Teaming up for children

By Dana Grae Kane

For the TODAY

Neither fair-weather friends nor summer soldiers, indomitable Lynne Rudstrom and Jo Calk of Lincoln City, long known for their individual work to help the homeless, recently joined forces to attempt no less than reform of the Oregon State Child Welfare System. Unremitting dedication to their project resulted in their Child Welfare System Redesign plan now being under serious consideration for acceptance by the state Department of Human Resources as part of its current effort to improve protection and treatment of abused children.

Redesign was born of an earth-shattering discovery made by Jo in the course of her research into the causes of homelessness. Her research concluded that fully 80 percent of all homeless people are adult survivors of childhood abuse.

While the staggering statistic was shocking in magnitude, the correlation between child abuse and homelessness made perfect sense to Jo, having endured a severely abusive childhood herself and having worked at recovery many years of her adult life. While she personally had found the strength to break the pattern from abuse to homelessness, she understood it perfectly.

Traumatized children, filled with self-loathing and scarred by conditioned lack of self-respect and self-worth, grow into young adults who try to ease their pain with what are often the only anodynes available, drugs and alcohol. Sucked into the maelstrom of addiction, they spiral down into homelessness.

It was now glaringly apparent to Jo that government agencies and charitable organizations were treating the symptoms of homelessness and failing to understand its root causes. She realized the only way forward was to stop homelessness before it started by reforming the child welfare system, which had never adequately served the children it was created to protect. Now Jo brought to bear her advanced computer and organizational skills, honed in her two previous capacities, that of senior automation planning specialist at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and subsequently as IT project manager at Portland General Electric. Dogged focus for the next two-and-a-half years resulted in the first draft of her Child Welfare System Redesign plan.

Enter Lynne Rudstrom to make a crucial addition. Jo and Lynne originally met volunteering at the Lincoln City Warming Shelter, founded by Richard Gartrell. There, Jo and Lynne discussed their mutual passion for helping not just the homeless, but abused children in particular. Lynne went on to found Homeless Solutions to help the homeless year-round, while Jo helped found the nonprofit Beachtown Charities Thrift Store.

Essential to the finalization of Redesign was Lynne's extensive background as executive director of successful programs to help abused and handicapped children. Chief among these accomplishments are Lynne's development and administration of Ivey Ranch in Oceanside, California, and AWARE, a nonprofit eventually absorbed into the welfare department of Lake County, California. Who better than Lynne to review Jo's plan?

Immediately realizing the plan’s exponential value, Lynne supplied the additional element that would make Redesign a lasting success. Lynne knew it was imperative that distant governmental administration be transferred to the local level, with on-site resources for each child victim.

Specifically, qualified case managers and therapists must be embedded to ensure long-term treatment needs are met and guard against recidivistic abuse. Redesign was now as good as Jo and Lynne together could possibly make it. Thus, it was devastating to Jo where she repeatedly submitted Redesign to various state departments and received “thank-you-very-much” responses, if any. Redesign was being recycled straight to the state shredder.

Re-enter Lynne, drawing upon her extensive experience navigating the labyrinthine hierarchical channels of governmental structure. Introducing herself by her professional credentials and her personal eloquence, Lynne was able to reach Ryan Vogt, executive director of Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments, convincing him of the potential value of Redesign to the state Child Welfare System overhaul. Vogt in turn arranged for Jo and Lynne to meet with Belit Burke, District 4 manager for the Oregon Department of Human Services Child Welfare/Self Sufficiency.

Burke felt Redesign was worthy of direct presentation to the state director of Human Services and the child welfare director. Redesign was now placed exactly where it should be, under the eyes of the very officials working to ameliorate the child welfare system.

So, what's so hard about Redesign? The proposed enhancements seem so obviously worthy of adoption there would appear to be no further need to make note of them. However, within the realm of state government policy and practice, Redesign is not merely a minor tweak. It is rather a sea change, nothing short of revolutionary. While many dedicated, sincere people in state government have worked diligently to reform child welfare, Redesign will open to scrutiny and censure a deeply flawed foundational methodology that has thrown thousands of children to the wolves, exacerbating homelessness. Reshaping the paradigm in which entrenched philosophy dwells is a seismic shift, a collision of tectonic plates. The best hope is that Redesign will survive the process to be the "proof of pilot" project that inspires reform in other states.

Job well done, Jo and Lynne.