 I'm your host Winston Welch and delighted that you are joining us again today for this special edition of Out and About, a show where we explore a variety of topics, organizations, and events with the people who fuel them in our city, state, country, and world. As a disclaimer, any views or opinion expressed by me are strictly my own and not connected with any organization I might be affiliated with. Joining me today in the studio, I am honored to have a couple of wonderful ladies from Holly Keep Up. We have Michelle Raca, the program coordinator for the Holly Keep Up transitional family home program. And we also have Jessica Carter, the foster home developer for the same program. And there's a little, I'm curious as to what those are. And so anyway, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Absolutely, thanks for having us. So Holly Keep Up, I don't think maybe a lot of people even know what is Holly Keep Up, what's its history, and what's your mission, and what are you guys about? So Holly Keep Up is a nonprofit, statewide nonprofit in our community, long history serving the community. Our agency primarily focuses on addressing the needs of youth in our state, meeting families where they are, whether they are experiencing crisis or needing extra support. We have a huge variety of programs that address issues and are here to support youth and their families. Our, for our purposes, our program that we're here to speak with you about today is our Therapeutic Family Homes Program, Transitional Family Homes Program, which is a therapeutic foster care. And let Jessica give you a little more information about what we do. Okay, so it's a transitional family home program, but inside of that is something called therapeutic foster care. Tell us, what does that mean? What are the differences between those? So transitional family homes is just the name of our program. Therapeutic foster care is what we carry out. It's often called treatment foster care. So any child that comes into our care, into one of our homes, is gonna receive more services than a child in general licensing foster care. Okay, so these programs, whether we're calling a transitional family home or therapeutic foster care, they're both a foster care program, or they're both related to foster care? Yes, yeah. They're really, the names could be interchangeable. Okay. And so Hala Kepa does foster care work and is that the bulk of what it does, or would you say that's about half of what it does? Hala Kepa as an agency has many programs ranging from outreach to intensive in-home therapeutic services, independent living skills, we provide shelter, we provide transitional sheltering. So there's a huge array of programs that fall under the umbrella of Hala Kepa as an agency. And then our program, as we mentioned, is a transitional family home program in which we provide therapeutic foster care services to you. Okay, and you said you're an agency, are you an agency of the state? Non-profits, we're a non-profit. Okay, and I'm guessing that most of your funding comes from the state or the federal government or possibly grants. That's right. And even individuals, and you probably have fundraisers throughout the year as well. That's right. When I was reading online, it looks your organization's 50 years old this year. It's a huge milestone, obviously started because of a real need in the community for this. And a continuing need, and I'm guessing also, unfortunately, that we're seeing an increase in the need for your services rather than a decrease. Is that a correct assumption? Sure, I mean, the need is always there, unfortunately, for now. And as you know, resources are just always scarce. There could always be more services in place and different ways that the system approaches the reasons why youth end up needing services in the first place. So we really are here to work on these issues as a systemic issue, but also to close gaps for youth who've been navigating systems for a long time. So tell us about what's the difference between a therapeutic foster home and a traditional fostering system that we may or may not be familiar with? Sure, so any child coming into foster care, they're being removed from a home situation that is typically unsafe. They're facing abuse, neglect. Substance abuse may be present in the home. A variety of reasons why they're leaving. So coming in, a child may go into what's called a general licensing foster home. I know that can be confusing, but it's traditional foster care, what people think of. So a child is brought to someone's home. With therapeutic care, a child is facing even more, they face more trauma. They're experiencing kind of challenges with their behavior and challenges, which is processing what's going on. So many of our kids in care are older. We're looking at more adolescents. We do accept any child from three to 17 into our program, but typically we're looking at children from 10 to 17. The adolescent years. Right, one other important qualification is that sometimes when we think of foster care, we think of homes that are perhaps temporarily taking a youth or a child into their home with plans for permanency or a path to permanency in relocating this youth. For our program, our primary goal is to always reunite with the family whenever possible. So the function of our program is really to take in youth who are struggling for whatever reason, often they're stepping down from a higher level of care, meaning they've received community-based residential