends/Macmillan)

If it’s pure zaniness you want—sprinkled with science, world history, astronomy, and a little rock ‘n roll—then climb right up into the 13-story treehouse created by the inventive Australian duo of Andy Griffiths (already a New York Times best-selling author) and Terry Denton. Planted somewhere between fantasy and reality, their tree-born existence is all for giggles and laughs, but their silliness simultaneously reminds young people always to be on the lookout for the foolish, the rash, and unrealistic, hasty decisions. Andy and Terry’s household includes a marshmallow-shooting machine, a bowling alley, a shark tank, swinging vines and a secret underground laboratory. When Terry places an ill-advised order for sea-monkey eggs, or catches himself in his own giant bubble-gum bubble, both domestic devices and quick-wittedness must come to rescue. At the same time, these guys have to finish a book on time for their big mean publisher. Three guesses which book it is.

Ages 10 and up

What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World, by Henry Clark. (Little, Brown)

Next time you see an abandoned sofa, you might want to give it a second glance.

That’s what the three friends River, Freak and Fiona do when they find an old wreck by their school bus stop one day, and they wisely hunt around among the cushions, too. Among the last inhabitant of Hellsboro, where a chemical plant malfunction has left most of the their blue-collar area festering atop an underground fire, these kids can sometimes be down on themselves, and each other, but the revelations of the sofa—and Henry Clark’s dry, humorous writing style—start to change all that. An evil industrialist is plotting to take over the world from another dimension where he has already enslaved the population, but with the help of his rebellious son, some tricks with physics, oddly-shaped balloons and the sofa’s futuristic powers, the kids could save the day. After that, coming to terms with high school will be a piece of cake.

For grownups, and ages 13 and up

Visitation Street, by Ivy Pochoda. (Ecco)

It is no surprise that Dennis Lehane chose this as the second title for his new line of books. A thriller set in an all-too-real yet lyrical Red Hook, the murder mystery revolves around two 15-yer-old girls, best friends since childhood, who one bored summer night decide to take an inflatable raft out on the East River’s treacherous waters. Val survives, June disappears. Their Red Hook is sharply divided along class, ethnic and racial lines, and freshly slicing gentrification adds to the tensions that surface as the hunt for June goes on. Italian-American Val must come to terms with her feelings for Cree, a young African American, as well as her music teacher at St. Bernadette’s, a traumatized alcoholic. A Lebanese bodega owner works to keep the peace, and a family of women with spiritual powers chip in. Pochoda’s portrait of a classic New York neighborhood is memorable, from sad sacks to artists to quiet heroes, just enough of them making up a kind of new family that holds promises for a new day for Val, and her quest for June.

July 2, 2013/by Elefant Design

Blog, Guest Blogger

Foundling Family Book Review – Issue 2

By Foundling friend and volunteer Celia McGee

Ages 4-8

Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bicycle, by Chris Raschka

(Schwartz & Wade Books/Random House)

Summertime and bike-riding go together. But first you have to know how. From a series of tender, funny and illuminating lessons between a patient and encouraging father and his increasingly determined little daughter, two-time Caldecott Medal winner Chris Raschka weaves a story of not giving up, and its rewards. With illustrations that make you want to hop right up on the saddle, Raschka takes his young subject from learning to choose for herself when it comes to selecting her bicycle to not letting any obstacle—her initially shaky sense of balance, pushy grass, sudden hills, the requisite number of spills—get in the way of her acquiring one of life’s most exciting skills. She learns independence through trusting her father, and bonds with him by making him proud.

Ages 7-10

Calvin Coconut Extra Famous, by Graham Salisbury, illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House)

Skip a bunch of time zones and you land in Hawaii, a place that mixes cultures almost as saucily as New York. Throw in a bit of Hollywood—a director of zombie films has chosen fourth-grader Calvin Coconut’s beachside Kailua neighborhood near Honolulu to shoot part of his latest picture. You can just taste the sweet humor and unlikely predicaments of this installment in the Calvin Coconut series. Zipping around on his bike, while “High above, the sun was an egg yolk sizzling in the big old Hawaiian-sky frying pan,” Calvin helps the director’s slightly weird nephew, a former classmate, round up friends, neighbors and some others hiding big surprises for this venture. With stardom, no matter how minor, comes responsibility, true acting isn’t just playing around, wearing zombie makeup is only the beginning of character building, and, as with a film crew, the idea of family can be fluid and inclusive.

