Professional Partner of the Month: May 2009
Karla Sanders
"Karla loves seeing foster children have positive foster care experiences. She also wants foster families to know how valued and important they are. She routinely goes above and beyond to be sure this happens."
- Marsha Ganter, LSW, Supervisor of Foster Care and Placement Services, Berks County Children and Youth Services (CYS)
"Karla is a wonderful partner to The Second Mile and a very important part of our work in Berks County. Not only is she our partner at Berks County Children and Youth Services, but she is also an active part of our Berks County Chapter of volunteers. At events, she comes early, stays late, and always has a smile on."
- Melissa Mogle, Program Director, The Second Mile
"Karla is the type of person who will go above and beyond for her families. She always had her work cell on her and would be there to listen to her families vent or help them with an emergency in the evenings and on weekends without hesitation. She has great skills when working with families and has the ability to form positive relationships easily."
- Amanda Wargo, MSW, Resource Family Coordinator, Berks County CYS
Karla Sanders currently serves as a Placement Supervisor at Berks County Children and Youth Services (CYS). Previous to this assignment, she worked eight years as a Foster Care Coordinator at this same agency, directly helping foster families and their foster children. No matter what the assignment is, Ms. Sanders takes her job seriously and always goes the extra mile to help children and parents. Additionally, Karla gives generously of her time to The Second Mile and to other causes to improve the lives of Pennsylvanians. Due to Karla Sanders' top-notch skills and extraordinary efforts, The Second Mile is proud to recognize her as its Professional Partner of the Month for May.
In her previous capacity as a Foster Care Coordinator, Ms. Sanders' job was to be a support to the foster families throughout a child's placement, in any way that she could:
| | "Sometimes it would be to help them figure out how to work with the child to change the child's negative behavior, other times I would explain the child welfare system to them, and other times still I was just there for them, to listen to the issues they were dealing with." |
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While the job obviously didn't call for it, Karla routinely put her personal time and schedule on the backburner, in order to better serve the families with which she was working. Marsha Ganter, Karla's former supervisor at Berks CYS, elaborates:
| | "She would often make herself available after hours to all of her foster families if they needed her. Although this was outside of traditional work hours, Karla never minded having her families call her in the evening with situations or problems. She also provided assistance in many ways to other staff placing children in our foster homes. Karla always wanted the best for the families with whom she worked and the children placed in their home. She preferred to take on additional responsibilities rather than have a child or family have to wait for something they needed such as a clothing voucher, visitation schedule, or to have a question answered." |
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Essentially, the hours of a normal working day don't apply to Karla, if she feels there is a family or child she can support or advocate for. Another of Sanders' CYS colleagues, Kelli Mest, MSW, reiterates that Karla always puts the child first, and further, that she "is always willing to go above and beyond for her coworkers, peers, resource parents, and the children she works with."
This experience gained from her past assignment has been essential in equipping her for her current job, which involves supporting case managers who work the other side of the coin - with the biological families whose children are in foster care:
| | "The goal is to help the biological families address whatever the issues are that brought the children into foster care (drugs, mental health, parenting, etc.). We connect them with community services and treatment, when appropriate, and try to get their kids home to them. If that doesn't help, we look at finding permanency for the children - often adoption. We also try to search out extended family members who can care for the children while their parents are working on their services. In tandem with these efforts, we work with the foster families to assure that the foster children are receiving whatever services they need, including medical care, therapy, etc." |
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Clearly, this can be gritty, emotional work that ultimately leads to better outcomes, but it isn't work for the faint-hearted.
So what motivates Karla to come into the office every day to take on this difficult work? Having the opportunity to help make a family stronger is one key for her. Sanders feels that if her and her team's efforts to make the biological family stronger don't fully succeed, then they work on building a new family for a child via adoption. She draws satisfaction from knowing that her efforts with both foster and biological parents ultimately benefit the kids. Amanda Wargo, Resource Family Coordinator at Berks County CYS, sees Karla finding great fulfillment from knowing that she's helping to empower families, which leads to more self-control of their circumstances and ultimately, improved lives. Despite the challenges and difficulties, Ms. Sanders keeps in mind that whatever effort needs to be expended in the best interest of the child, the results will be worthwhile.
And the difficulties are many. Sanders outlines what she sees as the most significant ones:
| | "In the public child welfare field the biggest challenges to our job is funding for services. We try to get parents involved in services that will encourage them and help them to overcome the challenges that they face in their life and sometimes funding is an obstacle for that to occur. Another big challenge in some situations is the ability to try to motivate the biological families to want to change for their children." |
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Unfortunately, the funding issues may not be getting better anytime soon, given the current climate. For this reason, caseworkers and supervisors especially need to find low-cost or free outside resources, and collaborate with other agencies in order to provide services.
The Second Mile has been one such entity for Sanders. She notes that The Second Mile has supported foster families in many ways over the years, from the activities they provide for families that the families otherwise would not be able to do – like going to an amusement park – to funding for items that they otherwise couldn't afford to offering a free camp experience:
| | "It is amazing to see the expressions on the children faces when they go to Knoebels for the first time in their lives or get to see a live baseball game for the first time. The Children's Fund has provided foster families with funding for items that they may not have been able to get for the children such as a special alarm clock for a child with hearing problems. The Challenge Program is also a great tool for certain children. I have seen so many benefits to so many children from this program over the years." |
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While Ms. Sanders utilizes The Second Mile's programs for the children and youth she's working with, she also gives of herself to The Second Mile. Melissa Mogle, Program Director for The Second Mile's Southcentral Regional Office, offers this example:
| | "She always goes above and beyond. At our annual Foster Family Day at Knoebels Amusement Park, Karla always comes early to help with organizing and registering families…not just for Berks County, but for the entire event. She has been a great help to me over the past few years. All professionals and Berks County families alike are fortunate to be able to work with someone as caring and warm as Karla Sanders." |
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Amazingly, Karla finds time to devote to her family. She's been married to "wonderful" husband Mark for eight years, and describes how he fits perfectly into her life:
| | "He supports me in everything that I do including my work with the Second Mile. He often attends Second Mile events with me and volunteers his time in any way that he can." |
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Not content to help children in need only in her professional capacity, Karla (and Mark) became foster parents through an organization called Coby's Family Services. They had a little girl who was placed with them when she was three days old, and they recently adopted her into their family – she's now 21 months old. "It has been an amazing experience and we feel very blessed to have her in our lives."
Taking on the role of foster parent and then adopting a child demonstrate that Karla Sanders is living the ideals she advocates for in her work. For the positive impact she has had on so many people in Berks County and beyond, the Second Mile salutes her as its Professional Partner of the Month for May.
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