Citing Church Policy,
State Agency Stops Placements In Tenn. Baptist Children's Home
By Erin Curry
Mar 30, 2004
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. (BP)--Despite a state
Department of Children's
Services decision to stop placing children in its care, the Tennessee
Baptist Children's Home intends to continue its 113-year history of
successfully meeting the needs of children in crisis.
At
issue is a mistaken assumption that all residential care is inferior to
foster care, a notion that prompted DCS to make various policy changes
stemming from a federal lawsuit nearly three years ago, said Bryant
Millsaps, president of the TBCH. The implications of that policy have
only recently made headlines, causing many to fear the TBCH would be
closing its doors.
Millsaps made clear to Baptist Press that
because it receives no money from the state and is completely funded by
private donations, the TBCH is in no danger of ceasing operations even
in light of the DCS decision.
"Placement of a child in the
Tennessee Baptist Children's Home doesn't impact our budget one bit,"
Millsaps, a former Tennessee secretary of state, said. "That means we
don't have to go out and get children to operate, nor do we have to
keep them to operate. We have the liberty of being able to place the
best interest of the child in front of everything else."
Currently,
the TBCH has 108 children in its care. Its capacity of 139 indicates
about 31 beds have been left empty by the loss of DCS referrals.
Even
so, with more than 10,000 children at risk in Tennessee, the TBCH
expects always to have referrals of children in need from pastors,
private organizations, law enforcement and juvenile judges.
The DCS complained that the TBCH requires children in its care to
attend church. But the TBCH is not backing down.
"We
believe a child needs to be in church," Millsaps said. "We believe a
child needs to know the Bible. The decision that any child or young
adult would make about whether or not they would become a professing
Christian is their decision. It's not ours."
Millsaps said he
has empirical data, including a study done for the National Commission
on Children at Risk by the Dartmouth Medical School, to prove children
are better off in authoritative, structured communities such as the
TBCH.
"They say the children who are in residential care who
have the highest probability of long-term life success -- breaking the
cycle of violence, the cycle of poverty, the cycle of ignorance -- are
those children in residential care that provides them with
faith-related and moral teachings," he said.
On the other hand,
Millsaps said, DCS has presented no data to support its claims that
residential, faith-based care is less beneficial.
The state government reviews the TBCH each year and renews its
operating license.
"Their
own licensing reports say that no one does it any better than we do,"
Millsaps said. "A couple years back, a report on [the Brentwood campus]
said that the most fortunate children in residential care in the state
are those who live at the Tennessee Baptist Children's Home. That's the
state's own records, not ours."
DCS has said it will resume
placement of children in TBCH care if the home will change its
requirement that children attend church, but Millsaps said he believes
the home should have the liberty to address the moral and spiritual
needs of every child it encounters.
"I really believe if the
Muslims in a community decided they wanted to underwrite a residential
care program, and people placed children there and were told on the
front end that if you come here, you come here understanding that
you're going to be at the mosque at the appointed time, and if you
can't embrace that you really need to go someplace else, I think the
Muslims ought to have the right to set that as a condition. I would
think any faith-based organization should," he said.
The
functional problem that arises with the DCS decision is that the number
of children at risk greatly exceeds the number of available foster
homes, making residential care a necessity either way.
"The
Department of Children's Services is scrambling all over the state and
appealing to churches of all denominations to provide foster homes,
which is kind of interesting," Millsaps said. "They're requesting for
pastors in communities to try to enlist foster families. The very
people they know are going to respond to them, on one hand they turn
around and say you can't require them to attend church. And that's one
of the reasons why so many people in the family of faith, regardless of
what church they attend, are reluctant to step up."
At the same
time, Tennessee Baptists have been faithful for 113 years to provide
residential care for needy children through their giving to the
Cooperative Program and other donations. They were in the faith-based
initiative business long before it was fashionable to talk about it,
Millsaps told Baptist Press.
"We've always done it this way," he
said. "In 1970, we quit having dormitories," he noted. "We left the
institutional age of residential childcare 35 years ago, and for some
reason the Department of Children's Services has yet to understand that
they're not taking us out of that era. We have been out of that era,
and we've gone on."
Children under TBCH care live in cottages
with house parents in a setting that resembles a common nuclear family.
The children attend public schools and participate in school and church
activities just like other children.
The state of Tennessee
spends $193 million on children in crisis each year, and of all the
places the state has ever placed children, the one they've never had a
problem with is the TBCH. The Baptist organization pays college tuition
for every young adult in their custody -- including 21 in the past two
years -- and it doesn't take a cent of state money.
"All we're
saying is, if in fact we have this crisis in the lives of children at
risk in Tennessee at the monumental proportions that everyone says we
do -- and we do -- why would you not want to take advantage of every
resource available to you, especially if people of faith will say we
will help you and not charge you anything?" Millsaps said.
The
root of the problem, Millsaps explained, is what he calls a deeply
ingrained attitude within the DCS that makes it difficult for them to
understand faith-based ministries such as TBCH.
"When that
attitude gets so deeply ingrained that it can no longer be challenged,
it takes on a life of its own," he said. "And because so many people
express the attitude, it has begun to be presented as factual. But
there is no credible empirical data that will support the assertion
that a child is worse off here than they would be in a foster home."
Millsaps
said by definition foster homes are not bad, and the thing that can
make foster home experiences bad is the same thing that can make
residential care experiences bad: people who don't do what they're
supposed to do.
"But in and of itself the foster experience is
not bad. We're not suggesting that the state not place children in
foster care," he said. "What we're suggesting is that they consider all
the resources available to them, whether it be foster care, adoptive
homes or residential care, and take advantage of those to be sure all
the critical needs of the over 10,000 children at risk in Tennessee are
addressed."
Millsaps said he will continue to raise awareness
among Tennessee Baptists that their children's home is not in danger,
continue to have discussions with DCS leadership, and continue to
respond to inquiries from the Tennessee General Assembly. He will also
do a lot of praying, he said, noting the TBCH employees would rather
spend their energy doing their job than explaining what they do.
"We're
going to be sure that we're obedient to the call of Scripture on our
ministry," he said. "We're going to be obedient to the investment that
Tennessee Baptists have made in this ministry for 113 years, and we
believe God will honor our faithfulness and that the children who need
our care will make their way here."