Grandfather Home for Children and Barium Springs Home for Children to Merge
New Entity Becomes One of NC’s Largest Child Welfare Service Providers
(Banner Elk, NC and Statesville, NC – March 2014) Two of North Carolina’s oldest and most respected child welfare agencies, Grandfather Home for Children and Barium Springs Home for
Children, will merge effective April 1 to better serve the state’s most at-risk children and their families as the provision and funding of their care undergo unprecedented change.
For many years, Grandfather Home for Children has operated as a subsidiary of an umbrella organization called Homes for Children. After the merger, Barium Springs Home for Children will become
another subsidiary of Homes for Children. The parent company, Homes for Children, will have a board of directors equally represented by Barium Springs and Grandfather Home for Children.
By combining assets, the two agencies will become one of the largest child welfare providers in North Carolina, with a projected operating budget of $35 million and more than 360 employees and 350
foster families who serve some 3,500 children in 63 counties.
Grandfather Home is based in Banner Elk and has five offices in Asheville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Waynesville and Winston-Salem. Barium Springs has 13 offices across central and western North Carolina.
Core services for both agencies are adoption, foster care, and comprehensive treatment for traumatized or neglected children delivered in residential, outpatient and in-home settings.
Barium Springs and Grandfather Home already have closely aligned missions and their leaders believe the merger will enhance and expand the scope of services, provide a larger operating footprint
and continuum of care, and deliver operational efficiencies.
“These two great organizations share strong commitments to helping at risk children and families, and an affinity to provide the highest quality services. Joining them will maximize our resources in a way
that enables us to serve more of our fellow citizens in need,” said John Koppelmeyer, chief executive officer of Barium Springs who will become chief executive officer of the merged entity. “Each agency
has evolved to meet the increasingly complex needs of our most vulnerable children and families. With the ever-changing behavioral health environment, we must continue to seek innovative solutions
that help us to provide needed services more efficiently and maintain stable, sustainable growth.”
Merger talks began more than six months ago as both agencies considered major shifts in their field, said Bill Wasulko, board chair of Homes for Children. Ongoing pressure on state and federal
budgets had resulted in a decrease of more than $90 million for child welfare services in North Carolina since 2010, he noted.
“While marking our 100th anniversary, we were celebrating a rich history of service while looking to the future and how to sustain our faith-based mission and vision,” Wasulko said. “Bringing together
two of the oldest and much admired child service providers in North Carolina just made sense.”
The merger joins two agencies that are complementary in their strengths, cultures and vision, their leaders said. Both were established as orphanages by the Presbyterian Church; Barium Springs in
1891 and Grandfather in 1914. With more than 100 years of service each, the two nonprofits share a long-time commitment to children and a significant place in North Carolina history – two important
factors in the decision to retain their names, operating boards and original campuses.
“The future of our state depends on the foundation on which we raise our children to become healthy and flourishing citizens,” said Rhett Mabry, Vice President of The Duke Endowment—a private
foundation that has been a long-time supporter of Barium Springs and Grandfather Home. “I am proud of these two organizations and their ability to come together at a time when we need stable
providers with more capacity to assist North Carolina’s children and families in crisis.”
About Grandfather Home for Children
Grandfather Home for Children is a Christian, nonprofit ministry providing love and healing to more than 600 children every year. The children served by Grandfather Home have experienced deep hurt
and trauma from neglect and/or abuse. Since 1914, Grandfather Home has provided a nurturing environment to children in need at the ministry’s main campus in Banner Elk, NC and in other locations.
Today, the campus hosts residential care programs and serves as the hub for an array of carefully-targeted services including residential, psychiatric, foster and adoptive care. Grandfather Home has
offices in Asheville, Banner Elk, Charlotte, Raleigh, Waynesville and Winston-Salem. For more information, please contact 828-898-5465 or www.grandfatherhome.org .
About Barium Springs Home for Children
Founded in 1891, Barium Springs Home for Children is committed to a safe and nurturing family life for every child in North Carolina. Serving over 3,000 children and families last year, Barium Springs
provides residential care programs, foster care and adoption programs. The nonprofit also provides outpatient therapy and educational, prevention and developmental programs. With 13 office
locations throughout central and western North Carolina, Barium Springs currently employs more than 200 professionals providing services in 41 NC counties. For more information, please contact
Barium Springs at 704-872-4157 or visit www.bariumsprings.org
PATH names former foster youth, Hank Marotske, BSW, MBA as Director of Organization Communication & Development
(Idaho, March 2014)-Hank brings 20 years of experience in public relations, community service and national child welfare consultation. From his experience, he has gained specialized expertise ranging
from operational management, productivity improvement, budgeting to marketing, identification of new revenue streams, and fundraising strategy development. He completed a Master’s of Business
Administration with an emphasis on executive leadership, strategy and non-profit management from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota and a Bachelor of Arts in social work from the
University of St. Thomas.
