Youth & Shelter Services, Inc.

Diversity Letters From the CEO

National Adoption Month by George Belitsos, YSS CEO

November is National Adoption Month and provides Youth and Shelter Services a platform to celebrate and thank those who have opened their hearts and homes to a child.  YSS staff, in partnership with Iowa KidsNet, leads the endeavor to recruit, train, license, and provide support services to over 500 foster/adoptive resource families in the 27-county North Service Area. Among these 500 homes, there are many treasures that enhance and change young lives for the better each and every day. In honor of National Adoption Month I’d like to recognize just one of these compassionate families.

 

At first glance, Norman “Storm” and Cheryl Seymour might not seem to be out of the ordinary.  They are a Native American home and reside on the Meskwaki Settlement in Tama, Iowa.  Norman is a musician and stay-at-home father, while Cheryl is employed full-time by the Center of Religion, Spirituality, and Social Justice at Grinnell College.  However, beyond these characteristics, Norman and Cheryl have an extraordinary mission: to provide a safe, warm, stable home environment with love for children in order for them to get a good start in life.  

The Seymours have opened their home and their hearts to nearly 40 foster children over the past nine years.  They recently adopted their sixth child from foster care, Nathaniel Max Lambert Seymour. Nathaniel joined the Seymour family when he was four months old, and his adoption was finalized in January of this year.

The Seymour family is currently fostering another family of four siblings, bringing their current total to ten children. 

“These are our children - they have become ours. We are richly blessed to have this opportunity to raise these children, and we can’t imagine what our lives would have been like without them,” Norman said.

“We are the lucky ones,” Cheryl said. “We feel that we are a family - father, mother and children. Our children are birthed in our hearts, they are united by love. Adoption is forever, these are our children. They are our chosen ones.”

“It has been said that adoption is more like a marriage than a birth: two (or more) individuals, each with their own unique mix of needs, patterns, and genetic history, coming together with love, hope, and commitment for a joint future. You become a family not because you share the same genes, but because you share love for each other,” Cheryl said.

Norman and Cheryl became involved in the foster care system as a way to help the community they lived in and as a chance to give back.  They took the classes to become certified for foster care that were offered on the Settlement and then also took adoption classes at Marshalltown Community College.

Throughout their foster care and adoption involvement, the Seymour family has developed a strong, supportive relationship with their YSS Support Specialist worker, Carol Leland.  Carol began helping the Seymour family by renewing their license annually and has become responsible for the dual role of licensing and support. 

Seymour Family  

As a YSS Support Specialist, Carol is responsible for providing assistance to Foster and Pre-Adoptive families to maintain a stable placement and prevent disruption.  This entails providing crisis response, behavioral interventions, information and coordination of counseling services to arranging for recreation, respite, and other supportive activities.

In honor of National Adoption Month, I salute the Seymours for their caring support of children in need and Carol for her dedication to YSS  families.

Our YSS adoption programs provide solutions for children and youth who are in desperate need of a forever family.  Because creating a new family is such an important and life-changing process, YSS, through KidsNet, offers a full range of services to foster care and adoptive parents and youth.  If you are interested in exploring adoption and foster care call KidsNet at 1-800-243-0756, or go to the YSS website, www.yss.org.

Sincerely,

George Belitsos
CEO, Youth & Shelter Services Foundation, Inc

 

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Immigration Fuels Diversity by George Belitsos, YSS CEO

With the current national debate on immigration, I thought I would share a very positive story about a young man who is just one of many homeless immigrants currently being served by Youth and Shelter Services.

Gatluak Yol’s family is originally from the Sudan, Africa and a part of the Nuer Tribe. His mother and father migrated to Ethiopia due to a bitter civil war going on in Sudan. They lived in poverty without adequate housing, and they lacked many of the basic necessities of life, such as clothing and food. Because of the violence and prejudice present in his home nation, Gatluak sought to come as an immigrant to the United States in order to obtain an education, find safety and know security.

Gatluak successfully applied for political refugee status and was allowed to come to the United States while in his early teens but his parents could not come with him. At the age of 16, Gatluak found himself in Marshalltown, living with his sponsor, who was soon going to move to Alaska. This move left Gatluak on his own. Abandoned by his sponsor, he found himself homeless.

Gatluak became aware of the Transitional Living Program (TLP) through Youth and Shelter Services of Marshall County and completed and assessment with the YSS case manager. He qualified for the program, and his sponsor provided the necessary consent for Gatluak to take advantage of the YSS service. 

Since his admission into the program, Gatluak has reached many goals and accomplishments, including graduating from high school at the age of 17, despite his limited English speaking abilities, finding and maintaining part-time employment at a local Hy-Vee store and saving $2,800.

More recently Gatluak has obtained full-time employment with Swift and Company. This job will allow for him to receive benefits after 90 days of employment. He plans to get a driver’s license, for which he is currently studying, and to purchase a car. 

With the help of his YSS case manager Gatluak, now 18, also gained the knowledge of how to budget his money, how to maintain and upkeep an apartment of his own and plans to further his education at Marshalltown Community College where he will receive financial aid to attend.

To date, Gatluak has completed one semester of college at  MCC. He hopes to attend Iowa State University in the near future. He would also like to start work on obtaining his green card. Gatluak has overcome many difficult barriers in his journey forward. In spite of all of his hardships and obstacles, Gatluak has continued to help financially support his family in Ethiopia, whom he has not seen once over the past six years. 

Gatluak has been an inspiration and a role model to many others in the YSS Transitional Living program and has the motivation and confidence to accomplish his goals in life.

The Youth and Shelter Services’ Transitional Living Project, that Gatluak is a part of, opens doors to self-sufficient living. The program serves homeless youth, ages 16-21, who can not live safely with a relative and have no other safe living arrangement. 

