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September 8, 2008 | |||||||
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 First Things First An Interview with Karen Matson of First Place School Posted May 16, 2002 Is there any way to end the cycle of homelessness? Says one ground-breaking school, it's by dedicating heart and soul to the children. NEW Reader Responses are a goodthing! Join the conversation! Dear GoodLetter readers, We've all seen it. That huddled man in a dark doorway, struggling to keep warm with a threadbare blanket. The woman, looking far older than her years, standing at the intersection using a crumpled cardboard message to plead for the smallest token of help. These are the all-too-familiar images of the kind of abject poverty that persists in every town, city, and country around the world. Each year alone, it leaves as many as 3.5 million Americans, half a million Britons, half a million Australians, a quarter of a million Canadians -- just for starters -- without a place to call home. But no matter what your perspective is on the circumstances that cause homelessness, it is striking that at any given moment, 30 million to 170 million of the world's homeless are children -- children facing profound social stigma, children without support or security, and, significantly, children without the benefit of a stable education. GoodThings recently spoke with Karen Matson of Seattle's First Place School about the extraordinary steps it is taking in the global effort to break poverty's destructive cycle by providing substantive opportunities for homeless children. ~~~~~~~ GoodThings (GTS): First Place School opened in 1989. What was the inspiration? Karen Matson (KM): At the time, it was Seattle Public School's policy that if you did not have a permanent address, you could not attend public school. So four women started a school in a church basement for homeless kids whose families were staying in shelters. Since then, the school has grown and moved a number of times, and here we are in a recently renovated former temple in order to accommodate our expanded program. GTS: How many homeless families in the area around Seattle need essential services and how many are you reaching? KM: It's said that there are 7,300 homeless individuals every night throughout King County (up from 6,500 in 2000). Women and children make up about a third of that number. We have room for 70 children in our school, so at any time, we're reaching at least that many. We'll reach about 160 children in the course of a year, and their family members -- so about 525 people will be impacted by First Place this year. Since 1989, we've reached about 4,000 homeless children and families. GTS: How varied are the circumstances of the children at First Place? KM: We have one family who lived in 11 different places in the 30 days they were with us. That's probably the worst-case scenario. And then we have seven units of transitional housing, which we administer with the Seattle Housing Authority, for families who are in a one-year intensive program. They're pretty stable. They know where they'll be for a year and that really gives the parents a chance to learn some skills. Whether it's job skills, budgeting skills, relationship skills, or substance-abuse education, we can really focus and help them take some steps. Then, as another example, we have one family here where the mother is a Somali refugee, and she has no income. As a refugee, she doesn't qualify for any state and federal funding. It's amazing how they doing it. GTS: What is the cultural breakdown of the school? KM: It's about 70 percent African American, but we're very mixed: Hispanic, African American, Native American, Caucasian. GTS: Tell me about First Place School's Family Success Center. KM: The Family Success Center is a new outreach program that helps families with children not enrolled at First Place who are dealing with family or educational crises. We have gone to public schools in our neighborhood to talk to the staff counseling person about the services we offer -- the case management, the access to resources, and tutoring. Each time, we'll say, "How many families or kids in your school do you think you could refer to us?" Each school has from 100 to 250 kids they could refer to us. One example of someone we've reached through the Family Success Center is a middle-school girl who's 13 with a one-month-old baby. She came to us. The high schools have programs for unmarried mothers, but the middle schools do not. So we advocated for her -- to help her stay in her middle school classes, then find transportation and arrange for her to go to the high school for parenting classes, and also let her child be in the high school's daycare program. At the same time, we're working with her parents. There's obviously something else going on, and the family needs support. GTS: Talk a little bit about First Place School's comprehensive approach. KM: We believe in "wrap-around" case management. When you're enrolled here, you get your own case manager. We help with basic clothing and food needs. We really enroll the whole family. We bring parents in for counseling and case management. We recognize that if a family is moving four times, 14 times in a month, that not having your math homework might not be that important. The case managers and teachers work very closely together so they can help support the child, so that if there's something deeper going on, the teacher knows to let things be. We have testing, so even though you're eight years old, we don't just start you at the third-grade math book. We understand when you might really in the first-grade level. So we work with your teacher to do some tutoring, do some individual work, and then bring you up to that third-grade level. That way, when you leave, we can say to the new school, "This is the kind of support he or she needs." We try to be real advocates while the children are here, as well as when they leave. One of the programs our executive director has in mind is an electronic portfolio, where each student would have a Web page where they could post their work. But the part that I think is most exciting is that when they leave, they'd have a CD with their work burned on it. But not only that -- also their immunization records, their transcripts, all of that information. We've had families come in, and we'll ask, "Do you have the child's immunization records? They'll often say, "No, we lost them. Just give them all the shots again." What are you going to do? Immunizations aren't the biggest problem these families have. They're trying to find housing, trying to find a job or even health care. GTS: How is First Place funded? KM: We have great support. 