WHITE HATS

LOCAL GROUPS TO THE RESCUE



Medina Children's Services
From Housing Orphans to Mentoring At-Risk Teens, a Unique Agency Grows Up as It Helps Others to Grow

by Ruby Steele
Free Press Staff

What's in a name? If it's Medina, it likely calls to mind a wealthy, predominantly white, Eastside neighborhood, or perhaps a philanthropic institution of the same name.

Less renowned, less well-heeled, is Medina Children's Services, a private, non-profit organization located in the heart of Seattle's Central Area. For 72 years, the agency has served the needs of those with the least amount of power: children and minorities.

The progressive history and dedicated work of Medina's ethnically mixed, professional staff and board of directors are generally unrecognized.

From its beginnings as a home for orphaned babies - located in the town for which the agency is named - Medina has fought for funding and struggled against the tide to provide homes for those children who are the hardest to place: the disturbed and disabled, abused children, siblings who want to stay together, older kids and racial minorities.

Since 1921, its services have grown in proportion to the urgent needs of our society's children.

Early on, Medina recognized that adoption happened almost exclusively to healthy, white infants. As a response, the agency pioneered the adoption of "Children Who Wait" - putting an emphasis on older and disabled children.

The agency led Washington state's response to child abuse and, with help from the Junior League, Medina joined with other local agencies to develop a pilot program that evolved into Child Protective Services.

Recognizing that the vast majority of children awaiting adoption are minorities, Medina championed the adoption of such children by eliminating financial obstacles and offering support programs to prospective minority families to make it easier to adopt. It also helped found the first Washington state chapter of One Church, One Child by bringing Chicago's Father Clements to Seattle to focus local attention on the plight of minority children, who wait for adoption in numbers many times that of white children.

Father George Clements, an African-American priest, challenged churches at the center of the Black community to find just one caring family or person willing to adopt a minority child. It's a challenge that's been met by more than 300 churches in more than 20 states.

When record numbers of pregnant teens started keeping their babies in the '70s, Medina created the TAPP Interagency Program. TAPP - the Teenage Pregnancy, Parenting and Prevention program - brings a holistic solution to the problem of children having children.

The agency, in partnership with Seattle Public Schools, the Seattle/King County Health Department, Seattle community colleges and the City of Seattle, provides services to some 250 pregnant teens and teen parents in Seattle public schools. TAPP provides counseling and case management, academic and vocational services, day care and parenting education, pregnancy prevention and health services. The program also offers prenatal, childbirth and nutrition education. The Teen Outreach Program serves another 100 students considered to be "at risk" and makes pregnancy prevention education available to an additional 250 teens.

Turning its attention to young men, the agency has developed a new program to tackle the problems of teen males at high risk of becoming gang members, teen parents, school drop-outs or social-economic failures. Project MISTER - or Male Information and Services to Encourage Responsibility - offers case management, literacy courses, GED preparation, employability skills, pregnancy prevention, mentoring and life-skills training to young males 13 to 21 years of age.

Inner-city statistics throughout the nation tell a grim tale about the present and future of teen males, particularly minority teen males.

Arrest rates for African-American and Native American youths are disproportionately high. Youths five to 17 years of age from both of these minority groups are arrested at a rate double that for youths from the general population.


Medina championed the adoption of minority
children by eliminating financial obstacles and
offering support programs to prospective
minority families to make it easier to adopt.

Further, according to the US Census, unemployment among minority youths 16 to 21 is more than twice that of the general population over 22. Fifteen percent of youths between 14 and 21 are economically disadvantaged, yet only about 4 percent of those who would qualify for public assistance actually receive it, often because they are runaways without a permanent address. Teen fathers are 40 percent less likely to graduate from high school than other teen males.

Medina Children's Services' Project MISTER is one of the few model programs in the country that addresses these issues with a comprehensive program of direct services.

This is the identifying legacy and these are some of the substantive programs that make up Medina Children's Services, an agency that offers practical responses to the needs of children and families.

Medina welcomes community support and offers opportunities for volunteer action to all those who hope to leave a positive mark on our society. For more information, call Medina Children's Services at (425) 461-4520.



Karen Anderson contributed to this article.

White Hats is a regular feature of the Washington Free Press open to the presentation and discussion of non-profit agencies in Washington state making a contribution to the common good. Readers are encouraged to suggest agencies to be featured.

[Home] [This Issue's Directory] [WFP Index] [WFP Back Issues] [E-Mail WFP]

Contents on this page were published in the May, 1993 edition of the Washington Free Press.
WFP, 1463 E. Republican #178, Seattle, WA -USA, 98112. -- WAfreepress@gmail.com
Copyright © 1993 WFP Collective, Inc.