BGCT child-care agencies describe state’s needs_111703

Posted: 11/14/03

BGCT child-care agencies describe state's needs

By Miranda Bradley

Texas Baptist Children's Home & Family Services

LUBBOCK–When a beautiful little girl shows up at South Texas Children's Home with 6-inch cigarette burns all over her body, it causes Christi Haag to shudder a little, despite the fact she has been around the ministry 28 years.

“At one point, you think you've seen and heard it all, then you discover another way someone has abused a child. You think I'd get used to it, but I cry all the time,” said Haag, sponsor director at the children's home.

But these stories are all too common among the institutional ministries serving troubled children and families across Texas. Whether in San Antonio or in the Panhandle, each ministry continues to strive to meet the growing needs of a needy population, speakers said during a breakout session at the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session.

In 2001, reports from the United States Health and Human Services Department showed 45,000 children were abused and neglected, and 60 percent of those were under the age of 7. And of the 1 million children reported to be victims of maltreatment in the United States, 80 percent were abused by one or both parents.

“The needs of troubled families and children are tremendous,” said Jerry Haag, president of South Texas Children's Home.

That fact was echoed by Don Cramer, vice president at Texas Baptist Children's Home & Family Services.

“No matter what a parent has allowed to happen to a child, that parent is the most important person in that child's life,” he said. “They will go back to missing meals and receiving abuse just to be with that parent.”

So Texas Baptist Children's Home in Round Rock decided in the 1970s to mend the child through the family. The BGCT ministry offers counseling and parenting classes for the entire family unit to bridge the gap and deter future neglectful or abusive behavior.

“Sometimes we will have the mom and stepdad working right alongside the dad and stepmom during the family weekends, all for the good of the child,” Cramer said.

Other full-service children's homes, like Baptist Child & Family Services in San Antonio, are moving in other directions as well, speakers said.

Prevention has become the cure, according to Nanci Gibbons, executive vice president of Baptist Child & Family Services. Instead of waiting to be asked for help, the institution's mobile medical unit takes help to the Lubbock community.

“This mobile unit has everything you can possibly need for prenatal care,” she said. “We could even deliver a baby in this thing if we had to.”

The unit is equipped with sonogram technology, exam table and a staff who have the necessary expertise to guide low-income mothers to healthy deliveries.

Whether the care is given over days or years, the impact can be lifelong, no matter where the help is received, she said.