Ages 10-14

Undertown, by Melvin Jules Bukiet

(Amulet Books/Abrams)

Some of the greatest classics read by young people have turned the world upside-down, inside-out, or cast adrift on raft somewhere between make-believe and the Mississippi River. With Undertown , Melvin Jules Bukiet, who until now has written, brilliantly, for adults, tries his hand at a very contemporary topsy-turvy tale for a younger readership. Two teenagers, Timothy Murphy and Jessamyn Hazard, meet very un-cute when their loving parents, both widowed, start to date. Timothy is the captain of this tale, which starts out innocently enough when he and his dad, close nautical buddies, buy a vintage wooden sailboat. But Jessamyn—tall, gawky and the smartest kid in Montclair, NJ–learns to be second in command when the boat slips off its carrier on a drive through Washington Heights and into a deep construction pit, taking Timothy and Jessamyn with it. Soon afloat somewhere in the 6000 labyrinthine miles of Manhattan’s 19th-century storm sewers, they experience an astonishing adventure in a netherworld full of good, evil, criminal transport stations the size of Grand Central, trained rats, a self-taught graffiti genius, a cruel tyrant in a tiara, and enough local history lessons to fill the Boat Pond in Central Park.

Ages 7-12, and the whole family

The Circus and Other Stories, Four Books by Samuil Marshak and Vladimir Lebedev (Tate Publishing)

The 1920s were a Golden Age of Russian children’s books and literature, not only coinciding with the flowering of Constructivist art but also a strong interest in the child. With the reissue of four irresistible tales by two famous collaborators—the poet Samuil Marshak and the artist Vladimir Lebedev—modern art and poetry meet Russian folk graphics and children’s fantasies to produce a fun-filled treasure trove. In “The Circus,” the big top comes to town with all its marvels. An interplay of typefaces and graphic styles produce an appealing story about contrasts between old and new in “Yesterday and Today.” A passion for ice cream, in “Ice Cream,” turns into a gastronomic fable. And “How the Plane Made a Plane” abolishes any thoughts that the act of crafting a new carpentry tool is the least bit boring. Like this re-release, it highlights the pleasures of renewal instead.

Ages 12 and up

Dance of Shadows, by Yelena Black

(Bloomsbury)

A school dining hall “with a massive salad bar in the center” and students fueled by Red Bull and Diet Coke are just two telling indications that this supernatural thriller takes place in the world of ballet. Specifically at the elite New York Ballet Academy, where 15-year-old Vanessa Adler comes to pursue her great gift, but equally try to find her older sister, who disappeared from the academy under mysterious circumstances three years before. Before she knows it, Vanessa is in love with a handsome yet vaguely sinister senior, picking up clues about her sister and other vanished ballerinas, and, despite competition from many older and more highly trained bun heads, she is cast by NYBA’s often cruelly demanding ballet master, Josef, as the lead in Stravinsky’s “The Firebird.” The reasons for his decision become another mystery to unravel, as the story takes a turn into black magic, demonic possession and the occult. A definite plus: it leaves wide open the possibility of a sequel.

June 19, 2013/by Elefant Design

Blog, Guest Blogger

Foundling Ed Specialist’s Philosophy Has Roots In Her Own Foster Care Experience

Malika Ferdinand earned a BS in Social Work from York College, The City University of New York and obtained her MSW from Adelphi University. Committed to her professional growth and development, Malika is also pursuing her LMSW which she hopes to obtain in September 2013. Malika has been with The Foundling for just 6 months where she serves as the Educational Specialist for the Queens Region. She has also worked for Catholic Charities in a similar role. Her interest in child welfare and passion for working with young people dates back to her first employment as a case aid with Lakeside Family and Children’s Services, and her personal experience in foster care. Here is her blog:

As a former foster youth, I know what it’s like to feel alone and abandoned. I also know that it only takes one person to change the life of a foster child in need. I know because it happened to me.