treatment for whatever factors that they're experiencing, whether it be psychiatric or substance abuse, whatever that may be. And then we connect them with one of our families who are trained in the therapeutic foster home piece for three months, six months, nine month intervals, sometimes longer. But again, our goal is to take this time to stabilize the youth and to do whatever steps need to be taken with the family in family therapy or intensive treatments that we can provide and then reunite hopefully with stability and resources in place. So would a typical scenario be something like, I don't know, maybe the father got arrested, the mom's got a drug problem, the kid's kind of gotten lost in the shuffle. There you go. And so, and they're thinking, who's here to take care of me? Yes. And then maybe grandma, uncle, neighbor calls the state, calls the social services 3-1-1, is that United Way or maybe, or they just know about you guys directly and they can reach out to you? Generally our referrals are, they're processed through the Department of Health through what's called Family Guided Centers. So referrals would originally go through this Family Guided Center, sometimes from the school, sometimes from the community-based treatment that they're receiving. There's a number of ways that referrals can get to them. From there, they're assigned a case coordinator and that case coordinator starts putting into action referrals that they think would best meet the needs of this youth. And from there, we would receive a referral if therapeutic foster home would be a good idea. Okay, and then the goal is three, six, nine months until parents can get stabilized. And then how often do the kids, I mean, obviously if you're coming from a house with a lot of trauma and issues, it would be probably almost normal for those kids to have their own issues as well. That's the majority of the population, would you say, that the kids that you're working with? Yeah, the big thing that I always like to say is there's no bad families. It's just challenging situations. So a lot of our families were looking at, you know, lack of resources, a lot of stress, and there's some poor decision-making in there, but it affects the child in that environment. So what we're hoping to do, and the other thing I wanted to mention that makes therapeutic foster care different, is that when a child comes into our care, they do receive treatment. And what treatment is, is usually therapy, and then can be some additional supplemental resources as well when they come into our program. So that not only supports the child, definitely, but also our resource caregivers, and then also the bio family. Once they've adjusted to the home, typically month, two months, they start to do family sessions, usually. With their bio family? With their bio family. It might be bio family, it might be adoptive family. It just depends on what the child, the situation of the child. To be completely honest, not all of our children have homes to go to. That's right. So we might be looking at other permanency options for them to go into as well. I see, you mean the family's just not there to go back? You're right. Okay, and then, which is, yeah, hard. You guys are right on the front lines of helping people to recover from difficult situations. So I applaud you for that work that you do. It's, you know, you gotta have hearts of gold and probably a little bit of steel at the same time to deal with everything that you gotta deal with coming down the pike, but when you got beautiful people like you in charge of this, then the world's just, you know, it gives me hope for the future that we've got this. And the fact has been going on for 50 years. You guys are carrying on a legacy, improving on that legacy. Obviously, you have huge staff that you rely on and volunteers as well. So if someone were interested in becoming a foster parent or maybe specifically a therapeutic foster home, does it need to be a married couple with kids? Does it could it be a single person? Are there, what kind of qualifications would that person have to go through and even, yeah. No, so you can be married, you can be single, you can be co-habitating with a partner. It doesn't, there's no limitations on that per se. We do ask that you be 25 or older. And it just matters on the licensing side. So there's no limitation there. Okay, people just go undergo a normal background check and everything to become a foster parent. There's a number of clearances that you have to walk through and then different types of paperwork that we go through when you apply. So what the process would look like to become a foster parent, I don't know if you were gonna ask that or not. Yeah, yeah. Is you would first apply. So you would contact us or you can go on our website. And what is your website? www.hallykeepa.org H-A-L-E-K-I-P-A Exactly, yes, exactly. You can apply on there or you can contact me or Michelle and you can apply with us directly. We'll email you or mail you even an application if you're interested. And then from there, we go through a couple steps of screening but also paperwork. And then after that, what is required of all of our families is at least 33 hours of what we call pre-service training. So a lot of people are questioning like I don't know if I have the skills, I don't know if I have enough knowledge to be able to do this. We teach you all of that. We teach you about different diagnoses, behaviors, how to work with children that are in these