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GEAUGA COUNTY
JOB AND FAMILY SERVICES

12480 Ravenwood Drive
Munson Township
Mail: P.O. Box 309
Chardon, OH 44024

Services include children and adult service programs, emergency services after hours, and services to neglected and abused persons. It also provides services and programs for the elderly such as Medicaid, food stamps, emergency help with utilities, food and housing, home weatherization, adult protective services, budget counseling, and senior case aides.

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The Sunshine Thrift Shop

The Thrift Shop, located on the Geauga County Fairgrounds, 14373 N. Cheshire St., in Burton, is a non-profit organization run by volunteers for the Department of Human Services. Clothing available for the whole family, plus shoes, boots and miscellaneous merchandise at very reasonable prices.

Hours: Friday and Saturday
10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m

The Shop will no longer be accepting large pieces of furniture or large appliances of any kind.

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Child Support Enforcement Agency

Helen Gilmore, Supervisor

Extensions 2390, 5510, or 5946
Hours: 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Services offered:

• Location of an Absent Parent (Payer)
• Establishment of Paternity (in Cases of Out-of-Wedlock Births)
• Establishment of Support Orders & Modification of Existing Child Support Orders
• Enforcement of Court Ordered Support Orders
• Collection, Distribution & Disbursement of Support Ordered by the Court to be Paid Through the Child Support Enforcement Division
• Identification, Collection and Disbursement of Arrearage
• Maintenance of Records and Preparation of Reports for Ohio Department of Human Services
• Provision of Child Support Services, Upon Request, to Other States and/or Foreign Governments.

When calling for information, please ask to speak to a representative of the Child Support Enforcement Division to discuss your situation between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

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Special Programs:

Home Weatherization Assistance Program
Volunteer Programs
Emergency Services
Emergency Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP)
Day Care
Jobs

Home Weatherization Assistance Program
Home maintenance services intended to confine energy costs are available to low-income families, renters, disabled or elderly Geauga County residents.

The services include the following:

• Furnace Safety Inspection
• Furnace Tuneup and Repair
• Installation of a New Furnace if Necessary
• Insulation of Sidewalls and Attics
• Insulation of Heating Ducts, Floors and Water Tanks
• Repair or Replacement of Hot Water Tanks
• Reductions of Air Leakage Around Windows and Doors

Ask to speak to a Coordinator to discuss your situation. Call between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday - Friday.

Volunteer Programs
Your volunteer services are welcome and necessary for the well-being of our Geauga communities.

The Geauga County Department of Human Services has several programs that operate with the services of trained volunteers. Depending on your interests, we have activities that are either short-term or ongoing and involve either direct contact or behind-the-scenes work.

We also provide and train for other services with a paid staff of community members. These services include:

• In-Home Day Care
• Foster Care
• Respite Care
• Therapeutic Foster Care
• Special Needs Adoption

Each program, volunteer or paid, has a different focus and schedule. There is one to suit your lifestyle.

Children's Awareness Training (CAT) volunteers help present personal Safety Program in Geauga Schools; Empower children to say NO to uncomfortable situations; and make a difference in the lives of children by teaching prevention of sexual abuse. Six days per school semester is the commitment needed for this program.

Senior Case Aides volunteers improve the quality of life of a frail, elderly person and work toward specified goals for the client. Supervision is provided by a Social Worker and a one-half day per week with the client is suggested.

Parent Aide volunteers act as a supportive friend to a family under stress and act as a role model in sharing skills such as parenting, home management, grocery shopping, etc. Supervision is provided by a Social Worker and a one-half day per week with the client is suggested.

Budget Counselors are needed to support a family under financial stress. Volunteers help a client work out a payment plan with creditors, set up a budget and help them to seek possible additional resources. Approximately 4 hours of commitment a month as needed.

Volunteers in the Sunshine Shop would sort and display clothes and household items at the Shop and spend time in the Shop during open hours. Time commitment is every Wednesday for sorting, and one Friday or Saturday a month in sales.

Please call and speak to a member of the Service Resource Team today for additional information. Call between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Emergency Services
Call the Department of Human Services if you have an Emergency in the following areas:

• Safety
• Living Conditions
• Temporary Shelter
• Temporary Financial Need
• Immediate Food Costs
• Immediate Medical Needs
• Utility or Fuel Costs
• Rent or Mortgage Payments
• Security Deposit or First Month's Rent
• Home Insulation to Reduce Energy Costs

Ask to speak to a Coordinator to discuss your situation between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

You may call Copeline at 285-5665 or 1-888-285-5665 at any hour, weekdays, weekends and holidays.

