LOCAL AGENCY CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF HELPING PROBLEM CHILDREN, DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED ADULTS

Stone Mountain, GA – This year marks 20 years since Sally Buchanan co-founded Creative Community Services, Inc. (CCS), a private, nonprofit agency which serves children with severe emotional and behavioral problems, as well as developmentally disabled adults. The agency has grown from a two-person operation in 1982, which Buchanan started with friend Pat Puckett to provide independent living support to adults with disabilities, to a 129-staff agency, which also provides therapeutic foster care for severely emotionally disturbed children.

There are currently 13, 965 children in Georgia’s foster care system – approximately 900 of whom are considered emotionally disturbed due to a history of abuse and neglect, or who have developmental disabilities such as autism. In the Georgia foster care industry, Creative Community Services is known to be the agency that not only takes but also seeks out the most difficult of cases. 

“We take the cases no one else wants or is equipped to handle,” says Buchanan, Executive Director of the agency. “We pride ourselves on spending the time and energy necessary to place children with special problems in the right foster home, one that is equipped to handle special-needs children. The state-run agencies just don’t have the staff or resources to do so.”

The average caseload of a Department of Family and Children Services (DFACS) caseworker in Georgia is anywhere from 20 to 60 at one time. At CCS, the family consultants are allowed no more than eight cases at a time. This limit on caseload allows the CCS consultant to research the background of each child, identify his/her special needs, and find a suitable foster care family.

“This is not to say that our consultants don’t work every bit as hard as a DFACS case worker,” says Buchanan. “Our staff goes above and beyond the call of duty and average a fifty-hour work week. But we are much more effective at what we do.”

The dedication and loyalty of the staff is central to CCS’s success, but there are other attributes that set this agency apart from its counterparts. The respite program, for example, may be considered a “perk” to foster families at other agencies, but is considered absolutely necessary at CCS. Children in therapeutic foster care leave their foster care homes two weekends a month and stay with a respite foster care family. During the summer, the children go to Adventure Respite, a camp-style mountain retreat in Clarksville, Georgia, where the kids hike, canoe and learn about caring for the farm animals there at the camp.

“Coming to Adventure Respite is wonderful for these kids,” says Allen White, who runs the Adventure Respite program and actually lives on the land where the camp is run with his wife and three children. “Most of these kids have never had an opportunity to go to camp, play sports or do the things that normal kids take for granted. Here they learn about teamwork, getting along with others and how to appreciate nature.”

The Adventure Respite comp boasts 15 acres of wilderness with a pond and a tree house village, which is currently under construction, engineered by volunteers from the National Association of Women In Construction, Sugar Loaf Chapter. White’s wife Amy cooks all the meals for the campers, and the counselor to child ratio is one to seven. But the kids are not the only ones to benefit from CCS’s respite program – the foster care families enjoy a well-deserved break from the stresses and challenges that come from caring for these special-needs children. Buchanan feels it is absolutely critical that the families have these breaks, so as not to get burned out.

“Caring for these children is a full-time job, and it is not an easy one,” she explains. “Some of these kids have autism, some have been sexually abused or severely neglected by their birth parents and worse. As a result, they may act out or even become violent at times. They need a lot of care, and the foster families need regular breaks to recuperate and refuel in order to continue to do their jobs well.”

Although programs such as respite that CCS offers are central to the agency’s success, Buchanan is undeniably the heart and soul of the agency. After co-founding CCS in 1982 in response to the limited residential options for developmentally disabled adults, she was asked by the State to respond to the challenges of special-needs children. As a result, CCS became the first licensed therapeutic foster care agency in Georgia in 1988. Today, the agency serves 48 foster children and 80 developmentally disabled adults and their families, as well as 87 foster care families.

In addition to her work with the agency, Sally has been a marked leader in the field of foster care in Georgia. She designed the model for Camp Courageous, a summer camp program for children with autism, which began in 1998 and currently enrolls 49 of campers each summer, and also helped develop an after-school program for children with emotional and mental challenges in conjunction with her church. In addition, Sally has been instrumental in developing the Metropolitan Atlanta Alliance for Children, which assembles a number of child care agencies in Georgia to provide a continuum of care for severely emotionally disturbed children, and ChAMPS, the Fulton County collaborative that serves disturbed children and their families. Sally also was recently named Vice President of the Board of the Georgia Association of Homes and Services for Children (GAHSC), and she recently completed her term as President of the Foster Family-Based Treatment Association (FFTA), a national organization that defines and develops standards to ensure quality in treatment foster care.

Her colleagues in the field of foster care and adult services regularly recognize Buchanan as well. Most recently she was awarded the Gayle Bayes Vision for Children Award for 2002, given by the Georgia Association of Homes and Services for Children to a person who shows outstanding leadership, dedication and commitment to children over a significant period of time. Winners are nominated by staff and peers from agencies throughout Georgia and nationally. Buchanan was also honored as the Amazing Woman of the Year Award for 2000, and the Georgia Association of Homes and Services for Children (GAHSC) honored CCS as Agency of the Year 2001.

TOP