situations, traumatic experiences. All of our training is based in trauma-informed care. And so we try to arm all of our parents as best we can with the training. And then we do, at the end we do a home study. And then hopefully if everything goes well, we become licensed with that. And if I may, one of our values as an agency is if you were to become a resource caregiver with our program, we wouldn't just push you through all this paperwork and training, place a child in your home and see you later. We take a very active and continued role in making sure that resource caregivers have ongoing training and support that we are extremely accessible. The therapist that is assigned to a youth in this program is assigned 24 hours a day. So should there be an incident that takes place after hours, that therapist is on call and available to respond. So it's a huge value of ours that our families know and that the youth in our care know that we're here every step of the way and that we stay involved. And what's the most important quality for foster parent or foster home to have, what you say? Patience. With any parent, patience is so important. I was gonna go, I probably love, but patience would be... Patience over love sometimes. I'm sure both in abundant quality because if you're interested in helping out, obviously you've gotta have that and other strengths. And I think every youth out there that receives the services just as unique from one human being to another. And there are all kinds of families that do things all kinds of ways and there's youth that will be a good fit and families that'll be a good fit if we look in the right directions. And I think some of the most important features of resource caregivers are availability to stability, routine, approaching people, meeting youth where they are at. And affirming the people that these youth are becoming and really fostering and developing what is unique and great about them and celebrating that, working towards helping them develop the most independence with their, using their own natural resource. Is it sort of like into being a Hunai auntie or uncle? I mean, I can imagine that's a good analogy here because you're not the bio parent but you're like a parent and stepping in in that role of guidance and support and love. And you have a pool of kids that need homes and you also have a pool of foster parents. And then do you kind of go through individually and say, I think Sally would be good here and kind of match folks up? That's right. And do you try and keep the kids in the same, like if they're from Eva, keep them in Eva or does that factor into things all the time? Or do you sometimes want to take them out of that, of Eva, go to Kaimuki or something? Either all of those combinations exist. Unfortunately, we don't have a huge array of resource caregivers in diverse geographic areas at the moment. We'd love to develop that further. So it really, it's about placement and then working on securing the environment and meeting their needs within the environment in which they're placed. But there's many combinations in which we would always try to consider those factors. OK. Yes, ma'am? So one thing that's really helpful too for anybody who might be thinking of becoming a resource caregiver, we always do matching meetings with our youth. And therapeutic care that's mandatory, that you will meet the child before they're placed in your home. And that's on behalf of the child and the family. We want to make sure that the child feels comfortable, especially because of the experiences they may have been through. But also the same with the family. So you're not going to just have a child dropped off at your doorstep. You'll have a chance to meet them. We'll have a chance to talk story and just get to know one another. And then we'll go from there if we want to move forward with placement. Placement, a lot of thought goes into that before placing a child into your home. So geographic location is extremely important, where they go to school, maybe any extracurricular activities that they might be involved in, the makeup of the resource caregivers home. So if it is a single parent, if it is a family, but they have young children, if it's a family, but they have older children, if they don't have any children at all, it can all depend on. So we think about all of those things when we're placing a child. A lot of thought goes into that. You kind of got a Rubik's Cube Excel spreadsheet in your head when you matched those together. That's exactly. And we will continue this conversation. We're going to take a little break here. But as you can see, this is a really important organization. Incredible people that help run this and manage these programs. I have the distinct honor and privilege of having Michelle Raqqa and Jessica Carter of Holly Keepa, which is House of Welcome. House of Friendliness. I'm sorry. That's OK. House of Friendliness. OK. House of Friendliness. And you, of course, exemplify that. We will be back in just a minute. This is Winston Welton out and about the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series. And we'll be back in just a minute. Hi, guys. I'm your host, Lillian Cumick, from Lillian's Vegan World. I come to you live every second Friday from 3 PM. And this is the show where I talk about the plant-based lifestyle and veganism. So we go through recipes, some upcoming events, information about health regarding your health, and just some ideas on how you can have a better lifestyle, eat healthier, and have fun at the same time. So do join me. I look forward to seeing you. And aloha. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. My program airs every other Monday at 1 o'clock on Think Tech Hawaii. Most of my programs deal with my own life and law experience. Recently, I interviewed Alex Gempel, who I have known for over 30 years, about his voyage across the sea as a lawyer from Tokyo to Hawaii. Those are the type of stories that I like to bring and like to talk about. Human stories about law and life. Aloha. Aloha, we're back. We're live. I'm Winston Alton. This is out and about on the Think Tech Livestreaming Network series. I am talking with the lovely duo of Michelle Raqqa and Jessica Carter, who work in the therapeutic foster care program of Hale Kippa Transitional Family Home Program. There's a ton of programs at Hale Kippa, and I will mention them in a second. But anyway, thank you so much again for coming to the show and telling us about this wonderful organization you've got. As I was looking online, you have these programs. You have community-based outreach and advocacy, emergency shelter services, you mentioned, an advocate program, attendant care program, independent living, intensive in-home program. I think you mentioned a couple of those. Intensive independent living skills, school attendance support services, school success program, step-up housing, transitional family home programs, wraparound services, youth outreach. You've got a ton of stuff going on there. How many people do you have working with you? Oh, gosh, I wouldn't even know offhand, but many, many across all of these programs. And many of these programs are offered statewide. So we're quite a large organization. You're a statewide organization. OK, so you've got a presence on every island. OK. And then this is all, I'm sorry, we were talking right before the break about how huge these problems can be. And also, but there's solutions to them. You're part of the solution. Foster families are part of the solution. Do you have a shortage right now of foster homes and folks willing to take kids in? Always, always. Always. Yeah. And I would say, right now in Hawaii, there's probably about 1,400 children in foster care across the state. However, for therapeutic foster care, there's not a specific number that we have. But at any time, there's between 20 to 30 children on what's almost like a wait list. They're just waiting to be placed in a home. And the challenge with therapeutic foster homes is the fact that we do take that time and attention. So we want to find a really good, specific home for the child. And so that's why sometimes it can be more of a challenge and why we need more families. The other thing is, if I can't mention too, what we're looking for is we're looking for families that are open to serving full time, meaning having a youth in their home from anywhere to three to nine months, just like their own child. They'll take them to school. They'll take them to sports practice or whatever. We're also looking for families to serve as respite, meaning if you're not quite sure if this is something you may want to do, you can think about respite, which is providing time of respite for the families. So if they need a weekend alone or if they need to go to the mainland for an emergency or whatever circumstance it might be, they're going on vacation, we need families that are willing to take children for one night, up to two weeks, three weeks even. So we need really short term. The other option that we have are what are called kamala homes, and those are emergency homes. So kind of the same thing as respite, but a little bit different. And those are, again, anywhere from a few nights to up to 30 days where we need a home. So those are the three types of families that we're looking for, and we're in need of all of those families. Longer term commitment, respite care, and emergency care. And again, the therapeutic foster home differs from regular foster care in that these kids have been through maybe more difficulties, more difficult degree of trauma or issues where they need to be taken out. Can children self-refer to your program, or do you see that? I haven't come across that, have you? No. Typically, the referral would need to come through the Department of Health, but I imagine if there was a youth out there that was really wanting to get on our radar, they could perhaps speak to someone at their school or in their community about reaching out to a family guidance center. So if you're a concerned, auntie, uncle, neighbor, family friend, what would you recommend for saying that this kid really doesn't belong in this environment, because it's not safe, it's not healthy? Where should they start out? I would say calling Child Welfare Services. Child Welfare Services. Or even the crisis line, which I shouldn't know off the top of my head, but I don't. You can call the crisis number, and that's a statewide number. But also, Child Welfare Services is where I would be again. If you were an adult and concerned about a child. That's what I might think of, CPS. Yes, exactly. Or Child Protective Services. But here it's called Child Welfare Services. It's called Child Welfare Services. And that's a division of the Department of Health? That's a division of the Department of Human Services. But just generally speaking and anecdotally speaking, if you are an adult in the community concerned about a minor, that is the first number to call. And so over