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Who is the typical child in our care?

People sometimes ask us to describe the “typical child” in the care of Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children.  Such is a fair and honest question.  We may think that children living in out of home care fall into a single category.  The origin of many organizations such as KBHC was the orphanage.  Orphans represented a definite category of children.  They were and are, by definition, children whose parents are dead.  There are some orphans in the system today but most are not.

The broad terms, or categories, used to describe the children in care are “at-risk, abused, neglected, or dependent”.  They are most often not orphans in the literal sense, but may be described as “orphans of the living” meaning they may have one or both parents living but not providing for them as parents should.

The children in our care, of all ages, are considered at-risk.  Without some intervention in their lives, many of these children’s risks range from their own premature deaths to a life of incarceration.  At a minimum, they each run the risk of never enjoying a “normal” childhood, an education, a hopeful future, or some basic happiness as a child.

We often refer to these kids as abused and neglected.  I was asked once the difference in abuse and neglect.  I think of abuse as things done to a child that should never happen to them and neglect as those things kept from a child that they should have experienced.

Beatings, all kinds of physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological domination, exposure to illicit sexuality, drug and alcohol exposure from their own parents describe some of the abuse the children endure.

The neglect stems from adults usually too involved in their own addictions or other self-centered activities to provide basic care for their children.  Children left to feed, clothe, care and supervise themselves are frequent residents of the child welfare system.  Young people and children of all ages who do not know the appropriate touching of a loving parent, the emotional, psychological and spiritual support everyone needs to develop as a healthy person are neglected.  Kids who do not feel safe, secure and wanted at home know the pain of neglect.

Some children are dependent.  They are not abused or neglected but for a variety of reasons cannot live with their parents or other extended family members.  These children need a place to live and grow until something changes at home allowing them to return.

I am not sure there is a “typical” child in the child welfare system or our care at KBHC.  Each child is a unique person with his or her own personal history.  We can categorize them according to their personal histories or clinical diagnoses, but once you get to know them personally as individual children, none are really “typical.”

Evangelicals and At-Risk Youth

Why aren’t more evangelical Christians involved in the rescue and care of our country’s abused, neglected and at-risk children and youth?  Yes, many are, but why do so many churches seem to ignore the pain and suffering of innocent victims of abuse and neglect all around them?  It hasn’t always been this way.

Before any public monies were available, it was people of faith, mostly the Christian faith, who began orphanages across America.  Today, with all the federal, state and local assistance available to fund human services, faith-based organizations still provide a tremendous amount of care to children, battered women, the homeless and disaster relief just to name a few of the services provided.  The lists of how people motivated by faith in God, the God of the Bible, reach out with compassion and generosity to those in need is long.

I have experience working with this population of children from a faith-based perspective.  My experience is there are some, usually women’s groups, who will involve themselves in some way in the care of these kids.  Some churches take an interest in the kids and invest not only volunteers but also financial resources in their ministries to at-risk children and youth.  But, my experience is this is a small percentage of churches and an even smaller percentage of financial resources dedicated to caring for these children.  Why?

It's my opinion that most evangelicals believe taking caring of these children is a work for social services, which is viewed as “outside” the church’s kingdom mission.  To focus on the physical, emotional and psychological needs of children does not rise to the “higher calling” of saving their souls.  Could evangelicals not be engaged in a “wholistic” approach to meeting the needs of “the least of these?”

Did Jesus feed the multitudes solely to perform another miracle or was it because the people were hungry?  The same question could be asked of many of Jesus’ miracles.  Was He interested only in their spiritual needs?  Or, did not the soul of Jesus himself ache when he witnessed the pain and suffering of those he met?  No doubt, as the scriptures declare, Jesus came to earth as the Savior of the world.  But, did His mission not include compassion for the hungry, diseased, displaced and abused all around Him?  Some He fed or touched later believed but many did not.  Jesus cared for all of them.

Children in the child welfare systems in Kentucky and across the country suffer from unthinkable abuse and neglect.  They often blame themselves for the terrible things done to them or for not receiving the adequate love and security adults should have provided them.  They are children who cannot learn or trust if they remain hungry.  They cannot comprehend a loving earthly or heavenly father when all the men in their lives have sexually abused them or never provided for their physical or emotional needs.  The family of God or any other family is a foreign concept to them.  All they have known is dysfunction, chaos, loneliness, fear and hopelessness.

Are children with these needs little people Jesus would pass by on His way to more important Kingdom needs?  Would He suggest the church ignore kids with these needs on our doorsteps to go elsewhere and spend our resources on others because we have placed a “higher evangelistic mission’s priority” on them?  Or, would he say something like, if you do good things and meet the needs of even the lowest among us you have done it to me as well.

Services to at-risk children do not always convert to numbers of professions of faith or baptisms.  Sometimes children touched by grace do believe and begin a life of obedience and faith.  But, have we served God any less or been any less faithful to our mission if the results of our efforts have “only” relieved a child’s fear, suffering and despair? 

So, even though some evangelicals do minister to at-risk children and youth all over the world, why don’t more of them invest more of themselves and their mission dollars helping the children literally on the steps to their church buildings?  Moreover, for whatever reason this population of children go down the priority list of worthwhile causes for evangelical Christians, what can we say or do to change their perspective?