The program emphasizes everyday living skills such as budgeting, problem solving and job seeking. Residents must be willing to participate in an educational program or to maintain full- or part-time employment and agree to save a portion of their income. 

The goals of the program are to assist and support homeless youth, male or female, for up to 18 months in their transition to self-sufficiency and to prevent long-term dependence on welfare.

I am proud of Gatluak’s accomplishments and of our YSS staff members who helped him along the way to achieve many of the goals that he has set for himself.  In fact, we are so proud of Gatluak that he was recently given the YSS Reggie Kelsey Award for youth achievement.

He is a role model as an immigrant and gives us all hope that more immigrants can succeed to become contributing members of U.S. society.

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To the Editor of the Marshalltown Times Republican:


The Swift raids tore apart families and left children frightened and in limbo.   Of immediate concern to Youth and Shelter Services of Marshall County are these children and youth.  It is not right that they should be separated from their parents, even in the event of a crackdown on undocumented workers.  The separation is traumatic and devastating for these kids.  The Swift raids certainly raise serious concerns about the governments’ commitment to human and civil rights.

Statistics from “Connect for Kids” tell us that the U.S. foreign-born population is at an all-time high, estimated at 34 million, nearly twelve percent of the U.S. population.  Children of immigrants make up 22 percent of the 23.4 million children under age 6 in the U.S.  More than a quarter of their parents are undocumented.  However, because these children were born in the United States, they have all of the same rights and privileges of any children born here – even though their parents do not.  Altogether, children of immigrants comprise more than 26 percent of all low-income children in the U.S.

The U.S. was built by immigration and has maintained its vitality through continued immigration.  It is easy for me to associate my own experience with the worker group.  My four grandparents were all young adult immigrants from Greece.  They sent money home to their parents who lived in poverty.  They came to this country to make a better life for their own children, which was certainly accomplished.  It is also true that they did not embrace U.S. culture and did not learn to read or write English – that was left to the next generation.  Many who read this letter will, I am certain, attest to the fact that this was true in their families, as well.  At that time, however, our officials had at least a tenuous handle on the situation and knew who was arriving within shores. 

I am sure that most who violate our borders, do so because our country offers hope and opportunity for workers.  They want only to earn an income impossible to achieve in their homeland.  American business finds it advantageous to give them the jobs that many Americans find undesirable.  It is totally understandable that they want to send money home to care for their families who are often living in poverty.

The current U.S. immigration process is ponderous, penalizing, and counter productive.  The lack of temporary and permanent work visas does not recognize the demographics and economic reality in the U.S.

We must let our Iowa congressional delegation know that we can no longer wait for comprehensive immigration reform.  The most unfortunate and innocent victims of this situation will continue to be the children.

Sincerely,
George Belitsos
Chief Executive Officer
Youth and Shelter Services, Inc.

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Immigration reform can't wait
It is heartbreaking to those of us who serve families to witness the aftermath of the Marshalltown Swift raids.  Of primary concern were the 109 children and youth suddenly separated from their parents.  The separation was traumatic for these kids and certainly raises serious concerns about the government’s commitment to human and civil rights.  Within weeks of the raid, some of the undocumented workers were released from detention centers to ensure that at least one parent could care for the children.  However, months later there are still families who are torn apart and in limbo.
 
For example, one father is staying in Marshalltown to work (he is a legal resident), while his wife was deported to Mexico.  He is with their three older children, ages 11, 9, and 7.  He drove to the border to give his wife their three-month-old and five-year-old to take care of.  He must stay to work, to provide for them all, while the children suffer the loss of their mother.  The needs of this and many other families are intense as they try to decide what their next step will be.  Many have a spouse or parent who was deported or is detained.  Others are awaiting a court date to see what their “fate” will be.  That means that for some there is no income and the family is separated.
 
The U.S. was built by immigration and has maintained much of its economic and social vitality through continued immigration.  Statistics from “Connect for Kids” tell us that the U.S. foreign-born population is at an all-time high, estimated at 34 million, nearly 12 percent of the U.S. population.  Children of immigrants make up 22 percent of the 23.4 million children under age 6 in the U.S.  More than a quarter of their parents are undocumented.  However, because most of these children were born in the United States, they have all of the same rights and privileges of any children born here – even though their parents do not.
 
I am sure that most who violate our borders do so because our country offers hope and opportunity for workers.  They want only to earn an income impossible to achieve in their homeland.  American business finds it advantageous to give them the jobs that many Americans find undesirable.
 
The current U.S. immigration process is very complex and counter productive.  The shortage of temporary and permanent work visas does not recognize the demographics and economic reality in the U.S.  We need a temporary worker program to allow foreigners to fill jobs.  Illegal immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for five or more years (7 million) should be granted citizenship if they remain employed, have background checks, pay back taxes and learn English.  Those who have lived here two to five years (3 million) should be able to apply for a temporary work visa.  Undocumented workers who are newer arrivals in the U.S. (less than 2 years) must be required to leave the country and could apply for spots in the guest worker program.  Our borders must then be sealed to illegal immigration.
 
Bipartisan congressional legislation identical to that described above failed to pass last year.  After months of deliberation, politics got in the way of good public policy.
 
We must let our Iowa congressional delegation know that we can no longer wait for comprehensive immigration reform.  This is an overwhelmingly important issue which needs immediate legislative attention.  Here in Iowa this is a family and hometown issue and not a security or terrorism threat.  Many businesses rely on the migrant workforce, and the issue is very relevant to Iowa’s economy and population growth.  The most unfortunate and innocent victims of congressional delays will continue to be the innocent children.

Sincerely,
George Belitsos

 

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