FLINT, MI – When you’re a child in foster care, it’s no secret you’re in foster care. And it’s not a good feeling, Delrico Loyd said.
Loyd, a former Flint city council president, went through the foster care system as a child – an experience he shares with his twin brother and his biological mother. For children in foster care during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said losing some sense of normalcy when there was never much to begin with has to be incredibly difficult.
“It’s important that at this time, although we’re retreating inwardly because of the crisis, that we open our hearts out of concern for these children and what we can do to impact them. So many of us are so blessed with a life of normalcy, but these kids don’t really know what normal is,” Loyd said. “Normal for them is a life in these programs that no child should have to endure.”
Delrico Loyd presides over a City Council meeting on Monday February 8, 2010 in the Council Chambers of Flint City Hall. Loyd is the youngest City Council President in Flint's history. Hollyn Johnson | The Flint JournalThe Flint Journal
Like Loyd, Mark Chatman was also in the foster care system and lived in about 30 different homes before being moved to Flint. He is now a motivational speaker who shares his struggles with mental health, and said he can only imagine how foster children who depend on in-person counseling services like he did must be coping with the changes brought on by the pandemic.
When Chatman was 12, he was adopted by the friend of a Flint family he was staying with who had already taken in several children.
“She said that the reason that she adopted me was because every time she came over to visit her friend, there I was with my nose in the corner because I had been in trouble at school. The Ennis Center’s services like going to counseling and talking to a therapist – they provided all of those things,” Chatman said. “Just those services that they were able to offer really helped me to really understand what was going on in life for me at that time.”
Both men said the Ennis Center for Children, a foster care and adoption agency located at the heart of Flint, helped them get to where they are today. Throughout the pandemic, the center has continued to serve foster care children.
“We always use these terms like a beacon on a hill or a lighthouse on the sea, and that’s what I really feel like Ennis Center has been for me and many other people,” Chatman said. “I say this all the time when I’m giving speeches or when I’m on the road – you don’t try to discover where your safe haven is when you need to go there, you discover it before so that when the storm hits, that is where you’re going. And that’s really what I see Ennis Center being right now.”
A sign that reads "every child deserves a foster parent whose heart will break when they leave!" hangs on the wall at Ennis Center for Children in Flint on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020. (Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com)Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com
A beacon of light
When she first started working at the Ennis Center for Children, Sheery Houston said she used to tell people she went from having zero kids to almost 500. The Ennis Center has about 500 foster children in its programs, and reaches about 6,000 Michigan families annually, according to its website.
“I’m always thinking about how I can help and support because I really have a lot of love in my heart,” said Houston, the director of development. “And it’s more like a ministry instead of a job because I am so passionate about helping those kids.”
Director of Development Sheery Houston poses for a photograph at Ennis Center for Children in Flint on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020. (Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com)Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com
The Ennis Center for Children has worked with abused or neglected children for over 40 years and has since branched out to five other Michigan locations in Detroit, Pontiac, Port Huron, Howell and Monroe. Founder and president Bob Ennis, 76, said navigating the pandemic has been the most challenging time of his career.
However, he said realizing what he and the rest of the staff have taken for granted can be a positive thing.
“It’s taught as kids and taught to our staff that people are really important to people, and people really need people,” Ennis said. “We can’t hug anymore, and is that good? No, but it tells us what we need, how much we miss. It tells us when this is over, how much more we need to be doing that.”
Bob Ennis, 76, Founder and President of Ennis Center for Children, poses for a portrait on Friday, March 27, 2020 at his home in Byron. ÒIt's scary and it's a big responsibility,Ó said Ennis, whose team serves 500 children in the foster care system on a daily basis. ÒWe are pushing hard to stay supportive and stay connected. And for me, I stay praying. This is a very scary time but we will get through it.Ó (Sarahbeth Maney | MLive.com)Sarahbeth Maney | MLive.com
Loyd said he experienced some of the worst that can happen to a child in foster care. Once he and his brother found their way from Detroit back to Flint, the Ennis Center for Children helped them find a loving home when they were both 7 years old.
