Her mission: Giving foster kids a `solid foundation'

Her mission: Giving foster kids a `solid foundation'

By ELLEN KANTER



Serving on Foster Care Review's citizen review panel, Sharon Jones
meets with abused kids, homeless kids, runaways and kids on drugs --
kids who never had what she and her husband Kenneth gave their own
eight children -- ``some solid foundation.''

Created in 1989, Foster Care Review is a nonprofit organization that
monitors children in foster care. Jones serves on one of the agency's
18 volunteer panels, which meets monthly at the Juvenile Justice
Center to assess each child's care. The panels make recommendations to
juvenile court judges with a goal of finding each child a permanent
home.

''We listen to all legal parties,'' explains volunteer coordinator
Angela Vela. ``The parents, attorneys, child and the private
provider.''

Jones serves with Janet Vicedomini, panel chair and a former Guardian
Ad Litem; Jacob Strick, a Broward Guardian Ad Litem, and Claudia
Hauri, a former foster mother who adopted her foster child, now 16.

''We make sure where the children are placed, is the social worker
visiting them . . . are they getting top medical care?'' says Jones.
Some of the questions they ask are, ''What is the foster parent's
background, how long has he or she been a foster parent, if there are
other children in the home.'' The panel works to see if the plan
created for each child is progressing, whether it's toward family
reunification or adoption. It involves IEP (Individual Education
Plan), TPR (termination of parental rights) and a world of acronyms
Jones rattles off with confidence.

She knows all the acronyms now, but didn't before volunteering with
Foster Care Review. She didn't even know much about foster care. She
was too busy bringing up her own kids.

''Being a stay-at-home mom was a great idea,'' she says. ``I wanted to
be the one to fix the PBJ, to make sure the homework got done, to see
the friends they were picking. The ones I wasn't happy with weren't
allowed in my home.''

Jones came to Foster Care Review two years ago, after celebrating her
30th wedding anniversary, after all her own ''very wonderful
children'' had grown and moved away.

''I don't know how I managed to pick foster care, but I'm glad I did.
Foster care has changed my heart so much,'' says Jones, who lives in
Carol City. ``It's a big responsibility, but I thank God we have
Foster Care Review.''

Before serving on the panel, Jones went through two days of training,
where she confronted child abuse for the first time.

''The training was awesome, but it was heartbreaking,'' she says. ``It
shook me up. I didn't believe a parent would be doing this, would
stoop that low to do that to a child.''

Training prepared Jones for what panel members can and cannot do.
Though she's been tempted to grab parents and talk sense into them,
''You learn you can't.'' She's also learned ``you can't be quick to
judge.''

''Sharon doesn't have any biases when she walks through the door. She
takes every case one by one. She can problem solve,'' Vela says.
``She's a great volunteer. She always puts a smile on my face.''

Jones, though, doesn't always feel like smiling. ''Oh, my God, I've
cried on the panel,'' she says.

''The worst is when you get a case and a child is sleeping in a park,
in a car, a child wandering the streets, lice in the hair. A mom may
have her child prostituting. We've gotten cases where a child hasn't
eaten, hasn't been fed,'' she says. ``The teenagers need someone to
help them with guidance. They're so lost.''

According to Foster Care Review, more than 5,300 children in
Miami-Dade are in out-of-home care. Their care is rarely a political
priority, though.

''They're not contributing money to PACs, they're too young to vote,''
Vela says. ``It's our responsibility to step up and take care of the
children.''

''I've asked my panel chair what else can we do,'' Jones says. 'I
don't feel we're doing enough. My husband says, `Honey, you can't save
the world,' but if we can save one child, we did something.''

Jones has seen it happen.

''Some kids come in with really big issues,'' she says. 'All they need
is one person to say, `You're doing OK.' Wow, it turns their life
around.''

Jones believes in the long term, it can turn around a whole community.

''By helping these children now, our purses won't be snatched, we
won't be hit upside the head, we can save this young lady from being
the next prostitute, we won't have to pay high taxes for the prison
system,'' she says.

The best way to help the children, Jones says, 'is to get to the
parents. I wish I could be the one to say, `Mom, what could I do to
help you and keep your child out of foster care?' This child is being
abused, but a foster home is not perfect, either.''

Though her children are grown, Jones hasn't outgrown her own motherly
instincts. She volunteers at Myrtle Grove Elementary, where all her
children went to school.

''I read to the kids and talk with them, the fourth-graders and
fifth-graders. I like to find out what's going on,'' says Jones, who
has recruited her husband for the school's upcoming career day. A
chief at the central garage for Miami-Dade Transit, he's bringing in
buses for the children to see. ''You've got to be there for the
kids,'' she says.

Jones always has been there for the kids, whether the children at
Myrtle Grove, those she meets through Foster Care Review or her own.
''I felt with my experience, I could give back to the community,'' she
says.

But you don't have to be a mom to do what she does.

''All it takes,'' she says, ``is concern.''
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