The Chambliss Center for Children is planning to open an Isaiah 117 House on its campus, with a goal of making the transition to state care a less stressful experience for children in Hamilton County by giving them a comfortable place to wait for foster placement.
“It is a place for children to go the moment they are taken into state custody,” Chambliss Center for Children President Katie Harbison said.
When children are taken into state custody, their assigned case manager removes them from their home or picks them up from school and typically takes them to a state office.
“You can imagine how warm and fuzzy a state office is – a gray, kind of sterile environment with cubicles,” Harbison said. “Those kids sit in that cubicle while their caseworker starts calling and basically begging foster parents to take them. It’s not really a great situation.”
Finding a placement sometimes can take as long as 24 hours, during which time the child is listening to the caseworker make calls or sleeping on the floor.