C.O.P.E. (Care Of People in Emergencies), is a program co-sponsored by the Geauga County Department of Human Services, Ravenwood Mental Health Center and Womensafe, an agency providing services to battered women.

The purpose of C.O.P.E. is to provide emergency services to people of Geauga County through a 24-hour hotline, the Copeline.

Services include assistance with issues of child abuse, elder abuse, mental health, domestic violence, homelessness, food resources, and referral to appropriate resources.

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Social Services:

Assessment
Ongoing Child Protective
Foster Care
Adoption
Adult Protective Services

Foster and Adoption Information Meetings

Monday, Oct. 5
Monday, Nov. 16
Each beginning at 7:00 p.m.
There is no cost for these meetings.

Give a Child a Chance - Become a Foster Parent

Requirements:

• At least 21 years of age
• Able to provide a caring atmosphere
• Willing to provide time for a child
• Able to meet home safety requirements
• In a stable marriage, or is a single person with a strong support system
• Able to meet their family's financial needs
• Caring and understanding of a child's individual needs
• People with a good sense of humor
• People with love to spare

What Is Foster Care?

Foster care is for families experiencing conflicts so severe that children must temporarily be placed in a foster home. The step can help give them a chance for healthy, physical, social and emotional development. Foster care is time limited, substitute family care which allows children to receive nurturing and guidance in a foster home close to their own community. Foster children may also receive counseling while living with a caring family.

Why Foster Care?

While young people live in a foster home, services are provided to parents and to children with the goal of solving the problem that led to foster care.The main goal of foster care is to reunite permanent families. In most cases, children can return to their families. If this can't be achieved, adoption may be the answer. Older children may be guided toward independent living.

How Do Children Come Into Care?

Abused or neglected children may come to the attention of the agency which is required to serve families and protect children. Sometimes a parent, or parents, aren't able to take care of their children because of illness or some other emergency and need foster care. The family situation is assessed, and in most cases, services are offered to the family to solve problems while children stay at home.

If this doesn't work, the Juvenile Court will grant temporary custody of the children to the agency.The children are then placed in a family foster home, supervised by the agency. It is the agency's responsibility to have a plan for permanent family members and all efforts are made to reunite the child with the permanent family. The court reviews all placements regularly.

Where Do You Fit In?

As a foster parent, you would share your home with children who need a temporary family. You can provide a unique service to your community, as well as the children you care for. You can be a vital member of the agency's team. And we need you.

You may be in a strong marriage or be an individual with a good support system. You give daily care, understanding and love that foster children need. This is especially needed while children are separated from their permanent families.

While foster children are in your home, you will receive a payment to help cover the cost of caring for the children. The agency will also cover clothing and medical costs.

Foster parents come from all income levels and may not have started their own families yet; have children of their own still at home; or have adult children.

What's The Next Step?

When you call for further information, we will send you more details. Then we'll meet with you and together we will help you decide if you can help foster children. As part of this "get acquainted" process, we'll visit your home; talk with the family; and you'll find out what is expected of you and what you can expect from us. Then, you will receive help and training so you can give a child a chance with love, guidance and attention.

Taking Kids Off the Emotional Roller Coaster of Foster Care
Foster-Adopt Parents Cut Down on Kids' Anxiety and Get Them Permanent Homes Within One Year

"Concurrent planning saves a lot of time and money, and it saves everybody a lot of pain."
by Linda Katz

One day, when Barbara Fenster's 22-year-old son, Adam--her birth child--was small, she took him out to a movie. While they were standing in the popcorn line, a boy about Adam's age approached Barbara and posed one of the most amazing questions ever asked of her.

"He asked me to be his foster mother," says Fenster, the communications director for Washington Families for Kids. "He said his foster family was moving away, and he had no place to go except a group home. He thought Adam looked happy and I looked like a nice mom, so he wanted to be part of our family.

"It made me furious that a child felt so desperate that he'd go looking for a family," Fenster adds, incredulous to this day. "We became foster-adoptive parents because we wanted to remedy this situation."

Linda Katz, a Seattle-area Families for Kids specialist who works in court- and foster-care reform, says "foster-adoption" also is called "concurrent planning" because two things are being planned at once for the child: a return to the biological family, if possible and a new permanent home, if such efforts fail.