the course of a year, how many kids would come in and out of a program? It really depends on how many resource caregivers we have available and the length of stay that youth are experiencing in our program. It's a little easier to share with you that we almost never meet the needs of all the youth that referrals have come through. So there's always people who are waiting for a bed to open up in a home. And sometimes some kids end up waiting longer than others for the reasons that Jessica had shared because of our, because we're so careful to place appropriately. The last thing we want is to put someone in a home and theirs a blowout the next day or immediately. So we really do take time to think about all the dynamics of that household, the cultural values, the other youth that are placed there, or whether they have biological children in the home, and what those dynamics would look like. So it's almost like doing a puzzle every time and it's unique every time. Or maybe even pets, if they have pets. Oh yeah, exactly. And somebody has allergies. Or a negative. I can imagine that. And so you get families that certify, they go through the 33 hours. Does that certification last a year or a couple of years or? Exactly. Well, the training lasts indefinitely, really. But you do have to reapply and get recertified every year. You don't have to go through the 33 hours of training. But what we do require is 20 additional hours of training. Each year. So each year, every year, annually. Really good thing, obviously. Because the more you can know about anything, the better off you can be at helping with it. Jessica offers ongoing training monthly. And she really works hard to assess relevant and valuable topics for an opportunity for what the foster homes are experiencing to share with us and that we provide training based on their feedback. She's also really committed to flexibility. So if somebody out there is hearing, oh gosh, when would I ever have 33 hours in a row to commit to training? Jessica works really hard to work with families who are interested to say, wow, we can get x amount of this training done in the evenings based on your work schedule, weekends, whatever it may be. And I imagine this is really gratifying. Or I mean, obviously, for the kids, this is an enormous benefit that you hear about years later, people coming back and saying that program saved my life and allowed me to see different appropriate adult behaviors role modeled for me and many other things just taking them out of a situation. What did the family say? What did the foster parents say that participated in this? I do want to say that we have some of the most amazing resource caregivers in our program. I know that they've been a huge inspiration to me, just watching how much they care for the youth, how much patience they have, but really how they go above and beyond for all the children in their homes. The thing that I hear the most is just that they really value making a difference in their lives and knowing that they could have a positive relationship with this child and giving them a safe, stable home, especially because a lot of our youth are adolescents. They're getting ready to go into adulthood. And so that's so important for them to know that they're kind of helping them launch into adulthood in a really stable and healthy way. Do you find that the kids and the foster parents maintain contact even years later after? Often they do. And we have resource caregivers that have provided their service with our agency for over a decade or more. So the families that we do have also had a positive experience. And we've been able to retain them for a long time because of the rewards that they experience and the personal fulfillment in participating with this program. Some of them have shared that they got a youth in their home that was just at such high risk of so many challenges they were facing. And just a few months later to see them graduate and they've succeeded in sports and they've found access to different activities that they've enjoyed and maintained is really life changing for them as well. It's just amazingly gratifying work for you all. I know just to see the success stories that you see on a daily basis, the difficulties that you're able to help folks overcome, and then seeing other good people open up their homes and their hearts to these kids that need it. And obviously, you're providing support for them as well. I have a lot of other questions that I want to ask about this program. I hope if you will come back another time so that we can talk and talk some more specifics about special focuses like maybe even LGBT youth and how that might work in or some of your other incredible programs that you got here. Because so many, we just can't cover it all today. That's right. Thank you so much for coming today. Thank you for having us. You guys are truly an inspiration for me and what you do. As you see it is always another wonderful episode about and about. And when you have such wonderful guests talking about these wonderful programs, it makes my job a great pleasure and easy. So for today, we have to say goodbye, a hui hou, but I would like to thank our broadcast engineer, Robert McLean, our floor manager, Hailey Ikeda, and Mark Ito, our intern, our executive producer, Steve Vidal, who put it all together. I will see you here every other Monday on Out and About for another edition of the show, where you will hopefully be as inspired as I am. See you later, a hui hou.