80 percent of our funding is from individual donations. We get a little bit of money from the school district, mostly in-kind through transportation and food. We get some state funding. We have great supporters, like Microsoft, the Gates Foundation, Saxton Bradley, the wives of the Seattle Mariners baseball team, and Starbucks. We're also working closely right now with the University of Washington on a technology program to add a cataloging system to our library. GTS: What kinds of things do people donate to First Place? KM: Books, clothing, Safeway supermarket gift certificates, cash -- to operate, to have money to turn the lights on, to keep the teachers paid. During last year's holiday season, we had all of our families adopted for holiday gifts. Also, when we move people into our housing, we have people donate pots and pans or sheets and towels, a chair or a bed, because the people leaving take all that with them. More often than not, the people coming in don't have anything, so we have great donors who help us with that as well. GTS: What kinds of things do your 350 volunteers do? KM: Volunteers run the clothing bank. They are tutors. They are mentors. They help with special events. We have a lot of classroom volunteers. They keep this place humming! 
GTS: What is First Place's perspective on the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which was reauthorized in January? McKinney-Vento emphasizes "mainstreaming" and withholds federal funds from schools that have specific programs for homeless kids. How has First Place been affected?KM: McKinney-Vento is a US law that encourages mainstreaming of all sorts of protected groups, homeless included. The law's Subtitle 8B affects school districts' federal funding and, from this point forward, will make it impossible for Seattle Public Schools to fund us or allow us certification under their umbrella authorization. As a result, First Place will receive fewer funds. To our credit, or by coincidence, we primarily operate via the private funding of individuals, foundations and corporations. So the Board and leadership of First Place have elected to apply for private school status -- or independent school status -- in order to continue operating as both a school and agency. We could have easily closed our doors, but we chose to add outreach. So it's not that we're less available to children who are homeless and in crisis and need us, but it's that we're now open to more of them -- you don't have to be homeless, but, for example, you could be a somewhat stable immigrant family that just needs extra help. We're going into the schools and asking, "So there's truancy? Is it that the child isn't really that much a behavioral truant as they're three grade levels behind?" Why would you want to go to school? We can help with testing and mentoring. We've got kids coming in every night who want to be tutored. One was a former student of ours who wanted to be in the Fast Track program, where you get into college earlier by doing college work while you're still in high school. She's an at-risk kid, but she really wants to go places. And then there's the other kid who's three grade levels behind but just needs some special attention to get re-connected. So McKinney-Vento may have forced us to rethink our mission, but ultimately, we're really just adding more benefit for more kids. GTS: We reach 60,000 GoodLetter subscribers all over the world. What would be the best way they could get involved in the work of First Place School or schools like it near them? KM: Right now, the best way is with financial support. We are preparing to have our own transportation and food service this fall, and we are serving more children and families than ever. I would also say that we cherish all of our volunteers. If people want to get involved, we have a lot of people who come and want to work with kids. We need more mentors. We do need gifts of in-kind stuff, but we're really blessed, so we're not the organization that needs that old computer in your basement any longer. And we are thankful. :: GOODTHINGS (Thoughts on this GoodLetter? Inspired by what you've read? E-mail us -- don't forget to tell us your name, where you're from, and if we can use your words in a future GoodLetter or on our Web site.) |
TALK ABOUT IT What programs near you are helping disadvantaged children get a chance at a brighter future? Share your stories and ideas. LEARN ABOUT IT :: Please visit the Web site of Seattle's First Place School :: Homeless resources around the world :: Children's Defense Fund :: Phoenix, Arizona's Thomas J. Pappas School :: National Coalition for the Homeless :: National Center for Homeless Education :: National Public Radio's series on educating homeless children :: Tolerance.org :: Homeless Children's Network :: McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT :: Donate directly to First Place School :: Get ideas from the National Coalition for the Homeless and get involved Readers Respond Want to share your thoughts or ideas with other people who care about good things? Send 'em our way.
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