I spent 9 years of my life in foster care – years which were filled with solitude, uncertainty and confusion. My grades in high school began to plummet and I became antisocial. I felt like no one cared or was listening to my concerns. Within a year, I went from being an honor student to promotion in doubt (a designation given to students who may not progress to the next grade level on time). I knew where I came from, but I did not know where I was going. I felt that my future would always be marred by my past. I began to internalize and believe the negative words – “You’re not going to amount to anything,” “You’re going to get pregnant and drop-out of high school.” But then I found someone who listened with an open heart, my therapist, Ms. Bradshaw, a woman who became an inspiration in my life and who I call my spiritual mother to this day. She showed me that there were other, positive alternatives and instilled in me a belief that with perseverance comes strength.

Through continuous fundraising, Ms. Bradshaw started a mentor group for youths who faced similar family stresses. In the course of participating in this group, I developed a sense of purpose, self-worth and began to gain an appreciation for the social services profession. But most importantly, I learned the value of positive human relationships and the importance of having a support system. I was also fortunate to have a stable foster home, a supportive guidance counselor and access to resources such as youth development services through my agency. After years of feeling lonely and worthless, my faith was restored and those positive relationships crystallized within me a strong desire to give back by providing the same opportunities to someone else.

My first chance came when I was selected by my agency to speak on behalf of youths in foster care at the Independent Living Resource Center (ILRC) regional Youth Summit. I was asked to express concerns and explore issues that occur in the foster care community. I then began participating in similar events that addressed social issues such as homelessness among former foster children. So naturally when I saw the position at The Foundling for an Educational Specialist, I applied immediately. I know how important education is. It was, after all, the only way I was able to sustain myself after aging out of foster care.

The Educational Specialist position is a newly created role within the agency (please see Chuck Caputo’s recent blog on the topic). Foster children are grappling with traumatic pasts and are often still haunted by the lingering effects of neglect and abuse. Many of these young people have trust issues resulting from never having had a positive role model. They feel isolated and very rarely are they taught the importance of an education. In fact, often these children are shown just the opposite though the example of the adults in their lives. They then enter an educational system with large classes and overcrowding, budget cuts galore, no parent advocate and less individualized help than ever before. To further complicate matters, foster youth may exhibit defiant behavior which unfortunately can lead to quick judgments and being labeled as a “trouble maker” by school administration and teachers who lack knowledge of the foster care system or the trauma these youth may have faced. With all these factors at play, a foster child can easily feel like she is destined for academic failure and the dismal statistics on the educational performance of foster youth tells us that we need to do better.

That’s where I step in as an Educational Specialist. My primary role is to advocate for the young person in question. Whether the child is struggling academically, or is a high-achiever unsure of their next steps, I find the academic services that these students are entitled to at school and in the community, and help set them on a path toward educational success. Too often people, who may be well intentioned, talk at the foster youths or place expectations on them without involving them in the decision making process. My personal experience in foster care and my continuous work with youth have taught me the importance of listening and self-worth – Not just listening with the ears but being attentive to gestures and body language. My experience also had a significant impact on my sensitivity to others and makes it easier to be able to empathize with those in foster care.

The most rewarding aspect of being an Educational Specialist is helping these youths to see their self-worth and potential. To constantly remind them that, although they may have had a traumatic past, it does not, and should not, ever define them-in school or in life.

Want to help The Foundling promote educational achievement and success? We’re looking for generous donors to help us expand our educational program. For just $100, we can send a qualified tutor to a struggling student’s home, and spend 1.5 hours on school work with him or her – twice. Each tutoring session could make the difference between a child failing or passing his or her next Chemistry quiz. And, now that public schools are no longer mandated to provide in-house tutoring, this service is more necessary than ever before! If you’d like to help out or learn more about the efficient and effective ways The Foundling is tackling obstacles to educational success for foster youth, please visit our Crowdrise fundraising page!

