Karina Gonzalez
Over the last decade, the number of children crowding Los Angeles County foster homes has been cut in half (Department of Children and Family Services), and there’s no denying that Pierce College has played a part in relieving that pressure.
Since 1999, Pierce Extension has offered a variety of programs, such as PS-MAPP training for future foster parents, FKCE for existing foster parents and Project YESS for the purposes of helping youths in foster care to succeed in school.
Carol Bohn, who works in Pierce’s Community Services department, teaches a number of both FKCE (Foster and Kinship Care Education) courses through Pierce, and PS-MAPP (Permanence & Safety – Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting) courses through Mission College.
A foster parent of 12 children herself, Bohn highly recommends these classes not only for those interested in fostering children, but also for students perhaps interested in careers in related fields.
While not worth college units, these classes are free to everyone, whether they wish to obtain a foster parent’s license or simply to learn more about raising children.
“Anybody is welcome to come,” said Bohn. “I’ve had people from child development come to our classes, special assistance caregivers and teacher aides have come – teachers, assistant principals, nurses – the classes constantly change.”
The topics of these Saturday morning classes widely range, covering issues such as gang activity, children with special needs, video games and bullying.
KEPS (Kinship Education Preparation and Support) is another program offered through Pierce that aims to keep foster home overcrowding to a minimum.
“The idea behind it is: Instead of putting the child in foster care with people they don’t know, they place them with family members first,” explained Cindy Chang, Director of Community Services.
When children are taken away from their parents by the state, often a relative or extended family member will step in, or be asked to take care of the child. KEPS is designed to educate those people who may have otherwise had little to no experience caring for children.
These classes, like the ones for foster parents, teach caregivers not only how to care for a child physically and emotionally, but also how to care for themselves, given the circumstances.
Unlike foster parents, however, relative caregivers are not currently licensed by the state.
“When it comes to relatives, it’s very difficult to tell a grandparent or an aunt or uncle that they’re not qualified to take care of their own family … But because the feeling is that the children are better off with the appropriate family members, (relative caregivers) are not licensed by the state yet,” said Chang.
“There’s this balance we have to try to achieve – Ok, you don’t have enough beds? We’ll try to get you beds. They check the home for smoke alarms; if you don’t have them up, we’ll get ’em put up.”
All of these steps, she explained, are in an effort to keep these children who have lost their parents out of foster and group homes.
Another service offered through Pierce is Project YESS (Youth Employability Support Services), which is intended for youths in the foster system who are between 14 and 21 years old.
The first objective of Project YESS, according to Chang, is geared toward 14- and 15-year-olds, aiming to help them succeed on the California High School Exit Exam.
“For the 16- to 21-year-olds … we have 30 hours to teach them everything they need to know about life – about nutrition, about college, writing resumes, about getting employed, finding an apartment, getting their documents in order, financial aid … all that good stuff,” said Chang.
“Obviously, 30 hours is not enough time to teach somebody about life. But it gives them an idea – phone numbers, networking opportunities – and it connects them to Student Outreach here at Pierce,” she explained.
People interested in any of these free programs, and those who wish to work with special needs children, should contact Carol Bohn at (818) 710-4299 for more information.