“As a child being bounced around, not knowing who my mother was at the time – it was quite the experience, because you’re going through identity challenges, you’re going through self-worth challenges, you’re going through the feelings of being an orphan and not desired,” Loyd said. “Ultimately, we ended up in Flint with a family who was a great family.”
Ennis said the center receives over 50% of referrals from schools, and with COVID-19 keeping students at home, he’s worried. Ennis Center for Children’s Board Chairperson of Governance Darren Simpson said abuse is more prevalent in times of crisis, and a lot of it is reported by schools.
“There is no school where teachers can see them and observe,” Ennis said. “One of the main things that I think is really, really important for people in the community is if you see something, say something, because I’m afraid there are homes where some kids are probably being abused or neglected and there’s no way to know about it.”
Ennis said a lot has been done to adapt to the changes brought on by the pandemic.
“We have to adapt. Every day, we have to come up with creative solutions for our families and for our kids. It really is going to take a village to raise these children,” Ennis said. “We don’t want abuse and neglect on top of a pandemic.”
It takes a village
From incorporating more technology into programs to providing extra help for struggling families facing even more difficulties due to COVID-19, the Ennis Center for Children has seen a lot of support from the Flint community while adapting to change.
In the basement of the center, a room where the walls are covered in children’s artwork is home to their Fostering Creativity program, which recently received funding from Flint ReCAST.
Trauma, community resilience are focus of Flint grants to local nonprofits
They also received a donation from PFCU as well as from various foundations and community members to help mitigate the financial impact of the pandemic.
“Some of our foster parents and birth parents – I like to call them parents – they have some financial hardships, so donations like this will help us get needed beds or cribs or laptops,” Chief Operating Officer Joleen Beagle said. “It’s got a profound effect.”
PFCU employees donate to Flint foster care and adoption agency
Chief Operating Officer Joleen Beagle poses for a photograph at Ennis Center for Children in Flint on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020. (Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com)Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com
Loyd said he also received an outpouring of support from the same community during his journey from foster care to adoption.
“We had an opportunity to have a restart to our lives, to experience the warmth of family and the blessings of being able to be wanted and loved and nurtured and raised by a village of people. Because it wasn’t just ultimately the Loyd family, it was our church family, it was our neighbors,” Loyd said. “That’s one of the reasons why I believe that the work Ennis does is so very important – what they do at the very minimum is search for opportunities for families, for children to experience the love and warmth and nurturing that my brother and I did.”
Warmth of a family
Loyd, now the director of organizational insurances and the Union Building Corporation at the UAW International Union and a new father to a 2-month-old, entered the foster care system when he was just over 1 year old. Chatman, now a traveling youth communicator and motivational speaker, was 7. Both community leaders were able to find their forever families.
Chatman said the impact the Ennis Center for Children has left on his life is a big part of the community involvement and mental health advocacy he does today.
“It is for sure that safe haven, it is that lighthouse in the middle of the water in the middle of a storm,” Chatman said. “And that’s really what I see the Ennis Center being not only for me, as a foster care child, as a person who got adopted at a young age and being able to get those services on that level, but now even more so with their expansion of all of the things that they’re doing.”
A look at some artwork by the children at Ennis Center for Children in Flint on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020. (Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com)Kaytie Boomer | MLive.com
The Ennis Center has been a catalyst for helping children find the sense of normalcy in life that they need, Loyd said.
“During this pandemic, we can’t just be concerned about our homes and our families and our neighborhoods. We also have to have a concern and empathy for others who are not as fortunate as we are,” Loyd said. “And considering foster care, considering being involved with Ennis or any agency is a good way to help ensure that we aren’t the only ones living blessed lives and being fortunate – we help pull some others along the way with us.”
For more information on the Ennis Center for Children and where to donate, visit their website or call (888) 200-8915.
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