June 17, 2013/by Elefant Design

Blog, Guest Blogger

A Foundling Father’s Reflections on Father’s Day

This is a very special guest blog from the perspective of a father, adoptive parent and great friend of The Foundling. John Banks is the father of two, a handsome biological son and a beautiful daughter adopted from The Foundling (both pictured) and here are his musings on Father’s Day, enjoy!

Father’s Day. Popular culture may have dubbed it a “Hallmark holiday,” but for me it’s a special day that brings me back to 2004 when I became a father for the first time. In October of that year, my wife and I welcomed our son, Hank, into the world. You hear other people say this about parenthood and it’s true—everything changes. Within a year of Hank’s birth we knew, unequivocally, that we wanted another child. But, we also knew that it wasn’t going to be easy. We had trouble conceiving the first time, and had also entered parenthood at a later age. As blessed as we were to have a healthy baby boy, we were also painfully aware that it was unlikely for us to have a second biological child.

Given our situation, adoption seemed the next natural step to growing our family. I’m one of five kids and my wife is one of three. Family is everything to us and we desperately wanted Hank to have the experience of growing up with a sibling. The next step was deciding what type of adoption to pursue. Because of my background in local government, I was familiar with adoption and foster care and knew there were many children right here in our own city that needed a good family and a good home. This was a population that my wife and I really wanted to help, and this is what drew us to adopt through the foster care system.

Like most things in life, there are advantages and disadvantages to adopting through the foster care system versus pursuing a private adoption. When you adopt through the foster care system, you have to become a foster parent first. The fostering-to-adopt model has many advantages. Chief among them is the opportunity to get to know the child and determine whether you have the resources and ability to meet that child’s unique needs before committing to the adoption. However, on the flip side of that, lies the great disadvantage of fostering-to-adopt: there is always the risk that you will bond and connect with the child and then not be given the opportunity to make them a permanent member of your family because they have been returned to their natural home.

My wife and I approached this process with open hearts and minds. We desired a child under the age of 2, but had no other restrictions. The entire process took 2 years and was at times daunting. Thankfully, the wonderful staff at The New York Foundling, Fred Jones and Carmen Jirau-Rivera in particular, was there every step of the way and helped us navigate the complexities of the foster care world. A beautiful match was made in 2008 when our little girl, Celia, came to us right from the hospital when she was only 3 months old.

Celia enriches our lives every day. She is the queen of the house (or at least she perceives herself that way). She’s playful and has a wonderful sense of humor. She loves school, and she adores her older brother. Every day is filled with favorite moments—little things that just melt my heart. For example, Celia has a habit of crawling into bed with my wife and me at night. I note with quiet satisfaction that she also has a habit of crawling over my wife to snuggle with me.

Our family also just celebrated an important milestone. Our little Celia recently graduated from pre-K, and the ceremony was pretty darn cute. Watching my daughter on stage with a giant smile on her face, signing her favorite songs was a very proud moment for me. I think about my daughter’s beginnings—the child of a habitual substance abuser, Celia was born 6 weeks premature and spent the first few months of her life in neo-natal intensive care—and it gives me so much joy and happiness to see her just being a kid and enjoying life. We will celebrate Celia’s fifth birthday on July 8.

My advice for other families considering adoption is this: never lose sight of why you’re doing it. When the inevitable challenges arise, you can always fall back on those feelings of love and compassion and the desire to have a family that led you to adoption in the first place. Never losing sight of those motivations will make the difficulties of navigating the New York City foster care system seem meaningless and trivial. And, of course, the adoption itself is just the beginning of the journey. All the parents out there know how tough raising a child can be. There are days when Hank and Celia can be difficult; they might misbehave or test and challenge my wife and me. But, that’s normal. We need to teach our children the things they need to know, but we also have to just let them be kids sometimes. This is especially important for children like my little Celia who had a rough start in life. So, this Father’s Day, be a kid and have some fun with your family because this world is just too serious sometimes.