While the children are away, the perpetrators get to stay…

They are removed from what they know to be home.  They spend the night with Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children or some other residential home.  Or they live with a foster family who has been trained and willing to care for them.  These are the 6,000 plus children in the state of Kentucky who have been removed from their homes because of substantiated reports of abuse.  While the child is removed, many times those who have done the abusing remain at home living their own life, sleeping in their own bed.

These young victims come to Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children with issues that come with being beaten, denied food, clothing, medical care, education, or the care and safety most parents gladly provide for their children.  These child victims come to Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children with little personal effects, and little self esteem.  They have been hurt physically, sexually and mentally.  For some they’ve rarely experienced a parents’ unconditional love, encouragement in school or guidance in making the right life choices.

When they step into the doors of a Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children residential facility they are met by staff who have been trained to understand their problems and who are ready to guide and care for that child.  Coming into a situation in which staff is ready to help and protect is very foreign to these children.  When a child has been abused for months or even years, they don’t know how to trust an adult who wants to help.  Throughout their time in our care, they are counseled through their emotions from their past, and given the opportunity to begin healing those hurts.  They learn that they do have value and can grow to be a productive citizen.

During their time with us, learning to trust, follow rules, and studying for school, these child victims struggle to leave the pain of their past.  It’s as if in their immature unknowing mind, the evil that they know is better than the struggle to overcome the hurts and learn that they can have a future.  It is our job to help them see past this, heal from their hurts and begin to hope.

The stories and situations these children are victims of are horrific; situations that most of us wince at and don’t want to think happens in our neighborhoods.  But it does.  The children at KBHC and Spring Meadows Children’s Home are our children, our future.  Working together, we will help, if not literally save their young lives, one child at a time.

KBHC chose to move to Mount Washington for a variety of reasons.  One of which was the “personality” of the community.  This community provides a wholesome, traditional setting in which we can serve these victims.  We invite the community to call us and ask questions, or schedule a tour.  We are located on Hope Street.

Why blog?

Why blog?  The American Heritage Dictionary next to my computer keyboard does not even have blog listed nor does the spell check function of my word processing software.  The closest word to blog in my handy dictionary is blob and is defined as “a soft, amorphous mass, or a splotch or color.”  I heard of bloggers long before I actually knew who they are and what they do.  A quick search on the net and the whole world of blogs is revealed covering just about any topic one wants to discuss or learn more about.  The blog is another by-product of the internet now used as a serious medium to convey information.  I have read a few blogs.  Some come closer to the definition of blob as defined above than serious information.  Nevertheless, the blogosphere is brimming with helpful information, controversial topics, opinions and opportunities for the exchange of the same.  Today, if you have something worthwhile to say, or just want to read your own thoughts, just create a blog and have at it.

As the president and CEO of Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children (KBHC), our agency and I have something to say.  We serve and are a voice for a population of children found in every state, county and municipality in America.  Children of all ages, social, economic, racial and cultural backgrounds fill this population seldom recognized by mainstream America.  I think of them as “shadow children.”  They are in the background, the shadows of the more normal life most of us enjoy and usually go unnoticed.  These kids are a large, growing group that is mostly unobserved except by those who interface with them in education, social work, medicine, law enforcement or some other helping service like KBHC.

These children, who look like yours and mine, are in the shadows of our churches, schools, homes and hospitals.  We seldom see them even though they are all around us.  We might hear about them and may even come face-to-face with them, but never actually meet them.  I think it may be we really do not want to see them.  To think of their pain may hurt us too much.  Their needs may cry for a compassionate response from us that may be more than we are willing to give.  They may simply remind us of the dis-ease and chaos in our midst that we would rather not acknowledge.

We refer to these children as at-risk.  At-risk is a label for real children with names, needs and lives to fulfill.  They are more than words and characters on a page in a novel or statistical study.  These are real children in our communities suffering physical, emotional and mental pain at the very hands of those who should be nurturing and caring for them.  Hands that should feed children beat and burn them or never lift the proverbial finger to sustain and nurture them.  The pain and abuse many of them endure is criminal and often their perpetrators are prosecuted.  Others are left to fend for themselves suffering a degree of neglect our society will not tolerate even for our animals.

Every night, thousands of children spend the night somewhere other than home and with someone other than their parents.  Their abuse and neglect is a two-edged sword.  Not only do they know the pain of abuse, but they also are the ones taken from their homes to live with strangers while their perpetrators sleep in their own beds.

Why blog?  We blog for the shadow children.  Maybe someone will read us, recognize a child being abused or neglected, and report it.  Perhaps someone will look beyond the obvious and into the shadows, see a child in need and offer help.  Others may want to support organizations like KBHC or get involved on the local, state or federal levels to provide more resources for these kids.  If nothing else, we blog to let others know that right down the street, just beyond the light of everyday life, just inside the shadows a child is hurting.  Maybe a reader of this blog will become in some way a healer and a source of hope to a child.

Our blog is devoted to raising awareness of the needs of at-risk children, the shadow children everywhere.  We welcome your input.