Adoption is never guaranteed for foster-adopt parents; for this reason, agencies that recruit foster parents for concurrent-planning situations look for people willing to commit to the child's best interests and endure the possibility that the future might not hold adoption.

About 15 years ago, at the Seattle office of Lutheran Social Services of Washington, Katz pioneered foster-adoption with two primary purposes: to limit a child's foster care experience to one placement, and to achieve a permanent family--either through adoption or reunification--within one year. During that time, the child's caseworker and foster parents work with the birth parents, teaching skills like anger management, trust, and communication to help the birth parents determine whether they can commit to the child on a long-term basis.

At Katz's program, about 85% of birth parents decide they cannot make that commitment, which means 85% of foster-adoptive parents become adoptive parents, with no limbo of uncertainty for the child. The other 15% of children peacefully and permanently reunite with their families.

Compared with conventional ways of handling foster care, in which kids can be shuffled for years from placement to placement without parental rights ever being terminated, Katz says, "Concurrent planning takes the child off the emotional roller coaster and puts that anxiety on the adults around the child. And it is hard for the adults. Many foster-adopt parents go through hell for a year."

It was Katz who, in 1986, matched the Fensters with an infant boy, Casey, in a concurrent planning process. For a year, Casey lived with the Fensters, and they took him for weekly visits with his birth parents. "Our job was to love and care for Casey, and to help try to reunify him with his birth parents by modeling good parenting for them," Barbara said. Casey needed lots of love and care: he had been starved and neglected during the first three months of his life.

It was difficult for Katz and the Fensters to watch Casey's responses, but Katz points out the need to gather evidence for the courts to decide whether to terminate parental rights. "We can't say, 'We think this child is unhappy with his parents,'" Katz says. "We have to testify, for example, how long he cries when he cries, the fact that he only cries with his parents and no one else."

Katz also worked intensively with Casey's birth parents, who eventually decided they could not parent Casey. "Because they loved Casey and knew he was happy with us, they relinquished custody to us," Barbara says.

Casey is now a healthy, happy 11-year-old, doing well in school and completely adjusted to his family life. "If Casey had not gone through concurrent planning," Katz says, "his parents would have been forced to relinquish custody, but not for many years. We would have been recruiting a home for a 5-year-old who was very disturbed because of his parents but also because of the system." By working toward permanency through reunification or adoption within one year, concurrent planning "saves a lot of time and money, and it saves everybody a lot of pain. It gives kids a permanent home more quickly and at a younger age, so they can do the attaching that little kids need to do," says Katz, who has conducted concurrent-planning training in Maryland, Illinois, and Utah, among other states.

The process is not always as difficult as Casey's. The Fensters' second concurrent-planning experience progressed much more quickly and smoothly. Tiffany Rose, now 14, came to the Fensters when she was 11. Tiffany was 7 when her mother abandoned her; after that, her grandmother had cared for her but could not continue. For Tiffany and the Fensters, says Barbara, it was a case of love at first sight. "Because she was 11, we have a very open adoption involving her extended family. She continues to see her grandmother and her cousins."

Voluntary arrangements between birth- and adoptive-families can bring children two experiences they may never have known in their lives--commitment and continuity. "I have my own room and have been going to the same school for three years--the longest I've ever gone to one school," says Tiffany. "I have friends that I've known for years. All those things are nice...but what's important is that every day when I go home, I know I will be hugged and loved and supported in whatever I do. I know they'll never leave me."

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Life RAFFT

Adoptive and foster care support group meets the third Saturday of every month from 7-9 p.m. at the Department. of Human Services. Call 632-5933 or 286-3991 for further information.

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Income Maintenance:

Disability Assistance
Medicaid
Food Stamps
Child Support Enforcement

A wide range of health care programs are offered to meet the needs of low income families, children, women, adults and senior citizens.

• Prenatal Care and Postnatal Care
• Preventive Treatment
• Ongoing Medical Care by Physicians
• Most Inpatient and Outpatient Hospital Services
• Services of Licensed Specialists, Dentists, Optometrists, Podiatrists, Etc.
• Care in a Nursing Facility
• Care in a Hospice
• Home Health Care
• Clinic Services
• Certain Prescription Drugs
• X-Ray and Lab Services
• Eyeglasses, Hearing Aids and Dentures
• Artificial Limbs and Braces
• Physical Therapy
• Psychological Services
• Ambulance Services
• Special Services for Individuals Who are Mentally or Developmentally Disabled
• Medical Supplies and Equipment
• CHIP - Children's Health Insurance Program

CHIP

CHIP stands for Children's Health Insurance Program and expands medical assistance to children which began with the Healthy Start initiative in 1996. Healthy Start provides coverage through the Medicaid system and was originally implemented to serve children of income eligible families through age 12. CHIP expands this medical assistance to children up to age 18 with coverage for

• Physicians
• Hospitals
• Dental
• Vision
• Prescriptions
• And more

Families of four with an annual income of approximately $25,000 may qualify for Medicaid benefits!