June 14, 2013/by Elefant Design

Blog

5 Ways to Thank Dad This Week

Father’s Day is coming up and we all know how hard it can be to show the man in your life (whether it’s your foster dad, dad, grandfather, uncle or any other father figure) how much you care. But we also know that he’s wonderful to you and it’s important to say thanks. Below are some ideas to get your brainstorm started!

1. Take him out to the ballgame! What dad doesn’t love a sunny day watching sports?

2. Take a hike – get outdoors with your father or father figure, chances are, he spends a whole lot of time working hard and would love the break

3. Help him out with some chores. It doesn’t matter if it’s taking out the trash, washing the car or cleaning up the yard, Dad deserves a break today; make sure he doesn’t have to worry!

4. A handmade card is appreciated by all, and men love sentiment too. Tell him how much he means to you, and if it’s easier to write it down, by all means, do it that way.

5. Get a photo of the two of you printed and framed for him to keep in his bedroom or at his desk. Even better, write a quick note on the back of the photo before it goes in the frame so he can remember when you gave it to him just by flipping it over!

From all of us at The Foundling, a very Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and father figures out there, you are so very important and so very loved!

June 11, 2013/by Elefant Design

Blog, Guest Blogger

Complex childhoods and a complex school system

Chuck Caputo earned a BS in Business, Health Care Administration and Gerontology as well as an MS in Healthcare Administration, both from Alfred University in upstate New York. Chuck worked in the field of Human Services his whole career in various capacities, including time spent improving quality control in US military clinics and with the accreditation body, the Council on Accreditation (COA). His specific interest in young people and adolescents brought him to The Foundling and his current position as VP for Training and Youth Development. He’s been with The Foundling since 2006.

The New York City public school system is one of the largest and most complex in the country. Over 1.1 million students are taught in more than 1,700 schools. A combination of mandates and bureaucracy make the entire system overwhelming. Even the most involved parents can find it difficult to navigate and keep their child on the path to educational success.

There is an added layer of complexity when the child in question is a foster youth. As my colleague Dr. Mel Schneiderman noted in his recent mental health blog, children are most often placed in foster care because they have experienced abuse and/or neglect. A vulnerable population, foster youth is 50% more likely than their general community peers to develop emotional and psychological problems. Because of the trauma foster children have experienced in their young lives, their educational careers progress at a different pace, and in a different way, than that of their general public counterparts.

The educational challenges of foster youth are further exacerbated by frequent changes in home placements, which often result in changes in school placements. Changing schools means potential record transfer issues, a different curricula, and new teachers, peers and schools officials who may not be equipped to handle the unique issues facing foster youth. Because of these unique challenges coupled with perhaps not a consistent advocate for their education–who most children have in their parents–foster youth are 2 times more likely than their peers to drop out of school. In fact, national averages reveal that less than 60% of foster youth will finish high school before leaving care. The ripple effect of this is higher rates of homelessness (21% of youth who leave care enter a homeless shelter within 3 years), unemployment (50% are unemployed at any given time), and welfare dependency amongst young adults who have aged out of foster care.

In response to these dismal stats, The New York Foundling launched an Educational Specialist program in October 2012. Our educational specialists act like mentors, helping foster children find and stay on a path to school and/or vocational success. We currently have 4 full-time educational specialists and they’ve already managed 120 cases in the short time since the program started. Each specialist has been through the New York City public school system and knows its ins and outs. Three have advanced degrees in social work, and one was a foster child herself.

Each case is centrally assigned to an Educational Specialist and represents a young person between ages 12-21, who is struggling with his or her education. Many of these cases are opened because there is a record of poor grades or attendance, behavioral issues or there is doubt the student will be promoted to the next grade level. Within a 4-6 week time period, the specialist is able to create a complete educational profile, identifying the issues at hand and implementing an action plan to successfully address them. They work collaboratively with the child’s social worker and foster parents. While the social worker maintains the ultimate responsibility for the child’s wellbeing and care, the specialist works solely as an educational and vocational ally for the student. The two roles complement and enhance each other’s efficacy.

