PINELLAS COUNTY – Current wisdom – and traditional wisdom, as well – says that it takes a village to raise a child.
Gulf Coast Community Care works to make that a reality for about 85 county children by matching them with adult mentors, some as young as 30, through their Adopt-a-Grandchild and Linking Lifetimes programs.
Another 60 children, mostly elementary and middle school age, wait for volunteers to take them to the park or read stories to them.
At a recent open house at the Largo Library, only two prospective volunteers showed up to hear case manager Janet Shideman, outreach coordinator Karen Christensen, and volunteer mentor Betty Lou Grunwald explain the program.
James West of St. Petersburg, a mentor for the past three years, feels more people should help.
“So often we as adults criticize our young people,” West said. “Rather than be critical, we need to be there to guide them.”
West, whose five children are grown and living in New York and England, serves as a surrogate grandfather to Kenneth, an 8-year-old boy who is the oldest of five children.
“That’s how the Adopt-a-Grandchild program began almost 30 years ago,” said Beverly Craft, another case manager with Gulf Coast Community Care.
Craft said agency workers saw many older adults who had retired to Florida and whose grandchildren still lived up north. Workers also saw many families with young children but with no grandparents living nearby.
The Adopt-a-Grandchild program matches older adults with children from infants to age 16. Linking Lifetimes matches volunteers specifically with middle-school children. Gulf Coast Community Care, funded partly by the Juvenile Welfare Board, is a division of Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services which has another mentoring program, Yad B’Yad, matching Jewish youth from single-parent families with Jewish mentors.
Parents wanting a mentor for their child do not have to meet any particular requirements, according to Shideman. Adults wanting to be mentors must be at least 30 years old, must attend a three-hour training session, and go through several background checks including fingerprinting and drug testing. They also must be willing to spend a minimum of two to four hours per week for one year with the child.
Shideman said a case manager meets with the parents, the child, and the mentor at the first visit. After the mentor and child get to know each other a bit, the case manager asks each privately if they would like to see more of each other. Additional reviews take place after three months, after six months, and after one year; case managers are also always available by telephone.
“We try to match adults and children with similar interests,” Shideman said.
Grunwald said she combs the newspapers to see what’s coming up that she and the child she has mentored the past seven years can do together.
“I don’t do the typical cookie baking or arts and crafts things,” Grunwald said, adding that sometimes they do volunteer work together.
“She performed some of her cheerleading routines at a nursing home,” Grunwald said.
“We go out about town, sometimes to museums and sometimes fishing,” West said, adding that he also helps Kenneth with his schoolwork and, with Kenneth’s parents’ permission, takes him to church with him.
Dawn and Kendra are Clearwater moms, both disabled to some extent, with elementary school age daughters, one with two teenaged brothers and one an only child, who have been in the program almost three years. Both said their daughters call their mentors “Grandma” and said they appreciate someone taking their daughters out and doing things with them.
“There’s a lot of mornings I’m parenting from my bed because I’m too stiff to get up,” Kendra said.
Kendra said her daughter’s mentor attends her daughter’s basketball games and school functions during the six months she is here in Florida. The other six months she lives in Scotland, and the families communicate by e-mail and telephone.
Dawn’s daughter, Katlin, chatters enthusiastically about having an “extra grandma.” One of Katlin’s own grandmothers lives in New Jersey, the other died some time ago.
“I went to a parade with her close to our house and got a lot of beads,” Katlin said. “And I like to go to her house and play with her dog.”
“It gives her a break from me,” Dawn said with a laugh.
Gulf Coast Community Care has 60 children waiting for adults who will be their special friends.
“We especially need mentors in the St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park areas,” said Janet Shideman, case manager for the Adults Mentoring Children intergenerational program.
Gulf Coast Community Care provides an initial three-hour orientation and training program for volunteers. They also offer periodic voluntary training in specific areas such as child abuse and AIDS awareness. A case manager assigned to each family with a child being mentored works with the mentor and the family if any questions or problems arise.
Call Gulf Coast Community Care at 479-1831 or 479-1841.
