Project
Visitation: Reuniting By:
Bradley Coates The holiday season brings joy and happiness
to Hawaii’s keiki. Island families traditionally celebrate together
during that special time. However, for children in state foster care,
their families are separated and simply can’t be together. Luckily,
there is hope for these kids. Project
Visitation, a unique, local, grass-roots
organization created to maintain relationships between siblings who are
separated in foster care, earnestly tries to cure this frustrating
divide. Project Visitation is the brainchild of
Family Court Judge R. Mark Browning. Our family courts and government
agencies, together with Judge Browning, work very diligently to protect
Hawaii’s keiki and to provide them with safe housing, care and
supervision in our foster care system. Because some of these children come
from large families, siblings are commonly split into different foster
homes. For example, in a four-sibling family, two children may be in a
foster home in Waimanalo, while their two siblings are in a Waianae home.
These kids don’t see their brothers and sisters for long periods of
time. Not only are many of these children abandoned or taken away by their
parents, they are denied contact with each other. Judge Browning quickly
recognized this divide as a major problem. In 2001, Judge Browning and the Na Keiki Law
Center, a project of Volunteer Legal Services Hawaii, founded Project
Visitation. The project’s goal is to organize monthly visitation among
same-family foster children located in different homes. Project Visitation
requires a successful collaboration between family court, Volunteer Legal
Services Hawaii, the Hawaii Department of Human Services, Friends of
Foster Kids and the Hawaii Foster Parents Association, among other
entities. It works. Since 2001, over 200 families have
been served by Project Visitation. Remarkably, Project Visitation relies
almost entirely on volunteers. There are individual and family volunteers,
as well as civic groups such as Rotary, Soroptimist Club and the Venture
Club. Volunteers spend an average of seven hours preparing, driving and
facilitating each visit. As a true labor of love, the volunteers pay for
this with their own money. Following most visits, volunteers describe
an overwhelmingly positive feeling of being involved in “something so
right” — allowing children to be with their brothers and sisters. In the program’s infancy, volunteers
believed that activities needed to be provided to keep the children
entertained. They quickly discovered that all the children really want is
to be with each other and to just know that for at least that one day,
they are just like every other kid. They have a “real family” of their
own, together again. Sibling visits of this sort serve as a concrete
reminder to these children that they are not alone and that they belong to
a family who loves and understands them. It is this feeling of Ohana that
can provide them hope for a brighter future. It is important to remember
that many of these children have had very rough lives, with parents who
are abusive, drug users or simply unable to handle them. Prior to entering
foster care, they were literally forced to rely on each other, with the
older children sometimes taking over the role of parent. This is why
separation hurts so and why Project Visitation helps so. On November 15, 2003, the First Annual
Project Visitation Fundraiser Dinner and Silent Auction was held at the
Pacific Club. It was a huge success. Coates & Frey was proud to be one
of the corporate sponsors. Lieutenant Governor James Duke Aiona, the
“spokesfather” of Project Visitation, explained how his experiences as
a family and circuit court judge, especially his serving as the first
judge of the extremely successful and ground-breaking drug court program,
provided him with first-hand knowledge of Project Visitation needs your continued
support and help. Volunteers, whether
individuals, families or groups, are all welcome. For more
information about Project Visitation, please contact project coordinator
Idea Canevascini at 536-3411 or visit their Web site at www.vlsh.org/01/services/PV.htm. |