We’ve had a great deal of early successes in this program, and we feel that this is an efficient and cutting edge way of dealing with a problem that is only growing as budget cuts hit schools and force special services, like tutoring programs, to often be canceled. One example of a triumph is a young lady named Lisa.* Lisa is a foster child who was assigned an educational specialist due to chronic absences, lack of motivation and a doubt that she would graduate high school. Our specialist uncovered some of the underlying reasons for these problems – the school’s guidance counselor (now retired) had placed Lisa in the very same Algebra class 3 times, despite her passing it every single time! Unnecessarily re-taking classes meant Lisa was never placed in other classes that were required for graduation. She understandably felt discouraged that she wouldn’t graduate with her class. Further complicating matters, Lisa’s Spanish speaking foster parent was unfamiliar with the nuances of the school system and also unable to advocate for her due to language barriers. The educational specialist was able to be that advocate—flagging issues for the Department of Education, ACS and the school, and getting Lisa on track to graduate. We’re happy to share that Lisa has been accepted to Fulton-Montgomery Community College and will be starting in September. All it took to achieve this outcome was someone to pay close attention and advocate on Lisa’s behalf.

Want to help The Foundling promote educational achievement and success? We’re looking for generous donors to help us expand our educational program. For just $100, we can send a qualified tutor to a struggling student’s home, and spend 1.5 hours on school work with him or her – twice. Each tutoring session could make the difference between a child failing or passing his or her next Algebra quiz. And, now that public schools are no longer mandated to provide in-house tutoring, this service is more necessary than ever before! If you’d like to help out or learn more about the efficient and effective ways The Foundling is tackling obstacles to educational success for foster youth, please visit our Crowdrise fundraising page!

*name changed

June 5, 2013/by Elefant Design

Blog, Guest Blogger

Foundling Family Book Review: Issue 1 – Kids’ Summer Reading!

Here is the very first issue of our new Foundling Family Book Review for all ages by Foundling volunteer and friend (and professional reviewer and reporter) Celia McGee. Here, she’s focused on some great summer reading for kids as they round out the school year. Enjoy!

Ages 2-5

How to be a Cat, by Nikki McClure (Abrams Appleseed)

Who doesn’t love a cat? Well, maybe not everybody, but artist and writer Nikki McClure will bring out the cat-lover in anyone who reads this book as they enjoy the adventures of Small Cat and Big Cat. One teaches and the other learns the skills, joys and challenges of everyday life in the paper-cut illustrations are McClure’s delightful trademark. They follow the pair through lessons about how to “FIND,” “LISTEN,” “EXPLORE,” “CLEAN,” “STRETCH,” “FEAST,” “DREAM,” and more, joined, here and there by a flittery butterfly or a watchful bird to move along the action. Don’t miss the paw prints that open and close the book, which add to the experience of finding a fun surprise on every page.

Ages 5-8, and the whole family

You Never Heard of Willie Mays?! By Jonah Winter and Terry Widener (Random House Children’s Books)

Before Willie Mays was a baseball legend and a history-maker he was a little boy with big dreams. And a way with a baseball that impressed even the grown-ups. Among the first to break the color barrier in a game that used to separate black players and white into different leagues, he got his start in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1940s under the guidance of a father who nurtured his amazing gifts. The powerful illustrations by Terry Widener gloss over nothing, from “Whites” and “Colored” drinking fountains to the cramped companionship of bus travel in the Negro Leagues, while at the same time celebrating the phenomenal player who, once de-segregation made it to baseball, led the New York Giants to some of their greatest victories. His unparalleled “Catch” of 1954 against the Cleveland Indians defied “the Laws of Nature, Gravity, Baseball, Common Sense, Eyesight—and probably a few other laws too!” That’s just one quote that will pique the interest of a range of readers, and help explain why Willie Mays is someone you should be sure to study when you get to visit the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Ages 9-12

