On Campus
Rutgers counseling program provides help to foster families
Janis Nietzer had cared for foster children for close to a decade, but one little boy had her stymied.
At the young age of 6 and half, Tim (not his real name) had been shunted from relative to relative. Easily distracted, he would drift out of line at school, wander over to classmates’ desks during reading period, and dart after any moving object that caught his eye.
But that’s not all that was troubling the Middlesex County foster mother. There also was Tim’s easy attachment to strangers – too easy, if you ask Nietzer.
“He was a child who was attached on the surface to everybody. If we went into food stores, he would hug the cashier – that kind of thing. But he had no real deep relation with anyone,” says Nietzer, now president of the statewide Foster and Adoptive Family Services organization.
“At that age, you want children to understand the concept of strangers.”
That’s when Rutgers’ Center for Applied Psychology and its Foster Care Counseling Project entered the picture.
Nearing its 20th year, the program provides assessments and therapy for children in foster care. The youngsters work closely with graduate students who provide the ongoing services either in the foster home or on campus as part of their required field work, or practicum.
The state contracts with Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology (GSAPP) to treat up to 30 children at any one time, says Robin Lang, director of the project.
Although every child in foster care is different, common threads run through their lives. “Separation and loss, trauma in their family histories – such as physical abuse, psychological maltreatment, neglect, sexual abuse – these are things we see,” Lang says.
“We help them adjust to the changes in their lives, do the grief work. Often they have lost everything familiar. Imagine dealing with a new home, new school, a different culture, sometimes the loss of siblings, separation from their birth parents and extended families. Our goal is to help them process all of that.”
Carolin Heindel, a graduate student in the GSAPP clinical psychology program from Heidelberg, Germany, works with foster children both one-on-one and in groups. She is particularly drawn to the teenagers, many of whom come in sullen and resentful, then find a safe and accepting community within the program’s confines.
“For many, this is the first setting where they can share their stories and feel as though they fit in,” Heindel says.
The counseling project began in 1989, when David Brodzinsky, now retired from the psychology faculty, responded to a request for proposals from the state Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS). Brodzinsky and Lew Gantwerk, executive director of the Center for Applied Psychology, crafted the program. Nearly 20 years later, more than 120 therapists-in-training and 550 families have walked through its doors.
“We’ve had an impact,” says Lang, who signed on the first year as a graduate student and returned to become director of the program 10 years ago.
The contract with the state is renewed annually. This year, the center is receiving $147,000 to provide the psychological counseling free to families referred by DYFS.
The therapists meet once a week with their young clients, interacting for 45 minutes to an hour in a collaborative effort with DYFS caseworkers, teachers, and caregivers.
“We try to follow a child from home to home to provide consistency,” Lang says. “Sometimes even after the practicum is done, the therapist will continue to see a child on a pro bono basis.”
The Rutgers graduate students also go into area schools to help teachers recognize behaviors of foster children that might reflect trauma they’ve endured.
“These youngsters have learned ways to deal with the world that were survival tactics for them, but they’re not always the best way of relating to people,” Lang says.
For Janis Nietzer, the program was a godsend.
The family’s caseworker at DYFS referred her to Rutgers when it became clear that Tim’s behavior needed professional intervention.
“The counseling helped me as much as it helped him,” she says. “It gave me techniques on how to focus him, how to help him form healthy attachments. We met with a counselor who was a graduate student, a young man who was quite wonderful and really had a bond with Tim. I would not have looked at this little boy and said his issues are attachment issues – I thought a child like that would be withdrawn, and he was the ultimate opposite of that.”
Later this month, members of the counseling project will participate in a walk designed to increase community awareness of children in foster care and family members who provide that care. Dubbed “Walk Me Home,” the fundraiser will benefit Foster and Adoptive Family Services.
Lang says her students will participate as a team to focus local residents’ eyes on the families’ ongoing needs.
“Sometimes, this (counseling) work can be really tough. There are things the child has no control over. There are things we have no control over. This is a hands-on way we can help the foster-care community,” she adds.
The walk will take place on Sunday, October 19, at Buccleuch Park in New Brunswick. To register, visit www.fafsonline.org and follow the link in the lower right corner to “Walk Me Home,” or call 1-800-222-0047.