Mr. Marotske has joined PATH as a full time employee and will focus on fund development, branding, public relations, and the creation and management of major grant income.
“It’s rare to have the opportunity to be able to hire someone who has such a great resume, who grew up in foster care with PATH, and personally can share our incredible mission and results. PATH is
very excited to welcome Hank!” – William A. Metcalfe, CEO
Hank has been with PATH since 1987 starting as a foster child till 1994 when he aged out of the system. In 1998 he started his career as a licensed social worker. He served as PATH’s first therapeutic
supports worker from 1998 to 2001; and serving on the PATH Board of Directors from 2010-2014.
PATH is a private non-profit child and family services agency. The agency has roots starting in1972 in Minnesota extended into North Dakota in 1994 and Idaho in 2008.
Report: States' Choices Decide if Former Foster Youth Get Healthcare
(WASHINGTON, April 2014)-The Center for Law and Social Policy has issued the following news release:
A little-known Affordable Care Act (ACA) provision has the potential to improve the health of young adults who often have significant health care needs and are more likely to be uninsured than their
peers: former foster youth. But a new report finds that, like better-known ACA provisions, states' implementation decisions will effectively determine whether these youth who have experienced abuse
and neglect and spent time in foster care get access to the care they need.
The Affordable Care Act and Youth Aging Out of Foster Care: New Opportunities and Strategies for Action www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/publication-1 recommends specific actions states
can take to successfully enroll and cover youth under this provision.
The paper was co-authored by Dina Emam www.urban.org/expert.cfm?ID=DinaEmam, research associate at The Urban Institute, and Olivia Golden www.clasp.org/experts/olivia-golden, executive
director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). It was commissioned by the State Policy, Advocacy, and Reform Center, an initiative housed at the bipartisan children's advocacy organization
First Focus and funded by two philanthropies with long-standing track records of investment in preventing and effectively responding to child abuse and neglect: the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the
Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative.
"One of the most popular parts of health reform is coverage for kids up to age 26 on their parents' insurance. The law affords equal treatment for youth who aged out of foster care, having spent time in
care as a result of abuse or neglect," said First Focus President Bruce Lesley.
The ACA requires states to provide Medicaid coverage for young adults under age 26 who "aged out" of foster care and were receiving Medicaid at that time. The provision took effect this year. Like the
coverage for young adults up to age 26 on their parents' policies, this requirement applies in all states - not just in states that have chosen to expand Medicaid.
Tens of thousands of young people who have aged out of foster care in recent years are now eligible for coverage. Between 20,000 and 30,000 foster children typically age out of foster care each year,
meaning that they reach the age at which foster care ends in their states without having been adopted, reunified with their parents, or placed with guardians. If effectively implemented, the ACA provision
could cover nearly 100,000 young adults through 2017 alone.
The paper recommends eight steps states can take to maximize the provision's reach and value:
* Automatically enroll children aging out of foster care this year;
* Coordinate child welfare and Medicaid agency outreach efforts to find and enroll former foster youths who aged out before 2014;
* Train Medicaid agency staff on the ACA's special eligibility and benefits provisions for former foster youth;
* Train child welfare agency staff to help former foster youth - many of whom have been uninsured their entire adult lives - get the care they need;
* Design Medicaid benefits that respond to the distinct health needs of former foster youth, by connecting Medicaid staff with child welfare agency staff;
* Recognize that former foster youth typically face extraordinarily unstable lives, and prioritize continuity in health care as a way to offer stability;
* Ensure that former foster youth who aged out of care in other states can cross state lines without becoming uninsured, and
* Explore strategies for ensuring that former foster youth who enter guardianship rather than aging out also can count on health insurance.
"This provision matters greatly to the life prospects of former foster youth, because the research shows that they experience disproportionate health and mental health challenges compared to other
young adults," said Golden. "It is a particularly powerful example of the broader potential of the ACA to open doors for poor and vulnerable families, including those involved in the child welfare system,
by treating medical and behavioral health problems that previously caused enormous suffering and hindered success in school, on the job, and as parents."
While the ACA provision is new, some states have experience to build on in implementing these steps.* For example, take step 1, automatic enrollment. Urban Institute researchers studied states that
implemented a similar (but much shorter) extension of health insurance to former foster youth under the so-called Chafee option, finding that states such as Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Washington,
that automatically enrolled youth in Medicaid as they aged out, were more likely to keep them covered by health insurance than states that required youth to take extra steps. An early example of Step 7
is California where state law now extends Medicaid eligibility to otherwise-eligible young adults who aged out of foster care in other states.
"States can be heroes for young people facing incredible odds, but that means making the right policy choices," said Lesley.
The Affordable Care Act and Youth Aging Out of Foster Care draws from Golden's and Emam's "How Health Care Reform Can Help Children and Families in the Child Welfare System: Options for
Action."
The latter paper was published by the Urban Institute's Low-Income Working Families project with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
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