Zebra Forest, by Adina Rishe Gewirtz (Candlewick Press)

A girl, her brother, and their grandmother against a world that has dealt them a rotten hand. Annie, who is eleven, and her little brother, Rew, have been left for good by their mother with their depressed but protective “Gran” in a village on one side of the birch-filled ‘Zebra Forest,” as Annie calls it. On the other is a grim and forbidding prison. Annie possesses a brave intelligence and resourceful sense of humor that have been getting these three through, but the appearance of a dangerous stranger who takes them hostage and picks apart stories of their father’s death they’ve been growing up with tests them each. Set during the Iran hostage crisis and informed by the kids’ well-worn copy of Treasure Island, this is tale that takes some dark twists before emerging into the light of truth and reconciliation.

Ages 10-13

Navigating Early, by Clare Vanderpool (Delacorte Press)

When Jack Baker’s mother dies just after World War II, the boy’s Navy officer father moves him from Kansas to Maine, and puts him in boarding school at MortonHillAcademy there. Jack’s views of himself are both funny and poignant—as John Baker III, “I’d rather be a whole of something than just a third,” he notes—and he adapts well enough to his new surroundings. But a brilliant misfit in his class named Early Auden lifts him out of his comfort zone where both friendship and the romance of the wilderness are concerned. The odd couple—Early is what today we might call autistic—embark on a quest mixing the real and the mythological, the earth and the stars, as they run off to hike the Appalachian Trail. That their search involves Early’s older brother, a football hero yet a psychological casualty of foreign conflict, resonates for the make-believe world Early needs to depend on and with the problems of returning veterans our country faces these days.

Ages 13-18

In the Shadow of Blackbirds, by Cat Winters (Abrams/Amulet Books)

The spirit world and the difficulties of young love make for a fascinating, brain-teasing potion served up by first-time novelist Cat Winters. As we know all too well from the diseases of our own time, history has been beset by plagues, and Winters places her story square in the middle of the devastating influenza outbreak of 1918. A scary and suffering Pasadena, California, suddenly becomes the new home of her heroine, Mary Shelley Black. She comes to live with her aunt because her mother has died and her father is being persecuted as an anti-war pacifist, “in a year,” she thinks to herself, “the devil designed.” Little does she know in how many more ways that threatens to come true for her. She uses her courage, her passion for science, and her yearning for the boyfriend she had to see off to war to combat the wiles of a photographer wielding the dark beliefs of spiritualism, while the epidemic rages on. Mary acquires an astonishing array of new knowledge in the process.

June 3, 2013/by Elefant Design

Blog, Guest Blogger

Announcing Foundling Family Book Reviews!

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of a new series of blogs by Foundling friend, Celia McGee. Celia will be writing biweekly family book reviews for us to share with all of you! The reviews will live on The Foundling Blog, here on our website. We know how valuable reading is for everyone and hope you all take advantage of these great recommendations.

Celia is a book reviewer and arts reporter who grew up loving to read. She wants to share her passion for books and reading with the Foundling family by blogging about new books for every age of child, teenager, parent, grandparent or foster parent. As a journalist, Celia writes for The New York Times, and has been the publishing columnist and a book reviewer for The New York Observer, a features writer and book reviewer for the Daily News, and a writer for New York magazine. She lives in New York with her husband, and misses her daughter, Honor, who is away at school.

Celia and her daughter, Honor

June 3, 2013/by Elefant Design

Blog, Video Blog, Video Gallery

Providing Families a Head Start to Success in Puerto Rico

Carmen Villafañe is Senior Vice President, Head Start Services for the New York Foundling en Puerto Rico. She has a master’s degree in Education with a specialty in Supervision and Administration of Schools from the University of Puerto Rico. Carmen has worked in Head Start programs since 1973 and began her career as a preschool teacher. She became an Education Manager for The Foundling’s program in 1985 before being promoted to Director of Head Start and Early head Start in 2006.