This expanded program is effective January 1, 1998 and will be available to uninsured children under age 19 in families making up to 150 percent of the poverty level.

Ask to speak to a Coordinator when you call the office between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

After hours, weekends and holidays, you may call Copeline at 285-5665 or 1-888-5665

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Counseling Opportunities

The Geauga County Department of Human Services has a variety of counseling opportunities available to meet your needs.

Professional Social Workers provide voluntary programs for single parents or young families who are concerned with the stresses involved in parenting. This program also assists in establishing the necessary support network within the community.

Another aspect of this service is counseling and support for pregnant young women as well as an educational component regarding child growth and development and realistic parental expectations.

We have Case Managers to help with financial counseling, employment counseling and education counseling. Additionally, we have trained volunteers on call for aiding individuals in budget counseling.

In cooperation with Ravenwood Mental Health Center, we provide counseling specific to sexual abuse. We help victims, offenders and families.

If the Department of Human Services does not have a program that fits your needs, they are available as a resource for referral to other County Programs and/or agencies.

Please don't hesitate to call the Intake Coordinator for additional information between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Budget Counseling

The Geauga County Department of Human Services is offering free budget counselors for anyone having trouble paying their bills. Counselors are trained to help clients work with creditors, set up a budget and explore alternative resources depending on eligibility. For further information call Ruth Carlton at 285-9141 or 564-7131.

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The STOP Program of Geauga County

Co-Sponsored by the Geauga County Department of Human Services and Ravenwood Community Mental Health Center

For 24-hour help call COPELINE at 285-5665 or 1-888-5665

The STOP program is a coordinated community program for providing immediate and continuing help to child sexual abuse victims, offenders, and their families through investigation, prosecution and treatment.

Program Objectives:

1. To help prevent child sexual abuse through public education
2. To protect victims from further abuse and victimization
3. To remove offenders - rather than victims - from the home, and have them court-ordered to undergo psychological treatment
4. To provide individual and group counseling and support services to victims and other non-offending family members

Mental health professionals, skilled in addressing the need of victims, offenders, and their families, provide individual and group therapy on a weekly basis. Depending on enrollment there are separate groups for:

• Child Victims
• Adolescent Victims
• Adults Molested as Children (AMACs)
• Parents of Victims
• Parents of Adolescent Offenders
• Adult Offenders

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Parents Together of Geauga County

The membership of this self-help organization includes parents of victims, adult offenders, adults molested as children, and STOP Program treatment professionals. The group channels its energies into programs which educate the community about the need to report child sexual abuse, and where to go for help. Advertising and printed materials are utilized to reach all ages.

Why We Need Your Help

The sexual abuse of children affects us all. We can and must work together to prevent it and to protect our children. Abused children often become abused adults.

You or your organization can help combat this serious (and often hidden) problem. You can help prevent child sexual abuse and make our community a safer place for our children to live.

What You Can Do:

• Give this information to someone who is being hurt in the home
• Ask to speak at your next meeting
• Plan a fund raiser to benefit the STOP Program
• Publicize the COPELINE number 285-5665 or 1-888-5665 for crisis and support
• Help distribute posters and brochures
• Make a donation in goods or cash

How Can You Help?

Recognize the signs of Child Abuse
Report suspected abuse to the proper authorities

What are the Signs of Child Sexual Abuse?

Physical Signs:

• Complaints of pain or discomfort in the genital or anal areas; physical injury to those areas
• Difficulty in urinating
• Torn or stained underwear
• Venereal disease

Behavioral Signs:

• Overcompliance or withdrawal from others
• Complaints of physical illness
• Difficulty in walking or sitting
• Severe nightmares
• Chronic bed-wetting
• Openly sexual or seductive behavior
• Trouble with schoolwork
• Truancy
• Aggressive or delinquent behavior
• Drug or alcohol abuse
• Chronic running away
• Suicidal thoughts and/or attempts
• Significant weight gain or loss
• Not wanting to associate with others
• Unwarranted displays of extreme anger