Aug 27, 2008 12:43 pm US/Pacific
Fostering Connections for Kids in Need
Jefferson Award Winner: Toni Heineman
(CBS 5)
"One child, one therapist, for as long as it takes," Toni Heineman says definitely.
It's a simple idea that has become a powerful force. Fourteen years ago, Toni started "A Home Within" - a non-profit that matches kids in foster care with private therapists in the community. She got the idea after seeing kids referred to clinics and bouncing from intern to intern.
"What we want them to have is stability, and so if we could give them one therapist and that therapist can work with them for as long as it takes, and stay with them through those losses, that would be.. well, that's what were trying to do," Toni explains.
Wendy Von Wiederhold was one of the first psychotherapists to volunteer
"When I heard about what Toni was doing, what Toni and the founders were doing, it made so much sense to me," says Wendy.
She signed up to give private weekly therapy sessions to a foster youth, free of charge.
Toni says, "We ask them to do it until the work comes to a natural close, rather than because of some administrative decision or because the funding ran out."
Thirteen years later, Wendy is now the Program Director for the organization, and her connection with her young client continues.
"He is in better shape than he would've been without the relationship and without the consistency of one person who keeps in mind and who thinks about him and who cares about him," she says.
Today, Toni's program has grown from helping a handful of kids, to serving more than two hundred foster care youth; each and every one, for as long as it takes.
Toni says, "What we're trying to do through the therapy is give them a home that they can carry with them when they go place to place if they have to. And that's the home that we all carry within ourselves."
A Home Within has been recognized throughout the community and now has twenty chapters nationwide. For the therapists who volunteer, there are professional meetings for education and mentoring.
With California having more foster children than any state in the country, Toni sees her organization as bringing help to an overburdened system.
She says, "All these children need is a stable, lasting relationship. In order to thrive, children need at least one stable relationship with an adult who can care for them."
So for creating a network of therapists that helps bring stability to the lives of foster children, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Toni Heineman.
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