Click below to watch Carmen’s video blog en Español!

Having opened its doors more than 140 years ago, The New York Foundling is a well-respected New York City institution. Readers may be surprised, however, to find out that we have had a presence in Puerto Rico, serving low-income families since 1972. The Foundling began its presence in Puerto Rico to address the need to care for a number of our children in foster care whose families were moving back to Puerto Rico. Eleven years after we first became involved there, the government offered to accept proposals to set up a Head Start program in Puerto Rico. Feeling that we were qualified and also had local experience already, we applied and were given a grant.

Head Start is a granted program of the US Department of Health and Human Services that promotes school readiness to low-income children ages 3-5 at no cost. The program also works to teach parents how to become life-long advocates, educators, and role models for their children. Our Early Head Start program serves pregnant women, parents, and children ages 0-3, and helps families build a strong parent/child relationship. Currently, The New York Foundling’s Puerto Rico Head Start and Early Head Start programs together serve 1,090 children in the areas of San Juan, Cataño, Coamo, and Vega Alta, Puerto Rico. Twenty-two percent of the children we serve have disabilities ranging from learning disorders and speech language disabilities to cognitive disability and emotional disturbances, although we are by law only required to accept 10 % of these children. In order to apply for the program, parents simply need to find at a Head Start Center in their community, complete an application and submit documentation to see if they can be enrolled.

The program helps address issues in communities in Puerto Rico including drug addiction, obesity and poverty and seeks to end the incidence of poverty by generation and the negative health effects associated with it. Additionally, the program aims to help participants gain and utilize self-confidence and success skills at present and later in life. The program provides a healthy learning environment, ensures successful child development, and promotes community engagement.

The program works with outcomes for both the children and parents. The curriculum for the children includes basic learning areas such a math, literacy, and creative art activities as well as functional and emotional activities. Social workers establish goals for every family and teachers record data about the children daily for progress reports. To decipher if expectations are being met, each child is assessed three times per year and child progression is discussed with the parents. In addition, the program itself is regularly evaluated by administering interviews with staff and parents. Children who have successfully completed the program, will be excited about learning upon entering kindergarten, will have grown in self-awareness and self-esteem, will read with enjoyment, and will have developed socially, emotionally, and academically.

Through the program, we guide parents in how to best support their children by inviting them into the classroom to be volunteers, to serve alongside and learn from the classroom teachers, and to create an instructional environment in their homes. Parents are taught how to maintain a healthy and financially secure environment for their families and the importance of the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development of their children. Parents who have successfully completed the program feel responsible for their own children’s development and learning experiences, provide a stable medical home, and understand the need for ongoing learning experiences for the entire family. They know how essential reading aloud and verbal communication is to language development and embrace their role as a lifelong educator for their child.

Our program serves children either in a classroom setting Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. or, in the more rural areas, through home-based visits once a week for an hour and a half at a time coupled with socialization classroom sessions two days per month. In an effort to accommodate working parents or those attending college, The Foundling offers extended hours in certain locations. Head Start also provides job training, leadership skills and employment assistance to parents, as working with parents is one of our main objectives. In fact, 75 % of our parents voluntarily participate in workshops to help them become better advocates for their children and planners in the community.

The Puerto Rico Head Start and Early Head Start program employs 373 staff members. This includes teachers, assistant teachers, social workers, nurses, mental health professionals, nutritionists, cooks, and special needs specialists. Of these employees, 98 are former parents. Parents have the opportunity to participate in the decision making process. There is a policy council and more than half of the members are parents. The other members are community and agency partners who are advocates of the program.

We’re so proud that when our children leave the program they are prepared with the readiness and skills to enter kindergarten. We’re also so proud that some of our teachers have been Head Start children themselves, which demonstrates the success of our program. We look forward to continuing our successful program and making the future brighter for so many deserving families.

Watch Carmen’s blog en Español!

www.nyfoundling.org www.nyfpr.org

May 29, 2013/by Elefant Design

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